Crank: High Voltage (2009)

“Crank 2? Didn’t Chev Chelios die at the end of the first film?” Is what you ask yourself as the opening video game credits light up the screen. Now remember children at the end of Crank Chev Chelios goes splat, but the last thing you see is him open his eye (sorry spoiler alert for the end of Crank, don’t cry they show it all to you again at the beginning of Crank 2 anyway.

But wait, before I get into Crank: High Voltage let me just say this of Crank: Highly entertaining, insane, odd, quirky, bald, sexy (public sex with Amy Smart), and completely unbelievable; not give me my money back unbelievable, but just plain Ok-I’ve-had-enough-time-to-end-now unbelievable, and then it does just that. It ends exactly when you’re about to poke your eyes out with sticks.

So onto the sequel:

We open on Chev Chelios on the road. A black van pulls up and some conspicuous Asians and one shovel scrape the clearly Loony Tunes style indestructible Chev off the road and cart him away. We are treated to some cheap and cheesey IntelliVision style graphics and opening credits with cut aways to Chev’s heart being removed from him (somehow he’s conscious for parts of the operation), and then being replaced with temporary battery powered heart. Traditionally this battery powered heart is only meant to keep the body alive for a few days while the donor heart arrives. In this film however Chev’s only being kept alive so those wacky Asians can lift his other organs presumably to sell to the highest bidder. What they implied they wanted with his penis is never explained in the film, and they aren’t allowed to even attempt more than a glimpse of it because Chev wakes up and kills everyone in the operating theatre; and they’re off! Go Chelios go!

The rest of the film is basically crap wrapped in some great visuals which in my opinion were highly necessary since I would have been bored like piss of this film, and chucked it in the bin along with Jason Stratham’s contractual obligation to a Crank 3. There is of course the requisite Amy Smart as nude as they can get her, and fucking in public scene; the return of Kaylo (or his twin brother Venus who suffers from full body tourette’s); the OTHER Verona brother; the missing heart; David Caradine as one twisted ancient evil Chinaman named Poon Dong; and of course Corey Haim reviving his career by getting beat up by Amy Smart–too bad she couldn’t have done that to him in Universal Groove, then it would have at least had two name actors in it…

It’s all very fun, and tongue in cheek. Thankfully it’s obvious the filmmakers Neveldine and Taylor don’t take the film seriously, exemplified by the odd and jarringly placed Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla style fight scene between Stratham and an asian dude who has far too many face piercings for my liking.

The film’s timing is impeccable as is proven by its ending  just before I wanted to ask for my money back. The film is following the same trend as the original by showing poorly in the box office, but picking up a following on DVD. Let’s see if it can perform well enough to give the Neveldine / Taylor duo opportunity to poison the theaters and airwaves with the dreck that’ll be Crank 3D–come on guys Amy Smart’s boobs aren’t big enough to warrant a 3D flick.

Overall Rating: Disappointing

IMBD: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121931/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2koYVqwzT4

Jon and Kate Plus 8

Oh the horror that is Jon & Kate Plus 8 is finally over! I’d love to say that no one really cared about these two and their exploitation of their 6 children for profit, but the reality (no pun intended) is that we all did care. Everyone and anyone who tuned in even for a second cared, and those people (you) helped elevate these clearly undeserving people to a level of super-stardom that even the likes of great and talented actors seldom receive. So why did it happen?

Jon & Kate couldn’t get preggers, so they went for in vitro and managed to pick up twins. They wanted more kids, and did it again. Now the process of in vitro is that they implant as many eggs as are viable and see which ones last. Then they ask you to terminate a few and keep the ones that you want (usually two) but J&K didn’t want to let go they thought “Fuck it!” let’s keep all six and see what happens. Lucky them they ended up with six viables that went the full term. Kate was on bed rest from 7 weeks into the pregnancy.

Now here comes TLC which once was a great network but very quickly began competing with A&E to be *THE* reality TV network that we all tune into. A&E had The Two Coreys and Gene Simmons, TLC had J&K+8 and pretty much took the grand prize.

So we got to watch the Gosselins go through what originally was everyday life. Struggling to make ends meet, fighting with each other, unable to get out of their shitty jobs, and all the time building contempt for one another. The children of course left to be “struggle” free. Fast forward 5 years later and you’ve got reality TV history in the making (again). Never since Survivor’s first season did a show absent-mindedly make a hero out of zero worthy face: host Jeff Probst. Now once again with Kate Gosselin. Not Jon so much, but then again if you’ve got a hero then you need a villain, and J+K really both seem to take it to super proportions.

Let’s face it people after getting your testicles fed to you everyday for 10 years why wouldn’t you leave that dragging bitch Kate behind. Oh sure she’s a good mother who spends most of the year travelling for her self-help books and promoting her “If my family can make it so can yours…” all the while fucking her bodyguard, and leaving “poor” Jon out in the cold…

Still A&E enjoyed record ratings this final season, and the reality (pun intended) is that they would have continued to enjoy the ratings skyrocket even higher. With separation shenanigans, Kate bangin’ on the bodyguard, and Jon banging on the plastic surgeon who did Kate’s tits’ daughter how can you not have the ratings continually propelled into the stratosphere.

But with Jon’s smoking and drinking and whoring it really became too difficult for A&E to showcase Jon as that caring, loving, nurturing, bossed around, wimpy father who’s testicles are fed to him in an upper cut sandwich. So they canned the bastard, and publicly announced the show’s name change K+8. This of course gives them brilliant positioning to now take their multimillion dollar franchise and kick it up old school against the Octomom show…

Poor Jon you’re just left to your whores, drinks, and pot…not to be out done however he decided to take on A&E and sue them for exploiting his children…why not before? I mean it wasn’t exploitation the entire 5 years prior? Really? What’s wrong with you people. As much as Jon and Kate detest each other these days, it remains to be seen whether they get over  themselves and reconcile for the sake of the kiddies.

For certain the pain of losing the paparazzi, the fame, and the continually growing salaries they’d become accustomed too will pale in comparison to what their emotional scarred, and now mentally deranged children will have to go through when they spill the beans to their therapists 10-20 years from now.

Good on ya’ J+K at least all that coin you’ve made can be put to expensive psychologists, top-notch psychiatric care, and padded rooms for the family when they get older….

Sadly its goodbye to the dysfunctional duo. Their actions will not be lost to their children however; instead they will forever be able to share the embarassement of their parents for decades to come as YouTube videos, television digital archives, e-mails, posts, pictures, and headlines around the world are saved forever in the electrons chasing each other around the circuits of the Internet.

For those who care A&E is working on a new hero show for Kate+8, and likely another network will pick up the villain show for Jon-8.

The fallout will likely arrive on our doorsteps this September, but for now you and I can both stop looking over our shoulders to see if Kate’s crazed hairstyle is lurking in the darkness waiting to jab a jagged edge into our necks.

Overall Rating: $2 Unworthy

TV.COM: http://www.tv.com/jon-and-kate-plus-8/show/72745/summary.html?q=JOn%20and%20Kate%20Plus%208&tag=search_results;title;1

YOUTUBE MADDNESS: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jon+and+kate+plus+8&search_type=&aq=0&oq=jon+and+kate