Streaming the Cube

Reviews of streaming content: Netflix, Amazon VOD, Hulu, whatever else I download via nefarious means. Use it to help you sort through the sea of junk streaming online.

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Devil's Playground: A movie that combines my two favorite things: Zombies and Parkour. In this one when you get bit by a zombie or injected with the rage virus not only do you become the brain hungry walking dead; you also learn a very useful skill... PARKOUR! That's right even if you didn't know how to Parkour before you were killed/resurrected, you do once you come back. Imagine the possibilities: Zombie/Web Designer, Zombie/Architect or Zombie/Pastry Chef!!! Clearly before the virus got horribly mutated the scientists were working on some sort of Parkour teaching superbug that was to be sent to France to assist in the casting of District 13: ZombieParkourlypse. They don't even talk about that part of it (much). Anyway, this is a great, high budget, British zombie movie. Highly enjoyable. But check out that zombie guy in the picture above, he had no logical reason for jumping on to that post and then jumping into the air over our hero. He just couldn't help it! The Parkour got the best of him!

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District 13: Ultimatum – The buildings are taller, the Parkour is more extreme and Paris is still a shithole. Our favorite misfit Franco duo is back and this time, its personal… This one really takes it to the next level. There is a 20 minute fight scene where Fake Vin Diesel dresses as a stripper/geisha complete with a metal chain thong which they show like 100 times so you will think it’s a chick and then be all grossed out when you realize its Frenchy Diesel. In this fight scene, he is holding a €200,000,000 Van Gogh painting the whole time. At the beginning of the fight he declares its value and asks “not a scratch on it, ok?”. Being art snobby drug lords they all agree and the fight ensues with painting in hand. He of course kicks all their asses straight to Parkour hell and then proceeds to a drug lab where he kills a bunch of ninja chemists by throwing them head first into giant vats of cocaine and/or heroin. All without any damage to the painting. The entire movie is a giant chase and or fight scene. This time the dirty French government is simply planning on blowing up District 13 with regular bombs. They don’t even try to hide it this time. Our fearless duo unites the five gangs of D13 to stop it under the agreement they won’t use guns, which is totally strange because in the first one the gangs literally must have shot 1,000,000 bullets. The whole thing wraps up to a conclusion that makes absolutely no sense unless you are French. The verdict: Ultimately Awesomer.

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District 13: Imagine a future where everyone in France is really good at Parkour, even the cops. Now imagine Paris is a dystopian wasteland where half the city is quarantined and left to the criminal Parkour masters. This hell hole is District 13. Now stay with me. Also imagine the police have planted a controlled nuclear device that will kill all the criminals (and innocents) in D13 but won't hurt the rest of the surrounding city. Now throw in French Vin Diesel as a rogue cop and white/young/serious Jackie Chan as an outlaw with a heart of gold. This is probably one of the most amazing movies ever made. (P.S. that is a dude jumping like 100 ft. and 2 stories in that picture).

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2012: Zombie Apocalypse: A movie that combines my two favorite things: Zombies and the current year. How it manages to do it so awfully is another story. It has all the elements of a great zombie story: viruses, zombie dogs, even Ving Rhames! But man does it blow. It's made by SyFy so it has all the requisite Sega Genesis era CG gore and backgrounds. The acting is just awful, especially by our heroine Taryn Manning as demonstrated above. Hey SyFy, way to ruin the best zombie movie title since 2011: Zombie Outbreak.

[athensgamemes]

Sauron is watching. Always.

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Not Since You: Someone decided to make a movie in Athens about a bunch of people who went to NYU. Makes sense, right? No, they didn't come here for cheap practice space or to eat at The Grit. They came here to find themselves/pursue lost love. Apparently there was a wedding going on too. In any case, it is hard to imagine a movie more boring than this. I am not really sure how it was possible to make such a vanilla movie in such a colorful town, but here it is. There are no evil land developers, no car crashes and not one mention of gluten allergies. This is certainly not the Athens I know. There is also some nonsense going on about Biodiesel that is just plain wrong. If you live here, you have to watch it just to play spot the Athenian. If you don't live here run away from this one!

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Altered: Rednecks try to get revenge for their anal probings. The guys who did Blair Witch released this in 2006 and it is surprisingly good. The aforementioned rednecks capture one of the aliens that probed them as kids and all sorts of fun stems from it. For example our little friend is shown above playfully tugging on one of his assailants' intestines. The whole movie is full of cute scenes like this. This is no comedy mind you, it is brutal and well written with a really awesome end. Check it out.

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Berlin Undead: Ugly Germans become uglier zombies. Other than the ugly part its a really good zombie movie. Sort of like 28 Days Later with some really original twists. Apparently I like German horror movies better than the Canadian crap I have been watching even though you have to read the German ones.

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Every good movie has a rave scene.

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Four Lions: Four Ali G wannabes declare Jihad and go to terrorist training camp. My new favorite Netflix streamer. Unbelievably funny. A total comedy of errors as these idiots try to take down the man. Watch it now.

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Breaking Dawn part 1: Just the worst ever. Demon babies, sanctioned pedophilia, a deadly penis.

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Paranormal Activity 3: Apparently 80s people had video cameras too. This movie is proof! These movies really scare the crap out of me but I feel they have to be seen in the theater for the full-effect. This one is probably the best and wraps up the whole trilogy in a dumb little bow. And that bow is really dumb. I am not gonna let the cat out of the bag, but let's just say not only is the movie set in the 80s, it ends like an 80s movie. The conclusion to the trilogy really does explain some of the questions lingering from the other movies. But it is really dumb. It is also really dumb that all the girls in that family fall in love with dudes that are obsessed with video cameras. This one at least actually justifies the obsession as the guy tries to record them having sex which is why all guys have video cameras. These movies are a lot better than you probably think they are and I recommend catching this one in a dark, dark theater. The first two are on Netflix, I recommend catching up before you go.

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Harper's Island: If "I Know What You Did Last Summer" were a TV show. Ok, it doesn't suck that bad, I sat through 13 episodes of this show and I left the theater 45 minutes into "Last Summer". A Girl returns to the scene of her mother's murder and everyone she knows starts dying. Real original CBS. It seems like this one got cut short but they did manage to have a finale so unfortunately we aren't left hanging after this one. Again, I watched this for 13 hours so how bad can it be? (Answer: Very Bad).

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Night of the Living Dead 3: Dead 90s alt-girl gets brought back to life by a military chemlab. I totally forgot the even made this one until it popped up on Netflix. Then I remembered that I went to see it strictly because of the hot alt-chick in it. The girl in question is Julie from the OC, she is actually hotter now than she was back then. Way to go Julie! But I digress, the movie sucks. No surprises here. It is interesting to note that the blatant cheese associated with 80s horror movies was all but gone by 1993 so what we are left with is a very cheesy movie that isn't really aware of its stupidity. There is an amazing zombie that has its spine pulled out several feet from its body. I remember thinking that was pretty cool back in 1993 and it is still cool now. Overall not even worth watching. Go watch one of the originals.

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Scanners: Psychic crazies blow each others' heads up using only their minds. This movie traumatized me as a child beyond belief. To this day I still fear my head is going to explode. I didn't even understand how it happened when I was a kid. Now that I comprehend it, I am even more scared. If you haven't seen this, it is a must. It is a brilliantly scary movie and is also brilliantly 80s so I like it even more.

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Wolfen: Coked out NYC millionaire socialites get killed by x-ray vision spirit animals. Everyone in NYC wants to take credit since it was the 80s and everyone in NYC hated rich people... WAIT A MINUTE!!! Let me start over.

The 99% turns into shifters and rips the heads off of the cast of Gossip Girl.

In reality, it turns out someone was trying to build on an... (wait for it)... INDIAN BURIAL GROUND!!! Seriously The 80s! Don't we know that never leads to anything productive? A pretty great werewolf movie that uses some really hi-tech 80s effects to give a wolf's eye view. Watch it now before history repeats itself.

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Dreamscape: Dennis Quaid (the poor man's Harrison Ford) is a genius telepath that enters people's dreams to save and/or have sex with them. He also has to deal with a jealous rival telepath that acts like a 6th grade girl through the whole movie except when he is trying to kill people as a giant snakeman. Eventually Dragonheart has to enter the dreams of the president to prevent WWIII with Russia (remember, its the 80s). I loved this movie as a kid. Its still pretty good but for some reason I thought I was watching Brainstorm so I was pretty disappointed when Christopher Walken never showed up.