Got bored and watched Species II...

So I was bored the other night and was flipping through the cable guide when I noticed that Species was on the new Epix channel we have.

I first saw Species in the theater. I was working at Pizza Hut at the time and I kind of oversold certain aspects of the movie. I was amused at the amount of nudity in the film by star Nastasha Henstridge. She spends an good amount of time in the film in a bra or topless.

I noticed that after Species was its sequel, Species II. Both films star Marg Helgenberger of CSI fame and Michael Madsen of a lot of violent movies fame. Nastasha Henstridge also stars as Eve, a clone of the original Sil.

The movie was released in theaters, but has the look and feel of a direct-to-video movie. Helgenberger is fairly solid as Dr. Laura Baker, but Madsen, whom I read thinks the movie stinks, looks like he's in pain most of the time as Press Lennox. I don't blame him.

Species II has a lot of nudity, too, but it didn't help the box office. The movie bombed when it was released, yet has spawned two more Direct to DVD sequels.

The movie starts with a mission to Mars. One astronaut goes to the surface to collect soil samples and apparently that's all, because after traveling months to get to Mars, all NASA is interested in is a 2-hour Mars walk to get 3 tubes of soil samples. Why spend more time there studying the planet? Time is money people!

So they are ready to leave after storing the soil samples. One tube warms up and a gray ooze falls out to the ground, which appears to infect the crew. No communication is available for 7 minutes, but then everything appears fine. So the crew makes it back to Earth, given a quick check over and sent on their merry way while being reminded that they are "quarantined" and NOT to engage in sexual activity for a few more days.

I have a question here... Wouldn't you keep the astronauts there for a few days while evaluating them? They just spent almost a year in space, which can affect your bone density for one thing. Wouldn't you run through a lot of tests?

So one of the astronauts, Patrick, the one who walked on the surface, starts to have all sorts of unprotected sex. In one scene, he sleeps with two women in a hotel room one after the other, which apparently was in those new sound proof hotels that can muffle the sound of two women screaming at the same time because after Patrick has sex, the women he impregnates each immediately give birth in a rather grisly fashion to a kid the size of a four-year-old.

Soon Patrick is amassing a large brood of alien creepy kid offspring in his father's shed at an old summer home as he has continued to sleep with women of all sorts. Dr. Baker explains that soon, the offspring will go into cocoons and transform into adult aliens so time is running short to find them.

Meanwhile, Eve offers to help find Patrick. She's given radiation to awaken her alien mind (of course) to link to Patrick. While linked to Patrick, Press Lennox and the other uninfected astronaut, Dennis, race to stop Patrick from impregnating another woman that he's kidnapped in the grocery store they've just entered.

I say "race" loosely here because it's more like a casual stroll. They hear a scream and are told which way Patrick has dragged a woman and stroll that direction as if they are checking out an art museum walking tour. He's gaining ground while they casually stroll into the back of the store, glide down some stairs, meander through the basement and lope up the shipping driveway to the parking lot where Patrick has forced the woman into a van and is attempting to procreate. Meanwhile Press and Patrick walk even slower past the van to a van that's already rocking, which turns out to be some teens. They tell them to buzz off and then still show no signs of haste to find the alien, which we've established has just kidnapped a woman and is in the process of trying to make another creepy alien!

Patrick gives himself up when he senses Eve's existence. He's taken to the same lab where Eve is. They make hot glass faces at each other. He escapes again while they try to keep him away from Eve. Eve then breaks out to go and have some sex with Patrick.

The movie is filled with a lot of stiff and eye rolling dialogue. A good example of this is when Eve escapes, she steals an Army hummer and drives away with it.

Someone asks, "I thought she didn't know how to drive."

Dr. Baker says, "Her favorite show is the Dukes of Hazard!"

I watched that a ton when I was a kid, but I didn't really have a sense on how to drive. Besides, she didn't jump across the hood and slide into the door through the window. She also didn't jump a gorge, but I'm sure if it was there, she might have attempted it.

They follow Eve to the location of Patrick's brood of kids. While she runs off to have weird alien sex upstairs, they spray the cocoons with a mixture of Dennis's blood, which they figure out will kill the alien because Dennis has the sickle cell gene and the aliens won't mate unless the host is disease free.

In the end, the aliens are killed, even the brood of creepy kids. The ending predictably sets up a sequel, but good luck getting me to watch it.

It was an okay movie though. I'll probably never watch it again, unless the Riff Trax guys make a commentary track for it.

We used to communicate so well...

We used to communicate so well...

It goes without saying that as a twin, Bill and I are on a higher plain than everyone else around. Because we spent so much time together growing up, there is a bond between us that was pretty strong. We could have conversations in half sentences, and we wouldn’t be the wiser.
Growing up, my Dad told us at an early age that we were going to have to start talking right because no one could understand us. I never really noticed it until, once when we were in college, Bill and I were engrossed in a conversation when our roommate stopped by to listen in. He started to chuckle and said, "Are you guys talking in your secret twin language?"
While talking to other people, we don’t exactly finish each other’s sentences like you often expect thanks to television and movies. Rather, it’s a fight over who can tell a story the best.
It’d usually go something like this.
One of us starts to tell a story, but start to falter or the other twin doesn’t feel he is telling it right.
"But..." the other twin interjects.
The one telling the story waves a hand away.
"Don’t forget the part..." interjects again.
"Oh. Just let me tell it!" the other twin finally yells in exasperation.
Lately, it seems like Bill and I are starting to lose a bit of our communication skills with each other.
For example, I was telling Bill about an article in the Onion’s AV Club that listed shows that had characters that stopped the show’s plot to a halt. That is, an annoying or bland character that the writers of a particular don’t know what to do with anymore. An example of this would be Dwight Schrute from The Office. The article reasoned, and I agree, that for the first few seasons of The Office, Dwight didn’t get act like a control-freak jerk just for the hell of it. In later seasons, it seems like they make Dwight be Dwight just to give him something to do.
I told Bill about one episode that I watched where Michael Scott, the boss, had a suspicion that his girlfriend was cheating on him. So he had Dwight go and spy on her. Dwight proceeds to go to the gym where she’s working out and rather than dress like he belongs there, he works out in his suit pants and undershirt while getting way too up close and personal to her. I felt it was too exaggerated and was an example of just using Dwight Shrute because they could, not because it made any sense.
While telling this story to Bill, he misunderstood a key part of the description. Instead of cheating on him, he thought I had said, "Michael Scott thought that his girlfriend was peeing on him, so he has Dwight spy on her to find out.
Bill said "Why would he need Dwight to tell if she was peeing on him? Wouldn’t that be easy to figure out?"
I thought Bill said "cheating" so I asked how that was easy.
"Cheating? Oh! I thought you said that she was 'peeing' on him!" Bill exclaimed.
"What?" I asked laughing. "That wouldn't make any sense!"
"I know!" Bill said. "I was thinking that would have been hard to talk about on network television."
A week or so later, and Bill and I are talking about shows that we’ve watched, which is a thing we do often. We'll call each other up and ask if we've seen a certain show or movie yet. If the answer is 'Yes' then we'll talk about our favorite parts and favorite lines in what we watched. Laura calls it "reminiscing". I sometimes try to "reminisce" with her, but she usually shuts me down before I can start as she says, "I'm not Bill."
So that night I mentioned to Bill that while Laura was out exercising, I had turned to How I Met Your Mother, which is a show she can’t stand. Mainly, she hates main character, Ted, who she says is a giant douche. She feels that it’s hard to root for him to find love when he’s so unlikable.
Also, Laura doesn’t like me watching the show because of the character of Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris. Barney is a walking libido that lives to get women to sleep with him. Because of this trait, Laura doesn’t think Julia should watch the show. Julia has seen a few episodes and loves Barney, but the shows she watched were tame in the sex talk, so she doesn’t understand why we won’t let her watch all the time.
So that night, I turned on How I Met Your Mother.
Julia said, "Daddy, I don’t think I should be watching this."
I said, "It’s okay, Julia."
Julia said, "I really don’t think I should be watching this."
I assured her that it was fine by saying directly, "It’s fine."
I held up a hand to accentuate this point.
The episode was one I hadn’t seen before. It was about the gang crashing a high-class party where everyone is bored except for Ted, who is douching it up with academic big wigs.
The next day, I tell Bill that I watched the show. I mentioned that Laura doesn’t like Julia watching it.
"But she likes to watch Barney" I said.
"Why doesn’t Laura let Julia watch," Bill asked.
"Because Barney always tries to sleep with women."
"What?" Bill asked.
"You know," I said. "He’s always talking about sex."
"What are you talking about?" Bill asked.
"What do you mean 'What am I talking about?' You know. Barney likes to have sex and talk about sex."
I was taken aback. I didn't understand what was so confusing. We were talking about the show, How I Met Your Mother, which has a character named Barney. Barney is a single guy that lives to sleep with as many women as possible. What was so confusing?
"What?! Are we talking about the same thing?" Bill exclaimed while laughing.
"I’m talking about How I Met Your Mother. What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Ohhh!" Bill exclaimed while laughing harder. "I thought you were talking about Barney the dinosaur."
"How did you get on Barney the dinosaur?" I asked. "We were talking about How I Met Your Mother." I retorted.
He laughed again.
"Well you had said 'Julia likes to watch Barney' and I thought you were talking about Barney the Dinosaur," he said.
"No," I said. "I wasn't talking about Barney the Dinosaur. I don't think there has ever been a Barney the dinosaur show where he talks about sex and sleeping with women. That'd be a really weird show."
"That's what I was thinking!" Bill laughed.