Tag Archives: Riddick

Tell Frank I say hi

If you see Frank, tell him I said hi. Tell him, “Hey Frank, I just ran into Rob, and he says hi.” And then give me a call and tell me if he says anything back. Like maybe Frank’s going to be like, “Oh, that’s really nice. Tell Rob I say hi also!” And then I’ll text you back, I’ll say something like, “Tell Frank I say thanks for saying hi. Ask him how he’s doing.” Just ask him. Just be like, “Frank, I just got a text back from Rob, he says thanks for saying hi back. He wants know how you’re doing.”

Let me know what he says. I’m assuming it’ll be something like, “I’m doing great. Ask Rob how he’s doing,” to which I’ll have you tell him, “Rob says he’s also doing great,” onto which I’ll change topics slightly, tell him, “Rob wants to know if you’ve seen Riddick.” If I know Frank like I think I know Frank, the answer’s going to be something like, “Rob, Frank says he hasn’t seen Riddick yet, although he liked Pitch Black when he was in high school.” I need you tell him, “Frank, Rob wants me to tell you to do yourself a favor, to go and see Riddick. Rob says he saw it last week and it was awesome. Even though he saw it already, he said that he’s more than happy to go see it again with you next weekend.”

And then I think I know how things are going to play out from there, let me know what he says, because I’ll bet you anything it’s going to be something like, “Well, tell Rob that I’d love to go to the movies with him, but you know, with the wife and kids, it’s really not as easy to get out like it was when we were younger.” Frank’s always saying stuff like that, like, “Another time maybe,” or, “Yeah, we should make plans to do something sometime soon.”

I’ll be like, “How’s next week?” and he’ll be like, “To make plans to do something?” and I’ll say, “No, to do something. This is the making plans.” He’ll give me some nonsense, last time it was something like, “Well, next week I might be able to make plans for something in the future sometime, but I don’t know. You know how it is. Wife. Kids. But hey, let’s think about maybe calling each other up someday, maybe we’ll eventually figure something out.”

So tell him, tell Frank, “Frank, look, Rob wants you to know that he knows where you’re headed with all of this. He says not to worry about it. He hired a sitter. He told his sister that your wife can come over and hang out with her. Also, Rob says that he bought two tickets for Friday night. It’s Riddick. It’s IMAX. Look, I don’t want to get in the middle here, but you should totally go for it. I mean, a free night out? Not having to worry about the wife and kids? IMAX? That sounds too good to be true.”

Come on, just tell him that. Well, if the conversation gets that far, just please, tell him about the tickets, about the sitter, remind him that we were supposed to go see Pearl Jam back in 2009, and that even after I bought the tickets, he texted me a month before the show, “Is it too late to back out? I think it’s my sister-in-law’s birthday that night.” And those were not easy tickets to get, no. Just, you don’t have to mention Pearl Jam, but keep it in your head. I guess use it if you have to.

Exactly, if it gets that far. Start by telling him I said hi. Eventually get to Riddick. It’s a ten-fifteen show, which, I know, it’s kind of late for a dude with kids, but it’s an all-night sitter, I found her on craigslist. We could even go out afterward. Like, we could really go out, bars, clubs, everything. My sister could take his wife out too, if she’s into it.

All right, well, tell him I said hi. Tell him “hey” for me.

Hey Steve! If you see Shaun, tell him I say “What’s up,” and also, tell him, “Shaun, Rob wants me to remind you to tell Frank that he says hi, and something about Riddick and maybe Pearl Jam, he didn’t give me all of the details, but he says you’ll know what I’m talking about. Here, he wrote it down. Do you want me to read it to you? Do you want me to come with you and read it to Frank? Can you just give me Frank’s new phone number to give to Rob? He says he promises no more late night phone calls. Just tell him hey. Tell everyone Rob says hi, it’s been too long, we all really need to get together soon.”

Movie Review: Riddick

I remember seeing Pitch Black when I was a sophomore in high school. I had never heard of Vin Diesel before. In fact, I don’t even think I knew what the movie was about when I bought my ticket. But it was amazing, a sci-fi thriller, a prison transport ship goes down on an isolated planet overrun with alien monsters that rule the night.

riddick

Diesel starred as Richard Riddick, a convict with special eyes that could see in the dark. His exploits gave way to a sequel, or a prequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, I’m not sure about the specifics, because I never saw the film. But Riddick’s at it again this time in Riddick, which, without ever having seen part two, it feels like almost a direct sequel to Pitch Black.

There’s no f’n around. Right from the beginning we find what appears to be a corpse’s wrist sticking out of the ground. Diesel’s monotone voiceover explains that, “This isn’t the first time I’ve been counted out,” as the hand springs to life, strangling an alien vulture that got a little too bitey with Riddick’s fingers.

And that choke scene, as the lizard/bird thing squirmed and died in Riddick’s blood-caked hand, it was obvious that whoever financed this picture didn’t really care about springing for the premium package with the CGI studio. It’s kind of a thing throughout the film. For a movie that relies so heavily on computer generated effects, I’m surprised that the quality was so shoddy.

It’s a superficial complaint, but it’s the backdrop for most of the movie. At one point Riddick and some other guy are on space motorcycles riding through the desert, and I barely had to use any imagination to picture the green screen taking up a majority of the shot.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. For a while, it’s just Riddick. He’s in bad shape, first unburying himself, then setting his own broken bones. There’s a pack of wild space dogs looking to turn him into a quick lunch, but not only does he successfully fight them off, he then adopts one of their pups and raises it to be his trusty sidekick.

After setting off a beacon at a mercenary supply station, he attracts the attention of two rival space gangs, each looking to cash in on the outstanding reward for Riddick’s head. These dopes are no match for Riddick, but as our protagonist lets everyone know, “It ain’t me you’ve got to worry about.”

No, just like in Pitch Black, this planet has its own alien monsters that only attack during specific conditions, in this case, rain. And guess what? There’s a storm coming. And that’s basically where we get left off at the end of the trailer. It’s a race to get off the planet.

For all of its cheesiness, its lame special effects and two-dimensional plot, I really enjoyed Riddick. The pacing of the action was pretty smooth, and they kept the story simple. They could have riddled the secondary characters with pointless subplots and bad dialogue, but for the most part, everything was strictly business.

I like movies like this, these epic space operas, because there really aren’t too many out there. There were occasional allusions to what must have gone down in the second movie, something about an intergalactic empire, betrayal, some villain with scars on his face whose presence was never explained at all. But that’s what made everything compelling, those little tastes that reminded me that this layover on a hostile planet was but a minor stop along an interstellar epic. This is the type of actual sci-fi that Stephen Colbert pokes fun at with his Tek Jansen cartoons.

I’ve got to say, I always underestimate Vin Diesel. Every time I go to see one of his movies, I walk in the theater expecting to be disappointed. But the Fast and Furious franchise, XXX, and now Riddick, I’m impressed. There’s an unpretentiousness about his acting and his movies. He knows what he’s supposed to give and he delivers.

Riddick will probably be on the SyFy channel in a couple of weeks, so I guess there’s no rush. Still, I really enjoyed it, I loved watching it on a big screen. I hope they keep making Riddick movies, forever, cruising through space, getting stranded on planets, battling mercenaries and leading empires. It’s all so f’n cool.