Up

The joyful music begins to play. The drums begin to roll. I march out onto the stage and heroic music floods the stadium and I bow to it. But then I open my eyes and realize that just because I have now completed all ten Best Picture nominees don’t really mean that much. Am I glad that I’m finished with them? Yes, I really truly am, I can get back to my regular watching now that I’ve watching the finest films 2009 had to offer (apparently).

Tonight, I watched the Best Picture nominee Up for about the millionth time, but the brilliant part about this movie is that I don’t think I can get sick of it. I know that this is just my opinion, and I know that people will agree, but others won’t, but I truly think that Up is Pixar’s best, which is saying something when I think of the Toy Story movies, and Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles, I truly love their movies, but there was just something more that Up has to offer.

The movie begins and we’re introduced to Carl Fredrickson, played perfectly by the great Ed Asner. We meet him when he’s a little boy and we see that he worships his hero, Charles Muntz, who is a pilot and an adventurer who finds a creature’s bones in Paradise Falls, South America. But, no one believes Muntz that it’s a real animal’s bones. So, Muntz boards his zeppelin and goes back to Paradise Falls, exclaiming “Adventure is out there!”.

So, Carl wants to go to Paradise Falls and he meets a young girl who shares the same dream. We then get a beautiful montage (one of the best I’ve ever seen) of their lives together passing, never getting to go to Paradise Falls, but always trying. I'm not ashamed to say that it makes me cry every time. Finally, his wife dies of old age and Carl lives alone in grief and memories.

Well, the house that Carl and his wife, Ellie, lived in their whole life is in the way of a construction project and he keeps getting offers to have the house be bought, but he refuses. He then assaults a worker and he is sent to court and has to go to a retirement home. He then attaches balloons to his house and flies to Paradise Falls with a young scout named Russell who was under the porch at the time looking for a ‘snipe’ as per the request of Carl.

So, they land on the opposite side of the canyon of Paradise Falls and they have to walk the house the rest of the way, meeting talking dogs, Charles Muntz and a giant bird named Kevin along the way.

Well, I’m sure that you’ve probably watched this film before; it’s a wonderful movie that makes me cry several times, and makes you laugh just as much. You really feel for Carl and his quest, and he learns a wonderful lesson by the end of the movie.

Like I mentioned earlier, the casting was practically perfect. Ed Asner plays Carl perfectly and makes the character loveable, even though he’s a jerk most of the movie. The plot was really good, it certainly wasn’t the greatest, but it was fantastic just the same. It’s a perfect family movie, everyone can enjoy it. The animation was amazing, and I really wish that I had gotten to see this movie in theaters, or even better, in 3-D. Oh well.

So, do I think this should be up for Best Picture? Most definitely. It deserves its place amongst the other ten films, and ranks above a lot of them. I would love to see it win.

So, overall, you know, I keep thinking about it, and I think it deserves it. I’m going to give this film a perfect 10 out of 10.

Up next is Moon, then (500) Days of Summer as per your choice.

The Blind Side

Boy, am I feeling good tonight. I’m doing my review for The Blind Side tonight, which means that I have been on a long journey myself, and I can see the finish line just ahead. If you have been following me, then you know that this is Best Picture nominee number nine, leaving just one left for next time. But, I will talk about Up next time. This time, it’s The Blind Side.

Well, just like a lot of these Best Picture films, I’d never really heard of them and hadn’t seen trailers and watched them fresh. Precious was like that. An Education was like that. Up in the Air was like that. The Blind Side was half that. I knew of its existence. I had seen the title at the theater, but I had no idea what it was about or anything.

So, a couple of my friends have seen it, and they have said that it’s a feel good movie about football, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. You see, I really don’t care about football. It’s boring to me and I describe it as ‘an excuse for a bunch of grown men to grab each other’. But, because of my promise to you, the reader, I had to watch it since it is one of the nominees.

I went and saw it this evening and we’re given the story of a young boy named ‘Big’ Mike Oher who lives in Memphis. I’m assuming it was his foster father got him into a Christian school, but then they dumped him and thus Michael was all alone (at least that’s what I’m assuming, since it didn’t really seem to explain that part as well).

We then get to know the Tuohy family. They are a rich southern family which consists of a husband and wife and a daughter and a son. S.J. (the son) goes to school with Michael and on their way home one night, the family sees Michael walking in the freezing cold. Leigh Anne (the wife) convinces Sean (the husband) to stop and let him stay the night with them.

So, the movie snowballs from there (in a good way). Michael decides to stay and becomes a big brother to Collins and S.J. Leigh Anne teaches him several things and Michael starts to have confidence in himself and do better at school and everything. She then has him join the football team and he learns to be the ‘Left Tackle’ and is amazing at it.

Well, there are a lot of obstacles that Michael has to face and he finds it hard to feel welcome and become a part of the family until much later in the movie. It truly is a feel good movie.

So, here comes the question. Do I think it deserves to be one of the Best Picture Nominations? Well, compared to some of the other movies I’ve watched, I would say yes. I think it was very good, and it was nice to see something that wasn’t quite so artsy-fartsy up for Best Picture. Do I think it will win? No, I don’t think so, but at least the nomination is nice.

But yeah, I did like this movie. It was a breath of fresh air compared to such downers as An Education and Precious. The acting was fantastic and the plot wasn’t too bad either, apart from it being one of those stories that’s been done tons and tons and tons of times before. But, it’s based on a true story, so we’ve got to give it that.

But yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I was fun and made me laugh several times, and almost made me cry. Not quite, but almost. I give it 8 out of 10.

Precious

Well, I am back with my review for Precious. I told you that I would be back doing my Best Picture reviews, and I’m keeping that promise to you guys. I wasn’t sure which of the Best Picture films I wanted to do next, so I picked at random, and Precious was what got chosen.

So, I watched the Best Picture nominee Precious tonight and you know, I’m not sure what to think. This film was really good, but it was really sad at the same time. I guess it truly set out to
achieve this purpose and it hit it dead on.

Precious is about this young sixteen year old girl named Precious who is impregnated by her father twice and she is kicked out of school. Her father hates her and her mother despises her and beats on her all the time. Precious can’t win for losing.

The principal of her previous school decides though to send her to a special school to prepare to get her GED. Her mother is pissed about this and beats on her for it, but she goes anyway. She then meets Ms. Rain who teaches her to read and write. The rest is a downhill slope of just...awfulness. Not awfulness in quality, but awfulness in the sense of what happens if awful.

You know, I don’t really want to give too much of this movie away because it is definitely one I would suggest seeing, but I would suggest popping a Disney movie in immediately after because this movie depressed me. You felt so bad for all that Precious goes through, and just when you think it’s as worse as it can get, it gets even worse. Then it gets even worse. It’s like watching two hours of people dump on this poor young girl.

Like I said, I would definitely suggest seeing this film. It was good, yes, but it goes in my list of movies that I will watch once, then never again, such as Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River. Far too depressing. The only one you route for in this movie is Precious, but you begin to lose hope and after it ends, you do wonder what’s going to happen next. Obviously, I won’t give away the ending.

Do I think it should be up with the other Best Picture nominations? I honestly can’t say, I just don’t know. I would say yes, but when I want to say yes, I think of all the reasons why I should say no, and vice versa. I would suggest seeing this as a rental. Don’t go out and spend $20 on a DVD. Netflix to the rescue!

So, overall it’s very hard for me to rate this movie. Like I said earlier, it set out with a purpose, and it achieved the purpose quite well, but I don’t know if I enjoyed it. So, for now, I think it will get 6 out of 10.

The Blind Side is next folks. Eight down, two to go.

The Dark Knight

Devin Griffiths: Welcome back to Cineplex 14. I know that I've been going over my Best Picture films, and I promise that I will get back to them next. I'm actually doing an experimental review tonight. I have asked my friend Eric Wood to co-review this film with me, and if you, the reader, enjoy what we have to say, then I may just keep him on. Eric, welcome.

Eric Wood: Thank you Chuck

DG : We decided tonight to do an easy review. We'll be reviewing The Dark Knight, 2008's summer blockbuster hit, sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. And I can honestly say, wow. When this movie was announced and casting was listed, I got worried, wondering if it could possibly live up to the masterpiece that was Batman Begins. What about you?

EW: Well Devin, I never really worried about it, silly twurp that I am. I looked at the commercial and thought, "this is going to rock." So, as far as educated guesses, I can only say that I was worried that what the commercials had shown would not live up to the standards I already had in mind. But was I worried? Not too much. I mean, we did have Batman Begins to go off of.

DG: True, very true. So, we saw it in theaters, together actually, and the film begins and we're given a bank robbery right away and show the madness (and brilliance) of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker. We're then given a feel that this film hasn't forgotten it's roots and what made it special as we get a cameo from Cillian Murphy as The Scarecrow, and even people dressing up as Batman, copying him, much like Frank Miller's comic The Dark Knight Returns. That was the comic, right?

EW: Well, yes, that was a tip of the hat to the comic, Devin. But I feel now that this movie was rather telling the back story behind what happened in the Frank Miller comic. We are pulled into the world from Batman's view because of the tenasity of the Joker. Joker has no rules, Batman does. Heath Leder's acting brought that out real well. I remember the "Let me do a magic trick" part. It really pushed the enveloped on that one.

DG: Yeah, it truly did. Let us talk about the acting for a moment.

EW: Okay

DG: I know that I am in the minority when I say this, but I truly believe that, although Heath Ledger was amazing, I believe that Aaron Eckhart stole the show as Harvey Dent, and, not trying to bash Ledger's wonderful performance, but I think that Eckhart should have recieved the Oscar Nomination.

EW: I'm not going to disagree with you Devin in that Eckhart was good. He was, and so were the other members of the cast. But I still feel really attached to Ledger's performance. However, I have a middle ground idea. They were two power house actors, and the movie seemed to realize that, and gave the first half of the film to Ledger, and the last of it to Eckhart.

DG: Yeah, you're right there. They were equals, and in fact all of the cast was outstanding. I just believe that it was Harvey Dent's movie.

EW: Well, I don't.

DG: The rise and fall of Gotham's White Knight.

EW: I think that was the moral at the end of the movie, but the movie was about the story leading up to that, or rather, consisted of what happened that could destroy someone. Ledger was the meal, Eckhart was the after taste. That's my take anyway, and a short version too.

DG: Alright, well let me ask you this. In the case of 'If Heath Ledger was still alive', would you still feel the same way?

EW: Well, you got me. I can't truthfully say Yes a hundred percent sure. From an entertainment stand point, though, Ledger gave me, personally, more than Eckhart. I think that was the point.

DG: You may be right.

EW: Of course.

DG: Well, we could go on bickering about casting for a while. You know, I can honestly say that when I hear the name Christopher Nolan, I know I'm in for a treat. Ever since Memento. To steal a quote from Dark Knight and change it up a bit, "I Believe in Christopher Nolan".

EW: Hmm, it’s really a shame that more people don't know his name as much as the actors'. That includes me

DG: That's alright, buddy. I could drop names of directors that I'm sure you've never even heard of, but we won't go into that now.

EW: Thank you for sparing me. You're so kind.

DG: This film is definitely a dark psychological thriller. It definitely deserves is PG-13 rating, and could have even been pushed to an R. It's not just simply a Batman film, it's a dark and gritty crime drama.

EW: I think R would have allowed more for the dark tone. I mean, we have had a few R comic book movies before.

DG: I agree. Well, Eric. I think I'm going to give this film 9 out of 10. I would give it a perfect 10, but I think that it dragged a little too much at some parts. It was just a little too long at two hours and forty-five minutes. Not too mention a couple little plot holes that always bug me when I see them, such as getting fingerprints off a shattered bullet when the fingerprint would be on the bullet casing.

EW: And I think perhaps YOU dragged on a little too much.

DG: Maybe a little. What would you give it?

EW: I give it three ratings: 10/10 for entertainment, 9/10 for personal like and dislikes, and 8.5/10 for overall great picture. I give it that because there have been more powerful films that hurt you, uplift you. This film did that, but not as much as others. It took us to the edge, but didn't push us over too much.

DG: Definitely.

EW: Yeah, and I give it three ratings because films are complicated. Especially this one.

DG: Well, thank you Eric for being my co-reviewer tonight, it was an honor having you, and I hope that we can do this again.

EW: I look forward to it. Thank you very much.

An Education

So, I was looking over my options for Best Picture. I thought I was going to watch Precious today, but at the last moment I shifted gears completely and saw An Education. Seven down, three to go.

You know, I honestly hadn’t even heard of this movie before the Best Picture nominations came out. I was reading through the list and most of them I had at least heard of in passing at least. So, this one threw me through a loop. So, I did some studying and discovered that I really didn’t know anyone in the cast other than Peter Sarsgaard (which I don’t care much for either), and Spiderman 2’s Alfred Molina. I was at least excited for Molina, I’ve enjoyed him in tons of movies such as The Hoax,The Da Vinci Code, and even his brief appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Well, I began watching An Education and was quite pleased at the upbeat music at the beginning and was ready to be thoroughly entertained. I feel like they tried to throw you off with the music. We’re introduced to a small family in a suburb of London in 1961. A father played by Molina, a mother played by Cara Seymour, a fairly unknown actress at least to me, and their sixteen year old daughter Jenny, played by yet another unknown named Carry Mulligan (who is also up for Best Actress for this movie).

Jenny is a girl aspiring to go to Oxford when she finishes with her schooling. She’s a straight A student and a cello player. On her way home in the rain one day she meets a man named David (played by Sarsgaard) who offers her cello a ride home because she shouldn’t ride with strangers. Well, they get to talking and start a relationship, despite the huge age difference which no one seems to mind.

So David starts showing Jenny the good life and shows that life isn’t just about school and he starts to teach her life experience. She meets his friends and go to dinners and shows together and just act like a normal couple. Well, that is until David starts showing his true colors near the hour mark.

I don’t want to give the ending away, but I kind of guessed it shortly after the movie began. This movie to me was fairly unremarkable and I’m fairly confused as to why this was chosen as a Best Picture nominee, and if it wins, then my faith in the academy will be lost.

The acting was about the only thing going for this movie in my opinion. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mulligan take the Best Actress Oscar, but I wouldn’t care if she didn’t. Alfred Molina kind of stole the show as her overprotective father.

The editing really seemed rushed at points. There were several scenes that felt really choppy. It didn’t confuse me, but it bugged me. The plot, like I said earlier, was fairly unremarkable and predictable. It was a case of 'Should I go to college or should I be with the man I love?'. Apparently, in the 1960's, you couldn't have both.

So, there’s not really much more that I can say about this film. Did I enjoy it? I didn’t hate it, that’s about the only way I can answer that question, but I wasn’t impressed at all. I give it 4 out of 10.

The Hurt Locker

Well, I’m getting closer and closer to my goal of all ten Best Picture films. Six down, four to go. Not even entirely sure which one is next myself. Could it be Precious? Or how about Up? Well, that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is the review right here, right now. And tonight is The Hurt Locker and boy was it interesting.

The movie, just in case you don’t know, is a character study of a small bomb squad in the Iraqi War. We’re introduced to Sgt Thompson, Sgt Sanborn and Spc Eldridge. They are a group who don’t fear death, who do their job and they do it well. Well, that is until Sgt Thompson is killed by an explosion and they get a replacement leader. Thus enters Sgt James to take his place.

Sgt James truly shows no fear. They go out to disarm a bomb and he walks out in his bomb suit all ready to do it, walking tall and fearing no one. He then disarms a cluster of bombs that would make anyone crap themselves, but does he show fear? No, of course not. He’s being all that he can be.

There’s really not much to talk about plot wise in this film. This film’s purpose isn’t so much the plot, but showing the terrors of war. Showing that you don’t always win things and sometimes you don’t get your happy ending. You see the fear spread throughout the characters, the moments where you just break down and you can’t take it anymore. The side of war that you don’t see on TV, the weak moments our troops have because of the emotional toll it takes on you.

Well, I think the casting was outstanding. I didn’t know anybody except for a surprise appearance by Lord Voldemort himself, Ralph Fiennes, and a couple scenes with The Ice Truck Killer himself from Dexter Season 1 Christian Camargo. The editing was excellent. I’ve noticed that a few of the Best Picture films have a documentary feel to them, and this one was no different. You got to know the characters and feel for them as if they were real. It had a couple moments that made me laugh, and a couple that made me cry. It truly served its purpose.

Do I think that it should be up for Best Picture? Well, you know I’m not entirely sure. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this movie, I liked it a lot, but I don’t know if I liked it enough to be up for Best Picture (but then again, this is coming from the guy who thought Slumdog Millionaire, last year’s Best Picture winner, was disappointing).

So overall, it was a good film, one that I definitely would suggest to anybody to see. It’s not a family film, obviously. It shows the brutality of war and it makes you think a lot. I give it 8 out of 10.

Up in the Air

So, last night I went for a drive. I drove and I drove and I drove, simply trying to find a theater playing the Oscar nominated Up in the Air. Finally, I found one, about fifty miles from my home, and I was quite relieved. I paid my admission, got some popcorn, and sat on my butt in the nice comfortable theater seat.

I sat there for several minutes, doing a checklist in my head, wondering how hard it would be to see all of these films in one month, and even if it kills me, I’ll do it. I’ve made a promise to you that I will see all of these films, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’re five down, five to go.

Well, I am a fan of George Clooney, even though, as my girlfriend puts it, he seems to play the same role over and over again, so I wasn’t expecting anything different from what he usually does, and to be honest with you, that’s exactly what I got, but I got so much more than I was expecting.

To be honest with you, still to this day, I have yet to see a trailer for this film. I had never really even heard of it until I saw that it came to theaters, and at that point, I heard George Clooney was in it, so I planned to see it sooner or later.

So the movie begins and literally within five minutes, I knew that I was going to love this film. It had great names in the opening credits such as Zach Galifianakis, J K Simmons, Danny McBride, Sam Elliott, Jason Bateman and even the Reitman brothers. All around a spectacular cast, and it definitely showed, but I’ll get more into that later.

We’re introduced to Ryan Bingham played by George Clooney, a man who is always flying from city to city for his job as a, well I’m not sure what the official title would be, but he’s a guy who companies hire to fire people. Well, we get to know his character a little bit, and at first, you love him, at least I did. He made me laugh at several points, but he makes you think at several points as well.

So, Ryan is told early on in the movie that to save on costs for the company, they’re going to start doing digital firings, and this is the idea of a new woman to the company named Natalie, played flawlessly by Anna Kendrick, who really hasn’t been in anything good (sorry Twilight fans, but its true).

Ryan then explains to Natalie that firing people digitally wouldn’t work, and he gives her several reasons why. So, they are then sent on the road, or the sky as you could say, and he shows her that firing people in person is much more feasible. So, basically, that’s the plot, it’s about them firing people, but getting to know the characters themselves. This truly is a character movie. We find that Ryan has a hard time connecting to people, that Natalie is too soft and that Alex (Ryan’s girlfriend whom he meets at an airport) is more than she seems to be.

You know, this movie was really well done. I do believe that it deserves its place amongst the other 9 Best Picture films. Do I think it could win? Yes, actually, I think it could. Will it? Well, I’ll make a special post talking about all 10 films after I’m done and give you my opinion, so you’ll just have to keep reading.

The casting was very well done, and I wouldn’t be surprised if George Clooney took home the Best Actor Oscar however. The editing was superb. Much like District 9, it had a documentary feel at points and really made you think, and thus you would forget that it was a movie. The running time was perfect in my eyes, at about an hour and forty minutes, it was perfect.

So yeah, overall this film is definitely one I would recommend, to anybody. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry and it will make you think. It sets out to accomplish all of those and it succeeds with, no pun intended, flying colors. I give it 9 out of 10.

District 9

Well, I know I just posted my review for Friday the 13th, but now I am going to review a good film. A film that you, the reader, voted for me to review. That’s right, I’m finally reviewing District 9. And you know what? In honor of the Academy Awards and District 9's inclusion in the Best Picture category, I have decided that between now and March 7th, I’m going to review all the movies that are up for Best Picture. At least I’ve reviewed Avatar, A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds. Now I’ve got District 9 done, so that leaves The Blind Side, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Precious, Up and Up in the Air.

So, District 9. I remember seeing the preview for District 9 when I went to see Terminator Salvation and I remember thinking that it definitely looked interesting, and that I would give it a chance, but that I doubted it would be any good. At least it had Peter Jackson producing.

Well, I went and saw District 9 in theaters with my friends Andrew and Eric and I loved the first half, I truly did. I loved the documentary feel of this film; it gave it a big touch of realism. But then, it felt almost like we were thrown into a war movie like Saving Private Ryan and I wasn’t sure what to think, and I honestly hated people laughing when people were exploding, it took away from the vibe of the film in my opinion. So, I left the theater disappointed.

So, the other day I rented and watched District 9 again, and I must say, I was much more impressed by it the second time without people laughing at everything. The battle in the film felt like it should be there and it fit quite well.

Well, I guess I should talk about the plot a little bit. At the beginning we are introduced to Wikus, a worker for District 9. District 9 is a refugee camp where a group of aliens are being kept. You see, in the film we’re told that there was an alien space craft that came to Earth, specifically Johannesburg, Africa, and kind of broke down, trapping the aliens here on Earth. The aliens, known as Prawns, just want to fix their ship and go home, but the humans won’t let them leave.
So, the humans are working on basically evicting the aliens out of District 9 and into a different district which is more cramped and a lot worse, and Wikus is one of the workers getting the aliens to agree to move out of District 9.

Wikus comes across a prawn who is working on a small pod to the prawn mother ship, so that he can help them all go back home, and Wikus tries to get him to leave, unaware of the pod hidden under the earth, and he gets sprayed by alien fuel and starts feeling sick. He then goes home and he finds out that his arm is slowly turning prawn-esque.

Well, I really don’t want to give too much away if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s definitely a great film, it just took me a second watching to realize that, so don’t be too hard on it the first time around.

The plot was fantastic, I really hope I explained it well enough, the editing was almost perfect. Maybe it was the fact that this film felt real that I really didn’t notice any editing problems.

Overall, it was a really good film, and I can honestly say that I’m glad it’s nominated for Best Picture. I don’t think it has the quality to win, but it was definitely still great. I give it 9 out of 10.

Friday the 13th

What can I say? I’ve missed writing my blog for the past week or so. I’ve had a lot of things on my mind and a lot of things to take care of, so needless to say, I’ve been slacking on my reviewing, but one thing is for certain is I haven’t been slacking on my movie watching, and that means that you, the reader, are going to get a couple reviews today.

My newest review, although completely off subject, is Friday the 13th. Honestly, what can I say about this film? I sat down to watch it just for kicks and was completely blown away (no pun intended, being that it was produced by Michael ‘I just jizzed in my pants from that explosion’ Bay). This movie was complete and utter crap.

It starts off with a group of 20-something’s who have nothing better to do than to go looking for pot plants that have been growing around Camp Crystal Lake (honestly, are all horror movies based on pot nowadays? Maybe it’s a clue that the writers were high while writing this crap). They then proceed to have crazy amounts of sex and scoff at the legend of Jason. I mean, honestly, you don’t go to Camp Crystal Lake and bad mouth Jason. That’s like going to Yankee Stadium and bad mouthing the Yankee’s. So needless to say, about twenty minutes of killing and sex happen.

It then goes forward to six weeks later and a new group of 20-something’s go up to a cabin which is apparently adjacent to Camp Crystal Lake. At least they don’t know about Jason. So, then the killing and sex start, again.

This film was not deep at all. If you like slasher films that make absolutely no sense or have no plot whatsoever, then you might, I emphasize might, like this movie to an extent. I don’t even think hardcore fans of the Friday the 13th series would care much for this apart from showing the origin of Jason’s mask, which I think they did in Part 2 or 3 of the original anyway.

At least it’s worth a tiny laugh watching. Honestly, Jason is like seven feet tall and suddenly he’s super sneaky. He only kills you when he stands behind you for however long until you notice him, scream and then die. I feel that’s how the makers of this film wanted you to feel. To feel like you’ve been snuck up upon and murdered.

Overall, this movie feels like a spit in the face. It gets my lowest rating yet of 2 out of 10. Avoid this one like the plague, or Camp Crystal Lake.

The Big Lebowski

Nothing quite shows the talent of the Coen Brothers like The Big Lebowski. After I watched A Serious Man, I really wanted to go and watch more of their classics, such as No Country For Old Men, Raising Arizona, O Brother Where Art Thou, but I wanted to go with my personal favorite of the bunch tonight.

So, after some searching through my DVD collection (being that I don’t keep the cases), I finally located The Big Lebowski, I may have made some noise of excitement, then I put it in and sat my butt on the couch with a taco and Kool-Aid (I know, a perfect evening).

The movie begins and you already feel like you’re on an acid trip. You’re introduced to the Dude, played by the wonderful Jeff Bridges, Walter, played by the equally brilliant John Goodman, and Donny, played by Steve Buscemi. They form a small bowling team and a wonderful trio.

So, the Dude is beaten up by some German porn stars looking for a different Lebowski. They then pee on the Dude’s rug that apparently ‘ties the room together’. The Dude then goes and meets Jeffrey Lebowski, who is better known as ‘The Big Lebowski’ and things get worse from there.

It goes from a kidnapping plot, to an embezzlement plot, to a crazy daughter, to a high school car thief, to a disgruntled porno maker, and it just keeps going from there, and you’re never entirely sure where the plot wants to take itself, but you never really mind, because it all seems to work together for an unforgettable experience.

You know, if you haven’t watched this movie before, I would definitely suggest it going and renting it. You may not like it, it has a quality to it that says Coen Brothers all over it, but if you like their style, then this will definitely become one of your favorites.

You know, this is one of the few movies that really doesn’t have anything wrong with it that I can see. Apparently, it’s has a cult following too, with Lebowski Fests all over the country in bowling alleys, and eventually I would love to attend one, have a White Russian, wear my robe and pajamas, and get my inner Dude on.

About my only complaint in this film however would be the editing. The scenes usually end too early, or someone is talking off camera. It wasn’t bad per se, but it wasn’t the greatest either.

Overall it’s a fantastic movie that I could watch over and over again. Definitely not a family film however, but it’s one that I would show to my own children when they got old enough. The Dude Abides. I give it 9 out of 10.

The Proposal

This is the transcript, just in case you can't watch the video.

Well, I finally watched The Proposal tonight. It took me three days to finally finish it, but I did, and it’s done, and it’s your choice for this review.

When The Proposal came out in theaters, I remember seeing the trailer and thinking to myself that it looked just like any other rom-com in existence. Boy meets girl, boy and girl don’t like each other, boy and girl start to learn and then the rest is history. So, I can honestly say that I really had no desire to watch this film.

So, I popped it in the DVD player and it started up and I was already bored, even though the opening credits thrilled me with such names as Craig T. Nelson, Betty White, Oscar Nunez from The Office, and hell even the main stars Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. This film at least had its casting right.

The movie gets going pretty quick and we are introduced to Andrew and Margaret. Margaret is a big time editor at a New York book publisher and Andrew is her assistant/slave. So Margaret is informed that her visa is in the process of being renewed, but because she left the country without permission, her application for renewal has been rejected and she will be deported back to Canada. So, in a moment of insanity, she tells them that Andrew is her fiancé and they are getting married.

Andrew is completely against it, as well he should be, but she threatens his job and career unless he does it. So, he accepts but then the tables get turned where INS tells them of the consequences of lying to them, and suddenly Andrew has the upper hand. He forces her to make him an editor if he goes along with it, to which she accepts because she has no other choice (obviously, I’m still bored).

They then leave together for Alaska where Andrew’s family lives for two reasons. The first reason being that it’s his grandma’s 90th birthday. The second reason is to inform his parents about their ‘engagement’.

So, it was basically what you would expect out of a rom-com. It had a couple twists to it that I didn’t see coming (maybe because I was blind, I’m not sure), and it had several funny moments, most of which came from Golden Girls alum Betty White.

Like I said earlier, the casting was very well done. There were a few wooden scenes and a few ‘what the hell?’ scenes, but it wasn’t too bad. The editing wasn’t that bad. There were a couple moments that I got confused on because it had its choppy moments, but overall, not bad for a movie that you already know the ending to.

You know, I will admit that I liked it. It’s been the best rom-com movie that I’ve rated so far, but it’s not going to win any Oscars or anything. It is a great date movie though and it achieves its purpose. I give it 7 out of 10.

The Lovely Bones

I’m back, finally meeting a deadline that I set to have The Lovely Bones watched and reviewed by Tuesday. Now that I’ve got quite a bit of free time on my hands, I plan to review more frequently. Hopefully you won’t get sick of hearing from me.

So as I sat down in my seat to watch The Lovely Bones, I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, just because most of the critical reviews have been negative. So, I told myself that I would give it a chance, not to judge it until it was over, then I would decide from there whether it was worth the film it was printed on.

So the movie began and we’re introduced to the Salmon family. We meet Susie Salmon as a little girl and we watch her grow (albeit fast). Then suddenly, Mark Wahlberg crosses the screen as Jack Salmon, Susie’s father, and I got excited. I have always liked Mark Wahlberg, even though he has made his fair share of stinkers, but I’ve liked him ever since The Departed.

Susie then talks about how she was murdered when she was fourteen years old and about a half hour in, we see the event (even though it’s not entirely clear until near the end just how it was done). We’re introduced to George Harvey, the murderer (played by Stanley Tucci), who did a fantastic job at playing a creepy old man. He reminded me of Ted Bundy how he would act all
nice and lure in young girls.

The movie is mostly about Susie crossing over and being in between heaven and earth and trying to come back. It’s also about her family coping with her murder, her father taking the case into his own hands and tracking people, her mother wanting to let go but can’t, and the police trying to figure out just what happened.

As Susie is in the middle, she meets a girl named Holly, and eventually several other girls and they kind of guide her as to what she needs to do, but she doesn’t want to listen and, like I said earlier, she wants to come back.

You know, there’s not much to say about this film as it wasn’t as deep as you would imagine it to be. Did I enjoy it? Yes, actually I did. Did I think it was a little full of itself? Maybe a little bit. There were several scenes that were brilliant, and others that made me roll my eyes in unbelief. The ending was fairly cheesy in my opinion, but if you want to know how it ends, then you’ll just have to see it. The editing was very well done, I will give it that. The plot was just so-so, it could have had a lot more depth to it, but who am I to judge?

The acting was outstanding. Everyone in this movie fit so well and it made you forget that you were watching a movie instead of an actual family dealing with the pain together. I don’t think it will be up for any Oscars, but it should at least get a mention.

Overall, it wasn’t bad, it was better than I thought it would be, and I am glad that I finally saw it, being that I’ve been waiting to see this film for a while, ever since I heard Peter Jackson’s name attached to direct. It definitely wasn’t Lord of the Rings good, but it was better than King Kong in my opinion (which I know that I’m in the minority on not caring for King Kong). I give it 7 out of 10.

Next up is The Proposal and don't forget to vote on my latest poll.

Sherlock Holmes

I must thank you readers for sticking with me even though I’m doing terrible at meeting my own deadlines. If you’re still reading, then I thank you again. I was going to have my review for Sherlock Holmes ready about two days ago, but I went on an unscheduled road trip over the weekend and I got a little distracted.

So, I finally got to see Shelock Holmes last night, and I was quite excited for a number of reasons. First off, I have always been a fan of Holmes, I’ve been a fan of Robert Downey Jr. since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so I was excited to see him play detective again, and the trailer did make this movie look good.

The movie began and within the first five minutes, I was quite upset because it starts off with a heavy action scene where Holmes and Watson are stopping a human sacrificial ritual by a dark magician named Blackwood, and I felt that wasn’t very true to Holmes, the action part anyway. I know that Holmes was learned in fighting and defense and whatnot, but it was a little too action heavy.

Holmes begins narrating to himself about how he plans to attack a particular guy and you start to see the intelligence of Holmes start to blossom, and you see the battle tactics of Holmes, and you begin to realize that it’s not just pointless action, and my hope was renewed a little.

So, the movie continues and the bad guy Blackwood is hung, but before he tells them that he will return from the grave and kill three others. Of course, everyone thinks he’s a crazy old magician (isn’t that just a classic movie mistake, to NOT listen to the crazy magician’s warnings?) and they hang him and bury him, and well, just as he predicts, he comes back and people start dying.
Holmes is trying to figure out the case while Watson is more worried about his love life. I felt they could have explored Watson’s relationship a little deeper with his girlfriend, Mary, because it left questions unanswered in my opinion. There is a woman who I assume was an old girlfriend of Holmes, played by Rachel McAdams, who was kind of a double agent for a mysterious man (who they reveal near the end is Moriarty).

There were aspects of this film that I enjoyed, but far too many aspects made me feel inadequate and it bugged me. It was a film about mystery and Holmes and Watson figuring out how Blackwood was doing all this and it doesn’t reveal anything until the remaining ten minutes of the two hour film. The problem with the reveal was so much of it was way over my head and it made me feel stupid like I wasn’t paying enough attention, even though I was focused on it.

The film jumped around a lot. It was hard to follow in points because they would be investigating one thing, then the next scene, they would be doing something completely different and they would determine clues in ways that were confusing, and like I said earlier, it made me feel stupid, which is something a film should NEVER do to its audience.

This film truly reminded me of Batman Begins, not so much because it was an origins story, but because I wanted to see Moriarty and they kept hinting at him and then it ends with them going to see what he’s doing, so it reminded me of how Gordon told Batman about the Joker and just got you hankering it. The bad guys were similar in a sense and Holmes had to get over himself to finally solve the case. At least Ras Al Ghul in Batman Begins was a lot cooler than Blackwood. Blackwood I felt was a pathetic villain.

Overall, it was a good popcorn movie, the sort that you’d throw your popcorn at, but it was enjoyable and the performances by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law were surprisingly good and even though this film was mediocre, it did make me crave a sequel, just because they portrayed their characters well enough to want to see them do it again.

So, I would recommend this as a dollar theater movie or a Netflix rental, but I felt slightly cheated at seeing it full priced. I give it 6 out of 10.

Next up is The Lovely Bones and I intend on reviewing it probably Tuesday. Keep reading.

Inglourious Basterds

Last year, I went to see Appaloosa with my friend and brother and we saw a trailer about a WW2 group of people, and I immediately got excited. I had read things about Quentin Tarantino’s newest film Inglourious Basterds, but I had no idea when it was coming out, who was in it, what it was going to be about, stuff like that, all I knew was something about WW2. So I sat in my theater seat and got excited. I saw Daniel Craig cross the screen and my blood boiled in excitement. The trailer finally got to the end, and the title crossed the screen…Deception. My heart sank like a rock.

Months later and an actual Inglourious Basterds trailer crossed the big screen and my excitement rose again. I’m not a huge Brad Pitt fan, apart from the classics such as Fight Club, Se7en, and even Ocean’s 11. But it was Quentin Tarantino, and I’ve trusted him since Pulp Fiction.

I unfortunately wasn’t able to see it in theaters, even though that was one of the things I looked forward to the most of 2009, but that’s okay, I actually have yet to see a Tarantino film in theaters apart from Grindhouse.

I waited for the DVD to come out for a couple months and was quite relieved when I saw that it was coming out in mid-December. Simple enough to say, I was the first in line (not literally) to get my hands on Tarantino’s latest masterpiece.

Well, I had already watched Inglourious Basterds once, but I didn’t see the harm in watching it again for my review.

Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France. Just the opening and the name of the first chapter got me excited. It opened to a small farm in France and a Nazi general who is known as ‘The Jew Hunter’ goes to inspect a Jewish family farm. He interrogates the father and discovers that he is harboring another Jewish family under his floorboards. They then proceed to kill the hidden family except for a young girl who escapes.

We then get out first introduction of ‘The Basterds’. They are small troop consisting of about ten people, and they have one job, and one job only…killing Nazi’s and giving their Sergeant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) their scalps, and he wants their scalps.

So ‘The Basterds’ are told that there is going to be a movie premiere about a Nazi troop who fought off several American troops and is a hero to the Nazi party. So Adolf Hitler himself wants to honor the soldier by being at the premiere himself.

The plot is basically just that, ‘The Basterds’ trying to set up their plans to get to Hitler, the theater owner (who was the woman who escaped at the beginning) planning an assassination attempt on them as well to get revenge for her slaughtered family, and a young actress who is a double agent for ‘The Basterds’.

The editing was well done, it was hilarious at several points, and it was dark at others. It was everything you could expect from Quentin Tarantino. It wasn’t his best movie, I think Pulp Fiction still holds that title, but I would rank it up there with Kill Bill. If you love Tarantino, you will love this movie. If you don’t, it’s still worth a watch.

Definitely one of my favorites of 2009, and I would love to see it go up for Best Picture. I give it 9 out of 10.

The Holiday

I’m back. Sorry it took me so long to getting around to doing this review, but if you read my previous blog, then you’ll understand. If you’ve had tooth pains before, then you’ll definitely understand my pain, literally and figuratively.

Well, here I am, sitting in the hospital’s waiting room. My girlfriend, Tandra, had knee surgery today, and the surgeon came in about a half hour ago and told us that she is out and doing great, the operation was a success and now she’s just resting and she just has to heal up.

I’ve been here since seven this morning and I decided that while waiting, it would be the perfect time to watch The Holiday and finally get it out of the way. So, here I am, just finishing up The Holiday and writing my blog in this very comfy armchair in a smelly waiting room (but hey, free danish’s isn’t bad).

So, I began The Holiday and I was completely convinced that I was going to hate it, being that I really don’t care for Jack Black, Jude Law, Cameron Diaz or Kate Winslet. Each of them have made a good film or two, but in my opinion, they’ve made far too many stinkers to completely trust them. But, it did surprise me in the sense where I felt like my time wasn’t completely wasted.

The movie starts out with Iris (Kate Winslet), who lives in Surrey, England, talking about being in love with a man who cheated on her, but she was still going to try, and then the guy she’s in love with announces that he’s engaged to another woman.

It then goes to Amanda (Cameron Diaz) in Los Angeles who is having a similar problem where her boyfriend has cheated on her, so she dumps him and tells everyone that she needs a long vacation.

She goes on a website and finds that Iris’ cottage in Surrey is up for a house swap, so they agree with each other to switch places, a classic switcharoo (which in my opinion, has been done so much it makes me want to barf).

So Amanda meets Graham (Jude Law), who is Iris’ brother, and they fall into a very fast relationship, but she finds it hard to trust him because she’s fresh out of a breakup. But, nevertheless, they still have sex the first night they meet.

Iris meets Miles (Jack Black) and also an old Hollywood writer and they all just become friends and nothing more. Iris and Miles then fall for each other and the rest is history.

The movie was very predictable. Basically, everything is given away in the trailer, and if you’ve seen a movie about couples on a ‘will they, won’t they’ relationship, then you’ll know how it’ll end. The plot was quite lame, the editing felt like it was chopped together in several parts and it just all around felt lazy, like they just decided to slap together a movie as quickly as possible and make some money. It also dragged several times at a whopping two hours and fifteen minutes (far too long for a rom-com).

If you’re looking for something deep, then you may want to see something else, but it’s not bad, not great either. It’s a date movie, that’s about it. It’s the perfect definition of a so-so movie. I give it 5 out of 10.

Broken Tooth

Well, I apologize to my readers about not having The Holiday or Inglourious Basterds review up yet. I broke a tooth on Friday night and have been having sever pains lately. I do feel bad that I haven't gotten around to my reviews just yet, but I will be back soon. I am going to watch The Holiday tomorrow morning and then Inglourious Basterds sometime later this week. 24 premieres this week too, so I have to make time for that too.

Thank you all for being patient with me, and I hope you've enjoyed my reviews so far, and there are plenty more to come. Next up is The Holiday, then Inglourious Basterds then Sherlock Holmes. Then it's whatever you, the reader, decide upon in the latest poll.

Thank you and goodnight.

A Serious Man

Congratulations reader, I have good news for you, but maybe not as good news for me. The good news is that you’re going to be getting three reviews by the end of this week because A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds and The Holiday all tied in the latest voting poll. The bad news for me is that is a hell of a lot of work.

Well, to be honest with you, A Serious Man is what I wanted to review the most out of those choices, so I’ll do that one first. Tomorrow, I will do The Holiday, and over the weekend I will review Inglourious Basterds. I will also start a new poll after all these are done.

A few months ago when A Serious Man came out, about all I knew about it was it was something about a Jewish family and that it was made by the Coen Brothers. Well, I’ve been a fan of the Coen’s since I first saw Raising Arizona at about the age of ten, so I always look forward to their movies.

So the movie begins and we are introduced to a Russian Jewish couple sometime probably 1800’s, and the husband informs his wife that he was walking home in the snow and the wheel of his wagon fell off and a nice man stopped and helped him come home. The husband tells his wife this and she informs him that that man is dead, he died three years ago.

The ‘dead’ man then comes in and warms by the fire and the wife argues with him whether or not he’s a spirit, or a ‘dybbuk’. She then stabs the man and he begins to bleed and he leaves into the storm complaining, but not dying.

Time then passes to the 1950’s or 60’s and we’re introduced to an American Jewish dysfunctional family. The husband, Larry Gopnik is a physics professor and the wife is a crazy woman who wants a divorce from her husband because she’s screwing the neighbor.

His son is always being chased by a another kid to whom he owes money, and he steals from his sister, who keeps yelling because that is her rightfully owned money (which she steals from Larry’s wallet). Larry also has his mentally and socially handicapped brother, Arthur, living with them as well.

The story is about Larry trying to cope with his family, his wife working on getting a divorce, his son bickering, his daughter bitching, his brother gambling, annoying neighbors, Rabbis who don’t give any useful advice, and an Asian student who bribed him for a passing grade in his class and is threatening to sue him if he doesn’t.

The story has several twists and turns to it. I laughed at several moments, and it made you think at other moments. It was a very well-done dark comedy, and you find yourself rooting for Larry throughout the whole movie, hoping that it ends right for him.

Well, I’m not going to give away the ending, if you want to know it, you’ll just have to go see it yourself. It was definitely a fantastic movie, I loved it. Definitely not a children’s movie, but it would be a great movie to watch after you put the kids to bed and you microwave a bag of popcorn and snuggle up with a loved one. I give it 9 out of 10.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Welcome back to Cineplex 14. It has been a weird week, and thus I haven’t had as much time lately to watch movies. I’ve been doing a lot of babysitting. I assisted an elderly woman with making photocopies. My girlfriend, Tandra is having knee pains and will be going in for surgery on Monday. We watched Beetlejuice and it took us about 4 days to finish it. But finally, I got around to seeing the next movie on the roster.

I decided this time to watch and review the movie based on the book by the great Roald Dahl, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. We went to see it in a small theater with not that many people attending. I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, being that I had only seen one trailer a long time ago and I had no idea what it was even about, so I went in clueless (I feel it’s better to watch a movie fresh).

So the movie began and we’re introduced to Mister and Misses Fox. Mr. Fox is a chicken thief and one day, the two of them get stuck in an animal trap due to Mr. Fox’s arrogance. Mrs. Fox then informs him that she’s pregnant and if they survive that he needs to go into a different line of work.

Two years pass (twelve fox years) and they have a son named Ash. Mr. Fox is a columnist for the local newspaper, Mrs. Fox is a landscape artist and Ash wants to be an athlete in school. Mr. Fox then goes and buys a tree because he’s tired of living in a hole, and they take in their cousin Kristopherson, because his father has ‘double pneumonia’.

The tree they live in is across from three farm’s owned by three evil owners named Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Mr. Fox then teams up with an opossum named Kylie and they start a ‘master
plan’ to steal Boggis’ chickens, Bunce’s ducks and geese and Bean’s alcoholic turkey cider.

So Mr. Fox goes through with his ‘master plan’ and the three farmers start chasing all of them underground and into the sewers. They keep meeting up with different animals who are on the run too because the three farmers have destroyed the forest.

You know, the plot really wasn’t that deep, and it was fairly short at an hour and fifteen minutes. The acting was pretty good. There were excellent performances from George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray. The animation definitely took some getting used to. It was almost like a mixture of claymation and puppetry.

Overall, a pretty good film, not ‘fantastic’ as the title suggests, but it was still good. Definitely a family friendly movie that all the kids would love and probably beg for their own Mr. Fox after it was over. I give it 7 out of 10.

Just on a side note, I’ve got a lot of new ideas for Cineplex 14, such as doing seven movies is seven days of the same genre (I’ll have polls when it gets closer as to which genre YOU, the reader, would like to see me do most), then going the next week and doing a different genre.

Sometime in the future, I plan on doing a 100 movies in 100 days, so watch for that. Keep reading for more updates.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Well, I feel much better and finally got around to watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs tonight, the movie that you, the reader, decided you wanted to see me review the most.

I remember reading the book back when I was an elementary school student, and I loved the book. But to be completely honesty; I had actually forgotten about its existence. When I went to see Night at the Museum 2 in theaters, I saw the trailer for Cloudy and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I still didn’t even remember the existence of the book.

I passed on it in theaters and a couple months later I was reminded that it was based on a children’s book and a rush of memories came flooding back to me. I remember being in Miss Dibb’s 2nd grade class when she read it to us the first time and I fell in love.

We began the movie and it honestly reminded me of something out of Tron with all the machines. It starts out with a young child named Flint who is a crackpot inventor. He makes Spray-On Shoes and sprays them on and can’t take them off.

His father tells him that he shouldn’t worry about inventing and work at the family bait shop. They live on an island in the Atlantic Ocean called Swallow Falls and they are the leading supplier of anchovies. But, the anchovy factory gets shut down because people realize that anchovies are ‘super gross’. So, the people of the island lose their jobs and they all have to eat anchovies.

Flint’s mother tells him that he should continue and she gives him a lab coat to feel like a real scientist. He gladly accepts it and keeps it on his whole life.

Several years pass and Flint is now an adult and he is working on a machine that turns water into food. He keeps trying and it fails because there’s not enough electricity. He then taps into the city’s electricity and makes his machine work. The machine then takes off like a rocket and is sent into the clouds.

A young weather girl from New York is sent to the island to watch the unveiling of “Anchovy Land” at the island, and Flint’s machine shoots past her and ruins her report. The two meet and it starts raining cheeseburgers from the machine.

Just like the weather, this movie really was unpredictable. Obviously, the children’s book had a lot less to it, so they added much more to the movie, but it was a welcome change. The animation was fantastic and would have made a great 3D experience, but it wasn’t realistic animation such as Up or other movies, but the animation was perfect for what it was.

It was definitely funny, and a fantastic family film. I watched it with several children and they all loved it. I did too. There were aspects I thought I wouldn’t like, but I did.

It definitely wasn’t the best animated film of 2009, Up I think takes that one, but it was still good. I give it 7 out of 10.

Julie and Julia

Well, it’s only been about twenty hours since my last review, but sometimes I will do reviews this quickly. If you read my last blog (The Time Traveler’s Wife) then you will already know what movie is next.

We began watching Julie and Julia this afternoon. I didn’t think I’d care for it much being that I’m not much of an Amy Adams fan, and also it looked rather dull. I was still interested in watching in for the food aspect, as I enjoy home cooking myself. When Julie and Julia came to theaters, my mother wanted to see it, but I refused because, like I said earlier, it looked rather dull. Well, I must say that I’m quite glad that I decided to go against my instincts and sit through the two hour long movie.

It begins in 1949 Paris with a young(ish) Julia Child and her husband Paul going to France because Paul has been sent there for a four year job at the American Embassy. Julia is lost, not really knowing what to do with herself in Paris, and after thinking about it for a while, she decides to take a cooking class. She is in a beginners cooking class and she decides to go be in a professional cooking class full of French men.

Shortly before that, the movie skips ahead to the year 2002 to a young couple named Julie and Eric moving to a small apartment above a pizzeria. Julie is a government worker and is tired of her job. She enjoys cooking and her husband convinces her to start a blog about cooking. So, Julie decides to start a blog talking about her adventures in making all 524 recipes in the Julia Child cook book, Mastering The Art of French Cooking, in 365 days (quite coincidentally, she sets her blog up at BlogSpot).

It goes back and shows Julia learning how to cook and getting better at it. Then she meets a couple other ladies who are trying to publish a recipe book and they ask her to join her in their writing.

The movie keeps jumping back and forth between 2002 and the 1950’s-1970’s. They did it perfectly in my opinion because they give you just the right amount of each character. When I would be watching Julia learning to cook and writing her book, after ten minutes or so, I would begin to wonder when it would go back to Julie, and then it would go to her almost immediately.

The editing wasn’t the best. There were moments where I felt the scene cut away too quickly, or not quick enough. The cinematography was quite brilliantly done, I truly believed what I was watching. The cast was well-chosen and the acting talent fantastic. It had a lot of humor where needed and it made me laugh hard enough that I had to pause the movie. It also had the right amount of emotion to it to make it full of heart.

This was definitely one of 2009’s higher-caliber movies. I give it an 8 out of 10.

The Time Traveler's Wife

If you are reading this, then I owe you a thank you. That means that you stuck with me through my Avatar review and decided I was good enough to stick with.

Nothing quite piqued my interest in trailers this year quite as much as The Time Travelers Wife. What really interested me was a relationship between a man and a woman and that they had to spend a lot of the time waiting for each other. I can understand that well, because I was and still am in a long distance relationship for 5 plus years. So, I must say that I was excited to see it.

I finally got around to seeing it just tonight. I must say I was still rather excited to see it, even though we (meaning myself and my girlfriend, Tandra) were going to watch Julie and Julia, but our copy didn’t work (look forward to a Julie and Julia review by the end of the week).

We began it and I was honestly not sure what to think at first. I kind of laughed at the Michael Bay-esque explosion at the very beginning, but I still was insistent at giving it a chance. I kept watching and was already set within the first half hour that I hated it.

I’m not going to lie; the film jumps around more than Henry does. The first half hour it jumped around so much that I wished I could have paused the movie and clarify that I still understood what was going on. I truly enjoy movies that make you think, but this one was a little too confusing at points.

Anyway, then the first half hour passes, and the time traveling settles down to an extent that it’s a little easier to follow. It starts following a chronological time order fairly well, but never quite did it for me.

The movie, just in case you don’t know, is about Henry, who (is never explained) begins to time travel after a stressful car accident, and then sees his mother’s death. Future Henry goes to child Henry, standing on the side of the highway, and tells him that he just time traveled and that it’s all going to be okay. Then it skips back ahead in time to adult Henry and stays there (I was halfway expecting to see Henry as a kid some more).

He then meets with Claire in the library where he works and she immediately goes gaga over him, and he has no idea who she is. She then explains that he’s been coming to her as a child when he’s older and he has become her best friend.

They then enter a (rather quick) relationship and the movie takes off from there, showing Henry go back in time and see his mother before she died, seeing Henry talking to child Claire in a meadow, meeting with his best friend before they become best friends, etc.

The editing wasn’t half bad, they made some scenes flow quite well, but other times (especially the time traveling scenes) they confused me because they didn’t explain it well enough. The effects weren’t too bad. It actually looked like he faded away when he time travels, but he sees a large buck at one point that looked fairly fake to me. It was short at an hour and a half too, which was a plus for me.

The plot was…well, I was never entirely sure where they wanted to take the plot. At some points you started to grasp the point they were getting, just to do a flip and go the other direction and confuse you some more. There was really no conflict of the movie, other than Claire being frustrated that she always had to wait around for him, and Henry to always try to find a new set of clothes (when he time travels, he loses all his clothes).

Overall, it was just so-so, not a bad date movie, but not a great movie either. I would give it 5 out of 10.

Last note, next time on my Julie and Julia review, I’m going to try to set up a poll so that you, the reader, can decide what I will review next.

Avatar

Well, I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Devin Griffiths. I am a twenty-five year old male living in Pennsylvania. I have dark brown hair, bright blue eyes, I weigh approximately 280 pounds and I am 6’5. But, enough about that, I feel like I’m signing up to a dating website.

I’ve been a fan of movies since I was a kid. I remember growing up watching The Little Mermaid when I was about six years old, and having the power go out in my house, and being afraid that Ursula was going to get me. Sometimes she had help from the Shredder as well. But, apart from being a young child with an active imagination, I never outgrew movies (I still watch The Little Mermaid and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to this day).

A few years back, I even took a crack at making movies. I worked with my best friends, Nathan, Andrew and Eric, and we made an hour and a half long movie called The Necklace about a mystical necklace that a dark lord wanted to get because the necklace made people do whatever he ordered. Anyway, long story short, the good guys took the necklace to him in exchange for the good character’s sister, and then they sucked the dark lord into an alternate dimension (I had a lot of fun playing the dark lord, Groc). Needless to say, it was about as good as you would expect from four guys and one girl with no experience other than a drama class in Jr. High.

About a year later, Nathan and I had improved our acting skills, just a little, and we made another attempt at film making called A Father’s Love. It was quite a bit better than The Necklace. We entered it into a film competition, but never heard anything back. I will put a link to A Father’s Love somewhere on this page for those who care enough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGwJTdUMnnY Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwuStwJimns Part 2.

Since then, Nathan and I have written a screenplay, and will eventually do something with it…we hope. Well, that just about sums up my movie life. Oh yeah, I also have a girlfriend whom I love very, very much, but we have very different movie tastes (she dared to call The Mist stupid!). She’s great though. My lovely Tandra.

Well, I guess I will start my first movie review. Between that sentence and this, about half an hour passed trying to think of my first movie to review. Something good, something pure. Nothing says good and pure like James Cameron’s Avatar.

The movie begins with the main character, Jake, a paraplegic, being woken from cryogenic freezing on a large space ship because he took his twin brothers place after the brother was murdered in a mugging. He travels to the planet Pandora with a large group of marines.

When he gets there, he is introduced to his brother, Tommy’s, ‘avatar’. An avatar is a mixed race between human and Na’vi, the native creatures of Pandora. The avatar’s are bred to a specific person, so Jake is able to use his brother’s avatar because they have the same genetics. The avatar’s don’t have minds of their own and are completely user run through a pod the humans hook themselves into, very similar to virtual reality.

Jake is put in his pod and synched up to his avatar and immediately runs off, due to being overly excited about being able to use his legs. He’s then stopped and is taken on a mission into the forest to study the trees. He then gets chased off and separated from the group by a Thanator (a larger panther like creature).

The bad guy then reveals that they are on the planet simply to mine all of the mineral called ‘Unobtanium’, and it sells for twenty million a kilo.

Jake is found by a female Na’vi named Neytiri and she saves him and takes him to the Na’vi and he begins to learn their ways.

I don’t want to give too much away in case you haven’t seen it yet, and in case you have, then it may be worth seeing again. I unfortunately did not have the chance to see it in 3D, but I still enjoyed myself.

There were a couple complaints I had, small plot holes. Such as one character who refuses to follow the orders of the military, but she isn’t punished for it at all and it’s never brought up. Also, another character who is a double agent for the good guys stays and spies on the bad guys, but in a futuristic military base I would imagine would have thousands of security cameras, so they should have seen him betraying the bad guys on the cameras.

The editing wasn't too bad, but the beginning felt choppy to me. The rest of the movie seemed to flow pretty well. The graphics truly were amazing. About sixty percent of the film was CGI, but it was so good that you barely notice at all.

The film though at points felt rather condensed, almost like a large book being made into a 2 and a half hour long movie. I felt a lot of it didn't get explained in the end, and that it would have made a fantastic 700 page book.

Overall it was a good movie, and it was definitely a good return of James Cameron. I give it 8 out of 10 stars.