Review: UP

Hands down, this is one of the most phenomenal animated movies I have ever seen. From animation quality, to characters, to PIXAR'S Godly render machine - everything was perfect as far as I am concerned.

Toy Story 3 Teaser Hits the Internet

Boys and girls, I proudly present the Toy Story 3 teaser.




June 18, 2010.

Snicket Sequel Still Possible?

It's been about 5 years now, but it still might be possible to see a sequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Brad Silberling, who will be premiering Land of the Lost soon, has expressed interest in the sequel for some time now, and said recently that a sequel is still on the horizon.

Also, this may one of the only sequels Jim Carrey ever does, as he expressed interest in returning to the character of Count Olaf.

Good thing too, because no one can do it like he can.

Review: THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

When I walked into The Girlfriend Experience I was not expecting it to be anything like what it is. This makes reviewing the movie particularly difficult.

The Girlfriend Experience is a pseudo-documentary about an escort girl and her clients. It argues that such relationships only work because of the money factor; it also claims that loneliness is a major issue in the lives of both the costumer and the escort girl. But it might as well be advocating the opposite point. Like human nature The Girlfriend Experience has many sides to it; its editing is purposely choppy, jumping back and forth in time and making it quite difficult to follow; like human nature The Girlfriend Experience is very hard to define.

Review: TERMINATOR SALVATION

Terminator Salvation, starring Christian Bale.

Everything in that sentence except the word "Terminator" is a lie.

The movie should be called, "Terminator Loud Explosions, starring Sam Worthington, with a special appearance by Batman".

Review: ANGELS & DEMONS

For anyone that enjoys a fantasy thriller, Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons is 100% pure fun and 90% harmless. The movie is set in a mystical and ritualistic world where two ancient organizations have waged a war for more than one thousand years. On one side we have the Vatican, the Holy See of the Catholic Church, and on the other we have the Illuminati, a group of pseudo-scientists who still think earth, wind, fire and water are the only four elements in the periodic table. The Vatican also has Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) at their disposal whose knowledge about religion, science, and history prove to be the winning factor.

Review: NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN

I enjoyed Night at the Museum because of one reason: it was fun. It was simple, enjoyable, charming, and often times very funny. The only thing it had going against it was its predictability.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian has pretty much the same qualities going for it, except it might have been a bit less funny, and bit more predictable. *Sharp inward breath*

This movie has a comedy ensemble the likes of which I have not seen in a while; Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Eugene Levy, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Alain Chabet, Ricky Gervais and Bill Hader. Not to mention some great cameos from Jonah Hill, Mindy Kaling, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson, and Thomas Lennon. Also, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the Jonas Brothers even have a cameo, and it is nothing short of delightful.

Let's start. Ben Stiller is his lovable Ben Stiller self. He has the rare talent of being able to work well off of every other actor in the movie, especially Hill, Adams, Azaria, and Chabet. He has some really funny one-liners, and to be honest, the movie would be nothing without him. Great job to Ben Stiller.

Hank Azaria, as usual, is hilarious. He plays Kahmunrah, Abe Lincoln, and The Thinker (the sculpture). Azaria just might be the greatest character actor of all time. His accent is amazing, his wit as sharp as his spear. The movie might be worth seeing just for his conversation with everyone's favorite Sith.

I have to give honorable mention to Jonah Hill as well. It's silly, but one of the reasons I didn't love the movie as much as the last one is because he was only in one scene. In it, he and Stiller banter back and forth for about five minutes of absolute comic brilliance. I would have loved to have seen one more bit with him.

Now for Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart. I am incredibly conflicted about my opinion of her character. For one, I want to say how ridiculous it is to have such a young, beautiful actress playing Amelia Earhart. I want to say that in school, I was told that Earhart was mean and grumpy all the time. However, Amy Adams plays her as smart, fun, and incredibly charming. She really is great. I want to say how ridiculous of an interpretation of her the movie had, but she was just too adorable for me to care.

This one was written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. Here's what I think: they should not be making PG movies. Balls of Fury is hilarious, because they don't have to censor themselves. Reno 911! is definitely not censored, and it's great. They need to stick to being filthy; it works much better.

As for Shawn Levy, he has yet to make a movie that really blows me away. He's clearly a very capable filmmaker, so why not try something that has more promise than films like The Pink Panther and Night at the Museum? I know he's got the talent. I'm excited for a project that has some depth to it.

So, Night at the Museum 2 gets a 3. It's not bad, it's just not good enough. Sequels should be better than the previous movie. No one wants to walk out of the theater thinking about their favorite parts of the first movie. And while it is very, very funny, its predictability brings it down. Not to mention the enormous buildup the movie has to an extremely disappointing finale.

Funny, but not the best.

First Look: The Last Airbender

Photos popped up from the teaser of M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender popped up on the internet.

Here we see Noah Ringer as Aang in an Air Nomad Temple striking a badass pose. If you look closely, you can see the arrow on his forehead.

The only other picture released was of Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel as the Fire Nations Prince Zuko. The shot released doesn't show the side of his face that would be scarred, but hopefully it is for continuity sake as it is very important in the series.

An interesting note, both of the stars pictured have a background in martial arts, though not the styles that their "bending" forms are based off of. 

The teaser trailer will be played with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen which opens later this summer and The Last Airbender opens July 2nd 2010.

Yip Yip!

FORUMS!

Hey guys.

Very, very soon, there will be forums.

Get ready.

New DC Animated Trailer: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

No, this has nothing to do with the Bale/Depp movie coming out later this year. DC's animation department has been on fire since first appearing with Superman: Doomsday and this seems to keep the tradition going. The style of each films seems to change minutely to give them their own style. They all look like the DC animated style, yet unique and existing in their own world. 

So far, only Kevin Conroy has been confirmed as Batman. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies soars on DVD and Blu-Ray in Fall of 2009.

First Sherlock Holmes Trailer Hits the Internets

Boy oh boy, I can't wait.



Is it just me, or does he seem a bit too much like an action hero?

Film Review: DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION

You must understand how painful it is to publish this review; in doing so, I am confessing that I have actually spent money and time in watching this piece of feces. Why would I even go and watch such a lowly film, you ask? Well… to be honest I am not sure maybe some nostalgic sentiment won me over… maybe I had nothing better else to do. This however it is not an excuse. Staring blankly at a wall for an hour and a half is much better use of anyone’s time than going to see Dragonball Evolution.

Trailer: DISNEY'S "THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG"

I just watched this trailer and ran around the room cheering and texting/iming it to a bunch of my friends. I think this film looks phenomenal and is going to do what 'The Little Mermaid' did to Disney back in 1989. I believe that as I have said in older posts, Disney is back now, back on top, and this is the best thing to happen to animation since PIXAR started.

If you don't believe me - watch the trailer and "Prepare to be Amazed!"

Review: EARTH

Remember those horrendously monotonous two hours of your life entitled the March of the Penguins? Where extreme boredom was interchanged with a few scenes of cuteness? Well, the good news is Disney’s Earth is not as boring; the bad news is it is just as unoriginal.

In the past few years documentaries have been able to become successful business ventures, some of them even blockbusters. Unfortunately these documentaries are usually not the smartest most insightful of this otherwise highbrow genre. Disney’s Earth falls somewhere within this category. In fact Disney was one of the first to venture into the making of documentaries. We learn this in the opening of Earth when Walt Disney himself tells the story behind Disney’s Real Life Stories, a set of documentary shorts that Disney produced until the 1960s. Unfortunately for us Disney has lost some practice since its last production of the Real Life Stories.

Earth is not an original production. In fact its footage is a collection of previous documentaries edited together into a feature length film. If you are a fan of nature documentaries you will even recognize some of the footage; I myself had a brief moment of déjà vu in the scene with the lions sharing a watering hole with the elephants. So I guess this narrows down the technical aspects of the film to how well it is put together. In Earth this is particularly important since its ambition is to encompass all of the Earth’s ecosystems under two hours. It achieves this by using the seasons as a narrative device. The film begins in the Artic during spring then move down through Africa until it reaches Antarctica during its winter, when it is summer in the north, and then it traces its steps back up until it is winter in the Artic. Through out this we follow a family of polar bears, a heard of elephants, some humpback whales and everything else we meet along the way.

Earth’s ambition in covering all the planet’s ecosystems is both its strongest point and its weakest point. It works because it keeps the film from getting too monotonous but it fails in giving the film cohesiveness.

Finally documentaries are supposed to make the audience care about something real. In the case of Earth it wants us to care about the Earth or rather nature in particular, but dozens of documentaries make the exact same points every year. For everyone who has seen a nature documentary Earth will feel as a “been there, done that” and for those who have seen one in Imax it is more of a “seen better”. I suppose the film’s target audiences are the little ones, who will enjoy seeing a nature documentary like this for the first time on the big screen. If this is the case it is likely to be very enjoyable.

Oh the bloopers during the credits are highly enjoyable and I recommend staying and watching.

Review: STAR TREK

I have good news for everybody. This is absolutely one of the best films of the year.

This reboot of the Star Trek franchise covers all of its bases without retconning anything that has already happened. In fact, it acknowledges it at one point. Everybody knows of Leonard Nemoy, the original Spock, appearing in the film. It is more than just a cameo. He actually plays an integral part to the plot.

Starship Enterprise on the Horizon

All right...

Since no one wants to be the nerd that enters this realm, I'll do it. By now you probably know that a reboot of the Star Trek series is coming out soon. In fact, it's coming out this upcoming Friday, May 8th. And I have to tell you internets, it looks exceptionally badass.

I know! I know! Admitting that you want to see a Trek movie is slightly less painful than having an ingrown toenail, but only slightly. I feel your pain!

But don't lie, from the trailers you've become curious, even excited about the new film and its outrageous looking special effects. You are tempted to go and see whether producer/director (and co-producer of L O S T) J.J. Abrams can really pull this off. The tagline, "this isn't your dad's Star Trek" has you seriously considering it. Well, let me be the first to say that it's ok, be freaking excited.

This movie looks like so much fun. If you haven't gotten the chance, go here and watch a couple of the trailers. I defy you to tell me that this movie doesn't tug at you. No William Shatner or Patrick Stewart, no Wrath of Khan for this generation. We're getting a whole new batch of cookies here guys in the form of mind blowing special effects, action and maybe even some sexy time! Take that 1979!

Sure the guy they have lined up to play James T. Kirk (Chris Pine from Smokin' Aces who is also slated to play Hal Jordan/The Green Lantern in the film adaptation) was probably cast because he'll pull the ladies in, but he still looks like he could bring the heat too. The new direction on the character certainly looks cool. Then we have Zachary Quinto, whom the world knows as Sylar from Heroes, playing Spock for half the movie. He's a great actor and he certainly looks like Spock, so I'm looking for him to step up here. But you want to know who is playing Spock in his prime in the second half of the movie? Leonard Nimoy himself. Hell yes. Even if you hate the old Trek, everyone knows Nimoy is the man.

Then we have one of the most entertaining actors in the world, Simon Pegg, replacing James Doohan as Scotty. Imagine a Sargeant Nicholas Angel/Shaun (of the Dead) hybrid running amock on the Starship Enterprise. I literally couldn't imagine a more delightful concept if I tried. Plus we got John Cho (Harold of Harold and Kumar) playing Sulu, Karl Urban (Eomer from The Lord of the Rings trilogy) playing Dr. McCoy, Eric Bana playing Nero (the villain), Ben Cross playing Spock's dad and Winona Ryder playing Spock's mom. This looks like a winner to me.

The thing is that this movie would be hard to really screw up. Think about it, Star Trek isn't exactly Donnie Darko in terms of themes or emotional depth. It's about spaceships blowing shit up and a man with pointy ears and intense eyebrows pinching people to death. Special effects and half way decent acting can make something so simple a lot of fun, and good acting and a good script could make it amazing. It's almost like a win-win. Either Abrams delivers a film that blows us away like Transformers did, with out-of-control visuals, or it gives us that plus great substance a la Iron Man. What do we have to lose?

The Independent AD Doc: Final Trailer

Hey kiddos,

So as you probably already know, I am a giant fan of the late Arrested Development, and the good people over at the Independent Arrested Development Documentary have released the final trailer to their project.

I have been emailing with the guys back and forth for almost a year now, and they are just great. Just a couple of fans, just like me, and they want nothing more than to spread the joy that the show was, and raise some education about it. It's also important to note that the entire thing is self-funded, and completely out of their own pockets.

So here's the final trailer to their project. Be sure to check their website (in our affiliates bar) and check the film out when it's released.

Can't wait!

Review: X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

Well it's not Iron Man, but this movie definitely delivers more punch (or claw... sorry cheesy I know, but I couldn't resist) than X-3.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine naturally tells the story of everyone's favorite piece of man, Logan aka Wolverine, and his rise to the hero we know him as in the first X-Men. For the purpose of satisfying the three specific categories of audience members let me break this down in three parts from this point.