Lets get what I hated about the movie out of the way. The pacing of the movie was just horrible. This movie could have been edited to be at least 10 minutes shorter, and some scenes that were supposed to add drama just ended up being boring and lets hurry up moments. I also did not have to see Beijing as a character, seriously I already saw enough of the birds-nest and the cube during the Olympics. Jaden Smith is too young for the part even though he did an excellent job with the part, the kid just looked way too young for the situations he was in.

Now with that out of the way, the movie was a lot better than I had expected. The martial arts were solid and Jackie Chan was an excellent teacher. The story was truly reinvented, and not simply because it was taken across the globe instead of across the country. While you recognize scenes and tons of little tips of the hat at the old movie, this movie stands on its own.

Smith is an excellent actor for his age. I did not think he could carry a movie on his own but the kid is great. He has a lot more charisma than Daniel San. Nobody knows how the future will turn out for this kid as an actor, but he does not seem to lack talent.

Even though I will always love the original because it was part of my childhood, this movie will probably make more sense to this generation. If you are a fan of the old one, it is respectful to it and it does not try to replace it. I believe it is worth the price of watching it in the multiplex and it might just make you feel like a kid again.

Since I did love the movie, the first thing is to let you know what I did not like. Marketing for this movie was great but can be confusing for parents. Do NOT be fooled into thinking that this is something that kids can watch. The themes and action is very adult in nature. I saw way too many kids in the movie and it made me question parents sanity when they expose their kids to that much blood.

There is a back story to the movie that could have made an excellent movie all on its own and it was beautifully presented. I like the art, style and tone of this movie. I am not into dark comedies, or at least I was not… this movie executes that in a very crafty way. You don’t love the characters or hate them, you just watch them interact and tell a story full of laughs and emotions. Escapism at its best.

There are plenty of surprising moment in the movie and that is what makes it great. I love watching movies where I cannot predict the plot from scene to scene but just simply sit back and wait for the next surprise. This movie was full of that.

The acting was superb and I wish I would not spoil half of the movie by telling you who my favorite character was, I am sure you will figure it out once you see it. The movie is left open for a sequel but I am sure this was just a one movie type of deal. Go watch it before it goes off the theaters… or catch it as soon as it gets to the dollar show! That would probably make it even better.

The story is not a bad one, just poorly executed. The pace of the movie seems to move a different speeds making it almost feel like several different films spliced into one. While I do get that the different “worlds” are supposed to feel different, the movie pace just does not seem to make them all feel part of the same universe even if they are different realities within the same.

I did not hate the movie, it was entertaining and I went into it with lowered expectations. Just like GIJoe, the movie has pretty effects that would make a kid say, cool and awesome; with the big difference that this movie is not for a kid.

The character build lacks flavor making everything almost feel too formulaic. That would not be a problem if the movie was not addressing some issues that are relevant to our times, such as social disconnect due to technology and violence in video games. I don’t think the movie deserve the name gamer, since it was really not about the gamer at all.

Acting was probably what made this movie not a single star, or even a no star. While the dialogue was not the best, all the actor did their best to play roles. Even Luda did a good job with his role. Dexter was good as the villain, even funny at times. The stars earned their paycheck, however there seemed to be no budget for the rest of the actors because everyone bellow the main roles felt like an extra that got to say a line or two.

If you want to get to see some free boobies without actually filling your computer with viruses, this is an ok rental. Just don’t rent it for a family movie night thinking that the dude from 300 is going to be in a cool action movie.

This piece of work is truly movie magic. Sure, the story might be over simplistic, the theme and many movie elements borrowed but as far as direction Avatar will become a masterpiece.

The colors and textures in the movie don’t feel like CGI even if the colors are extremely unnatural. He managed to create a tropical paradise that looks even more spectacular at night.

I had never seen a 3D movie before and since we had the option we decided to pay a little more. It was absolutely worth it. The action sequences are as excellent as the ones in Terminator.

It is not a short movie, but the time went by extremely fast. The movie might have been a little slow at times but you cannot notice since you are drooling at the amazing imagery in front of you.

There is not much I can say about the movie or the story without pretty much giving it away. So I will just tell you to go watch it, enjoy it, and be truly entertained.

2012 fails at everything listed above. The only saving grace this movie has is that there are quirky laughs and the CGI effects were amazing. Even after that I did not want humanity to win the battle, I just wanted the movie to be over already because in the first action scene I had already gone “come on, that’s just BS.” When this movie makes it to Netflix I might rent it just to sit there and count how many BS moments there were; heck it might even make a good drinking game.

The acting was dismal at best and most characters were either annoying or too caricatured. There was no way of relating to any of them because they were all poorly developed. Trying to make all the different mini plots into one central plot felt forced. It made me wonder how many times they had to rework the script to make it into a movie because it just did not feel cohesive.

The movie has everything that is wrong with Hollywood wrapped into a one CGI package. I guess a blockbuster needs to be an action packed, tear-jerker commentary on humanity’s selfishness all into one.

If you are a sucker for good CGI, this might be worth the money for you to see it on a big screen. If you want to see a movie about the end of the world, go rent The Day the Earth Stood Still. If you do decide to stomach this at your local multiplex, make sure you go into expecting to believe on Santa having flying reindeer. I only call it believable to a 5 year old, and even then he might call BS a couple of times.

Apartheid—meaning separateness in Afrikaans (which is cognate to the English apart and -hood)—was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.

Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times, but apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. New legislation classified inhabitants into racial groups (black, white, coloured, and Indian), and residential areas were segregated by means of forced removals. From 1958, Blacks were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands or bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of whites.

Good movies about Aliens expose some of the worse traits and weaknesses in humans. They also highlight how we have redeeming qualities. Movies that move people to tears are a lot more common than movies that make you feel uncomfortable. I dislike violence towards children of any form, even when it is just simply alluded to. District 9 is a very violent movie and not for people with weak stomachs, certainly not for children.

I have huge issues with shaky camera work. I understand the realism that it tries to convey, but that was one of my biggest concerns going into this movie. I have really bad motion sickness when it comes to movie and video games with crappy graphics. I discovered how bad it can be from a movie after watching The Blair Witch project. It protected me watching Cloverfield, but this movie had a trailer that made me curious enough to want to watch it. So when some friends put a movie and dinner night together and when they offered this as one of the movie choices we jumped at the opportunity.

I am not a Peter Jackson fanboy. I did love LoTR but disliked the horrible mess that King Kong was. District 9 more than makes up for it and really becomes a feather on his cap on making things that are not real seem very believable.

The movie begins looking more like a documentary. The main character is someone that you cannot quite like or dislike. It almost feels like he is being set up to die any time. It is hard to tell when or if there is a transition from movie style to documentary and back. It feels voyeuristic at moments but then in a second you are immersed into the story.

The movie is social and political commentary at its best, but the most important commentary in my opinion is about humanity. If you like history you will see highlighted many of the atrocities that humanity has committed on itself, the kicker for me was how easily justifiable this becomes once humanity is removed from the equation. It is sad that still in this day and age so many topics from the genocides in Africa to immigration people so easily remove humanity from the debate.

Our ill fated “hero” begins partaking on the removal of aliens from District 9 to their new more concentration camp like location, District 10. The aliens just showed up one day, and after neither doom nor salvation came from their mother ship we broke in to find out malnourished people that became earths refugees.

Everything that is wrong with people “relocation” in various forms in our world was highlighted during this part of the movie. From the dubious legality of “property” to the arrogance of talking down to people that do not understand “our” system. It was specially graphic to see that killing other beings was a matter of stepping over the bodies and picking up the pieces of your fallen comrades.

Then a single event highlighted by stupidity by the main character sends everything in motion. From that point forward the supense and action don’t slow down until the end.

The acting which at first seemed very weak ends up being the right tone for everything. We do sound that stupid when discussing things we either don’t care about or don’t quite understand. As humans we are lazy enough to be spoon fed information and take it as reality until the moment it affects us directly. While there will be no Oscar performances here, it fit the movie perfectly and did not detract from the story.

The CGI work was some of the most amazing I have ever seen. I never once thought of CGI the whole time I was watching the movie because everything was a working part. One small spoiler is that after watching this movie a Mech Commander movie HAS TO BE MADE! We now have the technology, somebody make it happen.

This movie is so good and has so many different elements from psychology, international affairs to history that I could probably put a curriculum together and teach a whole semester just based on everything it talks about. Not everyone is going to love this movie because it is very grotesque at times, but I highly recommend it. You might want to learn a thing or two about human history after, if anything it will make you think about how “human” we are.

When I saw Star Wars when I was a kid my mind was expanded, my imagination ran wild and all I wanted was for that little training lazer ball thingie to be real and me to be able to be trained during my Jedi training by it with Yoda supervising. When the prequels were about to come out on theater I had great expectations, one of the biggest mistakes you can do when going to a movie, and the movie was a total letdown. I learned later in life that transformers was just meant as an infomercial with a story to sell toys, but to have Star Wars become the same thing was pretty sad.

When it comes to movies, I sometimes set myself up for letdowns. I have been pretty excited to see what they did with Star Trek since I wrote about the cast being announced back in 07. I knew some of the actors, and was very excited to see what Zachari Quinto and Simon Pegg were going to do with their roles.

Since watching the Star Wars remakes I had started to get used to the idea that I was not able to tap into my inner child to enjoy movies anymore. Even the latest Indiana Jones did not excite my imagination as much as the older ones did. I thought that the Matrix and Blade were going to be the last movies that I would get truly excited about and chucked Transformers coolness to pure sentimentalism for one of my favorite morning cartoons. I figured I would never get goose bumps during a movie again, and that my inner child only came out to play video games.

Then I watched Star Trek this weekend.

Saying that this movie blows StarWars latest trilogy out of the galaxy would be an understatement for the ages. This is entertainment in its best form. Great writing, Great acting, Great special effects… the Summer blockbuster is BACK. I will not talk about the movie or its plot, because you deserve to see it untainted! go see it this week, go to the IMAX, go and experience what I think would be one of the best movies of the year! What are you waiting for?

If you are never going to watch this movie, then continue reading because I am about to tear it apart… along with probably some of the comic book and probably make a couple of enemies along the way… but hey, I voted for Obama and that already lost me friends, so what is another couple just because I thought a movie was completely ghey.

The superhero genre is getting a little over saturated. I think Dare Devil and Electra started to show us that, and well from then on we have seen a series of crap where the only golden nugget has been The Dark Knight. Everything else as movies has been a pile of crap, and Watchmen seriously felt like stepping on steaming poo.

I would like to start by what I did like. I think that Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs / Rorschach is impeccable. He kept the movie flowing and I was waiting to see what he was going to say next every single time that he appeared on screen. His character was the only one that seem to have not only depth but any type of likability. Even as a very flawed human being he was still able to be someone you wanted to survive, but he ended up getting blown to pieces because of the greater good.

For a second imagine a world where Superman does not put Lex Luthor in jail, but rather becomes his ally because he thinks humanity is so flawed that what is 15 million people’s death if billions can be saved in the future. In the same train of thought imagine that Batman is not as good of a detective he is, but more of an accountant type that can’t get it up for a beautiful woman, he has to first take the batwing for as spin to regain his manhood that was left hanging along with his cape. The joker is a rapist that is actually allowed to be part of the good guys. All over this comic we see caricatures of other beloved heroes. It is almost like their flaws are being inflated and the painted on top of a canvas mirroring our current paranoia and divisiveness. It is not that the heroes have gone bad, it is more like the heroes were never good.

I get the fact that people live violence and sex. I also think that there is such a thing as too much blood and violence. The blowing up of human bodies is just not something I enjoy seeing, along with attempted rape, bones broken and being exposed through skin and child dismemberment. It did not seem to add anything to the story and the fight scenes just seemed like an excuse to poor some more blood on the camera. In a world already so full of destruction I want to go see a movie that entertains me, not a movie that depresses me.

Every single character is flatter than the pages of the graphic novel that they came from. I am sure the true fans of the series would say that I am missing the point or the satire in the content, but trust me, the package it was delivered on was pretty horrible. Talking about packages, I never though i would see a movie where there would be 4 blue penises on the same frame. If you thought 300 was homoerotic, well there are about 300 frames of penises in this movie. When there was for I had to resist the urge to yell out loud, come on, enough of the blue penises. While there were a couple of bare breasts in the movie, they did not make up for the penis overload, not even one vajajay.

The special effects throughout the movie felt wrong. The camera angles tried too hard to be comic book frames. When the most believable part of an alternate universe is that Nixon stayed in power for three terms, you have serious issues. To me the movie was pretty bad, and it was only somewhat entertaining. I would not even consider this a rental unless you enjoy looking at mans buttocks and full frontal over and over and over.

Mixing a fictional story with the crude reality affecting the world right now would be impossible to execute, but this film did it. The most amazing thing is that it did it while being entertaining, beautifully shot and impeccably casted.

I loved the use of color on the movie Hero that made the frames almost look like paitings, I also was taken back by how real City of God portrayed poverty and social inequality. I never imagined that a director could create a film where every scene could be made into a poster and hung in a gallery as a photography exhibit and also paint such a clear picture of India.

I know India is a big country and trying to say that a movie can give you an idea of what goes on over there is pretentious. The globalization theme has made me interested in India beyond liking its food and watching National Geographic documentaries. Almost every single aspect of how much India is changing is touched on in the movie. The social commentary is subtle and intelligent. From everything I have written it would seem like this is a heavy movie, but that is the best part of it, the movie is not.

Even though the movie takes on themes like poverty, globalization, and entertainment, in its core this is a coming of age story. Growing up we learn things that we use later on in life. This movie cleverly mixes that idea into how moments in your life can be used to win a game show. Not just any game show, but the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

I hope all the scattered thoughts that I have posted here spark your curiosity, because it’s hard to talk about the movie without giving too much away.

Before anyone wants to take my man card away I want to say that, one I am back to about 100% so I can probably hurt ya, and two, next Monday we are going to go drink beer and see football. Yesterday I got tickets for the midnight showing of twilight for Bea and I go see it. While I was being nursed back to health Bea gave me the first book in the series to read and I was hooked.

Simple writing, compelling story, almost comic book like action got me hooked. I ended up reading all of the books in probably a weeks time. The characters all have some flaw that even when they are immortals make them very human.

But I guess everyone wants to hear about the movie… and I am going to have to be a harsh critic. As a standalone movie, it fails. To fully appreciate the plot and understand the characters behavior you have to read the book first.

A movie goer will be dissapointed by a movie that will feel very slow in some parts and then too fast in others without any transition.

That said, the movie was cast flawlesly. The actors do an excellent job at delivering lines that everyone that has read the book was waiting to hear. There was attention to detail and many of the locations looked very close to what I had imagined them. However it did not have the wow effect that the Harry Potter universe did when the first movie came out.

Bella, played by Kristen Stewar was amazing. She played a very complex character who has the least amount of good lines since most of the book happens through her narration. She comes off likeable without being cheesy, a real person rather than the cartoon most trouble teenagers seem to look like in todays movies. She is a great actress because even though you have seen her in plenty of movies, each character stands on its own. She was in Zathura, Jumper and Panic Room.

Edward played by Robert Pattison who you probably first saw in Harry Potter playing Cedric Diggory plays the perfect vampire from the books lore. He has the best dialogue which he used to stop the hearts of every girl in that theater. I was amazed that there was actually no screaming during the movie, kuddos to all the tweens.

Taylor Lautner played a good Jacob, but his role does not really develop until later on the books. I hope this kid goes through a huge growth spur and can play the rest of the movies which I am pretty sure they are going to make.

The special effects in the movie worked quite well. Visually it did its job. The biggest misstep was the music. Even though the score was not bad, there were plenty of opportunities missed to use excellent songs. I think it would have made the slow not drag so much.

I give the movie two stars because the source material is some of the best I have ever read. Once you read the book, see the movie, it will be very entertaining. If you have not read the book, then be ready to feel like you are missing tons of stuff when you watch it.

From the previous I had high hopes for this comedy. I thought that they were funny, but not too SNL like. I was disappointing when I started watching it and saw more movie cliches than actual comedy. I would bother with trying to save the spoilers if I actually thought this movie was somewhat enjoyable, but trust me, you will want to just turn it off. If it was not because both Bea and I had long weeks and were kind of trying to just kick back and relax, we would have probably turned it off and went to do something else.

The problem with the movie is not that it is too predictable, or that it feels like a bunch of SNL skits tied together. The problem is that the characters are never people you could connect with. The moment you were trying to feel for one of them, the punchline to some joke would make them feel too cartoonish to actually be real people.

I am not a Steve Martin fan, I don’t quite dislike him, but I have never found him extremely funny; however his little role in this movie was perfect. He was cartoonish enough that you never took him seriously so he ended up being the only character that really worked.

Do not rent or buy this DVD, please wait for it to come out on cable and maybe then give it a try… but trust me, after a half an hour you will want to turn the channel.

I have started to listing to a variety and I find that some of them are not that funny, and even though they are not bombing on their shows, they are not getting that much of a reactions. If those dudes can make it, maybe I can too.

My wife has a pretty good sense of humor, and enjoys mine. It started as an inside jokes that some of our every day life occurrences were going to become part of my stand up. The more I said it as a comeback, them more it started to sound like a possibility. I mentioned it to a couple of friends and they said, do it… go to a local place and give it a try. One even said he will look for me and hold me to do it one of these days.

Without even knowing it, I have been working on material in my head for some time now. And unlike most comedians, I am not afraid of having someone else steal it, or do a version of it. I think that if you get bigger laughs from someone else’s jokes its cool… you do have to make it your own though. So with that thought in mind I present you my first bit.

Do you guys like reality TV?
I used to like it, but now I have realized that reality TV really does not exist. With most shows actually being scripted… I know hard to believe that they actually manipulate people into doing or saying things for money. I actually want to create a Reality TV channel… I know what you are thinking, there already is a Reality TV channel, but the one on right now is not my Reality TV channel.

I will have a show that is a group of friends trying to make it through their 20s, and don’t tell me there is already a show called friends or its most recent clone, how I met your mother, I know, I have seen them and they are not reality. Neither of the shows have a token minority friend, sure they all date minorities to show they are cool, but none of them actually have a friend of a different color… and while we are on the subject, when the being Jewish become a color? I hardly think that not eating a tasty animal like pork puts you on the same level with us “Chicharron” eaters, most Jewish people can keep their last name a secret and still pass for “white.”

Getting back to my real friends show, besides having real multiculturalism in my show, there will be real arguments. Friends will lose friends over money not being paid. Friends will help each other move and destroy and build backyard structures. Friends will forget their wallets when time to pay for dinner will come. When friend date each other the whole group has to break apart and take sides, and the baby mama drama will be real.

My reality TV channel will also have real commercials. None of these commercials that show beaches, flower fields and puppies, I am talking about real life. This is how I would advertise products, come with me.

A kid is trowing a huge tantrum and resists to go to bed, at first you would think I have already seen this in another channel, they are just advertising their Super Nanny show, but just wait. The kid is now running around crying and refusing to go to bed… then suddenly the kid stumbles and passes out… Voice over comes on, Super Drowsy Children Benadryl, because you also deserve a good night of sleep.

Real advertisement, for real life…

So what do you guys think? funny? I have a couple of more things for the bit and it is a work in progress, but give me some feedback.

I am sure that the book is more complete, but the movie script seemed like someone had rolled the dice of a movie plot game. Think of the movie guy’s voice and use his voice to read the following. Two sides fight a battle through history, a neglected child who is bullied as a kid turn out to have powers, from growing up in a small town to a big city, a new hero is born.

I was hoping that Heyden Christensen was going to redeem himself for making Darth Vader uncool, but I think he is not as good of an actor as I had hoped. I first saw him in life as a house, and he showed some promise there. It could just be that the script was not that good, but I have not read the book and might be just giving the material too much credit.

The problem is that the main character is not a hero, the characters are very one dimensional, the plot is at best confusing. Samuel Jackson used to be one of my favorite actors because I thought you could deliver a monologue like no other, but since the Star War retooling he has been giving crappy lines. In this movie he says the same line at least tree times, “Only God Should have the power.” I am almost sure that this is significant in the book, as probably the sacrificial knife to kill jumpers is, but you never get the information on the movie.

What did work was the action. The special effects are done very well and never really distracting. Besides a car scene there are no moments where you go, that’s BS. The fight scenes leave you wanting more, and overall the movie smells of sequel. I think that if you can find a cheap theater to go watch it at, it is not a bad movie. As long as you expect just action and no real plot, y ou will have a good time.

Daniel just told me about this happening and it made me feel really sad. I don’t remember being this sad when Chris Farley died under also the suspicion of drug overdose. I was living in Chicago at the time and felt almost detached from the whole thing. It was not until the whole documentary about his life came out that I felt a little more connected to the story.

I first remember Ledger from 10 things I hate about you where he played kind of a loner that steals the hearth of the chick that wants nothing to do with boys because of a broken heart. The Movie was a great mixture of a love story and a teen movie without making you want to puke.

Ledger moved on to being in the Patriot which I thought was a good role, and then did the quirky A knights tale which was ok. I had not seen another one of his movies and I am not interested on broke back mountain, but I was very excited to see him as the Joker in the previews for the new movie.

I am sad that his life ended so short because I found him to be a good actor. I am sad for his little daughter that will grow up without knowing a father. I am also sad to lose another great actor to drugs, but it seems like it is not an uncommon thing. Rest in Peace.