This weekend we streamed 2 movies, and I guess now I know why I did not pay full ticket price to see them at the theaters.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (**)

While this movie was entertaining, it really seemed to be missing something. It was like eating a pie that had flavor, but with mushy crust.

The acting was great. There was really nobody that was too annoying and what was supposed to be dramatic was, what was supposed to be funny also was. The CGI monkeys were mostly believable and did not interrupt the flow of the move for me. Neither did the action. Every character was compelling in some way.

It is a lot to ask for a CGI monkey to be the centerpiece of the movie, but Cesar delivered. He did not seem to want to be a bad monkey, but he was… oh wait, he is not a monkey, he is a chimp! I can already hear the cries all over the ape loving blog-sphere.

It is a little on the violent side to watch with small children, so I would not call it a family movie. It does have potential though, it does make you wonder if there are more ape movies that can be made. I would probably watch another one, but not holding my breath.

I would rent it, but I don’t think I would ever watch it again.

Moneyball (***)

Ah, Brad Pitt. While the dude is still married to a girl I had a crush on when I watched hackers, everything past Billy Bob is damaged goods, I cannot hold that against him. He is a good actor and I seriously did not see him, I saw a very crazy GM trying to run a baseball team with no money to spend. I could relate with a dude trying to accomplish the impossible with no resources… I do work in IT.

The acting was not bad, the baseball seemed like the average movie representation. The movie was more about the man than the game.

While it is kind of a “feel good” movie, it does not make you feel very good. It has flashes of awesome when it tries to make you look at the love for the game, but it reminded me that football seems to be more America’s sport now than baseball.

This one is a kid friendly movie, but maybe nostalgia makes me want to share the older movies from the 80s rather than this one.

I rank it a little better than apes because I think I like baseball better than CGI apes. Overall they are both cheap rentals that should waste a couple of hours of your day.

So what have you been streaming lately?

Zoe Saldana plays a young woman who witnessed her parents’ murder as a child in Bogotá and grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the monster responsible for her parents’ death

My Mom, Bea and I discussed the film over dinner on Saturday. We laughed and concluded that it will be cool to see a “Colombiana” portrayed as an all kind of baddass assassin.

I have always tried to be careful when Colombia is portrayed in a public light. I even saw the Colombian coffee growers being sue happy over a cartoon as somewhat of a publicity stunt. Boycotting a movie over the use of the name of the country and location seems ridiculous. As ridiculous as a Mexican saying that they would not see “El Marichi” with Antonion Banderas.

Zoe Saldana is all kinds of cool. You might not recognize her, but she was the main chick in avatar and also played the crap out of Uhura. However, I though she was cool since she played Eva in Center Stage… don’t hate, watch the movie is actually a good movie. I want to see her more as an action Hero than Angelina Jolie… and she was one of my favorite actresses in the past, but I think Zoe will be awesome as an assassin. That she is Colombian is no big deal to me at all.

I have come to expect Hollywood to portray Colombia as a place that you have to ride with chickens and pigs both in the plane and public transportation to get around. Heck, even “Colombian-Americans” think that way the first time they go visit the country if they are going for the first time.

If anyone watches this movie and it cements for them their view of Colombia, well, we are dealing with the same level of intelligence of someone that thinks every Russian is in the KGB and thinks that Meesha was in Argentina simply looking for other secret operatives.

Its a movie people, go see it if you like action. Try to be entertained by it. I am going to see it, I don’t expect anyone with half a brain to ever think of Colombia as a one dimensional place that is all about violence. Isn’t that place Mexico now? I keed I keed!

I guess I will start with the disclaimer that GL happens to be one of my favorite superheroes and I went into the movie like a total fanboy. I did not wear my GL T-shirt but I did have in the back of my head all of the comics I have read and how they could just screw the movie up. I did not go in wanting to hate it, just have a good time but without a lot of expectations.

I stayed away from reviews. I know how harsh some critics can be of a superhero movie that is going to be CGI heavy. Maybe it is the fan in me, but the CGI was never forced and even when I wanted to kind of be a little dissapointed about how Parallax looked, I continued to be engaged. There is a lot of CGI but it helps the story along. Sure I can go back and take it apart now, but the reality is that while watching the movie I was just simply entertained.

The movie went by way too quickly and well, there is a lot of information to digest. It is a new universe to many and I think this is a great way to introduce people and leave the door open for a franchise. I think the casting was great for this one and hope that there is some continuity when they do the sequels. The movie did deviate a little from the story that I thought they were going to use, but it made the story flow and a non comic geek would probably never really care.

We opted for the non 3D version since the last couple of movies we watched with that technology seemed to take more way from the movie than enhance it. I will be curious to hear what the people that saw it on 3D think of the CGI work.

Even though I think going to the movies it is starting to be impractical when it comes to money (10 bucks is just ridiculous for 1 ticket.) I was glad I saw this movie on a big screen. My only regret is that I did not get to enjoy it with XO; but I think it was a blessing since I could not handle someone else besides my wife drooling over Ryan Reynolds.

Sinestro will be an excellent foe in the next movie, I cannot wait to go see it.

For years those close to me have heard me talk about how relationships and connections with other people is what is really important. When a connection is severed or a bond it lost, I really feel it. The movie I AM really puts things in very simple language and truly makes you think

So many people spend countless hours trying to obtain wealth and status only to feel empty in the end. I know understand the need for money to survive but there has to be a point of balance where getting more “stuff” should yield to being a better person and capable of sharing with others. I don’t think is all about giving your money away either, but just being truly able to share yourself with others.

The wife and I just spent a wonderful weekend with friends from out of town and their kids. It was an amazing time connecting, sharing and just being happy. It is amazing what can happen when people are open to create and awknowledge the importance of connections and how that is what we really are all about as humans. It is not about the individualism of “I have to be first!”

While all those subjects are something that can make a series of post, what I want to share is something very simple. After watching the whole movie about wealth and economic policy and very rich people being very arrogant …. the whole movie was made worth while by a Taxi driver. The guy said some things that I wanted to share with everyone that read this, mostly because it spoke to me in a very real way.

This is totally paraphrasing the guy’s word but the ultimate message is there. After Jamie lets him know that he is driving someone from the Johnson & Johnson family the word rich seems to trigger something in the Cabby’s head and he says simply…

I am rich because from my family I learned;

The following qualities are worth more than money and you cannot buy,

My Family taught me how to love people for who they are, not who I want them to be

Taught me how to get along with people,

Taught me to treat people how I want to be treated,

Treat each person for who they are and not to clump them together because we are all different in our own way.

The dude in a handfull of lines defined true personal wealth. I still hold the same feeling I did a while back, that some of the happiest people I have ever met or interacted with did not have a dime to their name… and yet so many, with so much are constantly so unhappy.

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.