Trailer: Agora

This looks fresh and interesting, a period piece about intelligent woman.

Short Films into Features

There are two recent movies, one has been released, one will be in the next couple weeks, that have been made from short films. District 9 was an extension of Alive in Joburg and 9 was of 9. ;) I've embeded both shorts and the trailers for the features below if you would like to check them out. Hm, they both have 9's in them too.



Alive in Joburg



District 9



9 (Short) Pretty intriguing for no diologue. The style of the characters has been called "stitchpunk." ;)



9 Feature Trailer

Movies I've seen since UP

Wow. I have been so bad about updating this. I don't think anyone reads it anyway so no big loss. Let's see...

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen: Long, more of the same, definitely could pick up on the racial undertones, not as funny. Just ok. 3 out of 5 stars.
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: More of the same. Cute, enjoyable. Ethan was awake during this so I feel like I missed a lot trying to get him to sleep. 4 out of 5 stars.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Lots of fun. I hate how they changed the Harry/Ginny relationship. The other changes I didn't mind. Not my favorite, but I think I need to watch it again to make a better opinion. 4 out of 5 stars.
GI Joe Rise of the Cobra: Just ok. Nothing special but it wasn't awful. 3 out of 5 stars.
The Time Traveler's Wife: Good, not as good as the book but a fair representation. The minor characters got left out a lot. I enjoyed this one. 4 out of 5 stars.
District 9: Great Sci Fi. Go see it. 5 out of 5 stars.

Movies I will have to wait and see on DVD: The Hangover, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Moon, The Proposal, Public Enemies, The Ugly Truth, Ponyo, 500 Days of Summer...

Review: Up

Karl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asner) ties a bazillion balloons to his house to go on a long put off trip to South America and finds Russell, a Wilderness Explorer, has hitched along for the ride.

Excellent movie...so much more than a kid's movie. It made me bawl... Ah, but still so fun. I didn't see it in 3-D, but it was still awesome to look at. Very fun and cute.

My favorite parts of the movie:

Russell
Dug
Karl's life story montage
dysfunctional voice changer

5 out of 5 stars.

Trailer: New Moon

Teaser Trailer: Toy Story 3

Review: Angels and Demons

The sequel/prequel to "The Da Vinci Code" finds Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) entangled in another mystery involving the Catholic church.

A fair rendering of Dan Brown's novel. Neat to see the Rome locations, makes me want to travel there. Very dialogue-y, but how else are you going to explain the historical stuff. They also changed a big part of the ending, but I guess it didn't matter too much unless you've read the book.

My favorite parts of the movie:

locales

3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Terminator Salvation

In a time after "Judgement Day" John Conner (Christian Bale) and the resistance are fighting against Skynet to keep the human race alive.

Another great looking movie! The story was ok. I read on the internet that the original script ending had Skynet winning and everyone dying. Ballsy... I might have liked it better that way, but I bet most people wouldn't. In general, the masses enjoy the "good guy" winning.

I am not sure what the point of having Bryce Dallas Howard in the movie as Kate Conner was. Her part was nothing, too bad really. The Arnold "cameo" was dumb, should have left that out too. I've never seen any of the other 3 movies, just bits and pieces of all of them. I knew enough that I wasn't really lost though, and I could pick out the famous lines they utilized from the other movies.

My favorite parts of the movie:

Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin)
the apocalyptic look

4 out of 5 stars.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Larry (Ben Stiller) discovers the contents of the Museum are being sent to the Smithsonian for storage and resumes his post as night guard to save them.

Fair family fare. :) The story's none to spectacular and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), the love interest's, part ends oddly. Her 30's speak is cute, and it's still fun to see the things at the Smithsonian come to life. Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch appear. What else could you ask for?

My favorite parts of the movie:

Hank Azaria is great as the bad guy
Lincoln
Clint Howard at Mission Control
Octavius' ride

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Star Trek

The Romulan Nero (Eric Bana) is set on getting revenge on Spock and the newly christened USS Enterprise and her crew are sent to stop him.

Awesome movie! Wonderfully shot, some of the scenes are jaw dropping. A great blend of action, drama, comedy, and enough of a nod to the old series to placate this Trekker/Trekkie. All of the actors did a wonderful job with the characters. It's hard to pick out a favorite!!! I've seen it twice, it's so good!

My favorite parts of the movie:

Uh, all of it!
Kirk's fake sickness
Scotty's lines
the Doctor's fears
Spock's human-ness

5 out of 5 stars.

Review: Xmen Origins: Wolverine

An origin story for Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from bone claws to adamantium.

It was ok. It lost my attention a couple of times which is saying a lot because I love going to movies. The story was interesting. The action seemed like stuff I had seen before. The tie ins were alright. I enjoyed the casting. (Two people from Lost were in it! ;) I HATED THE FAT SUIT. UGH. WHY??? On the whole, it was meh. I'd probably watch it again though, mildly entertaining.

4 out of 5 stars.

Two Tom Movies

Taken starring Liam Neeson. An fair story, trafficking women is not really my cup of tea. It was fun to see Liam kick some butt.

3 out of 5 stars.



Fast and Furious starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. This is the forth one of these I've seen in the theater. Mediocre at best. Better than 2 or 3.

2 out of 5 stars.

Review: Four Christmases

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) reluctantly have four Christmases with each of their divorced parents.

Fun, silly comedy. Nothing too serious here. In fact, the whole climax at the end was kind of anti-climatic. It felt slightly unbelievable and very rushed. But really it wasn't about the end, it was about all the crazy stuff that happened getting there. Great supporting cast including Kristen Chenoweth, Jon Favreau, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, and Jon Voight.

My favorite parts of the movie:

Opening scene confusion
Baby stuff (you know, current lifestyle humor)
Brad's brothers
Nativity Play

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Quantum of Solace

James Bond (Daniel Craig) delves deeper into Mr. White's secret organization in search for answers to Vesper's betrayal.

Lots of action in this one. I love Danial Craig as James Bond. Casino Royale was definately better, but this one was still fun. It was also a lot shorter at 1 hour and 45 minutes. I did find it odd that they made such a big deal about Gemma Arterton being a Bond girl and her part was relatively small compared to Olga Kurylenko's part who I didn't hear as much about. But of course she probably didn't have 6 fingers on each hand. Creepy...

My favorite parts:

the opera stakeout
Judi Dench as M
Lot of different locales

4 our of 5 stars.

Star Trek (2009) Pictures

The new cast, from left: Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Kirk (Chris Pine), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana). The one that cracks me up is Dr. McCoy is played by Karl Urban, also known as Eomer son of Eomund from Lord of the Rings. HI-larious. It doesn't even look like him.



Of course, the first picture left out Spock (Zachary Quinto, everyone's favorite Hero to hate, Sylar). He looks a litte emotional in this picture, must be showing off his human side.



The bridge looks a little different from the old school cardboard set.

Review: Wall-e

Wall-e, the last robot left on Earth cleaning up trash, and Eve, a robot sent to discern Earth's livability, embark on a adventure across the galaxy.

This was another hard one to summarize, not that my summaries are ever very good. This was a very cute movie. Very creative, especially since there was very little dialogue. I enjoyed how they combined some live action with the animation. Another knock out for Pixar. I especially loved the short before the movie. Hilarious.

My favorite parts of the movie:

Hello Dolly dance
pizza plants
Sigourney Weaver as the Ship's computer
crazy robots
too many others to list

5 our of 5 stars.

Review:The Dark Knight

Batman (Christian Bale) is winning the fight against the mob in Gotham when a new upredictable villian, The Joker (Heath Ledger), appears.

WOW. This was a great movie. Superhero, action, drama, comedy... Heath was amazing as the Joker. Truely astounding. Oscar potential? Hmm, I don't know. I really can't see the Academy giving him a pothumus Oscar, especially for this film. We'll see though.

This movies had some definate twists and turns. The deaths and non deaths completely suprised me. The story was great, pretty deep for a comic book movie, but I guess that's what we've come to expect from Christopher Nolan's Batman. I hope the next movie can continue and not dive bomb like Spiderman 3. Coincedentally, this movie beat that movie's opening weekend record with $158 mil.

Lost connections: Lost's Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), aka the guy that doesn't age, plays Gotham's Mayor in The Dark Knight.

My favorite parts of the movie:

Subtle bat sounds during the opening Warner Brothers logo
Joker's magic trick with a pencil
story

5 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) and his band of freaks attempt to save the world from an evil otherworldly prince and his aspirations to control the golden army.

That discription is vague and doesn't do the movie justice but it's really hard to summarize this movie. It was awesome though. Director Guillermo del Toro's vision is exquisite. I enjoyed "Pan's Labyrinth" for it's visual qualities. So I am super excited that he is directing "The Hobbit" and that other LOTR movie. He should do it justice.

This sequel to 2004's Hellboy does an even better job all around I would say. The story makes slightly more sense than the first. Visually, it's much better. The action was pumped up and the story has more weight. Plus, given the extreme oddness of the movie, a superhero called Hellboy and other weird creatures in an otherwise normal world, it's deals with some deep issues but also doesn't take itself too seriously.

I remember going to see the first one in the theater and really I have no idea why. I wasn't quite as crazy into movies then. I knew virtually nothing about it. Maybe I wanted to be rebelious and see a movie called "Hellboy." Then again, maybe Tom wanted to see it. He chooses weird movies. ;)

My favorite parts of the movie:

drunken love song singing (seriously hilarious)
all the different visuals
trilogy potential
John Hurt made a cameo as Dr. Broom
Hellboy as a boy

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hancock

Hancock (Will Smith) is a drunk, unruly superhero that almost everyone despises. After saving PR executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), Hancock takes his advice and tries to overhaul his image.

Good summertime movie, with a twist. I think that's what has so many people up in arms, it's not your standard action movie. Shockingly, it has a plot and some drama. I enjoyed it. I tend to like most Will Smith movies though, and from his box office takes, who doesn't really?

My favorite parts of the movie:

Unexpected twist
the moon
"Wolverine" comment

4 out of 5 stars.

Trailer: James Bond: Quantum of Solace