RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES--MY REVIEW

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is the story of the beginning of the fall of mankind and the rise to power of our simian brethren. Watching the film the main thing I kept thinking was “this should be better”. Not just better, but more exciting, less choppy and a lot more visceral. Rise isn’t a bad film but that’s mainly because it isn’t a complete film, it’s more like two movies that got slammed together and neither have an ending. The entire thing is a jumbled mess of pieces parts necessary to kick-start the franchise but nothing is handled correctly and it causes the film to collapse under its own weight.

The story here is simple. Caesar, a chimp who grows to extraordinary intellect through an experimental drug is eventually driven to lead a revolt against his human captors. If the filmmakers had stuck with that premise and created a fast paced film that got our blood pumping then Rise would have been one of the best summer films out there. Instead, the folks behind the movie got way too bogged down in back-story that served no purpose and tried too hard to reinvent the original B-Film as a serious movie.

First and foremost is the James Franco character, a doctor obsessed with finding the cure for Alzheimer’s disease because of his once brilliant father now succumbing to it. Really? The filmmakers were in such a rush to make Franco’s character likable they had to give us the most cliché reason ever?

The father plot point also wastes the talents of John Lithgow, who spends half the time overacting his Alzheimer and the other half overacting his normal state. Franco’s slow drawl and monotone acting style take an already underwritten character and make him painful to watch. Nothing that the humans do here really has any impact on the story and they are grossly underwritten, or written badly across the board. As far as the film goes to show what their characters are, they never actually achieve it.

For instance, Franco is supposed to be the scientist with a soul, but his character never really shows us anything outside of soulful looks. The completely wasted Brian Cox piddles around without ever establishing who his character is or why he’s in the movie outside of being the guy who owns the monkey habitat that Caesar is taken to after he attacks a neighbor (more on that later).

Even the two bad guys never really do anything to make themselves truly evil. First is Tom Felton as one of the sons of Brian Cox’s monkey habitat owner. Felton’s character is supposed to be the ignorant redneck guy who picks on the monkeys and gets off on trying to dominate them. The film never bothers to explain why he hates monkeys as much as does and with the kind of hatred he has, it isn’t just annoyance at the job. There feels like something deeper is going on but the filmmakers decided not to try and deal with that. Felton’s character does stupid things but nothing really terrible, he’s an idiot but never really mean. His character has no weight so when he gets his comeuppance, you don’t care.

David Oyelowo, who plays the head of the typical “global evil company” funding Franco’s research, struts around in expensive suits and says mean things, but he comes across more as foolish than sinister. At one point, after several setbacks testing the drug, Oyelowo sees another monkey writing his name and suddenly approves it for mass production. Really? What drug would ever go straight to market because a monkey wrote his name? The lack of real evil to what he does makes his comeuppance seem overly cruel. So with no hero to root for and no villain to hate, everything comes to down to the monkeys, and they really don’t deliver.

The main problem is that reproducing a living being or animal without a lot of cash is a hard sell. When you’re Peter Jackson, fresh off the Lord Of The Rings, and the studio is throwing money at you; you can make a monkey always look real. When you’re Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, a tenuous-at-best attempt to kick start a franchise that hasn’t been relevant since the sixties, one that has the anchor of the Marky Mark version locked around it’s neck, the studio isn’t quite so forthcoming with the bucks.

Because of that the digital effects of Caesar never actually look 100% real. You never lose the idea that you’re staring at essentially a cartoon and it kept taking me out of the moment. In some parts the effects are so cartoony it felt more like Rise Of Grape Ape or Magilla Gorilla Goes Nutzoid.

Granted Caesar doesn’t really act like a chimp, he does things only men would do and I understand it’s hard for the brain to rationalize that. Still, Caesar tends to always look like a video game character. As well, the filmmakers went way too far trying to make him a sympathetic character. Making us care about a sweet monkey being abused isn’t hard, so all the endless shots of him looking forlorn or thinking or reacting in a “human” way begins to read more like movie filler than anything else. The only truly effective work is the final attack at the end of the film. Problem is, it’s the last twenty minutes of the movie. The rest of the film is so disjointed that you can’t get too excited by the final battle.

I lay most of the blame for this at the feet of director Rupert Wyatt and writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It apparently took two people to write this movie and at no point did either of them look at the script and say, “Hmmm, there’s a lot of dues ex machina here”. For example, Rise opens with the first test of the super drug Franco’s character is creating. It’s just about to be approved when their star chimp goes crazy, escapes and has to be shot. That outbreak looks like a result of the drug so they deny Franco approval. Then suddenly it turns out that the chimp was protecting a young baby that nobody knew she had. Um, okay?

First off, once that was discovered the project would have been back on line since it wasn’t the drugs fault. It’s not though; it’s just shut down. Secondly, NOBODY noticed a chimp had a baby? I’m no vet but I have to imagine with a star chimp in a lab somebody would have heard it giving birth and, correct me if I’m a wrong, baby chimps don’t appear like magic. There’s afterbirth, blood, etc.

So why do it? The first is so that Franco’s doctor can become so desperate he’s pushed into doing something desperate like using the drug on his father. The second was to figure out someway to introduce Caesar. That open section dictates the entire script. It’s chock full of things that just “happen” so the plot can be moved along. They needed a voice of conscious, somebody who warns Franco’s character of the dangers of what he’s doing. Cue the girlfriend, who appears, suddenly, falls in love with Franco though there is zero chemistry and no story and then leaves.

In another scene they need something that makes Caesar look mean, though he really isn’t, and allows him to be captured and put with other monkeys. Enter the awful neighbor who hates Franco for no reason and acts like a cunt just because it makes him easier to hate. Apparently, even though he lives next door to Franco and his father, the shitty neighbor has no idea that the father has Alzheimer’s disease, which allows him to overreact to a car accident and, when the protective Caesar sees the attack, he can flip out.

The most egregious of these scenes is the way the writers begin the end of mankind. I won’t spoil it, but from the start of that subplot to the end, none of it makes any logical sense. It’s all just things that happen to get to the end goal of setting up the fall of man. That particular string of circumstances is almost insulting. Rise is riddled with these types of situations and it eliminates any real story that could have been told.

For Rupert Wyatt’s end, the man did not pace Rise very well at all. The beginning is entirely too rushed, as is the end, while the middle drags on and on. Outside of the monkey revolution, the third act is the most riddled with problems. It feels as if Wyatt realized he hadn’t really set things up for the next movie so he started throwing random things in that had nothing to do with anything. They’re so badly shoe horned in that you instantly say “Next movie set up” and it takes you out of the current movie. From the get go sections that should have been allowed to slowly grow are rushed and scenes that don’t matter are either added in or dragged out.

Rise also hurts itself by giving us two hamfisted nods to the original Planet Of The Apes movie. When the nods happen they don’t work and seem weirdly melodramatic and dated as if the person involved would never have said those things. I’m all for nods to the original but do them well. These are so goofy I kept expecting for one monkey to walk up to Caesar with two pizzas and utter “Pizza Pizza.” Rise isn’t supposed to be a comedy but the two nods result in laughs during scenes where laughs shouldn’t be.

By the end of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes your mind is scrambling to bring order to the jumbled mess you’ve been shown. I didn’t care about characters I thought I should, I was stumbling over huge plot problems, and I was pissed that there wasn’t more monkey war action. This isn’t Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes; this is how the apes moved to the country. I wanted and expected so much more from this movie. I can’t even recommend this as a popcorn flick because it’s too heavy handed, yet it fails to have enough dramatic resonance to be a drama and it’s not sci-fi enough to be a good sci-fi movie. It’s more an amalgam of elements that never quite gel together. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is a rocky start to re-launching a beloved franchise.

Captain America--My Review

Captain America is the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight.

Now before people start screaming for my head or ordering a straight jacket, let me explain what I mean. Watching Captain America something clicked for me, something that finally made me understand the ups and downs of this genre. You can only tell a comic book tale in two ways, either completely realistically or as a complete fantasy. The Dark Knight was the first, Captain America the latter. So while Dark Knight is a superior film, Captain America is just as good of a comic book film. Captain America works because it realizes it’s a comic book and never strays from that idea.

I’m actually interested in how Captain America will blend with the more action heavy and “realistic” heroes in The Avengers. Iron Man, it’s sequel, the Hulk and Thor all tried to straddle both the realism and fantasy lines and that’s where they failed. When a comic book movie doesn’t choose a type, it never settles on what it wants to be and usually becomes a mess. Iron Man started as a comedy, then tried to become an action film, it never really became a comic book movie so it felt, for lack of a better term, off. The sequel decided to be a straight action film but what was happening was too out of the range of those films so nothing quite gelled. It also suffered from being crammed with too much and losing focus.

The Hulk did a great job of grounding itself in reality but that just doesn’t work with the subject matter. It should have been a total comic book fantasy, without all this pretentious human drama that seemed out of place. Thor has done the best so far but got anchored by a love story that had no place and didn’t work. The fantastic and comic book elements of Thor were great, the attempt to also include the realistic aspects fell flat. Green Lantern, well, that’s just what happens when people shit on the source material.

But I digress. Back to the review.

First off, I owe Chris Evans a huge apology. He nails the character of Steve Rogers across the board. There is no trace of the sarcastic frat boy jerk that played the Human Torch. It’s clear Evans understands the core of who Steve Rogers is, that it isn’t about the power but rather that Steve Rogers represents the best in all of us. Evans not only plays that idea perfectly, he manages to do it during the awkward scenes where it’s only his face digitally placed upon the body of a short and very skinny stand in. For those afraid the digital Chris Evans on the stand in would look silly, it’s about a 90/10 split. Most of the time its fine, but when it looks off it looks disturbingly like Steve Rogers has a broken neck..

Stanley Tucci is wonderful as Abraham Erksine, the peaceful German scientist whose super solider serum was, against his will, originally used by Nazi scientist Johann Schmidt. Schmidt’s reaction to the serum turns him into the Red Skull, a super human enemy that Erksine feels responsible for creating. Without ever saying it, Tucci lets us know that his faith in Steve Rogers comes from how well he knows true evil that he can know just as well true good. It makes Steve Rogers commitment to always doing the right thing that much more believable. When Evans becomes Captain America he remains the good man he was before the serum, one who is ill at ease with his new powers. His journey from that man to the hero he will become is not only charming and funny, but also allows a nod to the cover of Captain America #1.

Some were nervous that Rockateer director Joe Johnston wouldn’t be able to pull off Captain America. I’ll admit, I was nervous to, but Johnston has made a beautiful ode to not only the hero but also Golden Age comics. Johnston understands that he’s doing the fantasy comic book movie and he never loses that tone. The film is shot like an old 40s war film combined with a fantasy comic book element. The previews for Captain America have drawn some fire for the action sequences. When Cap jumps or hits a bad guy it looks over-the-top, as if all done with wires. Within the context of the film it works perfectly and allows us all to know we’re watching a comic book come to life.

One of the best decisions Johnston makes is to play down the love interest. There is romance here but it’s kept to the side, making the end that much more tragic. Actress Hayley Atwell (as Peggy Carter) and Chris Evans do a great job of keeping their feelings just under the surface. Coupled with some nice touches from Joe Johnston, the relationship feels real but never gets in the way of the story. I was particularly pleased that Johnston and the screenwriters chose to have Peggy Carter really begin to feel something for Steve Rogers when he was still small and puny. It added a depth to her character that all the exposition in the world couldn’t have mustered.

The real secret weapon in Captain America is Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. Trying to create a scary villain that feels like a real threat is difficult in a film with such an old school vibe. We live in an era of Saw and Silence Of The Lambs, so something like the Red Skull is hard pressed to be truly scary. Weaving accomplishes this by letting it all hang out in his performance. His Red Skull is so off balance and insane with power that you’re never sure what his next move is. Weaving is so good here that he makes the Red Skull a formidable villain without any real violence. Sure he’s going to destroy the world, but he’s using the power of the Cosmic Cube, which is scary but only in a very comic book way. It’s the complete dedication to the story that makes Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull so wonderful.

The rest of the cast is also first rate. Tommy Lee Jones is perfect as Colonel Chester Philips, the military leader that directs Captain America. Dominic Cooper’s Howard Stark is something people should really pay attention to. Cooper does some small things that mimic Robert Downey JR’s Tony Stark. You can see the father and son trait between them. Toby Jones holds his own against Hugo Weaving as Dr. Arnim Zola, The Skulls’ head scientist and even manages to steal some scenes.

Aside from the cast, the real power to how good Captain America is comes from the respect the filmmakers have for the source material. Everything you need to make a successful comic book film is within the pages of the comics themselves. When you stray from that, the movie is always off; it always fails to capture what makes these characters last for generations. Don’t get me wrong, there are changes to the original story in Captain America, but none of them disrespect the source material. Much as having The Joker in Dark Knight wear make-up instead of being burned to look like a clown, Joe Johnston makes several little tweaks so that the story is more palatable to a mass audience and the story flows easier. None of what he does feels like it couldn’t have actually been in the comic originally. Johnston with his direction and Evans with his acting maintain the source material’s integrity and that is what has Captain America standing head and shoulders above the competition.

For comic book geeks like myself, there are lots of little bonuses. For instance we get Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones and Jim Morita. If you’re paying attention there is a funny nod to Evans’ turn as the Human Torch and the big Iron Man 2 Starkfest scene when Tony flies down to the dancing girls. I was impressed with how the story stayed true to the forties era war film vibe, but never lost sight of being part of a bigger picture. When Captain America wakes up in the modern age, it fits right in with the rest of the films. I was concerned when Evans’ Cap met Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury it wouldn’t gel, but it does. Part of that is how Captain America opens; it’s a smart move that sets the tone for the end as well.

Everything isn’t perfect with Captain America, there is one glaring issue that will have purists bitching and moaning. Bucky Barnes. The story of Caps’ right hand man is completely different than the comic. To start, Bucky is a friend of Steve Rogers pre-Captain America, one who often comes to the rescue of Rogers when he’s getting beaten up.

SPOILER ALERT!!

Probably the biggest problem with the whole Bucky subplot is how he dies. It just sort of happens, and a little too quickly. Anybody expecting to see Bucky in a mask fighting by Caps’ side will be sorely disappointed, especially with the death. I will say that where the death happens could, in a comic book way, give rise to the Winter Soldier, but that’s a really outside chance. The Bucky problem isn’t huge, but the fact that the rest of the movie is so good makes it stick out like a sore thumb. The post credits Avengers trailer does a lot with a little. It generates some real excitement for the movie without showing much at all.

Captain America is one of the best surprises of the entire lot of superhero movies. I went into this film expecting to feel the same blind hatred I did when I left Green Lantern. Instead I found a movie that had me cheering, rooting for the hero and feeling like I was thirteen years old again. As the comic movie genre goes forward, I think directors and writers will look to the Dark Knight and Captain America to figure out which style of movie they want to make and how to make it. Both are prime examples of how comic book movies should always be handled.

GREEN LANTERN--MY REVIEW

The opening credits to Green Lantern list four writers responsible for the film. I believe that because there are four films going on here and none of them have anything to do with the other. There’s a Lifetime movie-of-the-week romance where the complete lack of chemistry between the two leads is okay because we’ll just believe what they say because they said it.

The second is a clunky and badly paced action film. The third film is a spectacle of a visual effects film with zero substance and the fourth a pieces and parts movie about uninteresting characters doing nothing of interest. So, what happened with Green Lantern that’s made it a three hundred million dollar mess?

Before getting into that, let me explain the film for those unaware. Ryan Reynolds plays sarcastic and flippant Air Force pilot Hal Jordan. Jordan receives a ring from a dying alien named Abin Sur and becomes part of the Green Lantern Corps, an ancient cosmic police force. Abin Sur had been mortally wounded fleeing Parallax, the power of fear possessed by one of the Guardians, an ancient race that oversees the Green Lantern Corps.

After giving the ring to Jordan the dead Sur is taken to a military base and examined by Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) a mild-mannered scientist with serious daddy issues. Hammond gets infected by the bits of Parallax left in Abin Sur’s wound and becomes possessed, creating a psychic link with Parallax who is out to destroy the world. Ok, so again I ask. Why is this movie such a mess?

Let’s start with the bad romance. The main culprit here is Blake Lively as Carol Ferris. I think we need to add how this Gossip Girl “actress” got the part to the Riddle Of The Sphinx, the success of Glee, Vanna White becoming famous and all the other great mysteries out there. Lively has exactly zero screen presence or acting ability. Her eyes are absolutely dead and she’s clearly there to look good in tight dresses.

When lively is angry you can tell because her voice goes a little higher, when she’s sad you can tell because her voice gets weepy and her eyes open wider, etc, etc. There was truer emoting from Number 5 in Short Circuit than Ms. Lively. Ryan Reynolds (as Hal Jordan) is not a very good actor but he can handle romantic scenes (rom-coms are his staple) so the complete lack of chemistry is all on the female side.

The clunky and badly paced action film is the fault of director Martin Campbell. It’s surprising because, while far from perfect, Campbell is usually a more competent director than this. Action works when there’s a build up to the action scenes. If you want a perfect idea of an action scene watch Superman rescue Lois Lane from the helicopter wreck in Richard Donner’s original film. Green Lantern has no build up, ever. The action scenes just happen, they kind of vomit out there and end up looking great but having no real excitement. Once the spectacle of the action is over there’s just another scene, it’s a lack of build up and then an anticlimactic let down. It doesn’t bode well for an action superhero movie to be boring.

Besides the lack of build up, the action also manages to discredit the continuity of the film itself. After receiving the ring Hal flies to OA, the planet of the Green Lanterns, to receive his training. There is a fifteen minute training scene where Hal is told by Green Lantern super solider Sinestro that’s he’s unworthy of the ring and he’s beaten to hell by Killawog, the training instructor for the Lanterns. This sets up that Jordan is going to have to strengthen his focus and overcome his fear to really be effective as a Green Lantern. This theme remains throughout the film yet whenever the action scenes come, Jordan is a master of the ring, wielding the power as if he’s had it for years. It completely derails the emotional core of the movie.

The special effects movie with no substance lands squarely at the feet of the writers and Ryan Reynolds. The character of Hal Jordan is sarcastic and childish but he also has depth and stoic sense of pride and honor. Reynolds can do the sarcastic but that’s about it. The boyish charm that makes Reynolds a cash cow in the world of romantic comedies isn’t enough to carry him through here. His Hal Jordan never rises above the sarcastic insincerity so we never believe Jordan has learned anything.

In one particularly gruesome scene, Jordan goes before the Guardians to plead for his planet. It’s supposed to be a pivotal scene in the film, the one where we see Hal Jordan finally accept the burden and responsibility of being a Green Lantern. Instead it feels like a kid begging the dean of students not to revoke the frat charter because of the kegger the night before.

On the script side, the writers never figure out exactly what to do with the other Green Lanterns. It reads as if the writers got overly excited at the possibility for amazing special effects so they just wrote in scenes they wanted to see. The other Green Lanterns come and go, mostly as plot devices to get the exposition across. In actuality they serve no other purpose besides to explain things. Instead of a solid script where discovery is made throughout the film, Green Lantern just brings in various characters to explain what’s going on and hides that cheap exposition behind big effects.

The fourth film is the mess of what the other characters are doing. There’s Hal’s best friend, who serves no purpose other than badly written comic relief. We have the wasted Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond. Sarsgaard does the best with what he has and proves how good an actor he is by rising above bad dialog that’s so cliché and silly I kept expecting Hammond to twist a fake mustache and laugh maniacally.

Let me be clear here, Sarsgaard is very good but he has zero to work with. At no point does the script make him a real threat or a credible villain. The final waste is Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett who are given parts and dialog better left to dinner theater. Everybody here just moves around, lost in a bad script and mediocre direction. The only other person who is effective here is Mark Strong as Sinestro. He nails the character across the board, even with the awful lines he’s expected to deliver.

Green Lantern also has no 2nd half. The first half sets up all of these roads that never go anywhere. We’re given this long pre-amble about how Jordan must focus and train but then suddenly Parallax shows up and Jordan has no problem kicking his ass. The end of the movie comes so quickly there’s not even a real battle, just some lofty special effects and an ending. What’s particularly troubling is the lack of basic structure. Mid-way through the film Hal Jordan isn’t very good at being a Lantern and the best Lantern warriors are picked off by Parallax like so much dandruff. When Parallax finally reaches earth, suddenly Jordan is the greatest Green Lantern ever. Really? Way to ignore basic plot progression structure guys.

These are the problems simply from a film perspective; I’ve ignored the massive liberties the film took with actual Green Lantern lore. Having been an avid reader of Green Lantern for over twenty years I was shocked by the complete lack of respect for the source material. The rumor on the farm is that this movie is a make or break for continued DC films, if it fails, then there might not be anymore after the next Batman. If this is the quality we can expect from DC and Warner Brothers, then that might be a good thing.

X-Men: First Class--My Review

As I walked out of X-Men: First Class I kept saying to myself “It would’ve been great if this had been good”. I don’t say that to infer the movie is bad, it isn’t bad, it just isn’t good. With so many elements going for it, and so many things that could’ve gone for it, watching X-Men First Class fall beneath it’s own weight is more sad then upsetting. This isn’t some glorified summer comic book film that just looks for the big effects and movie tie-ins. The people here seem like they were attempting to make a great film, it just didn’t come together at all.

To use a metaphor, X-Men First Class is like a gorgeous mirror with a several cracks in it. At first they seem insignificant but combined they shatter the glass and ruin the mirror. The first crack in the film is the length. This movie is easily half an hour too long and that extra thirty minutes drags so badly by the time you get to the final battle, you just want it to be over. Making a comic book movie is a fine line between story and action. In a comic book 2/3 story and 1/3 action work fine, on screen it only does if the story is strong. The story in X-Men: First Class isn’t strong enough to withstand the long bits between action.

The length of the film is made worse by the second big crack, which is pacing. Director Matthew Vaughn does not know how to pace a film. If you’re going to cram a lot into a story, you’d better have Christopher Nolan or younger Steve Spielberg chops at storytelling. Vaughn doesn’t, and it shows in the pacing. Scenes that should be short and sweet drag on for too long, plot points turn for no reason and other parts just rush into nothing. There’s also too much set up and not enough delivery. Part of this crack splinters off into the editing, which feels like it was done with a machete. The film is constantly jumping from place to place to place; you never have time to get settled. When the editor does settle you in, it’s for entirely too long. Imagine running as fast as you can for bursts of thirty seconds and then slowly jogging for twenty minutes and then doing it again over and over. Annoying doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Another massive crack is the script, which can never decide what it wants to be. Granted part of that is how Matthew Vaughn directed the film, but this script is patchwork that it never gels. Everything is a way to get to the next thing, there’s no sense of story arc at all. When the new mutants (no pun intended) are brought into the fold by Professor X, it’s a quick jump from mutant to mutant. We never get to know anybody; thusly we don’t care about them. For instance, when Angel (not the original Angel butAngel Salvadore known also as Tempest) turns against her new mutant buddies to join up with Sebastian Shaw (played by Kevin Bacon) you don’t care. Why? Because you never got to know her, you have no idea who she is. Her turn is more of a plot device than anything else.

I think the script suffers as well from trying too hard to not be a typical comic book movie. Again it’s a fine line that not everybody can walk. In the Dark Knight, we got a good old-fashioned criminal caper flick only instead of Al Capone and Elliot Ness we had The Joker and Batman. It worked; the story was good enough to support itself. Here the attempt at political intrigue is just boring and slow. I think centering the whole of X-Men First Class on the Cuban Missile Crisis was an error in judgment. When a film tries to hard you can feel it trying to hard and that makes it difficult to watch.

The pacing problems align with the script during the third act. We’re set up for this climactic event that’s suddenly put on hold for a long-winded Rocky-style training scene for the X-Men. It comes out of nowhere and is so incredibly melodramatic it’s laughable. The final battle also feels like nothing but a trigger for Magneto. During the film Magneto is pretty much on the side of the Xavier’s team and by the end of the film there’s no reason for him to become Magneto. A great script would have left that alone, trusting that the next film could delve deeper into Magneto’s turn. This being a mediocre script suddenly the Russians and the Americans, who witnessed the mutants save the world, decide to unite and kill them. Out of nowhere, for no reason other than to piss Magneto off so he would turn into a villain.

The script also has a problem figuring out if it wants to be its own film or part of the franchise. There are cute little nods to the other three X-Men films but then the movie shreds the continuity of other parts of those same films. For example, In X-Men 3 Xavier and Magneto are still friends in their late forties, here they part ways in their twenties. I was also left wondering why the filmmakers chose the newer crop of mutants. None of them are very compelling, their powers are fairly feeble, so why not have Cyclops, Angel, Jean Gray, and Iceman join Beast instead of second stringers? I also hated the way they crippled Professor X, it was stupid and an unnecessary departure from the original story. Same with making Sebastian Shaw a Nazi sympathizer that kills Magneto’s mother. Shaw would’ve made a spectacular villain on his own merits, why weave him into something that never happened. I also don’t like when scripts force every little fan boy detail into the story and this one does it in spades, especially the final scene between Moira and Xavier.

The final crack is the acting, which is either sub-par or phoned in. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto are brilliant, they shine incredibly bright and do the same justice to the characters that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen did. The rest of the cast is just limp. The young X-Men have no personality, no charisma; they feel more like the cast of a bad teen drama. The more seasoned actors, like Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt just phone their parts in, as if they needed the check or just wanted to be associated with something young and hip.

Oddly, in the opening scene with Kevin Bacon, he’s wonderfully mean and cruel, a true villain. For the remainder of the movie he’s smarmy and flippant, like a grown up version of Ed Westwick’s character on Gossip Girls. I also have to question the casting of January Jones as Emma Frost. Jones must fuck like a demon or she’s able to suck the chrome off a bumper because outside of that I see no reason that she was cast for this role. Jones has a slamming body but is in no way pretty enough to be Emma Frost, not to mention she is now the heavy weight champion of one note acting.

I know it seems like I hated X-Men First Class, but I didn’t. There are things here that work, elements I really enjoyed. The idea of a more realistic mutant film, the muted style that really stands out against the shock and awe of something like Thor or Iron Man, the tone of the film, I liked all of those things. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to rescue the movie from the massive cracks it has, but I do give it an A for effort. One day Hollywood will understand all the aspects of the evolution of a great comic book movie. For now though, X-Men First Class is a failed mutation.

There Are No Words

New Battles Video Kicks Ass

Video is awesome, song is awesome, Battles is awesome.

My Little Ponies At The Movies

I remember My Little Ponies. Well, I remember the phenomenon. I never watched the show or collected the toys and I hadn't thought about the whole thing for years. Then I saw these videos of movie trailers edited with bits and pieces from the cartoon. It's true this is all quite brilliant but what it's really done is made me think I want to watch My Little Ponies. This show looks so fucked up.


WATCHMEN



INGLORIOUS BASTARDS



300



THE DARK KNIGHT

Star Wars Saga Told In 5 Minutes With Legos

Yep, this pretty much kicks ass. The prequel section is way better than the actual prequels, go figure.

EPISODE I-III



EPISODE IV-VI

Meredith Viera Sucks

Apparently the Today show is running out of things to over-pay their "news anchors" to do so they've turned their attention to fucking things up overseas. Meredith Viera went to England to visit the set of Doctor Who. I should have known this was going to suck when the text for the segment read Dr. Who. I don't know what's more offensive, the fact that she has no clue what the show is or that she treats it like its some kind of new trend.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Game Over Man, Game Over....But Party ON!!

I like things that come out of nowhere and make no sense. Take this disco version of the Alien theme from Ridley Scott's epic film. Nothing really here to set up, just enjoy the shit out of it.

THOR-My Review

Thor was never going to be an easy movie to make. Unlike Iron Man, Batman, or The Incredible Hulk, Thor is a movie that takes place in two worlds. The fabled city of Asgard on one side and Earth on the other. From the outset director Kenneth Branagh had his work cut out for him and as Thor took shape, I became nervous. I wasn’t sold on the casting of Anthony Hopkins as Odin and I had zero desire to watch Chris Hemsworth botch the role of Thor. It seemed that the entire project would be just another stepping stone to the big Avengers film due in 2012. That didn’t happen, well, not entirely.

Thor is a mess, but an entertaining mess. The problems with the film come mainly from a lack of focus in the script and time spent in the wrong world. The story is simple. At the beginning Thor is an arrogant brute who starts a war with the Frost Giants for no real reason. His actions raise the ire of his father Odin who casts Thor and his hammer Mjöllnir out of Asgard, dumping both on Earth. It’s in the Earth realm that Thor learns humility and how to be a great king. If the script had stayed as simple as the idea, Thor might have been the best superhero movie since Dark Knight. Instead Thor becomes mired in Hollywood clichés and pacing problems.

The beginning of the film is flawless. Branagh knows how to direct an epic. The battles, staging, and direction of the Asgard opener are perfect comic book fare with a real respect for the source material. My initial fears of Hopkins and Hemsworth were quickly relieved. Hopkins is actually quite convincing as the all father Odin and Hemsworth knocks Thor out of the park. I wanted to hate him in the part but I just couldn’t. Not only does he nail the God Like swagger of Thor, but he also makes the Thor costume look really cool. The Frost Giants are well executed, as is the opening battle. Once Thor is banished to Earth the films problems begin.

When Thor gets to Earth he meets Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her little crew of scientists. In the comics Jane Foster is the nurse girlfriend of Donald Blake, the man who can summon Thor by smashing his cane to the ground. For the film Jane Foster is no longer a nurse but an astrophysicist studying something that changes every time the plot needs it to. To be honest they never really explain what it is she’s doing or why her team is stationed in a small town in New Mexico.

Naturally a romance blossoms between Foster and Thor, one that helps teach Thor about humility. Portman is awful in this role. Calling her performance one-note is an insult to all the one-note actresses out there. There is zero chemistry between her and Hemsworth, absolutely nothing outside of the forced romance to move the plot along. Then there’s Kat Dennings as Brandy, the plucky comic relief, who utters things like “He was freaking me out” and takes pictures of Thor for Facebook. Brandy is so unnecessary and annoying I was rooting for her to die first. Stellan Skarsgard is wasted as the father-figure scientist who has absolutely nothing to do.

The Earth stuff fails to connect because it never rises above plot devices used to get from point A to point B. Thor’s relationship with Jane Foster and her band of merry scientists goes nowhere. The audience is supposed to buy that Thor is learning humility from this relationship but there’s no connection with the characters so you never become invested in it. The same can be said for the small town that Thor tries to lay his life down to save. The thunder god never interacts with the town so when he fights for it, it rings false. If Thor had become part of the town, learning little lessons about compassion and humanity from every citizen, the battle for the town would have had a greater impact.

Another glaring problem with the Earth section is the arrival of S.H.I.E.L.D. When Mjöllnir crash lands, it embeds itself into the Earth and only one who is worthy can remove it. A bunch of rednecks find it and a tailgate party emerges involving drunken yahoos attempting to remove the hammer. At one point Stan Lee tries to do pull Mjöllnir from the Earth with a truck, failing miserably. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives and tells them all it’s a satellite crash and everybody agrees and clears out. Nobody says, “Um, but it’s a hammer.” Essentially S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives so Thor can learn the location of his hammer and, when he can’t pull it from the ground, falls to his knees humbled. It also gave a nice arena to debut the character of Hawkeye. Like I said, everything happens just to move the story along.

What saves Thor is the action in Asgard and performances of the Asgard cast. I was particularly impressed with Tom Hiddleston as Loki. His performance is layered enough to actually elicit sympathy, even in the middle of his dastardly deeds. Thor’s crew of warriors also plays their parts with an eye towards restraint. For instance Jamie Alexander ‘s portrayal of Sif never panders to blatant sexuality. It’s obvious she’s beautiful, but Alexander never gives any “go girl” looks or “come hither” stares. That decision allows her character’s warrior status to be believable. All of Thor’s crew manage to, for lack of a better term, humanize their parts There was a lot of trepidation about Idris Elba portraying Heimdall, but rest assured, he is awesome.

Anybody who is excited to stay after the credits for the big scene that leads into The Avengers, skip it. It’s true that it contains the Cosmic Cube and a nice set up for the Avengers movie, but it’s really nothing you can’t read about or wait to see on line. For comic book fans, pay attention to a billboard in the small town for a cool nod to the first comic book appearance of Thor

Essentially Thor suffers from the same thing most of Marvel’s recent comic movies do, lack of a 2nd act. Iron Man and Hulk both started and ended with a bang but sagged in the middle. I know this will bring some boos from the gallery, but I enjoyed Thor much more than I did either of the Iron Man films. Both had pacing issues, both had action that saved the films and both had plot points that sucked. With Thor, at least to me, there was somebody to root for. Hemsworth’s thunder god is sympathetic, even charming. Where Robert Downey JR was mainly a smarmy, egotistical dick, Hemsworth’s Thor comes across as an actual hero.

Is Thor a perfect comic book movie? No. Is it worth seeing? Yes

Look What I Found: Alvin

This is some weird Alvin toy from Alvin And The Chipmunks. I found it on a bench outside a Bob Evans. It's supposed to make some kind of sound but it doesn't.

Look What I Found: Clone Trooper

This is a Clone Trooper kids toy. I found it in the parking lot of Smash Burger.

Existensial Star Wars....In French

Brilliant doesn't even begin to cover this. Thanks to the folks over at Topless Robot for this incredible video.

POLY STYRENE PASSES AWAY

My lifelong obsession with punk rock girls started with just a few. Exene Cervenka, Dale Bozzio (yeah I know she beat cats but this was before that), Chere Currie, Joan Jett and Poly Styrene. These were girls that were beautiful but also pissed, spirited and incredibly talented. They inspired me with their music and, as I said, allowed me to develop my crush on punk rock girls across the board. This week Poly Styrene passed away at 53 after a battle with cancer. This was not only a loss to music but to the idea of non-conformity.

Stryene, whose given name is Marianne Elliot-Said, put together X-Ray Spex after releasing a reggae single in 1976 on GTO. Like most early punks, Said was inspired after seeing the Sex Pistols, so she put an ad out and the X-Ray Spex were born. The band only released one album, Germ Free Adolescents, which instantly became a classic and one of my personal favorites. There was a passion in the album, same as other punk bands, but it lacked the pretentious bullshit sneer that so much British punk suffered from.

After the band broke up Ms. Said stepped out of the spotlight and focused on battling personal demons including Bi-polar Disorder. She never stopped creating and being an outspoken voice against conformity or letting woman assume a certain role in the world of music. The later X-Ray Spex reunion and album wasn't the big return they wanted but it proved Ms. Said could still kick ass.

I've played the band's album all day and my thoughts go out to Ms Said's daughter and other family members. She was a hero to a movement and lit a path that many have followed. She will be missed.

RIP Poly Styrene

PHOEBE SNOW PASSES AWAY

When I was a little kid my first pangs of musical interest were set by my father. He was always listening to something, usually country or show tunes, sometimes blues and even a few rock jams in there. One artist he was particularly fond of was Phoebe Snow. He played her records constantly and I began to get wooed by Ms. Snow's magical voice. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a fan at the age of six but I do remember her name being bandied about at parties and get togethers my parents had.

As I got older and started appreciating music full time, I went back to Ms. Snow's recordings and really became a fan. I also found great respect for her story, leaving an incredibly promising career to tend to her daughter Valerie who was born with severe brain damage. Ms Snow would release the occasional album but she didn't tour and didn't push herself. In 2008 Valerie passed away and Ms. Snow returned to her career to try and deal with the pain. Recently she suffered a brain hemorrhage and complications from that ended her life at sixty.

I remain a fan of Phoebe Snow and incredibly respectful of her story. She was a great talent with a beautiful voice. She will be missed.

Top 5 News Items I Don't Care About

After many many months on hold, I'm back with five news items I could give a flying fuck about.




5. Lord Of The Rings Movies To Return In June To Theaters

I know I'm alone in the world but I really didn't like the Lord Of The Rings films. I tried, I worked really hard to try and be down with the hype but at the end of it all, as my good friend Andy says, it was 9 plus hours of people walking uphill and bitching. Then, for some reason I still can't figure out, the uncut versions were released and suddenly it was 12 hours of uphill bitching. Now, in order to juice the last bit of money possible from these dry ass movies (thanks Steve Harvey), AMC Theaters will be re-releasing all the movies again for people to sit and stare at. I'm sure lots of pissed off Nerds will be heading home to build a bomb for my car for saying this. Hopefully I'll have 12 hours to make my escape as these idiots pour over the re-release of Uphill Bitching Featuring Bling....oh, I mean Lord Of The Rings.





4. Double Bilbo Action

I know, I know, a second Lord Of The Rings shot seems mean spirited but I gotta be me. Apparently now, besides whatever actor is sabotaging his career by becoming part of a movie that's had more hold ups than South Central Los Angeles by playing the young Bilbo Baggins, Ian Holm will return to play old Bilbo. I'm assuming as book ends to this upcoming Hobbit movie. This will probably bring the whole told massacre to fifteen hours. My favorite was how Peter Jackson swore he would never do the Hobbit. Apparently the big monkey failure was enough to make him re-think that. Whatever, who cares?





3. More Faster And More Furiouser Fiver Or Sixer

So as America continues its journey to show the world it is the stupidest nation in the world, the fine citizens have decided to really push the goal forward but making More Faster And More Furiouser Part Five a super success. Apparently muscle bound cavemen talking tough and flashing guns while blowing shit up is what America wants to see. Now, on the heels of this shit storm comes news that the "actors" from this abortion of a franchise will return for another installment. The only way I'd watch this movie is if Vin Diesel admitted the truth and spent the entire film dressed like Captain Caveman and shouted that at the start of every car chase.





2. Bill & Ted 3 Has A Script

Seriously? Really? Didn't the utter failure of Scream 4 teach any of these Hollywood scum that nobody gives a rampant shit about a sequel twenty years later. First of all this is Bill And Ted.....I'll say that again....Bill And Ted. There was no reason for the first sequel and this makes even less sense. Are the old now? Did Wild Stallions become the biggest band ever? How will they replace George Carlin? No matter what it is, it isn't a movie that needs to be made.






1. The Avengers Started Shooting And This Was A Publicity Still

I'm not particularly pissed that The Avengers started filming because I've gone on and on about my problems with the film. My biggest issue is this shitty nudge-nudge-wink-wink photo with directors chairs for the members of the team. Really? Fuck you Marvel, just make the movie and stop being cutesy. You don't care about comic book fans, you don't care about comic books, so stop pretending you're "down".

Later
Iann

Snow White All Over

This is a photo of a girl with an all over Snow White back piece. From this angle you can tell she's probably really hot and has a great sense of humor and loves Disney. Best part is if you're lucky enough to fuck her from behind and she's into it, you can bust a nut on either Snow White's face or the Evil Witch.

AWESOME

Eatin' Gelato, Eatin Gelato, Eatin Gelato, Stare At The Wall

This is a most awesome sticker from one of my favorite places in Cincinnati, Dojo Gelato. Not only is their gelato amazing, but it comes in really interesting flavors. My personal favorite is either Mexican Vanilla or Cap'N'Crunch. I mostly get my tastings from Findlay Market, I've never been to the actual Dojo Gelato store. If you live in the area or you're visiting definitely check them out.

http://www.dojogelato.com/

THE BREAKOUT KINGS

So I watched a couple of episodes of this new show called The Breakout Kings. The plot centers on a group of convicts that are brought into a special program to help cops find other convicts that have broken out of prison. The gist is that each convict they help catch will shave some time off of their own sentence. So week in and week out the show opens with some type of prison break and then our heroic team takes them down. The first time I watched it, I hated it. I decided I'd watch it a few more times just to make sure I hated it. Yep, the show is awful.

For the last few months I've been convinced that Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior is the most melodramatic and badly written show on TV. Turns out I was wrong. True Suspect Behavior is awful (Forest Whitaker should get an Emmy for Ham Of The Year within a subcatagory of Look At Me Look At Me) but at least it's not cliche to the point of being unbearable. The Breakout Kings feels less like a show and more like something put together via focus groups and marketing meetings. Toss in a rousing game of darts, where producers throw them at cliched character profiles to see who is who, and you start to get the idea.

First of all there's the plot. Is anybody else out there tired of these "Special Program" film and shows? It seems like nobody in law enforcement can do anything on their own so they have to bring in Special Programs. This special program makes less sense than all of them. Show in and show out the convicts don't do much but add comedy relief and look good. Thus far not one convict insight has helped do much but edge the plot along slowly.

The characters are also incredibly cliche. It's to a point that you wonder if maybe this show is performance art and they know how bad it is. Here's a breakdown of the cast. I don't remember character names, that's how bad the show is.

Black Cop Leader: Head of the "Special Program". Incredibly well dressed and groomed especially for a cop's salary. He is the smooth alpha male leader, equipped with street tough one liners and yet careful insight. He has his demons to battle but he's really a good cop with a dark view who wants to do right.

White Cop Flunky: He's the Joe Beer Drinker aspect of the cast. Big, burly, badly dressed and unshaven, he's the guy who goes to the cop bar, a real one-of-the-guys type. Tough and with bad attitude but deep down loves his partner and wants to do right. Uses terms in a bad New York accent such as "Scumbag" and "Dirtbag".

Black Convict One: Good looking, street smart but with an educated edge to him. He gets the streets and is the super alpha male of the group of convicts. Always says the right thing and his no-nonsense logic is supposedly vital to whatever it is the team is doing.

Hot White Chick: The girl who is too hot and too well put together to be a convict unless she was arrested in Milan for impersonating a model. She's way too street tough to have the manicure and haircut she has. She always bests the guys with that "Go Girl" sneer and when she beats them she always gives that come-hither look. Probably the most unbelievable character in the cast.

Smart White Guy Nerd: Hacker with cool haircut (apparently they style hair in prison) who is socially awkward and incredibly smart. This combination makes it okay for everybody in the cast to pick on and insult him. He also is always quoting some kind of "Nerd Thing".

Hot White Secretary: Bumbling and awkward, we know she's not hot because she has her hair in a bun and wears glasses. Obviously if you stripped away the painfully over-compensating demure outfit she's a raging hot lady but once again Hair-in-bun-and-glasses. She serves no purpose other than to have another hot chick in the show.

On top of the bad characters there's also really bad dialog. The White Cop "Howyadoin" guy refers to the convicts as animals and you get lots of "You're not out here to do (insert something), you're here to do what we tell you), or some variation of that. Lots of quick quips from the convicts as they engage in banter with their opressor cops. The criminals are usually one dimensional, either way too good looking serial killers or violent offenders who stay too quiet or make too much noise to actually be violent.

The worst are the outlandish prison breaks. If these idiots could really plan something that extravagant and well executed, I doubt they'd be in prison. Breakout Kings also tries too hard to be edgy and cool. Usually that kind of things comes out naturally through the stories and characters e.g. The Killing or Supernatural or Breaking Bad. Here it's like watching CHIPS as seen through the camera lense of an NYU graduate that spent most of his life making in-store videos for French Connection or Ambercrombe. I realize it's the first season but thus far the Breakout Kings can't escape from it's own cliched characters and plot devices.

SCREAM 4: MY REVIEW

In 1996 Scream was released to great fanfare. During the hype fans gave the film the mantel of ushering in of a new era of horror. The Scream era was hipper and more aware era, showing how irony and movie knowledge could be injected into scary movies. No longer would characters in horror movies act as though the horror genre didn’t exist; now it would be an intrical part of every horror film to follow. The problem with Scream came with the convoluted sequels and, sadly, the fact that it did usher in a new age of horror. Since the original Scream the horror genre sank to a hollow low, taking the self-aware ideas in Scream and exploiting them until whatever original ideas the series had, was lost.

Fifteen years after the first film, the gang that survived Scream is back for Scream 4, and a whole new generation will be sucked into what Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson promise to be a new trilogy. I must warn anybody that was the same age, as the original players from Scream will feel ancient during this movie. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette all look good, but they also look old. The new film centers on Neve Campbell’s character Sydney returning to Woodsboro, her original home and site of the murders, to promote the self-help book she’s written. As soon as Sydney arrives in town the brutal killings start up again and off we go.

Scream 4 has a number of things going for it and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The film has lost the self-importance the second sequel possessed, and isn’t nearly as convoluted as the third. It’s the same kind of scary, good time fun that made the first Scream such a classic. The murders are outrageous, the dialog witty and the twist ending is sufficiently surprising. The new cast of young people on the chopping block are still pretty but much more technologically advanced, something that plays heavily into the structure of the movie.

Two major problems keep Scream 4 from being outstanding, and oddly enough one is old and one is new. The new problem is that the movie misses the opportunity to do to the current genre of film what the original did for that era. Scream 4 should have been a straight a to z horror movie, without any of the nods to other movies or self-aware one-liners that peppered the first trilogy. It would have said, in a subtle way, that the filmmakers realize what they started with the first films and now they want to reinvent the genre out of the repetitive mire it was responsible for creating. This should have been a movie about a slasher that left all the other hip nudge-nudge-wink-wink stuff at the door.

Instead Scream 4 is overloaded with it. It felt as if every scene was either slightly or overly saturated with references to the “rules” of other horror movies but how the new rules are the old rules without rules, etc. There are still film geeks who guide us through the maze of understanding modern horror but who seem outdated. In the era of digital downloads, netflix and youtube, the idea that we need specialists in this kind of thing is rather antiquated. Scream 4 didn’t need to remind us how hip it still is, it could have proved that by stepping out of its own shadow and not being so hip.

The “old” problem comes with the victims. For a film that seems so set in teaching everybody the rules of surviving a horror movie, none of the characters in Scream follows them. Somebody says the first rule of surviving horror movies is to never go out alone, yet the first thing a character does is strut on out into the empty house by him or herself. For every rule laid down, there’s a character that does something incredibly stupid to break it. This issue has stood against what the Scream movies try and accomplish since the original movie.

Overall Scream 4 is an enjoyable movie, one good enough to interest me in the next one. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson finish the ending off in such a way that you’ll be flummoxed as to how the next movie will continue, making it all the more intriguing. I’ve always had a crush on Neve Campbell, so it was nice to see her back again. If Scream 5 can forget it’s own hipster legacy and allow for the characters to be a little less foolish, it might once again revitalize the current lost art of making horror movies.

I CAST YOU OUT (My Problems With Thor)

I KNOW THIS ISN'T THE MOVIE, BUT A MAN CAN DREAM

Recently, in the never ending quest to shill shit through a beloved character, 7-Eleven put together a big behind the scenes trailer for the new Thor movie. I've watched it a few times and come up with some frame-by-frame issues I have with the entire flick. I figure rather than just ramble on about it, I'd use this for some structure. Here's the trailer:





Now, here are my problems with it, scene-by-scene


Why does Asgard look like Vegas? There's more gaudy gold here than in any of Liberace's wet dreams.


Way to make Odin, the kind of the god, look like a feeble old man forced by his kids to play dress up. I kept waiting for him to ask for soft yogurt or pudding.


Apparently Odin doesn't so much strip Thor of his power as he demagnetizes him. I was also curious why he casts him out wearing clothes from The Gap.


First off, Kenneth Branagh looks old. Secondly, who the fuck cares what the producer has to say? This is the same dick who walks through Comicon on his cellphone with a new Thor t-shirt on that his assistant bought him. The type that relies on terms like "Richness of the characters" or "True to the source material" to mask the fact that he doesn't know shit about the character.


Did Natalie Portman just says Thor was from another planet? Actually looking at the scenes that follow during the producer's sloppy blowjob on the set designer, Asgard looks a lot like Naboo from Star Wars Episode I (aka rape my childhood). So did this "brilliant" designer just lift Naboo and decide to make it look like a Vegas theme park? Was it Natalie's idea?


Natalie Portman has never been to the desert?


Nothing like a guy from another country pontificating on the charm of a small country town. It's like when Americans go overseas and refer to everybody as foreigners.


Wow, you built a town. Clearly from this we can garner that you know a lot about the character and the history behind him. I mean you can't install fake computers into a fake town unless you've read a lot about Thor.


I want to introduce Jamie Alexander to my hammer...ohh yeeaaaahhhhhh


I do love that after a full minute of prattling on about the set and the explosions and the visuals, Kenneth tries to talk about focusing on the human dynamic and the passion, which is a Hollywood way of saying unnecessary love interest.


Why does Thor always look constipated?


Did we really need the Reservoir Dogs/Armageddon tough guy walk scene with the gods? Why is Loki looking at the jewel from Jewel Of The Nile?


Why is Heimdall black? I didn't realize Norse Gods had an overabundance of black folks in their ranks. Not to mention he's NOT black in the comics. Guess if it works for the Kingpin and Nick Fury, it'll work here.


I do like the ending WWE move from Thor.


So that's it. It seems like this movie is all about the effects and the visuals because nobody here knows anything about Thor. The guy they go to play him is all wrong, but that may only be because Thor shouldn't be brought to life.

Mulenium Falcon The Musical

Ok, This Kind Of Amps Me For The Avengers

As anybody knows I am not a fan of the upcoming Avengers movie. I think Chris Evans is a horrible choice for Captain America, I'm not 100% sold on the Thor movie and I've never thought Iron Man was any great shakes. That being said, this fan trailer pumps me up for what the Avengers movie could be but probably won't.

The LEGEND OF ZELDA CLUB

These guys are pretty incredible. Not only did they make a movie trailer using every John Hughes eighties movie ideal combined with Legend Of Zelda but they also shot it to look like it's a VHS tape recording. I'm not really a gamer, so I brought this to a friend of mine who lives for video games. He got twice as much out of it as I did and said they nailed everything they needed to. Dig it!!

GOD OF WAR!!!!---The Indie Film?

Here's another awesome video from the guys who did the Legend Of Zelda as a John Hughes movie. This is Gods Of War as if it was a Wes Anderson indie film. Again, these guys nail it and I'm not even a gamer.

The Miracles Vs Metallica

JOY DIVISION VIA PLAY MOBILE

A Captain America Movie I Might Actually See

Um....So.....Uh....Yeah.

I have no idea what to say, there are really no words.