Super 8

Finally got out to see Super 8 last night. This was a movie, when first announced, I had no interest in seeing. But then came the Super Bowl and the first real footage I saw of the movie and I was sold from then on. Even before seeing online all the "early Spielberg vibe" reaction to the trailer, this was exactly how I felt as I watched it. This was a type of movie I'd not seen in a loooong time. A Stand By Me, Goonies, ET, kids on adventure movie the likes of which I had grown up with and loved as a youngun. I freely admit that the Nostalgia factor played a big part in drawing me in. Whatever the case, the preview worked. I would see this movie.

So, going in, I knew only what the previews had shown. I didn't have much in the way of preconceptions of what the movie was really all about. The only thing I was hoping for was a fun little kids on adventure movie, and the movie delivered that. The kids were all great. The way they talked, busted each others chops, and in general related to each other was very nicely handled. There was an emotional core to this story that I felt was very strong. This was a movie about a kid, his struggle with his relationship with his newly widowed father and the fun he has making a Super 8 movie with his group of friends to counteract that. It's about the fact that sometimes your situation in life changes and you need to accept that and move on with the people who are still there.

These are strong coming of age type of themes most associated with drama, but here they are set against the backdrop of something weird going on in the neighborhood. I've seen that some think this part of the story feels tacked on, rushed and doesn't gel with the kids' part of the story. For me, the sci-fi element, while cool, is not the focus of the story. Rather it is the effect that part of the story has on the kids' and their relationships and life struggles that's important. It's the complimentary piece to the main meat of the story and I think it works just fine like that.

Obviously, I can never say this movie is better than E.T., The Goonies and their ilk and that's because I saw those movies when I was a kid. And movies like that affect you more when you see them as a kid than an adult. Super 8, had I seen it when I was 10 around the time those movies came out would probably today be one of my more favorite movies of all time. Seeing it as a dude in his early 30s without the rose colored vision that comes with being a 10 year old, I can say that I enjoyed the heck out of it for what it was and it'll have to settle for being one of my more favorite movies of the year instead.

Lonely Island Boys "Jack Sparrow" feat. Michael Bolton

My viral video obsession for the past couple of weeks.  It has become a bit of an earworm for me.

Warning for those reading this that do not like to hear profanity, there is some in the video.

Now back to the good part:




I saw this thing on Saturday Night Live a couple or so weeks ago and it just made me laugh.

Some people love Michael Bolton, a lot of people outright hate the man.  Me, I could care less about the guy. I honestly don't know any of his music, save whatever he did for the Disney movie Hercules.  All I really know about the man is once he had really long curly hair, then he chopped it off.  But this video almost makes him cool.

I love how he waxes poetic about Jack Sparrow: "The pauper of the surf, the jester of Tortuga."  Michael Bolton, getting all literary on us!

Michael Bolton as Scarface: Not too shabby.  Michael Bolton as Forrest Gump: A little akward.  Michael Bolton as Erin Brockovich: The stuff of my worst nightmares.

I will no longer be able to watch these films without this dang song playing in my head.  Thank you Lonely Island and Michael Bolton.

Now to watch it again!

The Force Unleashed II

The Force is unleashed yet again on my Wii and boy is it kinda fun. I'll be upfront: I totally enjoyed the first installment of the Starkiller franchise. The feeling of wielding a lightsaber and controlling the Force in a way my young pre-teen mind could never have ever conceived of while playing the super fun Super Star Wars trilogy on my ol' SNES is enough to make your brain explode from the sheer nerdiness of it all. The game made you feel powerful. Could it have been better, definitely. But I still enjoyed it.

The sequel, on the other hand... I should start out by saying I found it used at Blockbuster for 10 bucks. I only say that because how much money you spend on it might dictate what you ultimately feel about it. The game is short. Very short. Just when I was getting in the swing of things, the whole show is done. In short, I'm glad I only spent 10 bucks on it. The original 50 dollar price tag would have left me feeling very ripped off.

Starting out, I was a bit thrown off by the controls, as they have been changed up a bit for this installment. I'm the first in line to poo-poo change in anything, so I started out thinking it was all balderdash. These were not the controls I had grown accustomed to from the first game! How dare they! Getting used to this led to a couple of early cheap deaths with me trying to dispatch of enemies using the same gestures and buttons from FU1. But get used to it, I did, and realized that the control scheme wasn't so bad after all. There are a few new Force moves, like Force Sight and Force Rage that use the Wii Remote very effectively and give you a feeling of even more power. Plus, two lightsabers. That's always awesome.

Unfortunately, there's a laundry list of things that I feel let this game down from the previous one.

- It's SHORT
- Lack of variety of levels
- Lack of variety of enemies. Stormtroopers, spider-bots, robots bearing shields and a few two legged walkers. That's about it.
- I enjoyed the story of FU1. This one doesn't feel like much of a story at all
- SHORT!

I wish they had fixed a few of the shortcomings of the first game (as much as I enjoyed it, it ain't perfect). The levels can be repetitive. The quicktime "waggle your wii-mote" scenes are nice, but I would like to be a bit more hands on in those parts of the game. After fighting through endless stormtroopers and it gets to the cool part, I wanna piece of that action, not be relegated to the sidelines to watch while I swing the remote left or right and Starkiller does something impossibly awesome.

I will say I thought it was very fun, what game there is of it. I don't regret buying it (because I bought it stinkin' CHEAP). I'm a Star Wars nerd and I always enjoy romping around in the universe wielding lightsabers. The couple of boss fights are pretty fun.

Apparently, there's a mulitplayer, but I don't really have anyone near me at the moment to jump into the arena with and kick their butts, so I really can't comment on that aspect of it.

I just felt it was waaaay too short. I got through it in about 6 hours. And they way the story ends in a cliffhanger, it really just feels like a couple of bridge levels simply to have a reason to bring the character back to life (in a manner of speaking) after the first game to kick more butt in a meatier story in the inevitable next game. I think a game like this would have been a great use of downloadable content for whatever system it was on and could have accomplished the same thing.

However, any excuse to go crazy with the Force, I'll take.

The Oscars 2011

The Oscars 2011!


I honestly don't know how much I can comment on this. I must be honest: I've not seen a lot of this past years nominated movies. It was a bit of a stay at home year in our household with a new kid and some work issues. In fact, one of the nominated movies I saw because we took our daughter to see it and have subsequently seen it about 5,202 times since she got it for Christmas on DVD.

I'm looking at you Woody and Buzz.

  

The other best picture nominee I saw was Inception, which I loved to pieces, but realized was not the kind of movie that wins Best Picture at the Oscars.

So as far as the nominated and the winners, I cannot say too much. My lack of info on these subjects is truly depressing.  I do know I thought that The Social Network would get more love, but there was a point in the show you just realized The King's Speech was gonna tear it up. I haven't seen the movie but there's no doubt these guys looked at the blueprints on how to win an Oscar and followed it to a "T".

What I can comment on is the presentation, which seems to be getting a lot of crap dumped at it's feet. I'm not sure it deserves all the bile being hurled its way, but it was definitely not the greatest ceremony to ever feature the little gold naked dude.

Let us start with the hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco. I know Anne Hathaway annoyed some viewers, but at least she showed some energy and seemed like she was interested in the proceedings. Franco, on the other hand, spent most of the time standing stiffly by her side staring off somewhere just off center with a strained smile plastered on his face.

Most of all, I think the duo was let down by the writing. There are some hosts, the type of hosts the Oscars usually get; your Steve Martins, your Billy Crystals, who have a background in performing comedy in front of live audiences and probably help come up with their own material and are able to make it work and flow a lot more naturally. When you get a couple of young actors who don't appear to have such a background, I think it's unfair to expect them to do anything other than keep the show moving. The bits come off more stiff and unnatural and definitely fall flat.

That being said, I think the biggest problem with the Oscars this year was that they were flat out trying to go young. From the hosts to the presenters, there is no doubt they were reaching for that demographic. I'm sorry Oscar, your demographic is not the hip Jersey Shore generation, it spans the generations of movie fans. Specifically movie fans that see the kind of movies that win Oscars. I have a hard time believing many Justin Timberlake fans went out of their way to see The King's Speech or even know what the heck Winter's Bone is, except for the fact that the Wayne's World guys found the title hilarious.

Let's forget young, hip and edgy. You're the Oscars, not the MTV movie awards. Act like it. When the highlight of your show is Billy Crystal introducing the digital ghost of Bob Hope to introduce the effortlessly funny duo of Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, that should tell you something. Give the keys to the thing back to Crystal or Steve Martin, or heck, even Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Because if I find out Justin Bieber is hosting this thing next year, I'm out.

Super Bowl Movie Trailers!

The Super Bowl came and went. The game, by all accounts, was pretty good. I missed it, due to having to work. Of course, the biggest news the next day, the thing that most people talk about is not whether or not Big Ben was eyeing some college gal in the third row or if Brett Favre was home crying, but the commercials. And due to the miracle that is DVR and the internet, I was able to catch up with the commercials that personally get my man juices flowing; the movie previews.

There were a lot to choose from, but here, I will only highlight the ones I'm looking forward to...

*Battle: Los Angeles

Every other month, we are treated to another alien invasion movie. I remember seeing previews for Independence Day all those years ago and getting so pumped to see that massive scale of alien destruction and getting all that and more in the final product. Ever since then, that scale of destruction has become sort of common place and as epic as Battle: Los Angeles looks, and it does look epic, I hope there's something more to it than eye candy. The preview has me intrigued, but I will have to wait and see more before I make up my mind whether or not to get seriously pumped for it.



*Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I know it's hip to hate on the Transformers movies and Michael Bay, but they are wildly popular for a reason and that is that they are entertainment. That being said, part 2 pushed it about as far as I think you can push it as far as sensory overload plus movie running time and if this one tries to out do that installment, it could jump the shark something fierce. I'm simply hoping for some good old fashioned entertainment and robot mayhem and it looks like that will be delivered. Just don't go all Batman and Robin on sensory overload and silliness.



*Thor

I grew up a bit of a Marvel nerd, no doubt, but Thor was never really a favorite. It just seemed a bit silly. Yet I was never really into Iron Man and that movie was all kinds of rocking, so Thor, especially with the impending Avengers movie coming out, has got me a bit excited. Plus, this movie has Natalie Portman in it, whom I've crushed on since The Phantom Menace.



*Pirate of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Captain Jack is back and as far as I'm concerned, that's never a bad thing. I thought the last movie was a bit too long and over convoluted, yet still had some good action and entertainment. This one looks as though it's going to be a nice little one-off adventure in the vein of the first Pirate's movie, which can only be a good thing, if true. I like the idea of these movies keeping it simple with a nice adventurous tale than getting bogged down in it's own mythology.




*Captain America

Oh yes. This looks pretty dadgum awesome. I love the World War II setting and I love the look of the movie. If this can be the good old fashioned pulpy period adventure movie that it looks like it's gonna be, then there's no way I will not like it. I've always had a fondness for ol' Cap and it's great to finally see him getting some big budget love. This could easily slip into cheese, but if they keep the tone right, we could be in for a classic comic book movie.



*Super 8

I'm officially juiced for this movie. I wasn't at first.  Seemed kind of interesting, I guess, but didn't have much to go on.  Then I saw this preview.  Still not a lot to go on, storywise, I guess, but the whole feel of it screams classic 80's Speilberg and that in itself pushed all the right nostalgic buttons for me. I'd still like to see a whole trailer to get a feel for the story, but the images and the feeling the clip was going for did it for me. I love those old 80s Speilberg directed/produced kids on adventure movies like E.T. and the Goonies and here's hoping this delivers on that promise. If the movie captures even half the magic of those movies, I'm a happy man. The fact that Speilberg himself is actually producing this is a promising sign.



*Cowboys and Aliens

I love the idea of splicing the Western and the Sci-Fi genre together. There's always been something old-westy feeling about a lot of space set movies and it seems only right that they would join forces. I love the it's directed by Jon Favreau, the man who brought us Iron Man. I love that Daniel Craig's granite faced steeliness seems to fit that of a cowboy. More than anything, I love that Harrison Ford is playing a grizzled, hell raisin' mean sunuvagun who hates Craig's character. Lordy, I've missed Harrison Ford the past decade or so (not counting Indy) and I'm happy to have him back.

Things We Forgot Were Cool

A few days ago, I was surfing about the World Wide Web as movie music soundtrack was playing in my MP3 player (go ahead, judge my nerdness; my wife does at least twice daily), when the theme to a certain movie began playing. A theme that took me back to the far away land of 1989, when I was about 10 years old. The movie to see that year, if anyone can remember, was a little film by Tim Burton called... Batman.

And oh, how I wanted to see Batman. And I did. And it was glorious. And I think now that we have been graced with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, we tend to treat Burton's movie as an afterthought; "Oh, for its time, I guess it was all right." No sir, it is still a cool movie.

Are Batman Begins and The Dark Knight better movies than Batman's first major big screen adventure? Yes, I think they are. But I think that doesn't mean we suddenly have to dismiss Burton's version of Batman. It was still cool and it introduced a world of us familiar with the campy 60s show what could really be done with the character. And without it, we wouldn't have Nolan's terrific versions of this fine hero.

And let us not forget Jack. I went in to that movie knowing Batman would be a cool dude, but was totally blown away by The Joker. It's hard for me to compare Jack's Joker with Ledger's, as to me they are two totally different characters. I tend to like both of them, but I loved the crazy energy that Jack exuded as the character. Whereas Ledger's Joker seemed like a psychotic who liked to wear makeup and cause anarchy, Nicholson's Joker truly came across as a deranged clown, which is how I tend to picture the character myself.

Once again, I understand that as movies, Nolan's movies are more mature with better characterizations, but let's not rewrite history and suddenly make Batman '89 a piece of crap. It might not be as good, but it's still pretty cool.

My Best Summer?

Well, late Spring/Summertime is amongst us and it got me to reflecting. What was the best summer of my life? I had some fun ones as a wee lad growing up. There were several trips with the grandparents.

Like the one in '89; I was 9 going on 10 and my Papaw was working as a carpenter at the Hilton Hotel in Mobile, Alabama, so we got to hang out down by the gulf for a couple of months. This summer became known by my grandparents as the summer we were in the hotel watching Jaws 3 and Papaw Don tossed his shorts at me in a perfectly timed throw just as Jaws was attacking, nearly making history by creating the youngest heart attack victim ever.

Fortunately, no 3-D glasses were involved

He still enjoys telling this story, 20 years down the road. In fact, he was kind enough to relay the story to my wife just this past Christmas, so that was an awesome summer.

Also, Batman came out.

What could be more epic?

Then there was the summer of '99, ten years later; I was 19 going on 20 without a whole lot of responsibility. I had a full time job, yet no real authority as of yet. Mainly spent the summer hanging with friends, going to the movies and whatnot. Trips to Longview, buying the crap out of DVDs and CDs. I think a new “Weird Al” Yankovich CD may have been involved.

Yeah, I looked it up, there was. And I did buy it.

And let's not forget Star Wars Mania.

Even the haters thought this was awesome.

Now, I know some were disappointed with Episode 1, but this isn't your summer, it's mine and I saw that sucker at least six times. All in all, a pretty decent summer.

Then there's the summer of '08; I was 28 going on 29. I was a married man with responsibilities. I went to the emergency room with a fun case of kidney stones. I had shoulder surgery and had to go through a couple of months of rehab, which I don't recommend unless you just like to torture yourself. Our house got flooded and we had to live with the in laws for two months until the insurance finally realized they would actually have to pay something to help us out (seeing as how we've been paying them monthly for just such and emergency and all).

And I would have to say that was the best summer of my life. No, that wasn't a misprint. Cause those paying attention will remember that was the spring/summer we became parents to a great little girl who was a loooooooong time coming. The answer to a lot of prayers and the cure for more heartache than either of us care to recount.

For all that went kooky that summer, that one event rises above and lifts that summer head and shoulders above any other. Of course, we'll see how this one plays out as we anticipate the arrival of our little boy in July, but so far, the Summer of '08 rules supreme.

Also, Batman came out.

20 years later, even epic-er.