let me in

a simple story of childhood friendship.  this film tells the story of a boy with no friends who gets beat up at school, as he befriends a neighbor girl who seems a bit unusual.  a premise we have seen before, but there is one big difference: the girl is a vampire!  yikes, that sure changes things, huh?  the two kids do a fantastic job of creating believable characters, the boy is kind of sad and withdrawn, when he meets the girl he sees that she is the same way, not exactly realizing that there is a reason for that!  the movie is slower paced, allowing the audience an opportunity to get to know the characters and their situations well.  i feel that this movie would benefit a lot from knowing as little as possible about it.  in fact, my telling you its a vampire movie kind of ruins what could be a really interesting reveil.  i figure i would just go ahead and tell you about the vampire part anyway since it was all over the marketing, posters, interviews, etc. so they certainly did not try to keep it a secret.  too bad because i would have enjoyed it more if i didnt know what to expect.

real steel

this one is pretty predictable but still fun to watch.  in a world where robots do the boxing now, hugh jackman is cast as the down and out former boxer who, due to a good run of bad luck, is stuck at the controls of a low end robot boxer.  the story follows as he must take care of the son he never wanted, and try to get back to the top of the robot boxing game.  you know exactly where the movie is going, we've seen it all before, all but analog, in almost every sports movie ever made.  they do just enough to take the old tropes and keep them fun to watch.  and those robots are pretty cool!  one huge flaw with the film: that kid!  every time that child actor is on screen i would get annoyed- his voice is grating, the character is a self entitled pompous kid who seems to magically know how to program and rebuild these robots even though he's never seen one in person before, and has every annoying kid quality that these films always seem to give so that the young audience can relate to them.  thankfully hugh jackman's charisma covers a multitude of sins!  with almost anyone else in the lead, the predictability and annoying child would have suck this one immediately, but jackman is able to keep it afloat and even fun!

paranormal activity 3

the wife and i went to see the first two in the theater to diminishing results, so we figured we could wait this one out until video.  wise choice.  we both loved the first one and may or may not have slept with the light on for a couple nights after seeing it...  the second was ok but not nearly as good.  this one would probably go in that category as well.  the 'found footage' element is still used this time around, the big change though is that these videos are from when the characters in the first two films were little girls growing up and is a series of recordings their father made when things started to get a bit weird during the night.  i think this film suffers from being the third entry into the series- we've seen all the tricks before and can see the scares coming minutes ahead.  some of the tense moments are pretty good, but the newness is gone and so is the intensity.  also, the ending for this one is pretty weak.  they pull in some lame elements at the end to explain it that the series has so far been pretty good at avoiding.  oh well, the first one was still really good!

earth girls are easy

i remember watching this movie a lot growing up.  my friend aaron had recorded it off of tv and thought it was hilarious, so we would watch it regularly when i would go over to his house.  upon rewatching, i was a bit confused...  first of all, i realized that i havent ever actually seen the whole movie.  i guess he just recorded about half of the movie, because the first half of it was completely new to me!  the movie was way different than i remember, thats for sure.  all i remember was that there were these three hairy aliens who bother gena davis and go to a dance club.  i mostly remember that one of the aliens was super funny- turns out that its jim carrey before he hit it big with ace ventura!  as we rewatched it, it turns out there is a whole plot about davis' character breaking up with her fiancee and her as a hairdresser.  and also its kind of a musical.  what?  there are a few musical numbers in the film which i didnt remember at all!  the totally 80's style is rather embarrassing as well- this thing is totally a relic of its time.  i'm pretty sure that you can pass on this one without missing anything!