50/50

a look at what its like to face your death when your life has hardly even begun.  the film looks at a young man who is diagnosed with cancer and must deal with the repercussions of the news.  at times funny, other times moving, the whole thing is a great study of the struggles someone would have if they are told they might die in their mid 20s.

scott pilgrim vs. the world

a fun movie based on the indie comic book of the same name, the story follows scott pilgrim as he must defeat the seven previous loves of his soon to be girlfriend before he can claim her for himself.  the whole movie is set up like a video game, through its editing and end of the level boss battle set-up.  the effects and style of the film perfectly capture the fun of a video game, which creates a really interesting and fun world that the film takes place in.  sure its totally an example of style over substance, but oh what style!

predators

following the cue from its sister series, this one takes the name of the original and just adds an 's'.  we hadn't seen this series outside of the 'avp' films in 20 years, so it was time for a follow-up to the terrible 'predator 2'.  this one takes our heroes to another planet where the predators come to hunt them.  as the name would suggest, there are multiple creatures coming to take down our human crew this time.  as the humans are taken down one by one, there are some plot twists and reveals that keep it interesting.  i wouldn't necessarily call this one a good movie, i would say that its a lot of fun, and compared to the other films in the series, its pretty good.

green hornet

was it a good idea to reboot this series? yes.  was it a good idea to get seth rogen to play the title character? no.  but they do a valiant job trying to overcome that obstacle.  granted, this is not a good movie, but for what it is its a lot of fun.  rogen does his best, despite the miscasting, chou is great as kato, who is the real star of the series anyway.  they clearly did the best they could with what they had, so i don't fault the film for coming up short- its not nearly as short as i was expecting!

the losers

 

a comic book movie based on the not so well known comic of the same name, the story follows a rag tag bunch of assassins who team up together to do a job.  they find that the job isn't quite as cut and dry as they were promised, and they realize they have been set up.  how they deal with it takes some twists and turns along the way where not everyone is going to make it to the end.

this one is definitely a B movie, but its a pretty fun one.

lion king 3D

this one is amazing, of course.  who doesn't love the lion king?  its definitely one of the top three animated movies of all time (personally, i'd put the top three as 'beauty and the beast', 'prince of egypt', and 'lion king', but not necessarily in that order).  with this being such an incredible film, we eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to see it again on the big screen- in 3D no less!  and it did not disappoint.  its just as fresh as ever, and the conversion on this one was breathtaking!  i could go on and on about how marvelous this movie is, how transcendent the music is, or how perfectly formed the characters and story is, but you already know.

the tourist

this one got a lot of heat for being terrible, but i must admit, i rather liked it.  the story follows a tourist, played by johnny depp, as he meets a woman, angelina jolie, who seems to be a spy on the run.  depp's character seems to be just minding his own business on a vacation through europe when she meets him and get him all caught up in her secret spy world.  i'm not sure all the twists and turns of the film work, but its fun to see these two go along for the ride.

code 46

an interesting movie set in a dystopian future where clones are everywhere and travel outside of your designated city is very restricted.  in the story tim robbins plays a government employee who tracks down people who forge documents allowing them to travel.  along the way he meets up with samantha morton, a forger.  as they fall for each other, they realize that its not just the documents that are illegal, so is their love.  the story is an interesting one, but at times a bit too convoluted.  thankfully much of that is overcome by the good acting and directing.

clash of the titans

this is one of those classic examples of a sequel that no one asked for.  the first movie was a hit and so they made a second one.  the problem is that they didn't seem to realize that many people saw the first one but no one, and i mean no one, actually liked the first one.  the only reason it was a hit is because this was one of the first films to capitalize on the new 3D fad.  most saw through the terrible 3D conversion and saw the emperor had no clothes.  learning nothing from the first one, they doubled down on the dumb writing and embarrassing affects that hindered the first one.  amazingly, they were able to make this one even worse- i'm actually kind of impressed!

tangled

a good disney princess movie that plays with some of the aspects of the well known fairy tale, and adds in some nice songs along the way.  this one came out at a time when disney was scarred for some reason to actually have a movie about a princess, that's why its named 'tangled' instead of rapunzel.  there is an unnecessary focus on the guy in the film that doesn't seem at all needed.  fortunately the misdirected focus does not throw the whole film too far off course, so we still get some great character moments with rapunzel and her 'mother'.  the whole thing has a fun adventure feel to it and is a lot of fun.

catfish

we all know what this term means now, its been added to the  dictionary and has had a popular show on mtv for several years.  but when it first came out the idea and meaning had not been created- this is the film that coined the term.  i had no idea what it was about and was enraptured the entire film as the story unfolded.  it follows the story of nev as he tries to meet the woman he has been having an online relationship with.  he pieces together what little information he has, he does some research and investigation and the trail leads him to the person that he has been communicating with.  since this was a new concept at the time, it was really novel and interesting to see it all revealed.  since this deception happened to him, he has since gone on to help others find the truth in their online relationships through the many seasons of the mtv show.  this documentary plays out like a detective story with many twists and turns, the important difference is that it is the real journey of its subject as he deals with the reality as it happens.

megamind

there must have been something in the air back in 2010, because we got despicable me and this movie within 4 months of each other- both are centered on supervillains who hatch crazy plots but eventually decide to turn good.  they both even have characters called minion!  the funny thing is that they are both fronted and have the comedic stylings of two guys from anchorman- despicable me has steve carell at its center, and this one has will ferrell leading the way.  wow, there really are a ton of similarities...
this one follows the supervillain megamind as he deals with the fact that the hero he fights against decides to quit and walk away from the crime fighting business.  this leaves our villain confused and reassessing his life- who is he without  his nemesis?  its also very funny, so that helps too!

devil

based on an idea from m. night shyamalan, this movie takes place entirely in an elevator.  the premise is that 5 people are stuck in an elevator together and each time the power goes out something terrible happens.  there's only five people, so one of them must be doing the terrible thing.  the film does a pretty good job of making the small location interesting and ramps up the tension as the film goes on.  as far as small horror films go, its pretty good.

futureworld

i really loved the original westworld movie.  it was written and directed by michael crichton, an author i really enjoy.  it was a huge hit when it first came out, so of course they made a sequel!  the only problem is that they didn't have any of the talent from the first one back.  somehow they snagged peter fonda for the film, but that's about all this one has going for it.  the most ridiculous thing about this movie: it touts yul brynner being in it- he was the villain and best part of the last one- but that is really a lie.  he is only on screen for less than 10 seconds, and the only shot of him in the film is actually just a cut scene from westworld.  see that poster image for the film?  the character with the hat?  yeah, he's not actually in the film.  how's that for truth in advertising?
the movie itself had an interesting premise: the company that created westworld has been inviting world leaders to their parks and then replacing them so they can take over the world.  the problem is that this explanation is more interesting than anything in the actual movie though...

johnny mnemonic

his one is just as bad as you remember hearing.  the tech stuff is laughable, the story is nonsensical, and the acting is worse.  bad all around.