When I first heard of this show I thought that it was going to be really stupid but I tuned in anyways to see what it was about. The show is about a lawyer, Eli Stone, who finds out he has a brain anurism. This anurism gives him visions about what cases he should take. As the show progresses and he realizes these visions are not real he still for some reason acts out in the middle of meetings when he has a vision. A good example of this is when he is meeting his boss and a dragon flies towards the window so Eli dives under a desk. This was overused a lot and become kind of annoying over time. All in all though this show was really good and was something that I wasnt expecting from it. Theres just something about the show that makes it very fun to watch.
Grade: B+ for over dramatic vision sequences.
-Dolla Dolla Bill Y'all
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Iron Man
Holy Shit! This movie blew my mind. They couldnt have cast this movie any better. The CGI was incredible. I dont even really know what else to say about this movie. For those of you who know the Iron Man story line this is the beginning story of Iron Man versus War Monger. I've always loved Iron Man and this movie lived up to all the hype it was given. Gwenyth Paltrow was looking fucking hot in this movie. I cant wait for the next movie where War Machine is probably gonna be introduced. Oh and Samuel L. mother-fuckin Jackson will play Nick Fury in the next one.
Grade A+
-Through the fire and the flames we carry on.
Grade A+
-Through the fire and the flames we carry on.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Super Smash Brothers
So its been a while but the amazing trio is finally back. This time I'll be reviewing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. This newish game for the Wii is the third installment of the Smash Bros franchise. This newest one contains 35 characters instead of the 25 from the last game. It also contains a new feature which is called the Subspace Emissary Mode, which is a new adventure mode. You actually follow a story line were for once Master Hand is not the final enemy. I wont ruin the ending for you but its completely different and the final boss is a BITCH!!! There is the new addition of the challenge wall where when certain activities are completed a piece of glass on the wall is broken and you get a reward. There are now 544 trophies and the new addition of 600 stickers which can be added to your character in adventure mode to boost attack strength. The replay value for this game is endless because of the brawl mode where you can battle with up to three of your friends. Some of the characters blow ass such as fan service Sonic and Snake, as well as Wario, and then there are amazing characters such as Link and Toon Link. The new addition of the Final Smash ball which lets the chracters do a Super Smash which usually damages everyone on the screen, the character is invulnerable at this time but sometimes you can fall off the screen while doing this which ends up having the player get dissed by his friends for sucking. Its also hilarious to see four characters fight over this sometimes killing themselves. Some fun party games to play are 99 Smashed Brothers where you set the stock to 99 and every time you die you take a drink of your beer. Ends up being about 8 beers so its just a one time thing but it makes for some fun times.
Overall Rating A+ I haven't found anything wrong with this game and I've played for about 100 hours. Go get it.
-I dare you to make less sense.
Overall Rating A+ I haven't found anything wrong with this game and I've played for about 100 hours. Go get it.
-I dare you to make less sense.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Bank Job
The Bank Job is based on a true bank robbery occurring in England in the 1970's that was covered up by the British government, due to the involvement of some sensitive information regarding the Royal Family. (How the filmmakers got their hands on the information behind the cover-up is anyone's guess.) Starring Jason Statham as the heist's ringleader, Terry Leather, The Bank Job is a decidedly different type of heist movie than the usual light-hearted crime capers such as The Italian Job and the Ocean's series, a difference that is one of the films best assets but one of its biggest drawbacks as well.
Unlike the aforementioned "capers", no one in The Bank Job is a professional thief. There is no demolitions expert, no tech wizard, no "grease man", none of the criminal "stereotypes" one has almost come to expect in heist movies. There are no exotic locales, and no one talks about pulling a "Baker's Dozen" or a "Crazy Larry". There's just a vault and six crooks who want to get inside it. Alright, there's a bit more to it, but I'll get to all that later.
What The Bank Job has going for it the most is that it all feels very real (which isn't surprising considering it's based on a true story). What I mean by that is if my friends and I wanted to break into a bank vault (and believe me, since seeing this movie, I've been looking into it), it would feel a lot like this. No fancy gadgets or bait-and-switch-type distractions, just a bunch of average Joes tunneling into a bank and depending on a lot of luck. All the characters felt very real, like someone I could meet walking to class or at a bar, and unlike Danny Ocean, who you end up cheering for because he's just that charming, I was cheering for Terry Leather because I could see myself in his shoes: trying to provide for his family while a couple of loan sharks are breathing down his neck. Okay, I can't really identify with the loan sharks thing, but you get my point. I cared about these characters because I wanted to, not because I had to.
But The Bank Job's adherence to realism helped me realize something about movies. Prior to this film, I would always decry any film based on a book or a true story that would stray from the path of "how it actually happened"; I would label any liberties taken with the story as bastardization and denounce the filmmaker as an unconscionable asshole who had sacrificed the original author's vision or the experiences of those involved for the sake of what would make a more commercially successful movie. But the truth rarely translates well to a movie--after all, isn't that why we go to the movies in the first place: to escape what's real and immerse ourselves in the fiction on the screen? Yes, The Bank Job was very real and tugged at my heartstrings a bit, but the plot felt rather ragged at times and occasionally left me quite confused. Ocean's Eleven might be a bit too slick, but The Bank Job wasn't slick enough. I wanted to leave the theatre going "Oh my God! That was so cool!", but instead I was still trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. True, I did that coming out of Ocean's Eleven, but at least there the filmmakers were trying to keep us fooled until the end. The Bank Job fooled me by accident, with subplots involving porn kings, corrupt cops and militant Black radicals.
Despite everything, however, I have to give The Bank Job an overall positive review. It tried to do something different with the heist genre, and though the result was a bit of a clunker, I was emotionally invested in the movie from start to finish, something I can't say about Ocean's Eleven.
Grade: B
Unlike the aforementioned "capers", no one in The Bank Job is a professional thief. There is no demolitions expert, no tech wizard, no "grease man", none of the criminal "stereotypes" one has almost come to expect in heist movies. There are no exotic locales, and no one talks about pulling a "Baker's Dozen" or a "Crazy Larry". There's just a vault and six crooks who want to get inside it. Alright, there's a bit more to it, but I'll get to all that later.
What The Bank Job has going for it the most is that it all feels very real (which isn't surprising considering it's based on a true story). What I mean by that is if my friends and I wanted to break into a bank vault (and believe me, since seeing this movie, I've been looking into it), it would feel a lot like this. No fancy gadgets or bait-and-switch-type distractions, just a bunch of average Joes tunneling into a bank and depending on a lot of luck. All the characters felt very real, like someone I could meet walking to class or at a bar, and unlike Danny Ocean, who you end up cheering for because he's just that charming, I was cheering for Terry Leather because I could see myself in his shoes: trying to provide for his family while a couple of loan sharks are breathing down his neck. Okay, I can't really identify with the loan sharks thing, but you get my point. I cared about these characters because I wanted to, not because I had to.
But The Bank Job's adherence to realism helped me realize something about movies. Prior to this film, I would always decry any film based on a book or a true story that would stray from the path of "how it actually happened"; I would label any liberties taken with the story as bastardization and denounce the filmmaker as an unconscionable asshole who had sacrificed the original author's vision or the experiences of those involved for the sake of what would make a more commercially successful movie. But the truth rarely translates well to a movie--after all, isn't that why we go to the movies in the first place: to escape what's real and immerse ourselves in the fiction on the screen? Yes, The Bank Job was very real and tugged at my heartstrings a bit, but the plot felt rather ragged at times and occasionally left me quite confused. Ocean's Eleven might be a bit too slick, but The Bank Job wasn't slick enough. I wanted to leave the theatre going "Oh my God! That was so cool!", but instead I was still trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. True, I did that coming out of Ocean's Eleven, but at least there the filmmakers were trying to keep us fooled until the end. The Bank Job fooled me by accident, with subplots involving porn kings, corrupt cops and militant Black radicals.
Despite everything, however, I have to give The Bank Job an overall positive review. It tried to do something different with the heist genre, and though the result was a bit of a clunker, I was emotionally invested in the movie from start to finish, something I can't say about Ocean's Eleven.
Grade: B
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Juno
Ah, teen pregnancy. Is there any topic more amusing? Juno, the hilarious original (and Oscar-nominated!) screenplay from Diablo Cody, former stripper and current Entertainment Weekly columnist, would have us believe not. And with a masterful mix of biting wit and touching tenderness, I'm buying into it.
Ellen Page plays Juno MacGuff, a high school senior who discovers that she's been knocked up by her best friend (and true love?) Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). After carefully weighing her options, she decides to give the baby up for adoption to a couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) who put an ad in the Pennysaver. Along the way, she learns life lessons both meaningful (about the nature of true love and what it really means to become an adult) and somewhat more inane (did you know that fetuses can have fingernails as early as twelve weeks old? Actually, I looked it up--they don't develop fingernails until week thirty-six. But who's counting, right?).
I had been looking forward to seeing Juno ever since, well, I learned that Michael Cera was in it. Then, when I actually found out what the movie was about, I became even more excited. Like crossing-off-calendar-days-with-red-marker excited. So I was pretty pissed when Juno's opening weekend rolled around and I discovered that it was only given a limited release. I made my sister scour the Internet for at least ten minutes, hoping for some sign that I would in fact be able to fill my flicks fix that weekend. Fortunately, after I spent a few days fuming-slash-moping around the house, I found out that Juno would be coming to theatres near me, though two weeks later than advertised. Better late then never, right? I even managed to score a free ticket (and a too-small t-shirt), so I suppose things worked out OK. My point with this paragraph? Oh, there is none. I just felt like sharing a story.
Alright, I suppose there is one point I can make (though the validity of me needing the previous paragraph to make is undoubtedly questionable), and it is this--Juno absolutely lived up to all the hype I had given it.
Michael Cera was awkwardly hilarious (or is it hilariously awkward?) as always, and it was good to see he and Jason Bateman working together again, even if they never had a chance to deliver some of their wonderful, Arrested Development-honed chemistry (Cera and Bateman, sadly, did not have any scenes together). Still, it made me happy to see their names in close proximity, credits-wise, once more. Ellen Page's Juno managed to be outrageous and believable at the same time, though that may be more due to an excellent screenplay than good acting (though Page's performance was far above average). J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney were both fantastic in their supporting roles as Juno's father and stepmother, and every supporting character, from Juno's female friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) to Su-Chin (Valerie Tain), abortion protester (and provider of fetus-facts) and school acquaintance of Juno's, added something meaningful to the film--truly an ensemble cast.
If I have one quibble with Juno (and I always seem to have at least one, don't I?), it is that the first half of the film was a little too cute. Rather than trying for funny-yet-realistic dialogue, Cody seemed to delight in making almost every conversation as over-the-top as possible. The absurdity is certainly part of the charm (and all of the humor), and the contrast it provided to the second half of the film allowed it to send its message without seeming preachy, but it too often felt manufactured. Funnily manufactured, but manufactured nonetheless. The alternative, though, would have been worse--had Juno tried to be realistic as possible, it would not only have failed to stand out, but would have been just a plain old mediocre movie (and far less quotable). I'll gladly take the lesser, far lesser, of those two evils, thank you very much.
Grade: A
Ellen Page plays Juno MacGuff, a high school senior who discovers that she's been knocked up by her best friend (and true love?) Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). After carefully weighing her options, she decides to give the baby up for adoption to a couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) who put an ad in the Pennysaver. Along the way, she learns life lessons both meaningful (about the nature of true love and what it really means to become an adult) and somewhat more inane (did you know that fetuses can have fingernails as early as twelve weeks old? Actually, I looked it up--they don't develop fingernails until week thirty-six. But who's counting, right?).
I had been looking forward to seeing Juno ever since, well, I learned that Michael Cera was in it. Then, when I actually found out what the movie was about, I became even more excited. Like crossing-off-calendar-days-with-red-marker excited. So I was pretty pissed when Juno's opening weekend rolled around and I discovered that it was only given a limited release. I made my sister scour the Internet for at least ten minutes, hoping for some sign that I would in fact be able to fill my flicks fix that weekend. Fortunately, after I spent a few days fuming-slash-moping around the house, I found out that Juno would be coming to theatres near me, though two weeks later than advertised. Better late then never, right? I even managed to score a free ticket (and a too-small t-shirt), so I suppose things worked out OK. My point with this paragraph? Oh, there is none. I just felt like sharing a story.
Alright, I suppose there is one point I can make (though the validity of me needing the previous paragraph to make is undoubtedly questionable), and it is this--Juno absolutely lived up to all the hype I had given it.
Michael Cera was awkwardly hilarious (or is it hilariously awkward?) as always, and it was good to see he and Jason Bateman working together again, even if they never had a chance to deliver some of their wonderful, Arrested Development-honed chemistry (Cera and Bateman, sadly, did not have any scenes together). Still, it made me happy to see their names in close proximity, credits-wise, once more. Ellen Page's Juno managed to be outrageous and believable at the same time, though that may be more due to an excellent screenplay than good acting (though Page's performance was far above average). J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney were both fantastic in their supporting roles as Juno's father and stepmother, and every supporting character, from Juno's female friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) to Su-Chin (Valerie Tain), abortion protester (and provider of fetus-facts) and school acquaintance of Juno's, added something meaningful to the film--truly an ensemble cast.
If I have one quibble with Juno (and I always seem to have at least one, don't I?), it is that the first half of the film was a little too cute. Rather than trying for funny-yet-realistic dialogue, Cody seemed to delight in making almost every conversation as over-the-top as possible. The absurdity is certainly part of the charm (and all of the humor), and the contrast it provided to the second half of the film allowed it to send its message without seeming preachy, but it too often felt manufactured. Funnily manufactured, but manufactured nonetheless. The alternative, though, would have been worse--had Juno tried to be realistic as possible, it would not only have failed to stand out, but would have been just a plain old mediocre movie (and far less quotable). I'll gladly take the lesser, far lesser, of those two evils, thank you very much.
Grade: A
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Cloverfield
Warning this post has spoilers in it. Sooooooo, went out to see Cloverfield on the Thursday midnight premiere. I had so fucking excited to see this movie since I saw the viral trailer, and I'm not entirely sure whether or not it was worth it yet. But we'll see at the end of this. So I'm sure as most of you know the movie centers around a monster attack as shown from the point of view of survivors who have a hand held camera. They are at a going away party when the lights go out and a roar is heard across the city. The end up going outside and the Statue of Liberty's head falls into the street and a couple minutes later the Empire State Building takes a dive into the ground. We see glimpses of the monster as they are running through the street and finally they take to the tunnels and walk the lines to find a way out. They turn on the night vision camera and we see the small symbiotic type creatures chasing them through the tunnel. One of them gets bitten by them. The end up getting out of the tunnel and into a shopping mall there they are greeted, not so friendly like, by the military. They find out she has a bite and they take her to a containment tent where we see a shadow of her exploding, kinda, it almost looks like all the blood vessels in her body explode but its hard to tell since its just a shadow. Eventually they get back topside where the last three go to find Rob, the main character, lover who is trapped in a building with a piece of rebar through her shoulder. they find her and pull her off the rebar and run out of the building as New York is about to be hammered down. In other words there about the blow the fuck out of New York with out any regard to remaining life, human or otherwise. So they make it the choppa and video tape as the monster gets the fuck blown out of it by a stealth bomber carrying 2000 pound bomb payload. There is whole bunch of dust and smoke and suddenly the monster jumps out and grabs their choppa and throws it to the ground. They somehow survive and pick up the tape where we see a perfectly clear shot of the monster as it peers into the camera. So to the review. In the end this was more of a love story than a monster story. Honestly if I was in New York and this happened and the girl I loved was trapped in a building I'm not sure what I would do. So kudos to Rob for having the balls to go through a ravaged city to find her. I really would have preferred to see more of the monster than was shown but it also adds to the mystique of the movie. A short movie it was clocking in at an hour and a half. Overall a 5/10 for a huge letdown and love story instead of a monster story.
-Stomp just in time for me.......what?
-Stomp just in time for me.......what?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Ocean's 13
So i know I'm reviewing this late but I just saw it for the first time so shut the fuck up. Alright anyways, I like the Ocean's series, even though 12 wasnt that good I still liked it a little. So know ere back to the basics robbing a casino instead of stealing a fabrige egg. Of course this time they are not just stealing they are letting the public steal as well. Its a revenge job. Some parts in the movie were a bit confusing, specifically the thief talk as I have no fucking idea what any of that shit means. Anywho the movie flows very well and different parts although separate at times finally come together for one grand heist. For the most part this is highly improbable seeing as they managed to rig everything in a casino without anybody knowing, and then to top it off they stole unstealable diamonds. I guess thats what makes these movies interesting. I really enjoyed the fact that they broke the fourth wall more than once in a movie like this it really fits. For example they kept talking about shaking Sinatra's hand, for those of you who dont know Sinatra was in the original Ocean's 11. Oh yes its a remake. I know way to much about movies, i need a life. Also at the end George and Brad fooled with each other by making fun of Georges weight gain/loss and plastic surgery and Brads seemingly hundreds of kids. They also hinted at an Ocean's 14 but I think they need to come up with a better idea switch to something othere than robbing casinos its kinda old now. I felt that the Asian actor, I have no idea what his name is, was drastically underused for his gymnastic abilities, in fact they only used that part once and the other part he was a gambler. The disguises were incredibly obvious, especially since it seems that Al Pacino already knew Danny before hand. Um lets see what else. i like this move its fun, its daring and it really makes we want to go steal something valuable. Overall 9/10 for some cheesy parts.
-This is CAKE TIME!!!
-This is CAKE TIME!!!
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