Days of Future Past

So, I'm not entirely sure how this happened. I mean, it only takes until now just to see people start talking about it. I wasn't even born when these guys came around, and though there days of glory are long gone, they've always carried a legacy to which I've known about for a while. So, I'm a bit confused when people are only talking about this now, especially with film critics, and how they found it to be really good. Um, yeah, sure! Didn't we already know that it was good for a long time now? As far as I know, they haven't done anything special in a while, so I'm a bit perplexed as to why people are choosing now to talk about it.

But, whatever. Since film critics are talking about it and that I usually like to fall in line with what film critics are talking about, I'll play along. So, here is my review of Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues.

So, I'm pretty sure we all know about this by now. These guys really put an emphasis on orchestra in rock songs. It has some pretty good songs on here, I have a particular affection for Twilight Time, but this album is most widely known for that one song, Nights in White Satin. I do like the melody of the song and there's a pretty kick ass flute solo in the song. Then, for no reason at all, there's spoken word poetry at the end. And then it literally ends with a bang...of a gong. I honestly think this song is there weakest one from the album, but, for whatever reason, that was the one that took off. Besides a pretty pretentious overture at the beginning(I mean, these guys must have really been trying to sell the idea of making there music seeming just as important and noteworthy as the serious music most orchestra snobs would probably be listening to), I do really like this album. All of the songs are pretty well written and, though I haven't listen to many of the songs on here in a while, I can still remember most of them for the most part. A lot of them are catchy, easy to sing along to, and...yeah, I kind of don't have a lot to say about this.

But, honestly, we all already know about this album, I don't even know why I decided to talk about it...or why everyone else has, especially film critics. You would think they would review the latest movie that came out and not an album that's been out for long while.

Alright! So, I did my part on this. Maybe, next time, all of the critics won't have their heads up their own bums and actually talk about a movie for once...ya know, a movie I could talk about also.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Not exactly a great start for summer movies.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the sequel to the re-boot/re-imagining/re-make that was called The Amazing Spider-Man. And it sucked! Nothing in that movie worked in the slightest. The only thing the movie was able to do was hide all of its flaws, fooling a lot of people into thinking that the movie was better than it actually was. I don't think I really minded the first Amazing Spider-Man the first time watching it, but, every time I've tried to go back and watch it again, I just couldn't do it. The new Peter Parker they've created is a gelatinous blob of a mess, they create a bunch of plot threads they just left hanging by the end of the movie, and all of these problems start making it increasingly clear that the only reason why these movies exist is because Sony just can't bear to let their profitably precious Spider-Man franchise go.

But, it almost started to look like they were about to work it all out...only to reveal new information that just shattered any kind of expectation that this movie might not be bad. A new and improved costume for Spider-Man this time? Great! But a new look for Electro and The Green Goblin that look worse than The Lizard did in the last movie? Not great. Trailers teasing about a Sinister Six movie that might actually be interesting? Hey, that could be pretty good! But having the movie show us everything we already saw in the trailer? It almost kind of makes it seem like the guys are having there movies being driven by anticipation rather than making a movie that actually works as a movie. A mystery story about Peter actually being destined to be Spider-Man by his parents? Eh, actually, that part was pretty dumb to begin with and it gets worse in this movie, but it sort of showed signs of almost getting kind of interesting.

So, there's a story in this movie somewhere, I think, but the problem is that they set up so many things in this movie and they absolutely go nowhere. You'd think that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were behind the screenplay to this movie and that...oh wait, those were exactly the guys behind this movie. Anyways, the stuff that happens in this movie is as follows: Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy are having relationship problems as Peter Parker is having to deal with balancing a normal life and being Spider-Man at the same time. Gwen is annoyed because she doesn't like it when Peter gets distracted to go out and save lives because...there wouldn't be any conflict between them or something, I dunno. Also, Peter is being haunted by the death of Gwen's Father in the last movie. Peter sees illusions of Gwen's Father to make Peter feel drama, which occurs a couple of times in the beginning of the movie and then one time at the end of the movie, reminding the audience, pretty forcibly, that "Hey! Wasn't this supposed to be important?"

Also, since this is a super hero movie, we also need super bad guys in order to fight the super hero, because that's probably what most people were paying to see. It definitely wasn't for the romance scenes and chemistry between Peter and Gwen, as they are somehow even worse than any of the scenes with Anakin and Padme from the Star Wars Prequels. But at least the scenes from Star Wars were at least entertainingly bad. So, in the midst of an action scene in the beginning of the movie, Spider-Man saves the life of this guy named Max. Max was a guy who felt like a nobody loser because people around him treated him that way, but Spider-Man saving his life, and also giving a small uplifting speech about how Max is more special than he thinks he is, causes Max to feel a little overly special and obsessed with Spider-Man. When Max falls into a fish tank full of radio active eels that were there for some reason, he turns into Electro where he soon has an action scene with Spider-Man after he feels betrayed for...some reason.

Also, Harry Osbourne gets thrown into the story as well, wanting a cure for a disease that killed his dad because Harry seems to be suffering from the same disease. He thinks that Spider-Man's blood might help, but Spider-Man won't let him have his blood out of fear that it might kill Harry or something like that. So, Harry goes off to find a cure for himself that turns him into The Green Goblin. Getting this cure involved a team-up with Electro, the hooded Smurf, so that these two villains can have an epic fight with Spider-Man.

So, yeah. A lot of stuff happens in this movie, and they did an okay job of balancing it all through out the film as well. Too bad none of these plot lines ever go anywhere or have any sort of decent kind of closure. I'm not joking, once the epic battle ends, nobody really learns anything by the end of the story.

I'm going to have to get into spoilers on this part to explain why nothing in the plot really works. So, just highlight the blank area in brackets to see my take on the whole ending. [Spoilers: So, once Spider-Man defeats Electro, he literally vanishes into thin air and that's the end of his story-line in this movie. You'd think they would somehow tie in his obsession with Spider-Man that caused him to go haywire in the first place, but then it's not hard to figure out that they just wanted him as a bad-guy and they weren't sure how to tie him into the actual story without getting super-dumb on his part. Also, Spider-Man fights The Green Goblin and, by the end of that fight, Spider-Man knocks him out and than Harry as The Green Goblin is never seen again through the rest of the movie, even though they set up a lot about a history of Peter and Harry being friends and stuff. There's just no payoff to any of the story-lines involving anyone in this movie. Also, a tragic event happens that causes Spider-Man to not want to be Spider-Man anymore, but than he becomes Spider-Man again in the span of 5 minutes :End of Spoilers]

Oh yeah, also, if you were really excited about seeing The Rhino fighting Spider-Man, you can just go back and watch the trailers to see all of the scenes he appears in this movie. I am not joking! Rhino is just there to set up the events for the next movie that's inevitably coming out. And, pretty much just like every other damn thing about this movie, it doesn't really tie-in with the overall, over-arching story that doesn't exist. It's just a bunch of stuff that happens, making this movie feel like it's friggin' 500 hours long.

Say what you want about Spider-Man 3, from Sam Raimi, as it was doing the same thing with juggling a bunch of plot threads and trying to tie them all together by the very end, but at least it all came together in the end. Maybe some of the ways things ended in that movie turned out to be a little dopey, but at least there was actual closer. There's nothing like that in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, even though there are quite a bit of things that happen in this movie.

And, one more thing. Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. I just hate it. This has a lot to do with how he's been written as a character, but, even as Spider-Man where he is supposed to be clever and snarky, he just ended up coming off as a douche to where there was never a time where I didn't want to beat on his stupid smug-ass face. It was as if Shawn Spencer from Psych suddenly became less funny and lost all sense of self-awareness and decided to become a mopey, teenage kid that dresses up as Spider-Man every once in a while. Him whistling The Spider-Man Theme Song from the 60s while easily taking down a low-leveled Henchman, talking out loud to a bunch of loose chemicals as he gathers them up as if he know he's being watched by an audience, and saying a lot of the things he says as just Peter Parker is just so cringe-inducing.The fact that some people are actually finding this new iteration of Peter Parker as "cool" is...well, a bit unsettling.

This movie sucks. I was honestly about to come out and say that even though this movie is pretty bad, it still actually ended up better than the last movie. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how this movie suffers from all of the same kind of problems from its predecessor. Loose story-lines that never get tied together by the end, a new Peter Parker that just doesn't work(both as a character and as iteration of Peter Parker), and the design of these new villains are just so bad. I'm honestly convinced that the people behind The Amazing Spider-Man movies are placing bets to see how bad they can make each movie while still being able to get enough people to watch them. While there are minor improvements to this new film, it has so many setbacks that make this movie almost kind of worse, especially under the restrained circumstances of being a movie that exists solely for the purpose of a greedy movie studio keeping a franchise.

But, if that's the case, then these guys seem to know exactly what they are doing when it comes to these movies. And that, in the midst of a lot of things, just kind of sucks.

The Raid 2

I've heard the term "video game" get thrown around when describing this movie, but there hasn't been that many games coming out that pulls stuff like this off so well.

Seriously! Get your crap together Video Games!

The first movie, The Raid(with the title of The Raid: Redemption, to which I still have no idea why they decided to add "Redemption" to an already well titled movie), is a movie that I feel is nothing short of a master-piece. A brutally intense action film that literally does not pull any punches in how violent and creative it can get in how they can find ways in punching people ...and kicking people...and stabbing people...and door-framing people. It was definitely a film that was made to just see a bunch of people go at it on each other and give each other fatal wounds in the most stylistic ways possible, but the movie had just enough story in it to work. There's a building with a bunch of violent drug lords in it, a SWAT team decides to raid the particular building only to find out that they were being expected and all but a few are left to survive in the ways of the Silat fighting style. It was very minimalistic in its story telling, but it had just enough characterization for it to make the audience side with the good guys and hope the few who survive make it out alive.

So, with this sequel coming out, I was more than a little stoked. A follow up to one of the best action movies to have come out in...ever? Yeah! Sign me up! Well, the movie is finally out and, yes, it's really, really good. If there was any reason that I didn't leave the theater with quite the same effect that was given to me with its predecessor, it's probably because the first movie came out when I was of a more impressionable age and I had no idea what to expect. Here, I was expecting to be just as blown away as I was by the first movie, something that I secretly expect pretty much every action movie to do, though I especially expected it here since it carries "The Raid" title. But the movie really just turns out to be just as good as the first one not by just being more of the same(like a lot of sequels might just lazily pull off), but by being a really, really good action film.

The story follows the main character from the last movie, Rama, only a couple of hours after the last movie. The events of the last movie teased that there were going to be more bad-guys to have to take care of and that's what they follow up on with this movie. These cops want Rama to go undercover to pin down these bad guys only for him to get caught up in a gang that's falling apart because of an over-his-head son who enacts Murphy's Law that eventually screws a lot of guys over. This is an over-simplification of the plot as there is a lot that goes on all at once and it can get pretty confusing at times. This was in an attempt to have the movie be more story-focused. It all definitely works, it can just be a little hard to follow as I was constantly second-guessing myself on character intentions from just about every scene(I feel like I need to see it again before I can talk about the story in detail).

However, just like with the first movie, the driving conflict is always there for the action scenes to, not just be fun to watch, but also be engaging. There are a lot of great scenes that build up to what promises to provide an intense action scene and to deliver exactly that. And it's great that the action scenes themselves are so well directed. Being an action movie that bases itself around martial arts skills, it's great that nobody decides to go the easy route by using the shaky cam as a crutch and more as a tool. All of the shots are taken so you know which guy is which, who is doing what, and which limb is getting brutally beaten by which tool. But all of these scenes also carry a sense of urgency. The camera follows all of its fights as if some guy was trying to get as close as he could to the action without getting beaten up himself, giving a sort of "you are there" feeling. There are so many things that happen in this movie that really make it feel as if all of these fights are done through quick thinking and instinct rather than something that was obviously choreographed.

I will say that the action scenes in this movie don't seem to be quite as good as the first one, at least, for the most part. A big thing that the first movie had going for was that it just thrived on one professional fighter against another one, providing some unique fight scenes that felt like a competition in skill. Most of the fights in this movie involve one of the main characters fighting off a bunch of nobody henchmen who all get taken down in just a couple of strikes. Sure, there were a lot of fights like that in the first movie, but it was interwoven with a couple of fights that was there to raise the stakes whenever they had one skilled fighter up against another one. In the second movie, all of the fights like that happen towards the end.

The kind of characters they do use for those kind of fights feel like they've been taken out of the most colorful James Bond movies where each character has their own quirk and weapons. There's a guy with a baseball bat that can strike baseballs with precise aiming, a girl that dual wields hammers, and a master martial artists with curved blades. Only being a couple of steps away from being actual super-villains gives this movie quite a creative curve over even the most out there superhero movies. And, to top it all off, there's a great car chase scene that's just an all timer.

There is really just no better way to put this. If punching and kicking is your thing, this is quite the movie to watch, much like the first one. It provides some of the most brutal action scenes for your average violent action movie fan and then some more. If it sounds like there isn't much more to this movie than just the action, well, that is kind of the case. But when it's done this well and the fight scenes are that good, it really is more than just your run of the mill action movie. This really is just one hell of a movie!

Attack of the Killer Clones

She blinded me with SCIENCE!

This movie was created for extra credit in my biology class. So, that's pretty much the story behind this movie.

It was a creation that was definitely a team effort and I'd like to thank everyone that appears in the credits for helping out on this project!

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Okay, first, let's get something out the way before. It's my sense of humor, in that, it's kind of unique to a lot of people's. I bring this up because there were a lot of jokes I was laughing at in this movie that not a lot of people were laughing at in the theater, though it was probably because it was making a lot of references that were going over a lot of people's heads. But, if you want to see something that I find uniquely funny, something that I'm not sure a lot of others are going to laugh at, is this video.

http://redlettermedia.com/101-wacky-kid-jokes-with-mike-and-rich-evans/

As far as I'm concerned, this video is comical genius. I laughed at nearly every joke in this video, but it wasn't because it was the jokes that Mike was reading off, rather his deadpan delivery on all of them. He delivers all of the jokes with this sort of sincere affectation of "Wow, these jokes are kind of dumb as shit, but that's why I'm reading them." and I just could not help but burst out laughing.

It's not that I will laugh at anything, as there are a lot of jokes that seemed to get shared on Facebook that make me want to strangle who ever came up with those jokes in the first place. Also, there are a lot of times where audiences will just at jokes where I'll find myself being the only one not laughing at them.

So, I felt bringing this up was important for this movie. Anyways, here we go!

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is based off of Peabody's Improbable History, a cartoon in the late 50s and early 60s along with Rocky & Bullwinkle. These were cartoons that I actually grew up with. I don't exactly remember watching them religiously, but I do remember liking them. It wasn't until recently that I decided to watch them again as the sort of "test of nostalgia" where I was wondering if what I was watching was any good in the first place rather than just a dumb cartoon that I watched when I was a kid because kids like watching dumb cartoons.

Well, all of the shows on the Rocky & Bullwinkle selection became one of those shows that was actually better than I even remember as I soon found out that these shows weren't exactly made with kids in mind. They're very quick witted shows that you kind of have to realize what they're doing in order to really get the sense of humor behind them. They're shows that like to play on the expectations of viewers in a very unique, yet, almost blatant way. The big thing about Peabody's Improbable History is that you kind of have to be familiar with historical events and people they were joking about. But, now that I'm older and know at least two more things than I did as a kid, Peabody, along with the rest of the cartoons, are one of the few shows that I can actually genuinely appreciate besides just being something that I remember fondly as a kid.

Seeing the trailer for this new movie of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, it was kind of hard to get less than a little mad. Something that was known for dry witticisms and clever reflexive gags gets turned into a big "family adventure" for the kiddies who can't sit still for more the 2 nanoseconds who need everything force fed to them(and maybe some of the adults as well). Really, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of this movie. The trailers made it looked contrived, overly-simple, and boring. It was as if there was nothing going to be special about it and that it might even just get shoved into the pile that the Lorax movie is in where people are going to just ask "What were they thinking?"

Sidenote: I actually haven't seen the Lorax movie. So, I guess I'm not really allowed to hate it yet, but hearing the horror stories of that movie really makes it hard for me to want to see it in the first place.

With my low expectations and pessimistic attitude, thinking "of course they would turn a familiar property into a big dumb kids cartoon for the money." It felt like there was no way that this movie was going to be any good.

I was wrong! And, really, hooray for that!!!

This movie is FUNNY!

Now, I'm not entirely sure if Mr. Peabody & Sherman is an entirely good movie or maybe a movie that even works completey, but, as far as it delivers on being entertaining, it's hard to imagine anybody leaving the theater disappointed. And, believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are talking about how much I liked this movie. The movie does carry the spirit of its original series without completely embracing it, which is kind of a shame, but it doesn't forget the signature style of the original show, even if it does kind of poke fun of it.

If there's anything to why this movie doesn't completely work, it's because the story in the movie is kind of a mess. The movie starts off with a giant side adventure during the French Revolution that does a good job of showing us the kind of characters that Mr. Peabody and Sherman are. Mr. Peabody has been amped up to be this sort of Sherlock Holmes genius that has been multiplied by 10. His clever, on the spot planning skills of getting out of dangerous situations is nothing but far-fetched and silly. But it's also highly entertaining. Sherman is a kid who's there to ask all the questions so Peabody can cleverly explain his thought process. "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

The actual plot starts when Sherman starts going to school and she pisses off this one girl in class by knowing a little more about history than she does. Her name is Penny, and she decides to make fun of Sherman on how his guardian is a dog and starts calling Sherman a dog as well. They get into a small scuffle and Sherman bites Penny on the arm. This starts getting the main antagonist(I'm honestly not even going to bother to remember her name, it's kind of not that important) to start an investigation on how Mr. Peabody might be an unfit parent for Sherman while Sherman is starting to question his relationship with his dad and how it might be kind of weird how his dad is a dog. Mr. Peabody decides the best way to keep Sherman is to make friends with Penny and her parents. Sherman and Penny don't exactly get along, but, in order to impress Penny, Sherman decides to take her on the time machine where Penny decides to stay in Ancient Egypt to become King Tut's bride. Of course, this isn't good, so it's up to Mr. Peabody and Sherman to make sure they rescue Penny with hope that they don't disrupt too much of history.

Writing that lengthy summary of the plot, I'm kind of starting to realize that they might have put more thought into the actually story of the movie than they probably should have. The problem is entirely the structure of the plot. The movie doesn't really take care to make sure that things follow in a consequential order; they just keep on throwing things at the main characters in order for the movie to keep going. This would honestly be fine if the movie would embrace the absurdity of its situations, but, unfortunately, The LEGO Movie didn't exactly come out in time for the people behind this movie to take notes on how to create a movie that's silly and over the top and self-aware while also still giving a compelling story in its own right. Mixing absurd plotting with a serious story just doesn't quite work.

Fortunately, the movie is willing to try to be funny, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't laughing my ass off through out the entire movie. However, like the TV show the movie is based on, you have to know a thing or two about history in order to get a lot of the jokes in this movie. The movie does sneak in some adult-humor into the movie that's going to fly over the kids' heads, but the movie also makes a lot of references that will probably fly over nearly everyone's heads. I don't want to spoil any of the jokes, but you can watch a couple of episodes of the original show in order to see the kind of humor that this movie is going for.

If it's any problem I had with this movie, it is that every time the movie made a joke, it was pretty bad at saying  "HEY! DID YOU GET IT! WE WERE BEING FUNNY RIGHT THERE!" It's kind of a turn off as the TV show was pretty confident that the audience would know when it was making a joke without having to be obvious, but, remember, this is a big family movie. One example I can think of that doesn't spoil too much is this scene that had me thinking "Wow, this is exactly like that one scene from Spartacus!" and then the movie suddenly goes "Hey look! This is exactly like that one scene from Spartacus!" To be fair, I think them doing that was the joke, and it was pretty funny. But I'm not lying by saying that, every time they make a joke, they make sure that the audience gets that they were trying to be funny at that moment.

All in all, I'd actually call Mr. Peabody & Sherman a success. A movie that's way more smart and clever than the trailers would ever lead anybody to believe. The movie doesn't entirely work with it's awkward plotting and structure while also having a more serious tone than it probably should have. But, when a movie is this funny, something must have gone right. It might be a bit of a back-handed compliment to say that this movie was better than I thought it was going to be, as I didn't think the movie was going to be good at all, but I enjoyed it immensely and it's definitely a better movie than just finding something, just anything, that the family can do.

The LEGO Movie

It actually felt pretty weird to feel excited over a movie that had the chance of being a tired, pop-culture "parody," featured-length commercial for toys. But, with promising looking trailers and some competent directors behind the wheel(Same guys who did Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street), it was safe to say that the movie was at least going to be pretty good. A movie that actually looked like that it was going to be funny, a great riff on Batman, and some charming animation of a movie that was trying to look like it was filmed by some guy who decided to play around on stop-motion with his LEGO sets while also having a list of all star actors.

But who knew that some of the most relevant, self-aware, hard biting social commentary would come in the form of a LEGO movie? It's not just that this movie is good, it's great! A one of a kind film that balances satire while also being able to keep a compelling story.

The story starts off with the epic battle between Vitruvius and President/Lord Business. And, the fact that the main bad guy's name is Business should pretty much clue you in on what kind of movie you're getting into. Vitruvius loses the battle but, during his defeat, cites a prophecy of a person who will become the most daring, important, and interesting person that will ever be. Years later, we get to the protagonist of the story, Emmet; an average, ordinary guy with nothing immediately unique about him. In fact, one of the characters described him as somebody who fits in so well with the masses that nobody even knew he existed. But, as circumstances would have it, he gets a sort of device that is suppose to be able to stop the super powerful weapon, called the Kragle, that President Business has, which sends him into off-beat adventures.

If it sounds like the story that has ripped off pretty much every other story which ripped off from the stories that ripped it off, well, that's kind of the point to this movie. It's an incredibly self-aware movie with most of its jokes pretty much pointing out on how silly all of the situations are. But it's not the only joke that this movie has going for it as it's a rapid fire comedy kind of film where a lot of the jokes aren't even immediately apparent but are still very much there. And, really, if it's anything about this movie, it's that it is hilarious. Mediums that use the Rapid Fire Comedy technique are usually there just because they had a lot of jokes but didn't know if all of them would work, so they just throw each joke out there as fast as they can in hopes that some of the jokes will stick with the audience. The good news is that this movie lands a laugh at a really consistent basis.

To really say anything more about why this movie works or why it's so unique and special would be giving it away. However, what's great is that it manages to find a way to have all the LEGO based characters from different properties to be able to interact with each other. It's not just a movie that borrowed the LEGO aesthetic, the whole part about LEGO is that it's the entire basis of the movie. It's an actual LEGO world with different realms for different characters such as the entire DC universe, the 1980s Something Space Guy, Michelangelo, Michelangelo, Abraham Lincoln, a Giant Robot Pirate, Shakespeare, and Batman.

Speaking of Batman, it would be surprising to even find a better take on the character, mostly because the entire movie turns the character into a joke. The super-seriousness, broodingness, and coolness of this flying rodent character are taken to an extreme to pretty much point out the strange obsession that a lot of people seem to have taken with him. However, they still managed to make Batman a fully realized character.

The LEGO Movie is one of the most unique movies anybody is ever going to have a chance to see in a really long time. It's definitely the best animated movie to come out in a while, but it's also one of the most surprisingly insightful movies to come out at all. Seriously, do not miss this film!

Top Ten Movies of 2013

And...Here you go!