Category Archives: Movie

The moving picture industry has had a profound effect on me.

Arthur Christmas

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Curse you Rob Bredow, you didn’t warn me I would cry!!! I mean congratulations on your promotion (since Cloudy) and your prominent place in the credits! :-)And yay for R. Stirling Duguid!They are both in the credits and we know them personally! The Beiber music video was better than the song (sorry, I’m not a big fan…although his duet with Jaden Smith for Karate Kid 2010 was pretty sweet). The steampunk elves is an AWESOME concept though. Iwas surprised to see that the film was partially Aardman Entertainment’s fault which is kind of cool to see them jump into the digital realm (although the trailer we saw for their pirate movie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits,looks SOOO purdy and makes me think it’s claymation but who knows). It also explains how Anglicized the film was: the leads were all Brits: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy andImelda Staunton! … Continue reading →

Real Steel – Century 20 @ Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, CA

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What an amazing movie. Yay! Danny Elfman has a career outside of Tim Burton movies and it’s really good! Really impressive, dramatic, and powerful stuff. Amazing acting. Of course Hugh Jackman takes his shirt off at least once. It’s gotta be in his contracts or something. Dakota Goyo is incredible (go baby Thor!). It was really nice having a loser, lovable scoundrel as a hero again…Laura says it’s just like 40s noir films and that gets us all excited for the future. If you place this film in the context that next year’s Ãœber-fail (it’s like epic fail but in German) / box-office-bomb is based entirely on the game Battleship you can’t help but compare this film to Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots. However it is my opinion that the comparison only works as an initial story idea: “Hey you know what was a great game? Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em … Continue reading →

Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon – AMC 30 @ The Block, Orange, CA

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The best Transformers movie yet. No seriously. I mean it. The first one had a lot of characters and things to introduce, but I stand firm in my belief that the film would have been monumentally better if Anthony Anderson and John Turturro’s roles were smaller. The second one was lots of fun with the 1920’s Transformers and I enjoyed the plot, but this one really takes the cake. First there’s no more Megan Fox. Second the story’s conspiracy angle has just enough for me to believe it. Third it’s got Alan Tudyk and he doesn’t get killed (damn you Joss Whedon!). All in all I had a fantastic time at this mind-numbing, action-packed blockbuster. Lenonard Nimoy returns to the Transformer universe! For those of you playing the home game, he voiced a souped up Megatron called Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie (1986). I was really excited to get … Continue reading →

Cowboys & Aliens – AMC12 @ Downtown Disney, Anaheim, CA

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Fun. Pure, simple, action/sci-fi fun that just happens to be a Western. It’s got a few more jumpy moments than ID4 did, but the film paces itself fantastically enough that I didn’t really mind (i.e. I wasn’t scared out of my wits the whole time waiting for the next “jump” moment, I was able to enjoy the movie). I’m so happy Jon Favreau got this movie made – I really like his directorial style. There was this one really simple shot (Laura says it’s a crane shot) at the beginning of the film – Daniel Craig has just woken up in the desert and the scalpers are spreading out around him and the camera just pulls back and up and it looked really cool! I am intrigued to see what they changed from the comic book. Yay grumpy Harrison Ford! Yay Keith Carradine! It isn’t really a Western without him! … Continue reading →

Captain America: The First Avenger – South Bay Galleria 16, Torrance, CA

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Absolutely amazing! So beautiful! Fantastic job by Chris Evans. Hugo Weaving is an amazing villain. When I grow up I want to be Stanley Tucci. He’s such a great and dependable character. Yay for Stan Lee’s cameo! Awesome music by Alan Silvestri. I’m glad I didn’t know it was him going in because it would have distracted me, but one I knew it was him I could hear bits of Van Helsing in the credits. Yay Howard Stark’s Expo! They re-used the Sherman brothers song from Iron Man 2! 😀 And that new song, “Star Spangled Man” is so pretty! And it’s written by Alan Menken and David Zippel (the song-writing duo behind Disney’s Hercules)! Yay Marvel and Disney synergy!!! 😀

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – AMC 12 @ Downtown Disney, Anaheim, CA

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No parts 1 and 2 or A and B here. I took part in AMC’s two part premiere and watched all 6 hours…well 4 hours and 36 minutes, but really, who’s got time to count when everything’s blowing up? Well I guess you could count during the camping scenes… 😉 It was actually a very nice treat to revisit the first movie because there were some really good parts in it that I forgot to mention in my first review: primarily when Harry, Hermione and Ron are running from the snatchers in the forest, there’s this absolutely gorgeous tracking shot that just looks so large and complex. And that whole chase is very visceral and really enjoyable. Stunning. Gorgeous. And emotionally satisfying. I would definitely say that I am on the whole satisfied that this is where it all ends (see what I did there? Tying in the marketing campaign … Continue reading →

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – Century 20 @ Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, CA

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Amazing! Also a sad but amusing commentary is that the moment the credits started rolling, I turned to Laura and said – “OK I’m ready for the 5th one now!” I guess it’s just a mark of how fun, engaging and exciting these piratical tales are. Plus I can’t wait to see what Jack does next… The Disney logo is super cool! Once again loving that with major films releases they do funky/cool things to the normal intro – although I think TRON:Legacy still holds the record as the coolest logo modification, this was still very pretty. I miss Pintel and Raghetti (as well as Murtogg and Mullroy), but with a cadre of new characters to enjoy, you don’t miss them that much. Laura would like to know for certain what happens to Phillip and Serena at the end and I admit I am curious as well. Ian McShane is … Continue reading →

Thor – AMC 12 @ Downtown Disney

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I don’t see what everyone is bitching about – this film was beautiful. Chris Hemsworth looks absolutely incredible as Thor. I mean he really bulked up for the role and it looks awesome (we last saw him as George Kirk in J.J. Abram’s phenomenal Star Trek reboot). I love that Kenneth Branagh directed the film – especially after reading interviews with him where he talks about growing up in Ireland reading the Thor comic books and enjoying them! Side Notes: In the lobby we noticed a display for Puss In Boots, which just makes me roll my eyes that they’re taking anything vaguely Shrek and giving it it’s own movie. Also there was a HUGE 3-panel display for Cars 2 with so much pretty that we stood there for about 10 minutes analyzing all the little details. I am so very excited with what Pixar has accomplished just with this … Continue reading →

Sucker Punch – Incline Village Cinema, NV

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This film is absolutely phenomenal! We first became aware of this film as a series of posters in the theatre lobby when Laura and I went to see Green Hornet, and it looked like fun (sexy girls with advanced weaponry in fantasy/sci-fi environments). Then we watched the trailer and I was completely blown away and couldn’t wait to see it. Actually I desperately wanted to know more about it, but luckily my wife was able to curb my need for spoilers. And of course seeing that it was a Zack Snyder production automatically made it a definitely-worth-seeing flick (based on my appreciation for his handling of 300 and Watchmen – I can’t WAIT to see what he and Christopher Nolan cook up for Superman). Apparently this is based on an original story by Zack Snyder, which makes this all the more interesting – we’ve seen how he handles other comic … Continue reading →