Rom Howard to appear in the movie. Read this article.
http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a299085/ron-howard-could-appear-in-arrested-movie.html
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Doctor Who: Christmas Carol.
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol.
TV Special.
The 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special, for those of you that don't know, marks the half way point between the last season and the new season of Doctor Who, dating back since the 2005 series revival.
Sometimes a new character is revealed, who later appears in the series or the Doctor regenerates into a new actor.
This year's saw Amy Pond and Rory on their honeymoon aboard a spaceship that is starting to crash into an alien planet. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and discovers that the planet is protected by an electromagnetic machine that is controlled by an old miser Kazran Sardick. Despite the fact it's as simple as pushing a button, he refuses to save the ship.
The Doctor decides to travel back in time to change Kazran past to make him a better, more caring person. The Doctor shows an old home video of Kazran to himself. As Kazran watches himself as a child The Doctor suddenly appears in the video from his childhood.
This is a typical Doctor Who story, but lacked a lot of what is expected in a typical Who episode. There wasn't a lot of adventure just a straight forward story which was very predictable with no real surprises.
It felt that Amy and Rory were in it as an afterthoughts and didn't really add much to anything except to add to the continuity.
It was kind of a let down. But worth watching.
6 out of 10
Taylor
TV Special.
The 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special, for those of you that don't know, marks the half way point between the last season and the new season of Doctor Who, dating back since the 2005 series revival.
Sometimes a new character is revealed, who later appears in the series or the Doctor regenerates into a new actor.
This year's saw Amy Pond and Rory on their honeymoon aboard a spaceship that is starting to crash into an alien planet. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and discovers that the planet is protected by an electromagnetic machine that is controlled by an old miser Kazran Sardick. Despite the fact it's as simple as pushing a button, he refuses to save the ship.
The Doctor decides to travel back in time to change Kazran past to make him a better, more caring person. The Doctor shows an old home video of Kazran to himself. As Kazran watches himself as a child The Doctor suddenly appears in the video from his childhood.
This is a typical Doctor Who story, but lacked a lot of what is expected in a typical Who episode. There wasn't a lot of adventure just a straight forward story which was very predictable with no real surprises.
It felt that Amy and Rory were in it as an afterthoughts and didn't really add much to anything except to add to the continuity.
It was kind of a let down. But worth watching.
6 out of 10
Taylor
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Futurama volume 5.
Futurama Volume 5.
DVD
Futurama is the brain child of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. It was marketed as the Simpsons in space and appeared on TV in 1999. Sadly it was pulled from the air around the same time as The Family Guy.
Years went by and Futurama continued as a comic book and a lackluster video game. Occasionally, Bender would appear in a SimpsonÃs episode but never for very long.
Family Guy was brought back on the air and soon hopes that Futurama would return soon filled fans heads.
No network seemed to want to take the reins and bring it back, even though in reruns it did very well on several different stations.
Soon a series of four straight to DVD movies were released a few months apart and were split into 12 TV episodes that aired on Comedy Central. The success of the DVDs and the newer split up episodes had Comedy Central order 13 new episodes.
The new series is a continuation of the original series and the four movies. In fact the last movie ends with a cliff hanger which is where the first episode starts off. Episodes take on modern subject as evolution, politics, iPhones, Twitter and robots/humans marriages, with some episodes making a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci and time travel amongst other topics.
Fry and Leela now know how each other feel about the other and are dating. We see Amy Wong finishing school and having relationship problems with Kiff. Other than being a little short of episodes Futurama volume 5 fits into the Futurama series like a missing puzzle piece. It was a little hard to start in on new Futuramas after so many years, but after a few episodes the new writing and episode flow seemed like old hat.
There was a rumor for a while that a new series would be called "Fry Loves Leela" and that it wouldn't be a continuation but a 2nd series with not all of the characters returning.
I didn't like the carbon neutral box that the series came in. I'm all for saving the environment, but these are paper cases and do not hold up very well.
Definitely pick up this set if you're a fan or if you just want a good comedy to watch. Plus, good DVD sales will help keep it on the air for several more years.
There is a sticker on the cover tha reads, "Back by popular harassment."
8 of 10.
Taylor
DVD
Futurama is the brain child of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. It was marketed as the Simpsons in space and appeared on TV in 1999. Sadly it was pulled from the air around the same time as The Family Guy.
Years went by and Futurama continued as a comic book and a lackluster video game. Occasionally, Bender would appear in a SimpsonÃs episode but never for very long.
Family Guy was brought back on the air and soon hopes that Futurama would return soon filled fans heads.
No network seemed to want to take the reins and bring it back, even though in reruns it did very well on several different stations.
Soon a series of four straight to DVD movies were released a few months apart and were split into 12 TV episodes that aired on Comedy Central. The success of the DVDs and the newer split up episodes had Comedy Central order 13 new episodes.
The new series is a continuation of the original series and the four movies. In fact the last movie ends with a cliff hanger which is where the first episode starts off. Episodes take on modern subject as evolution, politics, iPhones, Twitter and robots/humans marriages, with some episodes making a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci and time travel amongst other topics.
Fry and Leela now know how each other feel about the other and are dating. We see Amy Wong finishing school and having relationship problems with Kiff. Other than being a little short of episodes Futurama volume 5 fits into the Futurama series like a missing puzzle piece. It was a little hard to start in on new Futuramas after so many years, but after a few episodes the new writing and episode flow seemed like old hat.
There was a rumor for a while that a new series would be called "Fry Loves Leela" and that it wouldn't be a continuation but a 2nd series with not all of the characters returning.
I didn't like the carbon neutral box that the series came in. I'm all for saving the environment, but these are paper cases and do not hold up very well.
Definitely pick up this set if you're a fan or if you just want a good comedy to watch. Plus, good DVD sales will help keep it on the air for several more years.
There is a sticker on the cover tha reads, "Back by popular harassment."
8 of 10.
Taylor
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Fred Claus
Fred Claus
Blu ray and DVD.
Vince Vaughn stars as Santa's older brother Fred, who is tired of having to live up to his example. Paul Giamoti plays Santa and because he is a saint no one in his immediate family (or their spouse) dies. So the story starts hundreds of years ago when Santa was born and after a showing how the rift between the two started, picks up in modern times.
Fred is a wheeling, dealing, friendly con man who has no one left to borrow money from to open a betting parlor. So he turns to his brother, who uses tough love and makes him work for the money at the North Pole.
His arrival coincides with Kevin Spacey who is sent to see if Santa's whole setup is worth the trouble anymore. And in the typical Spacey way turns out to be diabolical and wants to shut down the North Pole.
One of the funniest scenes I have seen in a movie was when Fred goes to the "living in my brothers shadow" support group. Frank Stalone talks about losing his identity when the Rocky movies came out. Then Roger Clinton talks about being brothers with Bill. Fred mouths off and upsets Stephan Baldwin who calms down by stomping the floor and reminding himself "he's not Alec."
Kathy Bates and Rachel Weisz play Fred's mom and girlfriend but they could have been played by anyone.
All in all this is your basic unethical guy learns a powerful lesson and saves Christmas movie. But it is fresh, updated and a little in your face funny.
Every December, while going through Christmas boxes I inevitably find the list I made comparing my father to Santa Claus.
1. Both are old.
2. They both eat all the milk and cookies, leaving none for anyone else.
3. They both have big, food catching beards.
4. Both have bowls full of jelly.
5. Both work about a day a year.
7 out of 10
Taylor.
Blu ray and DVD.
Vince Vaughn stars as Santa's older brother Fred, who is tired of having to live up to his example. Paul Giamoti plays Santa and because he is a saint no one in his immediate family (or their spouse) dies. So the story starts hundreds of years ago when Santa was born and after a showing how the rift between the two started, picks up in modern times.
Fred is a wheeling, dealing, friendly con man who has no one left to borrow money from to open a betting parlor. So he turns to his brother, who uses tough love and makes him work for the money at the North Pole.
His arrival coincides with Kevin Spacey who is sent to see if Santa's whole setup is worth the trouble anymore. And in the typical Spacey way turns out to be diabolical and wants to shut down the North Pole.
One of the funniest scenes I have seen in a movie was when Fred goes to the "living in my brothers shadow" support group. Frank Stalone talks about losing his identity when the Rocky movies came out. Then Roger Clinton talks about being brothers with Bill. Fred mouths off and upsets Stephan Baldwin who calms down by stomping the floor and reminding himself "he's not Alec."
Kathy Bates and Rachel Weisz play Fred's mom and girlfriend but they could have been played by anyone.
All in all this is your basic unethical guy learns a powerful lesson and saves Christmas movie. But it is fresh, updated and a little in your face funny.
Every December, while going through Christmas boxes I inevitably find the list I made comparing my father to Santa Claus.
1. Both are old.
2. They both eat all the milk and cookies, leaving none for anyone else.
3. They both have big, food catching beards.
4. Both have bowls full of jelly.
5. Both work about a day a year.
7 out of 10
Taylor.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Blu Ray and DVD.
Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic figures in movie history. The first three movies are some of the best... uh, maybe not so much on the Temple of Doom. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark took Harrison Ford from being that guy in Star Wars to a legitimate actor.
When word came down of a fourth Indiana Jones, I got really excited. It had been almost 20 years since the Last Crusade and I was ready.
First reports stated Harrison Ford and Sean Connery were back. Plus, Tom Selleck was cast as his older brother. George Lucas was writing and producing and Steven Spielberg was directing. Perfect, right? Wrong.
Sean Connery dropped out, stating,
"I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun."
―Sean Connery in 2007
Then Tom Selleck dropped out over script disputes. So the script was heavily rewritten and the brother was removed and replaced with the character of Harold Oxley played by John Hurt. With no Connery, Jim Broadbent was introduced as the Dean of the College.
The movie itself starts out rather typically of the series with a military unit driving down a dusty desert highway being harassed by some local 1950's stereotyped teens in a hot rod. The military unit turns onto a base remonisiant of area 51 and are revealed to be Russian spies who kill everyone and take over the base. Tossing Indiana Jones from a car with his sidekick Mac, this is where the movie starts to go wrong.
The only bad guys more overplayed than the Nazis are the Russians. This movie is chalked full of them led by Cate Blanchett with a very bad accent and even badder wig.
During a nuclear explosion at the beginning of the movie, our has-been hero hides in a lead refrigerator only to get launched free of danger. At this point my thought was maybe the rest of the movie will redeem this scene. It didn't.
The debriefing scene was used to fill in the gap between the movies. He was a spy in WWII... neat. But too much time has passed and to many things have changed like his secretly tratorous sidekick.
Shia LaBeouf plays Mutt, no surprise, Indiana Jones' son and a greaser bike rider. For some reason his character quickly turns from a street smart brawler to a sword fighting scholar that the movie really could have done without.
John Hurt over acts in his role, making him hard to watch. As for Karen Allen returning as Marion... let's just say time wasn't on her side.
Here's what it come down to: the feel of the originals was not there. The jokey, cocky way he does things didn't seem to make it into this movie. Scenes such as Indiana facing down a line of villains only to shoot all of them with 1 bullet are really missing in this movie.
The original three movies were based on religious beliefs such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and the Thugee cult. Beliefs with written records and thousands of years of culture. This time around the movie is based on theoretical, new age beliefs about current pseudo theory that aliens came to Earth and taught the ancients technology. A theory based on little to no facts.
This movie was just too out there. The story didn't fit into the Indiana Jones mythos. Too many stupid plot twist and bad ideas. I really wanted to like this movie. I kept trying to rationalize my way through this. I kept thinking, maybe the next scene will get better, which turned into 'it can't end like this'.
Avoid this movie. Even hard core fans will have a problem with this film. There is a theory about this movie series, Raiders was good, Temple was bad. Last Crusade was good, Crystal Skull was bad. Therefore, based on the alternating quality, the assumption is that the 5th one (which they are working on now) will be good.
Tom Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones. It was after he did the pilot for Magnum P.I. but before the series got picked up. He couldn't do it while the series started shooting and felt obligated to decline. So when Tom Selleck moved to Hawaii the writers guild went on strike and no filming was done for 6 months. In that time, production of Raiders of the Lost Ark filmed in Hawaii and only took 6 months.
2 out of 10
Taylor
Blu Ray and DVD.
Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic figures in movie history. The first three movies are some of the best... uh, maybe not so much on the Temple of Doom. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark took Harrison Ford from being that guy in Star Wars to a legitimate actor.
When word came down of a fourth Indiana Jones, I got really excited. It had been almost 20 years since the Last Crusade and I was ready.
First reports stated Harrison Ford and Sean Connery were back. Plus, Tom Selleck was cast as his older brother. George Lucas was writing and producing and Steven Spielberg was directing. Perfect, right? Wrong.
Sean Connery dropped out, stating,
"I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun."
―Sean Connery in 2007
Then Tom Selleck dropped out over script disputes. So the script was heavily rewritten and the brother was removed and replaced with the character of Harold Oxley played by John Hurt. With no Connery, Jim Broadbent was introduced as the Dean of the College.
The movie itself starts out rather typically of the series with a military unit driving down a dusty desert highway being harassed by some local 1950's stereotyped teens in a hot rod. The military unit turns onto a base remonisiant of area 51 and are revealed to be Russian spies who kill everyone and take over the base. Tossing Indiana Jones from a car with his sidekick Mac, this is where the movie starts to go wrong.
The only bad guys more overplayed than the Nazis are the Russians. This movie is chalked full of them led by Cate Blanchett with a very bad accent and even badder wig.
During a nuclear explosion at the beginning of the movie, our has-been hero hides in a lead refrigerator only to get launched free of danger. At this point my thought was maybe the rest of the movie will redeem this scene. It didn't.
The debriefing scene was used to fill in the gap between the movies. He was a spy in WWII... neat. But too much time has passed and to many things have changed like his secretly tratorous sidekick.
Shia LaBeouf plays Mutt, no surprise, Indiana Jones' son and a greaser bike rider. For some reason his character quickly turns from a street smart brawler to a sword fighting scholar that the movie really could have done without.
John Hurt over acts in his role, making him hard to watch. As for Karen Allen returning as Marion... let's just say time wasn't on her side.
Here's what it come down to: the feel of the originals was not there. The jokey, cocky way he does things didn't seem to make it into this movie. Scenes such as Indiana facing down a line of villains only to shoot all of them with 1 bullet are really missing in this movie.
The original three movies were based on religious beliefs such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and the Thugee cult. Beliefs with written records and thousands of years of culture. This time around the movie is based on theoretical, new age beliefs about current pseudo theory that aliens came to Earth and taught the ancients technology. A theory based on little to no facts.
This movie was just too out there. The story didn't fit into the Indiana Jones mythos. Too many stupid plot twist and bad ideas. I really wanted to like this movie. I kept trying to rationalize my way through this. I kept thinking, maybe the next scene will get better, which turned into 'it can't end like this'.
Avoid this movie. Even hard core fans will have a problem with this film. There is a theory about this movie series, Raiders was good, Temple was bad. Last Crusade was good, Crystal Skull was bad. Therefore, based on the alternating quality, the assumption is that the 5th one (which they are working on now) will be good.
Tom Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones. It was after he did the pilot for Magnum P.I. but before the series got picked up. He couldn't do it while the series started shooting and felt obligated to decline. So when Tom Selleck moved to Hawaii the writers guild went on strike and no filming was done for 6 months. In that time, production of Raiders of the Lost Ark filmed in Hawaii and only took 6 months.
2 out of 10
Taylor
Look Me In The Eyes.
Look Me in the Eye.
John Elder Robinson
Book
This book is about a child who grows into adulthood without knowing he had a form of autism known as Aspergers syndrome. It is autobiographical and is written in the style of his younger brother Augusten Burroughs.
From a very young age John Elder knew that he was different. His reactions and interactions were different then those around him and often times adults would ridicule him. For example, he writes of a time when someone was killed in a terrible car crash and his reaction was to smile and laugh. The adults were mortified and thought that he was crazy. When in fact John Elder goes on to explain his thought process. He was happy because his parents weren't involved and no one he knew was dead and then thought about them all having fun togather.
The way he peels back the layers of Aspergers to explain the different thought processes to the reader, as well as the struggles to talk to people like what calls normal people, really made you feel for him.
He was raised at a time when there was no diagnoses for what he had. People thought he was psychotic, stupid or just retarded. He left school and as soon as he realized he could and found himself working on Pink Floyds' equipment before touring with KISS to design special guitars and amps.
He delves into relationships and marriage with his disorder. He found it much easier to call people by nicknames then actual names. He referred to his Dad as Stupid and his Mom as Slave for most of his life.
If you've read any Augusten Burroughs books then you'll want to read this book to see their parents from a different, yet similar point of view. You also get to see their parents younger, happier and even in love.
This is a good read, especially for those that have always felt like they were a little different.
I was always told "look me in the eye" when I was younger. I always laughed at how weird it was when you had to stare into people's eyes... which inevitably make the situation worse.
8 out of 10
Taylor
John Elder Robinson
Book
This book is about a child who grows into adulthood without knowing he had a form of autism known as Aspergers syndrome. It is autobiographical and is written in the style of his younger brother Augusten Burroughs.
From a very young age John Elder knew that he was different. His reactions and interactions were different then those around him and often times adults would ridicule him. For example, he writes of a time when someone was killed in a terrible car crash and his reaction was to smile and laugh. The adults were mortified and thought that he was crazy. When in fact John Elder goes on to explain his thought process. He was happy because his parents weren't involved and no one he knew was dead and then thought about them all having fun togather.
The way he peels back the layers of Aspergers to explain the different thought processes to the reader, as well as the struggles to talk to people like what calls normal people, really made you feel for him.
He was raised at a time when there was no diagnoses for what he had. People thought he was psychotic, stupid or just retarded. He left school and as soon as he realized he could and found himself working on Pink Floyds' equipment before touring with KISS to design special guitars and amps.
He delves into relationships and marriage with his disorder. He found it much easier to call people by nicknames then actual names. He referred to his Dad as Stupid and his Mom as Slave for most of his life.
If you've read any Augusten Burroughs books then you'll want to read this book to see their parents from a different, yet similar point of view. You also get to see their parents younger, happier and even in love.
This is a good read, especially for those that have always felt like they were a little different.
I was always told "look me in the eye" when I was younger. I always laughed at how weird it was when you had to stare into people's eyes... which inevitably make the situation worse.
8 out of 10
Taylor
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Super Mario Bros. Classic review.
Super Mario Bros.
NES, Wii. Classics Review.
This was the first real video game I ever played outside an arcade. We had an atari but those games didn't play very well besides Pacman and Donkey King. I was a little late coming to the scene, 1988, considering the game came out in 1986.
For 20 years, Super Mario Bros. was the best selling game of all time. Almost 45 million copies have been sold. It has been released in every format Nintendo that has been made since the original NES.
Super Mario Bros. is a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. which itself is a sequel to 1981's Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Mario has appeared in almost 100 games that altogether have sold 220 million units.
The game itself is a side scrolling adventure through the mushroom kingdom. Players take on the role of Mario or with 2 players, Luigi. Depending on which block you hit you can get certain power ups, fire balls, invulnerability or super size. Coins were also placed in blocks and after collecting 100 you got a free life.
It came free with Duck Hunt for most of the original NES systems. So almost everyone got a copy of it.
Along his quest to save the princess, Mario fought turtle shelled Koopa Troopas, mushroom Goombas, snapping pipe pants and a giant lizard named Bowzer. There were other badies, but only my brother took the time to memorize them.
This game introduced gamers to the warp pipe. Basically, hidden in the game are several pipes that skip you ahead in the game to a whole other level. This made it do I could beat the game repeatedly before my brother even got a chance to play Luigi. This was a whole new way of cheating, a legal way to beat the game.
All in all this game is fun and brings back a flood of memories. My only complaint is that recent Mario games have additional power and abilities that I instinctively have tried to do, such as the wall bounce, on the original game.
I used to get in trouble for two reasons with this game.
1. As mentioned earlier, I would be told to play with my little brother and so we took turns playing Super Mario Bros. But I was so good at it and I knew all the warps so well that I could play through game over and over again before giving him a chance to play.
2. My brother and me referred to Mario dying on the game as dying. For example, "oh no, I just died." My Mom got very upset that we joked about life and death at such a young age.
9 out of 10
Taylor
NES, Wii. Classics Review.
This was the first real video game I ever played outside an arcade. We had an atari but those games didn't play very well besides Pacman and Donkey King. I was a little late coming to the scene, 1988, considering the game came out in 1986.
For 20 years, Super Mario Bros. was the best selling game of all time. Almost 45 million copies have been sold. It has been released in every format Nintendo that has been made since the original NES.
Super Mario Bros. is a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. which itself is a sequel to 1981's Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Mario has appeared in almost 100 games that altogether have sold 220 million units.
The game itself is a side scrolling adventure through the mushroom kingdom. Players take on the role of Mario or with 2 players, Luigi. Depending on which block you hit you can get certain power ups, fire balls, invulnerability or super size. Coins were also placed in blocks and after collecting 100 you got a free life.
It came free with Duck Hunt for most of the original NES systems. So almost everyone got a copy of it.
Along his quest to save the princess, Mario fought turtle shelled Koopa Troopas, mushroom Goombas, snapping pipe pants and a giant lizard named Bowzer. There were other badies, but only my brother took the time to memorize them.
This game introduced gamers to the warp pipe. Basically, hidden in the game are several pipes that skip you ahead in the game to a whole other level. This made it do I could beat the game repeatedly before my brother even got a chance to play Luigi. This was a whole new way of cheating, a legal way to beat the game.
All in all this game is fun and brings back a flood of memories. My only complaint is that recent Mario games have additional power and abilities that I instinctively have tried to do, such as the wall bounce, on the original game.
I used to get in trouble for two reasons with this game.
1. As mentioned earlier, I would be told to play with my little brother and so we took turns playing Super Mario Bros. But I was so good at it and I knew all the warps so well that I could play through game over and over again before giving him a chance to play.
2. My brother and me referred to Mario dying on the game as dying. For example, "oh no, I just died." My Mom got very upset that we joked about life and death at such a young age.
9 out of 10
Taylor
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)