Some quick hits to completely catch me up!

Contagion– Remember the movie Outbreak? This is a new viral threat movie, but minus those pesky monkeys. Director Steven Soderbergh continues his solid legacy with this one. It’s a straight forward epidemic movie that’s going to make you want to wash your hands the second the credits roll. Gwyneth Paltrow is close to patient zero, in fact she brings it to the States. Never trust her.

Outrage-Yakuza! A big name boss needs a group of drug trafficers to be brought under control. He tells his right hand man to handle it who then passes it on to the guy below him. It doesn’t go well. Mistakes and misunderstandings are made and a whole lot of people end up paying with their lives. Beat Takeshi is the most well known actor here and he does his standard quality tough man gig here. Pretty good, but I’d only recommend it to yakuza genre fans.

30 Minutes or Less– This one got alot of weird looks when it came out because it kind of mimics a real life event where a pizza delivery guy actually had a bomb strapped to him and forced to rob a bank (he didn’t live). I don’t really see how this teased or made fun of that mans unfortunate end, but that might be just one of those things that people who like to get offended over cling to.

I watched this for the cast as I really like Eisenberg, Ansari, Swardson and McBride. It’s not a laugh a minute, but there is some great dialog and character interaction here and at 80 minutes long it doesn’t overstay its welcome. McBride and Swardson are a pair of dummies who get the idea of opening a massage parlor, but they don’t have the money to invest in it. But, McBride’s father does! They hire a hit man to take him out so McBride can get the inheritance but need 100 grand for the hitman. They spot Eiseneberg and decided to force him to rob a bank to put their plan into action.

It’s not going to win any awards, there is a love plot that really doesn’t mean much in the end and it’s not the funniest movie ever made, but I don’t think the movie deserved all the hate it got. Good rental to kill a rainy afternoon.

Tintinis an old comic created by Herge. Huge in Europe, Tintin never really caught on here. He’s a young detective who solves wondrous globe spanning mysteries with his trusty dog Snowy. A menagerie of characters accompany and hinder Tintin in the many stories that Herge wrote over a 50 year span.

This movie, spearheaded by Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson merges 2 stories, “The Crab with the Golden Claws” and “The Secret of the Unicorn”. The film feels and looks a lot like an Indiana Jones movie ( a lot better than Crystal Skull). It takes place in 1930 in various dusty locals around the world. The visuals are the most striking of all, by far the best motion capture based animation films I’ve seen. Realistic character movement and facial animation, incredible environmental effects. Easily on par with the best Pixar has offered to date. Given the virtual space, Spielberg went with a full digital camera system (as first used in 2006’s Monster House I think). This allowed him to move the camera around in ways that’s impossible to do in real life. The action set pieces often use these sweeping and long camera takes that are pretty breathtaking to be hold.

It’s a really well made movie, a lot of care and work went into this. Not being familiar with the original works, I can’t comment on how well they translated Tintin to the screen, but I liked what I saw. It’s a fun, adventurous story with memorable characters and great action. Recommended to everyone.

Remake or reboot? Either way Jonah Hill took on the task of reimagining the 80’s show for the movies and it works surprisingly well.

21 Jump Street is an undercover cop unit that infiltrates high schools to stop the growing scourge of illicit drugs. Here it’s a new synthetic drug that the authorities want stopped before it spreads to other schools. Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) went to this school 7 years ago and became friends while going to police academy after graduation. A botched arrest puts them on this new task force where they need to find the dealer and then the supplier of the drug.

It’s a funny buddy cop movie, Hill and Tatum have a real chemistry that the movie really relys on. While the movie does go through the motions, some slight twists and bumps were wisely put in to keep it new and interesting. Great cameos by the main cast of the TV show give a nice final touch on the whole experience. I’d say it makes a quality rental.