Nice description of the trailer that’s coming for the next movie(s).
Quick hit movie reviews
I’ve been slacking on my reporting duties, so let’s catch up.
Zombieland-A fun zombie movie. Very simple, 2 months after a outbreak, Columbus makes his way from his college dorm in Texas though zombie land to get back home in Columbus, OH. He’s made it so far by living by a strict rule set, like good cardio for running, beware of bathrooms, double tap, buckle up and don’t be the hero. He meets 3 other people on his trip (woody harrelson rules and Emma Stone is gorgeous) home where they team up to survive. It’s not as violent or gory as I thought it would be, but it’s still good. Fun characters, fun scenes and one of the greatest cameos ever by Bill Murray. Great rainy day movie.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third movie in the franchise. It’s a good movie, it continues the traditions set by the last movie(s). It’s cute, funny, and really well animated. Simon Pegg’s character is probably my favorite addition.
Pandorum– one of the better sci-fi movies recently made I think. Two crew members on a large space ship get woken up from deep sleep a long time later than they were supposed to. The soon find that they aren’t the only ones moving about the ship on their quest to figure out where they’re going and what happened to the thousands of people that were supposed to be on board with them. The story takes some new twists, it’s well directed and acted. Convincing visual FX and fantastic set design make this a creepy movie. I recommend it.
District 13: Ultimatum is the sequel to 2004’s District 13. The first is famous for introducing the world at large to parkour, or “free running” which became a huge trend. Think Jackie Chan’s famous moves for climbing and moving over objects in fast and unorthodox gymnastic movements. District 13 is one section of a city that is a constant battle zone between politics and gangs. Here, the two unlikely heroes from the first movie team up again to stop the secret service’s plan to wipe out the 5 gangs that control the sector in one devastating and sneaky plan. Some really wild action scenes, though one or two more would have been nice. You watch this movie manly for the stunts, but the story is well done and it’s a well made movie. It’s French and I chose to keep the original language with English subtitles.
Ong Bak 2 It took it’s time getting to these shores, but Tony Jaa continues his run as the best action star today. Forget the story, just fast forward through any talking. It meanders, makes no sense and just gets in the way of the insane fight scenes. More weapon work than the first movie, Tony Jaa is the new Jackie Chan. He’s just amazing. This is simply an action scene show case, plain and simple.
Chocolate– I have no idea why this action movie is called Chocolate. This one is a slow boil, it takes awhile for the movie to break into a run, but when it does! Oh man. This is the story of an autistic girl (Zen) who happens to have a gift. She can learn martial arts just by watching movies. And her favorite movies? Tony Jaa of course! Zen’s mother gets cancer and with the help her friend they find out that people around town owe her a lot of money! So Zen goes around looking to reclaim those debts and no one seems to be willing to pay up. Enter ass kicking Mai Tai fight scenes! This girl is insane! She’s right there in Tony Jaa’s shoes doing crazy stunts and beating the stuffing out of every stuntman they could find. Stick with it, the last half of the movie is practically all action. Great direction, very easy to see and good use of slow-mo.
Gaming update
Here’s been what I’ve been playing:
Mass Effect 2- Finished it in about 35 hours. Fantastic game, I imported my character from the first game to continue the story so that made it a bit cooler. Coming across people (or “beings” I guess is a better general term to use) from the first game and seeing what my choice led to were really cool. It’s a streamlined game from the first. They tossed the Mako ship sections which I greatly appreciated and they got rid of the “RPG statistic” under pinnings of the combat system. That really doesn’t come into a great deal of a difference at higher character/skill level, but it makes the beginning of the game much smoother. Also gone is all of the garbage pickups that did nothing but take up space and they made the necessary tweaks to the interface. The feeling of combat is much, much improved. Sound effects, impact, easy of use makes every fight fun and stategic. They also gave the game engine an incredible amount of polish so it runs unbelievably well. Very little pop up, solid framerate, reasonable load times, fantastic texture and model work. It really feels like a unique sci-fi universe. Morality wise I made choice based on how I think I really would if I was Captain Nick Shepard. I was more good than evil, with some devious choices made when I felt really necessary. I’m anxious to see what goes down in the 3rd game. One of the best games of the year.
Bioshock 2- The original is one of my favorite games of all time. Fantastic story and one of the most atmospheric games made to date. I love Rapture. Now I didn’t have high hopes for the sequel, but I’m pleased to say it stands right next to the original. It takes a hit story wise because it’s not the breath of fresh air that Bioshock gave us in 2007 and it brings us back to an already established location. But, you do see all new places in Rapture and the story they came up with is very strong. 10 years after the first game, their is a lot to take in and explore. All the changes they made were really for the benefit. Better hacking game, greater weapon selection (rocket harpoons are a scream), duel wielding weapon/plasmid, video style research just make the gameplay better. The production values still hit the mark with excellent visuals and sound work. I didn’t check out multiplayer, but I highly recommend this, had a blast with it.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood- A Wild West FPS essentially. Gave this a spin before Red Dead Redemption comes out, it’s a really good rental. It starts really slow, the first stage is rather boring. But the game picks up as you progress. Playing as the brothers is really fun, I really like their dialog and the story is some classic Western stuff (war, betrayal, women, guns, redemption, revenge). Looks pretty good, controls well, 2 play styles based on which brother you choose to play as and there is a lot of location variety.
Starcraft II- Fundamentally SC in High Def which is what it should be at the very least. Looks and sounds amazing, I have to give this more play time to really say anything about it. I’m horrific at it, getting stomped is the worst.
(500) Days of Summer the Review
(500) Days of Summer has one of my favorite actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt so I have a certain expectation for him. Expectations have been met as he’s fantastic as Tom and he plays off of Zoey Deschanel (Summer) really well.
(500) is a relationship movie, one where the boy falls in love with the girl, but the girl doesn’t fall in love with the boy. The 500 days catalogs their time together, but it doesn’t play out in sequence. It’s edited so that we enter the story when they’ve broken up and jump to parts of the relationship out of order. It’s kinda like how we remember things in pieces, out of order. And for Tom, since he gets dumped, he remembers all the good parts first before thinking about where the warning signs started to show up.
The story is really well told, it’s told honestly. You can tell it came from the writers real life experiences…it’s sweet, it’s sad, it’s happy, it’s funny and it isn’t fair. JGL and Zoey really sell the movie as a convincing couple. The first time they meet, their courtship, their breakup all feels real and genuine. Editing is spot on and the soundtrack is finely chosen.
I really liked it. About 90 minutes long it’s the perfect run time, I’d recommend it to anyone.
Nip/Tuck – Hiro Yoshimuri
S7E9
“You know I always wanted this to last forever.”
The final episode was a good one. It avoided doing a over dramatic, soap opera style murder spree or natural catastrophe to kill off characters. It was really like saying goodbye to friends. I knew Sean and Christian wouldn’t, and couldn’t last. It looked like death was going to be the only way for them to split and I was partially right. Christian was on his way to killing Sean eventually. Sean gave up, reserved himself to what he thinks was his only choice: tit jobs, booze and Christian standing nearby.
Surprisingly Christian cut the strings. He has to live with what he did to Kimber for the rest of his life (although saying he “eats souls” is pretty over the top) and he can’t let the same fate happen to Sean. He’s gotta push one love away so they can be happy and live. Their final patient, Mr. Yoshimuri was the mirror to Christian. In his golden years the guy was having fun, doing what made him happy, unflinching to the moment he died. It’s really impossible for Christian to really change, we’ve seen it time and time again. Christian has kept Sean from changing, from doing what he wants to do. Now I’m unsure if Sean is going to raise the child Ava left behind, but at the very least his new life has started.
Now, good old Matt! The true train wreck of the family. He can’t handle life by himself, he has to have a dominate person watch him and tell him what to do. He knows it. He can’t fight it. It was surprising that he actually managed to come up with a convincing argument for Ava to let him tag along. Who knows, maybe the two pieces of shit will be able to live together (doubt it). Matt McNamara will go down as one of the shadiest TV characters of all time. The amount of awful things he’s done is staggering when you think about it.
While there was a lot of “Hey! This is the last show!” moments (like the revolution around the last dinner table) I’m happy with general feel at the end. You know that everyone is still going, it’s just that this saga is over. While everyone is going their separate ways, they could still be in contact with each other. Some people have changed and for the most part there isn’t a smoldering wreckage left behind in their relationships.
They of course did get away with murder. Dumping that last woman, the investigation surrounding Escobar was barely a mention. A big sticking point for me is that we never got a sense for Sean’s relationship with his two youngest kids. Especially Conner who was more of an after thought since his hand surgeries were complete. The kids always took a back seat on the show (Matt did get a lot of screen time) but the last scene where the kids leave dinner, it was like “everyone give the extras a round of applause!”. I never got the feeling that Sean would miss Conner at all since he never saw the kid.
Nip/Tuck has had it’s ups and downs to say the least, but it’s still one of my favorite TV shows ever made. I’m going to watch the first 2 seasons again soon to walk down memory lane again. While it’s time is certainly done, I am going to miss looking forward to new episodes.
Down and then back Up.
So 2 days after my favorite TV show ends, I get into the Starcraft II beta WHICH JUST FINISHED DOWNLOADING. See ya later!
Nip/Tuck finale
I just finished the last episode, I really have to think about what I watched. Really weird watching the end of a story you started watching 7 years ago.
I actually waited a day to watch it so I could still have a new N/T to see for just a little longer.
Nip/Tuck- Walter and Edith Krieger
S7E8
An episode of forgiveness and moving on. The patients, Walter and Edith, frame this weeks story. They come in to have the number tattoos from a Nazi prison camp removed from their arms. Having lived through the Holocaust, they want to erase this reminder of hate (Ediths’ daughter doesn’t approve). They’ve been together and through so long and through so much that this little operation will just be a ripple in their lives. But Walter has a bad reaction to the surgery from an infection and becomes incoherent and disoriented. He repeats an unsettling phrase to his wife before he recovers and she confronts him when he recovers. It turns out Walter was the man who gave the Jews their tattoos when they were brought to the internment camps. This obviously sends Edith for a loop, but she manages to forgive the man she’s loved and shared life with for decades.
With Sean and Christian’s professional and personal relationship in trouble it puts their situation into perspective. They’ve been through a lot together and they both have done very bad things in their passed, not many of which are secret at this point. Julia now comes to town to tell Sean that she is getting married and moving to London, if he signs the paper work allowing her to take the kids. Julia was the original fulcrum in the Sean/Christian/girl love triangle. Julia and Christian have crashed into each other like love struck teenagers over the years while Sean has been trying in vain to move on from his divorce. Julia has become the catalyst for change. She has truly moved on when she puts her foot down when both men try the old “Our Love is real and you know it!” routine. She says to them both that any romantic ties they’ve had are gone. Her, the kids, the men, they all need to get to stable grounds. This makes Christian back of and Sean steps up and signs the paper work. A painful situation, a painful choice, a real life changing moment.
Then the devil in desguise shows up looking for help. Eva Moore, probably the best character the show has had only behind Escobar, asks McNamara/Troy to help remove some scars from her infant son. Eva made a hasty retreat at the end of Season 2 that left some incredible damage to Sean and his family, Matt especially. His first love disappears after finding out that she is a post-op transsexual and her own sons kills himself right in front of them. Eva damaged Matt in life changing ways, he never really got passed it and the trouble he’s got into since hasn’t helped. Now Christian turns her away immediately, she’s so awful he won’t even consider hearing her out. She then tracks down Sean at his home because she knows he’s the easy mark. At she’s right. Except Sean is wise to her. He actually sees her as the manipulative liar that no one can trust and kicks her out of her house. Real change! Sean has actually learned something, changed and made a good decision for once.
Matt is the same old blithering idiot of a child though. Like an old black widow at work, Eva easily lures Matt in just days before getting married to Ramona. His chance for a real stable life is right in front of him, he even makes amends with his fathers to keep them close. Just when you think some sort of normal family bond can materialize Matt runs away with Eva in the very last scene.
Really fantastic episode, I was actually talking to the TV as Matt started walking towards the limo that Eva shows up in at the end. The promo for next weeks episode really got me worked up. I’ve been a fan of this show for so long that it’s hard to believe it’s over in a week. My only hope is that they end this show in a meaningful and deserving way. Time will tell butt I think I’m going to watch my N/T DVDs right away when all is said and done.
One episode remaining.
Nip/Tuck- Christian Troy II
S7E7
The seventh episode proved to be an odd one. Maybe even a misstep? After last weeks psyche beat down things seemed awfully copacetic between the two doctors. The shift went from their relationship to the changing trends in their profession. We fell down the rabbit hole into Christians messed up head as he went under the knife for the good of the practice (which he really did because he wanted a face lift and I’ve never liked the hardcore LOOK AT THESE METAPHORS! moments of the show. Plus, you don’t dream when you get knocked out). It did work seeing Kimber though, man did he fuck that up.
It was a weak episode. They decided to give Liz another shot of love that of course ends in a soul crushing manner, Sean gets duped by a woman as he’s afraid of growing old too. Now Christians YouTube promo plan has backfired as he now clearly sees not everyone thinks plastic surgery is the greatest.
2 episodes remaining.
Nip/Tuck- Dr. Griffin
S7E6
A real dive into the psyche’s of McNamara/Troy! One of the best episodes in recent memory, the material and acting was top notch. The whole show took place almost entirely in one location and was fascinating from a long time fans perspective. This group therapy session really let the guys rip on each other, each one bringing up points that would sway you to think that they’re right.
Sean is good at playing the victim, but for good reason. Christian does pay people off thinking that amends everything and in a way it does. Christian tells Sean about the forgery and Sean clocks him for it, but he pays him back the money (with interest as Christian was clear to point out). Then when Sean tells Christian about sleeping with Kimber, Christian is quick to mention you really can’t pay that one off.
With grievances flying Liz comes in and tells it how it is. Sean doesn’t know who he is without Christian, everything he does he compares to him. They are joined at the hip no matter how much Sean doesn’t like it. Always in the middle, Liz pretty much tells them to grow up so they can all move on. Getting pregnant from Sean’s donation sure as hell doesn’t make anything easier though. Sean signs off on having no legal right to the child, but now he feels like he made a mistake. Figures.
Enter Matt who makes it clear that he’s separating himself with his new fiance. True to form, Christian goes in for the attack while Sean goes into bewildered self defense and concern. With Matt’s past, those are both understanding reactions. Can Matt really leave forever? I guess if his fiance is really a sugar mama, he could stick with it.
We have yet to get Julia’s take on this and I’ve read that Ava (!!!) is going to make an appearance soon. The best may be yet to come.
3 episodes remaining.
Nip/Tuck- Virginia Hayes
S7E5
The theme continues. Christian and Sean are completely bonded, despite anyones feelings toward the matter. Years of being together has pretty much fused their personalities together, everyone sees them as one unit. Their actions are seen as a complete partnership. Especially from Christian’s standpoint.
An epic throwback to the first season, Escobar’s (arguably the best character in the shows history) world comes crashing back into McNamara/Troy. His daughter, now 15 comes to the office looking for answers about her father, which brings back a whole mess of “buried” issues. Looking for some sort of redemption and a clean conscious, Sean ends up giving her some information on her pedo uncle and how her father and McNamara/Troy handled the situation. On cue, the Feds come-a-knocking as the young lady felt compelled to snitch. Terrific news for the boys.
Enter the new drama patient, Virginia Hayes. At least that’s the name she gives them. Well, Virginia is a con artist/ID thief who gets caught by Christian. In the end, she too is looking for forgiveness and a clean slate, but the real Virginia is not exactly forgiving. With a dead body in the recovery suite, Christian thinks she died because of the surgery he did on her and can’t go to the cops because he lied about what procedure he did to her (to be fair, those implants really weren’t hers!).
“Fix this!” Another brilliant flash to the start of the show by Liz. Given a sure fire way to separate from Christian, Sean falls for the same routine again and help Christian dispose of the body. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!
There is no possible way this is going to end well. Sean is and always will be Christian’s bitch until one of them dead (cue Escobar’s poetic metaphor). Now the feds are sniffing around them and Sean still doesn’t know about the forged loan that Christian set up a few weeks ago.
Great episode, great music choices.
4 episodes left.
Moon the Review
Moon starring Sam Rockwell is one of the best sci-fi movies I’ve seen in years. Most recently, the Star Trek reboot was great (more sci-fi action genre than Moon) and Sunshine was awesome until the very odd character twist at the end.
Moon is about Sam Bell who works alone on the moon for a company that gathers resources from the surface that are used on Earth for energy. The contract for the company is 3 years, where you work in a small lunar base monitoring systems while 3 giant unmanned rovers cruise the surface collecting the minerals. Every so often, Sam sends the resources out in a pod back to Earth with reports. Sam has limited contact with Earth, to the company and his wife (with his young daughter) none of it is a live feed, just video messages.
With two weeks left in his contract, Sam pops into a lunar rover to check on one of the gathering rovers where he gets into an accident. He wakes up back in the lunar base in the infirmary and ends up meeting…himself.
I love the concept, I wish I came up with it. There’s 5 people in the movie, Sam Rockwell is 99% of it, the other 4 people are in 1% of the movie. Kevin Spacey voices the robot system in the lunar base, so Sam basically carries the entire movie playing 2 versions of himself and he is simply fantastic. I liked everything about the movie, it’s really inspiring filmmaking. Run time was prefect, acting is top notch, it looks fantastic and I loved how it ended. Duncan Jones (director and co-writer) and the whole crew of course, made a hell of a movie. Watch the special features on the DVD to see all the work it took to get the movie to look and work right. There’s a surprising amount of CG in the movie and a good portion of it is transparent.
Highly recommended.