Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back silent movie

I saw a preview for Real Steel a while back and completely forgot about it until I noticed it at my local Redbox. I didn’t really have high expectations of the movie, but I love robots, so checked it out. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) plays Charlie Kenton, a washed up boxer that now competes in humanoid robot battles. After the embarrassing destruction of yet another robot, some guys track him down and tell him his ex wife died and now custody of his 11 year old son Max falls to him. His sister-in-law that wants custody, and Charlie wants nothing to do with the kid. Just as he is about to sign over custody, he notices she is married to some rich old guy. Seeing an opportunity to buy another robot, Charlie makes a secret deal for 100K to sign over custody. Conveniently, the rich husband is planning a trip to Europe, so doesn’t want the kid quite yet. The deal is 50K now, 50K at the end of the summer. Charlie reluctantly takes Max on the road to explore the underworld of robot boxing.
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The 1984 Hollywood version of Dune directed by David Lynch could best be described as a poor attempt to cash in on one of the best science fiction novels of our time. I highly doubt that anyone that has not read Dune by Frank Herbert could possibly understand how bad the movie was compared to the book. I have only the vaguest of memories from the first time I’ve watched Dune back when I was a little kid. I don’t remember it being one of my favorite movies like the Star Wars Trilogy. Anyway, I decided to watch the movie once again after reading the novel, which I just reviewed.

I watched this movie last week with my wife who has seen approximately 10-15 times. She read the first three Dune novels about 10 years ago, and hadn’t seen the movie for at least 5 years or more. We didn’t realize how comical the movie was compared to the book until I started pointing out the blatant discrepancies. Still, it has a completely pointless gratuitous scene with Sting emerging from some type of steam shower in a speedo, which is one of the best parts of Dune according to my wife. I think that it looks more like Flash Gordon’s underwear rather than a speedo. Anyway, I’ll move on to the review, to be followed by a spoiler-filled list of major discrepancies with the book. (more…)

I wasn’t really planning on watching Avatar in the theater until I heard a raving review of the 3D version from my brother-in-law. He told me he immediately knew he wanted to watch it again. I have never seen a 3D movie before, so I was pretty pumped to go see it. I had heard some reports of people getting sick from watching the movie, so I admit I was a bit apprehensive during the first few minutes. The 3D didn’t really bother me initially, but after about 30 minutes I found myself getting a bit of a headache. I think it was from me trying to look around the screen checking out the different levels of depth during each scene. I decided to just relax and look where I normally would and I started to feel better.

As for the movie itself, it wasn’t an amazing, earth-shattering experience for me like many people have said it was for them. The whole idea of controlling another body remotely was rather interesting. This concept has been around a long time, but I don’t think until now controlling another biological being built with parts of your own DNA has been described. The movie was fun to watch and is most definitely a milestone in cinematography. I haven’t really gone to movies in the theater in the past few years because it has started to become so expensive, but Avatar is worth the money. If you can see it in 3D without getting sick, I’d recommend that as well. (more…)