Movie Review: THE SOCIAL NETWORK

I have a feeling that this review will be kind of short, because to be honest, I'm not 100% sure how this movie makes me feel. Let me start by saying that David Fincher is a great director. He really captured the isolation of Mark Zuckerberg. Several times I noticed that Jesse Eisenberg, playing Zuckerberg, was in a shot all by himself. Even when there were other people around, he was still off to one side. Apart from using framing to show Zuckerberg's isolation, Fincher just sets up amazing shots. This movie was absolutely beautiful to watch. From the Harvard campus to a table in a room, Fincher found the perfect way to set up the scene and tell his story.

Aaron Sorkin's writing was also a treat. The fast paced dialogue he is known for was certainly on display here. It will take a second viewing just to catch everything said in the opening conversation. The way the script jumped from hearing to flashback to another hearing was very smooth and felt very natural.

I said I wasn't sure how THE SOCIAL NETWORK makes me feel. This is because the movie doesn't seem to make a judgement on Zuckerberg's actions. It just shows them "how they happened." This being a movie at least partly fiction, it doesn't go out of its way to tell the audience how to feel. Personally I kind of identify with the character of Mark Zuckerberg. THE SOCIAL NETWORK portrays him as a very lonely person who is just trying to get noticed. His problem is, he doesn't know when to stop.

This movie was very interesting, and I will definitely have to see it again to get its full impact. For now, I will simply recommend it to just about anyone who doesn't mind seeing a movie with little to no action, but with a lot of dialogue that won't leave you bored.

Rating: A

Nostalgia Review: The Land Before Time

Now, it's been a good 15 years since I've watched The Land Before Time. Like many my age I have quite fond and scarring memories of this movie. Since it was on Netflix's watch instantly I decided to rewatch it. The movie is directed by Don Bluth, who directed films such as An American Tail, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia. Like Bluth's other films, The Land Before Time is beautifully animated, even by today's standards, though sometimes it does feel a little flat at times. What surprised me was the depth of the characters. Each of the dinosaurs has their own traits that are completely distinct from the other. The film does an excellent job of raising tension. The scenes with the sharp tooth are all quite scary, especially for a child. Likewise, the scene in the tar pit is very intense and if I hadn't seen the movie several times before I would have been worried about the characters.

The Land Before Time is best at handling the emotional scenes. I think everyone who saw this movie before the age of ten is not afraid to admit that they wept in the scene where Littlefoot's mother dies. What I think those same people forget, however, are the scenes of conflict between the party members can be almost as heart wrenching. The viewer very much wants this party to succeed in their quest to find the great valley, so when fights happen that make that quest harder, it's a very sad prospect. On the other side of the coin, the scenes where the characters succeed in what they are trying to accomplish it is very exciting and moving.

The themes of The Land Before Time are very good ones to have in children's movie. The themes of loss, independence, and strength in friendships are all ones that young children can use as they grow. Especially in modern times, where a child may learn about loss and the need to be independent at a much younger age than in the past.

I was actually quite surprised by how much I still enjoyed this movie. It is very well directed. The music fits well with the scenes, even if the song over the credits is a little melodramatic, and the characters are deep and interesting. If you haven't seen this movie since you were a child, I suggest rewatching it, and if you have children of your own now let them experience this part of your childhood.

Grade: A+

Twilight sucks, or does it......it does

I think I'm over Twilight bashing...I mean, the movie's going to make $150 million dollars this weekend, girls will swoon, facebook and twitter will be overrun with "OMG EDWARD" and then in two weeks it will all go away until the DVD comes out. It's happened for the last two years, and it will happen again next year when the last movie comes out. If someone can come up with original jokes about Twilight, I'm all for it. I still think the series is poorly written and filmed, but at this point what else is there to say?

Lost - "The End" Review

:)

Rating - A+

That is all.

Lost: A Retrospective

(Spoiler alert: I may give away some key plot points for those of you who haven't been keeping up with the series. I won't state specifics, but there are things you may want to leave spoiled.)

Well, here we are. After six years of aggravating cliffhangers, heartbreaking fatalities, and mind-bending theories from science fiction turned pop fiction, we are gearing up for the final episode of Lost.

We've all spent our Wednesdays and Tuesdays watching a bunch of people run back and forth on an island, shooting each other, flashing back and forth and sideways(!?), and making nearly no sense sometimes.

We've fallen in love right along with Jack and Kate, Charlie and Claire, Hurley and Libby, Sayid and Shannon, Sawyer and Juliet (and Kate), and Sun and Jin. We believed Rose wholeheartedly when she said Bernard was alive.

We cried when the rockstar drowned in the Looking Glass, when the doctor was caught in the electromagnetic well, when the couple we'd seen come so far were trapped with no escape. We've grown to love (most of) these characters as if we really knew them.

But let's face it, we laughed when Arzt exploded. And the other girl this last season.

We marveled at the slow and agonizing introduction of "the Smoke Monster". We were confused by the numbers, and loved seeing them anywhere we looked. We watched the revelation of the Dharma Initiative, and slowly pieced together their true purpose and presence on the Island.

Oh, the Island.

The main character of the show, the Island, actually multiple locations in Hawaii, is the catalyst for the entire plot. The unfolding bigger story revolves around the bizarre properties of the Island and the control thereof. Several factions struggle for the power contained in the Pacific rainforest, an overarching plotline that dominates the background of the series.

We were continually introduced to new characters, even though we couldn't figure out where they were coming from. They're on a practically invisible island, come on! But it all worked. It all started to make sense.

Lost has redefined television storytelling for a generation. Say what you will about it, network TV will not be the same. Non-linear stories and little clues that don't pay off for years (we saw a flashback to explain an event in the first season just last episode) were something only seen in comic books, as far as I know.

I'll miss it. I can watch the DVDs, with commentary and deleted scenes and all special features ever made, but I will never get the excitement back of waiting for the next episode. There won't be any more surprises. No sudden deaths, no shocking split-second decisions, no more Lost.

However it ends tonight, Lost will have changed television.

I'm honored to have gotten to see it in its time.

Thanks, Lost.

The Losers Review - A Second Take

I have not read The Losers comic as my compatriot has, so my review will be based solely on how I viewed it as a film. To be quite blunt, I didn't like it. Now don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't hate the movie and there were a few things I quite enjoyed. i just feel that, on the whole, the movie failed.

I suppose my biggest complaint is the script. Now once again, i haven't read the comic so I can't comment on how accurate it was to the source. The movie, however, just felt bland. It was just another action movie, and I think it will be overshadowed by The A-Team and The Expendables later this summer. I believe what will make these more enjoyable will be their sense of fun. The losers should have had this sense of fun but it never quite got there. When the movie tried to be fun it usually just came off as awkward or lame. This was not always the case as as I will get to in a bit.

The movie also never really made you care about the Losers themselves. Now, it's been a couple weeks since i've seen the movie, but all I remember about the characters back story is that one of their wives was pregnant, and Chris Evans had a niece who played soccer, and the only reason I remember that is because of a few awkwardly shoehorned scenes right before the credits. SPOILER ALERT When one of the Losers betrays the team in the last act, there was absolutely no emotional pull. It was just "oh, he's a jerk now." I mean he was angry basically the whole movie so if anyone was going to betray them i guess it would be him. And when he was killed at the end it was like Clay didn't even care. I mean weren't these two like best friends? I know he betrayed you, but come on, that doesn't mean you have to kill him.

And speaking of villains, I have to completely agree with Clark about the absolute ridiculousness of Max. It literally felt like I was watching a different movie every time he was on screen. It didn't help that he shared screen time with one of our protagonists for all of ten minutes. His acting was over the top, and his scenes were just uncomfortable. If the rest of the movie had been over the top in its silliness as his, he would have felt more in place. As it stands, though,he just seems out of place.

There were a couple things I enjoyed in the movie though. The cinematography was fun and it made the action scenes look interesting, even if the content of the scenes were not. Chis Evans absolutely made this movie watchable for me. I, too have greatly enjoyed Evans in everything I've seen him in, and he has made otherwise unwatchable movies entertaining. The scene where he is pretending to have telekinetic powers was by far the most entertaining scene in the movie.

Overall, The Losers was not a particularly bad movie, but i didn't particularly like it either. If you enjoy action movies, I would recommend catching it on DVD when it comes out, but maybe rent it before you buy it.

Grade: C

The Losers Review

A few months ago, I really got into the comic work of Jack "The King" Kirby. While I researched what books of his I wanted to look up, Wikipedia directed me to a sort-of remake of a title that Kirby worked on for a while, The Losers. The Andy Diggle-scripted and Jock-drawn Losers was entirely different from the original, really only using some of the same character names, but was an incredibly intriguing and entertaining book. I read through the entire thirty-two issue series in a few weeks.

Then I learned that the Vertigo book was being adapted into a movie. This was exciting for me, obviously, though I did fear that the characters would be lost in the film-making process, much like Daredevil or the more recent adaptation of The Spirit. Then I learned that it had been rated PG-13, when the comic was fairly R-rated. My fears were again worsened with the first weekend's box office numbers, which did not meet expectations.

I tried to lay aside my fears and enjoy the movie as I entered. I was not disappointed. The movie met my expectations for a good action flick based on a comic.

The film opens with the team's origin story, which was not revealed in the series until quite a ways into its run, though it makes more sense for a movie, I suppose. It runs much more chronologically, with the opening scene of the series coming in at about the one-third mark.

The plot is rather dumbed-down for movie audiences. I don't really understand why, but the movie doesn't delve into the CIA history of the main villain, Max, and simply plays him as "the bad guy". The story simply runs like The A-Team, unfortunately. But I guess the straight-up action movie works better with a simpler plot, without the complications of a decades-old conspiracy.

The casting is spot-on. Andy Diggle himself agreed with me in a recent tweet that these guys are the Losers. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Clay was the serious leader-type everyone expected, and Columbus Short was perfectly believable as Pooch. Idris Elba didn't get to explore Roque as much as the series did, which meant that the character developments in the film fall a little flat. Oscar Jaenada made me actually care more about Cougar, since the comic version seemed to me to be not much more than Wolverine (on a good day) with a sniper rifle. Zoe Saldana was simply a perfect Aisha, which I expected. But the best part was Chris Evans. I've loved Evans in nearly every role I've seen him in, (not that he's just the greatest actor, but he's fun to watch) and his Jenkins was easily my favorite part of the movie.

On the flip side, I absolutely hated Jason Patric. Good grief. He played a ridiculous villain, more one that would fit in the Adam West Batman series. The rest of the cast drew enough laughs that Max simply produced confusion and detracted from the atmosphere entirely. I honestly felt like I was watching the Losers take on the Joker. While it's not a serious movie at all, Patric took it too far. Especially since he isn't seen with the rest of the main cast until later in the movie, he acted as if he didn't know what movie he was in.

The stylization of the movie worked to its advantage, with goofy camera angles and freeze-frames that let you know you're not going to be seeing a very down-to-earth story. The comic-booky feel is enhanced by opening sequences and closing credits featuring art by Jock himself.

One of the biggest surprises was the inclusion of several of the best scenes from the comic. As I said, the opening scene of the series is taken almost shot-for-shot from the book. While I thought Watchmen wasted too much time on this and that it killed the psychology of the movie, it works here. One of the greatest scenes, where Jenkins pretends to be telekinetic, is lifted directly from Diggle and Jock, and it translates well.

All in all, it's a fun, if not amazing, movie, that does its source material justice and serves its purpose: to entertain.

Grade: B-

Welcome!

Well, here it is.

The blog.

Here, we will be talking about, well, stuff. Anything we enjoy. From movies to comics to... well, anything we want. It's our blog. Deal with it.

Coming up, we will be reviewing the most recent movie Tobias and I saw, The Losers. Also, we are watching through IGN.com's 25 Greatest Comedies (see the list here), with our own commentary and what-not.

Well, we are going to start Animal House, so... check back later for stuff on that.