Nuadha Prime
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "nuadha_prime" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:54 pm
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Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
An animated movie of the first story arc from Superman/Batman is being made and judging from the trailer, it may be the most loyal adaption of a comic yet. They even captured Ed McGuinness's art style. (Fitting, since his critics often called him "cartoony.")
It looks good. Very good.
Tags: batman, links, movies, superman, youtube
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10:14 pm
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Movie Review: Star Trek (spoiler-free)
Thanks to a friend, I was able to see a preview showing tonight of Star Trek.
This is a movie that anyone who is not a Star Trek fan and loves the blockbluster movies should love. If you are a Trek fan, you will probably still love it, or at least like it a lot. Certainly, it is going to be a good jump-start for the franchise.
One of my fears when I first started reading about the new movie was reading Abrams saying that he was more of a Star Wars fan. Star Wars is fun, but it and Star Trek have very different feels. When the trailers started coming out for the new Trek movie and I saw all the huge space battles that would have been at home in Revenge of the Sith, and all the flashy special effects and action, I thought for sure that this was going to be more of a Star Wars movie than a Trek movie.
It kinda is. That isn't completely a bad thing. It is a fun action-y roller coaster with lots of laughs, and stunts....and just "wow" moments. It is much better than the Star Wars prequels were, so comparing it to Star Wars is not meant as an insult.
Now, I assumed this would have to be a bad thing because I had been burned so many times before by the Next Gen movies trying to be Hollywood blockbusters rather than being Star Trek. Nemesis being the worst example of a Trek movie that tried to be all about special effects and action at the sacrifice of the "feel" of Star Trek.
Of course, this is the original crew and Kirk lends himself a lot better to action. He is a "by the seat of his pants" kind of Captain and they really play up the devil-may-care aspects of his character in this movie. (Keep in mind, this is young Kirk, not the matured and more responsible man we see in the movies.)
This movie keeps some of the more important elements of Trek. Most importantly, the characters. I mentioned already that the movie had a lot of laughs. This was because of the interactions of the characters. Like Star Trek IV, this movie used the interactions of these personalities to make for a lot of laugh-out-loud moments.
The actors do a fantastic job of capturing the personalities of the characters without making their performances a parody of the original actors. Most obvious is Kirk. Chris Pine said in an interview that he started studying Shatner's performance but eventually put it down and decided to make it his own version of Kirk. This was so wise. If he had done Shatner, it would have come out as a joke. No one can do Shatner besides Shatner. However, he pulls of all of the cockiness and head-sureness of Kirk. The guy playing Bones does a great job of playing the crankiness of Doctor McCoy. Sulu is as swashbuckling ever and Scotty....was just brilliant. Suprisingly, the only performance that I was disappointed by was Quinto. Maybe because I expected a lot from him. He was my favorite casting and he still does a good job, but when compared to Nimoy's Spock, he just falls short.
Another element that seemed to be captured well was the idea of Starfleet and The Federation. This wasn't a "dark re-imagining" like BSG. No, Starfleet still had that shiny clean look and a theme of humans and aliens working together to make the universe better that the original Trek was built on.
I also loved all the new takes on the uniforms. They kept the look of the old uniforms but by simply changing the fabric, gave it a more modern look. The ship interiors were also really well done. My only complaint with the visual design elements of the movie was the Enterprise itself. It combined visual elements of the original Enterprise, the redesigned Enterprise of the movies and the Galaxy-class enterprise of TNG. This left it feeling off to me, particularly the nacelles. Maybe with a second viewing, it will feel better.
I have a big tip to my fellow Trekkers: Don't even try to consider this movie connected to the old series. There are plot elements that try to explain why everything is different, but there are still glaring continuity problems that will not go away. Please, go in as an open book regarding this. I am a huge fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. When the new BSG came out on Sci-Fi, I had to put that aside while I watched it and keep reminding myself that this is a complete reboot. That same tactic will work really well with this new movie. As a complete reboot, it rocks. As a continuation of the classic series (as the producers want us to think of it as), it has far too many problems.
The movie left me wanting more, so I hope this means we are seeing the birth of a new series. This may be what Trek needed to reinvigorate the franchise. I will even go as far as to say that this could do for Sci-Fi what Spider-Man and X-Men did for Superheroes: making it more acceptable to mainstream audiences.
Tags: movies, reviews, star trek
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09:07 pm
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Movie Quiz Meme
Can never resist these....so, I'll try and come up with new answers.
1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times: Arsenic & Old Lace
2. Name a movie that you've seen multiple times in a theater: Three Musketeers
3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie: Christopher Walken
4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie: Keanu Reeves
5. Name a movie that you can quote from: Bram Stoker's Dracula
6. Name a movie musical that you know all the lyrics to all the songs: none, though I am close on 1776 & West Side Story. Now, if Buffy could have been included, I would have been set.
7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with: 1776
8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see: Quinceanera
9. Name a unusual movie that you own: Boxing Helena
10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops: James King
11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? Yes
12. Ever made out in a movie? Multiple times
13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't gotten around to it: Yojimbo
14. Ever walked out of a movie? Yes: The Replacement Killers.
15. Name a movie that made you cry: The Notebook
16. Popcorn? No thanks. I will have a soft pretzel instead.
17. How often do you go to the movies? Maybe three or four times a year
18. What's the last movie you saw in the theater? Tropic Thunder. 'twas damn funny, it was.
19. What is your favorite/preferred genre of movie? Superhero
20. What was the first movie you remember seeing in the theater? Saturn 5. My mom was not pleased my dad took me to an R movie, but all I remembered from it was there was a cool robot. I saw it again when I was a teen and finally learned what those vague memories were about.
Tags: meme, movies, quizzes
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03:27 am
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Star Trek vs Star Wars
As I rediscovered my love for Trek over the last few years, I was kind of bummed to find out that Star Trek has so little following these days. The last movie, Nemesis, was a flop. Rightfully so. It stunk. It basically fell into the same problems I had with most of the TNG films and even more so. It was the Picard & Data show in a flashy story with almost no substance.
Enterprise was also a bit of a flop. I am half-way through the second season right now, and I don't think it should have been. Sure it was not as fantastic as some of the earlier Treks, but I still think most of the episodes so far have been been pretty good.
The thing that baffled me even further is the continued success of Star Wars. Sure, Nemesis was bad, but Star Wars had a trilogy of sub-par films. Even upon re-watching the original trilogy last year, I found that even the original movies were more colored by my childhood memories than actually being great movies, but they at least weren't as groan-worthy the prequels.
Both Trek and Wars has suffered a bit from the prequel problem, I think. We know where the universe is supposed to be going, so there is no great big suprises when you do a show like Enterprise or the prequels. You can't blow up the Earth in Enterprise, because we know it is still around in Kirk's era. Anakin falling to the dark side was predestined and we all knew it, so there was no sweating whether he would, it was just waiting to find out how the hell that whiney-ass character was going to become the cosmic bad-ass he would be in the originals. (Which I certainly didn't buy.)
It baffled me for a bit how Star Wars could have all of this successful merchandising and shows these days while another classic sci-fi series is having to put all of its hopes on one last movie. (If the Star Trek movie next year is a flop, CBS will probably not do anything more with Trek for a long time.)
So, I tried to dive mentally in to it recently and understand what the appeal of Star Wars is these days. Since I discovered Star Trek when I was a teen, I kinda of shrugged of Star Wars as kid's stuff...the stuff I liked when I wasn't mature enough to like the more cerebral stories of Trek. The craptacular prequels made me even more sure that Star Wars had little to offer me any more.
With that going in, I think I understand it more now. A few fans have told me, "yeah the prequels sucked, but it is all about the extended universe." The extended universe of books, comics and games for Star Wars are all intertwined so well and exist as canon parts of the universe. If a character is introduced in a book, it is a matter of time before there are action figures, appearances in video games, stats in the RPG, etc.. Who is Mara Jade Skywalker? She is a character who started in the books, but has gone on to make appearances in comic books, video games and more.
Star Wars starts out as a nice pulpy sci-fi setting and with the all-canon extended universe, it becomes so much more than you see on film. Many sci-fi fans love a large, complex universe (or multiverse) and its a huge bonus. I recently read the first several issues of Star Wars: Dark Times, a comic from Dark Horse (Thanks Sol!), and it is exactly the Star Wars universe I always wanted to read about. No whiney Jedis. Just a badass Jedi and a group of smugglers fighting against the Empire.
The Star Wars books and other products are all carefully checked by Lucasfilms to make sure it fits into their view of the universe and I think that also leads them to making sure that they are all quality.
Meanwhile Star Trek has stuff like Konom, the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet. You thought Worf was? You're correct as well. You see the Star Trek licensed fiction is always non-canon. If it didn't appear on film , it never really happened. So, Konom and many other creations of characters you may have loved in books and comics never appear out of their source material. Even the books will conflict with eachother, because they are all basically just fanfics. Each author has their own view and take on the universe.
I also think that Paramount (and now CBS) has taken very little interest in keeping an eye on the quality of the products being produced with the Trek name. So, a lot of the things coming out don't have the same quality. From what I have seen and heard of the novels, they are still quality, but the comic books from IDW have been OK at best. The video games have all been poorly reviewed. (Playing Star Trek: Legacy on the 360, I don't think it is all bad, but certainly not good enough to pay $50+ for. I picked up mine for $20 and I felt that was a fair price for the game it is: fun, but nothing fantastic. (Also to be honest, I almost never pay more than $20 for a game, since I don't mind waiting til they go on sale or I find them used.)
So, I think that is one of the things that has contributed to Star Wars being a success in the 21st century while Star Trek is slowly dying.
Another thing I think has kept Star Wars ahead of Trek is the Video Games. Let's face it, Star Trek does not have the action-based setting of Star Wars that would make it a fit for video games. In these days, video games are huge. They are almost as big as movies. Star Wars is a natural fit for video games (as well as mini games, RPGs etc.). Its setting is all about action and swashbuckling adventure. Star Trek is about mysteries, morality, and other things that don't make a good translation into video game format. There is a Star Trek MMO in the works right now and I have no clue how they will make that work. Meanwhile, Star Wars can have games that run like D&D in space. It can have fast-paced spaceship battles. It can fit into almost any genre of video game. Hell, there was even several racing games based on the pod-racing in the prequels. Every major system since the Super Nintendo has at least one big hit Star Wars game. Most systems had several. Rogue Squadron on the N64 is one of my personal favorites. These days the KOTOR games from the XBox and PC get a lot of love, as well as the new Force Unleashed game.
I don't know how Star Trek can adapt to the 21st century. I don't think the reboot is going to be the way, but it did work for Battlestar Galactica.
Tags: movies, star trek, television
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06:06 am
[Link] | Reading the wikipedia article on the new Star Trek movie coming out, there are some things that make me a little more hopeful that it will be good....and two big things that bother me.
( Read more... )
Tags: movies, star trek
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06:21 am
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Legend of Zelda movie trailer
I didn't know they were doing a Zelda movie. Unfortunately, I think it looks lame.
Tags: links, movies
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05:57 am
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Movie Reviews: Zombie Grindhouse Double Feature
Grindhouse: Planet Terror- I HATED the Quentin Tarantino half of Grindhouse, so I was expecting less than I normally do from Robert Rodriguez, despite him being one of my favorite directors. (Desperado=classic) I should have known better. This is one of the coolest schlocky action flicks I have seen in some time. This was the kind of movie I wanted when I rented Starship Troopers 3 a while back. It has plenty of big action, an insane premise, crazy-cool dialogue and Rose McGowan as the sexiest ex-stripper-turned-zombie-killer ever. The grainy film quality and all the little touches they added to make it feel like some old film reel that has been passed around from Grindhouse theatre to Grindhouse is a nice touch and constantly reminds you that you are not supposed to take this movie seriously....and hopefully you won't. Go in expecting what it is: Rodriguez doing what he became famous for: making a cheesy-cool action movie on a small budget. Rating: 4 out of 5.
Youtube Links:
Planet Terror International Trailer
Rose McGowan's pole dance from the beginning credits- No nudity, but I still would not recommend it for work. Sexy.
Escaping the Zombies- I gotta agree with the person who posted this. This was one of the funniest bits. (Spoilers, obviously- When they survivors head out, the macho hero is looking for a vehicle to ride...and gets a pocketbike)
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead- The newest Dead movie is not nearly as good as the old ones. It does have a neat premise though. It is basically "Cloverfield" in the "dead-verse" as a group of college students keep a video diary of the events happening around them as zombie-pocalypse begins. Sadly, it didn't have much interesting outside of the premise and all the acting was pretty lame. Rating: 2/5
Diary of the Dead Trailer
Tags: links, movies, reviews, youtube
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10:53 pm
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Star Trek Movie pics
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) barryreese posted some preview pics from the new Star Trek movie coming out this next Summer. You can see them here.
I like the updated uniforms. They keep enough of the old look with enough of an update in materials so it doesn't look dated. I HATE the uniform and the new Kirk looks way to boy-ish. Kirk always had a boyish charm and was supposed to be the youngest Starship captain in the history of Starfleet...but he looks like he should be on Dawson's Creek or something, not Star Trek.
Zachary Quinto looks good as Spock. The guy from Harold & Kumar as Sulu will be kinda distracting since I will probably keep waiting to see him get baked.
God, I hope this revitalizes the Star Trek franchise. I said something to a teenager the other day about Star Trek, and got a "what's that?"
Tags: movies, star trek
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11:03 pm
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Movie Review: Starship Troopers 3: Marauders
Trailer here.
I had very low expectations going in to this, since it was a straight-to-video sequel. I just like the original (as a cheesy action flick that has little connection to the much better book it was based on) and was in the mood for some cheesy bug-killing action. Unfortunately, the first 15 minutes or so were really pretty good. It has a bit of social commentary/satire that fit right in with the first one and a cool action sequence as the Mobile Infantry fought to defend a planet from a bug invasion. I say this is unfortunate because it started to get my hopes up before descending quickly in to the crap-fest the movie actually is. The social satire on this focused on religion and its connection to military/wars, but was so heavy-handed in the last part of the movie that it was really hard to stomach.
An example of the heavy-handed religion theme at work (major spoilers!!!!): The One True God
The special effects are about what one would expect from a low budget, straight-to-video. They aren't fantastic but do some decent things with cheap computer effects. The action sequences are OK. The acting is poor. The only saving grace of this is if you enjoy watching lots of the fake propoganda commercials (like the ones in the first one), which I do. If it hadn't gotten so heavy-handed with the religion theme, I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more, despite all of its flaws.
Another clip from Youtube (with major spoilers!): God is on our side!
Tags: movies, religion, reviews, science fiction
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12:32 am
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Short Movie Review: I am Legend
I loved the book. I also really liked both previous adaptions of the movie (Last Man on Earth and Omega Man). Despite actually having the same title as the novel, this one was the furthest away from adapting the novel. Sure, it had some cool elements. It was an OK movie. It just took out all of the more subtle and psychological elements of the novel and completely ruins one of the great endings of literature for an ending that....well, wasn't the ending from the book. I wouldn't have disliked the ending so much. Again, it was OK. It just wasn't anything near as cool as the ending of the book, Last Man on Earth, or even Omega Man.
Tags: movies, reviews
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05:40 am
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Movie Review: Dark Knight
(Part One: A short spoiler-free review)
While Batman Begins managed to capture certain aspects of Batman that never really got captured on film before like Batman's speed and agility, for some reason it never felt quite right to me. This new one felt like a comic book from the very beginning, albeit a "grim and gritty" Batman comic. The shaky cam from the first movie that made the fights really annoying for me to watch (and when a movie has martial arts fights I want to be able to see it!) is gone, so you get to see Batman really going toe-to-toe with the criminals. Best of all, it has the ethical and moral delimnas that I love comics for and the interaction between the heroes and villains that too many superhero film writers seem to forget are integral to the superhero genre. They get the gadgets and the action for the movie and they think they got the genre, but if you ask me its not the superhero genre unless the hero and villain interact in some way other than the action sequences. (I guess that could be a mild spoiler....if so, sorry.) Scenes like Lex telling Superman his master plan in Superman: the Movie or Green Goblin taunting Spider-Man that the city will someday turn against him in the first Spider-Man movie are perfect examples of this bit. Batman Begins sort of had this with Ras al Ghul but really gets it right this time.
...and Two-Face was perfect! After the Joker, Two-Face is my favorite Bat-villain. I always felt he got shorted in Batman Forever (as did the Riddler and every villain in the last set of Batman movies after the first), so it was great to finally see him done right in a movie. They didn't have the time to really play out the tragic nature of Harvey Dent's story but they still managed to have two villains in one movie without it feeling like "too much" which is amazing.
Enough has been said about Heath Ledger's performance that I won't go too much in to it, except to say that it annoyed me. It was good. It was really good. It just wasn't the way I picture the Joker. Sure, he had the homicidal maniac down pat. I just want a little more manic with my Clown Prince of Crime. Still, that is a pretty minor complaint in an otherwise cool version of the Joker. Certainly, it was the creepiest yet.
I'll try to post more about the details later in a larger review that will have spoilers for folks who hasn't seen it, but I rate this movie "Damned Good."
Tags: batman, movies, reviews
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10:53 pm
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Movie Review: Gotham Knight
I netflixed Batman: Gotham Knight, the new animated movie in the same vein as Animatrix: a collection of different anime shorts by different creators set in the Batman Begins/Dark Knight setting. With the last couple animated DC releases (Superman: Doomsday and Justice League: New Frontier), I bought them right away but I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this one. I was wrong to doubt. Gotham Knight captures a lot of the feel of the Batman Begins movie and introduces Crispus Allen (from GCPD), Killer Croc, and Deadshot to the Batman Begins universe. It also brings back the movie Scarecrow for an appearance. Right from the beginning it had me hooked with a new take on one of my favorite Batman stories. Back in the eighties, there was a comic story where three cops share stories of their encounters with Batman and each one saw him as a wildly different character. The Batman animated series did something similiar to this with an episode where kids share stories with eachother of what they think Batman is (and this gave them excuse to create an animated version of Dark Knight Returns). The new movie's first animated short is kind of a blend of the two stories, with kids telling about their encounters with the Dark Knight. As good as a start as that is, it gets better. There are some really good stories in this movie. It is well worth a rental.
Tags: anime, batman, movies, netflix
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12:24 am
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Movie Trailers
cochese linked to this amazing trailer for one of the greatest dramatic works of the 1980's, Requiem for a Day Off
In response, I am sharing this youtube link to that heart-warming masterpiece, The Shining. Also, don't miss the horror classic, Scary Mary
Tags: links, movies, youtube
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12:39 am
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City of Ember
One of my favorite YA books I have ever read, City of Ember, is being made into a movie!
Tags: books, movies
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10:11 pm
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Zombie Meme
You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.
Weapon can be real or fictional, you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.
Weapon: I want a type II phaser from the original Star Trek. It completely disintegrated who you shot and never missed. It could also be spread to wide-beam for massive zombie killing.
Song: Girl from Impanema. 'cuz it would be funnier that way. OK.... maybe not. How about "Zombie Stomp" by Ozzy?
Person: This is a no-brainer. Ash. Hail to the King, baby! (Okay, a more logical choice would be someone like Batman or Superman if I wanted to live....but if I just wanted it to be damned cool, Ash is the man.)
Tags: meme, movies, star trek, zombies
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12:22 am
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Five Good Things
1. Telling Superman stories to Flavia's nephews and wowing them with a story (that I made up) of Superman saving the city from being covered in an exploded cake from the Prankster and how Bizarro stole Lex Luthor's duplicator ray to make Bizarro Friends (completely made up as well). Every time I visit Flavia's brother's, his two sons want me to tell them another story of Superman and they are completely mesmerized every time. Of course, it is a challenge for me to make up Superman stories that are completely non-violent (since one of them is three). I now understand how difficult it must have been to be a writer on the Superfriends (in which noone could ever punch each other becuause of network rules for kids cartoons), but so rewarding when you see the story still work for the kids.
2. Three day weekend!
3. The rumors about Warhammer 40K 5th edition sound mostly promising. It's out in July!
4. Borrowed some movies from Flavia's brother, Diego. Looking forward to watching National Treasure! I haven't seen it before and everyone keeps telling me I'll probably enjoy it.
5. Apples to Apples!
Tags: movies, superman, warhammer 40k
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11:35 pm
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Five Good Things
1. Tempeh Burger from Sidetrack's. (Sadly, the sweet potato fries didn't thrill me. However, the fact that they didn't make me gag like last time and I actually ate them proves my tastebuds really have changed.)
2. Flavia's New Dress. (Very sexy.)
3. A walk in the park with the girl in the sexy new dress.
4. A G'nort action figure is being released based on the artwork by Kevin Maguire. I generally don't buy action figures any more, but.... It's G'Nort as drawn by my favorite living comic artist!
5. I saw pics of the costumes for the Watchmen movie. I was getting doubtful I would ever see a Watchmen movie. Here's hoping it turns out to be more of a V for Vendetta than a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Tags: green lantern, movies
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10:36 pm
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Iron Man
...is as close to superhero movie perfection as it gets. It has great action scenes, fun characters, a lot of laughs and a lot of depth. It is even relevant. I am not a fan of the comic character at all and now it has me wondering if I was missing something. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it. Don't like superheroes? You'll still like it. Robert Downey Jr. does an amazing job.
While it doesn't top the Superman as my favorite superhero movie, it probably would if I weren't such a Superman fan. It is THAT good.
Tags: movies, reviews
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12:11 am
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Bladerunner - A Tale of Star-crossed Lovers
Flavia and I went to see Bladerunner: The Final Cut last night. Ever since I first saw Bladerunner on TV years ago, I have been dying to see it on the big screen. When the Director's Cut was released years ago, I missed it in the theatre. So, this was an experience I have waited a long time for.
It was worth the wait. This is the best version yet. I still missed the voice-overs. (I know I am probably in the minority on that, but I liked how Harrison Ford's voice-overs reinforced the film noir feel. However, there are a lot of new shots that I think really added to the experience and it felt better paced than the Director's Cut.
SPOILERS BELOW
( Read more... )
Tags: movies
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09:55 pm
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Movie Quote Meme answers
First the ones that did not get answered for those of you who want one last chance to play:
1. "I had this, uh, wonderful speech all prepared."
"About this being your last night here? About possibly not seeing another night as beautiful as this one, or another girl as beautiful as I am, ever again?"
"Yeah, well, that speech is a little better than the one I had. Would you mind if I borrowed it on some future occasion?"
2. "You became persona non-nookie to me the minute he started diddling your pooter."
3. "Well, how did the poison get in the wine?"
"Well, we put in wine because it's less noticeable. When it's in tea it has a distinct odor."
4."Now you're king of the mountain, but it's all garbage!"
12. "No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering."
( Read more... )
Tags: memes, movies
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