Up in the Air

So, I haven't gone to the movies since Predators, but I did watch Up in the Air on DVD. I'm hoping to go see Inception soon, and then have what looks like an amazingly fun time watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. So anyways, it was time to get my money's worth from my Netflix account. I've been wanting to watch Up in the Air for a little while now. I had heard that it was terrific, and then it got some big time Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, George Clooney for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Adapted Screenplay, 2 Nominations for Best Supporting Actress with Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick). So, was it worth the hype?

Yes, 100% yes.

I actually enjoyed it and saw more value in the film itself than the two front runners of the Oscars, The Hurt Locker and Avatar. This movie just had terrific character development, and can be appreciated by almost anyone. The story is about a man(Clooney) who travels all over the world for his job. That job is to fire people.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) is isolated even though he is surrounded by people. He is estranged from his family, in part because they view him as a selfish man who never does anything for anyone else. He doesn't have any lasting relationships because he flies all over. And he doesn't want lasting relationships, which is evidenced in his motivational speeches throughout the film. His only goal in life is to accomplish something that has only happened 6 or 7 previous times.

So, Bingham develops strangely enough through his relationships. Early in the film he meets the love interest in Alex (Farmiga), whom like him travels all over in some sort of consulting manner. Their meeting shows how shallow both of them are, as they discuss all of the memberships and rewards programs they are in. This naturally leads to a romantic relationship between the two, where they try to meet whenever their paths cross. After meeting Alex, Bingham meets the entrepreneurial Natalie Keener, who is trying to revolutionize the company he works for by cutting travel costs having them fire people via Webcam chats. Bingham is appalled, as he sees what he does as something that needs the personal and compassionate touch of someone that is there in the room with them. He considers himself the transitory ferryman with their careers. So Bingham is charged with taking Keener on the road (or airways) to show her the ropes.

A recurring theme in the movie is loyalty. Despite his lifestyle, Bingham treasures loyalty over relationships. Loyalty to himself, loyalty to his job, loyalty to whatever rental car company/hotel service/airline. This importance interestingly plays a large role in how he interacts with people.

The film is really good at mixing drama and comedy. It isn't really a comedy or a drama. Nor would I call it a Dramedy. It just has a way of making you laugh at the ridiculousness of how people are, and their witty dialogue at moments. The story is kind of sad because of the loneliness of the main character. This is just a story about life. They don't do flashbacks through the film, but Reitman does a really good job of including snippets of Bingham's past so you can get a fuller look at his character.

Clooney was well deserving of his Oscar nomination, as were Farmiga and Kendrick. The chemistry between all of these actors was incredible, and the cast just gelled perfectly together. Even Jason Bateman did a great job in his smaller role as the Bingham's boss.

I'd say the movie gets a 5 out of 5. It hits home during the Economic crisis, but I can see this movie standing the test of time due to the human element of the film.

Predators

Be prepared for possible spoilers, I'm not good at not at keeping some stuff hidden, but I try.

So, this was a movie that was about 23 years late. If this movie had been around earlier and closer to the original source material, we might have gotten to skip the brainless Alien vs Predator movies, and Predator 2 which fails to capture the magic of Predator. Admittedly, any movie in the Predator franchise has to be compared to the excellent original. The question always is: Did it capture the essence and magic of Predator?

Predators does capture that essence and magic, but has some serious flaws that keep it from being as good or better than the original.

The acting in the film was overall really good for an action flick. Adrien Brody brings substantial credibility to the cast, though his dialogue consists mostly of one-liners. This isn't a problem, because the point of this film isn't to have in-depth dialogue, it is meant to thrill and entertain and to show the story instead of explaining it all in detail. Nimrod Antal and Robert Rodriguez did a good job of building the two main characters throughout the film. Adrien Brody and Alice Braga worked well together and through their interactions showed more about each other's characters. I like that Brody was intentionally put into the lead role, instead of them looking for someone that had the same sort of stature as Arnold.

The rest of the cast would be considered fodder for the slaughter that is necessary for a Predator movie. It would have been really nice to know more about each of these characters. One character in particular should have been built up more throughout the movie, to give his actions enough meaning that the audience cares what had just happened. The rest of the characters other than Braga and Brody seem a little underdeveloped and it would have been nice to have more of an explanation about how they were considered kick ass enough to be on the planet, like explaining what each of them was doing before they were kidnapped.

I like Danny Trejo a lot, and he's a bit of a staple for Robert Rodriguez, because he just looks like a badass. On the flipside of that coin, I can't stand Topher Grace in movies anymore. He was horrible in Spider-Man 3, and this movie he was just annoying. Laurence Fishburne played the one person to survive for so long on the planet. The trailers made it seem as though he was going to play some sort of mentor to the rest of the group, however he seemed to play more of a plot device. His role was simply there to move the plot along and provide a little back story. I would have been fine with this being the case if he had been the mentor as well, but overall it seemed like a waste of time. The problem is that Fishburne has mentor-character experience with playing Morpheus in the Matrix trilogy. So, they should have had him basically like Morpheus but a lot more deranged from the isolation and solitude. It was just a wasted opportunity, which seems more like the scripts fault than anything.

The one main difference between the characters of Predator and the characters of Predators would be the cohesiveness factor. In Predator, it was a unit of special forces, where they worked closely with each other and had developed a history together. The characters of Predators seemed like the "Best of..." collection from the show "Deadliest Warrior". As soon as the group started to mesh better, the movie's action started to pick up and one by one the characters fell. And truthfully, it worked to the movie's advantage. The characters have only one thing in common, and it is hard to build the group's trust immediately.

I would have liked if there had been more interaction between the humans and possible alien life on the distant game preserve planet. The movie had its "wild boar" moment, but having the setting being a jungle for the most part and not having more creatures coming after the people seemed weird.

The creature effects were great. The Predators each looked different enough that you knew which one was doing what, while still looking like they were all capable of massive damage. The Predator known as Mr. Black was particularly cool looking.

The other special effects were decent. I think I might be tired of big explosions in movies or something that is supposed to look so massive in scale, and thankfully Predators played those moments a little more intimately. There wasn't a point when the Predators decide to just destroy half of the woods in some sort of Michael Bay's-wet dream of an explosion looking for the people. The one large explosion serves a purpose and isn't too much. I know that seems weird to be against, but I think Hollywood just wants to do everything on such a huge scale these days that everything else seems less important.

The story is sweet and simple, and it shows throughout that they made efforts to keep it that way. We don't need to know all about the Predators and the movie never tries to tell us too much.

The main critique I've heard about the movie has been that it is too much like the original. There are certain elements that are taken from the original, but the point of this movie was to bring it back to what the original had been like. We needed to go back to step away from the AVP series and to kind of ignore the not-so-good Predator 2. They even reference the events of Predator at some point, and so logically, these characters take certain hints about what to do. Oh, and there are some obvious references to Dutch (Arnold from the first) in one scene in particular. They took elements from the first, because they were fans. The main thing separating this movie from the first is that the group isn't together in this film and that the location is different. The story is fairly similar and very close to being the same, but has great potential in being a launching point for more quality movies in the franchise. The movie desperately wants to be what Aliens was to Alien, which is why the name is Predators. The problem is that it needs a little bit more work at breaking new ground. Where Aliens moved away from essentially an alien slasher flick on a isolated spaceship towards a movie that had those elements but added plenty of action to the mix, Predators had to move back towards its roots. I would like to see some more things that are different from a sequel and it definitely started that at points, introducing an interesting and important component of Predator culture and society.

I think this movie would have benefited if it had been made sooner, and closer to the original. With so much time passing between this one and the original, and the release of the AVP movies, it was necessary for there to be a lot of backtracking to reintroduce the franchise to audiences.

With Ridley Scott working on some prequels to Alien and Robert Rodriguez working on this, I think two classic sci-fi/horror films will finally get back on track after the train wrecks that were their crossover movies.

There were a few missed or mishandled opportunities in the movie, but for the most part it was an awesome movie for fans of the original. I enjoyed it more than any other movie this summer, even more so than Iron Man 2. I guess it deserves a 4 out of 5, because it is a must-see for any fan of the original. And if you haven't seen the original, go see it and then this.

Iron Man 2

Iron Man was one of the best movies of the summer 2008, though the best movie of summer 2008 was most definitely The Dark Knight. Iron Man was just a lot of fun. The story of wealthy industrialist/playboy Tony Stark and his efforts to leave a better legacy in the world translated very well to film.

So, naturally, this film leads to a sequel. I have to say, I would have been okay if they had just waited to have the follow up to the first be the Avengers movie, but logically, they are going to cash in on the first movie's tremendous success and make a second.

Though the sequel is not as good as the first movie, it was still a heck of a lot of fun to watch. The story starts pretty much right where the first one left off. The biggest issue with the movie as a whole is that there were entirely too many references to the Avengers film coming up. The movie was chock full of references to Captain America and Thor, with noticeable cameos for both.

The storyline wasn't as impressive, and it was a little darker. It lacked some of the fun elements of the first film. Also, some of the moments seemed hopelessly hokey.

The acting was very good in the movie. Robert Downey Jr. was almost born to play Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts was just as fitting the second time around. Don Cheadle was a great replacement for Terrence Howard as Lt. Col. James Rhodes, also known as Warmachine. I have respect for both Howard and Cheadle as actors, and I was glad to see that they didn't go with someone with less ability after losing Howard. It seemed like a decent transition, just like replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhall in Dark Knight. The suspension of disbelief continued, and it was like if the comic book had been continued with a new artist and writer.

Samuel L. Jackson has probably the most interesting filmography ever, and he was great as Nick Fury. Samuel L. Jackson was the basis for the Ultimate Nick Fury and so why not get him for a movie version of the character? The new-to-the-franchise Mickey Rourke played an excellent villain paired with Sam Rockwell's hapless rival weapons developer. My one problem with Micky Rourke was that he should have been the Crimson Dynamo, but honestly that was not that big of a deal. Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow was probably the weakest of the additions. She had great action scenes, but I was missing the Russian accent that the character should logically have as a Russian Super Spy. It doesn't matter if she's working for S.H.I.E.L.D. or not, she should have the accent. Sorry, it is a small detail, but sometimes those can make a movie that much better.

Spoiler Alert!

The final fight in the movie seemed awfully familiar to the first film. I realize there aren't a lot of options for Iron Man to fight and have people really enjoy the film. Mandarin would not have been a good match up for the big screen. The Iron Man movies are all about technology and the contemporary world, and a sorcerer probably would seem far too ridiculous. However, there are options. They could have introduced Hank Pym (Ant Man, Yellow Jacket, The Wasp, Goliath, Giant Man) and have him build the infamous villain, Ultron. Doomsday Robot isn't far off against Iron Man, could have been an interesting move. I am just worried that with these suit vs. suit fights in Iron Man that the movie will be trapped within that structure. It is an awful lot like how Lex Luther is a chief villain in every Superman movie. You have to change it up.

The strangest part of the movie for me was that I saw it close to a month after its release and I was the only one to stay around for the after-credits scene featuring a reference to the next major Marvel project.

Iron Man 2 seems like its own mini technology expo at times, which is kind of funny after you see the movie. I completely recommend it for just a fun time. Its darker than the original, but with more hokey jokes somehow. It is still worth seeing so I will say it gets 3 out of 5 from me. It falls short of the first's amazingness, but not far enough short that it should be missed by fans of the original.

The Last Airbender

Now, I know the internet is ablaze right now with hatred for M. Night Shyamalan's first attempt in crafting the film around a story that wasn't his. Now that's common for Hollywood as directors should be good storytellers and have had practice in that field. Not all directors are good storytellers and not all good storytellers would make good directors.

I used to have a lot of faith that Mr. Shyamalan was a good storyteller and good director. I loved Sixth Sense, even if it creeped me out quite a bit (I'm scared of ghosts FYI). I liked the message of Signs and the premise of an alien invasion was fun. Unbreakable is probably my favorite of his films, which took several viewings to establish my love for it but it was worth it. I hated The Village, it was boring and the story was not engaging. I never bothered viewing the Lady in the Water, I heard plenty of bad things and I had no interest after watching The Village. I was interested in seeing the Happening, which I felt like it was a deceptive title because not much happened. I agreed with the environmental message of that film, but would not bother watching it ever again. Right now, M. Night has a 50/50 chance of me enjoying the movie.

The Last Airbender was by far his worse film, and one of the worst films I have ever watched. I am in fact a fan of the show. And I know the potential that show has to make a great film that isn't just fun to watch with cool special effects but also tells a good story that has lots of depth due to strong characters. I knew the film would be bad when I saw the running time for it. It ran at an underwhelming 103 minutes, which is an hour and 43 minutes long if you aren't good at math (which I'm not).

103 minutes is not enough time to tell the story of an entire season of a show. I understand that not everything from the show can be or should be in the film version, but there was not a lot of character development and major characters seemed far less important to the story than they should've been. No, I am not that upset about the exclusion of fan favorite characters like June, Jet, and the Kiyoshi Warriors (even though they play a significant role in the next two seasons of the show). This wasn't helped by the actors' weak performances. The only person who did what I would consider a good job was Shaun Toub, who played the lovable Uncle Iroh. I have yet to watch Slumdog Millionaire, but I was still looking forward to Dev Patel's portrayal of Zuko. I found it disappointing, but I am still willing to give Slumdog a chance! Noah Ringer looked like the central character of the television show, but the lack of character development made the character seem weak and his acting did not help with that. Other members of the cast were equally weak if not more so. I blame the overall weakness in the characters on the script (written by Shyamalan) and a lack of direction (also Shyamalan's fault).

So a character driven story that lacked the character development equates to it being a decent story that is undermined by this lack of character development. It falls apart as the film progresses. The writing was atrocious as well. There were lots of useless dialogue moments where the dialogue did little to nothing to further the story or develop the characters and their relationships to each other. The story was choppy and made no sense overall. I felt like I relied entirely too much on my knowledge of the show's world whereas the film should've been telling me what was happening with appropriate timing.

Something that I feel is necessary to respond to with reading other reviews and what other people have said about the movie is that they thought the special effects were awesome. I thought the effects were underwhelming, it wasn't a spectacle to witness. The only effect that seemed awesome in the film was the giant title wave that can be seen in the tv spots and theatrical trailers. M. Night's ability to show locations and give them a sense of scale was good, and I will give him credit for that. The bending of the elements was lack luster. Watch how bending is done in the show and compare it to the film. His overuse of slow motion hurt the flow of scenes. At points M. Night used a panning shots to show the flow of the action and it honestly hurt my eyes.

The only differences to the show that I despised were the lack of character development and how they drastically changed the roles of several key characters. There were other things that irked me as a fan of the original television program, however. Chiefly, the change of pronunciations of character names. I can understand if it wasn't pronounced the way I would if the source material had been a book, but it was from a television show where the names are spoken out loud repeatedly. This was only a minor annoyance. The fact that the film was not completely true to the show did not bother me, the exclusion of some characters is understandable. The blending of important scenes was fine. The ending was bad though, and for those who have watched the series, there is no Koizilla/Aang creature.

It would be irresponsible to not bring up the racial naiveté that is within the film. M. Night isn't a racist, and it is ignorant to assume that he is. However, the fact that the central protagonist group members are white and the evil guys are all brown does come off as somewhat insensitive to the current age. Also, with the Southern Water Tribe looking like a group of aboroginal Canadians with 3 members of that tribe looking like they were caucasian was almost downright laughable. There was an explanation for this if you had watched the series, but that was never explained within the film.

The movie seemed to be a Lord of the Rings rip-off, except not in the ways that it should've been. It lacked the epic vision of those films and character development. It should've been as long as those films as well. The studio must have wanted it to be shorter so that kids could watch the movie. By pandering to the kids, it weakened the ability for the movie to be good and fun, which it was neither.

Where was the abundant amount of feminist ideas that are present in the series? Lost with the development of certain characters.

It's a waste of time and money to see this film. I would give it a 0 out of 5 if it hadn't been for the fact that I really liked the guy who played my favorite character, Iroh. It gets a 1 out 5 from me. On a scale of a 100, it probably would get a 1 out of 100. M. Night Shyamalan should stick with his own works because then he wouldn't be destroying the integrity of an amazing franchise. This film should be seen as an incredible insult to the original creators of the show. The sad thing is this movie was number 2 in the box office its opening weekend, and probably would've been number one if it hadn't released the same weekend as a Twilight movie. If this is to be a trilogy, Nickelodeon Studios, hire someone else to do the direction and the writing. The next director also should not have cut their teeth by making a Twilight movie either.

I knew the movie would be bad, and I went to see it anyway. Sometimes it is more important with whom you go to the movies than the movie you go to see.

I wanted to start a movie review blog

Well, its summertime. And generally that means lots of big blockbuster movies with lots of big blockbuster explosions and special effects. This summer has started and gone about halfway through with plenty of blockbuster movies, and they are true to form by offering blockbuster-sized explosions and special effects. We all know that the motion picture industry started as a business attempting to entertain people in exchange for money. Therefore most films that are released into the local movie theaters (art theaters excluded) are meant to draw in as much box office revenue as possible. And most times, one has to take into consideration if a movie is worth the price of admission, the price of a rental, or the price of valuable time in general. There have been plenty of times that I've watched a movie knowing it would be bad purely out of curiosity. When something comes on television, you avoid the price of admission or rental, so why not? Well sometimes, I have regretted my decision to watch something even on television. One instance that comes to mind was Frank Miller's The Spirit. Frank Miller should have ruined one of his works instead of Wil Eisner's classic character. I couldn't even finish the movie (if it even deserves that distinction).

Overall, I want to start reviewing movies I am seeing in movie theaters (which aren't many) and give them a score that is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning don't endorse this film with your hard earned movie goer money and 5 being worth the time and effort to watch it, even warranting repeat viewings.