SEEN ANY MOVIES LATELY?
Another Saturday evening spent sitting with a glass of tequila staring at a ten-inch netbook, when I have a perfectly fine 22-inch HD computer screen in the other room, yet I’m compelled to sit here at the corner of my pillow drowned sofa and hopefully have thoughts drafted before passing out in the same position in which I’ve grown accustomed to writing every article since the very beginning. Thankfully movie season is here and I have a few thoughts and opinions about what I’ve seen from the comfort of my own home and from the sticky floors of the theater. Chances are if it’s a big movie and it is opening weekend, you’ll find me there. So let’s see what’s good, what’s not, and what is coming up to either see or avoid.
300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE
I get it. It wasn’t the first one. Know why? The first one was made in 2006. King Leonidas is dead. The 300 were massacred. So guess what? You can’t make a sequel about them. “Hey, we have a bunch of Athenians still left. Granted they’re not as skilled or jacked like the Spartans, but it might be enough for another movie.”
Works for me! The first movie was a dude-flick a lot like ‘Predator’ where there was very little female presence and mostly abs, arms and war cries. However, in order to attract a large enough audience, the ladies needed to be involved. So once again, Zack Snyder manipulated history in favor of a better movie plot and recruited a Bond girl. Arguably one of the best Bond girls ever, Eva Green takes over the screen from the moment she shows up and makes every other character including Xerxes look like a bunch of punks. The movie itself moves along quite nicely and the display of color is a little different from the first movie. ‘300’ had a little more of a gold and red feel throughout the whole movie, where ‘Rise of an Empire’ was a little more black and blue. Honestly though, I could of used five more minutes at the end to give the Spartans and Queen Gorgo a little more respect as they had just lost their King and were awfully pissed off, but despite that, you can tell that a lot of effort went into the production of this prequel/sequel and it shows through its imagery and attention to detail (…although not for it’s historical accuracy), but who gives a s#%t, IT’S A MOVIE! I highly recommend seeing ‘300’ and then watching ‘Rise of an Empire’, but plan on having some really rough sex after, whether it be with a companion or by yourself.
OBLIVION
If you have a problem with Tom Cruise, then you have a problem with yourself. The guy’s a great actor and leaves it all on the screen. I wasn’t able to catch this in theaters last year, but had the pleasure of viewing this on my Cinema friendly Plasma screen. I’ve noticed that the majority of my movies lately have contained some crazy plot twists and this one is pretty interesting. The movie takes on a large scale quickly as Cruise’s character talks about the alien wars, a broken moon, and our decimated planet. There are questions that are going to be left to the viewer’s speculation, but this flick is a little more involved with the emotion of the main characters than with the overall back story of the war. A hint before you watch this, if you miss any part of this for some reason, whether it’s a pee break or you nod off, you’re screwed. There a lot of information and emotion to absorb before the credits roll that you can’t treat this like an episode of ‘Family Guy’.
For such a large production budget, the cast is surprisingly small, so most of the cash went into CGI and Tom Cruise’s paycheck. I also notice that when Cruise does sci-fi, the plot takes a while to get going, so the viewer might get a little agitated when things don’t blow up almost immediately like if you strapped a Go-Pro to Optimus Prime’s head. However as far as sci-fi adventure goes, this movie wasn’t thrown together in quickly; it’s full of great visuals, solid acting, and a large emphasis on the importance of humanity and its simple pleasures.
COMING SOON!
You’ll almost certainly find me watching Captain America, Godzilla and Transformers, because I’m a fan of blockbusters and leaving the theater near exhaustion. I love opening weekend, big lines, smuggling in candy and getting there early so I can make fun of the people who showed up as the previews start and can’t find a decent seat. These are my favorite simple pleasures and since good Yankee tickets cost near a grand, I’ll certainly be at the theater more often.