CMON TERMINATOR!

I am a rather huge fan of TERMINATOR.  And TERMINATOR 2.  Not so much 3.  What about TERMINATOR SALVATION?  Well, let me explain.  

I'm going to be as spoiler free as I can be, but if I get all worked up I apologize, this could be a long one.  Just know it is probably best to watch the movie before reading my review. 

The movie opens with Marcus Wright, a murderer who is minutes away from execution, he is persuade by a mysterious doctor to donate his body to science after he dies.  Marcus agrees and signs the provided forms, which have the 'CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS' logo on the header.  Now anybody who is familiar with TERMINATOR lore, or who has seen ANY of the TS trailers, will know that MARCUS WRIGHT is converted to a TERMINATOR shortly after his execution, even though it is not shown on screen.  Thats the first problem.

The movie then jumps 15 years into the future where the world has become enveloped in a nuclear winter caused by machines, who are hunting down humans and killing them, or harvesting them as workers.  The movie then splits into two parallel storylines that feature Marcus Wright and John Connor separately, until they intertwine later on in the film.  Here is the second problem.  John Connor, the central character of the franchise, has a very dull story arc in comparison to the story of Marcus Wright.  Connor spends his part of the movie yelling, shooting, and running, when he's not transmitting radio broadcasts of course.  Connor is shown planning his attack against SkyNet HQ, and listening to inspirational tapes recorded by his mother before she died. I get what they were TRYING to do, I get it.  But they didn't get it across on the screen.  What they were trying to do was incorporate the essential theme of the TERMINATOR films;  the difference between humanity and machinery, and the struggle to keep that humanity within yourself.  That was not shown with John Connor.  The movie tried to show how Connor had grown cold and inhuman due to his past troubles with Terminators and his present battle with machines, and how he learns to change his decisions and keep his humanity.  But the problem is that his struggle isnt interesting, he is not shown at his peak intolerance, he is not given a boiling point, so his 'lesson' is not learned, or felt.  And when his epiphany is reached, the movie ends.  No problem, no solution.  This was the half of the movie that tries to take the movie into new territory.  But you cant just steer away from the course without adding something familiar to keep fans from disapproving; enter Marcus Wright.

Funny how a new character can bring back memories of good old times, even better than classic characters can.  Marcus' story has much more to do with the original themes and motivations, Marcus has to protect a person of future importance.  In T1 Kyle Reese travels from the future to protect Sarah Connor, Reese informs Connor of the future.  In T2 the T-800 travels from the future to protect John Connor, the Terminator informs John of the future.  In TS Marucs Wright travels from the past to protect Kyle Reese, where Reese informs Marcus of the present plight.  See the parallels?  The protector-protectee relationship unfolds and is quite interesting, way more than in T3.  This is where Marcus and Kyle grow.  Marcus teaches Reese how to become a soldier, and Reese teaches Marcus to overcome his regretful past.  This is what works for the film.

Then Marucs discovers he is a Terminator.  This would have been the best scene in the movie, and one of the coolest plot twists in recent film history.  BUT, you see it coming a mile away.  In the beginning of the film, no less.  So the part of the film that is supposed to have the most emotional appeal has no significance?  How could this happen?  Well because the audience is shown the plot twist during the first 5 minutes of the movie.  This made me angrier than any portion of the movie.

Read this next part ONLY if you've seen the movie:  John Connor is a VERY important leader in the resistance against the machines.  He is of great value and his death would mean curtains for humankind.  So when John Connor is mortally wounded by a T-800, his would-be death scene hits very hard, and you start caring about the character.  But again, his story arc isnt very strong, so this scene could have been MUCH more emotional if his story had been interesting.  Also, the original ending was far more interesting, but completely stomps on the theme of the franchise.  In the original ending, Connor dies, and as a means to continue the fight against SkyNet, and to keep hope alive in humankind, Connor's skin is grafted onto Terminator Marcus' body in a secret operation so the image of Connor and the Resistance is kept alive and is able to stay alive without fear of death.  Somewhat echoing the ending from THE DARK KNIGHT.  But the ending was leaked online early into shooting, so the ending was changed.  Anyway the new ending is more beneficial to the theme of the movie.

So after all the killing of the movie I did, was it a good movie?  Yes.  Half.  Half of this movie is a TERMINATOR movie and the other half is a war movie.  In the same movie you have half of the plot being a variation on the traditional story, and half the movie being fresh story to take the franchise into new uncharted areas.  IF there are any sequels to this movie, they will be most likely focused on the war against machines.  Even though this is the TERMINATOR movie we all want to see, that we were all promised back in '84, it isn't as interesting as expected.  What we didnt expect was a shift of storytelling, a shift of focus, because in the period of time between Judgement Day and the invention of time travel, there is war.  And that period of time is not that interesting.  At least not as interesting as the concept of sending soldiers to the past to protect or kill future figures.  But interesting enough to be watched at least once.

DONT PISS OFF THE GHOST.

I am convinced that there is a ghost in my apartment.  Let me explain.

One night while I was laying in bed, the cabinets in my bathroom opened and shut two times in a row, SLAMMED shut.  I shot out of bed and turned the lights on, but nobody was there.  After I turned the lights off again, the door stopped slamming.

Another time, I left for work in the morning and turned off all the lights in my apartment.  When I came home, it was dark outside, and all the lights were on in my kitchen and living room.  These were lights that had to be turned on with a switch in the wall. I assumed that my girlfriend came home and turned some lights on and left.  But she didnt.  Nobody had been in my apartment since I left for work in the morning and came back at night.

LAST NIGHT, after watching Flight Of The Conchords FRONT ROW which i posted pictures on my Facebook, Jesus came over to my apartment and I told him the story about the lights turning off on their own, and that my apartment houses a ghost.  NOT 10 SECONDS after I finished my story, the lamp next to me turned off.  I almost ran outside to escape but I didnt, I had three races left in Mario Kart.  There were no other disturbances that night, but I refuse to believe that the light turned off RIGHT AFTER I told the ghost story was pure coincidence.  As Jesus put it, I pissed off the ghost.

So If you come over sometime, DO NOT piss off the ghost.  We might be in the dark.  Or taken to the otherside... 

FIND YOUR DEATH STAR. A LATE REVIEW.

Don't know why I never wrote a review on this movie, but seeing as how the DVD is being released today, I guess the timing is worked out OK. 

FANBOYS is a movie that has had more problems than any movie in recent history.  Originally set to be released in 2007, the film was delayed, then delayed again, then the studio commissioned reshoots (which is never a good sign, WOLVERINE shot many reshoots in January before it was released in May, we all know how that turned out...), then the reshoots were deleted, then it was delayed again, until it was FINALLY released in February this year.  By that time all the money was spent doing reshoots and principal photography, there was no money left for advertising, the only poster I saw for the movie was after the movie had already been released.  I saw no other television/radio/internet exposure regarding the release.  When I saw the movie, aside from my friend Gavin, there were 3 other people in the theater with us.  Over the course of 3 years, at the time of release the film had cost $8 Million.  And made less than $800,000 in theaters.  That is a DISASTER.  Quite a shame, because this movie is a real prize for Star Wars fans.

Reviews on this movie were grim.  I dont think a single mainstream review gave this film a positive review.  And I can see why.  This film works MOSTLY for Star Wars fans.  When the characters arent making fun of each other, they are making Star Wars jokes and references.  That's not a bad thing, IF you love Star Wars.  But as long as you've have at least a vague knowledge of the original 3 Star Wars movies, you can make it past all the references and cameos to decipher the message the film tries to get across, and once you get the message, the movie begins to take on its own life beyond the shadow of the Wars.  But by that time, the movie is over.  Although FANBOYS is not very deep and takes a while to find its own way, it has a big heart and is VERY enjoyable and I recommend it to all star wars fans.  If you're not a fan of Star Wars, check out the movie anyways, if you can make it through the nerd stuff you might laugh a little and enjoy a movie about friendship, RUSH, road trips, and destiny.  And a lesson about midnight movie premieres...

PUT ME ON THE ENTERPRISE! A REVIEW.

Let me start off by saying two things;  I still have not seen WOLVERINE, and I do not consider myself a STAR TREK fan.  Or, I didnt until now.  I know little facts about the STAR TREK universe, I caught a handful of episodes of THE NEXT GENERATION when it was on TV, I saw STAR TREK GENERATIONS once, I know that Spock dies at the end of STAR TREK II and he is resurrected in STAR TREK III, and at some point in the movie franchise the crew goes back in time for some reason.  Other than that knowledge, I didnt know much about STAR TREK so I didnt consider myself a fan, but I still wanted to see this new STAR TREK movie, ever since the first trailer.

Now that I have seen the movie I can say that STAR TREK is not just for Trekkies anymore.  This film is a TRUE reboot, in the way that it doesn't completely disregard the original movies but instead creates a story about an old character who travels back in time, therefore creating an alternate universe but keeping the main characters and their personality traits.  And aside from some confusing explanations, it works.  And if you really stop and think twice about some of the story elements, you could certainly pick apart the plot holes, but that would take away from the experience of the film, and it wouldnt be as fun as it is.

Right off the bat this movie looks like a Michael Bay movie.  Lots of tilted camera angles, lighting flares, and slow mo, but thats where the similarities stop.  The movie really takes time to develop the characters so that when something happens to them, you feel for them, and when they make decisions, you take sides.  Which is what makes these characters good, you actually care about what they do.  Especially Spock and Kirk.  Some actions they make in the movie will make you question their decisions, and disagree or agree, which makes them more human, and makes you think that these characters CANT escape every trap theyre in, which makes it all the more thrilling.

So what isnt so great?  Well first Kirk DOES kinda have that 'Main Character Safety' aura around him where he is never in any REAL danger because he seems to escape it so easily, although he does get the crap beat out of him every time somebody makes a fist.  Some characters feel underused, like Scotty who was awesome with his 3 lines, and Sulu who turned out to be a swordfighting ninja, but in a Kirk-Spock origin story I can accept that, and hope they play larger roles in a sequel.  Theres WAY too many angled shots.  Usually angled shots are used to create a sense of distortion or disorientation, basically to represent a characters' abnormal state of mind.  But in this movie almost EVERY shot is at an angle, THEN in the same shot the camera ROTATES to the exact OPPOSITE ANGLE.  After about an hour of this I started to get dizzy, theres probably 10 shots in the whole movie that are exactly horizontal and stationary at the same time.  

An excellent movie from the first frame to the last, I planned to watch WOLVERINE this monday, but I honestly would much rather watch STAR TREK again, which I plan on doing.  This movie made STAR TREK accessible to movie fans as well as TREK fans, by keeping the established events, mythos, and characters but adding action, great special effects, and more sex than one can remember ever being in a TREK movie, fans and non fans can now unite for a great cinematic tale, and not make fun of each other.  And give bones to your neighbor every time 'Bones' is said on screen.

PS the title of this article was a quote from the movie, im not THAT nerdy.

What did YOU think of STAR TREK?  Post in the comments!

THIS is what I was talking about! DISTRICT 9 TRAILER.

Hello, I'm currently in the middle of my California trip, and I'll post a full recap of events probably on Monday, but I read this article on AINTITCOOLNEWS while I was on the road,  and I had to write an article on it.  

The trailer for DISTRICT 9 was just released, you know, the movie I was ranting on about a few articles back.  Check out the trailer, looks pretty good, certainly creepy.  Hopefully youre with me on thinking that his movie looks like a good time, but really this is just a sci-fi racial intolerance movie.  Hopefully it proves to be more than that and really is something that we havent seen before.  Check out the link!  What did you think???

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/district9/hd/