Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Reviews; Journey 3D and The Dark Knight

Caught a couple movies in the last few days:

The Dark Knight

Forget Nicholson, Ledger IS the Joker. His performance is the best Joker I've ever seen. I've never been a big fan of his but I can't even begin to describe how awesome he was in this movie. Aaron Eckhart was excellent too as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Maggie Gyllenhal (sic) was nothing special and really didn't do anything that Katie Holmes didn't do and to be honest, I think Holmes was at least a little cuter. The rest of the returning cast was just as good as last time.

This definitely surpasses Batman Begins as one of the best superhero/comic movies. It was just AWESOME!!! My first 5 star movie of the year.

I'll be making another trip for sure to see it on the IMAX. Hell, I might even see it again on the normal screens.

Not one I would take little kids too. It's definitely a hard PG-13 rating but isn't any more violent than Lord of the Rings. Just might be a little scary for the young ones.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3D

This is a movie that would be good to take your kids to but don't do it unless you can see it in 3D. Really isn't worth it otherwise. The 3D effects are done rather well and better than most live action movies with the 3D just tacked on.

I definitely need to think about investing in contacts though. Those 3D glasses, especially the huge IMAX goggles, don't fit too well over my regular specs.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Week in Review

Everyday I go to a few different websites to see the latest news in movies, tv, games, etc. These sites range from Kotaku to AICN to IMDB (one of my most visited sites). One of them though is Dark Horizons, which most people know about.

Well, while I was on there the other day I saw some very disturbing news: Rob Cohen (director of Stealth, Fast and the Furious, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and the newest Mummy movie) is hoping to get a remake of one of my all time favourite movies from the 80s off the ground. What movie is that you ask? It would be none other than the wonderful and inimitable:




Is Hollywood really this out of ideas? The amount of 80s movies being remade is astounding. Red Dawn, Highlander, Robocop (although it may be another sequel now apparently), Child's Play and Nightmare on Elm Street are just a few. I predict that in 10 years, Hollywood will be remaking movies from the 90s. As much as I love movies, this is getting a bit out of control in my humble opinion.

In more exciting and better movies news, the trailer for the Watchmen is now available in gorgeous Quicktime HD. This movie is based on the classic and probably most revered graphic novel of all time from the great Alan Moore and is being directed by Zack Snyder, who did the Dawn of the Dead remake and 300. Moore apparently has completely distanced himself from the movie and has turned his royalties over to Dave Gibbons, the artist of the graphic novel. I can see why he would be worried after the shitfest that League of Extraordinary Gentleman turned out to be but I think that Snyder is the best person for the job and judging from the trailer, I definitely think they're on the right track.

Now that E3 has come to a close, I think I'd like to share some thoughts on the what occurred:

I definitely think that Microsoft won for best press conference. They had the most information and the most surprises/big announcements too. The biggest of course, for most people anyways excluding me, would be that Final Fantasy XIII will be released on the 360 the same day in Europe and North America as it will be on the PS3.

Sony's press conference was neither great nor awful. Nintendo on the other hand just completely mailed theirs in. I bet they figure if they just through the name "Wii" on everything and people will just oooooohhhhh and aaaaaawwwwww all the way to the cash registers and the sad thing is, they're probably right. I definitely think the guys at Penny Arcade put it best in their strip on Wednesday.

Now I'm just counting down the hours until I get to see The Dark Knight at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning....which will be the first of multiple viewings I'm sure. I'm a huge Batman geek and this movie has me excited like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Resident Evil 5 Release Date

Wow...two posts in my first day. :) I just saw this news recently from E3 and it was just too good not to share with the world:

Resident Evil 5 is being released on March 13, 2009 and will include ONLINE CO-OP!!! This is fantastic news because a) I love Resident Evil and 2) I love playing games in online co-op, so it only makes sense that the two of them being brought together in one package would have me so excited.

I don't know about you guys but March can't come soon enough now for me.

First Post and Hellboy II Review

Welcome to my new blog. I used to blog at http://sean80.spaces.live.com/ but I've decided to give this place a try now. If you want to read some of my old thoughts, please feel free to head on over there.

For my first posting here I thought I'd give a little intro about myself and then do a quick movie review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

I'm a 27 year old male born in 1980. I live in Mississauga, Ontario, which is just outside of Toronto (which is where I work). I am a single guy who loves to play video games (sean80 is also my Live gamertag), watch movies and tv, watch sports (hockey, football, UFC and baseball mainly), read, surf the net, etc., etc. I am somewhat of a geek given my love of horror and sci-fi and the fact that I will go out of my way to watch a movie in digital instead of regular projection. I watch a lot of movies and you'll find I'll post my thoughts on them quite frequently.

What you'll find if you choose to visit here is my random thoughts on things from games to movies to life to whatever comes into my mind.

Now on with my review of Hellboy II. I've been a big fan of Guillermo Del Toro since I saw Blade II. The first Hellboy is a favourite of mine and I loved Pan's Labyrinth as well. I think he's a very talented filmmaker. With Hellboy II, he has done it again.

This movie completely lives up to the original and is one of the best sequels I have ever seen. It is not as dark as the first one. Where the first one is more sci-fi/horror, this one leans more to the fantasy genre. The special f/x are better than the first one (although given the budget those were good too) and the new characters were incredible. I also loved the story itself and think some of the creatures he has created in this movie are the best I've seen in a while.

Ron Perlman is fantastic once again as Hellboy and it is still some of the best casting ever and ranks right up there with Sin City in terms of people being cast so well to bring a comic to life. It was also nice to see Doug Jones be given the full focus in his roles and not having someone else do a voice over on his character. He is a very talented dude and can embody so many different characters. He played three in this movie alone.

Danny Elfman did the score for this movie, who I am a big fan of. I think this is his best work in years and might be some of my favourite work from him since Edward Scissorhands.

If there were any doubters about Del Toro doing the Hobbit movies (probably not too many around here) this will convince you that he is more than up to the task. Hopefully he'll do another Hellboy after that.

I give this movie a very strong 4/5.