James Cameron’s Avatar Announcement
This is not a review. This is an announcement for you to immediately go out and watch James Cameron's Avatar in 3D. Do not wait until this is out on DVD; it'll still be awesome, but only half as awesome as it would be in 3D (and let me add that I wore the 3D glasses over top of my "normal" glasses and it looked perfectly fine. This movie was made to be shown on a huge screen with the best sound available, and in 3D. And this 3D is the best 3D I've ever seen. When watching the recent Pixar movies, I've always felt like the screen was blurry and hurt my eyes whenever there was any action on screen.
And I can't stress this enough: the trailer does not do Avatar justice. I thought the movie kinda dumb from the trailer. It looked like a scifi FernGully or something. But it is way more than that. So instead of watching that crappy trailer, watch this instead. It is a behind the scenes making of the movie. And you'll see that Avatar is the greatest technical achievement for a movie that there has ever been.
"This is not an animated movie," as Cameron says. Every single thing scene Avatar was filmed by real actors, with them actually acting everything out with capturing devices on them, not just voice acting. A special camera was even built to specifically look at their face to capture their exact facial expressions and recreate on screen. Cameron even built a special "virtual camera" for him to see what the final product will look like as the actors are working! This movie is what people will compare movies in the next decade to, just like they did with Cameron's 'Titantic' years ago.
Cameron said that he wrote the script for this movie 14 years ago and waited until recently to actually create Avatar since technology has evolved to the point where he could actually portray what he envisioned onto the screen. And I am so glad he waited.
So back to what you actually see on screen when you go to the theater. The world, Pandora, shown in Avatar is SURREAL. It is without a doubt the most beautiful scenery ever created for a movie/video game. I've heard others say this before I saw the movie and I agree, that I almost teared up during a part of the movie; not because any emotional involvement with the characters, but because what you are seeing on screen is just so awesome (the part I'm talking about is actually what Cameron says in the video above is his favorite part of the movie--where the two main characters are flying with each other for the first time). When you go to the theater to watch this movie you are entering the world of Pandora. You're not watching a movie; you are having an experience unlike any other.
Avatar is on an epic scale on the same lines as Lord of the Rings. Tolkien fanboys might burn me at the stake for saying that, but if they do it's because they haven't seen Avatar. The movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but it didn't feel long to me for 1 minute. I wanted more as soon as I walked out of there. I may even get the most-likely-crappy game (as most movies built on movie IPs generally are) just to re-enter the world of Pandora.
This may be my favorite movie of all time, but I'll have to see how it holds up watching it in my tiny TV (42 inches?) in my home before making that decision. Everyone needs to go see this movie in 3D as soon as you can. It might be a little experience for some people to see it in 3D (it was $14.00 at my local IMAX 3D), but it is well worth it. James Cameron has said that he looked at doing the 3D in this movie as another light, another tool to make the movie a more intimate experience, not a gimmick thrown on to make more people come see it. GO SEE AVATAR!
[ Oh yeah, and Michelle Rodriguez is awesome, even the little bit that she's in this movie. Some how this image alone in the film made me go "hah! awesome!" It makes more sense in context... ]
Law Abiding Citizen Review – A fun ride but falls apart throughout
This review is going to be a little controversial based on the responses of my opinion from friends.
Law Abiding Citizen is a movie about a dude who something terrible happens to and the person responsible gets away with it due to what he thinks is a poor judicial system. He then gets thrown in jail and terrifies those who worked on the case of the terrible thing that happened in order to prove to the world how flawed the system is. (I know this seems a little spoilery, but this is basically all shown in the trailer)
The movie is a fantastic ride and is all around fun. The most fun is had with the element of wit. The movie is for anyone that likes movies such as Inside Man or Memento. Its full of plot twists and Gerard Butler's character just seeming like the smartest man alive. In this respect, the movie is awesome.
The only problem that I have with the movie is that the first 30 minutes or so is fully devoted to Gerard Butler's character locking himself in prison to prove that our judicial system is screwed up. But after that 30 minute or so mark, he stops trying to prove that and is pretty much just killing everyone that let the guy go that did the terrible thing (sorry, don't want to spoil it). I would have been fine with this, but if they stuck with it the whole movie. Theres too much of a conflicting message. Its more obvious when towards the end of the movie Jamie Foxx's character is trying to convince Gerard Butler's character to stop, but Gerard says, "You still don't get it!" I was excited at this point, because I thought the end of the movie would reveal a crazy plot twist of which makes the whole screwed up judicial system message come back and make complete sense. Well that didn't happen. There was a crazy plot twist, but the movie never came back to the original message it was trying to convey. And no, it wasn't something that just went over my head...
Conclusion
This movie is still worth seeing. If you are the type of person that only sees a few movies a year in theaters, then you might want to wait for this to come to DVD, but then definitely see it. For everyone else though, I'd still suggest seeing it. It's a fun movie.
Rating: 
Movie Review: Zombieland
I have been a long fan of zombie movies, honestly because my friends are so into them. But because of this, I've seen a ton of zombie movies, including a lot of bad ones. I went into this movie thinking it was going to be one of those bad ones; not in a b-movie sort of way, but in a terrible expensive Hollywood movie sort of way. But boy was I wrong.
Zombieland is without a doubt my favorite zombie movie of all time. It is 5 times funnier than Shaun of the Dead and all of jokes are real jokes, not just spoofing a zombie movie or making fun of itself. Also, you actually care about the characters, or at least like them enough to want to to continue to live. From the previews, it looked like Woody Harrelson's character was gonna be a big stupid redneck and Jesse Eisenberg's character was gonna be the typical awkward teen you see in every comedy these days. And they were those things. But they also had character and depth, enough to make you really enjoy them.
But the absolute best part of this movie is that it is fun. In fact it's the only real fun zombie movie I've ever seen. Zombieland isn't a horror movie and it's not about surviving or anything depressing. It's about how to have fun in a world full of zombies.
Conclusion
Zombieland is an amazing movie for anyone. There is enough gore and zombie killing for the core zombie fan and there is enough comedy, action, and emotion for the typical movie fan (or anyone else really). Justin (huge zombie fan) and Melissa (not huge zombie fan) both loved the movie, so that tells you something.
Movie Review: Extract
It was okay. It wasn't hilarious or a really good story. I probably wouldn't even pay to watch it in theaters. But it might be a good rent in 6 months...
Movie Review: Taking Woodstock
I used to hate independent movies, but lately I've been seeing ones that I've loved such as Away We Go and (500) Days of Summer. Well this movie ruined that streak, because it was awful.
Okay it wasn't awful, but it wasn't a good movie. I wouldn't pay to see it, not even a $1 at the Redbox when it comes out on DVD. And what makes me so mad is that it should have been good. So many big actors, it was directly by Ang Lee, the music was by freakin' Danny Elfman.
Some parts had probably the worst acting I've ever seen, some parts made no sense towards the main plot of the movie and really had no right to be there, and the rest was just sooo slow. The first probably 45 minutes of the movie is just leading up to the festival actually happening. And it is a loooong 45 minutes, with nothing really happening. The other half of the movie was kind of okay during most of it, but still with some parts really making no sense and I wish weren't there. Nothing even really happened in the movie. I did get some joy though out of knowing this was a true story and that Woodstock happened this way, but even then I don't know what was real and what was made up for the movie.
Sooo... Don't see this movie, k?
And yeah and theres a whole lot of nudity in this movie, but not like sexy nudity. More like weird/gross nudity.
James Cameron’s Avatar Theatrical Trailer
Yesterday I posted about me seeing the Avatar sneak peak footage and said there was no trailer. Well either I lied or it was just posted. Either way, here it is:
Avatar - Theatrical Trailer
By the way, everything in that trailer was also in the footage I saw, which means I also still don't know how this movie is going to be based on anything shown.
Avatar Day! James Cameron’s Avatar Preview
Yesterday I went to see the 15 minute preview of James Cameron's Avatar at the White Marsh Mall theater in IMAX 3D. I have to say, despite the incredible hype and praise from people that went to Comic-Con (where this same preview was shown before) I really wasn't blown away by this footage.
For anyone that doesn't know, James Cameron is the famous director or writer of all of the Terminator movies and shows, the Abyss, Aliens, Titantic, and tons of other classics. Avatar is about humans in the future (or maybe just a fantasy world?) that find a way to transport peoples' minds into alien bodies (avatars) so that they can travel to a distant planet. I think. This is all guessing from what I saw. The rest of the footage shows the people in their avatar forms on the planet called Pandora, who seem to be exploring and getting into trouble with big creatures and the local inhabitants of the planet (which look exactly like their avatars). The footage didn't really seem to give away any key plot points, which James Cameron was quick to point out on screen before the footage was shown. It looks like 90% of the movie will be CGI and 10% live action.
Avatar looks really good; it seems to be full of action, drama, live action and CGI in 3D, and the CGI looks flawless; probably the best CGI I've ever seen. My main gripe though is the 3D. It may just be me, as it didn't seem to affect Melissa, but whenever there was any action with a lot of movement my brain seemed to not be able to keep up with the 3D and it just looked kind of bleh to me. I think I'd actually prefer to see the movie in 2D. There also just doesn't seem to be much of a story and the characters seemed to be a little bland, but I really can't tell that from the footage seen so I'll have to wait to actually see how that pans out.
So basically everyone seemed to be blown away by this footage as Comic-Con, especially the 3D technology, since James Cameron said that he was looking at 3D as lighting to make a movie better, not just a gimmick. But I really thought the 3D in the Pixar movies I've seen lately was better and the footage really didn't 'wow' me like everyone else seemed to be. We'll see!
Oh yeah, and just to let anyone know: there is no trailer for Avatar as of yet, which is why I went to see this 15 minute footage. It's basically James Cameron's version of a trailer, except it's not on the internet.
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