Godzilla Final Wars

Godzilla: Final Wars
By Jose

Plot:

It is a Godzilla movie. Humans or aliens do something that pisses off Godzilla. Godzilla goes on rampage. Sometimes with a little help from another monster or two. HAHA
Evil Space Aliens called the Xilians unleashes all the Earth's monsters to lay waste to most of the world's major cities, including Tokyo, New York, Sydney, Shanghai and Paris. It is up to Godzilla and the Earth Defense Force to vanquish the monsters and aliens to rescue the world in the ultimate "Save the Earth" battle.

Who Loves Godzilla?:

OH OH OH ME ME ME!!
Ahem
Yes I have been and will always be a Godzilla fan. Final Wars was made to be the final Godzilla movie released before the big guys long vacation. Boy it ended with a bang. Almost all of Godzilla’s fellow monsters appear in this movie to destroy, cause mayhem, and give the big G a run for his money for one last time. We also get the Xilian aliens back for this one. If I remember correctly they made a appearance in Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla.
Final Wars packs in a lot of action between the humans and aliens, Godzilla and the other kaiju, and just one giant rumble between everyone. The ending was pretty badass with a new version of Ghidora, Keizer Ghidorah, and Godzilla battling it out along with a updated version of Gigan and Mothra thrown into the mix.
That being said the other obvious part needs to be addressed as well. Since it is a Godzilla movie it will have a good bit of cheesiness. The acting will be off and sometimes cringe inducing. But it is a Godzilla movie. A giant monster or a few beating up on each other and destroying everything around them. It is a movie to have fun with and to enjoy.

Should I Recommend?

Any fan of Godzilla, or fan of any classic rubber suit monsters destroying cities, with people screaming and running away like mad need to see this. It is the last Godzilla movie they made until Toho decides it is time to bring back the King of Monsters. So go out and watch this fun, “rubber suit” giant monster, classic in the making movie.

Ratings : 3 out of 5

Fired Up! Review

By: Robert Acosta

Plot: The two most popular guys in their high school decide to ditch football camp for cheerleader camp, not for the cheerleading but for the girls.

Review: I can honestly say, going into these movies I always expect crap. A couple of laughs here and there, maybe one memorable moment but nothing too spectacular. Now, over a year later since its release, it's one of my favorite comedy movies to watch.

The beginning of the movie gives the viewers a good idea of the lives the main characters Nick(Eric Christian Olsen) and Shawn(Nicholas D'Agosto) live. They hang out with beautiful girls, they're the stars of their football team and overall they're the two most popular guys in their high school.

They've gone through all the girls in their high school and are looking for new girls to prey on. They over hear that the cheerleading squad are going to a cheer camp that includes 300 girls. So of course, Nick and Shawn scheme and find a way to get on the cheer squad and go to the cheer camp. And away the story goes!

Eric Christian Olsen as Nick gives a lot of laughs along with John Michael Higgins as one of the coaches. It took me a while to realize this but Higgins is one hilarious guy. In Fired Up he offers up a lot of laughs and I realize in almost everything he's in, other movies like The Break Up, Yes Man and directTV commercials, he's hilarious. All the other characters compliment these two most of the time, pretty well I might add.

There are times in comedy movies where jokes are just too childish or are basically not funny. They can be real hit or miss in certain comedies. Actually very few comedies have been able to pull off most, if not all, jokes being genuinely funny. Fired Up was one of those comedies. Can the jokes seem a bit retarded or stupid? sure. But remember, all these things, comedy, action, horror, are all based on opinion. Just because I laugh at something doesn't mean someone else is going to laugh at it, nor do I expect you too.

Overall, Fired Up was a great time at the movies, I laughed a lot, nearly cried a couple times of laughter. This is exactly the feeling that should be given during comedy movies.

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activityby Jose

Any good?
After watching Paranormal Activity, you might want to sleep with the lights on for a week or four.
Rarely do I find myself affected by a horror film. It has been years to really feel scared by horror movie as of late. It seems more and more filmmakers are looking to make you squirm from graphic violence, or cheer with an over-the-top kill rather than truly give goose bumps. I’m talking about an honest to goodness level of fear.

So it was truly a surprise to put on this DVD, hoping to be terrified and being richly rewarded with a slow chill moving down my spine, goose bumps, and honestly scared. But it wasn’t a series of gruesome images, or even a masked killer ready to pounce on his or her victim every two seconds; it was sometimes merely a door opening by itself. There is a slow burn that starts quietly, and as each night passes for a young couple, the darkness and what lurks in it seems a little more nightmarish.

The movie about a young couple, Katie and Micah, seem to be having some problems with their new house. They claim to hear noises and a few other things that go bump in the night. But we also find that Katie has a history of the supernatural in her past. She tells of creepy stories about being eight years old and terrorized by the sound of heavy breathing or a dark shadow standing next to her bed. When these new ghostly things begin to happen to her as an adult, she wants to simply ignore them. But boyfriend Micah is a extremely fascinated by the whole idea. He decides to set up cameras inside their home and film everything that is going on. This includes one in the bedroom meant to record what happens while they sleep. The movie starts off slow. With a couple of noises and knocks. Then the door swings. Then the shit hits the fan and we start experiencing the worst of it.

Final thought:
Like what I wrote before I love horror movies, but there has not been one in years to truly scare me. Paranormal Activity has accomplished what many have tried to do. This is a truly scary movie that should please both hardcore horror fans and casual viewers equally, something that's very difficult to do.

GO SEE IT AND GOOD LUCK GOING TO SLEEP!

Rating: 4 out of 5

Clash of the Titans Review

By: Robert Acosta

Plot: The son of the god Zeus tries to stop the underworld from spreading evil and taking over the Earth.

Review: What do we have here? Another remake?! Well I can honestly say I never saw the 1981 original of Clash of the Titans and to be honest, thought this was an original movie until I did my research. Nonetheless, I do like greek mythology and these movies about gods are usually interesting. This one, not so much.

There's nothing I absolutely loved about Clash of the Titans. I enjoyed Ralph Fiennes as Hades, he really is a tremendous actor and the role of the villian of a movie is his specialty, his calling card. On the other hand, Sam Worthington is hit and miss. He works well with action movies, could be the next action movie star but he still seems so emotionless. There is just something about him, it's sometimes boring to watch him.

The action scenes are sub-par, nothing really stands out. The Scorpion fight scene wasn't bad but graphics seemed a bit off. Now I want to note, I did not see this movie in 3D. I heard some bad reviews for the 3D version because it was converted to 3D and the visuals weren't all that great. Another case of 3D not really necessary. Hope this 3D phase fades out and soon.

Back to the movie.

The one thing I was excited to see was the kraken cause it seemed like it would be something awesome to see and it would add up to a great action scene. What it turned out to be for me was a big disapointment. The kraken lasted like 5 minutes, at best, did some destruction and was ended. The one thing that got me excited for the movie ended up being the biggest disapointment.

I will throw in one more positive. All the figures in greek mythology are properly represented and look good. There was really nothing wrong with any of them, the kraken was a huge monster, just not used right. Medusa was portrayed nicely, had a bow and arrow, not bad. Of course, looking at Zeus, Hades and all the other gods is fun for me and was done nicely as well.

Overall, the movie wasn't good and mostly boring. Ralph Fiennes as Hades and Liam Neeson as Zeus both really carried the movie. Sam Worthington on the other hand, has some work to do. He has the potential to really shine, I just don't see it happening just yet. The kraken was horrible, way too short. Just wait to rent it on dvd or wait for it to come on TV, it's not worth a theater watch.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.  

April Movie Releases

Ahhh you know it's April when you wake up, get slapped in the face and told "April Fools!" as if that really was a good April fools joke. Anyway, enough about my glorious morning, ITS APRIL!

March was a comeback month for this blog, seeing as how February was pretty much wasted. I'm glad to say that March was a great month to see movies, even with the random and unnecessary raise in ticket pricing. There was only one week that really didn't hold any outstanding movies, while the other 3 weeks produced entertaining and some surprising movies. But enough about March, it's a thing of the past now. Lets welcome April and take a look at this month in movies:

(x)= Limited Releases
April 2:

• Clash of the Titans
• The Last Song(Techincally came out March 31)
• Why Did I Get Married Too
• Warlords(x)
• Leaves of Grass(x)
• Don Mckay(x)

April 9:

• Date Night
• Letters to God
• The Square(x)

April 16:

• Kick-Ass
• Death at a Funeral
• The Secret in Their Eyes(x)
• The Joneses(x)

April 23:

• The Losers
• The Back-up Plan
• Oceans(April 22)

April 30:

• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Please Give
• I Love You Phillip Morris(x)

Robert Acosta: I'm excited for this month of movies, seems like there is something every week to watch, something I really couldn't say about March. Kick-Ass is definitely something i've been looking forward to for months now, glad that its only a couple weeks away. Who knew that the superhero movie that didn't take itself seriously could be the best superhero movie of them all? Can't wait to see if that ends up being true. Death at a Funeral looks to be the better comedy of the season, I love watching the trailer. Hopefully all these funny personalities blend together to make something actually funny. Nightmare on Elm Street returns to the big screen after it being 7 years since he was on screen and 16 years since he's been in his own movie. I'll be honest, the Nightmare on Elm Street series freaks me out which is why i'm really on the fence for seeing it. Luckily I still have a little bit less than a month to decide. Finally, Clash of the Titans is just a day away and i've heard some good reviews about it already, and you'll be getting a good review from us about it in the coming days.

Jose: March has come and gone. Leaving behind a decent amount of movies and a rise in ticket prices. But here comes April and with it a slew of new movies to enjoy. This month starts off with a remake of Clash of
the Titans, a sequel to one of Tyler Perry’s movies, and a romantic movie co-starring Thor’s brother (god I can’t wait for Thor to come out). April is not all about remakes and sequels. Date Night looks to be rather funny with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. This month also starts the comic book movie craze for the year. Kick Ass looks to kick ass. The Losers brings with it action and Captain America himself Chris Evans. Oh but for the horror fans we get a remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. A new look and new Freddy. Look for Death at a Funeral bringing an all star cast. Oceans a documentary from Disney. April looks to be a rather great month to whet our appetites for the beginning of the Summer movie season starting next month.

Let the month of movies begin!

How to Train Your Dragon Review

By: Robert Acosta


Plot: A unlucky young Viking, Hiccup, wants to be just like the other vikings and hunt dragons. He then becomes the unlikely owner of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he, and everyone else, assumed.



Review: I have to say, I wasn't expecting this movie to be good. At the very most, I thought it would be ok. I have a motto about movies, especially when you don't know what to expect going into them. I always say, "you have to go through the shit to find the gold." Basically you have to sit through countless hours of not so great, uneventful movies til you get to the classics or extremely enjoyable movies. With that story told, How to Train Your Dragon is not shit, actually far from it.



3D seems to be the "next big thing"since a lot of movies, including some blockbuster type movies, are using it. Unlike Alice In Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon uses 3D pretty well. I realized that Alice In Wonderland didn't really have many scenes, if any at all, that used 3D effects. They're are a couple of scenes where things look like they're coming at you, and thats basically the whole point of 3D, make things a bit more life-like and real.



The story of the movie unfolds very nicely as well. It starts off with a puny son of a Viking, Hiccup, who wants to slay dragons and be just like his father and so many of the big, strong Vikings. No one believes that he has the Viking spirit in him but incidentally, Hiccup ends up catching a dragon. He tries to kill the dragon but can't and this is where the bond begins with the Dragon and himself and where some of the good parts of the movie come in.



Watching the bond between the dragon and Hiccup progess ends up being the best part of the movie. Yes, there is a lot of fun action scenes where we see Hiccup still in training to become a Viking, and a good fight scene with dragons but the bonding is really what the movie is about. After a while, the movie becomes more about the dragon, he is pretty damn cute. Hard to deny that, even for an 18 year old college student.

The supporting cast of characters is fun to watch as they do their training along with Hiccup. Its sort of the regular bunch of people, the dominant girl looking to better than everyone, the one nerdy fat guy who seems to know everything there is but can't put it all together, the twins who compete against each other to see whose better and the one show off guy who really has nothing to show off.



The moral of the story is pretty evident, it's along the lines of don't judge a book by its cover. Everyone thought the puny boy with not enough talent to be a Viking was useless and no good and he honestly ends up being the hero of the story.



Sometimes it seems like the story rushes through certain things but overall, How to Train Your Dragon is more than just a great time at the theaters, it's a must see and worth the price of admission.


Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Eskalofrio - Shiver

Eskalofrio - Shiver

By Jose

Plot:

Santi, a young high-school student with a serious physical reaction to sunlight, is forced by his health to move with his single mother to a shadowy, isolated village in the mountains of Spain where the inhabitants begin to reveal themselves as strangely xenophobic. When terrible, violent events begin to occur, Santi becomes first an outcast at school and then strongly suspected by the police of hideous murders. Santi himself, however, wonders if he is not the next victim.

Any good?:

Oh yes another horror movie review! When I first saw this movie I did not know that it had ties to Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage. Two rather good Spanish supernatural/horror movies. If anyone has seen either one or both of those films they know that Shiver should be something special as well.
Eskalofrio or Shiver I found to be really entertaining as a international horror movie. It is well known that foreign horror movies tend to be much better than American horror. We tend to want fast paced scare after scare or kill after kill. Although I do enjoy some movies like that and some are good movies, it gets tiring and repetitive. Plus we tend to “censor” horror here. I may be confusing some people but if you do watch many foreign horror from Spain, Japan, Italy, etc you would see some really messed up and gruesome things that would disturb you (Martyrs for example).
Shiver does not bring buckets of blood and guts. It brings a sense of dread and uneasiness of what lurks and hides in the dark. And gives you that feeling ten fold when you see that whatever that thing is in the dark invades your home and room, and basically breathes down your neck while you sleep. And no I am not saying that to scare you I am saying that because it happens in the movie.
Santi suffers from a vampire like allergy of sunlight. And due to that, at the beginning, you would think Shiver was a vampire movie. But it is not once Santi and his mom move to the village things seem too good to be true. Live stock disappear, people are attacked, and what the hell lurks in the forest? And once we have a small idea of what it is we get a rather uncomfortable scene of Santi alone in his home after an attack. Let me just say that sleeping alone in a house in the middle of a forest with a creature living in it is a very, very bad idea.

Final thoughts:

Great Spanish horror movie. Creepy and unnerving. Junio Valverde who plays Santi was great. Highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Dread

Dread

By Jose

Plot:

Based on the Clive Barker short story, Dread is great on two fronts: Barker's departure from his traditional macabre story lines, and Anthony DiBlasi's impressive directorial debut.
The story unfolds with two college students, Steve (Twilight's Jackson Rathbone) and Quaid (Shaun Evans), agreeing to work together to create a documentary of people's innermost fears. The two put out a call for candidates and document their interviews on video. An expert manipulator, Quaid is able to coax these troubled souls into revealing their innermost demons; deeply personal revelations they would otherwise never dream of discussing in public, much less on camera. Meanwhile Quaid harbors deep seated psychological scars of his own, having been a childhood survivor of the brutal home invasion axe slaying of his parents at the hands of a mysterious psycho.
On the belief that by confronting one's ultimate fear an individual will either overcome their phobia or be consumed by it, Quaid convinces the more demure Steve, and friends Cheryl and Abby to participate in the study. Unknown to everyone involved, however, is Quaid's desire to take things to the next level, progressing beyond mere interviews to the actual physical and psychological nightmare of tackling their fears head on.

Final Thoughts:

Again this movie is not for everyone and is not an action packed, scare you every two seconds movie.
Dread is an interesting and different movie. It does not take the simple route of fear and overcoming it then happy ending. It takes what people fear and dread and perverts it. What if facing your fear makes it worse? What happens to a person that has this deep seated dread that to overcome it is to become it?

Extra Tidbit:

Seems Jackson Rathbone might be coming out of Twilight as a sleeper hit. I have been seeing him around in many different roles here and there and they are all good. I didn’t know about it but he plays the part of Sokka in the Last Airbender.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Hot Tub Time Machine Review

By: Robert Acosta

Plot: Four old friends, who went down different paths in life, spend one last wild weekend together which turns out to be a wild trip to the past.

Review: Now I want to note this before I get into the review. I was gonna give a lot of praise to this movie after watching and enjoying this movie, but it just so happened that I watched the movie 17 Again which, believe it or not, changed my overall view of Hot Tub Time Machine. I'll get into that later.

For starters, Hot Tub Time Machine is exactly what the title entails. The 4 characters played by John Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry spend a weekend together where they used to have their best memories. Now, this place has a hot tub which they all decide to use. Of course, it turns out to be a time machine and sends them back into 1986.

Hot Tub Time Machine is pretty hilarious for mostly the whole way through. Craig Robinson is a hilarious comedian and continues to provide laugh out loud moments in all the comedies he's in, though I wouldn't say he carried this movie as he did in his others. Cusack, Corddry and Duke provide some pretty funny moments as well but I would have to say Robinson's funny moments stick more with me. Chevy Chase makes a fun cameo, having a lot of back and forths between the characters.

Even with this being a comedy, it offers up a good personal question. If you had a chance to change your past, would you? As the movie progresses, you see the characters struggle with what happened in the past and maybe trying to change it. It makes the movie a bit deeper than maybe intended, but it still brings up a valid point.

Also, the bond between the characters is good, you get to see how their relationship progresses from beginning to end, all their memories come to life including one that gets left out, possibly for a sequel or an extra feature on the dvd, depending on how good the movie does in the box office.

Another strength to the movie was the soundtrack during the movie, which something I hardly find as a strength. Usually the songs played during movies are alright, just fit in with whats going on in the movie. But because most of this movie takes place in the 80's, the soundtrack is gonna have you singing along and even bring back memories for you, if you were born in the 80's or like 80's music that is.

There was also a great moral to the story, friendship. Through thick and thin and hot tub time machines, friends stick together and help each other out. Thats definitely something I can get behind.

Now I want to get to the reason why the movie 17 Again changed my overall view of Hot Tub Time Machine. As I was watching 17 Again this morning, I realized that these two movies follow a similar formula. They both start out with people living not so great lives, reflecting on the past, some spiritual being(old man or hot tub) sends them back into the past, they get a chance to fix things or keep things the same, they fix things with some bumps in the road and everyone lives happily ever after. Now I'm not saying that these movies are exactly the same, Hot Tub Time Machine is funnier and overall better than 17 Again but they're so similar that Hot Tub Time Machine really doesn't offer anything new. Just funnier moments.

Overall, Hot Tub Time Machine is still a great time at the movies, even with the prices being raised recently over the weekend. Even with the comparison to 17 Again, this movie has a lot of laugh out loud moments and can be appreciated on it's own.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Triangle

Triangle

By Jose

Plot/What it is about

After their yacht is overturned during a freak storm, a group of friends are desperate for help. A cruise ship suddenly appears and they see a figure looking down at them from the bridge for a few seconds. They climb on board but there is no crew, no passengers, nothing.

Note

If I were to properly review Triangle I would have to spoil the movie. I can give you the first part of the movie no problem. But once the cruise ships arrives and the survivors get on board, anything else I would write/say would spoil the movie.

Any good?

Triangle starts off with Jess (Melissa George) a single mother and her child. Her son we see is sick/autistic. She is cleaning while her son is painting. All looks well until the door bell rings. Jess opens the door and sees no one. Once back inside she seems rushed and is packing a luggage. Jess takes her crying son and gets into her car and leaves. Next we are introduce to the rest of the cast on a sailboat owned by Greg. Jess shows up following Victor (Liam Hemsworth), Greg asked where her son is, Jess says school. Ok. Once on the ocean all is well on the sailboat and everyone is having fun. Then the wind dies rather quickly. I mean a complete void of wind and waves. Then a huge dark bank of clouds approach. Then the storm hits.
The sailboat ends up overturned and one person missing. The survivors are left in the middle of a quiet calm ocean. Until the huge cruise ship appears. They are able to get on board. But what they realize is that they are alone. Or so they think.
This is where things star getting weird and people start dying. Jess is blamed. Yet the camera is on her at all time. We the audience are following her and she wasn’t any where near anyone. So what is going on? Who is that strange person with the jumpsuit and rags wrapped around their head. Why does she sound like a woman. Why does she tell Jess to “kill them all” after they were all killed. And who is screaming for help from the ocean? And when Jess finds out who it is we all just have to say what the WTF?

Final Thoughts

I love my horror movies. I love horror movies that make you think about what the hell is going on before it finally comes together at the end. Well the Triangle delivers that plus more. It does not take it easy on the viewer. It throws everything it can to mess with you and twist what you are seeing around. Then at the end when that twist comes and it makes you go “wow” it makes a 360 and makes it worse soon after. Loved this movie, but may not be for everyone.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5



Triangle (2009) Offical Trailer
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