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May 16
 The much-anticipated sequel to Da Vinci Code was finally shown yesterday and it was pretty darn good . Considering the fact that many of the fans and readers of Dan Brown’s two books were utterly disappointed by the Da Vinci Code, this one was going to try and live up to all the hype surrounding it. And in my opinion, the movie showed a different side of the Church and drew the line between science and religion pretty well. I really enjoyed the movie and was still trying to figure out who the traitor was until the end!
The story begins with the death of the Pope and also showed in parallel the Hadron Collider and how scientists were able to successfully put anti-matter in a container. But those same scientists were murdered, except for one, and the anti-matter stolen by an unknown entity. Robert Langdon, who was never able to finish his second book because the Church rejected his petition to enter the most secretive vault in the world. He is sought after to help in the investigation of what officials have discovered as the probable resurgence of the Church’s oldest and biggest threat, the Illuminati.
What follows is a non-stop ride of twists and turns and a hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs and deserted cathedrals. The movie is truly riveting and keeps you at the edge of your seat. When it was discovered that the Pope was murdered, it turned the entire Vatican upside down and led to a battle of wills within the Church. Everyone now knows there is a traitor within and that the Illuminati has managed to secretly infiltrate the Vatican. The problem was they had no idea who it was.
There was also the problem with the Illuminati bomb which was hidden where no one except Robert Langdon could find but only if he could figure out the clues in time. Each hour 1 of the 4 kidnapped cardinals, who are the would-be successors of the Pope, would be executed in line with the four elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water, until midnight when the Illuminati bomb destroys the entire fabric of the Catholic Church’s existence. And the race for time begins for Robert Langdon.
It wasn’t an all-star cast but it definitely got the job done and I loved it. Tom Hanks played Robert Langdon unbelievably well while Ewan McGregor played his role as the Camerlengo to a tee. The other stars like Stellan Skarsgard who played Commander Richter and Armin Mueller-Stahl who played Cardinal Strauss were also very very good. I’m unsure as to why this was given terrible ratings by both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, but you have got to go see Angels & Demons as it definitely is not as bad as the critics say. I’d say it’s one of the best movies so far this year. Below is also a special on the movie for download and it’s around 175MB.
Personal Rating (out of 10): 8.9/10
IMDb User Rating (out of 10): 7.1/10
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Duration: 138 minutes
Links: Official Site, IMDB
Feature: Angels & Demons Special
May 09
 I have lost count as to how many Star Trek movies have been shown on the big screen and I’ve seen majority of them. This one though was surprisingly good for me in many aspects. I love the cast they built around this installment as fans, especially Trekkies, would have a wry smile on their faces when they see the uncanny similarities in terms of how the characters looked, moved, and talked, compared to the originals! And of course, the highlight for me of the movie, SPOILER ALERT, is when THE Leonard Nimoy showed up. I swear, if I wasn’t with my wife and watched it with friends who were big Star Trek fans, I would have clapped just like everyone else. Geeeky!
Origins and stories of the history of a cult classic like Star Trek will always spark interest in die hard fans. I’m not a Trekkie so I don’t really know how it all started for Kirk’s Enterprise crew as well as his strong friendship with Spock, but I do know the characters of that series. And boy, did they pick a great cast to portray them! I’m really a Star Trek TNG Picard fan, but this movie made me want to watch the original series to see if what I watched was really how it all began.
The movie starts off with a huge rogue Romulan ship coming out of a rip in time that wreaks havoc on what was then the USS Kelvin. The ship was captained for 12 minutes by Kirk’s father (you’ll know why after you watch the movie), that goes on a collision course in the hopes of saving the remaining crew, as well as a newly-born James Tiberius Kirk. What follows is the history of Kirk’s childhood as well as Spock’s and what was great was that it delved deeper into the true character of Spock, being a half-human, half-Vulcan.
Chris Pine portrayed the young brash Kirk to a tee and Zachary Quinto played the young Spock unbelievably well. The other characters like Sulu, who was played by John Cho (Harold and Kumar), as well as McCoy who was played by Karl Urban (Chronicles of Riddick), were fantastic. I didn’t know Sulu was a martial arts specialist though, hehe. And I thought Karl Urban was Riker from TNG when he had a beard at the start! Apparently, he can play both Riker (with a beard) and McCoy (without one), in a dual role! I won’t say much else about the movie, except that the cast itself can bring in a huge audience base, but the allure of Star Trek has definitely been revitalized with this latest epic.
The movie was a really great ride. From the construction of the USS Enterprise, to the short but sweet development of each of the main characters in the crew, to the comedic dialogues of Chris Pine as Kirk, and of course, the appearance of the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy. If you take a look at the crew above, they all really do have a striking resemblance to their predecessors. It’s just amazingly surreal. Kudos to the super cast as well as another great big screen JJ Abrams production.
If you’re a Trekkie, you will love this movie. And if you aren’t and you really don’t care what Star Trek is, you’ll be surprised how much of the true history of it you’ll want to know more of after watching this. And that’s definitely the mark of a really good movie. You can also download the making of Star Trek below, it’s around 182MB but well worth it. Have a good one!
Personal Rating (out of 10): 9.2/10
IMDb User Rating (out of 10): 8.4/10
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Karl Urban
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
Duration: 126 minutes
Links: Official Site, IMDB
Feature: The Making of Star Trek
May 03
Here is the 2nd installment of the Hi-Res Movie and TV Poster series. I’m going to try and post these alphabetically as much as I can along with requests from the previous thread.
Again, there are a lot of these and I’m posting some of the more popular ones. If there are posters you want that is not in the previous 2 blog posts, please feel free to send me a message on what particular poster you want and I’ll get it out to you if I have it. Enjoy!
Related Links:
Hi-Res Movie and TV Posters
Movies of 2009: What Else to Look Forward to?
Movies of 2010: What to Look Forward to this Year!
Dec 31
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!  Here’s a selection of 30 hi-res movie and TV posters I’ve gathered across the past few years. It’s a real pain to find decent ones that are of very good quality but here are a few of them for you guys to enjoy.
I have a ton more of these but I won’t post them all here because it’s going to wipe out my size allotment but if you guys want some posters in particular, feel free to send me a note and if I have it, I can send it straight over to you. Have fun!
Related Links:
Hi-Res Movie and TV Posters Part II
Movies of 2009: What Else to Look Forward to?
Movies of 2010: What to Look Forward to this Year!
Nov 28
 Twilight is probably the biggest and most hyped up book-to-movie release since Harry Potter. But then again, the sudden cult following was still a big question mark in terms of how good it would actually be in the box office charts. Lo and behold, in just it’s first week, it has already grossed $69,637,740 and took over the number one slot from Quantum of Solace. What was more impressive to me is that its production budget was only $37 million while Quantum of Solace was at $200 million and it grossed THREE times more than what Quantum had done in 2 weeks. Wow. So the question is, was it really as good as advertised and worth all the cult following?
Since I have not read any of the books (nor do I plan to), the trailer of the movie had me saying how bad it would already be even before I had watched it. I thought all the hype would not only destroy whatever good would come out of the movie, but believed that it would make it utterly terrible. I was thinking more in the lines of cult fans coming out disappointed with their heads hanging and wondering why the heck they were wearing all their Twilight shirts that said “Team Edward” at the back.
Twilight is a love story between Edward, a vampire played by Robert Pattinson (who also played Cedric in Harry Potter!), who has fallen in love with Bella, a human played by Kristen Stewart. The whole movie actually revolves around their “forbidden” love affair because of what Edward is and what the consequences of losing control with Bella would mean. The other problem is the fact that there is another group of vampires, those who seek human blood, who have taken in the scent of Bella, and are hunting her as they had discovered her. The first part of the movie was rather draggy, but definitely got better when we (those who haven’t read the book, and there were very few of us) finally understood why Edward was so appalled by Bella at the start. The action picked up even more when the other brood came in and started to hunt down Bella while the family came in and protected her.
Did I like the movie? Surprisingly yes. There’s something about the mystery behind what was coming next that really peaked my interest. There was a part while watching the movie that I realized I was involuntarily squeezing my fiancee’s hand beside me when the chase scene was on, which was quite funny, hehe. There were some really disappointing parts though like the scene where James was killed. It was so anti-climactic and I kept saying to myself, “that was it?!“ But there were some really good parts like the baseball game they played in the thunderstorm and when the brood came in and found Bella. That was pretty cool.
As a non-reader of the books, it was pretty entertaining and at least I wasn’t disappointed. But for the die-hard readers, I’m not quite sure how they rated the film. I read quite a few reviews that said how the movie didn’t portray some characters the way they were described in the books. But apparently it isn’t that big of a deal. This is a correction thanks to k who commented on what was written here. Thank you I would suggest that you go watch this movie if not for the sheer curiosity of what all the hype is about. And if I would be interested in what happens in the sequel, I guess it means this first one was good enough for a second serving
Personal Rating (out of 10): 6.8/10
IMDb User Rating (out of 10): 5.8/10
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Fantasy
Duration: 122 minutes
Links: Official Site, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Trailers
Oct 13
 When they started this movie off with 4 fake trailers on each of the main actors, it already gave everyone watching a hint of how hilarious this was going to be. Given an R rating for extreme carnage and rude but witty dialogue, it was a laugh trip from start to finish. And although it was given a pretty bad rating by handicap/gay/black groups because of all the insinuations that were made in the movie, it still came out as a huge success. Talk about being over-sensitive, come on, it’s a MOVIE for crying out loud! Very gutsy and a flick made for people who want a good laugh. A definite must-see as Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise were amazing!
While the cast was indeed star-studded, even in terms of cameo appearances especially in the fake trailers, the three mainstays truly stood out. I was laughing so hard when the trailer for Satan’s Alley showed on-screen though and Tobey Maguire popped out and played a Brokeback priest in love with Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ). That was a pure classic, and you can see that trailer right HERE! Ben Stiller was surprisingly good, though his portrayal of a retard was severely disturbing, while Jack Black was just his usual insane self. The star though was RDJ, as his passionate portrayal of a black man led him to change his own color and his own voice! You really need to see it and hear it, to believe how great he was and how he stole the show on every dialogue he had on-screen!
The movie starts off with the portrayal of a very violent and gory war scene in Vietnam, inspired by the story of John “Four Leaf” Tayback played by Nick Nolte. The studio head in charge is Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise (who I didn’t even recognize the first time he came on-screen), who was insanely irate that the current team has practically blew all his money away without making any decent line of film. So the director makes a pact with Tayback to throw the five actors into a jungle in the middle of Laos or Cambodia in the hopes of getting the type of action that he wants. Everything that followed after, are very witty and funny scenes and dialogue that are really quite priceless. I’m not sure if an audience who aren’t used to so much profanity and straight out vulgarity would enjoy this as much as I did, but it was a blast!
I’m not going to give away any more scenes, but watch out for RDJ in this movie. Mr. Iron Man himself, is definitely BACK and this movie shows what a great and versatile actor he truly is. Tom Cruise was also really funny in his portrayal of the crazy director, and his dance moves were utterly enjoyable. Jack Black also had a scene where he was tied up in the forest and was going crazy because he was craving for heroine and had a hilarious dialogue with Alpa Chino (played by Brandon Jackson). That scene had me laughing my head off in the theater because it was just so funny! The best thing about this movie was really the witty remarks and dialogue. So you guys need to go out and watch this! I’ll leave you all with a dialogue from the film below, when Kirk Lazarus, played by RDJ (with that amazing voice of his) was talking to Tugg Speedman (Stiller) on when he played the role of a retard in one of his films…
Kirk Lazarus: Everybody knows you never go full retard.
Tugg Speedman: What do you mean?
Kirk Lazarus: Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, ‘Rain Man,’ look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho’. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, ‘Forrest Gump.’ Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain’t retarded. Peter Sellers, “Being There.” Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don’t buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, “I Am Sam.” Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed…
Personal Rating (out of 10): 7.5/10
IMDb User Rating (out of 10): 7.7/10
Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Cruise, Brandon Jackson
Genre: Comedy, Action
Duration: 107 minutes
Links: Official Site, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Wallpapers, Memorable Quotes
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