A.I. Artificial Intelligence with all real Heart

            A.I. Artificial Intelligence was a lucky find for me. I’m pretty sure I just went to the theater with my family and picked it off the board (Don’t quote me on that though. I may be mistaken.). Either way, though, I saw this movie and I loved it. It’s kind of dark and, unless you aren’t human, it will bring you to tears in the end. This is not a personal opinion either. When I was leaving the theater I caught just about everyone that went by me to leave wiping tears off their faces.

            David, Haley Joel Osment, is a little boy. But he’s only not like other little boys in one way. He’s mechanical, as the humans put it. But he still feels pain and sorrow and even love, love for his Mommy, Monica (Frances O’Connor). After some twists at home David finds himself abandoned and on a search. He’s searching for an answer to his dreams and deepest wish. But will the Blue Fairy really be able to give him what he truly wants?

            This movie has many different looks and feelings to it. In the beginning when Monica is unsure about David and practically hates him the movie almost has a horror type feeling to it. David seems to appear out of nowhere and moves silently. The lighting and look of the scenes match with this genre too, being darker and shooting the camera through eerie angles. But then as David is experiencing things for the first time there is an abundance of light in the scenes, giving the feeling of how a child sees the world. This movie is, as I said, a dark one. There is very little humor to be found in it. But the humor that is in it isn’t just thrown in at random. It’s at just the right time to give the viewer a life line, you could say, to the light of day. Osment was around 13 at the time of making this movie and for being that young he did an excellent job at portraying this complex role. He was very believable as the mechanical boy who just wanted to be loved by his Mommy no matter what he had to do. I suppose to appease the female readers I should make a point to point out that Jude Law is in this movie. But he never really catches my attention in this movie and, actually, looking at a lot of the movies he has done it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to play the part of Gigolo Joe. It almost feels like he was just put in as eye candy for the ladies. This movie raises a lot of questions. The biggest being, if you could create a robot that loves unconditionally what responsibility would the owner of that robot have to it? The movie makes a good argument in the opening scenes, but it is controversial so I will dodge this topic now. I will say once more as a warning, this is a dark movie. Some other critics have said it’s a family film, but I would have to question their definition of family film. This is definitely not a film for smaller kids, but if you stick to the suggestions of the PG-13 rating then you should be fine. I would have to say that everyone, who is old enough, should see this movie at some time in their life.

If you're interested in A.I. Artificial Intelligence check out the preview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_19pRsZRiz4
Also be on the look out for my next review. Here's a taste of what's to come The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

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The Hunger Games Doesn't Leave you Hungry for More

            I came across The Hunger Games the good old fashioned way; a friend saw the trailer and told me to watch it. At the time of me watching the movie I hadn’t read the books so initially I loved the movie. However, after working through my reading list I got to read The Hunger Games and now I have some serious qualms with the movie. For this review, since I’ve read the book, I’ll look at it two ways. First I will compare the movie to the book and then I will look at the movie as if I hadn’t read the book.

            The Hunger Games takes place in an alternate future after a great uprising. Now with the uprising settled the country is separated into 12 districts and in honor of the uprising every year two children, between 12 and 18 years-old, are selected to fight to the death in the hunger games. We find Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence, in district 12, the coal mining district, and after a very bad turn of fate she finds herself volunteering to be in this year’s hunger games. But how will the games end?

            The director, Gary Ross, took some real liberties with turning the book into this movie. He left out characters for starters. Did you know that Katniss doesn’t buy the mockingjay pin in the book? It’s a gift to her from the daughter of the mayor of district 12, one of her only friends. But they don’t even mention the mayor in the movie so it would have been hard for his daughter to give Katniss anything. Ross also leaves out the two runaways in the woods in the beginning, all he does is leave the hovercraft that scans the woods for apparently no reason. That also joins together with the fact that he left out the avoxes that are present, as servants, in the tribute tower. These may seem like little nitpick things to complain about, but it makes me really wonder how they’re going to do the last two movies without some of this stuff that they have deemed unimportant. Then Ross felt he needed to make more changes after all that. In the book when Katniss receives her parachutes all they contain is the object the sponsor bought her. This means there were no notes included. Katniss simply figured out for herself what she was supposed to do with the stuff or why she didn’t get what she was trying for. I’d like to keep going but if I did then I would start to give away the ending. So I will just move on to the next part of the review.

            This movie on its own still wasn’t that great. Ross put in somethings from the book without explaining what they meant. This is why if you haven’t read the book you don’t understand what Gale, Liam Hemsworth, and Katniss are talking about when they discuss how many times their names are in. (I shall try to briefly explain this. The first year that your name goes in the bowl it goes in once. Then the next year it goes in two more times, making it in there three times, and it progresses like that until you turn 19 and they take your name out. But your name can also be put in extra times if you request food from the government and this is how Gale’s name was in 45 times.) Ross also hints at what happened to Katniss’s Dad but never fully tells the story or, for that matter, the back story to the incident with Peeta, Josh Hutcherson, throwing the bread to Katniss. But moving away from that sort of stuff I would like to bring up the rating. This movie is rated PG-13 for intense violent thematic material and disturbing images - all involving teens and I know they shot for this level of rating so the teens that read the books could see the movie, but come on. The book was way worse than what they showed in this film and their only trick to show the violence without showing the violence was to shake the camera a lot. It’s really not a terrible movie, but I just don’t see it as the great blockbuster that everyone makes it out to be. Sure they’ve got a great cast of upcoming stars but that’s not how you make a great movie. Ross had great material to work with but in the end he made it all very average. I will say though I did like that he hinted at what happened to the game maker after the games ended. Of course I’m going to tell you to watch this movie at least once to see for yourself what you think, but I am also going to say, READ THE BOOKS TOO!

If you're curious about The Hunger Games here's a link to the preview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMGRhAEn6K0
Also here is another person's views on this movie. Be warned there is swearing (mostly censored) and it does have spoilers. Everything Wrong With The Hunger Games
Don't forget to come back for my next review. Here's a little peak of what's to come  A.I. Artificial Intelligence

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The Entitled were they given Enough Credit?

            I found The Entitled during one of my wanderings at the movie store. I had never heard of it so I rented it before committing to buying it. I am always intrigued by movies about kidnappings and I like to see if there is anything new that could possibly be done this time. Well, when it comes to The Entitled I found it quite satisfying in the end.

            When Paul Dynan’s, Kevin Zegers, world seems to be crumbling around him, he comes up with a plan to keep it all in line. What’s the plan? Kidnap three college kids with socialite parents and hold them for ransom. But when Paul’s plan seems to fall to pieces after one of his partners goes off script will he still be able to pull everything off?

            According to Rotten Tomatoes this movie, even though it came out in 2011, is still unrated by them. There is actually only one critic review for this movie on their page. Then there is Internet Movie Database that shows this movie is in an upswing right now. But it still only gives The Entitled a 6.2/10. The movie had a very nice cast, including Kevin Zegers, Ray Liotta, and Victor Garber. According to the director, Aaron Woodley, he actually got all his first picks for who he wanted to play the parts. This movie is a new look at the kidnap/ransom genre. The thing that worries me about it, though, is that it may inspire future bad guys in the real world, cause if it worked in the movie it must work in real life. But back to the movie, it does things that most kidnap movies don’t think to do and they get away with doing it. There is some horrible stuff that happens to the victims and even the partners, but in the end it’s all sort of justified and the viewer actually feels good about what happened. Usually when my reviews are short it’s because there isn’t much to the film to talk about. That tends to mean it’s a bad movie because there was no depth to go into about it, but in this case it’s because they did so little wrong that it’s not worth pointing out the flaws. Then sure I didn’t say a lot that was nice either but really if I talked about everything I thought made this movie great then there would be no point in you, the viewer, watching it, because I’d give away all the great twists and turns that really build this movie. So basically what I’m getting at is check out the preview bellow and give this little known movie a chance. You will not be disappointed.

If what I've said makes you want to know more check out the full preview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgX1pDIonac
Be on the look out for my next review. Here's a little preview of what's to come https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbSxAj9DDp8

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Pitch Perfect, was it the Perfect Pitch?

            Today’s review will be slightly different because a friend and fellow movie lover is going to throw in her two cents about Pitch Perfect. For reference purposes I shall call her Charlie. I came across Pitch Perfect while seeing another movie. The preview rolled and I loved the idea of a movie about a cappella. For Charlie a friend referred her to it and she thought it sounded like it could be an interesting find. Neither of us were let down by the movie when it came to theaters.

            Pitch Perfect is about college student Beca, Anna Kendrick, who doesn’t want to be in college. Her Dad strikes a deal with her that if she really tries at school and joins at least one group on campus then he will help make her dream of moving to L.A. come true. So this brings her to the Barden Bellas and the world of a cappella. In the end neither Beca nor the Bellas will be the same.

            This movie is a cash cow of clichés. Charlie noticed the modern day Romeo and Juliet reference between Beca, of the Barden Bellas, and Jesse (Skylar Astin), of the Treblemakers. These two groups were sworn enemies and that made their love forbidden. Then there is the sexy new girl to the Bellas who is, of course, a slut. There is also the band of misfits that starts out rough and then eventually, just when it’s needed, come together to be great. Which then brings us to the worst cliché of them all, the happy, everyone gets what they want, ending, even when some people (Charlie and I) think they didn’t deserve it. Some might also think that the Asian roommate being a stuck up snob might be a cliché, but I have heard from a reliable source of college students that many of the Asian students in American colleges do tend to act like this to a degree. For the record, Charlie and I would both like to note that the vomit scene is pointless and raises the question of what won’t the director, Jason Moore, do to get a laugh. Also what was with the announcers at the competitions? Although funny, the man was a sexist pig and the woman was portrayed as a sex hungry cougar. Charlie and I have both said some mean things about this movie but let us now try to look at some of the good that it has. The idea for the story line, being about a cappella, is an original new idea. The way this movie actually turned out it could almost be a border line musical, but not really at the same time. The music in the movie also fit with the time it came out and with the perspective audience. The cast was also a new and upcoming crew, minus Anna Kendrick (known for her role in the Twilight saga). That little tid bit was actually revealed to me by Charlie. The movie was nonstop laughs, with the exception of the vomit scene, leaving you wondering why the vomit jokes needed to be in it in the first place. Over all the negatives seem to outnumber the positives, but if you can look past these typical Hollywood blunders you will be in for a real treat of a movie. Charlie says love you all, hugs and kisses.

If this review tickled your taste buds then check out the preview for yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F03N-ApQdmw
Also be on the look out for my next review. Here's a little taste of the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CKYA93J6ZA

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Alter Egos Just Another Super Hero Flick

            I bought Alter Egos after I saw it in the movie store on really big discount. The idea of the story sounded interesting and new, but in the end it was just another super hero movie. It wasn’t a bad movie really, it just wasn’t anything special.

            Alter Egos takes place in a reality where super heroes are real and one of them is having a bit of an identity crisis. Brendan, Kris Lemche, has come to realize that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his alter ego Fridge and to top it off he’s been told that just maybe his Dad didn’t kill his Mom and himself.

            Director/writer Jordan Galland says that he is always looking for something new that has never been done and one day he was sitting there and it just came to him, super heroes. Umm, call me crazy but that’s not really a new idea, especially for 2012. I mean in 2012 we had both The Green Lantern and The Avengers. Even if he was thinking that his unusual twist was the identity crisis then he lost out on that original idea to The Green Lantern. The whole movie, counting credits, is about 77 minutes long. In that time we go through twist after twist not really knowing where we are going to end up. The movie feels like it has no purpose except to poke fun at the world of super heroes. Of course it’s not actually supposed to poke fun but that is how it comes across throughout the movie. To add to it Galland thought it was a good idea to mention better movies in the dialogue. All this did for me was make me think ‘Wow, I’d rather be watching The Shining’. All in all this movie just leaves you sort of wishing you hadn’t watched it in the first place. But if you do watch it at least watch it through to the end so you can make your own fair judgment. Don’t be one of those people that watches five minutes of a movie and then raves about how horrible it was. I myself watched Alter Egos twice before writing this review.

If you're interested in this movie check out the preview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vewfrkpYmSQ 

Be on the look out for my next review and here's a little sneak peak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJw_hhnZCo 

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