Outer space

Even though it's the height of the summer blockbuster season, I haven't seen much lately that I feel like throwing in my two cents on. I thought for today I'd go back a little bit and talk about the show Spaced. No it's not a movie, it was a British TV series that garnered up only fourteen twenty minute episodes, and launched something that continues to thrill me to this day. So kick back on this Fourth of July and take a trip back in time with me.
In late 2004 my friend was on a zombie kick, and I went along for the ride. I've never been a big zombie movie fan, and before that the only real zombie flick I'd watched was the first and second Resident Evil movies. Over a period of a few weeks we watched 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, and a couple others I can't name off the top of my head, but after so long I'd had enough. The last one we happened to watched was this little known British movie Shaun of the Dead, which I was shocked to see in a local theater. I didn't like it on that first viewing, I think because by then I was zombied out. However, the next Tuesday was Election Day and I was going to be damned if I was going to stay home and listen to all the rhetoric of political foolishness. The only movie playing I thought was worth watching was Shaun of the Dead, so I decided to go see it again...and I loved it! A few years later when I heard about the movie Hot Fuzz, which was made by the same people with the same actors, I took a two and half hour trip on a Friday afternoon to see it. Yeah, I was that hooked on these guys and their movies.
And yet it took me several years to finally pick up on what started this group in the first place, the TV show Spaced. Last year I was bored and surfing around the net when I ran across Hulu, and combing through the list of shows they had available, I discovered they had the entire series of Spaced available. I decided to give the first episode a watch and then get up and do something else, but after watching the first episode, I settled in and watched them all in one sitting. There are several classic episodes in the series, and you can really get a sense of where the team that made Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz started out. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright, along with Jessica Hines deliver up a fun ride of a show, that even after ten years since it began, I could enjoy and appreciate as if it were brand new. If you like those movies, I would suggest you go to Hulu and watch some of the episodes, or better yet buy the complete series as it is available on DVD too! What are you waiting for, go watch it.

Rewind.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a big fan of the trilogy Prince of Persia games, consisting of Sands of Time, Warrior Within, and The Two Thrones. It was not something instant but developed over time, so when I heard they were doing a Prince of Persia movie, I hoped that they would adapt the story of these three games to the big screen. There were some strong elements of those three games in the movie, but as itself, this movie stood alone. So did that mean I didn't like the movie, no not at all. In fact I enjoyed it quite a bit. It seems like I've been hearing nothing but negative opinions about this movie since it was first announced, but I for one have been eagerly awaiting this movie. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a fun adventure that I thought played out very well. There's my two cents.

I saw the beggars, but where were the thieves?

Tonight I took in the new Robin Hood film and I have two major opinions about it. First off while I was sitting there watching it, about halfway through, I thought to myself that this was cool but it wasn't really a Robin Hood movie. Yeah there was a little bit of archery and thievery in the woods, but nothing like you'd certainly expect. I was digging what I was watching, but I couldn't wrap my head around the whole direction this movie was going in. So while I did like it, the movie wasn't quite what I was expecting out of a movie about the outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Needless to say, I needed to be patient. I liked that. This movie didn't hand over what you were expecting, and I can get behind that. It's not always an approach that works with movies, but this one pulled it off for me.

Imagine if you will...

Even though it came out a little while ago, I didn't get to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus until I bought it on DVD a couple of nights ago. I thought that I should give my two cents on it, however, because it really deserves the attention. The shadow looming over this movie is that it had the misfortune of being the movie Heath Ledger was working on when he passed on a couple of years back, before it was completed. Terry Gilliam, the brains behind the movie, was reportedly not sure whether he wanted to finish the movie without Ledger, but thank goodness he did, for I found the movie to be outstanding. The story is a little tweaked, bizarre, and in a word very-original. It's a twisted tale about Doctor Panassus who makes a bet with the Devil (or should I say a man called Mr. Nick), and then another bet, and another, and so on and so on, yet he doesn't seem to learn from one bad decision to the next. Now living on the outskirts of society as a kind of wandering performer with his daughter, his conscious, and another guy, Doctor Parnassus is joined by a stranger with secrets of his own and those secrets just might prove his salvation or his eternal damnation. That's just the surface, and there is a lot more to the story than that, but I don't want to give too much away. All in all I thought it was a great movie and well worth viewing.

Two Irons in the Fire.

Sat in on a midnight screening of Iron Man 2 last night and I have some mixed feelings on it. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show, but I had a couple of "iffy" feelings about it, so I'll go down the list. The Good: Robert Downy Junior, but it kind of seemed like the cool factor he had going in 1 was knocked down a peg here and I can't put my finger on just why that is. Sam Jackson with a larger part and the eye patch, need I say more? Scarlett Johansson...nice. And the Favreau boxing bit was classic. The Bad: Too many AC/CD songs, they could have used much better music than that. Sam Rockwell (who I like as an actor) didn't pull off bad or greedy to me and just seemed to be in the way. The Ugly: Micky Rourke, the dude bugs, which I guess is good for the villain, but I kind of wanted to puke a little bit whenever he was on screen. The verdict, I liked it, but only just. Maybe my expectations were too high and it will take another viewing to really warm up to it.

To Lose or not to lose.

Yet again I found myself watching another film based on a comic book last night, The Losers. Basically a soldier of fortune movie, reminiscent of the A-Team, the movie was an adventuresome ride. It wasn't too deep, but there were a couple of twists and turns there, and a lot of funny one liners. So if you're looking for a good movie that you don't have to invest too much brain power to watch, I'd recommend it. I have to warn you, you won't be able to get the Journey song Don't Stop Believing out of your head after you watch it though.

And posteriors were indeed kicked.

A few nights ago I took in the movie Kick-Ass, which I found to be very entertaining and highly enjoyed. I think it was a good parody of super hero movies and a decent movie in it's own right on both levels. Granted this is niche sort of movie, if you aren't into super violent vulgarity strewn movies based on comic books, this might not be the film for you. This sandman however was more than satisfied.