The Raid 2

The Raid 2 went into wide release this past weekend and luckily the theater down the street picked it up. So a bunch of friends and I descended on the theater to see the spectacle.

A trailer for your consideration.

Translates to The Raid 2: Retaliation

If you haven't seen The Raid: Redemption (The first movie) here is a quick recap:
In the Raid, a crew of cops storms an apartment building filled with bad guys, gangsters, drug dealers and kung fu masters apparently. The main character, Rama (Iko Uwais), is one of the cops and also a bad ass brawler. It takes about five minutes for the building management to go over the PA system and tell all the tenants that is they kill the cops they will get free rent for ever... Insane violence ensues. Rama eventually finds out his lost brother is working for the bad guys in the building and they team up to survive the fight. If you like hardcore action then this movie is for you!

Rama getting down and dirty during a prison riot

Now that we are on the same page The Raid two picks up right where the first leaves off. Rama gets inducted into a small unit trying to seek out the corruption in the system, they insert him into the prison system so he may get close to a mob boss' son, Uco (Arifin Putra). During a brutal prison riot he saves Uco's life and the movie instantly teleports us two years later. Rama is getting released from the slam and is picked up by Uco and brought to see his father. Rama gets hired as muscle and becomes part of Uco's crew. The plot from here out (like the first movie) is kind of cookie cutter.


 ********** SPOILER ALERT! Skip the italicized portion! **********

 Uco wants to take over the family business, his dad doesn't believe he is ready and too impulsive, Uco gets pissed and starts acting on his own, tries to take over the city, kills his dad and a bunch of Japanese gangsters then goes after Rama when he finds out he is a snitch. Everybody kills everybody. THE END. 

The plot of this movie is not the reason to watch. The Raid offers some of the most hardcore and insane action put to film to date. The movie feels like a video game, each successive fight scene ups the ante in difficulty and brutality. It hurts to watch, even the most jaded person will be cringing a few times during this film. The choreography is intricate and intense and the Boss fight bad guys are interesting. Two of these are Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man. [No kidding, these are their names]
Unfortunately, they don't delve into their past but I assume these two are a brother/sister assassin team. One of those a bit to close for coworkers, not

Hammer Girl getting busy on a train



I think the best thing I can show you for this movie is what they threw out. A few weeks before the limited release the production sent out a deleted scene for the movie. Watch it here. After watching that consider this: They cut that scene out of the movie because they didn't need it in the face of all the other insane scenes they left it.

Mixology - ABC

Last night I shot gunned what is out for the new ABC show Mixology. A show about ten singles in a bar that takes place, interestingly enough, over one night. The show follows around the twenty-somethings as they try and [most of the time] fail to find someone to go home with that evening.

I was a bit hesitant to check this show out as it looked like it was going to be a cookie cutter rom-com sitcom minus the laugh track but the commercial had a few moments that made me actually laugh and if a show can do that to me from the trailer (which is a tough thing to do) then I will actually give it a shot. I was very pleased with the finished product. It's characters are interesting and banter with each other very well and their interactions feel genuine. Each episode highlights two of the bar patrons and shows their past including showing how each one was delivered and gives insight into why they think the way they do. The show has funny pick up lines ["Are you ladies a fans of planned parenthood?"] and great rants about the state of the dating scene and thoughts about the opposite sex. The writers (who are also responsible for the Hangover series) have started a genuinely show and like the Hangover I hope they don't ruin it by making it go longer than it needs.

The Emerald City Runs Red in Dorothy Must Die

So I just finished Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige. A dark tale of Oz that is not unlike American McGee's Alice. The novel is the first of a series and the first from the author. The story follows sixteen year old Amy, a poor, high school outcast, whose mother is a drunk pill addict and father has been out of the picture since she was young. Amy gets taken to Oz via the classic method of Tornado abduction and is dropped into an Oz of nightmare. It seems after Dorothy used the slipper express to return to Kansas she longed to return to Oz and after a time Glenda was able to do just that. Once back in the land Dorothy learned magic and took over the Emerald City. After learning magic she became greedy and wanted more and more. She enslaved the people of Oz and began harvesting the magic from the land. By the time Amy arrives she sees a barren landscape with giant fissures carved into the earth (in Oz magic comes from the ground apparently) with Glenda watching over munchkin slaves while they continue to gut the land. She eventually meets up with the resistance, led by a group of 'wicked' witches and is taught to fight and use magic. Her mission: to infiltrate Dorothy's Castle and assassinate her. All that is standing in her way is an army of brainwashed flying monkeys, a knives for fingers wielding Tin Man, The Fear eating Lion(he literally sucks the fear of his victims) and the Nazi doctor-esque human experimenting Scarecrow - should be easy.

For a young adult novel with a female protagonist this book wasn't that bad. The lead character actually considers the consequence of her actions before doing something and thus does not spend the entire story tangled in easily avoided confrontation and the slight amount of romance is grounded in reality and follows a logical progression. The other nice thing about Amy is she is just an ordinary 16 year old. She is self effacing, (admittedly) not coordinated or athletic and has no real skills. Too often the protagonist in these books are the most special kid in the world and have the exact skill needed to foil the evil set before them.


All in all I must say it wasn't bad for a Young Adult novel. The story flowed well, I enjoyed the characters and it delivered an interesting, new Oz to explore. The author doesn't waste time on repeating sentences and has a good grasp of the English language - or at least a good grasp on a thesaurus. Like I said before I was reminded of American McGee's Alice while proceeding through this tale. If you are a fan of dark, alternate fairy tales then this is something you might want to check out.

The Grimnoir Trilogy - Larry Correia

So this entry is going to be about one of my favorite new authors I have had the pleasure of finding, Mr. Larry Correia. I was looking for an action-y book when I stumbled across a new release by the name of 'Warbound' it's cover featured a guy in a trench coat with a shot gun and a bad ass set of samurai armor.

Being the inquisitive type I decided to look more into the book. I found it was part three of something called the Grimnoir Chronicles. An alternate history saga where around World War I humanity started getting "Magic Powers" with these new weapons we fought the war. WWI had the same outcome as in our timeline but with some changes (i.e. Berlin has become known as 'The Dead City' and it's entire population are now zombies.) The first book, 'Hard Magic' takes place in the 1930's and Japan is gearing up for WWII. Unlike our 'verse Germany leaned it's lesson the first time and is not the driving force (Hitler is actually dead killed by firing squad for his insane theories and trying to cause a revolt.) Japan has been experimenting with it's magic users, grafting magical kanji on their bodies, making elite schools and generally making their army the baddest mofos this side of Saigon and is gearing up in a big way to conquer the world and mold magic in the way they see fit.

What is stopping them? The Grimnoir Society. A group of magic users dedicated to Life, Liberty and... not fascism. The story centers around Jake Sullivan, A 'Heavy' (the term used for people who can control gravity.) though he prefers the term 'Gravity Spiker' (More dignified) A veteran from the first world war and all around tough guy and a young girl named Faye, the most powerful shifter (someone who can teleport like Night Crawler) any of the members have seen. The two get inducted into the order at the start and choose to fight for a better tomorrow.

What follows is some of the best action I have read in a book. Ever. Larry Correia crafts his action with such skill it is impossible to stop this book once you get started. There are ninjas, demons, giant sky scraper length war blimps with country killing Tesla cannons on board (I kid you not) and that's only the first book! This series has something for everyone and doesn't let up from start to finish. If you are a fan of high action with elements of sci-fi. fantasy, and steam punk check it out, you won't be disappointed.

I will feature more of Mr. Correia's work in future posts. But if you read this and want to know another series worth looking for Check out his Monster Hunter series.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas

So, I've tried to write this review for a few days now and have been avoiding it like the plague for the symple reason that it is very difficult to compress this much information into one post that people will want to read and that I will want to write but here goes.

So the movie is about a group of souls that are tied together by the red strings of fate and their interactions in each of their lifetimes. The trailers for this movie do a decent job of showing the main times they explore. (Anywhere from the 1700s to the 70's on up to uber high tech future times and even further than that.) All in all you get 7 (maybe 8?) separate stories to enjoy. The film is almost 3 hours long but because of the way the movie flashes forward and back between time it doesn't seem like all that long. I would akin this very close to The Fountain but with more humor and action. But while there is good humor and some cool action scenes there is a lot of darkness.

I don't know if many have heard his name before but a large part of this movie was influenced by co-director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The International, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). *Personal Film Geek Note: If you like dark, atmospheric, creepy but not scary movies you should check out Perfume. It will level you up in awesome points!* You can really see the dark tones he puts into the movies that the Wachowski's just don't do as well.

Perfume was good  'n creepy. Right here he's trying to harness the smell of beauty.

 Overall the movie was rather charming in it's own right. Being about reincarnation the movie has the unique opportunity to let these actors play very different kinds of roles throughout the feature. My favorite part about watching this movie was trying to spot how everyone turned up in each lifetime. The makeup department for this movie was amazing. They age actors in some lives and even change their gender and skin color. I think Hally Berry had the most diversity at one point playing an old white guy and another time a white lady. Wait scratch that- I almost forgot about Hugo Weaving who while he is all over this film in many different forms can always be spotted rather easily because he is the tallest person around.

Some of the different faces of Hugo Weaving

 I overheard one hipster kid saying the film was 'contrived' when I was leaving which I don't think is fair. Sure the film ties itself together with an idea that is illustrated multiple times throughout the movie and is made to seems a great revelation to the film but is already common knowledge to most people who enjoy the use of their brain. But I almost feel like it is a requirement for films like these (The Fountain, Tree of Life maybe even 21 Grams) and without that convention the film may seem incomplete.


I give this movie a 7 out of 10
2 points Awesome make up
2 points An engaging story
1 point Great visuals
1 point Hugo weaving as an evil nurse
1 point Tom Hanks going black and not being able to go bac

The Avengers

Summer movie season is upon us!!!

First things first.

I saw three great trailers last night:
First, Spider man, Looks awesome, the new trailer shows some intriguing fight scenes and the 3D looks like it's going to be good. This is going to be a great year for super hero movies because... Second the new Batman trailer was shown! If you are looking for a happy conclusion to this trilogy it does not look good for you. The tone of these trailers is forecasting Dark Knight Rises to be the most brutal of the series. And third the Prometheus trailer. For those that don't know Prometheus is a prequel of sorts to the first Alien movie as it takes place in the same universe as the franchise but it is going to be it's own entity. And then maybe they will do a sequel to the kinda prequel that will become a real prequel to Alien. Kinda meta if you think about it.

Honorable mention preview goes to the Hatfield & McCoy miniseries that History channel is doing starring Bill Paxton and Kevin Costner. Bill Paxton is the man. That is all.

NOW THE AVENGERS REVIEW!!!!!!


How to best say that this movie was awesome?

The Avengers is one of the most fun superhero movies I have seen in a long time. If there is one thing you can count on the creator of Firefly to do well is take a bunch of misfits and clashing personalities and make them work as a team.There is a great blend of action and comedy here that is hard to beat. I guarantee this movie will have you laughing as well as any comedy that comes out this year.  And the cast does a really good job bringing all the franchises together. But why do the Avengers even assemble in the first place?

The movie sets up with Loki still sulking from his defeat at the hands of Thor creating a pact with some terrible alien race to give himself an army so that he could enslave the earth. His first step is to steal the energy cube that the Nazi's were trying to weaponize in the Captain America movie. Once this happens it is up to Nick Fury to begin 'The Avengers Initiative' which he created for the purpose of defending the earth when conventional weapons can't.The movie then goes about showing us where all the heroes currently are and what they are up to.

My favorite part of the movie is the way all the characters mesh together. When you get that many alpha personalities in the same room they are bound to clash, and clash they do. Every avenger has a fight scene with at least one of their own by the movie's end. And the movie does a great job showing the building camaraderie and respect they gain for each other.  Mark Ruffalo does a good job as the third incarnation of the Hulk. He plays the geeky, brooding scientist well. Once he and Tony Stark get together you see Tony get happy because he finally has someone on his level of intellect to converse with and they begin to play off each other nicely.Chris Evans does a great job of showing just how isolated and out of place Captain America feels while Chris Hemsworth plays an amusing Thor.
 ...
OH YEAH! There are two other avengers! One of the most amusing things about all the press for this movie to me is that they pretty much ignored two members of the crew to focus on the big four of the team (Iron man, Cap, Thor and Hulk) But really didn't show much of anything of Black Widow, previously in Iron Man 2, and Hawkeye, Getting his first showing on the big screen. Both Scarlett Johansson  and Jeremy Renner did a great job on their characters; Even if for the first half of the movie everyone was laughing at Hawkeye because his power is... less that spectacular. For those with no background Hawkeye he has the ability to hit anything with an arrow. That's pretty much it. He has different arrow heads... some blow up...

Also, there are two stingers on this movie. One after some initial credits and then one final extra scene all the way after the credits so be sure to sit through them for the extra credit.


So if you are a fan of the superhero genre don't miss this one or you'll regret it.




******Minor Spoiler but personal observation.





If S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be such a top secret spy organization, why did their computer systems get hacked TWICE in this movie???  Just Saying...

Hunger Games

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the midnight premiere of the Hunger Games. If you are looking for a good fast paced action adventure movie then this is something you wont want to miss. Actually, with as many people who are already seeing it it's not something you'll want to miss period.

The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future where all that is left of North America is a handful of districts, 12 in all each responsible for manufacturing or cultivating various necessities (Coal, fishing, technology, etc.) that are controlled by the capitol. As usually happens in these things the Capitol takes all their goods and redistributes them as rashions back to the people but keeping the best and most for themselves. After an uprising and war which the Capitol won a treaty was signed which stated that every year each of the 12 districts would have to select 2 tributes, a boy and a girl  between the ages of 12 and 18, to fight in the Hunger Games to the death. The last tribute standing wins extra rations for their district in the upcoming year.

The Story begins at the culling for the 74th Hunger Games. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, sees her little sister get called to the Hunger Games and knowing she wouldn't make it steps up and takes her place. Katniss does have special skills however, her father before dying taught her how to hunt, how to forage, and how to stay alive.

For those of you who haven't read the book series this will be a great action movie that will have you rooting for the underdog up to the last minute. For those of you who  have read the series I must say this is one of the truest book to film adaptations I have seen in quite a while. They may have missed a few fine detail things, the most predominant of which would be how Katniss receives her Mockingjay pin but nothing that is crucial to the story has been left out.

A quick word of warning before I proceed if you are not a fan of the way the Bourne Ultimatum was shot, ie. having up close jerky camera movements during high action then beware because this movie has a lot of that. I didn't think it was that bad but one of the people I went with got motion sickness from it about halfway though. They do this, however, to intensify the chaos that the characters are experiencing and to cut down on the violence a little because these kids get brutal on one another.

Now, as I have talked to people about this movie one of the biggest questions is: What is the purpose of this film? Is it just to show kids killing kids? Is there any moral? Any redeeming values? Yes. For one the overall theme of the series is an exploration on how war effects children and the repercussions of the actions of our past generations. The kids going out don't really understand why they are being forced to kill each other aside from "It's the way it always has been". Also, it the character of Katniss, we find a strong female lead who can defend herself and others but is also kind and values the lives of her enemies. This movie may be about violence but it doesn't condone it. Other values in this series are class warfare, forgiveness and self reliance but there will be two more movies to talk about that.

On a personal note, as I mentioned earlier, I saw this show at midnight and had a blast. I have been to a few other midnight releases this year and was getting discouraged that no one was having fun at the movies anymore. There was a time not so long ago where if you went to a midnight premiere, the crowd would be loud and fun and clap at the awesome parts. The atmosphere would be different there than on any other night. I hadn't been feeling that electricity lately. I went to see Star Wars and a few others that I thought would have good buzz about them but I was let feeling disappointed. This premiere however I got that feeling again. The audience was so into the movie you could hear gasps and laughs from the audience as good parts of the story would happen. Anyway that's one of the things I love about the movies and was happy to see it hasn't died completely yet.