Ghost Rider 2 (Why do I keep doing this to myself?)

I let Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance happen to me last night. I don't feel good about it. I wish I didn't let it happen, but in the end, it was my own fault. Much like the first Ghost Rider, which was widely thought of as one of the worst comic book movies of the last decade. It turns out that Ghost Rider made just enough money to be green-lit for a sequel and that is what Colombia Pictures and Imagenation Abu Dhabi (yup), released this weekend.

If you take out Nicolas Cage (who is a wild card), the cast of the movie is actually pretty good! We have, Anthony Head (Buffy, Repo! The Genetic Opera), Christopher Lambert (Highlander, Mortal Kombat, everything on Syfy), Idris Elba (The Wire, Thor, 28 Weeks Later), plus a bunch of other folks. Then you have Nic Cage. Who is, probably one of the best-worst actors of our time. When he's good (Lord of War), he's great, but when he's bad (Season of the Witch), he's spectacularly bad! I feel bad for Nic Cage, because of his recent financial troubles, and I understand he needs to keep working in order to maintain his lifestyle, and keep some of his homes. I get it. But shouldn't quality mean more sales and income instead of quantity? Apparently not.

Anyway, Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance is about Johnny Blaze (Nic Cage), who still has the demon rider inside of him, but wants to get him out. Some stuff happens and the anti-christ is born, and he has to save the anti-christ, or else he will become the anti-christ and then if he can do all that and stop the devil (Ciaran Hinds), then he can get rid of his demon. Or something like that, I started not to care after Johnny Blaze took over a quarry machine and made it throw fireballs.

Best part of the movie is the drunk monk, Moraeu (Idris Elba). He was funny, and liked wine, things I can relate to. Please do not see this movie only for Idris Elba's character. It is not worth it. Believe me.

I give it a 1/5. Honestly the only reason to see this is if you like Nic Cage and enjoy watching him at his most ridiculous, which I do, but even then it is very rough.

Leave comments/suggestions/whatevers.

One-Upping (The Importance of the Underworld and Resident Evil Franchises)

It is not secret that I am a fan of pretty much any movie that can keep my attention for over an hour. I've seen a lot of movies that I haven't had a chance to write about in the last month or so: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Adventures of Tintin, Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. All of them were great, although if I had to pick a favorite or three I would say that Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Dragon Tattoo were incredible! That brought the end of 2011 in terms of movies, and it was a great ending!

I started 2012 off with a movie that is right up my alley, a dumb action movie that is the 3rd (or 4th, depending on if you count it) installment in a franchise, Underworld: Awakening! As far as the movie goes, it takes place after the events of Underworld: Evolution. Vampiric Death Dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Vampire/Lycan Hybrid Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) are on the run after killing the Vampire coven leaders who had marked them both for death. Awakening starts with the purge, when humans were made aware of the Vampire and Lycan threat and have gone on an offensive in order to kill both species. Selene and Michael get separated and Selene is held hostage for 12 years where she is kept in stasis, she awakens (get it?) and learns that almost all vampires and lycans were killed during the purges. She then meets "subject two", a young girl who is also a hybrid, much like Michael. Subject two gets kidnapped and the story follows Selene working with a still functioning coven to try and recover the  girl.

The movie was fine, in the grand scheme of things and it deserves some praise for effects and camera-work. I saw it in 3D and the entire movie looked really good, with the 3D adding to the action and never being over-the top. I give it a 3.5/5 and can't wait to see the next one!

I did make an observations while I was in the theater though. One of the the trailers that I saw was for Resident Evil: Retribution. It had one of the best trailers I had seen in quite a while! It reminded me a lot of the Resident Evil: Apocalypse trailer, which is one of my favorite trailers of all time. That got me thinking about the parallels of the Underworld and Resident Evil movies. Both franchises started around 2002 (RE) and 2003 (Underworld). Both movies have very strong female leads, Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil, and Kate Beckinsale in Underworld. Both are supernatural, with Resident Evil dealing with zombies and infectious diseases and mutations, and Underworld tackling good old fashioned battle between Vampires and Werewolves. Both have marriages driving the franchises, Resident Evil being helmed by Paul W.S. Anderson who married Jovovich in 2009, and Underworld with Len Wiseman, who married Beckinsale in 2004. Both are crazy, dumb, fun, and visually intense actions movies. Both are now being shot in 3D and have great CGI graphics, stunts, and special effects. Both have questionable writing! Despite the questionable writing, both will keep you engaged for over an hour.

There really is no point to that observation, other than that both franchises, while very different, drive the supernatural action/horror/unintentional comedy genre and play off of each other in order to one-up the graphics, fight sequences, explosions, violence, and questionable writing. Its a great little franchise duel to watch! I can't wait to see what Resident Evil 9 and Underworld: The Taper-offering will be like and what affect (if any) it will have on other franchises!

As always leave comments/suggestions or if you have movies you'd like me to watch and write about, let me know!

Immortals and Tower Heist...Fight!

Was trying to make up for lost time this weekend so I went to two movies instead of the "former-usual" one. I took a look at Immortals (very enthusiastically recommended to me by my sister, although mainly for Henry Cavill's abs) and Tower Heist. Lets go in order shall we!


My sister, Liz, was very adamant that I should go see Immortals, because it had Henry Cavill staring in the role of Theseus, but more importantly, it had his abs in the role of bulging. Immortals follows young Theseus on his quest to avenge the death of his mother, who was killed at the hands of King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). Its true, Mickey Rourke has an incredibly gruff persona, and physically fits the part very well. There is however, one drawback with casting him in a role where he has to wear a mask a lot. That drawback is that it is impossible to understand what he is saying. Its difficult when he's playing himself, and when you add in the muffling effects of a mask, it gets incredibly hard. Luckily though, for all intents and purposes, he just needs to stand there and look imposing.


There are also some Gods mucking about, the most important of which is Zeus (Luke Evans). I really like Luke Evans and he does a great job of being both menacing, and intriguingly tender when the situation calls for it. Plus he gets to kick quite a bit of Titan ass, and those scenes are incredible. It makes me excited to see Luke in the next two Hobbit movies, where he will be playing Bard the Bowman.


Immortals was done by the producers of 300, and was directed by Tarsem Singh, who is going to be directing Mirror Mirror, which is one 2012's two Snow White themed movies. He also has the honor of directing one of the movies that messed me up when I was a kid, the visually stunning and incredibly creepy "The Cell" with Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio.


Anyhow, Immortals was actually good fun, and unlike 300, which was 80/20 in action/plot ration, the breakdown here is closer to 60/40, which means you'll be getting some dialog and back story along with your bloody and visceral fight scenes.


This one gets a solid 4/5, go see it if you are in the mood for action, adventure, abs, and great effects.


~~


Tower Heist happened to be playing right after Immortals was over, and it was either go home and play Skyrim, or stay at the theater and take a look at another movie that I'd wanted to see for a while but didn't have the chance to go to.


Tower Heist is the story of Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), the manager of "The Tower", the most luxurious residence in New York City, as he tries to plot the theft of over $20Million to cover the losses of his hotel's pension plan which was invested and lost by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). Phew, that was a long run-on sentence. The movie is filled with an all-star cast, including Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, Eddie Murphy, Téa Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, and (my favorite in this one) Casey Affleck. 


The plot is fairly simple, Arthur Shaw, fraudulently invested and blew through all his holdings and is being investigated by the FBI. When he gets arrested for one of the largest Ponzi Scheme's in history, The Tower's employees lose all their pensions. That's when Josh Kovacs and his rag-tag crew of a broke investor (Broderick), electrician (Pena), maid (Sidibe), and professional thief (Murphy) go after his fortune, hidden in his room atop one of the most secure buildings in New York. 


Without giving away a lot of the plot, basically, wacky hi jinks ensue. One of my favorite scenes is when Téa Leoni's FBI agent is having a drink with Josh and having a back and forth about the last time she "got this drunk". I miss Téa, and have been a fan of hers since "The Naked Truth", a sitcom she did back in the mid-90's. Murphy is also back to his old self! After a few not-so-stellar films (Norbit, Pluto Nash), he's back to his old rude/crude hilarious self. Which is kind of nice and hopefully he will get back to making dirty jokes and having a good time like he did way back during all those fun Beverly Hills Cop movies. 


Tower Heist is definitely worth taking a look at if you want a good laugh, some of Casey Afflecks lines and deliveries were hilarious and I actually laughed in the theater, which is fairly rare.


This one also gets a 4/5. Not a great comedy or heist movie, but its got heart and good laughs. Plus the actual heist is pretty impressive, and decently thought out, if not terribly believable. 


That's all for now! Hopefully I'll get to Three Musketeers here soon so I can get a bit more Luke Evans actions (he plays Aramis). Yay!

Drive

Starting at about 8PM on Friday night I started seeing a lot of tweets from folks that were recommending Drive as the movie to see this weekend. Most of these folks are in the games press (I follow them for fun gaming info), and they likened the movie to Grand Theft Auto. This intrigued me to no end, so, while I had no intention of seeing Drive, I went out on Sunday and gave it a run.

I have to say that I was beyond pleasantly surprised. Drive is a very slow-paced action film. Its slow speed punctuates the very visceral violence, that only happens every so often, but once it does, its very memorable. The movie follows a driver (Ryan Gosling) as he tries to navigate  his way through some bad luck caused by his close friend and boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Along the way he helps out Irene (Carey Mulligan), who's husband is in jail. Ryan Gosling's character develops a relationship with Irene and her son Benicio, and when he tries to help out her just-released husband, things go south.

The acting is pretty good in the movie, Albert Brooks plays a gangster, and Ron Perlman is, as always, his slightly off-kilter self. The only person I was not really a fan of in the film was probably Carey Mulligan's character. There were a couple scenes where she could have emoted a little bit more, but overall she wasn't too bad. Ryan Gosling does a great job at being stoic throughout the movie and you can actually understand his thought process, even though there is very little dialog.

The real gem of the movie is the long pauses in dialog where there is a break in the action, it really punctuates the action and driving sequences, which are few and far between, but well-paced, when they do happen. There are also some great car-chases (to be expected, with a name like Drive), and the sound-track bears mentioning as well. Very good music, especially the song "A Real Hero” by  College (feat. Electric Youth)
.


Anyhow, Drive gets a solid 4/5 from me, and if you are in the mood for a very well made and well acted movie, give this one a run! 


As always comments/suggestions/whatever is appreciated! Also, if there's anything you'd like me to watch and chat about, let me know!  

Fright Night! 3D! and Rated R (for Rawr!)

Back by popular demand! I saw two movies this past weekend, both in 3-D! Conan: The Barbarian and Fright Night! Not much to say about Conan, Jason Momoa is the lead as Conan and he talks to women like Don Draper with funny quips like, "Woman, come." and "Get off". Hilarious! Anyway, that one isn't really worth seeing in theaters nor in 3D, but it does have one particular fight scene where Conan is fighting sand people. You can find a clip of this by viewing the trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQ99y8KaTU) at about the 1:50 mark. The scene is pretty damn well done and the effects look pretty good!

Anyhow, on to Fright Night...

I had 0 expectations coming into this movie, having seen but not remembered the original, and not seeing much advertising at all (and unfortunately, it has only made about $10M, so there was not much advertising to speak of). When you go in to a movie with no expectations, two things can happen, you can either be incredibly bored because you aren't expecting much and are not excited, or you can totally entertained and have a blast. Fight Night was a BLAST! It's getting about 75% on Rotten Tomatoes (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fright_night-2011/), but unfortunately no one except the people on Rotten Tomatoes have gone to see it.

The premise is thus: Vampire moves into a Las Vegas suburb and terrorizes a neighborhood. Why a Vegas suburb? Glad you asked! It makes perfect sense really, folks are out in Vegas all night, and sleep during the day...vampire style! Who is this vampire? Well, its Jerry! Played by Colin Farrell, who is having a pretty decent summer as he also appeared in "Horrible Bosses". Colin Farrell does a damn good job of being shifty-eyed and full of testosterone, his vampire Jerry is smarmy and smug, and when get goes into bad boy mode, actually pretty unnerving. Unfortunately, I cannot really see Colin Farrell on screen without thinking of the sex-tape he made with: Nicole Narain (Google her!). It's readily available on if you Google it, and I recommend it for a fun late-night time killer!

Anyhow, porn aside, Colin Farrell is actually very believable as a vampire, but the story isn't really about him now is it? It's about the people trying to stand up to the forces of darkness, in this case the unlikely Anton Yelchin playing Charley Brewster, a newly made "cool-kid" trying to forget his nerdy past. Part of that nerdy past is Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who is trying his damnedest to be remembered for something other than Superbad, but unfortunately, this movie doesn't help).

When Ed comes to Charley and without burying the lead, drops the bomb that his new neighbor Jerry is a vamp, the hi-jinks ensue! One of my favorite parts of this movie was Charley's girlfriend, Amy (Imogen Poots, which is arguably the best name ever conceived). Imogen isn't very well known yet, but you'll see what I mean that she can have a very good go of this whole Hollywood thing! Charley's mom is played by Toni Collete, and she's pretty good, but doesn't get a lot of screen time. Without giving away all the plot points, the other big star in this movie is David Tennant, for of Dr. Who fame, and he plays a paranormal "expert".

I saw the movie in 3D, which has been pretty hit and miss this summer blockbuster season. Conan had it too, but it didn't add anything to the film, and instead detracted from it. In Fright Night the 3D is actually pretty fun, they go back to some cheesy pop-out stuff but nothing too egregious, and other than a few things popping out of the screen, there are some really interesting 3D scenes (not going to give them away though, but one involves a car chase!).

Anyway, I actually really liked this movie, and I'm going to give it a 4/5, not a 4.5 as my usual score is, but 4, its good, not great, but is very fun and entertaining. And for those of you concerned about seeing a rated R movie named Fright Night, most of the "R" comes from language, there really isn't much in terms of "Fright", so everyone should be able to see this movie and laugh out loud at the funny pop culture references!

In closing Fright Night = 4/5 and for those that care Conan = 2.5/5.

Peace!

Day Off

On my last week of working here in Des Moines, I decided to take Wednesday off from work. Wednesday, my least favorite day of the week, has long been my nemesis. I believe taking a "your name day" is very important every once in a while. Today was a "Yev Day". I got a hair cut, got a manicure (sure, not the most masculine thing in the world, but its nice sometimes, trust me), and got a one hour massage that I bought off Groupon and had to use before moving to the bay.

It was incredible! One of the most relaxing days that I've had in a while. Perfect way to get ready for a Thursday. I recommend it to everyone. Go to www.Groupon.com or www.livingsocial.com, and keep a look-out for local massage deals. Don't have to do it every week, but once in a blue moon...fabulous!

Manifest Destiny (Feivel Goes West)

“I’m going going, back, back to Cali, Cali”.

After being away from the Bay Area for over 15 years, I have been given a golden opportunity to go back and develop my career in a most exciting manner. I’ve been offered a position with Backblaze, a company specializing in the online backup of computer files (you should probably check it out http://www.backblaze.com/; better safe than upset later).

After graduating from Iowa, I moved back home with my parents, as many people do, but having never lived on my own (only in dorm rooms as a Resident Assistant) I haven’t had the opportunity to be independent and to live life as “an adult”. Apart from a brief stint in Dallas on an internship for three months, I have always been relatively “safe”, whether it was because I was surrounded by people I’d known for a long time like in College, or living back home with my parents and sister. My job was getting a bit safe as well, I was performing well, and my life had started taking on a fairly monotonous and safe rhythm. I needed to shake things up a bit.

Over the past year I have developed some incredible relationships with people in Des Moines, Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year in and around Iowa City/Cedar Rapids, meeting and getting to know new-old friends. Leaving them and all of my friends in Des Moines behind is going to be very difficult, and is one of the reasons I was scared about moving so far away. I’ll miss them quite a bit and hope that they come visit me often. On the flip side, my friends and relatives in the Bay will be pumped to see me after such an extended absence.

I don’t know if this move is going to be permanent, but I have been given an opportunity to try something new and exciting, and I would be a dummy if I didn’t at least give it a shot. Knowing that I have such a good support system of friends and family in Iowa, I know that if things don’t work out in California, or I simply long for the “Midwestern” way of life after a while, I’ll be able to move back and will be greeted, I’m sure, as a conquering hero returning back home.

In the immortal words of Terry Hoitz (played masterfully by Mark Wahlberg in “The Other Guys”), “I’m like a peacock, you gotta let me fly!”.

Hopefully though, I'll still be a kid forever :)