Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

SETTING: Oh Canada! Apparently in Winter? Snow all around, the wearing of coats.

RATNG:PG-13, ADVENTURE, COMEDY, FANTASY

PLOT: Scott Pilgrim must defeat his new girlfriend's seven evil exes in order to win her heart.

QUOTES:
Wallace Wells: If you want something bad, you have to fight for it. Step up your game, Scott. Break out the L-word.
Scott Pilgrim: Lesbian?
Wallace Wells: The other L-word.
Scott Pilgrim: ...Lesbians?

Scott Pilgrim: Wait! We're fighting over Ramona?
Matthew Patel: Didn't you get my email explaining the situation?
Scott Pilgrim: I skimmed it.
Wallace Wells: [shaking head] Mm-mm.
Matthew Patel: You will pay for your insolence!

THOUGHTS: To tell you the truth I quite enjoyed this film. You must realize that the film IS based on a comic book and also been made into a video game for the Playstation and the XBOX 360. SO the interesting way the film is shot was on purpose. Too many time people watch a show that is "out of the norm" and they won't accept the fact that someone has VISION. don't discount this film because of the "cheesy" video game effects or the "lame" special effects.
In all actuality the storyline is not that far off from reality. Oh and as a side note, this is Michael Cera's first film where he doesn't play a total pussy!

SYNOPSIS:Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is an unemployed 23-year-old bass guitarist in an up-and-coming garage rock band who is dating a cute 17-year-old high school girl, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). He is having fun in life and rolling along at a nice even tempo until one day Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) roller-blades into his life. Ramona moved to Toronto from New York City to find peace and quiet and leave her past behind. No one knows what her past is, but Scott will find out very soon as he tries to make Ramona his new girlfriend. Before Scott can begin dating Ramona, he must prove himself by defeating the league of her seven evil exes who controls her love life. They will do anything to get rid of and destroy any new boyfriend Ramona may consider. If Scott wants to find true love with Ramona, he must defeat all seven, before the game is over.

CONCLUSION: I find it quite odd that the studio picked Michael Cera for the lead. not to say it didn't work, on the contrary, it did. Mary was a superb pick for the role of Ramona. All in all good to the last drop. each actor played their part well. this is an owner film especially those that grew up with a video game controller glued to their hands, (ME!).

THEIR RATING:E-FILM CRITIC.COM (Rob Gonsalves):5 OUT OF 5,It’s too early to declare "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World" my favorite movie of the year, but it may well be the most fun movie I’ll see in 2010.
And I’m not even that big a fan of the source material, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s manga-flavored six-volume series of graphic novels. The comics are fine, often charming, a bit glib. The movie, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), is something else again, a glorious mutant built out of disreputable pop culture — old-school videogames, indie semi-punk rock, cheesy action flicks, melodramatic anime. It’s everything your parents told you was a waste of time when you were a teenager, and unless you’ve turned into them, you should find it an exhilarating fantasia on a serious theme, or at least one that feels serious when you’re young.

MY RATING: 4 OUT OF 5, I love the premise of the movie! truly draws me back to the bays of playing Zelda until all hours of the night. Also wells up the nostalgia of girlfriends of the past, (Sorry honey, I still love you with all my heart!). It is more of the excitement of the dating scene from days gone by. The reason for the 4 and not the 5 is I still have a hard time with Cera. I should probably give the guy more credit but Superbad and Year One, in my eyes casts this man as a spineless turd, I guess in some aspects this film does also. I do have to say in his defense, he did play the part of an ass-kicker quite well.

Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance

SETTING: The Wild Wild West

RATING: R, Action, fantasy, western

PLOT: ummm I don't know if there is a plot, but we'll try. Rayne, the half-human/half-vampire warrior, ventures to America's 1880's Wild West to stop the vampired Billy the Kid and his posse of vampire cowboys.


QUOTES:
Billy the Kid: Tell me Mr.
[reads card]
Billy the Kid: Pyles, is writing stories your reason to live?
Newton Pyles: ...Yes!
Billy the Kid: Then bare witness the greatest story ever foretold!

Rayne: [to Billy the Kid] Big speech... small guns... you tryin' to compensate for somethin'?

THOUGHTS: Billy the kid as a vampire!! Pat Garret as a do-gooder!! both in a vampire movie!!! A vampire movie set in the old west!! OH DEAR LORD A VAMPIRE MOVIE SET IN THE OLD WEST!! What more can I say.

SYNOPSIS:It's a hundred years later, and the dhampir Rayne has arrived in the town of Deliverance, Montana where a group of vampire cowboys have emerged. Led by Billy the Kid, hell-bent on creating is own kingdom, he slaughters townspeople and rounds up children. He spares the life of Chicago Chronicle reported Newton Pyles. Rayne aligns herself with Pat Garret, a member of the long-thought-dead Brimstone society, a dishonest preacher, and a low life named Franson, to stop Billy the Kid and show the world how the West was really won.

CONCLUSION: Well I watched the first film so it seemed logical to watch the second. Um wasted portions of life cannot be regained. In so I have wasted my time as to save yours. If the studio decides to have a sequel movie go straight to video 9 out of 10 times they probably shouldn't even make the film. This is one such case. DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM!! AND A THIRD FILM IN THE WORKS SET DURING THE THIRD REICH!!! LORD HELP US ALL!! yeah I'll watch it for the completion of the trilogy. What an idiot I am.

THEIR RATING: VERDICT: 4/10
Probably about as good as any sequel to a flop based on a computer game has any right to be.

MY RATING: 0 OUT OF 5, The only saving grace of this film......Natassia Malthe, she is very beautiful. Pathetic acting all around. Shite Screenplay, DAMN to much negative to say about this film!!

Taxi Driver

SETTING: Late 70's early 80's New York

RATING: R, DRAMA, THRILLER

PLOT: A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out.

QUOTES: I Must tell you before we go on this film has a TON! of memorable lines.
Travis Bickle: [Travis is trying his guns on the mirror] Huh? Huh?
[Draws]
Travis Bickle: Faster than you, fucking son of a... Saw you coming you fucking... shitheel.
[Reholsters]
Travis Bickle: I'm standing here; you make the move. You make the move. It's your move...
[Draws]
Travis Bickle: Don't try it you fuck.
[Reholsters]
Travis Bickle: You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? OK.
[Draws]

THOUGHTS: WOW! for being one of the classic films I thought it would be.......better. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I expected the film to move a little faster. Do not get me wrong Robert De Nero was fantastic, not to mention Jody Foster with Harvey Keitel as her pimp. This film was had an air about it that help move it along but it seemed there was just too much drama that did not add to much as far as moving the storyline along. That said the climax of the film is where it's at! The action portrayed is amazing! I am not a lover of gore mind you. It was just amazing how it was placed on film.

SYNOPSIS: Vietnam vet Travis Bickle, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on a date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to "clean up the streets of New York."

CONCLUSION: Well thought out film, slow to get going but once it does watch out!! definitely a watcher but not quite an owner. The realistic portrayal of the shoot out was film amazingly. Showing what I would guess as true human reaction. very well done, with the addition of top name actor and actresses.

THEIR RATING:CHICAGO SUN TIMES (Ebert): 4 out of 5 "Taxi Driver" shouldn't be taken as a New York film; it's not about a city but about the weathers of a man's soul, and out of all New York he selects just those elements that feed and reinforce his obsessions.

MY RATING: 4 OUT OF 5: The use of the actors of the day were astounding. The cinematography was grainy yet subtle. Travis' struggle is not far fetched which added to the realism of the film. Yes watch this film at least once in your life.

28 Weeks Later

SETTING: Basically post-apocalyptic Great Britain

RATING:  R

PLOT: Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes to plan.

QUOTES: Scarlet: [upon examining Andy's eyes] Green and brown. Interesting iris variation. It's usually hereditary. Do one of your parents have the same?
Andy: My mother, she did.
Scarlet: How old are you, Andy?
Andy: Twelve.
Scarlet: I think that makes you the youngest person in the entire country. Well, your blood pressure is A-OK and you're negative on any serious disease or afflictions. I think you're okay to come in. Welcome back to Britain.

THOUGHTS: Well it is rare to say, but I find myself enjoying the sequel more than the original. Yeah I went there. Finally more ZOMBIES!! But.... I was expecting the human element. With that in mind I am guessing this is why I enjoyed this film more.

SYNOPSIS: In the countryside nearby London, Don, his wife Alice and a few survivors live hidden in a farmhouse. When infected people break in the house, Don panics and does not help his wife to escape, running away and leaving Alice trapped inside the room. Twenty eight weeks after the outbreak that annihilated the population of Great Britain, London is considered safe and the British survivors return under the coordination of the American Army, that keeps the city under permanent surveillance. The teenager Tammy and her younger brother Andy travel back from Spain to live with their father Don in London. They miss their mother and decide to escape to their old house to retrieve pictures and some other personal belongings. However, they find Alice surprisingly alive and the Army brings her to the base. After some blood tests, the biologist Scarlet discovers that Alice is a carrier of the lethal virus and somehow has immunity to it. Meanwhile, Don sneaks through the facility to say how sorry he is to Alice, who forgives him. When he kisses her, he is immediately contaminated, spreading a new epidemic.
Realizing that Andy and Alice shared a genetic quirk that might make him immune to the virus's effects, Scarlet rescues Tammy and Andy. The Army has moved quickly to contain the infection, herding the residents of the Green Zone into safe rooms. Andy is separated from Tammy and Scarlet and placed in a different room with other residents.
Doyle (Jeremy Renner), who abandoned his post when he could not bring himself to kill Andy. He tells them that the Army will kill them to unless they can escape the city.He leads the survivors through the streets. Unbeknownst to them, Don is following. Doyle makes contact with a friendly helicopter pilot, Flynn (Harold Perrineau), who tells them to get out of the Green Zone as soon as possible, as the area is to be firebombed.

The four of them dodge the infected. Soldiers are killing the infected with poison gas and flamethrowers. Scarlet and Doyle know the Army will assume they are infected and kill them all, too. Scarlet, Tammy and Andy get into a car. Scarlet pops the clutch while Doyle pushes the car, jump starting it. As they drive away, the soldiers incinerate Doyle. Avoiding helicopters, Scarlet drives the car into a subway station. They decide to follow the train tracks to Wembley. Because it is pitch dark, Scarlet uses the night-sight on Doyle's rifle to guide them, but they are separated when Tammy and Andy trip over corpses on the escalator. Tammy and Scarlet try to find Andy but suddenly Don appears and beats Scarlet to death with Doyle's rifle. He then pursues Andy, tackles him and bites him. Tammy shoots Don and saves Andy, who is immune like his mother, but is covered in infected blood. The children continue to Wembley Stadium and meet Flynn. He can't bring himself to shoot two children, so he flies them across the English Channel and out of Britain.

THEIR RATING: VIEWPOINTS rates this film 3 out of 5: When I saw 28 Days Later, which is prequel to this movie, I thought that it had a really interesting story that could have at least one, if not two, more movies made from it. 28 Weeks Later turned out to be really good. I mean really good.

MY RATING: 3 out of 5: better than the first but still just not an owner. the human element is touching, actually adding the family into this film help moved it along for me. The cinematics were as good as the first and the acting of the main characters was great.

28 Days Later

SETTING: Great Britain - Present

RATING: R

PLOT: A mysterious infection spread by the bite of a chimpanzee, spreads through all of London and soon infects the whole of the island.

QUOTE: Mark: A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They both get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the bartender says, "Oi. You can't leave that lyin' there." And the man says, "No. It's not a lion. It's a giraffe."
[Jim doesn't respond]
Mark: Completely humorless.

[finding a crate of fresh apples in a pile of rotting produce]
Frank: Mmmmmm... Irradiated!

THOUGHTS: Well..... For being a zombie flick there weren't as many zombies as I had hoped. Although the film was more or less what humans would be like during such an tragedy. Not much different from the zombies themselves.

SYNOPSIS: Animal activists invade a laboratory with the intention of releasing chimpanzees that are undergoing experimentation, infected by a virus -a virus that causes rage and blood lust. The naive activists ignore the pleas of a scientist to keep the cages locked, with disastrous results. Twenty-eight days later, our protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma, alone, in an abandoned hospital. He begins to seek out anyone else to find London is deserted, apparently without a living soul. After finding a church, which had become inhabited by zombie like humans intent on his, um death, he runs for his life. Selena and Mark rescue him from the horde and bring him up to date on the mass carnage and horror as all of London tore itself apart. This is a tale of survival and ultimately, heroics.

CONCLUSION: I would have to say, if you like zombie flicks go watch Night of the Living Dead or at the very least watch Zombieland. It just isn't the zombie flick you are expecting. an O.K. one time watch definitely NOT an owner.

THEIR RATING: 3 out of 5: "28 Days Later" is a tough, smart, ingenious movie that leads its characters into situations where everything depends on their (and our) understanding of human nature.

MY RATING: 3 out of 5 Cillian Murphy is great, Naomi Harris is realistic. the cinematography was gritty and done well.

Bloodrayne

SETTING:  Set during 18th century Romania.- UNRATED

PLOT: A Dhampir (half human- half vampire) named Rayne must help save mankind by killing her Vampiric father.

QUOTES: Katarin: Your form is weak, lacking passion.
Rayne: It was part of my plan. I am tiring you out.
Katarin: Your plan is lacking passion as well.

THOUGHTS: I am a HUGE fan of fantasy, not the Harry Potter type. That's just as bad as the Twilight Series. utterly horrible. ANYWAY, Bloodrayne is decent yet it seems that fantasy is a genre best left to the books and the imagination. Apparently there is no fantasy movie that really grips what the imagination can create. Bloodrayne unfortunately does not hit the mark either, it does have it's moments but the sword fights are lack luster, the acting is......A jagged little pill. Some of the actors are recognizable....which helps, just not enough to save the film.

SYNOPSIS: In the Eighteenth Century, Rayne is the half-human half-vampire Dhampir and the lead attraction in a carnival's freak-show in Romania. When she escapes, she meets a fortuneteller that tells that her mother was raped by the king of the vampires Kagan and she decides to destroy her father. In her journey for revenge, she meets Vladimir and Sebastian, the leaders of the fortress of vampire hunters Brimstone, and she joins their society. She seeks for powerful talismans to defeat Kagan, while the skilled warriors Vladimir and Sebastian train her to face the forces of Kagan and her human side falls in love with Sebastian.

CONCLUSION: Bloodrayne is a film that touches on the excitement of the fantasy realm. It just needs alot of help. A possible ownable film, watched every now and then, just to satiate the fantasy appetite.

RATING: Illustrated journal of Cinematic Division: BloodRayne: 7 out of 10: Uwe Boll is not the next Ed Wood, Not even close.

MY RATING: 3 out of 5, The attempt at the fantasy realm is getting there.....slowly, very slowly, dark and nudity. Not great yet not too bad.