Avengers: The Movie

You all probably know about the latest Marvel movie and many of you may have already seen it, but for those of you that have yet to watch it or have reservations about it: I have one thing to say. “Watch it.”

I remember several of my friends discussing how they might end up being disappointed by the Avengers movie because of all the build up to them. I remember a few of them even saying they won’t watch the movie because of that. It might be true that if you have all these expectations built up when you see something that’s supposed to be epic it doesn’t seem that way, but I believe the Avengers meets all expectations.

It nicely puts all of the Avengers together. Ironman. The Hulk. Captain America. Thor. Hawkeye. The Black Widow. It puts them together by a single enemy showing up and stealing a valuable item from S.H.I.E.L.D. : the Tesseract, a powerful Asgardian device with infinite self-sufficient energy. Every individual member of the Avengers gets brought in to perform various tasks that suit them best. Thor is a bit of a different story because he shows up to kick the enemy’s rear end back to Asgard for trial and joins up only to get the whereabouts of the Tesseract to take it back home.

Each character having already been developed by their own movies show their true colors very well. I find that the previous development of the characters worked very well to Marvel/Disney’s advantage, because then they were able to get right to the meat of the movie’s story and develop the relationships between each of the characters and all of that without needing to develop the characters themselves.

Overall the action is great, the characters are great, the story is at the very least put together well, and the delivery is as expected: epic. 9/10

Cashback

What would you do if you were able to stop time? Ben uses his time stopping for his artistic talent. Wait. That’s not the main point of this beautiful drama. Directed and written by Sean Ellis, Cashback is an excellent story about a young man who just experienced a terrible break-up and has developed insomnia because of it. In order to kill time he gets a night shift job in a grocery store and to pass the time there he develops this ability to stop time and observe the naked beauty of the women who shop there and draw every single one of them.

Ben Willis is a college art student with extraordinary talent, and with an artistic fascination with the female body. His break up hit him so hard that he could not sleep, after he gets the job at the grocery store he begins to interact with the wide spectrum of characters that he has to work with. He has a womanizing and overly competitive manager. A trickster pair of best friends that pass their time by doing some of the craziest stuff. And a few others, but most importantly, he meets Sharon Pintey the only female co-worker who he begins to develop a crush on, but cannot figure out how to let her know.

Every so often you get flashbacks to Ben’s previous crushes and the reasons as to why he has his fascination with the beauty of the female form. The story of the movie is very well put together and while it does indeed have its predictable moments these moments are forgiven by the creative license taken with the movie. The humor throughout the movie is often a little over the top, but so are most of the supporting characters.

Yes, this movie does in fact have nudity, but that is not the entirety of what the movie revolves around.

This still isn’t one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but it is very well put together and I’ll give it a 8/10.

Cashback

Alpha and Omega

I was bored one night and decided that I wanted to watch the movie Alpha and Omega that was released in 2010 and directed by Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck. I will say that I enjoyed it, but some parts of it weren’t to my taste. In fact I kind of wonder who they were trying to target for an audience with some of the material they put in it. In their previews they presented it as a “Family” film, but as I watched it I had this feeling that something was off about that. This movie isn’t on my top anything list, but it also isn’t anywhere on the worst lists either, if anything it was in the middle of the road.

Now, just about every movie can have this said, but the plot and story of the movie was very predictable. The main point of the film was breaking tradition, as the two main characters were an Alpha, the leaders of the pack, and an Omega, the lower caste among wolves, and they spend the entire movie in love with each other which is taboo in their society. The humor was clever at some points and disappointing at others. The character development was OK, by the end of the movie I did have a sort of connection with the main characters and even some of the minor ones.

Now the major point as the why I felt off about the audience. There are several jokes in there that are tasteless and sexual in nature and executed poorly, and I’m not even sure who they were trying to get to laugh with them. I suppose teenagers in that awkward stage and a little after would find it funny. Maybe college students, I know a few guys that might find some humor in tasteless sexual jokes.

Voice acting was OK, some of the characters I liked better than others. There were definitely points within the film that could have been improved and even some that could have been removed.

Overall, I will give this movie a 6/10 as it isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but was nowhere near one of the best.

Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School

It’s not that often that I take a trip down the drama aisle in the movie section, but I saw a preview for this movie and absolutely had to watch it. Mostly because it had two of my favorite actors in it: Robert Carlyle and John Goodman. Also in part because I felt a connection with the main character in the preview. This is definitely a hidden gem of 2005 that did not get the recognition it deserved. The man who directed and wrote it was Randall Miller.

This film is a story about Frank Keane (Carlyle) and Steve Mills (Goodman). They each have their own tale in this beautifully woven story. Keane is a widowed man who moved from Great Britain to the United States bringing his family’s baking business with him. His story is one of recovery from his depression through a dancing school called Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School. Mills’ tale is a sad one, he made a promise 40 years ago to the only woman he loved, that promise was: to not matter what, whether they were married, or had kids, or anything, that they would meet at Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School and from there see what happened. However, because of an accident that happens early on in the film introducing both of our main characters, Mills cannot go and asks Keane to go for him. Mills then proceeds to tell Keane, at Keane’s request, about how he met his love. These two stories intertwine very well and create a fantastic story about the two men.

There are a wide variety of characters, each of them are well made with the perfect actors and actresses playing them. There is light-hearted and witty humor, as well as powerful emotional moments as Keane goes through his healing process. The first time I saw it, this film became one of my favorites, and I hope you find it to be a grand movie as well.

Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

The Man From Earth

If you’re looking for a movie with some substance and can deal with some religious controversy, then The Man From Earth is a movie for you. Released in 2007, directed by Richard Schenkman, and written by Jerome Bixby this movie brings a creative and intellectual flavor to the movie industry.

Imagine, a man that has lived since the Stone Age living in our current time and age. That’s what this movie does, and then throws him into the middle of a group of men of science who then interrogate him about his history. These men of science are professors that decided to throw Professor John Oldman an impromptu going away party and he confesses to them “hypothetically” what if a man were to live from the Stone Age onward. At first each of the characters in this wonderfully written story are curious and interested, only for some of them to eventually get frustrated even angry at what he says.

From the start of his confession to the end of the movie, you want to know what he has to say next about his perspective of history. The setting is a cozy cabin that is empty except for a couch and the people within it listening to the words of Professor Oldman. This discussion begins in the morning and ends at night, you can feel the change in time as you can feel the change in the characters’ behaviors. Without doubt this is one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen, with some of the best actors and character development I have seen in a while.

Now, if you don’t want to watch a movie that makes you think, or can’t handle topics that light a fire under your rear (i.e. religious controversy) then you should steer clear of this movie. However, if you want a piece of art and a magnificent story and are tolerant and open with different viewpoints then this is a great film, and something you might want to put on you Netflix instant queues (it is streaming). I definitely put this up as one of the top movies I have ever watched.

Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth