Superheroes (2011)-Movie Review

*originally posted at Practical Black Belt

Superheroes (2011) is a documentary about the Real Life Superheroes movement.  It interviews and follows several of these would be crime fighters around.  I had previously written about the concept without seeing the movie.  I didn't think it was a good idea then and I really do not think it is a good idea after seeing the film.  We had comments on the previous article talking about how a lot of these people are just doing out reach or how they take their training seriously and use caution.  I did not get that from the film, but maybe the movie was biased in that direction.
I think the guys in Brooklyn were probably the best trained, but they also took up the most risk.  Master Legend might have been the least trained, but Mr. Xtreme was very poorly trained and looked like he was far more likely to take risks that would put himself in danger.  Master Legend seemed to be more interested in flirting and getting his drink on while promoting his charity.  Though back at his "lair," the liquid courage was kicking in and we got to see his weapons and hear about how he was unafraid to use them.
While I applaud the outreach to the homeless, I still think it is potentially dangerous to be parading around in costumes.  If you break up a fight out of costume, most people will not remember exactly what you look like.  The costume, of course, removes all doubt.   You have successfully painted a spotlight on yourself.  One episode in the documentary shows Dark Guardian confronting a drug dealer in the park.  Thankfully it didn't get violent right then, but you can be sure that word went out about a person in a costume hindering business.  If sales decline, the dealer or his friends/suppliers may take action. 
I will take back my statement in the previous article about all of these people needing to seek mental health treatment.  Some of them seem as normal as you and I.  Several come to mind that could be considered a danger to themselves, though.  These people should not be encouraged.  I will stick by my other original suggestions though.  I will also add one.  If it becomes obvious in your training that you have little or no athletic talent, especially in martial arts, please stick to outreach and charity work.   Oh, one more.  If you you wear a mask, you should get punched while wearing that mask so that you can make alteration and add padding to avoid additional injury caused by the mask itself.
The film does bring up great points about the way we allow violence to be done to others because we are scared or because it is the job of the police.  I agree that this an alarming trend.  To those of you would be crime fighters, I ask this question, "How does having a superhero compell average citizen's to act?"  It doesn't.  I imagine in the DC universe, most people that see a crime assume that Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or any of the other hundreds/thousands of superheroes will take care of it.  I think it is in human nature to want to pass the buck especially when not passing the buck conflicts with our self preservation impulse.
So, Real Life Superheroes, keep up the good work on outreach programs.  I hope more of you follow Zimmer's example and get EMT training.  Stay out of harms way.  While some of you are deluded there are a good number of you that are just willing to put yourselves in danger to try and help others.  I can respect that.

Real Steel(2011)- Movie Review

Not unlike most parents, I enjoy seeing my kids get excited.  The excitement wasn’t really there when I fired up XBMC and told them we were going to watch Real Steel.  What I got was, “XBMC random recommends Barbie and the Three Musketeers, lets watch that instead.”  Not to be dissuaded, I scrolled past all the Barbie movies and selected Real Steal. 

I am not sure at what point the movie captured the attention of my girls, but it happened fairly early on.  I think it might have been when Charlie refuses to let the girls take a picture of his robot.  From there the girls were watching, and laughing at the appropriate times, but once Atom enters the movie, they were completely sold. 

I don’t know if you have ever been watching a movie with kids so into it that they are jumping around and screaming while watching it.  Actually cheering for the movie.  If you haven’t, it is a pretty amazing thing.  How can you tell them to settle down when they are obviously having so much fun.  One of them looked at me and said, “I bet you are glad that you didn’t take us to the theater for this movie.” 

I think this will be my entire review.  I could compare it to Rocky or tell you about the acting, but I think the simple enthusiasm that it brought out in my kids is review enough.  Sure it is a movie about robot boxing, but it is a movie about robot boxing that two girls aged 7 and 11 fell in love with.  I liked it too.  I think growing up I would have liked it and reacted in much the same way that they did.  For a minute, while watching this movie I felt like a 10 year old again, and for that alone, this movie gets 4 stars.  Highly recommended.

 

Hanna-2011

What is a Hanna movie review doing on a science fiction blog, you might ask.  The rude answer would be that I can put up a review of whatever I want, but the better answer is that there is a science fiction element to this movie.  I won’t give away what that is, but I am sure most people can figure it out pretty early in the movie. 

The plot-  Think Bourne Identity but with a 14 year old girl.  While the concept wasn’t completely original, I am looking at you Cassandra Cain: Batgirl, it was a deviation from your normal Bourne thriller.  It is more of a surface type movie as if you stop and think about any one part too much it will start to break down.  For example, the father hides the truth from her.  While it creates tension between the characters and sets Hanna up for the hero’s journey, it just doesn’t make sense for him to do that.  His goal for her would better be achieved if Hanna knew the whole truth.  But the movie moves along at a fast enough pace that you don’t really think about things like that while you are watching it. 

The Acting-  Saorise and the incredible Hulk due a pretty good job in this one.  The little British girl made me want to jump in the screen and throttle her, so I guess she was playing her part dead on.  The actors were all pretty good and well directed. 

The Action-  Some of the best fight choreography I have seen in a movie.  They tried to make the fight scenes as realistic as possible it seems and they succeeded for the most part. 

Overall it was a fun movie.  I watched with the wife and oldest daughter.  It is rated PG-13 for violence and it seemed fine for my oldest.  I would say 10+.  Give this a watch if you enjoyed Bourne, Soldier, or Cassandra Cain Batgirl.  My 10 year old gets bonus points for calling the last line of the movie.  I saw it coming too, but she called it out loud. 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Hail Caesar!

Planet of the Apes used to be good old cheesy fun.  Do you remember those days.  That was back before Marky Mark put his… mark on the role.  Walberg kept the cheese but instead of fun, we got a weird remake.  So where does “Rise” fall into this spectrum?  It doesn’t.  It was actually a good movie minus the cheese. 

The plot- I know this is technically a remake and a remake of a sequel, but it does not stop this movie from coming across as completely fresh.  It hit all the right notes.  A scientist looking to cure his father, breaking the rules out of compassion, the pet that becomes something so much more.  The movie could have given us the chimp attack, but by building a history between Caesar and the man that no one was sorry to see get attacked was excellent.  The plot is not rushed and it allows the characters to become developed and mean something to the audience.

The Characters-  Who knew that Gollum would be so good as Caesar.  It was amazing to watch as he grows and gets smarter and the anger starts to build.  I would say he deserves an Oscar nod for that role.  Malfoy is born to be bad it seems as he comes across as mean for the pure pleasure in being mean.  Freida Pinto is hot, I was too distracted by her hotness to notice if she could act (she holds her own).  Green Goblin was pretty good, probably one of his better roles, but he has been hitting them out of the park recently.  I am looking at you 127 hrs. 

Overall it was a great movie.  I enjoyed it, the kids enjoyed it.  The wife even liked it.  Ashli said that the original girl from the original movie was prettier that Frieda Pinto though.  While her manner of dress was more appealing, I am not sure which is more attractive.  It might be a bit scary for younger kids but I think it is okay for 7 and up.  If you liked the original Apes movies, you will most likely get a kick out of this one.  If you are unfamiliar with the originals, this movie falls chronologically first, so give it a shot.

  

Fictional Science Movie Saturday: Contagion

This past weekend, the Beloved and I went to see the new natural disaster film Contagion. Natural disaster film, you say? Absolutely. Much more so than any of the crap that Roland Emmerich’s been churning out (2012, The Day After Tomorrow), Steven Soderbergh’s thriller has a decidedly realistic feeling – so much sometimes so that you can get the feeling that you’re watching a docudrama. You know, if your normal docudrama was populated with Oscar-caliber actors.

In Contagion, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Patient Zero in the outbreak of a particularly nasty and easily communicable viral infection – a very natural disaster. Soderbergh does an almost Pixar-esque bit of storytelling in the opening sequences – the camera moving from a following a slightly sallow Paltrow and lingering on objects she’s touched – a cocktail glass, a cell phone, a doorknob etc. I won’t go into the details but as you can imagine, things get ugly and they get ugly pretty quickly. The CDC and WHO are called into action. Politicians get worried. The populace alternately ignores it and panics.

Much like Soderbergh’s Babel, the story jumps back and forth to several parties as they try to deal with the spreading plague. What’s good is that most of the characters are “normal” people, who make mistakes, miss things, and take chances -- no one seems like a stereotype. The film’s antagonist (besides the virus, I suppose) is a blogger (hah!), played by Jude Law, who professes the “Truth” about the pandemic – that it’s being controlled by a conspiracy of governments and pharmaceutical companies. He promotes a natural product remedy and sows discord between the authorities and a populace that is facing a worldwide death toll in the hundreds of millions.

Now being a scientist, I’ve always watched movies and TV shows that feature research with some trepidation. Usually, there are way too many unrealistic three-dimensional displays, fluorescently colored solutions and “scientific sounding” gibberish. Soderbergh though correctly figured that an all-too-imaginable reality is a lot scarier than ridiculous schlock. To try and maintain scientific cred, he hired the Director of Columbia’s Center for Infectious Diseases as a consultant.

To their credit, the research labs look like research labs. Not too many flashing lights, a lot of plastic pipettes, and data in spreadsheets. The virology, while unlikely, is plausible – it’s contagious, but not super-contagious. It’s lethal, but not 100% lethal, and its made clear that the idea of trying to find a vaccine for a virus like this might cost you a lot of research monkeys and take more than 24 hours to create (I’m looking at you, Outbreak). There were a couple of things that we snickered at, but will likely go unnoticed except by structural biologists.

In the end, I think Contagion was a good-not-great flick that has a few genuinely scary moments -- usually when a character (and you by extension) is contemplating the scope of death and upheaval something like this could cause.

Now I’m going to go wash my hands.

Again.

Priest (2011)- Spoiler Free Review

Whew, sorry about the hiatus.  Had a family situation to attend to, was trapped in the gulf coast due to a hurricane... in New England, and I had promised the girls some things before they went back to school (six flags and camping).  So it has been a busy two weeks.  On to the review!

Priest-  I wanted to see this in the theater.  It just looked really cool and looked like the type of movie that would really pop on the big screen.  I have not read the graphic novel but my give it a look now.

Plot-  Vampires are the monsters that haunt the night and the Catholic Church and their Priests are our only hope.  The movie starts with humans as victorious, but trouble is stirring.  Our hero asks to investigate and is denied the right, but defies his orders and goes out of the fortress city in search of the truth.

Characters-  The priests are supposed to be emotional voids.  Being a cold blooded killing machine can do that to you, but we do get to see some emotion and the audience is able to identify emotionally with the priest without him losing that tough/hard edge.  The Maggie Q character is instrumental in this and the movie would not have worked without her.  She had great chemistry with the priest.

Special effects-  The monsters were really cool, but there was something off on the motorcycle through the desert scenes.  The animation sequence at the beginning was really cool and I can see an animated sequel being done in that style.

Overall-  It was a pretty good movie.  I enjoyed it and watched it with the girls and they seemed to like it too.  It had them jumping in some spots.  I would recommend it to almost anyone.  Parental discretion due to bloody violence.  This one was fun.  

Saturday SF Matinee: Super 8

This weekend, the Beloved and I ended up with a surprisingly unscheduled Saturday so after an early trip to Coronado Dog Beach, we decided to do something we don’t do too often in these busy days: go to the movies.

After a perusal of the last of the pre-Potter theater listings, we opted to go see JJ Abrams’ science fiction film Super 8. I’d been interested in this movie ever since I saw the trailer many months ago. I’m an Abrams fan and Spielberg’s movies shaped a lot of my adolescence –Jaws,Close Encounters, Raiders, and E.T. – man, that’s a lot of influence right there.

The bromance between Abrams and Spielberg has been pretty well publicized and in many ways this film was an homage to Spielberg by Abrams – an attempt to capture the feeling of the Spielbergian alien classics – Close Encounters and E.T.

The film follows a group of filmmaking teen nerds as they attempt to make their zombie movie for a local film festival as they become entangled in a horrific train crash in their small Ohio town – a crash that unleashes something into their midst and begins wreaking havoc on the town.

The teen cast is exceptional and covers the entire gamut of nerds: bossy filmmaking guy, big talking scaredy-cat, firebug, winsome lass, and troubled dreamer. I bought every one of them. Having been 14 years old in 1979 (when the film is set) I felt a strong connection to the kids and could have been one of them, you know if you substituted Dungeons & Dragons for filmmaking.

The film centers on the mysterious happenings after the crash and includes a slew of Spielberg staples: resourceful kids, menacing military men and normal folks dealing with the extraordinary -- I’m pretty sure that a list of the winks and nods to moments from Spielberg's movies could fill some film student's dissertation.

Coupled with this is the personal story of Joe Lamb – the central teen character – as he deals with the accidental death of his mother and discovers love for the first time. Throughout, the personal and SF elements are balanced effectively. The special effects – in particular the train crash – are well done and the anxiety in the film builds effectively without resorting to gore.

Overall, the movie had a chance to be "great" instead of "good", but they sort of family-movied their way to the ending which is okay, because I guess it's supposed to be a family movie. I'm sure I'll watch this one several more times, just because it was fun.

15 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Comic movies that are must sees in 2011

Charlie Jane over at io9 has listed 55 genre movies for 2011.  I don't know about you but that sounds like an awful lot.  Looking through the list, there is a bunch of junk in it like Twilight and Beastly (although it doesn't look to bad).  I will attempt to cut this list down to the 15 must see genre movies.

March 11th:  Battle Los Angeles-  I don't know, the production values look good and I am a fan of aliens taking over the world and humanity finding a way to fight back type stories. 

March 11th:  Mars Needs Moms-  I loves this book and so do my girls, this one is a no brainer, but I am interested to see how they fill out more than 30 minutes.

March 25th:  Sucker Punch-  This is my must see movie of the year.  If you like hot girls, mechs, sword play, fighting, and dragons all put together in a really pretty picture, this movie is probably right up your alley as well. 

April 1st: Super-  Dwight as a superhero, need I say more. 

April 8th: Your Highness-  If it weren't for Natalie Portman, this movie wouldn't even be on my radar.  Looks funny enough, but I hate Zooey's acting.

May 5th: Thor- This looks to be the early winner in the comic book movie onslought of 2011.  Can there be a black Asgardian?  Ask the people who complained about a blonde Bond. 

May 13th: Priest-  The preview I saw for this looked really interesting.  I like post apocolyptic worlds were humanity is fighting for its survival.

June 3rd:  X-Men First Class-  Based off of X3 and Wolverine, this movie shouldn't be here.  I am a sucker for mutants though.

June 17th:  Green Lantern-  I was really excited about this movie, until I saw the trailer.  It is DC taking movie making seriously outside of their two bread winners and I want to see the result. 

July 22nd:  Captain America-Nothing I have seen has me excited about this movie yet, and I want to be excited about it.  It is here because it has the potential to win the comic movie wars. 

July 29th:  Cowboys and Aliens-  I mean, how can you argue with a title like that.  Cowboys and Aliens, the only choosing you have to do is which side you want to win.  Should be a lot of fun. 

August 19th: Conan-  What is good in life?  This movie could be the next Conan, Momoa has some big muscles to fill.

August 19th: Fright Night-  I like people who play Doctor Who, and I like the original fright night.  It should be like peanut butter and chocolate, right?

September 30th: Now-  You have never heard of this movie have you?  That is okay; neither had I.  Take Logan's run and add the ability to by youth.  Sound cool to me. 

October 7th:  Real Steel-  Fighting and giant robots , of course I will like it.  Robot Jocks for the 21st century.

Did I miss your must see, let me know in the comments.