We Were The Kings And Queens Of Promise

(Lyrics by 30 Seconds To Mars – Kings and Queens. On the one hand I’m a total sucker for this song and it’s been getting a lot of play time by me as of late. On the other hand I completely disagree with the lyrics. We *WERE* the kings and queens of promise. I don’t know about you but I for one don’t think my promise was still in the past but still exists and is being pursued in all areas of my life. Of course that could just be me. The image? Well it just goes along with the what I just typed!)

Life:
Life has of course been keeping me busy as of late. With Leah and I being officially dating more of my free time has disappeared (I’m not complaining! My free time being replaced I have absolutely 0 issues with, that was just pointed out for explanation) so I’ve been in a rush trying to get ahead on everything under the sun. It being January my birthday was at the beginning of the month with a nice turnout of everyone coming over for a party. Had the full crew of friends over and good times were had by all. Apparently even more so by those who stayed the night and were treated to a huge breakfast that was clearly enjoyed by all. On the fun side of things I was also at BBQ Night which is a regular Sunday activity in Leah’s group of friends – food and booze? Always good times. Finally in case you missed it I booked a vacation which is my first real one in nearly 4 years. Christ you’d think with how much I love to relax that wouldn’t have been the case.

Project wise I am starting a new blog entitled The Write Start with my friend Jason Zajdel that will focus on Blogging, Networking, Freelancing, Social Media, and Online Tools. All of these have been a huge interest to me for years and Jason the past year so an outlet to write on them? Bonus. There isn’t much I can officially say on projects past this but there are still a slew in the works at various stages in development. Hell, 5 are technically up though I just am not advertising them until I have the look of each of them down.

Of course not all of life has been great in the world of Stu. My mother was in the hospital last week after having a horrible migraine, a blackup immediately after, and short term memory loss. There is still 4 hours of that day she can’t fully recall and that’s terrifying. The worst part is they have no idea what caused it. Supposedly everything overly dangerous and life threatening has been ruled out, but how can they be totally sure if they don’t know the cause? Here’s hoping modern medicine can figure it out.

Movies:
This is the worst part of not making an update in nearly a month. Having watched over 10 movies I have to write a mini review of all of them and I know for a fact I’m leaving out 5-15 movies.

Jennifer’s Body was Diablo Cody’s first stab at horror. (See what I did there? Stab at horror?) After such great reviews of Juno and the fact she seems to be in touch with and a huge fan of horror in general there was high expectations on where this film was going to go. What actually happened though? Well that would be a whole lot of disappointment had by many. Aside from the Jennifer’s Body Poster ripping off of True Blood’s poster there was just a lack of both direction in the movie and the plot really making a lot of sense. I won’t argue though that with how painful some of it was – it had some great lines. The stand out one had to do with two members of a boy band talking and one asking if the other wanted to keep being a failure or “Do you wanna be the guy from Maroon 5?”

Circle of Eight tells the story of a girl who moves into a new condo when everything goes to hell. It is a tale about karma, life, and death. It is also severely messed up and unless your paying attention will easily miss out on a few key aspects on where the movie is going. I would absolutely not recommend this one as a buy and to my horror loving friends who love a very STRANGE way of telling a story to the movies they watch I would suggest a rent. It’s not at all a great movie but it IS an original movie. As someone who loved both independent and original movies I did enjoy it, I just don’t think most people I know really would.

Cars is another of Pixar’s adventures into combining a kids animated movie with a mixture of a plot feasible for an adult audience to enjoy. It’s also, in my opinion, the worst of the Pixar movies. Now I’m not saying that it’s bad because Pixar has been pure gold to date on every movie they’ve had being enjoyable. It just wasn’t as enjoyable as anything else that they’ve done. Perhaps I’m a little biased having seen both Wall-E and UP in the past year, this is one of their older works and of course everyone gets better as they have additional practice at their trade. I think it was just the idea of talking cars I couldn’t really get into or truly feel for the characters on screen.

Blindness took the ideology of a post-apocalyptic outbreak movie, ran with it, and threw in one major twist. The disease spreading across the world does NOT kill you. What it does for everyone who is infected is makes them blind. It’s the tale of how one woman is still able to see in an age where the majority of the population can’t. How people survive and how those who are strong are willing to pray on the innocent. While there are a few parts of the movie that just disgusted me in what occurs, both on the side of people and the government, it was a really well put together movie. If you enjoy outbreak movies, post-apocalyptic films, or anything even remotely similar to them you will love this movie.

The Final Destination is the 3D trip into the world of the Final Destination franchise. It is apparently by the title and interviews THE Final Destination, no more, finale time, game over man – game over. I really hope this proves to be the case because it is a franchise that relies on a single gimmick that got rather stale quickly. I don’t know if it was because you feel you are watching the same movie over and over again or bad writing but this was the final nail in the coffin for me as if it didn’t end here it still would have been my last stop with the franchise.

Forget Me Not was a pretty original horror movie with the common genres that are currently coming out. You don’t see a lot these days on movies that involve curses and specially not ones that involve curses which are so original. What happens when a group of friends start to disappear one at a time? Usually there would be an investigation, however what happens when no one but one of them remembers them after they vanish? This is the story of a woman whose friends go missing one at a time and no one in the circle of friends remember the others. Of course this leads to everyone thinking that she is losing her grip on sanity even though it is quickly made clear to the viewer that she isn’t. What is causing the disappearances? Can she stop them before everyone she knows is gone for good?

Primer was one of the most original science fiction movies I have seen in a long time. My usual choice of science fiction takes place in space though this one? It takes place in the near future where two friends are able to invent a device that lets them travel through time. They start using this technology to at first increase their wealth but quickly start to change events to suit their wants and desires. Time travel is a tricky thing involving paradoxes of all sorts and this story is no different as it quickly spirals out of control into a story of both confusion and betrayal. Anyone who likes a twist in their science fiction will love this look at morality and the twisting of time.

Daybreakers is the second best vampire film to come out in the past few years. Obviously Let The Right One In is still my favorite but this is an extremely close second bringing in a new twist on the entire vampire genre of horror. Set in a noir future where vampires have taken over the world the human population is quickly running out. With blood supplies decreasing the society itself has a huge problem on it’s hands if a blood substitute cannot be found. What happens though when someone finds a way to ‘cure’ the disease that has inflicted society making everyone a vampire? When everyone can be turned back into a human is it truly a cure, or just another way to find food?

Couples Retreat which I was worried might fall into too much of a romantic comedy with the premise behind it proved to be entertaining the entire way through. When a group of friends that are all couples are at a party together one of them announce that they are possibly getting a divorce. The solution is a retreat dedicated on helping couples rebuild their marriages or relationships. While everyone is sold at the beauty of the vacation spot they are quickly shown that they were fooled into thinking they would all have a nice break and are all forced into couple’s therapy. With a ton of jokes and Vince Vaughn on his game for the first time in a few movies it was a slew of laughter and well worth the watch.

The Men Who Stare At Goats was Clooney’s most recent foray into a both strange and unique movie. Clooney plays a ‘mystical’ soldier from a secret armed force that the government created to use paranormal powers to fight any enemy of the United States. It is the most offbeat and oddly written ‘war movie’ that has been written and also a complete riot the whole way through. Add in Jeff Bridges as a soldier turned hippie turned soldier that runs the unit Clooney was in? It felt like a partial return of “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski and any fan of his performance there (who isn’t?) will get a constant kick out of this one everytime he’s on screen.

The Lovely Bones is Peter Jackson’s latest film and shows he can still flex his chops when it comes to putting together a well written movie with some amazing special effects. Now I’m writing that I loved this film from the viewpoint that I have NOT read the novel. Every reviewer and person I know that has said they didn’t enjoy the movie because it didn’t follow the book properly. So I’m kind of glad I haven’t read the book yet as I REALLY enjoyed this as a thriller. Plot, acting, visuals, everything was top notch. I feel bad that people who have read the book didn’t like it, though it does make me curious how well the book was written if people who have read it can’t stand the movie.

The Road is another one of those post apocalyptic movies I love so much. While it is never fully clear on what exactly caused the cities to be ruined and the human race to fall into such a horrible state of savagery. The tale follows a father trying to take his child across the country in search of a safe place to live. As they travel they follow the roads from the now fallen infrastructure and attempting to avoid everyone they find on them. The father and child are both good people but it shows the father progressively become more of a selfish and paranoid man as he strives to keep his child, the one person he loves most in the world safe.

The Stepfather is another one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen. With Jennifer’s Body and The Final Destination this was a trifecta of bad movies that did nothing but hurt. This was surprisingly the most enjoyable of the three because it wasn’t horrible. If they had chosen a bit differently on the casting it may have even ended up being enjoyable. Still though it suffered greatly from some bad dialogue in a few points and too much of random painful moments where it was hard to believe the acting as it felt a bit forced. It couldn’t have helped that I went into the film expecting to not enjoy it, the premise of a serial killer step father that has been avoiding detection and being photographed so he couldn’t be tracked down? Seems a bit too far fetched with the body count he apparently had.

Pride and Glory was both well written and surprising. Surprising in the fact that it took so long to see an Edward Norton film. A police drama that pit good cops against corrupt cops and problems within a police family a drama that sucked you in and didn’t let you stop watching until it came to the end. This film also kicked back into my mind the thought that Jon Voight needs to be in more movies with darker aspects to them as he really is a great actor and doesn’t receieve nearly as many projects as he should. Hell I don’t believe he’s been in anything since 24 and this is just a depressing thought as he’s getting on in age.

Yes, fine, The Fantastic Mr. Fox was a kid’s movie. However like a Pixar film it was an animated movie that was written to keep not just children but adults interested as well. Another film that involved George Clooney this month though this one was of course all just voice acting. On a side note anything Bill Murray is in these days, even as just a voice actor, you know has to be worth the watch. A completely underused style was used to show off the animation in this tale of a man (erm fox) learning to truly be a man (erm adult fox) and quit living in the past and actually grow up. Great moral tale and one that is almost subliminal with how well the story comes together.