This blog covers Movies, TV, and other Geeky things...... Movie Reviews (over 3,400 movies rated so far) Countdowns of my top movies by year.... and much more.
A random trip to The Grove in LA turned into a quick little fun Hobbit diversion. An Unexpected Hobbit Exhibit that was outside in the middle section of The Grove. There were Hobbit posters everwhere you looked. Giant Hobbit Posters--Little Hobbit Posters.....Hobbit posters in 3-D. It was a pleasant little surprise.
The exhibit itself was a free little promotional exhibit that featured a few props and some cool 3-D Hobbit posters and trailers for the movie
Elvish Jewelry
Gandalf's Staff
The Precious
Bilbo's Contract from the film
Here are some pictures of the 3-D posters -------in 2D
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City 1969 4 out of 10
Survivors of a sinking ship are rescued by the infamous Captain Nemo and taken to his fabulous color filled golden underwater city where they will not be allowed to leave. I can say one thing for the film...they knew that they were shooting it in color...the set design and costumes were wild. Some people dressed like Willa Wonka meets the Wizard of Oz . Scuba suits that look like they were made for the band KISS or Evil Knievel. The movie itself was nothing to get excited about. Replacing the giant squid from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea this time around we get a giant Ray. 50 minutes go by in the movie before anything even remotely interesting happens and not much else of excitement happens after that again until the end... It felt more like a tour of Nemo's world than a well structured movie. Not one of the better Verne inspired films
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 2012 8 out of 10 is a action adventure family film that focusing on a 17 year old boy (Josh Hutcherson) and his search for his missing grandfather with the help of his step dad ( Dwayne the Rock Johnson). He decodes a secret message that takes the 2 on a wild adventure to The Mysterious Island from Jules Verne's book, while bonding in the process. They actually find the mythical place and his grandfather and few extra surprises along the way with the help of an island hopping helicopter pilot (the comic relief) and his daughter (the love interest).
The Rock is great as the step dad....he is the Arnold of this decade of action movies and shines even in these more kid friendly roles. Michael Cane is also well cast as the adventure seeking grandfather. The visuals in the film are fun and vibrant....even when they borderline on silly. Despite some serious plot issues with the film it was a fun and enjoyable ride...Kinda of a kids introduction into better adventure films like Indiana Jones or Pirates.
This was another example of a family movie that personally wasn't on my list of films to see. The trailer didn't interest me at all--but I DVR'd it for the kids and was pleasantly surprised.
The storyline was completely unbelievable --but movies like this generally are. The stories are not grounded in the real world and yet this movie they are grounded by the heart of the movie. The story revolves around a brother and sister that have bounced around from one bad foster home to another after losing their parents. They stick together and have continued to secretly look after their family dog at all costs. This leads them to the unlikely yet touching storyline of taking care of dogs in an abandoned hotel and creatively turning that hotel into a Hotel of Dogs. The story is touching and includes the excellent acting of Don Cheadle (even good in a silly kids movie) as their social worker that is trying his best to keep them together and find the right home for them. His kindness is parallelled by the kids efforts to take care of (way too many) stray dogs. A quality family dog movie where the animals don't talk and there are no fart jokes.
Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore 2010 7 out 10
I just recently caught both Cats and Dogs and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore on the HUB channel with the family. Both are quality family movies.
Cats and Dogs is basically a Men in Black or Spy Kids with talking animals.
Like Men in Black there is a secret world that Cats and Dogs live in that we as simple humans are completely unaware of. Jeff Goldblum's character is working on a cure for dog allergies and the Cats are not too happy about that so the movie centers on the Cats trying to steal this cure and the Dogs (the good guys--I'm a dog person so I totally agree with that) are trying to protect it.The movie had a lot of action and humor as the Dogs and Cats do battle especially in the showdown with the Russian spy cat and the too main dogs. The spy concept of the movie is great and the movie was a fun for the whole family.
The sequel Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore 2010 was a quality spy adventure that had a lot of fun parodying the Spy genre. I'm surprised it took this many years before a sequel was made. The title alone is a great nod to the famous Bond Girl. A funny twist on the villain was instead of a bald main holding a fluffy white cat---we get a bald cat with holding a white mouse. The story line was good introducing the aspect of the Cats and Dogs having to work together to stop this villainous Feline.
The action sequences were fast paced and thrilling.
Together the films make a great double feature for a family movie night.
Cats and Dogs Trailer
Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore Trailer
I used to see a lot more movies on the big screen.....Now with a family of four kids and a wife and 2 dogs most of what I see has to wait of Netflix. (which is fine because I have a big TV now).
Certain films need to be seen in the theaters......The Harry Potter Films, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and of course James Bond.
So Skyfall was on my list of must see in the movie theater movies.
The opening action sequence of Skyfall was about as good an opening sequence as a Bond film could have. Many have labeled this Bond as being one of the best Bond's yet...and although it was good I wouldn't rank it near the top of a list of Bond Films. Bond has been around for 50 years now and the series has some great films many of which I enjoyed more than this outing. I'm sure a part of that opinion is the hype about it being one of the best going in. Daniel Craig in his third outing is once again good as Bond and Judi Dench is strong as M. Javier Bardem to me was just weird and uncomfortable to watch as the ex agent/gay super villain that seemed like a character out of 24 instead of a Bond film.
Skyfall centers around an ex MI6 agent that is out for revenge against M and Bond must do all that he can to protect her. Like I mentioned it kicks off with a great action sequence that includes a motorcycle chase across roof tops and a fight on top of a train. The action after that never quite matches the energy of the beginning of the film and the movie really slows down. Many scenes seem recycled out of other films. The Rancor pit scene (featuring a man eating Komodo dragon)---the Silence of the Lambs scene where the villain escapes from his cell and then the whole stupid lets make a stand in this house scene setting Rambo traps and I found that the ending of the film kind of made the whole journey pointless...I thought it could have ended better. All in all a good but not great Bond.
Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness 2010 7+ out of 10
This movie was a surprise. I was expecting another bad --low budget cheesy Stargate episode quality Fantasy film....but instead got a surprisingly good low budget fantasy film. What made it so good was the story. The story wasn't the same old bland group of heroes on a heroes quest. Instead the Book of Vile Secrets takes us on a heroes journey amongst a group of villains. He has to go over to the darkside a little in order to rescue his father. How dark can he go without loses who he is? This twist on the traditional story made for a surprisingly interesting film that would otherwise have been just the same old thing. The movie overcomes its low budget with and interesting plot and characters.
