Things have finally slowed down around the Miles household. A major project I was working on as part of my business Two Miles Solutions, LLC finished up this week and now we are able to scale back the amount of time that I work which means that I have more time to do things I like such as spending time with my family and blog.
For my first blog post, I want to post about my family since it has been so long since I have done so.
January 3, 2010
Posted by: Jeff Miles
Category: Movies
Tags: Avatar, Avatars, Cameron, combination, corporation, Effects, Experience, Giovanni, Horner, human, humans, hybrids, intentions, Jake, James, Just, Lang, Marine, masterpiece, Michelle, Movie, nature, Pandora, person, perspective, planet, Plot, Review, Ribisi, Rodriguez, Saldana, Sigourney, soundtrack, Stephen, theater, tickets, Visual, Weaver, Worthington
You may or may not have already read a review of Avatar, but if you are one of the 3 people in the country who hasn’t seen Avatar, you need to go see it.
Warning: you probably need to get your tickets at least a few hours in advance, then arrive at the theater at least an hour early to stand in line to get a good seat. I wouldn’t have thought that was the case with a movie that has already been in the theater for a couple weeks with a bunch of other really good movies at the same time, but it is so.
Normally I would save my rating for the end of the review, but due to the nature of my rating, I will go ahead and give it.
Plot: 2 out of 5
Visual Effects/Experience: 5 out of 5
Review – Plot (spoilers – skip to next section after the first sentence if you don’t want to know what happens):
If you have seen Dances with Wolves (amazon affiliate link) you have seen Avatar from a plot perspective. The movie takes place on a planet called Pandora. You soon learn that Jake Scully is not the original man for the job, but due to his twin brother being shot while being mugged, he is the only man for the job. Jake is an ex-Marine who has been paralyzed from the waist down. Since Jake is an identical twin and the Avatars (genetically created human/Nav’i hybrids) are created for a specific person Jake is the only human available to connect with the Avatar. Jake is tasked with infiltrating the Nav’i and learning their ways so that the corporation can displace them to gain access to the largest deposit of unobtainium on the planet. Just like in Dances with Wolves Jake “goes native” as he realizes the horrible intentions that the humans have.
Review – Visual Effects/Experience:
WOW is the best way to describe the visual masterpiece that James Cameron has created. Cameron has also partnered with James Horner for the soundtrack as well so the combination of visuals and soundtrack is just amazing. I watched the movie in digital 3D and while I wasn’t really impressed with the 3D experience I thought the movie was amazing and will probably buy this movie when it comes out on DVD.
What are your thoughts on Avatar?
As most of the people who know me are aware, I love comic book movies. I was never really collected comics as a kid, my brother did, but I loved watching the cartoons and always loved the super hero stories. I remember the day when I went to see the original X-Men in Des Moines with my dad and brother and how stoked I was to see the movie. I have faithfully watched all three of the previous X-Men movies as well as just about every other comic book movie that has come out. The fact that Marvel Studios was created is just icing on the cake. The movies they have put out so far have been great. Add to that the fact that Disney bought Marvel Studios and now you have the mouse funding great movies.
Anyway, off my soap box. X-Men Origins: Wolverine begins with a young boy learning he has bone like claws that come out of his hands which he uses to kill the man he learns is his father. At this point his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber) and he take of running and they don’t stop until William Stryker (Danny Huston) finds them after they were supposed to have been killed by firing squad. They join an elite unit that also includes Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, here he is again) and other mutants. I won’t give too much away, but the movie follows the story that eventually leads to Logan (Hugh Jackman) becoming the metal boned mutant that we know and love. Including his memory loss.
One thing to note, if you saw it in the theater you may need to see it again, or at least the scene after the credits. According to Unrealitymag.com there were multiple alternate scenes after the credits. I’ve seen 2 different endings, one in the theater and one on DVD.
To break it down simply, I loved the movie. I know I can be biased when it comes to comic book movies, but I thought this movie was really well done. It is at least worth a rental if not a buy. I’m planning on buying it this weekend. I thought the special effects were tastefully done and there was actually a story line. They even paid attention to the small details, like how much Logan would weigh after having his skeleton coated with adamantium (something before the movie I hadn’t even considered). I thought how he lost his memory was a little shady, but it wasn’t too bad so I’ll let it pass.
Rating: 5 out of 5
If you want to buy it, head on over to Amazon.com.
In Love Happens Burke (Aaron Eckhart) has made lemonade out of lemons by writing a book about how to cope with losing a loved one after his wife dies in a car accident. The movie picks up roughly 3 years after the loss of his wife. He is on a seminar tour that brings him back to his old home town of Seattle, Washington (a place where he does not want to be I might add) where he meets Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) a flower shop owner who leaves random large words behind the hotel art that brushes him off by pretending to be deaf. Throughout the course of the movie Eloise forces Burke to come to grips with his lemons and a romance blooms.
I really liked this movie. Aaron Eckhart & Jennifer Aniston had really good on screen chemistry and the storyline was put together very well. There were points in the movie that I thought conversation would have gone quite different in real life, but the raw emotion displayed by Eckhart is refreshingly good. I was also pleasantly surprised that for a romance there was no skin shown. Dan Fogler provides a great supporting role as Burke’s agent (Lane) and makes things light when necessary but you can tell from the way Burke and Lane interact that they have a lot of history and Lane really is looking out for Burke and wants the best for him as evidenced by a last minute meeting before the executive meeting that he has been trying to setup for Burke. Judy Greer brings a solid performance in her usual role as second chair. In Love Happens I would like to see Judy Greer in a leading role, she is funny enough and a solid enough actress that I think she would be able to pull off a leading role. Time will tell though, if she does though, you heard it here first. Finally, Martin Sheen plays the ex-Marine father of Burke’s deceased wife and he knocks it out of the park. I don’t want to give too much story away otherwise I would tell you how, I can say that there is a reason he has been in the business as long as he has.
Grade: B+
Notable Movies for each actor/actress: (I’m going to try listing movies I think are worth seeing, please let me know if you find it useful)
Aaron Eckhart:
Jennifer Aniston:
Dan Fogler:
Judy Greer:
Martin Sheen (as of this writing he has 218 movies and tv appearances on imdb.com but I haven’t seen a lot of the movies, I have mostly seen him on TV):
- The American President
- Spawn – kind of a dark movie, but a comic book movie nonetheless, not sure I should recommend it because they only list the unrated director’s cut which I can only imagine is very dark.
Please let me know by adding a comment if you found this review helpful or if you would like me to change the way I do reviews. Also, if you did like the review, please use the share links below to share this blog entry on Facebook, Twitter, etc…
Do you like to cook? So do Julie Powell (Amy Adams) and Julia Child (Meryl Streep). Julie & Julia is “based on two true stories” and follows the lives of two women who as Julia Child “love to eat”. In parallel it follows the lives of Julia Child who is forced to find something to do while her diplomat husband is posted in Paris and Julie Powell who is a cubicle dwelling phone operator in New York who by day answers phone calls in the aftermath of 9/11 that feels her life is going nowhere and she needs to do something to add meaning. As part of following the two women and their adventures the movie chronicles the lives shared with their husbands and really shows a parallel between the husbands as well played by Stanley Tucci & Chris Messina.
There are several laugh out loud moments in this movie which was exactly what my wife and I needed as we watched it. One of the best things about the movie for me was the interaction with the husbands and how they were just great guys. In this movie they also explore the inevitable “make it or break it point” that comes with doing anything of value and how anything worth doing is worth pushing through that point and persevering.
Grade: B+
Notable Movies: (I’m going to try listing movies I think are worth seeing, please let me know if you find it useful)
Meryl Streep:
Amy Adams:
Stanley Tucci:
Chris Messina:
Please let me know by adding a comment if you found this review helpful or if you would like me to change the way I do reviews. Also, if you did like the review, please use the share links below to share this blog entry on Facebook, Twitter, etc…
Things have finally slowed down around the Miles household. A major project I was working on as part of my business Two Miles Solutions, LLC finished up this week and now we are able to scale back the amount of time that I work which means that I have more time to do things I like such as spending time with my family and blog.
