Arrested Development Season 4 TV review.

Often considered one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Arrested Development is this guy’s favorite show ever. With its razor sharp writing, excellent ensemble cast, wonderful editing and back stories, and especially the flawless build up of the jokes, the show about the riches to rags Bluth family rightfully earned its title as one of the best written shows ever made. Every time you go back and revisit one of the older episodes, you begin noticing new jokes you missed, probably because you were too busy laughing at another joke. That’s how hilarious it is.

Ever since the third season’s finale, we’d long been hoping to see a movie teased to us by Ron Howard at the show’s very end.  For years, we buzzed around like impatient bees, stuffed our faces with mayoneggs, and continually got tired by everyone’s “illusions”, feeling as if we’d never see that movie. However, with the devoted fanbase growing, a long awaited fourth season was FINALLY put into production, thanks to Netflix. When news broke out, you bet that I was hyped for it. So, were we in store to get that same lightning in a bottle once more, or was our hype all for naught?

Star Trek: Into Darkness movie review.

Anybody who regularly tunes into Fox, ABC, or NBC will immediately be familiar with J.J. Abrams. The spearhead of hit shows such as Alias, LOST, and Fringe has also made his fair share of entertaining films such as Super 8, and 2009’s reboot of Star Trek, a thrilling, funny, and intelligently written and acted experience that never gets old. So, for what I assume was his “audition tape” for his upcoming continuation of the Star Wars saga, we all got excited to finally see its sequel, Star Trek: Into Darkness. One of the charms of the original Abrams film is that it hit the right chords with die hard Trekkies, but had enough of a broad scope to also win new fans, but does the sequel hit that same mark?

Well, yes, but not with as much success.

The Great Gatsby movie review.

Baz Luhrmann: Artistic visionary or artificial hack? Those are the only choices, ‘ol sport.

The Australian director, best known for films such as Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!, leaves anyone watching his films polarized. He’s a stylish director specializing in lavish sets and costumes (both designed by his wife, Catherine Martin), frenetic editing, eclectic soundtracks, and comical vibes eventually forming into full on drama, all of which either enchant, or disgust his audiences. Everyone was both skeptical and curious when his next project was announced to be The Great Gatsby, a book I’m sure we all read skimmed across in high school. A book as famous and as hard to film as Gatsby is probably not the best bet for Luhrmann to make, but with the talent that he got on board for this movie, and the studio’s clever marketing, people definitely stopped to take notice, the film beckoning their attention like a flashing green light.

The Croods movie review.

Dreamworks Animation, much like many studios, suffers their ups and downs. Whether that’s with incredible heights like How to Train Your Dragon, or tired rehashes like Madagascar 3, they fluctuate quite often. Personally, I tend to prefer the side of themselves that take the material seriously, like with How to Train Your Dragon and Rise of the Guardians. Their latest effort, The Croods, had me incredibly hopeful that it would be another really good film from them, being directed by Chris Sanders of Dragon and Lilo & Stitch fame. What I got, instead, is the side of Dreamworks that I usually have a tough time sitting through. Does that make it a bad movie, though? Well, no, but it still isn’t as good as it should be.

Iron Man 3 movie review.

Guys, I’m about to drop a bombshell. Don’t hate me too much when I say...

I DON’T LIKE SHANE BLACK! I think he’s just a weak movie maker. His early screenwriting credits (the first Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout) failed to impress me, and even his directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is a mediocre movie, an interesting idea with inconsistent executions. So when I heard he was replacing Jon Favreau as director of Iron Man 3, I said “That’s it! I’m done with Marvel. They have clearly given up.” So when I finally saw the movie... It was actually better than I thought. Gasp! Shane Black made a GOOD movie? Yes, and while Iron Man 3 isn’t as good as installment one, it is a grand improvement over Iron Man 2.

Jurassic Park (in 3D) movie review.

Movie studios are a wonder today. Ever since James Cameron’s game changing use of 3D in Avatar, companies have been cashing in on the dreaded 3D craze. They usually serve no other purpose than to gain more income from an inflated ticket price, and most of the time, it doesn’t make ANY difference to the presentation. The studios stand on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they can, and before they even know what they have, they’ve already packaged it, patented it, slapped it on the front of a plastic lunchbox, and now… they’re selling it! They want to sell it!

It doesn’t stop with new movies, either. Studios have even gone so far as to convert older movies to 3D, specifically in the case of Titanic and The Lion King. Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park is the latest to receive this treatment. Most cynics of 3D will be forgiven for not giving it the time of day, but it provides many an excuse to give this film the big screen treatment it deserves. Indeed, the 3D is not the most enticing feature. I, like many other Jurassic Park fanboys, could not pass up the opportunity to watch a movie we had originally fell in love with on VHS on the big screen for the first time. As I often consider Jurassic Park my favorite movie of all time, this was a deal too juicy to ignore.

To the Wonder movie review.

There are few directors in Hollywood who refuse to be boxed in, and refuse to compromise their unique visions to cater to general audiences. Terrence Malick is one of those people.  Despite a career that spans over forty years, he’s only ever directed six films. He’s a perfectionist, a visual poet who could shoot an entire movie in two months, but could take three years editing that one feature. That dedication is what has brought us great films such as The Thin Red Line (one of my favorite movies of all time), and 2011’s divisive The Tree of Life. It’s something of a wonder that his follow up to The Tree of Life came only two years afterwards. This is To the Wonder, which once again sees the director taking a meditative approach to life and love’s philosophical nature, but does so in one of the most experimental fashions in his career.