REVIEW - 'Now You See Me'

'Now You See Me' (PG-13) **3/4

Magicians Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are brought together by a mysterious person, form a magic act known as ‘The Four Horsemen’ and start pulling off such magic tricks as robbing a bank and robbing their main benefactor (Michael Caine).  These antics attract the attention of a magic debunker (Morgan Freeman), FBI Agent Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), and Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurant, from ‘Inglourious Basterds’), but the magicians always seem to stay one step ahead of the law.  They never keep any of the money for themselves, so what are they trying to accomplish?  Is this all some kind of an elaborate illusion, or all some part of a grander scheme? 

The cast appears to be having a blast, and Woody Harrelson is great as always.  The magic tricks and their explanations are always neat to watch.  The movie has several twists and turns that are quite surprising.  When you think the well for the movie has dried up, the filmmakers usually have another trick up their sleeves.

The movie is 2 hours long and drags whenever some feat of magic isn’t being shown or explained.  And honestly that’s the only negative thing I can say about the movie.

Now You See Me is a fun movie with interesting magic tricks and explanations but drags between the magic tricks and twists.  If you have a slight interest in magic or caper movies, I'd recommend this.  Or if you just want to kill 2 hours in an air-conditioned movie theater I'd recommend this as well.  Afterall, who doesn’t like a good magic trick? 

CCLT 2013 - Area Director's Week, and some other stuff

Took forever to type this up and posted because I’ve been busy with camp related activities.  But June 1 this year officially started my summer job at Camp Chief Little Turtle with Area Director’s Week.  Not exactly a week long, but the purpose of this week is to give the senior staff and area directors a head start on planning things out for their area before the rest of the staff shows up. 

An Area Director is basically the person in charge of their area at camp, overseeing everything that happens in the area.  The different areas at camp include Shooting Sports, Ecology, Buckskin (history based area - more on this one later), Aquatics, Handicraft, Outdoor Skills, High Adventure, Trading Post (the store), TurtleQuest (a 1^st year camper program) and Top Scout (a program for older scouts).

This is my 3^rd year as Buckskin Director for CCLT.  Back a long time ago I would always refuse to work at camp.  I wasn’t a fan of the summer heat and mosquitos so every time my brothers would tell me about a job opening at camp I would always refuse.  Two years ago I finally cracked, desperate for a summer job.  I heard about which jobs had openings, so I applied for those.  A few days after my interview there was a brand new job opening that wasn’t on the application that I was told about and I accepted it.  And I’ve been back ever since.

Now, as mentioned earlier, Buckskin is a history-based area at camp.  This year we teach several history-based merit badges (Indian Lore, American Heritage, Scouting Heritage) and also Citizenship In The World.  In the afternoons we offer open Tomahawk Throwing, fire branding, frontier-based games and knife throwing.  We used to do Black Powder Muzzle Loader shooting as well, but I decided to change things up a bit this year. 

So Director’s Week this year involved euchre, getting things around for AHG week (more on that in a future post), starting to get things around for the Boy Scouts, more euchre, getting acquainted with new staff members, even more euchre, going up to Kalamazoo for a Women’s Football game, getting re-acquainted with past staff members, and on top of that even more euchre and plenty of inside jokes to go around.  Eventually I'll post pics up of camp and various areas of camp, but that'll be for another post.

Bring on the summer.

REVIEW - 'Man of Steel'

‘Man of Steel’ (PG-13) **1/2

From the seemingly unlikely pairing of Director Zack Snyder (‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘300’, ‘Sucker Punch’, ‘Watchmen’) and Producer Christopher Nolan (‘The Dark Knight Trilogy’, ‘Inception’, ‘Memento’) comes the latest reboot of the Superman film saga.  It’s an origin story this time around, showing the destruction of Krypton and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer) sending their son Kal-El to Earth, and away from the clutches of General Zod (Michael Shannon).  The film goes back and forth showing Kal-El, now called Clark Kent, as an adult wandering the world looking for his place in it and as a child also trying to fit in Smallville, KA, with his adoptive parents Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane).  Clark soon realizes his destiny upon General Zod coming to Earth and delivering an ultimatum:  That Earth hand over Kal-El, or else the world as we know it will be destroyed.

The opening scene on Krypton is great.  The special effects in this movie are very good, and the movie does feature a lot of good action scenes.  Most of the actors do a fairly good job in their roles, although none really stand out.  General Zod was a good villain.  The end of the movie is great.  Not because “Thank God it’s finally the end of the movie!!!” but by the end let’s just say things have finally settled down into the usual Clark Kent/Superman that we all know and like.  While the movie is rather dark (more on that later) it does have its humorous moments. 

This movie is way too freaking long.  The middle third of the movie when it keeps jumping back and forth in time drags.  The scenes with Clark Kent as an adult was way too much like Wolverine from the X-Men movies, whereas the younger Clark Kent scenes felt a lot like ‘Spider-Man’.  In addition to dragging, it gets confusing with the constant jumps back and forth.  Some of the fights scenes cut a little quickly so sometimes it just hurts my brain to try and figure out who is fighting who and what is happening.  Amy Adams is a great actress (Watch ‘Doubt’ or ‘The Fighter’) but she just doesn’t really seem like Lois Lane.  I shouldn’t be thinking about the actors, I should be thinking about the characters.  The movie is also rather dark and kinda gritty.  Ever since the recent Batman movies made dark and gritty the way to go for superhero movies, superhero movies and reboots in general have usually gone for a darker vibe.  Lighten up movie.  It’s Superman after all.  This isnt tortured Batman.  This should be nice guy, do good, Boy Scout-like Superman. Some darker parts work, other parts towards the end don’t work. 

I haven’t really read any of the comics apart from what was left of my Dad’s old collection of comic books in the basement, so I can’t really compare it to the comics.  Comparing to other Superman movies, well, I’ve only seen one other and that one would be ‘Superman Returns’.  I remember thinking that it was all right, but it also dragged along.  ‘Man of Steel’ does have a LOT more action than ‘Superman Returns’ and Michael Shannon’s General Zod is a better villain than Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor.  Henry Caville is a better Superman, although Brandon Routh was a better Clark Kent. 

Now, comparing to the other movies that Zack Snyder movies…well, it’s a lot better than ‘Sucker Punch’.  I haven’t seen his ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake or ‘Legend of the Guardians’.  ‘300’ is awesome and ‘Watchmen’ was also very good.  ‘Man of Steel’ is nowhere near those, but like I said it is a lot better than ‘Sucker Punch’, so take that for what it is.
 
‘Man of Steel’ is a dark, long, sometimes confusing movie (with it’s time jumps and editing) with mostly great special effects, a good villain, passable acting for the most part, and has moments of greatness.  There are better superhero movies (‘X-Men:  First Class’, ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Spider-man 2’, ‘Watchmen') and there are worse superhero movies (‘Batman & Robin’, ‘Batman Forever’, 'Ghost Rider')

REVIEW - 'This Is The End'

After a week and a half at camp, I decided to go to the movies on my way home.  


'This Is The End' (R) ***

Seth Rogen (who also co-wrote and co-directed) and Jay Baruchel attend a party at James Franco's house that is also being attended by the likes of Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, David Krumholtz, Danny McBride and Emma Watson.  And then the apocalypse happens and shenanigans ensue.  That is the entire movie in a nutshell.

It does drag a little bit sometimes when all of the survivors are holed up in James Franco's house, but overall I thought the movie was very funny.  Each of the actors play fictionalized versions of themselves, with plenty of self deprecating humor and insults to go around.  Everyone is in on the joke, and everyone seems to be having a blast.  There are a few cameo appearances that I won't give away here but they are very funny and mostly unexpected (kinda like Ryan Reynolds popping up in 'Ted' and Bill Murray popping up in 'Zombieland' - both great cameos and great comedies if you haven't seen those).

Whether you'll like this movie or not largely depends on what you think of the actors.  If you like this group of actors and think that they're hilarious, you'll like this movie.  If you don't like this group of actors and don't find pot jokes all that funny, then this definitely won't convert you.  Humor is subjective after all.  I usually find this group of actor's movies funny and this did not disappoint. 

Well, this was a short review. 

Summer Break (Part I of IV) - MAY

Originally I was going to write up a full list of things that I was planning on doing during my summer break, and then write a follow-up at the end of break to say what all I did that I had originally planned on doing, and other stuff that wasn't planned at all.

But, that didn't happen.

So instead I just decided that I'll write up a monthly post over break covering what I mostly did over that previous month during summer break.  So, without further adieu, MAY

After a rough final month of the semester, I was able to come home and start to spend some time mostly relaxing and also enjoying time with my family.  It was a bit of an adjustment.  At Ball State I had my own semi-spacious room with plenty of room to put things away and have plenty of space in my closet, drawers, and desk to put things away.  Moving back home, my new room is roughly a third of the size of my dorm room.  It's been used as a storage room, so 3/4s of the room as already full of stuff....now it's not only full of all that stuff but also contains 99% of the contents of my college dorm room.  It's a little hectic trying to put things away and find a place for things without having any room to do either, but slowly but surely I'm managing.  It will get spruced up...though by the time I finally finish up with it it might be time for me to go back to school.

While it was nice to get out of Muncie, I did find myself in Muncie not even a week after I moved out.  I was getting back a paper and my final both from my HIST 464 class, which is History of the Byzantine Empire.  While final class grades had already been uploaded and I had gotten a B+ in the class, I was really interested in what I had received on the paper.  The week it was due I had two other papers in other classes to do as well that were due earlier in the week.  In addition, I had to read most of the book on which I was basing this paper off of (which I blame on procrastination).  And to start off that week my relationship had come to an abrupt and very unexpected end, so I was having a very hard time focusing on anything at all for most of the week.  That week was physically, mentally, emotionally tolling and exhausting.  Hence why I was extremely interested in finding out what I got on the paper.  For the paper I got an A-, the final a B.

In the realm of movies, if you follow my blog you know this month in theaters I was awfully busy.  "Iron Man 3" and "Epic" with my family, "The Great Gatsby" with my grandma, "Furious 6" with my brother who's in the Army, and finally "Star Trek Into Darkness" and "The Hangover Part III" by myself.  As far as DVD rentals or Netflix goes, I did manage to get a few from the library.  "X-Men Origins:  Wolverine" was the only 'X-Men' movie that I hadn't seen yet, and the reason for me not seeing it was the fact that I never heard a single positive thing about the movie.  I heard it was horrible.  Having finally watched it, is it as bad as people say it is?  Well, kinda.  I mean don't get me wrong:  It's dumb.  It's stupid.  The special effects are iffy at best.  It felt short.  It's easily the worst of the 'X-Men' movies.  But it is watchable so I'll give it that.  Now I'm finally all caught up until 'The Wolverine' comes out next month.  I had high hopes for 'The Wolverine'.....until I finally saw a trailer for it.  It still looks a little dumb, but at the very least it should be better than 'Origins'.

The other one I rented was "This Is 40", the semi-sequel to the very hilarious "Knocked Up".  When it was in theaters last winter I wanted to see it, but never really got a chance to.  Also, I heard wildly mixed things about the movie.  Some liked it, some loved it, some hated it.  It looked funny, and usually I like the movies that Judd Apatow directs ('The 40-Year Old Virgin' was okay, 'Knocked Up' is hilarious, 'Funny People' is great though I completely understand all the complaints towards that movie).  So, what did I think of 'This is 40"?  Well, it's mostly a drama with touches of comedy.  The comedy is sometimes funny, the drama is never really involving.  It's way too long, and features far too many subplots that almost have nothing to do with the main 'plot' at all.  Some chuckles, sure, but nothing special.

As far as my summer reading goals go....well.....I started The Great Gatsby and I bought Inferno.  Nowhere near where I want to be in regards to completing that goal, but I'm sure I'll get some time to read at camp this summer.  But camp will be talked about in more detail in later posts.

I got to see my niece, my eldest brother and my sister-in-law for a little bit over Memorial Day Weekend.  Also got to see my younger brother who is serving in the Army, and will be deployed to Afghanistan in July.  Had a nice big Memorial Day cookout at my grandparents house in Ossian.  Always great to see family members that I haven't seen in awhile.  Also got to visit my 93-year old Great Grandmother in the nursing home.  Physically she seems to be doing okay, but mentally she's drastically slipped.  She hardly remembers who certain people are any more, but she does have her good days and bad days.  It's in this time it's important to pray and remember the good times.

Watched the final 93 laps of the Indy 500.  Not really a racing fan by any means, but it was exciting to watch The Greatest Spectacle in Racing with it's record number of lead changes.  I had no idea who would win at all up into the final few laps that had the caution flag out, giving Tony Kanaan his first Indy win.  Also watched part of the NBA Playoffs between the Pacers-Heat and also watched the most of the final game of the Spurs-Grizzlies series.  I have plenty to say about that but I'll be saving it for another blog post.  Let's just say it revolves around my attitude towards the NBA, NBA refs, certain NBA superstars, flopping, favoritism, egos....oh I could go on and on.  I'll save it for another post.

Well I think that about wraps up my summer break shenanigans for May 2013.  What will June bring?  Well for starters I'll be starting my summer job as a counselor at Camp Chief Little Turtle, a scout camp in Pleasant Lake, IN.  There will be more details surrounding my job and what all it will entail in future posts.  And of course I'll still find time to go see movies.  In theaters I plan on seeing the apocalyptic R-rated comedy 'This Is The End', the latest Superman reboot 'Man of Steel', and the Pixar prequel 'Monsters University'.  I usually see a movie on my nights off from camp, so I'm sure there will be other movies thrown in there as well.  Also I might hit up Redbox every now and then.  The Wayans Bros. spoof 'A Haunted House', the delayed 'Gangster Squad', and the Arnold Schwarzenegger comeback movie 'The Last Stand' I need to catch up on.  Hopefully my summer reading picks up a bit, and hopefully there will be new and unexpected things happen that I can write up about in my June post.

Well, I've said enough so I'll talk to you all later.