The Road To "Prometheus"

     Generally we are very careful about spoilers within our articles, but this time we will be a little loose on the subject and though we will not contain blatant *spoilers* for every film, there will be some things that will be said that could "spoil" some things within the movie. The purpose here is to prepare you for "Prometheus" which is a prequel to the alien series. There are a lot of people out there who are eager to watch "Prometheus" but either don't have the time or the want to watch all the four movies that follow it, thus the purpose of this post, to aid you in getting a little background so that you might be able to appreciate "Prometheus" more. Don't worry though, we won't ruin the movies, but just warn you about quality, major story premise and so forth, we hope this article might help prepare you for the newest addition to the series.

   Alien

     This original Sci-Fi horror movie came out in 1979 and was directed by Ridley Scott. The story follows a mining ship that intercepts a weird message that seems like an S.O.S. and goes to investigate within a small planet. There they find a ship, a ship that carries some surprises and everyone enters into a horror movie. This ship is important for it is the same ship we see in the preview for "Prometheus" so in the movie "Prometheus" is where we find out who or what that ship was and what happened to the crew. "Alien" is a great movie and we recommend you watch you, but be warned that it is a slow movie, the movie is just under 2 hours and a solid hour and a half (almost) are just back-story. In 1979 slow movies weren't a problem, so if you can appreciate that then you will appreciate this movie. We learn a few important things in this movie, xenomorphs are bad evil creatures, cyborgs exist and are used in all crews, and Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver's character) really loves cats, while being awesome of course.

   Aliens

     The second movie within this franchise is directed by James Cameron in 1986, when watching this movie we recommend watching the special edition, it does make the movie be 2 hours and 39 minutes but it is worth it for sure, this is the best in the series in our humble opinion. Here we follow Ripley's character again as she is again confronted with "the company" and xenomorphs. The big two things we learn from this movie is that cyborgs are your friends, xenomorphs hunt at night, they hunt in packs, there is a mother who gives birth to them, and although marines are no match for them Ripley is because she is awesome. Another important plot point is Ripley's love for "Newt", without a cat around Ripley had to protect something (silly joke :p). James Cameron knows how to entertain his audience and "Aliens" is no different, Cameron delivers a great spectacle throughout the whole production, this is a solid movie to watch.

   Alien 3

     This is by far the worst movie in the series, it is done 6 years later 1992 and is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Social Network, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) so one would imagine that this would be equal to or at least on a similar playing field as his other movies, specially being that there is very little time lag between this movie and his other creations, so there is no excuse to how much this movie sucked. David Fincher must have been drunk when he made this movie, it has the worst dialogue, the worst sound, the worst picture quality, special effects, acting, and continuity, in fact there is very little good about this movie. This movie reminds us of bad British television, and the amount of curse words in this movie would make a sailor blush. *SPOILERS* Things to learn from this movie, there is such a thing as too many curse words, Ripley is still awesome and is now a host to a xenomorph queen, which makes no actual sense (who cares right?....what's a script, anyone ever heard of that?), and Ripley kills herself in order to prevent "the company" from getting their hands on the xenomorph growing within her. There is a level of applause deserved here, I can't see how someone would ever be able to make a worse movie, so job well done.

  Alien: Resurrection

    Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed this film in 1997 and did a fantastic job, well not really fantastic, more like made for television fantastic, but better than Alien 3, everything is better than Alien 3. The true motive for watching this movie and the thing that makes this movie so awesome from beginning to end is that it was written by Joss Whedon. If you are familiar with Whedon's work you'll recognize his signature moves from beginning to end and will come to appreciate this movie. This isn't the best directed movie, there are issues with lighting and set, but it is definitely one of the best scripted of the 4 movies. The major points here is that humans never learn from past mistakes, the movie takes place 200 years after "Aliens 3", and Ripley is brought back to life and is now part xenomorph. If you don't find any of that too absurd then do watch this movie, if nothing else this is a fun movie, and Joss Whedon is the man, so if you're a Whedon fan definitely watch it.

    And there you have it, all four movies reviewed and major points given. We've attempted to avoid as many spoilers as possible, except for the third movie, only because we want to spare you the pain and agony. "Prometheus" hits the big screen on Friday and is being directed by Ridley Scott so you can expect big things from this movie, we'll have a full review for you on Friday. We hope your week has been great and pray that it might finish well.

Love from your humble blogger,

"The Avengers" Review: The Best Superhero Movie Ever Made

  How can we put this..."The Avengers" was the best superhero based movie ever to be made, and that's an understatement. From beginning to end the movie had our attention, if there were any doubts on casting prior to the release of this movie then all those doubts are gone now. The theater was laughing and cheering their favorite hero the whole movie, it was a great experience. To put it simply, Marvel has outdone themselves, we were looking forward to this movie but never did we assume that this movie would be this good, this was one of those "I could sit here and re-watch the whole thing" movies, if you don't have plans to go watch it then do yourself a kindness, change your mind and allow yourself to be blown away by this awesome movie.

    When talking about this movie we cannot begin anywhere but with Joss Whedon. This was your classic Joss Whedon work, it was funny, it was serious, it was entertaining from beginning to end and it was just plain awesome. Joss doesn't disappoint, he directed and co-wrote this movie, if you are familiar with his work then you know what we're talking about, Joss Whedon has been writing/directed works like "The Cabin In The Woods", "Firefly", "Buffy", "Toy Story", and a ton more, if you have never seen "Firefly" then do so. Most of the humor within "The Avengers" was thanks to him, and it was awesome humor, it was a perfect balance of everyone's ego while keeping us all entertained the whole time. We cannot wait for the DVD to come out so that we may watch the extra scenes, there are a lot of rumors circulating about the scenes that were taken out that Joss wanted to put in there, just another thing to look forward to.

     Looking back upon this flick the character that deserves to be talked about first is the incredible Hulk for he was the least looked forward to character and the choosing of Ruffalo as the Hulk made many worried that the Hulk wasn't going to be played right, let us put those fears at rest in saying that Ruffalo did a fantastic job. The Hulk in this movie was awesome, his every appearance was awesome, we had people cheering for him every time he appeared on screen. The humor Joss was able to weave into the Hulk was brilliant and created some of the funniest most awesome moments in the movie. Mark Ruffalo deserves to be commended though, he played Bruce Banner exactly like Bruce should be played, it was an exceptional performance. With the exception of the latest Hulk movie with Edward Norton, we had not had this good of a performance ever, and even though we love Norton we cannot help but want more Ruffalo on the screen from now on.

      One of the biggest worries when releasing a big budget production like this one with many strong actors within it is that the actors will clash with one another trying to outdo one another, but this was not the case here. The movie flowed like it should have flowed and the actors behaved like a team, you could tell that they were all in this together from beginning to end. They all had a strong presence and all of them had funny little jokes here and there, picking a favorite among them is a difficult task, this is the reaction one should have when watching this kind of movie, if it is done well that is, and oh this movie was awesome. One would imagine that their personalities would have clashed and their stage presence would have made this movie unwatchable but trust when we say that it was everything we ever dreamed of and more.

     Everyone that has ever read a comic book or watched a superhero movie has dreamed of this moment, as IGN's review puts it "this is the movie that played out in our minds as we read the comics", except it was written by Joss Whedon so it blew everything we could possibly imagine out of the water. Let's not forget the side characters as well, Nick Fury was played perfectly by Samuel which was expected but a surprise came with Cobie Smulder's performance (Robin from "How I Met Your Mother") as she played Agent Maria Hill, she did a fantastic job and made us want to see her in more movies, her career is one worth following for sure. When rottentomatoes.com gives a movie a 93% you know the movie is going to be amazing, we fall right in line with everyone else in saying that this movie was a definite 4.5/5, we would give it a perfect score but that would mean that nothing more can be done to make the next one more awesome and that's simply not true, think Spider-Man and Wolverine making an appearance, that would be awesome.

      So there you have it, this is how you should spend your money this weekend, be it today or tomorrow, just do yourself a kindness and go watch this movie, it's sure to not disappoint. Make sure to stay for both secret endings not just the first one, you won't regret it.

 Love from your humble blogger,