"The Amazing Spider-Man" Lives Up To Its Name

      As the credits rolled up and the lights began to be turned back on in the movie theater, there was only one word that came to mind, wow. This movie was not only really good, it exceeded every expectation that had been previously been put on it, this is by far the best Spider-Man movie ever made, even when in comparison with "Spider-Man 2". As a nerd some things need to be said first, the movie does take many liberties, so if you are a comic book purist just prepare yourself right now, I'm not a purist so it didn't bother me too much but various people around where making remarks after the movie, it doesn't take away from the epicness of this movie, but the warning had to be made.

     This Spider-Man movie is not concerned with being an "action only" movie, this movie was concerned with telling a story, the story being what made Peter Parker become Spider-Man. The evolution from being weak to gaining strength, from being immature and beginning to gain some wisdom, that was where the movie shone. The film took great effort in depicting this process carefully and meticulously so that you understand as a viewer that becoming Spider-Man was no cake walk, that it took days of exercise, of testing out powers, of personal tragedy, that made Peter Parker be able to finally grow up and become the hero we have all come to love.

    The greatest thing about this movie is that throughout the flick you can't help but get giddy at seeing the Peter Parker from the comics get put on the big screen, this is the Peter we love, the trash talking tragic hero who is but a boy in the end of the day. That was a huge critique of the first Spider-Man film that was done with Tobey Maguire, the fact that he did not look, act, behave, or resemble an awkward high school student, that was a major flaw, but on this movie we get to experience his evolution, him coming to his powers, him understanding the responsibility he possesses and the fact that in the end of the day he's a young immature teen trying to do some good while making mistakes all along the way, these are all depicted brilliantly in the flick.

   Mad props should be given to Rhys Ifans who played Dr. Curt Connors, depicting The Lizard and not making it look silly is a tough tough thing to do. Rhys is a brilliant actor and it was awesome to see him play this very difficult role so well, selling the whole experience to the audience. The director's choice of going with the character Gwen Stacy instead of Mary Jane was awesome, it follows the original story well and made me happy, but her being played by Emma Stone was legendary, Emma is amazing, not only does she play the role well but she is also very important in Peter's evolution, the casting of Emma Stone here was a fantastic move.

   Andrew Garfield also deserves tons of praise for his performance as Spider-Man, he was quirky, goofy, and sold the character ridiculously well. Peter Parker is not a cool kid, he's always a tragic hero who gets burned over and over again even though he's doing his best to save the world and while this all is going on he is still filled with witty banter and aided in his journey by good friends and the women who push him to be better than he is. This is where saying that this is the best Spider-Man movie ever made is no stretch, for this is the most "real" out of all the films, this one is the one that sells the character and truly shows Peter Parker's personal growth, his personal evolution, so brilliantly.

      In more than one scene I got goosebumps all over and in one particular scene I almost broke into tears, this movie will move you, it will inspire you and it will make your day. When you leave this movie you'll come out of the theater with a new perspective on the Spider-Man story, especially if you have never read any of the comics, which you should if you get a chance for they are awesome, this was a successful reboot for sure. Ah, I could talk more and more about this movie, it was just so awesome. For the sake of brevity this post will end here, but do go watch this flick, it fully deserves your attention.

    Love from your humble blogger,

The 2012 MTV Movie Awards

     The 2012 MTV Movie Awards were packed with excitement this year, many thought that Russell Brand was going to have a mediocre performance this year but instead he surprised us all by not only doing a good job but being pretty funny as well in the process. A lot happened within this year's awards so for the sake of length we'll just be featuring the major moments that stood out to us, and finish with some critiques regarding the award. The first thing that must be said about yesterday's performance is that MTV spared no expense, the show was fantastic, the sets were awesome and the DJ did a fantastic job keeping the house alive, overall MTV set up a pretty good show, it wasn't perfect by a long shot but it was much better than many had previously speculated.

     The show was preceded by an episode of Punk'd hosted by Ashton Kutcher, sort of his come back on set and taking things to a higher level thing. The two people that were Punk'd were Drake and Kim Kardashian, Drake's prank was perfectly done and got him brilliantly, Ashton caused an earthquake to occur within a parking garage, that was pretty brilliant and got a good laugh from everyone. Kim's prank was way too over the top, she knew something was wrong from the beginning so there was no freak out from her, just her being like "this is way to weird, something is going on". Ashton makes the claim in the end that "this is how it should be done" but really he failed hardcore at his second prank, so let us hope that in subsequent shows the hosts learn from Ashton's failure and pull off more believable pranks.

    This year's MTV Awards was one of the first ones in a while that all the musical talent within it did a fantastic job, there is always one group who does a mediocre job or just doesn't "show up" when the pressure is on, but this year everyone came with their A game and the performances were fantastic. Fun. opened the show delivering a fantastic opener truly getting everyone pumped up and ready for the award show. Wiz Khalifa performed his newest single "work hard play hard" and also did a fantastic job, not his best work in my humble opinion, but a good song anyway. The highlight of this year's musical numbers had to me Johnny Depp joining "The Black Keys" on stage and showing us that he can still rock out. Johnny was presented with the "Generation Award" this year for all his years as an actor, and rightfully so, he has had a fantastic career for sure. This was by far the most epic part in the show, I recommend finding this on YouTube and taking a look, it was pretty awesome.

   A good majority of the awards were well presented, you never know with MTV movie awards, sometimes you can't help but feel like their so called "democratic voting" is not so democratic, personally I think it isn't, but some disagree with me on this. Anyway, the most deserved awards were obviously all the awards given to Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, both of which deserved every award they got for sure, from best fight to best cast to best transformation, they deserved all the awards they got. The most genuine moment within the award show was that of Emma Stone as she received the "trailblazer" award, not only did she admit to not deserving the award but had a legit "truth" moment on stage where she let her heart be known, if she didn't deserve that award before, after her speech she definitely did, Emma, way to be awesome.

    The lame awards were surprisingly all due to "Twilight", this isn't due to me having a bias against "Twilight" but the looking at the polls and seeing a race between "Harry Potter" and "Hunger Games" be overshadowed by a contestant that didn't have a strong presence in the polls to begin with, now that's just plain crazy, specially if you take twitter votes into consideration. Personally I think "Twilight" won best movie over "Harry Potter" only because another one is coming out and they need the publicity, Harry was way better than "Twilight" that isn't even a fight there. Another epic premature fail by MTV was naming "Project X" as an instant cult classic, what were they thinking here?, "our movie didn't make as much as it should have, let's make it a cult classic and people will go watch it".....lame MTV, super lame. And don't even start with "Twilight" deserving best kiss, maybe next year's award you could pull this card, but when you are competing against "Harry Potter" and "The Hunger Games" there is no way that "Twilight" deserved to win, this was a legit *facepalm* moment. The best part of them winning though was that fact that no one would go on stage to kiss Kristen Stewart, she kept calling different people to go and share a kiss with her and everyone was like "as if", it was pretty lolzy.

     Last but not least we got to honor Christopher Nolan for his Batman series, which was well deserved for sure, in the process we got a very heartfelt Christian Bale giving a shout out to Heath Ledger, which was quite emotional. The show overall was pretty decent and a fun watch for sure, if you missed it then go and watch some of the highlights, not something I would personally watch again, it wasn't that good, but for what is was it was a job well done. We hope you all have a fantastic week and a fantastic Monday.

   Love from your humble blogger,

The 84th Academy Awards Highlights!!!

      This year's Academy Awards were filled with memorable moments, from Billy Crystal outdoing himself once again showing us how brilliant he is, to the red carpet wowing us all this year, to Cirque Du Soleil impressing us all with a fantastic performance, this year housed many great performances and for the most part very tasteful jokes, there were a few people that went overboard, but in the end this year looked like a family gathering, that is the best way to put it, it really looked like everyone cared about one another, seeing old friends, remembering old friends lost, and honoring the greatest performances of last year, overall a job well done by the Academy.

    The Red Carpet

    There were so many good dresses this year, it was quite astounding how all the celebrities this year kept the affair elegant. Every year there are always a few people that want to out-do someone else, there is always an outfit that looks ridiculous and makes us all wonder why anyone would ever wear it but this year there were none, there was no one dress that stood out to us that made us go "what is she thinking?" and that is a blessing. A battle took place here as we tried to establish who our top four picks of the night were but here they are, in order: Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer, Ellie Kemper, and Michelle Williams. There were a ton of great dresses, but these four stood out to us the most, in some cases it wasn't so much how gorgeous the dresses were but it was how much the dresses fit each celebrities' personality that tipped our votes to these four. We're just glad that this year there were no swan dresses, that is always a relief.

     The Host

   Billy Crystal did it again, he showed the Academy that not only is he a great choice but that he is always a safe choice. Safe is important here, for it takes a certain talent to be able to joke with celebrities and not get them angry or bitter towards you and the Academy, here Billy shines, there is something about the guy, a swagger about him that allows him to say things and do things ordinary people would not be able to do, the guy convinced Clooney to kiss him on a video montage, Billy Crystal is good. Hiss jokes throughout the night were all kept tasteful, though in some cases they were a little too 'in the know' for most, for many didn't get half the jokes, some of us had to pause every few minutes or so to explain the jokes along the way, besides that the performance was flawless, it was everything one would expect from an Oscar and more, a job well done.

    Memorable Awards

    It came to no surprise to us that Woody Allen won for best original screenplay, but we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of awards "Hugo" won, Martin deserved to win all those awards, the movie was truly deserving of being up there with the other nominees. "The Artist" won for best picture, deserving so, and to our dismay the majority of people watching had never heard of it, not watched it, or plan on watching it, this depressed us a little for it was a fantastic movie deserving of everyone's attention. Some of the more emotional awards were Jean Dujardin winning for best actor making him the first French man to win the award, Meryl Streep winning for her fantastic performance in "The Iron Lady", and of course how could we not talk about Octavia Spencer winning for best supporting female actress for her brilliant performance in "The Help".

    Performances

   Cirque Du Soleil again showed the world why they are the best, their performance was mere flawless, it was tasteful and not over the top, just a good quick demonstration of everything they can do while keeping us thirsting for more, we felt this was a great addition to the show. We also really enjoyed the incorporation of the cast of "Bridesmaids" within the show, from the sketch with Billy, to their presentation of awards we felt the Academy was wise here in playing alongside the line but not crossing it, a hard thing to pull off. We need to talk about Octavia here, her emotional reaction while receiving the award stole all of our hearts, we already loved her, but now we adore her, she showed us what these awards are all about, it was deeply moving. The only thing we were disappointed about was that there was no music number done by "The Muppets", it's tradition for the winner to perform the song, or for all the contestants to play their songs, but this year we didn't get that, and this year would have been the year to do it, can you imagine Jason Segel up there with Kermit and the crew singing and dancing, that would have been magical, a truly surprising absence. 

   There was so much that happened in this year's Academy but these are the most memorable aspects to us, there were a few things that shocked us a little, like the tool move by the "Emperor" of dumping sand on Ryan Seacrest's jacket was tasteless, though it was funny, it was still tasteless, one cannot help but wonder what was going through Ryan's mind as he was going through all that. Another thing that surprised us was the number of Spoilers that "The Descendants" had, it was almost like they were doing it on purpose, maybe the thought was "no one came to see it, maybe if we insert some spoilers it'll spark some interest", it wasn't a good move overall, Spoilers are always bad, period. But if you take the whole thing into consideration these are miniscule things, out of everything that could have gone wrong these two things are nothing, thus overall this was one of the most successful awards as of late, we praise the Academy for a job well done.

  We hope that your week might be a good one, and pray that you have a fantastic Monday,

Love from your humble blogger,

The Importance Of Personal Growth: Heroes

      There is a difference between heroes or people we look up to and role models or mentors, at least for the sake of this entry. Heroes are people we look up to that we do not have interactions with, and probably will never do so, this could be a movie celebrity, a music artist, a sports icon and so on. We all have either a few heroes we love or just one person we idolize and follow. This does not mean you are a stalker of said person, it just means that that person is somewhat of hero to you, he or she is someone you resonate with or someone that inspires you to be better, and thus there is an inherent importance of caution when deciding who will be the heroes in your life.

      There are good celebrities and bad celebrities, there are those that we should look up to and those that are headed down a road of destruction that we should stay away from. The issue here is advertising, some celebs are horrible people lacking in good character and function more on selfish actions than anything else, we've seen plenty of those throughout the years, though through TV shows and advertising some celebs that should never be looked up to are regarded as great role models. We aren't saying here that Kim Kardashian is a horrible human being, we are also not saying that she never does anything good, what we are saying is that one should think twice before modeling their lives after hers, that Kim is not the best role model in life, we could include a series of other actors/actress, musicians and so on that one should not look up to like Lindsay Lohan for instance, though Lohan went off the deep end the example stands, there are plenty of good people to look up to and plenty of bad, be careful who you idolize for they will influence your life.

    Though there are plenty of bad people out there, there are some actresses that continually blow our minds with how awesome they are. There are so many good examples here, Natalie Portman is a clear choice, here we have a good actress who doesn't do the whole paparazzi thing and became amazing with her rap on SNL, she won our hearts that day. She is not alone though, there are plenty of other actresses that are regarded as not only good actresses but good human beings like Julia Roberts, or Emma Stone, both of which have been in amazing movies and have had the opportunity to be horrible human beings but have chosen the higher ground and seek to portray good images of themselves, here are people worth looking up to.

   The guys are a lot funnier here, only because their cases are so obvious that only a few people really miss the point here. An example of a bad hero "The Situation" from Jersey Shore, some people actually look up to the guy and every time they do our hearts die a little of sadness, we're talking a guy so ridiculous that Abercrombie and Fitch actually paid him not to wear their clothing on the show, yeah that happened. There are really cool guys out there though, this is also a solid list like Ryan Gosling, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, and so forth, though our favorite has to be Hugh Jackman. Hugh is not only an awesome actor he is also known for being best friends with his limo drivers, security and so forth, the guy just drips with charisma, he's a man worth looking up to, here is a guy that actually is attempting to live a good life.

    There are those though that inspire us with their words, either written or spoken words, these people come forth and establish an example of what it looks like to attempt to live a life worth re-living. Here we cannot help but mention C. S. Lewis who authored the great Narnia series, here was a good man who gave us great works of fiction and also great works on life. There are so many authors we could bring up here, one notable author who happens to be looked up to within almost all mediums of entertainment is Neil Gaiman. Neil is the author of one of the most famous comic book series out there called "The Sandman", he was also the author of books like "Coraline", "Stardust" which were both made to movies, and now there is talk about his book "American Gods" to be made into a HBO show, which is of course due to his brilliance as a writer but his character played a huge role into him getting as far as he did. Neil is a rare breed in the sense that few people do not like him, everyone that has worked with him love him, thus here is a man worth looking up to, here is a true hero.

NPH is the man, 'nough said

     One might think that who your heroes are does not influence how you behave, but this is not the case, a simple truth in life is that you will always be influenced by the people you look up to, its an inescapable truth, one you should know, for it is important to discern who those heroes are and if they are worthy of being called that, analyze your own life and seek people of good character, thus by doing so you will grow in a positive fashion. To sum up the series, one should always be careful when choosing a mentor, the friends you surround yourself with, and the heroes you look up to, choose people of good character and you will grow to possess good character, so choose wisely.

  We hope you have a great weekend, be safe, and rest well,