Quick Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim, set in the near future, begins with a prelude: the world is in peril by Kaiju, giant monsters from another dimension or something that arrive through a portal deep in the Pacific Ocean and begin destroying coastal cities. The countries of the world unite their resources to create Jaegers -- enormous fighting machines, piloted by humans. For some reason, these machines require two humans to work them, and they have to have their minds united by a mental link called "the drift." This, in our current era of drone aircraft, just seems odd. For a time this is a success, until more powerful Kaiju arrive. The Jaeger program is then discontinued in favor of a plan of defense so ludicrous I won't even spoil it. Anyway, there are four remaining Jaegers and the head of the program has a plan to close the rift once and for all...well, enough of the plot. Essentially, this is like a combination of Godzilla and other monsters vs. these guys (and I wouldn't have known of this without having seen an episode of that show a day earlier thanks to my friend Kurt's love of the show) with a dash of other movies thrown in. Both the machines and the monsters are lumbering, and as everything seems to takes place at night, often in rainy conditions, or at the ocean floor, it's hard to see exactly how the Kaiju differ from each other and the fights are at times a bit muddled. That's kind of inept filmmaking to me. It's just a little too derivative to take seriously, considering the prerelease hype. My grade: C-plus.

Mural Arts Program Bus Tour

I took this tour back in October. The city's wonderful Mural Arts Program has a number of bus/trolley tours, walking tours and even a bike tour. More info can be found here. This particular tour focused on North Philadelphia, and we ended up, among other places, seeing El Centro de Oro and the colorful storefronts on Germantown Avenue. Also, check out my photo blog for another unique self-portrait. (I made a few comments on some of the photos, so you may want to check out the main page...or I think you can click on the pics to see my comments...)

Since Flickr has increased their free space to a Terabyte, I'm using it again for my photo sets. That means, if all works properly, I can embed slideshows again!




By the way, do you think this is supposed to be Michael Jackson?

Quick Review: Despicable Me 2

Often, when I really love a movie, I hope that no sequel arrives. So often those sequels disappoint. Thus, I was worried about Despicable Me 2. How could they come up with another story involving supervillain-turned-doting dad Gru (voice of Steve Carell), his three little girls and his seemingly endless supply of Minions? Would they turn Gru evil again? Find a reason for him to be separated from his daughters? Thankfully, there's a workable story which avoids both of those obvious misfires. Gru is recruited by the Anti-Villain League to help stop a different criminal's fiendish plot, teaming up with one of their agents (Kristen Wiig). There isn't as much interaction between Gru and the girls, as this time Gru's personal growth, if you will, comes from his getting back into the world of...dating. Also, the Minion activity is upped, which some adults may find tiresome. But I'm a big kid at heart. My grade: A-minus.

(Speaking of the Minions, I bought a DVD of the first movie because it had a coupon for some Fandango cash, and look who was inside?)

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 7-10-13

It's been a while for one of these, soooo...

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
Simple - k.d. lang
The War Is Over - Kelly Clarkson
She's Comin' Out Swingin' - The Simpsons
Changes - David Bowie
Say Goodbye - Dave Matthews Band
You Take Some Lentils and You Take Some Rice - Eurythmics
Here You Come Again - Dolly Parton
Two Hearts - Stephanie Mills with Teddy Pendergrass
You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) - Dionne Warwick
This Love (Tricky Stewart Remix) - Maroon 5
Kill The Pain - INXS
Life Can Be So Nice - Prince and the Revolution

Quick Reviews: Five More...

Oops, I did it again. Procrastinated on writing about the movies I've seen, that is. I guess all that writing for "Man of Steel" took a lot out of me...no, just the usual issues. Anyway, here are the most recent five:

The Bling Ring is based on a true story about shallow, vapid young people robbing the homes of shallow, vapid celebrities such as Paris Hilton -- celebrities so shallow that they tended to leave the doors to their homes unlocked, which made it much easier for the burglars. I can think of no further proof of the utter shallowness of Paris Hilton than the fact that not only did she cameo in the movie, but allowed the filmmakers to film the scenes of the robbery of her house at that very same house. The movie made no points, taught no lessons, and doesn't even function as a pseudo-documentary. My grade: D.

World War Z was just odd. It felt like a mashup of different genres -- science fiction, disaster film, horror -- and it all didn't blend well for me. And Brad Pitt as an action hero didn't connect with me either. Also, I hate that the film started out in Philadelphia, where Pitt's character's family lived, but was obviously filmed elsewhere (London, if I recall). Even the skyline didn't look like Philadelphia. My grade: C-plus.

Monsters University is a prequel, focusing on the first meeting of Mike and Sully at college. When Pixar's followed up on previous films they've been good (both "Toy Story" sequels) and bad ("Cars 2," from what I've heard). This one is okay, but it doesn't bode well for other planned sequels, including one for "Finding Nemo." Pixar needs to focus on original stuff again and leave sequels and prequels to Disney's direct-to-DVD products. My grade: B.

When I get excited about a movie based on its trailer, I am always concerned about a letdown. Thankfully, there was no letdown from The Heat, the Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy mismatched-buddy-cop (well, cop and FBI in this one) action comedy. Lots of humor, foul language, violence -- but heart as well. Bullock and McCarthy work very well together. My grade: A.

The Lone Ranger has Armie Hammer in the title role, but make no mistake, the masked man's the straight man for Johnny Depp's shticky Tonto. The Ranger is more of a dolt than a hero, and it all strained my credulity. It got a surprising amount of laughs from others in the theater, but I mostly sat there sighing and rolling my eyes as it went on and on, interspersed with a ridiculous framing sequence featuring an elderly Depp-as-Tonto telling the story to a little boy at a traveling circus. My grade: D-plus.

Quick Review: Man Of Steel

This is a not-so-quick read, actually.

If you've read this blog in the past, back when I used to post a lot more (and yes, I'm going to keep making the point that my lack of posts has been an abysmal failure of mine), you know that I am wayyyyyy into Superman. The comic books, the animated films and series, the TV series and, of course, the movies. The comic books, lately, I've put aside. My disdain for the changes foisted upon Superman's character by DC Comics when they rebooted their entire universe caused me to pretty much stop buying the books. That's not to say I haven't bought any comic books; there are the Simpsons and Futurama titles, and other things I've dabbled in, including some other DC titles. (I'll have to summarize all of that somewhere. There's over a year's worth of purchases so I won't really summarize them as I used to.) But as for the main Super-titles, I haven't purchased them.

Still, I am all for Superman, when done right. So geeked was I for Man of Steel, the latest big-screen attempt to cash in on Kal-El's popularity, that I not only purchased a ticket in advance (which I never do), but I spent the extra cash for IMAX (well, the faux-IMAX that they have at the AMC at Franklin Mills Mall).

There's another reason I mention the whole DC Comics reboot. As with every iteration, the individual creators tend to make changes to suit their needs. (And at times those changes get into the comic books. The 1940s cartoons had Superman fly for the first time, instead of leaping from place to place; Kryptonite was introduced in the radio serials in 1943; the list goes on.)

Quick Review: This Is The End

And now back to our regularly scheduled movie review programming. (I hope.) I expected a lot from the trailer for This Is The End and, unlike a lot of movies recently, this one mostly lived up to my expectations. A comedy in which the Apocalypse takes place is one thing. When it focuses on how this event affects Hollywood celebrities, that's another story. And when those celebrities -- James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and Danny McBride are the stars, with many other cameos, from Rihanna to Michael Cera to Channing Tatum -- are playing exaggerated versions of themselves, it goes to the next level. Lots of raunch, but also lots of laughs and some meta commentary about the celebs themselves, their importance (or lack thereof), how they're perceived by the public and media, etc., and a little stab at religious beliefs (after all, the Apocalypse is happening). Had me laughing almost from the start to the finish. My grade: A-minus.

Quick Reviews Catch-Up Part 2: Summer Flicks

Continuing my rally to get to the land of semi-timeliness...and now we get to the movie industry's prime time.

Star Trek Into Darkness: A couple of the nods to the TV series were actually a bit much for me. I don't think it was good as the previous film. My grade: B+

Now You See Me: At times fun, stupid, mystifying, ridiculous...I had an idea of who was behind everything but was only half-right. I can't explain more without spoilers. My grade: B

The Internship: Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson reunited. No "Wedding Crashers" - not as raunchy nor as funny - somewhat predictable, at times charming but too stupid too often. My grade: C+

The Great Gatsby: Visually spectacular. I say this despite the fact that I got a 3D upgrade for free because the theater loaded up the 3D version by mistake for a 2D showing, so they had to give everyone the glasses. I'm not a 3D fan. Anyway, visually spectacular. Some of the music from the touted soundtrack fit well, some of it was jarring. Acting, though, was not good. If I never hear Leonardo DiCaprio call someone "old sport" again it'll be too soon. My grade: C+

Iron Man 3: Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic in this role, as usual, but the plot was lacking. Not as bad as Iron Man 2 but not as good as the first (and nowhere near "The Avengers"). My grade: C+

The Purge: The premise that for one night a year all crime is legal is provocative, but I was unsurprised at almost everything that happened. Not many sympathetic characters in this. My grade: C-

After Earth: Who comes up with a script that has Will Smith play a cold military dad and Jaden Smith play his son, a sour, whiny military cadet, in a future where the earth is a very bad place and humans live elsewhere, and the plot keeps Will in one place doing nothing most of the time? Will's talent and charisma (and whatever talent and charisma Jaden has) are totally wasted. My grade: D.

Quick Reviews Catch-Up Part 1: Pre-Summer

Yeah, so remember how I used to write little reviews of movies I saw in theaters? Obviously I haven't done it in a while because of...well, a lot of reasons. But that doesn't mean I haven't been seeing them. So it's time to get started again. In order to get through this quickly I'm not going to say a whole lot about these, as most of them are already out of the theaters. (Some are out on DVD and Blu-ray already, though.)

I've broken them down into two posts. This one deals with everything released prior to the summer blockbuster season (which actually started in early May with "Iron Man 3"), with the rest to follow.

42: Well-acted, but kind of a standard biopic. My grade:  B+

21 and Over: College students get drunk and party. Again, kind of standard but well-executed. My grade:  B+

Oblivion: It held my interest. I saw this long after it opened and already learned of a key plot twist, so the element of surprise was gone. My grade: B

Oz the Great and Powerful: James Franco as the about-to-become-the-Wizard of Oz? A little bit meh. Which witch was going to turn green was pretty obvious. Speaking of, when are we getting a film version of "Wicked," by the way? My grade: B

The Call: Ridiculous and over-the-top but in a good way. My grade: B

The Croods: Unfortunately it's no "Flintstones" (TV series). Fortunately it's no "Flintstones" (live-action films). My grade: B

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: Underrated. Starts off rather horrendously but somewhere along the way it hooked me in. Magic? My grade: B-

Mama: Saved from a worse grade by Jessica Chastain and by a twist at the end that I rather appreciated. My grade: B-

Admission: Considering it starred Tina Fey and the adorable Paul Rudd, a big disappointment. My grade: C+

Escape from Planet Earth: Wasn't expecting a whole lot. Got what I expected. My grade: C+

Pain and Gain: Biggest problems: implausible plot (despite being based on a true story) and unlikable characters. My grade: D+

Scary Movie 5: Serious lack of funny jokes is a bad thing in this spoof genre. My grade: D

Spring Breakers: Garbage featuring the worst James Franco performance I've seen. At one point he performs fellatio on a gun. That's not what we want to see him fellate, trust me. My grade: F

My Summer Playlist "Update"

...and by "update" I mean, here's the whole damn list from my iTunes library. Instead of repeating links to the prior posts and their bits and pieces, I decided to just copy and paste it all here. This means a number of songs I put on the list in the last year or so haven't been mentioned before.

I guess I'll repeat all my disclaimers as well: the songs on my list fall into at least one of the following categories (other than the obvious, that they're in my iTunes and I like them):

• To at least some extent they're about summer or the sun or warmth or heat
• They were released during/became hits during the summer
• I either discovered/fell in love with them during the summer or associate them with summer for some reason or they just felt to me like they had a summery sound or vibe -- so this part is very subjective and your mileage may vary

Feel free to go back to my old posts and see some of the things I wrote about the songs when I first posted the list, and in some cases listen to them via YouTube links. And so, after the jump...174 songs of my summers, past and present: