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Now that we are going to jumps into the summer movie season in a couple weeks I thought it might be nice to share my thoughts on some of the movies I've seen, and some movies that looked like shit. Let me say that I love free screenings. I have not paid for a movie since seeing Avatar for the second time. I mean I get so many free tickets that have the time I can't even go to them.

I saw Edge of Darkness back in January and it was decent, but not you know I was not expecting much anyway. It's a comeback vehicle for Mel Gibson who had not acted in a movie since the little DUI tirade about how the jews are screwing up America. Yeah, I would say out of the spotlight for a while too. So after directing Apocalypto and going through a nasty divorce with his wife who nearly tooklike half of everything he had, he is back. This is why you always sign a pre nup kids.

Edge of Darkness is about Gibson's daughter getting killed by some guys and now is going after the guys who killed his daughter. Gibson finds out that his daughter's murder is connected to some big government conspiracy or whatever. Another standard revenge movie with nothing special in it. It had a couple of good violent moments, but they were to far in between and there was too much damn talking. You can skip Edge of Darkness.

I saw The Lovely Bones back in January too, which I really let me down before the film came out. The reason behind that is because this looked like a potential Oscar nominee for a long time. I thought this was going to be a Best Picture Nominee along with Nine. I mean it Lovely Bones it directed by Peter Jackson, Spielberg is an Executive Producer, has an Oscar winning cast, and based off a hit bookWell we all know how that turned out. Both Nine and The Lovely Bones turned out to be critical and and commercials failures. Well to be fair Lovely Bones did a little better, but still barely broke even with its production budget with $66 million. At first it looked like it cost $100 million, but the budget actually turned out to be $65 million.

The first thing I want to say is that the film really deals with some dark subject matter. The film is ablout a girl named Suzie Salmon, played beautifully by Saoirse Ronan. She is killed by a child molester, and now she is watching over her family - and her killer - from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal. This is some deep stuff and Jackson's overbarring visuals don't really mix well with this depressing story. Jackson doesn't make full use of his cast, but Stanley Tucci owns this movie. He plays the child molester and he gets deep into his role, and truly creeped me out and was a great villain. Besides that the story really doesn't go anywhere and the ending is a little anti climatic for me. I'm going to see this film again since I got a free DVD of it. So maybe my decision might change. However, right now I say skip it.

I also saw Extraordinary Measures in january witjh bredan Fraiser and Harrison Ford. The basic plot is about the efforts of John and Aileen Crowley to find a researcher who might have a cure for their two children's rare genetic disorder. This movie should not have been released to the big screen. This is totally a made-for-TV movie that has no kind of cinematic flair. Seriously, this is melodramatic soap opera movie that has been told dozens of times. If it was a TV movie then I wouldn't judge it that hard. It wasn't and it was painfully average and unnecessary. I say skip it.

In February I saw the Wolfman, which i also did not have high expectations for at all. It was supposed to come out last year, but thabks to reshoots it was delayed until February. Whenever there are reshoots it means that the film is not going to be good, and I was right. It stars Benecio Del Toro, who I cannot understand sometimes, as a man visiting his old home and is bitten by a werewolf. Not much of a plot, but the transformation scenes are good. Some of the action scenes are cool, but not enough action. The movie didn't really hold my interest and wastes its good cast. There are much better werewolf movie, but renting it wouldn't hurt. of course you could just rent the original wolfman movie, which is more satisfying.

I also saw Shutter Island back in February, but since I already wrote a review on it I will kjeep it super short. Not as good as I thought it would be, but Leonardo Dicaprio gives a strong performance. Martin Scorsese did a good job, but to be fair his remake of Cape Fear was better than this (both are similar psychological horror movies). I didn't get that involved with the characters and there are some good surprises, but not enough to care. I'll see this one again and see if my opinion will change. I do know that if this was released last October it would not be an awards player at all. I say to at least rent it.

In March I saw Brooklyn's Finest, which is nothing special. It centers around three cops stories all intervining in Brooklyn. The three leads Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Gere, all give very solid performaces. Antonie Faqua brings out the best in his actors, but the story is stale and uninteresting. Rent it.

I also saw She's Out of my League, which was fucking hilarious. A solid comedy about an average guy, who is a 5 (Jay Baruchel), meets the perfect woman (a 10), but his lack of confidence and the influence of his friends and family begin to pick away at the relationship. The movie's logline is how a 10 can end up with a 5. Okay, that's just a stupid plot point. It's a sweet romantic comedy, which stands out as being better than most of the recent horrible ones (bounty Hunter anybody?).Jay Baruchel is likable and has a certain charm about him. it kept me laughing through the whole time. It will be on DVD soon so just catch it then.

Repo Men is a movie that I looked like it would be quirky and stand out like Zombieland. The movie is set in the future where people buy organs, but if you can't make your payments then the Repo Men (Forest Whitaker & Jude Law) will come and take your organs back. Pretty soon Law gets artificial organs and is now on the run from his partner (Whitaker). This movie totally rips off Repo! The Genetic Opera, but this film is good compared to that piece of trash. An intriguing idea turns out well in some points, but the script gets stale and all that gore really is unecessary and totally comes out of left field. I did like the ending, but I felt a little cheated at the same time. I say rent it, but if you don't like bloody violence then stay away.

Finally I saw Hot Tub Time machine, which is the funniest comedy I have seen since the Hangover. This is the time of film that is so stupid it's supossed to be funny, and it succeeds with flying colors. The film is just about four men who are transported to the eighties thanks to a hot tub time machine. The cast has great chemistry and the jokes work. It is foul and raunchy, and it is totally awesome. Too bad it hasn't done that well at the Box office.

Well that's it for now.