Adam Sandler Needs To Grow Up!

Everybody knows that Adam Sandler is one of the few actor whose movies are critic proof. Adam Sandler has been around since the '90's and his movies were bad then, but they were entertaining. Happy Gilmore will always be one of my all time guilty favorites. However, the '90 are behind and the Sandler movies I used to love went down significantly.

However, in 2002, Sandler starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love. At that point I realized that Sandler could act. In Punch Drunk Love, Sandler did play the same immature character as always, but in this movie he takes it further. As a result, Adam Sandler tapped into some deep feelings and made the character seem real.

Adam Sandler kept doing the occasional serious role and was quite good at them. Movies like Spanglish and Reign on Me made me respect him as an actual actor. His comedy movie movie started getting worse with each money with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry being the lowest point. Then he starred in last year very underrated Funny People, which is his Magnum Opus.

Now we have Grown Ups and instead of growing up Sandler has stayed in the same safe territory that he is accustomed to. Grown Ups has an all star cast that includes Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. The plot is simple and thin. It's about these five friends reuniting at a lake house for the 4th of July after their old basketball coach dies. There is no plot after that and it's basically a bunch of one liners after that. What I did like about this movie was the chemistry between the three leads. They really having good comedic timing and they mildly entertained me.

Nevertheless, there was a lot of flaws in the movie. Some of the jokes just fell flat and they were too far in between. David Spade and Rob Schneider were the weakest of the bunch as they just leeched off the other actors. The film is very immature, but if its done right it can be funny like in Step Brothers. It was worse than other Sandler fare because the script just felt so stale and it's like jokes are being recycled from other movies.

All in all the film is bad and it might be worse than Chuck and Larry. I wish Sandler would do more mature stuff because he is certainly more than capable of. This movie looked like a lot of fun to make. The end result generates some laughs, but ultimately unsatisfying. The film will please Adam Sandler fans, but it fails on every other level. This is a rental at best. 2 stars out of 5. The end.

Melinda and Melinda (Throwback Review)

The 2000's was a cruel decade for Allen with his only standouts being Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. His worst film of the decade was Anything Else, which tried to be Annie Hall for this generation and failed miserably. Melinda and Melinda had potential and there were some good moments, but there are times where the story just falls flat.

The Good: The film's premise is about some writers gathering in a coffee place. They argue whether life is a comedic or tragic. This sounds like an interesting premise and for the most part it is. The comedic and tragic stories revolve around one character named Melinda (Radha Mitchel). I have to say that her performance is very good and she handles both sides well. Allen wrote a complex character and Mitchel lived up to the performance.

The Bad: The comedic side of the movie fails big time. I think I chuckled a few time and that's it. it's disappointing since you had Will ferrell and Steve Carrell in that segement. Of course Carrell had hardly any screen time at all. Will Ferrel could just not play the famous neurotic woody allen character.

So despite a strong performance by radha Mitchel, Melinda and Melinda fails short of its interesting premise. It's a very uneven film and I can only recommend this as a rental for Woody Allen fans. Plus just like with all of Woody Allen's films wedon't get any special features. There isn't even a trailer for this one. Now that is just messed up. I'd give this a 2.5 out of 5.

The End of Fullmetal

Well, after 10 years the Fullmetal Alchemist manga has ended. I didn't get into the series until like 2005 or 2006 (I can't remember). I started watching the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime series, and then I switched over to the manga. If you've read the manga and seen the anime then you know that the two series go into a completely different direction after the Elric Brothers encounter Greed. I loved the ending of the 2003 series because it was dark and mature. However, it was bittersweet because it would have been nice if the anime was able to follow the manga more closely.

However, in 2009 Bones (animation company) decided to make another FMA series based more on the manga. This did not seem necessary at first, but now I am glad they did it. FMA Brotherhood has been going on for a year now in Japan and is almost over.

This leads me into the main point of the article. The manga ended this June and it ended pretty nicely. It's just what I expected really, but a couple of thing I did not see coming.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!!

After Alphonse sacrifices himself to give Ed's arm back, Ed opens a can of whoop ass on Father. Since Father has no energy left from the philosopher's stone, Ed finishes him off. When Father ends up at the Gate of Truth he is sucked into despair. In order to get his brother back Edward performs human transmutation. However, he doesn't give up his soul or body. He sacrifices the truth in order to get his brother. The truth is basically the ability to perform alchemy. So Ed and Alphonse are finally reunited again except now Alphonse has his body back. From then on the ending is pretty conventional. Mustang's eyes get fixed, relations between Amestris and Ishval are patched up, Ling Yao becomes Emperor of Xing, etc...

It's a nice happy ending and it is cool to see all the loose ends tie up. I assume this is how Brotherhood is going to end, but you never know. The question is which ending is better? Is it the 2003 anime ending or the manga/Brotherhood ending better. It's really hard to say, but I like the manga ending a little better.

The 2003 series became really dark in the later episodes, but it is really mature and deep at the same time. Plus a lot more characters like Marcoh, Scar, and Selim Bradley die. The ending was very bittersweet because on one hand Alphonse got his body back, but in order to do so Ed had to transmute himself to an alternate world (our world). Plus Al did not have any memory of anything after the day the brothers first tried to transmute their mother back alive. In FMA movie Ed and Al reunited, but in our world, and not in the Amestris universe. Like I said earlier, it was satisfying, but still bittersweet.

The manga had more at stake in the end because Father was going sacrifice Amestris (Pop. 50 million) in order to obtain the power of the truth. So yeah...it was much more tense. Plus Father was just a better villain than Dante. Dante was menacing, but Father was cold blooded. It makes it all the more sweeter when Ed beats the shit out of the homunculus in the end.

I also liked the homunculi in the manga better than the 2003 series. In the 2003 series, It was neat to find out that homunculi are formed whenever someone tries human transmutation. You had sloth, who was born as a result of the Elric brothers' failed transmutation of their mother. Plus you had Wrath, who was the failed transmutation of Izumi Curtis' newborn infant. Plus Wrath could do alchemy, which was pretty bad ass.

In the manga I like Sloth, who ended up being King Bradley's son Selim Bradley. That was probably the most shocking thing about the series. I did not see that coming at all. I liked Pride because he was the strongest homunculus and the coldest one. King Bradley was Wrath in this series instead of pride and he had a lot more character development in this series.

In addition to the homunculi, other characters got more face time and more character development. Ling Yao and Mei Chang (both from Xing) were welcome additions not included in the 2003 series. Armstrong's sister is a cold blooded general who kicks so much azz. Even Kimblee is given more to do in the series because he was very underused in the first series.

So in wrapping up, I like the manga better than the 2003 version, but the 2003 series was awesome too. I would recommend watch both of the series, and to decide for yourself which one is better.

Nicolas Cage Wants Cake

The Karate Kid a.k.a. The Kung-Fu Kid

The Karate is a fan favorite from the 80's. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood decided to remake the film. Most remakes are always inferior to the original. However, this remake of the Karate Kid is decent, but still has spme noticable flaws.

The movie's plot is simple and surprisingly faithful to the source material. In the original a handyman/martial arts master Mr. Miyagi (Pat Norita) agrees to teach a bullied boy (Ralph Macchio) karate and shows him that there is more to the martial arts than fighting. It's predictable, but still heartwarming. The only differences is that Macchio is replaced by Jaden Smith (son of Will Smith), Jackie Chan steps into the role of Mr. Miyagi, and that the setting is moved from America to China. The movie has the heart of the original and still has some nice karate scenes. There is good chemistry between Smith and Chan. The film has some humorous moments also. Jaden Smith stars as the main character and this is the young actor's first leading role. Smith has charm, but he just tries to hard. Some of his dialogue feels forced and he tries to be smart and charming, but unlike his father, it doesn't come naturally to him.

In the latter half of thew film Jaden started feeling more comfotable with the role. It is his first real role as an actor and it shows. In addition, the film clocks in at about two hours, which really drags the film down. The first act of the film is okay, but nothing exciting happens. The film has to set up the story, but there still could have been some significant cuts. The film doesn't pick up until the second act and it leads to a satisfying, yet predictable ending. The audience can see all the points coming from a mile away, but the second half of the film almost makes up for the first half. This remake is decent and could have been worse. If you are into a feel good movie then Karate Kid might be up your alley. Nevertheless, this still doesn't match up to the original.