His Name is Machete.

This film is based off a fake trailer for Grindhouse. That trailer is also directed by Robert Rodriguez, and it was probably one of the best things about Grindhouse. Now we get the actual movie and it does what it sets out to do, but there are some noticable flaws.

First of all the film delivers on the action scenes. They're violent, bloody, and a whole lot of fun. Danny trejo finally gets his first starring role and he is the ultimate bad ass (not bad for a 66 year old man). The women are sexy, but that's to be expected when we have beautiful babes like Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan. Rodriguez knows how tyo film good action scenes and they are chaotic and throughly enjoyable.

The plot is the main problem with this film. I know that action movies like this don't need a plot, but in this situation the plot is so convoluted and is a mess. Plus Rodriguez uses this movie to shove his politcal views about open boarder policy down our throats. We don't need all of this stuff in a exploitation film like this.

In addition, some of the other big names in the film like DeNero, Johnson, and especially Segal don't do anything. I mean seagal probably has like 10 minutes of screen time. The movie is also too long as it clocks in at around 2 hours. The premise wear thin after a while and it gets redundent after that. Plus the final battle wasn't as momentus as I thought it would be. If about 30 minutes were cut out it would have been a great movie.

If you love action movies then you will get a kick out of it. However, the severAl flaws almost ruined for me. This better viewed at home as I got restless after a while. Now if they make a Thanksgiving movie thren I will be happy. P.S. there needs to be a grindhouse sequel, but it bombed so that's not happening. Maybe the blu-ray will sell really well and... oh who am I kidding there will be no sequel, but it's fun to imagine, isn't it? I give it 3.5/5.

Summer Movie Season: The Good and The Bad.

Hello forum I haven't been on here for a while (shame on me). I keep saying that I'm going to try to be consistent, but things don't always work out the way you want them to. Anyway, the summer movie season is basically over, and it really hasn't been a good summer, but not as bad as the summer of 2005. I saw a lot of movies this summer and I want to get into them real quick.

Iron Man 2: This was one of the most anticipated films of the summer, but it didn't reach anyone's high expectations. Some box office analysts predicted that it would make at least $400 mil at the B.O. In the end it made around $312 mil, which is lower than Iron Man's $318 mil B.O. Still that's nothing to complain about. I thought the movie was better than the original. It had more action and awesome special effects. Plus the climatic battle was better than the first. Mainly because audiences got to see War Machine in action. The villains weren't as developed as I thought they would be, and I wish they would have just stuck with one. There are also a lot of story lines going on, but they are interesting. A good summer popcorn flick and it goes on my top 10 best superhero list. I give it an 8/10.

Robin Hood: This version of Robin Hood is probably the most boring one that I have ever seen. The action scenes were frenetic and couldn't tell who from whom. Plus did I mention it was boring. Russell Crowe does his best, but it's way too long and has too much dialog for this type of movie. I give it a 4/10.

MacGruber: This is based off the SNL sketch starring Will Forte as MacGruber. Forte is a bomb technician who can use anything to help diffuse a bomb, but he always gets distracted and the bomb goes off anyway. This is a parody of the old television show MacGyver. I don't watch SNL that much anymore. Most of the ppl I liked are gone except for Bill Hader and Will Forte. I liked this film b/c it spoofed all of the 80's action flicks and built a nice short film that didn't drag on. Some of the humor is really gross at times (even for me). Some of the jokes get redudent and the premise will wear thin for some ppl. It's a solid comedy, but nothing real special. I give it 6.5/10.

Get Him to the Greek: This is a spinoff of the very funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It stars Russell Brand as Aldous Snow, the wild rock star who was the best thing about that movie. This film is raunchy, but it doesn't have the heart that Forgetting Sarah Marshall had. Johan Hill is in here as a record intern who has 72 hours to take Snow to a concert in L.A. Hill tries to be funny, but only gets a few laughs. The highlight of the movie is Se4an "P. Diddy" Combs, who plays a record executive. He steals the show and was funnier than expected. The film is extremely vile and raunchy, but if you can stand that then it's a good comedy. 7.5/10.

The Karate Kid: I can't believe I liked this movie. This is a remake of the first Karate Kid, which starred Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. In that film Ralph Macchio is getting beaten up by bullies until he learns karate from Morita. Through unconventional methods Macchio becomes an ass kicking machine. In the remake it stars Jaden Smith (Will Smith's son) as the troubled kid getting beat up. This time the film is set in China so Smith really feels out of place. He meets his Jackie Chan, who is replacing Morita as the janitor/martial arts expert. In the film Smith is learning Kung-Fu instead of karate so the title is a little misleading. Jaden Smith isn't the best child actor, but he has charm just like his daddy. The landscapes are very beautiful and captures the essence of China. It's a predictable story and it's slightly better than the original. 7 out of 10.

Cyrus: A big disappointment for me. It had a good cast, which included John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei. You even had Jonah Hill, who can be funny sometimes. The plot is about a divorcée (Reilly) who meets a woman (Tomei) who still has her 20 something son living with her. It sounds like a good indie comedy, doesn't it? Well it fails big time. The shaky cam is annoying, the story doesn't really go anywhere, and it's not that funny. It's not even that good of a drama. Maybe the Duplass Brothers were going for a dark comedy. I don't know and don't give a @#$%. Well, at least it's short. 4 out of 10.

Grown Ups: I already wrote a review about this so I will keep this short. Grown Ups is a lazy effort, even for him. After last year's phenomenal performance in the grossly underrated Funny People, he goes back into his comfort zone. I laughed a few times, but Sandler PG-13 movies are wearing thin. The rest of the ensemble cast (Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider) are wasted in a shitty screenplay. I'm still a sucker for Happy Gilmore though. 5 out of 10.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse- I like Twilight, but I'm ashamed of it. Instead of watching good vampire shows like True Blood I watch this. I don't know why. I guess it's just a guilty pleasure. This is probably the best one in series as it kicks up the action some more and we really get to see the sparkling vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) fight against the shirtless werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) for the hand of the annoying indecisive Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). I still don't know why they fight over her. She's not super hot or anything. There's nothing special about her at all. Oh, and the dialog is awful, the three leads can't act, and the action is clumsy. However, the cinematography is beautiful. 6.9 out of 10.

The Last Airbender: Oh yes, now this is a classic example of a Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. The source material is based off the popular Nicelodeon anime. It's about a 12 year old who is the Avatar, who can bend (control) the four elements (fire, water, earth, wind) and bring peace to the world. This film has piss poor dialog, static characters who cannot act (I'm looking at you Jackson Rathbone), and poorly filmed and uninteresting action scenes. Seeing this film in this film makes it even worse. I expected better from M. Night Shyamalan, who has been in a downward spiral even since 2004's The Village. A terrible movie in every sense of the word and a strong contender for worst movie of the year. Well, at least the location are pretty. 0.5 out of 10.

Predators: The best Predators movie since the original, but that's not saying much since the original was average at best. Instead of the Predators coming to Earth they teleport a bunch of soldiers, murders, and gang members down to their planet to hunt them. A standard by-the- book action movie that is violent, but nothing too memorable. It's still better than those God awful Aliens Vs. Predators movies. I give it a 6 out of 10.

Inception: The best movie of the summer is also one of the most original ones in a long time. This is Christopher Nolan's follow up to the insanely popular Dark Knight, which is one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Inception is about a professional thief Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, who specializes in extracting ideas from businessmen's dreams and giving them to rival companies. This time one the heads of the company wants Cobb to implant an idea into one of his rival's head, which has never been done before. Chris Nolan is a great director who always values story over special effects, which is rare these days in a Hollywood production. Oh, and when there are special effects they are phenomenal. A great movie that requires multiple views, but it's not a masterpiece. The movie is a little long for me and they could have shaved a little time off of it. I give it an 9 out of 10.

Salt: I love Angelina Jolie because she is super hot and she kicks total ass. This a good action thriller that is tightly constructed and it has very nice action scenes. The only problem is its plot, which becomes completely ludicrous even for an action movie. It's a good spy film and in a summer of lackluster action films this is a decent surprise. 8 out of 10.

Dinner for Schmucks: Steve Carell is a comedic genius. This guy took a one dimensional character and made me laugh so hard. I'm ashamed at how much I laughed, but I just couldn't help it. It's a silly slapstick comedy that doesn't hold a candle to the original, but I still enjoyed it. 7.5 out of 10.

The Other Guys: Will Ferrell is back with an awesome film after last year's horrible Land of the Lost. The film was funnier than expected, but action scenes were average at best. Ferrell is comedic gold in this, but Mark Wahlberg just doesn't have the same comedic timing as Ferrell. Ferrell and Wahlberg still worked well together. If anything you have to see the film for the first 1o minutes with Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson. 7.5 out of 10.

Step Up 3D: Another movie that is embracing the 3D craze. I never thought there would be a dance movie in 3D, but Hollywood continues to amaze me at what they will do to make a buck. I am personally tired of 3D because a lot of the novelty has worn off. I can only think of a few films that truly made full use of the extra dimensional. The 3D dance scenes are very well done, but that's it. You don't go to a Step Up movie for good plot, interesting characters, and good dialog. However, you can only take so much. So when they weren't dancing the film was unbearable to watch. 4 out of 10.

Flipped: Rob Reiner's latest film is set in '62, which is apparently the last year of innocence in the U.S. The film is sweet, but very sappy and chicle. The two leads are likable, but nothing that special here and it falls into corny material. Also it was just hard for me to relate to these characters at all. Maybe because it's out of my demographic, IDK. 4.5 out of 10

Eat Pray Love: A very boring movie and the first movie walked out of in a long time. I would have walked out of The Last Airbender, but my friend paid for my ticket and it would be sort of rude if I walked out. Julia Roberts plays a divorcée who goes on a journey to find herself. She eats in Italy, prays in Bali, and finds love in India. The good thing about the film is that the cinematography is beautiful and it really makes me want to go to Rome, Italy. Roberts tries her best, but she plays a self centered character who creates drama for her life and is very whiny. It's a dull romance film that wrongs way too long (2hr 13 min) and by the first hour I was tired, and walked. Good thing I saw this for free. 1.5 out of 10.

The Expendables: This is the ultimate action film of the year as it brings together the action stars of the 80's with some current action movie stars. Sylvester Stallone emsembles an all star cast that includes himself, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, and Steve Austin. Plus there are cameos by Bruce Willis and the Governator. Stallone directs his action scenes very well, but the script is terrible and the plot is nonexistent. All the dialog feels forced and any attempt at humor falls flat. It's a testoterome filled epic that is fun, but still hollow. 7.1 out of 10.

Those are the movies I've seen and it was definitely a mixed bag. Iron Man 2 is a must buy when it comes out on DVD/Blu-ray in a couple of months. Get Him to the Greek, The Karate Kid, and MacGruber are a good rental. If you haven't seen Inception, Dinner for Schmucks, or Salt, those are some good films to see in theaters. Peace out and happy moviegoing.

The Last Airbender (or The Death of M. Night Shyamalan's Career)

I hate to be blunt right off the bat, but this was a horrible movie. "The Last Airbender" is based off the popular Nickelodeon anime series. Before I saw this movie I hadn't seen the whole series, but just enough to get a basic grasp of what the movie would be like. When I walked into the theater I had an ominous feeling about this movie and well the feeling was spot on. I don't know where to begin with this hodgepodge of a movie.

The biggest problem is the script, which has some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard. The story felt really rushed, which I was afraid of from the start because the script is trying to condense a 20 episode season into a movie less than 2 hours. The acting is horrendous and everytime a character spoke on the screen my ears bled. The actors, especially the three leads, had no emotion at all and their characters were so undeveloped and boring. They were just acting like dolls on the screen. The special effects looked cheap and were underwhelming. Plus the action is not that good to begin with. However, the worst thing about this film is that it took itself way too seriously. I mean it's a children's show for Christ's sake. If the movie had some kind of humor at least it would helped ease my boredom.

What's even worse is that the film was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who made one of the best horror movies of all time (The Sixth Sense). "The Sixth Sense" is such a good film because it's a psychologicaql horror film, which are the best kind. The director really know how to build up suspense and set up creepy atmosphere. The Sixth Sense probably has the best twist ending I have ever seen. Despite my intense hate for twist endings I have to admit that it was a good and clever ending.

The next film he made, "Unbreakable", had a very interesting premise and was set up well. The twist ending was not as good as his previous film, but still a solid ending. In fact if it was any other director who made that film he/she would have gotten a lot more praise. Of course at that time people are going to judge you more harshly after making an excellent film like the Sixth Sense". After that I didn't watch anymore of Shyamalan's movies. I heard "Signs" was a solid movie, but his next film "The Villiage" had a disappointing ending. Next I heard that Lady in the Water was just terrible.

Then he made "The Happening", which was god awful. It was the first Shyamalan film I saw since Unbreakable and I was very disappointing. The twist ending was garbage (the plants are killing people) and the casting just seemed off. Plus, just running away from flowers and plants probably seemed good on paper, but fails on the screen. "The Last Airbender" was supossed to be a comeback for Shyamalan, but instead this ends up being his worst film. After seeing the film I can safely say that Shyamalan is officially a one hit wonder. He is past his prime and is going to need one hell of a comeback to salvage his career. I here that he is making another movie starring Bruce Willis, which will be the third collaboration between Willis and Shyamalan.

I wonder if "The Last Airbender" will get a sequel because there are 3 seasons of the show. Shyamalan wants to adapt the next two seasons into two movies, but I hope he lets someone else take the directing chair and the writing responsibilities. I think Chris Columbus would be a good replacement because he can handle the fantasy element thanks to his work on the first 2 Harry Potter movies and action thanks to his experience on Percy Jackson.

Lastly, if anyone is going to see this in 3-D, don't! It does nothing for the movie and it just distracts from an already terrible film. This film will win Worst Picture at the Golden Raspberry Award, so at least Shyamalan will get something in return.

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