Terminator Salvation

I had the privilege to go out on a date with my wonderful wife last night. All our kids had ended up making plans to spend the night at friends' houses, so we had a night to ourselves. With no kids, what do you go see on the opening weekend of "Terminator Salvation?" Duh! And so we did. I would like to very briefly just share my opinion on the matter.
For starters, here's my two cents on the original movies: first one-classic, and because of that you allow your 2009 movie mindset to forgive some of the 1980 effects. Second one - my favorite of the three and still holds up fairly well today from an effects point of view. Third one- While there was one particularly cool chase scene somewhere near the beginning, this movie made it clear that the franchise (and Arnold) had possible run out of steam.
Fast forward a mere six years to a reboot. I'd have to do my homework to make sure the timetable matches up in the films, but six years doesn't seem like a very long time in the whole scheme of things. Rocky: 17 years, Rambo: 20 years, Diehard:12 years, and, of course, Batman: (counting the final Schumaker debacle) 8 years...if you count where the franchise really died (when Tim Burton stepped down) it was 13 years. My point being (the mediocre Batman Forever and the horrid Batman and Robin aside) there seems to have been quite a bit of downtime between the originals and the reboots.
My opinion on Terminator Salvation? Here it is: in one word, "okay." Christian Bale was great as usual, and McG placed himself on the map as an innovative director (at least in some areas), but the story itself was only okay. When I left Transformers a couple of summers ago I wanted to go right to Walmart and buy the toys to add to my collection. I left Terminator and thought, "Okay, I need to got o Walmart and pick up filters and coffee..." I didn't have that psyched up feeling when I left, which I usually do from an action movie that really gets my adrenaline or nostalgia going.
My biggest beef was that they gave away the biggest plot point in the trailers (and as such I'm giving nothing away here). The stranger that makes his way to the base of the resistance fighters is, in fact, part machine...a terminator. That was the only really big twist. I mean they try to make you think that John Connor is going to die, but we know that he can't. I wish they had left the fact that Sam Worthington's character was a terminator (of sorts) be kept hushed so it would have been a surprise when I saw the film.
Aside from that, the only other thing I wasn't sure about (other than some of the dialogue at the end) was the appearance of the T-800 that looked like a CGI Arnold. It took me out of it a bit. However, the acting is solid and the visuals are first rate and entertaining overall.
As much as I like Bale and thought that his little infamous tirade wouldn't effect me at all, I admit that I found myself wondering from time to time, "Is this the scene he blew his top? No, no...it's got to be this one."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg9ooaozu-8

Just because

It's been a long time since I've done any sort of blogging, so I figured I'd take a few minutes and basically just ramble. For those of you that know me well and see me regularly, that'll come as no surprise.
So, what to blog about...I know! I saw two movies yesterday. X-Men Origins:Wolverine and Star Trek. I enjoyed both films. There were some things that I wish they had gone into more detail with in X-Men, but overall I found it fun to watch and very entertaining. I also learned (again) how hyper conservative www.pluggedinonline.com is with their reviews. I've found their sight to be a decent tool when trying to decided if I should take my kids to a certain movie or not, but over and over I'm seeing that there are some issues that they take and make into huge mountainous looking issues and then I see the film and am like, "What? Really? That's the 'sexuality?'" Based on the review of X-Men Origins my wife and I decided to preview it and found that the "sexuality" was actually very tame and had I not read the review previously I would have barely noticed it in the film. Very tasteful and non-offensive. I found it humorous since the review made it sound almost like "DON'T LET YOUR KIDS SEE THIS!" type thing.
You can check out the review that I'm referencing at:
http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0004616.cfm



Star Trek. I got to see this one on opening night with some friends and had a great time. I'm not a Star Trek fan and have not followed the movies or the series or spin-offs (I've seen one or two of the films and now I have them all in my queue at Blockbuster Online) so I had no preconception of what to expect. I like J.J. Abrams, I like what he did with MI3, and I figured he'd do a good job with this. It was fantastic...a little heavy on the lens-flares, but still awesome. Fun, witty, entertaining, and from what I gathered, seemed to please many of the "Trekkies" in the audience. I will now go back and watch the old movies to further appreciate some of the humor. A friend of mine said that this new Star Trek movie "was everything 'The Phantom Menace' wished it could have been." I agree whole heartedly.
Just for fun...here's the review from the previously mentioned, pluggedinonline:
http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0004627.cfm



Okay...what else? We had a good time a couple of weeks ago at the HighBrdige Film Festival where our film "The Love Doctor" won for best comedy. So, that was a good experience and we got to meet some neat people, including the president of Walden Media. Good times.
This summer I'll be working on finally getting our first short film, "Collide," edited and I'm excited about that. I'll be working as a production assistant (PA) on a larger independent film this summer and am looking forward to that. A good friend of mine and I will also be working on co-writing a script for Asbury that they will hopefully shoot in the spring and another friend of mine and I will be working on a script for a directed study that we will shoot in the fall.
Next spring I will be spending the semester in LA to complete my "Film Studies" degree and to do an internship which will hopefully turn into a job when I graduate. I'm excited about that as well. It'll be a bit of a rough time for the family as I will be gone for four months, but we all agree that it is only for a season and is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Anyway, not much else is coming to mind, so I'll end this pointless blog.