Friday night, I came home to change my clothes, and get back on the road. I was to meet up with my buddy Doug in Clifton, NJ to see Immortals. This is that stylized action film loosely based on elements of Greek mythology, in the vein of the 2007 film “300.” (which I’ve also seen), but they have no connection with each other. Tarsem Singh directed this film, and here’s an interesting portion of his Wikipedia entry:

Tarsem is a Sikh-American and was born in Jalandhar, India. His father was an aircraft engineer. He attended the Bishop Cotton School, Simla, Hans Raj College, Delhi, and is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Tarsem began his career directing music videos, including those of “Hold On” by En Vogue, “Sweet Lullaby” by Deep Forest and R.E.M.’s smash hit “Losing My Religion,” the latter of which won Best Video of the Year at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. He has directed dozens of commercials for brands such as Nike and Coca-Cola.^[3] Tarsem’s feature film directorial debut was The Cell (2000), starring Jennifer Lopez. 

With all that background information, let me tell you that I did not enjoy this film. It was a slightly different style from the Zach Snyder 300 film, but I believe they immitated that style hoping to cash in. Unfortunately, I found the story and the characters to be dull and boring. I never found myself invested in any of the characters (including the protagonist Theseus), nor did I find the plot at all interesting. Furthermore, the action itself was either boring or entirely too gruesome to be enjoyable. Oftentimes, I felt that a particular death was made gory, in order to achieve some sort of shock value that would excite 13-year old boys.

It wasn’t interesting. It wasn’t fun.

Immortals (2011)

When the Captain America: The First Avenger film was released this year, I had all the intentions of watching it in the theater. Unfortunately, something or other came up, and I never got a chance. I ultimately ended up waiting for the home market release on October 25 2011. The wait wasn’t as interminable as I thought, and October 25th got here fairly quickly in my guestimation.

In case you didn’t know, this film is a prequel of sorts to the big May 2012 Avengers ensemble film. The film stars Chris Evans as the titular Captain America / Steve Rogers, with Hugo Weaving playing the Red Skull. There are, of course, other actors, but none of the supporting characters (Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Dominc Cooper) play very integral parts of the overall film. The film shows how a scrawny-but-good-kid like Steve Rogers gets selected as the first candidate for the U.S. Army’s Super Soldier program.

Unfortunately, the serum is lost, and Steve is the only person with it in his genes. The U.S. Army doesn’t know what to do with him, and he ends up shilling for U.S. bonds across the country in daffy musical shows. Eventually, he finds a way to prove his worth in battle, and he leads the offensive against the Red Skull’s HYDRA organization, an offshoot R&D group within the German army.

The audio and video were pretty good on this blu-ray disc. The video quality was good, but the colors were a little dull. Maybe this had to do with the war scenes. The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 was fun, with lots of activity. The storyline and the action were entertaining, and I thought the acting was pretty good. Not the greatest superhero film, but I thought it was up there with Spiderman 1 and 2. It was 10x better than this year’s Green Lantern stinker.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

T-minus six days until release day for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. IGN gave it a perfect 10 — “Masterpiece.” I can’t wait.

I took Monday off to relax and get some cleaning up done at the house, and maybe even clean up a small degenerate slice of Gotham, which I did. I also sat and watched Michael Mann’s 1995 crime drama Heat. If you haven’t seen it yet (though I believe I’m the only one who hasn’t), it features an all-star cast, written and directed by Michael Mann. The film stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro cast, but also includes:

• Val Kilmer
• Jon Voight
• Tom Sizemore (pre-career implosion)
• Amy Brenneman
• Ashley Judd
• Natalie Portman (small role)
• Mykelti Williamson
• Dennis Haysbert (small role)
• William Fichtner

De Niro stars as Neil McCauley, who leads a professional criminal crew that scores on big money targets (banks, vaults, armored cars.) After a botched job, Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and his team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division begin hunting McCauley’s crew. What I liked about this film was that both sides were very smart, and at times fairly likeable from a certain point of view. Both sides had families (except leader McCauley), and they were all pretty smart. Speaking of families, McCauley follows a dictum taught to him long ago by his criminal mentor — “Never have anything in your life that you can’t walk out on in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat coming around the corner.” However, he meets Amy Brenneman’s character, and falls in love. As the noose tightens on McCauley and his crew, you have no idea how the story will unfold.

I liked the plot as it was unpredictable. I liked the characters as they were very nuanced, and the dialogue was very great. I also liked how nobody was a fool in this story — both the criminals and the detectives were smart, so you had two worthy teams of adversaries squaring off against each other. I watched this film on blu-ray, and it was a pretty good transfer. The video quality was decent for a mid-90′s film, and the Dolby TruHD 5.1 audio was excellent — the dialogue was crisp, the LFE (bass) was big, and the rear speakers were surprisingly active.

Heat (1995)

Avenue Q: The Musical

Friday night was this month’s “date night.” We have a friend who was a cast member of NENA Productions, performing in a local production of Avenue Q performing down at the Jersey Shore Arts Center in Ocean Grove, NJ. I’ve wanted to take my wife to see a NYC Broadway show for a while now, but timing and exorbitant prices for good seats have held us back. Tickets for a show = $20 each, and a friend in the cast? Sold!

I got home as soon as I could from work, picked up Joshua, and we dropped off the kids for the evening. We had a fairly tight timeline before the 8pm curtain went up, so we barely had time to make it to Ocean Grove, grab a slice of pizza, then head across the street to the Jersey Shore Arts Center to buy tickets and find seats. We did just make it, so we lucked out in a way. The show was great, and we both had a great time. The finale ended right around 10:20pm, which gave us 40 mins to exit, walk to the car, and drive quickly and expeditiously back to pick up the kids by 11pm.

Did we make it? Yes. Another day in the life of the Ipes. If you’ve been thinking of seeing the show, and live in NJ, now is a good time to see the show. It’s a limited run, so go see it if you enjoy watching a good musical, even if it is with puppets.

Winner of the Tony Award “TRIPLE CROWN” for BEST MUSICAL, BEST SCORE and BEST BOOK, AVENUE Q is part flesh, part felt, and packed with heart. AVENUE Q is a laugh-out-loud musical that tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. There, he meets Kate (the girl next door), Rod (the Republican), Trekkie (the internet sexpert), Lucy the Slut (need we say more?), and other colorful types who help Princeton finally discover his purpose in life!

I gotta hand it to them — Amazon.com is truly amazing. There are four games that I need to get this year:

• LittleBigPlanet 2 — I picked it up Jan 21st. (It’s been on loan to my sister, and I just got it back. I should go back to playing it.)
• Batman Arkham City — Released October 18th, and I have it in my hands right now.
• Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception — Releases November 1st, and I wait with baited breath. I love that franchise.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic — Releases sometime around December 20th. This is for Josh and I to play together.

I wasn’t sure when I was going to pick up Batman Arkham City, but when some friends of mine mentioned yesterday that they too had preordered it, and expected it to arrive on release day (Tuesday, Oct 18th 2011), I was bummed. The early reviews were positively glowing. And Amazon is offering a preorder bonus — you get $10 credit to most future purchases.

Now this was just too much for me, so I preordered it late yesterday afternoon. The website was still promising to deliver it tomorrow, but I was still incredulous. Lo and behold, UPS shows up at my house less than 24 hours later, and drops this off.

Unbelievable.

I made a little time to play the game after I picked up the kids this evening. I played for maybe 30-45 mins. Wow, a great looking game. I hope I get some free time on Saturday to play some more.

Batman Arkham City for PS3

This week, I watched the 2011 X-Men: First Class film by Matthew Vaughn. After the miserable Brett Ratner X-Men:   The Last Stand travesty from five years ago, this film is an attempt at a reboot of the franchise. Now, let’s agree to never speak of X3 ever again.

As I mentioned above, this film is a reboot. However, I think it’s an interesting reboot. Instead of taking place in the modern era, the film takes place in 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Well, that’s not entirely true. The film initially begins with a recap (or another take) on Erik Lehnsherr first discovering his mutant abilities while at a Nazi concentration camp. This is basically a slight variation or reshoot of the same scenes from the first X-Men film way back in 2000. It gives additional backstory, then the story gives a similar introduction to the young Charles Xavier, and Mystique. Afterwards, the story fast-forwards to the 1960s when Lehnsherr, Xavier, and the others are presumably grown-up. Lehnsherr is hunting Nazis, including Kevin Bacon’s Schmidtt / Sebastian Shaw character. In time, Xavier and Lehnsherr will build a team of mutants, seen in the poster below.

I thought the film was pretty good. I like how the film’s events were moved to the 1960s, which makes this very unique compared to other superhero genre films. At times near the conclusion, I felt that the story was starting to get away from the writers, i.e. becoming incohesive.  I started to get a little incredulous at parts, primarily when they all started giving cool nicknames to each other. I’m not a big fan of cornyness in a serious film. If this is truly a first in a new trilogy, I’m excited.

I watched on blu-ray, and the video and audio quality were good. Everything looked crisp and colorful, and it all looked natural. The disc features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track, which sounds good, especially during the dialogue and the action scenes. However, I found the audio to be very front-heavy, with little activity on the surround speakers. Maybe it’s the nature of the film as there was a lot of dialogue.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

In order to properly inaugurate the new 7.1 surround sound setup, we watched Hulk Vs. on Blu-ray. This is a 2009 direct-to-video set of two short films starring Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Wolverine comic book characters. I didn’t mind seeing them, as the kids obviously animated films featuring comic book heroes. We don’t allow the kids to watch stupid stuff like Spongebob. No way.

More importantly, I wanted to put the new back surround back speakers through the paces. I was sure they would be fine, but still, I want to rent a few more loud bombastic action films, and decide if it’s better or not.

Regarding the disc itself, it features two short 30+ min films featuring Hulk fighting each marque character, but the plots were very basic. Heads up on spoilers:

• In Hulk Vs. Wolverine, the Hulk leaves a path of destruction in the Canadian wilderness. The Canadian military flies Wolverine in to stop the Hulk any way possible. The first half of the short film has Wolverine up against the Hulk. However, Deadpool, Omega Red, Sabretooth, and Lady Deathstryke are on a mission to capture both Wolverine and the Hulk. Their objective is to capture them, so that the evil scientist can weaponize them. Wolverine must then work together to escape their fate.
• The second short film is Hulk Vs. Thor. Loki, the Norse God of Mischief intends to use the Hulk to attack Asgard during the last day of the Odinsleep. Loki eventually loses control of the Hulk, and the Hulk’s destruction is likely to bring about Ragnarok.

So what did I think of both short films? I sat and watched both with the kids, and there wasn’t too much that was inappropriate for the kids. The Hulk/Thor story was much stronger, but I didn’t feel either film was all that. The characters were more interesting in the Thor film, but not by much.

Regarding the audio and video quality in either film? Video and audio quality was good in both, but I didn’t find the back surrounds were utilized all that much. I know in a good home theater setup, the audience shouldn’t be surprised to hear noise behind them, but I want to hear something.

Hulk Vs. (2009)

Saturday night, I watched The Hurricane, a 1999 film starring Denzel Washington. This is the Hollywood version of events surrounding the incarceration of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a talented African-American boxer in the 1960′s who was wrongly imprisoned for a triple-homicide for about 20 years in Rahway State Prison. Directed by a fellow named Norman Jewison, the cast is decent, and I noted Liev Schreiber, Dan Hedaya, John Hannah (from The Mummy movies) and Harris Yulin among the actors in this film of note. Oh, and of course, Vincent Pastore of Sopranos fame.

I think much like many people, I first heard about the plight of “Hurricane” Carter from Bob Dylan’s protest song “Hurricane.” It’s natural to be curious, no? Turns out, there’s a bit of a controversy with the song, as no one truly knows the truth at this stage about really happened at the Lafayette Grill that night in Patterson, NJ. Patterson police have never solved this crime. Also, many facts cited in the song were not accurate.

This film is generally well-received by critics and people who have watched it (83% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes.) Jewison was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Directory. Denzel Washington was nominated for an Academy award, and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor. Personally? I’ll give credit to Denzel for a fine acting job. However, I didn’t like this film very much. Why is that? Why do I fly in the face of overwhelming love for this film? I find fault for the misrepresented facts of Carter’s life and the case itself, as documented in both his criminal and military records, and police reports and court documentation. I’m a guy who likes his documentaries, and his character dramas. If you are going to make a film about historical events, I want to watch this visual representation of what happened. It’s like watching a documentary, but with better acting and a bigger budget. To watch a movie that has significantly revised events, it’s less about what happened, and more a fictional tale that pretends to be accurate.

I remember back in 2001 when my wife and I went to the theater to watch Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, the story of mathematician John Nash who suffered from schizophrenia. A well done movie, but criticized for historical inaccuracies. Once I read the whole story about John Nash, I liked Ron Howard’s film a lot less.

Apart from the historical whitewashing of actual events, I didn’t quite connect to this film. It wasn’t the acting per se, but there was a certain 1990′s “this film is a character battling adversity” vibe that was all too blatant for me to enjoy. It felt dated, and not subtle. Sorry, folks. Not my favorite movie.

The Hurricane (1999)

I watched The Hurt Locker, a 2008 film by Kathryn Bigelow not released in the US domestically until 2009. The film stars Jeremy Renner as a Sgt. 1st Class William James, a reckless man talented with defusing explosives. Sgt. James deploys to the U.S. Army’s Bravo Company in Iraq in 2004 after their unit’s team leader is killed in an IED explosion. James is blessed with natural skills so he’s very good at what he does. However, his reckless behavior and disregard for protocol unnerves his team, and causes serious conflict. The film counts down the last 30+ days of Bravo’s Company’s tour in Iraq, and the soldiers’ primary goal is to stay alive until they can get home.

This was a pretty good movie. Of course, the acting was good, and the direction was good. No doubt about it. What I liked most about it was that I couldn’t predict what would happen next. So many films that I’ve watched recently, I could predict the plot twists a mile away. Here, with the nature of the film being a bomb disposal unit during an intense war, you don’t know what is going to happen next. A war zone is inherently unpredictable.

The Hurt Locker (2008)