Nerd in the 'Noke

The Giver (2014), PG-13, 94 minutes - The Giver is based on the 1993 story of the same name written by Lois Lowry and is the latest post apocalyptic/sci-fi society young adult novel to be adapted to the big screen.  I've never read The Giver myself, but having been fourteen back in 1993, I was definitely a part of the target demographic and remember it being pretty popular among classmates. This film version of The Giver takes place in a future utopian society created after an unnamed great war.  The elders who founded the community believed that the source of all misgivings and conflict in life was emotion.  They built a society devoid of emotion, which was accomplished by sterilizing the population of their memories and instituting a strict set of governing rules.  Everything from recognition of color (that of objects or even skin tone) to the enjoyment of music was lost, all in an effort for absolute equality.  The lack of emotion also means that no one ...

Originally I thought that I might try and use this week leading up to the release of The Avengers to re-watch each of the five Marvel films that directly feed into this weekends film (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger).  It doesn't look like there will be time due to previous engagements so I thought that I would do the next best thing: dig through my personal movie review archives and share my thoughts on these five films with everyone in a countdown fashion.  Not all of these have appeared here on my blog.  Some pre-date the blog and were originally posted on myspace.  So here we go (in chronological order by release date), number one on the countdown to The Avengers: Iron Man Iron Man (2008), PG-13, 126 minutes -  The comic book nerd in me has never been a big fan of the Tony Stark/Iron Man character, but I've been looking forward to this movie since the teaser was released months ago. Not only did the...

True Grit (2010), PG-13, 110 minutes - It took a week longer than I had originally planned, but today I was finally able to see one of the movies I had been looking forward to the most this year. And it didn't disappoint. The Coen Brothers add another excellent entry to their growing catalog of films with True Grit. The do so this time around by taking a classic western, and staying pretty true to form. There are only a couple relatively small differences between their new take and the John Wayne driven original. Having said that, this newer version stands on it's own. When watching, it doesn't play out like a complete re-hash. Credit the Coens for knowing better than to mess with the content and tone of a quality story, as well as for employing the proper cast to bring that story to life. Excellent performances are prevalent throughout True Grit, with newcomer Hailee Steinfeld leading the way. She more than stands her ground and takes charge in many scenes. Som...

Tron: Legacy (2010), PG, 127 minutes - For the few people who don't know, Tron: Legacy is the sequel to Disney's cult classic about a programmer who gets stuck inside the computer system he is working on. I say 'cult classic' and not 'classic' because I re-watched the original Tron a couple months back and it doesn't really hold up at all. It looks cool considering the time at which it was made (1982), but that's about it. Anyway, this isn't about the original, it's about the sequel, which I feel is a better overall movie. It takes Tron's basic concept and builds upon it, taking place 20 years after the original. Garrett Hedlund plays Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, retaining his role from Tron). After investigating a page that came from his father's old office, he is transported into The Grid, the same computer program world that his father has been trapped in for 20 years. He learns that his father not only dis...