Nerd in the 'Noke

Jupiter Ascending (2015), PG-13, 127 minutes - Jupiter Ascending is the latest film from the minds of the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana, creators of The Matrix trilogy), and was originally set to be released last summer.  After realizing that more time was needed to complete a large number of special effects shots, it was pushed back to early February of this year. Jupiter Ascending revolves around the aptly named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) and her unknown place within the bloodline of the alien Abrasax empire.  The Abrasax treat the countless planets throughout the galaxy like crops to be harvested in order to create a serum that allows them near immortality.  Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne) inherited the Earth like a piece of real estate when his mother passed away.  It is considered extremely valuable and highly sought after, creating a rift between he and his Abrasax siblings Titus (Douglas Booth), and Kalique (Tuppence Middleton).  After genetically enginee...

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), PG, 130 minutes - Oz the Great and Powerful is the probably not-so-necessary prequel to the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz .  But if you didn't already know that, you've been living in a cave and/or I'm not sure what brought you to my blog!  I'm actually finding it hard to figure out what I want to say about the film.  I saw it this past Sunday evening, and I've been having a hard to getting motivated to write this.  Generally that means that I didn't really enjoy the film I saw at all, which in this case, isn't true.  I did enjoy it, but I think I enjoyed it more for it's style and technical aspects than for the performances or the story itself. Those of course can be credited to Sam Raimi's direction.  If you are familiar with any of Raimi's work, you can tell this was a project of his.  His fingerprints are all over the film from certain shots having a very horror feel to them to the inclusion of Bruce Camp...

Two weeks ago, the Roanoke area was pummeled by a straight-line windstorm known as a Derecho.  During that storm, a tree in my back yard split in two and took out the power and cable lines running from the mainline on the street to my house.  No one else in my neighborhood experienced anything more than a flicker of lights, but mine was completely wiped out.  12 days later (this past Wednesday), power was finally restored at the house.  And now, four days later, I am still waiting to get my cable/internet fixed (I am currently leeching off of a neighbor's connection).  Anyway, long story short, I wasn't able to post my already late Prometheus review, nor was I able to post reviews for the couple of movies that my fiancee and I saw while we were dealing with the power outage.  I don't like reducing movies to just a couple sentences worth of a review, but I don't have the time (or the memory) to go back and write up something proper for these.  Maybe in ...

Black Swan (2010), R, 108 minutes - The latest film from Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan is driven by Natalie Portman's performance as a newly promoted ballerina and her relationship with her theater manager (Vincent Cassel) and a rival dancer (Mila Kunis). Nina Sayers (Portman) is one of the ballerina's being considered for the lead role in a new staging of Swan Lake (taking over for Beth Macintyre, the long running lead played by Winona Ryder). The theater manager, Thomas Leroy, doesn't believe that Nina has it in her to portray both parts that he requires for this re-invisioning of Swan Lake. She confronts him about it and, after biting him when he makes a pass at her, lands the role as he sees the 'imperfection' in her that he was looking for for the part. Black Swan proceeds from there, exploring Nina's psychological transformation into the ballerina that she needs to become the lead. Black Swan is full of strong performances. Not only out of Portman,...