Nerd in the 'Noke

Fast & Furious 6 (2013), PG-13, 130 minutes - It amazes me that a little film from 2001 about street racing has spawned a franchise that isn't only still going, but arguably gets stronger with each and every entry.  Director Justin Lin took over with 2006's The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and now, with Fast & Furious 6, he continues to develop the world of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) as well as building toward future franchise installments. Fast & Furious 6 is just what the trailer makes it look like: a summer time popcorn flick with tons of action and one liners between characters.  The trailer also does a pretty good job of laying out the plot for Fast 6 - Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), who spent most of Fast 5 pursuing Toretto and his crew enlists their help in trying to apprehend an even bigger fish: an international criminal named Shaw (Luke Evans).  Toretto only agrees because it provides the chance to determi...

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), PG-13, 132 minutes - The last couple of weeks have been pretty chaotic in our house and I wasn't sure that I was going to get the chance to see Star Trek Into Darkness over opening weekend.  As it turned out, the opportunity presented itself Sunday evening so I jumped at it.  I thoroughly enjoyed J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise and was very much looking forward to this sequel.  Into Darkness marks the second sequel film that I was wicked excited about to kick off this year's summer movie season ( Iron Man 3 being the other). Abrams successfully navigated the waters that often lead to a sophomore slump for many franchises and produced a film that is equally as fun, entertaining, emotional, and action packed as the first.  All of the important players from the 2009 Star Trek return, led by Chris Pine (Captain Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock).  Outside of further exploring the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterp...

42 (2013), PG-13, 128 minutes - I've had a love for the the game of baseball for as long as I can remember.  And because of that, I've been looking forward to this film since last winter when I saw the teaser trailer about one of baseball's most legendary figures: Jackie Robinson.  It has been my experience that just about everyone knows the name and why he was significant, but for those that don't, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of Major League Baseball back on April 15, 1947. Much like Lincoln last winter, 42 is a biopic that focuses on a short period of Robinson's life, from late 1945 through the end of the 1947 season.  It opens with Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) declaring his intent to 'bring a negro to the Dodgers'.  His reasoning is simple he says, money isn't black or white, it's green and it all spends the same.  He realizes how shocking this move will be to not only the league but the country and begins pouring over scouting r...

Iron Man 3 (2013), PG-13, 130 minutes - Iron Man 3.  Wow.  There's quite a bit to say and I'm not really sure where to start (and that's after thinking about it all last night and this morning).  There were things that I liked and things that I didn't.  I'm not sure that I've worked it all out yet, but I do know this for sure: there will be a longer than usual spoiler section at the end of this post. Iron Man 3 starts off with a narration from Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) himself, thinking aloud, trying to figure out how to best tell the story of how he has gotten to this point in his life.  He starts once, stops, then starts again, flashing back to a technology conference held over New Year's of 2000, settling on that as the point at which everything currently happening can be traced back to.  That flashback sequence sets up some of the major players of Iron Man 3, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) as well as giving us a ...

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), R, 140 minutes - Back in 2010, Derek Cianfrance, who had previously directed television documentaries broke through with the critically acclaimed film Blue Valentine.  Now he is back with his latest project: The Place Beyond the Pines, which just so happens to be generating its own fair share of acclaim. I first saw the trailer for Pines a couple of months ago and was instantly interested.  I was curious to see what came next from Cianfrance, especially considering the cast he was working with: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta, Rose Byrne, Bruce Greenwood.  All have been in films that I've really enjoyed.  As I learned more about the film, I found out that it is set in Schenectady, New York.  A good friend of mine grew up in Schenectady and I had the chance to visit there when I went to his wedding a few years back.  That's a fairly small tie to a place I know, but it still added to my interest in ...

I'm not sure if I've outright stated it here on my blog, but Thor may very well be my favorite of the Marvel Studios films thus far, and before you ask, yes, that's including last summer's The Avengers.  So it shouldn't be any surprise that I'm super stoked for this November's Thor: The Dark World , which will be the second installment to Marvel's Phase 2 of their cinematic universe (behind Iron Man 3, which is now just a week and a half away). ***EDIT - I was looking at my Countdown to the Avengers Posts this morning and realized that I had said that I would probably rank Thor at number two or maybe even number three if I were to rank all of the Marvel releases to date.  I obviously got a little caught up in my excitement for Thor: The Dark World when I originally wrote this post.  Either way, I very much enjoyed the first installment of Thor.*** The Dark World appears to be at least loosely based on part of Walt Simonson's epic run on Thor in ...

It won't come out until November 22, but earlier this week we got our first look at The Hunger Games: Catching Fire , the second film in the franchise based on the best selling trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins. It has been a couple of years since I read the books, but if memory serves correctly, this initial teaser seems to follow the book as closely as the first film did.  This is great news.  That fact along with an excellent cast were the reasons behind The Hunger Games being such a strong adaptation in the first place.  The surviving cast returns along with the addition of a second Oscar winner in Philip Seymour Hoffman.  The folks behind The Hunger Games films must love the fact that they locked Jennifer Lawrence in when they did.  She has since gone on to win an Oscar herself (Best Actress just a couple of months ago).  I'm sure her rate of compensation will change now that she's got a much larger profile, but the fact that their quadrilogy ...

At one point not so long ago, I had absolutely no desire to see a sequel to 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  In hindsight, it probably wasn't as bad as I originally thought, however that doesn't forgive the blatant disregard that film showed for one of my favorite comic book characters (Deadpool/Wade Wilson). When  The Wolverine (2013)  was originally announced, it was going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan among others).  This caught my eye and not only intrigued me, but instantly swayed me to the side of optimism.  Unfortunately due to scheduling issues, Aronofsky left the film.  James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) then took his place at the helm of the film that was said to be based on the classic Chris Claremont/Frank Miller comic book arc from 1982.  That story is widely regarded as one of the best Wolverine stories to see print.  That story being the basis for t...

The Words (2012), PG-13, 102 minutes - Towards the end of last summer and into the beginning of fall two trailers for films starring Bradley Cooper started making the rounds.  Both looked to have intriguing plots and excellent casts.  The first to catch the eye of my fiance and I was this film, The Words, in which Bradley Cooper plays a writer tackling some ethical problems.  The second turned out to be Silver Linings Playbook (you can see my review here ), and as we all know that didn't turn out too badly for Mr. Cooper. I've been sitting here writing and re-writing this review for almost two hours now and am still having a hard time not spoiling the heck out of the film.  There's no crazy plot twist but it is presented in a way that makes it difficult to discuss without giving away key story points.  So I'm ditching the long, drawn out overview of the film that I had previously and I'm going to keep it short and sweet and hope that in doing so, I'm able t...

Trance (2013), R, 101 minutes - Trance is the new heist flick/psychological thriller from director Danny Boyle, starring an uncharacteristically dark James McAvoy. McAvoy stars as Simon, an art auctioneer who gets mixed up with an unsavory group of thieves when they attempt to rob the auction house that he works for.  After trying to play hero and getting a shotgun butt to the head courtesy of head thief Franck (Vincent Cassel) he is left in a semi-amnesia-tic state (he knows who he is and what happened, but he doesn't remember how the events occurred).  He seeks the help of hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to try and regain his memory so he can attempt to recover the painting. The beauty of Trance is that its seemingly straightforward plot unfolds into a more and more complex narrative thanks to the inclusion of Simon's sessions with Elizabeth.  We are shown a number of scenarios that did/did not/could have happened, all as a result of his hypnothera...