The Cinema-Mad Sibling Recommends: "Kung Fury"

This awesomely lunatic, over-the-top homage to 80s cinema hit the Internet last week, and you really have to see it to believe it. 



BONUS: Music video tie-in starring a real 80s pop culture icon. Enjoy, my lovelies! 

Kathryn Bigelow Addresses the "Zero Dark Thirty" Controversy

Here is her take on it.  The Cine-Sib, who loved the film, has this to say: "There wasn't anything worse than what Jack Bauer did."

The Cine-Sib Recommends: "Assassin's Creed 3"

The game will be set during the American Revolution!  He and I especially loved the previous one that was set in Renaissance Italy.  Here's the trailer for the new game to be released October 30:

Movie Mini-Reviews: Three to See

I've been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too busy on campus to do movie reviews, but really quickly, here are three to see.

The Cine-Sib, Hu Jintao, & Chinese Human Rights

The Cine-Sib sent me this headline with the pithy comment, "Ya think?"  Indeed.

Movie Review: The Cine-Sib and MM Take On "Tron" and "Tron: Legacy"

I had initially reviewed "Tron: Legacy" here.  I had gone to see it opening weekend without the Cine-Sib, but over the holidays he really wanted to see it, so I went with him.  There was one big difference the second time around: he and I went to see it in 3D IMAX on a proper (i.e., 70-foot-high) IMAX movie screen (not a fake IMAX -- as the Cine-Sib and I call it, a "faux-MAX").  I liked the flick a lot better on the massive screen since then it really was the triumph of style over substance, but I'm thinking that I liked it better too for the company -- the Cine-Sib and our friends!  I'll give it a C+ the second time around while knowing full well this is a function of the IMAX.  Anyway, on to the Cinema-Mad Sibling's review!

Geek Fun: OK Go's Awesome Goldberg Machine

The Cine-Sib and I recommend this delightful video for your technophiliac, geeky pleasure:

The Cinema-Mad Sibling Recommends: the Navy's Awesome Electromagnetic Railgun

This time the Cine-Sib recommends not a movie as usual, but a video.  It's not just any video either.  It's the footage of "life imitates sci-fi" technophiliac awesomeness as the Navy fires a railgun that shoots a projectile at Mach 8 -- or 5,500 feet per second.  Things go boom.  And the Cine-Sib and I do love it when things go boom!

UPDATE:  Best blog post title for this: "Say Hello To My Little Friend."  I wish I'd thought to do that!

Movie Madness: "Space Battleship Yamato"

This is too good for the Cinema-Mad Sibling and me not to share: 7 minutes of footage from the new movie.  Awesome space battles!  The movie has already premiered in Japan.  *turns green with envy*

Movie Madness: The Cine-Sib Recommends "The Warriors Way"

What a mad mashup of East, West, ninjas, cowboys, South Korean movie stars, and American starlets!

Movie Madness: The Cine-Sib Recommends the "Sucker Punch" Trailer

The Cine-Sib Recommends: Space Battleship Yamato

Check this out.  Right now.  I mean it!  The trailer below is in Japanese, but I don't think you'll have trouble figuring what the plot is.  

Weekend Movies: MM and the Cinema-Mad Sibling Recommend...

This time we recommend "The Expendables" for mindless action entertainment and "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" for something quirkier.  (Mini-reviews forthcoming.)  Our previous recommendations are also playing, so do go see if you haven't already.  Pass the popcorn!

Mini-Movie Review Round-Up: MM and the Cinema-Mad Sibling Recommend...

Hey!  Who forgot the popcorn?

Too busy with nerd research to write full reviews right now (I did promise the Cine-Sib that I would write one for "Inception" soon), but in case you gentle readers were wondering what to see at the theater this weekend, the Cinema-Mad Sibling and I recommend:

Movie Review: the Cine-Sib Reviews "Toy Story 3."

Here is the preliminary review.  He was apparently trying to cram as many big words into a tiny space as possible, while also trying to sneak in a Shakespeare reference to tease me.  He said his usual haiku review is forthcoming. (I haven't seen the flick yet; I'm saving it so I can see it with some friends who are coming to visit next week.  Yes, the arrival of college buddies Alessandra and Ladybird and Foxtrot!  We're like the "Sex and the City" quartet --only awesome, smart, and sensible in addition to being fabulous with good shoes.)

So, the Cinema-Mad Sibling gives you this:

Toy Story 3 is a metaphysical musing on the nature of self-identity/self worth, evanescence of all things which hinder/foster personal change/growth, trust/loyalty/family, letting go/moving on, fear/anxiety of future unknown: the undiscovered country of a path that ultimately defines us; the gamut of emotions deftly realized in mere CGI toys bolstered by consistently sharp writing of Pixar, despite a weak denouement.

What I said to him afterward: "So basically it's about growing up."

Movie Review: the Cine-Sib Reviews the "Karate Kid" Remake

On the whole, he liked it.

Karate Kid is a surprisingly well-acted & directed remake of the 1984 classic, reimagined as a fish-out-of-water tale in China with kung fu, NOT karate (cue marketing misnomer stir, purists). Its tautly-paced 140 minutes foster proper character development, with levity ensconced in pathos infused with effective emotional gravitas by Jaden Smith & Jackie Chan, eschewing his usual schtick & giving his best dramatic performance.

(Dude, the Cine-Sib actually used the word "gravitas"?)

Here comes the haiku!

Jacket on and off
That could be annoying, man
Just shut up and train

Hollywood Remake?
Really, couldn't really tell
They did a good job

Movie Review: the Cine-Sib Reviews "Red Cliff"

The Cinema-Mad Sibling LOVED this flick. Here's his review:

Red Cliff is a return to form for Hong Kong director John Woo, exemplifying the art of war vividly in this historical epic centering on the decisive Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD Han-Dynasty China where outnumbered allied rebels with Spartan odds outsmart the near-unstoppable imperial army. The most expensive Asian film ever, it shows onscreen with grand-scale elaborate land/sea battles, unmatched in ANY film. Period.

Dude, that was awesome
Hollywood can't do this stuff
Dude, that was awesome

Well, that sounds like unqualified praise, all right!

He also suggests this trailer:

NBC's Late-Night TV Programming Fiasco

The whole mess is just deliciously silly as Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien mix it up, while Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman take potshots from the sidelines and NBC execs flail. The resulting comedy is waaaaaay more fun than anything that's been on the late-night air in forever. Who cares about "Team Edward" versus "Team Jacob"? Now we've got "Team Comedian-with-Big-Chin" versus "Team Comedian-with-Weird-Hair."

The Cine-Sib recommends this jab from O'Brien -- he put "The Tonight Show" on Craigslist. (The Sib, by the way, would like to say "I'm With Coco!")

I recommend this clip from Leno's monologue last night:

The Cinema-Mad Sibling Reviews "Daybreakers"

The Cine-Sib and I recently went to see the new vampire movie "Daybreakers" with some of our friends. Here is the latest Cine-Sib haiku review:

The world is undead.
Humans are farmed for their blood.
But is there a cure?

My own review will be online later. Caveat: there is a lot of gore in this flick! It's of a video-game, horror-flick schtick ludicrous sort of gore, though, so my buddies and I were laughing uproariously in our seats.

Short version of my review: I liked it. Come on, just think -- Sam Neill as a vampire villain! Besides, this flick is an anti-"Twilight." You can read this until I get my own review done.

Movie Review: First Impressions of "Avatar" + Cine-Sib Haiku (Updated with More Haiku!)

Pretty much, yeah. (Via Geeks Are Sexy.)

Two nights ago, the Cinema-Mad Sibling and I went to see "Avatar" in 3D IMAX.

Initial impressions with full review to come:

• Visual sensory supersaturation overload. I literally got a pounding physical headache by the end of it.
  
• Special effects were grand and grandiose, but after a while, they actually began to distract and even to bore. I could go on, but see the end of Part 6 here for the basic idea.
• The plot is basically both completely derivative and completely asinine. Everyone and their grandma's been saying how it's a total ripoff of "Dances With Wolves" (which is itself not that original either, but it's probably the best-known recent-ish flick that has the white-man-goes-native idea), and it's true. The flick is "Dances With Space Smurfs in psychedelic Ferngully." Plus "The Last Samurai."
  
• James Cameron rips off plenty of movies, and he also rips off himself.
• The flick is definitely worth seeing once in full 3D IMAX big-screen glory for full appreciation of its visual splendor, but the narrative is idiotic and a mishmash of just about every other kind of soggy sentiment about White Guilt, the Exotic Other, and the Noble Savage.
• Sam Worthington does a fine job as Jake Sully. Well, in as far as he can do a good job in his role. The Aussie actor's personal charisma manages to make Sully not completely stupid (just as it managed to make his Marcus Wright character in the disappointing "Terminator: Salvation" virtually that movie's only bright spot besides Anton Yelchin).
  
• You'll never look at USB connections in the same way again.
• In terms of CGI that "looks real," this is good, but it comes in the aftermath of Gollum of "Lord of the Rings" and the flick that for me really did break ground in special effects, 1993's "Jurassic Park." Those darn dinosaurs looked believable. "Avatar" and Pandora looked like we'd suddenly been sucked into a massive (though beautiful) video game. OK, I can't help myself: floating mountains? Puh-leeez.
• UNOBTAINIUM?????
  

I have to go now, but you can read these reviews until I post my full review:

• io9's take
• Crazy alien fetish

Yes, the Sib loved "Avatar." He says that the special effects are awesome even though the story is weak and cliched. This prompted (natch) an argument about spectacle versus substance. Pretty images just aren't enough to merit the praise of greatness.

Anyway, here are his haiku reviews:

Story seen before
Sensory overload, CRASH!
A big Blue Man Group.

White man v. natives
White man becomes a native
White man kills his own

Hometree is massive
Really big ethernet hub
Hey girl, plug me in

Final battle, wow!
Inorganic, organic
Metal versus flesh