Movie Manathon: Freddy Krueger, Crystal Meth and high tech space prisons

Steph went to visit her parents last week, so I took the time to watch several movies and TV shows she wants nothing to do with.  I’ve done this several times before, check out some previous movie manathons here.

The wife’s away, so Pax will play. Let’s start with the movies I watched.

Lockout (2012) – Starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed this.  Good action, quick dialogue.  Pearce is wonderfully sarcastic.  Loved it.  My only issue is that Maggie Grace is terrible.  I just do not like her and she continues proving to me that she can’t act with every movie she’s in.

Chronicle (2012) – I think of this as “that super hero Facebook movie” because it was advertised so heavily on “the book”.  I was well aware of it but I hadn’t really heard a lot about it specificially.  But the premise sounded great and I knew my wife would never watch it so I got the Blu-Ray from Netflix and popped it in the PS3.  And it’s AWESOME.  Wow, I didn’t expect it to be this good.  This is how I imagine it would actually happen if teens received super powers.  And the movie gets pretty dark at the end.  I also like that it’s essentially a “found footage” movie which adds a bit of realism.  If you like super hero movies, this is definitely a different take on them.  Give it a shot, I think you’ll like it.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – Starring Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy.  For some reason I keep thinking of this movie receiving a lot of hate from fans.  I’m not sure why.  Is the movie perfect? No.  But neither is 9/10 of the entire Nightmare franchise.  This movie is good and I like Haley’s performance.  I like how they fleshed out Freddy a little more and made him less jokey with only 1 one-liner.  The effects were spectacular as well.  The movie looked gorgeous.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) – Saw the first one and loved it, so I decided to check out the second one since Steph doesn’t like horror movies.  And it’s good.  These “found footage” movies I really love.  I do.  They are actually pretty scary.  I think they are scarier than something like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th because they feel more “real”.  Screw that torture porn crap like Saw and Hostel, these movies like Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch and Fourth Kind really creep me out (Blair Witch not so much any more).  I started watching it one evening and actually had to turn it off to watch it the next afternoon.  It’s pretty creepy.  The “found footage” genre gets a lot of crap for some reason probably because it’s more of a creepy factor than out and out gore and kills.  It’s a slow, suspenseful burn.  I’ve even heard The Atomic Geeks say the genre is played out which is retarded because there are way more superhero, time travel or fantasy movies than there are “found footage” movies and none of those other genres are considered played out.  I thought this movie was well done.

Total Recall (2012) – This is the movie I saw in the theaters last week.  Steph wants to see Dark Knight Rises this week, so I couldn’t see that. She also wants to see Bourne Legacy, so this was my next choice.  And it delivered.  Visually this is a completely different movie than the Schwarzenegger sci-fi vehicle from the 90s.  It takes roughly the same story and goes another way.  It’s fun, action packed and awesome with plenty of nods to the original movie.  I loved the hell out of it.  I don’t know why it seems to be getting a lot of hate from fans.  Everyone is great in this.  Collin Farrell is amazing as usual and Kate Beckinsale is amazingly hot and bad ass.  I love Bryan Cranston as the villain.  This movie is what made me start watching Breaking Bad (see below) on Netflix Streaming that very night.  The future world they’ve built is worth seeing this movie.

Now, some of the TV shows I watched.

The League – I’ve been watching this on Netflix Streaming for a while. I finally finished Season 2 last week. I can’t even begin to describe how much I love this show.  It’s hilarious and reminds me of a more extreme version of my own friends.  It just never stops being funny.

Breaking Bad – I’d never watched this but I’ve heard really good things. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, I loved Cranston in several movies I’ve seen him in recently, most specifically, Total Recall.  Well, it’s on Netflix Streaming so I watched the first 4 episodes of this and…WOW. Word of mouth is right, this show is, so far, amazing.  It’s like a more intense, more interesting Weeds.  I can’t wait to finish out the first season.

The Hard Times of RJ Berger – I actually watched the first few episodes of this the last time Steph left town and I watched three or four more this week. This is a light, fun show that I enjoy. It was created and sometimes written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the guy who wrote Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and the movie Dark Shadows.  It’s funny and light and I like that each episode is only about 25 mins long.  It’s described by its creators (and I agree) as a cross between The Wonder Years and Superbad.

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