Category Archives: movies

Generally a movie review, but maybe just some info on something upcoming.

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Movie Review

I’ve read the book The Time Traveler’s Wife several times (and when I say several I’m thinking four or five times). This was the first novel by Audrey Niffenegger and it took her over five years to release her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, which is due out soon (end of September 2009). You can check out a review I wrote a few years back if you don’t know anything about it.

The Time Traveler's Wife SoundtrackIf you don’t know anything about it, know this: it’s not a science fiction movie! I know that it seems counter-intuitive, but the movie is about their relationship and how this “disease” affects it. Henry travels through time and can’t control it, he’s not some tinkering scientist with a lab in the basement. The main thing is that he generally travels to the same places, this is what makes the story work. When he travels to unfamiliar places that’s when there is trouble; did I mention that his clothes don’t travel with him?

I thought the movie was amazing! Obviously, they had to change a few things in the movie. It was so wonderfully done I can clearly remember the one scene I didn’t like and there was one scene that I thought should have been left in. I thought the character’s were aged okay, really more Henry’s character was necessary than Claire’s, since Henry was the traveler you needed to be able to figure out how old he was when he appeared.

The only other thing I’m saying before I offer some spoiler-like things is the only swearing I noticed was the word “shit” and you get to see Eric and Rachel’s butts, so it’s a pretty safe film if your wondering about it for your kids from that perspective (but it is about life and gets intense so it’s not happy-go-lucky for your younger kids). Reviews seem to score about 70-75% but it really seems as if people love it or hate hate it, not many people in-between (35% or 1,700 reviews on IMDB gave it a 10). And don’t watch the preview, it gives away way too much!

It’s a long book with a lot of craziness and depressing parts of life. The movie got rid of most of the bad/extra-depressing parts. It’s still there though: pain, life, suffering, death and it’s a lot more visual than the book. And it’s got lots of sad parts. I actually think it’s more emotional if you read the book since you now what parts are coming.

It really just worked. I thought everything came together very well. I’m not going to rave about it, since I’m sure I’ve oversold it already. There was that one scene in the middle that I didn’t like the way it went, it just didn’t flow right, if you see it remember to come back and leave a comment as to what you thought the worse done scene was.

They added/changed a few scenes too, one scene ended completely differently than I thought it would (but was done excellent). I was really disappointed that they cut a scene, had they not made a fore-shadowy reference to it I might have lived without it. And the way the movie put some parts together it might even have changed things a little bit, but still I missed it. I will say I stayed to the end of the credits just in case they ran that scene, it would have worked really well there, it is a time travel movie after all.

P.S. – Bring kleenex…

The Alps IMAX movie

So the reason I was at the Detroit Science Center the other day was to see the new IMAX movie The Alps IMAX movie.

The Alps [Blu-ray] Image EntertainmentFirst of all let me tell you why they had the rock climbing wall the other day. It was because it was the science center members preview and the new IMAX movie was about (climbing) the Alps so they had a bunch of “extras” for the evening. They also had swiss chocolate bars for the first 300 people and free snow cones for everyone. Plus, they let us see the movie for free! It was really fun. I will make a point of going to all other members IMAX previews that they promote like this one!

The movie was visually stunning. And it wasn’t all about climbing, it was about the growth and living in the mountains and all sorts of other (educational) stuff. But the plot/premise was this guy and his father was killed climbing one of the mountains and how he needed to climb it (40 years later) to get past it. It was a little crazy in my opinion, but ignoring that, it was really good!

The weird thing is the movie is already out on DVD and Blu-Ray, they even had it for sale at the Detroit Science Center (their web site is down a lot).

Dr. Manhattan’s Pants

If you’re not a Watchmen fan you probably won’t find it very funny.

Here’s the direct link to Dr. Manhattan’s Pants.

Star Trek The New TimeLine

So I’ve seen a lot of people confused about the new Star Trek universe. It’s pretty simple, it gets explained to you in the new movie several times.

Warning if you haven’t seen the movie, there are big spoilers below:

st-timeline.jpgIt’s explained with Spock with Kirk and again with Spock and Uhura. When Nero and (old) Spock came back in time, they changed the future. Kirk’s father dies and Vulcan is destroyed, this changes the Star Trek universe (at least the parts we care about). None of the stories that take place on Vulcan will happen again in this universe.

The Star Trek on-ine game (which I’ve never seen) wanted to explain where it fits into everything so they created an image of the new timeline. But they help explain the new timelines here. They actually call the “originl” ST universe Star Trek Prime (and the on-line game takes place after Romulus is destroyed in the universe’s future) and it consists of everything Star Trek before 2008 (original series, movies, next generation, deep space-9, enterprise, voyager). The game chose to take place in the prime established universe, otherwise it doesn’t have much ‘history’ to work with…

So we’ve got a whole new universe. Kirk never found Khan, Spock never died (we’ve got two Spock’s now!) but similar too Pike was the Captain of the Enterprise still ended up in a wheelchair. Everything from 2233 on changes a little and from 2258 on, there is no Vulcan. FYI, the math on that seems off, it makes Kirk 25 when Vulcan is destroyed, I would have guessed he was younger than that.

Bottom line – I thought it was a nice timeline chart…

Did you see the new Star Wars movie? I mean the new Star Trek movie?

I gotta tell you I hadn’t even noticed the similarities (other than the weapon).

Here’s the Direct Link to the video.

Found at The Fire Wire.

Neil Gaiman

I get a ridiculous amount of searches for “Neil Gaimen” on my site, but it’s spelled “Neil Gaiman” (sometimes I get some for “Neil Gaimon” too). This post is really just to help point people to the proper postings. The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman

If you’re looking for stuff about Neil you can search this site for Neil Gaiman or posts tagged with Neil Gaiman.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I’m planning to see Coraline in 3D today!

Neil Gaiman has written many incredible books and graphic novel for children and adults: (these are all Amazon links)”
“Coraline”.
“The Graveyard Book”.
“The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes”.
“American Gods”.
“Stardust”.
“The Wolves in the Walls”.
“Murder Mysteries”.
“The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish”.

And he blogs too!

StarWars Retold (by someone who never saw it).

It’s totally silly, but I thought it was cute (and it’s making the rounds).


Found at Karen’s and eclecticism (within seconds of seeing it at the other place). Here’s the direct link.

It’s not as cute as my previously mentioned “Star Was as told by a 3 year old“, but how could it be?

Muto by Blu

This is one of the shorts that I saw at the Montezuma International Film Festival. A very cool (stop animation) wall painted animation done on the walls of buildings on the streets of Buenos Aires.


Direct link to Muto at Vimeo. If you like it you can download the full Muto movie as a 768×576 avi file.

More info at Blu’s blog.