Holy Kevin James!!

Has anyone else seen the trailer for Here Comes the Boom? Kevin James looks AMAZING! I remember watching his stand-up and him saying something to the effect, "my workout goals are different than everyone else's. All I want is my tummy not to jiggle when I'm brushing my teeth!" I died laughing when he said it! Now watch that trailer and see what he looks like! I'm using all kinds of exclamation points because I'm so impressed! I currently have similar workout goals as the old Kevin James and now I feel a lot better about looking beyond that. He's a bit older than I am as well so I should have a chance.

The shots in the trailer show enough that I don't think he is using some kind of body double. In fact I don't see how he could with how much he is on the screen. I just think it's really impressive to see an actor go all for it and make those kind of changes in his life. It's one thing to always be in shape and stay that way, to get into shape after making being out of shape one of your gimmics that's not something to scoff at. I'm also always impressed with actors that do combat training for movies. We don't give enough credit to an actors ability to take something that they probably had little to no knowledge of and make it look like they are experts on screen.

I give a big WELL DONE to Kevin James on this one and putting Here Comes the Boom on my list of movies to see! What do you guys think?

The Dark Knight Rises

So I don't know anyone who isn't excited about this movie! That's just the type of people I hang out with. I have been truly captivated with this series since Batman Begins came out in 2005. When it came out there was a shift felt throughout the genre. Everyone else had to raise their bar and come up with something epic. It is amazing the impact the series has had. I'm really excited (you'll read this word a lot in this blog because I can't find a Google thesaurus) for this movie, but I want to take a look at what brought us here. I'm not one to make speculations and honestly I'm probably not as well read into the comics as most so I wouldn't want to spark any debates about what happened in which issue. I have however seen the first two movies of the series and feel I have some valid opinions on the subject so here we go!

Personally I'm not surprised at the amazing stories Christopher Nolan has been able to portray in his movies. Batman is my favorite DC universe hero. In fact a lot of the DC characters really just don't do it for me. I might be the only comic book fan that's not excited about a Justice league movie. Batman, however, has always been at the top of my list of hero characters. I believe the greatest thing about Batman is that he is just a man for crying out loud! Sure he has near impossible gadgets and I'd say more luck than Bruce Wayne has money but still that's all he's got. Batman also has one of the best alter egos, Bruce Wayne.

If I were to break down the success of the Nolan Batman films I'd have to say it starts with Bruce Wayne. I think that it's always the alter ego that everyone is interested in. This is why you always have love stories or life tragedies. Everyone wants to see who is behind the mask and they want to relate to them. People want to see that a person with normal-ish problems can put on a suit and perform amazing feats of heroism. Batman has Bruce Wayne and Nolan was wise to focus on his journey to becoming Batman. We saw Wayne weak and foolhardy and we saw him rise above it! In The Dark Knight we saw him beaten down and his moral character tested by the Joker. I can only imagine what we'll see in The Dark Knight Rises! I've tried to be careful not to read too much about it so I won't go too much into what I think it will be. I feel, given Nolan's past movies, that the movie will be way more fantastic if I go into it ready to learn what is going on instead of trying to feel like I already do. Sadly I'm not sure if I'll make it to the opening weekend BUT I will be posting about it as soon as I see it and I expect to see comments and virtual high fives as we discuss this movie!

Here are some reviews but more notes that I quickly read. Like I said I'm trying really hard to not think about this movie too much before I go see it.

http://manarchymag.com/core/2012/07/dark-knight-rises-sneak-review/

http://www.moviesonline.ca/the-dark-knight-rises-reviews

http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/07/11/jimmy-kimmel-reviews-the-dark-knight-rises-the-highlight-of-my-year/

Also if you were all wondering my favorite comic book heroes are as follows
1. Wolverine
2. Batman
3. Spider-Man
4. Colossus

And after that I don't care to put them in order.

Truly Amazing Spider-Man

I went and saw The Amazing Spider-Man. I remember reading articles from concerned fans about a reboot of a series happening so close to the release of the final installment. I admit I was also worried about how this would turn out. I thought I would spend the duration of the movie thinking about how it stacked up against the ones that I had just recently (in the last ten years) seen in theaters. Just a few minutes into this reboot, however, Toby McGuire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco were pushed to the back of my mind as I was drawn into this new story. The overall arch of the story is nearly identical to the original. There's awkward teen Peter Parker dealing with gaining super powers and responsibility. There's a love story and tragedy and heroes and fighting and victory! What sets this Spider-Man apart from the originals is that it is bigger. I'm not saying they Michael Bay'd it and added huge special effects and aliens and explosions and giant robots. I'm saying they made every experience in the movie bigger. The characters were deeper. You feel with them and follow right beside them as they battle the trials. Peter Parker's past is more thoroughly explored posing the question, "how would this teenager feel about his real parents?" We see Peter come full circle as he becomes a hero instead of a cocky teen pretending he's doing a great service by beating up bad guys. We find Spider-man truly discovering himself and why he's going to do what he does. They don't focus too much on the love story though it is still present. The importance of these things I think is that motives become more clear, story line is more defined, and it connects with audiences better than shallow stories and big special effects. I feel it took the comic book out of the movie allowing the artists to truly explore the possibilities of the story. Of course this moving is not lacking in amazing special effects and amazingly choreographed fight scenes, but because they're not the total focus there is just more movie to watch. Take all that and add a wonderful cast including Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Rhys Ifans, and of course Denis Leary. I very much enjoyed this movie and feel that it is a good direction for the franchise. I hope they can build on this movie and bring a few more installments of Spider-Man.

Let me know what you thought of my view of The Amazing Spider-Man