Movie Preview - June 2012

The month of May has come to an end, which means its time to look forward to the variety of movies that come out in the month of June. This past month was quite the amazing month, unless you were a movie maker not involved with the Avengers trying to make money on the movie you released in May. The Avengers dominated May and has already made it past $500M domestically and in a few days from now it will pass The Dark Knight's total to get the number 3 spot on the all time domestic chart. Worldwide it is about to pass Harry Potter 7.2 for third on that chart as well with $1.3B. This all in a month. Now it is currently ahead of Avatar and Titanic's pace thus far, but that won't last much longer. With that huge success, the only other movie to perform decently well is Men in Black III this past weekend. All the other major releases - Dark Shadows, Battleship, What to Expect When Your Expecting, The Dictator, and Chernobyl Diaries - have all been disappointing.  June, on the other hand, won't be lopsided like this. It will be much different as there several movies that should all be decent hits with no surefire dominant movie. It'll be a good change of pace before we see Batman and Spiderman dominate July.

June 1st - 3rd - The first weekend of June isn't always a great spot for movies to premier because typically there will several big May movies going strong with at least one or two big hits the last weekend. Well, as mentioned above, this isn't quite the case this year. Avengers has slowed down enough and Men in Black III won't be a huge obstacle for the first potentially big movie of June, Snow White and the Huntsman. Now this is the second of two Snow White movies, but the other one, Mirror Mirror, was a joke. This one looks like the real deal as the Huntsman looks like it is combining Snow White with Lord of the Rings in an awesome action packed Snow White movie that will probably be closer to the Grimm Brother's Snow White as opposed to the nice Disney version. A star-filled cast will lead the way in this with Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron as the lead roles. Most have been worried about Kristen Stewart getting the Snow White role, but early reviews say that she redeems herself after the her awful job in Twilight as Bella. The only other new wide release this weekend is For Greater Glory. This movie is a foreign film from Mexico and while it is a wide release, it is barely a wide release and won't make a huge dent in the weekend. Starring Eva Longoria as the biggest name here in the states, it is a movie about the Cristeros War.

June 8th - 10th - The second weekend in June provides us with an interesting battle for the top spot. First up is Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. The first two Madagascar movies both had decent openings and with both of them being well liked, the third installment should be a popular choice amongst families, especially those with younger kids who adore the Madagascar characters. It is the first animated family movie of the summer and with no competition via other family movies, it should fare well at least until Brave comes out two weeks later. Fighting against Madagascar 3 for that top spot is the highly anticipated Prometheus. Prometheus has been hyped up for quite some time now and seems to be rather mysterious as it claims to be some sort of prequel to the Alien movies. It is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, and Charlize Theron in her second June movie in as many weeks. It recently got slapped with an R rating which shouldn't be too surprising given that the Alien movies were all rated R as well, but that fact could effect it's box office totals. It won't hit the huge blockbuster level that some people thought as only ten R rated movies have ever topped $200M with only one of those passing the $300M mark, but it should make a decent ripple in June. A win over Madagascar this weekend wouldn't be surprising and is what most people expect, but it should be a close race.

June 15th - 17th - Father's Day weekend this year brings us a few interesting choices. First up is the musical Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages is made by the same director who brought you Hairspray five years ago and is based on the Broadway show. It takes us on a nostalgic trip back to the musical world of the 80's. So those who love 80's music should enjoy this, unless of course you are not a fan of the lifestyle of 80's musicians, because it dives into that as well. It has quite the cast in it with Tom Cruize playing the lead role of fictional rocker Stacee Jaxx and along with Cruize is Malin Akerman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and more. In the trailer it claims that it features the music of Def Leppard, Foreigner, Journey, Poison, and Twisted Sister. I imagine it will also bring more as well. Challenging Rock of Ages will be Adam Sandler with his new comedy That's My Boy. Now Sandler is generally good at attracting people to the theaters to see his movies. There will always be the typical Sandler fans that will go every time. Now he is also pretty good at avoiding the R rating with his comedies even when several of them have deserved it. This one however did not avoid it and got slapped with an R, so it will be interesting to see how much of that Sandler crowd will still go. Despite that it should be in good shape as the summer always brings a few popular R rated comedies. In this movie Sandler is back as his crazy psycho self as he plays a father who has a son in his early teens and after several years apart comes back into his life right before his son's wedding. It fits the Father's Day theme, so it might be a popular choice on Father's Day.

June 22nd - 24th - The last two weeks of June provide a plethora of movies as they all try to race and earn money before Spiderman and Batman take control of the Box Office in July. The final weekend of June provides four new releases and this fourth weekend has three. The biggest release of this weekend, which will also most likely be the top grossing movie of June, is Pixar's Brave. Now Pixar typically has a very good track record. Before last year's Cars 2, Pixar had a 9 movie streak stemming back to Toy Story 2 in 1999 where every movie they released topped $200M. Now, $191M isn't bad for a movie, but out of all Pixar's movies, the only movie that grossed less was 1998's A Bug's Life. Adjusting for inflation, Cars 2 is officially the least grossing Pixar movie and rightfully so. It was a terrible movie. But Brave should pick up where Pixar left off before the Cars 2 disaster as it looks like a fun, original movie with a tagline that reminds me a bit of Megamind. "If you had the chance to change your fate, would you?" By original, I mean a non-sequel because the change-your-fate idea in a movie isn't original, but Brave should a fun movie still and should put Pixar back on track. The second movie this weekend is a rather ridiculous one. My hope is that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will kill off the vampire craze that has been going on in Hollywood for the last several years. Now this movie is based off the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yes, I hear the book is an interesting one and the movie could very well be a good, fun action movie, but the premise of the movie just makes me laugh every time I think about it and watch the trailer. The problem with that is that I know its not supposed to be a comedy. Come on, Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires? That is hilariously ridiculous. Moving on, the final movie of the weekend is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Hmmm... I wonder where they got the idea for that movie? This is the second R rated comedy of the month and stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley and is what it sounds like. The world is ending and after the guy's wife leaves him, he goes and searches for his high school sweetheart.

June 29th - July 1st - This final weekend of June (yes, it does include one day of July) was supposed to be the GI Joe 2 weekend, but they wisely decided to postpone their release because coming out at this time would warrant a domestic gross of $50M - $75M max. Released next March it actually has a chance at crossing $100M. But now with it out of the way, it will be a complete grab bag for the top spot this weekend, which could very well end up being a 2nd win in a row for Brave. In competition to steal the throne from Brave will be two comedies, a drama, and a comedy/drama. Out of the four, the one that I imagine will draw the most attention is Ted. This is heavily marketed as the first motion picture from the creators of Family Guy. This is certain to unite the many Family Guy fans around the country as well as any other person who wants to watch an R rated comedy about a guy and his crazy talking teddy bear. It stars Mark Wahlberg as lead role and includes three people from Family Guy, including Seth MacFarlane himself as the voice of Ted the teddy bear. Movie number two is Magic Mike. This is the second R rated comedy of the weekend and fourth in three weeks. Not all of them will be huge, but one or two of them might break out and it will be interesting to see which ones will and which ones will flop. Magic Mike features Channing Tatum in his third major movie in the last four months. It is about Channing Tatum being a male stripper, which is totally appeasing (yes, that was sarcastic). This is also the movie that is a drama as well, so it might have more depth to it than Channing Tatum dancing around half naked in front of girls. If this kind of thing is for you, then be my guest. The movie that I think sounds most interesting this weekend is  People Like Us. Unfortunately it probably won't be the most popular movie of the month, but it could be a surprise hit, you never know. It's an interesting family drama where a man is asked to deliver $150,000 of his deceased father's fortune to his sister that he has never met. And of course some crazy plot twists happen along the way. It has an interesting cast of Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks, and Michelle Pfeiffer. The last movie of the weekend I think is useless. Tyler Perry Madea's Witness Protection. If you like these movies, then go ahead, but I'm not going to say any more about it other than it is being released.

John Carter Review

On a memorial day afternoon when I found myself all alone, I decided to venture out to the Dollar Theater to hopefully enjoy a movie. John Carter was my choice. Now the story behind John Carter certainly isn't a happy one. Disney invested a ton in this movie. It was almost the first animated movie ever made, but that fell through and now close to a hundred years later, it finally comes out as a live action thriller. Not only was there a time investment with this, there was a huge financial investment as well. Disney was so certain that this was going to be a hit that they spent $250M making it. They released in on the second weekend of March with very little competition. Perfect plan for success right? Uh, not so fast. Something went wrong along the way with the marketing and advertising and this movie fell flat on its face. It only barely broke even with a worldwide total of $280M, which 75% of which came from outside the US as it only earned $70M here in the states. A movie that took $250M to make should earn more than $70M here. So yes, this is an instance where the term high risk, high reward turns disaster. The worst part of this is the fact that after finally seeing it, I thought this was a good movie that was definitely deserving of the big dollars that it was supposed to but didn't get.

John Carter the movie is based on the Barsoom books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the early 1900's. Specifically it is based on the first book in that series titled Princess of Mars. I have not read any of the books, but the series along with other works by Burroughs have been an inspiration to many writers. Now being that I have not read the books, I am not capable of comparing the book to the movie, so I apologize if you were looking for that connection, but the story I was given in the movie I really enjoyed. Captain John Carter, a civil war veteran from Virginia finds himself mysteriously transported to the planet of Mars, or as the natives there call it, Barsoom. When he gets there he quickly learns that due to a difference in gravity amongst other factors he can leap far and consequently become really strong. This makes him a great warrior and weapon in the war that he quickly learns that he has been thrown right into. The story is one of him finding out who he truly is as he battles internally between finding a way back home, chasing after the runaway princess, and deciding if he wants to help save the planet from destruction. It is a story with heart and bravery that has a great combination of action and romance. 

What else was good about it? The special effects were brilliant. You could tell that a lot of time and effort was put into creating the Barsoom world and creatures. The CGI aliens were quite brilliant and, as the credits informed me, shooting at least a portion of this movie in the great Martian-like scenery of Moab, Utah was a great idea. I thought the acting was great in the movie, especially Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins as the lead roles of John Carter and Princess Dejah Thoris respectively. I thought the costume design was well done as that made it feel like we were on Mars. However, of note is that this may be disturbing to some as several of the outfits are quite revealing particularly that of the Princess of which her outfit towards the end is the worst. Lastly I would like to mention that the music was fantastic and added greatly to the movie. Michael Giacchino, best known in my books at least for his brilliant music in the TV series Lost, was a great choice for this movie.

This movie was obviously intended on being a huge blockbuster hit with multiple sequels if it was successful. I am saddened that it didn't work out as expected and sadly I have a hard time seeing another John Carter movie hitting theaters after this one was an epic failure in the Box Office. But great movie that makes me want to pick up the books and read them. I am giving this an 8 out of 10.

2012 NBA Playoff Predictions - Conference Finals

#1- San Antonio Spurs vs #2- Oklahoma City Thunder - Not too often does it happen this way, but the Conference Finals in the West gives us the match-up that we were all hoping for. The Spurs and the Thunder both blew by their competition in the first two rounds as the Spurs made the Jazz and Clippers look like jokes while the Thunder impressively snuck past the defending champ Mavs and the perennial contending Lakers. The Thunder and the Spurs have a combined one loss in the playoffs, the Spurs being the undefeated team, so this should be quite interesting series. Personally, I hope the Thunder will win this series, but right now I have a serious problem with going against the Spurs. They have now won 18 straight and 29 out of their last 31 games, only losing twice when they rested their big three. Two things that are key in the playoffs are momentum and experience and with this huge winning streak they certainly have the momentum and we all know that this Spurs team is experienced. Now the Thunder have some good momentum and are gaining more playoff experience that will help them in the future, but I really think that this is the Spurs' year. The Spurs have defeated the Thunder twice out of three times already this year and while I don't see a third straight sweep, a quick finish to the series wouldn't surprise me. I think all the games will be close and hard fought, but the Spurs will be clutch enough to wind out on top. Prediction: Spurs 4-1

#2- Miami Heat vs #4- Boston Celtics - First off I want to give a well deserved shout out to the Sixers. No one expected them to do much in these playoffs, but they certainly had a spectacular run that started by knocking off a beaten up Bulls team and ended by giving the Celtics a run for their money by taking them to seven games before finally getting outrun. Doug Collins has certainly done wonders with that team. But onto the Celtics and Heat. The Eastern Conference has been the conference that has given us the most drama and competition this season and I see that continuing in the Eastern Conference finals. The Celtics owned the Heat in the regular season going 3-1, but I see quite the dog fight happening in this series rather than a one sided battle. Miami is still beat up with Bosh being out, but James and Wade have certainly been on fire as they won three straight to knock out the Pacers in six after the whole country wrote them off when they went down 2-1. I think that momentum will carry into this series and they will start out strong. I also see the Celtics starting out strong after the clutch win against the Sixers in game seven. Some might say a brutal seven game series agains the Sixers will make them a bit worn out to start with, but I don't see that. The Celtics big three know how to win and on top of that Rajon Rondo has been a beast. So like I said, this will be a tough, hard fought series and I wouldn't be surprised to see either team wind out on top, but I will give the slight nod to the Heat in this one. Prediction: Heat 4-3

The Vow Review

Kim and Krickett Carpenter

The story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter is quite an inspiring one. They fell in love and got married on September 18th, 1993. Ten weeks later they got in a serious car accident that left Krickett with serious brain trauma that pretty much wiped out the past 18 months of her life in terms of her memory. That time included her forgetting the whole time span of her meeting, dating, and getting married to her husband Kim. He, however, was still madly in love with her and stayed with her during the months she was in a coma and the months of physical therapy that followed. Despite all the effort, she never regained her memory. This obviously frustrated him a bit and there were times when he thought the marriage wouldn't work out, but at the same time he refused to leave her in the state that she was and things ended up working out. Despite her never remembering the previous relationship with him, she fell in love with him again and in 1996 they renewed their vows and had a second marriage. Both state that what kept them together during this time period was their faith in Jesus Chist (they are devout Christians and attend a Methodist church in Farmington, NM) and their vows they made to each other and to God. They wrote a book about their story called The Vow that was published in 2000. Perfect material for a romantic chick flick, right? Some movie makers certainly thought so and turned this story into a movie that came out just this past February. New on DVD just recently, my brother and his wife rented it and I watched it with them. Awful. Just plain awful. Despite it being a bit dated, I have a few things that I want to say, so here on my blog is the perfect place.

Now first off, how do I know the Carpenter's story so well? That answer is easy. When I watch a movie that starts out by saying "Based on a true story" (or in this case I think the wording was "Inspired by true events") I get curious as to what the actual story is and so I jumped on my laptop once the movie started and looked it up as I watched. What I quickly learned was that when this movie says "inspired by true events" what they really mean is "the events that happened to this certain couple inspired us and we decided to make a movie that had the same basic premise, but our movie and the real story have very little in common." Which that isn't a terrible thing. I don't have a problem with you making a story that is only loosely based on true events allowing you to use your own creative liberties instead of just doing a documentary. But when you do that your created story better be a good one because if not I am going to criticize you for taking an awesome and making it pathetic. This movie is not about Kim and Krickett Carpenter. It's about a fictional couple named Leo and Paige. In both situations, the couple got in a car crash and the girl lost the memory of her husband. Outside that, the two stories are dramatically different. Kim and Krickett's story is awesome. Paige and Leo's isn't.

Now that I've rambled on about that for two paragraphs, lets jump into the movie. Yes, I am a guy that is reviewing a chick flick so I know that if you are a girl and are reading this, that fact alone will cause you to not trust my opinion, but hear me out please. I don't hate chick flicks. In fact I have enjoyed many of them, but there are a few things I always look for when I watch a chick flick. One, I want it to be done well. Meaning the story is intelligent and believable and the couple in the chick flick have great chemistry. The second is that I like a chick flick to throw me off a bit. We all know that the story line of a chick flick. Guy meets girl. Guy and girl fall in love. Some event happens that causes drama in the relationship and guy and girl almost break up permanently. A second event or series of events happens that brings the couple back together. There. Boom. That's the basic story line of all chick flicks. For me to enjoy a chick flick, something has to happen to cause the chick flick to be slightly unpredictable. Most girls don't care about that second aspect, they just want it to be sweet and romantic. I gotta have both. The problem with the vow is not only did it not have the second point done right, I don't even think it got the first one done right.

So yeah, the unpredictability in this movie doesn't exist. There are no curve balls at all in the story line. If you have seen the trailer, you have seen the whole movie. Ok, that's not the end of the world. It means I won't enjoy it that much, but many people still can. The huge problem is that other aspect I mentioned. Lets start at the very beginning. The crash. Unrealistic. With the way the truck hits the car in the beginning, having all the windows crack or shatter with the girl flying halfway out on the hood of the car just wouldn't happen. And why in the heck would a girl feel the need to take off her seatbelt while they were sitting there at the stoplight to lean over and make out with husband? That doesn't make sense to me. Then we move on to the story. In was a bit forced and a little weird. The girl in this loses 5 years of her memory. And apparently with this story, she forgets her whole personality. 5 years ago in the story she was a righteous good girl and then in those five years she goes rebellious. Well when she loses her memory, she forgets that whole rebellious stage and thus becomes a good girl again. Then of course we have to throw in an aspect that one of the last things she remembers is a previous engagement and so she thus falls in love with that guy again. On top of that, I didn't find any chemistry between Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams. A part of that was the script they were given, but another part was that the acting wasn't very good or believable at all. The whole time Channing Tatum, or his character Leo I suppose, is a complete jerk and idiot. And certainly not romantic at all. I'm not a girl so maybe I don't know, but I really don't think he did anything that would've won her over. I expected it to be sweet and romantic like 50 first dates where when he learns that she has a memory loss issue, he is smooth and romantic by taking her on dates and treating like a new situation. Nope. That didn't happen. Instead we get dissonance, arguments, and separation the whole movie and some how by some miracle Paige finds Leo and decides to stay with him. It didn't make sense. I won't go into detail about how it ends, but it is ridiculous and completely forced. And of course because the movie makers think they are smart, they have to include a few scenes where we see full body shots of Rachel McAdams in nothing but her underwear and for the girls we see Channing Tatum completely nude from the behind. Dumb.

So now my rant is over. This movie was just not done very well. Even my sister-in-law was disappointed with it. Kim Carpenter himself said this, "We enjoyed the movie but we were a little frustrated by the artistic licence they took." Another interview mentions that they were also disappointed that the religious aspect was taken out. So if the people you base your chick flick off of weren't even all that impressed with your movie, you know you have problems. I am giving this movie a 4 out of 10. I'm being that generous because it inspired me to learn about the amazing story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter, but that's about it.

Supernatural Season 7 Review

In a day where many TV shows end up getting cancelled after only two, three, or four seasons thanks to TV stations like FOX not giving anything a chance, having a TV series make it through seven seasons is quite the accomplishment. Well, that is exactly what Supernatural has done as the season seven finale was just this past week. Maybe being on the CW has something to do with that as they are more prone to giving TV shows a shot, but still. More impressive is that Supernatural has been renewed for a season eight and may even last for nine or ten. In addition, it has survived the past two seasons on Friday nights, which is a typically the night that TV shows have gone to die. The reward it gets for surviving that spot for two years is a time change to Wednesdays nights for this upcoming season. Now Supernatural could've easily ended after five seasons. That was the original plan. And with the apocolypse happening in the fifth season, it would've been a great ending. But they decided to move on. And how do you top the apocolypse? Well, you don't. What you do instead of trying to top it, you just take the show in a completely new direction. And that is exactly what they have done for the previous two seasons.

The direction they took in season seven is with leviathans. Now what in the heck is a leviathan you ask? A random creature that Supernatural made up? Heck no. That's one of the reasons that Supernatural is so awesome. They do their research with the stuff that appears in their show and using a leviathan is yet another argument to support that. Sure they use creative liberties in the actual way they portray them, but the creatures or monsters in Supernatural exist in mythology. Now which mythology you ask? Well, a combination really. Looking at a leviathan, it actually appears in biblical mythology, just like much of the stuff from Supernatural, especially seasons four and five. Now I am not asking you to convert to Christianity with this next request, but for the sake of Supernatural crack open an Old Testament and turn to Job chapter 41. The whole chapter is dedicated to describing a leviathan. Why? I don't know. But it is. I won't quote the whole thing here, but I'll start with verse one in my King James version: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a card which thou lettest down?" Pretty cool, eh? Now if you read the whole section, it's describing a powerful sea serpent which is not quite what Supernatural does with the leviathans, but they are seen differently in different mythologies. Demonology says a leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell and it's gatekeeper. Some later Jewish sources see a leviathan like a dragon. In the middle ages, Christianity saw the leviathan as a symbol for Satan. So what a leviathan is depends on your perspective really and Supernatural kinda combines some of these ideas and turns a leviathan into a crazy, nearly unstoppable monster from purgatory that can take over the body of a mortal.

With that small history out of the way, season seven starts with the pompous Castiel paying for his mistake of trying to become God. The end of season six saw him suck in Purgatory and become all powerful while the beginning of season seven sees him explode releasing the leviathans onto earth along with their leader Dick Roman. While I did enjoy the somewhat complex storyline style of season four and five, season seven does a great job of going back to the style done in the first few seasons. That style included a loose story line that played along during the season while including a bunch of stand alone episodes that the casual observer could enjoy without having to know much of what was going on. This worked quite well for season seven. Also working in its favor was the emotional aspect of the season. I won't blurt out what happened, but those who watched it will know what I am talking about. Some may be angry and bitter about this, but they shouldn't be. The number one rule of Supernatural is to expect the unexpected. Crazy things happen all the time that take the audience by suprise and that is the fun part of it. You should never be mad at Supernatural for doing something unexpected or doing something to a character that you didn't want done. The journey for Sam and Dean has never been peaches and roses and what happens in season seven just adds to that dynamic.

Now lets end this with talking about the finale. No the finale wasn't as epic as the season five finale and no it wasn't as jaw droppingly shocking as the season six finale, but the way it ended was quite amazing. I felt that season six set up quite nicely for season seven. Now I feel that the with the way season seven ended, it set up quite perfectly for the eighth season. The journey has been long for Sam and Dean and each new season adds a new dimension to their story. Both brothers have progressed quite a bit since the start of the series and I am excited to see where this next season will take them. Season seven was great and I have a feeling that season eight will be even better!

The Pirates! Band of Misfits Review

Hey, guess what? Avengers isn't the only movie in theaters right now! Yeah, I know. Shocker. After seeing the Avengers three times myself I finally remembered that I could see other movies and thus on a Thursday night when I was out with a friend, I went to see The Pirates! Band of Misfits. Apparently we were the only ones to realize that there were other movies in theaters because outside an elderly couple, we had the screen all to ourselves. I suppose that this tells the Box Office story of Pirates! rather well because after three and a half weeks in theaters it has only just cracked 20M which is quite a shame. I suppose that we can look at this as the movie's biggest weakness. The marketing/advertising wasn't big enough to get people interested and then decided to open it the week before Avengers wasn't the smoothest move. A late March or early April would've been much better.

But anywho, going away from the fail on release date and what not and on to the movie, the Pirates! was a movie that I actually rather enjoyed. It comes from Aardman Animation and is another claymation movie in the style of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. Like always, the claymation is done rather well. I was very impressed. The story was about a pirate who really had a strong desire to win the pirate of the year award and he goes through quite the adventure with his crew in order to try to win that honor. It's a fun story. Not an epic story line and not crazy or dramatic, but it was fun. It's the type of movie that I can see the younger crowd really loving. I was thinking of all my little nieces and nephews as I was watching it and thought that they would love it. One of the movies that a parent should buy for their younger kids to watch all the time. And at the same time it is one that the parents can enjoy, so calling it a movie that they whole family can enjoy is a great description. A huge factor in making it fun is the randomness in it. The part of the title that says band of misfits describes this very well. Its an odd crew that do and say a lot of weird things that catch you off guard but make you laugh at the same time. And throwing in Charles Darwin as on of the main characters that the crew runs into as well as mentioning or including others like Jane Austen and the Queen of England is quite hilarious.

I don't have a whole lot else to about this besides what I have already said, but in wrapping up I strongly recommend you give this movie a shot, especially if you are a parent with young children. Don't let your kids miss this movie because it will be one of their favorites that they will watch for years. It's not epic or completely amazing, but its worth your time and money. I give it a 7 out of 10. 

2012 NBA Playoff Predictions - Conference Semifinals

#1- San Antonio Spurs vs #5- Los Angeles Clippers - I never thought I would be saying this, but the Clippers are a team on the rise and they'd be a team that I would love to pick to go to the Conference Finals. The problem is that they screwed themselves over by getting stuck in the five seed. As expected, the series between the Clippers and the Grizzlies was a dog fight that went down to game 7. Both Paul and Griffin got a little banged up in that series. Meanwhile, San Antonio is coming off a lengthy rest after making the Jazz look like a college team. Some might say that a week off would make the Spurs a bit rusty, but this is the playoff savvy Spurs we are talking about. Even if the Clippers did have a similar break, I'd say the Spurs walk away with this one, so the extra rest gives the Spurs a huge advantage against what could be a tired Clippers team. I'll be rooting for the Clippers because I have never liked the Spurs much, but if I'm being honest and realistic I think the Spurs will take care of business in this series. Prediction: Spurs 4-2

#2- Oklahoma City Thunder vs #3- Los Angeles Lakers - When's the last time we had two teams from Los Angeles in the Conference Semi's? Well, only once I suppose since the Clips are coming off their second career playoff series win. If I'm being quite honest, I think that a Lakers vs Clippers conference finals match-up would be quite epic. There's only one problem with that happening. Well, actually there are two. It's the Thunder and the Spurs. One of those teams may fall, but I doubt that both will. However, I digress. Thunder vs Lakers. I really despise the Lakers and really hope the Thunder win. In fact, I hope that it is an embarrassing 4-0 sweep, but something inside me says that there's no chance of that happening. The Lakers are going to be a hard team to push away and thus I think this will be a very intense series. However, I know that it is cliche right now to predict Spurs vs Thunder, but I am going to do it. The Thunder pull off a tight series win. Prediction: Thunder 4-3

#4- Boston Celtics vs #8- Philadelphia 76ers - Now the Eastern Conference cheated. I wanted to submit this post before the next round started, but the Celtics and Sixers played a game before the first round was over and the Celtics take game one by the skin of their teeth. Now the Bulls had played fine without Rose for many games of the season and so when he went down it was actually surprising to see the Bulls go down so hard. Doug Collins gets a lot of credit for the work he's done with this Sixers team. I think the Sixers will put up a good fight, as apparent by game one, but I think that the playoff experience by the Celtics will put them over the top in this series. Prediction: Celtics 4-1

#2- Miami Heat vs #3- Indiana Pacers - Once again, game one of this series was conveniently played before I could type this up due to the Clips and Grizzlies going to game 7. The Pacers I have thought this whole time could be the dark horse of the playoffs and they started very well by beating up a broken up Magic team. I really want to pick the Pacers in this one because I think that would be cool, but I really can't pick against the Heat right now. The Pacers silently had a great season this year, but I don't think they have enough to take out the Heat. I think they won't go down without a fight and will sneak out a game or two, but the Heat will be the team that makes it to the Conference Finals. This should be a great round of playoffs to watch! Prediction: Heat 4-2

Utah Jazz - 2012 Season in Review

This past season was an interesting one for the Utah Jazz. The expectations weren't very high at all as they had just came off a terrible ending to the 2010-2011 campaign that provided little hope for the future. The season started off on a great note for the first few weeks, but then got rather rocky as the team started to play as bad as most people expected. However, due to an interesting turn of events and a late push by our young team, the Utah Jazz snuck into the playoffs with the eight seed. As a lifelong Jazz fan, this made me happy by giving me hope for the future. However, a disappointing showing in the playoffs against the Spurs left much to be desired for as the Spurs showed the world that the Jazz are nowhere near elite yet by pulling off a rather easy 4 game sweep. Yes, I predicted this as seen here, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. But with that the season has come to an end for the Jazz and now its time to look back and review this past season. In order to do that, I will evaluate the team player by player in order of position. Let's begin!

Al Jefferson, C/PF- Statistically speaking, Jefferson was the best player for the Jazz this past year with 19.2 PPG and 9.6 RPG, but I don't feel like Jefferson's heart is in the game at all times and he also is quite lazy on occasion, especially when it comes to defense. He's one of those players that is good at putting up numbers, but isn't a standout team leader. And in talking about Jefferson it brings up a concern that the Jazz need to solve and that would be the logjam in the front court. The Jazz on their roster have Jefferson, Kanter, Favors, and Millsap all on their roster. Now an even rotation of those four gives the Jazz potentially the best, or at least one of the best, front courts in the league. Now I wouldn't complain if we brought all four back, but with so many other needs on the team, keeping all four would hinder our progress because we could get rid of one of our big men via trade in order to bring in more help and not miss a beat in the front court. The young guys (Kanter and Favors) aren't going anywhere, so that leaves it to Jefferson and Millsap. Of those two, Jefferson is the most expendable. We could package him up with our trade exception and/or another player and bring in a stud guard or small forward and possibly a draft pick since we have no first round picks in this upcoming draft.

Enes Kanter, C- Kanter is the type of player that the Jazz have been looking for for a long time. Having a true center that actually knows how to play basketball could've been the remaining puzzle piece that would earn the Jazz a championship in the 90's, but alas the best we could come up with was Greg Ostertag and that was sad. Now Okur was a decent center for a few years, but wasn't your typical center. Jefferson has done a decent job recently, but I wouldn't call him a true center. He's more of a power forward that can play center when needed and has done so for the Jazz because we've had no other option. So the last true center was Mark Eaton and his number has been hanging in the rafters for quite some time now. However, Kanter was just a rookie last year and it did show. He's not ready to take over as starting center, but I feel that some time in the next year or two he will have a breakout year and become the stud center we have been looking for.

Derrick Favors, PF/C- Now here is a player that I am super excited about. I was among the few Jazz fans that was bitter about the D-Will trade, but the more I watch our team, the more I realize that we didn't trade D-Will for Devin Harris, we traded D-Will for Derrick Favors. The other players we got were just extra bonuses. D-Fav this year showed us that he is going to be a star in this league, with many moments of brilliance. Had Corbin been smart and started him alongside Jefferson and Millsap instead of Josh Howard and DeMarre Carroll, he could've been even better. And with all due respect to Jefferson and Millsap, D-Fav is our future at the power forward position and not either one of them.

Paul Millsap, PF- Even though on paper Al Jefferson had better stats, Paul Millsap was the star of this team this past season. However, he is also caught in the logjam at power forward. Millsap has had so many big moments and is the most clutch player for the Jazz right now, so keeping him on board is the smart idea. But like I said, despite how good Millsap is, Favors is our future at the position so the Jazz have some decisions to make. Now the benefit to trading Millsap is that we would get more out of him and if Derrick Favors stepped up even more it might be worth it, but in the end I think Millsap is a player that the Jazz need to keep around. Yeah, I know I've said differently in the past, but hey. I'm allowed to change my mind. That was more or less me brainstorming anyways.

Jeremy Evans, PF/SF-  The human pogo-stick provided the Jazz with one of the greatest moments of the season as he won the slam dunk contest during all star break. He's definitely a fun player to watch when he is out on the court, but unfortunately that is about it. He's not as nearly as good as our other forwards and I don't think he'll ever be more than a spark off the bench, but he's been fun to have around. He's a restricted free agent this summer, so we'll see if the Jazz decide to bring him back.

Gordon Hayward, SF/SG- I really feel like Gordie came into his own this season. Both him and Favors having fantastic sophomore campaigns really gives the Jazz some hope for the future. Unlike Favors, Corbin was smart with Hayward and gave him the starting job for most of the season and I feel that is a huge reason why he was so successful. He was also one of three Jazz players to average over 30 minutes per game, so Hayward was given the opportunity to shine and made the most of it. I don't know if he will reach all star level, but I feel he still has a lot of room to grow and thus it will only get better for Hayward.

DeMarre Carroll, SF- For a person who the Jazz just picked up in the middle of the season, Carroll did surprisingly well. He started off really slow, but towards the end he actually had made some good strides and contributed decently for us. Now the questionable call comes with the decision to give Carroll the starting job when players got hurt. Sure he was decent, but the Jazz shouldn't have started him when you have players like Favors and Burks that deserved more minutes. The Jazz could bring back Carroll, but he's nothing special. Just a temporary fix when we started to get injury prone.

Josh Howard, SF- Once upon a time, Josh Howard was a great player. He even made an all star appearance if I remember correctly, but he is one of those players who's career hit a brick wall. That happened because he couldn't stay healthy. There are a lot of fans that expected big things out of him this year, but I wasn't one of them. Many fans now consider him to be a huge disappointment here, but he actually played better than I thought he would. He's a free agent, though, and we have no reason to bring him back. He's 32 years old and entering into his 10th season. He'll never be the same again.

CJ Miles, SF/SG- After seven long years, the CJ Miles experiment may finally be over. If you can call it an experiment. I call it a disaster. I have no idea why the front office and coaching staff loved this guy enough to keep him here for so long. He shows flashes of being a great player, but that's it. If you look up the word inconsistent in the dictionary, you will find his name there. On occasion he can hit a three pointer, but when he does he somehow gets in the mindset that if he can make one he can make twenty and doesn't stop shooting threes, most of which he misses. He gives me a headache every time he steps on the floor. Now he is a free agent and I will get on my knees and beg the Jazz to let him walk and not bring  him back.

Raja Bell, SG- Raja was one of my favorite players on the Jazz when he was here before and I was sad when he left for Phoenix. After a few good years in Phoenix, he started becoming old and started to fall apart because he couldn't stay healthy. Then he ended up with us again these last two years, which kinda made me happy. But the sad thing is that he is done. He is in his mid 30's and this second time around he hasn't done a whole lot. Then this year he managed to get in Ty's doghouse towards the end and with his recent comment towards Coach Corbin, he probably won't be coming back. He really did bring good memories to this team, but it is time to be done with him.

Alec Burks, SG- I have been really impressed with Burks this season. As was the case with Kanter, he had a lot of rookie moments, but also like Kanter I feel that he can be really good for the Jazz. He is a great slashing guard that really has no fear at all. Sometimes that gets him in trouble, but for the most part he gets major kudos. He still has a lot to learn, but I think he can develop into a Shandon Anderson or even a Bryan Russell type player for the Jazz. Someone who isn't a star and won't make an all star game, but is a very important role player for us. When Raja, CJ, and Howard all went down with injury, he should've gotten the start instead of DeMarre, but what is done is done. In Ty we trust! ...sometimes. But not really.

Devin Harris, PG- This is an interesting story here. Devin Harris. I was never a fan of Devin Harris coming here. He was good in Dallas, but only as a role player. He was never asked to step up into a leadership role. Then he gets his opportunity to lead in New Jersey and falls flat on his face. Three years of epic failure for the Nets. And now we think its a good idea to dump the best point guard in the league for this guy? I was very unhappy when we traded for him. He played like dirt at the end of last season for us and continued to play like dirt in the first half of the season and I wanted him gone. However, the interesting part of this story comes with the fact that I was actually semi impressed with his performance in the last half of the season. He wasn't great, but he was good enough. Now I would be content with us bringing him back for next season whereas in the past I was demanding us get rid of him. However, I still think we need to get a young point guard to either step in to be the starter or to train as our future starter. Devin Harris is still just an average point guard and not our future point guard. He's a decent shooter, but not a leader and as a point guard I think he should be getting more than his average this past season of 5 assists per game.

Earl Watson, PG- He's the man!! Due to his play, Earl Watson has earned the nickname, Earl "The Man" Watson. The dude is a stud as a backup point guard and I will be more than happy to keep him on board the Jazz train. Now he's just a backup point guard and he'll never be more than that, but that's a position that is very good to have. One of the better backup point guards we've had. He's like the Howard Eisley of today's team and well liked by Jazz fans at that. His season kinda crashed towards the end, but hopefully he will pick it back up next season.

Jamaal Tinsley, PG- Now Jamaal was a pleasant surprise this season. At one point he was a rising star, but he crashed rather hard and was out of the league the previous season. Shortly after being drafted number one overall in the D-League draft, the Jazz signed him on and when his time came to step up when Harris and Watson were both out, he shined like a star. He's easily the best pure point guard on our roster, but he's also in his mid 30's and a free agent this summer. We need to get a great young point guard to lead this team and thus can't afford to keep Harris, Watson, and Tinsley on the roster, so despite how impressed I was for how he performed in a limited role for us, he will probably be the odd man out this summer.

Blake Ahearn, PG- This guy is not a thing. He's a D-:Leaguer who we picked up out of necessity with all the injuries we had. He looks like he is 50 and plays like he's 10. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to bring him up from the D-League out of all people, but he needs to go back to the D-League where he belongs, which is exactly what he will do.

Tyrone Corbin, Head Coach- I was among the crowd that wasn't quite pleased with the choice of Ty as our head coach. And I guess its not that we picked him, its how we picked him. When Jerry Sloan retired mid-season, we should've hired Ty as the INTERIM head coach and then start a coaching search when the season ends. If after all the searching we find that Ty was the best man for the job, then so be it, but that's not what happened, so I feel that we missed a key step in replacing the legendary Jerry Sloan. I think the front office had a little too much faith in Ty by hiring him as the immediate full time head coach. With all that said, has he done a bad job? No, honestly he hasn't. He managed to lead this team to the playoffs in his first full year despite all the odds against him and that is impressive. However, if I'm being perfectly honest, he was far from great this year and has a lot of improvement to make in order to convince me that he is our coach of the future because right now I view him as a temporary fix. His rotation strategies have been quite poor. He stubbornly thought it was a good idea to play players like Josh Howard, CJ Miles, and Raja Bell a lot more than our young stars and I feel that Derrick Favors and Alec Burks should've gotten a lot more playing time. Now towards the end of the season, the two of them did, but I feel it was only because Ty had no other option as Howard, CJ, and Raja all went down with injuries and even with that, Ty thought it was a good idea to start DeMarre Carroll instead of Burks or Favors and shifting the lineup accordingly. Towards the end of the season, it was rather obvious that when we had Jefferson in at center, Favors at power forward, and Millsap down at small forward, it was a huge intimidating lineup that most teams had a rough time stopping. That should've been a lineup that started every game with Hayward and Harris as the guards, but that didn't happen until game four against the Spurs, our last game of the season. Coincidence that we gave the Spurs a run for their money in that game? No. Howard came back at the end of the season and despite everything Favors and Burks had proven, Howard was immediately inserted as the starter until that last game. Things like this showed that Corbin was a rookie coach that only did an average job. I'd give him a year, maybe two and if he doesn't step it up, I'd look elsewhere for a head coach. For a long time, I thought Jeff Hornacek would make a great head coach for us and look where he is. On our bench as an assistant head coach. I would approve of us firing Corbin and hiring him if Corbin doesn't make huge strides in the next couple of years.

In wrapping this up, the Jazz have a good young corps of players in Favors, Hawyard, Burks, and Kanter that provide a lot of hope for the future. We have a strong front court and decent coaching. Our areas of concern come in the guard and wing spots. Hayward does a great job covering both the shooting guard and small forward spots when he is needed and I feel Burks is ready to break out and help there as well, but we need more help. Josh Howard, CJ Miles, DeMarre Carroll, and Raja Bell just don't cut it. All of them need to go and we need to bring in players that can help us be great. The logjam at the power forward spot needs to be solved and as I stated we can use one of our big men as trading bait to bring in a stud shooting guard or small forward to help us. We also need to somehow find a great young point guard. There are a few options in the draft this year that would fit, but unless a miracle happens, the Jazz will get no picks this year and so we need to find someone in free agency like a Goran Dragic type player or trade back into the draft and grab a Damon Lillard or Austin Rivers. So we have some work to do, but there is hope. Let's go Jazz!!!

The Avengers Review

The decision to make the Avengers into a movie, to be completely honest, was an extremely risky decision by Marvel. They put their plan into place four years with the idea in mind that The Avengers was going to be a great movie that everyone loved. A 30 second scene back in 2008 changed everything as Samuel L Jackson appeared as Nick Furry to talk about the Avengers to Tony Stark in the end of credits scene in Iron Man. Following that, Marvel moved forward by presenting The Incredible Hulk a couple months later followed by Iron Man 2 in 2010 and finally Thor and Captain America just this past year. Each movie was building up to the Avengers and included at least a scene or two with Nick Furry or others from SHIELD. Each moment this happened, fans got more and more excited for the Avengers. After what seemed like four long years, it was time to bring The Avengers movie to the big screen. After all of this buildup, the Avengers had to be huge and epic or else it would be considered one of the biggest flops and disappointments in movie history. That would be the definition of high risk, high reward. Well, I am here to tell you that the risk payed off in very big way. I got the opportunity to see the midnight showing of The Avengers and I honestly thought it was one of the best movies I have ever seen and easily the best comic book movie I have ever seen.

The premise of the movie comes with Loki causing a lot of trouble. Without going into much detail, there is this powerful energy source called the Tesseract. Loki gets his hands on this and uses his abilities to control the minds of Dr Erik Selvig (from Thor) and Agent Clint Barton (Hawkeye). In addition to this, he summons an army of Chitauri to attack earth. This sparks Nick Furry and the other SHIELD members to assemble the Avengers to save the earth and stop Loki. Now logistically, organizing the Avengers would be a really tough thing to pull off. Here you have a group of superheros that are all used to being center stage. Stepping aside slightly and learning to work with a group of people would certainly bring conflict and strong emotion. Now the movie could make things all happy and peachy by ignoring this and making this group work perfectly from the very beginning, but it wouldn't be realistic at all and would be fake and cheap. The great thing about this movie is that it does not ignore this aspect. In fact it does a dang good job with using this aspect as a good portion of the movie is the Avengers fighting amongst themselves, which is brilliant. In addition to this conflict, bringing them all together made it very comical as Tony Stark of course had to make smart comments about everyone on the crew and the rest of the crew were all comical in their own way, the most apparent one outside of Iron Man being Captain America making comments that showed he was a man from the 40's living in the modern day.

The character development throughout the movie was brilliant. Every single member of the Avengers grew a lot throughout the film as they all learned how to work together as a team to resolve the conflict. In connection with this, one worry going in was that it would turn into Iron Man and friends, meaning people that the movie would give Iron Man most of the screen time and less for everyone else, but this certainly wasn't the case. With me saying that each character developed a lot throughout the movie, adding to that was that all the characters got equal screen time, giving them all a time to shine, which was awesome. 

Lets see, what else? There is so much good about this movie that its hard to sum it all up and do this movie justice. Joss Whedon did a fantastic job as the director. The cinematography was stunning. The music was amazing. All of the acting was great. Robert Downy Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemingsworth, Scarlett Johannson, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, and Clark Gregg all did a perfect job in their roles. The two big name newcomers were also amazing. First off Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye was great. I feel that this role will help him be a much bigger name in Hollywood and after doing this and Mission Impossible at the end of last year, people should be more excited for the new Bourne movie with Renner taking the lead spot with no Jason Bourne in the story. Second newcomer in the Avengers would be Mark Ruffalo as the new Hulk. And boy was he fantastic. The old saying 'the third time is the charm' certainly rings true. No one liked the first Hulk movie and while Edward Norton was a good Hulk in a good Hulk movie, his departure is not missed as Mark Ruffalo feels perfect and natural as the Hulk, more so than Norton did, if you can believe that. And when he turned into the Hulk, oh my goodness. Breathtakingly awesome. The scenes with the Hulk are so totally awesome that he almost steals the show. I forget that there was even other Hulk movies and will be very excited to see any new Hulk movies with Ruffalo if/when they decide to do them. Lastly, can I praise the action enough? 

You may be able to debate that there are other movies that could be given the title of best movie of all time, but in limiting it to just action movies this had to be the best action movie of all time. The final battle wasn't a wimpy Iron Man 2 final battle, it was a humongous final battle that I swear lasted for the whole second half of the movie giving every single character involved time to show off his or her way awesome moves for a significant amount of time. And it wasn't just the final battle action that was awesome, the whole movie was action the whole time and it was all amazing.   

I may have missed a thing or two, but you get the point. This was one of the best movies ever made and easily the best comic book movie and best action movie ever made. That is putting it pretty high, but I truly believe that. What criticism do I have for this movie? None. I honestly can't think of anything wrong with this movie at all. And thus I give it a perfect 10 out of 10. Anything less than that, even a 9.9, is an insult.

Movie Preview - May 2012

After record setting months of February and March, April slowed down quite a bit. The movie that made the most money in April was March holdover, The Hunger Games. Out of the new releases, the highest grossing movie was Think Like a Man, which has only been out for two weeks now, but has already earned 60M. Titanic 3D and American Reunion were the two titles that were projected to join the 100M club, but both movies barely made it past 50M. Now in all fairness to April, the new releases weren't high budget films that were expected to do well, so this was expected. But now April is over and it is time to look forward to May. Now May doesn't have a whole ton of new releases, but it has several big releases and one release that will be huge, so May should do a very good job of kicking off the Hollywood Summer. So let's jump into it.

May 4th - 6th - It's here! After literally years of anticipation, the wait for The Avengers will finally end as it is released on Star Wars Day, May the 4th. We've all been waiting patiently and impatiently ever since Nick Fury showed up in the after-the-credits scene of Iron Man back four years ago in 2008. It is quite the huge risk for Marvel to do what it has done, being that they have released 5 movies to prepare for this one and built the anticipation for that long. That strategy would turn the Avengers into either the biggest bust of all time or the biggest success of all time. And luckily for both the makers of the movie and the fans, it looks to be the latter. Early reviews started showing up early in April and on top of that, most of the world got the movie this past weekend and people love it. Many are calling it the best comic book movie of all time. It has exceeded many people's extremely high expectations, and that is impressive. All the hype and build up will lead it to a huge opening weekend, one that could break the Harry Potter finale's opening weekend record. Great word of mouth and popularity could cause a great hold that will propel it to at least 400M domestically and even a total in the 500M club wouldn't surprise me at all. Reports are that it has already made $218M internationally in just a few days in theaters.

May 11th - 13th - Most movies are wisely deciding to avoid opening up in the shadow of the Avengers, but there is one movie that isn't afraid of shadows. Yes, Dark Shadows. In Dark Shadows we are once again treated to the sometimes brilliant, yet most times crazy duo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Dark Shadows is a story about a vampire who gets released into the modern world after two hundred years of captivity. It's partially a horror, vampire film, but more accurately it is a comedy. And just remember it is Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, so prepare yourself accordingly. The Burton / Depp combo is typically a success when it comes to the box office and this one shouldn't do too bad, but if it has aspirations of getting to first place in the box office, those aspirations may never be achieved as the Avengers should easily dominate again in its second weekend.

May 18th - 20th - At this point I still imagine that Avengers will be growing strong and has a good chance of three-peating. Now the Hunger Games made four weekends in a row and while the Avengers will end up making more money than the Hunger Games, the Hunger Games came out in an April month that had very little competition, so in a busier May, the Avengers will most likely get dethroned either this weekend or the next weekend. The movie with the best chance of stealing the top spot will be Battleship. Now since this movie was announced, I have thought it was a silly idea. And I still think it is, but it could be a good movie. The issue is that it is based off the game Battleship. That game has pretty much no storyline except for you shooting down your opponents ships. You can't make a movie out of that. But they have. And in doing so, they naturally have to create a whole storyline and make up a bunch of characters. And of course they added aliens, because that's the cool thing to do nowadays. So the movie will have about nothing to do with the game, but oh well. It has already came out internationally. In fact in some places it will have been out for nearly two months by the time the US gets it. We get it last, which is kinda weird. Reviews on it are only mediocre, so its nothing to look forward to, but it might be entertaining. There are also two other movies that are coming out this weekend that will be overshadowed by the Avengers, Battleship, and possibly even Dark Shadows. But they will have their own targeted audiences that will go see them. The first is The Dictator, which actually gets a head start with a Wednesday debut. The Dictator is an R-rated comedy that stars Sacha Baron Cohen and Ana Faris and is about a dictator who does everything in his power to make sure democracy doesn't come to his country. Last for the week is What to Expect When You're Expecting, which is a PG-13 rated romantic comedy inspired by the book of the same name. The title kinda gives a description of the movie. Its about the drama that happens during pregnancy and impending parenthood. In it is the story of five different couples, which include several big names, a few of which are Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Dennis Quaid, and Chris Rock.

May 25th - 27th - If Avengers hasn't been dethroned by this point, then this is the weekend that will do it in. Now I sound harsh by saying that, but don't think into it too much, the Avengers will still be a solid 2 or 3 this weekend. Men in Black III will certainly take the crown this last weekend of May. The first two did decently well, but not on epic proportions. This third one will attempt to pull off a Toy Story 3 type performance in that it has been ten years since the second one and fifteen since the first. Doing a sequel that long after the original is quite risky, but can work out. Now, Men in Black is what it is. You either love it or hate it, but either way you know what type of movie you are getting yourself into if you decide to go. This third entry has Will Smith's character Agent J go back in time to save Agent K's life. Last up, we get an oddly placed horror film with Chernobyl Diaries. Horror films typically don't attract a huge audience and add that on to the fact that it is coming out in summer and it doesn't look to bright for this movie. I think that there might be five people who go and see it. However, if you want to join in with those five and see if you can get scared pretty good, then by all means, be my guest!