The Impossible Review

Well that title sounds interesting. Is this review impossible? If it is, I am doing it anyways and that makes me pretty legit. I'm like Ender or something. No, in complete seriousness, with this blog post I am reviewing the movie called The Impossible, but I am sure you already knew that. I just decided to have a little fun with it. If you have never heard of The Impossible, it is a fairly new movie. Yes, it has technically been out since December 21st, but camped out in only 15 theaters for all of December. Just after New Years it jumped up to 500 theaters and the second weekend in January it barely qualified for a nationwide release with 800 theaters. So it's not everywhere right now, but it's in enough places for you to find a local theater near you to check out. The movie is about the Tsunami in southeast Asia in 2004, telling the true story of a family who got trapped in it. And oh my goodness, it is quite the theatrical experience. Queezy stomachs beware and emotional movie goers make sure you have your box of tissues ready.

The biggest thing I took from this movie was that nature at times is a cold-hearted, cruel monster. We hear about natural disasters all the time and we always feel bad for them, but we often don't fully understand the term natural disaster, emphasizing the word disaster, until we have experienced one ourselves. This movie does a fantastic job of putting you right in the middle of a natural disaster, namely one of the worst natural disasters the world has experienced in our lifetime anyways. It was the day after Christmas in 2004 when an underwater earthquake of a magnitude of 9.3 hit. This earthquake was the biggest earthquake in the past 40 years and the second largest in recorded history. The earthquake set off a huge tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people. Going into this movie, I knew that it was going to be about this event, but what caught me off guard was the high level of realism that came with it. It was very graphic and very PG-13. The scene when the tsunami hit was very intense as was the scenes where the main family we followed were getting carried away, thrown around, and bloodied up by this disaster. And as hard as that was, the aftermath was equally as hard if not more as we saw broken up and bloodied bodies every scattered among the dead. Then we spent a good majority of the movie in a third-world hospital setting that was scattered with injured people. Yes, this is very much an adult film that is probably really close to an R-rating. Keep young children far away from it. There was even a brief half second where Naomi Watts' character realizes that her shirt got half ripped off by the tsunami. It's not sexual, but yet a half second of nudity nonetheless that I didn't appreciate, so beware of that.

Let's walk away from the tragic aspect of the movie to different things. The movie starred Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Now those two have been around the movie scene recently, but this is the first time that I personally have seen either one in a movie, so that was refreshing for me. And let me give a ton of praise to both of them. They both did a fantastic job. Now Naomi Watts was the one that got an Oscar nomination for her performance and she definitely deserved every bit of that nomination. I don't know if she will actually win the award because there are some pretty solid candidates for the Best Actress award this year, but she would definitely get my vote. Ewan McGregor I think did a good enough job to get a nomination, but the Best Actor category this year is even stiffer competition than the ladies, so it would be hard to point at one of the nominees to replace with Ewan. But in addition to Ewan and Naomi, the rest of the cast did a great job and I especially liked the three kids, the oldest kid Lucas (Tom Holland) being my favorite. The cinematography in the movie was fantastic, especially when it came to the tsunami scene. And the music really added a lot to the movie, both when it was present and when it was absent. What I mean by that is that there were certain scenes where the music was playing, but immediately went silent when the movie cut to being underwater. It really felt like you were underwater with the victims.

Overall, I didn't have a ton to complain about when it came to this movie. It truly was an excellent movie that portrayed the events of this tragic tsunami very well. It's also an inspiring story as far as the family goes. I won't say much about what specifically happens to them as that will take away the element of surprise, but it is based on an actual family and if you stay to the end of the credits, you will get a thank you note/poem from one of the family members thanking the makers of this movie for telling their story. But with that said, given the subject matter of this movie, it is one that despite the praise I have for it, I really only need to see it that once, if that makes any sense. But I will still give it a strong 9 out of 10.

Jack Reacher Review

The end of December was a quite the crowded month for movies and everyone, myself included, chose mainly to see the Hobbit, Les Mis, and Django Unchained. However, at the end of the Holiday season, just after New Years I decided to give the movie Jack Reacher a shot. Turns out that I made a big mistake in neglecting it in favor of the other movies because it ended up being my favorite movie from the holiday season. Now I actually didn't see Django, but knowing my taste in movies Jack Reacher being my favorite would've held true had I seen it. What did I expect when I went to see the movie? I expected some sort of James Bond or Jason Bourne type of series. What did I get? I got a movie that was actually quite different from those two and instead played into the type of movie/book/TV show that I have always enjoyed since I was little. That genre that I would classify it would be the mystery/detective genre. It was fantastic and I highly recommend you give it a shot.

Let me give you a quick history of myself with this genre. Ever since I could first read, I was into mystery/detective books. In second grade I enjoyed reading the Box Car Children books. Later in Elementary I was extremely invested in the Hardy Boys books. Even as I have gotten older, it's still a genre I hold on to. Nowadays there are a lot of TV shows that I enjoy that fit into this category. To name a few there is NCIS, Bones, Numb3rs, House, Supernatural, Castle, and Criminal Minds. A lot of those have to do with police forces or FBI, but that is still the same thing. There is also Sherlock Holmes and the various adaptions of those via film, TV, and book and I typically enjoy those. When I try to describe Jack Reacher, yes it is true that he does have a lot of similarities to James Bond and Jason Bourne, but the detective and investigation TV shows and books that I have mentioned is more of what I would associate Jack Reacher.

What is the story line of the movie? Well, I won't tell you very much because in my opinion the less you know about the actual story, the better the movie will be. What the movie is based off of is the book series by Lee Child. This specific book is in fact based off of the ninth book in that series he has written called One Shot. Why they started with nine and not one is a mystery in my mind, but I don't think it matters too much because having not read the books myself I was not one bit confused. Jack Reacher is a very intelligent man. He is also in the books a very large man, which might have some question the casting of Tom Cruise, a very short man. But this, however, is a non issue because the physical strength is not the important part here, it is the genius aspect that is important and in that Tom Cruise pulls it off very well. Sure, there are a lot of action sequences, but Reacher kicks trash not because he is super big and huge, but rather because he is so intelligent that he knows exactly what move to make at the exact right time. If you want to know a little bit about the story to get you sucked in, there is a secret group of people in this specific town that are out to get Reacher and they are good enough to evade the detection of the police force. Reacher just wants to be left alone, so he goes whatever means he can to bring them down, even if it does come down to fighting the police officers who might wrongly be trying to arrest him. Is it the most mysterious and original story you have ever seen? Certainly not, but it is very intelligent and fun to watch.

Overall, Jack Reacher is a very good film that had me thoroughly entertained throughout the whole movie. It's two hour length I thought was perfect. Not too short, but not dragged on. This is a movie that was obviously intended to be the start of a franchise, being that there are 17 books out there so far. Personally I would love for this movie to be the start of a very long series of movies similar to the James Bond movies. That would be fantastic. Unfortunately that will probably not be the case as it didn't get enough box office attention to even guarantee a second movie, which is a shame. It is very good and if they don't do any more movies, I suppose that means I have a new book series that has been put on my list of books to read. But like I said, I highly recommend this movie. I didn't see it in time for it to gain consideration to be in my top 10 movies of 2012; but if I had, it would've made the list ahead of Skyfall. Yes, that is a very bold claim, but true for me, so I suggest you give it a shot. I give Jack Reacher an 8 out of 10.

2012 NFL Conference Championship Predictions

#2- San Francisco 49ers @ #1- Atlanta Falcons - Sun 20 Jan 13 - 3:00 PM ET - FOX - The great thing that I love about the NFL is that you can be a person who is extremely knowledgeable about football and make these fancy, detailed, elaborate predictions and yet have most or all of them fail. Its the unpredictability of the league that makes it really fun. Out of the three games I picked wrong, though, the Niners were the team that surprised me the most. I still feel bad for Alex Smith, that has never been changed, but Colin Kaepernick was amazing. And as I was watching him, I was actually having nightmarish flashbacks. College football-wise I am a big BYU fan and I remember the day we played Kaepernick's Nevada team and Kaepernick ran all over us. The man was insane and made me depressed that no matter what we did, we couldn't stop him. Packer fans now know how I feel. Now CK and the Niners get to travel to Atlanta for a chance to punch their ticket to the Super Bowl. Now as far as Atlanta goes, they are feeling pretty stoked right now because Matty Ice finally get his first playoff win. And it was a good playoff win against a good Seahawks team. They look to take that momentum into this game. Now if we look at a huge pattern, the Niners actually haven't won three games in a row yet this season, which might be surprising to you, but is true. And following that pattern, they have now won two straight and so following that they might just tank and get blown out by the Falcons, but my gut impression says that they will not fall into that trap and will come victorious. Here is my deciding factor. The Falcons actually have one of the worst run defenses in the league. And they are going up against Colin Kaepernick and Frank Gore. Not a good sign. I do think that the Falcons will keep it close for the majority of the game, but San Fran will pull this off and be the first team of the day to set them up for the Super Bowl.  Prediction: 49ers 27 - Falcons 20

#4- Baltimore Ravens @ #2- New England Patriots - Sun 20 Jan 13 - 6:30 PM ET - CBS - It's almost amusing to think that the last time there was a rematch in the AFC Championship game, as in both teams made it to the game two years in a row, the Cleveland Browns were one of those two teams. Yeah, can you believe it? The Browns were actually good at one point. It is always fun watching the Ravens and the Patriots play because you know it will be a close game. The last two times these two teams played, once in the AFC Championship game last year and again in earlier this year, the game was decided by a field goal, the former in favor of the Patriots and the latter in favor of the Ravens. A lot of people will be counting the Ravens out of this one, and I can see why. The Pats are playing extremely good football right now and it is tough to beat Tom Brady in the playoffs. Joe Flacco has had a good winning career in the playoffs, but he has yet to lead his team over the hump and into the Super Bowl. Last year when the Ravens lost in the AFC Championship game to the Pats, Ray Lewis had the following to say: "We gotta come back and go to work and make sure we finish it next time." Well, they have done the first part of that, come back. The second part of that will be a little tricky, but I actually believe it will happen. This is Ray Lewis' last season and it would be really fantastic to see him go out on a Super Bowl win. And I think that I am not the only one who thinks this. I think that his teammates want this to happen and will play inspired ball because of him. I am predicting that yet again the game will go down to a late field goal, but in favor for the Ravens this time. Prediction: Ravens 33 - Patriots 30

Mockingjay: Book Review

WARNING: The following contains lots of SPOILERS. Only continue if you have read the Hunger Games trilogy.

Continued from my Hunger Games review followed by my Catching Fire review

And now for the controversial grand finale! Mockingjay was my initial purpose of writing all these Hunger Game reviews. Almost everyone I have talked to expressed to me that they hated the ending of this series. Of course I never let them tell me why, but after finishing it, I didn't hate the ending and now I plan on defending it along with the rest of the series by giving my thoughts on it.

Up to this point in the series, the perspective of first person present has worked beautifully and is rather ingenious. This is where it starts to fail. The Hunger Games is the beginning of everything, Catching Fire is where the rebellion picks up, and Mockingjay is full out war. Katniss is chosen by the lead of the rebellion to be the face of the war. The Mockingjay. After some debate in her mind, she accepts the role. With this, the main goal of the rebellion leaders is not to put a 17 year old girl at the head of the army. They want to keep her alive and so she is protected. I think this adds to the realistic part of things. Katniss is not a soldier. Sure she is trained with a bow and has survival experience from the Hunger Games, but she is not a perfect choice for the leader of the army and immediately putting her in that position would be poor writing. However, given the style of the first person present, we are stuck inside the confines of Katniss's mind and the consequence for this book is actually a rather boring first three-fourths of the book. Not only is she hidden in the underground living quarters of District 13, but she is a complete mess. Suzanne Collins actually does a fantastic job of putting us in the mind of a 17 year old girl who has gone through quite the traumatic experience in the past couple of years. The Hunger Games have really set her back emotionally and mentally. Not only did she spend several weeks inside of a stadium fighting for her life, worrying every second of that about being killed, but she has to worry about dangers to all of her family and friends. To add to that, she has two guys that are in love with her and she has no idea what to do about it. Given all that circumstance, yes, Collins does a very good job of giving us the emotions and feelings of someone who just went through that and in one aspect it is very interesting. In another aspect, being inside the mind of a 17 year girl who is going through all of this is not really the place I want to be. So thus for most of the book, all of the action and conflict that are being held away from Katniss is also being held from us as readers. We get most of the intense action and story line from second hand sources instead of experiencing it ourselves and that is not what I want from an epic finale.

Keeping in mind this previously mentioned thought, let's go off on a quick tangent to talk about this Mockingjay movie. I'm interested to see what they plan on doing with this. First off they are splitting it into two movies. This could be extremely bad or it could be fantastic. It all depends on the point of view. If they decide to go strictly with the book and follow Katniss the whole time, the last half of the second Mockingjay movie will be good, but the first movie will be completely awful and boring. However, if they choose to not focus solely on Katniss, this could be great. The book can't show us all of the action that is happening around the land because it is confined to Katniss's head. But the movie can. It can veer away from Katniss while she is whining, complaining, and suffering underground in 13 and show us the war. For example, there is a point in the book where a group of people go to rescue the captured Peeta. We don't see anything in the book. We just get the report of what happened when they return. However, in the movie we can travel with that group and watch them first hand as they rescue Peeta and that will be a lot more interesting. Moral of the story, the storyline of the final book is actually a really good one, but the perspective that it is forced to follow holds it back a lot in this one whereas it made it really interesting in the first two.

Let's now fast forward to the ending. After much drudgery in the first three-fourths of the book, the finale comes about with Katniss finally training as a soldier and going out with a special group to attack the capital. What happens is a total non-happy, non-fairy tale ending. It was heart wrenching and awful. After I finished, I sat and just pondered about the book for at least an hour digesting what I had just read. After much pondering, I decided that I really liked the ending. This is a book that initially seems like your run of the mill fictional story, but in fact it is quite unique in that it takes a surprisingly realistic approach. Think about it. This is a war. Are wars happy? No. Specifically this is a civil war against a tyrannical leader and that tyrannical leader only cares about staying in power and doesn't really care too much about the welfare of the people under him. Is one 17 year old girl going to march into that capital and save the world with a perfectly happy ending, no harm done? In a fairy tale story, of course. That's what the readers want. Realistically, though? No. And Katniss doesn't save the day. Well, not in this instance anyways. She ends up running on a goose chase through the capitol, watching a bunch of her good friends in her group get killed. It ends up with her being stranded on her own, almost making it to the capitol, but watching her sister get blown up right in front of her, while she catches on fire and almost burns to death herself. The capitol was defeated, but not by a 17 year old girl that started to go mentally insane.

Second part of the great ending was actually sort of a fairy tale ending, but tied up a theme that had been present since Catching Fire. That theme was remembering who the enemy was. After the capital was taken over and President Snow was taken into custody and the newly elected President Coin comes up with a revenge plan to make the Capital people do a Hunger Games with their kids. Earlier we learned how President Snow came to power and what we can see here is President Coin doing the same thing without people realizing it. When Katniss is granted her wish to execute President Snow, she shocks everyone, the reader included, when at last second she decides to aim slightly higher with her bow and murder President Coin. This here is the fairy tale ending coming in a way that no one expected it. By murdering Coin, Katniss has just saved the land from years more of dictatorship and is the cause of bringing back a normal government and this is actually quite genius.

Last but not least, the last part of the ending that I will talk about is the resolution with the relationships. The love triangle ends with Katniss being with Peeta and not Gale. I was surprisingly perfectly fine with this, even though I was a Gale fan for most of the series. Why was I fine with this? Mainly it was because Katniss couldn't be with Gale after what happened with her sister. He was one of the masterminds behind the plan to attack the Capital in the way that they did that caused the death of Prim. Sure, Gale wasn't directly responsible for the death of Prim, but in Katniss' mind, with her strong personality, this was something that she couldn't forgive and if she had, it would've been out of character and would've ensued in a poor ending. In the end I was still a fan of Gale, even if Katniss wasn't, but I determined that he deserved someone better. After Katniss' shocking murder of Coin, which seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back for her mentally, she went completely insane and was even suicidal. While being in the mind of someone in that mental state can be frustrating at times, I also appreciated it because it was very realistic. Someone who went through all that she went through would definitely feel and act that way, which is something most fictional books don't portray with their hero. But Katniss gets better and it is because of one person, Peeta. After her trial, the send her back to District 12 to start that rebuilding it and while she is almost a vegetable for a long time, she eventually gets out of it and that is because she has Peeta by her side. For most of the book, their love story is an act. While Peeta loves Katniss, Katniss doesn't feel the same. Does she love him in the end? Is it real? Yes, it is. It just took her a very long time to realize it.

To wrap things up, the moral of the whole series is presented in the final paragraphs before the epilogue. It states the following: "What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow light that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good." Yes, life is rough at times. And while we all may not have gone through everything that Katniss went through, we all have our struggles. And while it is perfectly normal to be scared, angry, sad, and depressed at times because of all that has happened to us, life does go on. And life does get better. This is the message that Suzanne Collins is teaching through the Hunger Games. Quite honestly, I feel that it is beautiful.

Catching Fire: Book Review

WARNING: The following contains lots of SPOILERS. Only continue if you have read the Hunger Games trilogy.

Continued from my Hunger Games review.

Most people thought that The Hunger Games was the best book in the trilogy. While I really enjoyed the Hunger Games, I personally felt that Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, was the best. I took a break from reading during the semester, but when I picked it up at the start of Christmas break, I couldn't put it down. I finished the whole book in its entirety in three days. And if you know me, you will know that that's really impressive.

In Catching Fire, we get a little bit of a calming down period to start things off after the dramatic ending of the first book and the action in the second book. This differs quite a bit from the transition from book two and book three as Catching Fire and Mockingjay essentially act as if they were one book. The big drama in Catching Fire comes with the 75th annual Hunger Games, or the Quarter Quell as it is called, so its almost a year between the ending of the first book and the big events of the second. But we start out by setting the tone. First off Katniss gives to live a normal victor's life for a few months. She gets a new home in District 12 and gets spoiled with food and riches, something she's never been accustomed to. She gets to settle things with Gale, explaining to him that it was all an act between her and Peeta. The love triangle officially starts as Gale expresses his love for Katniss. Katniss is a somewhat typical teenage girl in this aspect in the sense that she needs attention from all her male friends but doesn't want to even think about marriage. Relationships are also out of the question, which does make her quite different at the same time. She is also experiencing nightmares from the Hunger Games, which is excellent because the element of realism starts to set in. If you went through what Katniss went through, you would have nightmares and other PTSD-like symptoms which is an element that most movies or stories just brush right over.

While not the ultimate conflict of the story, the Victory Tour is the first major event in the book and that is when Katniss gets her first glimpse into what she has unintentionally started. That conflict that is started that puts Katniss in a pretty big conundrum and that is what makes this a brilliant book. President Snow gives Katniss a personal visit, telling her that she's sparked a rebellion and that she needs to stop it or else he is going to kill everyone she cares about. How to do this? Convince everyone on the Victory Tour that her controversial actions were all for love. Katniss attempts such a feat and fails miserably. Now she decides that she has officially given up the "mend her actions" goal, but what is she going to do instead? Is she going to run away with Gale? No, especially not after he finds out there is an uprising? So what does she do? Well, put her plans on pause and jump to the Quarter Quell because her and Peeta are going back into the arena as the competitors are chosen from a pool of previous victors.

When I first read this, I was a little disappointed as the book had such a great start and now appeared that it was just going to duplicate the same plot of the first one. Turns out that it doesn't really. I mean it kinda does at first, but the arena they get put into is quite ingenious as it is a clock shape and there is a different threat for each hour that they have to work through. Also new characters Finnick and Johanna have been suspiciously teamed up with Peeta and Katniss which puts them in a much different position then previously. But through all of this, the reminder by Haymitch rings through the mind of Katniss and the reader as well. Remember who the real enemy is. That remains a theme throughout this book and into the last one as well. Who is the real enemy? Right now its the capitol and at the end of this book when Katniss has the opportunity to kill the other competitors in the Quarter Quell she remembers this and pulls off quite the feat that leads to a fantastic ending. Through a complicated series of events mainly led by inventor victor Beetee, she destroys the arena, halting the games and throwing the already rampant revolution into full force.

Then all at once we as the readers get clued in on what in the heck has been happening at the same time Katniss does after being rescued on a hovercraft of rebels led new head gamemaker Plutarch and Haymitch. Rebellion is in full force. Plutarch has been the head of a secret rebellion alliance for quite some time. A lot of the victors knew parts of this plan and agreed to protect Katniss and Peeta. District 13 exists and will be key to the rebels overthrowing the capital. Peeta and Johanna are two that have been captured by the capitol now. How does Katniss respond to all of this? She acts like a 17 year old teenage girl and throws a tizzy fit. Only person that can calm her down is Gale, who tells her that although her mom and Prim are among those who are safe, District 12 has been blown up.

All of this equates to a book that it quite suspensful, dramatic, and action packed, with a touch of romantic tension/confusion. Excellent beginning, excellent body of the book, and absolutely fantastic ending. Once again, my favorite of the three.

Continue with my Mockingjay review.

The Hunger Games: Book Review

WARNING: The following contains lots of SPOILERS. Only continue if you have read the Hunger Games trilogy.

I'll be honest with this one, I had not read any of the books before I went to see the Hunger Games movie in the theater. For some reason I missed the initial Hunger Games book craze. Suddenly, when the movie was announced, everyone was going crazy and was super excited for the upcoming movie. That's when the books caught my attention. Did I read them then? Nope, not yet. I waited for the movie to come out and saw it opening weekend along with the rest of the world. Some people claimed the movie, or at least the back story of the movie was hard to follow without having read the books. Nope, not the case for me. I followed perfectly fine and came away from the movie officially sold.

After being very impressed with the movie, I eventually grabbed the book and read it over the course of the Summer. Yes, I take my time reading sometimes, especially when I already know everything that happens. But nonetheless, I was super impressed with the book. Although the movie did a great job in following the book, the book was better. And it was because of the perspective of the book that was obviously really hard to duplicate in a movie.  I've seen the first person style done before, but I've never seen the first person present. You are literally inside the head of Katniss. You are reading her thoughts the whole series and everything you see the way she sees things. Writing like this would obviously take some talent and effort to pull off and Suzanne Collins does just that. It is one of the more brilliantly written books because of that uniqueness. If the movie tried to pull that off, quite honestly it be a horrible movie, but they did a good job displaying it film the best they could. The advantage that the movie has is that because they aren't limited to Katniss's mind, they can show us more. They can show us things from Gale's perspective that we don't learn until the second or even third book. They can show the rebellions that went on during the games that Katniss doesn't know about until later. Lastly they can show us things from the gamemakers' point of view, specifically the storyline between Seneca Crane and President Snow, something that we don't about at all until Snow talks to Katniss personally in book two. Speaking of Snow, we get an early look into his evil ways, which we also don't get in the first book. But even with all this, the first book is still better than the first movie, although the tide could change in later movies, but I'll get to that later.

Beyond all this, the first book does a great job of setting the scene for everything, like the first book in a good trilogy should do. We are set in the distant future in the United States, but long after the United States has been destroyed and a completely new civilization has been set up. There is a capitol and 13 districts, although we don't learn about the rebellious district 13 until much later in the series.  We essentially have a dictatorship that is set up and has been going on for quite some time. 74 years before the first book took place, there was a rebellion that the Capitol suppressed, supposedly destroying District 13. The other 12 districts were punished by the setup of the Hunger Games, which consists of each of the 12 districts selecting one boy and one girl ages 12 - 18 to fight to the death with only one winner. The winner in theory gets spoiled by the capitol. However, we learn later that the victors actually get abused by the Capitol, making this worse.

 Is this a gruesome premise? Probably. This is definitely not a children's book and certainly doesn't have a fairy tale ending, which I will get into in greater detail in later books. But here in this first book, we have Katniss Everdeen fighting in the 74th annual hunger games after bravely volunteering for her 12 year old sister Prim. A fake romance is set up between her and fellow tribute Peeta Mellark that causes tension between her and her long time friend Gale. Does she mean for that to happen? No, she's just trying to stay alive. In the end when it comes down to her and Peeta, after initially being informed that both of them could survive, they are informed that only one can survive. Katniss pulls out some poisonous berries and comes up with a double suicide plan. Does she mean to defile the capitol by doing this and in turn spark a rebellion that spreads throughout the whole land? No, but this is exactly what happens and that beautifully sets the tone for the rest of the series as we end with Peeta learning her romance was all a game after it is all said and done, while Katniss gets to go home and face whatever consequences her actions have caused.

Continue with my Catching Fire review, followed by my Mockingjay review.

2012 NFL Divisional Playoff Predictions

#4- Baltimore Ravens @ #1- Denver Broncos - Sat 12 Jan 13 - 4:30 PM ET - Four weeks ago these two teams met in Baltimore with playoff implications on the line. The game wasn't very close. Since then the Ravens saved themselves by beating up on the Giants, took a week off in Cincinnati, and thanks to a great second half they won an emotional game in the Wild Card round against the Colts. The Broncos on the other hand have essentially taken 3 weeks off since beating up on Baltimore as they ended the season with the Browns and Chiefs and thanks to some failures by the Patriots and Texans, they were rewarded with the #1 seed and a first round bye. In picking this game, it would be easy to say that the Broncos will win because they dominated the Ravens earlier, but I think that would be a mistake. The Ravens have picked up their game recently and as we saw last week with the Packers and Vikings, the revenge aspect often has a big play in the playoffs. You may think that I am building up to a Ravens upset prediction, but that actually isn't the case. I think the Ravens will put up a good fight and thus make it a closer game then people will be expecting, but I still think the Broncos will pull off the victory and thus end Ray Lewis's excellent career. Prediction: Broncos 24 - Ravens 21

#3- Green Bay Packers @ #2- San Francisco 49ers - Sat 12 Jan 13 - 8:00 PM ET - This game is a tough one to pick. The Packers haven't had their most impressive season in recent years, but you can never count them out in the playoffs. The 49ers have been a really good team this year and at times it seems like they are an easy Super Bowl contender. The problem with the 49ers is that they haven't been consistent. If you go check out their schedule, they haven't won more than two games in a row all season long. They have won games that make you think they are Super Bowl bound like I said and then the very next week they go out and perform like they don't even belong in the playoffs. The other thing with the 49ers is that Alex Smith got shafted. Now Collin Kaepernick is a great young player, but Alex Smith did nothing wrong this season except for getting hurt. When he was healthy, he should've been back as a starter but he wasn't. Had Alex Smith been given his rightful job back, I believe he has had the playoff experience from last year needed that could take this team to the Super Bowl. But instead he will be sitting on the bench watching the young and inexperienced Kaepernick fight the Packers and this is what I believe will cost the 49ers. I'm going to have to go with the experience of Aaron Rodgers over the Niners in this game and I think the Niners at the end of the day will be regretting the decision to bench Alex Smith. Prediction: Packers 38 - 49ers 28

#5- Seattle Seahawks @ #1- Atlanta Falcons - Sun 13 Jan 13 - 1:00 PM ET - The Falcons are one of the luckiest teams in the NFL right now. They are currently owners of the number one seed in the NFC  which means they got the first round bye and the homefield advantage in the NFC playoffs. However, this is not a title they really deserved but thanks to the scheduling gods, they got it. They are owners of the league's easiest schedule by far and the embarrassing thing about that is they struggled through about half of their games at least. They have lost 2 of their last 4 games, losses coming to the Panthers and Bucs, wins coming to the underachieving Lions and Giants. In comes Seattle on Sunday and they should be scared. If you follow me on facebook, you'll notice that I did talk about picking the Seahawks just to curse them. That was me joking around. I picked them against the Redskins because I felt they were the better team and I am going to do the same here. I feel that the Seahawks are a better team than the Falcons. I think the game will be close because of Atlanta's homefield advantage, but I do think the Seahawks are going to pull it off and punch their ticket to the Conference Championship game. Prediction: Seahawks 30 - Atlanta 27

#3- Houston Texans @ #2- New England Patriots - Sun 13 Jan 13 - 4:30 PM ET - Week 14 in the NFL saw the 9-3 Patriots hosting the 11-1 Texans. What everyone thought was going to happen was a high powered, entertaining game between two of the best teams in the NFL. What they got was the Patriots making a joke out of the Texans with a 42-14 win. The Texans have really been a mediocre team at best ever since and even dropped their choke hold they had on the top spot. I was rather entertained by some people's reactions after the Texans win last week. People were saying the Texans found their offense and were back. Did they watch the same game I did? Sure the Texans dominated offensively, but they couldn't score touchdowns to save their life and despite an awful performance by the whole Bengals offense, the Bengals were very much in the ballgame for the entire 60 minutes. Well the Texans are going to have a much tougher opponent than the Bengals this week. Bost Globe had an article saying the Patriots are the first team in the NFL to get two straight byes in the playoffs heading into the Conference Championship week. That has made the Texans mad and might get them motivated to play hard, but I just laugh at it because with the way the Texans have been playing, it's practically true. This game is going to be a massacre. Prediction: Patriots 45 - Texans - 20