Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones Review

Last week I started quite the epic project on this blog by reviewing Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. That was the first part in a seven part series of reviews where I review seven Star Wars movies in seven weeks. This has me absolutely stoked. My excitement level for the brand new Star Wars movie has been through the roof for a long time and all these new trailers and TV spots have me convinced that this is going to be a dang good movie. I will admit, though, that I am done with new footage. I don't want any more trailers or TV spots that show new information. I'm ready for the movie. But before we get to that movie, we have to get through these reviews, which I plan on having a lot of fun with. Like I said last week, I'm usually one to defend the prequels. Although you heard me say that and then you watched me bash The Phantom Menace to the ground for the most part. I'm going to be honest here, the bashing is going to continue with Attack of the Clones. I may defend the prequels as a whole, but I do not defend this specific chapter. I never have. I never well. This is the one bad Star Wars movie.

First and foremost, I do have to be fair and say that the idea behind this movie is a good one. I say this because we are told a bit of the back story of Anakin Skywalker in the original trilogy. We know that Anakin was a great Jedi. We know that he was not only the apprentice of Obi-Wan, but they were good friends. We aren't told much of the why he turned to the dark side, but we know it was a devastating event for Obi-Wan that made him very sad. We do know there was a love interest for Anakin. They had two kids that he never really knew about. Those twins were hidden from him in different places. That love interest did pass away somehow, but not immediately after she gave birth because Leia says she remembers her mother. More on that next week. All of this makes for a very fascinating back story. This back story is what makes Darth Vader one of the greatest movie villains in cinematic history and one of the greatest characters in general. He's not just a random villain trying to kill the good guys or take over the galaxy for no apparent reason. He has a whole lot of depth to him. The foundations were laid for them to make a fantastic movie. And that's why this is a bad movie. It totally misses despite the amazing potential.

Even if I were to ignore all the other Star Wars movies for a moment and focus just on this one movie, there are still a whole lot of glaring problems and I'll get to as many of those as I can. But I can't just do that. The original trilogy exists. And it's beautiful. And it has some of the best written characters in cinematic history. Attack of the Clones had potential to be something epic and great. This is the meat of the story. This is where we tell Anakin's back story. This had the potential to be on the same level of The Empire Strikes Back. The characters, relationships, and twists are all right there for them to just grab and take advantage of. But they screw it up royally. It felt like one of those times where a b-level director and screenwriter gets the rights to an iconic franchise and just totally screws things up because they don't really know how to make a good movie. Like the Terminator franchise. Two amazing movies were made and then the original crew lost the rights and three horrid movies followed. Except here's the thing. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, DIDN'T lose the rights to Star Wars. This was HIS franchise. HIS story. HIS characters. And HE was the one who wrote and directed Attack of the Clones. He screwed up his own franchise. That baffles me.

Let's get into specifics here. I want to talk about a few relationships in this movie that really fail. Before I get to the obvious disaster of a relationship, I want to talk about the slightly less obvious one. Anakin and Obi-Wan. This is the relationship that is supposed to be really good. This is the relationship that is supposed to be really emotional. They aren't just supposed to be master and apprentice. They're supposed to be good friends. But they aren't. There's nothing but bickering and arguing between these two the whole movie. Remember Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan from The Phantom Menace? Yeah, that's how this should've been. There were a few disagreements here and there, but overall Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were good friends. They had a very good chemistry. They were great together on the battle field. That's what needed to be there between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but it wasn't. When they were together, they were arguing and bickering. When they were separated, Anakin spent the whole time complaining to Padme about how awful Obi-Wan is as a trainer. When he does give a compliment, he says Obi-Wan is like a father. He doesn't say friend. Yet Ewan McGregor is only 10 years older than Hayden Christensen. It's all wrong.

Now I'm not just saying that this is wrong because it is inconsistent with how the back story was told in the original trilogy. The conversation between Obi-Wan and Luke is very brief and, in theory, could be interpreted in different ways. But in my opinion, this is how it needed to happen. Of course we needed Anakin to be a broken person. But despite being a broken person, that relationship between him and his master needed to be a very strong, positive relationship. Having Anakin complain and whine about Obi-Wan for the whole movie is really ridiculous. There is no relationship there. Not in this movie anyways. I'll continue this conversation in next week's review, but in this movie it's really dumb. Of course I don't blame Ewan McGregor for this. He was fantastic in this movie. It's the writing in the movie that kills it. And the acting, or lack of acting, from our main man Hayden Christensen. Man was casting this guy a huge mistake. I don't know who exactly made this decision to make this guy our Anakin, but that person deserves to be grounded. Granted, the writing of his character was horrible. And apparently George Lucas doesn't know how to direct anymore, which probably didn't help. But unlike Ewan McGregor, who did the best with what he was given, Hayden takes what he was given and screws it up even more.

That leads into our next relationship. The relationship that I would argue is possibly the worst on-screen relationship in movie history. Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. Let me tell you the first reason why this is wrong and I'm going to do so through one of the many awkward conversations that the two have at one point. Padme looks at Anakin and says that he looks grown up. Anakin looks at Padme and says that she looks the exact same as he remembered her. I don't know if laughable irony was intended in that conversation, but it's definitely there. In The Phantom Menace, Anakin is supposed to be 9 and Padme is supposed to be 14. Jake Lloyd was 9 years old. Natalie Portman wasn't. She was 17. Okay whatever. You have a 17-year-old playing a 14-year-old character. Fine. Whatever. But then you set your second movie 10 years into the future and as such, you decide to recast Anakin, but keep Padme. And you cast a guy is the exact same age as Natalie Portman to play Anakin. So the actors have an 8-year difference between them in the first movie and no difference in the second movie. It's just weird and doomed to begin with because Anakin has aged 10 years, but Padme has only aged two or three years. Yet we're supposed to believe that the age difference is the exact same. Nope. Someone screwed up there.

Oh but that's only the beginning of the problems with these two. I think Hayden Christensen was given dialogue that was supposed to be sweet and romantic. To say that he has a big crush on this girl is putting it lightly. He has dreamed about this girl every single night in the 10 years that they have been separated. He is madly in love with her. I don't really blame him. This is Natalie Portman we are talking about. Had Hayden Christensen actually been a charming, loving individual, this could've worked. I know guys that have the ability to just dish out compliment after compliment and have that work. They'll just go up to a girl and say how beautiful she is and how much in love with her he is and because of their charm and persona, it melts the girl's heart and the romance is quick and believable. I've seen this happen in real life. I've seen this happen on film. I think this is what they were trying to go for, because, you know, Luke and Leia had to be born. But this DOESN'T work. Anakin doesn't come off as charming and lovable. He comes off as the biggest creep ever. His delivery and the look on his face as he tells her these things that are supposed to be romantic make him look and sound like a serial killer. I'm not kidding there.

Then someone makes the genius decision to decide to send these two off alone, which makes no sense at all, but I'll get to that in a second. They are going off to Naboo and watching things this time around I honestly felt like I was suddenly watching a crime thriller. This man is a creep. This man has been thinking and dreaming about this girl every day for the last 10 years. The look on this man's face is horrifying. If they were going for a romance, they were way off, but if they were going for a thriller, Hayden nailed the role. Here we have a guy who we know turns into Darth Vader. This man could very well be a psychopath and he's gets sent off alone with this girl who has been visibly creeped out by what he has done and said. She even said it to him at one point that he was making her feel uncomfortable. Suddenly I am envisioning a situation where he tries to go for her because they are all alone and she's going to outright reject him and because he's a creepy psychopath, she's going to end up dead. Then he's going to go back to his master who he apparently hates and he's going to make up some sort of believable excuse as to how she died. Then Anakin and Obi-Wan would move forward with life, Anakin having done something that he knows he can't come back from and he eventually lets the darkness and hate flow through him, becoming Darth Vader.

Of course we all know that this doesn't happen, but that's what I thought of as this "romance" was starting to develop. As I'm typing that up, I'm suddenly thinking that something like that could've been interesting. What actually happened when they went off alone together was much, much worse. The awkward conversations not only continued, but they got worse and worse. It got so bad and so awkward that I wanted to turn the TV off. I wanted to stop the movie. But I continued because I know I wanted to write this review after watching the entire movie. So I continued. But I was writhing in pain. Every single sequence with Anakin and Padme was hard for me to watch. And do you know what makes this even worse? Anakin's serial-killer-level creepiness worked! Padme fell in love with him. HOW?!?!?!?!? What did this man do to win your heart? Nothing! But we had to have a romance, so they had to fall in love. I don't blame Natalie Portman for this. Yes, her acting was as stiff as a board in the first movie, but she actually improved in this one. And just like Ewan McGregor, she was a good actress trapped in a bad movie. And just like the problem with the Obi-Wan and Anakin relationship, Hayden Christensen as Anakin is to blame here. Although Natalie Portman doesn't get a complete pass here. She did deliver the cheesiest line in all of Star Wars. The line is when she finally confesses her undying love to Anakin right before they enter the Gladiator-esque ring. Man is that a bad line.

I said I wanted to talk about a few relationships in this movie, not just a couple. That was a deliberate word choice because there is a third relationship in this that stood out to me in this movie. Except this one is possibly the one thing this movie did right. I'm talking about the mother/son relationship. I may not have been a huge fan of the 9-year-old, annoying Anakin in The Phantom Menace, but the saddest part of that movie is when he was saying goodbye to his mother. "Am I ever going to see you again?" All he's ever known is living with his mother and now he has to leave her, hoping that one day they will be reunited. Now we fast-forward 10 years and suddenly he is having dreams of his mother in pain. Immediately he and Padme go to Tattooine and once he learns where she is, enter the fantastic John Williams score while Anakin is speeding on that bike to save his mother. That culminates in easily the best scene of this entire movie. The scene where he finds his mother, tries to save her, but watches as she dies in his arms. I don't know why, but that scene really got to me emotionally. Sure they ruin the moment when Anakin talks to Padme about what he did, but the scene itself was still pretty good. I'd call that my Darth Maul moment of this movie.

Now I'm this far in and I haven't even really talked about the plot of this movie? That's because these three relationships are the meat of the movie and thus I feel that they are what I needed to focus on most when analyzing this film. But yes, there is a plot. And for the most part it is all fluff. Boring fluff to be honest. Remember in my Phantom Menace review where I talked about it being stuffed full of politics and council meetings? People standing around talking? Yeah, that's the same with this movie. Apparently they still thought that this was the good idea because there are a lot of useless politics in this movie. Something is happening with their government and other people are starting rebellions. For some reason Padme is being targeted by Jango Fett which leads to an opening scene where the assigned bounty hunter is given poisonous bugs to try to kill Padme, which is really dumb mainly because she sat there and watched the bugs crawl around the room when she could've just shot her in the head. Bounty hunter fail. This leads to a mildly entertaining chase scene in which we learn that Jedi have the ability to float in the air when they fall that ends in a random bar in which we get the best conversation of the movie. "Want to buy some death sticks?" "You don't want to sell me death sticks." "I don't want to sell you death sticks." "You want to go home and rethink your life." "I want to go home and rethink my life." You know you've quoted that many times.

This being the second failed attempt on Padme's life, the Jedi Council makes the decision to send Anakin off with Padme to protect her, which makes no sense especially since Obi-Wan knows how obsessed he is with her. If we go with this weird idea that just shows up for the first time in this, the fifth theatrically released Star Wars movie, that love is forbidden for Jedi, then why in the heck would Obi-Wan be okay with this arrangement? Anywho, since the Jedi Council apparently do nothing with their lives except for sit and talk in the Council Room, they send Obi-Wan out on a wild goose chase to figure out where this bounty hunter came from, which leads them to learn that the Jedi now have a clone army in their disposal. In order to use this army for their advantage, they have to get Jar Jar, who somehow made it to the level of a Senator, to be the one to give all the power over to Senator Palpatine. Yep. The eventual near annihilation of the Jedi is all Jar Jar's fault. But now we can use this clone army, which will immediately come in handy because Obi-Wan has now gotten himself captured as do Anakin and Padme when they decide to try to rescue him. We learn that R2 now randomly has a jet pack and C3-PO is now the comedy relief as his head gets put onto the body of a droid.

See all of this is fine. It's not bad. But it's nothing too exciting. It's certainly better than watching the half of the movie with Anakin and Padme, but none of it excites me like the action scenes in all the other Star Wars movies. Even though The Phantom Menace is boring for most of the movie, it at least has an epic finale when Darth Maul shows up. This finale isn't that great. The conveyor belt scene is fine. I don't hate that. The gladiator sequence is kinda fun with the three weird monsters fighting Padme, Anakin, and Obi-Wan. But it's nothing special. I am bothered by how they sexualize Padme in this movie. She goes from outrageously weird outfits and hairstyles to slowly more and more revealing outfits, which culminates in her wearing a very tight and very revealing white outfit that gets partially cut off by the little creature she's fighting, making it even more revealing. This is dumb. The sequence with all the Jedi showing up is pretty cool. Never in Star Wars have we seen that many Jedi fighting at once. But what are they fighting? An army of droids. That's lame. Jedi vs. droids aren't that interesting. They're supposed to be the appetizer for something bigger, not the main course. They are all saved by the clones. That two minute sequence with the clones saving everyone is the namesake of our movie. Title fail.

Now I want to finish up by talking about Count Dooku as the fight with him at the end is the actual finale of our movie. A few quick points I want to bring up. First off, he is completely useless. We a little bit of his backstory. Apparently he was trained by Yoda and trained Qui-Gon. All that is totally messed up. In the original trilogy it is revealed that Obi-Wan was trained by Yoda. That's a consistency error that's always bothered me. The more and more I think about it, the more I conclude that both Qui-Gon and Count Dooku should not have existed in the prequels, which saddens me because I like Liam Neeson and Christopher Lee. But their roles, as written, are not needed. In fact, the prequels would be better without them. Make Yoda Obi-Wan's master like was originally intended. Heck, start the movies with Obi-Wan and Anakin as our two main Jedi and forget about this whole finding Anakin as a kid fluff. And for crying out loud, you had a great apprentice for Palpatine in the first movie. Darth Maul. Keep him! Have him stay around for all three movies. Don't introduce Dooku. He doesn't even shine a light to Darth Maul, especially since we don't even learn why he turned to the dark side after being a Jedi for so long. And finally, for crying out freaking loud, Yoda does not need a light saber. Dooku and Yoda do their little force battle and when that comes to a stale mate, Dooku decides that this can't be solved with the force, but with a light saber. Why? That makes no sense.

So yes, this movie as a whole is a pretty big mess. Even if we pretend the original trilogy doesn't exist, the action sequences aren't that entertaining. The story is kinda hard to follow because it's not that interesting. Every scene with Anakin and Padme is atrociously bad. The best part of the movie is the sequence with Anakin trying and failing to save his mother, but even then they don't do much with that. If The Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars movie ever made and this was the second Star Wars movie ever made, I still don't think that I would like this. But this is in fact the fifth Star Wars movie ever made and it is the movie where we finally dive deep into this fascinating backstory of Anakin Skywalker and see how he became Darth Vader. Had they had a good actor for Anakin and a good script for the story, this could've been one of the greatest movies ever simply because that backstory as given in the original trilogy is so good and interesting, yet the direction that George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, decided to go with this movie is so bad that it is an insult to Anakin Skywalker's character and thus an insult to the Star Wars universe. It has enough semi-entertaining sequences to prevent me from giving it a completely trashy score, but this doesn't even shine a light to The Phantom Menace and so I'm going really low with this. I'm giving Attack of the Clones a 4/10.

The Peanuts Movie Review

On March 18, 2014, the first teaser trailer for The Peanuts Movie was released. Yes, you read that right. 2014. March 2014. Nearly 20 months before the movie was actually released. That's insane. We're six months away from Captain America: Civil War and the general public still hasn't received a trailer for that. I remember thinking at the time that the release of the trailer in March meant that we were getting the movie that year. I remembered the movie being announced and I remembered that the release date was in November, so I assumed it was November of that year. Nope. Apparently Blue Sky Animation wanted to make sure that no one on planet Earth forgot that they were bringing the Peanuts characters back to the big screen. I love the Peanuts. I grew up on the Peanuts. But having Blue Sky announce that they were doing a full-length CGI movie of the Peanuts isn't something that I could say I was extremely excited for. I didn't hate the idea, either. It was a wait and see type of thing for me.

If you don't know Blue Sky right off the top of your head, they are one of the main animated studios that now exist. It used to be just Disney. Then Pixar joined the game and transformed the genre completely. Shortly after Dreamworks joined the club. Now we have a ton of them. Blue Sky came on the scene in 2002 with the movie Ice Age. This is their 10th movie now and they've consistently made between $100 million and $200 million here in the United States. Epic is their lowest grossing movie at $107 million while Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is their highest at $196 million. Overseas is a totally different story as the last two Ice Age movies trail only Frozen in the list of highest grossing animated movies of all time overseas. That's why we're getting a fifth one next summer. As far as my personal opinion of Blue Sky, I can't say that I hate any movie that they've made. But they hadn't made a movie that totally blew me away. The original Ice Age would have to be my favorite. Their shorts with Scrat the prehistoric squirrel chasing the acorns are also fantastic. We get another one of those before this movie, by the way, and it is absolute gold. But anywho, all of this meant that I expected something fun and cute out of this new Peanuts movie from Blue Sky. But holy cow they blew this out of the park. I can confidently say that this is their best movie now and possibly the best animated movie of the year.

What is it that makes The Peanuts Movie work so well? This is actually hard to put into words and do it complete justice. Speaking in general terms, the best way I can put it is that they did Peanuts perfectly. This felt like a screenplay that was written by Charles Schultz himself. It sounds like the voices in this movie were provided by the exact same voices who have done them previously. Not just that, the personalities of all the characters are exactly the same as they are in the holiday specials and the comic strips. And above all, it has the magic of the Peanuts. If it wasn't for the fact that Charles Schultz sadly passed away 15 years ago, it'd be hard for you to convince me that this wasn't him in charge of all this. Thus I think that if Charles Schultz was alive, I think he'd be extremely happy with how his beloved characters were treated on the big screen. A ton of credit has to be given to this whole team. So prepare yourself to fall in love with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and the whole gang all over again.

As far as the story goes, this is a very simple story. Charlie Brown is a very nervous, socially awkward kid. He's not very good at flying a kite, playing baseball, or kicking a football, but he tries his best anyways. Yet, his confidence level is really low. He's always beating himself up, telling himself he can't do it, and thinking that he can't do anything right. Well, a little red-headed girl moves in next door and becomes Charlie's new crush. He wants to go talk to her. He wants to ask her to the dance. He wants to impress her. But, true to Charlie's character, he can't do it. He's too nervous. His confidence is too low. Every time he gets up the courage to do something big, he backs out at the last second. Sound familiar? It is. It's Charlie Brown done to perfection. He's a very relatable character for a whole lot of people, which is a big part of the reason why he is such a lovable character. It's just a blast watching his journey through the movie as he's trying to impress the little red-headed girl. Woven into this story is the adventures of Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, the themes of which parallel very well to what is happening with Charlie Brown and the little red-headed girl.

If you aren't a fan of Charlie Brown or the Peanuts in general, I suppose I can see how you wouldn't be totally in love with this movie. It's nothing ground-breaking. They don't do anything bold or ambitious. There's no crazy twists. In fact, you can call this very safe and predictable. But that's the thing. Peanuts doesn't need to do any of that. Peanuts has always been very simple, yet it's the simplicity of it all that makes it very profound. There's a whole lot of fun to be had. I had a huge smile on my face for the whole movie. There's a lot of valuable lessons for young kids to learn throughout this movie, thus making this a perfect family movie. Your kids should have a ton of fun with the movie and it will teach them a lot of good principles. That's what you want, right? None of these lessons are shoved down your throat. It's all done very naturally and beautifully. It's also a G-rated movie, which doesn't happen very often. But not only does this movie have a lot of excellent things in it for young kids, all the adults that grew up with Peanuts should love this. Not only is this movie full of nods to the Peanuts that we all loved, but this movie packs a powerful, emotional punch right at the end and for me it hit home.

This is a simple review. I spent most of this talking about the advertising campaign and Blue Sky as a whole and when I did talk about the movie, I didn't give a whole lot of specifics. The thing is, this is a very simple movie and I don't want to talk about too many specifics in this instance because I want you to discover these things for yourself. It's one of those movies where I don't want to say too much. But I will say that if you grew up on Peanuts and you love these characters, you are going to love this movie because it is such a delightful, fun, emotional Peanuts movie that does justice to these great characters that we've all loved growing up. I expected a cute, fun, slightly-above-average Peanuts adaptation, but I was totally blown away with this film. I was smiling and laughing throughout the whole film. In fact, I think I was probably laughing more than all of the kids in the theater with me, who were definitely enjoying the film. In fact, there were a few times during the movie where I chose to look around at the whole theater and it was such a delight watching everyone having such a good time with this movie, adult and child alike. And yes, I was holding back tears at the end of this movie. I didn't expect that at all. Pixar's Inside Out was a pretty dang good movie, yet this challenges that film as my favorite animated movie of the year. My grade for The Peanuts Movie will be the same as that one. I'm giving this a 9/10.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Review

Earlier this year I made the decision to review all the Star Wars movies leading up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December. I can't call this an original idea. Others have done it or are doing it. I just thought this was a great idea, so I decided that I wanted to the same thing. The unique part of my set of reviews is that mine will come once a week leading up to The Force Awakens. That'll be seven Star Wars reviews in seven weeks. I'm stoked that it's time to begin this project because that means it's only six weeks until we finally get a new Star Wars movie in theaters. You have no idea how happy this makes me. Actually I take that back. You probably do because you probably are just as excited. But you get the point. New Star Wars is coming!! If you haven't seen Star Wars before, I do suggest you watch the movies in the order they were released in theaters. However, I'm doing this in chronological order because I want my reviews of the original trilogy to come right before The Force Awakens. So I'm starting out with the prequels. That means The Phantom Menace is up first. And yes, there will be spoilers. You've been warned.

A lot of people hate the prequels. I totally understand why. However, I've always been one to defend the prequels because I've never really thought they were horrible, unwatchable movies. Although I really shouldn't declare that too loudly because I will admit that there are a lot of problems with these movies. There nowhere near as good as the original trilogy. First off, you should know that I have been a Star Wars fan my entire life. My whole family have been Star Wars fans for as long as I can remember. Now I wouldn't call myself a Star Wars nerd. I haven't read all the books. I don't know every detail about every side character that shows up for two seconds in each movie. I know very little about the extended universe. I haven't actually watched any of the TV shows. I can't name every planet ever mentioned in Star Wars along with the significance and history. Getting my vibe? I'm just what you call a good old fashioned Star Wars fan. I've watched these movies countless times since I was little and I enjoy them a lot.

As far as The Phantom Menace goes, I was 10 years old when this movie came out in 1999. I specifically remember going with my Dad to see this movie shortly after it was released. And do you know what, 10-year-old Adam loved it. 10-year-old Adam was also admittedly a lot less critical towards movies. It didn't take a whole lot to please him. This was Star Wars and it was a whole lot of fun. Now 26-year-old Adam has a little bit of a different opinion of the movie than 10-year-old Adam because 26-year-old Adam is a lot more critical when it comes to movies. It's still not that hard to please me right now and I wasn't oblivious to the issues with The Phantom Menace when I first saw it or discussed it with friends and family over the years. But if I'm watching it now like I just did and am looking completely objectively at the movie, there are a whole lot of issues with this movie. There's also plenty of good when it comes to this and I will definitely get to those points as well. But I'm putting on my critic glasses right now and thus we're going to dive deep into this.

First and foremost, what's the story of this movie? Okay don't answer that. That's more of a rhetorical question. But seriously. What's the story here? Let's look at the opening crawl: "Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all the shipping to the small planet of Naboo. While the congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of the peace and justice in the galaxy to settle the conflict." Ok, really? We got trade routes and taxations and political disputes and a whole bunch of jargon like that? This all definitely went over my head when I first saw it and it still kinda does. Someone is mad and there's some sort of dispute and Jedi are going to go solve the problem. Got it. Jedi. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are out to completely own some droids and try to attack some weird dudes that look like they just put on a Halloween costume they found at Wal-Mart meant for six-year-olds. Viceroy Nute Gunray is one of the character's names. I don't know what they other one is. But they are such dumb characters that look horrible and talk like idiots. Even 10-year-old Adam never really liked those guys.

I'm not going to go scene by scene like that, but I'm just pointing out that story of this movie is kinda dumb and hard to follow. So much of the movie is politics, politics, politics. Star Wars politics that is. Someone thought it was a good idea to have a ton of scenes that were just councils. Endless amounts of councils in this movie. People standing around or sitting in chairs talking about things. Politics. Councils. Politics. Councils. Sitting. Standing. Talking. Talking. Talking. Talking. Trade Federation. Taxation. Treaties. Oh. My. Wow. It gets old. And when there isn't councils and politics, it's Jedi Councils talking or the Viceroy talking with Emperor Palpatine, the Sith Lord, and his apprentice Darth Maul. Was the idea of Palpatine being evil supposed to be a surprise, by the way? I hope not. But anywho, moral of the story is that when there wasn't councils with people talking... there were different types of councils with people talking. I mean, Yoda and Mace Windu are two totally boss characters in this movie, but all they do is sit and talk in councils. What a waste. Speaking of Yoda, where's his sense of humor? Why is he such a dark, serious character? Had I not seen The Empire Strikes Back, I would've thought that he was a dumb, unlikable character who is a grinch when it comes to training this little boy.

Luckily we took a few breaks from the endless number of councils in this movie and focused on our awesome Jedi. For some reason they failed in attacking our Wal-Mart characters and escape, running into none other than the beloved and favorite character of Jar Jar Binks. Right? Am I right? Can I get an amen? No? Nothing? Yeah, what a useless character. I have to be honest, 10-year-old Adam didn't hate Jar Jar Binks. In fact, I thought he was kinda funny back in the day, which was George Lucas' original point with the character. Provide comic relief for the 10-year-old kids watching the movie. It worked for me initially. But the more and more I watched the movie, the less and less funny he gets. I still don't find him annoying and awful, but I do agree with everyone that he is a rather useless character. Yet our duo of awesome Jedi become a trio with Jar Jar and oh my word. There are so many facepalms with this Jar Jar character but it keeps going and going and going. Meanwhile a series of events happens that find our heroes stuck on Tatooine with a broken ship. Obi-Wan stays on the ship and Qui-Gon goes out to the town with Jar Jar and Queen Amidala, aka Padme. Why? Couldn't we just leave Jar Jar and Padme on the ship and let the Jedi deal with the ship problems? That would've solved so many problems. But no. Now we get introduced to another awkward character in Anakin Skywalker.

I don't really know what George Lucas saw in this kid. I don't know what Qui-Gon saw in this kid either. I have no idea was he was a super genius. I don't know how this 9-year-old kid managed to build C-3PO or why he's a super expert pilot. I don't know why like 90 percent of the lines in this Tatooine sequence went to Anakin. Who thought it was a good idea to have this kid here that literally won't shut up? And why in the heck did we write in the script that he has no father? Like seriously. Apparently his mom just became pregnant with him. There was never a man in her life that made that happen. That's just weird. But Qui-Gon likes the kid and so he makes a bet with an over-sized fly to get his parts and free this kid from slavery. And in the meantime Anakin starts talking with Padme which begins possibly the most awkward and confusing romance in movie history. I'm not 100 percent sure how old the characters are supposed to be. Weird Al says he's 9 and she's 14. Whatever the case is, Jake Lloyd was 9 and Natalie Portman was 17 when this movie was shot. Tons of foreshadowing of a romance in this and every time they talk, I just want to pull my hair out. The one fun thing about Tatooine is the pod racing. This was great mostly because it created the pod racing video game that was a ton of fun.

When we finally leave Tatooine, the movie is over an hour in. Meanwhile I'm sitting on the couch watching this realizing that the movie is halfway over and honestly nothing good or entertaining has happened. And I spent years defending this? Yikes. And while we're on the negative, can I talk about the wooden acting by EVERYONE? Jake Lloyd isn't the only bad actor in this movie. Natalie Portman is terrible in this. I swear she speaks in monotone the entire time. Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson also don't get a pass. These two aren't bad, but honestly they look bored the whole movie. Neither shows very much emotion in the movie. Samuel L. Jackson is another huge name that just isn't into his role. The weird thing with all of these actors is that they are tried and tested actors. Oscar winning actors in many cases. But something went wrong. Maybe it's the fact that most of this movie was shot in front of greens screens. Maybe it's the fact that the script throughout the whole prequels are bad. Maybe it's the fact that there's a director that seems to have lost his magic. Maybe it's a combination of a lot of things, but it's really baffling. I really can't think of a single actor that does a great job in this. Looking at the cast, Pernilla August as Shmi Skywalker might have the best performance in the movie.

You hear me saying that I defend the prequels. You hear me saying that they aren't bad movies. Yet here am I writing this review of The Phantom Menace and I've spent most of this review trash-talking the heck out of it. What's the deal? Here's the deal. The Phantom Menace has a whole ton of flaws. But there is plenty of good in this movie. It just takes a while to get to it. It's a boring slog-fest through much of the movie with wooden acting, awkward dialogue, and tons of councils, but then there's a huge group of people running through some sort of building tracking down the stupid Viceroy character or something like that and suddenly they open a door. Standing in their way is one of the most epic characters in the whole series. Darth. Freaking. Maul. Here he is with this red and black makeup, spikes on his head, shady robes, an evil scowl on his face, and a double-sided light saber. The fact that he is so mysterious makes him interesting. The fact that he doesn't speak much makes him even more interesting. The fact that they kill him off without telling us anything about him is kinda dumb, but hey. I'm talking positives now, right?

The moment they open the door and see Darth Maul standing there is where this movie turns around and gives us a pretty epic finale. The moment when we see him is the moment Dual of the Fates begins. And of course I'm meaning the song. It's one of the best songs of the whole franchise and it's playing during one of the best light saber duals of the whole franchise. Playing alongside this light saber dual between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon is three other sequences that we jump through. The Darth Maul fight is definitely the best of the four, but the others are good too. For the most part. The Anakin accidentally flying into space sequence was kinda dumb and uninteresting, but the droid vs. Gungan duel was pretty fun and so was the sequence with the other group sneaking through the building shooting searching for the Viceroy. Once again, the story behind all this really isn't that interesting, but the individual scenes at the end were a lot of fun. As far as important plot points to take away, there's really only two. Anakin gets discovered and is officially being trained by Obi-Wan and there's this mysterious (but not so mysterious) Sith Lord around that is about to screw over everyone's world. The rest of the stuff is just fluff in my opinion. But yes, there's some pretty good fluff that happens in this grand finale.

I definitely can't end this review without mentioning the amazing score done by the legendary John Williams. Throughout the entire movie, it's excellent. But specifically from the Duel of the Fates on it is legendary. As I said, Duel of the Fates is one of my favorite Star Wars songs. That song alone takes an average at best movie and kicks it into full gear, creating an epic and emotional finale. I also noticed this time around that the lack of a soundtrack during Qui-Gon's final moments battling Darth Maul was super effective. It was just the buzz of the light sabers as they fought for those moments which of course ended with Darth Maul stabbing and killing Qui-Gon. That scene was powerful. Then we get into two final songs that just end the movie on an amazing high. The first is the song during the burning ceremony of Qui-Gon and the second is the anthem right before the end credits. Even though much of the movie isn't that good at all, the fact that we end on an extremely high note is really important as it makes you excited to continue and all this is made possible by John Williams. What a man. What a legend. And of course we have our amazing Star Wars theme to listen to during the credits. Thus I always finish this movie with a positive feeling.

Overall, when I think about my many experiences with The Phantom Menace over the last 16 years, I don't have the bitter taste in my mouth that many people do. If I'm being honest, most of this movie isn't that good. The story is boring and uninteresting. There's way too much standing around talking in councils. The opening act is pretty good, but it goes downhill pretty fast and is mostly uninteresting until the finale when we see Darth Maul standing there in the way. The acting isn't that good by anyone. The dialogue is awkward and cheesy in many moments. Our main kid that we are supposed to care about is mostly just a waste of time and space. But do you know what, this still isn't a terrible movie. John Williams' score is excellent. Darth Maul and Palpatine are pretty good. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are still likable even though they look bored. The light saber dual with Darth Maul is totally epic. In general, the finale of this movie is fantastic. 10-year-old Adam loved this movie and 26-year-old Adam still doesn't hate it, even though he realizes there are a ton of flaws. With everything considered, I think a grade of 6.5/10 is a fair one for The Phantom Menace. Stay tuned next week when I will give you my review of The Attack of the Clones, which is actually my least favorite Star Wars movie.

Spectre Review

Earlier this year I decided that in preparation for the new Bond movie to come out, I decided that I was going to do the ultimate Bond marathon. I was going to watch all previous 23 Bond movies in order and top that off by seeing Spectre in theaters. I decided that this was especially important for me to do because the only previous Bond movie I've seen was the most recent one, Skyfall, which I really enjoyed by the way. Don't ask me how or why I went my whole life without watching any Bond movies. I was never against them. I guess my parents or family weren't into them, so I didn't grow up with them and I never got around to watching them. But I vowed to change that by watching all of them and then give you my review of Spectre after watching all of them. This would allow me to compare Spectre to all the previous Bond movies with all of them fresh on my mind. Well, not only did I not only make this goal, but I came up completely blank. Sorry. The only two Bond movies that I've still are Skyfall and now Spectre. Life got busy and I didn't allot myself enough time to start this marathon. But that will still happen. And I'll probably do some sort of blog post after I finish. As for now, you get a review of Spectre from the perspective of someone who hasn't watched Bond, which I suppose is interesting in it's own right.

Now I admit that I'm not up to par on my Bond. That's not to say I'm a newcomer to this genre as a whole. I've watched a countless number of action movies and spy movies. I find them a whole lot of fun and thus I know exactly what I expect when I go into one of these movies. If it's a deep movie with a fascinating story, that's a plus, but mostly I just want to be entertained. Being that I loved Skyfall, I expected something similar to that. But holy cow that movie stunned me. Not in a good way. In a bad way. None of the characters looked invested in this project. Daniel Craig especially looked bored. The story of the movie is not interesting at all. The movie is surprisingly slow and boring. When the action happens, most of it really isn't that entertaining. The scenes that are entertaining to some degree are super cliche for a spy/action movie. The villain really doesn't exist. They talk about him a lot, but that's it. He shows up once before the finale for a brief moment then is there for the fairly short, two-part finale. That's all. I just wanted to be entertained by a Bond movie. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently so. I found very little entertainment value in this movie, making it one of the bigger disappointments of the year.

So let's start out with this story. It started out in Mexico City during a Day of the Dead celebration. This actually caught my attention. I liked Bond and his Bond girl's Day of the Dead disguise. I loved how they went up to the room and then he just left her there to stop some other people. "I'll be right back," he says. Nope. He ain't going back. Instead he's out to stop these guys from blowing up a whole stadium full of people or something like that. This leads to a sequence that is actually super entertaining, which ends with Bond and two others fighting it out in a helicopter. That was pretty boss. Yes, the movie had plenty of negative reviews, but it also had a lot of really good reviews as well. One of my friends called it one of his favorite movies of the year. After this opening sequence, I was rather pleased because it appeared that I was going to be among the crowd that really enjoyed the movie. I became really excited for this journey we were about to go on. Insert Sam Smith. His song "Writings on the Wall" started playing during that opening credits sequence and if I'm being honest that was a really weird sequence with a song that really wasn't that great. Sorry Sam Smith. I love your music, but this was not one of your best songs and it certainly didn't hold a candle to Adele's "Skyfall."

It was all downhill from there. It's like Sam Smith cursed the movie with his sub-par song that accompanied a horrible title sequence because the movie never recovered. We never returned to the level of that epic beginning. Instead Bond returns to headquarters and Voldemort is pissed with him over the whole Mexico City gig. "But I stopped them from destroying a whole stadium and only destroyed a whole building," Bond argued. "You didn't have permission and weren't supposed to be there in the first place," Voldemort responds. Or something like that. That's not a verbatim quote. But that was the general argument that took place. Bond is in trouble, so they insert some tracking thing into his blood so they know where he is. We reveal that we have this new awesome car. But Bond is not allowed to drive it. He's grounded. You know that means he's stealing the car anyways and travelling around the world. Europe that is. He's out to hunt down this criminal organization that he found out about or re-discovered. Something like that. This should lead to a really intense spy thriller that has you on the edge of your seat the whole time. Nope. It had me struggling to stay awake instead.

Let's talk about some of these action sequences. When push comes to shove, entertaining action sequences should be the best part of a movie like this. A great story, like in Skyfall, is nice. But if the story itself is a slog-fest, there should at least be entertaining action, right? Right? Well there isn't. Not after that opening sequence, anyways. Which I repeat was rather fantastic. We had a scene where Dave Bautista poked someone's eyes out. That was disgusting. Then the people there realized that Bond is secretly there watching him. That leads to a care chase scene with Bautista and Bond. This should've been super entertaining. I love a good car chase. This was kinda boring. I felt like I was watching Nascar. Sorry Nascar fans, but I find that sport mostly boring. We're just watching cars drive really fast in circles, none really gaining on the other. That's what happened here. Two fast cars driving really fast in what felt like circles. Nothing drastic happened. Later they were on a train. This was kinda entertaining. But nothing special. There were a few other kinda entertaining scenes. But mostly there was a whole lot of boring nothing happening between those scenes that just dragged on.

Then we get to the finale. And hey look! We have a villain! Christoph Waltz was our villain, which sounded like a good idea. I was actually excited for Christoph Waltz as the villain. Too bad he's not really in the movie. We get Dave Bautista for most of the middle of the movie instead. And they didn't let Dave Bautista talk very much, which may have been a good idea. Give him too many lines in a serious movie like this and he becomes a joke because he can't really act. His lack of good acting worked surprisingly well in Guardians of the Galaxy because his character was written perfectly, but this movie they didn't really try. Thus he really just became a big, scary guy chasing Bond for a while until he finally meets Christoph Waltz. After forcing myself to stay awake for two-thirds of the movie, the final sequence of the movie was actually fairly interesting. Then it ended in a cool way. After this I thought the movie was going to end, but it didn't. Christoph Waltz was still alive and we tack on what I call a second ending. Yeah this movie is long. It's 148 minutes long and it drags through that 148 minutes, making it feel twice as long. We didn't need that second ending. It was dumb anyways. I mean, talk about the most cliche ending ever for a spy movie. I'm not even kidding.

Needless to say, I was disappointed. I may not be up to par with my Bond movies, but I've watched a lot of great spy movies in my life as well as even more action movies. I know what makes a good spy movie. This was not a good spy movie. It has a very good start, but then nothing for the rest of the movie. The characters were dull. Daniel Craig looked like he was bored with Bond. The story was uninteresting. The action wasn't really there as much as it should've been and when it was it wasn't that entertaining when it was there. I was completely bored for the first two-thirds of this movie. The finale was fairly entertaining, but we had a lame villain played by a great actor that led a super cliche ending. What a waste of a great actor. What a waste of a Bond movie. It felt like they just did the bare minimum to get this Bond movie made and weren't super creative with anything. I have some people telling me that I will like this more once I watch all the Bond movies. I doubt that, but maybe. All I know right now is that I just watched a really dull spy movie. All I wanted to do was be entertained and that didn't happen. Thus I am going to give Spectre a 6/10.

Movie Preview: November 2015

The Halloween season is now over now it's time for the official Hollywood holiday season to begin! This Halloween season was pretty decent. Hotel Transylvania 2 and Goosebumps were our Halloween-themed movies that dominated the month. Crimson Peak tried to join that club, but wasn't quite as popular as the other two. As far as non-Halloween themed movies, everyone all went to Mars with Matt Damon as The Martian was the king of the box office during the month, winning the box office crown for four of the five weekends and earning a very strong $179 million during the month. The other huge thing that happened was the arrival of the official trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As if Star Wars fever wasn't high enough already, this increased it to astronomical levels. The trailer was viewed over 100 million times in the first 24 hours and ticket sites crashed with such heavy traffic. If you haven't bought your ticket yet, it might actually be too late at this point if you want to get in on opening night. That's how high Star Wars fever is. In fact, many people have forgotten or simply don't care that there is a whole lineup of movies in the month before Star Wars. But we're here to talk about that because there are some pretty big titles, so let's begin!

November 6th - 8th-

First up is the 24th film in the long-running, extremely popular James Bond franchise. This one is called Spectre. The James Bond franchise is the type of franchise that every action franchise wants to be, but is never able to replicate. Several new action/spy movies this summer advertised themselves by using the tagline "better than Bond." That didn't work. No one beats Bond. Not in terms of success, anyways. The franchise started back in 1963 with Dr. No. The fourth Bond movie, Thunderball, made an incredible $63.5 million in 1965. When adjusted for ticket price inflation, that is the equivalent of $623 million, which is right on par with the numbers The Avengers put up in 2012. No Bond movie has sold quite that many tickets, but they've put up consistently good numbers for the last 50 years. Three years ago, Skyfall took things to the next level by being the first Bond to reach $1 billion worldwide and $300 million in U.S. That's not as much as Thunderball or Goldfinger when adjusted for ticket price inflation, but it is good enough for third place, which is impressive. Spectre brings back director Sam Mendes and Bond star Daniel Craig for possibly one final go at it before switching things up again. Thus they will be looking to add to the success of Skyfall both financially and critically and by the looks of things, they're going to achieve that success.

James Bond isn't the only big name making a return to theaters this weekend. Charlie Brown and Snoopy return to theaters with The Peanuts Movie. The animation studio that is bringing them back is Blue Sky, the animation studio that brought you the Ice Age and Rio movies. They've been trying their darndest to make sure that no one forgets that they are doing this project. The first teaser trailer for this movie was released nearly two whole years ago and their marketing campaign has been going strong ever since. Wondering why everyone on social media turned themselves into Peanuts characters recently? Yup. That was them as well. That aspect was pretty smart if you ask me. Early reviews suggest that this will be a well received animated movie, but regardless of what critics say, this will be a popular choice among family audiences throughout November. There's enough space between this and The Good Dinosaur that will allow both to have a healthy run.

November 13th - 15th-

Five years ago I remember on the news a very publicized story of 33 miners being trapped for quite some time down in a mine. Their story is now being told on the big screen via the movie The 33. If I am not mistaken, this was a Chilean mine down in South America and the miners were trapped for 69 days. The amazing part of this story is that all of them made it out alive. This was shocking, yet fantastic news for everyone around the world who was following this. Yes, technically I just gave away the ending, but this is the type of movie where you go into knowing exactly how it will end, yet you are interested in watching how this all turns out. In a way, it reminds me of the movie 127 Hours, where the guy gets his arm stuck under a rock in Southern Utah and ends up cutting it off so that he doesn't die. I remember hearing about that remarkable story on the news and then suddenly it became a movie, which was really intriguing. I don't know if The 33 will be an Oscar contender like 127 Hours was, but those who remember this story will be interested in checking it out on the big screen.

Arriving a bit early in the holiday season is the Christmas comedy Love the Coopers. Now I do say this is a bit early for Christmas, but knowing what's coming out around Christmas, this was probably the best date for this movie. The story here is nothing new. We have four generations of Coopers coming together for their annual Christmas party and the family is a bit of a dysfunctional family. I'm sure there will be some message about the Christmas spirit and coming together as a family, but that's just a guess. My gut here is that this doesn't seem like the movie that is going to connect with audiences or stand out among the crowd, but if it surprises it will be because of the ginormous cast. Starring in the movie is Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, Anthony Mackie, John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Alan Arkin, Ed Helms, Jake Lacy, June Squibb, and Marisa Tomei. Giant cast doesn't always equate to success, but it certainly can't hurt.

Finally we have the football drama My All American. This is a movie that seems to be flying in under the radar. Unless you are a fan of ESPN, of course. They've been smartly advertising this one on ESPN for quite some time now in hopes to attract sports fans to the theaters. They've also been heavily advertising that this is a movie that is written by the same guy who wrote Rudy and Hoosiers, both of which you could probably call cult classics. Neither made a ton of money in theaters, but when you ask a fan of sports movies which are the best sports movies, there's a good chance that those two movies come up, so that's a smart connection. My All American looks like your typical underdog story. A guy is deemed to small to play football, but through a lot of hard work manages to make it onto the Texas Longhorns football team, where he runs into even more challenges. It's tough to predict exactly how a movie like this is going to turn out. Sports movies are seen as inspirational plenty of times, but there's been so many of them that it's often hard to stick out among the crowd.

November 20th - 22nd-

There's already been a few movie events this year and before the big one in December, we get another movie event right before Thanksgiving with the finale of the Hunger Games franchise: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. Every since the emergence of Harry Potter and Twilight, Hollywood has always been searching for the next big young adult book franchise to adapt to the big screen and they scored huge with The Hunger Games. In fact, both the first two movies outgrossed every movie from the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises here in the United States. Mockingjay Part 1 was down a bit, but such has always been the case with the first part of a two part finale, so this finale should recover. As far as the franchise as a whole, it was almost a consensus among fans of the books that the first two books were good. That wasn't the case with the final book, however. A lot of fans didn't like how Mockingjay ended, so it'll be interesting to see if that translates into the movie as well. One thing for sure is that out of the two parts of Mockingjay, this is definitely the more action-packed half. Much of the first half of the book was setup for the epic finale, thus is why fans were confused as to why they were splitting this into two movies. That also explains why the reviews for Part 1 were a lot worse than the first two movies. If you haven't read the books and were bored with Part 1, prepare for a non-stop adventure this time around with Part 2.

Thanksgiving is a good time to release a Christmas movie because that gives people the entire month of December to see it if it catches on with audiences. This holiday season we get two very non-traditional Christmas movies. Coming in early December is the Christmas horror movie Krampus and coming this week is the raunchy comedy The Night Before. This is from the people who made This is the End and Neighbors and stars Seth Rogan, who was in both of those movies as well as plenty of other raunchy comedies, so you can call him a raunchy comedy veteran that is pretty good at attracting audiences just with his presence. Joining him in this outing is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie. The three of them play a group of friends who have a tradition of partying it up on Christmas Eve. Since this may be their last Christmas Eve together, they are looking to party harder than ever before, so you can guess the types of things that will happen here. This genre has a pretty big fan base and the unique Christmas theme should help it play well throughout the holiday season.

Last up is the thriller Secret in their Eyes. If this title sounds familiar to you, it is because this is a remake of a foreign film of the same English title back in just 2009. That movie won best foreign film at the Oscars and currently holds a place on the IMDb top 250. Because us Americans aren't satisfied with just enjoying a foreign film, this one hailing from Argentina, we had to do an American remake. Those who know the original from just six years ago will probably roll their eyes at this and skip it. Those who don't know the original might just say it looks like your typical crime drama and choose to see something else instead. The story is about a group of crime investigators who are devastated when they find the daughter of someone from their group has been murdered and they are out to find the killer. This does hail an impressive cast with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, and Julia Roberts leading the way. Director Billy Ray has also had his share of success writing the screenplay for movies such The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips, and Shattered Glass. So there is some hope here, but overall it isn't looking like a holiday winner.

November 25th - 29th- 

Following what will be a successful pre-Thanksgiving weekend is another handful of movies joining the market for the actual weekend of Thanksgiving. All three of these wide releases will be opening the day before Thanksgiving, which is Wednesday the 25th. The past two Thanksgivings have been dominated by the second weekend of the various Hunger Games movies. While Mockingjay Part 2 is sure to continue that trend, the one movie that will contend to actually take the crown is Pixar's The Good Dinosaur. For the first time in several years, Pixar went without a movie in 2014 and that's because of production issues from The Good Dinosaur. It was supposed to come out in May of 2014, but got pushed back to this date, giving Pixar two movies in one year for the first time in their 20 year history. Their first movie of the year, Inside Out, was a monster success and an instant Pixar classic as it ended up as the second highest grossing Pixar movie ever behind only Toy Story 3. Despite the production issues, The Good Dinosaur should be able to feed off this success, especially since Pixar has a great track record with original films. The premise of the movie toys with the idea of the dinosaurs never going extinct. What if the asteroid that wiped them out missed? People love dinosaurs and people love Pixar, so this seems like a perfect marriage. Very little competition throughout the holiday season for family audiences should make this have a fantastic run.

Continuing franchises has been a theme this month and that will continue with Creed, which is a spin-off of the Rocky franchise. Rocky was released in 1976 and was a huge success with critics and fans alike as it was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning three of them including the big prize of best picture. It also earned a huge $117 million at the box office, which is the equivalent of $459 million today when adjusted for ticket price inflation. This spawned four sequels with a young Rocky spanning from 1979 to 1990 as well as a sixth movie with an older Rocky in 2006 called Rocky Balboa, in which Rocky officially said that the beast has been silenced and he is done with fighting. No he's not coming back in the ring this time around. This movie follows the son of Rocky's former opponent and friend, Apollo Creed, who died in Rocky IV. Played by Michael B. Jordan, this son of Creed, named Adonis Johnson, approaches Rocky and asks him to be his trainer and mentor. This idea was initially met with a bit of skepticism, but the trailers impressed in a big way and now this is one of the most anticipated movies of the holiday season.

Forgetting that the holiday this week is in fact Thanksgiving and not Halloween is Victor Frankenstein. It's been a fairly common trend recently to take some classic Halloween stories and put a unique spin on them. It happened twice last year with I, Frankenstein and Dracula Untold. Neither of those was met with much praise, so we're going back to Frankenstein to see if the third time is the charm. In this movie, Victor Frankenstein is played by James McAvoy and Igor is played by Daniel Radcliffe. Before you get weirded out that Daniel is playing Frankenstein's monster, he's not. Igor is Frankenstein's assistant in this. Together they create a monster, which looks like just that. A monster. The human element of Frankenstein's monster seems missing in this version of the story, If it's their, the advertising is hiding it. Frankenstein does go crazy and it is up to his assistant Igor to try to save him. Had this come out during Halloween season I could've seen it making a bit of cash like Dracula Untold did despite the negative reaction. Not sure if it can do so in a crowded Thanksgiving/Christmas market, but we will see.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Ranked: Phase I + II

Just over seven years ago, Marvel Studios took a huge gamble by creating what is now known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Superhero movies were nothing new at that point, but creating a universe like this on this big of a scale hadn't been done before. This huge risk payed huge dividends as through 12 movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has earned a phenomenal $9.1 billion worldwide. That's an average of $755 million per movie. When you are making that much money per movie, you know they're not even close to being done. Marvel already has 14 movies on schedule through 2020. There hasn't been official word on when Phase III will officially end and Phase IV will start, but I've decided that at the end of each phase from here on out, I will be ranking these movies. Whether I decide to rank all the movies together or each individual phase on its own will be decided later, but now that we're done with Phase II, I will be ranking the first two phases in this post. This was a hard list to create because Marvel hasn't yet made a bad movie in my opinion. But after much thinking, I feel comfortable with my list. After you read this, I would love to see your own list, because I know it's different from mine. So let's begin!

12- The Incredible Hulk

Many people say that this Edward Norton version of the Hulk is a bad movie. I disagree. I like Edward Norton and Liv Tyler in the lead roles. I think this is a great story with great acting and a great villain. I really like this movie. So why am I putting it dead last? Because it's the one movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that is now completely irrelevant. For a few different reasons, Edward Norton did not return as the Hulk after this movie. Insert Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, who totally blew it out of the park in The Avengers. And not only is Mark Ruffalo a much better Hulk, but his version of the Hulk is actually a different Hulk. They did more than just recast. They rebooted. Thus I personally sometimes forget that this Edward Norton Hulk movie ever existed.

11- Iron Man 2

Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man is what started this whole thing. That first movie is a universally loved movie and will most likely be towards the top of everyone's lists. That's no different for me. I'll get into why that movie is so great later, but first up from the Iron Man trilogy on this list is the very underwhelming second chapter. Once again, this is not a bad movie. A lot of good things happen... during the first two-thirds of the movie. But that ending. Ouch. We have this huge build up, then the final battle lasts like two seconds. It's very anti-climatic. Speaking of final battle, the main villain that they do battle is easily the dumbest marvel villain. You'll notice a theme with this list. In general, the movies with sub-par villains are the movies that end up towards the bottom for me.

10- Thor: The Dark World

Not much love given to the sequels towards the start of this list. This was almost the first bad Marvel movie for me. The first Thor was very light-hearted and fun with great characters. They attempted to go dark with the sequel, as is stated in the title, but they were too scared to go completely dark, so they threw in a bunch of humor and this time around nothing landed, thus the whole tone of the movie felt off. Most of our main Avengers have great character arcs throughout the movies. Thor in this movie? Nada. He's just Thor. And did you know that Christopher Eccleston made an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yeah, neither did anyone else because the Dark Elves in this are pretty forgettable villains. So why do I have this so high with all these horrible things I have to say about this? Loki. He is such an interesting character and single-handedly saves this movie. In fact, Loki is the only reason for this being a good movie.

9- Captain America: The First Avenger

I really like Captain America as a character and I really like the dynamic between him and Bucky. He also has great chemistry with Peggy Carter, which makes the finale of this movie absolutely tragic. The beginning is also really interesting as we see wimpy Steve Rodgers get transformed into this super soldier. But sadly that's all I got for this one. A lot of people loved the unique 40's style World War II movie that this offered, but for me I found it a bit boring. In fact, the first three times that I watched this movie, I actually fell asleep. All three times. Even when I finally saw it all the way through, it didn't do a lot to keep my attention. And I'm going to say this a third straight time. It's becoming a broken record at this point. Red Skull? Come one, Marvel. You can do better than that. Rumor has it he might make a return. Let's hope not.

8- Thor

There's a huge jump in quality for me between Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, thus you'll see that I get a bit more wordy from here on out. Remember everything that I said about Thor: The Dark World? Yeah, flip that for this movie. I love the unique world that this movie introduces. I love all the characters here. The duel between Loki and Thor is brilliant, especially on the side of Loki. You really feel bad for the guy as you watch this movie, which is why he makes such a good villain throughout this universe. While Thor didn't experience much of a character arc in the second movie, the one he goes through in this first one is great. He starts out as a stuck-up, self-centered jerk and thus is exiled to Earth because of it. He has to learn to be more humble and caring so he can actually be deserving of the throne that his father wants to give him. And dang is this movie hilarious. Watching this god have to work his way around Earth for the first time is fantastic. The chemistry between him and the group of people that take him in is also pretty great. Except for that romance. That was rushed. But outside that, this is a great film that I wanted to put higher. But I couldn't. In this case, that speaks less to the quality of this particular movie and more to the quality of the other movies that I have yet to mention.

7- Avengers: Age of Ultron

When I first saw this movie a few months ago, my reaction was that this movie was 141 minutes of pure entertainment. I stand by that. This Avengers sequel is blast. But when it comes to ranking these movies, I have to be a bit nit-picky and the 141 minutes of pure entertainment is more popcorn entertainment as some would put it. This isn't epic. It's not deep. It's not that emotional. It's just a whole lot of fun. This group of Avengers has amazing chemistry and it's just a blast watching them on film together fighting baddies and joking among themselves, even if what's going on around them isn't that great. If I'm being honest, Ultron himself seemed epic based on the trailers but was a bit underwhelming. Tony Stark created him and for almost no reason he just decides he's going to kill the Avengers. Oh. Okay. Let's go! And AGE of Ultron? More like WEEK of Ultron. He was just a filler villain as we continue to set up for the big villain of Thanos. Also, this movie was way too focused on setting up other movies in the universe that it almost felt like they forgot to focus on this movie. Like I said, this movie is a blast. But if I were to compare it to a season of a TV show, this would be the monster-of-the-week episode. 

6- Guardians of the Galaxy

Oh man, I'm going to get heat for this one. No matter how you look at it, this is the best reviewed Marvel movie to date by fans and critics alike. Most people have this at least in their top two or three and the fact that I don't have it in my top five is going to make it so I have to hide in my closet for a week while people seek to have my head on a platter. So let me be absolutely clear. I love this movie. It had me laughing from beginning to end. Such a fun, unique Marvel movie based on a bunch of characters that no one knew about, which makes what they pulled off even more impressive. And it has the rewatchability factor, meaning it gets even funnier the more you watch it. So why don't I have it as high as other people have it? Two reasons. Because these characters were unknown, the movie suffered a bit from what I call origin-story-itis. Instead of cutting to the chase, we were forced to spend a lot of time getting to know the character. Also, I've said it once and I've said it four times now. The villain! Ronan is NOT a good villain! He's not bad, but he's just pretty forgettable. And there's a few weird things that happen at the end for this group to defeat him that made me raise my eyebrow a bit. But that's it. Still a very fun ride, but these few things make me think the sequel is going to be an improvement.

5- Ant-Man

Ant-Man?!?! Most people were thinking that this was going to be Marvel's first slip-up. They thought it would be a financial disaster and an outright awful movie. I was in the minority. I was excited for Ant-Man. I spent months defending it. In Marvel we trust, guys! And Ant-Man's abilities are totally boss! Plus it had a great cast. But even I was shocked at how amazing this movie was. Michael Pena and Paul Rudd know how to do comedy and they were at the top of their game with this one because this movie was a blast. I laughed harder here than I did with Guardians of the Galaxy. This also wasn't an origin story. It was a passing of the torch story. Hank Pym was already established as Ant-Man and he just needed to teach Scott Lang how to work the suit after he convinced him to take it. That shrinking aspect of the movie made the action scenes way awesome. And the movie was surprisingly emotional, specifically with Hank Pym and his daughter Hope van Dyne. And guess what? Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket was a great villain. Best of all, this was a small movie. Pun mostly not intended there because that's the best word to describe it. It felt like an indie superhero movie as Marvel didn't try to one-up their previous films.

4- Iron Man

We went through eight movies and only mentioned one of the Iron Man movies. You probably wondered when they were going to come. Now they are here. One of the hardest parts of this list was trying to figure out which Iron Man movie I liked best, the first or the third. I went back and forth so many times, thus you can guess which movie is coming it at number three. I'll explain why I give the slight edge to Iron Man 3 here in a second, but first I have to give major props to the movie that started it all off. Speaking of a risky move, before Iron Man came out, no one really knew much about Iron Man. But Robert Downey Jr. did such a good job with this role that he made Iron Man the Batman of the Marvel universe. Iron Man became everyone's new favorite superhero from the Marvel universe. The humor is genius. Tony Stark is quick and witty in every single movie he shows up in and it never gets old. The super genius aspect of his character is also done perfectly. It's a lot of fun just watching him think and come up with these amazing ideas on the fly. He's been in five of these movies so far and his progression throughout is fantastic. With Civil War coming up, it's not even done yet. Specifically with this first movie, this is the start of his journey. It's an origin story that you can watch over and over and not get sick of, which is impressive.

3- Iron Man 3

Now we continue to talk about Tony Stark's incredible journey. Like I just said, choosing between Iron Man and Iron Man 3 was very tough for me but what put Iron Man 3 over the top for me was how psychological this movie is. Tony Stark is not a super soldier. He is not a god. He doesn't turn into a huge green monster when he gets angry. He was not given any super powers. He was not born with super powers. He is just a man. A very smart man who built a suit and thus turned himself into a superhero. Thus I love how messed up he is in this movie after what happened in The Avengers. Gods? Aliens? A huge fight in New York City where he was almost killed? This was way too much for his normal human brain to handle and thus he became messed up in the head. Superhero movies rarely dive into this psychological aspect of their main characters, which would probably happen more often than not if these situations played out in real life. Tony Stark made a lot of dumb mistakes. He said stupid things that got his house destroyed. If you mentioned New York to him, he lost it. He didn't even want to go out on his own, so he created a lot self-operated Iron Man suits to fight for him and that failed in many aspects. I'm a sucker for psychological movies in general and since this is really the only psychological movie in the Marvel Universe, that's why it's this high. This aspect of the movie made it so I was able to easily overlook some of the other shortcomings of the movie.

2- Marvel's The Avengers

I'm as shocked as you are right now that this movie is not number one on this list. Five movies and four years of build up to the ultimate payoff of watching them all come together for the first time was incredible. I got extremely giddy every time I watched that trailer in the months leading up to this movie. It was coming. Then I saw the movie and I was in heaven. It was better than I could've ever imagined. It was so good that I saw it five or six times in theaters and I was super excited each time. I still get very happy every time I put the movie in. Sometimes the way I cope with life is by watching The Avengers. Unlike it's sequel, this isn't just a popcorn flick. We have a group of superheroes, most of whom are used to being the lead person. Yet they get slowly introduced and they have to learn how to work together as a team and for much of the movie it isn't working out. But watching them finally come together as a team is a beautiful process. Then we add the amazing villain from Thor and the amazing weapon from Captain America: The First Avenger, put those together and unleash an army of aliens on New York and spend the whole second half of the movie watching our newly formed team fight off this threat. That's one of the best, if not the best final battle in superhero movie history. I never thought there would be a movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I would like more. But the more and more I think about it, there is one that is better. And I'm about to tell you why.

1- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

So much to say about this movie. I'll do my best to keep it simple. I've known ever since I watched this movie that it was in my top two and that it was definitely the best solo Avengers movie. It took me a long time to realize that I do in fact think this is the best movie that Marvel has put out in their cinematic universe. I came to that conclusion after watching this movie and The Avengers back to back a month or so ago. Even if I didn't like the first movie as much, I did like the character of Captain America in that. However, this is the movie that elevated him to Superman status. It's also the movie that transformed Black Widow from a cool sidekick to possibly my favorite Avenger. Add Falcon to the mix and the three of them are the best trio of fighters in this universe. And the story. It's deep. It's emotional. It's tragic. It's fun. It's epic. All at the same time. We watch Steve Rodgers visit an old Peggy. We then watch him learn that he sacrificed 70 years of his life for nothing. Then we watch him learn that this Winter Soldier that they are fighting is his best friend. And of course on top of all this is the most interesting story in all the Marvel Universe thus far. The rise of Hydra from the midst of S.H.I.E.L.D. And I'm just scratching the surface with this movie. All in all, this movie has everything you want from a superhero movie and is the most deep and emotional movie that Marvel has put out yet. That's why it tops The Avengers for me.

Back to the Future Part II: A Review of Their Future

In the last several years, there have been countless memes and false alarms claiming that today is the day that Marty McFly arrived in the future. Those frustrated me. Why would someone think it was cool to post a false meme like that. And it was almost more frustrating to see how many people fell for it. Anyone who knows Back to the Future knows that in the second movie Marty, Doc, and Jennifer go to October 21, 2015. Well, go look at your calendars. It's October 21, 2015. This time it's no false alarm. Today is the day that Marty McFly has arrived in the future. Come tomorrow, the future will be the past. Trippy, right? I've grown up on this trilogy and I never imagined that this day would arrive, but now it has. I've known for a long time now that when this day does arrive, I want to do a Back to the Future marathon where I watch all three movies in one day. This will most definitely be accomplished later on today. A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to do something in addition to that because this day was so epic. My initial idea was to write a review of all three movies and release the first one on the 20th, the second one on the 21st, and the third one on the 22nd. Instead, though, I've decided to something funner than that. I wanted to detail their predicted future and compare it to what has actually happened.

Before I get to that, though, I did want to quickly review all three movies in one paragraph so you get an idea of what I think of these movies. There is definitely a nostalgic aspect for me because I've been watching them since I was young. But yet as I continue to watch them, they still hold up as good movies today after 30 years. Time travel is always a fascinating subject for me and this is definitely the best time travelling franchise that I have ever seen. In fact, this is one of the best trilogies of all time. These movies are full of great characters that experience great character arcs. The acting is fantastic. There are an endless supply of quotable lines. The cinematography still stands today as amazing. The score is one of the best ever written. The stories in all three movies are exciting and fun. Finally, the trilogy leaves you with an amazing message that has literally stuck with me and inspired me for my whole life. If I'm going specifics here, in the first movie, Marty goes back to the time where his parents are in high school and accidentally makes him Mom fall in love with him instead of his dad and needs to try to set them up before he disappears from existence. Genius. The second gets extremely complex as we start in 1985, jump to 2015, go back to 1985, then end the movie in 1955 again. This could've ended up as convoluted, but instead is brilliant, especially when we go to 1955 and weave in a second story in as the plot of the first movie also goes forward. I loved it. Then we end up in the Old West in the final chapter. 1885. That one is a lot of fun as well.

Overall, if I were to assign grades to all three movies, the first would get a 10/10, the second a 9.5/10, and the third a 9/10. The trilogy as a whole is most certainly a 10/10 and one of my favorite trilogies of all time. It's right up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in terms of my personal enjoyment. Now with that in mind, let's dive into my initial purpose of this post. Yesterday in preparation for this post, I went and watched the first part of Back to the Future Part II where they go to October 21, 2015, and I took notes on all the details of their future. Now I want to go through those things one by one, seeing what they got right, what they got wrong, what I wish they would've got right, and what I'm glad they got wrong. Those type of things. After I'm done, I would love your personal input on what points I may have missed, what I got wrong, or just your own comments on their future. Let's have fun with this day!


1- Trash as Fuel - At the very beginning of the movie when Doc comes to pick up Marty to go to the future, he goes to the garbage and pulls out a bunch of trash to use as fuel for the time machine. I don't actually know if this is the fuel for all cars or just Doc's time machine. I want to say it's the latter. But either way, trash is not used as fuel today for our cars. But wouldn't it be nice if it was? I spend way too much money on gas each month.

2- Flying Cars - This is the big takeaway from this movie. If you've only seen this movie once and only remember one thing, I can bet that flying cars is what you remember. No, we don't have those today. Instead, the direction our society seems to be going is electric cars. We're not at the point where everyone has one, but I personally think that's not too far away.

3- Correct Date - This is a simple one, but they did their research. October 21, 2015 is on a Wednesday, just like the movie said it was.

4- Perfectly Accurate Weather Service - Man this one would be nice. Apparently in the future, we were supposed to be able to perfectly predict the weather to the exact second. Nope. People still laugh at the weather man when he says there's a 90 percent chance of rain and it's sunny all day. Although most of us do look at a weather app on our phones, tablets, or computers, which is kinda what Doc did.

5- Post Office Not Efficient - After bragging to Marty about how awesome the future is at predicting the weather, he makes a quick remark that he wishes the Post Office was that efficient. This isn't elaborated on, so I don't quite know what Doc means, but our postal service is actually pretty good. I can order something on Amazon and have it arrive a day or two later at the exact time it says it's going to arrive.

6- Rejuvenation Clinics - This is a weird part of the movie. Right when they get to the future, Doc pulls the skin off his face to reveal a slightly younger face. While he's doing this, he's telling Marty about these rejuvenation clinics in the future that make you look young again. My expression while watching this is still similar to Marty's slightly creeped out look when he sees this.

7- Phone Booths - They're still there. When Marty first sees Marty Jr., Marty Jr. is walking up to a fancy looking phone booth to make a call. Technically these do still exist, but most of them died out when cell phones became a big thing.

8- Power-lace Shoes - These shoes that Marty puts on are quite fascinating. He puts his feet in, presses a button, and the laces automatically tighten to fit his foot perfectly. I want a pair of these. Now, this is one of those self-fulling prophecies in that they did create a pair of shoes like this in honor of Back to the Future, but for the most part we all still tie our shoes. No power laces.

9- Power Jacket - This is another awesome piece of fashion from this movie. This jacket adjusts to meet your arm length in just a push of a button and later in the movie when Marty falls in the fountain thing, the jacket automatically dries itself. In the real 2015, our jackets are a lot more boring and lame than that.

10- Horrible Sense of Fashion - Outside the awesome shoes and jacket that Marty wears, the fashion style predicted by this movie is hideous. I mean, the style today is much different from that of the 80's, but we didn't get quite as crazy and off-the-wall as they did. Although it will make for some fantastic Halloween costumes this year.

11- Newspapers Still Exist - Yes, they do still exist. So they do get some points for that. But journalism today is a whole heck of a lot different than it was even a few years ago, let alone in the 80's. A physical copy of the newspaper would not be how Doc gets his main source of news if he went to 2015, unless of course he could adjust that fast, which seems unlikely given how fast he adjusted to everything else.

12- Cubs Sweep the World Series in 5 Games - This also comes up a bit later in the future sequence, but it's first revealed when Doc hands Marty the newspaper. A few things to take from this. First off, apparently the system was adjusted a bit in this version of the future because you have to win five games, not four. That adjustment didn't happen. As far as the Cubs winning, the honest truth is that if Marty came to the future, the story would be that the World Series hasn't yet started. We're still in the round right before the World Series. The Cubs still haven't won the World Series in over a hundred years, but the impressive thing is they are still in it at this point. And there will be a baseball game played tonight involving the Cubs. Speaking of sweep, there also could be a sweep involving the Cubs tonight, but the Cubs might be on the opposite end of that as they are trailing the Mets 0-3. Only one team has ever crawled out of that hole, so the Cubs are needing a miracle if they are going to make Back to the Future's prediction come true. Stay tuned!

13- There's a Baseball Team in Miami - While on the subject of baseball, when Marty actually realizes that the Cubs have won the World Series a bit later on, he is more surprised when he looks at who they defeated. Miami. There wasn't a team in Miami back in 1985. This is one of the big things that Back to the Future nailed. A few years back, the Florida Marlins moved to Miami and became the Miami Marlins. So yes, there is a team in Miami now. Sure, they're in the same conference as the Cubs, so they wouldn't meet in the World Series. Also, they sucked it up big time this season. But hey! They exist. So let's not be too harsh here.

14- Slamball - Back to the newspaper that Doc gives Marty, another one of the headlines is that the Slamball playoffs begin. I don't know what Slamball is. It doesn't really exist. But someone needs to create this sport because it sounds pretty epic.

15- Queen Diana - The newspaper said that Queen Diana was supposed to visit Washington today. Sadly, Princess Diana never made it to the status of Queen as she passed away tragically in 1997. Rest in peace Princess Diana.

16- Swiss Terrorist Threat - Switzerland has had a long history of armed neutrality and while it was predicted by Back to the Future that this would change, Switzerland still stands as a neutral country. We've had our fair share of terrorist threats, but none of them have come from the Swiss. Let's hope that doesn't change tomorrow because this is technically the newspaper from October 22, 2015 that they are looking at.

17- The President is Female - The newspaper article here reads, "President says she's tired." Technically they don't specify that this is the President of the United States, but that's what I'm assuming they are talking about. Our current President is not female. Barak Obama did beat out Hillary in 2008's election and no female ran in 2012. But this could change soon as we have two females running for President right now, so I don't think they are too far off with this.

18- They Abolished All Lawyers - Marty is reading the paper and is shocked when he learns that his son was sentenced to 15 years in prison just two hours after his arrest. Doc responds that the justice system works fast now that they've abolished all lawyers. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but lawyers are still here and the justice system still works slower than a snail.

19- Jaws 19 is in Theaters - When Marty passes the theater, Jaws 19, directed by Max Spielberg, is the big name movie out. Luckily they only made it to four movies in this franchise. The fourth was so bad that they just stopped. There are a few interesting things to take from this, though. First is that the number one movie in theaters right now is Goosebumps, which is a monster movie. So they got the genre right. Also released this past weekend was Bridge of Spies, which is directed by Steven Spielberg. I don't know if Steven has any relatives named Max, but they do get points for predicting that there would be a movie out this weekend by a Spielberg. Also, in honor of Back to the Future this month, a Jaws 19 trailer was created. Check this gem out real quick before moving on:

20- Holomax Theaters - I'm giving them points for this one as well. When Marty looks at the theater, he gets attacked by this hologram shark. We haven't really decided to create movie technology quite like that, but in 2009, Avatar was groundbreaking in 3D and now most movies have the option of seeing them in 3D. We also have IMAX theaters that are becoming more and more popular and that even has the "max" in the name just like Holomax. So I'm calling 3D/IMAX theaters close enough for a win here.

21- iPad-esque Technology - In two separate occasions, side characters ask for a donation or a payment. One guy comes to Marty asking for donations for the clock tower. The other is Biff's cab driver. Both of them use devices that look a whole heck of a lot like iPads. The fact that they look similar is win enough for me.

22- No Waitresses in the Cafe - The 80's-themed cafe that Marty goes in has no waitresses to take people's orders. Instead there are these little computers there at the tables with menus and ordering capabilities. We don't know for sure that this is the case in every restaurant as we only see this one little cafe in the movie. But regardless, we do still have people working in restaurants. Technology like this with computer menus and whatnot is probably not unheard of, but it's at least not the norm.

23- Michael Jackson is Still Alive - The 80's-themed cafe that Marty goes into has a TV that is showing a Michael Jackson interview that looks like a current interview. The king of pop did have a controversial life, but I think it's safe to say that he is missed today. Rest in peace Michael!

24- Pepsi Perfect - Marty orders a Pepsi and it gives him a Pepsi Perfect. This here is another example of a self-fulling prophesy. I do believe that Pepsi decided to create Pepsi Perfect in honor of this day. Because, you know, why not?

25- Elijah Wood is in this Movie - Not really a prediction here, just a fun little fact here. One of the little kids at the gaming machine in the cafe is young Elijah Wood. Cool, right? Speaking of that gaming machine...

26- You Don't Use Your Hands to Play Video Games - Elijah Wood and his friend are trying to figure out how to play the archaic gaming machine in the cafe. Marty walks up, grabs the gun, and owns it in the game. One of the kids then says, "You have to your hands? That's like a baby's toy." In other words, gaming systems in this future required no controllers. This is not the norm, but it sounds awfully like the Kinect for Xbox. I'm giving them credit for this.

27- Hover Boards - We're working on them, okay? Yes, there have been various hover boards that have been created over the years, but we haven't quite mastered the hover board technology to the point where all kids ride one. We do have a bunch of fancy-looking skateboard-like objects that kids play with these days. I don't know what they're called. It's never been my area of expertise. But you get what I'm talking about, right?

28- Scenery Windows - At least one of the windows in future Marty's house had this window cover that projected whatever outdoor scenery they wanted. I'm sure technology like this wouldn't be that hard to create, but I don't think anyone really has the motivation to do so. I guess we like our natural window views, regardless of how ugly. This idea has been used in other futuristic movies, so maybe this aspect of the movie inspired others.

29- No Doorknobs on the Front Door - Jennifer is trying to escape the house, but can't figure out how because there are no doorknobs. Doc has to tell her to press her thumb to the plate in order to open it. I suppose no one had a real big problem with the technology of a doorknob, so we decided to go with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" motto in this situation.

30- Flat Screen TV's - Put another check mark in the win category. I don't know when the flat screen TV was invented, but they certainly weren't a popular thing when I was growing up in the 90's, but they are now and thus it's cool to watch Marty McFly Jr. walk into a room and start watching TV on their flat screen TV. He also does this thing where he watches six channels at once, which I do believe is a capability for some networks, but don't quote me on that. It's just what I see advertised during the NFL season when they are talking about NFL Sunday Ticket and how you can watch multiple games at once, or something like that. I'll move on now.

31- Dog Walking Machine - I don't know what to call it, but when Marty is outside, we get a quick shot of a dog being walked by some sort of dog walking machine, thus making it so the dog can get some exercise without the owner having to go with it. I'm kinda glad this isn't a thing. Going with the dog on the walk is a great thing for both the dog and the human.

32- Food Hydrator - I've always found this one pretty cool. They buy this tiny Pizza Hut pizza and put it in the Black & Decker food hydrator, tell the machine the level they want, and in an instant it's a giant, full-sized pizza. Dinner in seconds. Someone needs to contact Black & Decker and tell them to actually invent this thing. The fact that they don't really do kitchen appliances is beside the point.

33- Technology at the Dinner Table - Well they got the specific technology wrong. I'll get to that in a second. But the kids at the dinner table are too busy with their technology and thus don't really interact with each other at dinner. How many times in today's world have you been gathered at dinner or in the front room and everyone is playing with cell phones, computers, tablets, etc instead of socializing with each other? Yup, that's definitely a part of our culture today.

 34- Phone Glasses - I told you the specific technology was a bit off. Now they do get some credit in my book for predicting that the phone technology in our day would be a lot more advanced. All of us have cell phones and most of us have smart phones. Marty would be fascinated when he found out all that a phone can do in our day because in his day all they did was call people. We do have bluetooth technology which allows some people walk around all day with an ear piece and others to make calls on the speaker in their cars. There's also Google Glass, which is kinda similar to what they have in the movie. But the specific idea of phone glasses isn't really a thing.

35- Video Calling - It's time to end this post on a positive note. When future Marty gets a phone call, it ends up being a video call that he pulls up on his TV. We don't make calls on the TV like this, but there are plenty of things on our computers like Skype and other things similar to Skype where we can make video calls like future Marty does. And not only are those things there, but they are actually very common. Yes, we still talk on the phones without the video part of it, but I say they get credit for this prediction.

Well, that's all folks! Now I know there's more that I missed and perhaps there are things that I said that aren't accurate, so please feel free to sound off in the comments or on facebook/twitter and brings those up. I'm just doing this for fun in celebration of Back to the Future Day. Or you can add your commentary on the things I did bring up that you find the most interesting. Like I said earlier, let's have fun this! And welcome to 2015 Marty!