The Hobbit Trailer

Hello everyone.
As many of you might have seen, a new trailer for The Hobbit has been released about a week ago. Around January of this year a mystifying trailer came out that got me very excited. It looks very similar to the original trilogy, and has the same director, Peter Jackson.
The Lord of the Rings is one of my all time favorite book/movie trilogies, and The Hobbit is a prequel to it. If you haven't checked out my LotR reviews, here is The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
Anyways, I am extremely excited for this movie. Many of the wonderful cast from the LotR are returning, who I thought were awesome. I think this movie can also help people get into the world of Middle Earth better than the LotR trilogy. If you didn't know, when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Hobbit, he intended for it to become a children's book. However this fantastic novel is equally loved by children and adults. It will be separated into three movies. Some people have criticized this but I am glad it is happening. In my opinion, this will give the cast and producers more time to fine tune the movies and make it perfect.
Thank you for reading! I'm hoping to get a review out for next week, so stay tuned.

Super 8 - Disappointment

Hello my beloved readers.
Today I come to you with this movie, Super 8. Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by JJ Abrams, I had high hopes for this film.

This movie started out with a group of kids, desperately trying to make a movie about zombies. This was my first doubt, zombie movies do not turn out very well. However this did not linger in the plot other than the movie they were making. It started out very interesting, with an ominous atmosphere. I was relieved as the movie was going great. Wonderful cinematography and a very surprising aggregate of great child actors. Strange things are taking place around their home city, beginning with the train crash you might have seen in the trailers.
However, the last thirty minutes of the movie had such a degree of cliche plot lines that it ruined the rest of it for me. I won't get into it, but it really disappointed me. It was just like Lost, which  JJ Abrams also worked on. They both had a very interesting story and potential for an epic ending, however, the ends of them ruined them.
If the ending was better, I would have given this movie somewhere from an 8 to a 9/10. However, I will only give it a 6/10 because of the botched attempt at an ending. In other movies, the beginning and middle build up for a spectacular ending, which in truth is very difficult to pull off, but this movie was not acceptable. This movie was nothing more than a failed attempt at giving some nostalgia of earlier Spielberg films. I will not say it is horrible, but I expected way more from this.
Thank you for reading.
I have been getting numerous movies from the library, but I have been lazy at getting reviews out due to school beginning. I hope I get more out soon.

Blind Lemon Pledge - Awesome Acoustic Blues

I was walking around Half Moon Bay yesterday with my family, when I spotted a trio playing some awesome blues. These guys have class, and they probably have degrees in blues school. Check them out

I apologize for the weird format, I was recording with my new iPhone and I didn't know that it records strangely if you're holding it upright.
Check out their site here: http://www.blues.james-creative.com/
As always, thanks for reading.

Exciting changes coming up soon!

Hello everyone,

A few months ago I mentioned changing the theme and layout of my blog. Well I am finally about to get to it. Over the past few months, I have begun adopting the alias (or a variation of) TurtleGuy. I am putting this in the title of my blog, but adding a bit of class. I am changing the url of this site to http://www.theclassyturtle.blogspot.com . I am hoping to add improved post quality and quantity in the upcoming weeks. This will be a blog for me to share and talk about many things, such as music, news, and of course movies. You will notice an overhaul of the existing layout soon.

And I want to thank you all for your increased support. I have been very busy with stuff and I struggled to get about 2 or 3 posts in a month. However with my last two posts, I've been seeing a huge influx of views and comments. The new layout is my thanks to you.

I will leave you with a bit of class. Play both of these clips at the same time and feel awesome. Here is an already doubled one for those of you that want it.

The Amazing Spiderman

Hello everyone,

A few weeks ago, I watched The Amazing Spiderman, but I held off writing the review because I would be watching TDKR soon.

Overall, this was an enjoyable movie for the most part. I didn't really like or understand the ending, but it was still a pretty good movie. There were many good actors, such as Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, two great rising actors. Other older actors include Martin Sheen and Sally Field. I think the acting was great, Garfield played an awkward teenager almost perfectly. I am not a real fan of comic books, so I thought the story was just okay. I thought it was a bit hyperbolic, but I won't say anything so that I don't ruin the movie for anyone. I think this movie was overshadowed by TDKR, and it deserves more attention. I liked the fight scenes and the cockiness of the new Spiderman. Unfortunately I had less than pleasant neighbors in the movie theater, which ruined some of the experience for me. I didn't really pay much attention to the soundtrack, but I'm guessing it was decent.

I'll give this movie a 7.5/10. If you like superhero movies, this is great for you. It's also pretty appropriate for the whole family, except for a few references to adult topics. Go watch this movie!

The Dark Knight Rises

Hello everyone. This is going to be a short review, but reviews are going to come in more quantity in the next few weeks.

I watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday. I'll start this review off quick by saying that it wasn't as good as the second one. But it was still awesome.

I'll try my best not to spoil anything, here it goes.

Rises combines storylines from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. So before watching this movie, watch them, or at least brush up on your memory of them.

Anyways, the acting was amazing. All the main actors played their characters perfectly well. Anne Hathaway beat all predictions and played a sassy Catwoman excellently. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman: all legendary actors made this movie what it is. The bar was set high by Heath Ledger as Joker in the second movie, but Tom Hardy brought us another magnificent performance, as he did in other movies, such as Inception. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, also actors from Inception, were excellent.

The movie itself was written and directed well, but I felt as if some scenes were way too predictable. There were so many close calls, with someone bursting in at the last second to save the day. The story made a lot of references to and relied on Batman Begins, which I haven't watched in years. I was a bit clueless on the story, but reading up on it after the movie, it made sense.

The music was excellent, as with most Nolan films, but it did not live up to the expectations as I had from the 2nd movie.

Overall, I'd give this movie a 8.5/10. If you like Batman, watch it!

2001: A Space Odyssey

Hello my peoples, I am back with another exciting review of one of my newly found favorite movies. 2001: The Space Odyssey contemplates the mysteries of the universe, and being made in 1968, was a very early film on this topic. Now, I normally don't talk about the story, but this one just needs it.

Now, this movie is not for the impatient. If you're looking for a quick thrill, this is definitely not for you. This is also my one criticism with this movie. The long drawn out scenes of spaceships backed by The Blue Danube Waltz will probably ward off many people. Even I think that it was excessive. My one theory is that it was just a show off for their amazing special effects.  [spoilers past here, skip to next paragraph for review] Nevertheless, the movie starts out with a tribe of man-apes. After being warded off by a rival tribe from their water hole, they are forced to retreat. Upon the dawn of the next day, they are greeted with a gigantic black monolith. Howling, the tribe reluctantly approaches the rock and begin touching it. This rock is one of the main symbols of this film. The movie cuts to a scene where feeding upon the bones of a dead animal, the leader realized his new ability to use tools. They go back and retake their old water hole, bellies full of raw meat taken from the animals they killed. The next scene begins with a space montage. Then it shows Floyd Heywood, an astronaut traveling to the moon base Clavius. According to other astronauts, there has been an epidemic at that base, and communication has been cut off. When Heywood arrives, it is revealed that they have discovered a strange magnetic rock. The same as the ones the man-apes had found. Now, the movie's most exciting (which is not saying much) sequence begins. Aboard a spaceship destined for the far reaches of Jupiter, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole are relatively bored. Manned by the supercomputer, HAL 9000, known for its mistake proof record, they don't have to do much. But when HAL 9000 reports an error which turns out to be a mistake, well, I don't want to spoil that much for you, but the rest is history. 

The thing that first drew me to this movie was the connection between the last scene and my favorite band, Pink Floyd. Their song Echoes apparently matched up perfectly with the last sequence of this movie. I had to try this out, and it was amazing. The song is truly spectacular anyways, but listening to it while watching a journey through the stars was just, amazing. To any Pink Floyd fans, I highly recommend watching the whole movie just to experience this. The cinematography was great for its time, and the special affects were astounding! The acting was perfect. The sounds of the movie was spot on. I heavily recommend this movie to anyone that could withstand its boring first-half. If you do, this movie is worth it, and the end will not let you down. This movie gets a 9/10. Thank you Stanley Kubrick for this influential masterpiece.