Signs

Here is a thriller directed by M. Night Shyamalan, everyone's favorite director!

This movie was interesting. I didn't have high expectations, with it being both an alien movie and an alien movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan. But to be completely honest, I enjoyed the majority of the movie. Sure there were many plot holes and I had to suspend my disbelief, but this movie was not a bad film. There was one particular scene where a group of kids in Spain recorded an alien. This build up and the suspenseful music allowed me to get chills once the extraterrestrial appeared. I think this was the highlight of the film.
The acting was not excellent, but it was decent. I think Mel Gibson and Joauquin Phoenix acted well. The girl, Bo, was acted extremely well by Abigail Breslin. However I didn't like Rory Culkin's performance as Bo's brother, Morgan. I don't know what it was, but he didn't appeal to me as well as Abigail did. Phoenix did extremely well as a more laid back and crazy sibling of Mel Gibson's character (He also did very well at having a very hard to spell name). Graham Hess started out with being a boring character. He virtually lacked personality. I thought he resembled a Kirsten Stewart, until a very emotional scene where he began to cry. This was well done.
The movie, plot-wise, started out well. Several strange scenes with little to no music of a farmland being eerily left with crop signs. There was lots of suspense throughout the film. It didn't have much character development, but it wasn't necessarily essential for the story. However, the biggest con to this movie, was that this dramatic build up and suspense led to almost nothing. I was extremely disappointed at this, and the many plot holes that this movie contained. However I won't go into detail.
I award this movie with a generous 6/10. It was enjoyable, but it had more potential.

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!