Pulling John

Pulling John is a documentary about the world of professional arm wrestling. It features John Brzenk who is to arm wrestling what Michael Jordan is to basketball and Wayne Gretzsky is to hockey. I knew next to nothing about the sport and have never cared much about it, but I still found this documentary to be very entertaining. Arm Wrestling is obviously a sport of strength, but technique also plays a huge role since there are certainly bigger and stronger athletes who get owned by the some of the smaller pros.

Pulling John reviews the career of John Brzenk who has dominated the sport for over 20 years. As he gets older he struggles to decide if he should retire while he is still at the top of his game or continue to participate in tournaments.

This documentary shows the rise of two other dominant arm wrestlers: Alexy Voevoda from Russia and Travis Bagent from USA and shows how their goal is to be able to beat the respected champion and take over his title as the greatest arm wrestler in the world.

It was very entertaining to see the different personalities of these athletes. John is quiet and humble, Voevoda is intense and contemplative, and Bagent is brash and cocky. It's hard not to like any of the athletes in this movie. There is a lot of pride on the line to see who is the strongest athlete. My wife kept rolling her eyes and saying " Guys are so different from women" throughout the entire movie. I could tell she still liked it though.

This documentary kind of reminded me of The King of Kong as it introduces you to the competitive nature of those participating in a sport you didn't even know existed. I also found it quite informative and educational. I give pulling John 7.6 stars. It was a low budget documentary about an obscure sport, but I thought it was pretty cool and I really enjoyed it.

In Time

I'm a sucker for any sort of futuristic movie about societies that are oppressed by "the man", who's citizens have to fight back against the system or escape imprisonment, so I have been looking forward to seeing In Time since I saw the trailer several months ago.

This movie is about a world where people barter with their time as opposed to money. Everyone has a digital clock on their arm that shows them how much time they have left before they die. They can earn, spend, or trade their time with each other. Most of the poor only have 24 hours on their clocks and frantically live day to day in order to survive. As someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and sometimes just tries to make it through another day financially, I could relate to their plight.

Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas who is given a century of additional life by a mysterious stranger. He then sets out on a mission against the corrupt powers that have kept him and the masses down for years. Along the way he encounters a rich girl who he kidnaps and they essentially become Bonnie and Clyde as they try to take the system down.

In time has some elements of Logan's Run and Gattaca. It was interesting to see so many young actors in this movie portraying people of all ages since the aging process stops at 25. I thought for being a science fiction movie, they would have better technology, but the cars were old models and people didn't even have cell phones. 

The movie contrasts the poor in the ghettos who's clocks often run down to minutes versus the super wealthy who have thousands of years to live. There are some not so subtle political statements about class indifference in this movie. I didn't care for the insinuations that the wealthy are the reason why the poor suffer in real life, but I tried not to let any political messages ruin it for me.

I thought Justin Timberlake was good in this role except for the one scene when he tried introducing himself like James Bond. Cillian Murphy was great as the persistent time keeper (cop) who tries to track Salas down. He reminded me of Javert from Les Miserables because he is so relentless and obsessed with getting his man.

I give In Time 7.1 stars. It has it's problems, but I felt it was much better than the critics said it was. I thought the concept of exchanging time with money was enough to make the movie entertaining and thought provoking, despite it's weaknesses. Also, If I were Justin Timberlake I would have petitioned to re-name the movie "Just-In Time".

Another Year of Reviews Oct 26

It has been three years since I started this blog so it's time to celebrate with my annual summary of movies and videos that I have reviewed over the past year.

I think it's helpful to see how these movies do when ranked in relation to each other. In case you missed it, here are my ranking for the movies I saw over the last 12 months

True Grit  9.0

Harry Potter part 2  8.5

Warrior  8.4

Limitless  8.2

Harry Potter part 1  8.0

Rise of the Planet of the Apes 7.9

The Next Three Days  7.8

Inside Job  7.8

Source Code  7.7

Ghost Writer  7.7

Hereafter  7.6

X-Men First Class  7.6
The Social Network  7.5
The Adjustment Bureau  7.4
Captain America  7.4
RED  7.4
Megamind  7.4
Fast 5  7.3
Unknown  7.3
Unstoppable  7.3
Get Low  7.3
Tron Legacy  7.2
Super 8  7.2
Hanna  7.2
Thor  7.2
Devil  7.1
Waiting for Superman  7.1
Killer  7.0
Sucker Punch  6.9

Of God and Men  6.9

Battle: Los Angeles  6.8

Pirates 4  6.8

Cowboys and Aliens  6.7

The Eagle  6.7

Fair Game  6.7

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2  6.6

Voyage of the Dawn Treader  6.6

Armored  6.6

Priest  6.5

The Tourist  6.5
The Lovely Bones  6.5

I am Number 4  6.4

The Green Hornet  6.3

Ondine  6.3

Just Go With it  6.2

Grown Ups  5.9
Takers  5.9

Season of the Witch  5.8

The Bounty Hunter  5.8

Jonah Hex  5.4
Skyline  5.0

The Last Airbender  4.7

Some people may disagree with me on how I ranked some of these movies, but taking a stand and making hard judgement calls is all part of being an incredibly successful and sought after movie critic. Now that I have three years of experience, I am qualified for speaking engagements or at least coming to your child's birthday party dressed as a clown.

Priest

I knew that Priest was going to be a bad movie, but for some reason, I still wanted to see it. It's kind of like when someone tells you to smell a gross couch cushion and you know better, but you still do it. Even though it was not very good, I was still entertained by it..

Priest is about a post apocalyptic society that is plagued by vampires. The church, which is the ruling authority, commissioned warrior priests (kind of like Jedi knights) who are gifted in martial arts and are able to kill the vampires. After years of war they believed they had been eradicated. The priests were then disbanded and no longer useful to society. Several years later, the vampire threat returns and one renegade priest played by Paul Bettany disobeys the church's command to remain in the city and he heads out to rescue his niece who was recently kidnapped by vampires.

The worst thing about this movie was the opening explanation that set the story up. It was an animated summary and was completely laughable. It looked more like Itchy and Scratchy than a serious movie. My kids came in during that part and were laughing uncontrollably because it was so funny.

The term vampire in this movie refers to eyeless CGI monsters that look more like aliens than people. Karl Urban plays an ex-priest who was infected by the queen vampire and as a result becomes a human vampire hybrid. He spends most of the movie dressed like he is trying to imitate Clint Eastwood in one of his spaghetti westerns.

Christopher Plummer has a convincing role as he plays the stubborn church leader who refuses to accept the fact that the vampires have returned. The movie never really explains his motivation for his stance which leaves you wondering if he was in alliance with the vampires. The ending is resolved by the good guys simply jumping off a speeding train full of vampires before it explodes.

The critics were right in giving this movie poor ratings, but despite the low marks, there was still some cool stuff in it and I have to admit that I enjoyed some aspects of  it. I give it 6.5 generous stars.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I finally got around to seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I wasn't really expecting much from another remake, especially after Tim Burton's attempt, but this ended up being more of a prequel and it was surprisingly entertaining. I thought I knew what to expect after watching the trailer, but there was much more to this movie than I anticipated

The movie is about a scientist working on a drug to help Alzheimer patients. It is tested on apes and makes them more intelligent but ends up being deadly for humans. Over time, we see the main character grow from a baby ape to a full grown primate with human intelligence.

James Franco and John Lithgow are not my favorite actors, but I liked their performances in this movie. Andy Serkis has continued the trend of taking on roles that require him to hunch over in a motion capture suit like he did as King Kong and Gollum. He did a great job of playing Caesar, the main ape.

The special effects were amazing and CGI has sure gotten better over time. I remember how fake and boxy the animals looked in Jumanji, but I was impressed with the effects in this movie, but I was even more impressed with the emotions that the CGI characters were able to convey to the audience.

As usual, Brian Cox is a bad guy and speaking of soon to be type cast actors, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) is following in his footsteps. This installment pays homage to the original with several quotes and character names. For an unrealistic premise and far fetched story, this was still quite convincing and much better than I expected.

The biggest lesson I learned from watching this movie is that disobeying company protocol can result in the annihilation of the human race. (I will no longer check my e-mail during work). I give Rise of the Planet of the Apes 7.9 stars.