The movie Searching for Bobby Fischer came out in 1993. Up until a couple weeks ago, I was didn’t know there were any movies focused on chess.  More specifically I was unaware there were any GOOD movies about chess.  I’m sure there are  a ton of bad movies revolving around the game or featuring it in some prominent way.

The story follows a young Josh Waitzkin (Played by Max Pomeranc) as he learns that baseball is boring and chess is where it’s at.  It also helps that Josh is some kind of super child chess prodigy.  His dad is very excited about being overbearing and forcing him into chess tournaments and chess academy training.

The teacher from the chess academy, Bruce, is a real stick in the mud high-horser who takes the fun out of playing.  While it makes Josh a better player, it nearly breaks him.  Fortunately Josh has been taught kung-fu street chess by Morpheus Laurence Fishburne’s character Vinnie.

The mix of highbrow classical chess and the in-your-face street chess are constantly at odds throughout the whole movie.  But in the end, they work together to help Josh bowl through his ongoing rival’s moves.  His rival reminds me of the kid from the movie ‘Wizard’ with the Nintendo Powerglove, a total pa-toot.

Long story short, this was a decent movie, much better than the title makes it sound.   I wouldn’t rush out to watch it unless you are a huge chess fan or like child prodigy stories, but I would add it to your queue.

The last movie that I have gone out to see is the new version of ‘True Grit’.  I have only seen part of the original version, and that was when I was around 9 years old.  My family had rented it for my grandpa to watch one day.  He was happy to watch the movie as it was one of his favorites.  I didn’t have an attention span then (not sure if I do now either) and went off to play with the Cowboys and Indians toys they had.

Because of the nostalgia from the idea of the old movie (that I hadn’t seen), I was not excited to see the new version that ruined the memories.  What if I didn’t like the movie or what if they did a bad job?  My better half on the other hand was thrilled to go.

In short, the movie was awesome!  I really liked the characters and the progression.  After seeing True Grit I tried to find a copy of the old version for comparison.  It turns out that a remake of an old movie spawns a lot of people with the same idea.  All of the rental stores had it checked out, netflix didn’t have it on demand, and it wasn’t carried in the box stores.

While I stopped short of handing over $20 to buy it online, I did run into an old 5 minute teaser video on it.  Most of the lines were taken verbatim and it looks like the new version was very true to the older one. 

Of course being made by the Coen brothers, they had a lot of blood splats and went all out developing characters.  The ending of true grit was a big let down.  Showing Mattie as an old woman and having Rooster become a circus performer added nothing to the movie and killed the emotional bond between them and the audience.  Other than the lackluster ending, the show was fantastic.

Damon & Bridges did well playing characters outside of their usual or signature roles.

Inception: an okay movie that everyone loves because they have been to the movies in the last year.

I went into inception hearing a couple reports that it was a good movie and involved manipulating dreams.  Other than that I wasn’t sure quite what was going on.  Looking back, I’m still not quite sure I know what’s going on.

The ‘exciting twist ending’ was quite obvious early on, although the exact specifics were somewhat muddled.  Okay, so he’s still dreaming, that part was apparent.  Is the whole movie Cobb’s wife coming in and performing the inception?  Or is it more straightforward – he needs to off himself?

I thought the movie was a fun concept, similar to, but not replicating the matrix.  There has been a number of Inception/Matrix comparisons, and with good reason.  The people were mentally plugged in to some other world.  In order to unplug or be unplugged, you have to die.  Let’s not kid ourselves here.  Anyone who claims Inception and the Matrix are not the same movie, has not seen Inception and the Matrix.

All told, I think the movie was okay.  I am not in a hurry to see it again, but I won’t be screaming for the remote when it plays on cable tv.  Until the commercials come on that is.  Good enough to watch once, but not worth the hype it has generated.

It has taken a hundred years, but Pixar has released Toy Story 3 into the world.  I guess they wanted to finish their good movies before going back to the well to dredge up more of the same thing.

This movie was a cross between ‘a predictable boring story’ and ‘a waste of time.’  Pixar made no secret that the film was about what happens to toys when you go off to college.  They are stuffed in the attic, the garbage, or the goodwill box.  Sure it’s sad and nostalgic to dispose of all your old trash and I’m sure if you were an atomic living toy it would be even more depressing.  Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying “I can’t enjoy Futurama because one of the main characters is a cyclops” and I’m also not saying “I can’t enjoy Toy Story because Toys are inanimate objects.”  I can and will buy into the world that any film maker wants to force feed me. (That might be a lie)

The problem is the progression of the film is crystal clear.  You know exactly where the film will be taking you five minutes from now.  Then it takes ten minutes getting there.  The closest thing to an unforeseen event was when the pizza planet aliens came down with the claw.  Is that really hard to imagine happening?

After producing the film the three little pigs in 1933, Walt Disney was pressured to make a sequel due to the success of it.  Walt new that you wouldn’t be able to impress the public to the same level with the same thing.  To quote him on the topic, “You can’t top pigs with pigs.”

That’s exactly what Pixar is trying to do here.

Clearly I should be writing my reviews closer to when I actually watch the movie in question.  I was much more upset at the movie when it was fresh in my mind.

It was cool to see the Totoro in the film.

How should you train a dragon?  Apparently you shoot it down from the sky into a crater.  Then you feed it fish until it likes you.  As long as you don’t get eaten that is.

This movie is the latest flick from Dreamworks Animation and it was one that made me say, “Okay I’m buying that when it comes out on DVD!”  This statement is usually reserved for films from studios with names like ‘Pixar’ and ‘Universal’.

It’s weird, these dreamwork folks.  Their movies are either hit or miss.  It’s almost as if there are two different studios working to crank out the 3D animated films.  One half produces Kung Fu Panda, Chicken Run and How to Train your dragon, while the other half is silently cranking out films like Monsters Vs Aliens, Shark Tale, and Over the Hedge.  It doesn’t look like there is an end in sight either if ‘Over the Hedge’ can return over three times the $100,000,000 spent to make it.

Now this has little to do with the actual film of Vikings and Dragons, so I’ll get back to that.  Here is the basic synopsis of the movie…

“A Viking teenager named Hiccup lives on the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. The teen’s smarts and offbeat sense of humor don’t sit too well with his tribe or its chief… who just happens to be Hiccup’s father. However, when Hiccup is included in Dragon Training with the other Viking teens, he sees his chance to prove he has what it takes to be a fighter. But when he encounters (and ultimately befriends) an injured dragon, his world is flipped upside down, and what started out as Hiccup’s one shot to prove himself turns into an opportunity to set a new course for the future of the entire tribe.”

This movie is great!  It did have me wondering at points where exactly the audience was being led.  At times I was having a little trouble trying to figure out where the movie was taking me as the story’s twists and hooks kept darting around my expectations.

This movie is a lot of fun.  The author Cressida Cowell has apparently created a whole slew of books featuring hiccup.  It looks like I’ve got a couple to pickup!

There was one character who kept giving stats of different dragons including type of breath weapon, range, and movement speed.  Clearly it was making fun of Dungeons and Dragons, but it could make a neat world setting for a simple role playing system.  They did keep referencing a book with all of the dragons and their powers.  Being curious about this, I did a google search for ‘How to Train Your Dragon RPG’  It looks like I wasn’t the only one to make this obvious connection.  Hopefully I won’t be coming across as dorky as some of the results I have found!

This is one to see on the big screen, you won’t be disappointed.

This video will teach you how to draw a robot for kids.  This robot likes to go skiing and can do many different tricks off of jumps.  What kind of tasks does your robot do?

I just came across this short film called ‘Validation’ and I’m sure you are going to love it. It came out a couple years ago, but somehow it slipped by me. I haven’t liked a short film this much since 7:35 de la mañana corto.  Both are great shorts, so check them out!