Movies!Movies!Movies!

This fall season brought about many new television shows, but I want to cover the surface of the movies of this fall and winter. There are many different genres ranging from comedies to drama opening up this fall and one director who's the talk of the town is the all-mighty Quentin Tarantino. This winter, the bloody good Quentin Tarantino returns to the silver screen with his powerful action-drama Django Unchained. In the movie, Jaime Foxx portrays the slave Django who is offered a bounty hunting job in return for his freedom. He also tracks down the unlawful man (played deviously well by motion picture royalty Leonardo DiCaprio) who bought his wife (played by Scandal star Kerry Washington). This has already received beautiful reviews and shows that Quentin Tarantino is the king of blood and mischief. He will also continue the Kill Bill saga with the third volume of the box-office smash super assassin "The Bride". Leonardo DiCaprio will also play the iconic character Jay Gatsby in the upcoming remake of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby. In the movie, a man named Nick Carraway (former Spider-man Tobey Macguire) recalls his encounters with his rich neighbor, Gatsby, who fights for his former love Daisy. This movie comes out the day after Tarantino's Django and is receiving some Oscar buzz. In other news, Denzel Washington is going to be in another movie this year which is coming out in November. Flight is the story of a pilot with a drinking problem (played by two-time Oscar winner Washington) who saves everyone on board his plane when one of the engines gives out. This is one of the key movies of this fall-winter season and I hope that Denzel is nominated for an Academy Award. This Friday, Won't Back Down opens in theaters and I hope this movie does well at the box-office. In the movie, a teacher/mother (played by two-time Academy Award nominee Viola Davis) agrees to take over a public school (legally) with a disgruntled mother (Maggie Gylenhall) so that the kids can have a better education. Last year Viola Davis shockingly lost her second Academy Award to Meryl Streep. That was definitely the most shocking loss in Academy Award history. I mean, her performance in The Help as Aibileen was so powerful that it could rival anything Meryl Streep ever did. Hopefully, the Academy will make up their mistake by nominating Viola again. For all you "Lord of the Rings" fanatics, this should be a treat. The prequel of the lord-of-the-rings trilogy The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey opens this winter. This Peter Jackson adaption follows the travels of Frodo Baggins older relative Bilbo Baggins and explores how he came into contact with the Ring, and Smeegle. Personally, I didn't think that a prequel would be necessary for Lord of the Rings but I will still be there to see it. And lastly, Tom Hanks and Halle Berry return to the big screen in the Wachowski Bro. adaption of the book Cloud Atlas. The Wachowski brothers (The Matrix trilogy) are at it again with a movie that brings together big stars throughout six different time periods. In Cloud Atlas, the idea is stressed that no matter which time period or person, everything is related in some way and everyone has a story. Cloud Atlas has pushed the boundaries of movies by having a huge ensemble cast, over 172 hours of entertainment, and one of the biggest budgets ever of movies which haven't been co-produced by a major company ( such as Lionsgate or Universal). That pretty much concludes all of the big movies coming out at the end of this year. But before you go, I have an assignment for you. For all you buzzers out there, every other week I will give you a movie to watch and they will all be from different time periods and genres. This week, your movie is.....................Kill Bill Vol. 1. I think many of you will find this a bucket load of action and.......REVENGE.  Keep reading to see if any of your favorite entertainment news will be featured on my next blog. And as always, please send me your feedback on what I have or haven't said and I will try and change it. This is me signing out.

glee!

This past Thursday, the highly anticipated fourth season of Glee premiered on a new time and night. As some of you know and don't know, on the third season finale, Finn basically broke up Rachel and told her to go to New York and follow her dreams in the midst of their high school graduation. On the season premiere, Rachel is now at NYADA and had trouble with her dance teacher (Kate Hudson). Back at McKinley High, Blaine, Tina, Britney, and the new addition Wade (a.k.a Unique) compete to get the new lead in the showcase. Kurt is also shown dealing with his issues, but the major leads such as Mercedes, Puck, and the infamous Finn are missing in action. In other news, reality show The X Factor also premiered this week and Britney Spears is now officially the new Simon. Many people called her comments unnecessary and cruel. She even said "sorry, but you don't have the x factor". Even though this season has been the most talked about throughout the summer, the ever talented Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green beat their ratings with another hit reality show The Voice. The reality television world has never been more fierce, and the competition will really be stiff with American Idol returning in the winter. Speaking of Idol, the three new judges have been confirmed. Mariah Carey, surprisingly Keith Urban, and the black Lady Gaga, Nikki Minaj will join Randy Jackson (which I'm not sure if he's judging or mentoring) in season 13. Now first of all, the fact that Nikki Minaj was even mentioned as a judge is a disgrace to all Idol fans. She doesn't even sing and needs to take a few fashion tips from someone as practical as me. But, besides the judging ideas, I think this might be a good year for Idol. Then, this past week, actor Michael Clark Duncan passed away at the age of 54. He was best known for his beautiful portrayal of John Coffey in the critically acclaimed movie The Green Mile where he played a death row inmate alongside prison guard Tom Hanks. He will be missed. Keep following for updates on your favorite celebrity news, television shows, and movies. Also, do you feel that my blogs are long? And if so, is the reason that many of you won't follow me because of it? And as always, please send me your feedback on anything I have or haven't said and I will try to address it in the following blog. This is me signing out. Until then......

Summer Tops and Drops....Part 2

The last time I posted, I left off on the downfall of Total Recall and all those other tops and drops of summer.  However, we still have a few more tops and drops to go through. Not only did we have some good action movies this past summer, but we also had a few comedies. The creators of Borat decided to give it another go with outrageous comedy "The Dictator." Sacha Baron Cohen gives a funny performance as a foreign dictator who comes to America and gets into a lot of trouble. Critics loved the movie and it did pretty decent  at the box-office, raking in $174,950,222 worldwide. Another comedy this summer that did outstanding was  "Ted," the comedy about a man and his.................bear. In the movie, a boy wishes for his teddy bear to be real, and he gets his wish. The two grow up together, and get into all kinds of mischief. This was probably the funniest movie of the summer and took in $374,289,040 worldwide. This and The Dictator were total tops. However, not every comedy got through to movie-goers. "The Watch," starring comedic heavyweights such as Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Jonah Hill, did horribly. In this box office drop, four friends start a neighborhood watch and have a more-than-close encounter with the "third" kind. With only $42,834,200 under its belt, "The Watch" was the lowest grossing movie of the summer that received as much publicity as it did. I don't think we'll be seeing too much of Vince Vaughn any time soon. In spite of Kristen Stewart's recent scandal, her movie "Snow White and The Huntsman" got a ton of publicity and many fans were eager to see her transition from vampire-girl to beautiful princess Snow White this past summer. In Snow White, a ruthless queen (beautifully played by Charlize Theron) hires a man to hunt down Snow White (Stewart) in order to break her spell of aging so she can live forever. Although I praise Kristen for her portrayal as Isabella Swan, I love her as Snow White and would love to see her do a sequel. This slightly dark twist of the original raked in $393,950,105 and is definitely a summer top. All you Diary of a Wimpy Kid lovers will probably stone me for this, but news is news. This pass summer, Twentieth Century Fox brought us yet another installment of Jeff Kinney's wonderful books, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days." This time around, in order to skip around spending a lot of money on making the films, Fox decided to combine the third and fourth books together. However, their idea of making two into one and getting more money for it failed. This movie has grossed $52,413,378 worldwide, making it the weakest first month of any of the other Diary of a Wimpy Kid films. Now, even though I love the books, the movies, to me, are unnecessary and stupid. First of all, if you're going to make the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"series, film it right. Usually in the movies, Greg is portayed as a jerk and Rowley is seen as an innocent good kid, which we all know isn't true. This is a summer drop. And now for the grand finale. The moment you've all been waiting for. The last big top or drop movie. And the last movie is Christopher Nolan's most anticipated film, the last movie in "The Dark Knight" series, The Dark Knight Rises. Christian Bale, for the last time, returns as Batman and faces a whole new villian Bane (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Lucious Fox (played non-other than the wonderful Morgan Freeman) also has a new gagdet for the caped crusader, The Bat. Dazzling special effects and the new hero-villian Catwoman complete the last movie of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster series. Not only is this movie a total summer top, but it has earned a spot in the top five highest grossing weekend openings with $160,887,295 and has earned $1,042,014,544 in the worldwide box-office. This concludes all the biggest tops and drops movies of the summer. Thank you for reading and tune in next week for all the latest gossip in the entertainment world. And as always, send me all your questions and comments on anything I have or haven't said. Until next time..........

Summer Tops and drops......

This past summer brought about a ton of good movies, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were blockbusters. Let's get right into them. The first movie to start off the summer was none other than The Avengers. Not only was this action-packed superhero movie a blockbuster, but it beat Harry Potter's last movie record of being the highest grossing movie in its opening night. Now, personally, Harry Potter is my favorite movie franchise and I admit that I didn't believe that this movie would do better than all the Harry Potter openings. So I was shocked that Saturday evening. The movie got outstanding reviews and is the first movie to have so many mega superheroes, and the same actors playing them, and still do good at the box-office. The next most talked about movie of the summer was the board-game based Battleship. This Transformers- related movie got great publicity and outstanding media buzz, but hardly won back any of its movie budget and only made $302,836,260. Now I know you're thinking that this is a lot of money, but compared to movies such as The Dark Knight Rises, and looking at how much it was expected to make, this was a total drop and probably won't have a sequel. Another movie that was supposed to be one of the turning points of Tom Cruise's career after Mission Impossible was this summer was Rock of Ages. This rocking and rolling movie set in the 80's was about a struggling music joint which based their lives on having Stacy Jaxx (Tom Cruise) perform there. A group of women led by Catherine Zeta-Jones also tries to stop the performance. Although this movie got great reviews and is highly recommended by yours truly, crowds disagreed. Rock of Ages only received $50,118,613 worldwide and is the second-to-first movie that made the least amount of money with great media buzz. This is definitely a summer drop. Now let's go to a lighter part of the summer. This year, we were introduced to two new installments in two different blockbuster series. The Amazing Spider-Man was the second superhero movie to open up this summer. It was a huge success at the box-office, although many people, including me, thought that the transition to the new spider was a little exhausting. Which is one of the reasons why it was behind Spider-Man 3 in box-office tickets by $125 million. Some crowds also thought that the big flashback to high school was unnecessary. But, it did make $705,048,927 at the box-office and is a summer top. Then, our favorite prehistoric animals are back in the all new star-studded Ice Age: Continental Drift. In this fourth installment of the series, Manny, Diego, and Sid find themselves adrift on an ice pan when the continents start to form and drift apart. The voices include Queen Latifah, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Keke Palmer, and Jennifer Lopez. This movie is fun for the whole family and has made over $800 million. I recommend this cool summer top. Another animated movie that was the talk of the town over the summer was Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. This third installment of the highly popular "Madagascar" series finds our favorite trio of zoo animals still trying to find their way home to New York in the "comforting hands" of Europe. This fun-filled movie is very funny and is a summer top coming in at $603.9 million. Next, we have to take a tragic turn at Total Recall. This futuristic thriller is about a man who goes to a weird place to get his fantasy of having a action-packed life fulfilled. However, he gets a little more than he bargained for when troops come after him in the middle of his wish. But he must ask himself one thing : Is this real, or a figment of my imagination? This movie is a must-see and brings the true experience back to watching thrillers. However, it has only made $135,232,192 at the box-office and is sadly classified as a drop. Read my next post to find out whether some of your favorite summer movies of 2012 made the summer drop or top list in "Summer Tops and Drops....Part 2". And as always, please give me your feed back on anything that I have said or haven't said. Tell me what you think. Well, until next time, this is me signing out.