Review: “Man of Steel”

Man of SteelWhen I first saw the trailer for Man of Steel, I was hooked. I wanted to see Superman beat the shit out of bad guys and leap into flight for the first time. I wanted to see Kevin Costner fill Clark’s head with homespun wisdom that we all know is bullshit. Most of all, I wanted to see Amy Adams nude. Spoiler warning: no such luck. (Curse you for that, Man of Steel!) Yeah, don’t even pretend you weren’t thinking it. Since the trailer looked so good, I had plans to go see it even before the reviews came in.

I’ve been fooled before. I remember the trailer for The Phantom Menace. It looked awesome, yet part of me died when I saw that movie.

So was a lack of Amy Adams’ nudity my only disappointment with Man of Steel? Excellent question. Click the link to find out.

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Review: “Star Trek Into Darkness”

Star Trek Into Darkness memeStar Trek Into Darkness is the latest offering by sci-fi god, J.J. Abrams. To me, the funny thing about Paramount choosing Abrams to reboot the Star Trek franchise is that he seems like a Star Wars guy, not a Star Trek guy. (In case you didn’t know, Abrams is also directing the next Star Wars movie.) I totally believe he’s the right guy for Star Wars, but I never saw Abrams as an obvious choice for Star Trek. Trek is deeper, smarter, and wastes valuable screen time by sitting its main characters around a conference table for hours on end. Star Wars is simplicity itself and focuses on special effects and things going boom. That’s the sort of thing Abrams is good at.

Despite this, I liked the previous Star Trek movie. It could have used some of the smarts that went into the TV shows that came before it, but it was totally enjoyable. And, most importantly, the characters felt right.

Can the same be said for Star Trek Into Darkness? Or should we set phasers to kill?

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Review: “Iron Man 3”

Iron Man 3Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed the first Iron Man movie and even thought Iron Man 2 wasn’t bad. So there was no way I wasn’t going to check out Iron Man 3. I was especially curious how the movie was going to handle the Mandarin, who I remember as Iron Man’s arch-enemy from the old comic books. So far, Marvel has taken a real-world approach to its superhero movies, but the Mandarin isn’t a real-world kinda guy. The question: how would Marvel handle a character whose powers are based on magic rather than the natural world in one of its movies?

Metacritic gave Iron Man 3 a 62% approval rating, while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a freshness rating of 78%. So more critics liked the movie than didn’t like the movie. What did I think? Clink the link to find out.

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3 Things You Should Know If You Want To Ditch Cable TV

I finally ditched my Cable TV package and started streaming my TV shows the way nature intended. How did I do it? I signed up for a free trial with Netflix and Hulu-Plus on my PS3, that’s how! But how did it go? Let me spoil the suspense for you: I returned my Cable TV DVR a week later. Now, I’m running my TV on nothing more than media streaming bliss.

So how can you flip your expensive Cable TV package the bird? Read on to find out.

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