Django Unchained is the latest from Quentin Tarantino and the results are what you expect with him; great performances, engrossing dialogue and a lot of stuff most people have never seen before. [Read more...]
Film Review: The Avengers
05/03/2012 by 2 Comments
The Avengers have finally assembled for Marvel and it was more than worth the wait as Joss Whedon has delivered one of the best comic book films to date. [Read more...]
Film Review: The Avengers
05/03/2012 by 6 Comments
Over the past few years Marvel has been wracking up a slew of great films based on their universe’s superheroes. Starting with Iron Man, Marvel moved though the Hulk (The Incredible Hulk, just so there’s no confusion), Captain America, and Thor, each with quite a bit of deserved success. In addition to Hawkeye and Black Widow, these characters make up the avengers, and sticking to the additive math, the greatness of each of these previous films adds up to one incredible, possibly the best, superhero movie. [Read more...]
Looking Ahead to 2012: Quarter 2 (April – June)
04/01/2012 by Leave a Comment
Hello internet perusers! We are back with round 2 of the four part year break down of things to come. Between April and June, the writers on HST have plenty that we are looking forward to in movies, music, and games,, and we want to share them with you. No, none of these are April Fool’s jokes. Zac is actually really excited to see a movie about male strippers. [Read more...]
Review: The Other Guys
08/06/2010 by 1 Comment
The Other Guys is the latest from Adam McKay and Will Ferrell and it serves as a great send up of the buddy cop genre with a consistently funny pacing and many flashes of brilliance along the way.
Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz are not the guys, that title is held by Detectives Highsmith and Danson. Gamble and Hoitz are the other guys on the force who push the pencil and do the paper work for the NYPD heroes. Besides being the other guys of the office, Gamble and Hoitz are quite the odd couple of partners as well. Gamble has long been behind a desk, in police accounting, and has worked his way up to detective but has no ambition to leave the office during the day. Hoitz is the exact opposite. Itching at any chance to get out on the streets and to be the guy, he unfortunately is in some hot water after an unfortunate incident in the Yankee club house. But when Gamble uncovers a scaffolding permit violation the two begin to get wrapped up in a crime bigger than they could possibly imagine.
Now Playing Review – The Other Guys
08/06/2010 by 1 Comment
If you are like me then Will Ferrell acting out the role of a cop gunning down criminals is an intriguing thought. I mean, he’s done pretty much everything else at this point, so why not fill the shoes of an action star? Unfortunately the film’s poster isn’t really an appropriate representation considering you can’t quite pull that off when carrying a wooden gun in your holster. Funny, but it doesn’t quite carry the same bang I had hoped for.
Instead Will Ferrell plays Allen Gamble, a man who is much more comfortable humming the theme songs of action films from the safety of his own desk as apposed to being the inspiration for the music. A man who is not so musically inclined is his partner, Terry Hoitz, who still aspires to be the man people look up to while fighting the good fight. No matter their feeling, eventually they find themselves knee deep in a case that might just be what it takes to pull them from their seats on the sidelines, as long as they can handle it. [Read more...]
Comic-Con International 2010 – My Experience in Nerd Heaven
08/02/2010 by 1 Comment
A couple of weeks ago I excitedly told my aunt that I was going to Comic Con in a week, with a big ol’ smile on my face. I didn’t really expect her to be jealous, but I was overly excited. Then she asked if it was a gathering of comics or something. As in comedians. I then proceeded to try and explain that it was this really cool event that happens each year that has been taken over by Hollywood in the past decade or so. Basically it has everything a nerd would desire to see, including comics, writers, artists, video games, tv shows, and movies. I told her about the panels I was planning on sitting in on and some of the people that were scheduled to attend. I was adamant about making her see how awesome it was, but she just didn’t get it. Color me deflated. Oh well, I guess Comic Con is just for certain people…
Like this girl:
Now Playing Review – Iron Man 2
05/14/2010 by 2 Comments
Tony Stark is back in Iron Man 2, bringing with him some variations on his high tech business suit, new enemies, new allies, and that same, overly confident, “winning” personality (the sarcasm is only halfhearted because it’s hard not to love him).
Between the first film and now, Tony Stark boasts that he has fulfilled every beauty pageant contestants dream of bringing about world peace (at least for now), or as he likes to put it, “privatizing” it. And with revealing his secret identity at the end of the first film, the exploits of Iron Man have lead to even more fame for the man not hiding behind the mask, and it has gone straight to his head. But with great power comes great responsibility. Wait… Wrong Marvel superhero. Let me modify: With greatly boasted power comes great enemies with the unifying goal of knocking said powerful individual down a peg (yeah, I can see why that isn’t the catchphrase). Simply put: Tony’s ego is in need of some deflating, and this film introduces at least two men willing to accept the challenge. [Read more...]
Review: Iron Man 2
05/07/2010 by 1 Comment
Summer is here, as is our first sequel of the summer in Iron Man 2 and the results are an entertaining and solid follow up to the widely lauded original, but I can’t quite put my finger on how it stacks up to its predecessor.
The conundrum I have with the film is the tone and focus this film takes. Now there isn’t a lot of plot like before, there are a few new characters to digest, and briefly glimpsed ones get even more screen time. But the film actually handles it’s “more” well in that we get a good grasp of who everyone is and what their motivations are rather efficiently; but it doesn’t flow the greatest as it jumps in and out everyone’s stories. The film is still the Tony Stark show first and foremost but it jumps away on a couple occasions for just a tad too long from our favorite iron suited alter ego. In fact, this film is barely an Iron Man movie and more of a Tony Stark tale; which I actually think is a good thing. The Iron Man action scenes are great and its best moments are better than the original’s set pieces, but there are really only two or three scenes of Iron Man doing his thing. The film is more focused on Stark and his issues of being a hero and a crisis he is having as part of his role as a superhero. Now again, I think this is great, but I wasn’t really prepared for it going in and was caught a bit off guard and think I need to see it again to really settle on a final opinion, especially when comparing it to the first film.
Review: The Spirit
01/08/2009 by Leave a Comment
Frank Miller steps behind the camera solo and creates a visually beautiful, but wholly absurd and over the top film, that if you know what it is going for heading into the picture, is an entertaining piece.
The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) loves his city and he has sworn to protect it from the evil of the world. Along the way, running along rooftops, he makes women swoon when they see him, and he is always chatting them up when ever the opportunity presents itself. His arch-nemesis is The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) and when the film opens, The Spirit, is checking in on a hot tip about a deal going down with The Octopus involved. Mixed up with the deal is a beautiful thief, Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) who is attempting to steal what The Octopus is going after as well. By the time The Spirit shows up on the scene, Sand is gone but The Octopus is ready for a showdown. While the two brawl, we discover both of them can take incredible punishment and are able to recover almost any wound with ease; The Octopus even leads the Spirit on that they are two of a kind, and all the same. The film from here turns into a stylized and super clichéd film noir into the investigation of The Octopus and the mysterious Sand Saref who The Spirit has a history with. [Read more...]
