Shmee.Me

March 20, 2013March 20, 2013

Should you sign up for Redbox Instant?

Over the last week a new internet movie streaming service has launched. It is Redbox Instant by Verizon. It costs $8 month, but you also get four free movies from their Redbox kiosk every month. So is it worth it? Maybe.

The selection of movies that you can stream without additional cost is very limited at the moment, and the only TV based device that streams the service is an Xbox 360 with your Gold subscription, but I am sure more are on the way. There are additional movies that you can rent and buy, but if you can rent them they are $4.99 for standard definition and $5.99 for high definition. Or you can buy them for $16.99 for standard definition or $21.99 for high definition. Those prices really aren’t that compelling since the draw of Redbox has always been cheap movies, and those are the same prices as every other service.

This leaves the only perk being the four movies at the kiosk, and if you rent from Redbox a lot then this may make since since you would be adding streaming for $4. If you don’t use the kiosk then Amazon Prime, or Netflix offer way more for the money, and Amazon gives you free shipping on all Amazon purchases and free books from the Prime lending library. Netflix’s perk is pretty much just the biggest library of streaming movies, but that is what this is all about in the first place.

I am happy there is another service entering the ring. Competition is always a good thing, and I hope the number of streaming movies grows quickly, but for now I would hold off on the one month free trail of Redbox Instant until there is more to watch.

March 13, 2013March 13, 2013

My Favorite Five Movies!

I decided to share my favorite five movies, and for me this is a hard list to put together, but I buckled down and picked five movies that if you came over to my house I would watch even though I have seen them several times. The critics may not agree with me, but who cares it is my list, and as soon as you write something on the internet you are wrong anyway. So here it goes.

5: Spriggan

When I first moved out of the house and in with my group of friends, we watched this movie all the time. It follows the most convoluted plot about Noah’s ark that you will ever hear, but what makes it great are the crazy over the top characters. There is a guy with a chain gun arm that can throw a helicopter at you! It makes me smile just to think about it.

4: The Muppets Christmas Carol

This is by far the best version of the Christmas Carol that has ever been made, and it features The Muppets. Double points! It is one of two movies that I need to watch every Christmas, but it is the one I look forward to the most (Maybe if you ask nice I will tell you the other movie). Everything from the sets to the cast are spot on in this movie. It is just fantastic.

3: Gross Pointe Blank

It doesn’t get much better for a dark comedy then Gross Pointe Blank. John Cusack is an assassin that goes back to his high school reunion to find himself. There he meets up with his old flame, and all sorts of crap hits the fan. It is funny and has a good amount of action. This movie made John Cusack my favorite actor for awhile, then he started making bad movies and that ended, but Gross Pointe Blank is still great.

2: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

It is not often that a middle movie of a trilogy is so awesome, but The Empire Strikes Back is. It has Yoda, Hoth, and a flying cloud city, and I think it has the best writing of all the Star Wars movies. This is Gorge Lucas’ best film. It is so good that despite all the crud that has happened to Star Wars over the years, I am still a Star Wars geek.

1: Dark City

There are very few noir Sci-Fi movies out there that are any good, but Dark City is not only good it is amazing, and so far my favorite movie of all time. This movie sets the tone so well and as we figure out who John is we also unravel the secrets of the bizarre world that he lives in. I think every film buff needs to watch this movie.

So there you have it. I am sure you disagree with me on my picks, but that is your right. I would love to hear what your favorite movies are, so leave me a comment and let me know.

March 6, 2013March 6, 2013

Where is Batman?

My last rant about the future of DC mostly turned in to a rant about the future of the Justice League, so I decided to turn my sights to the Dark Knight himself. DC has several options available to them as where to take the Batman series and I am going to explore a few of them.

The first option and probably the worst option is the reboot the franchise. I think everyone knows how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, and I don’t think many people want to see that again, so whatever they do they should keep Batman’s past in the past, mostly anyway.

The option they seem to be trying now, if the rumors are accurate, is pay Christopher Nolan a ton of money and hope he brings Christian Bale with him. This would make a lot of movie fans happy, and I am sure they would make a lot of cash, but we have kind of done their Batman, and it is all mopey and sad, very good, but I am not sure how much more realistic bleakness we can all handle. They should pay Nolan a lot of money stay around Warner Bros though. It would be a good investment.

The next option is to make a movie with Morgan Freeman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and make almost a Batman Incorporated movie with Lucius Fox sort of running Batman franchises to try and keep crime at bay throughout America. It would be fun and they already have the pieces in place to make it happen.

The last major option that I am going to put forward is to do a Batman Beyond movie with an aging Bruce Wayne handing over the reigns to a young protégé, and guiding him every step of the way. This lets Warner have a new Batman, but without the need for a reboot plus you can incorporate all sorts of fun Sci-Fi elements because it would be the near future.

Of the options that I put forward I like the last two the most. They both take the Bat in new directions and allow the studio to show us something exciting, and since I like Sci-Fi a Batman Beyond movie sounds amazing, but I am pretty sure they will try their hardest just to give Nolan tons of money, which will be good, but just not super original, but we will see, and this post is on the internet, so maybe I will change some minds (it won’t).

March 4, 2013March 4, 2013

What is Next for DC Movies?

DC/Warner Bros is having a hard time moving forward with its super hero movies. They don’t want to let Marvel/Disney soak up all the profits, but at the same time they have no clear vision on what to do, and like all geeks on the internet I am going to give them my unsolicited advice.

Disney when they bought Marvel they also bought got Kevin Feige. He is the man with the plan as far as the roll out for Marvel based films. DC has no such person. They were hoping the Christopher Nolen would be that person after the success of his Batman movies, but after The Man of Steel comes out he is putting dudes in tights behind him.

DC is longing to do a Justice League movie, but unlike Marvel they have not been following a path to get them there, and establishing their characters, and Batman is at the end of his trilogy, so he will need to be rebooted, or at least recast, so they are hoping that Superman does well in his next outing so they can base the League around him. I think this is a horrible idea. They should be proactive. They should do a Justice League movie with some of the lesser known Heroes in their catalog.

They have tons of people to choose from. Cyclops, Plastic Man, Martian Manhunter, a new Green Lantern, and of course Princess Diana of Themyscira herself Wonder Woman. I think they could make a great JLA movie with Wonder Woman as the lead. DC has done a great job with the new Wonder Woman comics, and she is a fun character, and what is best is that Marvel doesn’t have a great female hero out now to counter her. They could even start the League with her warning the world about some awesome classic monsters attacking the human world and her enlisting some help to deal with them. I think they could also bring in the Green Arrow from the TV show. He is doing a good job, and would be a fun crossover. Plus they would have at least one established hero.

Whatever DC does they should not be sitting back and praying that The Man of Steel does well to build around him. Superman is a hard hero to pull off, and if it does not do well then they are years behind schedule and Marvel will have had five super hero movies out by then.

DC needs to buck up and take a risk on their lesser known cast and let them bring home the bacon for once. Wonder Woman for the head of the Justice League. I am breaking glass ceilings everywhere.

February 12, 2013March 4, 2013

What to do about Star Wars

There has been a lot of action recently around the Star Wars franchise: Disney bought all things Lucas Arts, writers were hired, Michael Arndt writer of Toy Story 3 for Episode VII, Lawrence Kasdan writer … of well … Star Wars for a spin off, and J.J. Abrams to direct Episode VII. I just thought I would give my two cents on it all, and what I think they should do. After all I am on the internet so I must be right.

Disney is ridding on a lot of good faith from the great job they have done with the Marvel franchise, but with that they were just smart enough to follow the plan created by Kevin Feige. With Star Wars they need to make their own plan. It is good to see they brought Lawrence Kasdan back, after the horrible messes of Episodes I through III it will be nice to have a good writer involved again, but the big question is what are these writers are going to write about. What stories does Star Wars have left to tell via film.

The Star War universe is huge now. Lucas decided to open it up and allow a lot of good writers and not so good writers to expand the universe in so many different ways. It now spans thousands of fictional years, and has so much back story that I think Disney would be foolish to ignore it all. I think they should embrace it, and maybe even set the spin off in a different era with a different cast of characters. I would push for the Knights of the Old Republic time frame.

The Knights of the Old Republic is set about 4,000 years before the movies, and would allow the writers to do pretty much whatever they wanted. They could have massive Sith vs. Jedi battles, or they could just focus on a small group trying to navigate the Wild West of the Star Wars universe, and they wouldn’t have to worry about how they interacted with previously created movies.

But the most important thing they should do: Is just make a good movie, and I think the J.J Abrams hire was perfect for that. He proved with Star Trek that he was more interested in a good movie then sticking to the Star Trek canon. This may have made a few Trekkies mad, but the movie was great and it became the most successful Star Trek movie ever. If he keeps the same frame of mind with Star Wars, we should be in for a treat.