The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Review

I'm disappointed. Truly disappointed. In fact, Eclipse is probably the most disappointing movie I've seen all year. But not because I thought it was going to be good. I was expecting the same amount of unintentional hilarity that I received in the first two. Those movies were epic in their ability to play a staring game with the audience that ended with me losing every time in a fit of laughter.

But this one, Eclipse, dare I say it, wasn't terrible. Of course, about half the movie was terrible The entire love triangle is forced, cliched and without any merit whatsoever. Taylor Lautner is clearly spending more time in the gym than in acting classes since his performance is bizarrely getting worse. Unlike child actors such as Daniel Radcliffe, who has upped his game with each successive Harry Potter movie, Lautner seems content with the same smug delivery of every single line he has. Granted, it doesn't help that he has lines like "Once you imprint on someone, gravity is no longer holding you to the earth. All that matters is the other person." No, Jacob. It's still gravity. You're not orbiting around this other woman you fall in love with. And while I'm being nitpicky, he also mentions that he "could care less" about something that Edward does. It's couldn't. "Couldn't care less." It's good to see that in all the people that wrote, directed, and acted that line, nobody questioned it's accuracy.

The whole "I love you more than him." followed by the "No, I love you more!" is incredibly tired at this point that I just wanted to knock all of them out. Yet, despite the origins of this story as the brainchild of a Mormon housewife, I really felt like there was going to be some werewolf-vampire-human action going on at certain points. The fact remains that there is a heavy homoerotic undercurrent that runs through the whole movie. You absolutely cannot take a group of feral forest men who walk around shirtless and in jean shorts and not see gayness. You can't. It may have worked in the books, but it doesn't work on screen.

But what's better is that now we have female werewolves who have no problem staying completely clothed. What's with the double standard? Shouldn't the female werewolves be walking around without their tops on at least? Or not full shirts, even. How about some sort of bikini top? If you're going to make the case for werewolf outerwear, at least be consistent.

The thing that really made this whole operation completely bizarre, and this might be a mild spoiler for those of you who haven't read the book, but Edward's admission that he's a virgin. Over 100 years old and a virgin? Because you wanted to wait until you were married? I mean, come on dude. Even your SIBLINGS are doing it with each other. Granted, they're not blood related but the world kind of sees them as siblings. You have no problem with them creeping out the world, being technically dead, and you can't at least find yourself a steady relationship with another vampire or something? Then again, maybe if he wasn't squinting all the time people wouldn't think he has heartburn. It was only when he met another person with an equally heartburned look on her face that he felt truly at home.

What truly gets me about the whole love triangle is the way in which these two men literally let Bella do whatever the hell she wants and get away with it. It really doesn't matter what she does, she has both of these men so whipped that they wouldn't even think about looking at another woman. Unlike her, who has no problem jerking both of them around. (Albeit metaphorically, since there will be none of that in this movie.) At the same time, she reacts rather nonchalantly to their creepy, stalker like tendencies, all under the guise of "we're protecting you." Hey, gentlemen out there reading this. Try that out for yourself. See how it works out. I'm pretty sure it won't. And will end up with a restraining order.

But when the movie wasn't being bogged down by the incessant garbage of their personal lives, there were some rather entertaining moments to be had. Director David Slade seems to have understood that the tone of the first two movies was completely off and in turn has lightened things up significantly. No longer did I feel the fate of the world depended on the ridiculous feelings of these characters. There was instead a real, quantifiable threat and a villain whose motives were clear, if not slightly two dimensional. Effort was made to flesh out a few of the background characters, some of which came across as rather campy. (Because apparently in the 1920s, guys got drunk on street corners and sexually assaulted their girlfriends while spouting off completely ridiculous lines.)

The effects were also leaps and bounds over the first two movies. They were missing crazy monkey climbing, but they replaced it with some rather graceful fight scenes and a level of brutality that was completely unexpected despite the lack of blood. The action was surprisingly sufficient and was definitely more entertaining than I would have thought. Bella was also far less awkward and instead of just waiting around for things to happen to her, actually has glimmers of being proactive. She hasn't quite made it yet, but she really is in danger of becoming an honest to God character at some point. As it stands she's still essentially an empty shell with two guys who fawn over her every movie and an army of vampires wants to kill. Oh, such difficult lives most 17 year olds lead. But I was surprised that they even attempted to bring into question the choices she's made in her life in an attempt to reflect on what it means to make the right choice. Of course, most of that is abandoned in favor of "what makes me the most awesomest", but it was nice to see at least an attempt.

If all this seems like damning with faint praise, well, it is. The movie isn't very good. But it's not that bad either. The unintentionally hilarious moments were dialed down quite a bit (unfortunately) and a sense of fun was raised in its place. It's still not worth selling out twenty theaters of a midnight showing. Nevertheless, I found myself mildly entertained by several parts and that at least didn't make it a complete waste of my time.



GRADE: C+

Jonah Hex Review

Jonah Hex is an absolute mystery to me. And not in a good way. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a movie that was so blatantly chopped to a bare minimum. Clearly there is much more to this movie that goes well beyond its 80 minute runtime.

The plot is actually relatively simple despite the lack of explanation. Former Confederate soldier Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), after his family is murdered by Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), seeks vengeance against their murderer. But when Turnbull supposedly dies in a hotel fire, he decides to become a bounty hunter by trade. Hex also has the ability to speak with the dead as the apparent result of some sort of Native American witchcraft. When Turnbull reemerges after stealing some sort of super weapon, the government believes that Hex is the only one who can track him down and offers him a bounty to do so. Hex is also involved with the prostitute Lilah (Megan Fox) who so desperately wants to settle down with him. Despite the fact that her job requires her to be a whore. Which might make the whole settling down thing a little difficult, but I digress.

The movie then moves on rails towards its inevitable conclusion, following the loose threads of the plot to string together something watchable. If you’re wondering what exactly this weapon is, you won’t get that answer. It makes things explode is probably about the extent of it and is fueled by an orange glowing ball. Or if you want to know just what is so special about Jonah Hex, the answer is essentially “the Indians did it.” But apparently you’re just not supposed to care and just keep your mind focused on the fact things explode. At no point does “Jonah Hex” even attempt to pause for character development, save for a few plot based conversations that ever so briefly venture into character developing territory.

What strikes me as odd is the way that there is such a fantastic cast in this movie and yet the majority of them are given little more than cameos. Michael Shannon, nominated for an Oscar for his awesome performance in Revolutionary Road, is given “and” billing in the credits but literally introduces a fight that is completely irrelevant to anything that happens in the movie and then he disappears. Megan Fox, who is touted as one of the stars of the movie, probably has somewhere around ten minutes of screen time. And for most of those ten minutes she is bizarrely lit to make her appearance almost glowing for no real reason. Even the normally hilarious Will Arnett plays the straight man here and his few minutes of screen time seem to belie a larger role. So instead they give much larger roles to

By no stretch of the imagination is this a good movie. But it is passable. For the most part the plot is coherent if underexplained and individually the scenes are entertaining, save for an annoying tattooed Irishman whose sole purpose is apparently to be an obnoxious henchman. I’m most interested in seeing the inevitable extended cut of this, which I venture to guess is at least another half hour long. There just seems to be that much cut out of it. Personally, I’d recommend Toy Story 3 this weekend over this, but if cartoon toys aren’t your thing, you might not feel you wasted too much time if you went to see this instead.

GRADE: C

The Karate Kid Review

I have a confession to make. I've never actually seen the original Karate Kid. It's been in my instant Netflix queue for months now, if not years, but I just haven't gotten around to it. So I figured it wouldn't do me any harm to watch this remake with very limited knowledge of the original movie.

But what seems to be most interesting about this remake is how little in common it appears to have with the original. First of all, there isn't any karate in it. It's all kung fu. Sure, Dre (Jaden Smith) watches a karate video for about 45 seconds, but beyond that it has nothing to do with karate at all.

The movie begins as Dre and his mother (Taraji P. Henson) move from Detroit to Beijing as a result of his mom getting a new job. Immediately he hates it but does become taken with a cute Chinese girl Meiying (Wenwen Han). Of course, family friend Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) doesn't take kindly to this American guy chatting up his crush, so Cheng and his friends proceed to be the crap out of Dre. Personally, I think Dre's first mistake was wearing a Detroit Lions shirt in public. That had to have been a huge sign of weakness, as the Lions' lack of gridiron prowess is probably known throughout the world.

The kids continue to torment Dre until maintenance man Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) steps in and essentially beats the crap out of a group of 12-year-olds. These kids can't have grown up in China, because everybody knows that Jackie Chan can destroy everyone. Haven't they ever seen "Rush Hour"? After Mr. Han helps Dre, they go to the kung fu studio where the tormentors are being taught how to torment. Through an unfortunate series of events, the tormentors back off while Dre trains for the kung fu tournament that Mr. Han just entered him in. Meaning Mr. Han now has to train Dre in the art of kung fu.

The biggest problem, especially at the beginning of the movie, is that Jaden Smith tries way too hard to be cool and essentially be Will Smith. The issue with that is he's not Will Smith. Being Will Smith's kid doesn't mean you have the same presence as your father has. Certain mannerisms are lifted right from his father, and while you can tell that he's his father's son, he certainly doesn't have the same amount of gravitas. Yet, when he tones that down and is just being a cute little kid trying to make his way in this new country, he's surprisingly charming and likable. And it's clear that he put a lot of effort into his training, as in sparring scenes he is rather serviceable against Jackie Chan.

Jackie Chan meanwhile has some rather touching moments himself that add a gravity to the story that I wasn't really expecting. Despite being a film about a kid, the movie does play with some heavier themes, but never gets too bogged down with them. And Taraji P. Henson almost seems to be giving too much in her performance as Ms. Parker. At times it feels as if she's in a different movie than everyone else.

The movie takes its time to get a solid footing, which leads me to believe that much of the beginning could have been cut out of an already long running time of two hours and twenty minutes. But once it does start to grip you, there's almost this Rocky-like quality the movie takes on, especially during the inevitable training montage. A montage elevated by James Horner's score, even though at times it oddly did sound a little too much like Titanic.

The movie succeeds for essentially being a fish out of water coming of age tale by some solid direction by Harald Zwart, a charismatic cast, and the beautiful Chinese backdrop. Despite its status as a remake, The Karate Kid does a solid job as its own movie under circumstances rather removed from the original.

GRADE: B

The A-Team Review

"The A-Team" is awesome. And I'm not necessarily talking about the old television show, which I only have bits and pieces of memories about. I know that anytime it was on as a kid, I enjoyed it, but frankly beyond the theme song, I know little of the characters other than Mr. T. But the theme song itself elevated the show to a level of excitement that would not have been present otherwise. Yet, really all this movie needed was two hours of the theme song playing in the background while stuff blew up. Unfortunately it was only the latter half of that requirement that followed through. Because if there's one thing "The A-Team" movie was missing, it was excessive use of the theme song.

After we're quickly introduced to the essentially random formation of The A-Team at the beginning of the movie, we flash forward eight years and eighty missions later to the closing days of the Iraq occupation. Turns out, Saddam had some American currency plates hidden in Baghdad and it's up to The A-Team to retrieve them. Of course, Captain Sosa (Jessica Biel) is trying to get them back for the Army, so she wants The A-Team to stay as far away from Baghdad as possible while Agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) covertly recruits the team in violation of Army orders to retrieve the plates. Of course, upon retrieval the plates go missing and The A-Team is blamed for it and sentenced to 10 years in prison. This not surprisingly leads to an elaborate breakout in an attempt for them to clear their names and restore their standing as Army Rangers.

The movie is just completely insane, mostly in a good way. Every few minutes Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) chews on his cigar, mentions something about having a plan, how everything is part of a plan, or that the plan is coming together. There's a lot of plan talk in this one. Yet, every plan is not only executed perfectly but is almost inferring that The A-Team is almost omniscient in their ability to perceive events. They seem to plan for contingencies that there would be no logical way of conceiving.

Fortunately the movie strikes this fantastic balance between insane and hilarious, never taking itself seriously and consistently ramping up the stakes. In fact, one of the biggest character plot points is whether or not BA Baracas (Quinton Jackson) is going to bring back his mohawk. And that's one of the more poignant dilemmas. He's no Mr. T, but he does bring his own charm and charisma to the role. We all just need to accept there will never be another Mr. T. The other two characters, Face (Bradley Cooper) and Murdock (Sharlto Copley) throw in a smooth bravado and batshit craziness respectively.

The plot at times becomes needlessly complicated but works well enough to provide a framework on which the rest of the movie can chug along presenting one crazy action set piece after another. The whole aura is one of "Yeah, we know this isn't humanly possible, but we're doing it anyway," which allows the movie to be enjoyed on a more visceral level than other action movies that attempt to take a more serious tone. Having such a solid, charismatic cast and solid direction makes this a much more superior movie than Joe Carnahan's last effort, the essentially pointless "Smokin' Aces".

To be frank, the only thing this movie was missing was more theme song. The full theme only kicks in at the very end, and as background music to a movie being watched within the film itself. Of course, this didn't stop me from playing the music on my own in my head which made it that much more enjoyable. Which isn't to say that Alan Silvestri's score wasn't solid in its own right. It was. I just happened to be slightly biased towards theme song overuse.

That entirely pointless gripe aside, The A-Team is an incredibly solid action movie for anyone who wants nothing more than to sit in their seat for two hours and have an awesome time.

GRADE: B+

My Final Lost Thoughts - 5/23 - The End

The End.

So it’s all over. And that means what will probably be the final edition of my Lost Thoughts, although it’s entirely possible that will change. I may have more to say later.

But let’s get down to business. I absolutely loved the finale and found it to be a satisfactory ending to one of the best shows I’ve ever watched on television. To me, there was an emotional connection that I had with the show that was incredibly unique that I haven’t experienced in any other show thus far in my life. In fact, very few movies have provided me with the immense emotional experience that this finale of Lost, and by extension the entire series, has.

Given that I’ve received several text messages, instant messages, and e-mails attempting to get my perspective on what EXACTLY went down in that finale, I’m going to try and do a quick summarization of it.

The flash-sideways were essentially existential flash forwards.


A crude but effective MS Paint job that hopefully helps to illustrate the sideways world.


Everything that happened to the characters in the show, with the exception of the flash sideways, happened to them in the same way situations would happen to you or me in the real world. They all lived their lives. Jack died saving the island and by extension the whole world. Kate, Sawyer, Lapidus, Claire, Miles, Richard, and later on Desmond, all escaped the island for the last time to probably never return. They lived their lives with the experience of the island in their past, forever changed by it. Hurley became the protector of the island and Ben was his new Richard. Richard was no longer immortal, probably as a result of Jacob’s death and that immortal connection was severed.

When all of the characters died in their own respective lives, years and years later, this alternate world was created. Essentially a purgatory of their own design. Their shared experience, which provided each one of these individual characters a redemption that they would have otherwise been unable to achieve without the aid of the island, allowed their souls to pool together to create this world that was similar enough to their old lives that it was relatively simple, once they were all ready, to enter into the afterlife together. Whether you want to call that heaven or nirvana or whatever I think is up to you and your own spiritual background. I don’t think the name for it is that important. As to why this “purgatory” was necessary in the first place, I think it was so they could re-experience their lives in similar, yet better, ways that would allow them to better appreciate their island experience, but that’s just speculation on my part.

Desmond kick started this process when he was blasted with the electromagnetic radiation by Widmore and his consciousness essentially “died” for a moment and traveled to this future plane of existence. When his future, purgatorified self became aware of his past life, he then became aware of his ultimate death and why he was there, bringing the most important people to the church to usher them into their eternal life. Had it not been for Desmond’s mission, they would have ultimately met the same result, it just would have taken a little longer.
Who knows how long this whole process took? That’s kind of a question that we as humans are unable to answer in any real detail. We have a very specific worldview when it comes to the concept of time, and find it very difficult to conceptualize the relativity of time and the experience of time. We measure time on Earth as one second per second. But that’s not necessarily how time travels in the rest of the universe, let alone alternate planes of existence.

I personally speculate that this plane came into existence possibly thousands of years after the final shot of Jack’s eye closing and his death. I say this because Hurley was now the island’s protector, and it’s entirely possible and plausible that his reign over the island lasted longer than even Jacob’s now there was no evil force trying to get off the island. So once they all died, and not before that moment, this place sprung up and they lived their lives through it until it was ready for them to leave.

Some still aren’t ready. Ben became cognizant of all of the terrible things he did in his life and wanted to work them out before joining everyone for eternity. Ms. Hawking/Mrs. Widmore didn’t want to leave and really wanted to stay with her son Daniel Faraday/Widmore in this plane, which is why she was concerned about Desmond becoming aware of the plane’s true nature. Charlotte’s still hanging around for some reason, even though she never really had issues to begin with.

Ultimately the point is that all the experiences they had, everything they did, happened to them. They all became reborn within this purgatory plane of existence and lived their lives there, too. Only when becoming aware of their living pasts did they feel completely at peace and became ready to move forward with their eternal lives.

My Personal Opinion



Personally, I didn’t really like this idea. I feel as if the show got a little too existential at the end and now season six needs to be completely reevaluated on the basis of the fact that the sideways world WAS in fact purgatory. Almost ironic given the fact that everyone thought the island itself was purgatory when the show started, a claim that was subsequently vehemently denied. Yet, what makes this situation different is that theirs was a purgatory of their own design. It sprung from their desire to want to enter into eternity together, changed by their vehicle of redemption: the island.

There were hints of this with the idea of ghosts and spirits that were communicable. But to bring the entire show into a completely separate plane of existence may have been a little much for me. Personally, I think it’s a little stupid to be honest.

Yet, ultimately that didn’t stop me from loving the episode which really hit me emotionally in ways that I hadn’t expected it to. Although the way in which it did was slightly cheap in that watching these characters reunite was essentially just a reminder of all the phenomenal experiences I had watching the show. Nothing new was really gained by it, but it worked by tapping into six years of memories with these characters and knowing all they went through, I was happy to see them all back together again.
Seeing all those loved ones become aware of their pasts and embrace what they now know was touching on so many different levels. And it was fantastic to watch.

I did feel the first half dragged in places, especially on the island. I kept wanting to see the sideways world move forward more than what was happening on the island. The plot itself wasn’t incredible. It boiled down to “have Desmond remove cork, kill Locke, take off on plane, replace cork.” Yet watching it all culminate was definitely a sight to behold.

The episode wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. This being Lost, I didn’t really expect it to be. I expected to feel differently when I finished the episode though. I expected it to be more “awesome”. It wasn’t the feeling of “awesome” I was expecting, but I loved it all the same, albeit in a completely different way than I had anticipated.

There are still plenty of unanswered questions, which to be honest, doesn’t really bother me. I feel that I can fill in the gaps with my imagination at this point and give perfectly satisfactory answers. Would I like to know more? Sure. Absolutely. If they want to open up and tell me the things I want to know, I’ll listen. But right now, I can’t even think of anything that I really want answered. I’ve even come up with my own personal theory about the island itself. In fact, here it is!

Sean’s Personal Island Theory

The island is a byproduct of the creation of life on earth. It has always been there and will always be there. I feel like it’s as old as time itself. It probably even killed the dinosaurs. The electromagnetic energy that radiates from the light keeps the destructive forces from beneath it from consuming the earth. Had Jack not replaced the cork, the island would have been destroyed and eventually all life as we know it would have been consumed by this energy underneath the island which manifests itself as volcanic activity. I don’t think that it’s deliberately malicious. I don’t think it’s an entity. Just something that will happen if not kept in check, hence the need for a protector of the light. One of the ways it’s protected is by binding whoever touches the light in the form of a Smoke Monster through the light’s electromagnetic energy.

Desmond’s ability to withstand electromagnetic forces made him literally the only person on earth (probably) who could have removed the cork. Without him, the cork stays in place since no one can get to it. The alternative, possibly cooler, way to do things would have been for Jack to become his own smoke monster and have a smoke monster throwdown. Of course, they would have just been ending up battling for all eternity, making things pretty difficult to end the show on.

After Death

If one completely neglects the flash sideways as a whole, and focuses only on things that happened to the characters during their regularly scheduled lives, I think the show ended fantastically. To end the show on the image of a dying Jack’s closing eye, as Vincent lie near him to comfort Jack in his final moments, as a complete contrast to the first image of the show being his opening eye after his brush with Vincent, truly brings the show full circle in a way that I never would have expected. The people on the plane go on to live full and happy lives. Kate helps Claire raise Aaron. Richard discovers the comforts of modern life. Miles does something. Lapidus probably keeps being a pilot. And Desmond travels back to Penny and his son, and they live their lives. While Hurley and Ben continue to do their thing on the island for however long it takes for Hurley and Ben to die.

The Legacy of Lost



I feel satisfied by the show. I’m happy with it. Do I agree with everything they did? No, not necessarily. There are clearly some continuity issues here and there, some questions that needed answering, but I feel as if those are forgivable. What’s not forgivable is where the hell was Walt? I was expecting some Walt in my finale, and I didn’t get it. That was kind of lame. And one final question, what the hell did detonating the hydrogen bomb even DO? It didn't create this alternate reality, and the incident was clearly something COMPLETELY different since it would be difficult to build the swan over a nuclear waste zone. I really wish I could have that answer.

I’m not accepting Lost as a perfect show. But I feel a sense of satisfaction now that it’s over. I think the ride was worth it. It wasn’t what I expected, but nothing ever is. The ability of Lost to inspire thought hasn’t ended, but I feel they’ve given us enough information that we can come to relatively solid conclusions at this point. I feel comfortable in believing the things in which I believe about the show until new evidence is presented to make me believe something otherwise.

This isn’t like after the season three finale when I couldn’t figure out what it all meant, because it could mean so many different things. Instead, I feel I have everything I need. While there is certainly still some ambiguity there, at the end of the day, I loved it. And really that’s all that matters.

The point of the show from day one was to watch characters who were all Lost in their own respective lives somehow find their redemption and become better people for the experience. Even the most despicable of characters eventually became bastions of righteousness at some point. And frankly, I can honestly think of no better protector of the island than Hurley. He has been the one character whose positivity and optimism in the lives of others is unquestioned. The island helped him conquer his curse of the numbers and in turn he will help others conquer their demons.

And Jack, father issues and all, learned how to believe in something bigger than himself and saved the world in the process. His empiricism and the way he constantly butted heads with Locke led to a new change in his personality. While this led to his ultimate demise, he was eventually rewarded by a shared afterlife with those who experienced island life with him. And because of that, maybe the flash sideways weren’t so pointless after all.

And with all that, we learn that it’s up to us all individually to face our burdens and have the courage to “Let go.” Because I believe that’s what Lost was all about.