“This movie is sick!,” is what I heard from behind me every time something outlandish and ridiculous happened, which was about every 10 minutes. I couldn’t help but agree with the kid pretty much every time. Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, this is campiest yet entertaining movie I have seen this year. What started as a short trailer between Death Proof and Planet Terror (also directed by Rodriguez) in Grindhouse, comes Machete, played by Danny Trejo, ex-federal agent killing machine on a mission to get vengeance for his family and who is set up by Jeff Fahey (AKA Lapidus from LOST!!) to bring down corrupt politician John McLaughlin, played by Robert De Niro. Machete is the Mexican version of Shaft; reckless, violent, tortured vigilante and full time ladies man. Special ladies with significant supporting roles include Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez (her washboard for a stomach is worth every minute), and Lindsey Lohan, who I thought looked incredible. Steven Seagal plays Torres, arch-enemy and evil drug lord responsible for kidnapping Machete’s family, setting up the whole plot from the gate. With a memorable Cheech Marin performance Machete is bad-ass, hilarious, and everything I could have asked for and more from a gory ass Mexican Grindhouse film…but don’t expect an Oscar here. 4/5

So I went to see Inception the other night. I actually enjoyed this mind maze of a movie. Incept by definition means to take in. WELL this movie might be a lot for one to take in if you weren’t expecting to see this type of film. I was ready for it. The story is generally about creating an idea and planting it in someones mind through entering their dreams. BUT there are effects, repercussions, levels and rules of this the dreamworld upon entering. It’s complex in nature because naturally we are as human beings but I thought everything was tied in together really well and didn’t seem too fabricated. There were points of restlessness for me as I doubt they could have shortened something with the number of intertwined sub-story lines, however, if this is the summer blockbuster I’m not mad at all. A little drawn out and a lack of character development but definitely something stimulating, well written with good acting, and for me a second movie visit for this one now that I know how it ends, is most likely in the near future. Christopher Nolan FTW 4/5

Good but not great. I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a long time due to the hype of course behind the Scorsese directed picture. It seems they had been running previews for this thing for a year and because DiCaprio came off a stellar performance in The Departed, I was looking forward to it. The previews were a little misleading. They almost made it seem like it was a horror, where Shutter Island was a haunted place and something like the house in The Shining. In terms of the actual movie, Leonardo definitely delivers as the great actor he is and you can’t take that away from him. Without a doubt he makes this movie worth seeing. I also liked how this movie was shot and developed like a novel keeping true to Dennis Lehane’s best seller, where themes were actually prevalent, keeping things tight and nicely connected. However, when it comes to everything else, I felt like I saw it a few times already; between the island, prisoners/patients, mental institution, corrupt cops and doctors. All of which make for an extremely predictable and traditional recipe for a “creepy” movie. Without giving it away I will say, there is ONE movie in particular from within the past 10 years, which Shutter Island lends itself to so much that as soon as the plot was revealed, I immediately thought “wow this is the 2010….” This type of realization coupled with what actually happens was mildly annoying. On the other hand, if you do not predict what will happen before it actually does, you will enjoy it a lot more. 3/5

I went to Paranormal Activity expecting to see a horror movie in the same vein as The Blaire Witch Project as I heard all the comparisons and how this movie is on it’s way to being the most profitable in terms of profit margin compared to what it took to make it. Unfortunately this movie was not really scary to me. I wouldn’t compare it to Blaire Witch anyway except for the use of the handheld cam POV, which has since been done with much greater success in my opinion. I’ll put it this way, there are two scenes that were “scary” and I saw one of them in the trailer. Without completely ruining it for you, the premise goes like this. A young couple lives in a house in San Diego and the female happens to have been haunted by a demon for the majority of her life. The boyfriend decides to try to capture it on film and audio and is very successful at it. The characters were a little annoying and mildly entertaining at best. Every point of view you see is through the camera he/she is using throughout the film. It takes some time for things to get rolling, building suspense, but the pay off in certain scenes didn’t really pay at all. And waiting for something I was hoping for started to become more and more frustrating as it progressed. On the bright side, this movie was short (90+ minutes) and definitely kept my attention, even through the anticlimactic scenes. I feel like I would have liked it more if I watched it at home….and I’d also be a few dollars richer. As an indie flick, yeah I can dig it for what it is I guess, but major motion picture? not so sure about that. (2/5)

1/5