Recommendations: November 30

To be honest, there really isn't anything coming out this week that I'm all that interested in seeing, and thus recommending to you.  There's a lot already out, however, so if you haven't seen them yet, check out any one of this week's box office top ten: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Skyfall, Lincoln, Rise of the Guardians, Life of Pi, Wreck-It Ralph, Red Dawn, Flight, Silver Linings Playbook, or Argo.  Some of these I've already checked out, others I haven't seen yet, but I believe I have recommended them all.

Men in Black 3 - The latest installment in this alien movie franchise, MIB3 deals with time travel and really surprised me.  It's a lot better than I was expecting it to be, and if you haven't checked it out yet and want something easy to watch I'd say check it out now.

ParaNorman - I didn't recommend this the first time round, because the commercials annoyed me and I decided that I didn't want to see it.  Still a bit on the fence about it, but I've been told that it's really good.

Sparkle - There was one good thing about this movie, the music.  That was always the best part about a Whitney Houston movie, so I guess it's fitting that her last film should be no exception.  I just kind of wish that the rest of it had been better.

Lawless - This one actually made Sparkle look good, so there's that.  There's a few good action sequences too.  Check it out if you want a mindless action flick, although it's not too actiony.  I think the big problem here was an over use of Shia LaBeouf and an under use of Gary Oldman.  Never under use Gary Oldman.

Step Up Revolution - This movie was awesome! I loved it! Okay, so the plot is lame and ridiculous, but the dancing is great and why else would you go to a Step Up movie?

The Colour of Magic - This past week author Terry Pratchett won an Emmy for his documentary program "Choosing to Die," so I figured I'd celebrate by recommending Prachett's first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic.  This novel introduces us to the Discworld and the characters of Rincewind, Twoflower, and The Luggage - Luggage being my favourite of the Discworld characters.

Step Up Revolution (2012)

Starring: Kathryn McCormick, Ryan Guzman, Misha Gabriel, Peter Gallagher

Director: Scott Speer

Genre: Drama, Romance, Music

Rating: C

Over the course of four movies the Step Up franchise has shown us how the power of dance can overcome all of the world's evils: poverty, evil overbearing parental figures, and poverty.  What?  There are no other evils in the world, and dancing of course solves all.

Step Up Revolution takes the franchise out of New York and into Miami.  Here longtime friends Sean (Guzman) and Eddie (Gabriel) have formed a flash mob dance group, called The Mob.  The group is part of some sort of Youtube contest, where the first video to get to ten million hits whens a butt load of money.  Enter Emily Anderson (McCormick), the daughter of real-estate tycoon Bill Anderson (Gallagher).  Bill is trying to buy up a lot of land in Miami where the Mob's community lives so that he can build a new fancy hotel.  The Mob is against this and as is Emily - Emily dreams of being a dancer, while her father is trying to push her into entering into business with him.  She chooses dance, and in doing so begins to help The Mob politicize their dance, and embarks on a relationship with Sean.

You don't go to a Step Up movie for the plot.  Really, the plot's been some variation of the same thing for the last three movies (which in turn were only a twist of the plot in the first movie), and the actors are hired more for their dance ability than their acting. Their dance ability, by the way, is awesome.  I mean it, some of these people are phenomenal dancers and the stuff that they do just blows your mind.  In each of the Step Up movies there's one dance that just amazes you - in this one my favourite was when they flash mob the art gallery (and the way the curator reacts made me think that the group could have regularly done that and it'd be fine).  The movie is worth checking out for that one scene.  I did, however, have a problem with the 3D in this movie; it looked a bit shoddy at parts and made some of the shooting a bit shaky.  When the important part about a movie is the dancing it's kind of a bad thing when the effects added to it really take away from said dancing.

What else to say about this movie... the acting is not that great.  This is the first movie for the two leads, McCormick and Guzman, and the first major role for Gabriel, so I guess you can't really expect too much.  I wasn't disappointed in them so much as I was disappointed in Peter Gallagher.  The rest of the cast was a bunch of dancers just venturing into the acting scene.  Peter Gallagher's been around for awhile now and I kind of wonder why he does movies like this - kind of, until I look at his actual filmography and see that most of his movies aren't exactly blockbusters.  Peter, really, just say no to sequels.

Recommendations: July 27

Step Up Revolution - The fourth instalment in the Step Up franchise many people have got to be wondering just how the hell this film even got made.  I, on the other hand, am really excited to see this movie.  The plot will be shit, the acting will be shit, but the dancing will be awesome.

Ruby Sparks - While working on his latest novel, a struggling novelist creates his dream girl - who comes to life.  Somehow this movie sounds like a romantic comedy version of Ted, but I'm thinking it could be good.  Or really bad.  One of the two.

Killer Joe -A guy plots a hit on his mother so that he can collect the insurance money and pay off his debt.  Despite it's current limited release it's starring a number of big names and is already being predicted for award talk, so it's sparked my interest.

I've been trying to suggest DVDs that are either new releases or re-releases the week that I recommend them.  This week, there's really nothing out, at least not that I'd want to recommend, so I'm pulling one off of the shelf.  Check out A Knight's Tale, an older movie, but still a good one.  Heath Ledger was one of my favourite actors, and this movie has always been one of my favourites of his roles.

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger's first book, The Time Traveler's Wife isn't for everyone.  It jumps around a lot and to some can be hard to follow.  But it's awesome.  Just about every minute of it.  You should read this, regardless of whether you like sci-fi, romance, or fantasy.  It's just that good.