Heathers (1989)

Heathers is an interesting flick about teenage life that combines black comedy with a pinch of thriller elements. It satirizes teen suicide and how it becomes popular among students.

Simply put, Heather is apart of a heiarch of girls with the same first name. They all dress nicely, are very pretty and share the similar belief that they run the school, which is seperated into clicks that look more like cults than general groups of people.

Luckily we have Winona Ryder's character who is by far the most open minded of the Heathers, who meets the new student J.D. who ultimately convinces her that killing off the other Heathers is her best way at getting back for their two-faced actions. Only JD goes a little overboard and eventually wants Heather to help him with his scheme to blow up the school gym with everyone in it.

"Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?"

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Among the many big-name sequels of 2007, I was a little surprised when I heard Die Hard 4.0 was set to come out among the many other expected sequels. With 12 years since Die Hard: With a Vengeance was released, no one really saw this new chapter coming, especially among other June contenders like the Fantastic Four sequel or Ratatouille, not to mention the early July release for Transformers.

Live Free or Die Hard plays off of the same idea as the previous Die Hard movies, one man against impossible odds. So what could be done to expand on the Die Hard trilogy to make it more appealing? Make the odds even more impossible.

The stunts pulled off in this movie should never happen to an actual person, but as for detective John McClane, the impossible is made possible. Everything from a car flipping over onto McClain and being stopped by two cars that just happen to pull up on both sides of him, to running over a fire extinguisher to knock a sniper out of a helicopter with the water it shoots. The movie definitely delivers thrills, as well as some laughs through Matt Farrel, the panicky hacker sidekick played by Justin Long (Waiting, Accepted, and those Mac vs. PC commercials), and John's hard-nosed daughter Lucy McClain, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse, Black Christmas). Not to mention Kevin Smith's cameo as a genius hacker known as The Warlock.

Aside from a few characters who supply a good comic relief, we have our villain played by Timothy Olyphant. A man who has hired a team of hackers to pretty much turn off the power to the entire country, and hack into any information they need at all, which makes him a complete badass. Probably my favorite line in the movie is when Olyphant's character calls John McClain "a Timex watch in a digital age." I'm eager to see Olyphant's take on Hitman, which is set to come out this October.

The best feature of the movie was how this old school cop is being put against a terrorist threat of the new age. The U.S. is put through a "fire safe", which is a slow and steady process of hacking which causes the entire country to lose power and all financial records. Pure modern chaos ensues, and Bruce Willis still kicks ass.

Transformers (2007)

Let me start off by saying I was never really a fan of the original TV series. Transformers was actually just a little bit too early for my generation, and I haven't seen enough of it to make any sort of comparison between the show and this movie. Beast Wars was more my cup of tea.

This movie was a constant rush of excitement, with incredible action, jaw-dropping special effects, and gives you that "mystical bond between man and machine."

If you can accept the adrenaline rush that the film wants you to have, it’s just incredible. I could pick apart this movie and say that the story line was somewhat ridicules and all of the robots were obviously CGI for the majority of the film. But there were too many positives to outweigh the less important flaws of this perfectly good summer flick.

The film blends the heroic greatness of protective robots with modern humor, and the two mix together quite well. Shia LaBeouf's performance was among one of the many features that shine, as he played a role that any self-respecting guy can relate to. The boy who just wants to "get lucky," and believes getting a car is the only way to achieve that. Through his character, Sam Witwicky, the film ignites the same spark that only Saturday morning cartoons could give us. Sam stumbles across an old car, Bumblebee, who more than obviously decides he wants Sam as his owner at a car dealership. From that point on, the two create a friendship that adds a sort of innocence that you can only see between a boy and his robot. How the Transformers interacted with him and protected him really put you into the movie, and helps the audience create their own bond with the Transformers, all the while supporting the cause of their mission. Alongside Shia are performances by Megan Fox, who plays the teenage love interest, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, who play US soldiers in their own branch of the story, as well as several other stories that all cross paths towards to climatic final battle.

All truth be told, nobody delivers action quite like director Michael Bay. His material is over the top, which in many cases wouldn't suit certain projects. However, Transformers is a perfect outlet for what this director can do and does very well.

Lastly, one complaint I'd like to address is a problem a lot of people seemed to have while the movie was still in its production stages, which was how the Transformers looked. Many long-time fans of the series complained that they looked nothing like their original forms from the 80's cartoon. This is understandable, seeing as most movies these days are based on past writings, and the adaptation doesn't always do justice to the original material. But what a lot of people are forgetting is what happened in almost every single Transformers show/spin-off. Everything from Beast Machines to Transformers: Energon involved a process of adaptation to whatever planet the Transformers arrived on. I remember vividly what happened in Beast Wars: A great big space ship landed down on a world inhabited by no one but animals. A large radar came up from the top of the ship, and spun around, scanning the area for life. Optimus took the form of a gorilla, which changed his name to Optimus Primal, because it was one of the more dominant species that inhabited that particular planet. Thus, the alien robots from another world, landing upon this one, took the shape of what appeared to dominantly inhabit our world. What's that you ask? Vehicles (with the exception of Scorponok). Since the film takes place on our world, the Transformers appeared modern and composed of our own technology, which would explain why they appear so different. They looked about as realistic as a giant alien robot could look, and that was enough for me.

For those of you who take a very critical approach to viewing this movie, I say just go with it and enjoy the ride. How could anyone not get more bang for their buck with giant robots and massive destruction? Now that's entertainment