Movie Reviews by Jeff {The Avengers}

Years of hype and movies have prepared us for this moment. Various back-stories and relationships have built in preparation for it, and now the wait is over. The Avengers is finally here and I have to say, Impressed!!

Joss Whedon has created a storyline that has the right pace to keep an audience on the edge of their seats while also keeping it steady enough to follow along with 4 previous heavy-weight leading characters. Its obvious why they chose to use Whedon for this task. He is a great talent for bringing together main characters with different strengths as shown in Buffy (I know....the vampire slayer) and Firefly. Not to mention he wrote a couple episodes of Roseanne!

The evil Loki, from Thor, who has come with a vengeance to destroy Earth. Sounds like most evil plots, but this time Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) assembles the crew to stop the Norse God with the likes of Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron-Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Yep, one bad-ass group of dudes full of good and anger at times.

The movie shows some great interaction between characters and shows the struggles a group of people must overcome to become a united front. Iron-Man has his usual comic relief moments and awesomeness. While he seems to struggle with his inner-hero at times, he shines in the group in his own right and we see why he has his own tower.

Whedon does a great job of writing Captain America and showing him to be the mega-hero he is. He is a straight up, in your face hero that doesn't back down from confrontation. He fully embodies the American spirit and can do attitude of the greatest generation.

I do believe the best character that Whedon shows in the movie is Hulk. After 2 movies that were by all means blah, this movie debuts a Hulk that is actually worth watching. Ruffalo shows a side of Bruce Banner the audience really hasn't believed yet. He is dealing with a monster that has been terrorizing him for years and yet also knows the positive side to having an indestructible monster inside of you. Thor is in the movie as more of a side character and the shepherd to bring Loki back to Asgard.

Like anything, the movie is not perfect, but pretty DAMN close. I would have to say that the movie was not long enough, didn't have enough popcorn, and shouldn't have bathroom breaks!! Anyways, the 2 side characters of Hawkeye and Black Widow were actually good characters that seemed to be underdeveloped. With 6 superheroes, it's difficult to develop each individual's story. Also, It was a simple plot, but made sense for a movie that had heavy hitters coming together for the first time. Hopefully, the next one will be more character development for those secondary heroes and new ones that may arise in the sequel.

An overall great action packed adventure that has proven to be well worth the wait. The only question is will Marvel and Whedon be able to pull off a 2nd one if chosen to do so. I'm pretty sure that answer is an emphatic YES!

And finally, like every other Marvel Comics movie, don't leave early.

Movie Reviews by Jeff {The Lucky One}

We were able to spend a little more time at the theatre the past weekend. I had the opportunity to take Maddison to see The Lucky One, the latest Nicholas Sparks book to be made into a feature film. I must admit, this was not my choice of movie to go see this weekend, but I like to make the sacrifices for my babe. And I got to eat some awesome movie popcorn.

The movie stars High School Musical Alum Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling, the first movie I've seen her in. The movie starts with Logan, played by Efron, fighting in the Middle East. He does a fine enough job as a soldier moving through an urban area. After a fire fight, he comes across a photo of a girl that he takes a liking to and the men he was just talking to get blown up behind him. The photo he was looking at had just saved his life. It seems to happen a couple times where he thinks he should have died but believes having the photo is a life saver.

The ex-soldier makes his way to Louisiana, the part of the state where its so nice that anyone can find love. Schilling's character Beth lives with her grandmother and run a kennel/dog training facility. A nice touch to have her an animal lover, especially since he has a tremendously well behaved dog. Beth is probably the kindest, best woman character that has been written. She is so genuine to people and runs a dog kennel and is a great mom. She did make the mistake of getting pregnant when she was young to her quarterback boyfriend.

 Logan is facing some issues with watching many of his friends die next to him on the battlefield and wonders why he was spared to live. After coming to the town and starting work at Beth's dog kennel, he wonders if he should tell her about the photo he found and tell her why he really came or to just keep working and seeing where his relationship with Beth will go.

Beth's wise, sassy grandma has some opinions on their relationship through the movie. Played by Blythe Danner, she keeps pushing Beth towards finding love and becoming a happy person again. This sort of sage grandma has been done time and time again, but always seems to catch likeability with the audiences. 

Beth's ex-husband and father of her son, is a local cop who is also a drunk, abusive person to be around. His jealousy rampages through the town as Logan and Beth's love becomes stronger throughout the movie.

This movie is everything you would figure to see in a Nicholas Sparks movie. The love story is so fantastic that my wife beats me afterwards and wonders why I'm not like that. It will prove to be loved by many young girls around the country, and many young men will be dragged to this movie too. The movie is very nice to look at and to go to for a date, but the story is so far fetched that it ruins it for me.

Movie Reviews by Jeff {Hunger Games}

I have been given the task and the honor of being Maddison's official Stumpf Adventure Movie Critic. As her loving husband, I will accept this task with ease. I love discussing movies and asking others for their opinions, so please feel free to chime in with any thoughts about the movies or the reviews I write for them.

For my first assignment, we went to the local Marcus Cinemas to watch the year's 1st blockbuster, The Hunger Games. I have to admit and first say that I did not read the book series and did not understand the great hype for the movie before its release. There was mass hysteria for the movie and no one has even seen one yet. How can a group of people, mainly YA's, be so excited for something that has no history yet. Anyways, I will try to review the movie from a perspective of watching only the movies and having no knowledge of the back story in the books.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERTS WILL BE COMING, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN MOVIE AND DO NOT WISH TO KNOW PLOT, CHARACTERS, ETC.. DO NOT PROCEED

We are told in the beginning credits that a rebellion happened 74 years ago and the districts lost the fight to the Capitol and for now on they must send 2 children to fight in the hunger games every year.

The movie starts out in a dreary, impoverished part of the world. The first thing that I noticed off the bat was the immediate shakiness of the camera. This kind of camera work and direction is a very popular style right now and I think is also becoming very over-used. I think that many movies use this style brilliantly, like Project-X.

We are taken through a town that we know is a working town and the people seem to be sad and poor.  Immediately we are introduced to the main character and her peeps. I explained to Maddison that she for sure has the coolest jacket District 12 and a sweet bow and arrow set for such terrible living situation. She meets up with her man-friend in the woods and they discuss their life situation and the impending lottery pick for the hunger games.

After returning from the woods, the drawing is conducted by a very unusually dressed lady, who appears to be from the Capitol because the whole district is dressed in raggedy grey/black clothes and she is dressed vibrantly. Of course the main girl, Katniss tells her baby sister that she won't get picked because her name is in the pot only one time. FORESHADOWING!! Believe it or not she gets picked and then Katniss volunteers as tribute for her sister. I'm thinking she wanted some better targets than squirrels to shoot her bow at. A boy is picked from the crowd as well and they prepare to leave for the Capitol.

As the two go to the Capitol, they meet up on the train with their mentor for the games. He is somewhat of a drunk and Woody Harrelson is wearing a pretty good wig for his character to have a full head of hair. The boy picked, Peeta, is happy to gain some wisdom from the drunkard but Katniss is at first disgusted by him.

They make it to the Capitol and this is when I think the movie got cheesy. Lenny Kravitz showed up as the stylist for the 2 from District 12 and gave them a little spark to look awesome in front of all the sponsors and viewers and the annual parade before the games. Yep, they were on fire riding a chariot in the parade. This was not so crazy in mind, but I feel that the movie went down a little in this sequence. The computer graphics and the background crowds were not done well and detail was not present for me. When they were riding in the chariots, the areas around their bodies were blurry and that was probably the cheapest looking part of the film.

Stanley Tucci made an appearance as the host of the Hunger Games TV show. I liked the aspect of how the games were shown to the Capitol population as a survivor show and not as a slaughter of children. That probably sounds bad, but eh... Tucci had blue hair making him normal for the city. The whole city was the opposite of what the outlying districts were.

The movie's plot begins to thicken at this point as feelings turn from Peeta to Katniss. The people start focusing on her and I felt that he was feeling jealous. Not a good feeling to give someone when they will kill you in a few days.

The games are starting and Woody gives some good knowledge to Katniss, to not go for all the weapons and supplies, but to run. The sequence of the initial moments of the games was probably the best for me. The shaky camera came back, but there was more action. Most the idiots that went for the weapons were killed by the older kids. Maddiosn said that the she thinks the camera was shaky so the fight scene wouldn't be so gruesome and keep its PG-13 rating. I told her that I thought it was shaky so the audience would become more involved in the picture and get a feeling of action and grittiness, but eh....

The whole games is my favorite because the movie is better made during this time. The scenes that took place in the Capitol had to be CG heavy and I hate CG heavy environments. I enjoyed this part because there was so much more action and killing.

By the end of the games, both kids from district 12 were able to survive because they were in love and playing it up for the reality show. The people of the Capitol wanted to see the couple live and be in love. I guess that's good, because I didn't expect him to die and have more movies coming. How else will there be a love triangle in the future. I watched Twilight, I know how this ends.

The end played out like the next movies are going to be the uprising of the districts, and while that is happening, a love triangle will happen and Katniss will have no idea who to choose. I haven't read the books, so I'm going to guess that 1 of them WILL die in the future, and she'll end up with the other one. Kind of like Pearl Harbor, remember??

All in all, I think that the movie was pretty good, not worth the hype though. It's definitely made to be a franchise, and the demographic targeted for this movie will keep watching because they were told they are supposed to like these movies. I'll keep watching because I can't help it, I have to know what everyone knows in movies.

JEFF GIVES