One of the movies you simply must see is the Big Lebowski.

TBL is about ‘The Dude’, a lowlife slacker from California who gets involved with a kidnapping after some gangsters piss on his rug. Together with his two sidekicks he attempts to solve the mystery while pondering life’s mysteries and getting high.

Here’s a clip for you.

Protip: Don’t fuck with the Jesus.

I’ve watched Terminator Salvation today. Terminator Salvation is a film continueing the Terminator saga where a U.S. designed AI takes it upon itself to release global armagedon on humanity. The Terminator saga relies on time travel, so prepare for a headache after reading this review.

In the unlikely event of you not having seen any of the Terminator movies, here’s a quick synopsis: John Connor has spent his whole life running from robots sent back in time to kill him and his mother and father. These robots have been sent by a shadowy artificial intelligence from the future known as Skynet. Skynet will in the future take over the world and cause nuclear war to wipe the human race off the face of the earth called Judgement Day.

In this – for lack of a better word – episode John (played by Christian Bale) is leader of the resistance on Earth after Judgement Day and has to prevent Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) from being killed so he can send Kyle back in time to rescue his mother from the AI’s time travelling robots and become his father (see the original Terminator movie for this). With the help of a renegade robot (Sam Worthington) and a fighter pilot (Moon Bloodgood) he must save the human race from total extinction at the hands of Skynet.

Despite the nice Fallout-esque landscapes and pretty decent storyline this is what I learned:

1. People have perfect teeth in a future of post apocalyptic destruction.
2. Skynet controls the planet but apparently has forgotten to use satellites to locate the resistance.
3. Skynet is apparently a 3 year old with no sense of security or security protocols. What AI genius would leave their newest prototype robot without a fail-safe inside them?
4. Nuclear explosions in the future apparently haven’t got the flash any more after detonation.
5. They can do a heart transplant in the middle of nowhere. Possibly with a spoon.

All in all not a bad movie, but it could’ve been done better. The action sequences are spectacular and the storyline progresses much better than the previous ‘episode’ T3: Rise of the Machines.

Overall score: 7/10

Angels and Demons is a sequel to the Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, Ewan “ObiWan” McGregor and Ayelet Zurer. It is based (again) on a book by Dan Brown.

The movie is about murder and intrigue in the Vatican. Tom Hanks plays the character of symbologist Robert Langdon who is contacted by the Vatican to prevent the murders of prominent clergy by the Illuminati, who have hatched a plot to destroy the Vatican. He is teamed up with Vittoria Vetra (played by Ayelet Zurer). Ewan McGregor plays the role of a young Camerlengo (personal assistant) of the late pope John Paul II, and the movie is appropriately set just after the death of the pope. Ewan, Tom and Ayelet have to solve the murders before the Illuminati succeed in destroying the Vatican in the name of science.

Overall the movie isn’t bad, but that’s only because Tom Hanks is such a formidable actor that he can carry the whole movie. Ewan McGregor overstates his role as the priest, coming across as unreal and badly cast. Ms. Zurer has her moments, but overall doesn’t actually carry off her part of physicist too well. The movie tries to show the discord between science and religion but comes across as a pandering tourist brochure for the Vatican.

If you like historical fiction, it’s quite nice but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it again.
Overall score: 5/10