For those of you who pay any attention to my postings then you may have noticed that there has apparently been little going on in my life, cuz let’s face it, we are not all as cool as Zac.  I mean, I didn’t even have one thing to put in a suggestion box last week. Well I can explain. You see, this little game came out a couple of weeks ago called Mass Effect 2, which you may have heard something about. Anyway, for the most part my waking hours not dedicated to “healthy” activities like school, sports, and eating (well, and TV, but I don’t think my attempts to spin that one will make it “healthy”) have gone to fighting baddies throughout the universe. With that said, I did manage to slip two movies in there a while back that deserve to have a few words said about them.

Dreamworks’ Monsters vs Aliens is a fun animated film that gets a lot of laughs, but it isn’t strong enough to take out the competition in the animation film genre. With that said, it does have a style that is unique enough to itself but does not venture out too far past the audiences comfort level with what looks “normal,” the characters have numerous hilarious lines and rarely get annoying (yeah, I am talking to you B.O.B. You’re “I’m dumb as a rock” routine does eventually get old), and they are voiced by some amazing actors, from Reese Witherspoon as Susan, Seth Rogen as the amorphous Jell-O jiggler B.O.B., Hugh Laurie as the non-evil mad scientist Dr. Cockroach, Will Arnett as the out-of-practice sea monster The Missing Link, Rainn Wilson as the evil alien Gallaxhar, Paul Rudd as Susan’s fiancé, and my favorite, Stephen Colbert as the President. And the story of the world’s secret monsters being exploited to protect Earth from an evil alien is entertaining enough to sustain an entire film. Simple, but entertaining. The main problem is that it doesn’t have the depth of all of the Disney / Pixar films that I have become accustomed to.

Final Grade: B

In a nutshell Moon is an extraordinary film in all aspects, from design to story. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a man who is nearing the end of his 3-year solo mission on the moon, mining the rocks for minerals that are now used back on Earth. With only himself and a talking box with an affinity for emoticons (voiced by Kevin Spacey, who makes a great, but questionably motivated robot) for company it doesn’t take a psychologist to figure out that he’s probably going to go a little stir crazy, and maybe a little actual crazy, including seeing things that aren’t there. Eventually Sam comes across a man who looks identical to himself and questions begin to be thrown around about what the heck is really going on up there. And though not all of these questions presented are answered by the end of the film and my intrigue leaves me slightly frustrated, it is hardly enough to lesson this film. For starters, Rockwell’s performances in multiple roles with vastly different personalities are amazing and it is great to see him play off himself when you know there aren’t really two of them there. I mean, sure Lindsay Lohan did it in The Parent Trap, but who are we kidding, Rockwell’s performance is genius. And all the design aspects, from the sets, models, visual effects, and music are awe inspiring, which when mixed with the compositions of the shots themselves more often than not work to further the feeling of isolation Sam must be experiencing.

Final Grade: A