watching movies one cup at a time

Welcome to Ice Cubes In My Coffee :: The Caffeinated Movie Guide. I love movies and I have strong opinions about all of them. When they are great, they can change your life. And when they suck, you can at least have fun ripping them to shreds. I have seen a million movies and I have a bunch of movie facts and trivia stored up in my head - it's time to share. I'm going to be filling this movie guide with reviews on an ongoing basis, building up a large library of reviews so YOU, the movie-watching public, will know what movies are essential viewing and what movies you must avoid at all costs (hint: anything with the words "Starring Dane Cook"). I will also be posting some interesting articles and lists along the way as well. So grab a cup of joe and settle in for some movie talk!
      -- Mr. Coffee

Pandorum

Starring: Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid
Director: Christian Alvart
Year of Release: 2009
Rated in cups

This is an interesting sci-fi movie set on a massive ship that has left Earth with the last remaining survivors from Earth. They are headed to an Earth-like planet far away but somewhere along the way something has gone wrong. 2 crew members woke up from hypersleep to find the ship is derelict and the crew has disappeared. Slowly they find out the truth and discover many of the ship’s survivors have mutated into monsters or have been killed by the cannibalistic creatures. It’s a dark and claustrophobic movie filled that does a pretty good job of keeping the suspense going throughout. The ending is very satisfying and overall it’s a good schi-fi flick. However it’s not great and I felt they could have pushed it a little further.

Paranormal Activity

Starring: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston
Director: Oren Peli
Year of Release: 2009
Rated in cups

This movie follows in the tradition of Blair Witch as a “found footage” video camera film depicting something that supposedly really happened. In this case it’s a “demon” tormenting a young woman and her boyfriend. What I liked about it was the very original spin on a very cliche genre. I liked the natural dialogue, and I like the disbelief of the boyfriend who seems to be determined to push his girlfriend to extremes so he can get some kick-ass video footage, presumably to immediately post to youtube and high-five his other douchebag buddies. It’s a very contemporary reaction from a generation raised on youtube overexposure, counteless reality shows, and endless horror movies that retread the same old scares. I felt the final impact of the film wasn’t as powerful as Blair Witch, but it does succeed at creating a very creepy environment that makes you tense and uncomfortable.

Definitely worth checking out.

Pirates Of The Carribean: At World’s End

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley
Director: Gore Verbinski
Year of Release: 2007
Rated in cups

It should be titled “At Idea’s End” because they are really pushing it this time. While the first two POTC movies were fun, swashbuckling adventures, this third installment veers WAY off course into an overly-complicated plot and absurd scenarios that are more distracting than entertaining.

It starts off with Jack Sparrow being dead and the evil british military dude from the second film chasing down all the pirates and killing them. I don’t remember why or how or why I should care. Jack’s friends of course go to rescue him through some weird waterfall or something. Jack is in purgatory? Limbo? Aruba? Whatever. Boring. Don’t care. I didn’t get how they got there or how they got back. Somehow Jack is alive again and all the “pirate kings” have to get together and figure out how to stop the evil british military dude. This is followed by the witch lady turning into the 50ft. woman, a big whirlpool showing up, Orlando Bloom joining the bad guys but not really cuz he joins back with the good guys but then again with the bad guys…. or something, and Keira just gets mad and yells and doesn’t know if she loves Orlando Bloom’s character but then agrees to marry him immediately. Read the rest of this entry »

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