Last night I saw Warrior with my lady, my brother and his lady, and our friend James. Warrior is the story of two brothers from a broken home who are battling personal demons, life struggles, and their past. They use MMA to try and solve their problems. Tom Hardy (Bronson, Inception) plays the younger brother who is a former Marine who just returned from war. Joel Edgerton plays his older brother, a teacher who is struggling to keep a house over his family’s head. The two brothers find out about an MMA tournament with a grand prize of $5,000,000 and decide to train to participate.

     As the movie develops we see into the personal conflicts each man is dealing with more and more. Tommy (Hardy) is haunted by his participation in the war in the Middle East, and Brendan (Edgerton) is having trouble taking care of his family after losing his job temporarily. And on top of that both men have issues with their father who was an abusive alcoholic, but is now a born-again Catholic. As their father (Nick Nolte) tries to rebuild their trust, and his family, the boys have trouble putting their love and faith back in the man who ruined their younger lives.

     The movie was really good. Tom Hardy is one of my favorite actors and he doesn’t really play the character I felt he was going to. He’s reeling from the action in the Middle East, and he has a dark aura because of it. He’s feeling angry, guilty, and he’s an asshole for most of the film. I’ve never seen Joel Edgerton in anything before but he played his part very well also. Brendan was the perfect balance to Tommy’s brooding angst with his kind heart. He loves his family, and wants to take care of them, and does so by fighting in parking lot MMA matches until he gets a shot in the big tournament. The only thing the brother’s share is a deep-rooted hatred for their father. Brendan’s a little more open to his father’s new choices while Tommy verbally abuses him any chance he gets.

The film was full of powerful moments. The fights were awesome. You feel every punch and cringe at every slam. The dialogue, cinematography, action, and story all come through and make you feel it. It’s a heartbreaking and heartwarming story in one.

If you like good movies then you should go see this.

Peace,
Zach

The movie Memento is awesome.

I’m going to get one of Leonard’s tattoos, but I don’t know which yet. I’m leaning more towards the one on his right bicep that says, “consider the source(there’s a solid line underneath those words) memory is treachery (is underneath the solid line) ”. But like I said, I’m not 100% on that yet.

Peace,

Zach

     I saw the preview and thought, “Wow. Almost naked girls with guns fighting dragons, samurai, etc. This is going to be awesome.” Well I couldn’t have been more right!

     Aside from the movie having every and anything any nerd could ever want in film, it was fairly well written. The plot was simple, but not dumb. The simplicity didn’t make it easy to follow, it had a few twists but it also was subtle to the point where it didn’t ruin the movie. I don’t want to ruin the plot and what not so I’ll sum it up like this : The girls are imprisoned, and use their imagination as a means to escape the torment they go through on a daily basis.

     Another reason I enjoyed the movie so much is because the action scenes borrow pieces of some of my favorite genres to mix up the settings. You get a WW2-esque war scene with steam-punk zombies. You see a showdown with three concrete robot (I’m not too sure) samurai in front of an old temple. Then the movie goes cyberpunk with I Robot style cyborgs protecting a bomb on a train. And of course I can’t leave out the almost LOTR battle between knights, goblins, and a giant dragon. Sorry if you just died of nerd overload.

EDIT: One big thing I forgot to mention was that throughout the movie, there is no nudity and very little cursing. Nowadays you can’t have an action film with beautiful women and not see some boobies or hear an ample amount of expletives being thrown around. There is a good amount of cleavage, and pretty small underwear, but no nudity at all. Good marks in my book for not going the obvious, overdone, oversexual route.

Go see the movie, it’s worth it.

Have a safe weekend,

Zach

Damn.
     Heath Ledger played an amazing Joker. Can you imagine if he were still alive? Not only would we get other amazing films from him, but can you imagine the ongoing Batman movies with him as the main villain? Would’ve been incredible.

     His birthday was 4 or 5 days ago (depending on time zones), Jan. 22nd. I didn’t know him personally, but his talent will be missed.

Blessings,

Zach