It’s gotta be a hard to be a young viking… You have to be tough and be able to kill a dragon. Unfortunately, Hiccup, the son of the village chieftan, isn’t able to even pick up a hammer. His whole village survives by defending itself against the dragons that plague the island and abduct livestock. He enjoys using his mind instead of muscles to do things, so he puts his mind to work and captures the deadliest dragon of all, the night furry.
Determined to win his father’s affection, Hiccup sets out for the dragon he caught. Upon catching up with it, he realizes that killing the dragon is not such a great thing and takes pity on the creature that he took down. Hiccup spends some time with the dragon, which he named Toothless, and determines that dragons are actually nice and he realizes that fighting dragons is only useless bloodshed. This movie’s plot really unfolds as Hiccup tries to persuade his village and his father to stop and actually think before they do something wrong that can get more people killed.
Coming into the theater, I was not expecting such a great movie. It seemed like the movie was about people using their dragons to go on a fun adventure or something kiddy like that. In fact, the story is quite dark with a very mature subplot. Overall, the movie is comically put together, but it knows when to be serious. Dreamworks definitely did justice by using great action scenes and combat to capture an older audience, without the gimmicks that some children movies use like cultural references.
The music in this movie was good and matched perfectly, and the scenery was beautiful and reflected the mood of each scene as naturally as possible. This movie was wrapped up in a pretty box and topped off, to make it Dreamwork’s best animated movie. In my opinion, it’s one of the best non-Pixar CGI movies.
The movie has gained enough success and won enough awards that it has a sequel planned, and then already another sequel planned after that. Alongside those, three short films were released since 2010 and a television series planned for Cartoon Network.
Nacho Libre is a luchador (Mexican wrestler) that teams up with Esqueleto in this Nickelodeon movie, to help the orphanage that he lives in and works for that is ran by the church. Under the mask, Ignacio is a good person and devout Christian who only wants to live his dream, however, he meets a conflict between his religious views and his personal goals whenever he is told time and time again that wrestling is a sin and that the only time fighting is permitted is whenever there is a just and righteous reason behind it. But, Ignacio is determined because he knows in his heart that what he is doing is the right thing.
Ignacio was raised in the same, poor orphanage that he cooks for. He is not tired of his faith, but he is worn out by the lack of nutritious food and liveliness in the orphans drives him to start a new hobby- To start his secret life as a luchador. Of course, nearly all of the money he is making goes towards the orphans… Once he realizes that he in fact is fighting for a good cause, he becomes more determined than ever to live out his dream.
Is this movie funny? Yeah, absolutely! Jack Black is a brilliant man and his delivery is great. This movie’s humor is a lot like Napoleon Dynamite’s, except with Jack Black’s spin on it. Napoleon Dynamite simply isn’t funny to me, but Nacho Libre has a special kind of warm-hearted humor that can’t be hated. Both of the movies share many similarities, including the hipster-style music.
The film was loosely based off of the story of Fray Tomenta, (Real name Rev. Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez who is pictured to the right) – a Mexican priest-turned wrestler who entered the ring to raise money for an orphanage for over 23 years! The real-life story that this is based off of is one reason why this movie has such a harmonious plot, but one thing that makes this movie one of my absolutely all times favorites is not the plot, or catchy music, or quirky jokes… but it’s the ending. I think out of all of the movies that I’ve seen, this has one of the most inspirational, spiritual, courageous endings. This is a bold claim, but I feel that this movie’s ending is the perfect way to wrap up the kind of story-line that this movie promotes. I feel that this movie is one of the most under-rated movies of 2006 and perhaps of all time. The movie was well received as a child’s movie, but I feel like even adults can get a good message out of it.
Of course, the ending isn’t as good as Toy Story 3′s or Inglorious Basterds’ endings.
The first Movie Of The Week is Limitless, based off of the book The Dark Fields. The movie was released in March of 2011, but it wasn’t until a few months later that I actually saw the movie in a discount theater. I was not sure what to expect… The quality of the theater can sometimes ruin a good movie for me, but this movie was just way to good to be affected. I really had little interest before seeing the movie, but because the discount theater was so cheap, if I wouldn’t have liked the movie, I would not have lost much.
I was quickly captured by the art direction and movie magic, but I was hooked on the very interesting plot of the movie. If you’ve yet to see the trailer, the movie is about Eddie, a writer who just lost his source of income, his girlfriend, and long ago lost all self-respect. To express this, the movie always showed him in a dark and gritty light… Until he got a hold of NZT from a long-lost friend. NZT is a nootropic that allows the taker to have complete control over their mind. Of course, it’s mentioned that humans can only use 20% of our brains, but that’s simply a myth.
With the new-found drug, he is able to be himself, only a hundred times more efficient. He could learn French in a day if he wanted. He could play the stock markets and become wealthy. He could simply recall anything in his life- He could use bits and pieces of conversations, information from flipping through channels, or even pages of books he quickly flipped through, to make a solid piece of information. He could learn something by simply being exposed to it. With the NZT tablets, his possibilities were limitless.
However, there is a downside to this drug: If you stop using it, you will die. This serves as the main plot of the movie (though there is a side-plot) since NZT is no longer able to be created. The only guy who Eddie knew of that could supply him with more NZT to keep his life going was murdered.
If you’re interested in a good artsy-styled movie, check this one out. If you’re interested in an interesting take on the brain and our thought, check this one out. If you’re interested in some great action movies, check this one out. I think you get the point. This movie is simply great, but it was way too low under the radar and is not as well known as it deserves to be.
Welcome to crait’s Lunchbox! First of all, I’d like to tell everyone Happy new years! I’m Jonathan Holmes and I created this website to share some influences of mine. I’m a software engineer and I am always making new, free software for everyone. I’ll also be posting all the software updates for my programs here, and re-releasing some of my older games and tools here, too.
I feel like putting all of my projects into a single, organized website, I’ll be able to streamline my progress and won’t be so scatter-brained. I have a lot of interests in my life, like politics, chickens, movies, etc. So I’ll be sharing a lot of these kinds of things, also.
Along side the updates to my games, programs, graphics, and tutorials, I’ll be posting the following on a regular schedule:
Sunday – Weekly Ponder
Monday – Game Of The Week
Tuesday – Weekly Infogram
Wednesday – Movie Of The Week
Thursday – Funny video and some cool Lego stuff
Friday – Political cartoons and funny photos
Saturday – Chicken Of The Week
Also, I’ll be posting one or two songs a day. I’m really interested in a great variety of music, so I’m bound to find some cool music that you’ve yet to hear!
So, I hope you enjoy my website! If you’d like to contact me, you can reach me at crait.is@gmail.com or follow mention me on Twitter @crait. Of course, you can also directly comment on my articles that get posted!