3 Cancelled/Ended TV Dramas That You Should Be Watching

This is a continuation of my previous post entitles 3 Current TV Dramas That You Should Be Watching. This post focuses on cancelled or ended TV shows.

3. House MD

Although I'm disappointed that they didn't have the guts to end the series the way that they should've, this show almost always managed to keep my attention.  Hugh Laurie was perfect as the eccentric Dr. House, and Olivia Wilde was just straight up fine.  The stories were usually pretty interesting (and I've been told that they're remarkably accurate by an old roommate who was in pre-med at the time), but my favorite aspect of the series was the witty dialogue.  Listening to House belittle his friends and co-workers was the highlight of my week for 8 years.
House MD isn't on Netflix, which sucks.... But you can download it off of Amazon Instant here.

2. Firefly

A lot of you have probably heard about Joss Whedon's cult series Firefly or maybe his follow-up movie Serenity. If you haven't seen these yet, I would highly recommend watching them.  There's only 14 episodes in the entire series, and then a 2 hour movie. You could hammer through the whole thing in a few days if you live a sad life where you can spend 6 hours a day in front of a TV (I know that I do). The whole western/space mash-up was unsettling at first, but within a few episodes I was already warming up to it. By the time you finish Serenity, you'll be wishing that there was more.
Firefly and Serenity are both on Netflix right now.

1. Deadwood

It may be a little premature for me to suggest this series, since I only discovered it about a month ago. Even though I haven't even finished the first season, I'm already blown away by this show.  The characters are so complicated and just plain messed up. When I started watching it, I was (foolishly) expecting a typical western in a TV show format - gunfights, good vs evil, etc. What I got was a brilliant show about civilization coming to the wild west, and the struggle of the people living in Deadwood, SD who are trying to adapt. I have never been as attached to fictional characters as I am right now. The acting is near flawless (Powers Boothe as Cy Tolliver is possibly the most mind blowing performance I have ever witnessed in television), and the story somehow keeps me on the edge of my seat with minimal action. Watch this show. You Won't regret it.
Deadwood is available on Amazon Instant here. 

Bonus - The one upcoming TV series that I couldn't be more excited about

Has anybody else noticed that pirates don't get the attention they deserve in film? Look at this list. The only mainstream movies from the 21st century are the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Maybe it's just because I'm nostalgic from spending a huge portion of my childhood doing this, but I think pirates are the coolest thing ever, and we need more of them in film. Anyway, apparently NBC has approved a series called Crossbones about the life of Edward Teach. I'm not sure about their choice of John Malkovich to play Blackbeard, and I'd rather see it aired on a premium channel such as HBO or Showtime, but I'm still hopeful. If this project is done right, maybe it will summon in a new era of pirate movies and television.

3 Current TV Dramas That You Should Be Watching

This was originally one post, but I'm breaking it out into two - the first will list three current TV shows, while the second will post three TV shows that are no longer on air.

3. Vikings

Like many people, I was slightly wary of History Channel's first scripted programming.  I was also pleasantly surprised.  This is a fantastic show about Norse legend Ragnar Lodbrok and his family.  If you aren't familiar with his story, I would recommend not doing any research on him.  There's no way of knowing how closely the series will reflect traditional Viking lore, but it may be better to play it safe to avoid any spoilers.  Regardless, this is an intriguing new series that gives some fascinating (although maybe not always 100% accurate) insight into a culture that seems to be underutilized by modern film and television. 

The series will return for a second season sometime in 2014 on History Channel.
 

2. The Walking Dead

This show is great.  I love a good zombie movie every now and then, and this delivers just enough zombie action every week to keep me interested.  The pace seems to dip a bit every now and then, but it always manages to pick itself back up.  I do have to point out though, that they manage to kill off all of the characters that I like while keeping all the awful ones.

The series will return for a fourth season in October 2013 on AMC.

1. Game of Thrones

If you haven't seen any Game of Thrones yet, you're probably sick of hearing about how awesome it is and having people try to get you to watch it.  Stop reading right now and watch it.  The reason your friends are telling you to watch it is because they love you.  The acting is incredible, the special effects are stunning for television, and the story (based on George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire) is absolutely breathtaking at times.  If you only watch one TV show at a time, this should be that show.

The series will return for a fourth season in Spring 2014 on HBO.

The 5 Most Mind Blowing Plot Twists in Film

Nothing is more satisfying to me in a movie than an insane plot twist that I never saw coming.  As much as we love to be able to guess the ending of a film, something inside of us loves to be surprised.

Major spoilers ahead - if you haven't seen any of these movies, leave this page immediately and watch them.

5. Star Wars Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
I'm going to start with a cinematic classic, one that doesn't even seem like a plot twist anymore. I first watched the movie when I was 8 or 9, and I knew going into it that Vader was really Anakin Skywalker.  The movie had already been out for 11 years when I was born, so I think it's safe to say that almost nobody in my generation didn't know what was coming in that iconic scene.  If you wasted your time doing the math, you now know that I turned 8 in 1999 - the same year that The Phantom Menace was released.  While the hype around this movie did nothing to help shelter me from potential spoilers, can you imagine growing up post episode 3?  Kids these days have even less of a chance than I did to have their minds blown when Vader reveals his true identity to his son.

4. Memento (2000)
In the immortal words of Michael Scott: "Looks like I'm the killer. You never expect that you're the killer. It's a great twist. Great twist."  Seriously though, my mind was already hemorrhaging blood from the insanely complicated plot structure, and when Jonathan Nolan dropped this bomb on me, my brain literally exploded out of both sides of my skull (in the figurative sense).  If you haven't seen this movie yet, I would recommend watching it alone.  Having your idiot roommate talking through the whole movie will absolutely ruin the movie (looking at you, Sauder).

3. Fight Club (1999)
This is another classic, and while it's hardly the first time that we've seen this plot twist in film (or last), it may be my personal favorite.  I actually predicted this twist (only because I had literally just finished reading a book with almost the exact same ending - even down to the multiple personalities holding each other at gunpoint), but I was still very impressed with the way they pulled it off.  Even if you already know the twist, this movie is worth a watch.  Who hasn't considered starting their own fight club?

2. The Sixth Sense (1999)
This may be one of the most famous plot twists on this list (aside from the first).  Everybody knows the twist to this one, even if they haven't seen it.  Regardless of how well known the ending is, you can't deny how great it is.  Shyamalan's film quality has suffered since then, but we have this movie to serve as a reminder of how great he once was.  Seriously, watch this movie twice.  You'll be impressed at how different it is the second time.

1. The Prestige (2006)
This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and for good reason.  On paper, it's about as perfect as it can get - written by Jonathan Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, David Bowie, Andy Serkis, etc.  Seriously, this movie was destined to be fantastic, and it had no problem following through on that promise.  If you only watch one movie twice in your lifetime, it needs to be this one.  I won't even reveal the twist to this one, in case somebody is ignorantly reading through these before watching them.  Watch this movie, and it will blow your mind - guaranteed. "Are you watching closely?"

Honorable Mention
Citizen Kane (1941), Psycho (1960), Planet of the Apes (1968), The Sting (1973), Unbreakable (2000), Secret Window (2004), Shutter Island (2010)

My 5 Favorite Hans Zimmer Scores

The score of a movie is an incredibly important aspect of a film that goes unnoticed by many people, but is subconsciously vital to their appreciation of the movie.  As far as composers go, Hans Zimmer is by far my favorite.  His scores brilliantly accent aspects of the film that always make me appreciate a great movie even more.  If you aren't familiar with any of these scores mentioned, I would recommend giving them all a listen.

Note: This list is based off of how much I enjoy listening to the score by itself. The score of Inception worked very well with the movie, but it is too subtle for me enjoy without the movie for the most part.  Any scores that I regard in this way are all listed with the honorable mentions at the end.

5. Sherlock Holmes
This would've been a good movie even without Zimmer's touch, but his score really pushed it over the edge into fantastic in my eyes.  I loved the use of the quirky instruments to give it a "period" feel such as the cimbalom, the one and only Experibass, and broken pianos.  As great as Zimmer's music may be, the musical high point of the film may actually be the use of The Dubliners' song The Rocky Road to Dublin in the bar fight scene.

4. Gladiator
Once again, this would've been a phenomenal movie even with a lesser composer working on the score.  In fact, I consider this to be one of my favorite movies ever.  That being said, the score that Zimmer created for this movie does a excellent job of drawing you into the movie.  In the same fashion that the Holmes score sets a "underbelly of late 19th century London" mood, Gladiator's score makes you feel like a warrior with its epic sounding themes.  Listen to The Battle and Barbarian Horde and tell me that you don't want to go grow a beard and strangle a lion with your bare hands.  Zimmer closes this score beautifully with my favorite song from the album - Now We Are Free - which has an uncannily heroic and inspiring tone to it.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The aspect which I find most impressive about this album is the way that he brought over the themes that make Pirates of the Caribbean so recognizable, while changing things enough that you don't feel like you've heard it before.  Listen to Palm Tree Escape and tell me that it isn't Pirates, yet totally different.  Rodrigo y Gabriela make this score what it is with their urgent flamenco guitar giving the score an unmistakably Spanish feel.  If you only listen to one track from this album, listen to Angry and Dead Again (note: if you listen to this song you will change your mind and listen to the entire album at least once).

2. Man of Steel
Before you judge me, I would like to say that I loved John Williams' classic Superman theme just as much as anyone.  I earnestly believe that Zimmer's score flawlessly embodies what a Superman movie should sound like.  In fact, if I was given one word to describe the sound of this score it would be "heroic."  Zimmer very elegantly contrasts his most recent super hero undertaking (The Dark Knight trilogy) by creating a big, bold, and inspiring sound instead of the subtle and dark music he composed for Batman.  While there are certainly low-key moments in the film that needed to be accommodated, Zimmer went all out for the action scenes (of which there were plenty).  Although there are many strong points in the album, the song that really stood out to me while watching the movie on opening night was Flight.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
How much credit Zimmer deserves for the penning of this score ad how much belongs to Klaus Badelt is beyond the scope of this article, although I will say that it clearly sounds like a Hans Zimmer piece.  Regardless, this is by far my favorite movie score of all time.  It sounds like a pirate movie should, and makes it easy to picture all the swashbuckling and plundering that your feeble imagination can handle.  I won't list any specific tracks for this one, because it's all good.  I strongly recommend listening to the album straight through.

Honorable Mentions:
The Lion King (1994), The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Last Samurai (2003), Batman Begins (2005), Pirates of the Caribbeans: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Thoughts on Going to the Movies

If you're anything like me, you have no problem with self-identifying yourself as a geek and/or nerd.  It isn't an insult, it's just who we are.  I earnestly enjoy my programming classes, and I not only know the name of Chewbacca's home planet, but I know how to spell it off the top of my head.  In the grand scheme of things, I would probably be considered a light weight by "real" nerds who I'm sure know all about the (fictional) soil composition of Alderaan (probably).  Compared to the average human though, I could be considered quite nerdy just based on the fact that I find it more relaxing to navigate Linux through a terminal than use Windows or Mac's GUI.

My point is that while others may find it useful to categorize nerds through tangible identifiers such as big glasses, weak arms, white skin, no social skills (not to be confused with hipsters), we self-identify by what we know/what we like to do.  Because our knowledge and skill sets are such a large part of our identity, it's something that we take quite a bit of pride in.  It's important for us to be smarter (or at least as smart) than anyone else in any given situation.  I believe that competition drives innovation and productivity, so this can be a great thing.  On the other hand though, this can also cause a mob mentality of cynicism and condescension.

While there's nothing wrong with being cynical, I believe that it's more beneficial in today's world than being naive, it can be counter productive when people are constantly try to be the "most" cynical.  "Oh, you think the iPhone 6 will be cool? I think it'll suck. You must be stupid to be so optimistic."  "You liked Prometheus?  You must be stupid to not realize how bad it is.  Let me send you links to all the websites that told me what to think about it."

See?  This post really is about movies after all.  A good or bad movies is completely subjective, and depends on so many variables that we shouldn't pretend to have the final word.  I loved The Marine with John Cena.  Was it an awful movie? Kind of.  I've seen it countless times, and I still have no idea why Cena killed everybody - because the plot is awful.  I like it because it's fun to watch Cena throw people through walls.  Some people love indy movies, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Apparently it's a thing for men to like My Little Pony (this is actually too far, now you're just begging for attention).  My point is that we should be going to movies to enjoy them - not because we're looking for everything wrong in the movie so we can impress our friends with how cynical we are.  If you want a movie without plot holes, then why the heck are you watching a Die Hard movie?

Online Store

We have a few items in our online store hosted by CafePress.  You can find these items by following this link:

http://www.cafepress.com/turbadieselmovies

Currently, only the following items are available:

Mousepad - $13.19
"Keep your mouse rolling in style on our durable cloth top mousepad. A great gift for geeks, gamers, or anyone with a computer. Rubber backing prevents the mousepad from sliding. Machine washable." - Description from CafePress

Logo T-Shirt - $19.19
"Our tagless, ultra-soft premium cotton light t-shirt offers comfort, durability, and less shrinkage. With a wide range of size choices from Small to 4XL, men and women of all shapes and sizes will find their perfect fit. This light t-shirt is not only fashionable with jeans or pants, but also is perfect for lounging around in your sweats or pajamas." - Description from CafePress

Logo Mug - $13.19
"The perfect size for your favorite morning beverage or late night brew. Large, easy-grip handle. Treat yourself or give as a gift to someone special."  - Description from CafePress

However, I would like to get more items up if people actually buy these.  I'm considering buying all three for myself as well.

The logo on all three items will become our official logo.  It was designed by a good friends of mine, who will be working for us as a graphic artist as well as a reviewer.

As always, we'd be happy to know what you think about our content.  Feel free to contact us at turbadieselmovies@gmail.com

Get to Know Us

I've posted quite a bit in the week since I've started this blog (at least it seems like a lot to me).  To make it easier for potential readers to skim past the fat and find the posts that they actually want, I'm doing a quick round-up of the posts that help you get to know us.

About Us

This was a quick little post about who I am, as well as a brief overview of what Turbadiesel Movies is about.    I tried to quickly explain my vision for Turbadiesel as editor-in-chief, and why I feel like it applies.

3 Things That Turbadiesel Movies Should Accomplish Series

In these posts, I explained the three things that are most important to me in starting this site.  These are our high-level goals as a group, and what we hope will be the reason that people choose us over other reviewers.

Part 1

Goal number one is "A place where the nerds among us can gather in judgement-free peace and share opinions."  It angers me how poorly people tend to argue.  I don't believe that people are unable to make strong arguments - although many can't.  No, I believe that the root is in people's counter arguments.  One enlightened person will try to make a genuine argument, and is then mobbed by weaker minded individuals who earnestly believe that the purpose of argument is to make somebody else look stupid, not to gain knowledge.

Part 2
Goal number two is "Efficient way to access information quickly."  I'm a student with a job and (sometimes) a social life.  I'm always busy, and sometimes I just don't have time to do things.  Reading movie reviews is a pretty low priority of mine, but I still want to know whether or not I'll enjoy a movie before spending money on it (I'm a college student, remember?).  This goal is all about our quick movie factor ratings.

Part 3
Goal number three is "Multiple professional opinions in one location."  I never read just one review for a movie I want to see.  If I read one from a person who hated it, I go look for another reviewer who liked it and vice versa.  Not that we want readers to only look at our reviews, but this should make that process easier on them.

Turbadiesel Movies Website

Just a reminder that our website is online - albeit mostly empty - and can be found at the following address:

http://turbadiesel.webs.com

The website will be home to all of the content that we produce, as this blog is more of a production journal than anything else.  As soon as we have some content ready for reading, we will create a reviews section of the website and begin posting them.  As I've said before, reviews will be sporadic for awhile.  We have no idea what kind of reception we will be getting, and it seems pointless to keep posting if nobody is reading our reviews.  If you like what we're doing, feel free to say so, and we may keep it going.  This website began as a school project, but is an idea that we have been throwing around for years.  We would love to continue this site well beyond the duration of the project, and continue to improve on it.  Ideally, we'd like to start providing our readers with reviews in time for them to be read before the premiere.  Obviously, we would have to establish ourselves as a legitimate source of movie reviews first, but that is our ultimate goal.  If it seems that nobody is interested in Turbadiesel Movies though, we'll try to keep it afloat.  However, we're well aware that sometimes, you just have to let your pet projects die quietly in the dark.
As always, we can be contacted though comments here on the blog, on Google+, and at turbadieselmovies@gmail.com.  Let us know what you think, and we'll do our best to accommodate your needs.

Oblivion on DVD

Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but Oblivion has definitely been one of my favorite movies of 2013.  This sci-fi epic will be released on DVD on August 6th of this year, and is currently available to pre-order on Amazon.  The following link is to a Blu-ray, DVD, digital, and Ultra-Violet copy for $23.99.

http://amzn.com/B008JFUO4U

The movie is set on a post-apocalyptic earth where Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough are among the last people on Earth, after most of the planet has been destroyed in an alien war.  They are tasked with maintaining the equipment that is harvesting the last of Earth's water before they are able to join the rest of humanity who has fled Titian - one of Saturn's moons - which is actually one of the most likely locations for future colonization of the outer solar system.  This post isn't meant to be a synopsis or a review, so I'll keep this brief.  I will, however, compliment Joseph Kosinski (Kosinski is responsible for writing the graphic novel that the film is based on, as well as directing and producing it) on cleverly making me think I had the movie figured out and then slap me repeatedly in the face with his twists.  Although the twists seemed very generic and simple, I enjoyed them quite a bit more than I would've thought.  It may not be mind-blowing on the level of a Christopher Nolan movie, but it also wasn't a mindless sci-fi movie either.

3 Things That Turbadiesel Movies Should Accomplish (Part 3)

The conclusion to my three part series on the high level goals of Turbadiesel Movies.  This final goal is the "original" goal, if you will.  This is the idea I had that originally made me want to create a site like this.

  3. Multiple "professional" opinions in one location

I mentioned this in a previous post, and I consider it to be one of the best aspects of our reviews.  We have not yet decided how to deliver this feature, but it is our highest priority right now.  Of course, the word professional is a stretch.  We're just a couple of guys who really like to nerd out about movies, but the concept remains the same.  The format that we're currently learning towards is one main article with annotations in it.  For example, +Caleb Sauder will write a review on Nacho Libre, and praise it for how chubby and delightful Jack Black is.  Right or wrong, this will cause him to lose credibility in the eyes of anybody (such as myself) who doesn't like Jack Black.  This is called ethos in rhetoric, and while it is impossible for us to appear credible to everybody all the time, I would prefer not to lose readers just because a reviewer's opinion caused the site to lose credibility in the eyes of the reader.  Using our proposed method of annotating reviews, the disgruntled reader will be able to hover over the section of text that another reviewer chose to annotate, and read my reply, outlining why Jack Black should stick to singing and never appear in another movie again (maybe a cameo in Anchorman 2, but that's it).  This feature will hopefully accomplish three of my low level goals for Turbadiesel Movies (and for life):

1. Discredit +Caleb Sauder - only good can come from this.
2. Establish ethos for myself - a nice perk, but less important than number one
3. Maintain the credibility of Turbadiesel Movies as a whole

This wraps up my three part series on my goals for this site.  As always, feel free to email us at turbadieselmovies@gmail.com with any comments or suggestions.

Man of Steel Criticisms

I'm going to take a break from my series on the goals of Turbadiesel Movies to point out the exemplary work of Huffington Post's Jeff Sorensen.  It seems that there has been quite a bit of complaints about Zach Snyder's Superman reboot - Man of Steel (which happens to be my favorite film of the year thus far).  Sorensen not only has the fortitude to stand up to those ridiculous complaints, but he does it in a manner that (I'm assuming) will make anybody who has used any of those arguments feel like they put their foots in their mouths.

I would like to add another item to the list that always irks me.  It isn't as much one complaint as much as it's the root of many complaints.  People will make comments such as: "the music was more intense/less heroic than John Williams' score," "his suit looks completely different than ever before," "it wasn't Christopher Reeve" (I'm not making any of those up).  What these complaints boil down to is this: it isn't the same as it's always been.  This is an incredibly stupid argument for a very, very simple reason - it's a reboot.  Why would it make sense for a film maker to literally remake a movie shot by shot?  I've seen all the old Superman movies, so why would I shell out $6 more to see them remade?  I went to see Jurassic Park in 3D a few months ago, but that's different, because Jurassic Park has dinosaurs.  Superman has not been doing well lately. Modern audiences have been spoiled by decent film making, and they no longer want to pay to see a guy in tights put on real clothes and glasses and suddenly appear to be a completely different person to everybody else in the movie.  We want something real, gritty, and slightly dark... something that we didn't even necessarily know that we wanted until Christopher Nolan blew our collective minds in 2005 with Batman Begins.  We also saw the same thing with Spider-man.  We traded Tobey Maguire's goofy grin in for a more serious Spider-man, and suddenly it didn't completely suck (Emma Stone may have helped as well though).  The point is that change was needed for the franchise to succeed.  It's ignorant to go into a reboot of a movie/series you loved, and walk out of it complaining about all of the changes.  Even when the change isn't necessary to keep the movie from sucking, it's necessary for the film maker to not beat a dead horse.

You can read Jeff Sorensen's brilliant article here: http://tinyurl.com/ptsh2et

Quickie World War Z Review

As we are still in development, there are no movie reviews online as of now.  However, I saw World War Z over the weekend, and I'll write a quick, no padding review for it.  The purpose of this post is not to provide a movie review, but rather to give a rough idea of the focus and format of future reviews to any readers.

World War Z

Rating: 3.5/5
Faithfulness to Source Material (World War Z by Max Brooks): 1/5
Plot Continuity: 4/5
Risk of Spoilers: 3/5
After Credits: Nothing

Introduction
I would like to begin by saying that I had high expectations going into this movie.  One of my pet peeves is when people let their expectations affect their final opinion of a movie.  If you go into this movie expecting it to be like the book, you will be sorely disappointed.  I was excited to see a global scale war with zombies, complete with the tactics and socioeconomic impacts of the war finally make it to a film.  World War Z seemed to hint at this, but eventually turned into a Resident Evil movie, but with Brad Pitt running through labs instead of Milla Jovovich (even with Pitt's golden locks, I tend to find Jovovich more attractive).  This is probably due to the numerous re shoots that plagued the project.  Regardless, I was able to forgive this letdown and enjoy the movie as a generic zombie flick.  I have a feeling that the internet as a whole won't be as forgiving though.

Plot - 2/5
Don't watch this movie for the plot.  It's not that it isn't there... It isn't even because the plot is bad... It's because the plot is thin.  You can tell through the entire movie that there was something more than meets the eye, but that "something more" is never revealed.  Once again, most of it is probably on the cutting room floor.  Regardless of why the plot seemed so thin, it seemed suitable for a zombie movie, which I tend to watch for the sole purpose of watching people kill zombies.  Some of the plot devices seemed a little weak, such as *SPOILERS* the "brilliant" doctor shooting himself, India fighting undead for so long that Jerusalem actually had time to build a wall but not long enough for anybody else in the world to catch on, etc. *SPOILERS* but there were no "holes" to my knowledge.  However, this is to be expected when the plot is this thin.  There isn't really a complicated enough plot to support holes.

Characters - 1/5
As disappointed as I was that this wasn't the smart zombie movie that I had been hoping for, Director Marc Forster made a good decision to skip all of that unnecessary character development.  The first zombie kill occurs within the first 10 minutes of the movie, warning us early on that ain't nobody got time for that character development.  None of the characters except Pitt's protagonist Gerry get enough screen time to make you care about them.  In fact, one could argue that the only reason that his family exists is to give Pitt a reason to fight.  Other characters come and go, and none of them seem important enough (or complex enough) to worry about.  The good guys are the humans and the bad guys are the zombies.  What else do you need to know?

Action/Suspense - 4/5
This is where World War Z excels.  I loved watching massive hordes of zombies pile on top of each other to *SPOILERS* climb over Jerusalem's wall. *SPOILERS*  Even with the lack of attachment to the characters, you wanted to see them win.  Why?  Because the bad guys are zombies.  I like watching the good guys lose every now and then, but not when they're fighting zombies.  Because of this, the incredibly generic corridor chase scenes actually felt slightly intense.  Once again, this wasn't because you wanted Pitt to succeed, but because you wanted the zombies to fail.  This being said, I lied about this being a typical zombie movie.  It turned into one at the end (with the previously mentioned corridor scenes), but the rest of the movie felt very much like an action movie that just happened to have zombies in it - even more so than the Resident Evil movies.  I attribute this feel to several factors, including the sheer scale of everything in the movie, the fact that a large portion of humanity is still human (and fighting back), the fact that a lot of it is outdoors and in broad daylight, and the traits of the zombies themselves (more on that later).

Final Thoughts

• I can see how they couldn't have made the movie to follow the format of the book (the story told by many different survivors to a reporter), because the whole movie would've felt choppy and it would lose its continuity.  Why not a mini series though?  Each episode could focus on a different character, and they could develop a large scale arc over time.  Paramount is already planning a sequel, because they don't care what I think, but I still like the idea.
• I mentioned already, but I love these zombies.  I like the idea of the fast and nearly indestructible zombies with a hive mind.  I find it frighting on a whole other level.  While normal zombies scare us because they can mob us slowly and eat our brains, these zombies scare us because they can sprint after us, jump off buildings to grab at our helicopter, work together to climb massive structures, and then eat our brains.  They're faster than us, stronger than us, and when it comes down to it, they work together better than us.
• I don't like how fast they turn.  Twelve seconds?  I can't say why I don't like it, but it bothers me.
• Why wasn't Emma Stone in this?  We already know that she looks great killing zombies, so who wouldn't pay to see it happen again?

3 Things That Turbadiesel Movies Should Accomplish (Part 2)

This is a continuation of my previous post highlighting my three goals for Turbadiesel Movies.

  2. Efficient way to access relevant information quickly

I can't be the only one who hates spending time skimming through multiple movie reviews in searching for a specific piece of information.  I have several summary items in mind, but hopefully readers will offer suggestions for more items they would like to be added.  The items that I'm currently planning on including are as follows:

1. Rating - This one should be obvious.  We'll be using a five star rating system.  We have yet to decide if it should be a composite rating, or the main reviewer's individual rating.
2. Accuracy - This will only apply if it was based off of source material.  We will have a scale ranging from 0 to 5 that indicates how true the movie is to its source material.
3. After the credits - An indicator that lets the reader know whether or not they should sit through 10 minutes of credits to see who the villain in the sequel will be.
4. Spoilers - Another 0 to 5 scale based on how careful you need to be until you see the movie to avoid spoilers.  A movie like After Earth probably deserves a 0, while a movie like The Prestige earns a 5.  The more plot twists in the movie, and the more likely people are to talk about said plot twists, the higher this element will score.

In addition to these summary items, our reviews will also be highly structured so as to make similar information easy to find.  If you are familiar with our layout, you should theoretically be able to find whatever element of the review you're looking for in seconds.

3 Things That Turbadiesel Movies Should Accomplish (Part 1)

As editor-in-chief, I have several high level goals that I would like to accomplish with Turbadiesel Movies.  I believe that these goals are essential to the success of the website.  These goals have been molded by my personal experiences and frustrations, as I searched the web for similar services in vain.  My hope is that others have experienced the same frustration, and will appreciate Turbadiesel Movies for providing what they've been missing.

1. A place where the nerds among us can gather in judgement-free peace and share opinions

One of the worst things about the internet is other people.  A quick scan of the comments section of any mainstream website will prove my point.  If somebody disagrees with your opinion, it seems to be protocol to hurl insults at you instead of telling you they disagree.  I want Turbadiesel Movies to be a place that those willing to question the status quo can voice their opinion and start a civil discussion with somebody disagrees with them.  For example, Prometheus was one of my favorite films of 2012.  I would never waste my time saying that on any of the relevant web sites that I frequent, because I know I would get verbally destroyed without a chance to make my case.  My vision for Turbadiesel Movies is this: I watch a movie and hate it.  I write a scathing review and post it to the website.  Our readers are split 50/50 on whether or not the movie is any good.  A civil discussion of the pros and cons of the movie are discussed in the comments section.  Will anything be accomplished?  Probably not.  People don't like to change their minds, but it's progress.

About Us

My name is Caleb Jones, and I am the editor-in-chief for Turbadiesel Movies.  I am going into my senior year at Illinois State University where I study business information systems.  At Turbadiesel Movies, we believe that current movie review sites fail to deliver two key features that many users are searching for.  The first is speed of service.  When the credits begin to roll, and you realize that you do not know if there is anything after the credits, a simple web search can turn into something slow, complicated, and unreliable.  We want to provide you with one stop where you can quickly find relevant information when you need it.  The second is a variety of opinions.  Obviously, whether a movie is good or bad is very subjective.  To address this, we have multiple reviewers' opinions to compare and contrast.  Most of the reviewers have been going to movies (and arguing about them afterwards) with me for years, yet we all have different enough taste in movies that readers will be able to find a kindred spirit in a reviewer most of the time.  As a side note, we will not be reviewing every movie that is released.  Not only are we too understaffed for this, we believe that it would be a waste of your time as well.  We will be focusing on a niche audience so that we can better serve them.  Genres that you can expect will be action/adventure, thrillers, sci-fi, horror, etc. You can contact us at turbadieselmovies@gmail.com.