Netflix Instant: Movie & TV Picks

 This week's Netflix post is a little bit on the more mainstream side of things as far as Netflix is considered but it doesn't mean it's not full of good stuff! Check them out below.

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR Trailer Drops!

It's been almost ten years since the first SIN CITY film, and now directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller are back for the sequel. The first film was one of the more highly stylized comic films, and the new one looks just as intense. A DAME TO KILL will be primarily based on the second book in the Sin City series. 

Here's the synopsis:

In Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Dwight is hunted down by the only woman he ever loved, Ava Lord, and then watches his life go straight to hell. Chronologically, this story takes place prior to “The Big Fat Kill” (featured in the film Frank Miller’s Sin City) and explains how Dwight came to have a dramatically different face. 

Check out the trailer after the break.

Cobra Hates On European Capitals In The New GI: JOE - RETALIATION Trailer

Javi here. Not going to lie, I think I am more excited for G.I.JOE: RETALIATION more than any other movie this summer. That's not to say that this will be better than THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, but part of me is freaking out that the Bat has been hyped up too much, and the movie will never live up to it. This movie, on the other hand, can only go up. I'm a G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA apologists. I believe it was the movie goofy and ridiculous movie that TRANSFORMERS should have been. And now with director John Chu's insane looking, ninja-filled actionfest, I am just ecstatic. Now, thanks to Machinima and via Badass Digest, we have the newest trailer. about it. You can see the trailer after the break.

Second THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Trailer Is Here

Javi here. So here is the big one, the second trailer for director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, has arrived. It was attached to SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL at the midnight screenings but now has been released officially. Check out the trailer at the jump and check out the link since Apple's Quicktime site is has downloadable versions of the trailer. Many thanks to ComingSoon.Net for the high quality embed.

Check out a few of my observations after the jump. Beware of potential spoilers.

Hell yes for the day: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES teaser poster

Rumor has it the teaser trailer for THE DARK KNIGHT rises will be attached to Harry Potter this weekend. Let us hope so.

But for now enjoy and geek out a bit over the new teaser poster:

Hell yes!

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES will be released on July 20, 2012 starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES plot points revealed. Possible spoilers

This is an interesting bit of news coming from the Batman front. Seeing as how we will know very little, it's great to hear new things even if they are rumors.

Inception

Inception

Directed By: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon Levitt,

Ellen Page, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy 

Synopsis: In a world where people can go into each other's dreams,

 Cobb (DiCaprio), does one last job, where he has to implant an idea instead of stealing it,

 that will guarantee him getting home again.

Inception- He Said

Christopher Nolan is a director that has an almost Pixar-like streak of great movies under his belt.  With his latest movie, Inception, he manages to create a dense world of psychological and philosophical trickery.  Inception tells the story of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team of “dream thieves” that must undertake the most difficult job of their career in order for Cobb to be able to go home.  The premise of the movie is a high end that manages to prove engaging and complex but still understandable. 

For anyone that has seen both movies, one will be able to see that Inception is the spiritual sequel of The Dark Knight.  One of TDK’s themes was escalation; while Batman kept trying to outsmart the Joker, he was always one step ahead, and the meticulous planning on the Joker’s part was top notch.  Similarly in this movie we have this plot that keeps on getting more and more complicated as we go through the movie, but thankfully it doesn’t get convoluted like a Charlie Kauffman story could.  The story deals with Cobb’s team trying to steal an idea from a powerful businessman, Saito.  After they fail in the trippiest way possible, Saito offers Cobb the chance to go home if instead of extracting an idea, they insert an idea in the mind of the heir of a business empire, Robert Fischer, Jr.  Inception, as it is called, is the hardest thing to do to someone’s mind, as it is a really invasive procedure.  Cobb gathers a team of experts in very particular fields in relation to the dream world.  The best character, that isn’t Joseph Gordon Levitt, is Ellen Page’s Ariadne, as she serves as the character that is new to this world just like us.  She helps make this movie understandable which is one of the movie’s great strengths is in building and making you believe in a world where people can go into each other’s minds.  The rules are very well established, and explained in a way that doesn’t feel like dumbed-down exposition.

This movie has the great ability to keep you glued to your seat; literally, I don’t think that I saw more than 3 people get up during the movie to go to the bathroom.  This is because, by the time that the actual heist and plan come to fruition, the amount of tension and what is happening to all of the character is so much that you cannot look away.  This is where I find this movie becoming legendary because the action and “in the moment” occurrences are just plain bad-ass, but underneath there is a lot more emotionally gripping and interesting in a philosophical manner about reality and fantasy and what happens when the lines are blurred.  For one, the CG is used in a relatively classier manner and the story has much more layers that can be the subject of many a thesis in film studies classes.  And as a good point to note, Arthur
(Joseph Gordon Levitt) constantly steals the show, whether its his funny back-and-forth with Tom Hardy’s Eames, or his amazing gravity-defying action scenes; this character makes dazzles you in his complete badassery.  He is easily the Boba Fett of this movie.  

Depending on your point of view of certain events in the film, your opinion of the characters can shift.   I feel that some of the characters that aren’t Arthur or Ariadne aren’t as well developed as they could be.  When you see this movie, you definitely feel this is the Cobb show, where we see him deal with the repercussions of his past actions, but it is almost a detriment considering the players in the team feel more like spy movie clichés rather than fully fleshed out characters.  If you interpret the movie in a certain way, the lack of characterization makes sense.  Otherwise, this feels like really bad writing that feels reserved more to bad action movies than a brainy sci-fi thriller.

I have heard of reviews that are frustrated at not being able to keep up with plot, and to those people I say, they weren’t paying attention.  This movie has a lot going, and it is really busy, but just like a tasteful guitar solo. It serves the song, or in this case the movie’s story. When it’s all said and done, you get a movie that mixes the best parts of The Dark Knight and heist films coupled with Nolan’s mind-bending style.  In a truly lackluster and boring year of movies, this feels like fresh air, and this is exactly the kind of movie that needs to be seen, it’s either this or The Last Airbender.  Your pick moviegoers.