One week from today will mark the finale of more than a decade of Harry Potter movies, but it will also mark something more; the end of an era for millions of avid fans worldwide. Read more...

Laura Pieroni, Turnstyle News

Why do I love indie sci-fi movies? For movies like this.

Attack the Block is a simple story of a gang that defends their block against an alien invasion. But don’t be fooled--its not all gore and kick-ass action sequences. Director, Joe Cornish, creates a perfect storm by adding comedy, sci-fi thriller, and teenage realism to this quirky tale.

While the story does center around teenagers, the characters are much like the Goonies--timeless and ridiculous.Our hero, Moses, played by John Boyega is first introduced to us as a monosyllabic, no-good thug with a penchant for the violent. Eager to make his way in the world by becoming a drug dealer, Moses seems to be a one dimensional character, until a mugging goes horribly wrong. An alien falls from space and lands on the car next to him, creating a diversion for the victim, Sam (played by Jodie Whittaker), to run away.

Shaun of the Dead actor, Nick Frost, plays the “baked” adult counterpart to the gang, he invariably steals the screen every time he is on it. The magic comes in the simplicity of the fact that these muppet-like, furry, black aliens can be defeated by a good old-fashioned shanking, which gives these boys and girls more than a fighting chance to save themselves. The gang does everything in their power to defend their block-- lighting the beasts on fire, using bats, kitchen knives, and even a guitar.

All the while, the movie reminds us that we’re watching teenagers with teenage issues. One character says in exasperation, “This is too much madness to fit into one text!” The characters are sure to surprise you. When introduced to this rag tag group of teenagers, my first reaction was to vehemently dislike them. But your heart warms to their antics and their die-hard will to protect their friends and family.

Young people flooding into the "Big Apple" for adventures in dance, music, media, and other things know that Brooklyn is the cool place to live. It’s got parks that aren’t as crowded, a huge hipster scene, local markets, two Chinatowns, concert venues, and more affordable living than Manhattan.  However, it wasn’t always like that.

Bay Area native, Nick Thurston, stars in a movie called, “White Irish Drinkers,” set in Brooklyn in 1975 - a time when people like Thurston’s character, Brian Leary, would do anything to get out of town. Thurston, 23, is the youngest member of the cast. The movie, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is premiering on the West Coast in Berkeley, CA on April 22.

In the story, Brian Leary is a painter, but feels like he can't share this artistic passion with anyone else.  As Thurston puts it, the Leary brothers identify with being white, Irish, drinkers. They have a, “Don’t mess with us,” attitude and they enjoy being part of a community that is not afraid to fight.

“Brian Leary doesn’t belong where he’s living. He’s a painter, and he can’t do that at home, he has to go somewhere else,” said Thurston. “Everyone can relate to that - the story of someone who is making a sacrifice to pursue what they want to do,” he said.

Thurston himself had to make a sacrifice when accepting the role of Brian Leary in the movie.  At the time, he was a junior at the University of Southern California (USC) studying theater. The school told him that if he accepted the role and left school, he might not graduate. “I had no idea whether it would go to theaters, but I knew it was a chance to do what I wanted to do,” said Thurston.

Why is there almost no place for young people to just hang out and have fun in Oakland?  Yes, there is Bay Street and there is bay fair but what are we supposed to do when that all gets old and boring? I believe there is a big problem with this.  Oakland has a problem with youth getting in to trouble but how are we not supposed to if there is no place to have legal fun? Read more...

Sometimes bees are yellow, but in this case they are green. The green hornet is a movie full of action, comedy, romance and technology. This movie is based on the green hornet comic books. This movie has lots of scenes and events where Britt Reid is the 28 year old slacker son of widower James Reid.

I really enjoy watching movies. My favorite genres to watch are horror, action, and comedies. I like getting engaged into various stories and watching them change my mood. Movies have the tendency of affecting the way I feel at the moment depending on the story. Read more...

Iron Man 2 opens at midnight TONIGHT! The first was so good that Disney up and bought Marvel up, and while Paramount still has the Iron Man franchise, there are very high expectation for shellhead's second big screen adventure.

Luckily for Mr. Tony Stark, superhero movies that get sequels tend to do and even (gasp!) be better the second time around...

Superman 2 (1980)

The first Superman film was, frankly, ridiculous. Traveling around the Earth so fast that he reverses time? Really? Yet it was worth watching to get to the sequel, in which the villainous General Zod escapes the Phantom Zone and comes to our planet to extract revenge on the son of Jor-El. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD! 

Anyway, a lot of people like to say that the recently released original director's cut of the film (available on DVD as the Richard Donner Cut) is better. These people are naive fanboys. Spoiler alert: the Donner cut uses the SAME ENDING AS SUPERMAN- he files around the world to turn back time. There we just saved you $14 on lazy film making. You can thank us later.

X-Men 2 (2003)

The Z-Series went dark and serious for this movie, which set up not only the third so-bad-it-should-be-ignored film, but last year's Wolverine as well. Original X-Men director Bryan Singer pulled out all the stops for X2, then left to make Superman Returns-- where Superman is a creepy emo stalker. I blame George Lucas. [Star Wars Ep 2]

Wanna know how I got these scars? Find out after the jump...

IRON MAN!!! WHOOOOO!!!!

If you can't tell, just about the whole durn planet is excited about Iron Man 2. Why our lead editor is planning on getting ZERO SLEEP on Thursday night so that he can catch the late show on the IMAX.

To celebrate, we've got a few Super Hero themed posts this week... and we're starting with THE PAIN! Here, for your viewing displeasure are:

THE WORST SUPERHERO MOVIE TRAILERS OF ALL TIME

Supergirl (1984)

Two things can hurt Kryptonians: radioactive chunks of their home planet (Kyrptonite) and sorcery. For this 1984 attempt to build out the Superman franchise pretty unknown Helen Slater was cast as Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El opposite a villainous Faye Dunaway who used her magic powers to bring a bulldozer to life. Wait, WHAT? And the romantic male lead... if only lead (actor) and lead (metal) weren't spelled exactly the same, then we could make a clever pun about how horrible his acting is. 

Batman & Robin (1997)

There is one good thing and one good thing only about George Clooney's turn as Batman: this movie iced the Burton/Schumacker version of The Caped Crusader, allowing for the Christopher Nolan helmed Batman Begins/Dark Knight franchise to arise years later. WARNING: this trailer may induce motion sickness, seizures, a loss of respect for Clooney and Uma Thurman and extreme hysteria when you try and reconcile Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance as Mr. Freeze with the fact that he is Governor of California.

Everybody and their mama has seen the classic film Scarface, right? Now, thanks to Lady Gaga’s video director, we have an elementary interpretation of Scarface. Marc Klasfeld remade the infamous “Say hello to my little friend” scene with an elementary--school aged cast. The scene was performed in front of cast family members, colleagues and friends.

The kids remake consists of blow-up palm trees, water guns, popcorn representing cocaine, and the classic wardrobes.
 

At least the director change the "F" word to "fudging"-- But why couldn't Klasfeld have them remake someting more age appropriate?

(via Popeater and TMZ)

The thought of going to the movies sounds fun, until you come across a long line just to purchase tickets. To avoid this stress Fandango is offering something much more efficient that will also make your movie experience environmentally friendly.

Fandango launched a new mobile ticket program allowing users to get their movie ticket on their cell phone. Moviegoers will get their ticket via an SMS or MMS message linked to a 2D barcode, which ticket-takers can scan. This paperless service is only available in 8 cities for right now. Unfortunately San Francisco is not one of the eight cities.

Check if your city is part of this new ticket program.

• New York: City Cinemas 1, 2 & 3, Angelika Film Center, East 86th Street Cinemas, Village East Cinema, Beekman Theatre, The Paris Theatre.
• New Jersey: Manville 12 Plex.
• Houston: Angelika Film Center.
• Dallas/Plano: Angelika Dallas; Angelika Plano.
• San Diego: La Mesa Grossmont Center, Clairemont Town Square Stadium.
• Bakersfield: Valley Plaza 16.
• Sonoma County: Rohnert Park 16.
• Hawaii: Ward Stadium, Kahala Theater, Kapolei 16, Mililani Stadium.
 

(via Switched and TechCrunch)