Movie Monday: Tarantino Goodness and Video Game Style Battles of Epic Proportions

Okay, did anyone else think that February just flew by? I am aware it is the shortest month of the year, but still... I can't believe tomorrow is the first of March. Anyway, I have a couple of good movies to share with you today. :-)


Reservoir Dogs



A group of strangers (who are only known by their aliases) come together to plan out and execute a diamond robbery. However, one of them turns out to be a rat and things do not go according to plan. In order to figure out who is the rat, the team find themselves doing unspeakable things to get answers.

Quentin Tarantino has a unique way of storytelling and I very much enjoy seeing his vision. Reservoir Dogs is a lot less complex than his other films, since it basically focuses on the diamond heist (planning, executing, and aftermath). As a huge fan of Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink), I liked that his role in this film was pretty significant. I always wanted to see him in a leading role and now that he's earned that on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, I am very happy for that.

I seriously thought Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) was dead after getting to the warehouse. When he emerged halfway through the move (while extremely pale.. he did lose a LOT of blood), I was ready to see some action. And I did. I also felt bad for the officer (Kirk Baltz) when he was tortured by a couple of the guys. It was brutal. I enjoyed this movie a lot, but nothing can surpass Pulp Fiction. Rating 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World



While dating Knives (Ellen Wong), a girl in high school, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) meets Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and is dying to be with her. Scott is able to get Ramona on a date with him, but doing so causes a series of events where he has to prove himself worthy... by having video game styled duels with seven of her exes. He has to do this in the midst of breaking up with Knives and working with his band toward achieving a record contract.

I had a feeling that I would geek out over a lot of things from this movie. For one, my best friend Brandon saw this in theaters and raved on how it immediately became one of his Top 5 favorite films. Two, it was about video game battles, underground bands, and looked very visually stimulation. The opening credits already proved to me that I was going to enjoy it, by presenting the Universal logo in an 8-bit format, followed by the theme to the video game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

All of the fights were highly enjoyable. I read that the movie was meant to feel like a musical, but to have battle scenes instead of breaking out in song. I thought the method worked very well for this film. I loved how at the end of each battle, Scott was rewarded with a bunch of coins. Even though the coins were never used for anything, it helped pay homage to video games. As someone who enjoys references from other movies and in pop culture, this movie had a lot of them. There were lots of comic book references (X-Men, Fantastic Four), bands (Smashing Pumpkins, The Clash, Beck), and video games (Zelda, Super Mario Brothers). For anyone that is a gamer geek or comic book geek, this film could possibly be the best movie watching experience you will have in the present time. I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as my best friend :-)  Rating 4 out of 5 stars