The Original "Jurassic Park" is a Masterpiece

My wife and I have been going back and watching the entirety of the "Jurassic Park" series. She is a big fan and I adore the first few movies. She also really wants to see the new movie, me not so much, so this is her passion project before she sees it.

I have zero interest in the new "Jurassic Park " universe. I have seen the first two new movies and I did care for them. I do not think Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have any chemistry, I find it nuts that they can "train" Velociraptors, there's far too much product placement and the movies are way, way too long. I remember seeing the first new one in the theaters with a big group of my wife's family, and my mother in law and I were the only ones that did not like it. At all. We were shocked that the other people we were with enjoyed it. It is not, in my opinion, a good movie. Then my wife and I saw the second one at home on a date night and I fell asleep. I usually never fall asleep at movies, but this one put me out. So I am not stoked to see the new movie. I am stoked to go back and watch the first three originals. I remember the second and third movies being not so good, but they were fun. We have recently watched the original and that is what I want to talk about today.

I had not seen this movie in about a decade. I went back a few times in the early 2010's, watched it tons when I was a kid and saw it on opening night in the theaters as a 10 year old. I did not know what to expect on this recent rewatch, but let me tell you, this movie holds the hell up. The original "Jurassic Park" is a true masterpiece for me. I felt like a kid again watching the movie. It transformed me back to that little kid seeing it in the theater for the first time. I got excited when I saw the brachiosaurus. Seeing the triceratops was amazing, even though it was sick. The baby raptors were cute, albeit they should have never been breeding them. The grown up raptors were as relentless and ruthless as I remembered. The dilophosaurus has the best kill in the whole movie. And that T-Rex, oh man did it look amazing. Think about it for a minute. The original movie came out in 1993 and the CGI looks really good. There are moments when you can see how elementary it is, but in all seriousness, this movie looks amazing given the date it came out.

To add to the greatness, the story is still incredible and prevalent. The stuff they talk about, how they address science, the talk about creating species, it all works. It is also prescient. It makes sense today.

Also the actors, man did they show the hell up. Sam Neill is a treasure. He is masterful. Laura Dern crushes. She is a beast and she deals with some crazy stuff. The kids are not too cloying or cliche. Jeff Goldblum is at his Jeff Goldbluminess, if that is a word. The guy who runs Jurassic Park, I cannot think of his name nor do I want to look it up, is incredible. Sam Jackson and Newman from "Seinfeld" are phenomenal. Even the little side characters, like the lawyer and worker at the park, play their parts perfectly. I am stunned at how much I loved this movie, but I should not have been. It was one of my favorites as a kid. But for some reason I was a little hesitant to rewatch. I think I did not want it to be ruined. But I liked it maybe more than when I was 10. I appreciate it more. I find the adults, namely Neill and Dern, to be the ones I side with now. Seeing the dinos on screen still gave me goosebumps. It still chilled and scared me when it was supposed to. Seeing the water rumble gave me wonderful memories.

"Jurassic Park" may be one of the few flawless movies ever made. I cannot find a problem with it at all. Go rewatch it, especially if you loved it as a kid like I did. My wife told me that it is her favorite movie of all time. She said that after we finished. This movie is incredible and totally holds up.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Better Late Than Never on "Captain Marvel"

Continuing to get caught up with movies that I have wanted to see, but didn't have time while they were in the theaters, my wife and I finally watched "Captain Marvel" the other night.

We both wanted to see it while in theaters, didn't have the time, realized that we are Disney + subscribers and decided it was time to finally watch it, and I have to say, I enjoyed this movie. While it is not "Black Panther" or "Endgame", "Captain Marvel" was a fun and entertaining movie. Sure, there were some parts that felt a little tacked on, or they could have cut it, but that is small nit picking stuff. All in all, I found this movie to be good.

First off, Brie Larson is a great, great actor. She has been in some of the best independent movies I have seen, won Oscars for them, been in comedies that were hilarious, and now, she got to try her hand at a Marvel movie, playing the most powerful Marvel hero. And to no ones surprise, she was excellent. I bought every second of her performance. I like how literal she took everything. I believed all the heart felt moments. Her stunts were kick ass. She was kick ass. When she realizes her full potential, that was an amazing scene. The fight between her and Annette Benning, who was great, was totally awesome. Her final battle scene was incredible. The back and forth between her and Nick Fury was tremendous. She was really, really good in this role. I don't know why I wouldn't expect that at this time, but she was great.

As was the rest of the cast. Sam Jackson as young Nick Fury was perfect. Seeing a young Agent Coulson was great. Captain Marvel's friend, Rambo I believe her name was, was super believable as the best friend who thought she lost her best friend. She was also a kick ass pilot as well. Jude Law as the bad guy, I mean, he is really crushing most of his roles lately. He is even good in movies that aren't so good. So, when I get to see him act well in a good movie, that is a treat. Ben Mendelsonn, who is super underrated as an actor, was so good as the main Skrull guy. I fully expected him to be the main villain, and spoiler alert, when he isn't, that was a shock, and it totally got me. He is a good guy. He is just looking for a safe place for his family and friends to live. I loved the misdirection.

As for the color and way the movie was shot, it was awesome. I like when Marvel does these fun and super bright movies. It reminded me a ton of "Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2", except a little less bright. But, it worked. The special effects were amazing. I mentioned the fight scene between Larson and Benning, that was cool as hell. The way she bends her body into a wall that is made of silver, that was so cool. Oh, and the music, it was wonderful. The movie takes place in the mid 90's, so I got to hear a ton of songs that I remember listening to when I was a teenager. And the way they set them to battle scenes, it was pure perfection.

While I may like the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies a little more, or acknowledge how important a movie like "Black Panther" is, or how final "Endgame" was, I still see the importance of a movie like "Captain Marvel". It introduces us to a very important, very powerful superhero, and it is a great origin story. I put this one right up there with the original "Ironman". It is giving us the story of the new most important Marvel hero, and it tells it with a fun, and good, attitude. Marvel does good superhero movies, and "Captain Marvel" is one of the better ones out there tight now.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Saw and Ranked All the Star Wars Movies

I find your rankings disturbing

Make sure to download the X Millennial Man podcast tomorrow (January 29th) to hear Ty and RD talk about the Star Wars movies.

I know I already wrote about "Star Wars" earlier this week, but I'm going to write about it again. This time though, I'm going to rank the movies from worst to best, in my personal opinion. Now, for everyone out there, I've just recently, within the past two months, seen every single "Star Wars" movie of importance. I did not watch the Christmas special and I have not seen any of the cartoons or TV shows that exist in the Star Wars universe. I have only seen the seven movies that were made. That's the basic information any reader needs going into my rankings. This is all very subjective as well. I'm, by my own admittance, a movie snob. I prefer comedies to any other genre of movie, but I also really like science fiction, noir and drama. But, I also recognize that a pop culture writer should see movies like the "Star Wars" movies because they are very influential and are involved with any big time pop culture. "Star Wars" is quoted and referenced in almost every pop culture thing that I've ever seen. And, with the nudging, I call it harassment, coming from my wife, cousins, friends and most importantly, our editor, RD, I caved and decided to watch every single movie. Before I get into my countdown, I watched them in a specific order. I watched episodes 4, 5 and 6 within two weeks of each other, then I watched episodes 1, 2 and 3 about a month later. Just last week I took my four year old and we saw episode 7 in the theaters. So, I have officially seen all seven movies, which in my mind makes me qualified to give my rankings. As I said at the top, I'll be going from what I think in the worst "Star Wars" movie to the best. On with the countdown.

Coming in at number 7, I have "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith". This movie is pure, unadulterated garbage. Nothing about this movie is good. I didn't care about anyone or anything in this movie with the lone exception being the death of Mace Windu(Samuel L. Jackson). That was the only bummer to me. This movie is bad. Hayden Christensen is a terrible actor. He shows zero emotion and I don't buy his and Padme's(Natalie Portman) love story at all. Those two have no chemistry at all. The rest of the movie feels very scattered and poorly made. I HATED this movie.

Coming in at number 6 I have "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". This was supposed to be the movie that brought "Star Wars" into the 21st century, or so I was told. This movie is boring. Too many federation meetings and stupid back stories about Anakin Skywalker. Also, could Anakin be more of a whiner? All he did was complain about everything. The pod racing scene, which I heard was cool, also felt very boring to me. I didn't care about it at all and by the end, I kind of wanted Sebulba to win. The only "cool" scene in "Phantom Menace" was the light saber battle between Qui Gon Gin, Obi Won Kenobi and Darth Maul. It was neat, but it also was pretty uneventful for something that's supposed to be a big deal in the Star Wars world. I wasn't shocked, nor upset when Qui Gon Gin got stabbed and even less surprised when Darth Maul got his. The double edged light saber was cool, but not nearly enough to save this piece of trash. Oh and the racist accents, that also sucked. 

Number 5 is the only prequel that has some cool stuff in it. The movie is still bad, but there are three pretty cool battle scenes. That movie is "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones". First, let's get the bad stuff out of the way. The scene between Anakin and Padme where they ride a mammoth type beast and frolic in the grass is dumb as hell. This scene should have been the first thing cut, but it made it into the movie. This was a terrible scene. Once again, Christensen and Portman have no chemistry and there are way too many federation meeting scenes. Now, there is the three battle scenes I mentioned. The first is the fight between Obi Wan and Jango Fett. That was a cool fight scene. There was the big battle at the end where we finally get to see Windu's purple light saber. That was cool. But, the best battle scene was between Count Dukuu and Yoda. When Yoda whips out his green light saber and begins his magic on Dukuu, I was legit excited. If they just had these three scenes in this movie, it might have been good, but they did all that other useless crap. Saying that "Attack of the Clones" is a good part of Star Wars is like saying that "Godfather 3" is better than "Speed 2: Cruise Control", it's still not a good movie.

Now, let's get to some better movies.

Number 4 is "Return of the Jedi". This one fell kind of flat for me, but it is still a million times better than the prequels. "Return of the Jedi" didn't need Ewoks and why on Earth was Han Solo all of the sudden a pushover, but the light saber battle between Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and Luke is awesome. I wasn't crazy about the side characters like Jabba The Hut or Bib Fortuna, but it was some cool make up to see. And Luke using the force to rescue Leia and Han Solo was cool too. "Return of the Jedi" is good, but not as good as the movies I'm about to mention.

Coming in at number 3 I have "Star Wars: The New Hope". This movie is as influential to science fiction as "Citizen Kane" is to all movies. Without a "New Hope", we wouldn't have all the great science fiction movies we now have. This movie is incredibly influential. It's also a good movie. We meet the main characters in this one. Sure, Yoda doesn't show up until the second one, but we meet Luke, Leia, Han, Darth Vader and, my personal favorite, Chewbacca. This is a really cool movie and I thoroughly enjoyed my watching experience. It was exciting and adventurous and instead of saying, "I guess I have to watch these", my sentiment became, "I can't wait to watch all of them". That's a sign of a good movie.

Number 2 on my list is "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back". This movie is non stop, kick ass action for 2 plus hours. I loved everything about this movie. The opening scene in Hoth, when Luke gets captured and Han has to save him is awesome. We finally meet Yoda and he is as awesome as RD told me my entire life. The scenes when he is teaching Luke about the force is excellent writing and directing. Han Solo has one of the coolest lines ever spoken when he's about to be dipped in carbonite and Leia says, "I love you", Han replies, cool as shit I might add, "I know". That's awesome. And the light saber fight between Luke and Vader, where Vader tells him he's Luke's father and then cuts off his hand is incredible. "Empire Strikes Back" 100 percent lived up to its hype. It's an awesome, super enjoyable movie.

Which brings me to my number one, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". I wrote a mini review earlier this week and I still stand by how much I love this movie. I could've seen it without seeing the others and I would have loved it. It's a great action movie that also has drama, comedy and heart breaking moments. The acting, writing and directing were top notch. "The Force Awakens" is such a well made movie that completely restores a franchise that looked lost after the prequels. There is nothing wrong at all with this movie. Now, hard core "Star Wars" fans may find problems with it, but me, just being a lover of movies, I thought it was perfection.

So, that's my personal rankings of the "Star Wars" movies. Take it or leave it, but this is how I feel about a pretty decent franchise of movies. If I had to give any advice to first time viewers, I'd say watch episodes 4 and 5 and then 7. You could probably skip the rest and still be satisfied. I will say though, "Star Wars" has gained a new fan.

I'm excited for episode 8.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He thought the prequels could have been better if there was some more Kit Fisto. Everything needs more Kit Fisto. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Oscar Nominations Came Out Today, and They Mostly Suck

I am not sure the Oscars really know what is good.

I know I promised everyone a greatest American band blog today, but I'm putting that off until next week. There's bigger fish to fry for me today.

The Oscar nominations were handed out this morning and I have two big, big problems with the nominees. First off, why all the white people again? Do the people who vote on these awards think that there are no people of color that act in movies these days? There were a decent number of people that were well deserving of, at the very least, a nomination. What about Samuel L Jackson for his performance in "Hateful 8"? He was awesome. What about Michael B Jordan in "Creed"? Stallone gets nominated, but the lead of this great movie gets no love? That's lame. And even though the movie "Concussion" didn't have its desired effect and wasn't very good, Will Smith was excellent and totally deserved a nomination. I guess the people that give out the nominations are racist, old white people that wish it was still 1950. It's a shame that they refuse to nominate actors that aren't white, especially in 2016. It's upsetting to be frank. I wonder how long it will actually take for actors of color to get their due. It's time, and there are so many great African American, Asian, Indian and so on and so forth of any ethnicity well deserving. I'm sick of all the same white people being nominated. I'm done with Meryl Streep and Matt Damon and Jennifer Lawrence being the people that get nominated no matter how bad or repetitive their performances are. Eddie Redmayne belongs with the people I mentioned above too. I'll take Michael B Jordan, Will Smith and Samuel L Jackson any day over the four actors I just mentioned.

Second issue, my biggest problem, why is Charlize Theron not nominated for her role, Furiosa, in "Mad Max: Fury Road"? How on earth does this happen? How was Jennifer Lawrence's performance in "Joy" aka "Silver Linings Playbook 2", more deserving than Theron? Or Cate Blanchette in a movie I've never heard of, "Carol", more deserving? In fact, Brie Larson in "Room" is the only one that I have no problem with being nominated. "Mad Max: Fury Road" got a ton of nominations, but none for acting. That's wrong. Theron was the best actor in the best movie of the year, possibly of all time. She was so fantastic and perfect in her role. She played the part expertly. She was tough when needed, vulnerable when needed, sad and angry when needed, basically, whatever George Miller asked of her, she did it and did it phenomenally. She was so, so great in this movie. I know it's called "Mad Max", but Furiosa, not Max, was the star and leader of this movie. This may be one of the biggest snubs of all time in Oscar history. I just don't get what else she could have done. Maybe the movie needed to be foreign, or she needed some kind of disease, or she needed some kind of smaller indie role that the academy loves now. That's all bullshit. Why won't they reward the actors from the movie that's widely considered the best movie of the year? It makes absolutely no sense at all. I wrote before, and I still believe, Theron not only deserved the nomination, but she 100 percent deserves the Oscar. There was no better performance all year from anyone, man, woman or child. Theron was head and shoulders above anyone that's been nominated this year. Another shame.

I guess I should know by now to be disappointed in what this dumbass academy does every year. They clearly don't care for minorities and they are just flat out wrong when it comes to nominating actors and actresses. You'd think they'd be more conscious in the 21st century, but they're still racist and stupid.

The morons that give out these nominations suck.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He was once nominated for a grade school acting award, but lost it to the kid playing tree #2. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The SeedSing (half) Year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Movies of 2015

Time to fire up the projector

Being that the new year is coming up on Friday, I'll be doing my best of 2015 all week. Today, I'm going to start the week off with my top five movies of the year. Everyday I'll do a different top five and today I want to start with movies.

I see a lot of movies. Some I see in the theaters and others, I watch at home. I love movies and this has been a pretty good year for movies. So good in fact, movies like "Inside Out" and "Me and Earl and The Dying Girl" and "The Wolfpack" didn't make my top five and I really, really liked those movies quite a bit. So, on with the countdown.

Coming in at number five, we have a tie. My number five movies are "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Kingsman: The Secret Service". These are both blockbustery type movies, "Avengers" way more so. "Avengers" was fantastic. Go back and read my review. This was an absolutely breath taking super hero movie. There was action, adventure and even a bit of a love story. We also got Hawkeye's back story, and that made me like a character I once never really cared for. My favorite scene was when the Avengers were fighting Ultron and his army of robots and everything was in slow motion and we got to see each hero fight in super slow motion, it was excellent. "Avengers" Age of Ultron" is one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. "Kingsman", on the other hand, was a gory, action heavy, hand to hand and weaponry combat movie for the ages. This movie was criminally under the radar. I heard almost nothing about it while it was in the theaters and I didn't watch it on DVD for about five months. But, I'm so glad that I took the time to watch because this movie was incredible. My review was put up fairly recently. I loved pretty much everything about this movie. The opening fight scene with Colin Firth and the bar patrons was phenomenal. The fight scene in the church, once again featuring Firth, was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long, long time. The tests given to the future Kingsman were heart racing and incredible to watch. The main character, Eggsy, was expertly played. Samuel L Jackson was excellent as the villain. "Kingsman: The Secret Service" is the perfect summer action movie. Go check it out if you haven't seen it and I promise you, you'll love it.

My number four movie is "The End of the Tour". This is one of the most quiet, yet most poignant movies I've seen. Jesse Einsenberg is great as Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky. He plays the jealous, yet enthralled writer perfectly. I cannot picture anyone else in this role. Jason Segel, as David Foster Wallace, is absolutely phenomenal. He plays Wallace so realistically, it's almost like watching a documentary. He shows vulnerability, anger, sadness and genius all very, very expertly. He one hundred percent deserves an Oscar nomination for this role. This movie is basically just these two talking for two hours, but it never seems boring or dull. I was into the story and the movie the whole time. "The End of the Tour" is great.

Coming in at number three, I have "Ex Machina". This movie was so creepy and eerie because something like this could very well happen in the very near future. I mean, honestly, how far away are we from having robots walking amongst us? It's going to happen. Some rich, eccentric genius is going to create a humanoid robot and it will only grow bigger and bigger from there. Oscar Issac plays that eccentric genius billionaire so well. He is every bit creepy as he is lonely in this movie. He has his own lush home in the woods and he invites an employee, played by Domhnall Gleeson, to come out for what seems to be a vacation. It couldn't be more different. He is thrown into a type of lab project to see how he interacts with a female robot played so well by Alicia Vikander. This is another movie small in structure, but huge in story. As I said, something like this is going to happen very soon and this movie made me terrified for that future. It was haunting and terrifying and I'm not looking forward to the robots taking over. The final scene, I won't spoil it, was one of the scariest things I've seen in a movie in a very long time. It still aunts me. "Ex Machina" was the best horror movie of 2015, even though it's categorized as science fiction.

My number two movie is "What We Do in the Shadows". This was the funniest movie of the year by far. "WWDITS" follows the lives of vampires living together in a flat in New Zealand. Being that it was made by Taika Waititi, one of the "Flight of the Conchords" primary directors, it was so funny. It was done mockumentary style and it was perfect. Jermaine Clement, playing Vlad the Poker, was so great. A once powerful vampire, he now was not so powerful after his break up with "The Beast". He was excellent in this movie. Taika Waititi played Viago, the pretty boy vampire, and he was great as well. He was worried about keeping the flat clean and he longed for his lost love that was now in her mid to late 80's. The scene where he lays paper down to keep the blood of a victim off the couch, then hits a vein and bloods spills everywhere, is hilarious. The star of this movie, to me, was Johnny Brugh who plays Deacon. Deacon was a German vampire during the reign of the Nazis and he fled to New Zealand after stating, "if you are a Nazi, people hate you. If you're a vampire, people hate you. If you're a Nazi vampire, forget about it. I had to get out of there and flee to someplace safe". His character had me in stiches the whole movie. "WWDITS" is the best comedy of the year by far.

My number one movie should come as no surprise to anyone, "Mad Max: Fury Road". What else is there to say about this movie that hasn't been said already? It's the best action movie ever. It has the best social commentary. It lets a female be the lead badass. It has the best imagery in a movie in about 30 years. I mean, this movie is perfect from start to finish. Tom Hardy is excellent as Max. He's just as understated and hard core as Mel Gibson was in the original "Mad Max". Hugh Keys-Byrne was so creepy and so good as the ultimate bad guy, Immortan Joe. His breathing apparatus he wore still scares me when I watch the movie. Nicolas Hoult, playing war boy Nux, was surprisingly badass and totally cool. All the young ladies that played Joe's wives were awesome for many different reasons. But, Charlize Theron as Furiosa was absolutely phenomenal. She was the biggest badass, the toughest fighter and the smartest person in the whole movie. She was so great. Much like Segel for "The End of the Tour", Theron one hundred percent deserves not only an Oscar nomination, but she deserves to win. She was so perfect in this role. She beat so much ass and won at the end of the day. Theron was incredible. "Mad Max; Fury Road" is not only the best movie of 2015, it's probably the best movie I've ever seen. It's that good.

So, there you have it, my top five movies of 2015. Tell me what I left out in the comment section and come back tomorrow for my top five albums of the year.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is lover of movies and a passionate lover of good movies. Feel Ty's love by following him on twitter @tykulik. 

Better late than never on the awesome "Kingsman: Secret Service"

Tell me once again what happens to the dog?

I know I'm late to the party, but I just watched "Kingsman: Secret Service" and it is awesome.

Sure, it's an orgy of over the top violence, but compared to some other shit shows that have been released, I'm talking to you "Victor Frankenstein" and "The Last Witch Hunter", "Kingsman" is so much more fun and enjoyable. This movie is crazy from the get go. There's a huge fight scene in the far east at the start and that's where we meet Harry Hart/Galahad(Colin Firth). They are "training" one of the new members and the mission blows up, literally. We then transition to a house where an older gentleman is tied up. The home is over looking the mountains and one of the new Kingsman comes to the rescue. He offs the guards and saves the older man. Then, he opens the door and is literally sliced in half by a lady with sword legs. I'm serious, literally sliced in two. This is when Valentine(Samuel L Jackson) comes in to see that his aid, Gazelle(Sofia Boutella), has "cleaned" up the mess by placing white sheets over the bodies. Valentine doesn't like blood. So, about three or four minutes in, we see that Valentine is the bad guy. He's a billionaire tech guy, but he's also crazy. He's hell bent on controlling everyone in the world. News gets back tot he Kingsman that one of their own has died and it's revealed that he and Harry were close friends. It's also revealed that the deceased Kingsman has a young child. This child has grown to a teenager that is a rough and tumble fighter. He was in the Marines, but kicked out because of his behavior. Harry comes to meet Eggsy(Taron Egerton) to tell him about a job opportunity with the Kingsman. He's skeptical at first and then something totally awesome happens. Eggsy is being pestered at the local bar by some of his bullies and Harry goes about beating the shit out of every single one of them. It's an awesome scene. Who knew Colin Firth could play such a kick ass character. The scene is shot in a slow motion style. You can see all the cool spy stuff that Harry uses to beat up these five guys pretty effortlessly. My favorite part was when one of the thugs pulls a pistol on Harry and he open his umbrella which doubles as a bullet proof vest and a stun gun. It was rad. After seeing this display, Eggsy agrees to go through "application" process to become a Kingsman.

There are many intense tests which the recruits have to go through. Things like getting out of a room completely flooded with water, raise a dog, skydiving with a parachute that may or may not be functional and, above all else, never ratting out Kingsman. They eventually dwindle down to two candidates, Eggsy and Roxy(Sophie Cookson). They have one last task and that's too shoot their dog. Eggsy won't do it, but Roxy does it without a second thought. Eggsy is deemed unsuitable to be a Kingsman. We come to find out later that the gun had blanks in it, so the dog would have never been shot. This is found out when Harry comes to Eggsy's house to try and convince him to come back to training. Eggsy relents and Harry leaves to go on a mission to Kentucky. He has been on to Valentine the whole time and he heard there was something bad about to go down at a church in Kentucky.

Here we get one of the coolest scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie. Valentine has slipped a SIM card into everyone's phone or their brain if they've gotten close enough to him and he wants to activate the card to see if it works. If it does, everyone would become out of control and try to kill everyone else, basically chaos. This is exactly what Valentine wants. The SIM card goes into effect and the one planted in Harry's brain, he had a one on one dinner with Valentine earlier in the movie, makes him, unconsciously, start to fight and kill anyone that attacks him. He demolishes all comers in this church. It's a frightening and incredible scene all at once. While he's doing his kick ass fighting moves and maiming and killing everyone the song "Free Bird" by Lynrd Skynrd is playing and it's so awesome. This scene is almost as good as the one in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" where the super heroes fight in slow motion. The stunts in this fight scene are absolutely incredible. After Harry comes to, he walks outside the church where Valentine shoots him in the head. After seeing all this happen and seeing his mentor Harry killed, Eggsy has no choice but to go and fight for the Kingsman. He will do whatever it takes to stop Valentine and with help from Roxy, they go and fight the good fight.

There is some awesome hand to hand and weapon combat during the final battle scene. I'm not a fan of weapons, but I like to watch them in movies and I love hand to hand combat. They get to a spot where they can render the SIM cards useless and in one spot they do and there is a confetti of colors as the people who had SIM cards implanted in their brains literally explode. You think it's done there, but Valentine didn't plant one in his brain and outside of the night club they were just in, the SIM cards go off on people's phones and the world begins to fight with each other. Everywhere from England to LA, there's a full on brawl. We now get a fight between Eggsy, Valentine and Gazelle. The main fight is Eggsy and Gazelle and it's awesome. She's doing awesome karate moves with her sword legs and Eggsy is batting off her every attempt. In a slow motion scene, Eggsy uses the spy techniques that Harry taught him and he renders Gazelle useless. She can no longer fight. Eggsy then uses one of Gazelle's sword legs and puts it through Valentine's chest and he pukes blood and dies. He cannot execute his full plan and the SIM cards are now completely useless. Everyone is saved thanks to Eggsy. He is now the top Kingsman, replacing his deceased mentor Harry.

This movie is totally awesome and doesn't get the love it so badly deserves. I'm sorry I missed it in the theaters, but I'm glad I watched it on DVD. I ABSOLUTELY loved this movie and I highly recommend it. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is totally awesome.

Go check it out.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is been involved in deep spy training that entails massive amounts of football watching. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty wants director Neill Blomkamp to get off the M. Night Shyamalan path

The first step to directing. Keep the film in the can.

I finally got around to seeing the movie "Chappie" this week, and while it wasn't awful, it wasn't that good either.

Dev Patel and Sharlto Copley are serviceable enough in the movie. Copley as the robot Chappie is quite good actually. He does the whole motion capture thing really well and makes Chappie seem life like. I think Copley is a very good actor in fact. I like him in all his roles. Patel is decent as the scientist that created the robotic police force, and while I enjoyed his performance, it was nothing special. It was just okay. My two biggest problems with the movie were Hugh Jackman's performance as the bad guy and the Johannesburg rap duo, Die Antwoord's performance. Jackman, whom I love as an actor the dude plays Wolverine, my all time favorite superhero, does not make a good bad guy. He's too nice of a guy, and for those of you out there saying, Wolverine is kind of a dick, Wolverine is still a good guy in the end. It wasn't for lack of trying on Jackman's part either, that's on the writers and director, he's just too nice of a person in real life, that I don't buy him as the bad guy. It doesn't fit. Die Antwoord's performance was just confusing. I don't know if they're playing themselves in this futuristic world, or if their characters are just big fans of Die Antwoord's music. For example, they each go by their rap names in the movie, and there's, at least two that I can remember seeing, times that Ninja(that's the guy in Die Antwoord) is wearing his own band's merchandise as his wardrobe. I was confused by the whole thing. The two of them aren't very good actors either, which didn't help their case. The movie was very formulaic and you could tell how the movie would end very early in the plot. It was another disappointment from Neill Blomkamp, who I really liked after seeing his first movie, "District 9".

This brings me to my main point and question of my blog today, is Neil Blomkamp the new M Night Shyamalan? Let's start by comparing each director's first movie. Shyamalan came out of the gate and crushed a grand slam with the brilliant, innovative, and probably biggest shock in a movie in my lifetime with "The Sixth Sense". Talk about a great debut. This movie was well written, well acted and perfectly directed. People talked about the ending for years, and "I see dead people" has become as big as "My wife!" or "I knew it was you, you broke my heart"(if you don't know those references, you need to get up to speed people!). Blomkamp's debut was just as unique as Shyamalan's and maybe even more innovative. I'm of course talking about the brilliant "District 9". I remember seeing posters at movie theaters a year before this movie came out that just had a shadow picture of an alien, and the saying, "Humans not allowed". I was immediately intrigued by this and found out any and all information I could about this upcoming alien movie. As more previews and clips came out, I got more and more excited. I saw the movie on opening night, and it not only live up to my expectations, but it exceeded them.

"District 9" takes place in Johannesburg and there's a race of aliens, known as "prawns" living in the slums. They're treated as second class citizens, and in his film debut, Sharlto Copley plays a wet behind the ears, yet eager police officer. He goes into the "prawns" area to extract and arrest some that are stealing from the humans. He gets poisoned by an alien and slowly starts to turn into one. It is so awesome to watch his character's transformation into an alien and the movie has a great secondary story about how higher class people treat people they feel are below them. If you haven't seen "District 9" stop reading this, watch it, and then come back and finish reading this, That movie is so great.

Unforunately, at least in Blomkamp's case, the same can't be said for his second movie, "Elysium". Another good premise about the upper and lower classes in society, but this movie just didn't work for me. Matt Damon was miscast as a working class, former bad boy trying to turn his life around. Jodie Foster plays the leader of the higher class people living on the rich planet Elysium, and she's your typical, bitchy rich lady that only cares about the high society folks and can do without the poor people. She also sports a terrible South African accent. It's so bad. I mean, it's terrible. The only person I enjoyed in this movie was Copley. He plays a bad ass assassin for Foster's character and he's awesome. He's a great bad guy and he kicks total ass. But, he cannot save this movie. It's just not a good movie.

Shyamalan's second movie, "Unbreakable", I personally like more than "The Sixth Sense". It's a cool, pseudo superhero movie that I feel is criminally underrated. Bruce Willis is on a train that has a brutal crash and he's the only survivor. He actually comes out unscathed. Samuel L Jackson plays a big comic book guy and he's very intrigued by Willis' character and the fact that he did not even get a scratch in the train wreck. They team up and do some cool, super hero type stuff. It's a really good movie and I highly recommend watching it.

I've already mentioned Blomkamp's third, and most recent movie, "Chappie". You all know how I feel about that. After the success of "The Sixth Sense" and the high of making "Unbreakable", Shyamalan's star was going up, and it was never going to come down. Or so we thought. He followed "Unbreakable" with the god awful, Joaquin Phoenix and Mel Gibson bomb of a movie "Signs". That movie sucks, but hey, you can't hit a home run every time. Certainly his next movie would be better, it had to be. Once again, nope, he made "The Village" and that movie is worse than "Signs". I think it's Nicolas Cage's version of "The Wicker Man" bad. That movie is confusing and awful. He followed that up with "Lady in the Water". You know that movie about a mermaid, or some bull shit, that a guy finds in his pool and she of course has special powers. So, three stinkers in a row. Was this a sign of things to come, or was he just in a slump? His next movie would determine his fate in my opinion. He had the great un fortune of deciding to put out "The Happening". You know this movie, the one were plants come to life and make people kill themselves and Mark Wahlberg plays a scientist and calls himself a douchebag at one point. This movie was so bad that I convinced a group of about eight people to walk out. A movie we all paid for, and we didn't stay for the whole thing. I'd never done that before, but that's how bad that movie is. His next two movies did nothing to prove me wrong, that he was past his prime. He released the horrendous "Last Airbender" and the stupid and contrite "After Earth". Both these movies are just plain awful. "The Last Airbender" is so bad that fans of the anime won't even acknowledge the movie as part of the series. That's pretty telling. Shymalan is now dabbling in television with the mini series "Wayward Pines", and while it started interesting, I didn't finish it because it was way to boring and falling into Shymalan's routine of posing way too many questions that there's no way they could all be answered in ten, one hour episodes.

While I feel that Shymalan's fate is sealed as a director(he peaked early and is now no good), I think there's still hope for Blomkamp. He's only made three movies. "District 9" is, by a wide margin, his best movie, but while I didn't like either "Chappie" or "Elysium", at least "Chappie" was a bit more interesting and a touch better than "Elysium". I hope for his sake he's not turning into Shymalan, but the way it's going now, that's what I unfortunately see happening.

Time will tell I suppose.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. In the upcoming movie about SeedSing, Ty will have to wear Die Antwoord gear. Follow him on twitter @tykulik