Machete
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan
20th Century Fox
Release Date: September 3, 2010

Keep your cheesy horror flicks and interchangeable kiddy crap. I’m wrapping up my movie going summer basking in the glory of the mightiness of Machete, a movie that by all accounts should not even exist. It started out as an idea for a movie Robert Rodriguez intended to build around the unique talent and looks of his frequent collaborator Danny Trejo, a reformed ex-con who got into acting in 1985 with a small part in the underrated action classic Runaway Train with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts. Trejo is a guy who has lived more lives than cats typically are born with and has always survived to tell the tale, usually on his face. He’s also got that awesome chest tattoo of a rather sexy woman that always seems to make its way into Trejo’s movies. Even if he’s in a scene that doesn’t require him to bare his chest somehow, someway, that tat is making a cameo appearance. Trejo has appeared in most of Robert Rodriguez‘s films since 1995’s Desperado, a quasi-remake/sequel to the director’s ultra low-budget 1992 debut El Mariachi. During filming Rodriguez was inspired to create a lead role in a future action epic for Trejo to play, and thus the seed of Machete was prematurely ejaculated, and the waiting began.

If you haven’t heard about a movie called Battle: Los Angeles, fear not: not a lot of people knew much about it going into Comic Con this year. During the panel for the movie, however, many quickly became more acquainted with it.

The real-life Battle of Los Angeles took place in 1942, a few months after the surprise Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor forced the United States to enter World War II. In the late hours of February 24, a light appeared in the skies over L.A. and many thought that it might be the Japanese making another attack. It was eventually realized that no one was attacking them, but some conspiracy theorist went on to call it an encounter with a UFO spacecraft. It was later determined to all be a big case of “war nerves,” and that the “aircraft” was actually just a weather balloon…as most UFOs are dubbed.

Battle: Los Angeles is a movie that takes that situation and turns into an actual alien invasion on Los Angeles. The film will be presented in real-time from the perspectives of the Marines as the encounter and battle unfold.

The first official trailer for Robert Rodriguez‘s grindhouse flick Machete has safely landed on the internet. The movie was born from Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s dual-effort, Grindhouse, where Machete made a cameo as one of the many faux trailers used to set the tone as an old school double feature.

The movie is co-directed by Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, and tells the story of a Mexican Federale gun (or blade)-for-hire who’s brought in to do a job that turns out to be a major setup. Eventually he recovers and sets off for bloody revenge. What more do you need than that, really?

Continue on over to check out the trailer now.

Avatar
Blu-ray/DVD Combo
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Moore, Michelle Rodriguez
20th Century Fox
Release Date: April 22, 2010

Avatar. The biggest movie that has ever been made by any film director on this planet. Ever. Oh, my. Where does one even begin? By watching the movie, I suppose.

Going in, I was about as unsure what to expect as I have ever been with any movie. Over the past couple of years, myself and many others have heard what seems like constant updates and information regarding director James Cameron‘s game-changing film. How huge it would be; how revolutionary the effects would be; how immersive the cinematic experience would be. And all of these promises were seemingly confirmed when a select group of eyes was introduced to 24-minutes of footage in 3D, which led to a level of high-praise that we’ve never heard before. At this moment, buzz and excitement was in orbit, higher than anyone could possibly think to reach.

Then came the first official teaser trailer, and everything seemed to change. People weren’t so sure that Avatar could live up to all the hype that had been created now that they had seen with their own two eyes what it looked like…and I was one of these people. Don’t get me wrong, it still looked like a lot of fun and I was excited to see it, but the “game-changer” looked more like just your typical summer blockbuster than anything else, and this was a little depressing.

Fast & Furious
2-Disc Special Edition
Directed by Justin Lin
Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez
Universal Studios
Release Date: July 28, 2009

Fast & Furious is part of a tricky four-movie franchise. Most movie fans see a movie like this coming out, and immediately write it off. In other words, being objective toward these movies is not an easy task. Even for someone like myself, who thought the first movie was a ton of fun, really had no interest in seeing its sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, and the threequel, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. One of the reasons I was so against these movies was their breaking of a cardinal rule: if you’re giving me a sequel, give me the original cast. So when I first saw the trailer for this fourth installment, and that the core cast from the original was finally brought back together, I was curious as to if it could be as fun as the first.

The movie opens up with lovey-dovey criminal couple Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) in another country and on another high-speed heist of tankers carrying profitable fuel. When Dom finds out the cops are hot on his trail, he parts ways with Letty to keep her out of jail. After hiding for a while, he finds out that someone close to him has been murdered, and he decides to sneak back into America and find out who’s responsible so he can take them down. This mission finds him bumping into old friend Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), who now works for the FBI and is also working to try and take down the same guy, whose name is Braga. After a rocky reunion, Brian and Dom go to the old house where Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) still lives, and decide to put their differences aside and work to find Braga and end his reign in the crime world.