The biggest sensation of 2015, Star Wars – Force Awakens was easily the most anticipated movie of the last few years. A lot of expectation was put into it. It was the revival of a beloved franchise, and the first movie under the Disney umbrella. The direction was under the experienced JJ Abrams, famous for the Lost TV show and the Star Trek film reboot. There are not much people in the world that can claim to have worked in these both famous Sci-Fi universes.

It starts from the ashes of the old Galactic Empire; the First Order rises. Kinda lame, because it is essentially the same enemy, with the same military structure. Just a re-branding. In fact, if you start to think more deeply, the film tries so much to be a continuation of the universe, that it borrows several elements from other movies. The deja vù sensation is very present throughout the whole time. It is not bad or good by definition, but it makes me think about the artificial nature of the script: it was done to be a commercial success, at all costs.

I liked very much the new characters, heroes and villains. Most are well-defined. Their motivations are clear, and their actions make sense. They are also mostly funny. It believes that Disney notice that the most beloved characters from the original movies were those that have a sense of humor, like Han Solo and Chewbacca, or R2-D2. Now almost all, even in dire straits, have fun of the danger. One noticeable exception is the main villain, Kylo Ren. The internal is so strong that makes the audience believe that he is not actually any powerful as it tries to imply.

My main overall criticism is that the movie is very focused on the characters and the intrinsic relationships among them, forgetting the major conflict (not going to tell about specifics, for the sake of spoiling the fun). All the problems that are not personal-related is solved in a so easy fashion that removed the credibility. The villains are so incompetent the heroes surpass them all the time, with no relevant drawback. At the end, it seems that everything was a minor headache episode.

Nostalgic and fun. Total recommendation. Sorry to say, but it is already a far better experience than Lucas’ second trilogy. Star Wars is stronger than ever.

I was waiting a moment with my girlfriend to watch what I was expecting to be a silly romance story. The Fault in Our Stars was a bestseller book, adapted to the big screen. And it is more than enough to make me shiver. Twilight Saga and Fifty Shades of Grey are recent proof of what book editors are bestselling.

But for my surprise, this one is a great movie. Amazing character development, very sad story with a great dosage of first love romance. I cried from start to end.

The actors deliver the characters with nice performances. I cannot remember right now a single actor that was bellow-par. Shailene Woodley is gorgeous and with the make up and different haircut, she is even more beautiful. Great actress too, because she makes you care deeply about her character, the protagonist Hazel.

Her friend and lover Augustus, played by Ansel Ergot, is less believable, but very likable. He is always positive about life and drives the whole dark tone of cancer with much lighter.

The human relations, even on very dare moments of life, is really

I recommend this movie.

Yesterday I watched the Free to Play movie, produced by Valve. I can be only seeing inside the Steam gaming platform. I’ve never knew that it has video player functionalities.

Without any further due, the verdict: very boring.

The film is about video gaming as an sport, particularly about Dota 2. It tells 3 parallel stories of players that will participate into the biggest tournament ever. The prize would be one million dollars for the winner. At the time, it was, but light years, the biggest prize in history.

The 3 main characters are not particularly captivating. They are portrayed as nerds that are taking a lot of pressure by family members to work or study instead invest the whole time into gaming. The characters keep saying that they are motivated and determined to win. But that is all. You see that they are facing difficult situations, but nothing different from a teenagers entering into adulthood: what should I do with my life?

Despite the fact that the announcement alone of a such big prize created a huge repercussion on the internet gaming community and media, the tournament is poorly described. During the whole film, I was never sure what was going on in the competition.

But one thing it was very impressive the CG scenes that describe some parts of the matches in the competition. I believe that Valve CG animators entered in action. They were short but very, very well done.

The bottom line is that this film is, in fact, a propaganda about video game as an sport and the Valve game Dota. It repeatedly say that this competition was a milestone and it might actually be the case. But even being free to watch, Free to Play is not worthy.

Great visuals. That is by far the most commented and notorious quality of this touching movie. This film have several common qualities with Cast Away. The main character, because of an disaster, is isolated to the world. Alone, he enters into a routine in order to maintain sanity. But from external eyes, it seems that they are, in fact, becoming lunatic.

This piece is beautiful not only for the eyes, but also for the heart. The main message is tolerance. Tolerance especially towards religion choices. It is very linked to religion theme, while not a sermon.

The main problem of the film is the somewhat long sequence of loneliness. While important to give motive to the religion, it is long enough to make some people sleep.

In the end, I recommend you to watch to reflect. Probably the book that inspired the film is more deep, but this piece is strong enough to provoke some thinking about religion, personal choices and differences.

This year I watched several TV shows. Battlestar Gallactica (which I hated), Downton Abbey (which I loved), Breaking Bad… But Game of Thrones, oh my… Game of Thrones is an amazing show!

I’ve read the book as soon as I’ve heard that it would become a show produced by HBO. HBO series are generally very well conceived. I still remember Rome. The book is very good, with a great environment and great characters. I still have to read the others books from the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A Game of Thrones is only the first book), but that one is great enough to make me happy.

Back to the TV show…

There are several characters that you can empathize – you can understand their motives and actions. No one is purely good or purely evil. The show does a great job by presenting them with a reasoning depth. This is a great achievement because the story uses dozens of characters.

The cast is great. It’s natural to question some cast choices when we read the book first. When reading, we only could imagine their faces and quite often we did not pay attention to some details that the author really put there. But in Game of Thrones, I liked all the choices. I was particularly afraid to see the implementation of my favorite characters: Arya, Tyrion and Ned Stark. But all 3 impressed me.

The first and second episodes exaggerate a bit in sex scenes. I liked 😉 but some people might complain. Violence, that I thought would be pure gore, was quite moderate. The adaptation took the advantage of one of the book’s greatest features: the cliffhanger ending on each chapter. We finish a chapter or an episode wanting more.

Most of the critics are a bit correct about the difficulty on following some parts. It’s due to the rich and complex universe created for the books. The producers had to choose if the series would or not contain the deep ambient. And they chose yes. I agree, but there are several other films and shows that are much worse (ex Matrix trilogy). I really really recommend to see Game of Thrones. The opening sequence will be enough to you embrace this amazing series.