What's Cooking in Hollywood This Spring?

Early Spring is not usually a time when Academy Award-worthy movies are released; summer is the prime time when great movies are released in theaters. According to Einav, in “Seasonality in the U.S. Motion Picture industry,” the biggest movies are released at times when demand is highest. Obviously, school is out for the summer and people generally have more time to do more recreational activities. This spring, however, a handful of new and upcoming movies are getting the even the harshest reviewers excited!

More and more books are being made into movies. As a fan of Nicholas Sparks and The Notebook, I am eagerly waiting for Safe Haven to be released. Like a large amount of his books, it is a love story about a stranger moving to a small town. Gradually, the main character breaks down their walls by slowly revealing their past with the help of another person who has a dark history. Moviegoers, myself included, are hoping the excitement and emotion of the two main characters translates as well into the film as Sparks illustrates in his book. Surely this movie will not be similar to The Lucky One, another one of Sparks works, where the book was great, but the movie did not live up to the book; the romance was not as good as it was described in the book. If not, just add Safe Haven to any woman's list of must see movies.

Along with Safe Haven, another popular book is being made into a movie, The Great Gatsby. Not many people will say that they read the book other than as a class assignment, however a movie about the glamorous lifestyle of the rich during The Roaring Twenties. Along with a top notch cast, this movie will sure bring new and revived interest to the classic Fitzgerald novel.

Sometimes a person sees a preview of a movie and does not know anything about it, but it looks interesting enough to watch-Beautiful Creatures falls into this category. It tells the story of an ordinary boy who falls in love with a girl who has supernatural powers in a small town. He gets acquainted to her when her powers are getting stronger and will eventually “be claimed for the Light or the Dark.” With her family of supernatural beings, everyone else in town suspicious of them, and an ordinary high school student learning things about them that he should not, this sounds like another version of Twilight. Hopefully this movie will not succumb to the same fate as Twilight, perceived as a joke, and will have good acting from the cast as well as an interesting background story about the supernatural. I will more than likely read the book to truly understand the story, but only after watching the movie.

For those who are comic geeks or superhero fans, luckily we will not have to wait for the summer for Iron Man 3. Watching the first two movies out of pure curiosity, I was not expecting to enjoy myself since I am not a die-hard comic lover. However, Robert Downey Jr. delivers his cockiness through his character but maintains likability. For those who watched The Avengers and comic lovers alike, this third installment will surely entertain with action packed explosions and adventure.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated movies by young and old moviegoers alike to be released this spring is Oz: The Great and Powerful. There have been numerous adaptations of L.Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz such as The Wiz and Wicked to name a few. What makes this adaptation exciting is that viewers get another viewpoint of the world of Oz; Dorothy's story was told in the original, the witches' story was told in Wicked and now we get to see Oz's story. Much like most of the predecessors, Oscar Diggs, a con artist magician, is swept away from Kansas to the colorful land of Oz where he gets dragged into the problems facing the land. Little to his knowledge, all of the creatures have been waiting for him to fix everything. People know, or at least are familiar with, the story of The Wizard of Oz so it gives anyone who watches this movie excitement of seeing their favorites character or what plot twist will end up in the final version. Also, the 3-D animation will provide eye candy to make fans out of the young and reluctant.

The spring movie season is sure to delight audiences long before the summer blockbusters hit. Whether a person favors dark romance in Beautiful Creatures, realistic romance in Safe Haven, or is looking forward to seeing one of their favorite books of their childhood get turned into a prequel, these upcoming movies are the best that this season holds.

Here's a great place to check out new movie trailers and buy your favorites that are just out on DVD & Blu-Ray.

iTunes Replay Streaming vs Netflix?

The rumor on the internets is that apple is going to launch something called itunesreplay along with icloud this fall. The question is will this become a valid challenger to Netflix? Apparently Apple is still hashing out some deals with the likes of HBO and a few other cable tv channels, which is what has delayed an official announcement. I'm guessing Apple wants to make sure they have everything nice and tidy before making any sort of announcement, just like they did with the record companies before announing iCloud and it's music sync capabilities. Whether or not it will give Netflix a run for it's money remains to be seen, especially since Netflix has changed it's approach lately when it comes to their plans and pissed off a lot of people in the process.

Time Warner Cable's iPad App

I recently had the chance to play around with time warner cable's iPad app, and I was very pleased. Granted it doesn't give you all of the channels that you get via the regular cable box. However, if you are on the same wifi network as your cable setup, it acts as a remote to click between different channels and does give you about 60 or so channels streaming right onto the iPad. I wonder if Direct TV offer's anything like this? It's a cool "free" addition to your time warner cable experience.

Manchester United vs Manchester City

The two halves of Manchester kick off the new barclays premiere league today playing in the community shield match. Usually this is not a super competitive game since it's still preseason and both teams want to get one last good opponent under their belt before the season kickoff. However, this year it seems like both Man united and man city are taking the game very seriously. Both have made some significant buys during the offseason, specifically aguero to city, and it will be interesting to see how much playing time the newbies will get. Regardless both will start with strong sides, and hopefully we will see some great goals and a great game!

The Dark Knight Rises: Pictures from the Set!!!!!

Thanks to toofab we have some awesome pictures of batman fighting bane on the streets of Pittsburgh while filming the dark knight rises! We see Christian Bale fighting Tom Hardy, both in their respective costumes. The new batmobile also makes an appearance, as does the bat-cycle from the last movie.

Here's the gallery!

Should young guys be popping Viagras?

I had a friend who recently mentioned that he decided to pop a Viagra before date night with his girlfriend. It sounds like his first hour was enjoyable but eventually his sustained state created issues. If I understand correctly Viagra and Cialis improve your blood flow, hence allowing for improves circulation in some critical areas. However if you are younger than 40 and have no circulatory issues it's probabaly not a great idea! Needless to say my friend learned this lesson the hard way, pun intended.

Is this the new iphone 5?

This picture has hit in the internet claiming to be a case layout for the new yet to be release iPhone 5

It;'s showing a larger home button, most likely it will be a gesture area as opposed to the button that we are used to. This is typical fare for pre iphone releases. I doubt we will get as lucky and find an actual prototype left in a bar like last year. Time will tell of course.