James Cameron definitely made the most of nearly 15 years and 300 Million dollars making Avatar, because it looks and feels completely unlike any movie ever. Maybe it’s the tasteful use of 3D technology, maybe the striking resemblance the CG characters have to their human actor equivalents, or maybe it was the fact that an entirely computer generated world actually felt REAL for the first time ever, but Avatar definitely knocked us both out… what about you?

~Matt + Nat

It’s taken a decade and a half for James Cameron to bring Avatar to the silver screen (in 3-D IMAX no less), but now that technology has caught up with his imagination, he’s leading an all-star action-packed cast into the jungles of a world called Pandora to meet his photo-realistic blue-skinned aliens. Using custom-made performance capture rigs on a scale never before attempted, Avatar LOOKS stunning so far and there’s a lot of talk about the technology and the visuals, but as is the case in any movie, the real satisfaction for the audience lies in that 15-year old paper that Avatar was written on. Is THAT any good? We’ll soon find out, but with Cameron at the helm as writer and director and producer, we’ve definitely got our hopes high!

If you’re looking for a way to get even more engrossed in all things Avatar before this week’s release, check out The Official TypePad Avatar Community, we’ve been playing on there ourselves and having a great time!

~Matt + Nat

When Roland Emmerich destroys the world, he does it with a certain panache. Independence Day, Godzilla, Day After Tomorrow are some of his previous epic disaster movies and 2012 looks to be kicking it up yet again. With an off-beat cast including genre favourites like John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Woody Harrelson, the Mayan doomsday is compounded by a government conspiracy and some of the biggest scale earth-ending images we’ve ever seen!

~Matt + Nat

After having our hopes for a good Japanese cartoon adaptation dashed by the Wachowski’s Speed Racer, our hopes were high for Imagi Studios to bring us some good old-fashioned CGI manga true to the original. And bring it they did. In the form of a very well made kids movie that brought us both back to the early 80’s. And treated us like we had the same brainpower we had in the 80’s. A childrens’ movie 100%, Astro Boy fires on all cylinders for kids, and gives parents a good excuse to watch a cartoon inspired by their own childhood. So if you don’t have any, go borrow some kids from someone you know, and you’ll look right at home in the theatre!

~Matt + Nat

Did Bruce Willis and Jonathan Mostow do justice to the critically acclaimed five-part comic written by Robert Venditti? You already know from the trailers that the stakes have gone up from the comic plot: now the operators die as well when the surrogates are fried. But did that ruin the entire motivation of “Steeplejack”? Or does this change in the plot give a whole new and higher message to Surrogates? Check out our review, it’s Spoiler-free at first and then quite Spoileriffic as we examine Surrogates as a standalone film, and then as an adaptation.

~Matt + Nat

Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp have brought us what might be the most significant modern Sci-Fi movie, but have definitely made one of the best movies of 2009. With great characters, an amazing alternate reality, plus social commentary and action to spare, District 9 is a must-see film for geeks and movie-lovers alike!

~Matt + Nat

We’ve been looking forward to this one since the very first “For Human Use Only” bus shelters started popping up in our city, and the early teasers made this look like a sci-fi film the likes of which we’ve never seen. Oozing with social commentary, this human/alien segregation story is placed in South Africa, where the wounds of apartheid are still healing. We can’t wait to see what Producer Peter Jackson and first-time Director Neill Blomkamp have to offer with District 9!

~Matt + Nat

Michael Bay stunned us. Not only was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen an entertaining enough film to keep Nat’s attention for 150-long minutes, but Matt, (who RAILED against the 2007 film as a classic G1 80’s Transformer fan) actually enjoyed this one, too! The wounds from Bay’s painful reimagining of the Transformers have healed in the last two years, and a Mute, Camaro Bumblebee doesn’t offend us quite as much as it used to. Maybe that’s what helped make this sequel SUCH an improved experience over the original!

~Matt + Nat