Top 5 Most Underrated Actors Today

So this next bit will be a series for me. My first actually. I want to do a run on who I see as being the top 5 most underrated actors in cinema today. This probably won't be in any order, unless maybe I choose a number 1 when I finally finish, we'll see. So on to the actual subject.

NUMBER 5: Hugh Jackman

Alright, alright. I know this guy is mainly known for playing everyone's favorite adamantium laced mutant on the big screen. However, believe it or not, this guy can act in other very different roles. For one thing, does anyone know what kind of roles he played other Wolverine for the most part? Romantic comedies. Yep, that's right, this guy was a sucker for the chick flick scripts. He did Kate and Leopold with Meg Ryan (kind of a stinker, but he was good in it), and Someone Like You with Ashley Judd (far better film, and far better acting role for him).
But that's not all, what really got everyone's attention was a film by a little director by the name of Christopher Nolan. No it wasn't Batman, it was The Prestige.
In this one Jackman plays the foil to Christian Bale's semi-good guy role. See neither one of them are particularly sympathetic characters. They play dueling magicians trying to find out each others secrets to their acts. Jackman plays an excellent anti-hero in this one. He never completely becomes the good guy, but never truly crosses over to the evil side until a pivotal moment in the film that I will leave you to find out on your own (who said I was going to include spoilers in this?).
Next movie I want to make sure everyone knows about is a little known film called The Fountain. This one was directed by a guy named Darron Aronofsky. His big claim to fame a movie called Requiem For A Dream (one of the most depressing and dark looks at drugs ever). However, in The Fountain Aronofsky gets a performance out of Jackman that many Hugh fans believe should have been at least Oscar nomination worthy. This movie has some of the best special effects ever, especially considering they are all done without the use of computer generated graphics (thank you IMDB.com for that piece of trivia, check out how Aronofsky did it on there if you want to know, this is about the actor, remember?). But even with these amazing graphics, it is Hugh Jackman who truly shines here. In it he plays a doctor who is trying to essentially cure Cancer and along with it possibly death entirely. This is due to his wife (played by the wonderful Rachel Weisz) slowly dying of this dreaded disease. The movie follows him in three different eras of time with one common tie to them all. Hugh Jackman is trying to eradicate death itself using a special tree.
In one time period he is trying to deliver his love, the queen of Spain, in the 15th century or so from bondage by the Catholic church (a great little metaphor). In the next he is the aforementioned doctor (this one is the main thread in the story). Finally, in the third he is a tattoo covered man traveling through space in the distant future on a small island in a bubble with the great tree itself. Where he is headed is explained as the movie goes along. Now see this movie could have easily been all style and no substance. There honestly isn't a lot of dialogue or deep conversations. But does that stop our Hugh? Not even a little bit. In fact in one scene that explains why he has all of the tattoos in the future, he not only cries because of a great loss, he nearly bawls. As he is being so emotional, he conveys all of the basic motivations and emotions he has had throughout the movie in an almost completely wordless scene. This guy is brilliant.
So enjoy the wonderful actor that is Hugh Jackman. Watch his two completely different movies from anything you've probably seen him in with The Prestige and The Fountain. I guarentee afterwards, you won't look at Wolverine the same. Also, if you haven't seen the most recent X-Men movie that was all about Wolverines origins. I recommend a rental on that one. It isn't quite buy worthy, but Jackman and Liev Shreiber (playing Sabretooth in a way that only another gifted actor could do it) make the movie worth watching. It isn't very close to the comic book, and if you are going in expecting a direct adaptation, than you might as well stop watching comic book movies all together really. But if you want a good action movie with our number 5, check it out as well. Also, as a brief edit to my original post, that no one probably had a chance to read yet, take a look at Flushed Away as well. It isn't Jackman doing actual action, only voiceover, but it is a great movie and worth mention. It's from the creator of the beloved dog and owner duo Wallace and Gromit. So you know it must be good.

You keep reading them, and I'll keep writing them.

Anime, not just what we remember from TV in 80s anymore

So I decided to write this after a conversation I had with a friend of mine last week. I know I don't post often, I'm a busy guy with working 2 jobs like I do, but I feel this is a subject a lot of people should know about. See I am someone who used to hate anime, I thought it was stupid and all the same. Than as I got a bit older, and I got to be about 15 or 16 I saw two movies that started a change of mind for me. They were called "Ghost In The Shell" and "Akira". These two movies if they were live action and made today, they would have had blockbuster budgets and would have been directed by someone like Stephen Spielberg or at the very least James Cameron. Check out their descriptions on Amazon.com if you'd like to know what they are about. I'm not doing this one as a review this time. Maybe in another post. So I saw these movies, and I was blown away by their stories and their quality. They opened my mind to cartoons being for adults as well as kids even.

But I ignored anime after that, assuming that they were rarities. I watched a few here and there, mostly the stock stuff that teenagers watch like "Dragonball Z" or "Transformers" (yes, I don't care what anyone says, "Transformers" is technically anime. Sorry people out there who don't see it that way.). Than a few years ago I gave it another chance and I watched something called "Spirited Away", and I was very very surprised. It was good. Not only was it good, but it was for all ages. Anything by Hayao Miyazaki is essentially high quality. That was it, after that I was hooked again.

So yeah, after that I thought maybe there are a few good ones out there. I watched so many after that that I saw whatever I could. "Neon Genesis: Evangelion" in particular being excellent, it has a mysterious story, giant robots, and tons of action. Lots of anime are not exactly what we would call good. Yes, that is true. You have to sift through lots that are horrible to find the good ones. However, the good ones are well worth the looking. A few for everyone to look at are as follows. Give them a shot, see what you think. Not all are perfect, but plenty are good, even great in some cases. My taste varies quite a lot, and plenty of them can be seen for free on the internet somewhere or other. The ones you can't find there, most you can find on something like Netflix for rental or amazon.com for purchase. Most of them are well worth seeing at least once or twice. Some you will watch once, forget all about for a while, and than all of a sudden want to watch again. Others, like "Akira", or "Ghost In The Shell" after watching once, you might end up wanting to just watch them again and again. So have fun! Give some of these a real chance. You won't regret it. Remember, anime isn't just for kids, and it isn't just for perverts either.

Fullmetal Alchemist (The series is far better than the movie, which takes place afterwards); Howl's Moving Castle; Neon Genesis: Evangelion (Show and than watch the movie); Nausica Valley Of The Wind; Ghost In The Shell (The movie is the only thing worth it not the series at all); Akira; Hellsing (The shorter run of the series is better than the longer one); Perfect Blue; Vampire Hunter D; Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust; Ninja Scroll; Afro Samurai; Cowboy Bebop; The Animatrix; Lupin III (kind of silly, and a bit raunchy but not bad); Naruto Shippuden (a sequel to its predecessor, Naruto, and is far superior to it. Where Naruto was for kids mostly, this one is mostly for late teens or older)

An excellent read by anyones standards

So I recently finished World War Z by Max Brooks. Let me tell you boys and girls, this is a good one. It is essentially a book about what if the zombie apocalypse happened, and everything that happened after. A journalist is the narrator of the story and he is going around collecting peoples reactions, interactions, and experiences that happened just before, during, and just after the zombie outbreak. Some of the stories are what you'd expect, soldiers fighting and dying, people turning on one another, etc... However, there are also some really surprises in this one. Max Brooks (the narrator who the author named after himself) talks to some political figures who made the tough decisions throughout the war, and some people who are just basic people who lived through it and made sacrifices and changes for it. Honestly, the best stories are the ones from the people who just lived through it as civilians. Yes, the soldiers stories are interesting, and so are the political figures, but the real meat of this one is with the civilians who tell it like it was on the ground trying to survive. If you are a fan of political literature, biographies, war histories, zombies, or any combination of those than read this book. You will not be sorry.

One more on comics that I love

Okay, okay, I promise the next one will be about something other than comic books. But this is one I had to put out there as well. This comic is called Irredeemable. I happened to hear about it when watching something about one of the conventions in Maryland. A great writer named Mark Waid is putting this one out on his label BOOM! comics. Essentially it is about a super hero who has more or less all the same abilities as Superman. Except in his case no one knows anything about him. Not where he comes from (or even if he's human or not), not his weaknesses, or even his secret identity. So the first issue starts out with this super hero running into his childrens room telling them and his wife they need to leave now. He doesn't get a chance to explain why other than that "he's" coming. Than in comes The Plutonian (our superman type of hero) who starts by killing off the hero, than all of his family with his heat vision, than whispers in his little girls ear, who is still alive at this point, "Want to know a secret honey? I'm a super hero." This is just the first 5 pages of the first issue. This one is not for kids for sure, but it is certainly for anyone who likes a deep and engrossing story. It has everything, mystery, action, romance, drama, even a little humor. Basically I explain this to people as being a what if superman was more mentally unstable and finally had enough of things. They are only one issue 7 or 8 at this point, and honestly I am hooked so hard. They haven't even totally explained why he went bad yet, and I don't even care. Read it. If you like comic books at all, read it. You won't be sorry.

One of my favorite comics of all time

Alright this is my first post, and honestly probably will not get read. But I thought I would do my first post on something that I truly am passionate about, comics. So the series I am going to talk about is called "Invincible". It is written by a wonderful writer named Robert Kirkman and has all the great aspects that all the old comic books had, and all the best parts that the new ones have. It has well written stories that pull you in and make you care about the characters, bright colors with heroes who are heroes, and villains who are true villains. The lines don't blur that much with this one as far as who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. At least that is the case at first. You have to read it to understand why that is though. Now it is pretty violent at times, and definitely knows how to push the envelope when it wants to. But it is still in good taste generally and it rarely moves away from being exactly what it started out as, a comic that anyone who likes super hero comics will enjoy. The best thing about this one is that just when you think you know where the plot is going there is a huge twist, especially in the first volume of it. I have yet to have met anyone who has read the first volume of this comic book and not wanted to immediately buy or borrow volume 2. So if you like a good strong story and a superman-esque hero than this one is for you. Honestly, even if you don't like Superman comic books, you'll probably like this one. A brief synopsis with no spoilers of the basic plot is it is about a boy who is born to a mother from Earth and a father who is from a planet called Viltrumite. The Viltrumites are strong, fast, can fly, and are almost entirely invulnerable. The older they get the stronger they get as well. The main character, Mark, finds out he inherited his fathers abilities and becomes a super hero just like his father. He names himself Invincible, his father is named Omni-Man. So far sounds pretty familiar right? Almost like superman came to Earth, and had a kid with Lois kind of story. It gets much better as it goes, and is full of plot twists, one of which has made almost every single best spoiler/plot twist list since the issue it was in came out. So read it, don't read anything else about it, just read the comic. Wizard ruined the twist for me by saying exactly what it was. So trust me, don't read anything else about it, just go find volume one, hardcover edition is the one I have, and read it. I promise once you start you won't put it down til you are done with it.