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It’s been ten years since Sarah Connor was first introduced to the future of her son and mankind. Sarah has been preparing her son John since his birth to be the warrior he would need to be to survive in this future and lead us to victory, however, Sarah is now separated from her son and confined to a criminal mental instution because she tried to blow up Cyberdine Systems – the company that will one day manufacture SkyNet.

Without the influence of Sarah, John has begun to doubt all of the training and warnings his mother has given him through the years and begun to believe she is just as crazy as the doctors and law enforcement believe her to be. He is set on being a rebellious teen until SkyNet changes its direction and sends back a terminator to target John instead of Sarah.

I adore Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I saw this film in the theatre when I was a kid and I still remember that experience to this day, the same way I remember Jurassic Park wowing me. Because of T2 I later discovered Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and happily chose the red pill and went down the rabbit hole with James Cameron.

The version of T2 I have on DVD is the director’s cut and like any of his films, once you see a James Cameron director’s cut you don’t go back. I understand that Cameron makes long movies, but everything he is forced to cut out for time constraints or other reasons, seems to be just as good as the material he keeps in his theatrical releases and Terminator 2 is no exception to this rule. The most notable scenes eliminated here and re-added to the director’s cut are the dream sequence where Sarah imagines Reese visiting her and when John & Sarah repair the T-800 model. Of all the sequences cut out of the movie this is the one I would have fought to keep.

If you remember from the theatrical cut of the film as John, Sarah & the T-800 escape from the T-1000 old Arnold gets pretty banged up, and he has a conversation with John about how he can be made to learn things due to his processor. When they are alone the T-800 gets repaired by Sarah. Anyone who paid attention to the first Terminator should realize that Sarah should be the last person to trust this model of terminator, it killed Reese and came dang close to killing her; so when it powers down for repairs Sarah removes it’s processor chip and prepares to smash it – but John stops her. He convinces her to instead switch the chip to learning mode so that the T-800 can begin to adapt and be more useful. It’s John’s first real moment as a leader and he demands that Sarah respect that. It’s a great scene and the only reasons I can see for it being cut would be pacing or because the studio wanted a shorter movie. Either way I think it’s a scene that proves Cameron is superior to other “action” filmmakers as he manages to concentrate on character and story as well as the action set pieces that get audiences into chairs.

If you haven’t seen the original Terminator films I really encourage you to if you are a fan of science fiction, the franchise, or James Cameron. I greatly disliked Terminator 3: the Rise of the Machines and enjoyed Terminator Salvation, but neither of these two films holds a candle to the original two. It’s still my secret hope that when the rights to the franchise go on the auction block soon Cameron will secretly buy them up so that he can either stop the inferior sequels or oversee them so his vision can be seen on screen again.

Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron & William Wisher Jr.
The Terminator: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sarah Connor: Linda Hamilton
John Connor: Edward Furlong
T-1000: Robert Patrick
Dr. Silberman: Earl Boen
Miles Dyson: Joe Morton

Sarah Connor: 3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.

Charlie Bartlett is a rich teen whose eccentricities have been nurtured by his mother and caused him to be expelled from every private school with a stamp until he is forced into public school. Charlie ends up at the public high school of Principal Gardner and though Charlie suffers his lumps and bruises at first he finally finds his place among the student population as amateur shrink, and all-around problem solver who deals behavioral meds on the side and helps the students through the issues they can’t take to their parents. Charlie’s popularity weighs on Principal Gardner because the superintendent beings to blame the student bodies behavior on Gardner being unable to control Charlie, and because Charlie is dating his daughter. In the end, Charlie and Gardner both have to figure out what they want and how they got to this point in their lives in order to truly accept who they are.

When the trailers first came out for Charlie Bartlett I really wanted to see it, but it was in limited release and it slipped past me. I was reminded of the film when I saw Star Trek and the phenomenal Anton Yelchin who just happens to be the lead character in Charlie Bartlett.

After seeing Yelchin in Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation I knew he had talent, but Charlie Bartlett sealed the deal. This kid is going to be huge and he is one of the most talented young actors I have seen in years. Yelchin has the ability to literally put on a character’s skin, get inside their emotional life and become another person; while every actor can do this on some level there is no denying that just like any talent some actors are much more capable than others – Yelchin may be young but he transforms on screen. It’s transfixing to watch and the presence of Robert Downey Jr. in this film made me feel like Downey was stamping his seal of approval on Yelchin, and though the film was decidedly more light-hearted I felt that the level of performance in this film was akin to Downey in Less Than Zero.

Charlie Bartlett is also a wonderfully rounded film. The film goes from comedy to drama with the ease that only great films can, one that seems natural and intrinsic to the film; a shift that makes sense for the characters, the story and the message of the film. Gardner and Charlie are very similar characters at very opposing points in their lives and when the characters finally bond at the end of the film each causes the other to wake up to the things they’d been ignoring about themselves and this is done without being trite, heavy-handed or blasé.

I cannot recommend Charlie Bartlett enough. This is an incredible movie with an incredible cast and if I had the money it would already be a part of my collection instead of just another notch off my Netflix queue.

Director: Jon Poll
Wrriter: Gustin Nash
Charlie Bartlett: Anton Yelchin
Principal Gardner: Robert Downey Jr.
Marilyn Bartlett: Hope Davis
Susan Gardner: Kat Dennings
Murphey: Tyler Hilton

Charlie Bartlett: Well duh dude, this place sucks. But I just worry that one day we're gonna look back at high school and wish we'd done something different.

Yes, yes. I saw Terminator Salvation two times in a row. What was I supposed to do? A friend wanted to go and so I went. It was fun.

I actually enjoyed seeing the film more on the second viewing and I have to day that is probably because through my entire first viewing I was constantly tense…I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was on pins and needles most of the film the first time because I love the first two films so much that I didn’t see any way that another installment of Terminator could add to the franchise after the disaster that was T3. Thank goodness my faith in McG paid off. I’d heard him speak so passionately about Terminator at last years Comic-Con and begun to get a sense that he of all people could make a worthy follow-up to Cameron’s visionary story. McG exceeded.

One of my favorite things in Terminator Salvation is that though the film has switched entirely to John Connor and away from Sarah we still get Sarah Connor in the film. Those that have followed the Connor’s since Terminator know that she recorded a series of tapes for John to prepare him for the future to come, the war with the machines and how he came to be. Now a grown man without his mother by his side to fight with him, John uses those tapes constantly in an effort to stay on top of the machines and the war to come.

As much as I loved McG’s vision of the future I still miss James Cameron at the helm. However, I hope that since Cameron isn’t there McG can perhaps get Linda Hamilton to reprise her iconic role if the story dictates it…

Marcus Wright: What day is it? What year?
Kyle Reese: 2018.
Marcus Wright: What happened here?
Kyle Reese: Judgment Day happened.

In Terminator Salvation we are finally in the post-Judgment Day war, but we are early in it – the resistance is still learning to fight against the machines, and the machines are still fighting against John Connor. John Connor is finally dealing with the future his mother warned him about, the one he lived his life preparing for. He thought he was prepared for it until Marcus Wright arrives and shocks John completely – Marcus is a terminator but believes he is human. I have to say that no Terminator film will ever match Cameron’s original films, but this one is a good addition to the series.

What was so great to me about Terminator Salvation is how McG has explored the mythos of Judgment Day and John Connor. By placing the audience early in the war we get to see the continued journey of how John Connor becomes the leader of the resistance. You see when we come into the movie John is not the leader. John is high in the resistance but there is a central command that does not accept him as leader. The writers and McG have explored a very simple concept of John Connor as savior; because of Sarah, John has the knowledge of the machines and the war, and knows that he is who can end it all but while a great many people accept Johns story there is another group of people that think he is what amounts to a false prophet. John has to fight for his position as leader of the resistance.

This is the first Terminator movie that has not had a plot directly related to time travel. However, as the core of the films deal with time travel it does come up in this film. The primary thing that John Connor has to deal with is not only pushing forward to beat down Skynet, but finding his father Kyle Reese. At this point in time Kyle is actually younger than John, but John must find him, protect him and shepard him into the soldier that he will send back in time to protect his mother without Kyle ever knowing that this is what is happening. And after a lifetime of growing up never knowing his father, John Connor will finally meet him.

What I am still weighing in my mind is the character of Marcus Wright. I can’t say that I disliked the character, and I think that upon further viewing I will in fact like him more, but the character was a bit odd to me. I think my only reasoning is that never before has a main character entirely taken focus off one of the Connor’s. However, his character served a great purpose in the film and was pretty dang interesting so I can’t complain. I do however wish that Kate Connor was further explored as it felt like there should have been more to her in the movie.

Terminator Salvation has gotten a lot of crap, and I have to say that most of it is probably coming from people that still won’t accept McG as a credible director. However, he seems to be on a string of well done movies, it began with We Are Marshall and if it continues past Terminator Salvation I’d say I can safely call McG a dang good director. I’d take him over Michael Bay any day.

Director: McG
Writers: John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
John Connor: Christian Bale
Marcus Wright: Sam Worthington
Blair Williams: Moon Bloodgood
Dr. Serena Kogan: Helena Bonham Carter
Kyle Reese: Anton Yelchin
Kate Connor: Bryce Dallas Howard
General Ashdown: Michael Ironside

John Connor: We've been fighting a long time. We are out numbered by machines. Working around the clock,without quit. Humans have a strength that cannot be measured. This is John Connor. If you are listening to this,you are the resistance.

Sarah Connor was living her life like any material girl in the 1984; she waitressed by day, laughed with her roommate Ginger and went out on dates. Then one day women named Sarah Connor began to be killed and her world was turned upside down. Out of nowhere Sarah finds out that a machine from the future, a terminator has been sent through time to kill her because she will give birth to a legendary leader named John Connor who will fight back against the machines when they cause a nuclear world and enslave the human race, and in the future he is on the verge of winning. Sarah finds out that she is the one that trains him to become this great leader, military warrior and savior of man kind. After that day Sarah Connor’s life changed forever – and so did cinema.

Sarah Connor is one of the most respected strong women of cinema; she is a legendary character and one in a long line of leading strong women led by James Cameron. What makes the character of Sarah Connor remarkable is not one thing but many, and it all starts with The Terminator. Never before had such a strong yet feminine woman been brought to the screen; Connor wasn’t strong in the say Kathryn Hepburn was strong, she was strong in a whole new way. She learned how to make plastic explosives, field dress wounds and fight for humanity.

Every time I watch The Terminator I am amazed at how natural Cameron and Linda Hamilton make Sarah Connor’s transformation from simple citizen to guerilla warrior. One would think that to make that dramatic a change it would be clunky and sudden, but it is not. Even before she knew the definition of an H.K. and T-101 Sarah could defend herself, think on her feet, and by the end of the film she is motivating the soldier sent back to protect her, and fighting against the machines herself.

In The Terminator Cameron creates not just Sarah Connor, but an entire world with a future so bleak that an entire new avenue was opened in science fiction. Time travel tales had been told before, but never in such a way as he told them. The Terminator sets up an entire world that we cannot see, a heroine that grows to greatness before us and the possibility of a leader even greater than this heroine. Cameron creates a way for the future to crash into the present with the idea that they are so linked together that neither the viewer or the characters can truly know if anything they do will actually change the future or if their actions are creating the future they dread. It was unique when the franchise began and remains fresh and vibrant to this day.

While The Terminator is arguably a franchise fueled by testosterone one must never forget that like just a John Connor was trained by his mother, Terminator was built by Sarah Connor.

Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron & Gale Anne Hurd
The Terminator: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Kyle Reese: Michael Biehn
Sarah Connor: Linda Hamilton
Detective Vukovich: Lance Henrickson
Dr. Silberman: Earl Boen
Punk Leader: Bill Paxton

Kyle Reese: Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies into dumpsters and incinerators. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah, your unborn son.

After watching Commando two things become crystal clear: 1) Arnold has not been in that many genuinely good movies in his career. 2) Almost all of the Arnold stereotypes began in this film.

The film is about Arnold’s character, John Matrix, that is a former Army commando who helped oust a dictator. Said dictator is now hunting down everyone who was on John’s team and killing them. Said dictator’s men kidnap John’s daughter, thus giving him an excuse to hunt down everyone of them and create an astronomical body count.

Seriously, that is the entire story. Oh – and since it’s 1985 there has to be a female in there as well so there is a random stewardess he meets that for some reason helps him but that basically means that she drives the car/holds the gear. I honestly have no idea why/where in the movie she showed up.

This film has the best character introduction ever for Arnold; foget the menacing explosion of blue light that eats away pavement and reveals a naked Arnold in Terminator, here we have sweaty, muscled Arnold in a wife beater with a chainsaw in one hand and an entire felled tree across his shoulder.

To further the Arnold stereotypes that follow him the rest of his career this is the film where Arnold is able to flip over cars, pick people up & throw them, take on 6 gooney’s at once, etc. - sometimes all in the same scene.

Please do not see this movie thinking it is a great, plot driven movie. In reality, it pretty much makes NO sense, but it’s so much fun because of this. How does Arnold manage to set two small explosives, and blow up an entire complex of 4+ buildings? I don’t know, but the film does it.

Director: Mark L. Lester
Writer: Steven E. DeSouza
John Matrix: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Jenny Matrix: Alyssa Milano
Cindy: Rae Dawn Chong
Arius: Dan Hedaya

Cooke: You scared, motherfucker? Well, you should be, because this Green Beret is going to kick your big ass!
Matrix: I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I'm very hungry!

The thing about watching a movie is that you have to believe what is happening on screen. Film is a collaborative medium and everyone has a hand in this from the director to the P.A.’s – if one part is off it doesn’t work.

They importance of make-up and effects has been part of the filmmaking process since Dr. Calagari opened his cabinet. Through the years technology upped the ante for what a filmmaker can pull off in a film. Miniatures, rear screen projection, pyrotechnics, break-away walls, and puppets…Moses parted the Red Sea, Jason fought an army of skeletons, a cyborg could fight an apocalyptic war against mankind.

Then computers came on the scene and suddenly everything changed again. A terminator could be made of liquid metal; Harry Potter could mount a flying broom and play quidditch. However, in the midst of all this there was a call to scale back the computers, and keep the illusions in film “Real”.

In the midst of all this Stan Winston never wavered. Before the computers came, and right until the day he died he never wavered. Stan Winston was the great. He was this generations Ray Harryhausen. His effects were so great that they ceased to become illusions – they were real. He made the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the aliens in Alien, the T-100 in Terminator. He broke the boundaries of where physical effects could go. In a day and age where it’s cheaper and easier to use a computer he made the real magic happen.

The last Winston film I saw was Iron Man. Most of the effects in that film were practical, Favreau insisted on it and Winston made it happen and he made is seamless.

Stan Winston was a legend while he lived, and he becomes an immortal great in his death. He will be missed.