Man Of Steel

One of the most anticipated movie of 2013. Superman, or rather, Man of Steel. This is the first movie that does not use 'Superman' as its title. But we all know 'Man of Steel' refers to the guy in the red cape. This movie stars Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Russell Crowe as Jor-El and many other stars.
This movie is a fresh take on the Superman film series as it looks into introducing Superman in a new limelight. I would say, Man of Steel may seem new but it kept the essence of the Man of Steel. Like Zack Snyder, the director, wanted Superman to keep the essence of who he is.
Here are a few info of the film (spoilers ahead!):

1. Superman's vulnerability to Kryptonite (pieces of his home world, Krypton, that crash landed to earth). As in the comics, it is widely known that Superman gets weak with Kryptonite around. In Man of Steel, we don't see Kryptonites but the essence of Kryptonite is there, when the Man of Steel was introduced to his home world's atmosphere in General Zod's ship, the Man of Steel became weak. General Zod and his team are in a Kryptonite ship that regulates the atmosphere in the ship to suit them. In one scene, we see Man of Steel coughing, it shows the human side of him because he has been growing up in earth's atmosphere, hence, he has become adaptable.
2. Perry White isn't white. Laurence Fishburne plays a good Perry White. As the head of Daily Planet, I'm sure you would have to be firm yet considerate.
3. Pete Ross, the boy that Clark saved. When Clark was young, he was in a bus that feel off the bridge and he had to save everyone. One of them was Pete Ross. Pete Ross, is Clark's good friend, who later married Lana Lang (Clark's love interest in high school). In Smallville, Pete Ross was the best friend of Clark.
4. Man of Steel has the essence of intelligence. In comics, Man of Steel gets all his knowledge from his father through the fortress of solitude (Superman's hiding place on earth, sometimes said to be in the Arctic, or Antarctic) through crystals (kinda like USB drives) containing all the knowledge of Krypton and Earth prepared by his father. In the movie, he was smart to understand and explain the plan to destroy General Zod and his team, by creating a black hole using the hyper-drive of the ship.
5. 'S' on his chest means hope on his world. On earth, it's still an 'S'. That's why the first scene to call him 'Superman' was one of the soldiers on the phone. "That's what they are calling him".
6. There's a sign 'LexCorp'. LexCorp is the company of Lex Luthor. This was seen in the battle between Superman and General Zod, when General Zod kicked a tanker towards Superman. Could it be an introduction to Lex Luthor in the next sequel? Because in this movie, Superman have yet to become the quirky reporter at the Daily Planet, not until the end of the movie.
7. There's a sign 'Wayne Enterprise'. Wayne Entreprise is Bruce Wayne's company. Bruce Wayne is Batman. The sign was seen when one of the satellite was destroyed.
8. The Man of Steel kills. In the end, Superman had to decide between his race or the human race. The scene was General Zod, after quickly picking up his super-abilities, about to kill a group of humans. So Superman, twisted Zod's neck. Superman screamed as a sign of remorse of not having anyone else from his race and "if only Zod understands". All of his team was already sucked into the phantom zone / black hole.
9. You'll see Clark carrying Lois' bags when she arrived at the Arctic.
10. His identify was quickly known by Lois Lane. Talk about a good reporter. Even though some knows his identify, but they would keep it a secret for what he has done for them. Kinda like Spiderman, when his masks was revealed on the train when he was saving people on the train.

The movie starts as similar to the introduction of Superman in other movies. It has more emphasis of Krypton and his race. Jor-El speaks to the council to save Krypton and give him the codex (containing Krypton's genetic codex). Krypton faces a threat similar to Earth, the natural resources are depleting. General Zod comes in to declare mutiny towards the council for not preserving Krypton as it should be. Jor-El is captured and returns to his home. He quickly goes to retrieve the codex and infuse it into his son, Kal-El. Zod comes and kills Jor-El. Enough time to release the pod containing Kal-El. The council captures Zod and his team and imprison them in the phantom zone, while Krypton blows up.

On earth, Clark grows up but with the frustration of restraining to not use his powers and learning to control new abilities. He grows up working odd jobs. One of the odd jobs was to help carry stuff at the Arctic. He found that the research being done at the Arctic was an alien ship which was a Kryptonian ship. On the ship, as his 'S' crystal seems to fit into the ship's panel, Jor-El consciousness appears and teaches him the answers he seeks. Lois, as a reporter would do, follows this man in the night into the ship. And later wrote the story and pass to Perry. Perry rejects the news. Lois sends it through a blogger. But after finding out the real identify of Superman, she retracts the news from Perry. Perry sense she knows who the hero is.

General Zod arrives on earth after searching endlessly for Kal-El. Superman gives himself up to save earth. And Lois Lane is also brought to Zod's Kryptonian ship, which he modified after escaping the phantom zone (when Krypton blew up, it destroyed the device keeping them in the phantom zone, thus, releasing them). On the ship, Lois escapes with the help of Jor-El, telling her where to go, when to shoot and how to defeat Zod and his team. However, Zod wanted to take earth's resources and change its atmosphere into Krypton's atmosphere by using a gigantic drill or 'world engine'. And Zod wanted to find the codex to rebuild Krypton. He believes the codex is in Superman's ship. When they found out where Superman's ship was, they came to the Kent's farm and about to attack Martha Kent when Superman appears. And so, the fight scenes begin. Starting with Faora and another tall crew against Superman at Smallville. Superman defeats Faora, convincing to the humans that he come in peace. He's the good guy.

As they learn how to defeat Zod, Superman heads over to the world engine to destroy it. Of course, there was a self-defense mechanism that attacked Superman while surviving because the atmosphere around the world engine was Krypton's, which Superman is not used to...*cough, cough*. After destroying it, and the army (Christopher Meloni's character died an honourable death sacrificing himself) send in Superman's ship to interrupt the hyper-drive and creating the black hole, Zod was still alive. Zod soon learn to control his new abilities on earth, tells Superman that he is a trained military person who have make it his point to control himself and learn fast in any situation.

They fight, drop into the train station, Zod uses his heat vision to convince Superman to decide, Krypton's race or human race. Superman twist Zod's neck and screams. As the city rebuilds, we see everyone going back to normal. The army sends drones to find out where Superman lives, but gets destroyed by Superman. And, finally, we see a new reporter at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent.

Perception

Early this year, I watched a new TV series called Perception. According to TNT, the series is about Dr. Daniel Pierce (played by Eric McCormack), an eccentric neuroscience professor with paranoid schizophrenia who is recruited by the FBI, Kate Moretti (played by Rachael Leigh Cook), his former student, to assist in complex cases. Also helping him keep sane is his teaching assistant, Max Lewicki (played by Arjay Smith). Cases that are solved usually involves puzzles or codes that challenges the mind.

At some point, it reminded me of another TV series, Lie To Me,when Dr. Pierce read people. It’s cool because ‘reading people’ through behaviour is actually real. Similar to Criminal Minds, Lie To Me, Sherlock Holmes, this series has its uniqueness.

Perception is interesting because it looks into the riddles of cases, the simplicity of the characters and how crazy Dr. Pierce can be with cases. One extra ‘must have’ in the series is each case has a hallucination (people of different characters) that the doctor talk to to help solve the cases. In one of the episodes it was perceived that the hallucinations are actually his mind talking to himself to provide clues to the cases. One hallucination that is constant is Natalie Vincent (played by Kelly Rowan), Dr. Pierce’s imaginary friend and adviser, who is revealed (SPOILER!), to be Dr. Pierce's infatuation when he attended a party long time ago. She is actually Caroline Newsome. In the season finale, she agrees to be his real friend.

The series is ready for a second season (looking forward for more seasons) and I’m looking forward for it.

After Earth

After Earth is a movie by M. Night Shyamalan starring father-son; Will Smith and Jaden Smith. It is basically a story about human beings forced to leave earth a thousand years after environmental cataclysmic events. One day a military father and his son crash landed on Earth. In this movie, it is also a story of a son proving to his father that he can be a soldier just like his father.
The story begins a thousand years after the environmental cataclysmic event. The Ranger Corps, headed by General Cypher Raige, fights the Skrel, an alien race who wants to conquer the Nova Prime. Nova Prime is the new world for humans. Cypher, in the fight with Ursas, Skrel's secret weapon to kill the humans, teaches 'ghosting' to the new Rangers. However, Cypher's son, Kitai, was not a pride of his due to his recklessness.  His sister, Senshi, was killed by an Ursa. Due to this, Kitai keeps training to prove his worth.
On a mission together, their ship crash landed on a Class-1 quarantined planet, known as Earth. Cypher and Kitai are trapped on Earth. Cypher encounters injuries to his legs causing him immobility. So it's up to Kitai to find a backup beacon that was part of the ship.
As Kitai embarks on his journey, he encounters wild animals. Kitai's weapon, Cutlass (long pointy stick like a javelin). As Cypher told his son, "Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans.". In one incident, Kitai is attacked and his capsules (for oxygen) are damaged. Cypher accepting the reality, asked Kitai to abort mission and return back. However, Kitai ignores his orders because Kitai still feels that his father sees him as a disappointment. So, Kitai charges on with his mission. He is, then, captured by a condor when he skydives from a mountaintop (there's a scene in the trailer). In the condor's nest, Kitai encounters a group of tigers coming after the next. He defended the nest but still the eggs were destroyed. However, the condor understand Kitai's effort. In one scene, Kitai fell asleep on the raft he made to cross the river, Kitai had a dream of his sister, Senshi, whom assured Kitai it isn't his fault. As Kitai awakes, Earth experiences another thermal shift (it happens once in awhile throughout the movie. Thermal shift causes the temperature to drop). As he tries to survive the thermal shift, the condor returns to save him but it died in the process.
Kitai finally finds the backup beacon along with a weapon, communicator and more capsules. Kitai also finds that the ship was carrying Ursa that was meant to train the Rangers. But because the ship crashes, the Ursa escapes and kills all the crew. Kitai tries to activate the beacon but couldn't (there wasn't any signal). So Kitai had to go to the nearby volcano. He is attacked by the escaped Ursa. Kitai remembered his father's instructions and his sister's words. He 'ghost' himself and kills the Ursa.
It ends with Kitai launches beacon, Cypher respects Kitai, and both return to Nova Prime.
Throughout the movie, it explores a father-son relationship. It's a new take in father-son relationship-type-movie in a futuristic scene. It was average for a futuristic movie but wasn't the best especially coming from a director that has been seen to have taken a turn in making sold out movies. Shyamalan, in his early directing years, made good-thought-provoking movies, but nowadays, you'll probably think twice before watching his movies. Actors, however, were A-list actors but reports says that this movie was not the best for them.
Anyways, here's the trailer:

Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles or World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles or Battle: LA (Battle: LA seems more nicer to say), is a sci-fi war film. In most sci-fi war film, the army have to be involved and this film follows the U.S. Marines.

Marine Staff Sergeant, Michael Nantz (played by Aaron Eckhart), just got his retirement approved, just to find that the aliens are invading. Hence, he joins in to fend of the aliens with the platoon. Throughout the war, they encounter different scenarios; finding people stuck and rescuing them, getting caught in the hospital, fighting on land in different landmarks of LA, and finding out the alien’s weakness; the supposedly area of the heart. There was a friction between Staff Sergeant and the platoon because one of the platoon member's brother passed away under Staff Sergeant's command and they blame him. However, as the platoon leader blow up himself to save the platoon and survivors, Staff Sergeant is forced to lead the platoon. He showed great dedication and told them that he did not forget everyone that died under his command, showing that he is blaming himself more than anyone else. The platoon soon respect him and follow his lead. As they are rescued by a helicopter, hovering over an area which was seen as having a weird blackout area, Staff Sergeant sacrificed his freedom home in order to recon the area. The platoon showed their loyalty by following Staff Sergeant to recon the area; the alien's command control. As they recon the area, they mark the area and have to fight off the aliens while air strike is on the way.

Overall, the movie wasn't that gross, as other alien films where you see bodies being ripped apart or alien’s head gets blown off. Although there are those occasions but it wasn't too much. In the movie as well talks about Sgt. Michael ability to lead the platoon because he wasn't the leader at first. There are other stars in the movie, Bridget Moynahan, Ne-Yo, Ramon Rodriguez (from Transformers 2) and Michelle Rodriguez. The film was good, but at times predictable as to what was going to happened next. It combines fighting the aliens and the story of the platoon growing as a platoon.

The ending? It was alright for an ending. Most films would show how the aliens were destroyed or leaving planet, but this one had a continuation. After finding the alien’s weakness, the platoon still want to fight on. I guess, once a Marine, always a Marine (even if you’re retired).