Rock of Ages

I have to agree with the commercials for this one, it really does rock, and Tom Cruise really does steal the show. He's really phenomenal, channeling his energy into this role. his best performance probably since  Magnolia. Other fantastic actors were all surprises to me, as I didn't know much about the film before viewing. Russell Brand (Get Him to The Greek), as messed up as his personal life is, takes over every scene he's in by being hilarious, and his tandem act alongside Alec Baldwin (Malice) is as unexpected as it is endearing.
realistically, if you don't like 80's butt-rock, and hairbands, you probably won't understand this movie nearly as much, but you will probably still enjoy it. The most surprising performance was by Catherine Zeta-Jones (Entrapment) who really lays it on thick as an uptight senators wife who opposes all rock and/or roll.
The plot itself was actually a little incoherent, I mean, the most important part is the two young lovers, who end up on far ends of the spectrum of despair. The boyband references are hilarious. But the actual peril of the Bourbon Room is pretty contrived, as well as the actual potential for the Sunset Strip to shut down.
Perhaps the most fun character is Paul Giamatti's (Lady in the Water) sleezy music A&R rep, because he is really awful, and it's always fun to identify what we don't like as an audience.
As an avid music listener, I found the connection of the divine in music of all kinds trumps the staunch and unsatisfying piety of those who are in denial of their own sin and unwilling to forgive and accept the sins of others, and really the only way to break free of convention is to embrace the subversive, all the while avoiding the destructive. There are vast grey areas of consequence in this simple musicians tale. An easy 2, re-watchable and soundtrack downloadable.

Surrogates

Bruce Willis (Die Hard) plays a troubled detective who has lost his son in a seemingly utopian world which quickly begins to disturb and frighten people as their utopia is broken by a strange killer. The source of Utopia is a highly advanced prosthetic designed to allow quadripelegics complete use bodies, as well as a replacement for soldiers.

            The prosthetic known as a surrogate advances rapidly and within 20 years, everyone uses surrogates. Trouble arises when Willis’s character reports to the scene of an alleged assault on a surrogate. The deviance arises when it appears that the two operators were both killed by the assault, something that is not supposed to be possible through a surrogate.

            Matters are complicated further by a variety of elements including a religious sec which protests all use of surrogates as abominations led by their prophet (Ving Rames, Baby Boy). Their hatred of surrogates leads Willis to question the group, forcing him to venture out into the real world without a surrogate, encountering real pain.

            The complications arise when it is clear that multiple people are conspiring on both sides of the mystery, and further complications arise when a jailbreak program is discovered allowing anyone the user to control any surrogate, not simply one that has been biocoded to him or her.

            You can see the Sci as well as the Fi are working overtime in this unique thriller, which, although it is predictable, it is still a unique take on the dominance of posthumanity and the on going discussion of what it truly means to be human. In a very interesting twist, the assumption here, as well as in Gamer, is that rather than the matrix-esque isolation offered in virtual reality being imposed on humanity, is voluntarily requested, effectively demonstrating a Huxleyan dystopia in contrast to an Orwellian vision. I give it a 2. Also, this is yet another graphic novel transformed for the big screen, although many changes to the story were made, so of course I liked it. I'm easy to please though.