Source Code

Spanks - 5

Director - Duncan Jones

Writers - Ben Ripley

Starring - Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright

Release Date - 1 April 2011

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Source Code is one of the only films not based on an existing character or story that has been released this year or due out this summer. It is about a secret program called The Source Code that can send a person back in time for the last eight minutes of a persons life. This can be done as many times as needed, reliving the same 8 minutes. The intent of the program is to go back and stop disasters and terrorist attacks. In this situation, a bomb goes off on a commuter train in Chicago. Air Force Captain Colter Stevens is tasked to go back an locate the bomb and find out who built it.

Throughout the whole film, I was trying to predict what would happen next, and each time I tried I was incorrect (also hoping I could use The Source Code to go back and see what I missed to get it right). You would also think a movie that takes place over the same eight minutes over and over would get boring and get predictable, but it never does. It is one of the best movies of 2011 so far.

Source Code is the movie you want to see this summer instead of another remake, or sequel, or comic book movie, or reboot, or based on that bestselling novel by that person because all but one tent-pole movie is one of these.

Paul

Spanks - 4

Director - Greg Mottola

Writers - Nick Frost, Simon Pegg

Starring - Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio and Seth Rogen

Release Date - 18 March 2011

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Paul is the first movie Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have starred in together without Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director buddy Edgar Wright. It is almost as good and as funny as those two films. Paul is about two British sci-fi geeks who, after San Diego Comic Con, go on a road trip of UFO hot spots around western United States. Everything is going according to plan until they run into Paul. Paul is an escaped alien from Area 51 who crash landed on Earth and just wants to get back home.

The laughs start off a little slow, but once all the characters are properly introduced, the laughs are nonstop. I am not a huge fan of Seth Rogen, but he does an awesome job as the voice of Paul (who was created using CGI). The movie has its share of fart jokes, but there are plenty of more intelligent jokes... and who doesn't like fart jokes.