If You Could Move Your Brain : A Review of Self/less

Since I have recently reviewed Limitless and kind of liked it, I saw this movie being advertised with some similarities and decided to see what the differences were.   Self/less is about a wealthy man who is dying of cancer.  He finds some questionable science people who assure him he can take the form of a younger man with his same brain by agreeing to undergo a special procedure.   So he does - and there is where the story gets interesting.  At first he likes being young again after his old body has been buried and his brain is alive and well inside the newer younger body,  but then as he starts to learn more - he realizes that this isn't as great of a deal as he originally thought.  He has to take anti-rejection pills constantly or weird things seeem to happen, and some of the people in his life begin to act very suspiciously when he gets curious.  Here is how this movie and Limitless are similar :

1. Both have a charismatic young man as the main character of the story

2. Both involve an older man (in Limitless it is Robert De Niro and in Self/less it is Ben Kingsley) who is interested in the miracle technology.

3.  Both are science fiction.

4. OK this last one is lame - but both have the less in the title.

After that they are not that similar AT ALL.

Which one did I like better?  Well Self/less had a better ending that didn't raise a ton of questions, and I found the plot twists and turns in Self/less better overall than the ones in Limitless.  Both held my interest very well,  but Self/less showed the value of character above power in a more convincing way than the movie Limitless.  There were definite weird moments, but overall I think the Self/less plot and storyline was better.   If you like interesting, thought-provoking science fiction, you should try watching Self/less.  It definitely gave Chrystal and I a lot to talk about.

Another Journey Into Space : A Review of Star Trek: Into Darkness

I'm not known to be "A Trekky" (if that is even the correct term).  I know the basic premise of Star Trek and enjoyed the reboot of Star Trek that JJ Abrams put together several years ago.  This was JJ Abram's sequel to the first movie with Chris Pine resuming the role of Captain Kirk.   I sat back to see how it compared.  Since, I haven't seen the original Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan - I was curious if this was a reboot of it since the main villain in this one is Khan himself.  I noticed that the original Star Trek II is available for streaming, so I may soon be watching it to see how this one compares.  Overall - I liked it.   It was fast-moving, and fun.  It wouldn't call it a classic movie, but for Star Trek it definitely kept my interest.  JJ Abrams knows how to do science fiction movies fairly well.  Otherwise Star Wars VII would have flopped badly.   I didn't like his movie Super 8,  but every director has their good movies and their bad ones.  There are several drawbacks to this one:

1. No cameo from William Shatner.  I know the guy is busy with Priceline commercials, but it still would have been fun and humorous for the new Captian Kirk to meet the legendary Captain Kirk.

2. Not as deep as it was fun.  I don't expect all science fiction movies to be deep, but I like ones that make me think about science, the future and deeper meanings to life.  This one didn't seem to really attempt much of that except trying to be a fun adventure in outer space.

3. Special Effects were good.  That's all I'll say about special effects.  I don't like movies that come off as video games rather than good stories.  This one stuck with the story and had good supporting effects,  and that's all I have to say about the special effects.

Conclusion:  All in all, this movie was a fun journey and I would definitely be open to watching more in the Star Trek reboot series.  It didn't turn me off - yet it didn't blow me away.  A decent effort and a fun revisiting of a science fiction story that has stood the test of time.