Spare Parts

Director: Sean McNamara

Writers: Joshua Davis, Elissa Matsueda

Stars: George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Carlos PenaVega

“Four Hispanic high school students form a robotics club under the leadership of their school's newest teacher, Fredi. With no experience, 800 bucks, used car parts and a dream, this rag tag team goes up against the country's reigning robotics champion, MIT. On their journey, they learn not only how to build a robot- they learn to build a bond that will last a lifetime.”

Synopsis:

We all like to watch movies that inspire us, some in materialistic way and some in more thoughtful way to trigger the creativity in all of us. Spare Parts come along in the latter category. A movie that documents the reality of day to day struggles, bottlenecks and insecurities that students follow in their regular life, and still want to achieve the One Big Thing in their lives.

This film centres on four Hispanic high school students who were made famous by a "Wired" magazine article after they entered a national underwater robotics competition against major colleges and did better than anyone expected. These four teenage boys each bring something vital to the table. There's the robotics enthusiast – and group leader – Oscar (Carlos PenaVega), the computer genius, Christian (David Del Rio), the mechanics expert, Lorenzo (José Julián) and Luis (Oscar Gutierrez), the strong but silent type whose brawn is needed to lift the robot out of the water at the competition, but ends up contributing more than just his muscles to the team. Each of these young men is being caught up from making something of himself by serious problems in his personal life. On top of it, all of them share a common problem – they are undocumented residents of the United States, brought here as young children by their parents.

In addition to each team member's personal issues, there are interpersonal issues between some of them, which required some strong people to get these guys to mend with each other and work together, and achieve that something special, despite their personal challenges. Here enters a great team of teachers including a caring but tough Principal, for inspiring them to fulfil their dream. With the talent, the desire and the support, the team does their best to work through their individual issues, get past their personal differences, and become a team that can raise the money to build their robot and hold their own in the competition.

"Spare Parts" could have easily been an indifferent underdog story, but it becomes something both broader and deeper than one might expect. Exploring each character’s individual challenges, one might get the sense of who these people are; and one is most likely end up identifying with one or the other. This is an interesting, thought-provoking and heart-touching movie, which may cause a tear or two, but definitely won’t disappoint the audience.

Cast:

	Alexa PenaVega	...	Karla
	Jamie Lee Curtis	...	Principal
	Carlos PenaVega	...	Oscar Vazquez
	George Lopez	...	Fredi Cameron

Tomorrowland

Director: Brad Bird

Production: Walt Disney Pictures

Writers: Damon Lindelof (screenplay), Brad Bird (screenplay)

Stars: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy

Duration: 130 minutes

“Bound by a shared destiny, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor jaded by disillusionment embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory as ‘Tomorrowland’”.

Synopsis:

The latest outcome from Disney’s wonders of imaginations is Tomorrowland. The film tells the story of a former boy genius (Clooney) and a young girl (Robertson), who travel to an ambiguous dimension known as "Tomorrowland", where their actions directly affect the world and themselves. This movie kickstarts with the notion of Not-Losing-Hope and Not-Giving-Up attitudes, but as the timeline grows the plot looses its grip in somewhere, Still the basic concept remains with the audience which makes it an inspiring movie than being tagged only as a sci-fi adventure.

Well, Tomorrowland is a city in a parallel dimension to our own where some of the brightest minds -- both creative and scientific -- convened to try and create a better future for our tomorrow. In the film, teenager Casey Newton (played very likably by Britt Robertson) is given a tiny pin with the Tomorrowland logo on it that when she touches she is presented with visions of Tomorrowland. These visions set her on a quest to figure out what this amazing place is that she is seeing, and on that quest she meets an android girl with some pretty awesome martial arts moves named Athena, a cadre of robots hunting Casey down trying to keep her from uncovering the secrets of Tomorrowland, and a grumpy George Clooney, who portrays Frank Walker, a former child genius who once lived in Tomorrowland but was exiled. Frank is the only one who can take Casey there, and thus their adventure to reach Tomorrowland shifts into high gear.

Very few movies today give us the motivation to think beyond what we see, to think optimistically about the future. This is one of those movies, which will appeal to those who still dare to dream out of their ways, crafted in old fashioned sci-fi movie style.  Some scenes which were made so beautiful that the theatre leaving audience will always remember  whenever they think of this movie. The one where Frank shows his Jet-Pack to the judge and explains beautifully about how that would be helpful in making world a nice place to live. Another one where Casey calms down her father for him going to lose his NASA job and motivates him with the story of Two Wolves (with analogy to Light and Darkness), was another beautifully crafted scene. These will leave you with inner happiness even after the movie ends.

For the technical aspects of the movie, Casey Newton played a powerful role which even side-kicked George’s Frank character at some points. And for Athena’s character, Raffey Cassidy successfully leaves a mark on audience’s mind and it would not be easy to think of Tomorrowland without her beautifully played character. Director Brad Bird has crafted this film which mixes mystery, wonder, and suspense wonderfully with touching human moments between characters, both man and machine, and some remarkably executed comedic beats as well. Direction and screenplay were both great from the start, but when the story moves forward, it somehow loses the track and leads to a climax which may leave many people disappointed at the end. CGI graphics and other technicalities were good only, as a proper Sci-Fi movie fan would think it as old-fashioned one. Still, from start to end, Tomorrowland somehow works.

To cut things short, we are all too pessimistic to think straight most of the times, we watch death and destructions with too much fun nowadays, but when a movie like this comes, which really talks about the inspiration and optimism in future, the tenacious attitude to live with and most of all, Not Losing Hope, then it should be watched for at least Fun-cum-Inspiro-tainment.

Cast:

	George Clooney	...	Frank Walker
	Hugh Laurie	...	Nix
	Britt Robertson	...	Casey Newton
	Raffey Cassidy	...	Athena