Movie reviews and other such things

All the advertising for this film make it seem like it’s plot is Ryan Gosling robbing banks to give money to his wife and a few times his crimes intersect with Bradley Cooper. That happens, but it’s barely the whole movie. in fact, the robbing banks segment is only the first 3rd, then it cuts away to something else, then does it again later. Then the stories are so loosely connected through theme likes fate and morality and fatherhood and consequences, that it never really pulls itself together.

It begins with Luke (Gosling) robbing banks to give money to a baby he didn’t know he had. After some time the movie switches it focus to Avery (Cooper), a policeman that wants to do good, but is being forced down by the corruption of the rest of the officers. Then it leaps 15 years forward to deal with the sons of Luke and Avery and how they interact when they met each other. It’s an ambitious film and I appreciate that, but it never comes together in a way that you’d want it too. The first 2 stories are incredible by themselves, and the last one is all right, but together it just doesn’t completely work. 

Putting aside the meandering, overlong story, it’s pretty damn good. Ryan Gosling is subtle and impressive as always. Bradley Cooper nails his role as the conflicted cop. Eva Mendes even pulls it together to play Gosling’s baby’s mother. Both Gosling and Cooper deserve to be at least considered for an Academy Award for their roles in this. I’m very interested in where Dean DeHaan’s career will go. I loved him in Chronicle and enjoyed his small parts in Lawless and Lincoln. He’s very good and I can’t wait to see what else he chooses to do.

The themes are well planned out and followed through on, but sometimes it can come of heavy handed. It spends too much time focusing on how if you’re dad doesn’t spend much time with you, you’re going live a troubled life. The only character that spends time with his father is the only ‘good guy’. He does what he knows is right. Everyone else constantly fucks up or doesn’t seem to know right from wrong.

It’s very well written, the dialog is most engaging and the character development is wonderful. The music is haunting, especially the over head shots of a character riding a bike. If the movie had been shortened and the story writing a bit better, maybe the marketing a bit more honest, this could have been once of the best films this year. It’s  very good, but I didn’t think it came together enough to be great. It’s absolutely worth the watch, it’s gripping and interesting more so than boring, so it does deserve an 8/10.

Completing a trilogy seems to be a difficult thing for filmmakers, more difficult than that seems to be making the third one worthwhile. A series just seems to drop after a part 2: X-Men: The Last Stand, Batman Forever, Return of the Jedi, Spider-man 3, Terminator 3. Not that all of those are bad, but they are less good than their predecessor. 

After the events of The Avengers, Tony Stark is having a tough time adjusting to his life. He has insomnia and spends his time tinkering and building more suits just to pass the time. During this time a string of bombings dictated by a mysterious leader called The Mandarin have happened. So Tony has to put his life together and collect his shit to go toe to toe with his biggest adversary yet. The Mandarin is certainly Tony’s most dangerous and most thrilling villain. Obadiah Stane was interesting until he fell into cliche. Justin Hammer was funny, but didn’t pose an actual threat. Whiplash was great at first, but in the climax put on that suit and the fight lasted roughly 40 seconds before they rehash the ending of Ghostbusters.

The Mandarin tears through Tony’s world in a way that no one else was able to. Tony has to think if the suit makes the man, or if he is actually worthwhile by himself. This gets explored by turning Iron Man 3 from a superhero movie to a Tom Clancy type thriller. It’s all grounded into reality, but doesn’t settle into the dark and gritty. Unlike Iron Man 2, Tony gets an extremely interesting arc in this movie. He has to rethink everything about who he is and what he truly values. 

Robert Downey Jr has cemented himself in the role of Tony Stark the same way that Harrison Ford did with Indiana Jones and Sean Connery with James Bond. He’s incredible in the role and without doubt will always be associated with the role.

Unlike the previous entry to the series, Rhodey and Pepper are actually written to be likable. Rhodey gets much more screen time and his own action scenes. Changing from the awesome War Machine to the less cool Iron Patriot, Rhodey has become a huge asset to the US government. Another surprising thing here is a boy that helps Tony, Harley. Tony sees some of himself in Harley, they are so similar and he gets along with him well. It’s also impressive that this kid isn’t a completely annoying awful character like kids usually are. Appearing as a new character was Guy Pearce as villain Aldrich Killian. He met Tony years and has a small grudge against him.

It’s a huge blockbuster beginning to end. A thrill a minute feast for the eyes that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. The acting is superb and the dialog is smart and well written. The climax is fantastic and the whole thing gives such a sense of finality that even if this was the last time we saw Tony Stark, I’d be content with that. It’s certainly the best Iron Man movie and could easily match The Avengers in terms of spectacle and entertainment. Iron Man 3 is the best thing that it could have been and easily deserves it’s 9/10.

I could easily say that Pain and Gain is Michael Bay’s finest film in years, but since his last 2 movies were Transformers 2 and 3 I guess it’s not a very good compliment. Revenge of the Fallen was possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen and Dark of the Moon wasn’t a huge leap forward, but that’s OK Mr. Bay. Baby steps, that’s the idea. Small steps forward. He accomplished that anyway, since Pain and Gain is surprisingly enjoyable.

Based on a true story, Pain and Gain focuses on 3 body builders in Miami who get involved in kidnapping, extortion, and torture to get a hold of a man’s millions. Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) feels that life owns him more, so he hatches this plan with his buddy and coworker at the gym, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie). The decide that they need some more help and enlist Paul Doyle (The Rock), and ex-cocaine addict, now Jesus freak. Basically these guys are morons and have no idea what they’re doing, so they’re constantly making mistakes. You want to sympathize with them, but you know they are horrible people so it’s conflicting.

Honestly this may be the only time when Ed Harris is playing a hard-ass, angry, old cop who you actually want to find these criminals. Normally he’s the antagonist who keeps fucking with our hero, here it’s basically the same, but like I said, our ‘hero’ is a pretty fucking terrible person. There’s actually been some controversy over this movie because the siblings of one of the people who were murdered. They were upset by the film portraying them as ‘sympathetic’, which in all fairness, the film totally did.

This review has been open on my laptop for like 3 days now so I need to just wrap it up. It’s a surprisingly entertaining film, albeit a bit over the top in a wonderful Michael Bay kind of way. The film does answer the age old question ‘Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?’. It’s something. Something that I can’t actually tell you without ruining the most fucked up part of this film. It’s violent and fucked up and dark and disturbing, but also funny as hell and not bad for a Michael Bay movie with a 7/10.

I didn’t realize until recently how many of Danny Boyle’s movie I have seen. Sure I knew his more recent ones, but there are movies I just happened to watch having no idea it was him directing. He really is great, rarely ending up with a bad movie. However Trance may have broken that streak, not shattered it, but slowed it down anyway.

Simon (James McAvoy) is words at an auction house and happens to be there during a heist. He tries to intervene while getting the most expensive item hidden, but ended up with a blow to the head and no memory of what happened. In the first of many twists we learnt that he was actually helping Franck (Vincent Cassel) steal the art piece. once he begins to see a hypnotherapist, Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson). The film then spirals into a series of wild twists that keep you guessing where the film is going. Who is the bad guy here? What is the actually relationship of anyone here? Who is going to come out of this all right? It just added a bit too many by the end that it began to fall apart and the ending felt like a completely different movie.

The acting is as good as I have ever seen of any of the main three. James McAvoy kept me interested in his character’s troubles and issues. He was very interesting until they made his character into something else and he stopped being sympathetic  The did it to all the characters here. In the end I didn’t actually want any of them to get the painting and come out alive. None of them were appealing or relatable. It just got to be to much of them fighting and being downright insane.

Why should I care about anyone here? It’s almost like Trance went out of it’s way in the 3rd act to make sure it alienated you from them. The middle was this gripping heist gone wrong aftermath  It was exciting and interesting and then it just slowed down into a somewhat boring romance-thriller. It does have it’s positive attributes, but they get fewer as the story drags on. I wouldn’t discourage someone from seeing it, but I also wouldn’t push them towards it, because it’s far from Danny Boyle’s best with a 6/10.

Similar to Joseph Kosinski’s previous directorial effort, Tron: Legacy, Oblivion is style over substance. The visuals are really what make each one memorable, the story is underwritten and at times lackluster. It’ not that Oblivion has a bad story, it just has an underwritten on. It seemed like the moment they got something to work with they took off with it, not bothering to make sure it was great material. Oblivion also has similarities to Prometheus in the category of making you use your brain. Instead of spewing out the answers into your face, you have to use your brain. Unlike Prometheus though, this films plot points are so muddled and twisted it may not be worth spending your time to figure it all out.

in the year 2077, what’s left of mankind lives on the largest moon of Saturn, Titan. There was an attack on Earth 60, we won the war, but due to the radiation we were forced to leave. On Earth we have drone repairmen who maintain the drones that protect these giant things that convert water to energy. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one repairman. He’s 2 weeks from the end of his stint on Earth and can’t wait to leave. He lives 1000 feet up in the air with his partner/lover Vicca. He’s haunted by dreams of another woman in what is New York, 60 years ago.

I can’t go much more into the details than that because it’ll just get me closer to accidentally ruining what the twist is. The whole advertising campaign of this was built on a twist that you will never see coming and will blow your mind. I suppose in a way, they were right, it was a hell of a thing to pull off, but it wasn’t done very well. I didn’t completely get it until later on, after my bike ride home and spent sometime inside. That’s why I fell it was too underwritten, what should have been exciting and mind blowing was just OK.

The positive things about the movie do out weigh the negative though. The visuals are stunning and incredible. It was a world that I recognize monuments in, but it looks so completely alien. Harper’s ship is incredibly cool and his flights are completely engrossing, as is his journey across the land on his motorbike. It may be the only film so far this year that was completely and utterly captivating. I want to spend more time in this world. I’m trying to imagine the war and the other drone repairman, it’s all pretty awesome.

The other best part of the movie was Tom Cruise’s performance  Love him or hate him, you have to admit this is a remarkably talented man. He never lets me down, despite being over 50. The science fiction genre would be seriously lacking without Tom Cruise. Sci-fi films seem to be difficult to get off the ground, but more often than not his seem to get made. While the whole movie isn’t great, it spends a lot of time threatening to spiral off into it’s namesake, more often than not, it’s entertain and thought provoking, captivating and gripping and worth a 7/10.

Truthfully I’m not very good at sports. I’m not the athletic type, but I did try for several years to actually try to play some. Baseball in particular was the only one I came close to actually being good at. I never played in high school or anything, but still would play with my brothers. While sports no longer interest me, I really enjoy movies about sports. In the movies you get all the exciting moments, without the games where nothing happens. Movies will cut out the junk and get you right to what is interesting.

Unless you live under a rock, or don’t know anything about American sports, you know who Jackie Robinson is. Just in case you don’t, he was the first black man to play Major League Baseball. Which was obviously a huge deal because this was the 1940’s and segregation was still rampant in the US. I was expecting this to be more like the ‘real’ story of Jackie Robinson. A glossed over, mildly true story that had to stay family friendly. Surprisingly, this is not the road they took.

Something I noticed was that no one has commented on how often they used ‘nigger’ in this film. Django Unchained got a lot of shit for it, but this film used it almost 60 times, plus other racial slurs, and no one has mentioned it. Was it because this is still fairly recent and no one wants to talk about it? Either way, I lied the realism the movie brought, or at the least, tried to bring.

One of the best things the movie did was cast an unknown actor as the main role. No one has heard of Chadwick Boseman, so he does;t bring along the baggage that many stars bring to roles. We don’t see the actor at all, we only see he character. Unfortunately for him the stealer of the show was Harrison Ford as Dodger Executive Manager Branch Rickey. He really was fantastic and I would believe this to be one of his best performances.

my real issues were how cheesey it was at times. When ever the baseball heads were talking about bring in a black baseball player, there was this inspirational music playing and it seemed to fake. One of the best moments was Alan Tudyk playing an incredible racist. I was almost hoping this would be bad so I could give it a 4.2/10, but as it is, I found it most enjoyable and entertaining and gets an 8/10.

So far 2 people have complained or insulted me over my review of Evil Dead, but I’m not sure if they want an apology or something. The last guy was telling me that I’m lying about a fan of the older movies. I’m a HUGE fan of the original trilogy. They’re smart, humor filled, cringe inducing good times. My other blog’s URL is a fucking reference to The Evil Dead 2.

I thought it was crap, but so did a lot of other people. Arguably, I could see the spark of the shotgun setting the cabin on fire, but I still think that’s a long shot. And unless someone can actually show me that the nail gun didn’t have that safety feature, I’m gonna call bullshit. 

Sorry that we don’t agree, but that’s no reason to be rude. Manners, son, do you have them?

Listen up, if you’re going to give you’re movie the tagline ‘The most terrifying film you would ever experience’ you better fucking deliver on that promise! It’s not even like this was a small thing for the film, it was the biggest part of the poster. I did not find this to be the most terrifying film I’ve ever experienced. In fact, I didn’t find it terrifying, it was intense a few times, but other times it was just pretty stupid.

So in a completely original plot, 5 teenagers go to a cabin where they release some horror that kills them off. Ever since Cabin in the Woods it’s been hard to actually take this seriously, because the story is so old that it’s just a bit boring now. Maybe next time you all need to get away, rent a fucking hotel.

I love the original Evil Dead trilogy; I could watch them all non-stop. They’re not exactly scary, but the underling humor and the parts that are actually scary make these a horror series staple. I didn’t find this one particularly scary, but I will admit maybe it was because of all the douches next to me who wouldn’t shut the fuck up. When things were jumping out of the walls or appearing out of nowhere I had to deal with these assholes going “oh man, this is it, something’s about to happen”, over and over. Just shut the fuck up and let me enjoy the movie.

Personally, I thought these characters were all really stupid, and so was how the rest of it played out. The movie followed David as the main character for the whole movie, until the last 10 minutes when it turns to his sister, Mia. It was stupid because we had all this development for the guy, then he dies for no reason. Also, shooting a container of gasoline doesn’t cause a giant explosion. It just looked stupid. Then this one guy should have died long before he did. He was stabbed in the heart with a sizable piece of glass, then had his head smashed on a toilet, where it broke the porcelain. He was shot many times with a nail gun, then beaten with a crowbar where we saw his hand get broken and his arm too. After several more blows to the head he dies like 30 minutes later. 

I would like to point out that NAIL GUNS DON’T WORK LIKE THAT. You can’t just pull the trigger; the front has to be pushed down onto a surface. See, there was just too much stupidity happening for me to truly think this is worth people’s time. I did enjoy parts of it. The climax was ok and the acing wasn’t terrible. it was also impressive that this was all tricks and movie magic, not CGI. that was interesting. Unfortunatly it’s not going to save it to become anything more than a 4/10.

While I didn’t always agree with him, I’m very disappointed to learn about the passing of Roger Ebert. He was easily one of the most famous movie reviews and I doubt they’ll find someone to replace him anytime soon. I’m the mean I should start forwarding all these reviews to the Chicago Sun-Times. Maybe I’m the one they need right now. Actually I doubt I’ll be doing that, I’m not actually all that great at this.

Picking up some time after the first movie, the sequel follows Roadblock (The Rock) and 2 or 3 other Joes after an attack that wipes out the entire Joe force. I’m well aware the first one isn’t some kind of cinematic masterpiece, but I still found enjoyment in it. It’s this over-the-top, campy, effects driven fun time. It wasn’t anything special, but it didn’t think it was. Now with this sequel it tries to become one of these popular dark and gritty movies that all movies aspire to be.

So Roadblock, Lady Jaye, Flint, and Ninja Snake Eyes go up against Cobra Commander, Firefly, and Ninja Storm Shadow. Now if you’re older than 15 how the hell do you take this seriously?  The older people will feel it’s too childish, but then it’s too intense for younger audiences.  Just because you can make something PG-13 doesn’t mean you should. This movie was pushed back for 7 months to be turned into 3D that I hear is terrible. They also admitted that the push back was for Channing Tatum. They wanted him to have more screen time because he’s such a bug name now. Yet they still get rid of him in the first 20 minutes. What the hell was the point of all that?

Honestly, I was disappointed in the lack of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander. I knew he wasn’t coming back in this one, but it’s still a shame because he’s so damn good and this was just so damn bad. On the somewhat bright side they cast Bruce Willis as the original Joe. He used to be interesting, right?

Maybe for G.I. Joe 3 they could do something else, like, not suck. I guess it’s not the worst movie this year, but it’s near the bottom. I would like to point out that I did enjoy Dwayne Johnson’s performance; he’s getting more interesting to watch as time goes by. Maybe he’ll start picking better movies, because he’s not knocking things out of the park with a 4/10.

I think it’s time that we sat back and realized that it’s pretty sad that the best Die Hard movie this year wasn’t the actual Die Hard sequel. Olympus has Fallen is the first of 2 movies about an assault on the White House. The second, White House Down, will be coming out in a few months. Last year we had competing Snow White movies and this year we get this. Truthfully I wasn’t expecting much from either of them, but Olympus has Fallen was a pleasant surprise, so now I’m raising my expectations for, White House Down.

When North Korean terrorists take over the White House and hold the President (Aaron Eckhart) and other important leaders of America hostage. Luckily for them former Secret Service member John McClane  Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is still on the inside and can help save the day. I’m not even joking about how close this is to Die Hard. He has limited communication with the outside world, he’s fighting with his wife, he has communication with a black guy and an angry military man who doesn’t like him very much, and a run in with a guy he’s not sure he can trust.

Except, of course, Die Hard is considerably better than Olympus has Fallen. This lacks the memorable characters and wit and acting that made the Die Hard one of the most memorable movies ever. That being said this movie is still very enjoyable. I did not expect it to be quite as violent as it was. The violence was incredibly gory and realistic. People was being stabbed in the face and had necks broken and shot down by a giant plane. It didn’t look as fake or as CG as many action movies do these days. it took full control of it’s R rating.

Obviously the movie has a few shorting comings. The acting wasn’t always top notch, nor was the writing always incredibly inspiring. I’m not entirely sure how I felt about the patriotism voice-over int he end. I’m not if I found it over the top or not. I’m going to say no, but warn that some people may think it was dumb. I suppose if you’re not American it could be annoying, but I think I liked it well enough.

Is Olympus has Fallen great? No, it’s not. Is it good and enjoyable for the 2 hours it’s on? Yes, very much. Mostly It was nice to see Gerard Butler in a movie that didn’t make me hate him. This here is the highlight of the last 5 years of his career. Maybe he’ll pick better movies from now on? Doubtful, but in the mean time enough his most recent 7.5/10.