Truth is stranger than fiction. The movie is loosely based on a similar scenario that got much, much darker and weirder.
The Help Enjoyable film, overall. The only problem I had with it was some of the white society women characters. The formulaic "head bitch and her lackeys" thing has been done to death. That, and I had a craving for fried chicken.
The Devils Double It's interesting to see in a movie how psychotic and evil Saddam Hussein's son Uday was, and the movie does an interesting job at least visually of showing some of the horrific things that he took pleasure inflicting on people. The actor that played both Uday and latief performed admirably switching between the two roles. The problem with the film is there is no character development of Latief, his family, or the love interest. I couldn't even tell what the main character's supposed love interest name was until the last 10 minutes of the film 4 Out of 10
Captain America I guess I can see why you all thought it was meh, but I can't help but disagree. This movie is the exact opposite of most superhero movies - while other movies in the genre take their tropes very seriously and their ideas very lightly, this one focuses on the ideals and pays lip service to the tropes. Yeah, the love interest is perfunctory and more of a crush - but what do you expect when the characters barely know each other, as in every superhero movie ever. The death of the hero's friend doesn't get a lot of screen time - but we don't all get to have an angsty montage every time something bad happens to us. Hell, the point of the movie is spelled out for you by the main character. The heart of the movie is what's driving this 90-pound weakling to try and enlist five times, even though he's rejected every time. I have to respect the movie for not trying to do the "flawed hero"/anti-hero deconstruction that seems to be a requirement of modern superhero movies. It's about an ideal, and it does a pretty good job of showing why that ideal was and is relevant. On a scale of ~~~ (terrible) to $$$ (masterpiece): One $ (entertaining).
Our Idiot Brother Its good, consistently funny but feel good movie. Some darker/edgier lines than I expected, very hate-able antagonists, and very likable protagonists. Its what you want in a Paul Rudd movie. 7.5/10
Rise of the Planet of the Apes The jury is still out for me on James Franco. He is at times not believable. My wife refers to him as the fat girl's Brad Pitt. Over all though the story was engaging from the beginning. You cared about the chimp Caesar. For the most part I felt like John Lithgow was wasted as was Frieda Pinto. They provided some emotional stability and fleshed out the world that was created by James Franco's character for Caesar. Oddly enough there were some good emotional moments mixed in with the action and a definite sequel set up with what will make for some interesting relationships with the apes themselves. While the action is mostly confined to the last third its still kept me interested. 8.5/10 Edit: I forgot to mention - The CGI is almost perfect. It's not 100% but its believable and doesn't take you out of the story which is so so nice. Also some interesting morality issues brought up which led to an interesting discussion with friends.
Columbiana Same old "child is traumatized and grows up looking for revenge", except that this time, the main character is played by a really hot chick. Turn off your higher brain functions to enjoy the explosions and ass. 5/10
Warrior - Saw a screening for this tonight. Pretty good overall. It was over 2 hours long but I never felt bored. The characters are endearing in their own ways. The fight scenes were exciting and you felt nervous even when you knew what the outcome was going to be. Some pretty cool stuff during the fights too as Hardy is pretty much an animal in the film. MMA purists might be disappointed with some of the fighting as there are some WWE moments added in to make them seem a bit flashier, but still it's cool to see and you move on. Verdict: 7/10. An exciting, entertaining film well worth the price of admission.
DrFrylock's Spoilerrific Review of Stephen Soderbergh's Contagion: When I saw the trailer for this movie, my inner David Spade announced: "I liked this movie better when it was called Outbreak." The structure of a movie about a global pandemic is about as predictable as Madagascar closing its ports. However, this 1) got better than average reviews, 2) was directed by Soderbergh, who rarely goes wrong, and 3) there was nothing better playing. So Contagion got my weekend movie dollar. Spoiler Contagion, much to my surprise, was the anti-Outbreak. It actually reminded me more of The Andromeda Strain as a paean to science. A young Michael Crichton would have watched this and said "damnit, I should have written that." The hyperlink-cinema format with an ensemble cast works well, but the movie plays with the conventions here. Not all the threads are fully tied up at the end, and not all of them come back together. Some sort of diverge and go off in different directions. This is pretty realistic. The characters are believable and the exploration of what might happen seems realistic also: it's not a total doomsday scenario (the mortality rate of the virus is only 25%) but it's still a worldwide catastrophe. As always, Roger Ebert gets it pretty much spot on, so I won't review the generalities. However, Ebert has this to say: This is one of the few cases where I think he's outright missed something. The Jude Law character actually accomplishes about five different narrative goals simultaneously, in what I think is a masterpiece of understatement. First and foremost, the Jude Law character is a red herring for the audience. In the standard disaster-movie structure, the conspiracy theorist is always right. It's always the fringe wacko that discovers the problem first and races to tell the world about it, and how the government (or the Man, or whatever) has covered everything up. In Contagion, it turns out the wacko conspiracy theorist is just that. Ebert complains that "his concerns are ominous but unfocused." That's exactly the point! What we find out at the end of the movie is that the conspiracy theorist had no special knowledge at all. Rather, he thinks that every disease is a major event and the drug companies and the government are evil. On the first point, he gets lucky - in his shotgun approach to believing everything is a massive world-altering event, he actually hits on one. This lends him enough credibility to be believed on a massive scale, but ultimately it turns out he doesn't know shit. A brilliant move. Second, he serves as a rebuke to the real conspiracy theorists that believe that diseases are created by drug companies so that the drug companies can capitalize on them. In the movie, the only one who is seen profiteering off the disease is Jude Law himself. Third, he serves as a criticism of the "alternative medicine" crowd. The "cure" he promotes is specifically called out by Laurence Fishburne's character as homeopathic. Not naturopathic or holistic, but homeopathic. I would not expect a general audience to understand the distinction or the particulars of homeopathy, and many people refer to all kinds of non-allopathic medicine as "homeopathic." Actual homeopathy consists of doping an inert substance like water with some other substance, diluting it until none of the doping substance remains, and then ingesting the inert substance. Effectively, homeopathic remedies are chemically no different from drinking water. Fishburne's character says the CDC is actually testing this "cure" for effectiveness, which I think may be a little generous to the scientists. Only the most noble and impractical of scientists would spend time and money in a crisis testing to see if drinking water cured a deadly disease just to placate people. Perhaps Soderbergh and the writers didn't want to go through this particular lengthy exhibition just to make a point - I'm sure the "R0" discussion was already controversial because it sounded too sciencey. Finally, just before he is hauled off to prison, Jude Law's character gets to be used as a final parting shot against the anti-vaccination crowd. Yes, Jude Law is the film's Jenny McCarthy - threatening to tell the world that the vaccine is worse than the disease. By this time, the truth is out and law enforcement starts to clamp down on this guy. But his 12 million followers pay his bail, and so it seems likely at the end of the film that he will be spreading an anti-vaccination message after all, despite having no evidence for that either (other than an undying belief that the government is always full of shit). Otherwise, the movie was most surprising when it subverted genre conventions to actually support a reasonable and realistic plot. For example: There was no government conspiracy. The disease was not created as a bio-weapon that then escaped the lab somehow. Rather, it was an unfortunate encounter between a bat and a pig. A multinational company did destroy some bat habitat, which caused the problem, but the creation of the virus was not intentional. There were no "chasing the patient 0 monkey down" heroics. The heroics were done by a couple of doctors working late nights in a lab. One doctor pulled a Barry Marshall, which I thought was a little silly. The cure came from good doctors doing good science, not some a-ha moment that a genius had or some conspiracy nutjob who had special knowledge of the truth. The cure was a vaccine - which did shit little good for the people that already had the disease. They either survived or didn't. There was no "race against time to find the cure so the lead character's infected girlfriend doesn't die." They created the "infected loved one" character in the form of Kate Winslet, and then you know what she did? Die. Awesome. Society got fucked badly but did not completely collapse, and after heroic engineering efforts got slowly back on track. The CDC never does figure out how the disease originated. Matt Damon finds the evidence, but probably doesn't have enough context to know what he's seeing. The best they get is a patient zero and a location. All in all, I thought it was a fine tribute to rationality. This, however, caused some of the movies failings. For example, the movie had no climax. I kept waiting for it, and it never came. Probably a lot like real life, but unfortunately not too good for storytelling. Perhaps a fair trade. There was also very little over-the-topness, as would be protocol in a disaster movie. They could have made Jude Law into a thin pastiche of Kevin Trudeau, but it probably would have seemed gauche in an otherwise understated movie. A solid 7/10; very watchable.
The Entitled: I usually avoid this thread because my side of the world tends to lag about 6 months behind you folk in film distribution, (hint: Distribution companies, if my choice is 'wait 6 months to see it in cinemas' or 'download immediately' what do you think I'm going to do? Also, why the delay? Do you have to ship the film canister in a steam powered vessel, fending off attacks from traditional pirates and navigating by the stars or something?) but since The Entitled doesn't even have reviews on IMDB yet, I assume it's still new. This is a genuinely tense thriller which has some top notch acting. The plot revolves around a man forced into desperate measures, who comes up with a plan to kidnap and ransom three young rich kids, and the lengths that the kids' fathers will go to to protect them. The film uses the current American financial situation effectively to ask questions about how we define ethical behaviour and 'fairness', while maintaining a fast pace. There are one or two minor plot holes, but nothing that significantly detracts from the movie as whole. Overall, I was impressed by this movie, and give it 7.5/8 out of 10.
50/50 - 8 out of 10. I liked 50/50 a lot. It has a great mix of seriousness, dark humor and goofiness. I'm a big Joseph Gordon Levitt fan, and thought he was cast very well. Seth Rogan is very Seth Rogan being kind of loud, vulgar and boisterous, so if you're usually not into him in most of his other works, you probably won't like him in this either. The one problem I found, probably wouldn't have even occurred to me had it not been for this great New Yorker piece by Mindy Kaling (writer and producer on The Office where she plays Kelly), that details common female archetypes in rom-coms. Basically, there isn't much to the female characters. Anjelica Huston plays an overprotective mother. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a cliche artist. And Anna Kendrick is too pretty and lovable so she has to be given a flaw (she is messy and doesn't clean her car). Nevertheless, the movie is very entertaining and well paced. I never felt bored or wondering what time it was. It moves from fun to serious and back to fun rather seamlessly. I would definitely watch it again, and maybe even buy it.
50/50 Just saw 50/50 and I highly recommend it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was amazing and I was surprised how much I liked Seth Rogan (not usually into him as much). Overall, I thought it was a great mix of comedy and drama, which meant that it packed a real punch. It also felt incredibly honest, which makes sense given that it was based on the screen writer's battle with cancer. Surprisingly funny given the subject matter, so I wouldn't be put off with the fact that the main plot is around cancer. It's a lot more than that. In terms of the previous poster's comment about female archetypes, I saw it a bit differently. Spoilered because I'm going into character detail and some plot points: Spoiler I thought that each character around Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was showing a different way that people respond to someone getting so sick. Very generally, you have overprotective (mom), can't handle it (girlfriend), denial (best friend), and awkward (therapist). There's a lot more nuance and I think that we break down a lot of those stereotypes throughout the movie. For instance, Seth Rogan's character has been carefully reading books about supporting loved ones through cancer and his mother is driven just as much by her desperate need to talk to someone as being the stereotypical overprotective mother. Just my 2 cents. Overall: 9/10
Saw two movies this past weekend: Killer Elite: I never saw either Cranks but got on the Stathem train of mindless action watching The Mechanic. But this movie is just flat out BORING. Unlike Mechanic this film doesn't even try to set up any over used cliched characters. Stathem and Deniro are some sort of government op or assassins, wasn't very clear. After quitting the ill defined biz because he iced a dude in front of a kid, he is drawn back in because Deniro is kidnapped. He has to kill a bunch of random British spec ops guys for an Arab that looks like South Parks version of Osama Bin Laden. Clive Owen sort of used to work for some shady underground British intelligence guys and is tasked into finding out who's icing the spec ops. There is maybe one cool car chase scene with a bitching british 70s sports car and a whole lot of uninspired action scenes. At least in The Mechanic they tried to be over the top. This film takes itself a shade more seriously to the detriment of the mindless fun. Everyone's apathetic from beginning to end in this film. The only thing I really enjoyed was a slew of zingers from various characters throughout the movie. There was at least one random shot of a hot ass girl with mondo knockers. Question, is Robert Deniro in financial straights from bad real estate deals or something? Dude has taken every single fucking film every b grade film producer has put in front of him for about a decade now. You'd hope he'd at least be a bad ass in the vein of Ronin. But he is basically a background character in a one dimensional movie. Based on actual events! 5./10 Money Ball- I never thought they could ever make a movie about baseball that was so closely able to replicate the pace of the sport. I guess this too was based off of a book about real events. It's about sports statistics but isn't really bogged down by the numbers, but the slow pace is testing. Brad Pitt is pretty good as the A's manager that takes a huge gamble switching solidly to Sabremetrics in putting his team together.Jonah Hill isn't used exclusively as comic relief and does an alright job with what they gave him. The film does a good job at peppering tension and solid laughs throughout. In the end I'd still only recommend it to the more avid sports fan. Having never been raised on sports I really didn't find the behind the scenes drama of drafting and trades that interesting. 7.5/10
Columbiana Zoe Saldana is fun to watch, and Luc Besson never disappoints. This movie was a decent thriller involving Colombian criminals, the FBI and the CIA. Minus a few points for realism, but it blended together a lot of elements that were fun to watch (sharks, assassins, femme fatale, etc.). It was nothing overly original, and Cliff Curtis is simply not a convincing Latino (Oscar Jaenada wouldn't touch this one? Really?) but it was certainly entertaining on a Thursday night. My only complaint is the punches they pulled to achieve a PG-13 rating. Also, why isn't Zoe Saldana way more famous?
Red State - I don't know how "recent" this is, but oh well. It is available for free on Netflix Instant right now. A group of kids try finding sex online, but wind up abducted by a fanatical religious cult. Things get worse when the ATF gets involved, Waco-style. If you got rid of the moments in this movie where someone is just standing around quoting scripture, it would be about 15 minutes long. I felt a bit deceived by the trailer. They (and even the Netflix description) made it seem like a horror film. It's not. It's not very suspenseful or thrilling either. I'm willing to call this Kevin Smith's worst movie, and yes, I have seen Jersey Girl. The film is a cinematic version of one of Smith's Twitter rants gone even further amok. So often we heard about good films that are stuck in development Hell and never get out. This movie is proof that it's sometimes better if they never do. In the end, I really don't recommend wasting your time on this, and definitely not your money. 2 out of 10.
Paranormal Activity 3 I watched the first two movies before going to see this last night so I could remember what the story was about. Spoiler The Good -A good amount of scares and (intentional) throughout. Some parts were very creepy, especially when Katie got lifted up by her hair and the post-Bloody Mary scene. Some jumpy scenes, which I personally think is a cop-out tactic, but there werent too many of them. -Some humor too, which I wasnt expecting but it had some good nervous-funny scenes -The acting was pretty decent; the little girls especially did a very good job playing their roles -Im glad the lead male character wasnt some incredulous/skeptical douchebag like in the other ones. Even though it was the female this time, it seemed like she was more in denial than anything -The little girls interaction with Toby is the creepiest part. This element has been done before many times (Poltergeist) but its done better here than in most movies. The Bad -Continuity. Plot-wise, it didnt make sense. In the previous movies, Katie discusses how her house burned down when she and her sister were younger but this didnt happen in this movie (but did in the trailer). Also, in the beginning, her adult-self uncovers tapes from 1992 which it appears she watches, but the movie takes place in 1988. And perhaps the biggest one, in the first movie she talks on the phone with her mother. However her mother and stepfather are both killed at the end. -The whole grandmother cult thing seemed a little out of place for this series. It was only briefly explained, but I wish it hadnt been explained at all. The only hints we should have gotten is when Dennis looks out the window and sees the women standing around the fire and when you see the hooded woman in the hallway. -The ending doesnt make much sense. Maybe these issues will be fleshed out in another prequel that takes place after this one? Who knows. All in all, it was a pretty decent horror flick that kept me on edge the whole time. Its worth a theater visit. 7/10
The Ides of March - Ryan Gosling plays the #2 manager of a campaign to get George Clooney the Democratic nomination for the US Presidential election. During a critical primary in Ohio, Gosling is approached with an offer to join the other side. The film goes on to explore the concepts of loyalty and idealism in the harsh realm of politics. It was a pretty entertaining film. It moved pretty quickly and there were some good performances from Gosling and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. A major plot point mirrors a real life political scandal and seemed a bit trite, but I felt that later on they played off of that pretty well. Not much else to say other than it's a decent movie worth seeing. 7 out of 10.
Spoiler I've heard a lot people bring up the "The Mom died" point, but where is it explained she's dead? She's in a trance/possesed and gets thrown down the stairs. I'm not calling plot hole on this one. Also not showing the house burning down doesn't mean it didn't burn down, I'm with you on the this will hanlded in the next one front
The Three Musketeers The good: this movie was masterfully produced. The costumes, score and scenery were spectacular. Also, I would probably watch Milla Jovovich take a cold shit, she's just that gorgeous. Finally, they had some serious acting talent in some historically famous roles. Christoph Waltz, Til Schweiger, Mads Mikkelsen, and Matthew MacFayden would make an excellent cast, with Ray Stevenson who is just fun to watch. The bad: First, this movie was clean enough to be screened in a convent: no blood, no T&A despite having several fight scenes. More importantly, this movie was a shameless rip-off of Pirates of the Carribean, only with no character as fun to watch as Johnny Depp or Geoffrey Rush. The comedic relief was vomit-inducing as were the escapades of the young French king. Ugh. The costumes were elaborate, ornate and authentic, but they were still French, so they looked utterly ridiculous. The plot's intrigue was paper-thin. The "air-ship" nonsense was the most ridiculous part of the plot: you realize they had to do this, because they couldn't put Orlando Bloom in another naval battle. Orlando Bloom's villain was awful: too cheesy and overdone. The worst tragedy is that Cardinal Richelieu and Roquefort were amazing and interesting characters that were amazingly well-cast: Waltz and Mikkelsen could have done so much more with them than the French version of PotC. Verdict: They tried to make the story of the Three Musketeers into a French version of Pirates of the Carribean and did precisely that. Avoid this film.
Red State I thought this was awesome. Went into it having never heard anything about it and really enjoyed it. No punches were pulled and I think it exists soundly in reality with no gloss. A good ride. 73/100 Transformers 3 Watched this for some reason. Didn’t hate it and even watched it until the end. 42/100