Gone Girl was excellent. Spoiler Fincher did a fantastic job keeping the same tone of the book. With one big difference for me - and I don't know if this was a function of Flynn's screenplay, Fincher's vision, or just how it was finally edited. When I closed the book, I thought to myself - ha, those people are awful and they deserve to be stuck with each other forever. In the film, I didn't hate Nick. Yes, he cheated on his wife. But, it seemed very intentional to make Amy the psycho nut job and him "just" flawed. Trent Reznor's score was a big part of the tone for me. The creepy pulse of music during the voice overs and other tense scenes was absolutely critical to the whole disturbing sense of all that played out. Pike and Affleck were both just perfect. But, Pike in particular did a masterful job. Even without the weight gain / lighting / makeup (however they did it), she embodied each part of her character from hot/hip New Yorker to frumpy to crazy-eyed throat slasher, and seemed to transition effortlessly. Between Ratajkowski and Pike, with Fincher in charge, I was expecting a little more nudity. But, that was my only real complaint.
Gone Girl: 9/10, one of the best films I remember seeing in a theater. The Judge: 7/10, good film and Downey does a great job, Duvall is a beast of an actor and I could watch him in almost anything. Also, Vera Farmiga, my god those eyes.
I went and saw Fury last night. It was much more gory than most war movies. The battle scenes which made up 75% of the movie were all amazing. There was an underlying theme about how terrible war is, and what it makes men do. The story it's self isn't very compelling and doesn't really drive the movie. If you want action go see it. 7/10
Gone girl was a colossal mind fuck for me. Some fucked up parallels with stuff from earlier this year. Utterly brilliant despite the fact that I walked out of the cinema and immediately wanted bourbon and therapy. So confused that I kind of empathise with an Affleck character.
Whiplash This is an exceptional movie. A young jazz drummer comes under the tutelage of a prestigious jazz teacher who will do anything to bring the best out of his students. This films takes the classic tough love teacher cliche and completely flips it on its head. What if the student is dangerously obsessed with succeeding and the teacher is a sadistic bastard? Instead of being a predictable coming of age film, it's more like a feverish nightmare. The musical performances are incredible with Miles Teller really knocking it out of the park as the drummer. J.K. Simmons is supposedly the front runner for the best supporting actor award for his work here and I can see why. He really captures the cruel genius of the teacher character with a torrent of hilariously abusive criticisms of his students. Probably the greatest success of the film is how it conveys significant thematic and character changes solely through the playing of music and some facial expressions. An incredible incite into what it takes to be truly "great".
I don't know what it is exactly, but I have never been more disturbed and uncomfortable watching a movie. My skin started crawling non-stop from the first reveal to the end of the movie. I don't know what's scarier, the fact everything in that movie is plausible or the fact my girlfriend was like "Girls actually have thoughts about doing stuff like this, they're just never careful enough to pull it off." I just don't know, I just feel like if I wasn't in a relationship, this movie would cause me to avoid being in one. Just fucking scary to me. 9/10.
Childhood nostalgia talked me into watching the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Childhood nostalgia and Megan Fox. It was utterly terrible. From start to finish, just bad. It's almost impossible to list all the ways in which it was terrible, and none of them were in the fun, "oh wow this is so bad it's funny" way. The personalities of all the characters were such caricatures that they ended up having no personality whatsoever. Michelangelo is "LOL WACKY," Donatello is "UBER NERRRRRD," Raphael is "OMG SERIOUS" and Leonardo is "FEARLESS LEADER." That's it. None of them speak a single line that doesn't fit their exact personality type. Shredder is supposed to be the ultimate ninja master, but he's just some random asshole in a bionic suit who is seemingly invincible until it turns out that he can take four half-ton, super-strong ninja creatures beating him with weapons, but is vulnerable to a 100 lb. woman kicking him in the chest. I know, I shouldn't be surprised at any of this. But seriously, if you have any nostalgia for the TMNT, skip this movie. Unless your nostalgia is along the lines of "my dad used to beat me during the show" and you'd like to see someone take a big steaming dump on the franchise. -6 / 10
Birdman I always liked Michael Keaton, so I was excited to see this movie given the buzz. Its a semi-autobiographical story about a has-been actor who used to act as the superhero "Birdman" and is now trying to revive his career via Broadway play. This was one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. Maybe it was the interesting dialogue or the cinematography, of which Ive never seen anything like it (the whole movie looks like it was shot in 1 take). Despite being one of the weirdest, I absolutely loved it. Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts were really good in supporting roles, but Keaton steals the show. I would guess it puts him on the short list for Best Actor. 9/10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Desolation of Armies Non-spoiler version: Don't bother. See something else. Spoiler version: For a movie titled "The Hobbit," actual hobbits have very little screen time. It's basically 30 minutes of set-up and then 120 minutes of over-the-top battle scenes. That said, some elements really work and feel like the original trilogy (for instance, Sauron's brief appearance, the elven army's disciplined movements, and the last few scenes between Gandalf and Bilbo). The rest is absolute garbage. Inconsistent tone, unnecessary CGI, and ridiculous set pieces (like Legolas riding a bat and running across falling bricks to cross a massive gap). I honestly think Peter Jackson has gone full George Lucas. The only positive of this whole trilogy will be the inevitable fan-edit version that trims it down to a single coherent two hour film (as it should have been). 3/10 (I would have rated it lower, but there's about 15 minutes of really good material in the 2+ hour running time.)
It didn't make any sense to take the prequel, which is shorter than any of the other books and stretch it out into three movies. They also totally dropped the ball with regards to where they were fitting the climax for the end of part 2. Considering how well Jackson did on the original trilogy (which was actually you know, supposed to be a trilogy) it's a bitter disappointment how much he screwed this up. Especially considering how many fans felt The Hobbit was the best book of the bunch.
I can't really blame Jackson on not trying that hard, he just plain didn't want to direct The Hobbit. Guillermo De Toro was supposed to make the TWO films for it (it should have been one) so instead we end up with three bloated, boring video games that never fucking end. At least they made Smaug (Benjamin Cumberbatch) a real character, too bad every single other aspect sucks. Prequels have a habit of sucking even more often than sequels do, The Hobbit is a pinnacle example.
I disagree, but only on a few points. I thought the movie was good if you have been a fan up until this point. The Hobbit should have been only one or two movies maximum. That said I enjoyed all three. I grew up with them on video disc, the cartoons, and I think this last edition provided closure and a solid tie in to the lord of the rings in a couple of moments. Granted some of the movie was worthless and over the top, things we didn't get in Lord of the Rings, but as a fan I had to watch it and I was entertained. I don't think it followed the book as much as I'd like, and it could have easily been two movies or one monster, but I'll have to go back and read the book again to see what I had forgotten or where they improvised. I'm going 7/10 simply because the movies entertain and because as a whole the six movies are, to me, good enough to watch again. Maybe I expected something different than you did or I didn't deduct for some of the liberties taken as much as you do but I liked it. Agree: should have been fewer movies, took too many liberties with the story, battle scene was too far off of the books (from what I remember), Legolas stuff. not as good as LOTR. Disagree: didn't suck, will watch again, enjoyed the movie. I may change some of this when I re-read the book but if it is on TV, much like the other Hobbit/LOTR movies I'll watch it.
Hate clogging up this thread without a review but just reading a review of it and it was 144 minute movie based on 72 pages from the book. Which is why it would feel that it was dragged out.
Interstellar I was a bit let down by this. I guess it wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't very entertaining and had neither the complicated plot or awesome action that make most Christopher Nolan movies good. I guess I was expecting better visuals or more twists and turns in the storyline. Also, people can say I'm making a sharp knees comment if they want, but I really don't find Anne Hathaway attractive. 5.5/10 Between this and The Dark Knight Rises (I'm sorry, but this movie sucked and was not nearly as good as The Dark Knight) I'm not as enthused with Nolan's more recent work.
The Interview 8/10. It's what you'd expect from these two at this point, definitely will get funnier with more viewings. Top Five 9/10. This movie is fucking hilarious. I find it odd to call it a movie based on it's structure, but what you are really going to want out of this is for Chris Rock to do a Louie type show on HBO. It's great. Critics love this movie, talking about Chris Rock finally nailing his voice etc, etc. I'm not that deep, but the jokes/moments in this movie hit big when they hit.
Unbroken I saw it on Christmas day in a packed theatre*. I enjoyed it very much. I think it's practically impossible to take a book that compelling and reduce it to two hours on the screen. However, I thought the story, his story, was captured well. A true triumph of the human spirit. Jack O'Connell is terrific. I think in the hands of another director, maybe more gifted in capturing an epic, it might have been better. But, I thought Angelina Jolie did well advancing the narrative and sort of getting out of the way of the story, letting it be the lead character. I think O'Connell might get a nomination, but not Jolie. Spoiler One of the best bits in the whole thing was the incorporation of actual footage of Louie running during the epilogue scenes. *There was a lady behind me who clearly hadn't read the book, that kept commenting the whole time, with "Oh" and "Oh my" and "Bless his heart" and she clapped at the end.
Just watched this tonight, and it was a 7/10, but only because it brought back a few child-hood memories of the TV series with the same name, but only from the name. (It took me a while to make the connection because the story lines are really not that similar, which isn't that surprising, seeing as one is an 88 episode TV show and the other is a 2 hour movie, one had an old English(?) dude who drives a Jag as the lead, the other has some black dude who works at Home Depot). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088513/ I quite liked that show, but have no idea how well it would hold up today... and I'm not sure I'm going to take the chance and see for myself. As to the movie, it was in the same vein, but not really what I would call a close alignment when it came to story, plot, or characters. If it came right down to it, I think I'd prefer The Punisher or classic Bronson: Still, I'd say it was worth watching, and does what it set out to do.
Jesus that's what I thought the only thing the movie really nailed. Nolan is pretty adept at keeping a near three hour movie flowing pretty well I didn't find any portion of it drag. There were some hiccups I didn't think fit the over all movie. Mostly though it felt like various set pieces that portrayed a handful of neat physics laws strung together to make a movie. One, and Inception did this too, Nolan fires off key plot points really fast at the beginning and they either don't make a lot of sense or aren't needed. Like the fact that because of this crop crisis somehow NASA was demonized underground, going so far as to teaching kids in school that the moon landing was fake and it was all a colossal waste of money to scare the Russians. Yet, still, it's being secretly funded and they've built ships and transportation vehicles far outdoing anything they've ever done. What the fuck? My eyes also rolled with on the nose admonishment of today's use of corn and how it became the last viable crop which we're forced to be totally reliant on. Two, I think Nolan over cast most of the second half of the movie. I thought Chastain was the best choice for her role, Casey Affleck I could live with but his story was underdeveloped. Also John Lithgow was criminally under utilized in another wholly underdeveloped bit part. Then out of nowhere over half way through the movie mega star Matt Damon shows up. Not that he was bad or his character wasn't important for the plot, just felt weird shoe horning a mega star in for maybe 20 minutes of screen time. Get yourself a quality character actor like David Strathairn for that role. Could someone tell me why Tohper fucking Grace was cast in a totally useless role 2/3rds of the way through the film? Again, what the fuck? Still I totally enjoyed the visuals. I saw it in IMAX. I never saw that Sandra Bullock space movie but this one had some really cool shit going on through out. 7/10
Just watched "The Interview." Save your money. Not even remotely funny. Miscast Jong Un and a bunch of jokes that fall flat or were in the previews. 3/10 and I'm a Seth Rogen fan.
See, I thought The Interview was way funnier than I expected it to be. I was expecting some "Your Highness" level bullshit, but this was pretty good. Dumb, but good.