gigadragon12 Reviews

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Not the greatest, but still worth it.

[8/10 · 21 July 2012]

Quick Review – 8/10

The Dark Knight Rises is not The Dark Knight 2, its much closer to Batman Begins 2. While all the actors are just as solid as they've ever been, the series newcomer Anne Hathaway steals the show as the strongest actor featured the longest. What things I can take away from the film (pacing, character strength) are balanced by the things I can give the film (quality and quantity of content, actor strength). As such, this movie is more or less perfectly balanced, far more akin to the recent Avengers film than the Dark Knight.

It isn't one of the greatest, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth seeing.

Full Review – 8/10

The Dark Knight Rises is the last chapter in Christopher Nolan's now legendary Batman reboot, a Batman series to define Batman series, which has always been a case for Batman. Nolan has taken the series in a dark, real direction, that has never sacrificed intellectual story line development for the sake of a metaphor. It's Gotham has served better as a Proxy Real World than any other fictional setting in history. It has dealt more closely with politics and people than perhaps even a strictly political movie like The Ides of March.

That's no different in this movie. Bruce Wayne has been retired for eight years whenever a professional thief (Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle) steals his mother's precious pearls. In chasing after Selina, Bruce finds himself discovering a plan that is going to call Gotham down to its base level, a full scale revolution that is designated to be for the people and by the people (doesn't sound like any 99 percenters at all…) to shake Gotham's privileged class down to their true nature.

The movie shows Bruce's journey all the way down and all the way back up, from his very lowest point to his very highest.

And yet despite a strong plot that carries things forward it sure does trip itself up a few times. The series is well known for an almost overwhelming amount of star power. Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Mr. Fox, and Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon have carried the series with the power of their acting, but this movie really negates them in favor of its new characters, Tom Hardy as Bane and Anne Hathaway as the never-called-as-much Cat Woman, and also Joseph-Gordon Levitt's young police officer Blake. All these actors are strong, Anne Hathaway may have the best role in this movie, and she has considerable acting talents.

However, all of this underscores the fact that series doesn't seem like it knows what it wants for its other characters. The focus on Batman has proved as memorable as always… which is to say it isn't. There are many points in this movie where it references the other Batman focused movie, Batman Begins, and despite seeing it twice (and paying attention twice) I cannot honestly say that I recall any of the information it wants me to remember. Batman just isn't a strong character, no matter how much the series is trying to force him to be. Dark Knight was good because it had a crazy strong antagonist in the Joker. There was also Harvey Dent who was a strong character. There was always Rachael as well who was able to balance Batman's sad face act no matter which actress was playing her.

In the first movie Alfred, Mr. Fox, and Commissioner Gordon filled in the gaps. But with the exception of Gordon, the others are all snubbed for the new characters or for Batman himself, and Gordon spends most of his time in a hospital bed and getting mostly fan-service moments which don't speak for a whole lot of writer effort to give him something to do. Alfred has a moment and then disappears from the movie almost completely. Mr. Fox is there, but also doesn't get to do anything. These previously strong and welcome characters have devolved to things that are taken for granted, and their noticeable absence hurts the movie.

But that being said, this series is about Batman, and comparisons to the Dark Knight cannot be considered in true critical evaluation of a film. A film exists separate from its series, and Dark Knight proves that by itself.

Another issue in this movie is its pacing, however, I must say that this is far less noticeable. It occurs in moments where the intense issues are avoided, transitional scenes, or scenes that establish real character purposes seem to be missing or fall out of line, which I'll admit takes an eye or a wandering mind for that sort of thing. It feels like if the movie had focused a little less on establishing certain aspects, it could improve character quality without sacrificing any plot detail.

It feels like the film makers we're working in constraint of an ending. Its obvious that this wasn't the planned ending for the series, but its surprising that this is how things should end. They have plenty of fan service moments at the end, and at least one surprise twist within the plot network (although if you are observant you'll sense it coming).

Overall, I did enjoy the movie. I want to remind people that its a well deserved 8. I have complaints, but this movie did still manage to squeeze a ton of content into a two hour and forty-five minute running time. Its by no means an empty movie, you are never given much time to think about what's going to happen next, which works for the movie and against it as well. But in this case, Nolan is a competent film maker and he's made just that, a competent movie. It's good enough to get the B, but it isn't really striving for an A either.

The Grey (2011)

The Gray shows a profoundly deep emotional story; and then wolves attack

[7/10 · 4 February 2012]

The Grey is a survival-action movie focusing on the story of a group of plane crash survivors in the middle of an Alaskan wasteland. The men are all oil drill workers – rough neck manly men that live on booze and manual labor – with the seeming exception of Ottway (Liam Neeson) who is a sniper hired to protect the drill workers from attacks by the local wildlife. Shortly after their initial efforts to survive the plane crash, they come into contact with a group of timber wolves who attempt to thin the men out one by one. The men soon realize they'll have to keep moving to survive, meanwhile the ever present threat of wolf attack surrounds them and clouds their hopes of surviving the menacing land.

Meanwhile, counter-point to all the surface level plot development, Ottway has dreams of being with his wife. These dreams present an emotional story to The Gray that adds more depth to its character than other aspects of the movie. They are the reprieve in a cold and snowy roller-coaster.

The Gray is one of those movies that you don't really see all that often. It's what I like to call a movie with a conscience. By this I mean that the movie doesn't seem to neglect the fact that its characters are actual characters with other motives and emotions that clash with the story. While these men want to survive the wilderness and beat the wolves, they want to do it because they want to get back home to their families. When the movie slows down for these moments, you get a feel for the character's individual stories. Each character has traits that make him recognizable.

The characters themselves are somewhat lacking. Each character has their particular trait and they don't really fade from it. The religious guy stays religious. The ex-con stays the ex-con. The survival expert stays the survival expert. The characters aren't the most fleshed out, but the movie isn't lacking any of the cast that you'd expect to see.

That being said, this movie has an extremely annoying motivation to slowly kill off these characters methodically. It feels as if you could run a stop watch and know whenever someone else is about to die. They also happen to put quite a bit of the wolf attacks in the middle of dramatic character scenes, somewhat robbing the emotion of the moment just so they can remind the audience that there are wolves in this movie.

The actors do a fine job representing their characters for what they are. You can't take away from anyone here, though Liam Neeson's Ottway being the main character is the show stealer, all the other men maintain a presence even when it does feel like there are too many of them immediately after the crash.

In fact, I would say that the main detractors for this movie are rather prevalent even in the trailer. The trailer starts by showing emotional moments and the crash and the set-up and all, but then it gets distracted by action in the second-half. That is pretty much the story of this movie. While there is a great emotional depth that is played at and used to pull on the audience heart strings, we don't ever get to feel it as much as we should because the movie is too busy trying to remind us that Alaskan wolves are bad asses. We don't get the time or space we need to breathe in the emotions, to truly connect to the characters.

Finally, during the last scene we are presented with two twists that change the plot (sort-of) and one of these I feel was completely obvious. Maybe I'm just really damn good at guessing plots. But this is actually one of the best scenes in the movie. In fact, despite knowing this twist and having accepted it as a general part of the story, I was rather emotionally affected because of it. I didn't blubber into man tears, but I did go into "blink your eyes really fast so you don't break down into man tears" mode.

For a final say, The Grey is a movie that wants to be deep and emotional, and for two scenes it manages to capture this perfectly, perhaps among some of the best emotional scenes in movies. However, it's emphasis on the wolf-attack plot line, and a lack of creativity on pushing the characters forward without this plot line, make it so that whatever connections I feel on the edges of the movie, I feel like I'm being steered by the nose elsewhere in the movie.

The Grey is a story of what a film could've been if it hadn't had to be an action movie.

For more of my writing, visit: http://expositoryconundrum.wordpress.com/

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

A formula whodunit cake sprinkled with intrigue and an unexplored better storyline

[8/10 · 22 December 2011]

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is essentially a whodunit layered by a story about an investigative journalist getting his professional dignity stripped from him and then reaffirmed. It's central focus being that the title character Lisbeth, is a bad ass never back down girl who is stuck in between a rock and a hard place and performs several lewd, violent, and otherwise "bad" acts in order to get what she wants. Where the movie loses its center is in emphasizing the seemingly usual whodunit plot line that is the heart of this story, but not its soul, which lies in the personal stories of its characters.

Before the bad stuff, let's talk about the good stuff. The stories of Lisbeth and the whodunit are both crafted superbly. While I can't say either of them are different or challenging the mainstream craft of these types of story lines, it doesn't change how visceral the scenes within are. I don't want to give anything away, but I want to say that there are a minimum of three scenes in this movie that made my skin crawl and my seat feel physically uncomfortable, but in a great way that only movies can manage. Note: This movie is really not for the weak of heart.

Both lead actors do well with their roles. Lisbeth is brought to life in every blank stare and movement, yet something about the whole character seems very statue like, I can't figure out if it's good or bad, but it was believable in any case. As for Daniel Craig, I've enjoyed his turns as James Bond, and this role is like a less secret agent version of that role.

In all reality I look at this movie and I believe that what's been done here is very good, possibly the best film of this year, but I would assert that that statement is not saying much. This has not been a great year at the movies.

However let's address what I was alluding to about the heart of the movie and the soul of the movie. Where the movie spends much of its filming genius and storyline is in the whodunit plot line. Intricate set pieces with perhaps one too many family members and flashbacks and pictures all lend themselves to a formulaic mystery plot line that serves as the driving point of staying with the movie. However, before starting that plot line and for about the last thirty or so minutes of the movie, that's not what this movie is about.

While the movie spends so much time working the whodunit, several other more interesting things have happened and eventually happen that get skated over because the biggest part of the running time was spent on David Fincher's version of noir, without all the pulp that comes with the cop drama. Just about every moment of the film that doesn't have to do with this central theme has more interesting elements, but none of them are spent with much time, its almost like they were put in the movie just so people couldn't point and say, "You left this this this and this out of the movie when they were in the book," but they are thrown together so fast and recklessly that it leaves me wondering if the book truly skated over these plot points with such abandon or if I have to go read it to get what feels like the actual story.

The biggest issue comes from its central characters only participating in the whodunit because there in lies something they want. For all the time the film spends making Lisbeth a bad ass new age woman that gets what she wants for herself, they spend a lot of the film showing that she really is just a dressed up girl, who makes her self out as a vamp. None of this is more painfully shown than in the last shot of the movie, which I'll let all of you experience for yourselves.

While I like this film, something about it is just unbalanced from the story perspective. Why in a story rife with intrigue into the inner ties of corporate leaders and secrecy and shadows and computer hacking type activities must the plot butter up the seen a thousand times whodunit and skip the icing with the stories centered around these overarching elements? It doesn't make sense, and I firmly believe this film misses something from the book. Maybe I am wrong about that, but it makes the film seem unbalanced in that aspect.

And yet it is a good film. I will give it an 8 out of 10.

The Ides of March (2011)

Great start to a disappointing movie

[8 October 2011]

The Ides of March is a political thriller about the Democratic Primary in Ohio at the start of a political rally for who will eventually be nominated to run for President. Political Manager Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) is top of his game as new presidential candidate Mike Morris (George Clooney) looks to be well on his way to winning the Ohio primary. However, several moves on the political spectrum, and a surprise controversy uncovered part way through, shake the idealistic Myers to his core, and puts him knee deep in a race for the primary with his candidate as the target to lose it all.

Sounds great right? Well it could have been – 7.5 / 10 What Clooney wants with this film is something that was just accomplished by the film Contagion only a few months ago, in short, he wants to realistically represent what actually goes on behind all the media storm and speeches, what really goes into the hearts of the political campaigners as they battle for the chance to win the presidential spot for their party. And the film certainly starts well enough in that spectrum.

But a fundamental shift halfway through the film or so. It goes from realistically portraying the events that take place, to suddenly becoming something much more emotional. What happens isn't so much unbelievable as it is badly placed in a movie that does not seem to want to tell a story as much as make a statement. Instead what it does is tell a story and says to hell with the statement, but still wants to act like it is making a statement.

This is because it goes from realistic to emotional. Contagion worked because it portrayed an outbreak realistically, the emotional parts were limited and had more to do with people being people rather than ever replacing the logical and clockwork functions of a virus, which is clockwork. This movie decides that a logical game of chess (politics, same thing) can be completely destroyed because a pawn has a heart attack.

The real issue is the twist itself and that's stepping into spoilerville. Essentially, so much melodrama is suddenly demanded from one simple scene, that it throws the intelligent and logical viewpoint of the movie so completely off track that it doesn't remember that this is supposed to be a movie about politics and works on more spectrums than just the one going on behind people's bedroom doors.

But at least the acting was great. You hear a lot about Gosling's performance in the lead role, but the greats take the cake, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are so empowered as the heads of their candidates' political campaigns and knowing so much more than Gosling, that you would be more impressed if you hadn't seen them in better movies doing better roles.

All that banter and ranting being said, Ides of March could have been a great movie had it kept its head and tried to offer an acceptable reason for the dirty game of politics, rather than amounting to a few too many cookies missing from the cookie jar. Their reasoning focuses too much on the antics of one type of scandal, rather than the true strategic meanderings of people, media, and candidates. The movie actually leaves us much like Gosling at the end, disappointed, confused, and wondering at what point our true expectations got left behind and converted without us even knowing about it.

Contagion (2011)

Fantastic, but a little short.

[11 September 2011]

Movie Review for Contagion Directed by Steven Soderbergh Review Score 8/10 – Too Short, But powerful and lasting. See it in Theaters.

Contagion is a movie that observes the spread of a super virus from its origin and its affect on the world we live in. It catalogues the journeys of several characters, mostly scientists and representatives of various organizations set to deal with the outbreak of virus' such as the one in the movie. The CDC, WHO, and others are represented through different characters. The emotional center of the story is on Matt Damon's character, whose wife is one of the original carriers.

From the first moments of the movie, a blank shot with the sound of Gwyneth Paltrow coughing during a phone conversation, the movie is intense and rather paranoid. It uses long montages to detail several carriers and the things they touch that spread it to people, including nut bowls, doors, handles on a bus and subway, different areas that infect and spread to numerous people in a matter of days. It's very effective and rather chilling to see, and will likely cause more than a few people to stop touching things for several weeks.

The story focuses a lot more on the representatives of the previously mentioned health organizations than the people that aren't involved. This might seem like it would make the movie a little emotionally dry, but each of these characters evolve into conflicts of their own. Another character that's set out from the norm is an online blogger/journalist who is radically into conspiracies about prescription drug companies and biological warfare, and the movie explores that side of things as well.

Really this movie is done very well. The cinematography is relentless in the paranoia factor, the actors are all top notch A-list celebs that have done nothing but well for themselves and portray the characters brilliantly. The story becomes multi-layered almost as quickly as the virus spreads. It presents what would happen on a corporate, personal, and worldwide level as something as a new dangerous epidemic occurs. Not forgetting the potential viewpoint of people in recent history, the movie takes a few early stabs at the swine flu outbreak from a few years ago and handles it with the different viewpoints as well as providing a great closing statement from Kate Winslet's character early on. There's a lot to love in this movie.

That being said, its not a perfect film. One thing that irks me is that the film has a lot of characters. Having a lot of characters is not bad in and of itself, but for a movie that lasts an hour and a half it causes lots of stories to be spread a bit thin. This is felt most near the start, when a daughter seems to magically appear from nowhere for Matt Damon's characters after early deaths seem to shake him, and the ending, which we'll get to in a minute. In short, I think this movie probably could've used perhaps another fifteen minutes, maybe a half hour, to more comfortably explore each of the characters involved, as we essentially have something like 5 different viewpoints in the story.

Not only that, but when you have lots of characters, there's a tendency to rely on them meeting up at some point, and what actually happens in this story is that only a few touch edges every now and then. Personally though, I found that preferable to the typical "Now everyone shows up and there's a gun in the room" style of character mash up that we are probably used to seeing by now. This personal separation fuels the paranoia of the plot and functions brilliantly with the movie.

Now then the ending. I'm not going to give away anything, but this movie ends in the dictionary definition of vague. It gives you enough to know what's going to happen and how the characters resolve, but there was certainly a few stories that seemed to end up where they were at, simply because the focus on them had dwindled. One character, a WHO representative (played by the continued excellence of Marion Cotillard) who seems very important in the early stages manages to disappear for something like forty minutes before being popped back in near the end just enough for a quick solution to her character and then left with a walking off screen with no major seeming impact to her character and little idea of what was going to happen. It was sloppily handled and that was unfortunate because at the time she disappears she has the most engaging plot in the movie.

So overall, I would think Contagion is the most worthwhile movie to come out since the summer ended. It is very good, a little too short, and a little too thin on its characters, but is still an effective look at a realistic spread of an epidemic in our world without being too vague on its world wide impact or too apocalyptic in its change. Definitely worth your time if only to catch more glimpses at the beautiful sexy Ms. Cotillard.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Word of Mouth Review: The Squid and The Whale

[30 July 2011]

8.5 – Emotional Suspense and realism drive this short film to a powerful impact point The Squid and The Whale is a story of a family breaking apart at the seams in mid 1980s Brooklyn. It focuses on the family of four and particularly on the relationships between the parents and the kids, as they wrestle with their new found factions as the children decide who they like more, their depressed and overbearing writer dad, or their tenuous and caring mother.

The Squid and The Whale is a pretty good movie for several reasons, but its not a typical one either. While the plot line of a family divorce might sound similar and rehashed as a common plot line, it is explored in a rather deep dynamic in this movie. It focuses mostly on the pressures on the kids, and how they handle the break up, rather than focusing on the emotional issues both parents have. If anything, I would say the parents in the movie handle the break up very well and planned out, the real action happens with the kids.

All of the actors do a very good job presenting their character. The story is very hands off, and characters throughout the movie make mistakes. What I found to be the most enlightening part of the movie was its delicate balance between extremely dramatic emotional scenes and very humorous moments, most of the time being seamlessly sewn together moment by moment. The effect is overall, affecting and moving, while coming off as very real and believable as well.

There isn't a part of The Squid and The Whale that feels forced, besides maybe a surprise health issue near the end, but before then, The Squid and The Whale manages to have a nice even pace and accomplish a lot of its set up and delivery through calm subdued delivery as opposed to surprise moments and twists. In short, The Squid and The Whale is a movie where you see everything coming and dread it happening, which shows itself off as the best type of emotional suspense.

So if you need a movie to check out, you cannot go wrong by seeing this movie. I'm the mouth, and this has been the word.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Harry Potter is Harry Potter

[7/10 · 15 July 2011]

Review Score 8.5/10 – You've seen it, you love it, you won't stop now. Lacks some of the magic of previous films, but it's the conclusion so go see it.

HPDHP2 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) is… well you know, it's the final Harry Potter film. It picks up where the last one left off, Voldemort has three horcruxes left and Harry, Ron, and Hermione are out to destroy them. The film wastes no time recouping anything except the fact that Voldemort just retrieved the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's Grave. The film largely rests on the final act of the Deathly Hallows, namely the Battle of Hogwarts.

The film has probably the most pure action sequences in these films since ever. If the group isn't fighting or fleeing they're probably just licking their wounds for the next scene. Dialogue is sparse, and explanations are momentary distractions from all the different colored lights running around. And the action is great, its some of the best in any action film, but then again that's what action films are supposed to be about.

But this film has perhaps more negative things that can be said than previous Harry Potter films. All the gooey stuff is over, all the characters have been set on their paths and the film isn't about to remind you what path they've chosen. There is no struggle within the group of friends, how to destroy horcruxes is known, what the deathly hallows are is known, and above all, what's going to happen is known. The film does not spend even one full scene talking about what its doing or where its going, there's action to be filmed.

This is particularly disappointing, because I felt that HPDHP1 was one of the greatest Harry Potter films, but that film remembered one thing that HPDHP2 doesn't remember and that's that among its frenzied and confused action it knew how to slow down and allow for character to bleed out. In this movie Hermione and Ron get hardly any lines. Story is completely side-boarded except for the most climactic part of the film, which is about half an hour before the end of the story. Explanation is so sparse, that unless one were to read the books they'd not know why particular actions were taken and this can mostly be blamed on the fact that someone decided to cut down on the sentimentality and explanation.

BUT I save my rant for more personal moments because despite a few issues that dig at me, HPDHP2 is one of the best action films I've seen recently, and it's the end of a series that everyone has loved, either as books, as films, or as both, and whether or not this is a success should not be measured based one less that shiny part. Therefore I say this movie has something for everyone to love, but it is a movie, and its never felt more like a movie than this one… and that is a negative thing.

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Word of Mouth Review: Horrible Bosses

[8/10 · 10 July 2011]

Horrible Bosses is a crude, sexual, racial comedy that shocks you with its amoral characters without regard for morality, consciousness, or common sense.

And we all love it. -Review Score: 8/10

In case the previews weren't clear enough, this movie is about three friends who hate their bosses to the point they want to kill them. What lacks in the preview is how each person is "trapped" in their jobs (more on that quotation later) and some background on how they got into their various situations is touch and go, but that's a good thing because this is a comedy and not a serious movie.

All the actors are good in their roles, Kevin Spacey is easily the star of the show as the only seemingly serious person in the entire plot. Charlie Day is probably going to be everyone's favorite as he essentially plays his character from Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia, except with a soul.

The big issues (if your a real stickler like me) are the plot, and perhaps if I had gone to see this movie in a different mood, I wouldn't rate it so well. The sticklers are the plot. Just about every character threatens to leave their job at some point in the first part of the film, but something stops them. Not a single point that stops them is anything that would really stop someone in real life, so in essence it sort of dumbs down the characters, which gets really irritating as a reminder later on when Jason Bateman's character is attempting to be the moral center of the group. Also Jason Sudeikis' character's boss is so thrown together for the sake of having another bad guy that he is literally in the movie for a total of 5 or so minutes, the movie focusing a lot more on Jennifer Anniston and (even she takes a back seat) to Kevin Spacey's character.

So a better title might have been Horrible Boss (Sexual Harassment, and Thrown Together reason to get a third comedian in here), rather than Horrible Bosses...

BUT This movie is funny, and not just normal trashy funny its good trashy funny. Charlie Day is already associated with Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia which is GREAT Trashy Comedy, and this movie follows in the same footsteps with the annoying mild moral reasoning thrown in (though mostly as a joke). Also Ron White cameos about halfway through and literally does nothing, its like they just got him in there to surprise us with the fact that he's there, but he doesn't even make a funny, or at least not a memorable one.

So... overall its fun and funny and there's no reason not to see this movie. Catch it when you can. I'm the Mouth and this has been the Word.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Word of Mouth Review: Lost in Translation

[9/10 · 4 July 2011]

Review Score: 9/10 – Beautiful Cinematics and an alien culture create some of the best atmospheres for a uniquer love story than most movies.

Lost In Translation is the story about aging actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray) as he goes to Japan to film some whiskey commercials. Along the way he meets and shares a deep relationship with Charlotte (Scarlet Johansen) in a down to earth and adult relationship.

Where Translation manages to wow and impress is largely in its visuals. There are several expanses of the movie that simply observe the city of Tokyo and other areas of Japan. It examines its plant life, parks, industry, religions, cultures, all without a single word of explanation. This works as it allows the viewer to take it in and form their own opinions about these things. They aren't just placed out of context however, they are always following a character or both the main characters and have reasons for being there.

This also plays largely into the comedy of Translation, as Bill Murray winds his way through various media sets from photography to film to TV and even his encounters with a Japanese prostitute and hotel staff are rife with cultural humorous and add to the entire shroud of being misplaced.

Being misplaced is a huge central theme of the movie. It accomplishes this by having its American characters in a Japanese setting and going through the most zany and out of whack parts of that culture. The characters both feel misplaced in their relationships and their futures (Bob Harris' failures as an actor and Charlotte's useless seeming position in her marriage and job (she has a degree in Philosophy)). But I do wonder if this effect can truly be felt by everyone… especially a person from Japan perhaps, might understand the physical comedy of things like a shower that's too short for Bill Murray, but what about the cultural displacement? So as such, this is the films only true downfall is that it does rely on cultures to shift the difference and apply the alienation to its characters. While this could probably be easily observed by anyone, I do wonder if it can be felt by audiences that aren't innately so Americanized. Of course, that being said, its like having a Japanese person watch an episode of Jersey Shore, and even most Americans know whats wrong with that public face, right? A bit off track there, oh well.

Anyways, Lost in Translation is heavy with cinematic sections, a good unique love story, and a very rich and powerful setting that impresses even as it enchants. It is a great movie, and no one should miss it.

The Tree of Life (2011)

Word of Mouth Review: Tree of Life

[8/10 · 25 June 2011]

Review Score: 8.5/10 – Go see it in theaters, IF you aren't a typical blockbuster fan.

Every now and then a move comes along that sets a new milestone in the accomplishments of cinema. This year Tree of Life is that film.

If you've heard anything about Tree of Life then you probably already know if you're interested or not. To recap, Tree of Life is a movie about a family unit, and some of the complications that arise in their lives. The movie more or less starts at the end with the death of one of three brothers in the family. Afterwards a large chunk of the movie is dedicated to a slide show of universe sized film snippets, followed by nature and micro life film snippets. Then the movie comes back to the family at the beginning, going from the birth of the first son to the conclusion of complications near the end of the first sons pre-teen years.

The movie itself does not have a lot of dialogue. The majority of this dialogue is whispered and poetic and set on top of montages of artistic film pieces, cutting from image to image, and well… go watch the trailer if you want a better idea of it.

As goes with this type of a movie, there isn't much action. The central conflict focuses on the relationship between the oldest son and his father and the effect this has on the rest of the family. Classical music plays behind most scenes, and some scenes have no sounds at all.

This is not to say there aren't tense moments. One particular scene in which the oldest boy trespasses in someone's house, is silent and very tense as you wonder whether or not someone will catch him or not.

In the end Tree of Life is about imagery, and then about life. The film makers tried to capture the prettiest, largest, smallest, most basic, and most complex moments of life, death, hate, love, creation, destruction, and beauty in the universe, micro verse, nature, and human life.

Listen, if you are a movie goer that is not impressed by simple minded action flicks, or if you are just looking for an experience that is entirely unique to the world of cinema, then this is the movie to go see. This is not really a movie for everyone.

By the way, if you are going to go see it, see it in theaters. Lots of the imagery will be harder to grasp if you see it on a small screen.

I'm the mouth, and this has been the word.

Super 8 (2011)

Celebration of E.T. and Close Encounters comes with mixture of humor and horror that works brilliantly.

[8/10 · 18 June 2011]

Review Score: 8.5 – Go see it.

Super 8 is the story of a young group of kids who are trying to make a zombie movie in the summer of 1979. They're filming when they witness a terrible train wreck that causes their small town to become the hot spot of an Air Force Military Investigation. It quickly becomes clear that the military is attempting to keep something secret from everyone else and when people and mechanical items from around town begin disappearing things get even more hectic.

First off, if you couldn't tell by the trailers, Super 8 is a celebration of old school films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. (1980) and mixes it with J.J. Abrams' two big secret dangerous monster staying off camera until further and further into the movie, a la Cloverfield (2008) and Lost (2004). This ultimately makes for a unique blend of sad child hood misfortune and scary dodgy monster movie tactics, which is a great mixture and works very well.

While I have a few quips with the movie, there is nothing particularly negative to say. The movie has brilliant development and revolves around a central theme of loss. The pacing seems appropriate and nothing seems terribly out of place. It does seem to have a love of needless explosions, though this seems more like a tactic to draw in the less enthusiastic action blockbuster crowd to see a movie that is ultimately more mystery and drama than action and explosions.

Which brings me to my one major quip, the train wreck scene and some of the plot developments around it (a stolen car that would at least be a bit dirty after a thousand explosions go off around it) seem to be ignored for the sake of letting the children get away with it. A few other plot points never seem to pan out, and really just seems like the director wasn't entirely sure they could control the plot lines (like say the children being arrested by the Air Force). Also the ending is unfortunately thin and easy to see coming.

But, as I said, any quips I have are minor. Another great thing is that its filled with quite a bit of humor, particularly the character and relationship of all the children making the film together blends together perfect and none are left without real character development by the end of the movie.

Great movie, catch it when you can.

X: First Class (2011)

Not the Dark Knight, but not Wolverine

[7/10 · 4 June 2011]

As we all know the genre of interest in the past decade has been superhero movies. They're probably the biggest most popular group of action blockbusters and if recent trends are any example we're about to get more of them than ever. So kick up your britches because if my personal expectations are accurate X-Men: First Class might be the last good superhero movie we get, before producers with money in their eyes take over everything.

X-Men: First Class (as if you need me to tell you) is about Professor Xavier and Magneto and how they united as the X-Men for the first time before the stories in the previous trilogy took place. Mystique is the only other X-Men that really gets a developed back story, and the others in the mutant cast are there almost as replacement for the more popular mainstream teams from the trilogy. It all takes place amid the mounting frustrations between the U.S. and Russia (because Watchmen proved that's the best sort of place for a superhero movie to take place, too bad the developers of this movie didn't quite understand why that was such a great setting) during and up to the Cuban Missile Crisis where the film takes its climax.

Let's cut to the chase, X-Men is good because it offers great action lets perhaps the most interesting X-Men in the original movies (come on who cares about Wolverine, am I right??) Professor Xavier and Magneto take the spotlight. Powers are shown off in nice cool ways, and they even had another bad guy step in to take Magneto's place, a role in which Kevin Bacon does very well. All the actors did great with their roles, especially the two main characters. If you liked the X-Men trilogy (or at least the first two) then you'll find more to love with this movie.

But this is by no means the next Dark Knight (as I've heard multiple people saying now) this movie is not an origin story, this movie is a prequel, and it quite visibly suffers from things that all prequels suffered from. First off, why does X-Men need a prequel? Because the third movie offered a crappy end to the first two movies? In a world where Spider-Man and Batman are already getting reboots to their story lines, why can't we just remake the third X-Men movie and actually make it good? Enough gripe about that though, this movie suffers from Prequel syndrome. While the story is centered around Charles Xavier and Magneto it doesn't do anything that's unexpected with the characters. Mystique even gets her storyline rehashed and set at an earlier date with little to no explanation of a background or anything. Its simply a movie about characters that already have detailed and finished story lines and this movie by no means attempts to mess up that cycle. This movie delivers all the character to the points they start at by the time the first X-Men movie roles around, and that, frankly, is incredibly disappointing.

I'd like to say that the character in the movie are so extravagant and well played that that doesn't matter, but for a two hour long movie almost none of the characters get as much development as they deserve, they're like the little electronic cars that some of us to play with as kids, they're predestined to circle around the track right to where we expected them to be. This isn't like the Dark Knight this is like someone made a prequel to the Batman Begins explaining exactly how Bruce's parents made him and why they were destined to got shot in that alleyway. There's almost nothing there to tell that hasn't already been said, and everything else they try to do with them are just curves in the track making sure the warm-up is all said and done before the actual plot begins with the first movie made way back when.

Look, as much as I want to like this movie, its simply just another X-Men movie. If you are fine with that than so be it, but don't fall into the trap that so many people are. Just because they made two bad movies before this one doesn't mean that this mediocre rehash is the next gold bar on the pile.

I give it 7.5/10

Paul (2011)

Paul is a sci-fi Hot Fuzz

[7/10 · 19 March 2011]

Paul is the latest in the line of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's parody-buddy tales, best known for Shaun of the Dead. If you haven't been living under a rock the past few months, then you'll know that Paul is their foray into sci-fi. Paul is an alien who is seeking to escape the planet from a ruthless "big man" that's chasing him down. He runs into Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost), two European nerds come to America to attend Comic Con and tour the U.S.'s notorious alien sites. Paul tasks them with transporting him "north", and thus they begin running from the "big man" who immediately gets after them.

We'll start with the good: Paul is a funny movie. The jokes, from general one-liners and screw ball style jokes to movie references, both sci-fi and non. To be honest when I heard about a lot of references in the movie I was a little worried I'd feel left in the dust as I only have a general knowledge of sci-fi and don't partake a whole lot into the genre outside of reading books, but really I was able to recognize more lines and references than I figured I would, though it did every now and then do or say something that was CLEARLY a reference and I could feel the wave of laughter somewhere over my head. Luckily, the times of this were not many and I found myself laughing a lot.

But there are a few weak links in Paul that deserve reference. There is a point in the movie where it discusses Creationism vs. Evolution. In the movie there is a very heavy handed push that Evolution is the way to go, and its so strong that it could easily negatively influence the movie for anyone who believes otherwise, and to be honest, even I found it a little shaking. The movie barely attempts to make it funny at all and seems like one of those angry cousins you want to avoid talking to at the family gatherings because he's right and he knows it, and he'll show you. And that's coming from someone who personally agrees with the views expressed in the movie. I should mention that its only two characters that argue either viewpoint, and the rest of the movie pays little attention to the subject, except to treat the matter as a joke. It doesn't tie in to the movie as a whole.

Besides that large point, the movie really, unlike Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, seems to have the plot for the pure purpose of setting up their jokes. The story was treated as something that would get in the way of the jokes they were trying to tell, and more often than not things happen for the pure sake of the movie referencing another movie or getting another cheap laugh from a pot joke or a curse word in a weird place. BUT I should mention that even someone like me who thinks story is something essential was able to get past the shallow story and appreciate Paul for its own unique humorous charm without anything unnecessarily getting in the way.

Oh and I suppose there's one more point, the credit roll at the end seems to treat itself like a big applaud for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for actually finishing a project, and sort of wraps the movie up as a big present. In a way its really just selling the hell out of itself, and it's a movie that at best is good, as in par, it beat my expectations because I was thinking, after Hot Fuzz, that one viewing wouldn't be very appreciable. It hurts the surprise from the movie being enjoyable to see Frost and Pegg so heavily patting themselves on the back for this jamboree of movie references and vanilla storyline. But hey at least it had some dick jokes in it. Guess we can give an Oscar for that.

No, really besides the large paragraphs of potential issues, Paul is a sci-fi Hot Fuzz, there's plenty of humor to enjoy, Pegg and Frost are as English as ever and aside from a few swollen heads, they have successfully made another funny movie. Too bad they can't get back to the Shaun formula of things. Guess you can't compare everything to a masterpiece though.

Primer (2004)

Mind Blowingly Innovative; Literature on Film

[10/10 · 30 December 2010]

Primer is a science-fiction movie about two scientists who accidentally discover time travel. Abe and Aaron are the two scientists in question, and they begin to use time traveling for different reasons and meanings eventually culminating in one of the most confusing movies I have ever seen.

See Primer is a movie that focuses a lot on what you, the viewer actually thinks about the movie. The plot starts out very slowly, very realistically, and while it takes a long time to get the plot rolling it also lets the plot roll faster and faster until its going so fast that even you as the viewer seemingly cannot follow it.

Primer does this by making the plot get more and more complex and at the same time causes the viewers to get more and more confused. You might be asking yourself why I would review a movie that's extremely confusing.

Because its freaking awesome.

Primer, even though it goes fast and gets confusing, never really gets out of the viewer's grasp. Even during parts where I failed to understand what was going on, it didn't lose the emotion that each new plot twist revealed. I was still emotionally sold to the movie even when I couldn't quite keep up.

The other reason I'm writing a review is because all the confusion is completely intentional. Shane Carruth actually wrote the film so that the complexity it takes to understand the plot capitalizes at the same time that the characters' emotional and moral issues reach their breaking point. In this way the film is made in such a way as to break the fourth wall and actually cause the audience to experience first hand the same thing that the characters are going through.

All movies do this, that is the point of a movie, and what Shane Carruth has done with his movie is an innovative way of using film by actually changing the emotion that we are supposed to be feeling. Think about horror films, you go to see horror films so that you can be scared, you go to see tragedies so that you can be sad. True film, though, will capitalize these feelings and emotions while still having a point. Watchmen for instance (and if you haven't seen it, GOOD GOD! FIX THAT!) was a "superhero" movie that made you feel manly and heroic like any action film or superhero movie is supposed to do, even if it does it in an unorthodox and original way. But there's a point beneath Watchmen, albeit political, it exists.

True art combines emotions with intellectual stimulation and has a point. That is the separation between films and movies.

Anyways, ranting a little bit there, You would see Primer to experience something that most people don't feel when they go to see a movie, because movies don't intentionally do this very often. Primer wants you to be confused. But the point is that the characters are just as confused. What are they confused about? Moral Issues. And that is something that everyone can relate to.

So, go and see Primer. Don't be set off by the fact that it has the label of science fiction, because the science fiction is layered on so thin as to be non-existent. This is literature on film. Did I mention its short? Like REALLY short, its an hour and quarter. Everyone has time to see this movie and it is highly recommended by yours truly.

Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan (aka Everyone wants to bone Natalie Portman)

[10/10 · 18 December 2010]

Directed by: David Aronofsky Ho-lee crap I don't think I can quite express in words how awesome this movie was. If you need a short version, its absolutely amazing, probably the best movie this year, and shoves all the complexity of a great work of literature into some of the most interesting two hours of film ever.

Now then, Black Swan is about the ballet Swan Lake, in which the ballerina who plays The Swan Queen must show both the innocence and virginity of the role of the White Swan, while also playing the opposite role, the lusty and seductive Black Swan. Natalie Portman plays Nina, who is one of the hardest working dancers in her ballet company, who gets picked to play The Swan Queen. The conflict arises when her director, played by Vincent Cassel, tells her that her White Swan is perfect, but that she seems to lack in the role of the Black Swan. This is followed up by the director attempting to unleash Nina's inner Black Swan through means of seducing her, and waiting for her to go and seek her darker persona.

Meanwhile, Nina's Mother is over-bearing and highly protective of her, in what ends up being a very psycho kind of obsessive nature. Also, Mila Kunis plays Lily, who is the opposite of Nina, perfect at the Black Swan, but not the ideal White Swan. Nina feels pressure from her director to adapt to the Black Swan, pressure from her Mother to remain the White Swan, and pressure from Lily's presence and the possibility that she will lose her role as Swan Queen to her.

All of this is built up over the fact that Nina herself is popping up all over the place with bloody wounds, scratch marks, and in general experiencing a full on mental breakdown, in more ways than one. When it all combines it brings the damn house down.

What is really so great about Black Swan is how seamless all of this feels. There isn't a single moment in the film that feels forced. Every aspect of it is set up early and remains as much a part of the film until the very end. The psychological aspect presents itself slower than most, but makes up for it by ruling over the final act of the movie. Furthermore, the pressures that Nina feels are not the pressures of a ballerina that has to play The Swan Queen, they are the pressures that everyone feels, pressures of parents, pressures of playing your role, pressures of competition, all of it applies universally across men and women. Once the movie wraps up it seems to be about breaking everyone's expectations, rising to the challenge, and doing what you want to do.

But this aspect also bring out other more challenging aspects of playing a role. Nina is originally seduced largely by her director, what she does subsequently largely has to do with how she is told to adapt to the role. The movie seems to play an underscore about how far do you go to break the expectations? Furthermore, whose expectations are you really playing for? At what point do you stop being yourself and become your role? The complexity of all this is all presented really well, through beautiful dance scenes, and a brilliant classical score. This movie has blood, sex, dance, and art, all mixed up together in a blend that has been seen before, but nowhere near as great as it is presented here.

If you like movies, you'll love Black Swan. This is absolutely a must-see!! Go see it now. Now! NOW!!!

Gran Torino (2008)

Can someone tell me the Gran Torino means??

[8/10 · 26 September 2010]

Gran Torino is the story of Dirty Harry… I mean Walt Kowalski (this is obviously Eastwood), who is a Korean War Veteran with a strong racist streak. A family of Hmong move in next door that includes the young and brave Sue (Ahney Her) and the younger and unsure Thao (Bee Vang) When Thao gets rough housed into joining his Cousin's gang, he tries to steal Walt's Gran Torino. Walt then starts on a journey that will make him a hero to the whole neighborhood.

First off I have to say that I learned more racist terms for Asians in this movie, than I even knew existed. Eastwood shoots them out every chance he gets, pretty much throughout the entire movie. This isn't a complaint. It actually gives the character a good multi-sidedness to him that evolves throughout the whole movie and serves as a reason to hate Walt, a humorous couple of situations, and remind you of the steely coldness behind it all.

This movie really did most things pretty good, it focuses a lot on themes of family, expectation, and even throws in a few religious themes to go along with it, both accepting that religion and making fun of that religion. The movie really does good in dealing a blow to the whole gang banger community as a whole, as well as exposing the trashiness of it all, including the bottom feeding depths they will sink to.

When its not dealing with overarching themes, Gran Torino focuses on the relationship between Sue and Thao with Walt. After Thao attempts to steal Walt's Torino, Sue starts a small friendship with Walt, and eventually works her charm and introduces him to her culture. This relationship leads to Thao working for Walt, who teaches Thao how to "become a man" in the most humorous part of the movie.

There are only a couple of complaints that I have with the movie. First, the climax was obvious and long coming for a while. Even the "twist" that it has I felt was easy to read and figure out. This is only because the ten minutes between the climax and the conflict that arises before it. Not to mention it had that mildly cheesy and overused montage of the old guy *ahem* preparing himself.

The other complaint is that both the Asian Actors (Ahney and Bee) had scenes where the sincerity of their acting seemed to drop, or just wasn't very good. That being said, Clint Eastwood was always acting best when his mouth was closed, but I can reasonably say that Clint Eastwood is aware of how Clint Eastwood can and should act. That is why I expect he has always been Dirty Harry in a different role.

But in the end, these are small complaints that only poke small holes in the very enjoyable experience of watching Gran Torino. My recommendation is that you absolutely must see this movie, especially if you have any mild misogyny at all. It sucks that it isn't in movie theaters (not that I think you need theater quality to see this movie at all) but let me say this: If you own a movie theater, take the film and watch it there.

Devil (2010)

Devil is a tired old sentiment with great cinematography

[6/10 · 19 September 2010]

It's universally known that this is the new M. Night Shyamalan movie and that it concerns people trapped in an elevator with the Devil. That's the plot, you've seen a trailer you know what its about, I can't tell much more without sounding like every other reviewer or giving away plot points.

It's important to say that Shyamalan isn't directing this movie, and he also doesn't cameo himself in it, and more importantly doesn't add himself as a main character and if that's not a plus given his recent films, then I don't know what is. This movie does good on the filming side of filming; the camera angles and shots are done creatively and help provide a clear understanding of what is happening inside the elevator. Also the whole movie isn't centered on just the elevator, there's also a side story with a detective trying to figure out what is going on the whole time as well.

Now Devil is advertised as a bit of a horror film. Its actually a thriller, though they do throw in the classic horror score and a few horror pot shots. But the meat of the movie really doesn't become obvious until the end.

See Devil is one of those movies that deals with the whole universal connectedness of everything. It sports that "everything happens for a reason" storyline that we've seen before done better, and by the end of the movie it feels like its forcefully shoving down a tired old moral that if you stop and think about it for a moment seems like its coming from far away.

Its unfortunate that this review seems so vague, there's actually not a whole lot to this movie. It doesn't leave you room to think by the end and it doesn't challenge you emotionally at all. But overall, I really think that the filmmakers got what they could out of the limited story they were dealing with. Emphasis on some parts could've been hardened or softened but in the end, that's just a personal perspective.

Overall… I would say you wait for the rent, if you absolutely have to see it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim is a shiny tinfoil wrapping around a mediocre movie

[7/10 · 6 September 2010]

Well… to be honest, Scott Pilgrim is a movie that completely confuses me. That's not to say I didn't get the movie or the story, I just don't understand what its doing or what effect its trying to have.

Scott Pilgrim v. The World is about Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who is a Canadian punk rocker trying to break out with him band Sex Bob-omb. Shortly after the start of the film, Scott has a dream about Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who then shows up to him in real life. Crushing big time, Scott maneuvers his way to win Ramona's heart, only to realize that he'll have to battle Ramona's seven evil ex's. Insert tons of video game references and implications and you have Scott Pilgrim.

Now as a huge gamer I'd like to say that Scott Pilgrim presents something wholly new to the spectrum of… well… entertainment in general. Most of the references to video games are the old school retro style platformers, either through music or the existence of life ups and points, but these really only exist as a backdrop to the whole thing. It could be a symbol of the immaturity in Scotts own mind as he battles to win the heart of the princess whom he dreams about, but the movie never directly points this out, or even embraces it. The lack of pointing it out of course doesn't mean that such implications do not exist, and indeed it is a great way of pointing out the simplified way that Scott's mind works, and may point to something in our own society, but again, the lack of direct influence of this way of thinking leads me to think that its nothing more than a shiny coating to what is really a very mediocre romantic comedy.

Now maybe you understand why I'm confused about this movie. I could get more in-depth about this way of thinking, or the symbolism or what a battle against seven evil ex's could mean in the age of today and how it reflects upon a boy who feels he has to prove himself to win the heart of a girl, but I also feel that by pointing this out Scott Pilgrim would simply give me a +10 points for missing out on what the movie was meant to be, mindless celebration of gaming through romantic storytelling.

So to sort of recap, Scott Pilgrim does things visually that make it seem spectacular and actually ties in tongue in cheek reference and examination to make it a major part of the point and the appeal. However, with what we were given in the film any of this ultimately plays out to the tune of a boy who wants to prove himself to a girl. No matter how epic the proportions, no matter how perfectly executed the marriage of gamer humor and reference is I find myself still looking at what ended up what I've said several times, a mediocre romantic comedy that didn't even provide much of a point.

So shoot me in the kneecap… but Scott Pilgrim was only slightly better than most romantic comedies. Its probably worth seeing, movie or rental is your choice.

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

A review well thought out in the beginning but failing near the end

[7/10 · 28 August 2010]

When I was going in to this movie I was thinking that "this movie is going to make me think," and lo and behold that's about the only thing I was able to think throughout the whole movie.

In all honesty though, Law Abiding Citizen is a movie that in trailers presented itself very well, but ends the movie by jabbing a pencil into its open eye socket. We open with a scene that depicts the brutal crime against Clyde (Gerard Butler) and his family before jumping to the trial. Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with one of the offenders against Clyde that lets him off the hook. Jump years into the future and Clyde has turned full circle and decides to take a full out revenge against the killers and the justice system.

I'm sure most people are thinking, "well bonkers (yes bonkers, I said it) this sounds like a culturally significant movie that challenges the morals of today's justice system with such a plot line as that," and that is precisely what the movie trailers wanted you to think. Law Abiding Citizen is one of those movies that has a first act interesting (and by interesting I mean intelligent) enough and raw enough to make you lean forward in your seat close enough so they can smack all the intelligence out of your brain with the rest of the movie. In short, Law Abiding Citizen is misleading, and at the very best, killed by limitations.

The main reason for this is because it spends the first part of the movie making you feel sorry for Clyde. Its something we've seen happen before. It is the story of the man whose daughter gets raped (in this situation family killed) and he sees the rapists go free. He then jumps into action by doing what the law couldn't do, and that is serve justice on their asses. This movie takes it a step further, reminiscent of Death Note (simply in the taking the bad guy and making him easy to identify with at first before making him absolutely bat **** insane). It then proceeds to realize that it might be getting a little too intellectual for the normal blockbuster crowd and proceeds to add explosions and to completely drop all the points it was trying to make but inserting the picture of the story writers genitalia in your face.

No, in all reality, what Law Abiding Citizen feels like to me is a movie that got cut short, either in money, time, or manpower. It feels like the writer got choke chained by the producers and didn't have the time to write the challenging cultural piece he was going for. Either that or someone told him Gerard Butler was going to be in it, and somewhere a black guy was falling down an oddly placed hole.

While I can't say this movie is lacking at all in the acting department, I can't stress enough how misguided the previews and indeed the movie itself are. Bottom line, you aren't getting a well thought out movie here. I would honestly like to say don't waste your time, but like a few recent Dean Koontz books, there are just a couple parts of this movie that everyone could see. What is lucky about this movie is that it isn't the only challenging moral movie ever made. If you feel this movie is lacking just give it another five or ten years and someone may come along with a good enough schedule or budget or idea to actually get the point that got lost in the explosions in Law Abiding Citizen in some other high brow titled movie.

Final Rating 7/10.

The Prestige (2006)

The Prestige is a Magical piece.

[8/10 · 15 August 2010]

The Prestige is a movie about two magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Agnier (Hugh Jackman) work as apprentices to Cutter (Michael Caine). During their work for him, one of the tricks suffers a terrible accident and Agnier develops an obsession for being better than Borden. When Borden develops a trick that Agnier can't figure out, things continue to escalate until both men are at each others throats.

This movie is great. It plays with the time line and actually starts at the death of Robert Agnier. The viewpoint shifts between Borden and Agnier to keep you involved with both men, and while the movie goes through both men manage to become ambiguously protagonist and antagonist. The movie is a mystery, when the magicians develop tricks, you aren't told how they are doing their tricks right away. In a way, its like seeing a magic show while seeing the movie. The movie is filled with twists that keep you on the edge of your seat, though near the end it can seem like its getting dragged out a bit, you eventually catch up to the present events taking place and the actual ending to the story.

Even though this is a great movie, its not without its flaws. Near the start in particular, it was hard to tell what was going on exactly because of the non-linear time line that the movie uses to tell the story. You might be confused a little bit on the characters and what all is going on for a good part of the opening, but it clears up quick enough, and maybe its just me. There's also a bit of a problem with the female characters. The main female characters, Borden's wife (Rebecca Hall) and the stagehand secondary love interest (Scarlett Johanson), manage to garner attention and seem to be written to be really important to the plot of the movie. Unfortunately, this just isn't realized very well, and by the end of the movie its questionable if they even had to be there in the first place, or if they were just put on to the set to be eye candy.

Overall, The Prestige is a great movie, perfectly done and well performed. I haven't read the novel (yet) and therefore can't comment on how well it did with the source material, but from a basic movie stand point, it is very exciting, and a movie you should see, even if it doesn't take highest priority.

8.5 out of 10.

The Truman Show (1998)

Great Story, Great Acting, and Great Movie!

[10/10 · 24 July 2010]

If I were to sum up The Truman Show with one word, it would be brilliant. The Truman Show is a film on the level of grand classics, a frenzy of Bizarro Humor and life time morals. The movie manages to touch on themes of Life, Faith, and all while being a satire of Reality TV.

Now I'm about twelve years late to the party, but even in the new decade Reality TV takes over the airwaves like no ones business. The Truman Show is still culturally relevant if not more so nowadays than when it was released. Seriously, the movie came out in an era where Flavor of Love hadn't existed yet.

The story of The Truman Show is easy enough to say. Truman (Carrey) is the center of a reality TV show, and has been since his birth. The story begins to unfold as he begins to discover this fact. And if I said anything more I'd spoil the movie. Needless to say, the plot weaves through the key themes I mentioned before.

There is no reason to not see this movie. It's a classic, an instant love. Its easy on the real melodrama, and if you were going to poke holes in it you'd have to work hard to find one that mattered very much. Overall, this movie leaves a message that is resounding.

One of the best films to be released last decade, one of the best films ever made.

Inception (2010)

Inception is a Dream Come True

[9/10 · 17 July 2010]

Inception is a mind-bending, intelligent, action packed movie. In general, those are three things you don't expect to see together. Inception's story revolves around Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) and his work as an extraction agent. I'm not going to give much away, but Cobb has to do one last job in order to get what he wants, and for that he needs to get a team together. Eventually the team embarks on their job, and secrets revolving around Cobb start to unfold and affect the mission.

Now this movie was AWESOME. It manages to fill itself with enough intelligent conversation and ideas to keep the intellectual crowd thinking, while making it simple enough for simpler movie audiences to understand. The action scenes are all great, with only a few distracting moments. There is a lot of action in this movie, but it all has its place, and it takes breaks at the right moments so that you can calm down and think a little bit.

Now as I said there are a LOT of action sequences. While they belong and they don't necessarily feel out of place, they all seem to take away from the screen time of the actors. Every actor is really good and besides Leo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, and Marion Cotillard (in a surprisingly great performance) no one gets much screen time to beg for that Supporting Actor Oscar.

But in all reality, this was a great, great, great, movie. It is completely worth seeing, theater or home, so long as you see this movie before the end of the year, it will have been worth it. This is easily the best summer movie so far.

I give this movie a 9.5 out of 10.

Splice (2009)

Splice is a unique, if flawed, experience.

[7/10 · 5 June 2010]

Splice is the story of two genetic scientists that work for a medical company. They are working on animal drugs as the movie opens up by combining several animal genes into one mixed creation. They present it with good remarks and want to push the genetic material to include human DNA in the hopes of creating super cures for human borne diseases. They're hopeful outlook is not shared by the higher ups, and they are told to not continue their experiments. They do. The result is Dren, the first case of human DNA splicing, and the story heads into a twist of family ethics and creature horror movie.

Splice has several good points to it. First off, the acting by the three main actors is good, not Oscar worthy, but you won't hurting for good emotional scenes. Second, the story is, while a creature movie, quite unique in the testing on human DNA, making a statement about the restrictions of such experimentation. Well, so what, you're saying, that's the Frankenstein story rehashed. Well, the biggest point to make is that this story doesn't take the Frankenstein approach of a monster misunderstood… much. Dren is treated by her creators as a human being and raised practically as a child, the movie takes a much more human standpoint on how something becomes a monster, and thus the statement becomes more human than Science Fiction.

To turn that on its side, this statement of human involvement in the creation of monsters, is exactly what can make the movie sometimes not so great. This movie is classified as a Sci-Fi flick, and not really very appropriately. While Splice starts in the realm of Science Fiction, it drops that pretty quickly once the scientists begin to treat Dren as a person and not an experiment and it becomes a statement of family ethics. While not entirely bad, it can make the movie in general seem pretty deceiving at times. They don't really go into the basis of the creature, what it was combined with, and what little science fiction there is doesn't really fill you up. In general it doesn't stick to its genre, but that doesn't kill it alone, its still good if you disregard that. Where the movie drops the ball is in the minor flaws, subtle actions that, are taken in every Horror movie, where the teenage girl locks the door and runs up the stairs yelling and screaming and stomping so that you know the killer will find her, rather than making intelligent survival choices. Well the same thing happens in Splice, and some decisions catch you off guard and leave you wondering, why would an educated scientist capable of splicing DNA make such a decision? The characters are well developed, every character from the scientists to Dren are all well developed and dynamic. They all undergo changes from the over endearing mother to the less than caring scientist and back and forth and back and forth. These developments are all well portrayed considering the situation. Things get weird around the end of the second act, and that's where things really get awkward in the movie. None of it is completely unforeseen though, and its not going to be knocking Saw off its low horse in the twist department.

Essentially, Dren is a drama with Science Fiction and Horror elements. It focuses on family mechanics and the emotional damage that these things have on things and make them monsters in such a fashion. Psychologically thrilling and terrifying, it would be almost right to call it a thinking persons Sci-Fi. Unfortunately, a few characteristics knock Splice off of that throne, and it stands as something that just barely makes the grade, a few questionable actions and some scenes near the end of the movie all make it hard to swallow, yet still enjoyable. You should see it, but it won't be taking many if any awards.

The Hangover (2009)

Take a coffee after you see this...

[7/10 · 19 May 2010]

The Hangover is about four guys who go to Vegas for a bachelor party. In all recent comedy fashion and just what you would expect from the title, these guys wake up, after having spent a night of being blown out of their minds in Vegas. Unfortunately, one of the guys is missing and they start out on a terribly misguided adventure to find out where he is.

So in other words, The Hangover follows the formula of Dude Where's My Car, with comedy that is overall more shocking and less about stupid comedy and more about shock comedy. If you can let yourself go for a little while, and try not to think about the thousands of moral implications brought on by the storyline, then you're liable to enjoy some good dirty fun, and one of the funniest comedy movies this century.

Unfortunately, there are some down sides. This movie really is ONLY about the misadventures brought about by their actions from the night before, nothing deep or meaningful here. While you do have to let yourself go every once in a while, it's a shame the movie didn't take more of a shot at the corrupt morals it takes to ruin your life in Vegas, and simply promotes Sin City's decadence of stupid young twenty something lifestyle being played out by mid thirty aged actors.

That being said, the actors do a great job. The shining role here is played by Zach Galifianakis, as the brother of the bride, and his lines of really screwed up shock comedy, rather than every other actor in the movie. Ultimately the second best actor is the guy you see the least of, the groom.

The Hangover is good for some nice, not so clean, fun. Basically it is what it sells, and that is what every other after-the-party comedy sells, and that's decadence in a lifestyle that really isn't that great. Still, let yourself go, and you'll find some belly busting laughter several times at this movie.

Two Days (2003)

A Desperate and Rewarding Movie about Suicide

[8/10 · 18 May 2010]

2 Days is a movie about the last few days of Paul's life. Paul, a struggling actor, has decided to commit suicide in two days and wants to film them in lieu of leaving a suicide note. Paul goes around to his friends and family and agent and says goodbye the best way he can. The film crew is made up of Paul's best friend, who wants the movie to be fixed and have some kind of climactic feel good meaning to the whole thing, the co-director, who really wants to document the reality without creating any false meaning to the whole deal, and then the sound guy, camera guy, and briefly a make-up girl. The film crew has there own problems throughout the movie, the director is a conniving ass, the sound guy likes the director's girlfriend, etc.

This movie is actually very good. The camera switches to let you know which parts the film crew films and which parts are parts of the actual movie by limiting the amount of screen that you see. The camera's all use a fuzzy grainy filter, but it seems like it belongs. The writing and pacing of the movie is perfect, it keeps it exciting and interesting even though he's only going day to day to people's houses and talking to them. The story, while made mostly depressing for a long time, as cynical dark humor, and a very good message to send throughout. The story of the film crew is also critical of film crews in general, from the people who are on them to the things they try to do to shape even nonfiction movies like documentaries.

Though there wasn't a whole lot bad about the movie, a few things deserve pointing out. First off, there is a few attempts at humor early in the film, which mostly dies out by the time the movie is about halfway through. I blame it mostly on the fact that the movie is about a guy who wants to commit suicide, there's a bit of a dark cloud hanging over the story that makes the funny parts more along the lines of frown and shake your head parts. Besides that, the grainy filter of the movie is still a little hard to get used to, and some of the lighting comes through the camera a bit too bright.

Characterization in this movie is done perfectly, both through writing and through acting. Paul Rudd does perfectly as Paul, it almost feels like a movie about himself. The sub-director is a likable character who wants to film honestly, but you want to ring his neck a bit for not trying to stop Paul more. The director, Paul's best friend, is a serious ass and you really want to kick his ass more than the guy who wants to commit suicide. The rest of the crew have distinct personality that mainly plays into humorous situations but still works and are all acted out brilliantly. This is a great cast.

Overall, the movie is great, I don't want to give away the ending. If you're looking for a good independent with great acting then this movie is quality stuff. If you're looking for Paul Rudd before 40-year old virgin, this is the stuff to get.

Final Score: 8/10