Movies Watched The Week of 1/18 - 1/24

Welcome back folks.  Got a new entry for ya.  It's a smaller than usual week, but shit happens.  It's a decent week.  Nothing too amazing, but good work all around.  No embarrassments here.  So take a look and stay tuned.  Enjoy folks, and thanks.  

Deliver Us From Evil (January 18th, 2015)

Director: Scott Derrickson

Starring: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez, Joel McHale, and Olivia Munn

Scott Derrickson is a good craftsman.  His films have a nice polish to them, bringing some real mood and atmosphere to the proceedings.  Sometimes that doesn't always work (The Day The Earth Stood Still), but he's been right more times than not.  Now, while he's get no classics to his name doesn't diminish that he's a good director.  Now, this movie is good.  It's a solid movie that does what it sets out do for the most part.  Is it the scariest movie in the world? No, not even close.  But it has some tension in it.  Does the family stuff with Bana work? Nah.  Not really.  Joel McHale is very much miscast, playing himself again but supposedly a badass knife fighting version.  But Eric Bana brings his game, turning in a nicely serious and grounded performance.  He's a burnt out cop who's seen too much and has lost all faith in the world.  But the real star to me is Ramirez.  We've seen him do great work before in Carlos, so it is no surprise he's great here.  But in a role that could have been underplayed or just phoned in, he brings life to the man.  A priest who's made many mistakes in his life, dedicated to doing good.  He brings soul to the man and makes him real, a plus in a genre pic like this.  And while the movie isn't scary, its more of a supernatural police procedural.  It's a nice little diversion that shows Derrickson knows how to use a camera, a big plus for his upcoming job on Doctor Strange.  

Rating: 8/10

The Imitation Game (January 20th, 2015)
Director: Morten Tyldum
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, and Mark Strong

This was a pleasant surprise.  What seemed like trite Oscar bait designed to do nothing but get Cumberbatch an Oscar turned out to be quite the interesting story about a man helping to stop WWII.  It's still Oscar bait, but it has a good story at the heart of it and has almost none of the stuffiness that plagues many Oscar bait movies.  Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) is a genius mathematician, cryptologist and pioneer in computer tech.  He is tasked with helping the British government to work on a task force to help crack encrypted Nazi messages.  But to do so, he has to craft a new type of machine to do so.  While this sounds like it could be stuffy as fuck, it isn't.  With a crew of men and Keira Knightley helping out, it comes off like an Oceans Eleven spy movie.  The closeted genius Turing is his own worst enemy, making almost everyone around him hate him.  His prickly, smug demeanor hides the fact  that he truly is trying to do good.  Cumerbatch is great in the role, as is Knightley.  The movie loses a bit of steam with a framing device that kind of sidelines the tragic life of Turing, but it doesn't completely derail the movie.  This is a real solid movie about an unknown part of WWII and gives us the tragic live of a genius who's work changed the world in too many ways to count.

Rating: 8/10

The Theory Of Everything (January 23rd, 2014)
Director: James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis, and Charlie Cox

This, not so much of a surprise.  It looked like trite Oscar bait, and what did we get? Oscar bait.  Now, that isn't to demean the work Redmayne does as Hawking.  He does give an astounding performance, completely transforming himself into the man.  The physicality alone is amazing.  It doesn't hurt that he looks exactly like the man.  His performance really is amazing and it's a shame that the movie kind of strands him in a movie so full of itself.  Instead of focusing on the work of the man and on his degradation of body, we get brief looks at that.  The majority of this movie is the doomed relationship between him and his first wife.  And it really is just not interesting in the least.  How a movie about a relationship takes itself so importantly is amazing.  It's like it thinks just because Hawking himself has done amazing work means everything he did is worthy of a movie.  And it isn't.  It really just is not.  This is as cinematic as a wikipedia article.  It really only works for Redmayne.  That's about it.

Rating: 7/10







Top Movies

1. The Imitation Game
2. Deliver Us From Evil
3. The Theory Of Everything



Top 5 Performances

1. Eddie Redmayne - The Theory Of Everything
2. Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
3. Edgar Ramirez - Deliver Us From Evil
4. Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game
5. Eric Bana - Deliver Us From Evil






Top 5 Moments

1. The Big Break - The Imitation Game
2. The Code Breaking Morality Debate - The Imitation Game
3. The Exorcism - Deliver Us From Evil
4. The Bar Conversation - Deliver Us From Evil
5. Alans Medicine - The Imitation Game

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 1/11 - 1/17

Welcome back gang.  I'm still going strong and this was a damn good week.  The low wasn't even bad, just average.  And the best is a new genre classic.  So while a review will have to wait for next week, click here to see my review of Taken 3 and other things.  So sit back and relax, and read the beautiful words that fell from my fingertips.

Homefront (January 11th, 2015)

Director: Gary Felder

Starring: Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, and Kate Bosworth

Sometimes it's the simple things.  This is not a complex movie.  Awards are not going to be thrown at this movie, and no one will complain that they didn't. Which is fine, because it ain't that kind of movie.  It's a throwback actioneer, with a script by Stallone and starring Jason Statham.  There's really not much more to be said.  Statham plays an ex undercover DEA agent who is now in in hiding in a small southern town with his daughter.  He has no drive to do good or to stand out.  Just to stay quiet and raise his daughter.  But when his daughter gets into a fight with a bully, the bullies mother (Bosworth) sets her middling criminal brother (Franco) on him.  But Franco only gets into it when he finds out who Statham is.  Trying to use that to move up in the crime world, Franco brings a shit storm down on Statham.  The movie is less in the mold of todays super complex and over directed action movies.  It's more like a throwback to Walter Hill and the no nonsense action.  Straight to the point and low key which is very refreshing.  Statham is solid in the role, more warm than he's had to be.  Franco doesn't go big and broad as the villain, probably straining himself trying not to ruin the movie with a terrible performance.  And the two ladies are surprisingly good slumming it as low down, trashy ladies.  The movie is a good little time, a nice throwback that isn't steeped in winking references.  

Rating: 9/10

Selma (January 13th, 2014)
Director: Ava DuVernay
Starring: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, and Tim Roth

The movie racist assholes didn't want to see.  A movie that is shockingly still timely.  We see the events that lead to the march in Selma in the 60s, led my Martin Luther King.  Showing the blockades of hate from the South, trying to keep things "pure" and how they always are.  Dealing with the political strains that LBJ had to deal with, leaving them stranded when the president says he is for Civil Liberties.  But more importantly, seeing the strife within the civil rights movement.  Each group has different ideas.  There's MLK and his group, who do things differently than the group that is based in Selma.  They even show a third option, that in Malcolm X, the black boogeyman.  Now, this could have been a typical, boring biopic.  But the movie isn't interested in black and white morality.  This is a movie of grays.  Aside from the strife within the black community, there is MLK himself. He believes in the fight.  But he is human, so he is afraid.  When Malcolm X shows up, he gets angry at the man who talked shit about him.  And in a pivotal scene, LBJ calls MLK out for knowing full well that having his people beat by the police on TV is a good publicity move.  Showing the humanity in the situation instead of deifying the subjects, it elevates itself.  A damn good film that should be seen by all.  Except for fans of the words thugs and animals.

Rating: 9/10

A Walk Among The Tombstones (January 14th, 2014)
Director: Scott Frank
Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, David Harbour, and Boyd Holbrook

It's nice to see that Liam actually tried to make a good movie in 2014.  Sure, he was in the surprisingly entertaining Non Stop, and was a voice in The Lego Movie.  But to actually show up to a set that could actually be a legitimately good movie is refreshing.  It's been too long since The Grey.  Here he plays Matthew Scudder, a retired NYPD detective who is now a PI and is on the wagon.  When he is told of a case involving a missing woman and her husband is a drug smuggler, he passes.  But when he hears that the husband paid the ransom and was killed anyway, he has no choice but to get involved.  What sets this movie apart from other mystery/noirs is that it is brutal.  This movie does not pull any punches, giving it a weight and a feeling of anything can happen.  Neeson is great in the role, giving the proper amounts of sadness and regret.  He's a smart man who has seen too much.  Yeah, it's a character type we've seen before.  But Liam makes it work.  It's good to see he can still deliver, after seeing the abysmal Taken 3.  Frank shows a real knack behind the camera here.  After the solid if unremarkable The Lookout, he takes a big leap here and makes a small budget shine.  This isn't a movie to go for awards.  This is based on a pulp novel, and is the cinematic equivalent.  But with Neesons performance and a brutal tone by Franks, it elevates a little bit.

Rating: 9/10

Blackhat (January 16th, 2015)
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, John Ortiz, and Tang Wei

Stay tuned next week for a link to my other site for a review.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Guest (January 17th, 2015)
Director: Adam Wingard
Starring: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, and Lance Reddick

I enjoyed the last movie from this writer/director team, You're Next.  But I wasn't blown away by it.  It had an interesting hook to it, but didn't deliver it perfectly.  So I was expecting fun but a bit rough around the edges with this one.  Holy shit was I wrong.  This is the best movie of the 80s that wasn't made in the 80s.  Dan Stevens plays David, a soldier returned home from the middle east.  He shows up at the doorstep of the family of a friend from the service.  He made a promise to give them a message and he does.  But the family invites him into their lives and starts to affect them and help them.  Now, this movie is not what it seems.  No spoilers or even hints at such will be given here.  Just know that this movie takes a turn.  And it's great.  Wingard makes a big leap in his craft.  The visuals are crisper and more confident.  The action is shot more than competently, better than most big budget stuff.  The script is a lot cleaner too, with almost no dumb character moments like the last one.  Yet the real standout here is Stevens, perfectly playing a different version of Captain America essentially.  This is a certifiable genre masterpiece and I can't recommend it more with giving things away.  It's a great John Carpenter love fest and was made for me.

Rating: 10/10

American Sniper (January 17th, 2015)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller

This is a movie that is getting a lot of heat, and having seen it I don't understand why.  I mean, I understand.  There's a few reasons.  Alot of critics like to be progressive by attacking a movie, based on true events, that it's just a white guy killing brown people.  Those same critics don't like Clint after his RNC speech, so they sharpen the knives whenever he has something now.  And also, the real guy was kind of a lying dickhead who claimed to have killed Americans during Katrina.  So, this movie could have been a masterpiece and still gotten an earful from the higher beings in the critical field.  And while not a masterpiece, it is a damn fine military film about a man desperate to help his fellow soldiers, no matter what.  Clint manages to stay awake behind the camera, the first time in a while, giving the movie a livelier feel, and the action scenes more punch.  The visuals are nice and clean.  There's a few instances of rough CGI, but it's minimal.  He also doesn't hold back, showing some rough stuff in this.  But this movie would be nothing without Cooper.  He completely disappears into the role.  Physically, he is an imposing man.  Big, burly and bearded.  Cooper becomes this man.  And just emotionally, he conveys the almost simplistic view of Kyle.  He does what he does because its right, that's it.  He's not a nut, complete gun crazy lunatic.  But when he's home, it's almost like he's asleep.  Wishing he was back there, saving his boys.  And the ones he couldn't save weigh on him.  Also good is Miller.  Never being a big fan before, she is great.  She is the strong, yet still feminine woman that Kyle needs.  It's a great performance that gives Kyle a reason to want to go back by the end of the movie.  This is a damn fine film and is gonna be given shit due to its Academy Awards nominations.  Fuck that noise.  See it and judge for yourself.  In terms of modern warfare, it's no Lone Survivor, but it gets the job done.

Rating: 9/10









Top Movies

1. The Guest
2. Selma
3. American Sniper
4. Homefront
5. Blackhat




Top 5 Performances

1. Dan Stevens - The Guest
2. Bradley Cooper - American Sniper
3. David Oyelowo - Selma
4. Sienna Miller - American Sniper
5. Jason Statham - Homefront




Top 5 Moments

1. Bar Fight - The Guest
2. LBJ Calls Out MLK - Selma
3. First Kill - American Sniper
4. The Siege - The Guest
5. Firefight Phone Call - American Sniper

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 1/4 - 1/10

Welcome back gang.  It's my first post after starting for the magazine (which you can jump to here).  It's a slow week, but only due to a busy week in general.  Nothing to do with the other website.  So give it a quick read and maybe jump to the mag.  I review The Woman In Black 2, so give it a spin and pass it on.  Thanks again and enjoy the slow week.

Blue Ruin (January 4th, 2015)

Director: Jeremy Saulnier

Starring: Macon Blair, Amy Hargreaves, Devin Ratray, and David W. Thomson

Sometimes a movie just absolutely stuns you.  Maybe it's due to it's outright originality, doing things we haven't seen before.  But sometimes a movie comes along and takes well trod material and elevates it completely with a fresh perspective.  This is one of those movies.  It may sound like a typical revenge thriller, but it's anything but.  Saulnier (writer as well) crafts a revenge thriller that is completely un Hollywood.  Following homeless man Dwight (Blair), we see his daily grind before we find out someone is getting out of prison.  This shatters him and he bolts into action, obviously looking for revenge.  But it is anything but easy.  And from there, the movie takes some wild turns and delivers a gut punch of the highest order.  There are some outright tense scenes in this movie, nail biters that weathered vets wish they could deliver.  And it's all because the "hero" of the movie is not equipped to actually deal revenge.  He's not a man with a particular set of skills.  Dwight is a weak, cowardly man who is so broken that he only knows one way to deal with it.  Then he has to deal with it, because every action here has consequences.  Nothing goes smoothly and it's refreshing to see a purposeful mess on screen.  Blair is phenomenal, completely in this mans head.  He is unafraid to be ugly and not sexy at all, no flair.  This is a brutal movie with some ugly and realistic violence.  I was already into this movie before it laid out an anti violence message and way before it became a movie about masculinity and the sins of our fathers.  This is a masterpiece and I can't wait to see what Saulnier has in store for us next.   

Rating: 10/10

Horns (January 9th, 2015)
Director: Alexandre Aja
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, and Juno Temple


This is an interesting little movie even before it starts, based on the creative side working on it.  You got Daniel Radcliffe, jumping headfirst into an R rated movie with a healthy dose of foul language and bad behavior.  Then you got Aja, a director from the Splat Pack of the mid 2000's.  He's a man who's best movies are based on other movies (the amazing Hills Have Eyes remake and the fun Piranha remake).  Then you got the writer of the book it's based on, Joe Hill.  Son to Stephen King, he is a writer who is trying to make his own way despite writing with a similar style to his Dad, despite leaning too heavily on nastiness with none of the humanity his father brought to the table.  Then you get to the actual plot, where Radcliffe is believed to have killed his girlfriend (Temple).  Trying to prove his innocence despite his preordained guilt by the public, he suddenly wakes up with a pair of horns that make people tell him their honest thoughts and to do what he says.  The movie is a fun time, with some good laughs and some amazing violence.  But there is a schizophrenia and incomplete feel to it.  It introduces a lot of elements that are interesting, but doesn't go fully into them.  And the mystery isn't the most mysterious ever put to screen, but there's a darkness that makes it fresher.  Yet, that darkness is also a problem.  I mentioned already that Hill goes very dark without the humanity, and it's obvious here.  It's so bleak and filled with misery, yet spends so little time on why we should care about the fates of these characters that it doesn't hit as hard as it should.  The only reason we care is that the performances are great.  Radcliffe shows that he's got some real talent and that he's gonna be around awhile, showing no traces of the boy who lived.  Minghella is solid as the loyal best friend.  Temple does fine work with the thankless role of the deceased girlfriend.  Joe Anderson is also really good in the not so vital role of the brother with alot of demons.  He's not a bad guy but one who is lost and it's really good.  This guy needs to work alot more.  All in all, this is a solid little movie. It's not gonna change cinema.  But it will entertain for the most part.

Rating: 8/10

Taken 3 (January 10th, 2014)
Director: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Liam Nesson, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker, and Dougray Scott


Stay tuned next week for a link to my review on my new magazine post.

Rating: 4/10








Top Movies

1. Blue Ruin
2. Horns
3. Taken 3



Top 5 Moments

1. Bathroom Fight - Blue Ruin
2. The Final Standoff - Blue Ruin
3. Open Up The Trunk - Blue Ruin
4. Dwights Everyday Routine - Blue Ruin
5. The Shotgun Blast - Horns





Top 5 Performances

1. Macon Blair - Blue Ruin
2. Daniel Radcliffe - Horns
3. Joe Anderson - Horns
4. Devin Ratray - Blue Ruin
5. Amy Hargreaves - Blue Ruin

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 12/28 - 1/3

Welcome back gang.  It's the end of one year and the beginning of another, and I got a new post for ya'll.  A vacation from work gave me the time to really dig deep and a big week is in store.  Now, things are gonna be a bit different around here.  I have started an internship at an online magazine writing up entertainment related biz.  So I may not be as frequent on this.  But even if I am, I won't be writing up movies released that week, as I will write them up for the mag.  I'll post links to my weeks entries if I'm good with the work load.  But, if this be the last one (probably not), it's a big one with a damn good variety.  So read up and enjoy.  Belated Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (December 28th, 2014)

Director: Roman Polanski

Starring: Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw, and Terence Bayler

It's always nice to have context of the history of a film maker or the events that helped shape a movie, but it isn't always vital.  Usually not.  And while it doesn't make this movie better or worse, it's interesting to know the history behind this.  For this was the first movie Polanski made after the ritualistic murder of his wife and unborn child by the Manson family.  Knowing that the mans family was brutally and nastily murdered gives us an idea of where his mind was when turning his version of Macbeth into the bloodiest and most brutal adaptation of the play yet.  Also gives us a reason why our titular character is a bit younger than usually portrayed.  But all that doesn't make the movie good or not.  It's the execution and it's here.  This is a damn good adaptation of the play.  It's different enough not to be a boring retread.  Polanski changed it up to strip away the supernatural elements and make it more of psychological tragedy, making Macbeths slipping sanity the reason for some of the outlandish elements.  The cast is all here, Finch doing damn good work as the tortured but ambitious warrior.  The movie has a bleak look and feel to it, as if all this is just inevitable.  Hence the titular tragedy.  This is for Shakespeare fans, since it still has the Bards language in it and that can be hard for uninitiated audiences.  I have trouble occasionally with it so know that going in.  But I gotta say this was a damn fine film and a worthy entry into the sex fiends filmography.  

Rating: 9/10

About Time (December 28th, 2014)
Director: Richard Curtis
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel MacAdams, Tom Hollander, and Bill Nighy

Sometimes it is great when a movie is marketed in a way to mask the true movie lurking beneath.  In this case it probably hurt the movies financial success, but it certainly sucker punched me.  What appears to be a high concept rom com turns into something a bit heavier, dealing in loss and the ability to appreciate what we have.  In an effort to keep the secrets of this movie secret, I won't get too much into details here.  But this is from the man who brought us Love, Actually.  So it isn't too much of a surprise to say that this movie is pretty funny, and not in a typical rom com way.  It's got a dirty sense of humor, some real grown up humor.  It also has one of the best sight gags I've seen in a while.  The cast is also superb as well, another talent Curtis has.  Gleeson is a surprise, showing he's more than just a Weasley.  MacAdams manages to bring life to a character that sounded initially like a Notebook redux.  And Nighy is Nighy, the rockstar that he is.  It's always refreshing to see a movie like this come along that shames all the other cynical and repurposed rom coms that come around.  A real special movie that should be seen by all.

Rating: 9/10

Paris, Texas (December 29th, 2014)
Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clement, and Nastassja Kinski

This movie really sneaks up on you.  What starts off as what appears to be an off kilter comedy about a silent man walking to some unknown destination (definitely an inspiration for Nebraska) slowly morphs into a heartbreaking movie about a broken man and his regrets.  Harry Dean Stanton is amazing here, working wonders as this slightly odd man who has some pain inside of him.  The secrets of why he was missing for 4 years and why he was walking through the desert are unlocked throughout and it's a killer.  I won't spoil much, but I'll say that he has a kid he hasn't seen in those years and the mother is out of picture.  This is a true, down to earth blue collar movie.  We know these people and it's a sad sight to see these all too familiar problems.  I haven't seen such a beautifully sad movie in a long time.  I gotta recommend this for everyone.  A real treat.

Rating: 9.5/10

Willow Creek (December 29th, 2014)
Director: Bobcat Goldwaith
Starring: Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson


This movie isn't bad but all I could say when it ended was... "eh".  It's a really short movie and almost nothing happens in it until the last 20 minutes.  And even then, it's fairly anticlimactic.  I understand where Goldwaith was coming from with this.  And the technical aspects I like.  Doing a found footage movie like a real found footage movie.  All the edits are actually done in camera, there's no oddly perfect cuts.  There's long stretches with no cuts, done in many long takes.  But it's also a real case study in the pretty limited ability of the found footage idea to really work.  It's limiting and lacks a cinematic feel.  That and it's a movie about bigfoot without bigfoot.  And I'm not even sure if it's because bigfoot isn't even in it.  It's not clear and not in a cool way.  It's ambiguous to be ambiguous, another fault in the idea of sticking to true found footage.  I just hope this is the last found footage movie I see.  

Rating: 7.5/10

Kagemusha (December 30th, 2014)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Kenichi Hagiwara, Tsutomu Yamazaki, and Shuji Otaki


Time to repeat myself.  Kurosawa is a master and hasn't done anything bad, at least of the stuff I've seen.  He's a master of framing and storytelling.  Underrated it seems know, he should be talked about more than Kubrick.  Everyone learned from him.  The times changed around him and he was still working.  For a guy who started out in the 50s, like Kubrick, he managed really well.  And he was able to change his filming techniques from the square, full screen black and white cameras back in the day to the wide screen, gorgeous color cameras.  This movie is gorgeous to look at, full of bright colors and big images.  Japan has rarely looked nicer.  Telling an essentially changed version of the Prince and The Pauper but in the Samurai era, Kurosawa tackles the idea of power.  By having a lowly peasant take over the role of a dead leader, the thief learns the true meaning of power.  And instead of abusing it, the man starts to become a leader.  He understands the responsibility and it's really interesting to see unfold.  Maybe running a bit too long, that is the only thing holding this back from a full on 10.  But ignoring that, this is one of the best things Kurosawa has done.  A true epic that should be seen by any cinephile.

Rating: 9.5/10

The Wicker Man (December 30th, 2014)
Director: Robin Hardy
Starring: Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, and Christopher Lee


Man, this movie was a disappointment.  I really wanted to like this, hearing so much praise for it for years.  Finally getting to it now, I just don't get it.  Do fans of this just ignore the hilariously bad music that accompanies it?  Or is there a version without it?  How bout the absolutely ridiculous, all time bad scene of a man being wooed by an awfully dancing woman in another room despite not knowing she's naked or dancing?  Or what about the ridiculous amounts of time spent just watching naked people dancing in a field?  Or the ridiculously over complicated plot to get this cop to be a sacrifice?  And man, this fucking guy.  What a terrible protagonist.  A good horror movie/thriller should make it that you don't want the character to die.  But this prick just deserves it.  Closed minded and immediately distrustful of this island before even getting to the weirdness.  But then he walks into the middle of an orgy and is kinda not too thrown off by it.  The ideas behind the movie are cool and Lee is always awesome.  But man, the execution is lacking severely.  It just barely works.  And I may like this less as time goes on.  It also doesn't help that Hot Fuzz pretty much ripped this kind of movie apart.  Idk.  I can't really recommend this.

Rating: 7/10

Kelly's Heroes (December 31st, 2014)
Director: Brian Hutton
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Donald Sutherland


This is just entertainment.  There's nothing wrong with that at all.  But that's all this is.  A good romp with a bunch of actors from the time that people know.  It's kind of like the Oceans Eleven of it's time set during WWII (despite there being an Oceans movie back then, shut up).  Clint plays a former Army officer who was demoted due to bullshit politics.  When he hears of 16 million dollars of Nazi gold in a nearby bank, he grabs a group of guys to go rob it.  Nothing is great or groundbreaking.  Fun is the theme.  The only one playing a character is Sutherland, playing this really weird hippie with a ridiculous accent who also leads a tank battalion.  What's kind of nice about the movie is that these guys are kinda shitheels.  They are thieves and the only reason we don't care is because they're fun to watch.  That's it.  These guys are AWOL essentially.  Traitors in a way.  But that's a lot of Clint movies, even in this pre Dirty Harry movie.  Just moral ambiguity.  It's a fun movie and a good time for any Clint or Sutherland fans.

Rating: 8/10

The Dark Half (January 2nd, 2015)
Director: George A. Romero
Starring: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Julie Harris, and Michael Rooker


Stephen King is hard to adapt to the screen.  Sure, there are some classics like The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me and The Mist.  But those are atypically normal stories by the man.  Even The Mist, a horror story, doesn't get as weird as alot of his stories.  And a key component in a weird King story is a weird fucking ending.  So in adapting a very weird, meta and personal book from his bibliography, would Romero keep a weird ending?  Fuck yeah he did, because this ending is absolutely bonkers.  Inspired by the time in the 80s when King used a pseudonym for some books, we follow Thaddeus Beaumont.  Thad is a writer who used a fake name to write some pulp books to make money to support his family while he wrote "real" books.  But when deciding to end the "life" of this fake name, George Stark, things get weird and Stark comes to life.  This is a very Twilight Zone-esque story.  Aside from the way it uses an outlandish set up to dal with a problem people face, the daily battle with out worse instincts, it also just has no problem with not really explaining why this happens to Thad.  Romero does some solid work outside of his zombie works.  It still retains some typical lackluster acting that Romero can deal in.  Hutton is good in the dual roles of Thad and George (actually reminding me of Josh Brolin at points) and Rooker is good as the cop.  But some of the side people are stiff and don't really work alot of the time.  Visually the movie is nice, a good job at feeling like a King story.  But then there's some really bad effects work that really take you out of the movie.  But through some of these weak links, the movie works pretty well.  It's a nice, weird little story that works as a thriller but also as two men (King and Romero) working out some issues they had with their careers.  Highly recommended for King and Romero fans.  Others may tread more lightly, but still worth a trip.

Rating: 8.5/10

Stretch (January 3rd, 2015)
Director: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine, Jessica Alba, and Ed Helms

How did this not get released? I'm not gonna claim that this is some sort of masterpiece of cinema, a game changer or any such thing.  But we live in a world where Kevin Smith can shit out whatever bullshit idea waddles its way into his stoner fucking "mind" onto screens, yet a real talent like Carnahan can't get a really solid movie released.  It's a weird movie, admittedly.  But Tusk happened, and that was Kevin Smith just dumping on the audience.  Narratively it's not even that weird.  We've seen it before.  It's about a guy on an odyssey throughout a single night, learning a lesson while dealing with some shit.  It's just in the finer details that this movie is weird.  I'll leave those as nice surprises for anyone who decides to watch it (it's streaming on netflix).  But what I will say is that the movie is really funny.  Carnahan is known primarily for testosterone fueled movies, and while this has some of that, it has a lighter touch than even The A-Team or Smokin' Aces.  And, while rough around the edges, is a pretty good looking movie.  It doesn't reach Collateral level style of late night LA, but it does a decent enough job to be a slightly off kilter version.  Wilson is the man on the journey, and he does really solid work.  He has to play down on his luck with a snarky attitude, but also come off as a decent guy and he nails it.  The rest of the cast is fine, but are barely in it enough to leave a mark.  Except for Pine that is.  This is Pines second go with Carnahan (playing a neo nazi in Smokin' Aces) and he is just as big and wild and unlike Pine that it's crazy.  Looking like a younger version of current Rick Rubin, he is unrecognizable for the most part.  He is unhinged and has an evil lurking in his eyes, a whirling dervish of chaos.  It's a great performance and it is a shame that he's been kinda wasted in Hollywood, outside of Carnahan and JJ Abrams.  Wilson is a limo driver/down on his luck actor who ends up driving Pines eccentric/dangerous rich guy.  It touches on the ridiculous nature of LA and the Hollywood lifestyle and it has a bit of bite.  There's some other twists and subplots in here, but it's narratively very simple.  This was a hell of a movie and I enjoyed it immensely.  Hopefully Carnahan can bounce back from this and deliver yet again.

Rating: 9/10





Top Movies

1. Paris, Texas
2. Kagemusha
3. About Time
4. Stretch
5. Macbeth
6. The Dark Half
7. Kelly's Heroes
8. Willow Creek
9. The Wicker Man




Top 5 Performances

1. Harry Dean Stanton - Paris, Texas
2. Chris Pine - Stretch
3. Domhnall Gleeson - About Time
4. Donald Sutherlands - Kelly's Heroes
5. Timothy Hutton - The Dark Half 





Top Moments

1. The Booth Confession - Paris, Texas
2. The Opening - Kagemusha
3. Chris Pines Entrance - Stretch
4. A Late Trip To The Beach - About Time
5. Macbeths Last Stand - Macbeth

- Tom Lorenzo