Movies Watched The Week of 2/15 - 2/21

Hey guys.  Welcome to the newest addition of this damned blog.  It's a Spielberg heavy week.  This is gonna be a quick one, just because the Oscars has taken up alot of time of my writing.  So sit back and enjoy.

Hook (February 15th, 2015)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hoskins, and Julia Roberts

It's very weird to see a Spielberg movie where he completely whiffs.  Just takes a swing for the fences and just goes down swinging.  It's even weirder to see him make a movie that feels like it has no heart to it, as if he's just going through the motions.  Even Indy 4 had some moments of life to it.  But this is just a heartless, entertainment free slog of a movie.  A story about what happens when Peter Pan leaves Neverland and grows up, its not interesting.  He essentially turns into a Spielberg Dad, a jerkoff of a man who doesn't have time for his children and then learns how to be a great dad.  It's all very half assed.  But even so, it doesn't even come out in a visually good way.  This is the only movie he's done that isn't even good to look at.  The visuals are dank and murky, trying in a half assed way to look like Gilliam or Burton.  The cast is not good, completely miscast.  Williams doesn't do a good job as the asshole version of Pan, and just goes into typical Williams schtick when he goes back to his old self.  Hoffman is just an embarrassment as Hook, a real poofty dandy with no real sense of villainy or danger.  The only one who does any sort of decent work is Roberts, playing Tinkerbell just right.  It's a damn shame he whiffed on this one, but it seems like he was focused on doing Schindler's List and Jurassic Park to really do this well at all.  Skip this crap and be glad you did.  

Rating: 4/10

The Interview (February 16th, 2015)
Directors: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Randall Park, and Lizzy Caplan


With all the hoopla surrounding this movie, you'd think it would have to be a genius piece of satire that really cuts into North Korea.  But really, all it is is a solid little comedy that makes Kim Jong Un look like a little baby.  That's about it.  The movie really is a simple story.  Rogen and Franco go to North Korea to interview Un, and are tasked with his murder by the CIA.  Hijinks ensure.  It starts off a little slow, but has some moments in it.  It's when they get to North Korea and Un shows up, the movie picks up steam.  And by the time the end rolls around and the interview is under way, the movie hits the highs it should have been at the whole time.  That may be because Rogen and Goldberg didn't actually write it that it isn't as good and hilarious as it should have been, but they focused on directing and it pays off.  While one wouldn't say this is Awards worthy directing wise, but it's a nice step up.  Visually good looking with some nice little flourishes, they also shoot violence really well.  And the violence here is just nasty and surprisingly brutal.  The MVP of the cast is Park, just totally going for it as the big blustering baby that is Un.  The weak link if Franco, just showing how completely useless he is when it comes to comedy for the most part.  He goes big and it's too big, so big it loses any sense of a real human being in the character.  Basically, it's a moderate comedy.  It's not the worst comedy of the year (hello A Million Ways To Die In The West) or the best (Inherent Vice).  It's better than Neighbors, so Rogen stepped it up a bit.  Give it a go and enjoy hopefully.

Rating: 8/10

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (February 17th, 2015)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Michael MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore


I was never the biggest fan of this movie growing up.  It never connected and always grated to me.  But I'll be the first to admit that I had a weird childhood with cinema.  I didn't watch many of the typical kids movies, so this may just have not worked for me no matter what.  But now being a little older and appreciating the craft of Spielberg, I can appreciate it alot more.  It also might just be that having seen Hook so recently gives his movies a curve.  But there is some genuine worthiness in this movie.  Spielberg knows how to craft a damn movie, good looking films with just an absolute ease for crafting scene.  He gets some good performances out of the kids, a difficult task for anyone.  And the dynamics at play with the family is nice and not driven into our faces so much, with the dead beat father aspect there to color things.  But mainly, the relationship between the boy and ET is good.  It's not overly sappy and too melodramatic.  Done with a deft touch, it works.  That and it has a scene where ET gets drunk, so I was sold.  Is it perfect? No.  Like many 80s kids movies, it is a little formless and just shambles about till the ending when a plot kicks in.  But it's charming and has it's moments.  So I'm glad to have rewatched it, giving it a second chance to grow on me.

Rating: 8/10

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (February 21st, 2015)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, John Hurt, and Frances O'Connor

Well, here seem to be the first movie in Spielbergs career that just didn't need aliens to show up at the end.  Like, I get why it had to happen to make it's point.  But it is just so jarring, especially in a movie that had it's ending point that was so much more poignant and fitting.  Yeah, it was a bleaker ending, but the movie ends in a bleak spot anyway.  So go bleaker with it, and let it hit.  And that's not Spielbergs fault at all, like the naysayers of his that proclaim he's too sentimental compared to Kubrick (this was supposed to be a Kubrick joint, but Kubrick passed it off to Spielberg).  This is the script Kubrick wanted.  And Spielberg cna go cold and brutal, like in Schindler's List or Munich.  So it seems he wanted a bittersweet ending for their Sci Fi Pinocchio.  It also just makes the middle part of the movie almost worthless, a middle that was already a bit weak and prolonged.  But the beginning is really strong.  Watching this little robot boy try to be human and deal with love, love that was forced on him and can't change.  Trying to get a soul and get his mommy back.  Visually, this is better than Hook overall, but has some not great looking moments in the neon futuristic city scapes.  The CGI is fantastic though, not usually a problem with Spielberg. Mainly, this is a movie that is too long and loses steam along the way.  But it has some great ideas in it, some really heady stuff and it's ambitious.  But the script gets a bit in the way.  Its worth seeing just to see another Spielberg joint, doing something different.  But it falls in the back end of his filmography.

Rating: 8/10

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 2/8 - 2/14

Welcome back gang, to an all new and still continuing blog entry of my Disney kick.  Yes, I still get the Disney stuff going, with a look at a live action flick.  But cartoons dominate, and they’re all really good.  It’s a great week for movies, so sit back and enjoy.  

Robin Hood (February 8th, 2015)

Director: Wolfgang Reitherman

Starring: Brian Bedford, Phil Harris, Monica Evans, and Peter Ustinov

Robin Hood is a post Walt movie, being made and released after his death.  So it’s not crazy to say that some of the magic in the movies released during his time is gone from this.  But while this isn’t a groundbreaker or something truly special with that certain something, this is a damn fun movie.  Like many Disney movies, it is a family version of a classic story.  This time it is the story of that archer from Sherwood forrest.  But instead of being a little british ninny or drunk Russell Crowe, Robin is a fox.  All the characters are anthropomorphic animals, fitting their characteristics.  And if you know the story, it’s fairly faithful to that.  The voices are great fits for the roles, Ustinov as Prince John being a standout.  It’s a good looking movie and is just fun.  It’s like the Disney version of Oceans Eleven.  That’s about it.  Good ole time and fun for all ages.  Give it a look.  

Rating: 9/10

Whiplash (February 10th, 2015)
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, JK Simmons, Paul Reiser, and Melissa Benoist

Fuck man.  Just…fuck.  This is a god damned movie.  What seemed like a too serious, self important movie about music (the Birdman of music), we got a very musical and well crafted story about the obsessive drive to be the best.  What can’t be sold in a trailer is the perfectly antagonistic relationship between Miles Teller and JK Simmons.  Teller is a young man in college, desperate to be the best Jazz drummer in the world.  When he is tapped to join Simmons band in school, he is ecstatic.  But Simmons isn’t any old teacher. He’s like a Nazi, abusing all his students verbally, emotionally and physically.  He is a firestorm.  For most of the movie, we think he’s just an asshole with a perfectionist stick up his ass.  But it’s not that simple.  He’s trying to bring the best out of people and does that by breaking them down to see if they get up stronger.  Simmons is the best thing in the movie and is going to get himself an Oscar.  Teller himself is no slouch either, nailing that almost spectrum like drive that his character has.  He’s almost inhuman, unable to understand others behaviors.  This role actually does give hint that he could make a great Reed Richards.  They are the only two we really focus on, giving the movie a razor focus.  The unsung star though is Chazelle, a first time director.  He shows a hell of an eye for story and for editing, bringing his musical background to the movie, giving it a good flow that feels like a Jazz performance.  He also knows how to wring tension out of scenes that aren’t typical tension scenes.  But the story he lays out gives them an edge and the fact that Simmons can do anything is unsettling.  This is a great fucking movie that features on of the best endings of all time, a perfectly calibrated scene of tension and narrative momentum climaxing perfectly.  It’s a hell of a flick, the best movie that’s nominated for Best Picture, and one that sadly won’t win.  But it’ll have a better future than The Theory of Everything.

Rating: 10/10

Sleeping Beauty (February 12th, 2015)
Directors: Eric Larson and Les Clark
Starring: Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Taylor Holmes, and Eleanor Audley

I’ll just get the negative out of the way quick.  The story at hand here, of the arranged marriage between a prince and princess who actually fall in love with each other, isn’t for me.  This is the blueprint for all these fairy tale love stories, with the princess and the prince and blah.  But that’s all fine, being that this is the best looking animated movie ever.  It’s really quite insane how gorgeous this looks, being as it was made in 1959.  It is absolutely stunning to look at.  Every frame is like a stain glass piece of art.  It is an ambitious piece of work and the high mark for animation.  Nothing has topped it since.  And the love story nonsense may not be for me, there is Maleficent.  She’s got the simplest motivation for setting the plot into motion.  She wasn’t invited to a party, so she gets all pissy and places a curse on an infant.  She’s a wretched bitch, and its all because she’s petty.  Fantastic stuff.  That and it all ends with one of the most gorgeous scenes in cinema, a fight between the prince and Maleficent who turned into a dragon. 

Rating: 9.5/10

101 Dalmatians (February 14th, 2015)
Directors: Clyde Geronimi and Hamilton S. Luske
Starring: Rod Taylor, Cate Bauer, J. Pat O'Malley, and Betty Lou Gerson

If there’s a simple reason for why I love this movie, it’s because there’s a shit ton of dogs doing dog things.  Simple as that, cute dogs are abundant.  But there’s more to it than that.  For one, it’s funny.  Pongo is a great Disney hero, the patriarch Dalmatian with a great positive attitude.  Always got a smile on his face, and he is such a bro.  That and the two henchmen for Cruella are great little idiots, english dirtbags.  And the other dogs besides from the Dalmatians are great too, one of whom is a old codger and that’s great.  There’s a cat too, and he’s a skittish little guy.  But the story itself is simple.  Pongo helps his pet (the human) get a woman who also has a dalmatian, Perdita, and they end up having pups.  When those pups are kidnapped by the fur coat loving shitbird Cruella Deville, it’s up to Pongo and the underground society of English Dogs to bring them back.  It’s a nice little adventure with some darkness to it, fitting into the Disney mold.  It’s a nice looking movie too, a step down right after Sleeping Beauty but it’s still good to look at.  This is a nice little movie with fun for all ages.  Give it a go.

Rating: 9.5/10





Top Movies

1. Whiplash
2. 101 Dalmatians
3. Sleeping Beauty
4. Robin Hood






Top 5 Performances

1. JK Simmons - Whiplash
2. Miles Teller - Whiplash
3. Rod Taylor - 101 Dalmatians
4. Peter Ustinov - Robin Hood
5. Eleanor Audley - Sleeping Beauty




Top 5 Moments

1. The Final Scene - Whiplash
2. The Dragon Fight - Sleeping Beauty
3. The Car Wreck - Whiplash
4. The Archery Contest - Robin Hood
5. The Family Watches TV - 101 Dalmatians

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 2/1 - 2/7

Hello everybody.  Welcome to the new post and it should be a good one.  It’s a cartoon fest this week, even in the live action movie I watched this week.  And funnily enough, the live action cartoon is the worst movie of the week by a long measure.  So sit back and relax, and let the animation get hold of ya.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (February 1st, 2015)

Director: Ethan Spaulding

Starring: Matt Lanter, Sam Witwer, Sumalee Montano, and Jason O'Mara

DC Animated has started off the new year with the first new animated movie and it is another home run.  In adapting the storyline from Geoff Johns’ run on Aquaman recently in this animated universes continuity, they have made a good showcase for Aquaman.  Down in Atlantis, Prince Orm is trying to provoke his people into attacking the land dwellers by framing the land dwellers.  But this brings the attention of the Justice League. And when the Queen realizes that Orm is planning this, she sets into motion the events that leads her true eldest son, Arthur Curry, to reclaim his rightful place in Atlantis.  As per usual with DC Animated, the movie is gorgeous to look at.  It’s like a mixture of Jim Lee drawings and anime style.  It fits like a glove and leads to some amazing visuals and big action pieces.  The action is yet again great with the movie, giving little beats for every hero, but giving more to Aquaman.  And while Justice League is in the title, this is Arthurs movie.  His growth from shiftless harbor bum to King of The Sea works and broadens the world of DC animated quite a bit.  And with a post credits stinger that suggest we may be getting a more Superman centric story, things are looking up.  The only thing I wish was that it was a bit longer.  Maybe get a bit more into the characters, emotionally.  Stretch out the narrative to let it breathe.  But that’s a minor issue.  So if you like comics and/or animation, give this a look.  It’s well worth it.  DC’s best since Flashpoint. 

Rating: 9.5/10

The Great Mouse Detective (February 2nd, 2015)
Director: Burny Mattinson and Ron Clements
Starring: Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Susanne Pollatschek, and Vincent Price

Disney is the premiere Animation studio, still to this day.  Despite a dark streak in the 2000’s, the studio has done so much great stuff that it will always be the watermark.  And the 2000’s wasn’t the only time they hit a rough patch.  In the late 70s/early 80s, they hit a bad patch too when Walt wasn’t around anymore.  But then they managed to get the right people in and kicked started a new renaissance for the studio. And it started right here.  This is a damn good movie, one that flew under my radar.  But when it was describe as “mouse Sherlock Holmes”, I was sold already.  And that’s exactly what the movie is.  The mouse versions of these characters.  And it is kid versions, but still true to the characters and darker than you’d think.  Drunks are murdered, there’s rat prostitutes, a bar brawl, and a tense fight on top of Big Ben.  Not as kiddie as one would think.  For a plot, it’s basically a kid version of The Reichenbach Falls.  It’s a great little animated film and one with a nice spot in history.

Rating: 9/10

Dumbo (February 4th, 2015)
Director: Sam Armstrong and Jack Kinney

This managed to be a nice surprise while not being a surprise at all.  I knew of the movie and that it was a classic, an important movie in the animation field.  I knew that Dumbo flies (thank you Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and there were some hilarious black stereotype crows.  But I didn’t know how very experimental it was.  This is a movie that even today would be an odd duck.  It’s barely an hour long and has almost no dialogue from most of the main characters.  Only the mouse talks.  Dumbo himself says nothing and you don’t mind that he doesn’t.  You get all the info and emotions you need through the great animation.  It is a truly beautiful, astounding work.  There’s not much I can say that hasn’t been said already.  Just that I love how it becomes an acid trip for a few minutes. It’s a great and should be seen by all and shown to all little kids. 

 Rating: 9/10

White House Down (February 7th, 2015)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Jason Clarke, and James Woods

This is the complete and total opposite of Olympus Has Fallen, the other White House attacked movie of 2013.  Where Olympus Has Fallen was brutal and dirty and fun, White House Down is soft and clean and boring.  This is a very bland movie.  Not a surprise, with Emmerich directing.  He is an absolute garbage filmmaker and we don’t mention this enough.  It’s crazy that he’s still being given movies to make, and that the garbage movies that failed that he made are used as a marketing tool for his newer movies.  Why anyone would think “From The Director of 2012” is a good sell is beyond me.  An absolute chore to sit through, this is a big waste of talent.  Tatum does his damnedest here, selling the physicality of the role.  But he is in comedy mode for the most part for some reason, and it is grating.  He wants to be John McClane, but tries too hard.  Jamie Foxx is wasted, coming off Django Unchained, in a terrible written role of President who is a pacifist but is great with machine guns and RPGs.  He has some moments trying to be funny, but can’t save the egregious lines he’s given, one involving Jordans because haha he’s black this is humor laugh now.  The only two people in the movie who do good work is Clarke and Woods.  Woods can’t help but be good, always a magnetic presence.  He brings some actual pain and desperation to the role while making the character a tough man, an old school soldier.  Clarke though is a surprise, giving the main henchman role a lot of menace.  He sells the way this guy moves and talks and acts, the pure hatred he has in him.  When he threatens Tatums daughter, he doesn’t pull back.  He’s really going for it.  But aside from two performances, this is a waste.  Shot with a big budget, it’s too shiny and clean to land.  Emmerich hasn’t done a movie with this kind of action before, and you can tell.  It’s boringly shot and staged, with no real impact to any of it.  The story is ridiculous enough and similar to Olympus Has Fallen, it could have been trashy fun like that.  But Emmerich just brings nothing to it.  Throw in an amazingly obnoxious kid, something Olympus got rid of immediately, this is a grating flick.  A true waste.  Unless you like Woods and Clarke, stay away.

Rating: 5/10






Top Movies

1. Justice League: Throne Of Atlantis
2. The Great Mouse Detective
3. Dumbo
4. White House Down





Top 5 Performances

1. Barrie Ingham - The Great Mouse Detective
2. Matt Lanter - Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
3. James Woods - White House Down
4. Jason Clarke - White House Down
5. Vincent Price - The Great Mouse Detective




Top 5 Moments

1. The Reichenbach Falls - The Great Mouse Detective 
2. Atlantis Attacks - Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
3. Pink Elephants - Dumbo
4. First Flight - Dumbo
5. Tatum and Clarke Duke It Out - White House Down

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week Of 1/25 - 1/31

Welcome back gang, and it is Super Bowl SUNDAY! I kept it nice and quick for all you cats on this holiest of days, and I luckily had a solid week that ended in a nice surprise.  So sit back before the game or during the shitty half time show (seriously, another bullshit pop act?!) and let the good times roll.

Fright Night (January 25th, 2015)
Director: Tom Holland

Starring: William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon, Amanda Bearse, and Roddy McDowall

Even when they aren't very good, 80s horror movies usually are very watchable and have a special place in my heart.  From a simplistic earnestness and a giddy use of violence, the movies don't tend to be mean spirited.  Fright Night is one of those movies, and it luckily is pretty good to boot.  Having talked about the remake a few months back, the movie is pretty much similar plotwise.  But the main thing to separate these two is tone.  The remake is a bit more Looney Tunes, where this original is a bit more serious about the problems at hand.  It is still a funny movie, but not aggressively so. One only has to look at how the vamps are portrayed in the movies.  In the remake, Colin Farrell is a showman and very big.  Here, Chris Sarandon is a low key, kind smug yuppie of a vampire.  He acts as if all of these bullshit is below him and just wants to keep killing bitches, but this nerd insulted him.  That and the movie holds back on the vampiric angle a bit longer than the remake.  It has some problems that plagued many an 80s movie, some cheesy acting and stupid decision making.  But nothing too insane as the kill the movie.  It's a fun time and a nice spin on the vampire story, with a great performance by Sarandon.

Rating: 8/10

Olympus Has Fallen (January 26th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Rick Yune, and Morgan Freeman


Sometimes, we just need some glorious trash to keep us going.  No pretense of importance or deeper reachings.  Sometimes, a movie just wants us to sit back and enjoy Gerard Butler dishing out some serious cranium injuries.  When a group of Korean terrorists attack the White House and hold the presidents hostage, John Mcl... er Gerard Butler has to fight off the terrorists one by one in the White House.  A few things crossed my mind at first.  One, this is an insanely obvious Die Hard ripoff.  That's fine, it's been a good long time since a movie tried to be like Die Hard (the Die Hard sequels didn't even try).  Secondly, this is weirdly prescient in a way.  Obviously the Koreans didn't do anything even close to this level of attack, but we were recently attacked by them in a way.  So, timing when watching a movie is everything, and I had great timing.  Thirdly, Antoine Fuqua is known for making Training Day when this is usually the kind of movie he makes.  Glorious trash.  Mean spirited too, killing indiscriminately and in horrible ways.  This is an ugly movie and really stupid.  But it's so stupid, it feels like it knows exactly what it's doing without winking.  The violence hits hard and is really kind of effective.  It's a fantastic TNT movie, and sometimes that is just a ok.

Rating: 8/10

The Equalizer (January 27th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chloe Moretz, David Harbour, and Martin Csokas


Another Fuqua joint! This time he returns with the much less ugly and stupid, but just as brutal actioneer/pulp revenge movie starring Denzel.  Returning to a project helmed by the man who got him an Oscar brings out some really good work in Denzel.  Never one to sleepwalk through a role, he still goes above and beyond here.  In a move you can tell was all him, Denzel makes his character of John McCall a man with OCD.  Not in quirky way.  He is a man who is always precise and everything has to be in place.  It's not an obnoxious tick where he drives people crazy.  It doesn't even come in to play to make him nuts.  It's just a little flavor to make him richer, and it works.  These ticks work because it plays into his past as a CIA operative, a man who went through such a rigorous and routine driven life, it stays with him.  When this man befriends a young prostitute (Moretz), he feels compelled to get justice for her when the men who run her put her in the hospital.  And the best thing is that he does this immediately.  It's not the whole movie.  He does it and goes about his life, helping others in similar ways.  But the meat of the movie springs forth from this action, when those mens bosses come looking for who did this.  And when it finally comes back to McCall, he springs into action and starts to take apart the organization piece by piece.  It's a much more well written and plotted movie than it needed to be.  You coulda just thrown Denzel on screen and had him whoop some ass and we'd all be fine.  So it's nice to see some sort of work went into it.  What else stands out is how dark the movie gets without being unrelenting.  Child prostitution and brutal violence, stark and cold make this unique among the old man action movies.  It grounds the cliched action movie formula.  While it does run a little too long, this is a fine enough film for action fans and Denzel fans.

Rating: 8/10

Crimson Tide (January 30th, 2015)
Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Viggo Mortensen, and James Gandolfini

There are two directors who have gotten career best performances out of Denzel and they are two varied, completely different types of directors.  You got Spike Lee on one end, getting Malcolm X and He Got Game out of Denzel.  Then you got Tony Scott, who got Man on Fire and Crimson Tide out of him.  I've said before that Denzel is always putting serious effort into his roles, but these two guys unleashed something in him in those 4 movies.  Something real came out of the collaboration.  Like this movie for example, Denzel is playing a cerebral, almost anti war soldier.  At the least, he is cautious and isn't too keen on using the nuclear warheads he is responsible for.  Set in a slightly off of reality early 90s, a Russian civil war is breaking out and a Nationalist is threatening Nuclear war if any Russians are killed by outside forces.  So America is sending out nuclear subs to Russia just in case.  One of those subs is headed by Gene Hackman and his new number 2, Denzel.  Hackman is an old school type badass, doing whatever the orders tell him too and busting ass when he has to.  But Denzel is more of a thinker, and when a message comes in to launch a nuke, the sub goes to work.  But what happens when a second message comes in but is cut off before the message can get to its point? Do you try to get the message, putting your sub at risk at being found? Or do you go through with the launch, having the orders you have with the risk that they are outdated? That's the dilemma at hand.  And the movie actually takes it's time to have these debates and let them simmer.  Aside from a duel between subs, this is not a movie filled with action.  It's a tense movie, making you wait on the edge of your seats to find out what is gonna happen.  And it even makes Hackman the villain, but an understandable villain and one who isn't a total bad guy.  Hell, he isn't even a bad guy.  Just a man who may be past his due point, and he recognizes that and it's refreshing.  The movie is surprisingly smart from Tony Scott, and it's a nice reminded of what he was capable of with a good script.  This is a good little 90s thriller with a morally grey outlook on things and it's a refreshing change of pace for a war movie.

Rating: 9/10







Top Movies

1. Crimson Tide
2. The Equalizer
3. Fright Night
4. Olympus Has Fallen





Top 5 Performances

1. Denzel Washington - Crimson Tide
2. Gene Hackman - Crimson Tide
3. Chris Sarandon - Fright Night
4. Denzel Washington - The Equalizer
5. Gerard Butler - Olympus Has Fallen





Top 5 Moments

1. Relieved of Duty - Crimson Tide
2. McCall Equalizes The Pimps - The Equalizer
3. The Club Scene - Fright Night
4. The Attack - Olympus Has Fallen
5. The Final Message - Crimson Tide

- Tom Lorenzo

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