Monday, March 31, 2014

Muppets Most Wanted Review

     The 8th film in the Muppet series is called Muppets Most Wanted. The Muppets are on a world tour. A Kermit look-a-like named Constatine kid naps Kermit and takes his place on the Muppet tour. On the Muppet tour Constatine with the help of Dominic (played by Ricky Gervais) rob museums and banks. This movie had potential but, It was not a great movie.
   I love heist movies. I love comedies. I love the Muppets. What could have gone wrong with this film? This movie was disappointing for several reasons. One the songs weren't great, the acting was sub par,and it was slow paced and boaring.
   Before I tell you the bad, I'll tell you the good. The story/script. There are more goods the bads in the script/story. It was a very clever movie. A movie that seemed like a perfect fit for the Muppets. The script was good. Just good. It was mildly funny. I didn't laugh like I did in other Muppet Movies. There were a couple funny lines. It kept my entertained. The comedy was what made me have the energy not to fall asleep. The most disappointing part was Statler and Waldorf (the old men)lines were stupid. They weren't funny. They tried to hard. It seemed like the writes didn't care for their parts. They just threw them in. The old men Muppets are my favorite. If their lines are not funny, just don't put them in. It pains me to say that but, I want good memories of them.
   Songs are one staple to Muppet movies. They usually have me singing along by the 2nd verse and are stuck in my head for at least a week. I couldn't remember any songs from this movie. I could tell you the lines they repeated about 10 million times but I can't tell you the tune to the. They didn't stand out like most of the Muppet songs do. Every song in this movie I would put in the bottom of my favorite Muppet songs.
    You can tell they were going for the comedy side with this movie with actors like Ty Burrell, Tiny Fey, and Ricky Gervais. Those were the only human stars with significant screen time and purposes that moved the movie forward. They did that. The actors didn't feel out of place. I love this actors in everything else they do just not this movie. I know the Muppets are the focal point of this movie but, the actors didn't seem like they tried. Even  if your a supporting role you still need to try your best. It seemed like the acting was lazy and not worth their while. 
     Muppets Most Wanted was disappointing. I would recommend seeing this when it comes to redbox. I will give Muppets Most Wanted a 6/10.       

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Box Office Results From March 21-23 2014

          Sorry I'm late for this post. I said I would post it on Sunday but I decided to include Sunday's box office numbers into my post. Better late then never right? Lets get started.
          In the number 5 spot is 300: Rise of an Empire and it made 8.5 million. And why is this in the top 5? I think this got the number 5 spot because all of the other movies go to a totally different demographic. We have to family films with Muppets and Mr.Peabody and a movie centered towards teens. 300 is in the top 5 instead of Need for Speed because most people got tired of need for speed. It didn't get great reviews and most people put it as a Fast & Furious rip off. 
          In the number 4 spot is a total surprise with God's Not Dead. A movie I have never heard of. A movie that is religious based. It doesn't have any star power to it. It only opened in 780 theaters. I really don't have a reason to why I think this is in the top 5. A complete surprise.  It made 9.2 million the past weekend. 
          In the number 3 spot was Mr.Peabody and Sherman. I'm not surprised this is higher then I predicted. It's a animated family film. Animated family films are bound to stay in the top 5 of the box office at least for 3 weeks. It made 11.8 million the past weekend. 
          Muppets Most Wanted holds the number 2 spot. I'm not shocked that it did. It's a really well known property and everybody loves the Muppets. Disney is really good at marketing their movies so I knew this was going to be number 2. The shock is how much money it made. It only made 17 million. That's not a great opening weekend for this movie. I say movies should get a little over 1/3rd of their production budget on opening weekend for a better chance to break even. The movies budget was 50 million and it made 17. A little over 1/3rd of that would be 17, 18, 19 million. So It's on the track to make money just not as much as Disney hoped I bet. Especially when the Muppets movie in 2011 made 22 opening weekend. That is not the trajectory you want. 
          The number 1 spot is no shock. It is Divergent. A book to movie adaptation. For the most part those make money. The book sales did really great and this movie got really well represented on social media, tv, etc.... The movie made 54.6 million. So close to me 55 million dollar prediction! The movie's budget was 85 million.  It's on the track to make money.
          My predictions didn't go as well as I have hoped. I got 2 for 5. Hopefully next week I'll do better.  

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Box Office Predictions for March 21st-22nd

          Every Thursday I'm going to predict how the box office will end up for the week and how much the movie will make. Then on Sunday I will give you the recap of what actually turned out and why I think they were in the place they did. 
5.) Need for Speed in the 5th spot and it will make 12 million.
4.) Mr.Peabody and Sherman will make  14 million.
3.) 300: Rise of an Empire will make 16 million.
2.) The Muppets: Most Wanted will make 25 million.
1.) Divergent will make 55 million
    I might be way off on these predictions. Comment down below on your predictions.   

Monday, March 10, 2014

The Most Re-watchable Movies

          Movies are an awesome source for entertainment. If it's a movie you only feel like watching once, or a movie that is pleasant to watch more then once. So, what are the most re-watchable movies? I'm going to tell you what I think are the most re-watchable movies in no particular order. 
    The first one is Ocean's Eleven. This is in my top 15 films of all time and I almost mention it in everything I write. It has comedy and a very good story to keep everyone on the edge of their seat. 
    Star Wars is the next most re-watchable movie. Not I, II, or III, but the original trilogy. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi is what I'm talking about. Almost everybody as A New Hope at least in their top 50 of all time. I have it in my 10. I don't know what makes this film one of the best. It has comedy (I'm sensing a trend) and some of the most quotable lines in movie history and some of the most recognizable characters. 
    Anchorman. How freaking funny is this movie? I quote this movie at least 5 times a day. If you have not seen this movie, you have no life. Even if you don't like comedies, this will for sure change your mind. It has a lot of different types of comedy. Most noticeably comedy that is actually funny and stupid comedy. There are also some other re-watchable comedies such as Zoolander, Ace Ventura, and Dumb and Dumber. Really funny movies that if you are forced to watch over and over again, you will not want to kill your self.
    The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, and Fox and the Hound, and the animated Disney Robin Hood are movies I would be fine with watching on a 24 hour loop. These movies were my child hood. Every kid has that set of movies that they watched and nothing else. Those 6 movies were mine. I watched one 5 times one day, and another one 5 times the next day. I think Fox and the Hound and Robin Hood are the most underrated films of all time. No one mentions them. All ages can watch and enjoy them.  They totally deserve to be watched over and over again. Robin Hood and Fox and the Hound is on Netflix. Go watch it! It's an order!  
    There are 2 obvious movies. The Amazing Spiderman and The Avengers. I love these movies. Both in my top 10 comic-book movies of all time.  I saw Avengers 10 times in theaters and Spiderman 9 times. These movies were enough to please the half of my body which is comic nerd, and the other half which is a guy who just loves movies. I know you have seen at least one of these movies so you know what I'm talking about. 
    The Princess Bride. In my top 20 of all time. I can't even describe why I have so much pleasure watching this movie. So I'll leave it at that.
    The last movie I want to mention is Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is the most influential movie in my life. I first saw it when I was about 7 years old and this was the movie that really got my interest in movies started. This is in my top 10 films of all time and stars my favorite Harrison Ford. All film is subjective but I honestly cant see why someone can't like this movie.   

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Non-Stop

     The latest Liam Neeson action/suspense/thriller is the airplane hijack movie Non-Stop. Neeson plays a air marshall while on a plane he receives text messages about how someone will kill someone on the plane every 20 minutes if they don't transfer 150million dollars into a bank account.
  This movie had very little action which was a disappointment when I was watching the movie. Everything with Neeson in it you expect a whole lot of action in it. If't it's Taken 1 or Taken 2 (both fantastic) you know what to expect. I went into the movie expecting something and getting something entirely different in return. Liam Neeson should be a separate genre of movie.
  So if this didn't have action, what did it have? It had a very slow moving mystery. The thing is the script was really well done just the direction the director took it was not so great. It was a great story but, poorly executed and slow paced. It was great trying to figure out who is the one trying to hijack this plane. It was very fun playing along. I love mystery movies so the fact that this had very little to no action was made up by the fact it was a mystery.
   The performances is what you expect. Liam Neeson is basically the same in every movie. A person who kicks some serious butt. The other performances were mediocre. It felt like they were thinking "We don't have to act in this movie because it's an action movie and no one acts in action movies. They only care about the action." The fact that this had very little action made a chain reaction to put a spotlight on the mediocre acting.
   Overall, this was a mystery suspense more than a thriller. It was just a little bit disappointing because I wanted to see some big action scenes because the have Liam freaking Neeson. I'll give this movie a 7/10. Better then Monuments Men, just not as good as Robocop. Non-Stop fits in the place as my 3rd favorite film of the year.  
      

86th Academy Awards Wrap-Up

The 86th Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars) where Sunday and the host was the very funny and talented Ellen DeGeneres.  It was a great night. Ellen ordered pizza for the actors in the audience, and Ellen’s selfie with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Lupita N’Yongo, and Marel Stryep  broke a record for the most re-tweets on a tweet. It even broke twitter for some period of time. PINK sang a tribute to celebrate the 75th year of The Wizard of Oz. It was absolutely outstanding. It left me speechless. There was also another stunning performance of Indina Menzel singing the very popular Let it  Go from the mega hit Frozen.
In the actual awards there was some surprises and some that we knew would win.  The main surprise was no wins for 10 time nominated American Hustle. I’ve never seen the film but, I’ve heard the best things from it.  With nominations in the big 7 (Best Picture, Best Actor and Supporting Actor,  Best Actress and Supporting Actress, Best Director, and Original Screenplay) you would think it would win at least one. It didn’t. Even though I have not seen Hustle, I think David O’ Russle should have won best director. In my opinion the ultimate responsibility of a director is to get the best performance out of his cast.  He obviously did that. He did it last year 2! The only time in history where the in the Acting categories came from the same movie. Russle directed both of them.
12 Years a Slave was also the movie that everyone was talking about to win a lot of awards.  It was nominated 7 times but only won 3 of them. It won the biggest award Best Picture, and Best adapted screenplay which is a big one to win as well. Lupita Nyong’o won best supporting actress which was a strong competition against Jennifer Lawrence. The each won about the same amount of awards before the Oscars and Lupita came out on top.
The big winner was the absolutely outstanding Gravity. Nominated 10 times and winning 7 of those. Gravity swept the technical awards. It won Visual Effects, Cinematography,  Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Film Editing, and Best Director.  It’s understandable these are the awards it won because it was called by many  a break through for the movie industry and it really was.  It’s also understandable that it lost the other 3 it was up for.  It lost Best Picture which was understandable because it is so hard to win in a category with 9 nominees. It also lost best Production Design to The Great Gatsby and Sandra Bullock lost to Cate Blachett for Best Actress. If you have not seen Blue Jasmine, you really should. Woody Allen is such a talented director and writer.
Frozen went home with 2 awards. Best Animated Film and Beset Song for Let it Go. It also crossed the 1 billion dollar mark at the box office this weekend becoming the 18th film in history to do so here is a quick run down of  the  leaders this year at the 86th Academy Awards.
Gravity-7 wins
12 Years a Slave-3 wins
Dallas Buyers Club-3 wins
Frozen-2 wins
The Great Gatsby-2 wins
Blue Jasmine-1 win

Her-1 win

Monday, March 3, 2014

Robocop Review

     The latest 80s remake is the action, crime, sci-fi thriller is Robocop. A movie about an office named Alex Murphy who is critically injured. The company Omnicorp sees this as the perfect opportunity to make a half man, half robot cop. 
   This movie is awesome. It's such a fun film. I didn't want to re-watch the original for the purpose of comparing it to much. Most of the time remakes are not as good as the original and it doesn't have to be. People who are against remakes are stupid. No one has given me a logical explanation to why studios should not remake movies. I have have my very own copy of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid sitting on my shelf. Is it going to change or magically disappear if the decide to remake it? Of course not. Remakes are just fine. 
   Most of the complaints I've read about this movie and why people don't like it is they say It's not as good as the original. Those people are idiots. Are you trying to tell me the only reason you rated it rotten is you didn't like it as much as the original? That's completely ridiculous. Another reason for some people hating on it is the say this one is PG-13. When the original came out in 1987, how they rated movies was very different. Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom received a PG rating and we all know how much blood and ripping out peoples hearts are in that one. PG-13 was introduced in 1984. Only 3 years before Robocop! They were still getting used to how to use the PG-13. I guarantee that if eh 1987 Robocop was released today, it would be PG-13. I just wanted to clear that up so you can leave you thoughts of Robocop being terrible and leave them at the door and watch the movie with an open mind. Now it's time for me to actually review this movie. 
   Robocop is a fun time at the movies. I really don't know why people hate it for different reasons then I said above. It is everything a action movie should be. A movie about a hero being put into a bunch of challenges that include fight scenes, violence and frantic chases. It has every characteristic of a action movie and is really well executed. There was no shaky camera and the script was awesome. The screen play was so fluid it was easy to understand and enjoy unlike other action film. It had a clear story and the direction of the direction of the film was good. It wasn't amazing but, you could tell what they were trying to go for and you can tell they accomplished it. 
   The acting was mediocre. I expected more from this cast especially from Gary Oldman and Micheal Keaton. It wasn't bad enough to make me want to walk out of the movie, and it wasn't good enough to be one of the things I remember from this movie. The pacing was off at times. They wanted to make sure that everything got into this movie that they wanted. They did it just went by a little to fast. 
   Overall Robocop (2014) is a really enjoyable and fun time at the movies. A movie you will not forget and a movie that is worth every penny. I give this movie a 8.5/10 to make it my 2nd favorite film of 2014. The Lego Movie is still on top.