Thursday, November 26, 2015

The Good Dinosaur Review

          The Good Dinosaur is the latest movie in the PIXAR collection and it is about a dinosaur named Arlo, trying to get back home after he got lost in a flood.
          PIXAR's first film this year, Inside Out was phenomenal.  An animated film only PIXAR could have done. That movie was above average in every way, shape, and form. Inside Out found it's way into my top 5 favorite PIXAR movies. The Good Dinosaur looked like it was going to be a good PIXAR movie. It wasn't going to be better than Inside Out, but it seemed like it was going to be a top tier PIXAR movie. Unfortunately, it wasn't.
          The movie was just an animated film that was below average. It didn't seem like PIXAR made this film. It felt like it was made by an independent studio. It didn't feel like PIXAR for 2 main reasons.
          1.) The story was very rushed. The Good Dinosaur was all over the place. It knew where it started, and knew where it wanted it to go.  It just didn't know how to get there. Every moment in the middle was a very big important part to the overall story arc. There were just too many of the very important parts. They needed to show you all these parts that they only spent a limited amount of time on them. That caused for very fast paced story telling which PIXAR hasn't done before in any of their movies. They could have eliminated 3-5 of those parts and expanded upon the ones that were left over. That would have caused for a better flowing story. With the studios weaker films like Brave, Cars 2, and Monsters University, they still had brilliant story pacing. Even though the story was very rushed, they still delivered the emotion they wanted to deliver, and it still made me cry like basically every PIXAR movie.
          2.) The characters. When this film starts off you see a mom and dad dinosaur waiting for their 3 eggs to hatch. When each egg hatches a dinosaur comes out with a very distinctive personality. Their personalities work for when they are new borns. When they are grown up, it doesn't work so well. The dad dinosaur character doesn't fit in with the story at all. I swear he had some king of bipolar disorder. He was a terrible father. He is trying to encourage his son Arlo to try new things, then the next scene he is basically yelling at Arlo telling him how bad he sucks. Very un-PIXAR to have a sudden change of character with no motive or story behind it. Arlo's siblings and mother are really forgettable. They didn't have good enough traits to remember them.  On Arlo's adventure, you meet other dinosaurs. You never care for any of them because they don't focus on them enough. That goes back to the problem I stated in point number one. You never care for the characters that aren't the focus in the story. In one of my favorite PIXAR movies Cars, the miscellaneous cars that Lighting McQueen meets have distinctive characteristics to them so when the ending of the movie comes around, you care for each and every one of them. The only characters you care about in this movie are of course the main dinosaur Arlo and the little boy that follows him. Again, it is very un-PIXAR like to only give focus on your main characters.
           Overall The Good Dinosaur is a disappointing edition to the PIXAR library. In fact i'm very sad to say that this is my least favorite pixar movie. It gets a 1/5.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Review

          I like every film in this franchise. I surprisingly liked Mockingjay Pt.1 when a lot of people didn't. Pt.2 just sucks.
         This movie was incredibly boring. It might be the most boring movie I have seen this year. The way the exposition was done was always drab. Now, I get that the world is dull, but you still need some excited moments in there to color it a bit.
          From the trailers it looked like the armies of the united districts are coming together and attacking the capitol. The thing we have been waiting 4 movies for. Do you seen any of that? Do you see anything that has to do with the districts attacking the capitol? Nope. You don't see any of it. There is nothing in this movie that helps move the story forward. It feels like they were making the film and they thought to themselves "We forgot to add something exciting. Let's add it here and have it make no sense."  They threw in nonsense hoping that it would make us appreciate what was going on. It didn't.  Another thing I got from the trailer was when Katniss and her group were marching towards President Snow's mansion, there were traps all over the town and they would have to skillfully plan how to avoid them; and we would see them struggling to survive the traps that they got into. They only focused on one trap. They had a perfect opportunity to have some really interesting conflict. But they didn't.
          Without spoiling anything, there are some pretty key reveals that they just screwed up, that carried no emotional impact what so ever. When a reveal happened they only focused on it for about 2-15 seconds. There was literally nothing there to make me care.
           Just like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King this movie could've literally ended 10 different times. The difference being when it seemed like Mockingjay Pt.2 was going to end, it should have and it shouldn't have kept going. I just wanted this movie to end. And when it didn't and it kept going, I was seriously thinking about leaving the theater. I about had enough with this movie. The whole movie moved along with the same speed as a sloth. The whole movie was just filler scenes with no actual scenes to help the story.
          I was so disappointed by this movie because I really liked the other movies. Especially Pt.1. I knew Pt.1 was the build up to what was going to happen in Pt.2. But Pt.2 ending up being really boring with no payoff in it.
          Harry Potter handled the whole Pt.1 Pt.2 situation really well. What we left wanting in Pt.1 came in Pt.2. When you watch the Deathly Hollows Pt.1 and Pt.2 you realize it needed to be 2 movies. You couldn't put all of the of the things we needed to have in one movie. In Mockingjay you could have easily put everything into one movie. When they split the 2 movies they also split there chances of having both movies be good. Mockingjay Pt.2 could have been Battle of Hogwarts good. It just wasn't. They were lazy with the way the handled the main conflict of this series. I couldn't even tell Pt.2 was about a rebellion. If I went into Pt.2 without watching any other movie in this franchise, I would have thought this movie was about, well, I don't know what I would think this movie was about. It was so diluted down from what it could have been.
         This movie sucks. 1.3/5

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Bridge of Spies Review

Bridge of Spies is directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks. It is about an insurance lawyer who agrees to represent someone who was caught in America as a soviet spy. At this time he becomes very unpopular with his country because America hated the soviets during The Cold War. Then he becomes more hated when he agrees to negotiate a swap between Russia and America about 2 captured spies. He doesn't have a political standpoint however, the CIA feels like he is good at talking so they hire him to do this dangerous, and risk full task. This is based on a True Story.
I LOVE THIS MOVIE.
I went into this movie hoping, just hoping I would get enjoyment out of it and I certainly did. I can't wait to buy it the day it comes out.
Bridge of Spies is a different war film than you might be used to. There are no scenes with actual war. It is about a lawyer who went over to Germany to negotiate a swap. This is a movie that is very dialogue heavy. So if you are one of those people who don't like movies or get bored in movies with lots of talking, you probably won't enjoy this movie.
If you are one of the people who get goosebumps when you watch a perfect crafted scene, you will have the time of your life watching this. He uses camera close ups, camera wide shots to simulate camera cuts that aren't actually there. He makes the scenes have maximum dramatic effect. He does it just like the old Hollywood style filmmaking. If you love the classic films like 12 Angry Men or North by North West there is no doubt you will enjoy this movie. This is the best directed film I have seen all year.
Let's talk about Tom Hanks. One of the most likable actors alive today and even cinematic history. Once again he gives a stellar performance. An Oscar worthy performance. He is funny and instantly likable. He reminded me of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window.  He takes the movie and makes it his own. You can tell it is a great performance when you don't see the actor in the role. I did not see Hanks in this movie. I saw his character and that is always a positive. There are multiple scenes in this movie where it is just Hanks and another person talking. There is no action to help propel the scenes, it's just Hanks.
What makes this so interesting is the underlying story.  It's a negotiation movie, it's a courtroom drama. It's a war film that doesn't focus on the physical aspect. It focuses on the mental aspect. It's a war film that highlights the emotional part more than anything else. However, Spielberg directs it as if it was an action film.
Another performance in this film that caught my attention was Mark Rylance who plays the soviet spy. I see a best supporting actor oscar nomination in his future.
If I were to pick some negatives with this movie it would be elements that take place in the second act about the american spy that got captured. You can tell it was there just to make you care. But there is an incredible plane scene in this segment that blew me away.
The other negative is the score. This movie is the first Spielberg movie since the Color Purple in 1985 that is not composed by John Williams. You can definitely tell it was missing some of that Williams magic. Thomas Newman did his best, but the score was disappointing.
Bridge of Spies isn't one of Spielberg's best. You won't want to watch it again and again like you might with Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, or Jurassic Park. Bridge of Spies is the best Cold War film I've seen. It's funny, likable, and film that should get your attention.
Bridge of Spies gets a 9.6/10



Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Man From U.N.C.L.E Review

          The Man From U.N.C.L.E is directed by Sherlock Holmes 1 & 2 director Guy Ritchie and stars Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) and Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger, Social Network). The movie tells the story about two agents during the Cold War. One from the CIA (Cavill) and the other from the KGB (Hammer). The two enemy agents are forced to team up to try and stop an evil organization that is trying to rapidly produce nuclear weapons. 
          I didn't enjoy The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as much as I though I would. It was disappointing. 
          The biggest problem with the movie is the cast/characters. You don't care about them. You are never attached to them. It seems like they are just there and have no real purpose in the movie. There is one exception to this though. Henry Cavill is fantastic in the film. There is no question that he was the best part. Unlike the other characters, we got to know the background to his character so we actually cared about him. He was the only one that seemed like he had purpose. He had great one-liners, and portrayed his character exactly how it needed to be. He was the only one where his line delivery was entertaining.  Cavill has a whole bunch of charisma and shines every time he is on screen. 
          The script was an issue. The story was all over the place. It was very hard to tell what was going on. It was rather confusing at points. This is due to the poor direction. The style it was directed in was they style I like to call "action with little story." In this directing style they know that the best parts about the movie is their action scenes. So within their action scenes they put key story elements hoping that you will catch these key details. However, we are so focused on the action that we completely miss the story details we have to catch in order to get what was going on. Then they assume we catch the details so the non-action scenes are really confusing. It's very hard to enjoy the movie when you don't know what's going on.  Because the movie was hard to follow the way the movie ended seemed to contradict it's self. This could have been fixed by ending the movie 5-10 minutes earlier. The other big problem I found with the script was the jokes fell flat about 55% of the time. The only time they worked is when Cavill said the joke. Every other time the jokes just didn't make me laugh. Some were even cringe worthy. 
          The action scenes were awesome. They were cleanly done and you could follow the action really well. The action scenes were by far the best part in this movie. I wish there were more so I could've enjoyed this film a little more then I did. The thing that helped the action scenes was the cinematography. It's done in a way where you can see every little detail that is happening. 
          My favorite thing about this movie (other than Cavill) was the score/soundtrack. It's something I could listen to over, and over again and never get tired of it. The score is in my top 3 of the year. It was fantastic. I'm listening to it as I'm writing this. 
         Overall The Man From U.N.C.L.E is mediocre fun. It's not a movie you will be dying to see again after you first watch it, but it is a movie that you would want to see again once it comes to redbox or a dollar theater. I liked it enough that I want a sequel just to see how they can improve upon this movie and I would like to see the characters continue. I will give this movie a 6.4/10 
          
          
          
         



Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Harry Potter Spinoff Gets Collin Farrell

          More news about the Harry Potter spinoff "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" have surfaced. The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Collin Farrell has joined the cast which already includes Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne, Allison Sudol, Ezra Miller, and Katherine Waterston.
          Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a text book in the Harry Potter universe written by Newt Scamander about the various magical beasts that exist in the Potter universe.
          According to The Hollywood reporter, Collin Farrell will play a wizard named Graves that Newt Scamander (Redmayne) meets while he is documenting new magical creatures.
          I really like the addition of Farrell. It's never a mistake to add talent. Farrell was in the movie Saving Mr.Banks with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson and he stood his own ground. He was as good as Hanks and Thompson. If you haven't seen Saving Mr.Banks, treat your self.
          I'm really excited for this movie. They have the best possible people working on this project. Director David Yates who directed the last 4 Harry Potter movies is directing it, Potter producer David Heyman is producing again. Steve Kloves who was written 7/8 of the Harry Potter films is also producing. J.K. Rowling is writing the screenplay. Writing a book is completely different than writing a screenplay, but no one knows this world better than Rowling, so I'm not worried at all.
          The movie will follow Scamander as he is doing research for his book. The movie is taking place 70 years before the first Harry Potter.
          Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them  is set to release November 8th, 2016.

For the Love of PEZ

          There is a movie based on the PEZ candy dispensers coming. Yes, you heard me right. A movie about those creepy candy dispensers that disperse candy through their neck is happening. Have you been looking forward to this movie? If you answered yes to the previous question, you need to get a life. I literally have never heard of something so stupid and idiotic before. What studio is incompetent enough to make a movie about PEZ? What were they smoking when they bought the rights to this. What's this movie even going to be about? Are the PEZ characters going to shoot random objects from their neck?  If you wanted to play devil's advocate in this situation you could say that PEZ has lots of characters that they could use to do a well, thought out story. It worked for The Lego Movie? Why can't it work for PEZ? The answer to that question is the characters in the lego movie actually had arms. The characters in the PEZ movie (if they decide to stay true to their source material) are just going to be heads on big, long, necks. I can't think of anything more horrific than a big hello kitty head on a big long stick. That's absolutely terrifying. 
          The studio behind it is Envision Media Arts. They haven't done anything in the past that's noteworthy or mentionable. The writer who was hired to pen the script is Cameron Fay who also worked on that terrible Three Stooges movie. This movie is going to suck. 
          I'm just waiting for the movie about the Coca-Cola polar bears. I want that movie extremely bad. 

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Aloha Review

Aloha is abut a celebrated military contractor named Brian Gilcrest (Cooper) as he returns to the site of his greatest career triumph as he tries to reconnect with a long lost love (McAdams) while at the same time unexpectedly falling in love with the fighter pilot watch-dog assigned to him (Stone)
If America was enjoyable, and Mexico was boring, this movie would be stuck on the fence. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Aloha was one of those movies where your enjoying your watch but, at the same time you wish the movie would end. The biggest problem with this movie was the pacing. Pacing problems can come from 1 of 2 things. The first thing that pacing problems can come from is the direction of the film. The director can try and force things on you such as relationships, morals of story, etc... The second thing pacing problems can come from is a bad script. A script that has certain story elements spread out from each other and the in between scenes are just filler scenes. The pacing problems did not come from the script. It was really well done. Cameron Crowe wrote it so the big elements that the story needed to hit, hit them in a way that pushed the movie along. The pacing problems, did however come from the direction. Crowe wrote and directed this film, and you can tell that he put a lot more emphasis on the script. The film was a good story. It had me invested during the whole time. However the way that some of it came across was in fact sometimes dull and boring. At least Crowe put a lot of emphasis on one thing, rather than putting little emphasis on two things.
The cast is a really good ensemble cast. There are 3 key relationships. One between Cooper and Stone, one between Cooper and McAdams, and one between McAdams and Krasinski. Out of all of those the weakest one was probably between McAdams Krasinski probably due to the fact that they had the least amount of screen time together and had the least amount of impact to the story. I loved seeing Krasinski in something else other than the office but, I just wish he had more dialogue to say. He was a rather silent character. Cooper and McAdams worked really well together but, not as good as Cooper and Stone. Emma Stone is just so darn likable. I love her (not to mention she is quite attractive.) The chemistry between Cooper and Stone is exactly what this movie needed. I would give more details but that would call for spoilers of this spectacular story.
Overall Aloha is a movie that's right above average. With the pacing holding it back from it's full potential but the cast and the script trying to make this movie the best it can, it gave this movie a 7.5/10

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Minions Review

          Minions is the spinoff  (prequel) film about the yellow, banana loving creatures we have seen previously in the Despicable Me franchise. Minions follows the adventures of a particular set of minions named Stuart, Kevin, and Bob as they try and find a master to serve. They go out on an adventure and come across the world's greatest super villain Scarlet Overkill. Unfortunately, the rest results in one of the worst movies I have seen this year.
          One of the many conclusions I got from this movie was the minions don't belong in their own stand alone movie. They are great ensemble characters, but not great characters on their own. The great thing about them in the first 2 films were that they were the comedic relief. When things got serious with Gru and the girls the film went back to the minions to make us laugh. When they are the main focus and there is no comedic relief to fall back on, the minions suddenly became less interesting to watch. Another problem I found was the lack of Gru. Gru played such a key part to building up the minions to the popularity that they are that when he wasn't there it made the minions boring characters.
          This movie had issues with every part of the script. The human characters (like the minions) were not interesting. They were really undeveloped. It felt like the makers of this film knew that they couldn't match the magic that they did with Gru, so they just put no thought into the characters and they just threw them in there for the only purpose of them being there. The second issue the script had was the dialogue. This movie wasn't funny. It was rather stupid and idiotic. I bet the writers thought the the only thing the kids care about were the minions language so they didn't need to put focus/emphasis on the human dialogue. However you can only take minion language for so long before it gets annoying so you decide to start listening to the human characters. And unfortunately I got tired of the minions in the first 10 minutes of the film and the human dialogue like I said before was terrible.
          That's really all I can say about this movie. There wasn't much substance to it. The only thing that this movie was, was a story about minions that was poorly paced, lazy written, and not funny. I'm going to give minions a 3/10. The three points coming from a little boy that yelled "That was funny grandma!" during my showing.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Jurassic World Review

     
       Jurassic World is the 4th installment in the Jurassic Park franchise and basically ignores the events of Jurassic Park 2 & 3, as it should because those movies are terrible. 
       The events of Jurassic World take place 22 years after the original movie and Isla Nubar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park (named Jurassic World) as it was originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of successful operation, visitor rates have started to decline so now the park has to create a new attraction in order to re-spark interest. As you may have guessed, the new attraction backfires horribly. 
       This is a good movie. It's not great. It's good. I didn't like it as much as I wanted to, but I still had a great time watching it. 
       The director of the film is Colin Trevorrow. Trevorrow has never directed a big budget block buster before so I was worried about if he could handle something on this big of a level, but he pulled it off.  He understood what made Jurassic Park magical and he brought those specific elements into Jurassic World. No one will ever come close to touching the magic that the first one did but Trevorrow did the best that he could. 
       Bryce Dallas Howard bugged me for the first part of this movie. She was getting on my nerves. She was overacting and had terrible line delivery. However, as the movie went one she grew on me and I ended up loving her in the end. 
       The 2 kid stars in this movie are Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins (Insidious and Iron Man 3.) Just like Bryce Dallas Howard they annoyed me at first and unfortunately they never grew on me. They played the stereotypical older brother and younger brother relationship that we have seen over, and over again. The older brother picks on the younger brother, the older brother convinces the younger brother that they don't have to do something and because of that they get in trouble, and at the end they are a big happy family. No that is not a spoiler because everyone knew it was coming. Simpkins acts like a 6 year old when in reality he needs to act his age. From the very first shot of the movie I thought to my self "Please, let him get eaten by a dinosaur." There was this part that almost made me yell "COME ON!" in the theatre. That part was they just ran away from a dinosaur and they found these cars. The cars that were used to take tours around Jurassic Park in the first movie. These cars were broken down, big time, and it would be almost impossible to fix them with out any tools. But guess what, some how the kids figure out a way to fix the cars. Who do they think they are, MacGiver? I didn't believe it for one second. 
       I'm just glad there was one person who made good first impressions. That person was Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt (like always) stole the show. He was by far the best part about Jurassic World. In Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks & Rec, his role was very comedic. So coming into the movie I was worried that they were going to make him a comedic role. I don't want heavy comedy in a dinosaur movie. I'm glad I was wrong. Yes they had a little humor with his character (you can't have Chris Pratt and have no humor) but they also had dramatic parts which I was really excited to see him do. I know some people were worried about his part as a raptor trainer in the movie but,  let me tell you, you have nothing to worry about. It was handled very well and I think you will like where the raptor story line will go. 
       The side characters were meh. They were fine. They weren't bad enough to the point where I wish they were dead (like the 2 boys) but they could have been handled better. Along with the side characters, the sub-plots were sub-par. I found them useless. I found them boring. Especially the sub-plot/back story to the 2 boys. It was poorly done. 
       The script had problems. Some of the dialogue was cringe worthy. I wanted to cuddle myself into a ball and cry, it was that bad. 50% of the jokes fell flat. They weren't funny and it just made the scene awkward. The scripts's major problems only lasted until the part were we got our first action scene. Everything else before that just felt like filler scenes. In the first Jurassic Park the first hour of the movie didn't have any action scenes and it didn't bother me because it propelled the movie forward. Yes, in Jurassic World they needed the back story in order to explain why they were doing the things they were, I just felt like they could have done it better. There were some "plot twists" if you even want to call them that. I saw the twists coming from a mile away. It has some minor inconsistencies that could have been fixed with a better script. There were some pretty lame cop-out moments that made me mad.  
       The question most people were asking was are there any original cast members returning? There are 3. The DNA strand from the video from the first Jurassic Park, a scientist. and the T-Rex. Holy crap I love the T-Rex in this movie! It was used in the way I was hoping they would use it. That's all I will say about that. 
       I was really disappointed by the score. I mean how can you compare to the John Williams's score? You just can't. At least this score could have been a little more memorable. I was scared that they wouldn't have the original score, BUT THEY DID. I smiled (and maybe shed a tear) when I heard the famous Jurassic Park score. It's my favorite of all time and I'm so glad they included it. 
       The new threat in this movie was a dinosaur called the Indominus Rex. It's a hybrid dinosaur made up of other dinosaurs and some modern day animals. I loved they way the revealed him. They showed us the dinosaur little by little so by the time we saw the full thing I was amazed. I do wish at some points they would have focused on the Indominus a little more instead of a quick glimpse from the camera. The visuals were great. I didn't feel that they were overusing CGI at all. 
       Just one more thing that I really liked from this film are the references to the first movie. There is a part (which I won't spoil for you) where the 2 kids are wondering then they came across something from the first movie. I turned to the person I went to the movie with and had a freak out session by saying "Do you know what that is! Holy crap! Holy crap!" But beware this reference i'm referring to is very brief. You have to keep your eyes open and have to be paying attention. 
      Overall Jurassic World is a good movie. It's not great. I didn't like it as much as I wanted to, but I still had a great time watching it. It is a very fun summer blockbuster. It has some issues but the positive heavily outweigh the bad. I give Jurassic World a 6.5/10



     

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Grave of the Fireflies (1988) Review


This movie is from a studio called Studio Ghibli which is a Japanese animated studio that's a part of Disney.  If you ever do decide to watch this movie make sure you get an american dubbed version. 
This movie about a Japanese brother and sister trying to survive during WWII will punch you in the face. I highly recommend this movie, but this is a movie you have to be emotionally ready to watch before you actually do. This is definitely a film not to watch with children.
Not only is this one of the best animated films of all time, it's also one of the best war films. This film tells the story of WWII from the Japanese side which I'm not used to and it's nice to get a fresh take on a story we have all heard plenty of times. The one thing that makes this movie unique is it's told from the perspective of kids. From a boy about the age of 16 and his sister about the age of 5 or 6.  I have a younger sister so when I was watching this movie it made it that more of an emotional watch. This movie is really well written. It's very important that a movie of this type hits certain beats that not only make the movie flow better, but add emotional impact and character development. This movie doesn't work if you are not connected to the characters. I guarantee that you will get connected to them because it's that well written. Along with the screenplay, it's one of the best original stories I have ever seen.   
For a film that's done in the 80s, the animation is incredible. It's very unusual to praise an animated film for cinematography, but it's impossible not to notice how beautiful this is. Every shot, every second, you could tell they put all their effort into making this film look like one of the best I have ever seen (and that includes recent years.)
You can also complement this film on it's score, the pacing, and just everything. Take my word for it, this is a film you must see before you die. 
When you watch this movie you will cry. You will be amazed at it's beauty. You will never forget how awesome this movie is. It's my favorite animated film of all time and the only animated movie that's in my top 30 of all time. 
I loves movies that the title actually has meaning behind it. Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most meaningful titles to a movie ever. 
You probably already guessed it, but I give this movie a (5/5)
Just remember when you watch this movie you will experience drama like you have never experienced before. Like I said you will be punched in the face. 
I couldn't recommend this movie more.




Friday, March 27, 2015

Home Review

This is going to be a short review because I know you won't want to read a 4 page review about how bad this movie is.
I have a very strong love/hate relationship with DREAMWORKS. They are responsible for How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and even their most underrated film Flushed Away. But they also made some pretty bad films such as Shrek 3&4, Madagascar, Penguins of Madagascar, Mega Mind, Turbo, and I could keep going on, and on, and on. So, you could say I hate their movies more than I like. I had mixed anticipation levels for this movie. I was excited to see what Jim Parsons could bring to a animated character, and that was about it. I was hoping that DREAMWORKS could bring back the magic of Shrek and Kung Fu Panda.

HOME is stupid. It sucks. It's terrible. It's a complete waste of time. All it is, is product placement for Rihanna. Every single time a new song came one (I believe I counted 3-5) it was a Rihanna song and I already hate Rihanna so much.
This movie had a somewhat cool concept, they just executed it terribly. The voice acting was sub par. And all the "funny parts" you saw in the trailer those were the only "funny parts" if you even want to call them that.  Every other joke either sucked or fell flatter than a pancake.
The story was incredibly stupid.
The characters were idiotic.
Everything about this movie made me regret seeing it. It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
This movie makes me wish I never left my HOME.
If you're thinking about seeing this movie a better option would be.......well, anything.

This movie deserves a (.4/5)

It sucked. So, bad. Just so bad.


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

My Love of Movies

Movies are my life. I live and breath movies. They are the thing that I care most about in my life (maybe 2nd next to my family.) They matter so much to me. They are ways to escape from reality and go on a journey with hobbits, Jedi, and wizards. They are ways to learn about the real life of Abraham Lincoln, Solomon Northrop, Jackie Robinson, Mark Zuckerburg, and so many others. Movies are such a great way to relax, take a break from the real world and experience the magic. 
Ever since the beginning of time, mankind have been telling stories to entertain and to pass time. It has been as simple as paintings on a cave wall or a bunch of friends sitting around a fire making up stories that soon will influence the way other people tell stories and even the entire world. Story telling is just such an important part of mankind. We would go crazy if we couldn't experience others life and adventures. 
I have a couple of movie memories. One of the first being when I was age 4. I was at my grandma's house and I got in trouble. She put me in a room and put on the original Star Wars unaltered version on VHS. I was glued to the screen. Seeing lightsabers for the first time was one of the coolest things ever. I envy people who haven't seen Star Wars because I want to go back in time and experience the magic for the first time.
When I was little I had a little 14inch VHS player. I basically watched 5 movies on repeat. The first 2 are Toy Story 1 and 2. I watched the first one so much I had to go through multiple VHS tapes. When I was 10 I went to the Toy Story double header before Toy Story 3 came out and before the movie started they had a trivia game. I didn't miss one question. Toy Story was basically the Godfather movies to my child hood. I also watched probably one of the saddest movies ever Disney's Fox & The Hound. I really don't know why I loved that movie so much. I still love it to this day. In my top 5 animated films along with Toy Story 2. I also watched Disney's Robin Hood. Robin Hood (besides Luke Skywalker) was my role model growing up. I loved him so much. I wanted to be exactly like him. The last movie I watched on repeat was Monster's Inc. That is my favorite animated film of all time. I can quote that movie from beginning to end. My childhood basically consisted of watching Toy Story 1 and 2, Fox & The Hound, Robin Hood, and Monster's Inc. I guess I just have loved movies from such an early age. They played such a big part in my life when I was young. When I was age 8 my mom started showing me movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest. When I was 12 I went to go see Jurassic Park back on the big screen. That was the real moment when I decided I was really into film.  I was exposed to perfect film making at an age most people usually aren't. I just love movies so much. 
You can sit around a table with people you don't even know and you can bring up Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, Harry Potter etc... and you can have a hour conversation with people you don't even know. That's the purpose of movies. Movies are meant to entertain. Movies are meant to bring people together. To unite people that wouldn't usually talk to with each other. Movies are meant to please us. Movies are there to make me, you, and everyone else experience things that we wouldn't normally experience. 

Monday, February 23, 2015

Jupiter Ascending (Review)

When I first saw the trailer for this movie and I thought it was going to be one of the biggest piles of crap this year. It looked terrible. The dialogue in the trailer was extremely cheesy and hard to listen to, but like every movie I went into it with an opened mind and put all my thoughts about it behind me. I'm kind of glad I did. I enjoyed this movie. A lot actually. There was really nothing to hate in Jupiter Ascending. The things you hated, you really, really hated. One of those things was Eddie Redmayne. Yes he just won the Oscar for The Theory of Everything, but he was freaking awful in this movie. Every time he speaks it sounds like he was lying on his death bed. He was trying to get his lines out with every last breath he had and at random points he yelled only one word. Yes, during his lines he only yelled one word and went back to saying them like he was dying. The other thing to hate was the dialogue. It was terrible. At times during the movie I laughed out loud and got some pretty strange looks in the theater. I tried to contain my laughter and just couldn't. It was just so freaking terrible, but so worth it just because of how entertaining it was. Other than those things everything else I loved.
The acting wasn't terrible. It was actually quite good.
The story was really intriguing. This is a nice, new, original story that we haven't seen before. It also got me really invested in the characters. Go see this movie if you are one of those people who complain about having no original films anymore. 
I can't forget to mention the score. It was so powerful and it had such a presence that it acted like a character. 
The best part about this movie were the visual effects. Holy crap they were absolutely outstanding and breath taking! It was so beautiful. Along with the visual effects, the cinematography made this movie one of the most beautiful movies I have seen in a while. 
The action scenes were really well done. You could actually tell what was going on and there was no shaky camera to get you sea sick. 
This movie really surprised me. I really enjoyed it. This movie deserves a 4.3/5


McFarland USA (Review)

With a movie like this you want it to give you the same thing, but different. A movie that did that, that is similar to McFarland USA is Disney's last live action sports movie Million Dollar Arm. It's a story we have seen so many times, but it was done in such a way that it feels like we haven't. Watching McFarland I was bored out of my mind. I felt like I've seen this so many times before. I almost fell asleep during this movie because it never got me intrigued. There wasn't that element that's supposed to be there during movies that makes you invested, interested in the film. For a sports movie this went by way too slow. During a sports movie the movie must hit certain story points with certain beats in order to keep it interesting to watch. In this movie the certain scenes that needed to have those certain beats didn't have it. Like most movies this one did have a redeeming quality. Kevin Costner. Costner is one of my favorite actors. The scenes which he was in (which is basically all of them) you can tell he was trying to add that beat to the scene in order to make it a watchable scene. By doing that the movie felt unfinished which made this movie hard to watch. The length for this movie was a problem. It clocks in at around 2 hours which shouldn't be a problem, but with the problems I have stated earlier, it felt like a nearly 3 hour movie.
Overall this movie dragged on forever. It moved way to slow for a sports movies. It had a really inspiring story that was poorly executed. If you are a sports movie fan (which I am) a cross country fan, etc... this is a movie you should expect to be disappointed with. 
This movie deserves a 2.1/5.

Friday, February 20, 2015

The Marvelous Spider-man--Spiderman back with the Avnegers?

Ever since this whole MARVEL cinematic universe has started (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor,etc...) people have wondered where the heck is our neighborhood friendly Spider-man? The answer to that was the rights to Spider-man belonged to Sony Studios because a long time ago MARVEL (before they were bought by Disney) was going bankrupt so they had to sell the rights to some of their characters.
Today, people don't have to hope or wish for Spidey to be in the MCU (MARVEL cinematic universe) anymore. MARVEL Studios has come to an agreement with Sony Studios to include Spider-man in their movies. 
The deal that they have made is Spider-man will appear in an upcoming MCU film. All the creative control, all the money, etc.. will go to MARVEL/Disney with this crossover movie. After Spider-man appears in the MCU film, he will be in a stand alone Spider-man film produced by Sony. Anything financial that comes from the stand alone movie will go to Sony. Also with the stand alone film it says that Sony will have complete creative control. 
I call big BS Sony having complete creative control. 
With Spider-man being in the MCU that means his movies are going to have to coincide with what's happening. MARVEL has recently stated that they have plans for the next 10 years. There is no way that MARVEL would let Sony do what ever the heck they want. MARVEL will definitely give them guidelines and story points they have to hit then Sony will be able to cast who ever they want. 
Of course I'm thrilled about this news. It's freaking awesome. However the thing I'm most furious about is that they are recasting Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-man. Garfield is the perfect choice for this role. He is such a talented actor (If you disagree go watch Social Network) and he nails the roles of the both sides he needs to play. I din't like The Amazing Spider-man 2, but Garfield was clearly not the problem with it. Who would I want as Peter Parker? One name I would like to see is Logan Lerman. He is a really good actor and he is the age that MARVEL would want. Another name I'll throw out there is Ansel Elgort from Fault in Our Stars and Divergent fame. Those would be my top 2 names. More actors I could see playing the character is Dylan O'brien from The Maze Runner, and go ahead and call me crazy for this name, but Zac Efron. I think he could pull it off. People seem to forget how good of an actor Efron is. 
Another question this raises is what MCU film will Spider-man appear in? I think the most likely option is we will first see him in an after credit scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron for about 3 seconds. The first full length film we will see him in is probably Captain America:Civil War. In the Civil War comic book story line, Spider-man plays a really important part. For you that don't know the Civil War story line it is about a big conflict between Iron Man and Captain America about if they should reveal their secret identity. Spider-man does reveal that he is Peter Parker at one point and it causes a big conflict. 
MARVEL really scored on this deal. They got the better end of it. They got Spider-man for basically free. If they want to test if characters to see if audiences will react positively to him they can throw that character into the Spider-man universe.
I'm really excited about this news other than the fact the Garfield will be leaving. I've always wanted to see Spider-man fight along side the Avengers in a live action movie. 

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Plot Synopsis Revealed & Started Production

Believe it or not, there is a 5th installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise coming. Despite how bad the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th one was they made money so they are making a 5th one. Here is the official plot synopsis for the movie........ 
"Thrust into an all-new adventure, a down-on-his-luck Captain Jack Sparrow finds the winds of ill-fortune blowing even more strongly when deadly ghost pirates led by his old nemesis, the terrifying Captain Salazar (Bardem), escape from the Devil’s Triangle, determined to kill every pirate at sea…including him. Captain Jack’s only hope of survival lies in seeking out the legendary Trident of Poseidon, a powerful artifact that bestows upon its possessor total control over the seas."
I'm doing it again. I'm drinking the kool-aid. I'm falling for this stupid movie again. There is a high probability that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales will be terrible. This synopsis gets me interested for a couple of things. 
1.)Javier Bardem. He is an Oscar winning actor for his role in No Country for Old Men. He played the villain in one of my favorite movies of all time Skyfall. He is so talented. Hopefully he can save this movie. I'm really hoping he does. I want to like this franchise again so bad. Hopefully Bardem will be that saving grace. 
2.)It sounds like a bounty hunter/revenge movie. I love bounty hunter movies. Movies where someone is always on the move because they want to survive while someone from their past is seeking revenge. It's always interesting when death is one the line.  
3.)By the sound of this synopsis it sounds like this movie will have some pretty awesome visual effects. Now, visual effects don't guarantee a good movie. So if this movie sucks, it will be really enjoyably to look at. 
Now there are things that worry me about this movie.
1.)Johnny Depp. He worries me. The majority of his past movies have not only been bad, they have sucked like Transcendence, The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows, and especially Alice in Wonderland. They have all been absolutely terrible. It seems like he never tries anymore. By far Depp's best character is Jack Sparrow. He got an Oscar nomination for the first one. I'm still worried about this one. 

Pirates 5 started production yesterday and is set to release on July 7th, 2017. 
Comment down below. Are you excited for this next installment? What are your hopes and worries?  

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Box Office Predictions for Feb 20-22

This is the part of this movie site in which I can look like a total genius, or a total idiot. This is the part of my blog in which I predict the box office for the weekend. You can check in starting Monday in which I breakdown the numbers and explain why I think they performed in the way they did. 

5.)McFarland U.S.A. $8.9million
This is the latest Disney live action sports film with their last being Million Dollar Arm which I enjoyed a lot. With the success of Million Dollar Arm, Kevin Coster, and this true underdog story I think this will kick American Sniper out of the Top 5.

4.)Hut Tub Time Machine 2 $17.3million
People out there want to see R rated comedies once in a while. Because of this being a sequel that gives an extra bonus to this movie as well. I would put this higher in my predictions, but the first one didn't do that well at the box office and it wasn't all that well received. The cast (Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott)will also get people excited to go to the theaters. 

3.)The SpongeBob Move: Sponge Out of Water $22.7million
This is a family movie. That is the only reason why this will make that much. Families will go to it. That makes it so kids, moms, and dads will go to it which means extra money. 

2.)Kingsman: The Secret Service $32.3million
This movie has gotten excellent word of mouth. It's also doing well on the critical standpoint. People will go see this movie another time and people who haven't seen it yet, will go see it. 

1.)Fifty Shades of Grey $39.1 5million
This is a ginormous drop off from it's opening weekend numbers of 85million because the people who already wanted to see this movie already did. There isn't that big of a draw anymore. People are still curious about it and will go see it because of the hype around it. 

Sunday, February 15, 2015

No Paint Samples in this Movie (A Funny Review for Fifty Shades of Grey)

Going into this movie I hoped for some tips on how to paint my house. I was struggling what type of grey to paint my basement. I wasn't sure If I should choose glamor grey, summer fog, frosted denim, or sable night. I wanted this movie to help me persuade my choice one way or the other. Unfortunately this movie was an extreme letdown. It had nothing to do with paint samples or interior design. I was really hoping for some house decorating tips. One of the stars of the film Dakota Johnson looks like an HGTV host reject and the other star Jamie Dornan looks like a third property brother. You should not see this movie for some pretty obvious reasons.
1.) I want to still believe that there is hope in humanity by depending on materials other than movies to help you paint your living area. 
2.) This movie is so wrong. It's completely unpractical. It's a complete waste of your time. I mean what is the purpose of having the phrase "Shades of Grey" in your title and not even mention paint once. 
3.) If this movie teaches you anything, it teaches you that you should take control of what color to paint your house. You shouldn't depend on others opinions, you shouldn't let others boss you around. Paint your house green for all I care. You do what your heart desires. 
The only good thing about this movie was the posters were grey. That's the only thing loyal to the title of this movie.
I give this movie (.2/5)



*Didn't actually see the movie*

Friday, February 13, 2015

Les Miserables (2012) Review

I'm having trouble deciding If I like this movie because I'm so attached to the musical or if it's actually a good movie. The musical holds such a special part in my heart. It's a well put together movie, most everything is spectacular. Russell Crowe was terrible. It seemed like he tried to sing with a bad Sean Connery impression. He was awful. Amanda Seyfried acted like she could sing, but she couldn't. Everyone else was at least good. Hugh Jackman did a very good job at getting his point across, he made his goal very clear to the audiences. Anne Hathaway won the Oscar for good reason. Eddie Redmayne and Aaron Tveit were excellent standouts. Sacha Baron Cohen had potential to steal the show, but he fell flat. I just knew he could go one step further to give his best performance, but he didn't. Samantha Barks was the best because she has actually done this part (in the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary) and knew how to play it extraordinarily well (and she is really the only one with an incredible voice.) During this movie I didn't check the time once which is always a good sign. In my opinion when you exit a movie, your emotion and what you feel should be reflected upon the tone the director was trying to get across throughout the evolution of the film. This movie succeeded in that regard. When this movie was over, I got up and sang my way out of the theater to the music playing with the end credits. I even sang into the hallway and started a mini flash mob with 3 people. It was so fun to share my excitement and my enjoyment of the film with complete strangers. I still can't decide If I like this movie because I'm attached to the musical or if it was just a really well-rounded movie. With all things considered I'm leaning towards the side of it being a good quality movie. Even if the singing was a low point (which it hardly was) their acting job did exactly what they were supposed to do in the sense that I could feel their emotions, I could see the objective they were trying to get to and the many different ways they were going to accomplish it, it's always nice to see actors acting in roles where you can definitely tell that they put their heart and soul, that they did as much research as the can to give us the audience an amazing performance. Tom Hooper the director did such a good job with this complicated movie making process. He very well could have done a terrible job, but he didn't. I was very impressed. If you are debating if you should see this movie, I recommend seeing it. However if you are not a fan of long movies this might be a difficult movie to watch and not get distracted. The performances, the directing, and I didn't even mention the cinematography or the visual effects. Those 4 reasons should be able to captivate your interest and make you focused on the screen one-hundred percent of the time. This movie gets a score of....................4.29/5.
Go sit down and watch this movie.