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.