Movie of the Week: Reservoir Dogs

   

    Movie of the Week (9/15/13-9/21/13): What do you get when you have the mind of Quentin Tarantino? His first movie he wrote, directed, and starred in? The mob genre? And a fantastic cast to add to it? You get a great heist movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat in the last ten minutes or so. I say last ten minutes, but the entire movie is pretty intense but we are not revealed anything, that the characters don't know, until the last few minutes when we have a bunch of people shooting each other. What we have here is classic Tarantino work in Reservoir Dogs.
    This is obviously a crime drama because Quentin Tarantino wrote it and it involves a heist of some diamonds. Six criminals, who don't know each other, are hired by a mob boss to steal some diamonds for him, but things go terribly wrong when the police show up right away. A shootout ensues and the ones that survive meet up at a warehouse where they begin to suspect that one of them is possibly an undercover cop. From there on we are told a story that is not in chronological order and are given clues to the identity of each man that concludes in a gut-wrenching fashion at the end.
    The first thing that makes this movie great is the wonderful casting, I mean I don't think they could have found better actors to portray these characters, some of whom are never given a real name. We have Harvey Keitel as Mr. White, Tim Roth as Mr. Orange, Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde, Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink, Edward Butler as Mr. Blue, and Quentin Tarantino himself as Mr. Brown. All of these great actors play the criminals hired to pull off the heist and all deliver groundbreaking performances as each and every one of them control the movie. There is also Lawrence Tierney as Joe Cabot, the man who hired them, and Chris Penn as Eddie Cabot, his son. Both of whom also deliver us powerful performances. This is a great multi-character drama.
    The best thing about this film is the writing, which was obviously done by Quentin Tarantino. He gives us a fairly simple story, but provides a twist to it by telling it in non-chronological order. We also get great dialogue from the script, as you'll see from the opening scene and scenes where they are trying to figure out who the "rat" is. Tarantino closes this film with a great torture and confrontation scene that might have you churning in your seat along with some sweat added in as the "rat" is revealed and we hear noises off screen as the movie come to a screeching halt. Along with his fantastic other writing credits, this one deserved an Oscar nomination as well, but did not get it.
    Since the film is not in chronological order it has some great editing that probably should have been nominated for an Oscar as well, but was not. But nevertheless the editing is Oscar worthy. Tarantino also directed this film, in which he did another wonderful job, if you're a Tarantino fan you know the work he is capable of and this is another list to add to the top. Although it doesn't quite top Pulp Fiction or Django Unchained, it is his third best film and one that will be remembered for it's acting, writing, editing, and direction from a master of the pen that should be doing more films than he does. If you haven't feasted your eyes on this film, I would advise you to do so!
3.5/4 Stars    

Movie of the Week: Act of Valor

   

 

    Movie of the Week (9/8/13-9/14/13): You can thank the kickoff of the NFL season for me being late this week, I think it's a good excuse! But, just because I'm late again doesn't mean we have no certain movie to watch this week and judge for ourselves. I had a hard time picking out one this week so I decided to go with one that had some high expectations but in the end bombed. However, they had good intentions when they made this movie and that was to honor Navy Seals and other military men and women who have died since 9/11. We have had a few other films to honor them but none like this, no, this one is different because it uses real active Navy Seals, and that was where they went wrong. This is Act of Valor.  
    This film follows a group of Seals who are called upon to rescue a kidnapped CIA agent and in the process they uncover a terror plot on the United States. From there on it is filled with action sequences and some drama with the bad guys and families of the Seals. But that's about it! Let's face it, the plot to this film was very thin and was really nothing we haven't seen before. Good guys figure something out, bad guy tries to get away with it, good guy stops them at the last second. Yeah, it was that kind of movie and, I'll just go on and say it, it wasn't very good. But, don't worry I'll go into more detail about why it just wasn't what it should have been.
    First and foremost it had absolutely terrible acting in it and we know why! It was because the film makers decided to use real active duty Seals and it was just a huge mistake. They should have used real actors, the only real actor is Roselyn Sanchez, to make the movie more believable and exciting to watch. But, don't get me wrong I understand why they decided use real active Seals, to give the film more emotion. But, it back fired completely, I mean the bad guys were the best part of the movie, and that should not happen in a movie like this. On top of the bad acting we have absolutely no character development from our leads, we never really get to know them, just a couple short scenes with their families at the beginning and end. Nothing to make us care about the characters like we should and we can blame the writers for that.
    We can also blame something else on the writers and that is the cliches. The writers must have sat down and watched every single war movie ever made and decided to put every single cliche known to man in this one movie. Now, I can't go into details about them because some contain spoilers but I have never seen a movie so filled with cliches. There were points during the movie where I rolled my eyes because another cliche popped up. The writers either struggled to add in their own ideas or they just didn't care and thought that is what the people wanted, the same old thing! Well they were wrong!
    The only good aspect about this film is the tactics that are used by the Seals and the action sequences. We get very good fight scenes and shootouts that provide a lot of explosions and chases, which, I am sad to say, are the best parts of the film. I say that because war movies need drama and we didn't get that from this film. Another good thing were the tactics that were used by the Seals, those were interesting to watch, but it just wasn't enough to make this movie a good war film with a good mix of drama and action. This is a dissapointment because it was suppose to be a tribute to the fallen in our special forces but it was let down by ways of terrible writting, terrible acting, too many cliches, no character development, and a sub-par plot. You are better off watching Black Hawk Down!                                                                     
1.5/4 Stars.

Movie of the Week: Boogie Nights

   

 

    Movie of the Week (9/1/13-9/7/13): This film has been known to be a little controversial because of its theme and that theme is the porn industry in the late 1970's and early 1980's. This theme might turn a lot of people away from even wanting to see it and give it a chance. But, this film doesn't support the industry or praise it either because it tells a great story of the people involved in it and how it affects their lives, which is mainly in bad ways. And as the film goes on we began to care for the characters, which is a good thing because that means it has good writing, because of everything they go through. This is one of the very good films that came out in 1997, this is Boogie Nights.
    The film follows a young man who is looking for a way out of his troubled life, or so he thinks, that he caused himself. Once his mother calls him out on it he splits and meets an Adult film producer and director by the name of Jack Horner. From there on we are brought into a fantastic story with several characters involved. That is what makes this movie so great, there are so many characters in this film and each one has their problems and some of the problems and very serious ones, which are the problems that bring out the drama in this picture. Now, there is so much going on in this story that I can't get into every detail, but if I do some spoilers might come out, so that's okay.
    But, what I will discuss is that cast who all do a fantastic job especially three of them, Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore. Mark Wahlberg plays the lead in this film, he has two names, Eddie Adams, his real name and Dirk Diggler, his stage name. This film was probably his breakout film because he delivers such an electrified performance from beginning to end, although some of the scenes had to be awkward to film. Burt Reynolds plays the Adult film director, Jack Horner, who discovers the new found sensation. Reynolds really controls the movie the majority of the time, every time he is on screen with anybody he controls it, which probably got him nominated for an Oscar. Julianne Moore plays Amber Waves, an actress in the industry, and she too delivers in every scene because she has several scenes that involve mixed emotions. She too was nominated for an Oscar. The rest of the all-star cast consist of Luis Guzman, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Thomas Jane, Philip Baker Hall, and Alfred Molina. Not all of these are big parts, but they affect the film in some way and each and every actor gives us everything they got in their performances and they help the film flow well.
    The big thing that makes this movie so great is the writing by director Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote one fantastic screenplay. This film is actually based on a short film of his he made back in 1988, he just did a great job on expanding it. There is a lot of perfectly written dialog in the film and he intentionally makes some of it awkward, which is what we would expect in some of the scenes. The drama that he brought to the screen is also wonderful and he does this with a lot of long cuts, which are great! The opening of the film is a near four minutes long without a single cut, along with two other scenes in particular that were shot the same way, one in particular involves William H. Macy's character about halfway through the movie. A great and dramatic scene! There is also one sequence about two hours in that is very intense.
    The film also looks great with beautiful cinematography and, in my opinion, Oscar worthy editing, but it didn't get nominated. The last thing that makes this film a great film, and the second best film of 1997 behind Titanic and just in front of Good Will Hunting, is the character development. Every character in this film evolves in someway, they rise and fall or start from the top and fall and have to start all over for one reason or another. This is a film that is not well known to many because of the subject matter, but I assure you it tells a great story that will have you hooked from the opening shot. Characters rise from the bottom or they fall from top because of captivating performances, wonderful writing, fantastic directing, and interesting editing with long uncut scenes. If you haven't seen it I urge you to.             
4/4 Stars

Movie of the Week: We Are Marshall

   

 

    Movie of the Week (8/25/13-8/31/13): With the football season kicking off this week, I thought it only logical to pick a football movie. However, this football movie will not really get you pumped up like most other football movies because it tells a sad true story. This film isn't about an underdog overcoming all of the hardships, it doesn't focus on a select number of players on a team that is good or bad, and it is not about one single player trying to play for a team. No, this is an emotional film about a football program having to start from scratch because a horrific and tragic event struck the town at the end of the previous season. This is We Are Marshall.
    The film opens with the teams last game before the accident of the 1970 season and then shows the tragic plane crash very briefly that killed seventy-five members of the Marshall football team including several other people. We then see the aftermath and the story takes off. The President of Marshall University plans on not having the 1971 season but a couple players, who were not on the plane, and the students persuade him and the board otherwise. They then begin to search for a new coaching staff who then has to find new players. While all of this is going on the President tries to persuade the NCAA to let freshman play and family and friends of the people who died continue to cope with their losses. The season finally comes around as the new football team tries their best to replace what was once there.
    The first thing that makes this a good movie is the cast and it is a fantastic cast all of who did wonderful jobs. We have Matthew McConaughey as Jack Lengyel, Matthew Fox as Red Dawson, Anthony Mackie as Nate Ruffin, David Strathairn as President Dedmon, Ian McShane as Paul Griffen, Kate Mara as Annie Cantrell, January Jones as Carole Dawson, Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Sandy Lengyel, and Brian Geraghty as Tom Bogdan. I know that's a lot, but I'm not going to go through each one. But, I will say that Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Ian McShane all give us fantastic performances. McConaughey probably gave us his best performance of his career, but the recently released Mud surpassed that. David Strathairn and Anthony Mackie also give us great performances.
    One thing that surprised me about this movie was the direction that we get from McG, or Joseph McGinty Nichol, who does a very good job when it comes to the football scenes and emotional scenes. There are many scenes that are emotional to watch and he did a great job at directing the actors through these difficult scenes. He also did a great job at directing the football scenes which are very realistic and look great, they almost match that of Friday Night Lights. With those shots comes good cinematography, not great, which is what we have and it helps bring that 1970's feel come to life. And of course it makes the football scenes great!
    But, we don't really watch this film for the football scenes because that is not what this movie is about. This is about the drama that occurred the year after the accident and that is what makes this a great movie. It is a great drama that is a sports movie, there are only a few of those that we watch for the drama of the situation and not the sports scenes. One last thing that makes this a good movie is the score, if you don't shed a tear or two in some of the scenes with no music, you will once the music begins. The emotional score adds so much to the movie, especially at the end, that it is hard not to shed a tear. This is a good underrated film and McG's best film to date because of a good screenplay, great performances, and an emotional score. This film will not get you pumped up for the football season, but it will certainly inspire you!
3/4 Stars    
          

Movie of the Week: Patton

   

 

    Movie of the Week (8/18/13-8/24/13): One of the most famous generals of World War II was also one of the most hated by his men, by civilians, and even by the Supreme Commander of all the Allied forces during the war, Dwight Eisenhower. But, you know what? He did not care at all because he never kept his mouth shut, or his hands to himself. That man had a mind of his own that most people did not like, he wanted to do things his own way or no way at all and a lot of the time he expressed himself through physical means, which earned him the nickname "Old Blood and Guts." That man was General George S. Patton and the film Patton shows exactly what he was like and in great fashion.
    The film is a biography, but not of his life just of his exploits as a General during World War II, which we get a great detail of. It starts off with him and his army in Africa fighting tank battles, which were well done. Then he has his personal problems, including the infamous incident of slapping a soldier and his attitude toward his friends and his superior officers. Finally, we work our way towards Germany with a couple more exciting tank battles and the famous rescuing of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne.
    With an epic historical picture like this you need a good cast and a wonderful lead actor to take on the role of Patton himself, but the trouble with this film is that there are not many actors in it that are known today. There are really only two actors that most people know and those two play the two leading roles in the film. The first is obviously George C. Scott who plays Patton and gives us a captivating performance that will have you hooked on the movie the moment he steps on that stage in the opening scene. Words almost can't describe how much I loved this movie because of his acting, they truly couldn't have found anybody better for his Oscar winning performance. The other actor is Karl Malden who plays Patton's closest friend in General Omar N. Bradley. He too delivers us another unforgettable performance and the two of them were a great pairing for the movie.
    One of the best things about this film, besides Scott's performance, was the writing. The screenplay was such wonderfully written because it has powerful dialogue, in which many of the words spoken were taken from Patton's speeches or memoirs. The man behind the Godfather films wrote the screenplay, Francis Ford Coppola, who as we all know did a fantastic job with those and on this film. It was mixed with such great and even pacing throughout the film that I simply couldn't stop watching it. There is plenty of powerful drama to go around and there is a lot of fighting, although most of it is tank battles, but they are so well filmed and choreographed that it adds to the excitement of the film. It is not just a biography film filled with words, but when the words are spoken they pull you in deeper because of the tension in each scene.
    The last few things that make this a great film from 1970 is the direction, cinematography, and musical score. Franklin J. Schaffner, who is known by older audiences because of films like this one, Planet of the Apes, and Papillon, but not younger ones did a fantastic job because he worked with such a great cast and screenplay. He really kept the tension going with Patton and filmed wonderful tank battle sequences. With the filming comes the cinematography which is simply beautiful, but that is mainly because they had such beautiful landscapes to work with. Finally, we have a fantastic score by Jerry Goldsmith, although there is not much music throughout the film, but when it is used it makes the film that much better, again adding either tension or excitement. This is one biography film to remember because of a great performance from its lead actor and a wonderful screenplay. There is no questioning why this epic was nominated for ten Oscars and won seven of them including Best Picture!                                          
4/4 Stars.     

Movie of the Week: The Mummy (1999)

   

 

    Movie of the Week (8/11/13-8/17/13): In 1932 a classic horror picture known as The Mummy was released to the world and frightened many people. Of course that was a different time period and different movie because in 1999 the remake of that movie was released. However, this picture was not near as dark as the original in fact they turned it into more of an action adventure film from director Stephen Sommers, which it is. But, that does not mean that this new take is a terrible film because it is quite fun to watch, although it does have its flaws, like any film.
    The film focuses on an American who helps a librarian on a dig at the ancient city of Hamunaptra, along with her brother and a couple other folks who are interested in the gold there. There, they run into another group of people who are also looking to dig in the city. Eventually they each end up causing trouble and read from a book that they shouldn't have and wake a mummy from the dead. From there on chaos is unleashed and they rush to put the mummy, Imhotep, back to where he came from, although Imhotep has other plans.
    The first thing I would like to discuss would be the cast, of course, which really was not that bad and overall I liked the casting. Brendan Fraser stars as Rick O'Connell, the American escort, and gives us probably his best performance, followed by the sequel, although not so much in the third unfortunately. So, I liked him in this movie and this role, I thought he was a good pick. Next is Rachel Weisz who plays the librarian, Evy Carnahan, who mainly gives us a funny performance early on, but by the end turns very serious. So, I liked her development. John Hannah plays her brother Jonathan, who is there for the comedic relief. We also have Arnold Vosloo who plays Imhotep, who gives us an "okay" performance at times, for some reason, I felt he wasn't always into his character, but other times he was great, I was mixed on him. One of my favorite characters in the film was Rick's sidekick, if you would, Ardeth Bay played by Oded Fehr. For some reason, I liked his character and we get a good performance from Bay.
    What set the film apart and what made it good and worth the watch is the visual effects, editing, and sound editing. Visually this film is great, we get all kinds of effects when it comes to the mummy scenes especially towards the end. A giant wall of sand with a face in it sets it apart along with the effects on the half dead Imhotep. The film also sounded great, you'll know the scenes I'm talking about when you see them, they are mainly the fight scenes and the scenes when the mummy uses his powers to do some weird stuff. With that weird stuff comes some very interesting sounds that got it nominated for an Oscar.
    Finally, what hurt the film a little was the screenplay, at times it felt thin and I wasn't interested in a couple of the characters because there wasn't much on them. And one is rather annoying, trust me, you'll know when you see him. Although they were minor characters when they died, I didn't care for them that much. I just felt that a little more background and development on some of the characters would have helped. But, the film was thrilling at times and we get enough development with the two main characters that it works fine overall. So, this is a good remake with good lead acting, visual effects, sound editing, and at times a weak script, but overall good development between the two leads. This is a good, not great, film!                                                                                                   3/4 Stars

Movie of the Week: The Hangover

   

 

    Movie of the Week (8/4/13-8/10/13): I'm beginning to make a habit of this late thing, but I was in Gatlinburg this weekend, so I think that is a good excuse for being late this time. With summer slowly coming to a close and school beginning to start back up, I thought a movie about a party gone wrong would be a good fit. Although I don't believe most people will stop partying for those reasons and I hope your party doesn't turn out like it does in this film. Four friends go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and are slipped drugs, then one thing leads to another and they lose the groom, the next morning three of them wake up and must retrace their steps to find out where he is in The Hangover. 
    What is good about this film is that it is very original when it comes to the writing from screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Throughout the film the three main characters are faced with many serious, but very funny challenges that will make you laugh for a while after the movie is over with. They have to face things like a stripper who married one of the guys without him knowing it, an unknown baby, a couple funny police officers, a powerful, yet small, man named Mr. Chow, a tiger, and Mike Tyson himself. All of these encounters are well written and original, which is why they turn out to be extremely funny, along with a great cast that couldn't have been better.
    The cast is extremely good in this film with Bradley Cooper as Phil, Ed Helms as Stu, Justin Bartha as Doug, Zach Galifianakis as Alan, Heather Graham as Jade, Ken Jeong as Mr. Chow, and Mike Tyson as Mike Tyson. When you put this funny cast into one movie you know it's going to be hilarious. This movie was also the coming out party for Zach Galifianakis, who is very funny, and has done other roles since then and looks to be very promising. Everybody else is superb in their roles as they embraced them, especially Bradley Cooper, who will win an Oscar one day, and Ed Helms who give us the best performances in the movie.
    With the film being set in Las Vegas it of course looks great and it has great cinematography, but that is not why we watch comedies, but of course that is still important. When it comes to comedies we mainly look at the originality of the film, like I have already mentioned, which is powered by the writing. But, we also look closely at the direction, editing, and score because all three of these are very important for comedies, although they are also important for other films too obviously, but comedies are different, they are hard to make. The director, Todd Phillips, does a great job at directing the cast to give us hilarious performances and making each scene serious and funny at the same time. The scene where Stu sings "The Tiger Song" is probably one of the funniest in the movie. The director is also helped with the editing and score, both of which are very good and help bring humor and tension in each scene.
    This film is the first of a trilogy, the last part of which was released early this summer, and they started it off with a bang. I haven't met very many people who did not like this movie. What makes this movie a good comedy is that it is not a stupid comedy, like most people think comedies should be, no it is funny situations happening in a serious setting. That is what makes this movie a great original comedy, I know I keep saying that but it is true and why it is so good. It fits in the ranks of comedies form directors such as Mel Brooks and David Zucker, his earlier films that is. It is hard to make comedies these days and Todd Phillips proved everybody wrong when this film came out, it is one of the best, if not the best, comedies in the last five of ten years.                                           3.5/4 Stars