Review – In the Heart of The Sea

Movie Title: In the Heart of the Sea

Director: Ron Howard

Date Released: December 11th, 2015

Date Seen: December 2th, 2015 – Screening Event

Seen With: Daniel

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Review

I got free tickets to go see this movie, and it was one that I was semi-interested in seeing. It was the idea of the plot I was ok. I loved Rush, also directed by Ron Howard, and his movies are generally very well acted and gorgeous so figured why not.

The plot surprised me, I knew it was a frame story, with Herman Melville being played by Ben Whishaw, hearing the fantastic tale of the Essex from one of the crew many years after the events.  The story would become that of Moby Dick.  So despite having a general idea of what would happen in the story (oh, you know, giant evil whale blah blah), it still managed to keep me on my toes.  This was in part due to the extremely well written characters.  Even the jerk/asshole characters you understood for the most part where they were coming from and they were a necessary part of the story.  This was also helped out by the phenomenal acting in this movie.  Chris Hemsworth plays Owen Chase, first mate on the Essex, and is one of the main characters.  He goes through a physical transformation that is frightening to see – especially if you think of his physique in Thor.  But he does a fantastic job.  Tom Holland plays Thomas Nickerson, a young deck hand on the boat.  He was a nice surprise, considering that thus far he hasn’t been in a large amount of acting roles (though he is going to be Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War). The other standouts are Cillian Murphy playing Matthew Joy, a long time friend of Owen Chase, and Benjamin Walker as George Pollard, the captain of the Essex.  Walker definitely took a step up from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

I was correct in that this movie would be gorgeous.  From the scenes just looking at a boat on the water, or close up action shots on the boat, everything had something beautiful to look at.  The colors were fantastic, going between scenes of deep blues and greens typically when there was ocean turmoil to the oranges, yellows, and golds, later on in the movie.  It kept the movie looking pretty even when there were horrors going on screen.  The sounds in the movie were also fantastic, and they added a nice level of realism to the movie that sometimes is lost.  There’s a scene early on when they’re boarding the ship, and the amount of different sounds going on in the shipyard, the conversations, the water sounds, the boat sounds, the people, etc. really makes you feel like you’re there.  It also continues throughout the movie.

All in all I was expecting to like this movie, but come out very impressed and happy that I saw the movie.  I thought it was a great movie that I would definitely go see again.  See it on the big screen if you can, it’s definitely worth the money.

 

Part 2 – Spoilers Review

I can’t think of anything spoilery I’d like to say at the moment.

 

Overall – 8/10

Beautifully shot and acted, good pace of the movie, while managing to keep you on your toes despite having an idea of where the story is headed.

2015 Oscar Nominations

Best Picture

• American Sniper – Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper, and Peter Morgan
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, and James W. Skotchdopole
• Boyhood – Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson, Scoot Rudin, Steven Rales, and Jeremy Dawson
• The Imitation Game – Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, and Teddy Schwarzman
• Selma – Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner
• The Theory of Everything – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, and Anthony McCarten
• Whiplash – Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, and David Lancaster

Want to Win: Theory of Everything, because it was my absolute favorite of those movies.  Imitation Game being a close second.

Will Probably Win: I’m slightly leaning towards Birdman, with Boyhood being the obvious second. Odds are one of the two of them will get it.  I think Imitation Game is the dark horse that if there was a surprise, that would be it.

Actual Winner: Birdman

Actor in a Leading Role

• Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”
• Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”
• Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game“
• Michael Keaton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Eddie Redmayne in “Theory of Everything“

Want to Win: Eddie Redmayne

Will Probably Win: Eddie Redmayne

Actual Winner: Eddie Redmayne

Actress in a Leading Role

• Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night”
• Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything“
• Julianne Moore in “Still Alice”
• Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”
• Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”

Want to Win: I don’t have any strong feelings in this category, but I did very much enjoy Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl.  So we’ll go with that.

Will Probably Win: Julianne Moore

Actual Winner: Julianne Moore

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Robert Duvall in “The Judge”
• Ethan Hawke in “Boyhood“
• Edward Norton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Mark Ruffalo in “Foxcatcher”
• J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash”

Want to Win: Edward Norton

Will Probably Win: Probably J.K. Simmons with Edward Norton being a close second.

Actual Winner: J. K. Simmons

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood“
• Laura Dern in “Wild”
• Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game“
• Emma Stone in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Meryl Streep in “Into the Woods”

Want to Win: Emma Stone was awesome in Birdman, and I would choose her if it wasn’t for Patricia Arquette who should win this and would absolutely deserve it.

Will Probably Win: Patricia Arquette

Actual Winner: Patricia Arquette

Animated Feature Film

• Big Hero 6 – Don Hall, Chris Williams, and Roy Conli
• The Boxtrolls – Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable, and Travis Knight
• How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
• Song of the Sea – Tomm Moore and Paul Young
• The Tale of Princess Kaguya – Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura

Want to Win: It doesn’t have a chance, but I’d love it if Boxtrolls won.  I loved going back to the claymation styling, and thus would love it if it won so that we’d maybe see more of these types of movies start to come back again.

Will Probably Win: How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which I thought was great, so I have no issues with it winning, either).

Actual Winner: Big Hero 6 (not going to lie, I was surprised, everything seemed to point at HTTYD2).

Cinematography

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Emmanuel Lubezki
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Robert Yeoman
• Ida – Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
• Mr. Turner – Dick Pope
• Unbroken – Roger Deakins

Want to Win: Birdman – I think the cinematography is part of the reason the movie was so cool to watch, so I think it should get it, but I also admit I haven’t seen the last three movies in the category.

Will Probably Win: Birdman

Actual Winner: Birdman

Costume Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero
• Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges
• Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
• Maleficent – Anna B. Sheppard
• Mr. Turner – Jacqueline Durran

Want to Win: Lolz Maleficent just to watch people be confused as to what the hell happened.

Will Probably Win: Grand Budapest Hotel, but equally as likely as Into the Woods.  I just think Into the Woods has so much inspiration from the stage show already, and there aren’t many costume changes between the main characters, that meh.  I don’t care for it to win.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Directing

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu
• Boyhood – Robert Linklater
• Foxcatcher – Bennett Miller
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson
• The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum

Want to Win: Boyhood

Will Probably Win: Boyhood

Actual Winner: Birdman (again, the other one I was surprised with, obviously)

Documentary Feature

• CitizenFour – Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky
• Finding Vivian Maier – John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
• Last Days in Vietnam – Rory Kennedy and Keven McAlester
• The Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiero Salgado, and David Rosier
• Virunga – Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara

I haven’t seen any of these :(.  I fail.

Actual Winner: CitizenFour

Documentary Short Subject

• Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
• Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
• Our Curse – Tomasz Śliwiński and Maciej Ślesicki
• The Reaper (La Parka) – Gabriel Serra Arguello
• White Earth – J. Christian Jensen

I haven’t seen any of these either, I fail again!

Actual Winner: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Film Editing

• American Sniper – Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach
• Boyhood – Sandra Adair
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
• The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
• Whiplash – Tom Cross

Want to Win: No strong feelings on what I want to win here.  I think Boyhood is kind of a cop out because they had *so* long to work on it.  Yes, that doesn’t mean that their work wasn’t great, just you had 12 years to edit your movie when others had one or two.

Will Probably Win: Boyhood

Actual Winner: Whiplash

Foreign Language Film

• Ida – Poland, Pawel Pawlikowski
• Leviathan – Russia, Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Tangerines – Estonia, Zaza Urushadze
• Timbuktu – Mauritania, Abderrahmane Sissako
• Wild Tales – Damián Szifron

The only one I’ve seen is Ida, so I can’t make a very good decision on this category.

Actual Winner: Ida

Makeup and Hairstyling

• Foxcatcher – Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

Want to Win: Guardians of the Galaxy.  Because aliens.

Will Probably Win: Not sure, so I’ll just stick with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Music – Original Score

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Alexandre Desplat
• The Imitation Game – Alexandre Desplat
• Interstellar – Hans Zimmer
• Mr. Turner – Gary Yershon
• The Theory of Everything – Jóhann Jóhannsson

Want to Win: One of the few categories I’ve seen the majority of the movies!  The only one I remember “diskling” the music was Interstellar, just becuase it was so obvious normal Hans Zimmer stuff that it actually distracted me from the movie.  I just saw Imitation Game, and thought the music was great at times.  I also remember the music in Grand Budapest Hotel standing out to me in a positive way.  So basically, I just want one of Alexandre Desplat’s to win.

Will Probably Win: I don’t know.  Grand Budapest Hotel? Let’s go with it.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Music – Original Song

• “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie – Shawn Patterson
• “Glory” from Selma – John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
• “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights – Diane Warren
• “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell… I’ll be me – Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
• “Lost Stars” from Begin Again – Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

Want to Win: EEEVERYTHING IS AWESOMEEEEEEEE EVERYING IS COOOL WHEN YOU’RE PART OF A TEEEAMMMMMM

Will Probably Win: I have legitimately no idea.  Let’s give our prediction to “Glory” from Selma, since they have to let it win something.

Actual Winner: “Glory” from Selma

Production Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• The Imitation Game – Maria Djurkovic (Production Design); Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decoration)
• Interstellar – Nathan Crowley (Production Design); Gary Fettis (Set Decoration)
• Into the Woods – Dennis Gassner (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• Mr. Turner – Suzie Davies (Production Design); Charlotte Watts (Set Decoration)

Want to Win: I watched a feature on the set design of Grand Budapest, so I’m slightly biased towards it.  However, I love how realistic the world of the Imitation Game felt.  Into the Woods I still always felt like I was on a “stage”, and I didn’t really like that.  So not that one.

Will Probably Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Short Film – Animated

• The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacons and Christopher Hees
• The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
• Feast – Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
• Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
• A Single Life – Joris Oprins

Guess which category I failed at?

Actual Winner: Feast

Short Film – Live Action

• Aya – Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
• Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
• Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Buerre de Yak) – Hu Wei and Julien Féret
• Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
• The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby and James Lucas

Oh hey this is the last one I suck at, I swear.

Actual Winner: The Phone Call

Sound Editing

• American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Martin Hernández and Aaron Glascock
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
• Interstellar – Richard King
• Unbroken – Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro

Want to Win: Interstellar, because I feel like a lot of the space sounds you have to really work at creating and figuring out what kind of sounds you need, that might not already be “out there”.  Like the Hobbit, we have cool battles, but we’ve had cool orc battles for 5 other movies.  With American Sniper, there have been countless war movies.

Will Probably Win: I’m not sure, honestly. I’ll stick with Interstellar, because I don’t have a better reason why one of the others should win.

Actual Winner: American Sniper

Sound Mixing

• American Sniper – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
• Interstellar – Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
• Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
• Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Want to Win: Whiplash

Will Probably Win: Whiplash

Actual Winner: Whiplash

Visual Effects

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
• Interstellar – Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
• X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

Want to Win: X-Men, because I’m an X-Men whore and will always pick X-Men for anything.

Will Probably Win: Interstellar

Actual Winner: Interstellar

Writing – Adapted Screenplay

• American Sniper – Jason Hall
• The Imitation Game – Graham Moore
• Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson
• The Theory of Everything – Anthony McCarten
• Whiplash – Damien Chazelle

Want to Win: The Theory of Everything or The Imitation Game

Will Probably Win: The Imitation Game

Actual Winner: The Imitation Game

Writing – Original Screenplay

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo
• Boyhood – Richard Linklater
• Foxcatcher – E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
• Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy

Want to Win:  Here’s where, despite the fact that I didn’t much care for Birdman, I think it’s the most deserving to win in this category.  So I’m choosing it, over Boyhood, which they had 12+ years to write/rewrite/rework, etc.  So no fair to them.

Will Probably Win: Birdman or Boyhood.

Actual Winner: Birdman

Review – Guardians of the Galaxy

Movie Title: Guardians of the Galaxy

Director: James Gunn

Date Released: August 1st, 2014

Date Seen: August 1st, 2014

Seen with: Dad

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Those that know me will know two things.  One is that I don’t normally review the Marvel movies on here.  The other is that I thought the trailers for this movie looked HORRIBLE.  I was not excited for this movie, I thought it looked like it was “making fun” of comic book movies, and I just didn’t care for any of the trailers.  However, I still went into the movie wanting to like it.  I want to be entertained and like the movies that I see.  So the verdict?

The movie was MUCH better than I thought it was going to be.  It was obviously funny, which is what I’m sure most people will love about it, but it also had enough more serious bits to counteract them.  It had a lot of the nice little one liners that were just fantastic, similar to the Iron Man movies.  The movie also just had entire scenes that were just supposed to be funny (while yes, still moving along the plot).  A lot of people will love the movie for that reason, it’s not as dark as the others and kids will love it as well.  The funny aspect of it also helped you connect to the characters.  Unlike the other Marvel movies, these are all relatively “new” characters, that most audiences know nothing about.  The movie gives us snippets of each of their pasts, which is sometimes very depressing or upsetting.  The characters use the comedy to try and hide their pain but you know it’s still there underneath.  Peter Quill/Starlord (Chris Pratt) is legitemately funny, while Groot (Vin Diesel) and Drax (Dave Bautista) are hilarious because of the things they do or their “ignorance” (you’ll see what I mean when you see the movie).  I do not know the Guardians that well, but I did read about them beforehand.  Because of this, I did notice some of their backstories slightly changed, but it didn’t affect the story nor overall make that much of a difference.

The movie takes place mostly in space, and a couple of other planets, so we get a nice change of scenery from the Avengers movies.  We get ships, we get unfamiliar planets (more than Earth, Asgard, and Svartalfheim), we get space battles, and it’s all awesome.  I think it was the Star Trek fan in me that got excited for all the space battles.  But anyway, due to this, and the characters literally going ALL over the galaxy, we get TONS of new races of people/aliens.  Obviously, the Guardians are a host of different species themselves, but a number of sub-main characters are non-human and that makes it just that much more interesting. One of my personal favorites was Yondu Udonta, played by Michael Rooker (Merle from Walking Dead!).  He is a Centaurian, and has a couple of cool abilities due to his race.  You’ll find out what they are but he is super cool.

The plot is cute, but fairly predictable.  It had a couple of parts that made me think of Frozen (yes, that Frozen).  Spoiler alert for Frozen coming: You know how at the beginning of Frozen they say “Oh man, be so glad Ana wasn’t hit in the HEART that would be SO BAD if she was hit in the HEART”, and then *shockingly* later, she gets hit in heart?  There were a couple of moments like that in the Guardians.  You think to yourself “hmmm why are we mentioning this plot point in such exquisite detail? Must happen later.”  Despite the predictability, I still had fun.  The characters all meshed well together, the movie was well shot and nice to look at, and the acting was great.  Dave Bautista did a surprisingly fantastic job as Drax. He was perfect.  Everyone else did fantastic as well.

So in summary – despite thinking this movie looked bad from the trailers, I still enjoyed it and had a good time.  It wouldn’t be called my favorite Marvel movie, but it wasn’t the worst and I would watch it again.

 

Part 2 – Any Spoiler Stuff

The after credits scene I thought was a joke…. maybe because I don’t have a “think” about Howard the Duck, but man, that was just a complete waste of one in my mind.  I’ve seen that people either love it or hate it, and I was on team hate it.  I did like going back to the Collectors Lab though, and would have kind of liked a hint about what he was going to do next, but I also just think the Collector is super insanely cool.

 

Overall: 8/10

Yes, the movie I didn’t think I’d like garnered an 8/10.  The acting was good, the shots were great, the characters were extremely well written, and it was an enjoyable ride.

Review – Divergent

Movie Title: Divergent

Director: Neil Burger

Date Released: March 21st, 2014

Date Seen: March 23rd, 2014

Seen With: Dad

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Divergent – another dystopian young adult novel taken in by Hollywood and turned into a movie.  Having read the books and knowing what to expect – the movie wasn’t a let down.  If you’re going into this expecting another Hunger Games type movie, you might be a bit disappointed as the plot is a lot more basic and pretty predictable.  However, it does have a strong female lead who can kick some serious ass.  The book Divergent, by Veronica Roth, seems to be written for a slightly younger audience than Hunger Games, however still manages to deal with a number of important topics.  We see a girl, Tris, who has to decide who she is – and realizes that she doesn’t fall into one pre-defined category.  Being the main premise of the book, of course the movie got this right.  It also deals with some touchy subjects, such as rape and murder.  But again, Tris is one kickass girl who can take care of herself.  The movie does a surprisingly good job of following the overall plot of the book, which sometimes is a big fear when I see a book – movie adaptation.  The overall arc or “message” of the story is one we’ve seen before, you might not fit perfectly into a category – and that’s damn well alright.  The movie provides us with a nice vehicle to get this message across, while being a bit fuzzy at times, but strong actors and decent pacing keep you engaged.

As I said, the acting was pretty damn good.  We have Shailene Woodley as Tris, the protagonist.  She’s come a long way from “Secret Life of the American Teenager”.  I was very impressed and thought she did a great job.  Theo James plays Four, and I really liked him as Four – almost exactly as I imagined him in the book.  Kate Winslet plays the super smart and intimidating Jeanine, head of the Erudite faction.  She is great in that role and very terrifying with her crazy bleached blonde hair (I couldn’t stop staring at it!).  Other people I enjoyed were Zoe Kravitz as Christina, one of Tris’ new friends in Dauntless.  I also really loved Jai Courtney, as Eric, another trainer of the new recruits.  There’s other great people as well, but those were the standouts in my mind.

It’s not an impressive movie in the cinematographic sense, however, there were a lot of very well done scenes that seemed straight out of the book.  The one that stuck in my mind was the ferris wheel scene.  This could be because it’s a sort of big deal and very cool part in the book, so of course it stuck out, but I liked it a lot.

Overall the movie was an enjoyable ride.  It does spend a bit too much time, in my opinion, on the fighting and physical tests, while I would have liked to seen a bit more of the fear landscapes.  Also, the main story arc with the other factions is pretty confusing if you haven’t read the book (or read it in a while like me).  My dad was slightly confused as to what was going on.  But still, overall, I’m happy to have seen the movie, and I’d say if you think you’ll like the movie, go ahead and see it in the theater.  Otherwise, watch it on Netflix or rent it when it comes out, and you’ll have a good movie night at home for cheap.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

Now, I haven’t read the book in a while, but there were only a few things I noticed that were different, besides stuff being left out.  First was that Tris’ fear landscape was slightly different.  It was missing drowning in the ocean, but that was probably because it would be very repetitive considering the other drowning scene.  It was also missing being kidnapped, which I would have liked considering it would have shown how fears could be created – and then once you have them they never go away (as we learned in Four’s landscape).  The other thing I noticed that seemed different was when the Dauntless attack Abnegation and the fight with Four, Tris, her mom, etc. all happen.  I just looked back at the book at the part and it actually wasn’t that different than what happened, just location changes, but it just seemed different in my mind.

Then there’s the ending, which goes down in a much more interesting and satisfying way for a movie.  I’m completely fine with Tris injecting that stuff into Jeanine – why? Because I love Kate Winslet and I liked watching that scene with her.  There, I said it. I’m happy with the slight ending change.

 

Overall: 6.5/10

An enjoyable movie, runs slightly long, slightly messy plot at times, but overall a good watch.  Netflix watch unless you’re a big fan or think you’ll really enjoy it, then it might be worth a theater trip.

Maria’s 2014 Oscar Picks

These are my 2014 Oscar picks.  I’ve noted who I WANT to win and who I THINK will win.  Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not.  This is mostly for my own amusement, more than anything.  Also noted, if I have a review for the mentioned movie, the link will take you to my review of it.

*Edit* The actual winners are now noted.

Actor in a Leading Role

• Christian Bale in “American Hustle”
• Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”
• Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – Will they ever give him an Oscar? We can keep dreaming… I’d like him to get one but not in this category this year.
• Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and probably WILL win
• WINNER – Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club” – If Ejiofor doesn’t win it, I think McConaughey will.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips” – haven’t seen it but heard he was great, so I’d be ok if he won.
• Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle” – honestly surprised he was nominated….
• Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave”
• Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – He was surprising in this, I’ll give him that.  But I think other performances by people in this category were better.
• WINNER – Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club” – WANT to win and strong chance that he WILL win.

Actress in a Leading Role

• Amy Adams in “American Hustle”
• WINNER – Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine” – WILL win, if the other award shows are anything to go off of.
• Sandra Bullock in “Gravity”
• Judi Dench in “Philomena”
• Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County”

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”
• Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle” – If it doesn’t go to Nyong’o, I want it to go to JL.
• WINNER – Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and I hope to god she WILL win. I think she has a good chance.
• Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County”
• June Squibb in “Nebraska”

Animated Feature Film

• “The Croods” Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco and Kristine Belson
• “Despicable Me 2” Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin and Chris Meledandri
• “Ernest & Celestine” Benjamin Renner and Didier Brunner
• WINNER – “Frozen” Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee and Peter Del Vecho – Is there even really a debate in this category? WANT to win and WILL win.  If it doesn’t, people will freak out.
• “The Wind Rises” Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki

Cinematography

• “The Grandmaster” Philippe Le Sourd
• WINNER – “Gravity” Emmanuel Lubezki – Probably will win… which I don’t think it’s fair since so much of this movie is CGI.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Bruno Delbonnel
• “Nebraska” Phedon Papamichael
• “Prisoners” Roger A. Deakins – WANT to win – I thought this movie was gorgeously shot.

Costume Design

• “American Hustle” Michael Wilkinson – WILL probably win, though both this and Great Gatsby I think had the same amount of “wow” in costume design.
• “The Grandmaster” William Chang Suk Ping
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Catherine Martin – see above.  Want to win equally with American Hustle.
• “The Invisible Woman” Michael O’Connor
• “12 Years a Slave” Patricia Norris

Directing

• “American Hustle” David O. Russell
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón – WILL probably win.
• “Nebraska” Alexander Payne
• “12 Years a Slave” Steve McQueen – WANT to win since I thought this movie was incredible and the directing was fantastic.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese

Documentary Feature

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “The Act of Killing”Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
• “Cutie and the Boxer” Zachary Heinzerling and Lydia Dean Pilcher
• “Dirty Wars” Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill
• “The Square” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer
• WINNER – “20 Feet from Stardom” Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers

Documentary Short Subject

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “CaveDigger” Jeffrey Karoff
• “Facing Fear” Jason Cohen
• “Karama Has No Walls” Sara Ishaq
• WINNER – “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed
• “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall” Edgar Barens

Film Editing

• “American Hustle” Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten – want (ish) to win.  Not a fan of the movie, but the editing style of this movie was interesting, so I’d be ok if it won.
• “Captain Phillips” Christopher Rouse
• “Dallas Buyers Club” John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger – Will probably win
• “12 Years a Slave” Joe Walker – Of course I’m biased and would rather have this win over anything… because again, best movie.

Foreign Language Film

I haven’t seen any of them, though have heard great things about “Omar”.

• “The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium
• WINNER – “The Great Beauty” Italy
• “The Hunt” Denmark
• “The Missing Picture” Cambodia
• “Omar” Palestine

Makeup and Hairstyling

• WINNER – “Dallas Buyers Club” Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews – WANT to win and WILL win.
• “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” Stephen Prouty
• “The Lone Ranger” Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny

Music (Original Score)

Having only seen Gravity, which didn’t have memorable music to me, I don’t feel I can accurately judge this category.  I’m sure The Book Thief score is great since it is John Williams, but I’ve not heard any so can’t judge.

• “The Book Thief” John Williams
• WINNER – “Gravity” Steven Price
• “Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett
• “Philomena” Alexandre Desplat
• “Saving Mr. Banks” Thomas Newman

Music (Original Song)

• “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
  Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
• WINNER – “Let It Go” from “Frozen” – WANT to win, because like most people, I’m addicted to this song.  And probably WILL win.
  Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
• “The Moon Song” from “Her”
  Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
• “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
  Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

Best Picture

• “American Hustle” Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison and Jonathan Gordon, Producers
• “Captain Phillips” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca, Producers
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter, Producers
• “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and David Heyman, Producers – If ’12 years a slave’ doesn’t win, this one will.  Which I honestly don’t get…. but meh. I’d rather DBC or Wolf of Wall Street get it than this.
• “Her” Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay, Producers
• “Nebraska” Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, Producers
• “Philomena” Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan and Tracey Seaward, Producers
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas, Producers – WANT to win, so much.  It has a good chance of winning after seeing all the pre-Oscars award circuits.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joey McFarland and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Producers

Production Design

• “American Hustle” Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler
• “Gravity” Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard – Probably WILL win, which I would be ok with for this one. The interiors of the ships were amazing.
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn – WANT to win, since the sets for this were super cool.
• “Her” Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena
• “12 Years a Slave” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker

Short Film (Animated)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Feral” Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden
• “Get a Horse!” Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim
• WINNER – “Mr. Hublot” Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares
• “Possessions” Shuhei Morita
• “Room on the Broom” Max Lang and Jan Lachauer

Short Film (Live Action)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)” Esteban Crespo
• “Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)” Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras
• WINNER – “Helium” Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson
• “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)” Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari
• “The Voorman Problem” Mark Gill and Baldwin Li

Sound Editing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing is the creation of NEW sounds while sound mixing, below, is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “All Is Lost” Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns
• “Captain Phillips” Oliver Tarney
• WINNER – “Gravity” Glenn Freemantle – Equal chance to WILL win with Hobbit.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Brent Burge and Chris Ward – Equal chance to WILL win with Gravity, but this is my WANT to win.
• “Lone Survivor” Wylie Stateman

Sound Mixing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing, above, is the creation of new sounds while sound mixing is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “Captain Phillips” Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro
• WINNER – “Gravity” Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson – I kind of want this to win since there is just SO many different things.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
• “Lone Survivor” Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow – I also kind of want this to win, I’m conflicted though.  I think this one would be super hard to get the mixing of shots, dialogue, and music right.

Visual Effects

• WINNER – “Gravity” Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk and Neil Corbould – Probably will win.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds – I also think has a decent chance to win.
• “Iron Man 3” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick
• “The Lone Ranger” Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier
• “Star Trek Into Darkness” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton – I’d love for this to win, it’s my strong WANT to win, but I doubt it will.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “Before Midnight” Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
• “Captain Phillips” Screenplay by Billy Ray
• “Philomena” Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Screenplay by John Ridley – WANT to win. Probably WILL win.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Screenplay by Terence Winter

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “American Hustle” Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
• “Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack – WANT to win.
• WINNER – “Her” Written by Spike Jonze – probably WILL win, which I am ok with.
• “Nebraska” Written by Bob Nelson

Trailer Reviews 10

Bad Words

Now I’m not normally one to find movies funny, but dear god this looks hilarious!  I also have a thing for Jason Bateman, so maybe that helps.  It also might help that I’m totally that person.  I’ll say most anything to kids just to annoy them, mostly because they annoy me.  Does that make me a bad person? Yes, probably but I don’t care.  The kid, Rohan, looks hilarious.  I think it’s also interesting to see Bateman in a directing role of a movie.  I know he’s done a couple episodes here and there of shows, but this shall be interesting.

 

Divergent

This is the second trailer to come out for Divergent.  I have read the books and enjoyed them.  It’s kind of nice that a lot of things are exactly as I have imagined them.  This trailer does show you a LOT of the plot.  It doesn’t seem to change a lot, so far.  Except that it does focus on some characters that were seemingly unimportant in Divergent (but might come in as more important in later books :p).  I’ll definitely see this and am glad the trailer looks close to the book.

 

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Another funny movie that I think I will like… but that’s because it is Seth McFarlane…. and NPH is in it.  Yes please. I’m sold.  It looks like a nice ridiculous live action episode of Family Guy. Yes please.  I hope though it’s not like all the funny parts are in the trailer.  That will be the only thing that might go wrong.  But so far, it looks good.

 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I liked the first Captain America more than most people, I did have a nice time watching it.  But hot damn this one looks GREAT.  I’ve been looking forward to seeing what they are going to do with the Winter Soldier, and explain how he got there (since his story will have to be changed a bit…).  I do know we must have some flashbacks, because apparently Dominic Cooper is reprising his role as Howard Stark, according to IMDb, so we might have some similarities to the Winter Soldiers actual story.  Anyway, I’m excited.  This trailer we also get to see the Falcon in full force.  Yes please.  But dang does the Winter Soldier look awesome.  If you’re a fan of Agents of Shield, they left a nice little easter egg in an episode a few weeks ago, where Sky was reading a plaque of “fallen members” and the only name she read was “Bucky Barnes.”  I like how they are really tying in ALL of their Marvel universe completely.  Nice job.  Anyways, in short, this trailer looks awesome and I can’t wait for this movie.

 

Transcendence

YES.  There are so many things I like about this movie.  The crew on this movie is GREAT.  Let me just start with the fact that Wally Pfister is the director.  That name might not sound familiar because this will be his first time directing.  However, he has been the directory of photography on movies such as the Dark Knight Trilogy, The Prestige, Inception, Moneyball, and Memento.  So clearly, a Christopher Nolan guy (who is an exec. producer, btw).  That makes me think that this movie is going to be gorgeous.  It already looks dark, gritty, and very realistic, but the surreal scenes look fantastic.  I know I will enjoy this, if only for the visuals.  The plot is an interesting one, and I like the idea of it.  It could be really great or could be too weird and not well thought out…. however, I think considering the cast and the crew, it has great potential of being awesome.  I’m very excited for this one.

 

Review – Thor: The Dark World

Movie Title: Thor: The Dark World

Director: Alan Taylor

Date Released: November 8th, 2013

Date Seen: November 9th, 2013

Seen with: Dad

Seen in: IMAX

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

This movie takes place after the first Thor movie, and after the Avengers, and we are introduced to a new villain – Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) – who wants to return the entire universe to an age of darkness.

Remark, before we start actually discussing the movie – I know nothing about Thor comics, nor have I even looked into anything about how this movie relates to them.  I’m going off a purely “Hey, I like Marvel movies, but not a comic person” standpoint.

‘Thor: The Dark World’ was a significantly better movie than the first Thor.  The first Thor just felt so ridiculous and over the top cheesy – that it didn’t really feel like it fit in this Marvel universe that was created.  This movie felt in line with the others in this Marvel universe – darker, but still kind of funny, and now of course we are having references of the Avengers and other superheroes.  Loki is back in a still significant role, despite the fact that he is locked up half the movie.  A dormant race of Dark Elves, led by Malekith are awakened, and Thor must stop them from returning the universe to an age of darkness.  Of course, his precious Jane Foster, again played by Natalie Portman, is in danger, and of course Earth is going to be the battle grounds for part of the movie.  Thor needs Loki’s help, however, and thus we get a nice element of “Can you really trust him?” added into the movie.

A lot of this movie takes place in Asgard, which was stunning to look at.  We got small glimpses of it in the first movie, but a large portion of scenes take place in the Asgard palace (is that what it’s called?) or flying around outside the palace and in Asgard in general.  A couple of scenes felt like I was watching Star Trek – with people fighting on ships, or space ships flying around strange planets, etc.  I loved it.  What’s better than superheroes and star ships? Not much.  Also while in Asgard we get a lot more of the Asgardians – the best being Frigga, Thor’s mom, played by Rene Russo.  She gets a chance to be a complete bad ass and that scene was awesome.

Malekith, the Dark Elf trying to destroy the world as we know it, is played by Christopher Eccleston. All of the dark elves were pretty cool, with most of them wearing masks the entire time.  Apparently, Alan Taylor wanted them all to have a look about themselves, that they were better than everyone – and thus standing tall and sort of looking down on everyone. So all of the masks were made so that the eye holes were lower than where your actual eyes were. For the actors to see, they had to hold their heads slightly back.  Smart idea and it paid off.  I wanted to know more about the Dark Elves and their history – like the cursed thing that they can do to one of their own.  To me that means the movie did its job – I wanted to know more about something from the movie that will make me look, at the very least, into the comic book info online.  So the movie version got me interested in the original media – good job.

It’s still not a perfect movie, and the Thor part of the Marvel movies is still probably what I care the least about, but this movie did a good job at getting me re-interested in the Thor sides.  So good job.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis

There’s an alright synopsis/overview here.

 

Overall: 7.5/10

An interesting villain, a great set of worlds we got to see, lots of action, funny moments, great characters, and not nearly the same amount of cheesiness we had from the first Thor. Definitely go see this if a fan of the Marvel films, or just like action/fantasy type movies.

Review – Immortals

Movie Title: Immortals

Director: Tarsem Singh

Date Released: November 11th, 2011

Date Seen: January 1st, 2014

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

This movie has been sitting in my queue for lord knows how long, and Netflix just told me that it is going to be taken off in a few days, so I decided to watch it while I still had the chance.  I’m not a big Greek mythology person, so I don’t know how the story should have gone according to legend, and so I don’t even take that into account…. except when it got a bit ridiculous.

We follow the story of Theseus, who is (of course) the one and only human with the strength and abilities to save the world.  He meets an interesting cast of characters on his venture of saving the world, including a thief, virgin oracle, monk, and a few other randoms.  He is fighting against King Hyperion, who wants to unleash the Titans on Earth and rule men.

The acting is way over done and the colors are over saturated throughout the whole thing.  It’s a bit cheesy and ridiculous, but in an enjoyable way.  I liked watching the movie even though it was blatantly obvious what was going to happen. It makes sense that this movie was produced by a number of men who also produced 300.  You can see this in the fighting style, as well as the costuming and over abundance of chiseled abs.  In fact, a good portion of this movie takes place with at the very least Theseus (Henry Cavill) being shirtless.  A lot of times he is fighting people that are also shirtless.  They’ll have on boots, leg armor, and helmets, but no shirts.  That makes sense, doesn’t it?  But hey, I’m not complaining.  Any movie that combines sexy shirtless men and lots of fighting and blood and guts is my kind of thing. And there was a lot of all of those things.

The fighting scenes are all reminiscent of 300.  Again, probably due to the producers.  So if you liked that crazy, ridiculous, law-of-physics breaking, slow motion, with too much blood, style of fighting found in 300, well then you will enjoy the fighting in this movie!  This had a nice mix of smaller fights, with small groups, or person-on-person, and then a couple of huge battles.  It was a nice mix that I appreciated.

If you liked 300, give this a watch for the pure fighting, blood and guts ridiculousness of it.  But don’t expect a fantastic plot and well developed characters… just have some fun while watching it.

 

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

There’s a very rough synopsis here. It’ll give you an overview of what happened.

I like how the bow was “hidden” in some rocks… in the middle of the main room of a religious temple, in the only un-carved piece of rock.  No one ever though that was weird, that this one thing wouldn’t break free?  Or did it just appear when Thesus came looking for it? Sheesh.

I also find it hilarious that there is basically no discussion before the Oracle and Theseus decide to get it on. Like oh hey “save me from my visions pleaseee”.  Not “hey, I like you, lets wait until this war is over when my visions might be pretty useful and THEN lets get it on and ruin my vision power.”

For the first time, during the big fight in the tunnel, all the men have shirts on.  I feel cheated. I liked this movie for the sheer lack of shirts.  But, thankfully, the shirts are armor that come with premade abs and nipples, so I at least get some artificial abs to look at.

Stavros moves pretty quick for a dude with a bone sticking out of his leg.  I guess it’s adrenaline though, considering he just witness a race of loser gods get released from their prison, and he got the magical god bow.  So you know, adrenaline makes since in this case.  Also, around here is when I started to wonder why the gods never killed the Titans in the beginning.  Did they figure eternal suffering locked up was better than immortal death? Perhaps.  Just seems like if you were planning on killing them when they eventually got out of their cage, why not kill them early on, so that you’d never have to worry about it.

Now, I said above that I’m not a big Greek mythology person, however, I do recall that Hyperion was the king of the titans.  So they just kind of twisted it around a little bit and made him the mortal that released them? Odd.  Also, I don’t remember basically ALL the big gods dying.  Poseidon, Ares, Athena… you know.  I feel like that’s a big change in mythology.  Like, a huge one.  Also it seems to be that if an entire race of previously imprisoned Gods escaped, more than 5 people would go down to try and stop them.  It seems to be just Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and two red shirts (ha), go down.  I’d take a couple more, it might be worth it.

 

Overall: 6/10

An over-acted, hilarious, and yet awesome ridiculous greek mythology movie, that is very reminiscent of ‘300’.

Review – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Movie Title: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Director: Peter Jackson

Date Released: December 13th, 2013

Date Seen: December 13th, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

A much better installment, although just as untrue to the book as the first Hobbit movie.  If you’ve never read the book, you’ll probably enjoy The Desolation of Smaug as it is much more action packed and less boring than An Unexpected Journey.  This change though also results in a real change in the overall feeling that book had, as I describe below.

The Desolation of Smaug takes out a lot of the cute, charming, or witty scenes from the Hobbit and either glosses over them in a quick short scene without the wit, or skips it altogether.  One of my favorite scenes in the Hobbit book is the entrance to Beorn’s house, but the movie takes the entire Beorn chapter and a half ish and makes it into a quick maybe 3-5 minute scene.  The movie does this continually until the group makes their way to Laketown, then we slow down x100.  This made the pace of the movie very awkward.  It felt like it was rushed for the first segment, then dragged on and on once they arrived at Laketown.  There were things that I liked that they did in Laketown, but it was a bit much.  One of the things I did like was that we got to see a lot more of Bard.  The group meets him sooner than in the book, but you get to know him better, which I enjoyed.  Things I did not like are sort of spoilery so I will mention them down below.  They do something very untrue to the book, that is mostly for the sole purpose of the romance they randomly decided to throw in the movie.

The unnecessary romance involves the addition of a unnecessary characters who doesn’t appear in the book – yes, I’m talking about the elves, Legolas and Tauriel.  Legolas at least sort of makes sense to be there, considering his father is the Elvenking (King of the Woodland Realm), but Tauriel is a completely made up character so that they can add in a romance. It’s unnecessary and due to this romance they also change the main plot line a bit, which annoyed me.

Another major change in the movie is the amount of action.  This movie felt action packed.  One scene that went from having no action to being action packed is the barrel scene, for example.  We also still have the whole pale orc story line which of course adds in tons and tons of action.  We follow Gandalf for a while as well, which adds in a nice amount of action as well.  I understand the addition of all the action, but I wasn’t a big fan, since I like the witty fun that the Hobbit has in it, and that’s why I read it – not for action.

All these changes just made it feel like Peter Jackson just decided to take the characters and framework of JRR Tolkiens story, then go his own way.  Now, that’s all fine and dandy for some people, but a big reason why I like book -> movie adaptations is to see the things I imagined come to life.  This was just little snippets of things thrown together with an otherwise different plot line to satisfy a wider audience.  To me, that was disappointing.  Changes do need to be made from book to movie, but not as many changes as were made.

There was one other thing I really liked – the Wood Elf palace.  It was gorgeous.  I wished we got to see more of it.  I also think I might be crazy, but I swear there’s a part when Thranduil says something about gold and riches, and perhaps even mentions the Arkenstone, and I swear I saw his eyes glitter.  It would make sense considering something else he does later, but it happened so fast I can’t be sure I saw it. If I did, that’s cool.  If it didn’t happen, well, further proof I’m insane.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis

There was one scene I found hilarious. It was like Peter Jackson had just gotten done watching the “A Golden Crown” episode of Game of Thrones and was like “HEY I CAN DO THAT BUT WITH A REAL DRAGON OMG YEAH LETS DO IT!!!”.  And hence comes the scene where the dwarves cover Smaug in molten gold.  It was cool to see, but that’s all I could think of the entire time.  Most of the Smaug scenes were pretty cool, although I wish he riddled more with Bilbo rather than just talking at Bilbo, which he did a lot of.

Another thing I hated was the focus on the Arkenstone.  I like how in the book you don’t really know much about it, just have heard it mentioned a couple of times.  DOS made it seem so much more important and kind of changed my opinion of Thorin in the movie than how I thought of him in the book.  Yeah, he’s a greedy little dwarf, but still.

Also, I mentioned the romance above, but SEPARATING THE DWARVES? COME ON!!! NO! They did that just for their stupid little romance.

 

Overall: 6.5/10

Better than the first, more action, but I still won’t ever watch it again.  It was a one and done.

Review – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Movie Title: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Director: Francis Lawrence

Date Released: November 22nd, 2013

Date Seen: 8 pm premiere, November 21st, 2013

Seen with: Anna

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Catching Fire starts off a few months after Hunger Games left off, with Katniss and Peeta now about to embark on the Victors Tour across Panem.  While in the districts they see that since the 74th Annual Hunger Games things in the districts have begun to get tense, leading up to rebellion in some.  President Snow starts to think of a way to stop this problem and thinks Katniss is personally responsible.  What is in store for Katniss? Well you’ll have to read the book or see this movie to find out.

The directing and acting are both very well done.  I’ve been a fan of the director, Francis Lawrence, since I saw Constantine for the first time.  I love that movie, the style of it, how it is shot, and how it can take ugly horrible scenes and make them somewhat beautiful.  He does that very well in this movie as well.  This movie doesn’t do that odd, overly shaky camera movement that the first Hunger Games seemed to have, which made it much easier to watch, but was also just very well done.  The acting was great, of course we know Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss is going to be great.  Josh Hutcherson did well.  I finally liked Gale, played by Liam Hemsworth, probably just because we got to see more of him.  Elizabeth Banks was great in Hunger Games as Effie, but she is outstanding as Effie in this movie.  We get to see the real feelings Effie has towards Peeta and Katniss, while always still being herself, she shows appreciation and thanks in her own way.  Banks does a great job.  The other standouts were the new additions to the movie – specifically, Sam Claflin as Finnick and Jena Malone as Johanna. I thought Sam Claflin was the perfect Finnick. The look was perfect, his acting outstanding, and he’s in a number of very emotional scenes (one you will probably only get if you’ve read the book) and they made me want to cry. One of them I did. Not ashamed at all.  I was unsure about Jena Malone at first, but dang did she prove me wrong.  She was a great Johanna.  Book adaptations always have a hard time pleasing everyone with the casting choices, but I thought they did a great job.  The only character I had an issue with the casting was Mags (Lynn Cohen) because I didn’t think she was old or frail enough.  But that’s just a little complaint in an otherwise awesome movie.

The movie is true to the book – it follows it actually very well.  Some things that were left out that I liked in the book (like the re-electrifying of the fence, for example), but were totally fine to be left out.  They got all the very important stuff and still hid little Easter Eggs for book fans to find – which movie watchers, who haven’t read the books, will enjoy on subsequent viewings of the movie (a few they’ll even have to wait until Mockingjay to fully understand).  Some of the best moments in the film for me were involving these little details, like the scene I mentioned above with Finnick, or the fact that Chaff does in fact have just one hand. I was very pleased.  I was also excited to see a lot of the things I imagined come to life so perfectly – like the Quarter Quell arena.  It was almost exactly how I imagined it (not that it was that complicated, ha).  Another thing was the Mockingjay dress Cinna makes – I couldn’t wait to see it and it was great.

All in all I’m very pleased with the movie.  I will definitely be seeing it again.  It was very tense at times, either with drama or action, and was never boring.  Definitely go see this if you’re a fan of the book, or liked the first movie, or just think the premise is a cool idea – because you will be pleased.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis

The scene that made me want to cry is when the tributes are having their conversation with Caeser.  Finnick looks straight into the camera and sends an emotional message to “someone he loves” – which you know is Annie if you’ve read the books.  The scene when Mags dies was another one that made me want to cry.  I knew it was coming, but still, it was just sad to watch.  That whole scene was just so intense.  They made the poison look so disgusting.

I did love the arena – especially the cornucopia spinning.  I liked that we got to see what was going on in the game room, with Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and see that he basically started the spinning to not only throw them off their game – but started it a time when Katniss was in danger, and then stopped the spinning again at a time she was in danger, so that he was also helping her stay alive.  That is one thing I love about the movies – is seeing the other side of the games, not just what is going on with Katniss.

 

Overall: 8.5/10

Much stronger than the first movie, more emotional, perfect casting in many cases, true (enough) to the book, and action/tension packed. Definitely go see it, fan of the book or just fan of the series.