Review – The Revenant

Movie Title: The Revenant

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Date Released: January 8th, 2016

Date Seen: January 16th, 2016

Seen With: Daniel

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

I went into this movie not really expecting anything other than a great acting feat.  This movie delivered on that front.  But it also delivered a surprisingly interesting story that kept me hooked, had my heart pounding at times, and that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I liked this movie much more than anticipated, and for a variety of reasons.

We’ll get this out of the way – the acting in the movie is fantastic.  Yes, we know Leonardo DiCaprio can act.  A lot of this movie is him in more compromised positions and taking a lot of a beating.  There’s a lot of teeth gritting and whining and revenge seeking, and he’s wounded for a lot of the movie. Sometimes I have a hard time separating Leonardo DiCaprio the actor from the character he’s playing and this movie I didn’t have that problem. Is it my favorite Leonardo DiCaprio acting piece? No. But he still does a damn good job.  Tom Hardy plays a role that reminded me a lot of his role as Alfie Solomons in the Netflix show Peaky Blinders. I thought he did a good job but it wasn’t anything shocking.  Donhnall Gleeson surprised me as Captain Andrew Henry, probably just because I have his recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens role in my mind.  But again, unsurprisingly he did a great job.  The real treat was Will Poulter as Bridger, one of the younger fur trappers on the team with the aforementioned characters.  You might recognize him from the comedy “We Are the Millers”?  Well, seeing him pop up in the movie I was worried but he was the stand out performance in this movie.  He did a phenomenal job.  I can’t wait to see him in more serious acting roles after this.

The other great thing about this movie is the colors. It’s mostly filmed in blue and grey tones, so whenever there is red for fire or blood it really stands out and makes an even more significant impact.  There are a lot of panning landscape shots that are gorgeous to look at, even when the shots are filled with the remains of a battle.  For a good portion of the movie, Iñárritu uses a film technique similar to what he did in Birdman, with the camera following one person closely and then moving to another person to focus on a different area.  This was great in battle scenes, and actually made them feel more realistic than the usual cut to pieces fight scenes.  However, it didn’t work well during the close camp scenes and was annoying and out of place at times.

The plot also was great.  I didn’t know much about the movie going into it (the trailers didn’t tell you a ton), but it surprised me.  There was so much going on, and the different story lines you see through the course of the movie were all important and connected. I will say, I had heard about the bear fight before I went into the movie.  I heard it was intense and it certainly was.  My heart was pounding during it and it was a bit rough to watch.  Even though it’s a CGI bear (duh) it felt very real.

Overall I enjoyed this movie much more than expected, and would recommend it.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

The one thing I couldn’t really get behind was the Captain’s allegiance towards Glass.  Once it’s revealed that Fitzgerald left Glass for dead and killed Hawk, AND stole all the money, it makes sense that he’s angry.  But even before that Glass seems very very adamant about helping Glass stay alive and carrying him along with them while trying to make it back to the fort.  Could be because of things that had happened in the past with the fur trapping group, not sure, but it just seemed like he was always 100% on the side of Glass, even when it might not have benefited the company (like carrying his near-dying body for miles over mountains). Yes, there wouldn’t have been some of a plot without it, but I would have liked some explanation there.

Overall – 8/10

A grotesquely beautiful movie, with impressive acting, mildly annoying camera techniques, but an overall great movie.

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 – The Imitation Game

Movie Title: The Imitation Game

Director: Morten Tyldum

Date Released: December 25th, 2014

Date Seen: January 29th, 2015

Seen with: Kim

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

This movie follows the story of Alan Turing trying to crack the WWII enigma code, while also showing us a bit of Turing’s personal life, as well.  All in all, it’s a great movie.  Despite the fact that you know the ending, you find yourself just as stressed out as Turing and his partners trying to figure out how to break this code.  Each time that they fail to crack the code, or each time that a new discovery is made – you get just as nervous or excited at what’s going to happen now.  I love when a movie based upon some history can manage to keep the viewer that engaged, despite already knowing the ending.

The acting was great.  Benedict Cumberbatch was fantastic as Alan Turing.  He fully deserves the best actor nominations he has received thus far for this performance (Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA, SAG, etc.).  It’s not like it comes as much of a shock though that Cumberbatch can play such a logical and direct character – considering how well he does in the BBC show Sherlock.  But we do get to see a much more emotional side of Cumberbatch, that was very well done.  I was surprised by Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke.  I’m sometimes not a big fan of hers, but I thought she was great in this.  There’s one scene where Joan and Alan are trying to convince Joan’s parents to let her go work at the “radio factory”, that was one of my favorite scenes between the two of them.  Also, there’s a couple of rather emotional scenes between the two that I won’t ruin but were very well done.  The side characters are also very well acted.  Charles Dance maybe overdoes it a bit as Commander Denniston.  Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies has the most hilarious combover, but does a fine job in the part.  Alex Lawther as a young Alan Turing did a fantastic job – especially if you notice that he’s really only been in a couple of things before this (mostly shorts and a tv show episode).  I hope he keeps acting because he did a fantastic job.

I liked that this movie focused on both the obvious, cracking of the code, as well as Turing’s life.  We get to see Turing’s early years (with the abovementioned Alex Lawther) and how he got into cryptography.  We also meet someone very important to him in his early years.  We see the year before Turing’s death, and what actions led to his death.  The movie ends with a strong message of how tragic it was that Turing died so young, seemingly due to his hormone therapy to “treat” his “disease” of homosexuality.  It also mentions how many other people unfortunately went through this same “treatment”.  It leaves you thinking about something – and I liked that.  I also liked that this movie had a *bit* more science/math in it.  It still wasn’t much, but compared to the pretty much complete lack of science in Theory of Everything, it was a bit more.  Also though, I am a PhD in math, so perhaps not the best person to judge about whether there’s enough math/science in a movie (answer: never).

All in all, I very much enjoyed this movie.  It keeps you engaged, despite the fact that you “know” the ending.  It manages to take you through some funny moments, some very sad moments, some exciting/inspirational moments, and it was all around good to watch.  It has rewatchability, was well shot, well-acted, and well-written.

 

Part 2 – In Depth/Spoiler Ridden Review

One minor annoyance – I didn’t mind the “Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one can imagine” quote the first time.  Hell, I didn’t mind it the second time either – it was a great time for it to pop back up.  But, the last time it was said, by Joan to Alan, it was just kind of like “alright, really, freaking again?”  I don’t think it really added anything to be said there, nor did it really need to be said to Turing.  I just thought it was kind of cheesy.

 

Overall: 8.5/10

Well acted, well shot, well written, moving story about the life of Alan Turing cracking the enigma code.

Review – Interstellar

Movie Title: Interstellar

Director: Christopher Nolan

Date Released: November 7th, 2014

Date Seen: November 7th, 2014

Seen With: Dad

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

The enwest Christopher Nolan film that we have been excited and waiting months for!  It’s finally here! Interstellar, the story of a man who leaves his family behind in hopes to save the entire human race by going on an Interstellar journey.  Shocking, I know.  I bet you didn’t see that Interstellar journey part coming.  Overall this movie is GOREGOUS to look at.  That is far and away the best part of the movie.  Every little detail from scenes on earth to scenes out in Space are incredible.  I could sit and watch them travel through the galaxy for days on end and be completely content.  They were fantastic.  Nolan’s goal to “wow” or amaze the audience, and the movie does that from the visuals alone.

The plot, overall, is very good.  There are of course the usual plot holes (I mention some in part 2 of the review to not spoil anything) and annoyances, but overall it’s very well done. A lot of time is spent on the space plot line, which at times leaves the Earth plot line underdeveloped.  It was one of my major issues with the movie.  They focus a lot on how certain decisions really impact Cooper (like going on the trip), or how it affects the family, but then skip over some important development parts of that. The movie is very long, because it is a very long and complicated plot line, but didn’t feel long until the end of the movie.  It rushed a little bit at the end, which I would have liked to have seen time taken elsewhere to do just a little bit more explaining.  That’s my personal preference, however.  The movie, being a Christopher Nolan film, does of course have the usual “mind-fuck” as I like to call it.  It’s a slow and subtle mindfuck however, and I liked it.  You think you know what is going on, then it’ll throw you for a little loop.  Or you think you will have figured out plot line A, for plot line B to go crazy, so you forget about plot line A, which then comes back to mindfuck you all over again.  It was a nice ride.

The acting is incredible.  Mackenzie Foy (young Murph) was just great.  Anne Hathaway as Brand and Matthew McConaughey as Cooper were both amazing, but that’s to be expected.  I also really liked seeing David Gyasi, who plays one of my favorite characters in Cloud Atlas, Autua. One of my favorite characters is TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin), a robot who takes the journey with the team.  He was not only a nice addition to the team, but also made some plot points easier to explain away.  It kind of seemed like “oh hey, if we had a robot, we could do this. YEAH WE NEED A ROBOT”.  And if that’s how we got TARS, I’m OK with that.

This film does have a very limited rewatchability.  I think after 2-3 viewings, it’s not a movie I would ever pick up and watch again.  The first watch was a very fun one, and I’d like to go back and watch it again to see if there’s little hints at what is to come that I might have missed before.  Beyond that though, I don’t think I’d ever watch it again.  I know what happens.  It’s pretty.  It was cool.  End of story.  It’s a very well made piece of art, but to me, not what I want in a movie, and that brings the score down for me a bit.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

One thing I loved was the limited detail on what happened to Earth.  There wasn’t really a time frame of when the Earth started going to shit, what this new government was like.  It keeps the movie a little less dated that way. We knew the important details (crops failing, soon there will be no more food, nor air, must save Earth), and that’s about it.

Some of the parts I thought were VERY underdeveloped were the Earth scenes.   It could partially be because of the above reasons, the limited knowledge they give you about what is going on there.  But these were some big issues I had.  For a 2 hour 48 minute movie, certian plot lines SHOULD be well thought out or explained.  These issues start fairly quickly. Take for example when Cooper accepts the mission.  He accepts pretty quickly, in my mind, this huge responsibility of saving the world and possibly never seeing his children again.  This is right after he throws a huge hissy fit about Murph being in the other room, and then throughout the movie hes affected by his choice to go.  Seems like the decsion to go shouldn’t have been a quick scene.    The other Earth scenes that are very underdeveloped mostly focus with older Tom and Murph.  Why is it so crucial that Tom’s family leave RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND.  Why is Tom so anti-them leaving if it’s for their health? Why was Topher Grace even in this movie (what, who said that, not me!)?

Another thing, that could be considered a plot hole, or it’s just something that I’m looking too much into.  Professor Brand had already solved his part of the equation a long time ago. But didn’t tell anyone – because it was lacking the gravity part, which he wouldn’t be able to solve without knowing what the inside of the black hole looked like.  Why didn’t he just tell people that? I guess to give them *hope* now that  Ithink about it, but still seems dumb to me.

I very much enjoyed the visuals inside of the black hole.  However, I wasn’t very into the whole idea of “gravity” being the 5th dimension.  It wasn’t very well explained as to why/how it was another dimension.  It seemed more of a force that could act through the other dimensions (of time and space), but wasn’t really one in my mind.  They kind of explained this away by saying “oh, ‘they’ made this into a 3dimensional representation that your brain could understand”.  In other wrods, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMKKKAYYY???”.  We could also talk about time travel-y, grandfather paradox-y, etc. type of stuff, but I don’t really care too.  I think it’s what Christopher Nolan was trying to avoid by adding in the 5th dimension stuff.  Again, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMMKAAYYY??”

 

Overall: 7.5/10

Visually stunning, but a background plot line, that is rushed and underdeveloped at times, but still being a good, semi-surprising, sci-fi flick.

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

Review – The Wolf of Wall Street

Movie Title: The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese

Date Released: December 25th, 2013

Date Seen: December 25th, 2013

Seen With: Michael

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

We follow Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio on his rise through the stock broking world.  We see him get his first job, and be mentored by a cocaine addicted Mark Hanna (Matthew Mcconaughey).  We then see how he has to start from the bottom, selling penny stocks after the stock market crash.  Eventually he opens up his own firm with an interesting cast of characters, mostly old friends, and rises to the top.  He doesn’t always take the most legal route on his venture to the top.  This all eventually catches up to him when the FBI starts investigating him.

The acting in this movie is great – not surprisingly, when you look at the cast list.  Leonardo DiCaprio does a pretty routine “I’m crazy – oh I’m not – now I’m staring off looking sexy thinking about what I’ve done – now I’m screaming and crazy again” act that we’ve seen him do before.  But hey, he’s great at it so no complaints here.  My surprising favorite was Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, Belfort’s “best friend”, if you can call it that.  He still plays a bit of a goofball, but he’s a smart goofball for once and I really enjoyed it.  His character was also quite possibly the most interesting, so that helped.  The other people that left impressions on me were the extremely cocained out Mark Hanna, played by Matthew McConaughey. You could really tell he helped shaped Jordan Belfort’s model of how to run the company.

The filming and direction is great, which isn’t unexpected considering that the movie was directed by Martin Scorsese.  It has a style where sometimes Belfort is talking directly to the audience, particularly in the first third of the movie that shows Belforts rise in the stock-broking world.  It’s a nice mechanism that reminds you that this is from, for the most part, Belforts point of view.  For this reason, some people that have seen the movie think the movie glamorized the life style that Belfort lives – that is, one of infidelity, rampant drug use, and the investment fraud.  I don’t think we watched the same movie, if you think that way.  We see Belfort go from someone who believes so much in this life style, to being investigated by the FBI, to having the entire world crash down on him, twice, and then having to build himself back up.  There’s a scene (which I won’t spoil for you) where he takes it too far – and he realizes that he has done that.  Yes, he doesn’t lie about being happy during the years where the was on drugs, sexing everyone, and making tons of money – but he doesn’t glamorize the repercussions at all.  It’s not a “oh hey, look what I did and got a way with” movie.  It’s a “here’s what I did, and yeah it was fun for a while, but man that sucked” kind of movie.  I thought the fact that Belfort was literally talking to the camera the whole time was a clear indication of this.  It’s like his own way of giving a warning to people.

My only real complaint with this movie was that it was SO long.  The first two hours went by pretty quick, but I was done the last hour.  I did not want to sit there anymore.  Granted, I still think this was a good movie that you should watch – it’s just not one that I’d recommend sitting in the theater for unless you really want to see it.  Three hours was a bit much.  There were scenes they could have cut out or made shorter.  For example, there’s about 10 different banging hooker scenes.  OR there’s a midget tossing scene.  OR random party in the office.  I get it, the office was a crazy place, but I don’t need a 10 minute scene describing the midgets you’re going to hire, or what you’re going to do with them, or then another scene of enacting said midget tossing game.  Seriously.  It spent so much time on scenes like that, that the actual fall of Jordan Belfort went pretty fast – which is what I would have liked more of.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis

There’s a good synopsis here.

 

Overall: 7.5/10

Martin Scorsese takes this story and puts it in film with a great cast, his great directing, and an overall pretty good movie. The major downside is that it runs about an hour too long.

Review – American Hustle

Movie Title: American Hustle

Director: David O. Russell

Date Released: December 20th, 2013

Date Seen: December 22nd, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

A movie about a conman, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and his partner, Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) who must work with the FBI to save their own asses.  However, things get a little out of hand, with an agent pushing them too far – Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), and Irving’s unpredictable wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), just being herself.  What will happen as we get into the world of hustlers, FBI agents, mob bosses and congressmen?  Watch it and see!

Or don’t, that’d be ok too.  Honestly, I see that this was a well shot, directed, and exquisitely acted movie – however, it wasn’t my cup of tea. I was bored mostly because I just didn’t “get” it.  It moved at an awkward pace for me, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes with super whispery dialogue so I missed things.  I honestly had NO idea how they were actually conning people for the longest time, and once they got to the big cons – I was even more confused.  Let’s be reminded that I’m not a dumb person, I’m working on my PhD, – the plot just seemed all over the place and so I kept zoning out (I guess) and thus missing important details (again, I guess).  I went to the bathroom at what I thought had to be towards the end of the movie, because it seemed like I had been watching it for hours – but no, I was only an hour into it.  It just dragged on and on and I didn’t really care.  It just clearly wasn’t my thing.

However, I loved the filming and the acting in this movie.  It was shot in a way that was reminiscent of other films and directors, with some scenes being pretty straightforwardly obvious who they were imitating (Goodfellas is a big one), but it fits in with the whole “forgery” idea in the plot.  There’s a line in the trailer even, “Who is really the master? The artist or the forger?” And that’s what David O. Russell appeared to do in a few scenes.  But, I didn’t have a problem with this.  The movie is full of lots of golds, reds, and oranges, with lots of sparkle, making it a pretty film to look at.  There’s also a lot of dance scenes or just scenes set to music that are enjoyable to watch.

The real standout of the movie though is the acting.  Everyone in this movie is superb. Part of it is the character writing and part of it is the acting.  I know a lot of this movie was improved by the actors, but still, some of the characters were just so great.  I left the movie wishing the entire thing was actually just about Jennifer Lawrence’s character, Rosalyn, because she was just so damn interesting.  She was hilarious, smart, but a bit of a train wreck.  I wanted to just see what kind of shit she would have gotten into.  Amy Adams was the other star.  I love that the main women in this movie were both probably the smartest of them all.  You do see a lot of Amy Adam’s side boob, a lot a lot a lot.  Luckily, she has a very nice side boob so that’s good.  We have a very unattractive Christian Bale, with his beer belly and comb-over – but it works great for the character.  He does a lot of this “oh god what have I gotten my self into” semi blank stare that I wasn’t really a fan of, but otherwise great.  Bradley Cooper’s character was very unlikeable but, in a good way. It worked well for the plot and I liked what Bradley Cooper added to the character in the curly hair, attention to how things look, etc. The only person I wasn’t big on was Jeremy Renner as Mayor Carmine Polito.  He just seemed very idiotic to me and Jeremy Renner had the most ridiculous hair of them all.  I know that’s hard to believe, but he quite possibly did.

The hairstyles really had a staring role all themselves – with Jeremy Renner’s odd Johnny Bravo – eqse hair cut, Jennifer Lawrences up-dos with a various amounts of curls hanging out, Amy Adams with nice beautiful red flowing locks, Christian Bales comb-over, and Bradley Coopers incredible perm.  Yeah, they deserve an Oscar themselves.

See this if you like very talk heavy must pay attention the entire time movies, and you like the genre.  I think this is a good movie – it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

I can’t really spoil anything since I didn’t get a lot of the movie, due to my either stupidity or zoning out.  Or both, there’s a great chance that both of them happened.

The things I were really confused about was why they had to pick Jeremy Renner’s character to start the con with, because they all seemed to agree that he was a good guy, so I don’t know why you’d target him other than his connections.  I guess that was it.  I also was like “why are we dealing with casinos, and what do the politicians actually have to do with this?” I figured out towards the end (during the con) sort of what was going on, but by then I just didn’t care.

I did really like the FINAL con, that was nice, but I felt really bad for poor Jeremy Renner’s person, who again, just seemed like a nice guy who got caught up in a bunch of people being assholes to him – but that was kind of the point of Christian Bale’s last speech now wasn’t it? Yep.

 

Overall: 7/10

It was a good movie, but not my thing at all, otherwise it would get higher.  I can appreciate it for what it is though – a fine study in acting and directing, but the plot just wasn’t for me.