The American President (1995)

In all that is holy, may God bless Aaron Sorkin. Now that I really ponder myself, I really wish that I have a chance to see his television show, The West Wing. But other than that, I try very hard to seek out everything that this man has written. The Social Network boasted one of the single best screenplays I have ever encountered, and that Best Adapted Screenplay win was well-deserved indeed. This year, I went out of my way in search to see Moneyball solely on the idea that he was a part of the screenplay. And it was an amazing screenplay, just as much as this screenplay is. Directed by Rob Reiner only a year after he made what is said by many to be one of the worst motion pictures ever made, North, which I have yet to see, The American President stars Michael Douglas the president of the United States, a widower of the previous year with a daughter, who falls in love with an environmental lobbyist (Annette Bening), who is trying to get a crime control bill passed, where she is on the opposite side of the playing field as the President on that matter. Featuring a supporting cast including Martin Sheen and Michael J. Fox, this film does have a wonderful score, direction, and screenplay, which Sorkin actually admitted he usually wrote while on crack cocaine (there are no uses of ‘winning’ in the script, because after this past year I think that’s what the drug does to famous people). This film is just amazing. It is charming, dark, funny, harsh, dramatic, and delightful. Like everything else Sorkin makes, I will watch the DVD multiple times, especially when I am on my writing slump. Again, God bless Aaron Sorkin.
9/10

Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol (2011)

It’s been fifteen years spent since Brain De Palma made Mission: Impossible in 1996. That dumb action film was good only for the sheer spectacle. Then John Woo made Mission: Impossible II in 1998, a movie that a lot of people really hate, but I actually consider it better than the first, due to the fact that it has a plotline. The third one was even better, directed by JJ Abrams, who is awesome. So in 2006, ten years since the first one, we all pronounced the series dead, and considered Mission: Impossible III the last call. And then there were four. Directed by the director of The Incredibles, Brad Bird, Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol keeps on the theory that every one of these films is better than the former. The first movie of this series that actually plays out more like a movie than a Tom Cruise movie, this film brings back Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Simon Pegg as Benji, along with newcomers Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner to assemble the impossible mission force, who, during a mission trying to steal classified files from the Kremlin, are the prime suspects when a bomb blows up the Russian building. These four are disavowed by the government, and are on course to be sent to Washington when they are nearly assassinated by spies. Over the course of the next few days, the team has to clear their name, find out the actual bomber, and survive a lot of different amazing set pieces. Because, honestly, this movie is so simple-it is a simple stupid film that is just set piece after set piece. And that was my problem with the first and second films in this series, much more the former than the latter. The third film still had this as a glaring fault. But watching this movie on the IMAX screen is a true blessing. It is a simple stupid film, but it has so much fun with it that it is impossible to not have the time of your life watching it. This is a film that for some reason is as good or better than some of the dramas of this year. There is one amazing scene in here, where Cruise is chasing a guy in the middle of a sandstorm. You see so little in the scene, but see just enough to have a wonderful action-packed scene, one that was so recognizable in Brad Bird directing. I’m currently in a slump in writing my reviews, they haven’t been very good for the past few ones, and I’m trying to get some cranked out before 2012, so I apologize for the poor quality of this. But still, with Brad Bird’s wonderful direction, the whole team feel of the film, and the wonderful set pieces, including a scene where Cruise is climbing a 100-story building, this movie is a wonderful experience, one that needs to be seen on the big screen, and one that just needs to be seen. This movie is really much better than it should be.
9/10

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

What I love so much about Sherlock Holmes was that it was a smart, competent thriller masquerading as a dumb, soulless mystery. The American public does flock to dumb films (I couldn’t even review Transformers: Dark of the Moon because I spent the entire time playing on my computer, not paying attention to the stupidity of a movie that made over a billion dollars), I have to say. And disguising this as stupidity was the best thing marketing could do, because nobody expected how well-made this film was. Based off of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, some of which I have read, Sherlock Holmes stars the scarily brilliant actor Robert Downey Jr. (I hate to say this, but he played a convincing black man in Tropic Thunder [and played Charlie Chaplin, played Iron Man, and played Sherlock Holmes], this man can do anything) as the title character, Jude Law as his realist partner Watson, Rachel McAdams as Holmes’ love interest, Irene Adler, and Mark Strong as the bad guy of the bunch, Lord Blackwood, who has escaped from beyond the grave to wreak havoc in London with the help of villainous black magic, which (Spoiler alert!) can be all turned back to basic science. Sorry kids, but at least in this universe, there is no such thing as magic. Or Santa Claus, just getting that out there on the table. But either way, that is the basic plot of Guy Ritchie’s take on England’s greatest detective. Shadowed by the release of James Cameron’s inferior Avatar, this movie, even though it did make a decent amount of money, has acquired the Shaun of the Dead status, being that movie that people show to their friends over and over again at home where only the cream of the crop are released. And films that have acquired this status are very special films, ones that I love very much. And with the style, action, high-quality acting and characters, and a super-sharp script that I really need to find out if it is being sold in book form. I am not great at writing these reviews while watching other films, and I am currently on my fourth movie in a row, so my writing is a little hasty and cluttered, but I do highly recommend this film. Please go see this, and get the Blu-ray, and show it off to friends, because this is a film so good that it deserves to be seen.
9/10

Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011)

Nothing makes me sadder than seeing Jim Carrey fall farther and farther in obscurity. Based off of a book written in the 1930s, Mr. Popper’s Penguins is the riveting tale of a man who goes completely insane after a penguin arrives at his door. Divorced and mentally estranged from his children, Thomas Popper (Carrey) is painted as a horrible person who actually puts effort into his job, and tries to have a life for himself. What a terrible person. But the film shows that this is because he has daddy issues, and his father left him with six penguins when he died. The kids fall in love with the penguins, and he starts dating the mom again, all because of twenty minutes and penguins, which makes perfect sense. But, due to their infatuation with penguins, he has to keep them from the environmental agency, his boss, and the owners of his apartment, Mr. Popper has to defy all logic and moral ideology for a bunch of penguins. And even though this makes absolutely no sense, it could work if it was funny. But this movie just is not funny. There are no memorable jokes in this film. There is one sweet moment in there, and if the film had cut off then, I might have warmed up to it. But it kept for twenty more minutes, with bad jokes, bad acting, and this one chick who kept using the letter P so much I wanted to strangle the letter out of her vocabulary. But there is just no reason to see this movie. The characters are annoying, the jokes are terrible, there are actually so many jokes about Jim Carrey squeezing the actual poop out of a penguin, I couldn’t believe that. Apparently that part was left out of March of the Penguins. And speaking of that, you’ll have a better time watching Farce of the Penguins, the trashy direct-to-video spoof than this. I only bothered to watch the trailer for that and I enjoyed it more than this entire movie. This movie is just a terrible movie, and since I have no better segue, I have two points to make. One-On the cover of this DVD, Jim Carrey just looks sad like he is asking for help. Two-this movie was about 5 years too late. In 2006, March of the Penguins and Happy Feet ruled the penguin craze, and now, along with Happy Feet Two, this movie is too little too late. Three-The self-referential segue is the best way. Four-I lied about there only being three points to make.
2.5/10

Up in the Air (2009)

In 2005, when Jason Reitman’s first film, Thank You for Smoking was released, people dismissed it and asked for another film by his father. Then, five years later, with Ivan Reitman’s film No Strings Attached, they dismissed it and asked for another film by his son. Ivan was one of the best directors out there, but now it’s his son’s turn, with the unseen-by-me Thank You for Smoking, the brilliant Juno, the brilliant Up in the Air, and the unseen-by-me Young Adult. Much like Juno and Young Adult, Up in the Air is definitely not a comedy film. It is more of a drama with some very funny one-liners in it. Almost in a way by Aaron Sorkin, this script is dark, serious, and heartbreaking, but yet I was laughing throughout most of it. The first hour of this film sets up the story, with corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who goes around the country firing people, with some very funny and inspired scenes having famous people freaking out. But after meeting a girl named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who also constantly travels, and they meet up at their mutual meeting points. Also along for the ride is Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), who is trying to get the company Ryan works for to cut costs by giving layoffs by videoconferencing. This greatly upsets Ryan, as he is working to getting ten million miles with American Airlines, a personal goal for him. In order to get that goal, he convinces his boss (Jason Bateman) to let him mentor Natalie by taking her on one last trek cross-country to learn the business. Here we see a character piece about a man who liked being lonely, but also realizes that other people are necessary for life. This brilliant character piece makes you laugh like a hyena, think and consider yourself and all the other people on this planet, and for me at least, cry. In the final act of this film, there are some major gut-punches that you do not expect, some things that really break your heart. But when you watch this movie, stay for the credits. The first song for the credits is a standard song, I just stayed because I needed a minute to fully digest the film. And then, once that song was over, I decided to turn the movie off. Then I heard a message. I’m paraphrasing, so don’t quote me on this, but here’s what was said basically, “Hey Jason. I just got laid off from my job, and I wrote this song, and I was wondering if you could use it in your movie.” Then a song called Up in the Air played, an actually very good song, even though the sound quality wasn’t that great. It is in that moment that you get hit with the entire film, and the truth it brings and the world we’re living in. I broke down and cried, and I never cry in movies. This is the first movie since Forrest Gump to make me lose breath both by laughing and by crying.
9.5/10

Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)

Let me take you through the timeline of the Spy Kids films. In 2001, Robert Rodriguez made Spy Kids, a movie that was supposed to be much worse than it actually was. Then, a year later, in 2002, Rodriguez made the sequel to the surprise hit, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, which was still good, despite not being great. Then, in 2003, there was the movie where Rodriguez went completely all-out with the insanity for Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, a movie I actually went to go see in the theaters. While I am still a fan of the film, I like it in an insane and turn-your-brain-off kind of way. I mean, for God’s sake, it takes place inside of a video game! But, either way, the series was brought back to life a few months ago with Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, a movie that looks like it was a lot more fun to make than it was to see. Honestly, I wish I hadn’t seen this film on DVD, I wish I had seen it in theaters, because I really wanted to rant about the Smell-O-Vision they used for the film, which sadly was not brought along with renting the film for $4 on iTunes. But now I just get to rant on the fallen quality of the actual film. Trying out a brand new team, only bringing back the good team for small cameos for the film, this film stars Joel McHale (from the falling and absolutely perfect show Community), Jessica Alba (from nothing good), and Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook as the new kids, and Ricky Gervais as the voice of the robot dog (the only good jokes in the film). Alba plays a mom spy, the kids are her step-kids, McHale is the kid’s father and a spy-hunter, and they have to defeat a villain named Tick-Tock, who throws out literally every single bad time pun in the book, and believe me, there are a lot. The film has the same look and feel of the third installment, but without the silly fun of it. The jokes (except for those by Gervais) are fart jokes after vomit joke after poop joke, the action is low-budget, bad, and of poor quality, and the acting is completely atrocious. What is Joel McHale doing in this movie? He is such a funny guy, Community is one of the single best shows out there, it is so funny, it is on the same pace with Arrested Development and Spaced, but this is on the same line of all the other useless kid’s films out there, that are just studio hash after studio hash. The creativity of this series is completely gone, and it just is now a formulaic and boring film.
3.5/10

The Aviator (2004)

What a haunting and wonderful film this is. Directed by who is arguably the single greatest director of the first century of cinema, Martin Scorsese, The Aviator single-handedly walks into my favorite film list within one simple three-hour viewing, as probably will Scorsese’s entire catalog. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning five, The Aviator stars one of the single best American actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, as Howard Hughes, an extremely successful film producer (popping out films like Hell’s Angels and Scarface: The Shame of the Nation) and aviation magnate in his prime, from the late 1920s to 1947, while he slowly grows more and more unstable due to a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. With a wonderful supporting cast including Adam Scott, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Kate Beckinsale, and Cate Blanchett in an Oscar-winning role playing Katherine Hepburn. This completely star-studded production stands as one of the single greatest American motion pictures in memory, a nearly-perfect film at that. Martin Scorsese very rarely ever makes less-than 4-star films, he made Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Hugo, The Departed, among many others that were awarded a well-deserved 4-star rating for Roger Ebert and everyone else on the planet. Martin Scorsese really can do no wrong. He is one of the single greatest directors ever to grace movies, and every time his name is on a film, I will fight tooth-and-nail for a ticket. Martin Scorsese really should have more than one Oscar under his belt right now, at the very least, he should have won Best Director for this film. The only thing keeping this film from multiple Oscars is Million Dollar Baby, which was also released in 2004. The Aviator is a truly haunting film, one with true, real, and brilliant performances, a wonderful script, and a perfect director. I cannot recommend this film highly enough, both as a study of one of the most disturbed people in film (the final shot of this film is scarier than most of those in a horror film), and as another chapter in the catalog of one of the most brilliant people in film.
9.5/10

The Third Man (1949)

My fellow film nerds out there are probably going to tar and feather me for this review. So let me get something out of the way-I do think that this is a very good film. Heck, in the final act, this was a great film. But I cannot put this on the same level as movies like Citizen Kane, something that has been done many times over. I don’t really think this movie is one of those “great movies”, one that where every single film lover should watch. I think that if a film lover got some of the other films out of the way, they should definitely give this a good watch, but I don’t consider this film a necessity. Starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, both from the American classic Citizen Kane, The Third Man is the tale of struggling writer Holly Martins (Cotton) who, after receiving an invitation by his friend Harry Lime (Welles) to meet him in Paris, finds out that his friend is dead, hit by a car. Martins, unconvinced by the story that has been told to him, believes that Lime was murdered, and works to uncover the truth, only to uncover a completely darker truth than he had ever expected. With a slick noir look and a wonderful score to set the scene, the first two thirds of the film could have been consolidated to twenty minutes, as it is dragging, slow, stylistic, and beautiful. Then the full detective film comes in when a wonderful twist falls in front of the viewers’ faces. Then the film starts to pick up the pace, and it gets exciting and nail-biting along with still being atmospheric and beautiful. The direction is great, the score is phenomenal, the script, even though having some very slow scenes, has conceived some great dialogue. And the acting is phenomenal. Joseph Cotton is great along with the side actors, but I have to take a little bit of space to talk about Orson Welles. Orson Welles possesses a quality very few actors will ever have in this world, where you can just be charmed by seeing them smile. There is a shot in this film, one where I will never forget, where you see a man standing in the blackness. The light comes on, and it is Orson Welles smiling, and then the light turns off. That shot is amazing, and you just are completely charmed by this man by one shot. Other people who have this power-George Clooney. Orson Welles and George Clooney. I do recommend this film, and I do think any film where Orson Welles is in it is a good film, and it is a very fun and enjoyable film, but you can live without seeing it.
8.5/10

Witless Protection (2008)

AAAHAHHAHAHAHHAH! You wanna know how I got these scars? Well, I saw a Larry the Cable Guy movie, and…it hurts so badly…it hurts so badly…on the inside I’m crying a river…it’s such a terrible movie…help me…Okay, now let’s let the bashing begin. Witless Protection is a movie starring America’s dumbest human being, Larry the Cable Guy, who is responsible for the only bad PIXAR movies, Cars and Cars 2. Well, there really are no bad PIXAR movies, just bad on the scale of brilliance, which PIXAR used to hold the top spot in-never mind. This movie is probably the dumbest film I have ever had the displeasure of having to sit through. Seriously, it took me three tries to sit through this heaping pile of-just-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! This movie makes me so angry that I have to sit through it, that some idiots out there paid to go see it, that some crazy demented human being laughed at this sad man’s walking around like a stupid fool! Ah. Now let me try to decipher the “plot” of this “film”. Larry is playing a small-town sheriff who kidnaps a woman who he stupidly thinks is being kidnapped, and he tried to save her, and…AAAAAAHHHHHH! This movie is just so stupid, and so dumb, it makes me angry! I wrote more clever jokes than this when I was THREE YEARS OLD! There is just so much wrong with this film. The jokes reek with disdain, the acting, writing, directing, is just absolutely atrocious and is an insult to the film industry. Seriously, why are there people out there with wonderful scripts and intelligent indie films waiting for their big break when this buffoon is running the silver screen? Larry the Cable Guy, I hope you are hit by a bus.
0/10

Margin Call (2011)

Ah, nothing like watching the complete fall of our economy play out on the screen. And due to the fact that I don’t pay attention to the news, or the economy, all I know is that stocks have those line graphs, which are one of the five things I know in algebra, and that is all I know about the economy. Come on, I sit around and watch movies and TV all day. Seriously, I watched one season of How I Met Your Mother in about a week. I have won the award. Either way, Margin Call follows a stock investment company in 2008, who, when they start to have major layoffs, get people wondering about their future at this pristine and well-paying company. One of the people who is specifically worried is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who is working on finishing an equation that might show that their entire company is heading for the toilet. On his way out, he gives his unfinished equation to one of his more favored co-workers, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto, who is also the main backing behind this film getting made), who that night finishes his equation, and finds out a bunch of fancy financial stuff I don’t know about, but basically, it means that the stock market is about to crash that night or a few nights in the future. As we all know, it did. Either way, after calling the entire team back to work, Peter spends the next 24 hours with co-workers Seth (Penn Badgley), Will (Paul Bettany), and his boss Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), among others (Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker, Mary McDowell, again, among others), trying to prevent the crisis they’ve been told about. And what I want to focus on here for a little bit is what different movie this could have been. A lesser movie would have been about this sudden crash, and how this company tried to save themselves. But this amazing film, which surprisingly, is made by a first-time director who just announced his second film, which I will go see, isn’t about how people reacted to a crisis. This is a movie about how people see that their world is coming to an end, and how they plan to live their last days. In that way, this film is very much like the new Lars Von Trier film Melancholia, which I am dying to see, but it is actually about the world coming to an end. But it’s not 2012, it’s a movie about how people react on those final hours, and that is what makes Margin Call such a great film. The script in unnaturally tight, the dialogue ripped from the notebook of the great Aaron Sorkin, and the direction cramped, claustrophobic, and atmospheric. The only reason that this movie is not going to end up on my ‘Best of 2011’ list is that we are having an amazing year for movies. If this was released last year, not only would it peak on people’s ‘Best of 2010’ lists, but it might score a few Oscar nods.
8.5/10

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

I have been extremely behind on my reviews, and that is partially due to my laziness, but also due to the fact that there were two films on my agenda that I had to let serenade in my brain before fixating my opinions on them. The first film was Another Earth, a movie that I just posted a review for. The second film was Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar-winning film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, directed by Michel Gondry and starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, among others including David Cross. Just from the fact that I bothered to mention the entire cast makes you know that I am a fan of this film. This is a very difficult film to review, on one hand because I just finished Jason Reitman’s fabulous drama Up in the Air, which actually brought me to tears during the credits (read my soon-to-be-published review for the full scoop on that), and also because the emotion you get in this film is a word that nobody has invented yet. It has no definition, it cannot be explained in words why this film is so perfect. Because it isn’t. On paper, this is an extremely good film, heck, even a great film, so why does it work so dang well? Because of the imaginary word I am inventing to describe the feeling of this film-Kaufmanium. Kaufmanium is a rare creative element that is sometimes described as just pure joy. Without a doubt, Kaufmanium is something very many films aspire to, but very few achieve. Kaufmanium is the basic notion that something will look better than it does on paper just because it has Kaufmanium in it. There is no real way to describe Kaufmanium, only that this film has a lot of it. Either way, this film stars Jim Carrey in a dramatic role as Joel, a man who finds out that his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) had her memories of him erased, and so he goes to have the exact same process done to him, with the help of an organization known as Lacuna, Inc, run by the eccentric Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), his secretary Mary (Kirsten Dunst), and his two field operatives who actually go to your house and hook you up to this MRI-looking machine that wiped your memories, Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood), one of whom (spoiler: It’s Frodo!) is actually using the memories of Clementine to date her, and we see the memories of Joel’s as they are being erased, but they are conscious of it all, it’s all extremely confusing, and I do really hope that I will get to watch it again on Blu-ray quite soon. But either way, as confusing as my plot synopsis sounds, it’s nowhere near as insane as it actually is. But this is a wonderful film, one every single human being on the planet should check out, and dang it, it’s filled to the brim with Kaufmanium. And that should mean enough, in imaginary weird land.
9/10

The Muppets (2011)

Seeing this with a double feature of Martin Scorsese’s beautiful film Hugo, I am forced to not like this film as much as I would on my own, because I love Hugo, and do not love this film. I like this film, I just don’t love it. The film has parts that are extremely funny, and parts that are groan-worthy. But did the 1,000 screaming kids in my theater care? Nope. They are so annoying…But that is for another day. The first theatrical Muppets film in twelve years, The Muppets chronicles a lonely puppet named Walter who loves The Muppets. He and his human brother Gary (Jason Segel…but…what?) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) go to see Muppet Studios, only to find it completely run down. They find the Muppets, and get them together to make $10 million to save Muppet studios from evil oil monopolist Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) who plans to drill for oil under the studios, and destroy them. The film is simple enough for a kid’s film, a save-the-rec-center film, nothing more. And as one of those films, it’s not a bad film, I just wish that people would realize that and not say it’s a brilliant piece of art, because it is only playing on nostalgia. There are some very clever and funny bits in here, and it is a good film, but it’s not a great film. For example, there is a scene where Chris Cooper is rapping, and I was laughing so hard I think some of the small children in the theater were scared of me, but there were moments that were so groan-inducing where everybody was laughing-that’s when they should have been scared of me. There are some wonderful musical numbers, this is probably the best musical film since Hairspray, but Hairspray was a good bit better than this.
8/10

Another Earth (2011)

I saw Another Earth about a week or so before writing this (I am really behind on my reviews, and haven’t seen a lot of movies in this time, as I have been recently obsessed with How I Met Your Mother), and I didn’t want to write a review immediately, as I wasn’t sure of my feelings towards this film. But after listening to the first official episode of Remote Viewing on the brilliant site Spill.com, I have decided to flesh out my review. Let me get this straight-this is not a science fiction film. This isn’t even a sci-fi drama. The absolutely perfectly wonderful films Solaris or Moon are sci-fi dramas (more Solaris then Moon, but still), this is a drama with a science fiction plot point to push the story along. Personally, I’ve wanted to see this film as soon as it was in theaters, but to say the least, it is quite difficult to convince a group of eighth-graders to see a slow science-fiction drama that costs eleven bucks each. Now personally, watching it on iTunes, this is a wonderful film, but an absolutely polarizing film at that. Much like the wonderful drama The Tree of Life or the very good sci-fi action film Inception, people who have seen this film will fight over it. I have been in fights with people over The Tree of Life, and I will be in fights with people over Another Earth. Directed by first-time narrative director Mike Cahill and written by Cahill and Brit Marling, the indie film stars Marling as Rhoda Williams, a recently-accepted MIT student who, after a night of partying and underage drinking, while staring at this other planet that suddenly appeared in the sky, gets in a car wreck, killing a wife, her son, and putting the father into a coma. Arrested for involuntary manslaughter, Williams is released five years later, around the time that the husband wakes up. The planet that was discovered is said to be another planet earth, exactly like our own, until the moment where we became visible to each other, the night Williams got in the car wreck. Williams, due to the fact that she is a brilliant person who was accepted into MIT with a full ride (I believe that is the case), enters an essay contest (which is about as ridiculous as another planet appearing in the sky, but we can let that go) to fly on a spaceship to Earth 2. While this is happening, she tried to go to the husband’s (John Burroughs, played by William Mapother) house to apologize and beg for forgiveness, but she loses her nerve and pretends to be a maid, who is working for this man while she tries to apologize for, basically, wrecking his life, all while the business with Earth 2 is happening. Personally, I believe that I am talking too much about the science-fiction aspects of this film, as this is a full thorough drama film, a wonderful one at that, but very little a sci-fi film. The science fiction is a microscopic detail that is coated in the drama, the electric score, the absolutely fabulous script, and the brilliant performances by Marling and Mapother. The film was shot for two-hundred-thousand dollars, and it shows with some uncomfortable hand-held shots and just uneven moments, but that is expected with a film like this. I truly hope and pray that more money is given to Cahill for his next film, one that I will definitely see, as he has made one of those movies that show people like me that movies can be made on the cheap. This is a wonderful film, this is Cahill’s Attack the Block, his District 9, heck, it’s his Reservoir Dogs. And that is high praise enough.
9/10

Spirited Away (2001)

Over the course of my film-loving life, I hope to see around twenty-five films that are perfect. This number will probably wager, but my current estimate is that as of 2011, there are 25 perfect motion pictures in the world. And the only thing bad about seeing one of these perfect films is that there is less to enjoy. But I can find perfection to shout to the world. Spirited Away is the fourth perfect film I have ever seen, after Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Directed by legendary director Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is the first anime film I have ever seen. I had a mild period when I was about nine when I read nothing but manga for three months, but I had never seen a full anime film. Now I have. And then I will see many more. This movie won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002 (the American release of this film was after the awards, but since it won the award in 2002, I am using the eligible release date, the 2001 Japanese one, not the 2002 American release date), and that was a mistake. It really should have won Best Picture, but an animated film would not win, and will not win for a very long time. This was the single best film of 2001, better than the first The Lord of the Rings film. I love The Lord of the Rings, more than nearly anything else on the planet. That just shows how much I love this film. The film follows a ten-year-old girl named Chihiro Ogino, who is moving into a new town when her parents begin to explore. They come across what they think is a run-down amusement park, and begin to go in places they weren’t supposed to be and eat tons of guests’ food. Their gluttony and their trespassing transports the pair and their daughter to an alternate world where spirits roam, ruled in the form of a bathhouse run by the evil Yubaba, who transported the family there to keep them forever. This wonderful fantasy world is magical, brilliant, and astounding. The characters are true, alive, and more real than most of the characters in live action films. You fall in love with these people, and you fall in love with this film. I fell in love with this film like no other. I will recommend this film to every single human being on the planet. And if you are on the planet, watch this. Watch the subtitled version instead of the dub; it preserves the integrity of the film. And this film has such an integrity, one so pure and amazing. So perfect. So perfect.
10/10

In Time (2011)

I’m truly sad to say that I expected a lot more from this film. I heard that there was a thriller film with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. That never sounds good. But then I saw the four minutes of footage released at Comic-Con, and I was taken aback. In Time quickly shot up from off my radar to right on the spot, one of my most anticipated films of the year. I just wanted a really great sci-fi film of the year to companion Source Code after the disappointment that was I Am Number Four. I still liked it. But a lot of people didn’t, but that is beside the point. In Time takes place in the near future, where science has gotten rid of the aging gene. People stop aging, and instead of people dying of old age, they can die of having their time run out. People are genetically implanted with a clock on their arms, and when the clock hits zero, you do. You just collapse right then and there. In one of the bigger flaws of the film, we see a man named Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), who is apparently the first person to find something wrong with the system, which is still only found out after his mother (Olivia Wilde, which resulted in a very odd scene, one that I thought would go a very different way than “Hey, mom.”) had died. Salas is living in the poor part of town (where every single person still looks like they’ve spent twenty minutes in a trailer getting themselves all prettied up), and he and his friends wake up every day just hoping they’d have more time on their hand than hours in the day. But when he meets a man at a bar with a death wish and over a century on his wrist, Salas ends up with the time, and, through a little lethal gambling, becomes one of the single richest men in the world. After gaining acquaintance with millionaire Phillipe Weis (Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser) and his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), Salas finds himself accused of stealing the time by timekeeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), and goes on the run, kidnapping Sylvia to seal it off. And then the sci-fi glory that this premise should have been is thrown to the backseat for a Robin Hood or Bonnie & Clyde film, one that I did not pay for. My biggest problem with this film is that it is not what it was marketed as, and not what I paid for. I know that’s kind of a stupid complaint, and I don’t mean it to the extent of the idiotic lady who sued critically acclaimed action drama Drive for not being dumb loud action film Fast Five (I have not seen either of these films, I am just basing my bashing of Fast Five on the first Fast & Furious film), but I’m still a little mad. But even when I get something else than what I paid for, I can still have a good time at the movies. And I did have a good time at the movies here. There are points of this film that are fun, slick, and energetic. That being said, there are a decent amount of points that just make you groan, or roll your eyes. And sadly, the sci-fi isn’t strong enough to take the film out of those dark spaces. The film jugs sort of lags on, but does have some fun moments, and a concept way too interesting and smart for anyone involved.
7.5/10

Puss in Boots (2011)

To be perfectly honest, I am not a fan of the Shrek films. I like the first Shrek, am tolerable of Shrek 2, don’t like Shrek the Third, and can’t stand Shrek Forever After. So when news got out that they were making a spin-off based on the character Puss in Boots, I was less than enthusiastic, to say the least. In fact, I was just planning to watch this film pass by. I wasn’t even going to see it on DVD, but was taken to go see it for free. I will never pass up a free film. But watching the film in 3D, on the big screen, it really is not a bad film. It is a pretty good film. The best thing about this film, I have to say, is the fact that it completely separates itself from the other films in the Shrek films. There are no mentions of Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, Farquad, the rest. They do not exist in the world of Puss in Boots, only the characters in the film. And aside from that honorable fact, the film is just a really good film. Working actually better as an adventure western than a comedy, Puss in Boots is for me what Rango is for the rest of the world. Featuring the voice of Antonia Banderas returning as outlaw cat Puss in Boots, the film follows Boots as he lives on the outskirts of towns, stealing and lying to make his way in the world. But his world comes to a halt when he meets up with fellow outlaw Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek-I hate that name so much), along with Puss’s estranged friend Humpty Dumpty (Zack Galafinakis), who get him to take part in a ridiculous scheme to take down murderers Jack and Jill, and steal their magic beans, and then be rich from the golden eggs. The film is one of those rare cases where it looks much better on digital fake celluloid than it is on paper. On paper, this film was a dud, an unfunny mess that people just abandoned. I have not talked to a single person who thought that the Shrek franchise had any more to it, including myself. However, I was very wrong. I was expecting a flop, I got a surprisingly enjoyable film that I can recommend as a very fun animated film, one that the entire family should enjoy. The 3D is not necessary, but not painful or distracting. I would recommend Puss in Boots as a fun family rental, but there still is better stuff out there.
8/10

Hugo (2011)

I am being pushed to write reviews for this film, Puss in Boots, and The Muppets, so I am skipping over some of the films on my quota so I can review Hugo, one of the best films of the year. Directed by legendary director Martin Scorsese, Hugo is based off of the Caldecott-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Starring Asa Butterfield (who is playing Ender in the upcoming adaptation of the science fiction novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card) as Hugo Cabret, a boy who is living inside of a train station in 1930s Paris. Orphaned after his father (Jude Law) was killed in a fire, Hugo spends his days winding the clocks, and tinkering with the last contraption his father was working on before he died, all while trying to stay out of an orphanage by avoiding the people who would put him there, especially toy tinker with a secret Georges (Ben Kingsley) and the train inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen). While living in his magical world, he is caught by Georges, and is forced to work for him, all while having a growing friendship with Georges god-daughter (I’m messing that up somehow, I just know it) Isabelle (played by the absolutely wonderful Chloë Grace Moretz). As Hugo and Isabelle grow closer together, they work through this wonderful adventure played out in front of them. The film is an adventure, a slower one than most of its kin, but an adventure full in form. It’s probably more of an adventure drama, and not a movie for kids. This is a film that may be rated PG, but it is not a film for children. It is a film for people who love film and the art of film, and I am one of those people. Studio analysts say that Hugo is going to scrape the bottom of the barrel box-office wise, and that makes sense. I saw this film in a double feature with The Muppets, and The Muppets was completely packed with small, annoying, screaming children. Hugo was about half-way filled on opening day. Hugo is going to lose money, at least in America. While that disappoints me, I am not surprised. This is a brilliant film, one I believe in and one I will watch many times over. The directing and writing is fabulous (Martin Scorsese will never do wrong), and the acting and visuals are absolutely perfect (Asa Butterfield does amazing, and I’m also kind of in love with Chloë Grace Moretz [also, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m 13 years old, a year younger than she is], so I might be biased, but she and the entire cast are still amazing). This entire movie is amazing, brilliant, wonderful, and magical. Honestly, this is the first movie all year that made me cry a little bit at the end. The only reason this isn’t my favorite film of the year is that it took about twenty minutes until the film won me over, where my favorite film of the year, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris took about two. The film is slow, and I do not recommend this as a kid’s film. I recommend this as a film for those who love the art and who just want to see a good film, something that seems to happen less often than it used too.
9.5/10

Skateland (2011)

It has almost become a cliché in itself to dedicate a film or work to the late John Hughes. Cliché is definitely not the correct word to use, but it’s all I got. Give me a break. Now, I love John Hughes. He founded modern film, and founded my personal love of film (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius), but so many people have dedicated their work to him, it doesn’t mean anything anymore. I can almost guarantee you that if (when) I make movies, I will dedicate one to Mr. Hughes. But for now, when it’s free territory, I’m gonna complain about it. So, ha. Either way, the plotline of Skateland concerns a boy (Shiloh Fernandez) who just doesn’t know what to do with his life. He’s stuck in the middle of his perfect world, working at this roller rink in the 80s. He has a nice girlfriend (Ashley Greene), and a lot of friends, especially an older one he looks up to (think Matthew McConaughey from Dazed and Confused). He lives his life drinking beer and smoking what people in the 80s smoked. But he slowly stays in his perfect little world, while the world around him moves on. The film becomes less about an homage to the 80s movies, and becomes more like it’s character’s feeling in the film-jumbled, convoluted, and alone-wait. This film is genius! The film is him, and it’s confusing and jumbled because he is-no, never mind. I actually do like this film. I really do. But with a tribute to one of the greatest modern filmmakers ever to grace celluloid, you have to expect more than this. The acting is sub-par, the direction straight out of television, and the writing standard and uneventful. But the film has a charm to it that makes me not hate it. I can’t explain it. It’s just not that bad of a film.
7/10

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

I’ve referenced this film many a night before, and now, after experiencing it once again, this time on the big screen, I bring you Night of the Living Dead, the mother of all modern zombie films. In fact, the inventor of all modern zombie films. Co-written and directed by George A. Romero, Night of the Living Dead placed into our society what we know is a zombie. A diseased or reanimated corpse with minimal brain activity feeding on human flesh and spreading the disease. Sometimes they’re slow, sometimes they’re fast. But they all come from this core model. This wonderful core model. This is wonderful not just as a good model for zombies in the future, but as a terrifying and demented horror film. I saw this movie in reparatory with my 9-year-old brother. He is just growing up into horror films, and loves them so, and soon will as much as I do, I hope. This movie both amazed and terrified him. It was a fascinating sight. He couldn’t keep his eyes away from the screen, black & white, grainy, and beautiful. It is one of those sights that makes me forget that Adam Sandler keeps making money, one of those images that puts life back into my film-loving heart. The plot of the film concerns a group of people (Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Ridley, and Kyra Schon), unknown to each other, staying inside of a farm house while they attempt to survive an attack from the reanimated dead, started by an unknown cause. But the movie isn’t about the zombies. The movie is about how we would react in a situation of pure pain and destruction-what we would do if we were faced with the end. Many films cover this, I write stories covering this, but this film does it best. The human dynamics of the film are spectacular, and you truly get to see these people fight and crumble to the point of death. This is a masterpiece, George A. Romero’s masterpiece of film. This is a timeless classic, one that should never be missed. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”
9.5/10

You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008)

Finally, another Adam Sandler film I like! YAY! The third recorded film starring Adam Sandler that I like, it truly is a miracle. The first one was The Wedding Singer, then Billy Madison, and now You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. And how many don’t I like? Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, Just Go With It, among others. So, not a great ratio on Sandler’s part, but still-this movie is good, a fact that truly took me by shock. There was so much that should’ve gone wrong with this film. Still directed by Dennis Dugan, still starring Sandler, still produced by Judd Apatow, so where did this movie go right? An unknown writer named Carlito Cabardo, that’s where. Not even notable enough to have his own Wikipedia page, Cabardo joins writers Sandler, Apatow, and Robert Smigel (who are responsible for films such as Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, and Eight Crazy Nights) and punches up this film to decency. Not hilarity, but decency. And for that, Mr. Cabardo, I thank you. The plot of the film concerns Israeli counter-terrorist Zohan (Sandler), who is the best in the business, but secretly wants to be a hairdresser and work for Paul Mitchell. So during a fight with The Phantom (John Turturro), Zohan fakes his own death and flees to America. While in America, Zohan finds work at a hair salon run by a Palestinian woman named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and finds a friend in Michael (Nick Swardson), all of whom revolve around this completely insane race war (I think) that makes ABSOLUTLEY no sense when I was watching it. But I didn’t care. There were parts of this movie that I wasn’t too fond of, but there were jokes in this film where I was laughing out loud. The only other Adam Sandler movie where that has happened was during the song from The Wedding Singer, and here it happened when Sandler took a shot at Mel Gibson. Since Sandler is Jewish, and Gibson’s anti-Semitic comments have made him truly infamous, the joke in there is just filled with pure hatred, and it is hysterical. I won’t spoil it, but-dang, that joke was hilarious. Either way, the film is filled to the brim with jokes, some are hits, some are misses, but there are more of the former than the latter, something unseen for a Sandler film. You can consider this the light in the cloud. And when Jack and Jill comes out on DVD, I have to watch that, and then the cloud will darken again. YAY!
7.5/10

Real Steel (2011)

Okay, I know that I’m really behind on my reviews, but my Freaks and Geeks binge is over, as all 18 episodes have been digested by my brain (it is the second best drama show out there, behind AMC’s Breaking Bad, not including HBO, SHOwtime, FX, or any other TV-MA [which I cannot see] shows of the like), which makes me so sad. JUDD APATOW, MAKE MORE FREAKS AND GEEKS! I don’t care about if you have to make new characters, just make more episodes! MORE FREAKS AND GEEKS! But it’s time for me to stop ranting about things I love so very close to my heart, this is time for Real Steel. To imagine Real Steel, think Over the Top but with Wolverine and robots. That fight. Hugh Jackman and fighting robots should have been a more exciting film. But it is not. Based off of the Richard Matheson short story “Steel” (which if you even look at the actual plot of the story, which was butchered in the film, you could make a really good movie with this), the film follows down-on-his-luck former-boxer Charlie Kenton, who exists in a world, supposedly nine years in the future (not gonna happen), in which robots have taken over from humans in boxing. So now Kenton is buying robots and making them fight (there is a scene where the robot punches a cow). And when he is down on money, rent, and everybody hates him, he finds out he has a son, and his ex-girlfriend, the mother of the son, is dead. Do we know why? Do we even have any sympathy or previous knowledge? Even a montage? Nope. This is one of the few times where I ask for a montage. Anyway, he decides to take care of the son (actually really wonderfully played by Dakoto Goyo, which, in my opinion, is probably one of the strongest things about the film), even though he doesn’t want him around, I don’t get it. Doesn’t matter. But they find this small sparring robot, who they train to fight, including a terrible and soul-wrenching scene in which the son teaches the robot to dance, which becomes a recurring thing in the film, which is because the film beckons me to hate it. *NOTE* I AM GONNA SPOIL SOME STUFF AFTER THIS MOMENT. IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE ENDING OF THE FILM TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT READ ON. IF YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM, OR HAVE BETTER THINGS TO CARE ABOUT, READ ON. *NOTE OVER* And then the film just goes for it, and then completely rips off Rocky. I even quote a very funny CollegeHumor sketch, “Overheard at Real Steel”, in which one of the characters states, “Wait, the bad guy won by descision, how is this any different from the end of Rocky?” “The part in five minutes where I ask for my money back.” If I had paid for the film (and I would have paid for Paranormal Activity 3 instead), I would have asked for my money back. The film is lazy, the script uninspired, the director, Shawn Levy, REALLY needs to stick to super-goofy films like Date Night and Night at the Smithsonian, both of which I like, but they’re ridiculous. Shawn Levy needs to be ridiculous, and if he isn’t, he fails. This movie fails. There are some very good moments, like the acting, the visuals, the fight scenes take Transformers to the ground, and some of the scenes are really fun, but the movie is too light at times, too heavy at others, just uneven, unpleasant, and leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Just go re-watch Rocky.
5.5/10

The New World (2005)

I honestly have no real idea how to start this review off, so…yeah. I just did. Meta. Anyway, me going back and covering all five films of director/writer Terrence Malick has found its second victim in The New World, the epic filmmaker’s fourth flick. Starring Colin Farrell as John Smith, the film chronicles the time when John Smith and others crossed the oceans between Europe and America in 1607 Virginia. While being held prisoner in a Native American tribe, John falls deeply in love with a girl by the name (unspoken in the film) of Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher, who does a wonderful job, just never ask me to pronounce her name. Never). The film, over the course of two-and-a-half hours, covers their relationship, along with the insertion of minor characters played by Christian Bale and Christopher Plummer, but they honestly do not matter. In all truth, John Smith doesn’t matter. The film is about the journey of Pocahontas, who finds people that invade her land, tries to make peace with these people, and is accepted and betrayed by these people. And on that pure aspect, it’s not a bad film. It’s decently unfocused and way too long, but the film is good. Definitely not on par with The Tree of Life, and I can’t vouch for Terrence Malick’s other work, but as a film on an epic scale, it’s very good. The cinematography is amazing, Kilcher should have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, she is purely amazing, but the writing and directing just seem a little off-focus. The entire film is just off-focus. But as long as it’s in the ball park, we’re good.
7.5/10

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix is one of those movies that is going to be remembered for years and years to come. It still has a massive amount of significance twelve years after its release, and it is as smart and brilliant as ever. Released in 1999, the year many consider to be one of the best years in modern cinema (and you’d have to search hard to find decent evidence against that claim, with cult favorite Fight Club, The Matrix, Award beauty American Beauty, among many others), this film still stands as one of the science fiction greats. Personally, I stand it close to Minority Report, which I love very much. Except The Matrix has a decent ending (well, to the film, I haven’t heard such great things about the ending of the entire franchise). Starring Keanu Reeves (in one of about three films he’s in that are good) as Thomas Anderson, known as the hacker Neo, the film takes place in a world where everything we know is a lie. According to the mythology of the film, in the early 21st century, the war between man and machine crowned a winner, and the humans had lost to their own creations, these solar-powered metallic monsters. In the middle of the war, in an attempt to defeat the machines, man blocked out the sun powering the robots. But they found a decent-enough replacement-us. Found in the sun, also found in humans are the necessary materials needed to run these things. So humans started to be grown like plants, and harvested, and then tossed away when they die. And in order to keep the humans still and occupied, so that we could be harvested, the machines created this computer program known as The Matrix, which we know as our world. The Matrix works almost perfectly. There are a few people who still notice something wrong, one of which is Neo. He is then led farther down the rabbit hole (the movie makes countless references to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and so I thought I might as well too) by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn), and his crew of the Nebuchadnezzar (Carrie-Ann Moss as Trinity, Marcus Chong as Tank, Joe Pantoliana as Cypher, among others), a ship working in the real world to try to end The Matrix. Residing in The Matrix in order to kill the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar is Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), who tries to kill the crew while they are in The Matrix, taking Neo to see The Oracle, who will tell him if he is ‘The One’, the person destined to bring down The Matrix. Sound confusing enough? Don’t even get me started on the whole bug thing. Either way, as weird and confusing as this movie sounds, it is completely brilliant. The movie sticks to its own science, it is brilliant, it is wonderful, and it is easily one of the single greatest science fiction films ever made.
9/10

Zookeeper (2011)

A lot of people really have been bagging on this film, some downright calling it one of the worst films of the year. It really isn’t. It’s just completely inept, and has not a single joke that follows through. There are scenes where something will probably happen, dumb joke or not, at least they’re trying. But there is no payoff. And that is a truly disappointing thing. Kevin James, in this film, blandly portrays a zookeeper named Griffin, who when he tries to propose to his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb), who later turns him down. It was a wonderful proposal, everything was perfect. “It shouldn’t bother me that you’re a zookeeper, but, it kind of does.” Which is the single only funny and true joke in the entire film. Which is kind of sad. There aren’t even any attempts for jokes (besides that one) in this entire film. It’s like the Amy Adams flick Leap Year. You can’t call it a failed attempt at comedy, because there is no attempt to fail at! And even if movies don’t have jokes, it can still be good. As long as the characters are likable, their words are what people would actually say, and the film doesn’t try to cheat out of work, it should be good. But here, we have no emotional attachment to the characters, we have nothing of any importance to say about them. None of the dialogue even makes sense, and the film just gets by on being completely lazy. The crew on this film treats it like I do Latin homework the night after an AMC show is on. Forgetful, and doing it at the last minute. I should probably explain the rest of the plot. After his heart is broken, Griffin finds out that the animals at the zoo he works at can talk, and they help him try to win back his former girlfriend also with the help of a fellow zookeeper (Rosario Dawson), and we know how this is going to end up. But the thing is, none of this film is making sense. Why would a bunch of zoo animals try to help this bumbling idiot get a girl? ITJUST MAKES ME ANGRY! Hate is a strong word, I do recognize that. I use it more than I should, and I’m trying to tone down. I am toning down right now. I hate Kevin James. He has never made a good film. This is a truly terrible, lazy, and completely unfunny film. Please stay away.
2.5/10

The Tree of Life (2011)

I am both fortunate and unfortunate to be born a film-lover in the final years of the 20th century. I am fortunate because I can completely evaluate twenty-eight years of Terrence Malick’s career in five films. I am unfortunate because I never got to experience them in the theaters, on the largest screens, with others who love film. I never got to pay eleven dollars, walk in, and go see The Godfather. I never got to run in opening night to The Lord of the Rings. Instead, I’m sitting in a crowded theater for two hours watching Hop. But I am still glad for the first thing I said. I’m glad I can fully evaluate one man’s work in two hours. And I am also glad that, if I choose so, I can have the first film I see by a director his magnum opus. The only problem with Terrence Malick is that every film he makes is his magnum opus. So I’m just going backwards. The Tree of Life, then The New World (which I am watching as I write this review), then eventually The Thin Red Line, then Days of Heaven, and lastly, his first feature film, Badlands. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ve wasted enough words. Now let’s talk about The Tree of Life. An experimental drama set mostly through the eyes of a Midwestern family in the 1950s, The Tree of Life is the story of father and son. The father, Mr. O’Brian (Brad Pitt) of Waco, Texas, is a less-than-compassionate father. His son Jack, played as a kid by Hunter McCracken, who is truly amazing (the character is also played by Sean Penn as an adult for ten seconds, which is truly frustrating). The third central piece to the puzzle is Mrs. O’Brian (wonderfully and simplistically played by Jessica Chastain), an idealistic housewife who, honestly, puts way too much faith into her family. This trio, along with two other kids, create the O’Brien family, which is the main focal point of the film, although including an extremely impressive 30-minute-long sequence about the creation of the universe, created, which is reported to have been created practically, like the effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is amazing. My God, is it amazing. A lot of this film is truly amazing. It is unnaturally subtle, and a lot of the events in the film aren’t explained. However, if you pay close attention, and try to forgive the few times when so little is explained that it is incomprehensible, this is a great film that completely deserves to be seen. Do not be surprised when Malick’s name is tossed around during Oscar season.
9/10

The Godfather (1972)

For over one full year, from August 13th 2010 to October 14th 2011, the 2010 Edgar Wright film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World was my favorite film. Then came the day of October 15th 2011. I sat on the couch, staring completely for five minutes shy of three hours, and watched Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 adaptation of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. The spot has been filled. Mr. Coppola, I congratulate you. You have done what many people deem impossible. You have appeased a published cynic. Well done. Chronicling the events of the Italian-American Corleone family between 1945 and 1955, The Godfather is a tale of betrayal, corruption, murder, and family. And with some families, those like the Corleones, those four words mean the exact same thing. At the beginning of this little morality tale, the patriarch (that word is honestly one of my favorite words) of the family is Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in this), a man who, after an assassination attempt due to a lack-of-help in protection of a heroin business, is forced to be bed-ridden, and unable to perform his duties. There is a great line in the film-“He put a gun to the man’s head and told him it would either be his brains or his signature on the contract. Then he changed his mind.” This combined with the murder of Sonny (James Caan, in a performance nominated for Best Supporting Actor), one of Vito’s sons (the one who put the severed horse head in a man’s bed), leads one of Vito’s other sons Michael Corleone (Al Pacino, who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor), who previously wanted nothing to do with the family business, to take up a much darker personality and lifestyle. Consider the story of Michael Corleone to be similar with the story of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars films. In the original trilogy, you think the story is about Luke Skywalker. In the first hour of the first film in The Godfather trilogy, you think that Don Vito Corleone is the main character. And despite the fact that he won Best Actor, he is not the main actor in it. Al Pacino is. The Godfather is the tale of the corruption of Michael Corleone, as he takes his father’s place in the business. And what a beautiful tale it is. Nothing, even by the standards of those who nit-pick all films to the bone, is wrong with this film. It is a purely perfect movie. The direction by Francis Ford Coppola (nominated for Best Director) is outstanding, the screenplay by Puzo and Coppola is perfect (winner for Best Adapted Screenplay), and the acting is truly some of the single best and most memorable performances in human history. Seriously, do watch this fabulous film. You cannot call yourself a lover of film without it. I was lying when I called myself a lover of film. Now I am not.
10/10

Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932)

NOTE: Sometimes the film is referred to as just Scarface, sometimes just The Shame of the Nation, and at times the full title, Scarface: The Shame of the Nation. Due to the fact that I have the liberty to choose the titles freely, I am siding with the AFI with the title. Scarface: The Shame of the Nation was the title listed when the film was said to be the sixth best gangster film of all time, beating the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. And that, my readers, is why I proclaim that this film is good. NOTE OVER. Providing the basis for the soon-to-be-remade 1983 cult Brian De Palma film Scarface starring Al Pacino (which I will finally see in a very long amount of time) and based off of the 1929 novel by Armitage Trail which was based off of the life of Al Capone (my God, that’s a lot of versions), Scarface: The Shame of the Nation tells the story of Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), a man who, through a couple of bullets, rises to the top of the city, which I assume is Chicago, and then watches himself fall from the top, lower than he could have ever imagined. Now, the rise of Tony and the fall of Tony isn’t as crystal-clear as that of Tony Montana in the Brain De Palma film (according to one reviewer, there is a moment where the screen goes black, making the transition between the two. And, unlike many people, being unable to compare the two versions of this film, I can say, pure and true, that this is a good film. Not a brilliant film, not a perfect film, not The Godfather, but a good film none-the-less. If you are like me, and are intent on discovering the full history of cinema, and one of the most fascinating sub-genres, the gangster film, it is definitely worth a watch.
8.5/10

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer (2011)

I think you and I both know where this review is going. I grew up with the Judy Moody books by Megan McDonald. I was around eight or nine when the bulk of them came out, and when you are that age, those books are the single greatest thing ever made. My brother is the same way, falling into that age right now with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Those books are good too. The only difference between the Diary of a Wimpy Kid films and Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer is that the former is good, fun, entertaining, and decently well-made, and while the latter is studio hashed, devoid, brutal trash. So yeah, I’m not a huge fan of this film. Starring the pleasantly (and with the right training, could actually become a very good actress) spunky Jordana Beatty as third grader Judy Moody, the film is one that not even one Judy’s age would enjoy. Seriously. My brother, who is in 4th grade (1 year really doesn’t make a difference), proclaimed this film to be the worst of the year. It nearly brought me to tears. I had never been so proud of him. But by now I should probably be explaining the plot of the film. Judy Moody hates summers, because she never has any fun. So she plans, with her three friends in the ‘toad pee’ club (I am completely serious), to have the most-and I quote-“thrill-a-delic” summer ever. But she is devastated when two of those friends leave for the summer (kid actors who apparently have very good agents, not letting themselves be in the full film), and she is forced to spend the summer, trying to have fun with her Aunt Opal (Heather Graham, what the heck happened?) and her brother Stink, who is a much better character in the comics. They have to help Judy have the best summer ever by collecting more “Thrill-points” than any of her friends, which she does by trying to catch Bigfoot (I’m writing this during the season 2 premier of The Walking Dead, a very serious and horrific and brilliant show, and I’m smiling like nobody’s business listening to myself work over the plot synopsis). I am 100% serious. But you can make a good, funny, and wonderful film out of an insane premise (Think about it-does the plot of Toy Story 2 make much sense to a rational human being either?), but here, the laziness just gets worse. There are no other gags in the film other than bathroom humor and physical comedy, of the lowest common denominator. Like-less than Adam Sandler films. And you all know how much I hate some Adam Sandler films. The direction is unnaturally bland, by the director of such epics as Aliens in the Attic, and the acting is usually atrocious. Graham isn’t terrible and if Beatty plays her cards right, things could work out for her, but everyone else is completely and utterly awful. That’s what this film is. Completely and utterly awful. It’s worse than Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil. It is easily one of the worst flicks of the year.
1/10

The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest film ever made! Well, not really. I still stand by the idea that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, but if someone came up to me saying that The Battleship Potemkin was the greatest film ever made, I would disagree, but still respect and understand the person’s opinion. If someone came up to me claiming that Catwoman, per say, was the greatest film ever made, I would probably have to resort to violence. That was a bad example, yes, but that’s not the point. Is The Battleship Potemkin the greatest film ever made? No. Is it one of the greatest films ever made? It’s debatable, but I say yes. Not THE greatest film, but somewhere high up. And that is high praise coming from anyone who sees as many movies as I do. Granted, other people have seen more, but when you average about 45 films per month, or 540 films a year (dang.), it still counts as high praise. A dramatic retelling of the events leading to the Russian Revolution, The Battleship Potemkin begins with the greatest of all things-meat. And the evilest of all things-rotten meat. The crew of ‘Potemkin’ are forced to eat rancid meat, have horrible living conditions, and have captains who basically count as tyrants. So the entire crew of the battleship rises up, and gets the news to mainland Russia, attempting to completely start a revolution in Russia. The people carry on the revolution after seeing the body of a crew member who was killed in the revolution of the ship, leading to the fictional but entrancing account of a Russian massacre on the Odessa Steps, and a battle between ‘Potemkin’ and the Russian army. This film is amazing. That is without-a-doubt. The massacre at the Odessa Steps is one of the most iconic and often mimicked (even by our good man Martin Scorcese) out of possibly any other scene in contemporary cinema. Now, the film isn’t perfect. It loses its footing at times, and the film being a silent film, I wish there were more little cards to show what the characters were saying, but those complaints are minor. Minor complaints in a field of great. That is what we have here. Pure and utter greatness.
9.5/10

Transformers (2007)

The entire Transformers trilogy in general is difficult to review. Because the people that love this franchise LOVE it, and the people that hate it have seen Citizen Kane. I know. I’m being cynical. Actually, I do like the first movie in this series. It is silly, fun, and a good time. But the second film is trash, and I don’t have too high of hopes for the third. But why should that take away from my enjoyment of this lump of dumb fun? Based off of the toy line by Hasbro, the television series, and a slew of other things, Transformers is the tale of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBouf), whose great-grandfather Archibald went exploring, and found a robotic creature in the ice. Which, inevitably, leads Sam to be confronted by a large amount of giant robots, both good guys and bad guys. They are both looking for the All Spark, the object that creates life for these creatures (there is actually a shot in the climax of the film in which an XBOX 360 turns into a transformer). And if put into the wrong hands, it could end all human life. But in all complete honesty, the plot doesn’t matter to this film. Transformers exists for one reason and one reason only-to watch robots beat each other up. And on that scale, the movie is actually quite fun, and, surprisingly, it has some decent merit to back it up, at least partly. The acting isn’t bad (Megan Fox excepted. I don’t care what you say, she cannot act. Beautiful, yes. Talented, no.), the directing is higher than standard for Michael Bay, and the writing isn’t terrible. The jokes actually do take sometimes, a fact that surprised me, watching it again. Because when the movie came out in 2007, all I knew was that this was the greatest film ever made. Watching it again with my younger brother, four years older, this is not the greatest film ever made. But it is good old-fashioned popcorn entertainment, and in reality, there’s nothing wrong with that.
7/10

Arthur (2011)

I expected to hate this film. I really did. I saw the original because I knew this was coming out, loved it, and was awaiting a very funny review in which I bash this film like no other. But I didn’t hate the movie, actually. In fact, I kind of like it. Is it anywhere near as bad as people say it is? No. It is nearly as good as the original? HECK, NO! But it is still a very good film. If it wasn’t based off of the Dudley Moore film, I think people would have been kinder to the flick. But it was not. Based off of the film of the same name starring Dudley Moore as Russel Brand’s character here, Arthur Bach, we have a revamped version of this movie around thirty years later. Arthur Bach, as I said in my review of the original film, is a lovable drunk who is being forced to marry a girl named Susan (Jennifer Garner) in order for him to keep the near-billion dollars he is the heir of. This would be just fine, except for the face that Arthur has just fallen in love with the Liza Minnelli character from the original, here named Naomi, played by Greta Gerwig. So our lovable billionaire, guided by his nanny Hobson (who in the original was played by a man, John Gielgud, in an Oscar-winning performance), here played by Helen Mirren (somebody was talking about how he wanted her to win the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress? What?), has to figure out what is more important to him, the girl or the money. It’s basically the same as having to choose between a hollow chocolate bunny wrapped in gold, or a filled chocolate bunny with some bruises, found in the bottom of the freezer. I use the chocolate bunny metaphor a lot, and I do like that metaphor very much. It represents a lot of things. But not back to the review. The movie does have a sense of charm that the original encompassed, even if in a lesser capacity. There are a lot of the jokes in the film that work, and a good few that don’t. All of the performances do take very well; the script and the direction are both simple and good, and the movie is just plain good. Nothing special about it, you forget it within the course of twenty minutes, but it’s an enjoyable experience, and not harmful at all. There is much worse stuff you can see.
7.5/10

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with my brain? Is it that I just don’t understand, or is it just that my senses are different? Because this movie was not funny. There were a couple moments of the film that are very funny, but far and few between. Maybe it’s just another Happy Gilmore. A movie that the entire world is convinced is hilarious but I do not find good at all. Because this movie is just not funny. Not as unfunny as Happy Gilmore is, but still unfunny on a decently monumental aspect. The film starts Will Ferrell as the title character, Ricky Bobby, who is one of the greatest NASCAR hillbilly drivers out there. He doesn’t like to work with other people. He has a beautiful and extremely attractive and kind of stupid wife (Leslie Bibb), a best friend (John C. Reily) who always boosts Bobby into 1st but has never had a second in a place other than 2nd, and two kids who blatantly swear and throw rude insults out at their ill grandfather (which is one of the few funny parts in the film). But Bobby’s world completely falls apart when a gay French driver names Jean Girard (Sasha Baron Cohen) comes, with the sole mission to race Ricky Bobby, both at the top of their game, in a race for the ages. Ricky becomes fed up with beating Girard, to the point of complete mental breakdown. This man’s life falls apart, and must find redemption, at the help of one of his old associates (Amy Adams), by completing the task that made him lose his complete mind in the first place. The film is riddled with a good couple other smaller roles by very cool people, including the always fabulous Jane Lynch, our own Kenneth Parcell, Jack McBrayer, and Michael Clarke Duncan, the man who fought Ben Affleck in Daredevil (I seriously think I am the only person who likes that film). But, in the end of it all, the movie does not work. I don’t care about any of these characters. And most of the jokes just are not that funny. There are a couple jokes that take, including one involving Theodore Roosevelt, but most of them are just failed attempts or not attempts at all. There are talented people in this film. Just not any good comedy to back it up.
4.5/10

Moneyball (2011)

NOTE: Since the film is based off of a true story, I am going to spoil some stuff. Enter at your own risk, my readers. I would like to live in a world where Aaron Sorkin makes a movie every year. So far, we had The Social Network in 2010 and now Moneyball in 2011, if we get another in 2012, I shall be very happy. In all honesty, Aaron Sorkin is the only reason I went out of my way to go see this in the theaters. If not him having co-written the screenplay, I probably would have ended up seeing something like Dream House or Abduction, which, unfortunately, I have to end up watching when the DVD comes out. But that’s neither here nor there. I probably would then just have watched this movie on DVD, regretted that I didn’t see it in the theater, and then bought the DVD. See my opinions on Hanna, Trollhunter, The Beaver, and Everything Must Go for more information. But, long story short, I am very glad that I got to see this wonderful film. Currently, it has nudged its place between Hanna and Trollhunter on my ‘Best of 2011’ list, a place it has earned and deserves. The plot of the film, based on a true story, tells the story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the manager for the Oaklank A’s in 2001/2002, etc. The Oakland A’s, in 2001, is a terrible team. Just short and sweet. They are downright terrible, and it’s not even their fault. They just don’t have enough money. I would probably eat my own foot for $30 million, but apparently in the baseball world, that is nothing. I quote Brad Pitt-“There are rich teams, and there are poor teams. Then there’s fifty feet of crap. And then there’s us.” But Mr. Beane’s luck begins to change when Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), based off of someone who didn’t want himself to be played by a sweaty, nerdy Jonah Hill (understandable, but still unreasonable), a young, spunky, brilliant Yale graduate, who comes up with a system for finding the best forgotten players in the business, in order to find a winning team, an ‘island of misfit toys’, as they put it. Nobody thought it would work. Not a single soul on the planet other than those two had even the slightest idea that good would come of this. 20 games. The Oakland A’s won 20 consecutive games in 2002, the world record for a baseball winning streak. Amazing. This movie is amazing. Is it as good as The Social Network is? No, of course not. The Social Network deserved Best Picture last year, without a doubt. And I assume greatly that Moneyball is going to be announced this January, as well as Brad Pitt on Best Actor. Jonah Hill for Best Supporting? Not as likely, this really isn’t Jonah’s film, and it’s not an Award-ready character, but if Jonah Hill keeps being smarter than the version of him that’s 10 years older, Seth Rogen, he’ll be making brilliant comedies and quick dramas while Rogen is making the sequel to The Green Hornet. So, in short, the acting in the film is very good. The direction of the film by Bennett Miller, who also directed Capote is very well-done, quiet, quick, and amazing. There is one scene in the film, that is just a flash of different computer shots with the characters talking, and it just works to so much extent. It was one of the best montage sequences in a film this year, coming from a person who HATES montages. And now for the script. Co-written by Aaron Sorkin. I say no more. I want to see another Oscar nod for Sorkin. The script is amazing. In short, I will say once again two more words-Aaron Sorkin.
9.5/10