The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

I think that I can appreciate The Lord of the Rings as a complete, 9-hour film instead of a 3-part, 3-hour-per-part series. You cannot watch these three films as three films in a trilogy as one would with the Star Wars films. It is one single film. And if it was released as a single 9-hour film, it would easily crack my top ten. But sadly, no. I do understand why it wouldn’t be a great decision to release a 9-hour film, but that is on a commercial aspect, not a critical one. I was talking with my friend, who had seen Contagion a day or so after I did. I really liked the film; he did not. But we both agreed that the movie would have been better if it was about 3 hours long. Will everybody go see a 3-hour movie? No, but it would make a better film. Picking up where the last part, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, left off, we follow hobbits Sam (Sean Astin), Frodo (Eljah Wood), and the devious former-hobbit Gollum/Sméagol (Andy Serkis) continue their quest to throw the One Ring into the fires of a volcano in Mordor, while Gollum pits Frodo and Sam against each other, trying to get the ring for himself. Meanwhile, the evil lord Sauron plans to finish his conquest of Middle-Earth, while Gondor is being defended by Gandalf the White (Ian “Magneto” McKellen), and the new king Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), who summons an army of the dead to fight with Gandalf. If they lose this battle, the hobbit duo won’t be able to destroy the One Ring, and Sauron will have complete and utter control over Middle-Earth. I am such a dork. What I love about this series is that it is made by people who want a real adaptation. They want to make an epic fantasy film. And that is what they made. Peter Jackson has grown from a genre filmmaker of horror and comedy to an epic filmmaker unlike any other. With these films, King Kong, and the upcoming two-part Hobbit film coming up, Peter Jackson truly has become one of the greatest epic filmmakers of our generation. There is a reason this movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture. There’s a reason the previous two films were nominated for the same award. Because all these films are amazing.
9.5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Peter Jackson truly has created a fantasy world unlike any other with his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This is a fantasy epic unlike any other. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, while I consider it to be the weakest film in the trilogy, that’s like saying that Hot Fuzz is the weakest of the Edgar Wright films. The least member in a pile of brilliance is still brilliance in itself. And that is the single way I can describe The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Based off of the book of the same name by J.R.R. Tolkien, we pick up right where the first book/film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, left off. Gandalf the Grey (Ian ‘Magneto’ McKellen NOTE: This is just what I call him), having previously sacrificed his life in order to save the Fellowship of the Ring from a horrible beast, is resurrected as Gandalf the White weeks later. In the time between, hobbits Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) of the Fellowship continue their quest to destroy the One Ring by throwing it into the middle of a volcano in the evil land of Mordor, where they are encountered by Gollum (Andy Serkis), a former-hobbit whose mind and body were twisted by the One Ring many years ago, whose only mission is to get it back. Meanwhile, Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), a trio of fighters, also a part of the Fellowship, are met by Gandalf the White as they prepare to fight against Saruman the White’s army, under the allegiance of Sauron, the creator of the One Ring, who plan to take over all of the surrounding lands to Mordor, and possibly control the world. To a geek of this franchise, everything I just said made absolutely perfect sense. And I have become a geek of this franchise. Granted, I have read not a single page of what Tolkien has written, but Peter Jackson’s words are enough for me now. This series is magical, mystical, dramatic, emotional, and compelling. And it is also really, really, awesome. It is the only fantasy series that I can truly say has an even fighting chance against the Harry Potter franchise.
9/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

YOU SHALL NOT PASS on watching this amazing film! The Hobbit was written in 1937 by J.R.R. Tolkien. The producers saw the critical and commercial acclaim of the novel, and demanded a sequel. And so the ‘founder of modern fantasy’ came up with The Lord of the Rings, a three-part epic saga published in the 50s. There have been many attempts to make this epic into film, but none have been that successful until Peter Jackson got his big break. The man who was previously known for the slapstick horror films reminiscent of The Evil Dead, Bad Taste and Braindead (released as Dead Alive in America), Peter Jackson made a movie in 2001 that made his place on the map well-known and outstanding. He later went to direct the second and third films in the series, the 2005 remake of King Kong, and…The Lovely Bones. But he also produced District 9. Either way, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was a landmark for Jackson, one well-deserved. The plotline of the film follows the basic plot of the first book in Tolkien’s epic, having young hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), nephew of Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), on a mission to return the One Ring, a magical malevolent ring created many years ago and resurfaced by the once-hobbit Gollum (Andy Serkis), to Mordor in order to destroy it. He is a part of the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’, consisting of him, his best friend and fellow hobbit Sam (Sean Astin), master wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian ‘Magneto’ McKellen), Dunedain ranger Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), Elvish prince and master archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and the axe-wielding dwarf Gimli (John Ryse-Davies), among a few others. These men are on a mission to go destroy the One Ring, and especially not let it get into the hands of Saruman the White (Christopher Lee), who is a servant for Sauron, a giant floating eyeball, who is attempting to return in human form, who created the One Ring many years ago, and wants to use it for his own evil-doing. I am being completely serious. In the context of this world, this makes complete and utter sense. And I am okay with that. Because the film is graceful, fun, magnificent, and just bloody brilliant. I find few problems with this brilliant little gem, but there are some there. There are a few moments in the film where I just stared blankly, and said-“Really?” I mean, there was nothing that extremely took me out of the film, just a few things that I know I would have done a different way. But those small things mean absolutely nothing against the brilliance that is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. NOTE: A lot of my friends read these reviews, so I direct this last passage to you-As soon as you all can accept the fact that Harry Potter is not coming back, and you need something to fill the void in your heart, watch these movies. They’ll do you good. Oh, I’m gonna pay for that tomorrow.
9.5/10

The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

(NOTE: I’m gonna spoil some stuff, so…yeah. Read at your own risk, or whatever. This movie doesn’t even deserve a formal note) A common misconception among those who don’t study the art of film is that film nerds will praise any movie made before the 60s, or the 70s, or whatever. You know what I mean. There is a reason that this is a misconception. Because, just solely due to the fact that a movie is old, doesn’t mean that it is good. And The Boy with Green Hair is not a good movie. It is a dumb little movie. And I do not like those dumb little movies. I like smart movies. A movie doesn’t have to be amazingly genius in order to be good. It just needs to have a couple people who care about the project working on it. And here, we have nothing. Just lazy, boring filmmaking. I didn’t know that these lazy of filmmakers were around before the days of Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, Sean McNamara, or Ewe Boll. The film’s plot is an earnest one, much less to me than to others. A boy, whose family was ravished by war, finds out that his parents, or one of his parents, or whatever, had died in the war. So, 40 minutes (half-way) into the film, he decides to dye his hair green. And then people begin to mildly get concerned. And somehow, that leads to the fact that this child’s life is ruined by the sheer fact that he has green hair. Even as I’m writing this, I don’t understand any reason how this film could be even called good. The basic message in the film, that war is bad, is a good one, but that doesn’t really matter when it’s just bogged down by a useless story and terrible acting, does it? I don’t think so. A lot of people will probably disagree with me on this, and I say this kindly: a lot of people do not care about the quality of the film, just the message. Please, I ask of you, do not take this in a negative manner. I assume you will. I mean no harm. But I can back this up with an example. I was talking to a woman beside a Redbox machine (very useful, if you can get to one), I will not say who, but we were talking about some of the selections. I was recommending a few films, and then we started talking about the movie Soul Surfer. I told her the exact same thing that I told her in my review: that I thought that is was not a very well-made film. It was unnecessary. This woman then explained to me how I was wrong in judging the film. She told me that it was about the girl overcoming the shark attack, and not just a film for your entertainment. I KNOW THAT! And you have no right to tell me what I’m doing wrong in doing something that I have been doing since I was nine years old. Is that to say that I don’t have things I need to learn? No. I have things I need to learn. I just don’t want to listen to you tell a published reviewer of film how to do his job. I’m really sorry, I just had to get that off of my chest.
1.5/10

Hanna (2011)

Davey likey. What makes Hanna such a brilliant and odd little slice of cinema is that it is not an action film. Here, we have a film directed by Joe Wright, who directed such dramas as Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, and…um…The Soloist. And this film is no different. Hanna is not an action film. It is a drama, a character piece. It just so happens that the character we’re focusing on is a sixteen-year-old girl who can murder you in the course of ten seconds with nothing but her hands and her wit. Seriously, there is a scene in this movie where she starts crying. The CIA agent, believing her to be having a girl moment, starts to hold her and give a reassuring word. Hanna then promptly goes to break the agent’s neck, and takes down a very large number of guards in a very short amount of time. And that, in short, is the entire film. We have this sweet scene of drama, this true light of brilliance, and then we see some awesome action. And that is what makes this movie work. It blends wonderful drama with epic action. The plotline of the film concerns a child named Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), who is raised for sixteen years in the wilderness by her father Erik (coincidentally Eric Bana). Hanna is being trained to hunt ruthlessly, deadly, like that of a professional assassin. She is told that as soon as she believes she is ready, she can flip a switch that allows her to go into the world freely. The only catch is that a ruthless CIA agent Marissa (Cate Blanchett) is going to be tracking her and doing whatever she can to stop this child. Why, you may ask in such a clichéd manner? Because, without trying to spoil too much, Hanna is part of an experiment gone awry that involved Erik many years ago. So, Erik escapes, and soon, Hanna does as well. And it becomes a chase film. Marissa is chasing Hanna, Hanna is trying to reconcile and find Erik, and we have a chase film involving three brilliant assassins. And now we have where the drama aspects of the film come in. The other half of the film is a coming-of-age film with a central character who has never had contact with the outside world. She meets a family on her way to reunite with her father, and has a special bond with the daughter of the family, which is kind of tragic. This girl is Hanna’s only friend. And that is kind of sad. That element is where a lot of the drama in the film comes in, and it works. The movie works on nearly every single level. It is a brilliant tragic coming-of-age drama, it is also a brilliant spy thriller. There is a scene in this movie, one single shot, where Eric Bana takes down about seven assassins in a subway. The shot is about thirty seconds long, and it is amazing. It is probably the single greatest single-shot piece in a film since the airplane crash in 2009’s Knowing. But here, it’s in a good film. A very good film. A great film. Let’s cut to the chase, just watch this movie already, kay?
9/10

Solaris (1972)

Only once in a blue moon does a film come along like Solaris. Or, I should say, once in a freaky psychic blue ocean. It is nearly impossible for me to talk about this film’s plot without somehow setting off a chain of events that will get you to know the ending of the film, which is probably the single greatest and most twisted and trippy and “Ha, ha!” endings since Citizen Kane. Because in both of these movies, you are captivated for the entire time. With Citizen Kane, a lot of people think that the ending is lackluster; personally, I do not, and I mention that because not a single soul could have figured that out. But with Solaris, we have what Inception was supposed to do for me. It made me feel like an idiot and clap my hands at the same dang time. And, me trying so hard not to go on another Inception rant, have to say that, while I enjoyed Inception, it didn’t make my brain melt like it did for a lot of people. When you see those final frames of Solaris, your brain just melts out of your ears. When it was done, I sat there for about a minute, just staring as the credits rolled. It has the same effect on me as a good horror film does. It blows me away. And here, it does. It lifts your brain out of your skull, and smashes it with a hammer until you feel numb for about five minutes. But it’s the kind of numb like The Sixth Sense, not like Bratz: The Movie numb. And now that I’ve name-dropped as many movies as I can in a coherent paragraph, let me talk about the plot of a movie that kicked Hot Fuzz out of my ‘Top 10’ favorite movies list. In short, Solaris is a film about Kris, a psychologist who is sent down to the distant planet ‘Solaris’ in order to help the crew of three that reside in the station, who need psychological help, claiming to have seen very strange things. So much to the point that when Kris gets there, one of the three has already committed suicide. And less than twenty-four hours after touching base on ‘Solaris’, Kris begins to see visions of a woman, who was obviously from Kris’ past. And that is all I am going to say about Solaris’ plot. And now let me begin my comparisons to a different science fiction film. Personally, Solaris might be my favorite science fiction film. If not, it’s at least the second or third, behind Stanley Kubrick’s film released 4 years before, 2001: A Space Odyssey. These two films are alike in so many ways, it is obvious that Andrei Tarkovsky, the director of this fine film, took a couple of notes while watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. These films are both slow, confusing, brilliant, is loved by anyone who loves film, and hated by anyone who watches a film like the general public does; solely to be entertained. And there is nothing wrong with it truthfully, but-let me put this test out. You get to watch one package of three movies; Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, and Titanic, or you can watch Transformers, X-Men, and Independence Day. I love all six films mentioned here, and will watch them over and over again. It’s just that the first three films listed-if these movies are your kind of movies, watch Solaris right now. If you are keener to the latter three, and there is nothing wrong with that, stay away from this film. It is two-and-a-half hours long, it is in Russian with subtitles, and it is an extremely slow-moving an atmospheric film. But it is an art film. And if you can stand subtitles, and love these kind of slow brilliant haunting films, watch this. And if not, watch Cloverfield (P.S. I LOVE CLOVERFIELD SO MUCH, it sits right below Solaris on my list, and it is an amazing popcorn sci-fi film). You’ll love it, but Solaris is not your film.
9.5/10

Elf (2003)

When it comes to comedy movies, there is really only one single requirement-its heart needs to be in the right place. Elf’s heart is definitely in the right place, right next to its main character, Buddy, an orphaned human baby, who, when Santa Claus visits his New York orphanage, crawls into the giant bag where all the toys are kept. When Santa goes back to the North Pole, he and the elves realize that they have a baby they have to take care of. Fast-forward about thirty years. Buddy (Will Ferrell) is a full-grown human being, raised in a community of elves as one of their own. But when he finds out that he is actually a human, he goes to New York to find his biological father (James Caan), who quickly dismisses him as some silly performer, until he gets news that makes him take Buddy in. Meanwhile, Buddy makes friends with a woman portraying an elf at a lackluster shopping mall set named Jovie (the positively wonderful Zooey Deschanel), who Buddy quickly takes a liking to, due to the sheer fact that she is a true optimist at heart. The thing about Buddy is that he has no concept of what we deem proper and improper in our society. He puts syrup on spaghetti, and gives it to his father for breakfast (to quote the film-“We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup.”). He falls in love at sheer first sight, and has the nerve to go through with it. Buddy isn’t afraid of the things we’re afraid of. He just lives life the way he wants to live life. He holds this sense of sheer innocence that is brilliantly charming. Honestly, Will Ferrell’s performance in this film rivals only two others: his performances in the comedy-dramas Stranger than Fiction and Everything Must Go. These three performances are dramatic performances (and by that I mean it is completely earnest, true, and 100% believable), it just so happens that here it is in a comedy film. Will Ferrell is a brilliant actor, and if he stuck to only serious roles, he would be holding an Oscar by 2015. But, we mustn’t forget the amazing Zooey Deschanel, who is probably one of my favorite working actresses in American cinemas currently. She has this sense of joy and life that most actors lack now-a-days. The film is directed by Jon Faverau, who would later direct the mega-hit Iron Man. Faverau doesn’t really have a specific style of direction other than straightforward, honest filmmaking. And that is what we have here, and that is what we need. If there is anything we can completely learn from Elf, it’s that elves and humans have extremely differentiating lifestyles. But another thing we can learn from Elf is that one spark of joy in a forest of cynicism will set off a fire.
8.5/10

The Ultimate Gift (2007)

I read The Ultimate Gift, which this movie is based off of, a couple of years ago. I think that I was maybe ten years old. Even then, I knew that this story was preachy, melodramatic, and not even that well-written. But I could forgive it. The movie is worse. It does what I hate about these kinds of movies, the ones that critics hate and the public loves. But these opinions are for extremely different reasons. These movies aren’t real movies-they’re Sunday school lessons. Film critics judge these as movies, as they should be judged; the people are mostly blind to the incompetence that some of these films show. And this is not said to be an attack, not to be mean to anyone. It is the sheer, cold, truth. It’s the reason that if you ask someone if they like a movie that features strong violence, language, ect; they’ll say they don’t like the film. Not because the film wasn’t a good film, but because they had a moral issue with the film. I am putting this out there right here, right now-movies don’t care what your morals are. The Godfather has a decapitated horse, but yet it is recognized as one of the greatest movies ever made. Movies are movies. If you want a message, or something that will appease children living in an over-protective household, go to a church and borrow one of those DVDs. I’m not necessarily hating on those; they’re just not real movies. They’re messages. And the single biggest ways that a movie can fault is when they care more about getting the message across than making a movie. And that is exactly what The Ultimate Gift does. It tells the story of Jason, a spoiled brat who, when his great-uncle dies, is brought to receive ‘the ultimate gift’, which is basically a series of menial tasks to make the audience have some emotion for the character. Along the way he meets a thirty-something single mother, and her daughter (Abigail Breslin, who is basically the only person I care enough about to research the actor, and it pains me so much that she is in this), who has cancer, a sub-plot that was not in the novel, and is crow-barred in so much that it hurts to watch all of the sappy soap-opera-like things go on in a 2 hour period. This movie is a painful film to watch. Most of the time I was just ticked. But by the end of the film I was angry. At the end, they try to pull every single heart string imaginable. And it just ends up in a ball of anger and hate. This movie did the exact opposite of what it was trying to do. I feel like being a selfish brat just in spite of this film. Because that is all the movie wants. It doesn’t care if it is a good movie; it just lives for the sole purpose of cramming these messages down our throats. And that crosses the line.
1/10

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

You do not realize how much I love this movie. It is probably impossible for you to comprehend the amount of love I have for Little Miss Sunshine. Because if you have seen the film, you probably like the film a lot. I don’t like this film. I don’t think this film is good. This is an amazing film, on the edge of perfect, one that will stick with me for just about the rest of my life. The first chance I get, I will buy it, and then watch it over and over again. I was going to buy it today, before I got a chance to write this review, but they did not have. And that is why they invented Amazon.com. But, back to the film, Little Miss Sunshine is one of the single best movies I have ever seen. Every single aspect of this film is amazing. The screenplay (which I read a couple months before watching the film)is the first one written by Michael Arndt (whose second screenplay was a little film known as Toy Story 3), is one of the best screenplays I have ever read, and is even better with this transition from script to screen. I am so glad that the movie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, because if it hadn’t, I would be angry beyond belief. The film is directed by first-time directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a husband-and-wife team who direct the film with a sense of wise understanding and childlike innocence. And the cast of the film is one I can never praise enough. I consider the cast of Little Miss Sunshine to be one of the single best casts in a film in movie history. Greg Kinear plays Richard Hoover, a down-on-his-luck, hyperactively stubborn motivational speaker from Albuquerque, trying to get his ‘The 9 Steps’ program out there, with little success, and little help from his overworked wife Sheryl (Toni Collette), her brother Frank (Steve Carell), a gay Proust scholar staying with the Hoovers after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, his addict foul-mouthed father (Alan Arkin), and Sheryl’s son from her first marriage, Dwayne (Paul Dano), who has stopped speaking until he can get into flight school. He hasn’t spoken a word in nine months. The only innocent person in this already dysfunctional family is Olive (Abigal Breslin), the seven-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, California. When Olive learns that she is able to enter the pageant (she was second place, but-I quote-“The winner had to forfeit her crown, I don’t know why, something about diet pills, but now she has a place in the state competition in Redondo!” I probably misquoted that, and I do apologize for that), the entire family travels in their Winnebago to California, hilarity and wonderful drama ensues. There is a scene in the film, where one of the characters says (and I’m sorry I’m spoiling some of the great lines in here, but there are a lot more)-and I use the Cee Lo Green method censorship here-“You know what? Forget beauty contests! Life is one forgetting beauty contest after another…Just do what you love, and forget the rest.” That is probably one of the single most honest statements I have ever seen in a movie. So listen to me here people-do what you love, and forget the rest.
9.5/10

The Illusionist (2010)

Maybe this movie just doesn’t work for me. There is something off about it that doesn’t appeal to my taste. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good film, and one that I suggest that you see just for the sake of seeing it, but it is flawed. There just seem to have some things about it that just makes me uncomfortable. The majority of the film has an extremely small amount of dialogue in it (and that isn’t my problem with the film, one of my favorite movies is Wall-E, which has little dialogue as well), and what dialogue is in the film is mostly French. But I wasn’t offered subtitles. When you click the subtitle feature, and someone is talking in French, it just reads-“Talking in French”. And that is irritating. If you’re going to have them talk in a different language, MAKE IT AVAILABLE SO THAT I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE SAYING! When you have that little dialogue, you need to make it available so that a person can tell what they’re saying. I could not really figure out the plot very well. The plot (according to the film’s Wikipedia page) is about a failing magician in Europe 1959, who, while traveling the cities looking for work, comes across a teenage girl who still believes in all the fancies of being a child, almost to the extent of being ignorant. She believes that this man possesses magical powers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she also believed in the tooth fairy. So the girl follows the illusionist, as he does his best to care for the girl like a daughter, as money falters and the number of jobs he gets becomes lesser and lesser (NOTE: When explaining the plot of this movie to my friends, they made crude jokes, and I had to remind them that this wasn’t a Woody Allen film). The film plays along with this simple premise quite smoothly and gracefully, but the film seems to rely solely on this aspect, making basically a dish that looks graceful, and is light and fluffy, but has no substance to it. But the style of it is extremely nice. The film is wonderful to look at; the animation is spectacular and the music that plays for most of the film is wonderful. But the movie just seems to be lacking in something for me to care about. It is a good film; but you will always realize that you’re watching a movie on your computer (my situation). And for the really good films, you get sucked away into a world of fantasy and magic. Here, you’re just watching a film.
8/10

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

I find no other movie to compare The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with as well as I do with the 1997 James Cameron epic Titanic. Both films are period dramas that are well refined and polite-the kind of drama that would get nominated for Oscars in a second. Both films are by directors of highly stylized films, and both films are extremely long and extremely good. And neither are original ideas. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based off of a short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald which was written in the 1920s. The film is directed by David Fincher, stars Brad Pitt, and has a twist in the film, as all David Fincher films starring Brad Pitt do. But don’t worry. No one is Tyler Durden. It’s a smaller twist, but still a twist. Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a boy who is born the day the First World War ended. He is born with a rare medical condition-he ages backwards. He is born a baby who looks like an old man. When he is seven years old, he looks like a small immature seventy-year-old. And when he is seventeen, he looks like he is sixty. And so on and so forth. His story constantly intertwines with the story of Daisy (played by the amazing Elle Fanning and the fabulous Cate Blanchett as the seven-year-old and twenty-through-sixty-year-old versions of Daisy), a woman who ages naturally (as all of us do) and who strikes a relationship with Button throughout their lives. Actually, the main story is told as a story, being read to Daisy as an old woman in 2005, another similarity to Titanic. The movie plays out mostly for this way. We see these two people’s lives intertwine in some of the strangest ways, and there are some makeup effects and CGI in the film that is just absolutely amazing. We see Brad Pitt ranging from sixty to sixteen, and it works flawlessly. And while the film isn’t a stylish thriller like Se7en or Fight Club, or even a stylish drama like The Social Network, it is just a smart little true drama film that takes fantasy, blend it with reality, and gives us a universe where you can’t even tell which is which.
8.5/10

Contagion (2011)

We see a black screen. *cough*. *cough*. *cough*. That is how the newest Steven Soderbergh film, Contagion, begins. We quickly cut to Gwyneth Paltrow, who quickly dies within ten minutes of the film. She has contracted a deadly and extremely contagious disease while on a business trip to Honk Kong. She gives it to her husband and child (from her first marriage). Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) has something in his blood that makes him immune to the disease, but the son dies just as graphically and brutally as his mother. Mitch, alone, attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter (from his own first marriage), but quarantines her because he isn’t sure that she is immune as well. That is plotline one. Plotline two concerns Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburn) of the CDC, a scientist who is working on trying to find a cure for the disease, and is helped by Dr. Erin Mears (the magnificent Kate Winslet), who is basically the field operative for the disease, her along with Dr. Leonora Oranted (Marion Cotillard, who is one of my new favorite actresses after Midnight in Paris and Incpetion), who is sent away from the screen for an hour since she is kidnapped in Hong Kong, where she is trying to find the source of the disease. And the third (and final, don’t worry) major plotline in the film concerns a freelance blogger (Jude Law), who, during the outbreak, gains a group of thousands of followers who recognize his voice as the only voice of reason, which most of the time, completely goes against the voice of the CDC, and Laurence Fishburn. That was a big plot summary. The movie is about two hours long, and all of the characters, except for Marion Cotillard, are handled very well, which is standard for a Soderbergh movie, particularly like the Ocean’s Eleven movies, which were directed by Soderbergh. The movie is possibly one of the single most effective films I have seen all year. Let me begin this thought to say that-the last time I remember leaving a movie in the middle significantly, for any reason, was in 2007 when I left Spider-Man 3 ten minutes early, because of natural causes caused by an extremely large cup of sweet tea (for the rest of the time, I just forced whoever I was watching to go get me some concessions. Thank you complying friends). I left the theater in the middle of Contagion. For two reasons. One-to buy another one of those ten-gallon sweet tea cups. Two-to wash my hands. I walked in, washed my hands, and walked out. You do not know what kind of weird looks you will get. So yeah-the movie is effective. It made me leave in the middle of the film, and not a lot of movies can do that. I was scared of people touching me for about two hours after, also. This is probably the most effective horror film since I re-watched Arachnophobia about a year ago. Then, I was terrified of spiders. Now, I was terrified of germs. But the movie is not perfect. Some of the characters don’t get what they deserve, and with such actresses, it’s kind of frustrating. But Soderbergh knows how to handle ensemble casts extremely well most of the time, and that is what he does here. This is an amazing film. I recommend it to you greatly. I’m just not gonna shake your hand.
8.5/10

Wild Hogs (2007)

You know what? I’ve seen worse movies in my life than Wild Hogs. But I have seen a lot better. My main problem with Wild Hogs is my main problem with a lot of terrible comedies-they are not funny. This movie is not funny. And most of the characters don’t even strike any resonance with the viewer. The only main character of the four that you care about is William H. Macy, who plays Dudley, a smart, but, kind-of-stupid computer programmer. He is one of four members of the ‘Wild Hogs’, a group of suburban middle-aged friends (or so they say. The four are played by three 60-year-old guys, and then, a 40-year-old Martin Lawrence) who ride motorcycles on the weekends. These four are Doug (Tim Allen), a boring dentist, Woody (John Travolta), a boring rich lawyer, Dudley (William H. Macy), a somewhat non-boring computer geek, and Bobby (Martin Lawrence), a boring plumber. So, in order for them to get rid of some stress they have, they go on a cross-country trip, where they meet a rugged team of actual bikers. They quickly get into a fight, and John Travolta lights their barn on fire. They run for the hills, and meet up in a town where they are loved, and then the bikers come, and there’s a standoff, and they capture Dudley-honestly. A six-year-old could have come up with the plot for this movie. Heck, a six-year-old could have written the script. Yeah-I’m kind of angry at this film. It’s just so incompetent and unfunny, offensive and harmful. This is an extremely mean-spirited film. Most of the jokes rely on homophobia, and they aren’t even good jokes. What we have learned in Hollywood is that you can get away with being offensive (or at least, get in less trouble) if the product is good. For example, I believe that Mel Gibson is one of the single greatest actors in this day-and-age. He is a slimy racist mean person, but he is a brilliant actor. And I see that because he brings a good product forward. Here, not even the offensive stuff is amusing. And that is a new low in my book.
2/10

Everything Must Go (2011)

Evoking such notes as the ones from Stranger than Fiction, we find again that Will Ferrell possessed the ability to act, and act well. Everything Must Go, based off of the short story Why Don’t You Dance? by Raymond Carver, which I have read and is very good, tells the story of Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell), a recovering alcoholic man who is having a really bad day. Within the course of about 90 minutes (and about five minutes for us viewers), Nick loses his job due to an accusation, and then comes home, sad and jobless, only to find out that his wife has left him (because of the same accusation), changed the locks, and has put all of his stuff on the front lawn (we don’t even see the wife in the film). Nick sits in the front lawn in his recliner chair, and quietly begins his relapse. He meets and gets closer with his neighbors, mainly Kenny (a young brilliant actor named Christopher Jordan Wallace) and Samantha (Rebecca Hall), one being a young reclusive teenager who wants to learn how to play baseball, and one being a pregnant young married woman whose husband is nowhere to be found. He meets with these people, and they try their best to help him walk his way through life, even though it seems like every single thing that he touches falls apart. This would be a distressing thing. And the film is a distressing film. For about eighty percent of the film, you feel terrible. You feel awful watching this film. It is reality staring you in the face, the most well-meaning tornado of destruction you can see on film. And it works so well. We knew that Will Ferrell was a good actor with Stranger than Fiction. Here, he gives off an Oscar-caliber performance. With Will Ferrell in Everything Must Go and Mel Gibson in The Beaver, we have two brilliant performances that I fear will be overlooked by the Academy when January comes ‘round. But he can’t hold the film up by himself. The script is this slice of melancholy, dipped in small specks of extremely black humor that only the extremely messed up souls (like myself) will laugh at. And there were a few times that I did laugh at this movie. I laughed, I grieved, I marveled. This is a marvelous film. And it is going to go down unappreciated and forgotten. So this is a note to all of my friends--I am about to force you to watch this movie multiple times, just like I did with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I’m decently sure that my efforts to get the film recognized have brought about 200 dollars of revenue for the film. And my efforts will go to work again! But seriously-if you know me, I’m gonna make you watch this DVD. Enjoy.
8.5/10

Season of the Witch (2011)

Ah, Nicolas Cage, what are we going to do with you? You just do not know how to say no to terrible scripts, do you (there is an extremely funny video on CollegeHumor.com and College Humor’s YouTube page about Nicolas Cage’s agent. It is really funny)? The biggest problem with Season of the Witch is that it is so incredibly boring. There are long stretches in the film where it’s just Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, and some other guys that I don’t care about, just riding horses with a girl in a cage. And it is so incredibly boring. Because, at least with movies like True Grit or The Eagle, the long stretch scenes work because there are characters that you care about. Not here. I can’t even tell you any of the character’s names. In a time that is a really long time ago that I don’t care about looking up where they still trialed people as witches (but not in Salem), Nicolas Cage’s character is best friends with Ron Perlman’s character, and are the best religious fighters in the kingdom, or the world, I don’t care. Either way, they walk away from fighting and become scavengers, for some moral reason or something. And a month later, they return and are put with the task of transporting an alleged witch from point A to point B, where she will get a fair trial, because Cage thinks that the girl should be trailed fairly. And then we have a really long time before something interesting happens, and when it does, it is an ending that is so out-of-character and s out-of-the-blue that it throws you off. But it is sort of cool, in a really dumb sense. But the middle of the film is what makes me so angry. I actually fell asleep for ten minutes while watching the film. I never bothered to rewind the DVD. Because I knew what happened. Absolutely nothing. And that is why this film is terrible. Not because it’s executed badly, not because whatever happens doesn’t seem to matter, it’s just that nothing happens in the entire film. I can’t even recommend Season of the Witch on a dumb film aspect. It is just boring as a movie can be.
1.5/10

Soul Surfer (2011)

I already know that I am going to get a lot of hate for this review. Probably not as much as I did for my Happy Gilmore review, but still a lot. And here’s why. It makes me angry-no-it makes me downright furious that people would recommend movies with Christian messages just because of that fact. The last good Christian movie was…probably The Book of Eli. Isn’t that sad? The last good movie to have strong Christian messages was a rated-r dystopian action film with Denzel Washington. And Soul Surfer really isn’t much of a Christian movie. There are some Christian moments in the film, but not enough for the film to feel preachy, just enough that it is an attempt to be preachy, almost. It relieves me that the film isn’t cramming messaged down my throat, but it does feel a little off-putting. At least in a movie like Letters to God you know what messages they’re trying to send out to you. But the movie, in this aspect at least, is relieving and also off-putting. It’s a hard combination to swallow, and is one that does not take. And I blame this on the director, Sean McNamara, who has officially ended up on my ‘worst directors’ list, somewhere around Ewe Boll. And why is this? Along with the fact that no moments in the film that are good stem from direction, the man was dumb enough to direct Bratz: The Movie. And if you can go read my review of that, you will know that I hate that movie so much. But no moments in the film that are good are at the hand of Mr. McNamara. They’re all from other people, hoping to get somewhat of a good film out of this guy. The writing isn’t terrible most of the time, but the dialogue is on a scale from ‘come on!’ to ‘sort of cheesy’ But that can be forgiven. The acting isn’t terrible either, especially from the main girl, wonderful actress AnnaSophia Robb. She plays the real-life character Bethany Hamilton, who is one of the single most talented young surfers of her generation. But, she gets her arm bitten off by a shark. She survives, and uses her faith (but not really, as evident in this movie), family, and friends to overcome the tragedy and get back in the water (I swear, I didn’t steal this plot synopsis from anywhere; just talking about the plot of the film comes off like the plot of a Hallmark movie). Other characters are played by Dennis Quaid and Carrie Underwood, who really isn’t in the film a lot. There is one scene in here, where she is asking Bethany to come on a mission trip to Mexico (which, if she had been there, she wouldn’t have gotten her hand bitten off), and after she gets a ‘no’, due to the fact that Beth has to keep surfing and get better at it since she was just sponsored, you see this look on Underwood’s face, where she is basically looking like-“Okay. You don’t wanna go? You’re going to lose your arm now.” It’s kind of funny. But the film is just too melodramatic and never hits the points it’s trying to make. Soul Surfer could have been a great film. It could have been an amazing film. But it just never was.
5/10

World Trade Center (2006)

The day that I am writing this review is September 11th, 2011. Exactly ten years ago, two planes, both hijacked by terrorists, flew into the World Trade Center towers. One plane flew into WTC1, and the other flew into WTC2. Over the course of one day, nearly 3,000 people had lost their lives on the grounds of the World Trade Center. Three thousand. (NOTE: This review contains spoilers to the film, as I am talking about a real-life event that was recreated for the screen. You have been warned. NOTE DONE) World Trade Center is a movie directed by Oliver Stone that is the story of two men who weren’t a part of those 3,000. John McLoughlin and William Jimeno (Nicolas Cage and Michael Peńa) were police officers who were trapped under the rubble after the towers collapsed. They banded together, and kept each other alive as their wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gylenhaal, who isn’t terrible in this movie surprisingly) banded together with their families and waited for their husbands to come home. It is difficult to review this as a movie in itself. I’m glad that movies are being made out of the smaller stories in life and in disasters, but they need to be executed well (example of good execution: 127 Hours. Example of bad execution: Soul Surfer). And here, it is executed well, but I do have some problems with the film. The beginning of the film is not well done at all. I was being scared that the film wouldn’t be good, and then I’d have to write a negative review, and then look like the biggest chump in the world. But now I only get to look like a little bit of a chump. But after the first ten minutes or so of the film, it takes off, and then we have a tightly-knit historical drama about these two men strapped down in the middle of what seems like the end of the world. And the film is emotionally satisfying mostly, and is, for about 80% of the film, extremely well-made. It’s just that there are some moments in the film where something doesn’t connect. I couldn’t tell you what it was if I tried. And I apologize for that. But the film is very good, and sheds light on a story that needed to be told. And now that we have one out of the way, we can start working on some other ones. I was three years old when the planes hit the WTC. I have no personal recollection of the event, only seeing pictures and video years later. That makes me sad. When people tell me stories of hearing about it and being utterly terrified, I wish that I could relate. Empathy is a difficult emotion to carry, and is one of the most desired to receive in a time of pain and sorrow. And by human nature, we want to give what we would want in future nights. And empathy doesn’t come. It is always better to experience an event as it is happening. Don’t get me wrong, it’d be better if 9/11 never happened at all. I just wish that I could have been able to grieve, be sad, and be terrified with others. Because if two people are scared together, they are less scared about what they are scared about. People band together in times of sadness and pain, as shown here in this movie. Just some food for thought.
8.5/10

Priest (2011)

It is not gonna surprise me if when Razzie nominations come out for this year, Priest is gonna be covering the list greatly. Not that it’s the worst movie of the year; the Razzies have never really talked about the worst films. Last year, The Last Airbender was awarded ‘Worst Picture’ while Standing Ovation wasn’t even nominated. The Razzies just aren’t that great of an awards ceremony. But Priest is definitely gonna get a couple nods in there, if not a win or two. But don’t get me wrong, this is a terrible film. And I honestly hope that it ends up on my bottom 10 list for 2011 (no matter what I say, it’s always better to watch a good film than to watch a bad one), but it probably won’t. But it might-we are having what is probably the best year for film dorks since around 2007 (I know, I know. We got Bratz, Daddy Day Camp, and Epic Movie, but we did get Juno and Persepolis). This year, I still have The Smurfs, Zookeeper, Apollo 18, Shark Night 3D, Spy Kids-All The Time in the World, Seven Days in Utopia, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1, Arthur, Something Borrowed, Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, Columbiana, Dream House, Johnny English Reborn, Puss in Boots, Jack and Jill, New Year’s Eve, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked…maybe I was wrong about this being a good year. Either way, Priest is a decently terrible film. The movie’s plot concerns a priest (played by Paul Bettany) who, after his niece is kidnapped by vampire-maggots, goes out to fight them and get her back. And that is basically it. The movie is a western-inspired sci-fi action horror, and fails on just about every single level. The western influences are all the bad parts of westerns, specifically the giant scenes where they journey that take sooooooooo long. The science fiction doesn’t really work. For most of the film, it doesn’t feel like a sci-fi flick at all. And the horror? There was not a moment in the film where I was scared. Not a moment I was even interested, except for the action scenes. And the action scenes are kind of cool at times. But only some times. But those few moments of things being cool can’t make up for a terrible performance by Paul Bettany and astoundingly awful direction by Scott Stewart (Stewart and Bettany teamed up last year for another religion-hating ‘horror’ flick, Legion, which I thankfully was not forced to see). So yeah, this movie is terrible. Do not go see Priest.
2/10

POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011)

Well, there we have it. The first movie title that, on my master document with all of my reviews, took up two lines. Thanks, Morgan Spurlock. After his big movie in 2004, Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock has not made another big movie. He made the documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? a couple years back, but I never saw it (and I’m pretty sure a lot of people didn’t either). And now Morgan Spurlock, the man who gave up his health for America once is giving up his credibility for us now. In his latest film, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, he makes a movie more meta than anything Wes Craven could have created-a movie about product placement, marketing, and advertisement, funded by product placement, marketing, and advertising. The goal of the film is transparency, and pulls it off extremely well. Morgan begins the film as just a small independent project, with no money behind it. Over the course of the film, with corporate sponsorship, especially by POM Wonderful, the over-the-title sponsor for the film, Morgan Spurlock raised $1.5 million dollars for his movie. And we are here to watch him talk about the industry. What I like about POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold that I didn’t like in Super Size Me was that Morgan is still skewering the subject, but doing so in light and funny way that also compliments the industry. And that is kind of a neat thing. The movie is still funny like Super Size Me is, but a little blunter in its humor than the more-subtle humor that Super Size Me boasted. There is one scene in here where Morgan is pitching commercials to POM Wonderful (NOTE: Another thing I do not like about this film is that at times there are commercials shown. I started to look at my remote and my Redbox case, and wonder-wait-am I watching an AMC cut or something? It just kind of ticked me off), and I was laughing. Because it was actually really funny. So, in the end, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a movie that is probably better then its title sponsor. But I can’t say this for myself. I am saying this on account of what I’ve heard from people saying that when you drink POM Wonderful, you don’t get to get rid of the POM Wonderful for a couple days. I’m so a five-year-old on the inside.
7.5/10

Prom (2011)

This is really not a bad movie. And it shocks no one more than me for me to say this. Actually, Prom is a pretty good film. Granted, I’m saying this on the terms that it’s a good teen romance and is a mile better than High School Musical, but, granted, so are 86% of films released today (that number was made up). The movie blends the classic John Hughes formula with the Valentine’s Day formula. And by that, I mean that the movie concerns a lot of plots and different characters. And while I have not seen the entire film Valentine’s Day, what I have seen is much worse than this movie is. But I have some of the same problems here that I did with Valentine’s Day, this being that the characters we like don’t seem to get enough screen time, and the ones we hate seem to get too much. And due to the fact that Prom is basically a movie with multiple stories that revolve around one night and the preparation for that night. So let me put down my ratings for the storylines of the film, without going into too much detail (if I’m gonna go over the 1000 word mark again, it’s gonna be a movie I’m passionate about). Nova and Jesse-8.5/10 Lucas and Simone-9/10 Tyler and Jordan-5/10 Lloyd-8.5/10 Mei and Justin-4.5/10 Rolo and Athena-4/10 Other assorted storylines-7/10 (NOTE: I did not remember all of these. Thank God for Wikipedia). A lot of these stories work while a lot of them don’t. The film really is a mixed bag. The ones that work do so because they are earnest, thoughtful, and true. The ones that don’t do not because they are lazy, studio-produced pieces of filler. But when something works in the film, it works perfectly. Because it is something that might actually happen. Some of these people look like people who were in high-school. Some of them don’t, but some do. And the events are somewhat realistic. The movie is a bit too cheesy and fluffy for my taste, but-trust me. There are much worse movies out there than Prom.
7.5/10

The Little Mermaid (1989)

When it comes right down to it, how much is there to say about Disney movies? I’ve been catching up on a lot of reviews for movies I’ve watched/re-watched in the past couple of days, and I’m not doing too well on making the reviews long today. So with the added restraint of this movie being a Disney classic, this review is probably going to be short and uninformative. The Little Mermaid, the movie that started the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, a time when Disney released some of their most-loved modern pictures, such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Tarzan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and probably a few others. I am a big fan of this era, I find it to be the best Disney’s been since the inception of the company, and much better than the Disney films (or better said, Disney channel films it seems) of the 2000s. The movie is based off of a legend from a long time ago, as most of these films are, here concerning a mermaid named Ariel who, after saving the life of a human, falls in love with him and sells her voice to an evil witch named Ursula for legs. I’ll let you guess the ending of the film. The movie resides with this sort of atmosphere that is just calm and sweet. And when you add the brilliant musical numbers in, written by the great Alan Menken, the movie just has that sort of simplicity that is so beautiful when it is pulled off right. The movie is just simple perfection. As with all Disney movies, we grow up with them. You play “Under the Sea” for any kid over the age of ten; they’ll know what you’re talking about. Gives you a little bit more faith in today’s youth, doesn’t it?
9/10

Super Size Me (2004)

Morgan Spurlock is a strange individual who has made a strange film. The topic of this film is fast food. Morgan Spurlock is also a little bit of an idiot. Because I think that it is understood that when you eat nothing but McDonald’s for a month after you’ve been a partial vegan, you are going to feel like what you’re passing in the McDonald’s restaurant, and you are going to get fat. That, right there, is my single biggest complaint about Super Size Me. I have a couple other complaints, but that was my biggest one. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do like this movie. I like it a good bit. I don’t love it like a lot of people do, I think it’s a bit overrated, but it still is a good film, even thought it works more as a piece of entertainment than a documentary where you learn something. This experimental independent documentary by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is about the fast food industry, and how it affects America. And that, in itself, is an interesting topic that Spurlock has expanded. He goes through an experiment to show how awful fast food is, especially McDonald’s, while interviewing people around the country. This experiment has Morgan, previously eating vegan meals every day (but not all the time), eating McDonald’s food (and only McDonald’s) for 30 days straight. And when he is asked to Super Size it, he has to. He can only eat food from the restaurant, and is required to eat everything on the menu. Those are the rules. And with these rules, Morgan Spurlock gets fat, sick, wheezy, and some other things that I do not care to mention right now. But in short, it is bad. And Spurlock also talks to other people about the negative effects of McDonald’s. One of my other problems with the film is that it’s kind of redundant. A lot of the film is spent with the same message being beaten over your head. And the film would be a complete mess without the humor that Spurlock puts into it. He makes watching this movie that would be a complete wreck funny. The humor makes the film enjoyable. And the film is enjoyable. This is an extremely enjoyable documentary. It’s just a bit redundant (like this review) and flawed. But even if it’s the same message for 100 minutes, at least it’s a message that sort of matters.
7.5/10

It Could Happen to You (1994)

When my dad was telling me about this movie, I was skeptical. We needed to watch a movie, and the DVD was within reach. He was promising that the movie was very good. My response was-“A good Nicolas Cage movie?” Then I found out the movie was from the 90s. “Oh. That explains it.” In the recent years, Nicolas Cage, an extremely talented actor, has not been in a lot of good movies. He’s been good in them, but sometimes, it was the only good thing about the movie. But here, that rule is no more. This is actually a good film. It could be better, but it still is a good film. The movie is based off of the “true” (I say that because I can’t verify how true this story is) story revolving around a cop (here played by Nicolas Cage), who, being unable to pay his tip to a down-on-her-luck waitress, agrees to split the earnings for his lottery ticket with her for her tip the next day. The ticket ends up winning $4 million dollars. The waitress gets $2 million of that. The two end up famous, rich, and giving. That is really all that is there to be said about this film. It is a romantic drama that works solely on the level of enjoyment. When you watch the film, you just feel happy. You like spending time with these two. You like seeing them do good things. But other than that level, there’s really not much to say for the film. On a technical aspect, the movie is kind of bland. The movie just feels bland and uninspired at times. And that, really, is its biggest fault.
7.5/10

Bratz: The Movie (2007)

>:( I am angry. I am angry that I sat through this pile of trash. I am angry that anyone sat through this pile of trash. I am angry that 7% of Rotten Tomatoes critics gave this pile of trash a positive review. I am angry that this movie exists in the world. I am angry. As the same with a different tween-targeted girly musical flick that has not a shred of decent taste, Standing Ovation, I found this movie by listening to fellow critic/upcoming screenwriter C. Robert Cargill (or Carlyle for my fellow Spillios) rant about how terrible this movie was. He has such a hatred for movies that are terrible. He loves movies that are brilliant, and hates movies that are so utterly incompetent that there are no redeeming factors to it. And also with Standing Ovation, I had to see it just to see if it was that bad. It is. It is worse than you can think. It is absolutely completely terrible. And now I’m gonna try to explain the plot of the film. Based off of the toys of the same name, Bratz: The Movie tells the story of Sasha, Cloe, Yasmine, and Jade, four perfectly perfect, well-dressed, rich, racially diverse “14-year-olds” (we all know that these girls aren’t 14) with attitude, who, on the first day of high school, go against the leader of the school (who knew that you could be queen of the high school on the first day?) named Meredith, by trying to sit together while not sitting with the clique program that she has created. And so this crazy chick spends 3 years (THREE YEARS!) trying to ruin these girls’ lives. This really does make absolutely no sense whatsoever. NOTHING MAKES SENSE IN THIS PILE OF TRASH! PILE OF COMPLETE GARBAGE! This movie isn’t funny, it’s not sweet, it’s not earnest, it’s not good, it’s not decent, it’s not bad, it’s not terrible. It is worse. This is the single worst movie I have ever seen. And now I am going to quote Roger Ebert talking about the movie Freddy Got Fingered, which I find to be my favorite quote by the man. “This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels.” And that is what I feel about Bratz: The Movie. And if that’s not going to get my point across, nothing will. ):<
0/10

The Beaver (2011)

The Beaver is a difficult movie to review. For starters, The Beaver is an extremely difficult movie to watch. I don’t know if I would be able to watch it again. But I do want to own the DVD, so that I can rent it out to my friends so they can see this fabulous film. And if I do watch it again, it’ll be a while until. But yes, The Beaver is a hard-to-watch but brilliant film. The movie stars Mel Gibson as Walter Black, a man who is down on his luck. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. This man, who was once an extremely successful toy executive and family man, is now depressed and gone. The movie uses a perfect metaphor for his state: “He seemed to have died, but forgotten to take his body with him.” After a sickly hilarious double suicide which involves Walter trying to jump off of a balcony with a metal pole attached to his neck by a tie, he finds a beaver hand puppet in the garbage. He puts the puppet on, and develops a second personality talking through the hand. The second personality is known as ‘The Beaver’, who has a thick cockney accent, and is very friendly and happy, but is a bit menacing. But either way, this helps him get his life together. He begins to patch up his relationship with his wife (played by Jodie Foster, who also directed the film), and his younger son, while still being unable to work his relationship out with his older son Porter (Anton Yelchin, who has recently starred in the remake of Fright Night). Porter has mapped out his similarities to his father, and tries to distance himself from them. He also goes out to different famous places with money made by writing papers for his fellow classmates in the summer, and is hired to write a valedictorian speech for the valedictorian of the school (played by Jennifer Lawrence, who is going to be our Katniss Everdeen in the upcoming movie based off of the book The Hunger Games). But back to Walter (you see how awkward that transition from the subplot of the film was? Yeah. That happens a lot in the film. The subplot doesn’t flow with the main plot very well). As Walter gets psychologically better with ‘The Beaver’, it becomes clear that this is a very sick man. And this goes for longer and longer until Walter completely loses it. The ending of the film is sick, twisted, and cruel. It comes as such a shock, and it is pulled off brilliantly. It is the best scene of the film, but it might give you nightmares. Not like Friday the 13th nightmares, more like Misery nightmares. But it is so brilliant. Mel Gibson in the film is amazing. I know that this man continues to go through a lot of trouble personally, but-he is such a great actor. He is one of the single most talented actors working in the business today. And here, he shows off perfectly the fact that he can do just about anything. Foster is still the same way. She is a brilliant actress, and also a great director. She is probably a better actress than she is director, but she is still great at both. Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence are both great in the film, even though their plot is a bit unnatural. And now for my single favorite part of the film. The Beaver is written by Kyle Killen, a first-time screenwriter. This brilliant script was on the Blacklist, a list of the most popular unproduced screenplay, for some time. I saw an article on the script in an issue of Entertainment Weekly a couple years ago, and I already wanted to see it. So I’ve been waiting for this movie for a while. And it paid off. This movie is a brilliant film. It is a brilliant piece of art. It is hard to watch, and crazy, and mental, and probably written by a man whose mother is really worried right now, but it is brilliant. So, so, brilliant.
9/10

Paper Heart (2009)

I like this movie very much. I think that it is a well-crafted mockumentary, one that doesn’t do what nearly every single other fake-documentary has done in the past, a comedy film or a horror film. It creates a comedy-drama film out of a very interesting concept. I really hope that more movies take this kind of tongue-in-cheek approach to both love and to serious documentaries. And yes, this is a mockumentary. The cover of the DVD is a bit misleading, and so is all of the reports I’ve read about the film before watching it (usually I do a decent amount of research for a film before I watch it. Now here’s your research so that you don’t feel like an idiot like I did). It says that it is a documentary with Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Now, while I do believe that some of the scenes here are real, mainly the questioning scenes for random people in the streets across America. But most of the film is fiction. Every single time Cera is on screen, he’s playing a character. And I have no problem with it. I am just a little confused by the fact. The scenes with Yi and Cera are basically a romantic comedy, most likely similar to film, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist than to-say-Superbad. This is speaking in terms of the films of the great Michael Cera. And after watching Paper Heart, I still believe that Michael is a very good actor. He gets a lot of heat for playing the same role over and over, but-he is good at it. And he will expand. Even if it takes him a while. He was acting his best in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and he just is going to get better. That is what I believe. Although, I should probably talk a bit about the movie. The movie begins as a documentary with Charlyne Yi about love and her skepticism of the subject. She interviews people in love, out of love, and all in between. And here, the movie works as an average documentary. Nothing special, nothing boring. Just a documentary. And then the fiction comes in, and it tells the ironic tale of a documentary about the love where the unloving star falls in love. And now, it seems like I’m heaping praise on the film, but it is still boldly carrying its flaws. For starters, the movie is a little bit uncoordinated at times, it feels like something that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Also, the movie is a bit long and-just-feels off at times. I know that what I’m saying isn’t very specific, and I’m sorry for that, but I really cannot describe it. The movie just feels off. If a tighter editor has gotten a hold of this, it would be a great film. But sadly, it is not. It’s just a regular old movie. It’s not gonna hurt you to watch it. But don’t go out and buy it.
8/10

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

This is going to come off as a shock to a lot of people, most of all me-this movie is not terrible. Actually, it’s pretty scary and well-made. If you’ve read enough of my reviews, you’ll know that I am not the biggest fan of the 2009 sleeper hit no-budget horror film Paranormal Activity. Actually, I stand it to be one of the single worst movies I have ever seen. And why is that? Because nothing happens in that entire movie. I have famously recapped the entire movie to my friends like this-“Annoying hipster couple. Boring daily life. Door moves. Expletives. Girl stands. Expletives. Other creepy stuff over the course of an hour with extremely long pauses in between. Expletives. And actual good final few minutes. WAIT, IT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY-and it’s over.” That, my friends and readers, is Paranormal Activity. And now let me sum up Paranormal Activity 2. “Actually interesting characters. Actual things happening. Surprisingly good movie. Knock-out ending.” Boom. I just blew your mind. This movie is better than its predecessor for multiple reasons. The first reason is the characters. In the first movie, the main characters Katie and Micah (who both appear in this movie), were extremely unlikable. I was rooting for the demon by the end. But here, things are different. For starters, these two are both in the movie less. They are supporting characters, and not the mains. And for the character of Katie, who apparently is the unofficial main character of this franchise, I liked her here. I thought that her character was much better here. The actress, Katie Featherson (the character was named after the actor), must have taken some acting lessons or something. Because she was really good here. I actually begun to like her character in the original more. And for Micah-well-the only good part was that he was in the movie less. He still majorly annoyed me. But there are a lot more characters here. Still, over the course of the film, there are about six or seven speaking roles (and a dog and a baby). And with the movie divided among them, the film works. The film works very well. The movie revolves around the family of Katie, mainly consisting of her sister, her new husband, the husband’s teenage daughter, the couple’s new baby, and their maid. And also Katie and Micah. Crazy things begin to happen around the house. The house gets trashed about 15 minutes in. And at that moment, I knew that this movie was going to be better than the first. Because something actually happens. And also, the movie isn’t only filmed from the perspective of the hand-help camera. Also, there are security cameras set up around the house, which work extremely well to the film’s advantage, especially in the climax of the film (actually, the camera was the inspiration for Micah to get a camera, which records the original film. The movie mainly takes place before the events of the first film, but has a small portion of the film at the end taking place right after the events of the original). This movie works. It scared me. It surprised me. It had me looking over my shoulder. And for Paranormal Activity 3, which comes out in theaters next month, I will actually do my best to go see it in theaters this time. I haven’t been this terrified by a horror film since Insidious or maybe The Last Exorcism. But, in all seriousness, the fan above my head is probably possessed. Someone call Bill Murray.
8.5/10

Annie Hall (1977)

I’m gonna say something kind of bold right here. Now, I don’t have the experience to back it up like some people do, but I am getting there. I do not think that this is Woody Allen’s best movie. I think that it is an extremely good film, but not his best. I still consider Midnight in Paris as his best, but this comes at a close second. Annie Hall, widely regarded as one of Allen’s best films, is the only Woody Allen film to date that has won the Academy Award for Best Picture. And why is this? Why has only one of Allen’s films been given the award? Personally, he is one of my favorite directors, fifth on my list, right behind Steven Spielberg. It makes me sad. If my memory serves me correctly, a couple of his others have been nominated. But only Annie Hall has won. I think that there should me more. Woody Allen has an extremely child-like and simple way of filmmaking. And I mean that as the biggest compliment possible. What’s great about a young child is that they see the world as great; they see the world non-cynically and true. Allen is the same way. He doesn’t try to make a film that will win awards. He doesn’t try to make a movie that people will like. He just tries to make a film. And that is why he is a brilliant man. This movie, said my many to be his magnum opus, tells the tale of Alvy Singer (played by Woody Allen), one of Manhattan’s funniest comedians. He meets and falls in love with a woman named Annie Hall (Allen’s frequent collaborator Diane Keaton). They have a flawed relationship from the beginning (including a scene that shows what both people are thinking-extremely hilarious), with multiple complications over time. In short, Alvy is madly in love with Annie. The feeling is really not insanely mutual. Well, not to the same degree. The movie is obviously a major inspiration on the brilliant film (500) Days of Summer, which I love very much. On a personal standpoint, I think that Marc Webb’s film is a better film than Woody Allen’s, but that’s basically the same thing as saying that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is not as good as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Which it isn’t. But both these films are great. And all the films here are. Movies don’t beat out Star Wars for no reason. Watch this movie. If you’re a fan of Allen’s brilliant simplistic style of writing and directing, please go watch this movie.
9/10

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Remakes stink. I have said that, it is out there. Remakes stink. They are almost always terrible. There are only a few exceptions that I know of. These are the 2010 version of True Grit, the 2005 version of King Kong, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which I count as a remake/reboot), and The Ring. There are a few others out there, but there really aren’t that many. There are just a lot of bad ones. And the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans doesn’t count as one of the good ones. A remake of the 1981 film of the same name, Clash of the Titans tells the age-old Greek myth of Perseus, the demigod son of Zeus, who fought against the gods as they attempted to wipe out humanity by releasing the Kraken on the human population. This was caused by Cassiopeia saying that her daughter, Andromeda, was more beautiful than Aphrodite, the goddess of love. So-long story short, Andromeda has to die in order for the Kraken to not kill all of humanity. But Perseus isn’t gonna let that happen, and then there is action and violence. I’m sorry people. I know that this review is kind of short, hazy, and uninformative. I saw this like two weeks ago, and I never got around to writing this review until now. There just seemed like more important movies to review. Like Mars Needs Moms. But the movie is actually similar to Mars Needs Moms. You see the potential there. You can see the talent. But here, we just have trash. Trash that looks pretty. And that’s all this is. To quote Grace Randolph (she was talking about James Cameron, but it applies here too) from Beyond the Trailer-“He is King Midus, anything he touches turns to gold. But a golden turd is still a turd.”
2.5/10

Mars Needs Moms (2011)

It is official-this was a bad weekend for movies. And while I was lucky enough to not see any of these in theaters, it’s still a shame. The weekend is March 11th, 2010. And while in limited release we have Jane Eyre, which I have yet to see but has gotten great reviews, every single major release was bad. The big winner for the weekend was Battle: Los Angeles, an extremely dumb film that feels almost Cloverfield-esque, but without the awesome. Then we have Red Riding Hood, a movie that has earned its place in my bottom ten list for the year. And in the middle what existed was Mars Needs Moms. Arguably the single biggest financial flop of the year, this movie is one of the dumbest things to ever come out of the mind that was the great (or once-great, I should say) Robert Zemekis. What happened to this man? In the 80s he made what is arguably one of the greatest sci-fi comedy franchises of all time, Back to the Future. And then in the 90s he made Forrest Gump, which I hold to be one of the single greatest motion pictures ever made. His last directed movie was in 2009, when he made a CG version of A Christmas Carol, starring…Jim Carrey. Not funny 90s Jim Carrey, sad, depressing, crushing-on-Emma-Stone Jim Carrey. And while that video is pretty epic, it’s still very creepy. Wait, where were we? Oh. Right. Mars Needs Moms. This is an extremely stupid movie. The film shares its intelligence level with its buddies this weekend. It’s just so dumb. The movie follows 9-year-old boy Milo (played by Seth Green and voiced by Seth Dusky), who has mommy issues. After his mom tells him to do such terrible things like-eat your broccoli-he out right tells her that his life would be better without a mom. I want to slap this kid. Anyway, his mom (who is voiced by Joan Cusack) is then abducted by martains. Milo gets caught along with the ship. And he gets taken to Mars. There he meets Gribble (voiced by Dan Fogler), who holds a secret of his own (which is really not too difficult to figure out). And as they work together to help save Milo’s mom, they meet Ki, a hippie alien who talks just like she came out of a Cheech & Chong movie (but cleaner). None of these characters we care about. The movie doesn’t expect us to care about them. It just provides us with pretty visuals. And yes, the visuals are very pretty. The only person on the filmmaking team that has any visible work put into this is the art director. Whoever this is needs to get some kind of award nomination, because the film looks fantastic. I didn’t see it in 3-D, I saw it at home in plain old 2-D. But still, the film looks gorgeous. If anything, even if you’re just renting it for your kids, watch it with them for parts of it. Because it is phenomenal. But the rest of the movie, sadly, is not. And I know that Robert Zemekis only produced it, but he still could have saved it. He’s Robert Zemekis. He has some power in this world. NOTE: It seems fitting that Milo is really into zombies-he and all the other people in this movie look like one.
3/10