Drive (2011)

Drive. Drive, Driver, Driven, Drove, Drive. To put into perspective how powerful this movie is-I think I pulled a muscle (stretching, not actually doing athletic work) halfway through it, and I stayed to watch it. I stayed to watch this movie, because not a nuclear explosion could take me away from this movie. Not to be blasphemous, but in Heaven, I’m pretty sure there’s a Blu-ray of Drive somewhere in there. I actually had to wait about 15 minutes before writing this review, out of the sheer notion of horror coming from that movie. The movie leaves you absolutely breathless, I stood up to clap at my computer screen. No review of mine could give this movie the justice it deserves, but I can try. For starters, the only reason this isn’t #1 on my 2011 list is because of Midnight in Paris, which I think is as wonderful of a film, but I can watch that with my mom, so…I do not recommend watching this movie with your mom. For starters, there is a scene where Ryan Gosling barges in on a strip club changing room and takes a hammer to a mobster’s head. That is only a second, however, in the fascinating life of The Driver, a man who has two day jobs, a stunt driver for movies, and a mechanic, while moonlighting as a getaway driver for criminals at night. He is about cars like I am about movies. He loves cars, he is one with his car, he is one of the best drivers out there. And then he meets Irene. Played by Carey Mulligan, Irene is the next-door neighbor to the quiet nameless Driver, she has a son and a husband who is in the process of getting out of prison for doing a job. But after he is released, he calls on the Driver to help him with a final job that would put Irene and her son off of the mobster’s watch-list, a job that-to say the least-doesn’t end up very well. Blood is spilled, shots are fired, and if I can mildly spoil something that happens about an hour in-a character’s entire face is blown off with one pull of the trigger. Seriously-it explodes like one of the Resident Evil zombies. But also added into the mix when the heist goes wrong are two mobsters (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman), who clash with the Driver and his mentor, Shannon (the great Walter White, Bryan Cranston) when they accidentally grab one of the mobster’s money instead of the $20,000 they were supposed to. That is about all I caught of the plot, because I was spending too much time with a delayed heart rate and absolutely terrified. Because, aside from about 15 minutes spread throughout the 100 minutes the film takes place, it is extremely tense, because you’re just waiting for the tensions to break. For example, one of the most notable scenes in the film is when the Driver and Irene are in an elevator with a hitman. They all just stare at each other, and you just wait. And wait. And wait. Then the Driver squashes the hitman’s head in with his foot. The director of this film, Nicholas Winding Refn, won the award for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, an award well-deserved. I think even more than Best Picture (which this did deserve at least a nomination for), this movie deserved Best Director for Refn, because he directs this neo-noir with such a wonderful style, with crazy harsh colors, insane moments, and absolute beauty. One of the hardest things to do here is to make beauty out of violence, and Refn does this. This is the first film of his I have seen, but judging from this movie, if he steps up his film count, and picks the right script, he could be the next Scorsese. Yes. I actually did just say that. But still-this movie is a masterpiece of modern cinema, a movie that truly needs to be seen by everybody. You will do yourself nothing but a favor by watching Drive, the biggest snub the Oscars have done since The Dark Knight got the same treatment in 2008.
9.5/10

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

I have odd feelings of the entire Paranormal Activity series. The first movie is absolutely terrible. I hate it, it’s got the most absolutely annoying characters, and I just wanted to punch both of them. Also, there were about two good scares in the film, and with the ratio of 2 good scares per 90 minutes, that is bad. With the usual good horror film, at 90 minutes, you have probably from 15-20 really good scares. Now, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you think about it, getting absolutely terrified roughly 17 times is a very good thing, and especially when the really good scares take about 2-3 minutes for exposition. And about that scare count is what makes Paranormal Activity 2 and Paranormal Activity 3 both really good horror movies (not great. You have to be special to be a great horror movie), and much better films than the first film that made the series so dang popular. But, while this movie is not as scary as the second one is, this is still a very scary movie, and I think it a very scary movie. Directed by the two who directed the “docu-drama” Catfish, which I was not a fan of, this movie takes place in 1988, featuring the sisters Katie and Kristi from movies 1 and 2 at a very young age, where they are being filmed by their mother’s new husband who films weddings, so he is filming everything that happens in their house when they find strange happenings revolving around Kristi talking to her “imaginary” friend Toby (the name given to the ghost-I will never see this ghost as anything else, like when I named the demon from Insidious Frank). The thing that works in the first hour or so of the film is when there are 3-minute stretches of complete silence freaking you out until something pops out, and then the movie goes completely insane. For about the last 15-20 minutes, it goes completely insane. It is so insane (but still scary) that it almost goes against what the first hour did so greatly. There is a lot of it that raises a lot of questions, and a lot of them are really making not a single clue what-so-ever, and you have to wonder-“why don’t they remember ANY of this?” I don’t want to go into spoilers here, because I don’t want there to even be tempted for someone to know the end on my behalf, because you just have to see it. You have to see it for the scares, and if you’ve seen any of the other movies in the series, you will want answers to some of the more unexplained questions, because by the time they’re done terrorizing this family, with every found-footage excuse possible, we are going to have a really good universe, one that is scary, fascinating, and if they keep it up, forgiving of the first movie.
8/10

Abduction (2011)

Abduction’s biggest problem is that it’s just incompetently made, not that it’s terrible. A lot of people have been bashing this movie, it even has a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everyone says that this is the worst movie, that it is terrible, and that it needs to be burned at the stake (I’m sort of paraphrasing), but it’s really not. It’s just an incompetent “action” “film” that doesn’t deserve any more attention than a really small indie film would get. Actually, there are some great indie films this year (Another Earth in particular) that need to trade places with Abduction on America’s attention-meter, but that’s for another day. Starring teen heartthrob and brick-wall actor Taylor Lautner, this movie really deserved nothing more than a direct to video release. Nathan Harper (Lautner) has the perfect life. He’s a scumbag, he lives a super rich scumbag life, and he has a bunch of scumbag friends. I hate to say it-he’s living the American dream. But while he is doing a school project with fellow schoolmate Karen Murphy (Lily Collins, who was only cast in this movie because she is one of the five actors on the planet worse than Lautner) about missing children, he sees a young picture of him on it, and before he can get any answers, two men come by and assassinate who he finds out are not his real parents. And there are along with it, a bunch of really confusing and annoying plotlines that make not a single lick of sense. The action plot that is basing this movie along is one that is so tedious and annoying I wanted to scream. Because also along for the ride are Alfred Molina (what happened?), Michael Nyqvist (What seriously happened?) and Sigourney Weaver (No. Ripley is better than this. Not Dr. Octopus or Michael Blomkvist, but Ripley is better than this.), who really serve no purpose other than them trying to give weight to this super-convoluted storyline, to where I had no idea what was going on-it is probably the single most boring and dull movie to make no sense when too much stuff is happening, but it’s all too much boring for one movie! This movie is just hit in the uncanny valley of mediocre, between convoluted and confusing and completely dull. I really don’t know how to describe this film, and I know that right now I’m not doing a great job of it. I would say for you to watch it to believe it, but it’s just a time-eater. This movie has no purpose other than to eat two hours from every sad sap who watches it. I really do not recommend Abduction, because it really didn’t need to have the light of day in the first place.
3/10

The Artist (2011)

I didn’t even know anybody had the guts to do a movie like this. Well, if somebody did, it would be the French. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the French. They give us great cinema (sometimes), croissants, Paris, the Statue of Liberty, and epic accents, and probably some stuff that matters too (I don’t keep up with politics). But I make fun of the French the same way I make fun of Sam Raimi and his colleagues-they will try everything. And only the French can try to make a modern-day silent movie. Yes, there are two scenes with sound, and they’re both handled perfectly, but about 90% or so of this film is silent, with nothing but a score running in the background. There are some cards which say what the characters are saying, but this is only used when there are things that needed to be known. I say this because it’s frustrating the first ten minutes of the film going “What are they saying? I don’t know!” and then it sinks in that it doesn’t matter. The biggest accomplishment this film has is that it makes you forget you’re watching a silent film. Starring Oscar-nominated actor (maybe a winner?) Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, this movie chronicles his life as a silent film star that is slowly brought down to nothing, and all the time his life works in sync with that of rising starlet Peppy Miller (another Oscar-contender and wife of the director Bérénice Bejo), who is coming into replacing George’s role as the king/queen of Hollywood when the transition to sound is made. Along with this relatively simple story is a wonderful film, with wonderful moments, and wonderful scenes, and wonderful energy, and OH MY GOD a wonderful score (another Oscar nominee/could-be winner). I mean, in all honesty, this movie is made like a Woody Allen film-simple, sweet, and magical. And the direction by director and husband of Bérénice Bejo (nice job buddy) Michael Hazanavicius (never ask me to pronounce that) is wonderful and also a possible Oscar winner (this movie and Hugo are topping the nominations), and possibly a deserved one. This entire movie is overflowing with talent, wonderful songs, music, direction, acting, and just a purely wonderful film. I absolutely adore this film, and when I publish my top 20 best/worst of 2011 list, I will have this pretty dang close to the top (I will post the list on my www.spill.com page, and link to it when I see and review the film A Separation, which is my last ‘must-see’ movie of the year before I make my list, and then that’ll be there. What a formal way to end a review).
9.5/10

Shark Night (2011)

I don’t know which title for this movie to use-Shark Night or Shark Night 3D, because when you buy the movie, it says Shark Night, but the filmmakers were too lazy to change the opening titles from Shark Night 3D, even though I think there isn’t a single 3D DVD available. But, yeah. This entire movie if filled with little things like that, where you just stare at the screen going-“Wait, what? How is that-never mind.” (those were my actual words). I treat Shark Night like Tim (Simon Pegg) from the TV show Spaced thinks of Daisy-“She’s either sweet and stupid, or an evil genius.” This movie is either just stupid and innocent, or an evil trick to show us how shark movies work, because there is no way on earth that anybody can make a movie this incompetent (maybe Jasob Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, but they don’t count as real people) without trying to pull something on us. The plot of the movie concerns a bunch of college kids who are going on an island, when they find that a bunch of sharks have been released into the lake and are eating them, which they find is a part of a plan that is either completely stupid or absolutely genius. To reveal any more would spoil the amazing fun you would have while watching Shark Night, a movie that while I recognize that it is terrible and stupid, is just so much ridiculous fun. I have a great example why this movie is a great movie to watch with buddies to laugh at it. There is a shot close to the end where the main guy Nick (Dustin Milligan) shoots a spear gun through a shark, one that’s trying to eat the main girl Sara (Sara Paxton), and we see shark guts and blood fly everywhere (the most gore in the film, since they wanted a toned-down PG13 rating, which should not have happened). The very next shot, the shark is gone, the guts have disappeared, and the water is as clear as it could be, which is absolutely insane. This entire movie is absolutely insane, and completely terrible. I highly recommend watching it, but with a group of friends, and if your age allows it, a couple of cold ones (with Korey, Leon, and Carlyle! Sorry-nerdy Spill reference, excuse my unknown references for this review). I highly recommend Shark Night, just not as a good movie. I don’t know what rating to give this movie, because I love it and hate it at the same time, so I’ll give it my lowest positive review. Also-my reviews now are getting pictures! Under all reviews there will be a poster for the film. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have covered them all. Just my site getting a little bit better. Adios, readers!
6.5/10

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

It’s movies like this that makes me just smile. A movie that seemed to have been forgotten by way too many people during its original run in the theaters (including me), I was surprised to find how much I was enjoying this film. Carved with hand-drawn characters and settings, and based off of the A.A. Milne stories of the same name, Winnie the Pooh is my new recommendation for a child’s first movie. For starters-it is an extremely short movie. Clocking in at 63 minutes long, including credits, this is one of those movies that makes children love movies, them having what I have with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Featuring the voice of Jim Cummings as Pooh and Tigger, this movie follows the adventures of Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, and Christopher Robin in the Hundred Acre Wood, a world in a child’s imagination where these animals run free and live. On one important day, Pooh is out of honey, and is trying to look for it, while everybody else is trying to find Eeyore’s tail. Meanwhile, the team finds a note from Christopher Robin, saying that he would be back soon. They misinterpret this thinking that CR has been abducted by a creature called a Backson, and they try to save their friend from this magical beast. The best thing about this film is that it has nothing but integrity for itself, its origins, and most of all, its viewers. This movie is funny, sweet, musical, wonderful, and just a movie that I totally promise will put a smile on your face. This is a wonderful movie, a movie for children, teens, adults, for everybody. Maybe not people who suck, but if you don’t, you will like this movie. I highly recommend it. NOTE: I am going to blatantly recommend another fellow review/blogger, this time www.shutethecritic.blogspot.com He writes reviews for movies/music/other, and he actually puts pictures with his reviews (I need to do that), and his reviews have actual substance, so when you get tired of hearing someone rant, you can actually read someone talk about a movie. He did a review for this movie, so when you type that his review was so much better, please do it on his site and not mine. That would be much appreciated.
9/10

Something Borrowed (2011)

Before publishing this review, I published my review for the Sarah Jessica Parker film I Don’t Know How She Does It. If you were new to my site, you may assume that that is about as low I can go in pure hatred. If you think that, my friend, you have not seen Something Borrowed. Based off of the novel of the same name by Emily Griffin, Something Borrowed is the tale of Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin, one of the most annoying people on the planet) who once had a crush on her law class buddy Dex (Colin Egglesfield, another one of the most annoying people on the planet), and he is now engaged to her best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson, just as annoying and gut-wrenching as the previous two). And then there’s Ethan (John Krasinski, who deserves a better movie than this), who is crow-barred into this movie at an insanely tedious way. The problem is that Darcy and Dex have feelings for each other, and they sleep together while drunk, but there’s engagements, and hidden feelings, and YOU ALL ACT LIKE ME AND MY FRIENDS DO! AND WE’RE THIRTEEN AND FOURTEEN! HECK, WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS! Sorry. I just had to get that out. These people act so completely childish, they are just retelling a big-girl version of how nine-year-olds act. And that wouldn’t matter as long as the characters were likable, the jokes funny, and the situations real. But it isn’t real, it’s just another romantic comedy made by the soulless people in Hollywood who don’t understand how people make movies. It is the anti-500 Days of Summer, a romantic comedy with a true soul. And here, we have a soulless movie, one that I do stress that you should never watch. Also-something to make my day better so I don’t explode, go to my friend’s blog at www.caseycroweknows.blogspot.com He reads my stuff, and he needs something to explode to introduce him into the world. Go there, but seriously-never watch this movie.
1/10

I Don't Know How She Does It (2011)

I don’t care how she does it-I don’t want to know how she does it-no matter what title pun I start off with, it will still carry the exact same message-I really am not fond of this movie. Based off of the novel of the same name, I Don’t Know How She Does It stars Sarah Jessica Parker as Kate Reddy, a feminist who struggles with her husband, her kids, her job, and her personal life, which is so insanely difficult because nobody else on the planet has to work through more than one thing at once. That’s the first fault of this movie, ten seconds in-it treats her like this unnaturally hardworking person, when in reality, she is just another person. And so she gets offered a big job which would make her have to spend much less time with her kids and her husband and she has friends and enemies and God, why is Seth Myers in this? He plays this scumbag who is on screen for no more than five seconds, and it just pains me that he is in this movie, but that’s not the biggest disappointment of this film. The biggest disappointment is that-okay, there are these useless scenes in this movie that cut to the horse’s friends who explain stuff, and the filmmaker is too dumb to explain stuff any other way, like a documentary would, but this is way too dull to be a documentary-Busy Phillips is in this movie, as one of the girls that explains stuff. Why, Busy Phillips, why? Also, why is your name Busy Phillips? But, you were on Freaks and Geeks, one of the top 5 shows EVER MADE, and you just now are wasting your career on this movie, when you should be getting so much better roles. You were Kim, one of the most interesting characters on one of the most interesting shows that was ever made, and now this? NO! NO! NO! This entire movie is just littered with these great actors, like Christina Hendricks, Pierce Brosnan (come on Bond, not you too!), GREG KINEAR, and so many other people who walk on long enough to just make my day a little duller. I don’t like I Don’t Know How She Does It, and I don’t think anyone else does either. You. Are. Terrible.
1.5/10

The Descendants (2011)

Oh, how I love this movie. I was extremely lucky to see this movie the night the Golden Globes aired, about five nights ago, and then I went and watched my DVR’s recording of the performance. Ricky Gervais was amazing, but this isn’t a review of the Golden Globes. This is a review of easily one of the single most outstanding and perfect films of 2011, The Descendants. Based off of the novel of the same name, this film is directed by Sideways and About Schmidt director Alexander Payne, who also wrote the script with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who plays Dean Craig Pelton on Community, a show that you need to be watching, and if not, just have your TV on when it’s on so the Nielsen ratings can be higher and we can have more seasons of the show). It stars George Clooney, Shailene Woody, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard (he still exists?), Beau Bridges, and Amara Miller, and is about as close to a perfect film you can get in 2011. George Clooney plays Matt King, a Honolulu-based lawyer who is the sole trustee of a very large property in the middle of Hawaii, which means it is the single nicest place ever filmed that’s not New Zealand. In seven years, the trust will expire due to the rule against perpetuities, so he and his many cousins (one of which is Beau Bridges) plan to sell the land to a man named Don Holitzer. But I’ll get to him later. But just before they are about to finish the deal, Matt’s wife, Elizabeth, was just in a boating accident, which rendered her comatose, and they find out that she is gonna stay that way. What further complicates this entire thing is Matt’s two daughters, the 17-year-old sort-of-recovering-alcoholic/druggie (absolutely wonderfully played by Shaielene Woody) and the 10-year-old foul-mouthed Scottie (Amara Miller), who has some wonderful bits which just exposes how psycho-censored America is (side note: SOPA IS OFFICIALLY NOT GONNA PASS AS OF TODAY! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!). These two are trouble enough, but with Matt being the only parent around, his wife in a coma, and the land having to be sold, any person would have trouble keeping his head above water. But then the bombshell is released. Elizabeth was cheating on Matt, and he finds out from his daughter while she’s in a coma. That can be stressful, and here we have a situation that actually shows what a real person would do under all this stress, which is what I really love about this film. It’s funny, sweet, dramatic, dark, and truly heartbreaking at points. There is a scene in here where Robert Forester actually punches a teenager in the face, which is awesome, and there are also a lot of extremely depressing scenes in here, a truly saddening movie for the modern generation. Just about everything is perfect about The Descendants, and it one of the movies you have to see this year. Yes. You. You need to go see this movie, and bring all your friends to see it. But seriously-since when did Matthew Lillard come back from the dead?
9.5/10

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011)

Let me begin this review by saying that I have never read Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, which was published in 1957 to negative reviews. The fact that it was completely published to chagrin makes me wonder if in twenty years Atlas Shrugged: Part I, the adaptation of the first third or so of the novel, will be embraced with open arms as the novel is today, because for the time being, this movie is terrible. It truly is terrible. I am thankful that this movie is only a small limited release, even though more dedicated fans of the book will sadly track it down, because not a lot of people will find this movie. Starring Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, this film follows her struggle with the economy and the fact that her railway, Taggart Transcontinental, is about to go under. So through a bunch of boring transactions, they end up creating the John Galt line to try and fix the train economy, because of the question constantly said to Dagny, “Who is John Galt?”, a question which I looked up the answer to on Wikipedia since the negative reaction to the film has halted production on parts two and three, currently forever. This movie isn’t offensive or just so blatantly terrible, it’s just easily the most boring movie this year. You see people in meetings talking with each other, it’s not that I don’t care about architecture and trains (which I don’t), it’s just that it’s filmed in such an uneventful way that I wanted to strangle myself. It almost feels like the exact opposite of a good movie, a movie with interesting scenes. It seems like this is a compilation of every single thing that didn’t happen in that movie. Because you can do a meeting film wonderfully. You can make a movie about something I don’t care about and make it indefinitely intresting. Heck, look at Margin Call. It’s easily in my top 20 films this year, and it’s about people arguing over stock. I don’t care about stock, but it’s made so interestingly that I still love it. I don’t love this film. It feels like the downside mixture of a documentary you see in an architecture class or a TV pilot that NBC wasn’t even good enough to produce. And honestly-did you see The Cape? The question of this film is “Who is John Galt?” Who cares?
1.5/10

Cars 2 (2011)

I never thought I would have to say this. Mom, I promised myself I never would do this. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry Mom, Dad, to everybody I ever knew. This is the moment that I have lost all will to live. Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as a bad PIXAR movie. A sequel to the only non-perfect PIXAR movie, Cars, Cars 2 is the movie that made me lose faith in humanity. Not because it was the worst, but because it ended faith in perfection. I verbally fought the quality of Wall-E over Harry Potter for you, PIXAR, and this is how you repay me? By handing me this polished animated turd? NO! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! Following the adventures of the first film, Cars 2 is the tale of Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), a race car who is set to race in the world grand prix, while his relationship with his best friend Mater (the root of all evil, Larry the Cable Guy) and all the others from Radiator Springs begin to deteriorate. But on the one day where McQueen brings his idiot friend along, he somehow gets tangled up with international espionage, with Finn McMissle (Michael Caine, what are you going buddy?) and some other people that will sell a lot of toys. That is my main problem with this movie. This movie was made for one purpose and one purpose only-to sell toys. The original film was the biggest toy-seller PIXAR has ever had, they needed more toys. Another major problem I have with this film is that the story is built around this odd reality, not the other way around like all of the other films. For example-in Ratatouille, the odd situation (rats who like good food) services the story of following your dreams. Now, it’s just a spy story revolving around talking cars, and that is the single biggest disservice this movie can do-make it just not worth anything more than the novelty of talking cars. Shame on you John Lasseter. Shame on you.
4/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

One of the main complaints I hear about my site and my reviews is that I love movies too much-not movies in general, just specific movies that a lot of people don’t like, or that I only watch movies that are going to be good. Well, within the course of one review writing session, I have to look back on Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, Cars 2, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, and then I get to watch Something Borrowed and I Don’t Know How She Does It. You have no right to complain. The forth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, based off of the Disney theme park ride, On Stranger Tides is a movie that should not have existed. The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy ended, it was finished, I actually truly enjoyed all of them (maybe not Dead Man’s Chest), and thought of it as a complete done story. But then they got greedy. Once again starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, this film follows the adventures of Sparrow as he gets involved with Captain Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz) as they try to find the Fountain of Youth, but also along for the ride are mermaids? I really do not know. The movie is extremely convoluted, which plays out as an excuse for its running time of over two hours, something that it really did not deserve. The movie is too long, too convoluted, and too popular for me to have remorse for it. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a terrible film by any stretch of the word, but it does have a screenplay that someone pulled out of the trash, it is rehashed, unoriginal, and boring. The film looks nice, the actors are all good in their respective roles, but the film just isn’t fun to watch, something it needed extremely desperately. Do not see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Nobody needs to give this movie any more money than it already has, currently, this movie is the 8th highest-grossing movie of all-time, a fact which makes me sick to my stomach. America couldn’t give money to Midnight in Paris, The Descendants, or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? No, but for some reason they could give a billion dollars to more rehashed trash with nothing more to its name than its name and some pretty effects.
3.5/10

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

I have expressed a few times before that I am a huge fan of comedy-dramas, films that can make you laugh, and can make you cry. They are usually smart, quirky, and sweet beyond repair. And another perfect example of this, along with the many I have listed in reviews past, is Lars and the Real Girl, from one of the greatest years in film of this century, 2007. Starring Ryan Gosling a few years before his big 3-film-a-year boom of 2011, this film tells the tale of Lars, an extremely secluded man who is almost allergic to other humans. He longs for human contact, but it socially unable to have it, so he purchases an atomically correct RealDoll from the internet. But, he doesn’t use it for its purpose. He doesn’t fulfill any perverted desires, he doesn’t dilute to fetishism it in the slightest-he just pretends that it is a real person, names her Bianca, and passes her off as a real person. I can assume in his mind he sees a real person, where everybody else sees a doll. Also a part of the cast is Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider as Lars’ brother and sister-in-law, who have to try to convince the town to go along with the stunt for his sake. The highest honor this film boasts is its script, and it brings me a little bit of faith in the Academy that it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and I would argue the fact that it should have won, but what did win was Diablo Cody’s script for Juno, and that was an absolutely wonderful script, one that deserved every single award it got, so it can be forgiven. Also given an award nomination was Ryan Gosling for Best Comedic Actor, and that was completely deserved. The way the script and Ryan in the role of Lars walk hand-in-hand, and they create this character that is a truly tragic one. It just breaks your heart every time you see him with this fantasy, and you see him come of age, and that it a wonderful thing to watch-but also a very difficult thing to pull off, and this movie pulls it off perfectly. The wonderful blend of the character and the dialogue make this one of the must-see movies of 2007, just to see Ryan Gosling in this role. NOTE: If you watch this movie (if you watch any movie) while reading about quantum mechanics on Wikipedia, it will mess with your head. NOTE 2: Schrödinger’s Cat is not dead.
8.5/10

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (2011)

It seems that every year, there is one or two films that are released that are made for me. Last year, there was one film, and that film was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I consider to be a perfect film. Now, for 2011, there’s a film that is made for me that also has vs. in the title. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, the debut feature of Eli Craig, is not a perfect film, but it can get close at times. Easily falling into my top 5 films of the year, Tucker and Dale is a comedic account of what is basically The Texas Chainsaw Massacre told in reverse, where we follow the hillbillies, who are the good guys, while they are being attacked by the crazy college kids. Now let me plunge into further detail. Tucker (Alan Tudyk, from the wonderful cult TV show Firefly) and Dale (Tyler Labine, from the wonderful cult TV show Reaper) have just bought a vacation home in the middle of the woods where they can be best friends, drink beer, fish, and do other fun hillbilly things, when a bunch of college kids come up, and through a series of very random accidents, keep getting killed in random accidents, with very bloody and gory results. As the plot tends to thicken, the ‘final girl’ of the story, Allison (Katrina Bowden, from the wonderful popular cult TV show 30 Rock) ends up camped out with the hillbillies, as they infer that the entire thing was a suicide pact, and the main male character Chad (Jesse Moss) turns out to be a little bit of a crazy killer himself. The twist of the story is always helped with lots of gore, lots of murder, and some insanely creative spins on some of horror’s most creative kills. This entire movie is just up to the brim with creativity, something few people, and even fewer new people, have in the entertainment industry today, and especially creativity like this. The movie is hilarious, it provides some great jokes, some actual scares, and some real heart. The direction is sharp, the acting is brilliant, and the script is chock-full of small gags like the ones on Community and Shaun of the Dead-they’re too good to make you laugh out loud. You just have to sit back and watch masters do their work. It’s okay not to laugh your head off in Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil-just as long as you go back for a second viewing.
9/10

Serenity (2005)

I don’t really know if I love this movie because I love Firefly or because I love this movie. An extension of Joss Whedon’s epic cult space western show Firefly, Serenity is the story of the crew of the spaceship Serenity, firefly class, in the year 2518. After the human race has migrated to other planets, a group called the Alliance tried to bring peace and calm while ruling all these planets. Some people rebelled, including the crew of Serenity. But the Alliance won, and they ruled the main planets, with the planets on the side working odd jobs to stay alive. And so enters Serenity, captained by Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), with a pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), first man (woman I guess) married to Wash Zoe (Gina Torres), doctor Simon (Sean Maher) and his fugitive sister River (Summer Glau) who was experimented on by the Alliance. Also on the crew is mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin), and Kaylee (Jewel Staite), the mechanic of the ship. Former members of the ship from the TV show that appear here are the religious Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) and companion Morena (Inara Serra), who has a decently complicated romantic relationship with Mal. The course of the actual film involves the Alliance trying to locate and take back River, with the crew of Serenity trying to defend her. I do love the TV show, honestly, it is in my top 5 TV shows ever. And the movie is basically an elongated episode of that show with better effects, and so by those standards, this is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. As a nerd, as a human, as someone who loves the art of film. It doesn’t go in my top 5, but it does go in my top 20, and my top 5 science fiction films. With great acting, snappy dialogue, wonderful direction by Whedon, and just overall perfection, I completely recommend this series and this movie. It is one of the best things you can do as a nerd, and just saying, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a nerd (yes. You.) “Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care, I’m still free, you can’t take the skies from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain’t coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can’t take the skies from me. There’s no place I can be, since I found Serenity…but you can’t take the skies from me…”
9.5/10

Warrior (2011)

Out of all of the pseudo-Rockys that this world has given us, I have to say that Warrior is probably one of the best. After seeing the pretty mediocre Real Steel, I have to give thanks to a boxing film with some actual soul to it, and not just some rehashed trash that gets poured out every single year. Starring Joel Edgerton, Tom “Bane” Hardy, and Nick Nolte, Warrior is the tale of two underdog brothers who both enter an MMA fighting tournament to get the money or respect they need for their respective reasons. Tom Hardy plays former US Marine Tommy Riordan who wants to give the money to the widow and son of his fallen friend in the corps, and Joel Edgerton plays physics teacher Brendan Conlon, who is struggling to provide for his family (what we have learned in 2011 is that science teachers have two ways of getting out of debt-fighting and meth-making). Their relationship is further thrown down the road of no redemption with the help of their former alcoholic father Paddy (Nick Nolte, who needs a Best Supporting Actor nod at the Oscars for this film), who Tommy embraces as a trainer and nothing more, while Brendan won’t even do that. There is a heart-breaking shot in the film, where Paddy shows up at Brendan’s doorstep to see him walking in. Without acknowledging him, Brendan walks inside and shuts the door. But before he can do that, Brendan’s family comes to the door. “Brendan! Hey, is that my granddaughter?” Slam. There are scenes in this movie that will kill you from the inside out. Now, don’t get me wrong, we are not dealing with a perfect film here. The film tends to slow down during the middle, and I sort of zoned out at that point. But when the film gets to its climax, it is insanely intense. The two underdogs end up fighting each other, in a fight brother vs. brother. Now, people have said that you wouldn’t be able to root for either one because you want them both to win, but I didn’t. Even though I liked Tommy in this, I like him like I like Will Ferrell in Everything Must Go. I would not want to be his friend, so I spent the entire movie rooting for Brendan. Be that as it may, this is still a fascinating film, one that was painfully under seen. Even coming from a person who doesn’t like boxing films, you really owe it to yourself to see this movie. It is soul-crushing, beautiful, and true. I already have a place reserved for it on my Blu-ray shelf when I buy it.
8.5/10

The Art of Getting By (2011)

It is a scary thought for a film-reviewer to think that he has lost his sense of telling right from wrong. And I had that fear, because watching this right after watching the much-chagrined Apollo 18, I had to wonder-was there something wrong with my taste? Because I did enjoy that film, and I enjoyed this film too, which was also not a critical darling to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not praising this as a perfect film, in fact, I will probably only see this film one time, but due to my ratings scale of 6.5 or higher is positive, and 6 or lower is negative, I do consider this to be a good film. Written and directed by Gavin Weisen, The Art of Getting By stars Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts as two high-schools students in their last year of school before they try to head off to college. Where the film works is the bulk of it, where we see their relationship struggling to move farther than friendship, despite the fact that both of them are just too shy and childish to admit it. I’m starting to wonder if I only like this film because I am Freddie Highmore’s character in this film. Lazy, smart, childish, and grew up watching one-too-many romantic comedies on TV when I/he was bored. It could very well explain my fondness of the character, and by that, my fondness of the movie. Because what I like about this movie boils down to nothing more and nothing less than its two main characters. Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore are both very good actors, heck sometime around ’05, I wanted to be Freddie Highmore, and then he dropped off of the face of the Earth, and we all know this story. But they are both very good here, and their characters are both very good here, and their relationship is very good here. But I cannot stress this enough-that is the only good thing about this film. There is a subplot in here about Freddie Highmore passing senior year, and I didn’t care. There are other characters and other relationships, of which I did not car, because I had no reason to care. This movie is a movie about these two central characters, and how their relationship furthers over the years. And if this sweet little movie had realized it, people wouldn’t be hating on it. Now, I may just be losing my taste for failure, but I have to say that The Art of Getting By is not a bad film, it’s just not a decently good film.
6.5/10

Apollo 18 (2011)

I really hate that I don’t hate this movie. Scoring a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes and being the causes of boredom by many-a-people, I don’t know why I don’t hate this movie. This movie should have been boring, poorly-acted, and a complete pile of trash, like everyone said it was. But still, I did not find this movie to be terrible. Filmed in the faux-documentary style of shaky-cam, this film follows three astronauts (oddly well-played by Warren Christi, Ryan Robbins, and actually wonderfully by Lloyd Owen) as they fly to the moon in a secret government mission that was never talked about by the government. As we sludge through the first forty or so minutes of this film, nothing happened, nothing was revealed, and I was bored out of my mind. Then, at around the half-way mark (this movie is really short), the film started to pick up. We saw the true reason this was a classified mission, and we see some really good acting on Lloyd Owen’s part. It was almost if the first half of the film was directed by Oren Peli, who directed the first and most boring (granted, I haven’t seen the third one yet) Paranormal Activity, and the second one was directed by whoever directed the second one, because it got tense, it got interesting, and I actually did have a very good time watching it. As found-footage movies go, Cloverfield is still on the top, but there are a lot of worse movies you can go than Apollo 18. NOTE: I first heard about this movie when it was meant to be released in April, and I was dying to see it. It looked amazing, like Cloverfield in space. How would that not be awesome? But, after it was pushed back, and it was not released for critics, that made me sad, and that is why I did not see this movie in theaters like I planned.
7.5/10

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

When I first saw Kung Fu Panda in 2008, I honestly was not too enchanted with it. Granted, I was ten years old then, and had a simpler mind with less appreciation for cinema. One day, I will re-watch it, find out my mistake probably, and enjoy it like everybody else on the planet. But now, I am watching the sequel, Kung Fu Panda 2. Even though it is on the top 10 highest grossing films of 2011 list, and it is on many peoples’ top 10 list of 2011 (not mine), I always felt that the movie seemed almost under-the-radar, since it was released the same day as the mega-hit The Hangover Part II and the dramatic smash The Tree of Life. Even though it is one of those movies that just seems like something is off with its release and marketing, Kung Fu panda 2 is a movie I really enjoyed, if not loved. Featuring the voices of Jack Black as Po and Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, David Cross, and Lucy Liu as the Furious Five, this movie has the six heroes fighting against a horrific villain (Gary Oldman), who plans to wipe out Kung Fu for good, while we have the shocking discovery that Po’s father, the goose, is actually not his real father GASP! And with the entire tongue-in-cheek of this scenario, it is actually handled quite sweetly, with character development and drama usually found in few animated movies, and even fewer movies for children. That, along with some truly spectacular action scenes and some very funny jokes, make Kung Fu Panda 2 a truly great family movie, and probably the best non-PIXAR animated movie since Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
8.5/10

The Smurfs (2011)

I watch a lot of Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS, Conan. I don’t get to watch every interview, but I am glad that I got to see the one where he interviewed Harrison Ford for Cowboys and Aliens. Since it was tied in the box office with this movie, he angrily ripped the head off of a Papa Smurf doll. Oh, how I wanted to do that when I saw this heaping pile of cat excrement (fancy words make you sound smarter, even [especially] when you’re talking about poop). The Smurfs is easily one of the biggest pieces of trash I have seen all year, and even though this has been a really good year for movies, there has been (as there always will be) a decent amount of trash. And this year, a movie that I hope will end up on my worst list of 2011 when I see everything is The Smurfs. Featuring the voices of *sigh* Jonathan Winters, Katy Perry, Fred Armisen, Allen Cumming, Anton Yelchin (the biggest sigh of all) and George Lopez as the Smurfs, this horrible movie chronicles the Smurfs’ tale after they are magically transported to New York City, followed by evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria), where they find lodging with Neil Patrick Harris (no, that is the biggest sigh) and Jayma Mays playing a married couple who have their own problems that are way-too examined in the film, involving Sophia Vergara, which just makes me mad. This entire movie makes me just furious. The jokes are never funny, the scenarios make me scream, actually during this entire movie there were parts where I was screaming and yelling out of pure anger. My brother who was watching it with me was completely enjoying my frustration and pain with this movie. Seriously, I was yelling at the movie, at Neil Patrick Harris, at every single thing that was wrong with this movie. I hate this movie. I hate just about every single moment of this film, and I honestly hope that you will stay away from this horrible pile of trash. A few days before seeing this, I actually played with some Smurfs toys with my cousin. I launched Smurfs out of a small cannon and watched them fall to their doom many times. I look back upon those memories with nothing but pure happiness.
1.5/10

Dolphin Tale (2011)

Is it too wrong that I grade children’s films on the same scale that I do adult films? I don’t think it is, but sometimes, there are kid’s films that are adored that I just cannot stand, because they use so many clichés and just do not hold my interest. Is it wrong to despise The Polar Express because it isn’t The Godfather, or am I giving too much hate to children’s films? As much as I despise this fact, I am still legally a child, so I have a little more reasoning to do so. But either way, I am here to talk about the reason I have been talking about this. Dolphin Tale, based off of the true story from 2005 where a dolphin was found with a damaged tail and was given a prosthetic, is one of the single most overrated movies since The Polar Express in 2005. A lot of people were actually pretty taken away with this movie, and I do not know why. The acting is cheesy, the directing is sub-par, and the writing, while not terrible, is the same thing every single Hollywood hack could churn out. Now I need to actually talk about the story a little bit here. A young secluded boy named Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) is going to summer school one day where he finds an injured bottlenose dolphin, Winter, trapped in a crap trap. The authorities come, and put the animal in a reserve run by Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.) and his daughter (Cozi Zuehlsdorff…wait, what?), but his tail is killing him so they cut it off. So he can one day swim again, they employ Lucius Fox, no, sorry, Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman, who was just making gadgets for dolphins in his off time in the break between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises where he makes them for Batman) to make a tail. And that’s it. My biggest problem with this film is that it never changes. There is no conflict, no change in pace. The entire film just goes at the same speed and there truly is no conflict in this film. There are times where I excuse it, usually during character pieces where we follow one person, but even then, there are changes of pace, conflict, and just at the very least something worth staying interested for. Because this entire film, I wasn’t angry, or jaded, or bitter, I was just bored. I could guess the entire movie within thirty minutes, I could check every point and detail of the main plot. I even guessed a number LOWER than the number of montages in this movie. When I underestimate the number of montages in your film and I already guess two, we have a major problem here. And before I go, I have another thing I want to rant about. At the end of the movie, they show footage of the actual people interacting with the dolphin, and I HATE THAT! That was the only major problem I saw with 127 Hours, it was one of the many problems I had with Soul Surfer, and it is a problem I have with every film. Even if it is based off of a true story, we don’t need to see the actual people at the end, unless they’re doing what they do in this movie and have the dolphin play the dolphin in the film. Unless they are in the film as someone in the film, don’t have them in the film. Have them in the bonus features on the DVD, because if someone cares enough, they can watch it. I did not/do not care, and it was nothing but a burden to me.
4/10

12 Angry Men (1957)

Coming into the world of film a little while after it had begun is tricky because sometimes you just see things differently than others. For example, Seven Samurai, while I did find it to be a very good film, I don’t give it the perfect status many do. Also, I treat modern cinema on the same scale as older cinema, which some could verify as wrong, and that I should treat older films with more regard, but I don’t. And that being said, I am a huge fan of 12 Angry Men. I think it is a brilliant constructed drama with extremely sharp dialogue and a ‘three cheers’ ending if there ever was one. But do I find it to be as perfect as many make it out to be? No, I do not. Telling the tale of twelve jurors who are stuck in a room for an hour and a half is one that could very well be tedious, boring, and extremely forgettable. However, masterful director Sidney Lumet (who sadly passed away in 2011) takes this, and with a wonderful script, makes a wonderful, claustrophobic, and memorable film. That being said, this film is not without its faults. There are moments of the film that just go by too slow for me, sections of the film just blur in my head, looking back at it a week later. It is probably my fault for not paying better attention, but I am a man that likes very much to multitask. Currently, as I write this, I am on my 3rd viewing of Juno. But now back to the movie I’m supposed to talk about here. With wonderful acting, a completely brilliant script, and directing that shows talent that only few have ever possessed, 12 Angry Men is a fabulous courtroom drama that deserves to be seen, if not to be as loved as some may make it out to be.
8.5/10