Ok, I'm gonna put aside my differences and play smart now with my predictions for the winners that will be officially announced come Oscar Sunday. These are my own oppinions, don't have a cow. --- BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Who I want to win: Christopher Plummer, "Beginners" - WHY? Becasue I thought the movie was excellent in almost everyway, which is a shame why it's been highly overlooked by the Academy. Still Plummer's performances in the movie was one of the true shining stars of the film. Who'll most likley win: Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Mike Myers & Kevin Kline team up in this HILARIOUS "Funny or Die" produced comedy short about Oscar edict...errr, I mean etiquette. Check it out below:
Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor return to what they do best, making bat-shit crazy action flicks. I’m partial to the first “Crank” film, the sequel was ‘meh’, and “Gamer” didn’t do it at all for me. So, when I read that Neveldine/Taylor would be doing a “Ghost Rider” reboot I felt that this was the suitable area for the duo to release some crazy steam, and for the most part it’s a success (more or less), I just keep wondering one major thing – WHY NIC CAGE!?!? WHY!?!?
“Spirit of Vengeance” is a mixture of a reboot/sequel, so I guess you could call it a ‘requel’. In the film, biker stuntman extraordinaire Johnny Blaze (Cage) makes a simple deal with the devil to save his dying fathers life, but in return he’s cheated and lied to by the devil, better known as Roarke (Ciarán Hinds). Johnny is possessed by an ancient demon, which takes form as ‘the Rider’, a soul hungry entity that is a force to be reckoned with. Johnny ventures half way across the globe to Eastern Europe to hopefully find answers of lifting his curse. There he crosses paths with a man of God, but more importantly a fearsome warrior named Moreau (Idris Elba). Moreau is aware of the Rider’s existence and believes that he can be used for good, but stopping Roarke from turning a young boy, Danny (Fergus Riordan), into the anti-Christ. If Johnny succeeds by saving Danny, Moreau can reward Johnny something he’s been searching for…lifting the curse once and for all.
I’m going to be perfectly blunt, this movie is without a doubt one insane flick. Heed thy warning; do not take any hallucinogenic properties while seeing this movie, I’m almost certain it would be a trip some may not return from. This film is so much different than the first; it’s overall tone, stylistically (camera work & editing), pretty much in everyway this movie was basically a middle finger to Mark Steven Johnsons 2007 film. So in a way, it's better than the first film, it’s a lot more entertaining. However the film does suffer some issues. Cheap dialogue, boring storyline, and perhaps too chaotic at times makes this movie an overall glorious orchestra of retarded mess. No one, myself included, liked Neveldine/Taylor ‘s “Gamer”, this flick however is basically like “Crank” but with Ghost Rider having all the bat-shit crazy Jason Statham problems.
Nicolas Cage! Oh sweet, crazy, Nic Cage, how we move geeks love your insane antics. People, it’s safe to say that Cage is adding to the fire of Cage-isms here. He goes all out this time around. He’s not the same Johnny Blaze from the last film. He’s not a big kid or child-like at all. He’s mean, he’s creepy, the man’s Looney tunes for crying out loud! And of course he’s on FIRE! Personally I still detest Cage as Ghost Rider, I’ve always thought this was bad casting, but hey, when you’re Nic Cage, who’s known for being a comic book freak geek, you’ll get yourself into pretty much any superhero flick. The man was this close to becoming Superman! It’s scary to think that the man has that much power over people. If you plan on seeing this movie, just let your brain go and let Cage do the rest for you, because that’s all you really can do at this point.
The 3D here wasn’t bad. The action plays well and being a movie that’s truly in your face, the 3D might as well be its only best friend. The camera work in general is quite impressive. Neveldine/Taylor are daredevil directors, they pulled off shots not even the highest acclaimed cinematographer would even dare to try. I’m talking roller blade angles here, skating next to moving cars and shit! Killer stuff! The editing is extremely annoying here; the problem is it’s too clever & chaotic for it’s own good. It’s the director’s choice, we’ve seen it before and they’re not planning to change over night. The movie as a MOVIE is by no means a ‘good movie’, but for what it is, it’s entertaining enough to sit through. Kids will get a kick out of it, the parents will probably enjoy it, PROBABLY, and die hard Ghost Rider fans will probably wipe the sweat away.
Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated and long overdue "Lincoln" film isn't due in theaters till Christmas Day this year, but that doesn't mean we the people shouldn't be short chained by old honest Abe. This Summer witness a different side of Civil War/Lincoln history in "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"! Based on the best-selling novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (also the scribe for the film), the story follows a young Lincoln all the way to his Presidency fighting undead creatures. There was a secret diary that Lincoln kept detailing his quest against vampire and how it all tied together with the Civil War & slavery. Check out the trailer:
This is gonna be a fun movie, the book is a respectful towards the history of Lincoln, while maintaining a fun horror twist. I'm already excited!
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted")
Screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith (author of the book) & Simon Kinberg ("Sherlock Holmes")
Starring Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, and Alan Tudyk
In Theaters June 22nd, 2012 in 2D, RealD 3D, Digital 3D
I’ll see anything Denzel Washington’s in; my closest friends know that about me! I’m a Denzel fan through and through, bad, good, or AMAZING! Denzel’s my boy! Ryan Reynolds on the other hand is a hit or miss for me. The problem with Reynolds is that he constantly plays these snarky/smart-ass/wise guys. Sometimes it’s acceptable, other times it’s just boring. So, I felt like having him pair up with such a high class actor that is Denzel, perhaps the pot would be stirred, and you know what? It did. Matt Weston (Reynolds) is a CIA rookie whose job entails of manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. When Tobin Frost (Washington), the CIA’s most wanted rogue agent, is captured and taken to Weston’s safe house things get interesting. During Frost’s interrogation, mercenaries who want Frost, because he has high alert information that could single handily compromise some important officials from all across the globe, overtake the safe house. Weston & Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house. It’s a basic snatch and grab kind of movie. The story itself is somewhat basic good agent turned rogue kind of story. In some cases there’s a lot of predictability coming at the audiences. So, story wise there’s nothing special here, but what makes the movie good is the casting/pairing of Reynolds & Washington. Denzel continues to do what he does best; be cool & kick some major ass. Ryan finally becomes the mature adult we hoped he would and plays a very intense straight man in this film. He’s hard core, no holds bar, has no time for laughs kind of guy, and that was the most refreshing thing about this movie that I loved! The movie is also lead by some perfected camera work thanks to action cinematographer vet, Oliver Wood. Wood is the man behind the entire Jason Bourne trilogy, so if you feel that this movie feels like a Bourne film, you know who thank. There’s some crafty editing styling’s at play here by Richard Pearson (“The Bourne Supremacy”), and if you know me, I’m always on the look out for some crafty editing. Swedish filmmaker, Daniel Espinosa makes his directing debut in America, and if I didn’t know any better I feel like he’s taking action movie lessons from the School of Tony Scott. There’s not much to say really, “Safe House” is a decent action movie lead by high caliber actors. It’s got the feel of a summer popcorn flick; yet it’s been released in the dead of winter, go figure. It’s a great escapist action movie, and sometimes in this time of Oscar movies coming every which way, that’s all you really need on a Sunday afternoon. GRADE: B+
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” has been the target of a lot of heat lately. Fans of ‘other’ films; such as “Drive”,“50/50”, “Melancholia”, or “Shame”, have felt personal angst that this movie earned a Best Picture nomination over their beloved films. The movie is also earning a mixture of reviews; you either love it or hate it, and sometimes you’re caught right in the middle. I went in with an open mind, and for me I found “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” somewhat adequate. Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” tells the story about a young boy named Oskar (Thomas Horn), who’s convinced that his father (Tom Hanks), who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, has left a final message for him hidden somewhere in the city, a message hidden within a key. Feeling disconnected from his grieving mother (Sandra Bullock) and driven by a relentlessly active mind that refuses to believe in things that can’t be observed, Oskar begins searching New York City for the lock that fits a mysterious key he found in his father’s closet. He goes on a journey through the five boroughs of the city that takes him beyond his own loss to a greater understanding of the observable world around him. Within the story, there’s a special game Oskar & dad would play called reconnaissance expedition, where Oskar would search for something of historical significance that dad would assign him. Oskar’s dad has told the story of the mysterious sixth borough of New York. Oskar was given the ‘mission’ to find the lost borough just before his father’s untimely passing. You could say that the sixth borough represents a sense of relief, forgiveness, loss, happiness, or personal nirvana, and in some ways all of those are true. There’s an interesting parallel between the mysterious six borough’s and the six voicemail messages Oskar’s dad leaves behind, the sixth message, much like the sixth borough is best kept as a mystery for all the world except for the only person who knows about it. Oskar’s dad knows about the sixth borough, and Oskar is the only one who knows of the final message his dad leaves him before the World Trade Center collapses. The film isn’t really a 9/11 movie, it’s not about ‘the worst day’, as Oskar calls it, it’s about the day after, and the following after that. New York was in such an emotional collapse; people were dealing with the grief in many hard ways. Oskar is a child who can only make sense of the world through observation, the facts, and never the miracle or faith, so for him, this personal mission was his only fact based way of coping with the loss of his father. That’s what made the book so moving; the movie accomplishes that for the most part. There are some certain flaws to the film, but not enough to hurt it as an unwatchable film. Performance wise; you’ve got Tom Hanks, Max von Sydow, Jeffrey Wright, and newcomer Thomas Horn giving some terrific performances. Wrights role is perhaps the best although without giving too much away, you won’t see his importance till the end of the film, but it’s truly a gut-wrenching scene. Horn was good, a little too weird for his own at times, but the character called for it. I did have a problem with a few out of nowhere lines of dialogue that he says. For example, the scene where he meets Viola Davis’ character, he asks her if he can kiss her…awkward? But, for a first time child actor, the kid exceeds more than what I was expecting. Max von Sydow plays a mute old man that Horn’s Oskar befriends, I can see why critics liked him in this role, and it’s hard to not like him, but I still would’ve preferred Albert Brooks as Best Supporting Actor nominee rather than Sydow, no offense Max, but Brooks left a bigger impression on me last year in the Supporting role of 2011 films. My main beef with the movie are the other actors who appear in the film that are heavily underused. John Goodman is so brief that it almost felt pointless to have him in the bill, you could’ve given that role to a complete unknown and it would’ve been better. Sandra Bullock was just ‘meh’ at times, she didn’t leave much of an impression. Lastly, Viola Davis I think falls into the same pitfall as Goodman, again hire an unknown and I think it would’ve worked out better. Director, Stephen Daldry did some interesting choices for the film, the camera work, the editing style, were all fascinating, but for a story like this it almost made the movie look a bit pretentious at times.
