Mini Reviews

I do this thing where I like to watch as many movies released in a certain year as possible. For instance, right now, I pretty much only want to watch movies released in 2014, no matter how good or bad they might be (incidentally, I'm so over just about any movie I actually wanted to see in 2013 but didn't get a chance to watch). A lot of the year's earlier films are currently being released on DVD, so I've been catching up with things via Netflix and Redbox. My whole thing is - I like to have as much of a complete list of movies for my Best and Worst list by the end of the year. Sometimes, you can even find little gems hidden in there. And sometimes you are stuck watching a really crappy movie, but, hey!, at least Sam Rockwell is in it. That being said, here are some of the movies I've been catching up on lately.

Veronica Mars
Stars: Kirsten Bell, Jason Dohring
Plot: Once sassy high school private eye Veronica is now on the verge of becoming a high-powered NYC lawyer, when her bad boy (read: sexy) ex-boyfriend is accused of murdering his pop star girlfriend. She flies home for one last case, and, of course!, a ten year high school reunion.
Thoughts: This was less a cinematic experience and more like binge watching a few episodes of Veronica Mars. That's not a bad thing! I was obsessed with Veronica Mars when it was on TV and I used to watch the Soapnet marathons any chance I could. Who doesn't love a sassy, smart ass private eye with a rich, baby boy soulmate?? So, it was truly great to see all the old characters that were so familiar and whom I actually missed! Plus, they had some great new additions for the movie like Gabby Hoffman and Martin Starr! So, this wasn't a bust per se, but it also felt more like a made for TV movie than anything else.
Grade: B

In Secret
Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Jessica Lange
Plot: A young unhappily married woman in Victorian Paris begins a steamy relationship with a mysterious stranger with killer sideburns.
Thoughts: Yawn! For a movie that is about explicit sex, lies, deceit, manipulation and murder, In Secret is pretty damn boring. I mean, the saving grace, of course, are the performances, which are stellar, especially goddess of the world Jessica Lange. In short, come for Lange, stick around for Oscar Isaac's sexy sideburns (I could literally think of nothing else for days after watching this movie!).
Grade: C

Vampire Academy
Stars: Zoey Deutch, Sarah Hyland
Plot: Something about good vampires and bad vampires and protectors of vampires and an academy. I guess I'm too old to understand.
Thoughts: Listen. Sometimes I just have to give my inner 14 year old what she wants. Do you really think I want to be addicted to Pretty Little Liars? Do you really think I want to browse the YA shelves every time I hit up a book store? The answer is no. But, sometimes I just can't help myself. My inner 14 year old thought this movie would be a whole lot of snarky, campy fun. Kind of like Pitch Perfect, but with less singing and more vampires. But that didn't happen. The only reason this movie doesn't get a worse grade is because of Deutch who is ADORABLE and HILARIOUS and SASSY and WONDERFUL. With the right material, she could become a huge star.
Grade: D+

Earth to Echo
Plot: Three boyhood pals spend the last night before one of them moves away tracking a mysterious map, finding an adorable alien, and escaping nefarious construction workers.
Thoughts: My boyfriend says we don't watch enough "nice movies." I understand his complaint. I like my movies dark and twisted and violent. So, when there is a nice movie that he wants to see, I go with him. Earth to Echo is a nice movie. The problem? It's utterly forgettable. Like, I saw it less than a week ago and already forget a lot of the plot. What I do remember about it is that it's cute and sweet and highly likable, especially if you have kids in the 8 to 14 range. I wish it would have been more memorable though. I make lists of all the movies I see in a given year and that's a good thing in this case because come December, I might forget about this all together.
Grade: C+

Better Living Through Chemistry
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde
Plot: A small town pharmacist begins an affair with a pill popping married rich woman and his life somehow manages to get better and fall apart at the same time.
Thoughts: Like I said above, at least Sam Rockwell is in it! This movie is pretty much just a giant mess of unlikable characters who do stupid things. None of what anyone does makes any sense and the end is just so absurd that it seems more likely to me that Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man would come flying through the sky and land in my backyard than any of this movie actually happening. It doesn't get an F because of the 30 second sequence of Rockwell dancing, which is glorious.
Grade: D-

Godzilla

My expectations for Godzilla were high. I thought if they movie was half as good as the marketing campaign, then it would be pretty great. I've been trying to stay away from reviews because I really like to go in to movies open minded, without someone else's opinion in my head. I did notice a few friends on Facebook say they didn't like it although they didn't say why. I imagine a lot of the criticism has to do with - NOT ENOUGH GODZILLA / NOT ENOUGH BRYAN CRANSTON. And those arguments are valid. However, director Gareth Edwards has directed the hell out of this movie. It is extraordinarily beautiful and visually stunning, so this movie looks so much better than it has any right to look. And if that doesn't counterbalance the negative aspects of this movie, then I don't know what does.

Godzilla opens in 1999 with Bryan Cranston's Joe working as an engineer in Japan. A seemingly nuclear explosion happens, plunging parts of Japan into Quarantine and killing hundreds. The company tries to cover it up as an accident, but fifteen years later, Joe is sure they are covering up something. He doesn't quite know how right he is. Scientists Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins know that the nuclear accident had awoken a MUTO (massive unidentified terrestrial organism, read: NOT Godzilla), and they are working furiously to keep the MUTO underground where it's lived for decades. That doesn't quite work out, however, and see the Japanese MUTO is trying to find his long lost love MUTO in the deserts outside of Las Vegas, so they can mate. MUTO's - They just wanna get laid; they are just like us.

And the first third of the film is pretty solid. Cranston is pretty much playing a variation of Walter White, except he isn't making Meth. But he has the same searing intensity, the same "I'm the smartest guy in the room and I'm exasperated by your stupidity" attitude. And it's great to watch him on the big screen. But, then the movie decides to follow his bratty Navy son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as he jet sets around the globe, trying to get home to his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son in San Francisco, which, SURPRISE!, is where the MUTO's want to mate. This is the entire middle of the movie and it suffers mostly because Taylor-Johnson, who I like as an actor, he was great in Kick-Ass, has about 5% of the charisma that Cranston has. Also, as a viewer, we honestly don't care about any of these characters. None of them are very fleshed out - Watanabe and Hawkins are merely playing scientists, and we know nothing about them. Elizabeth Olsen, who I adore!, is playing the Concerned Wife, and besides crying and looking worried, she has nothing to do. I know this is a monster movie, and we should be less concerned with the characters than the action, but if you aren't going to really, truly introduce Godzilla until Act 3, then you better have some good character development to tide us over. And this movie doesn't have that, save for Cranston.

So, yes, we don't REALLY see Godzilla until the final act. We see glimpses of him. We hear stories about him. The Atomic Bomb testings in the 50s? They were just trying to kill Godzilla. He's been sleeping in the ocean for decades but our Scientists think he can restore order in the world. They want to let him fight the MUTO's and save San Francisco. Godzilla - He just wants to go back to bed; he's just like us. (He's also very similar to my cat, in-so-much-as they both cause massive destruction and then go back to sleep like it's no big deal). When Godzilla finally shows up and does battle with the MUTO's, this movie becomes a pretty bad ass monster movie with epic action sequences. But is it too little, too late?

Not for me. Sure, the middle section is boring and almost none of the characters are developed in the least, but I can't get over how amazing this movie looks. It's stunning and beautiful to watch. Edwards has somehow managed to make an art house monster movie. There are so many shots that are just simply perfect. (To name a few for when you see this movie: The helicopter in the side view mirror of the bus, the shot of the crashed airplane, the destruction of Las Vegas from the torn out side of a hotel, Godzilla's tail sweeping through the Chinese lanterns, and ESPECIALLY, the parachuting scene where they are all holding red flares - that shot, in particular, is perfection). Other big budget directors should be taking notes, because Edwards really nailed this movie. It's easily the best directed movie of the year, so far.

So, of course, Godzilla is flawed, but it's also a lot of fun. The rest of the summer movies have a lot to live up to - they have to be as all around awesome as Captain America, and they have to look as good as Godzilla. Good luck, guys.

Grade: B

Friday Top Five: Most Anticipated of 2013

The movie year is more than halfway over. That means it's almost time to be done with these disappointing summer movies and finally get to those Oscar hopeful / prestige movies. So, this week, I will be counting down my top five most anticipated movies for the rest of the year. Just as a disclaimer, I would like to say that a few of the movies I'm very excited about are either already in theaters or opening very, very soon. (Examples: I'm planning on seeing Fruitvale Station and The Way, Way Back this weekend and The Spectacular Now, Blue Jasmine and Elysium all open in the next few weeks). So, I'm mostly going to focus on fall / early winter releases with this list:

5. Oldboy (Spike Lee)
Release Date: October 25, 2013
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharlto Copley
This is Spike Lee's remake of the super violent, super amazing Korean movie of the same name. The original Oldboy is bad ass in every way you can possibly imagine, featuring a ballsy story line and brutal violence. I'm not opposed to film makers remaking foreign films (especially when that director is Lee), because most Americans won't even give movies with subtitles a chance. Here's hoping the remake, and maybe even subsequently the subtitled original, will find a whole new audience.

4. American Hustle (David O. Russell)
Release Date: December 25, 2013
Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Robert DeNiro
Umm... look at that cast! O. Russell has been pretty flawless lately, going 2 for 2 with his last two efforts the flawless The Fighter and the sweet Silver Linings Playbook. This is the story of a conman who is forced to work with the FBI to help take down the mob. So, it pretty much sounds like everything you want out of a movie.

3. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
Release Date: October 18, 2013 (limited)
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Alfre Woodard, Garrett Dillahunt, Quvenzhané Wallis
Besides this, McQueen has made two movies. Those two movies (Hunger, Shame) are damn good. So, the combination of McQueen and star Fassbender (who appeared in his previous efforts) is already cause for excitement. Again, look at that cast! This movie is the story of a free black man sold into slavery during pre-Civil War times.

2. Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen Brothers)
Release Date: December 6, 2013
Starring: Oscar Issac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, John Goodman, Adam Driver
As far as I'm concerned, the Coen Brothers are the closest thing to flawless in the context of making movies. This is their take on the 1960s folk scene and based solely on the trailer, I think they already have the most beautifully shot film of the year (Will there be a better shot than that cat starring at himself in the window of the subway? Probably not).

1. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
Release Date: November 15, 2013
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler, Shea Whigham
This trailer was released a few months ago and it pretty much blew me away. Not only does it look like a less brutal version of American Psycho, but also it features DiCaprio dancing to Kanye West! What more could you want from a movie? Scorsese barely makes a mistake, and this cast is on point. If I made a list of my top five movies of 2013 so far, this trailer would be number 1. Looking forward to November!

Silent House & 21 Jump Street

Silent House - There are good things and bad things about Silent House. First, the good news. It's ridiculously creative. Filmed in one continuous take, the 88 minute long film was filmed in real time and features creative direction and camera tricks. Also, Elizabeth Olsen is INCREDIBLE. Her performance is so terrifyingly real and sincere that it's hard to not become involved in the story. The story, of course, is about Sarah (Olsen) who goes to her family's old lake house with her dad and her uncle in order to fix it up to sell it. It's been mostly abandoned for the last year and there are squatters who keep breaking in and destroying the house. Or maybe the squatters are still in the house. Because Sarah soon finds herself locked in the house. Then she finds her dad's unconscious body and so begins a game of cat and mouse with Sarah trying to stay alive and make it out of the house. Now for the bad news. The movie just isn't scary at all. Plus, it gets a little too weird at one point. Also, it's full of all the same old horror movie cliches. Then there's that ending. SPOILER ALERT. I'm not going to totally ruin the ending. I did like the IDEA of the ending. The problem is I don't think it was executed properly. An ending similar to that has been done so much better before in films like High Tension and Triangle. All in all, Silent House was merely mediocre. The creativity and Olsen's incredible performance definitely make it watchable. If it wasn't for those things, Silent House would just be another run of the mill, trite, boring wanna be scary movie.
Grade: C


21 Jump Street - A few days ago when I reviewed last year's remake of Footloose, I talked about how the best way to remake a classic film (or, in this case, TV show) was to make it your own while still paying homage to the original. Well, 21 Jump Street totally succeeds at both of these things. The film is based on the TV show that made Johnny Depp a mega star and is about a group of young looking cops who go undercover at local high schools. In the movie, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum star as ex-high school enemies (Tatum was uber popular, Hill was a loser) who become besties and then find themselves going back into their old school to infiltrate a drug ring. This time around, Hill finds himself in with the cool kids (including James Franco's equally strange and talented younger brother Dave) while Tatum is a nerd who is mistakenly signed up for AP-Chemistry. So, the plot is pretty commonplace, but here's the thing - the movie is actually really, really funny. In fact, at certain points, I kept thinking about how this movie really has no right to be this good. In fact, after the barrage of trailers that took over for a while, I was convinced this movie was going to be terrible. But it's not. We all know Jonah Hill is funny but here, again, he's proving that he's a pretty damn good actor as well. Tatum is known as being a pretty face but after seeing A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, I always suspected there was a good actor in there somewhere. Here, he's funny and charming and absolutely great. The supporting cast (from Franco to Ice Cube to Ellie Kempler to a small scene stealing part from Johnny Simmons) is all fantastic as well. Plus, there are cameos by a bunch of the original cast members of the show (including Johnny Depp - whose cameo is absolutely great). All in all, 21 Jump Street is a GOOD movie. The only thing keeping it from being a great movie is the too long run time. Other than that, it's totally recommendable.
Grade: B

DVD new releases

Like Crazy - I was in love with the trailer for this movie from the first time I saw it. I've probably watched the Like Crazy trailer more than any other ever. The movie is everything I thought it would be based on those two minutes. It stars Anton Yelchin as an American furniture designer and Felicity Jones as a British writer. The two meet in California at college and fall instantly crazy in love with each other. They can't stand to be apart. Which is why she over stays her student visa and then when she visits home for a friends wedding, isn't allowed back into the country. Our distraught love birds try to make it work despite being on separate continents. Then they try to see other people (including the lovely Jennifer Lawrence). Like Crazy is bittersweet and beautiful, touching and heartbreaking. The performances are sensational. The direction is perfection And that ambiguous ending is just plain great.
Grade: B+


Footloose - So, by now everyone should be well aware of my obsession with dance movies. They are my guilty pleasure. I love me some Step Up and Stomp the Yard. So, despite my hatred of remakes (in general, not always), I was kind of psyched about Footloose. Well, it's pretty damn good. Directed by Craig Brewer (who also directed two of my favorites - Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan), the remake of Footloose manages to stay true to the original while creating its own sort of swagger. They pay homage to the original - Ren still teaches his bestie to dance to Let's Hear it For the Boys, but still keep it modern - these days Ren is solo anger dancing to the White Stripes. And while newcomer Kenny Wormald is no Kevin Bacon (but, really, who is??), he is still pretty damn good as the city boy who suddenly finds himself in a small country town where dancing is illegal. Julianne Hough proves she can actually act and isn't just a pretty dancer. Overall, the Footloose remake proves that sometimes it's not such a bad thing to remake a classic, if you do it with respect.
Grade: B


Martha Marcy May Marlene - Despite the fact that this movie may have the single worst ending of any movie I have ever seen in my entire life (TRUTH!), I loved it. In fact, I wish I had seen it pre-Oscars so I could have used my blog (and my three readers) to campaign for Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes. The story follows Olsen's character as she escapes from a cult where she's been living for the last two years. She gets taken in my her sister and her husband but finds it increasingly difficult to assimilate to regular life. She has no idea why it's not appropriate to skinny dip in a lake with children or why you shouldn't curl up on the foot of the bed while your sister is having sex with her husband. Plus, she's super trouble. We see why during flashbacks to the cult where she has to deal with the super creepy but charismatic leader (Hawkes) and his seemingly nice but possibly psychotic followers (including Brady Corbet). Olsen's performance is ridiculously good. Like, so good, she may have topped my Best Actress list good. No wonder she is going to be a huge star. She's incredible. Martha (her real name) Marcy May (her cult name) Marlene (a code name they use when answering the phones) is a great little gem of a movie, interesting and intense, artistic and fascinating. Too bad about that ending.
Grade: B+