The Not So Scary October

Machete Kills 

Although not a horror movie, with Machete Kills' stylized B-movie feel, it's the closest I've gotten to this month. Unlike Once Upon a Time in Mexico, where Rodriguez's vast amount of characters completely engulfs the El Mariachi character, no matter how many characters he puts in Machete Kills, the main character is never left in the dust. The guest stars in these roles also deserve some credit for really taking their characters out there. The first Machete saw De Niro and Steven Seagal still trying to ham it up with the same old 'tough guy' act; Mel Gibson's goes nuts along with Demian Bichir. Also it's less preachy and 3rd grade-like messages about immigration issues than the last Machete, I was able to enjoy Machete Kills for all it's wackiness, which is my main reason for watching a movie like this. More Enjoyable than the first installment, however, maybe it's just now I'm starting to notice but Rodriguez has really shown his loss for creativeness in some degree, watching his repetitive antics.

Captain Phillips

 

If not a genre in itself, the 'Based on True Story' plot tags can sometimes be overwhelming by giving out  information about an event taken place, or sometimes the films are embellished to keep audience interest. It's rare to see a film that's based on a true story to give you the whole story, while at the same time giving you small notes so that you'll be drawn to finding out about the actual story yourself. Primarily due to Paul Greengrass' need to do whatever it takes not to bore his audience, Captain Phillips becomes a really good thriller, along with it's suspenseful pacing, engaging score, interesting perspectives from each character.

Escape Plan

This should have been Arnold's comeback movie. He's not the actual lead guy. More humbling role than a sheriff. Give this the release date of the Last Stand back in January. It would have been perfect for Arnold and maybe the box office revenue for this movie as well. Escape Plan has a feel of the small area of decent 90's action flicks, with it's low level action sequences, cheesy score, and like most 90's action flick, the overdoing of every possible thing you can do. With my lackluster feel towards 90's movies, which take up the least amount of space in my movie collection, if these two icons where in the majority of them, I probably would have a different opinion. I loved the concept of the Federal Bureau of Prisons employing escape artists to test the reliability of certain prisons, which was better than what I was expecting, just a prison inmate trying to bust out of a maximum security prison. Very good movie. Would have been even better if 50 Cent was left out of this movie. Someone please stop these music artist from being movies. 50 Cent plays a computer tech expert named Hush. I'll bet 100 bucks he came up with that ridiculous name himself. He shows no kind of computer skills throughout this entire movie; being a hard role to play begin with,looking like your trying to hack into a system, this is a absolute insult to Chloe O'Brien and Luther Stickwell. And out of nowhere he turns into this secret assassin who hides in the back of cars and tells people 'time to go to sleep', while not actually killing them. 

The Counselor

Like many people, after No Country for Old Men,  I anxiously go to see anything with Cormac McCarthy's name attached to it. The Counselor, McCarthy's screenplay debut, reveals: how McCarthy can create an this exotic looking movie through words, Ridley Scott's high regard for McCarthy's talent, and unfortunately revealing him as a obvious beginner of writing screenplays and being able to discern it from writing a novel, and acquiring an amazing cast.  Like most of the film industry, even though actors and actresses are the most heavily paid, their talents are not fully given the duly respect they deserve. Yeah, this movie was for the most part all McCarthy but I doubt this movie would have had such an impact on me if Michael Fassbender was replaced with Channing Tatum, Javier Bardem replaced by Hayden Christensen, and Cameron Diaz replaced by guess who? 50 Cent.