Sunday, October 5, 2014

Does Wesley Snipes even have a chance of making a Comeback

First off, forget about Blade. He will never get that back. Expendables franchise is pretty much dead, unless the Chinese market was a big help. Hopefully, he doesn't get a role for another CSI spinoff. It's all over if I see him in a trailer for a Tyler Perry flick. He seems like he doesn't want to get away from action hero roles. I just see this guy following the footsteps of Nic Cage.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

My small March

Sabotage

The Good:  Admitting halfheartedly, Sabotage is Arnold's best since coming from retirement. He seems like he's gotten over the fact that he's not the immense, muscle bound, box office phenomenon who rips through the bad guys with big guns and one liners like he once was. I noticed some reinvention going on the part of Arnold, taking on a teaching role. David Ayer continues to impress with his stylistic gun fights and gritty scenes, while continuing on his saga of exploring departments of law enforcement.

The Bad: Even though David Ayer films astonishes with it's adrenaline, he continues on with these bland and sometimes confusing story plots. One minute, this movie's a whodunnit and then it all of sudden turns into a revenge plot in a most sloppy transition. Also, the characters, like in most Ayer films, are the most one dimensional,GI Joe-like misfits I've ever seen. Well, except for End of Watch, which was probably the only Ayer story with fleshed out characters. No, Alonzo Harris, not you either. Although, I will say, Sabotage has the most unlikeable characters, minus two, in any Ayer film.

The Ugly: In Sabotage, you can really sense Arnold wants to reinvent himself, through his determination to act his butt off in every scene that he's in. With that said, let's not forget Arnold Schwarzenner is a horrible actor, which seems like that will never change. His diligence to being on point is nothing against the inevitability of a syndrome of poor performance. I guess that's what so sad about it. He's willing to change but now that he's going into a character that leads and mentors others, it sort of requires a higher quality of acting. Now, he'll never be a Anthony Hopkins, but Sean Connery took on these roles after his Bond career was up and did just fine. Also, Connery is not great actor, so there is a slimmer of hope of Arnold but not with Sabotage, especially when his character is written as a corrupt asshole, who has no sign of leadership qualities, where his unit almost just walks all over him. I mean he has absolutely no control over these guys.

Outcome: With all the Bad and Ugly, this movie is really fun, gory and filled with great action scenes. When Olivia Williams and Harold Perrineau make they're appearances, the movie gets even better.

Noah

Welcome back, Russell Crowe. Best performance in a long time. Rarely, do I see films adapted from books done so creatively. Great movie.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Robots, Volcanoes, and Airplanes- You know it's FEBRUARY 2014.

Robocop


 For a while, I use to believe that remakes, specifically re-imaginings, were so harmless. Then, 2007 came around with the remake to Halloween. In conversations, I can no longer just say Halloween is one of my favorite horror movies; now, I have to specify using the word "original". However, this could all just be left alone if the remake of an original would be good, but in the case of Halloween, I can't. The same can be said for Robocop. Word of advice: when trying to give an material a soul, it can be easy to misidentify soul with melodrama. If there is anything this remake has over the original, it is it's obsession with tears, crying, and overacting speeches. Also, the original has more soul, and it's magnificently more up to date with the world today than this remake garbage. Robocop (2014) tried bringing a belief of depth into this movie, by bringing in the family element, great actors, made Lewis a guy, and made some key changes to the Murphy character. Sounds good, right? The wife character is just in the way. I never thought I would ever say this but Samuel L. Jackson was such a nuisance in this; they replaced the great commercials from the original with boring exposition that in the end is truly meaningless. Lewis did absolutely nothing. The city of Detroit, which I this time would have great to capitalize on, was completely ignored. Like I said, the original, even as old as it was, still captures Detroit's state, today. Side notes: This movie is PG-13 and replaces Robo's flesh tearing Auto 9 with some high tech taser gun, WEAK! I would not buy this for a dollar.

           Pompeii


Good mashup of disaster and gladiator genres. Keifer Sutherland was a joy to watch as the villain, even though his accent was terrible. Paul W.S. Anderson continues with his great visuals. If your going to see this, the theaters is the best place.

Non-Stop


The first half of this movie is fantastic and heart-pounding. Second half, things just get crazy and becomes a typical Neeson ass kicking movie, which is nothing bad. Loved this movie.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Small Beginnings of January

Devil's Due

Typical found footage with the potential to be better if they would have put some real money into it. If your going to do a found footage movie, you should a least recognize your plot before making the budget. Project X and Cloverfield are two found footages that kept they're plot in mind when making the budget. Not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

I Frankenstein

I'm still trying to figure out if it's a good or bad thing that this movie tries so hard to be like Underworld, except for the CG, where the computer generated werewolves in Underworld looked ten times better than the CG gargoyles. The fights scenes kept this movie from being a total disaster. Decent.  

Sunday, January 5, 2014

BEST OF 2013

10.                              The Hunt
                                                     


9.                              The Purge
                                                                               
8.                          Pain And Gain
                                                                            

7.                      The Counselor
                                        


6.                   Welcome to the Punch
                                                                               
      


5.                            Old Boy
                                        
 
4.                                Trance
                                       
 
3.                         American Hustle
                                         
 
2.                The Place Beyond the Pines
                                                                                



  1.                  The Wolf of Wall Street
                                          

Worst of 2013

10.                       The Lone Ranger


9.                            The Last Stand


8.             Parker

                 


7.                         The Great Gatsby
                                                                                   

6.                         47 Ronin
                                                                                 

5.                    Texas Chainsaw Massacre
                                                                              





4.                                                                Prisoners

3.                                               Evil Dead
                                          

2.                            World War Z
                                                                                    

1.                 A Good Day to Die Hard
                                                                                





Saturday, January 4, 2014

The December of 2013

Out of The Furnace

Out of the Furnace is the most bleak, depressing movie I've ever seen for a December movie. Great performances all around. Although, I really getting tired of seeing Casey Affleck play these hardcore type characters. Really, I just didn't know if it was him or his selfish, cry baby character, who's a traumatized war veteran. Bale's character, who also goes through a traumatizing event in his life, creates a great compare and contrast between the two brothers. Even though Bale is a little more optimistic about his ordeals, unlike his brother, he still must deal with the dilapidation of the American Dream, relating to the diminishing steel mill industry, a former American industry juggernaut. Great movie.

AMERICAN HUSTLE


Wow, David O. Russell. You finally make something that isn't trying to come off as Oscar bait, such as The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook. American Hustle solidifies Christian Bale's status as a actor with great depth and dedication, after the blockbuster Batman trilogy. In the beginning, it looked like this was going to be some over-obsession with the 70's style and completely disregard the story, but it really became a great character piece for all these great actors to perform.

Wolf Of Wall Street




It's Martin Scorsese crossing over to white collar enterprises. You should be in right there. Very long, but pacing and great dialogue makes up for everything. Best movie of December.

47 Ronin


I don't know who wishes they were Asian more. The RZA or Keanu Reeves. At least Reeves doesn't go all dress and makeup style like RZA did in GI Joe 2. Never have I seen a complete massacre of a foreign story, either fiction or non fiction, by an American movie, especially one where the majority of talent are Asian. I'm not the type of person that completely obliterates an American version of a movie, but this is an insult. Why are there pirates in this movie? Yeah, I can sense some 300 stylist approach, but at least, they stayed within the source material. This movie could have ended up in the future for all I know. 47 Ronin smothers the actual story and replaces it with a lackluster samurai movie. Terrible movie.

Grudge Match


Pretty good boxing flick. Is it me or is Kevin Hart getting more annoying with every movie he's in? Great acting, notably Jon Bernthal performing alongside Deniro, who looks like he just did one sit up to train for the climax.