Entries Categorized as 'Reviews'
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Easily one of the biggest releases of the year was this film and easily the biggest disappointment so far of this year is this film. If you missed where we posted an early draft of the script then here is the link. Which as you can see the aliens, fridge and everything were involved in this script. It wasn’t just Lucas being his usual self. Someone else actually thought it was a good idea.
A lot of reviews I’ve read have said that if you are a die hard fan then you will enjoy this one all the same. Let me tell you that you will not. This doesn’t offer any of the usual thrills that you get. The one-liners are all lame and the story is still trying to work on me to make me think that it is anything less than terrible. Indiana Jones does not deal with aliens.
Does anyone else realize that this franchise has just hit an all time low that only certain others have. Usually only horror movies make the leap to space with Leprechaun and Jason coming to mind but now an action movie has. And of all franchises, they choose Indiana Jones to lead the space action movie trend, come on. I know it isn’t quite space themed, but the aliens are close enough for me. You might as well throw Indy on a NASA jet and make him land on Jupiter and fight the space martians for the rights to gain Kobe Bryant in a trade.
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Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. 
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Tags: george lucas, harrison ford, indiana jones, kingdom of the crystal skulls, steven spielberg
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The Incredible Hulk is a 2008 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character the Hulk. It is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Edward Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner / the Hulk. The second Hulk film after Hulk (2003), it is a reboot that establishes a new back-story, where Banner became the Hulk as an unwitting pawn in a military scheme to create supersoldiers. On the run, he attempts to cure himself of the Hulk before he is captured by General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt), but his worst fears are realized when power-hungry soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) becomes the Abomination. Liv Tyler also stars as Betty Ross, Banner’s girlfriend and General Ross’ daughter.
Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to the character after the mixed reception to Hulk, and writer Zak Penn began work on a loose sequel that would be much closer to the comics and the television series. Norton rewrote the script after he signed on to star, which clarified the film’s new back-story. Leterrier aimed to make the film realistic, giving a more frightening direction for the look of the monsters, while redesigning the Abomination from the comics’ reptilian humanoid into a mutated man with bony protrusions. Filming mostly took place in Toronto, Canada in 2007, where the production attempted to be environmentally friendly.
Normally I would pass on this movie all day long but with the recent crop of decent comic book flicks I thought, why not? I’m guessing you are more or less supposed to forget about the previous attempt by ang lee which isn’t hard to do. This one feels more like a full film and even though the bad guy is mostly made up, he is pretty cool. This one is definitely better than the previous hulk film but there is still work to be done on this franchise. Maybe the filmmakers can take some lessons from Iron Man or TDK for the next go at a hulk movie. I’m loving the fact that Marvel is making their own movies now though. Seems like the creative control that they have is really making for better movies.
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Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Christina Cabot, Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Lou Ferrigno, Louis Leterrier, Martin Starr, The Incredible Hulk, Tim Blake Nelson, Tim Roth, Ty Burrell, William Hurt, Zak Penn
Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Iron Man is a 2008 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his personal assistant Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard plays military liaison James Rhodes and Jeff Bridges plays Stark Industries executive Obadiah Stane.
The film was in development since 1990 at Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, and New Line Cinema, before Marvel Studios reacquired the rights in 2006. Marvel put the project in production as their first self-financed film. Favreau signed on as director, aiming for a naturalistic feel, and he chose to shoot the film primarily in California, rejecting the East Coast setting of the comics to differentiate the film from numerous superhero movies set in New York City-esque environments. During filming, the actors were free to create their own dialogue because preproduction was focused on the story and action. Rubber and metal versions of the armors, created by Stan Winston’s company, were mixed with computer-generated imagery to create the title character.
Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures, the distributor, planned a $50 million marketing campaign for the film, which was modeled on Paramount’s successful promotion of Transformers; Hasbro and Sega sold merchandise, and product placement deals were made with Audi, Burger King, LG and 7-Eleven. Reviews were positive, particularly praising Downey’s performance. The film’s stars have signed on for two sequels, the first of them scheduled for release on April 30, 2010, while Downey also makes a cameo appearance as Stark in The Incredible Hulk.
So how do you write a favorable review for a super hero movie after everyone has already seen Dark Knight and made it their favorite super hero movie of all time. The easiest thing would be to say that this movie is a lighter more fun film than TDK. Where TDK is dark and very villain driven, Iron Man is quick, funny, and Stark steals the show. Downey is pure perfection as Stark and I would have been fine with a movie without the Iron Man, just of Stark going around womanizing and throwing out one-liners. Favreau is the real surprise of this film though. Going from indie films into a big summer blockbuster and he makes it good. I have never been a huge fan of his but this one is definitely well done from all aspects. At least now on Dinner for Five it will be, “When I was working on Iron Man” instead of “When I was working on Swingers…”. God that man loves to talk about Swingers.
Regardless if you love him or hate him or like the character of Iron Man, this film is an entertaining watch. With the quality of the Comic books films this summer going up, it will only ensure that we get another three per year for the next twenty years. I personally have hated pretty much all of the other Comic book films but the big three that came out this summer are all worth checking out.
- Currently 2.66666666667/5
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Rating: 2.7/5 (6 votes cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Art Marcum, Bill Smitrovich, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hawk Ostby, Iron Man, Jeff Bridges, Jon Favreau, Leslie Bibb, Mark Fergus, Matt Holloway, Micah Hauptman, Nazanin Boniadi, Robert Downey Jr., Shaun Toub, Terrence Howard
Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
The Dark Knight is a 2008 American superhero film co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is a sequel to Batman Begins.
The Dark Knight finds the titular superhero coming face to face with his greatest nemesis — the dreaded Joker. Christian Bale returns to the role of Batman, Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the role of Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins), and Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger dons the ghoulishly gleeful Joker makeup previously worn by Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero.
Just as it begins to appear as if Batman, Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman), and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) are making headway in their tireless battle against the criminal element, a maniacal, wisecracking fiend plunges the streets of Gotham City into complete chaos.
My boss forcefully gave me the day off today to save some money for the company. Thankfully, I won’t be working for her much longer, so I don’t have to worry about any more of these days off. I dreaded having a whole day off, making no money and just sitting around the house. A friend of mine also had the day off so we both decided to do something with it and go see The Dark Knight.
I saw Batman Begins when I was still living in New Orleans before the hurricane. I thought it was a good effort but not a great film. The Dark Knight takes things up a notch, much like Spider Man 2 did with its franchise. The first Spider Man film was just okay but the second one was great. Better special effects, better writing, better acting (even though I hate Kirsten Dunst), and better action scenes. The Dark Knight does all those same things.
I don’t think The Dark Knight is as great as Spider Man 2 was but it does have moments of greatness. The action scenes are great, with most of them having no loud background music which makes them kind of stand out more. The film’s dark tone throughout the movie is great, it’s probably the most serious and terrifying comic book movie ever. The acting is great, with the whole cast doing an awesome job, thank god Katie Holmes left.
Heath Ledger probably plays the best villain I have ever seen as the Joker. A lot of people are saying that Ledger gives an Oscar worthy performance and he does. The whole film does really. I have no doubt that he will be nominated for best supporting actor and the film too for best picture. Eckhart is also really good, especially when he becomes hard to look at as Two Face. Oldman gets more screen time then he had in Batman Begins and uses every second of it to be awesome. I kind of forgot that Bale was in the movie since we see so little of him and more of all the other characters. Even though he also plays Batman it was a surprise every time I saw him on screen without the costume. Although no one stands out or gets left behind, all the performances are equally great.
After Spider Man 2, the third one in the series was a complete mess. Everything that was great about the second one seemed to disappear. I hope that doesn’t happen to Batman and it continues with Nolan behind the wheel.
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Rating: 4.0/5 (2 votes cast)
Posted in Josh, Movies, Reviews by Josh No Comments »
Tags: Aaron Eckhart, Anthony Michael Hall, Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Eric Roberts, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Jonathan Nolan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Melinda McGraw, Michael Caine, Michael Jai White, morgan freeman, Nathan Gamble, Nestor Carbonell, The Dark Knight
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The Promotion is a 2008 American comedy film written and directed by Steven Conrad. A look at the quest for the American Dream, it focuses on two grocery store managers trying for a promotion. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March 2008. It was released by Dimension Films on June 6, 2008.
Doug Stauber (Scott) is the assistant manager of a supermarket in Chicago. He believes that he is a “shoo-in” for manager of a supermarket that is scheduled to open a few blocks away. Suddenly a new assistant manager, Richard (Reilly) comes to the store from Canada, and begins to compete for the same new job.
The movie describes how the two men fight for the job, trying to impress the management of the supermarket chain. The competition causes strain on their respective marriages. Doug is under financial pressure to get the job because he has begun to buy a house that he cannot afford if he is not promoted. After Richard arrives, it appears that he has replaced Doug as front runner for the job. But it soon becomes clear that Richard has disadvantages of his own, such as a past substance abuse problem and a tendency to make inappropriate remarks.
Don’t watch this if you work or have worked at a grocery store because it doesn’t really offer anything that true about that environment. The movie is strictly about the promotion and the two people that want it. I wanted there to be grocery store humor but there really isn’t any. This is definitely one of those movies where if these two weren’t starring in it you would never have heard of it. It’s not that it’s bad either, it’s just that it isn’t that good of a movie. The voice-overs are never ending and the plot is pretty basic. I have no intentions of ever sitting through this again so I’m sure that you won’t be very impressed by it either.
- Currently 1.33333333333/5
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Rating: 1.3/5 (3 votes cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews, Scripts by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Bobby Cannavale, Chris Conrad, Fred Armisen, Gil Bellows, Jenna Fischer, John C. Reilly, Lili Taylor, Rick Gonzalez, seann william scott, steve conrad, the promotion
Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is a 2008 documentary film directed by Christopher Bell about the use of anabolic steroids as performance-enhancing drugs in the United States. The film had its world premiere on January 19, 2008 at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2008, and opened in limited release in the United States on May 30, 2008.
This film doesn’t really know what side to take on the steroids issue. The documentarian, Chris Bell, has tried steroids but then quit because he felt wrong about it but both of his brothers use them and don’t see a problem with it. I think the best thing that this movie offers is the scene about how you don’t have to get your muscle enhancement pills tested by the FDA or anything. Chris makes his own muscle building pills by using illegal mexican workers and it costs him less than a $1 a bottle to make but it’s the same thing you pay over $50 in a store.
If you have seen the show on Discovery about the man whose arms exploded then you will recognize a lot in this movie. Chris interviews some of the same people and not surprisingly we get the same interview as before. Most notably the Harvard professor who compares bodies of action figures to the rise of steroids in America. Bell talks about how all his heroes have even admitted to using steroids and that it’s no wonder so many kids use them.
The movie although not knowing exactly which side to pick on the steroid war does offer some good information and if nothing else proves just how stupid us Americans are when it comes to wanting to look good.
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Alexander Buono, Chris Bell
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Son of Rambow is a 2007 comedy-drama film written and directed by Garth Jennings. The film premiered January 22 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Son of Rambow was released in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2008 and opened in limited release in the United States on May 2 2008.
Set in “a long, hot summer in the early ’80s”, the film is a coming-of-age comedy. It tells the story of two schoolboys who are inspired by the film Rambo: First Blood to make their own action-adventure film, which they hope will win them a young filmmaker competition. Neglected youngster Lee Carter (Will Poulter) - the worst-behaved boy in school - has access to the home video equipment used by his bullying older brother’s (Ed Westwick) video pirating enterprise.
Will (Bill Milner) couldn’t be more different; quiet and shy he comes from a family that belongs to the strict Plymouth Brethren religious sect. Will is forbidden to watch films or television and is made to leave his classroom when the teacher puts on a documentary. In the corridor he meets Lee, thrown out of another class for bad behaviour. At first, Lee sees Will as an easily manipulated lackey but after Will sees a pirated copy of First Blood and throws himself into the filmmaking experience, the two realize how much they each need a best friend.
Their movie takes on a chaotic life of its own, as they fight to keep control of it, and also to keep it secret from Will’s family. Ultimately it changes the lives of both boys, and their relationships with their friends and families.
This film has more heart than the Grinch post saving Christmas. The young actors do great at taking on roles which are really more mature than the age meant to be portrayed. As far as piecing together the film, it really couldn’t have been done much better. It flows pretty smooth and we fall for all characters involved and don’t get lost in any other silly side banter. The film knows exactly what it wants to do and it does it. Which is better than a lot of the films that come out nowadays.
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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Bill Milner, Charlie Thrift, downlaod, download, Garth Jennings, Jessica Stevenson, Jules Sitruk, Neil Dudgeon, review, son of rambow, torrent, Will Poulter
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