Abduction 6/10- Wasnt as bad as I thought it would be plus Lily Collins is Hot. Killer Elite 3/10- Utter crap!!! Underworld Awakening 7/10- Real entertaining.
I watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil the other night on streaming. It was a fun movie with an original approach. I also second the Peep Show suggestion.
The Tunnel (2011) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735485/ 7/10 This was a decent pseudo-documentary/'found footage' horror film from Australia. An investigative TV crew explores massive, abandoned tunnels under Sydney trying to find a good scoop against the city officials. Unfortunately, they find something else. Good camera work (not too shaky), solid acting, and great suspense. But, the director's decision to use interviews in the film really killed the tension he successfully built up so that hurt the climax and pacing. Also, I wished the ending had been different. If you liked the Blair Witch Project and [REC], give this one a chance. Note: this movie has a cool distribution model which embraces piracy. You can download it as a free 720p torrent. If you like the movie, you can either buy the DVD or purchase a frame from the movie for $1. The movie is 90 min long with 135,000 frames. If 135k people downloading this movie for free donate $1, that will fund the entire project. There is a critical scene in the movie which I'm now an official owner of. If the movie makes a profit, I get a percentage too. http://www.thetunnelmovie.net/
The Artist - 9/10 Loved it, the story was fast-moving, the acting was fantastic. And that dog is AMAZING!!!
Ides of March 9/10 Avoided it because I assumed it was a snoozefest with Clooney pushing some sort of political agenda, but I thought it was great. Tense, fast-paced, gripping thriller with tight dialogue, a great story and A-list superstars acting circles around each other, all packed into 1 hr 40 minutes...everything I want in my movies. Pleasantly shocked. Highly recommended.
The Grey (82%) - I tend to like survival movies, and this one did not disappoint. It was shot beautifully, the performances were strong, and there were interesting religious / existential themes that added to the depth of the film. Unfortunately, I wish they had made it strictly about the harsh environment and circumstances rather than making it so much about the wolves that were hunting them. The best parts of the film really had nothing to do with them at all. This movie also had one of the better endings I've seen in a while. Kind of got to me emotionally, to be honest.
True Legend 3/10 I had been eagerly anticipating this one for a long time. Whenever I see 'Yuen Wo Ping' listed anywhere in the credits, I am in. But 'Directed By'? Even better. [WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW - NOT HIDING THEM, BUT BE AWARE, SPOILERS BELOW] Not so with this thing though. Seriously, this is the movie that made e begin to question whether or not there is some kind of law in place in China that requires every historical martial-arts movie to end with the underdog hero defeating some evil foreign devil in a rigged tournament of some kind. Let me back up. At first, you have what appears to be a old-school martial-arts wire-fu action-fest. Some super covert soldier types are sneaking into this sort of weird underground bottomless cavern type hideout to rescue their kidnapped 'Prince' from some Gengis Khan wannabe's, or something like that. That was ok, pretty neat stuff there. It is right here, early on, that we start to see the tension between the main character and his brother (sorry, don't remember their utterly forgettable names). The main character is the head general, the brother one of his lieutenants. They manage to escape from the harrowing raid, rescue the Prince, and make it back to their camp. From here, the general hero guy decides to retire, and let his brother have all the glory. And of course it is at this point that we learn that the guy is not really his 'brother', but was raised as such by the general's father. Turns out, the father had to kill the other guy's father because he had succumbed to the Dark Side of the Force, and had gone all evil with the Five Deadly Venoms. But the father was not a bad guy, so instead of killing the bad guy's children (the brother and also the brother's sister - more on that in a moment), he took them in and raised them as his own children. Clearly though, the brother is a troubled and jealous young man, and trouble is definitely brewing on the horizon. Got all that? So far so good, movie is moving along ok. Now, fast-forward like, I don't know, ten years maybe. Ex General Hero guy is now a martial-arts teacher, and has settled down with the sister (remember her?), who had been sweethearts forever apparently. They have a doofy kid too, about 8 years old or so. The sister always loved her surrogate father, and understood her real father was evil as heck, so never held any hard feelings. Not so for her brother though. The brother sends word that he has now become the grand imperial poo bah of the entire empire's army, or something like that, and he is coming for... "a visit". The father pretty much knows that the dude is coming back for revenge, but doesn't run, for some reason. The brother shows up, and he has clearly been spending too much time in front of the mirror, getting himself all evil'ed up. He has actually stitched armor into his flesh, he dips his hands into vats of scorpions, and just generally oozes pure malice. So when he arrives, he pretty much chops everyone's heads off, kills the father, and takes his sister and nephew, his 'family', to come be home with him so they can be reunited as a family - clearly this boy has some issues, and other people are going to pay the price. General Hero Guy is not around at that particular moment, but when he arrives and sees all the heads separated from their bodies, he becomes miffed and takes off after the evil brother, to deal some of his own vengeance and to recover his stolen wife and son. Now, again, so far so good, it's pretty hammy, but it has its hooks in me, you know? So, he catches up with the evil brother on a sort of pier jutting out over a raging-fast river. They begin to fight, and it is only then that the evil brother reveals his true strength, and the hero guy is simply no match for the brother's paleness or baldness or sheer deadly-venom awesomeness, and is gravely poisonously wounded, his arm severely injured.. So the Hero guy is definitely going to lose the fight, but he is not giving up. He happens to hop up on the railing of the pier, in a great display of martial arts balance, but the railing doesn't hold up its end of the bargain, and breaks, sending him crashing to his doom into the raging waters. Surprisingly, the kidnapped wife/sister jumps into the water too before anyone can stop her. Evil brother is extremely annoyed, and grief-stricken, and takes their son away in chains to raise him as his own little evil project. So, ok, obviously, this is going to be a movie where the guy survives the river, recovers, his wife probably dies in his arms on the river bank too, but in the end, he has a broken heart but he gets his revenge, he rescues his son, and that will be the end of another Martial Arts Historical Action-Fest, right? Well... Ok here is where the movie begins to sort of looks like someone else took over and started making an entirely different movie. Turns out, both the wife and the Hero Guy survive the river, but SHE is the only one who is intact, the Hero is so gravely wounded that he is apparently in a coma. So, she starts to drag him around behind her for a while, actually drags him up the side of a mountain for some reason. As insanely wild luck would have it, Michelle Yeoh happened to also be up there, and just HAPPENED to be an expert in curing whatever it is he is suffering from, as she is living the life of a brilliant physician/psychologist/hermit. Slowly, PAINFULLY slowly, Hero guy begins to recover. But dude has ISSUES now too. He's depressed, and has lost his mojo. No confidence in his arm, that kind of thing, lost his son, lost his father, all that stuff. They stay living with Michelle up on the side of the mountain for what looks like several years. Meanwhile, Hero Guy is wandering in a field one day when he suddenly sees what looks like a Buddhist Monk sort of levitating through the grass, being carried around like on the pinky finger of some super-martial-arts guy (remember the guy who played Kato in the latest Green Hornet? That's him). Naturally he follows them, and winds up in some kind of holy mystical temple-looking place. The monk kind of challenges him to learn WuShu or something like that, but tells him that he is as likely to be killed trying to learn as he is to actually learn anything. But he wants to learn, so he jumps right in, amidst some of the very worst CGI you will EVER see. So basically now, Hero Guy goes to get his butt literally whipped daily by this guy with the monk, who the monk calls the 'God of Wushu', and whom he has to defeat if he wants to consider himself as having 'learned' anything. Oh yeah, he is doing all this in secret, because his wife doesn't want him doing the martial arts hero thing anymore, something like that. Well anyway, he keeps getting the crap beat out of him by the God guy, but is slowly getting slightly better every time. So ok I can see where this is going. But Michelle back at the mountainside resort is thinking that something fishy is going on, and that Hero Guy is like losing his mind, which is not a good thing. So the wife follows him one day, to see this mysterious 'training' he says he is doing. Turns out, he is just jumping around in a field, cracking himself over the head with rocks, like a total looney bird. IT'S ALL IN HIS HEAD, GET IT?? Yes, apparently he has gone total bugnuts. OR HAS HE? Of course this also HAPPENS to be the day that he finally BEATS the God of WuShu, and graduates from the program, and need never return, his confidence now fully restored. So, he returns to the shack, only to find a note that the chicks have split, Michelle's contractual obligations to the film are over, and we do not see her again. The wife says she has just gone to seek her brother and to try to get their son back, and has gone alone because she saw her husband looking bananas, and thinks this is the only hope of ever seeing her son again. So, once again, we are back into the point of the first part of the movie, he is racing to try to rescue his wife and son from the maniacal evil pale brother. So yeah, it still has me, I can see how it will play out now - he will get there, big battle, good guy wins in the end, family is reunited, happy ending. So far so good. So Evil Brother obviously captures the wife, and is informed that Hero Guy is probably on his way to deal some justice. Evil Brother is an evil badass and all, but he aint no dummy, so, here he does something extremely clever and evil: he orders his men to take his sister and go and BURY HER ALIVE IN THE WOODS. YES. You saw that right. So, the men drag her away, and go bury her alive in the woods, in a box. They return, and Evil Brother very evilly kills them right there on the spot. Why oh why would he do this? Well, apparently he does this to ensure that Hero Guy will not kill him, as he would therefore be killing the only person who knows where his wife is, buried alive in a box in the woods and all. Oh yeah the little boy knows he did it too, Evil Uncle told him about it. So, Hero Guy arrives.. (by the way, at this point, Hero Guy is not all sleek like at the beginning, he is all scraggly and bearded and shaggy-headed).. shows up, and of course there is a cool epic fight. But it turns out that Evil Brother is not nearly the badass that everyone thought he was, and Hero Guy actually kills him pretty easily. Even though the little boy is screaming Don't Kill Him!! Don't Kill Him! So, oops. He kills him dead good. Meanwhile, he is just realizing his mistake, when one of the soldiers we only THOUGHT was dead (but was only MOSTLY dead), raises up a little and says 'She is buried in the woods'.. So, Hero and his son race off into the woods, to try to find her and dig her up, in the middle of a muddy downpour, so it's all really epically awful looking, but he actually FINDS her, and meanwhile we get all these shots of her inside the box, slowly dying, but hanging on by a thread.. annnnd... no. She be dead. He digs her out, it's too late, he is anguished, screaming in the mud, heart broken, all very tragical. Just totally losing his mind from the grief, and a pretty good powerful ending to the movie. Because, seriously, I thought this was the end of the movie right here. It should have been. But no. Again, it's like someone else takes over, because the movie just... keeps going. And going. AND GOING. So now, we have the totally mindless ex-general Hero Guy and his son, now wandering around mindlessly as beggars. He has apparently gone mute, and I don't THINK I remember him saying anything else the rest of the movie. They just drift around, begging. Well, in this one town, we happen to see that there is this thing called the WuShu Federation - apparently it is something along the lines of MMA nowdays, just a sort of arena where rabid fans watch and cheer and drool at the carnage. And some people are loudly complaining outside it that there is something awful in there, and that fighters are not just being beaten, but being killed with all the brutality. Well, Hero and his kid happen to be sort of camped right outside this place, when the HEAD of the WuShu Federation happens by, who just HAPPENS to have been on of the General's loyal lieutenants back in the day, and recognizes him, and sort of takes them in. Somehow his guy, FedHead I will call him, has gotten himself roped into getting into the ring against the brutal bad guys in there, and he is not feeling too good about it, but he must do so because of HONOR and ALL THAT CRAP LIKE THAT. The Hero guy tries to leave in the middle of the might, making FedHead promise to take care of his son, as he is himself worthless now (so yeah I guess he did speak some after all). Oh yeah, in a restaurant, the God of Wushu shows up again and shows Hero some Drunken Master moves, while they trash the place. Huh? Anyway, the kid refuses to let his dad just run off, and insists on sticking with his father (awww, such a great kid!), so that was nice. And then FedHead invites them with him to this arena place where he is probably about to get his head smashed in, and they get in there, and lo-and-behold, the movie has now turned into every freaking martial arts movie out of China I can remember in forever - EVIL WESTERN BAD GUYS CHEATING AND ARROGANTLY BEATING UP THE POOR OPPRESSED CHINESE FOLK. And apparently we are no longer in ancient China, we are now in what looks like maybe the late 19th century at least. And oh yeah, DAVID CARRADINE is in there, as the Evil Bad Guy Boss. Yes. You saw me correctly. This was apparently the last movie he was in before making that fateful phone call to Tran the Sadistic Strangler (too soon?). And he has this stable of TOTALLY EVIL WESTERN GUYS. A big guy, a little guy, and a regular looking guy I think. They all kind of look like WWF rejects really. Anyway, it's a tournament now, all the jaded people in their high-fashion suits sitting there cheering the demise of one poor Chinese fighter after another, while these EVIL WESTERN GUYS just cheat, and use knives, and bend the rules. Because you know, they are WESTERN, and they are EVIL. Anyway, FedHead gets in the ring and promptly starts to get his head handed to him by the EVIL WESTERN BAD GUYS. Well, before they can actually kill him, the kid runs into the ring, trying to get them to stop pounding on him, and they kind of pick the kid up and shake him around and stuff. So the KID starts screaming, and suddenly comatose Hero Dad becomes aware enough of his surroundings to leap into the ring and deliver some badassery of his own onto the unsuspecting EVIL WESTERN GUYS. The crowd is stunned, David Carradine is stunned too - this tramp beggar-looking dude has just jumped into the ring and kicked the ass of one of his fighters. We he ain't standing for THAT, so he sends his brutes all in there, and thus commences another the predictable 'underdog chinese fighter beats up on the EVIL WESTERN CHEATING BAD GUYS'. David Carradine even sneakily shoots his fighters up with what is apparently a mixture of instant steroids and crack, because suddenly they got REALLY hard to beat. BUT BEAT THEM HE DID. (with the Drunken Master Jackie-Chan Style that the God of Wushu showed him while they were horsing around in that restaurant, remember?) Because, you know, they were Western. And therefore EVIL. And the crowd roars, and the evil Carradine is defeated. And.. Hero Guy is redeemed, right? Cleans his act up, becomes respectable again, opens a new Martial Arts School, finds a new woman to love, all that, right? Nope. He just goes off with his kid, wandering the land as a beggar. The end. Seriously? I genuinely have to question what happened in the making of this movie. Is this REALLY the 'Legend' of the wandering WuShu Beggar, that seems to be all up in Chinese folklore? I honestly do not know enough about it to be able to say one way or the other, but man. What a waste. I was hoping to see some awesome action like we got to see in Iron Monkey, or even in Matrix and Crouching Tiger.. but now, this all mostly looked like Tsui Hark made it, which is NOT a good thing. Anyway, writing this was a good catharsis, because I have been annoyed ever since I saw that movie a few weeks ago, and hopefully this can help others avoid the trap that was set by putting Yuen Wo-Ping in the credits as director. I really think some government official must have stepped in and added that last third to the movie.. Does anyone know if that is the sort of thing which could happen over there? Anyway, bottom line, avoid it if you can.
Red Tails (4/10) - No plot to speak of, mostly poor acting. The dog fight scenes looked good, but didn't have enough drama. Wait for it to show up on Red Box.
Man on a Ledge 7.7/10 I was pleasantly surprised. It had a great plot that nfilded as the story went on. Definitely worth going to watch.
Watched the 9th gate again this past weekend. Still one of my all time favorites. The hidden complexities are very fun to dwell on and consider.
Cowboys and Aliens - 1 / 10 I couldnt get myself to finish it Captain America - 2/10 Another bad one (had to labor to finish it)
Mission Impossible 4 -- 5/10 -- Very predicatable. I don't get why it's rated so high on rotten tomatoes. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo -- 8/10 -- never read the book. I sat through an almost three hour movie without checking time too often. I'd say it's a good one.
