How to Train Your Dragon 2. 7.8/10 Pretty good for a sequel. Has a lot of sexual innuedo references, which is pretty hysterical.
End of Watch on Netflix 9/10 - I really liked it. I probably gave it 1 more as a bias for cop movies.
Saw a little European art film last night, and it was absolutely incredible. Ida 10/10. Set in Poland circa 1960. Simple but intense story with great performances and phenomenal B&W filming.
12 Years a Slave 9/10 Great all around. Been a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor since Serenity in 2005, so I'm glad he got to showcase his talents in this role.
the prestige-7.8889/10 In some parts I was thinking to myself, ok, when is alfred going to wake up bruce from this out of realm dream he is having. I enjoyed it.
Neighbors 6/10 I really like everyone in this movie, even Efron, I think he's an underrated actor, c*m at me bro. Maybe it's because I heard so many great things about this movie. I went in with too much expectation. I thought it was just ok.
Disconnect 8/10 Excellent movie I caught in the free HBO preview last week. Had never even heard of it but it's the first movie I've ever seen that tackles the effects of social media. Just a fantastic movie.
I thought t it was pretty good all the way up until the climax. What the hell was that? It ended pretty abruptly.
Yeah, the ending was kind of unsatisfying but I think it was more to get people to think than to have a decisive ending.
Grand Budapest Hotel-9.5/10 I am an admitted Wes Anderson fanatic, so I may be biased and can certainly see how Anderson critics could dislike it, as it may be the most Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson has ever made, but I thought it was almost perfect. Ralph Fiennes did an amazing job
Journey to the West (Latest Steven Chow movie) 6/10 If, like me, you are a huge fan of Kung Fu Hustle, you keep hoping that the 'other' Chow movies will be as good. Nope. Shao Lin Soccer? No. I don't even remember the names of the others, but there have been a couple others, and I just couldn't get into them. Add this latest movie that same list. Journey to the West.. to me it plays more like a wild bugnuts version of a Chinese Saturday-Night-Live extended skit, broken into maybe three parts. There are a few bits which are truly inspired, really genius, and I found myself laughing out loud. I won't spoil it - I'll just say 'special effects guy' and you'll know it when you see it. But mostly, the movie just jumps right in, no background, no setting, nothing, just jumps straight into the middle of the action of what seems like a demented looney-tunes remake of Jaws.. which was the closest the movie came to feeling like Kung Fu Hustle. But then we move to another big set, and another set-piece action scene where the main badass female character reveals she is apparently stalking the sweet gentle main character. And it just gets weirder and weirder. Then it goes through more weirdness and then it basically turns into 'Evil Monkey King versus Buddha', and then basically had the exact same ending as Kung Fu Hustle. I don't know how this movie played in front of CHinese audiences, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a huge it, but to my 'Western' brain, it just doesn't play well.. as much as I love Chinese movies, the great martial arts movies, Yuen Wo-Ping, Iron Monkey, Crouching Tigers, etc etc.. sometimes they are just too alien to me.. especially when you end up with movies like Hero (which I have never liked).. which seem to take this shoulder-shrugging acceptance that the state is more important than the individual, and it just really falls flat in my mind. How does that relate to Journey to the West? Well, the main character (I don't know his name) is a 'Demon Hunter' who has a 'Demon Hunting Handbook'.. (remember the Buddha Palm Manual in Kung Fu Hustle? Same idea, get it?) but it's a book of nursery rhymes.. the idea is to find it funny, he can't even read.. but wait, yes he can, he knows it's nursery rhymes, and he reads from it to the demons in order to convince them to be good and not bad. Shrug, whatever. It doesn't really work, or at least we never see it work - I'm sure there's a message in there somewhere that there is goodness inside everyone, even people who have turned into demons. Anyway, by the end of this movie, this bumbling main character transforms through enlightenment into a supreme Buddhist Monk, in glowing white robes, and apparently through sheer force and power, forces the evil Monkey King to change from being bad to being good. That's what rings so alien to me - the notion that the 'good guys' use force to coerce the bad guys to their way of thinking. In other words, 'brainwashing' is great, as long as it is done by and for the 'good guys'. Ever see Clockwork Orange? There's just such a gulf of difference between peoples and how they perceive the intrinsic values of 'the collective' versus the 'individual'.. I'm not saying this movie pushes that so much as I am saying that it bleeds through into everything and it's just sort of an accepted fact of reality, but to my foreign brain, it just feels so... wrong. So anyway, the movie.. LOTS of weirdness, and several moments when it appeared that everyone involved just stopped taking what they were doing seriously. like, at ALL. May be good for a rental, but you're not missing anything if you skip it.
Busty Milfs 12 7.5/10 Chicks were hot but the music sucked and I couldn't finish cause the scenes were to short.
They Came Together - 8/10 Hilarious spoof of the romantic comedy genre. Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler kill it.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In preparation of 'Dawn' of course I had to watch the prequel! Overall, 8/10. Can't wait to see the new one. Excellent revival of the old franchise.
You're Next - 6.5/10 I'd been wanting to watch this one for a while (I'm a big fan of Ti West and Joe Swanberg) and I finally did the other day. It wasn't quite as good as I was expecting (I built it up a little too much), but I definitely still liked it.
