Red

GET THIS AND ENJOY!  What a killer surprise!  Clooney's "Ocean Whatever Number" meets "Die Hard" meets "True Lies." Where was this film earlier and why didn't I hear about it?  The cast was awesome; Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and finally, John Malkovich in a role that didn't have me thinking he was overacting.  In fact Malkovich was one of the funniest dudes.  Awesome.

Ex CIA Frank Moses "Willis" is retired and has a phone relationship going on with the girl who oversees his pension account.  Okay, he soon discovers that he is on a hit list that is made up of those who participated in a previous job.  That previous job involved a person who is now an aspiring politician.  Okay, Moses must now figure what is going on and then take care of the mess.  On and in the way is Karl Urban's current CIA character of "William Cooper."  Cooper is an honest dude who wants and does the right thing.  A classic scene is toward the beginning when Moses starts going back to his old CIA ways and begins to put a severe thumping on Cooper.  What makes the scene so classic is the soundtrack is Aerosmith's version of "Back in the Saddle."

See this!  The acting is great, the writing and plot awesom, and the cinematography and directing rock.  Man, this is probably a double watcher for me!

Harry Brown

If you still remember Charles Bronson's 1974 'Death Wish,' and liked it, SEE THIS.  35 years later, street punks, junkies, and ne'er do wells are hassling the responsible contributing members of society and killing the most innocent and defenseless...only this time it is on the other side of the pond.  Same background turmoil as well when the innocent approach the police only to get something far less than an effective response.  Therefore, the vigilante must rise and bring on the swift retribution we all dig!

Michael Caine rocks (as he does in all of his films) as the avenger of his best friend's murder.  The smacketh he layeth upon the perps and scum is...well, delicious!  I don't know what it is about Caine, but he is in so many movies and in each, he tweaks himself just a hair and comes up with pretty unique characters each time.  Good deal, good deal! Direction, cinematography, and acting with a decent script are all good.

In the Loop

The only person I recognized was James Gandolfini and be it bias toward his role of Tony Soprano carrying over or what, who cares?  He was awesome.  I can't say I am for better or worse with this one.  There is no real set/action candy, it is all dialogue and that dialogue or script is really good.  Ah heck, I guess I did come away with something and that would be (albeit most probably a fictional item) a possible reason as to why nothing worthwhile seems to get done or come out of Washington D.C.

Hmm, the plot, what the heck was the plot..oh yeah.  A bumbling British politician is elected (translation: bathed in meat tenderizer) and put into political office (translation: vat of starved sharks) where he ignorantly picks a scab.  The rest of the movie does slices of life of all those around him who are affected, have to support him, stop him, use him, etc.

This would be a great movie for the Michael Cera type college student eager to impress a first date into thinking that he is an intellectual who actually seeks films of this type.  Not my cup of tea, but it was okay.

Buried

Bail.  Do not watch this.  I suffered for you and so anyone who reads this needs to calculate their hourly wage and send me that dollar amount x (95 minutes / 60) to compensate me.  Tense, no, boring, yes, a let down yes, another cheap attack on corporations yes, vindication, no.  Let me put it this way, Ryan Reynold's character is stuck in box for 95 minutes until he dies.

YouTube has people dying on it and most of those videos are about 2-5 minutes.  Watch those if you are into that type of stuff and then compensate me based on this calculation:

Your hourly wage x [(95 minutes -the YouTube video's length)/60]

Chaser

I have never seen any of the actors here or what, but limbed it here and scored.  Of course, if you are suicidal or severely depressed, no, not good for you to watch.  It is a dark movie that could be a revolution around South Korea's equivalent of a Gary Ridgway, Ed Gein, or Ted Bundy.  Long and short of it is an ex cop who turns to pimping is losing his girls.  Where they are going is a mystery and it ain't pretty.

Unlike similar films I have seen of this genre, the acting is really good, the ending totally unexpected, and the gore is not over done: the other aspects of the film are so good they keep this from being needed.  I can't adequately comment on the script as it was subtitles, but the cinematography was fine, the directing good, and as I said before, the acting was great.  It was very watchable and I totally recommend it....unless you are looking for a happy movie.

Tennis Anyone

At the behest of a friend, I reached for this one and it finally came.  Okay, Donal Logue (oh yeah, I've seen that guy) is the star and a friend to Kirk Fox who plays an ex tennis pro who wants to be an actor.  Fox's role was to play an actor with little skill, problem was, I wasn't sure when he was and wasn't out of his character's character.  No matter, the dude can serve at 137 mph. 

Okay, I watched enough of it and all to have to keep watching and after the drought of films (because of the sabotage of my queue by the child movie loving gremlins) I suffered, I wasn't going to quit.  I almost caved becuase of the scratches on the disc, but I suffered through.  Glad I did becasue the ending was good. 

So it would not be on the top of my list, but it was good.  Donal Logue is good and, well, yeah, it was all good.

The A-Team

Save yourself.  Don't watch this.  What the heck happened to Liam Neeson?  He started down this action vein of films with 2008's "Taken" and was a good knarly BAD A%* in that!  But here, oh my gosh!  This thing was so lamely over the top that it actually went over the top, went across China and then went over the top again.  117 minutes of Ron's life...gone.

"Well gee Movie Dude Ron, if it was so bad, how come you watched the whole thing?"

"Ya see Johnny DVD watcher, the thing that kept me from returning this hideous boy early within its red envelope of redemption was that someone borked my queue and punked me with 2 Disney dealios; "The Aristocats" and "The Fox and the Hound".....No, that isn't the title of my wedding video!"

If you are inclined to watch this because of Jessica Biel, save yourself and instead get the 2009 Maxim she is in.  At least you will still be able to respect her...as for yourself, well, that's a matter for you to take up alone.