Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie

Avoid at all costs.  Within 1 minute I was annoyed and then within 5 I was straight up angry that I had been duped into renting this.  What a freakin' waste.  I had seen previews and thought, "Hmmmm, maybe."  However, those previews were like a beautiful kernel of corn that is just so enticing until you zoom out and see that it is embedded in a terd....that is this movie.

The Front Line

Whoa!  SEE THIS.  This is one of the few movies that are able to mix, perhaps, a bit of fiction regarding interpersonal relationships and present them within genuine historical events.  It is great in that it really brings to life what life was/might have been during a specific historical event as opposed to reading one or two lines within a history book.

A movie like this is something that would do really well in a history class because it brings to life the strangeness of institutions and their effect on the people who put them in power and then have to suffer under them.  One of the very first movies I reviewed on this blog was 'Tae Guk Gi' and this would have been an awesome sequel!  You must see this.

The acting was really good, the directing was awesome, the script rocked, and the cinematography was just amazing.  Too, the music was key.  It neither got in the way and one song that was sung, played, etc. frequently only strengthened the movie's message.

Lockout

No.  The acting was good, but the script was too "I'm a badass" over the top stuff.  Too cliched, to far fetched, and too many..."what?, why? etc."  The only reallly good shot was Joseph Gilgun; his role and acting as a psychotic were awesome...but alas, not enough to save this.

Bad Ass

As much as I dig Danny Trejo's roles, I couldn't finish it.  Trejo's bit parts that involve little dialogue rock.  This was ambitious...too ambitious.  The supporting cast and the canned plots (bad cops, crooked white politicians, etc) forced me to shut the thing off about 1/2 of the way through.

The Hunter

SEE THIS!  This was one of the best films I have seen in a long time.  In places it is incredibly sad and then uplifting.  3 days later and I still toss the plot and all in my mind and think about it.  Simply put, this is an awesome film.

Thank God Willem Dafoe did this.  The last I thought I have of him is that of a green ghoul in the Spiderman series.  No way here.  This hearkens back to his acting days of Platoon.  Awesomely done.  Sam Neill of Jurassic Park and Red October kicks!  His role as a jealous suitor who plot goes horribly awry is just insane.

Everything; the acting, the directing, the script, the score, and the cinematography are just incredible.  I would watch this one again if I did not have to re watch some of the scenes toward the end of the movie...not gory or anything but just heart wrenching.  Awesome film....just awesome!!

A Beginner's Guide to Endings

Have you ever gone to the Indian reservations to get a big stinking box of fireworks, picked out the ultra loaded box that is filled with some high powered pyrotechnics, raced home, lit them, and been totally let down?  Did you enjoy that?

If you did, see this movie.  Everything about it just seems like it will just totally rock but it doesn't.  The script, the acting, the directing, the music, and the cinemtograhy are great, but there is just something missing.  It is like great smelling cookies that get you all excited until you bite into them and find they were made without sugar.

Harvey Keitel is a loser gambling dad with 5 boys; 3 of whom are going to die soon because of a medical test he enrolled them in earlier.  The experimental drug they took (so Keitel could get paid) turns out to be a lethal littel ditty.  Knowing they have little time left on the mortal coil, they start doing crazy and extreme things.  Sounds great?  IT DOES!!!!  But so what, you will be let down.

Freakonomics

It was a bit difficult to watch this film because I use films as sort of an escape in the evenings and on weekends.  This was not fiction or anything but an analysis of trends in society explored through the eyes and thoughts of economists.  Because of what I had heard about it, I felt compelled to watch it because I felt it was a sort of 'required' education unit.

It was good and really interesting.  Freakonomics is a series of vignettes that explore a lot of societal trends, the relationships between cause and effects, where misconceptions in wide-ranging assumptions lie, etc.  It is a must watch dealio.

Acting...none, writing...awesome, directing...great, cinematography...great, music...amazingly well suited!