Category: 2011

Carnage review

Director:
Roman Polanski
Cast:
John C. Reilly
Jodie Foster
Kate Winslet
Christoph Waltz
Rated: R

No wonder the kids who fought each other did what they did with the parents that they have.

“Carnage” opens with two young boys getting into a fight and one of them ends up getting hit in the mouth. Because of the scuffle, the parents of both boys decide to meet. On one side is Michael (Reilly) and Penelope (Foster), and on the other is Alan (Waltz) and Nancy (Winslet).

The two couples are civil with each other at first however as time goes on they begin to have disagreements and arguments and it goes from couple against couple to just a full on free for all with everybody taking shots at each other making the whole situation into a giant trainwreck.

Continue reading “Carnage review”

Martha Marcy May Marlene review

Director:
Sean Durkin
Cast:
Elizabeth Olsen
Sarah Paulson
John Hawkes
Hugh Dancy
Rated: R

Wait a minute, you’re telling me that not only do the Olsen twins have a sister, but that she actually has acting talent?

Martha Marcy May Marlene follows a young woman who has just run away from what seemed to be her home. We immediately find out though that she was actually running away from a dangerous cult that she had been a part of for an extended period of time. Martha (Olsen), after getting away from the cult led by Patrick (Hawkes), calls her sister Lucy (Paulson) to pick her up and take her home.

After getting to Lucy’s house Martha starts trying to live a normal life again with her sister and her sister’s husband Ted (Dancy), however she finds it difficult to do so. Memories of what had gone on during her days being in the cult continue to cut deep into her head and leaves her in a paranoid state for the rest of the film as she continues to wonder if the cult will eventually find her.

Continue reading “Martha Marcy May Marlene review”

The Descendants review

Director:
Alexander Payne
Cast:
George Clooney
Shailene Woodley
Amara Miller
Nick Krause
Rated: R

The Descendants follows the character Matt King (Clooney), a man who is a descendant of very wealthy Hawaiian land owners. Matt now holds in his hands the sole responsibility of whether to sell the remaining land he owns or not. However, he is under pressure due to the family feuding about which way to go. To make things worse, Matt’s wife Elizabeth was in a boating accident and is left in a coma, he is then informed that Elizabeth’s condition will not improve and that she will pass away within the week.

Because of this Matt and his daughter Scottie (Miller) decide to pick up his oldest child Alexandra (Woodley) and bring her back home. Once they get back home Alexandra has a sour attitude and eventually Matt finds out why. The reason is that Alexandra was angry with her mother since Elizabeth was cheating on Matt. This sets the family on a search to find the man that Elizabeth was having an affair with.

Continue reading “The Descendants review”

Hugo review

Director:
Martin Scorsese
Cast:
Ben Kingsley
Sacha Baron Cohen
Asa Butterfield
Chloe Grace Moretz
Rated: PG

I’ll have to get my flame shields ready for this one.

Martin Scorsese’s latest pic Hugo is based on the novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” The film follows a young boy by the name of Hugo (Butterfield), who after his parents dying is forced to work for his uncle in the main train station of Paris. After his uncle leaves Hugo continues working on the clocks and is left isolated. The one thing he has is a small robotic like machine that him and his father (played by Jude Law) were working on together.

Things change though as the shop keeper (Kingsley) of a small toy store in the station discovers Hugo and takes his notebook. When trying to get it back he meets the store keeper’s God-Daughter Isabelle (Moretz). Together the two of them begin to find out more about the robot and start to see a connection with the shop keeper and the machine.

Continue reading “Hugo review”

Immortals review

Director:
Tarsem Singh
Cast:
Henry Cavill
Mickey Rourke
Luke Evans
Freida Pinto
Stephen Dorff
Rated: R
Trailer

Immortals is the latest film set in the wonderful world of Ancient Greece. The plot follows a young warrior named Theseus (Cavill) who was taught how to fight by Zeus (Evans), although he was hiding as a human at the time. At the start of the film things seem to be going well for Theseus, however his world is thrown upside down as his mother is killed by King Hyperion (Rourke).

Theseus decides to go after King Hyperion and bring him down, to do this he must get the legendary Epirus Bow. Along the way, Theseus is joined by a bandit named Starvos (Dorff) and an oracle named Phaedra (Pinto).

Continue reading “Immortals review”

Tower Heist review

Director:
Brett Ratner
Cast:
Ben Stiller
Eddie Murphy
Matthew Broderick
Gabourey Sidibe
Tea Leoni
Alan Alda
Casey Affleck
Michael Pena
Rated: PG-13

This film felt like a last ditch effort by Murphy, Stiller and Broderick to have their careers recover.

Tower Heist follows the character Josh (Stiller), who is the general manager at a luxurious apartment tower complex. Josh runs a tight ship at the Tower and seems to have everything in line. However his world is spun around when he finds out that one of the residents, Arthur Shaw (Alda) turned out to be a Wall Street man who has many accounts of corporate crime.

This leads Josh to find out that Shaw stole nearly all of the pension money from the employees of the Tower. After this, Josh decides to get back at Shaw by stealing some of his money, and to do this he recruits some of the other employees of the tower as well as a thief that he met earlier by the name of Slide (Murphy.)

Continue reading “Tower Heist review”

In Time review

Director:
Andrew Niccol
Cast:
Justin Timberlake
Manda Seyfried
Cillian Murphy
Vincent Kartheiser
Rated: PG-13

“In Time” is definitely not a film that’s so good you have to show up on time at the theater to see.

The movie is a bout a young man named Will Salas (Timberlake) who lives in a world where everyone is suppose to live until they are just 25. However, they can stay alive longer by working for more time, however the only problem is that time is also the currency, and if you run out of time, shown a person’s arm, then you die. The problem in this world is that the rich have all the time and the poor have next to nothing.

Will is in the position of the latter. He finds the world to be cruel and harsh, especially more so after his mother dies. A short time after this event, he meets a man with 100 years of time and after saving him the man gives Will all of it. After this, Will decides to shake up the system by going up against the ‘Time Keepers’ especially a very dedicated one named Raymond (Murphy), and a wealthy corporate man Phillipe, (Kartheiser). In doing so he also kidnaps and eventually teams up with Phillipe’s daughter Sylvia (Seyfried).

Continue reading “In Time review”

The Three Musketeers review

Director:
Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast:
Logan Lerman
Matthew Macfadyen
Milla Jovovich
Luke Evans
Ray Stevenson
Orlando Bloom
Rated: PG-13

If Websters dictionary wanted to put this movie next to the definition for the word stupid, I would have no problems.

The Three Musketeers follows the young D’Artagnan (Lerman), a man who has a goal of serving France and becoming a musketeer and by doing so, going on many great heroic adventures. He eventually meets up with the famed “Three Musketeers” Athos (Macfadyen), Aramis (Evins) and Porthos (Stevenson) and challenges them to a duel.

Their duel is cut short however as they uncover a plot by the Cardinal (Waltz), the Duke of Buckingham (Bloom) and Milady de Winter (Jovovich) to force the young naive king of France to start a war. The four then set off to stop it all from happening.

Continue reading “The Three Musketeers review”

The Big Year review

Director:
David Frankel
Cast:
Jack Black
Owen Wilson
Steve Martin
Rosamund Pike
Rated: PG

Birding as it’s called seems nice enough sometimes in this movie, if it didn’t involve spending thousands of dollars to travel all over the world.

The film is told from the character Brad’s (Black) perspective, but it follows the story of him as well as two other men, Stu (Martin) and Kevin (Wilson). The three characters are all going after what is known in Bird enthusiast terms as “A Big Year” where people seek out to see the most species of birds they can in one year.

The movie follows the characters through their year as they not only travel the world, but deal with new friendships, romance, births and other personal experiences. It also features problems that arise with having such a commitment to this hobby when other things are happening with their family.

Continue reading “The Big Year review”

The Ides of March Review

Director:
George Clooney
Cast:
Ryan Gosling
George Clooney
Philip Symour Hoffman
Paul Giamatti
Marisa Tomei
Evan Rachel Wood
Rated: R

The candidate that Clooney plays in this film is very similar to another one that ran a few years back.

The Ides of March follows a young man named Stephen Myers (Gosling), working on the campaign trail for presidential hopeful Governor Morris (Clooney). The campaign season is right in the middle of a heated Democratic primary with both candidates setting their sites on Ohio to deliver the knockout.

Continue reading “The Ides of March Review”