Movie Review: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Our journey through the Universal Monsters blu-ray set  continues, with the first (and only) sequel within it. So let’s put our neck-bolts on and get ready to talk about it.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Bride of Frankenstein”.

Set immediately after the horrifying events of the first movie, we follow the Monster (Boris Karloff) as he makes a daring escape, trying to just be left in peace. All while the somehow still alive Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) once again is in the business to create life. This movie is a little falsely advertised. The bride does technically exist in this movie, but spoiler alert, she’s barely fuckin’ in it. She only shows up for a minute right at the end, barely playing any role in it. The story leading up to that is excellent, and I don’t mind the bride scene either… but when your movie is named after something that’s only there for a minute, then you kinda fucked up, I feel. It’s like if you took “Fight Club” and named it “The Harassment of Raymond K. Hessel”, yes it happens in the movie, but it’s such a minor element that it’s not worth naming the movie after it. Wow, I spent a lot of time on that one thing… but I guess I can justify that with “the movie is very mismarketed”.  Anyway, the rest of the story is great, they get some excellent drama of the Monster being on the run from the mob of scared people. There is a lot of nuance within the narrative, it is emotionally engaging. But man, that title snafu really bugs me.

The characters in this are colorful (ironic, given the monochrome) and entertaining. Let’s start with Boris Karloff as the Monster. He’s a tender creature, someone who doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but is sometimes forced because he’s trying to survive. He has such a beautifully tragic arc in this movie, and Karloff’s performance is fantastic. Colin Clive returns as Dr. Frankenstein, and he’s a little more reserved this time around… and Clive does a good job with his performance. And the supporting cast, containing people like Valerie Hobson, Ernest Theisger, Elsa Lanchester, Dwight Frye, O.P. Heggie, and more, all do quite well in their respective roles. Theeeeeen there’s one cast member I don’t like. That is one Una O’Connor. She was also in “The Invisible Man”, in which she was kinda fun. Here however she doesn’t fit. Her performance doesn’t work with the serious tone of this… and she has a lot of screen time. Do you see the problem with that one? But yeah, one really big sore thumb in an otherwise great cast.

The score for the movie was composed by Franz Waxman, and I think he did a good job with it. It’s fun, it’s decently emotional, and it overall does fit the whole mad science/gothic vibe for it. It just works for this movie pretty well.

The director of the first movie, James Whale, came back to direct “Bride of Frankenstein” as well, and once again his direction is spectacular. This man was very much ahead of his time, giving scenes a lot of exciting camera movements and angles that almost felt ahead of their time. Whale’s direction is electrifying, and when you combine that with the cinematography of John Mescall’s cinematography, you get a movie that is beautiful to look at.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 98% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 95/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7.8/10. The movie even was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Sound.

So yeah, I don’t love “Bride of Frankenstein” as much as most people. It has some flaws within its title-story ratio, and also one painful performance… but it’s still a solid flick. It has a good plot, okay characters, great performances, good music, and great direction/cinematography. Time for my final score. *ahem*. My final score for “Bride of Frankenstein” is an 8.11/10. So while flawed, it’s still worth buying.

My review of “Bride of Frankenstein” is now completed.

The film twitter people are gonna kill me for me… and then reanimate me so they can kill me again.

Movie Review: Chappie (2015)

Usually I have some kind of way to intro my reviews that will relate back to a theme in the movie, but this time I couldn’t really figure anything out. So I will just say that this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year… and then I got a little bit turned off when the reviewes started coming in. And now I have finally sat my ass down to see it.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Chappie”.

In the not too distant future, science have evolved in such a way where it’s been able to switch out a good amount of human police officers with robots. And in the movie we follow young scientist Deon (Dev Patel) who created the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence. And then it’s put into a stolen police robot who is then activated and gets to learn about the world. And the poeple who stole are the members of the band Die Antwoord (God damn it…). So they basically teach this stolen robot they name Chappie (Sharlto Copley) to do bad shit and not to be a scientific marvel. Seeing the progression of a robot from innocent child to vastly intelligent adult would be so cool if they didn’t fuck around with the whole Die Antwoord thing. It isn’t interesting seeing Chappie be a gangsta (not gangster) and see these two assholes as his parents. There are so many great opportunities for great story development, but for this one they went in a pretty weird direction.

The characters in this movie are not interesting in the slightest… except for Chappie. The reason he works as a character is because he is pretty conflicted about who/what he is in this movie and he’s not a straigh-up dick. I will also say that Sharlto Copley with his performance capture really did a great job as Chappie, bringing so much humanity to the role. Dev Patel did a good job as Deon, but his character didn’t feel like he was properly used. The two members from Die Antwoord were not good in this movie. My guess is that they were hired because director Neill Blomkamp is a fan which I think is great, he can be a fan of them if he wants to… but that doesn’t make the decision to cast them in such major roles a good idea. Hugh Jackman I think did a fine job even though he is stuck in the same situation as Dev Patel where he wasn’t properly used since they went with the kind of wrong story opportunities. And Sigourney Weaver had nothing to do in this movie… she was a little unnecesary. And saying that about such a great actress really hurts my heart. So I guess to conclude this part: the acting was fine, but the characters (except for Chappie) were all pretty bad.

Finally… something I can give some praise! The score for “Chappie” was composed by Hans Zimmer and while it’s not one of his best, it’s still really good. It worked for the movie and helped bring out emotions and feelings that could not have come forth without the score. And as you may have expected, there is music by Die Antwoord in the movie as well. And while it didn’t ruin the movie, I have to say that I’m not a big fan. If you like it, great. But I am really not a big fan.

The directing in the movie is really good, but that is something I have come to expect from this director after having seen his two previous movies. The movie looks sleek and everything is overall well directed. And as in Blomkamp’s previous movies, the CGI looks pretty fucking amazing. Blomkamp knows how to blend it in perfectly without making it bloated and distracting, it all actually looked very real. And the action in the movie is pretty good as well, nothing spectacular, but still pretty entertaining. And I can say that despite the story being a little bit of a fail, it still kept my attention all the way through and it had a good pace to it. So it’s not slow and boring and dull and everything like that.

This movie was not very well received by the people or the critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 31% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 41/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6,9/10.

So “Chappie” was a bit of a fuck up. The story missed every good thing it could do and none of the characters (except for Chappie) were interesting. However, the movie did have great music, fantastic visual effects and some good action scenes. Time for my final score. *Cough*. My final score for “Chappie” is a 6,97/10. While it’s not as good as I hoped it would be, I do still think it’s worth a rental.

My review of “Chappie” is now done.

I got nothing celver to say here.

My Favorite Scenes: Blade Runner – Tears in Rain Monologue

Hey guys, it’s me. And it’s time for me to share one of my favorite scenes. And this time it is for the sci-fi classic “Blade Runner”. In other words, spoilers for the movie “Blade Runner” and if you haven’t seen it already I suggest you go and see it (Final Cut version is the best) and then come back. We good? Great!

So this scene is pretty much at the end of the movie. Not the final scene like the video title says because there is still a little bit left after this scene, but it’s still late in the movie. And to be honest, I could include the circa 10 minutes leading up to it as well seeing as it is in my opinion one of the most suspenseful scenes of all time where we see our hero, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) getting chased by renegade Replicant, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) through an old building. But since I didn’t feel like looking for that part to include in video form, I will settle for this part… which is still worth talking about.
This movie is 33 years old and this scene still holds up magnificently both in directing and visual effects. After the chase has ended, Batty saves Deckard from falling to his death and then he starts monologuing. Usually monologuing from the movie’s main antagonist is jsut a cheap way for a deus-ex-machina to happen, but here it works. It is a beautiful monologue that gives a lot mroe meaning to everything in the movie and it is elevated by Rutger Hauer’s fantastic performance and the beautiful score by Vangelis. The scene has a lot of emotion and it is overall just fantastic, definitely one of the best I have ever seen.
Enjoy!

Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking (2006)

I have a very mixed feelings about corporations and the people who work for them. Doing all kinds of dirty and terrible businesses while having some skilled and equally slimy face to the outside world who will distract people from the bad shit. And while I don’t condone that type of work, I have to admit that it’s pretty fucking clever.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Thank You For Smoking”.

The movie follows Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) who is the spokesperson for Big Tobacco. Nick is in a little bit of a dilemma as he is trying to speak for cigarettes and make people actually keep buying them while at the same time trying to be a bit of a role model for his young son, Joey (Cameron Bright). That’s right, this movie is centered on a man saying smoking is cool and good for you, the usual villain thing… and it aboslutely works perfectly. No, I don’t mean that I wanna go out right now and buy a pack o’ smokes, I am saying that it is a damn clever way of delivering the story. I mean, the moral at the end of the movie (no spoilers) is actually the smartest way of handling this type of thing. And since this is meant to be a satirical comedy, is it funny? Yes it is funny, I would even say that it is pretty fucking hilarious, it made me laugh a lot. And since the the movie managed to deliver a smart & interesting story while also making me laugh, I really have to give it some major cred.

The characters in this movie are colorful, well rounded and incredibly entertaining. And you know what makes them even better? The actors. Aaron Eckhart is aboslutely fantastic in the role as Nick Naylor. He is perfectly on that line of slimy public figure while still remaining as likable as one can be. And you actually root for him in his struggle to balance his job and the relationship to his son. And like I said, Eckhart is terrific in the role. William H. Macy plays the senator who Naylor is constantly butting heads with and he is also great in his role. Cmaeron Bright is really good in the role as Naylor’s son. And then we have J.K. Simmons as Naylor’s boss and of course he knocked it out of the park because he’s J.K. Simmons. There are so many moe names I could mention, but I don’t feel like going through the entire list. But I do really think every actor did a great job in the movie.

What I like about the soundtrack is that it’s kind of a mixed back of styles. No, not in the “Cowboy Bebop” sense where you will basically hear any and all genres possible, but rahter to get a decent mix of stuff. The original score for the movie was composed by Rolfe Kent and it is great, kind of Henry Mancini-esque in it’s style. Then we have a lot of licensed tracks relating back to smoking in some way and they all perfectly fit into the movie when they are used.

This movie was directed by Jason Reitman (Sidenote: Son of Ivan Reitman who directed “Ghostbusters”). And you can really notice that it is one of Reitman’s movies since it has his style that would be noticeable in his movies. Okay, to be honest I have only seen “Juno” prior to this, so I don’t have too much to go on, but according to people who have seen more of his movies they have said that he has a very unique style. Very snappy, very stylish but still very conventional. And I guess that is kind of what I really like about his directing style. I can also say that the movie features some fantastic writing (also done by Reitman) that both made me laugh out loud and think “Yes, this shit is true”. What I am trying to say is that it’s both funny and thought provoking. Fun fact: this movie is based on the book of the same name by Christopher Buckley… just wanted to throw that out there.

This movie has been well received. Om Rotten Tomatoes it has an 86% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 71/100. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3,5/4 stars. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,6/10.

“Thank You For Smoking” is a very clever satire of not only cigarette companies, but of the American conglomerate in general. It has a smart & well-crafted story, great characters & acting, great music, really good directing, great writing and it is really hilarious. Time for my final score. *Huff puff*. My final score for “Thank You For Smoking” is a 9,90/10. It most definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Thank You For Smoking” is now completed.

You wanna get better at rhetorics? Listen to Nick Naylor.

Movie Review: Mississippi Grind (2015)

Here’s a question for you: Do you have or know anyone with an addiction? Not just drugs, but any kind of addiction really. If so, maybe say yes and what that addiction may be. Okay, on to the review.

Guys and gals… “Mississippi Grind”.

Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) got a bit of a dilemma. He is overall down on his luck and he got some financial problems. Then one day he meets young and charismatic poker player Curtis (Ryan Reynolds). So they team up to go on a road trip through the south to try to change Gerry’s luck for the better and get a load of money. But it’s not only a typical “Financial hardships and poker” movie, it is also a drama about addiction (Hence the intro to this post). You see, Gerry has a bit of a gambling addiction and that is a big theme of the movie. And I have to say that I really enjoyed the story of the movie because it kind of showed the consequences of addiction while still making gambling look like fun even though you most likely might lose. I thought the plot/story was great.

The characters in this movie are consistently entertaining and they all have several layers to them. Ben Mendelsohn plays the skilled but still struggling poker player and he is absolutely terrific in the role. I don’t have much to really compare to since I have only seen him in one thing before I saw this, and that thing was “Slow West” (Sidenote: Great movie). And Ryan Reynolds as Curtis… terrific! This is the best I have ever seen from him (Sidenote: I have not seen “Buried” yet). Both actors did a great job, as did all the supporting actors.

While there was no real original score (as far as I know/have noticed) for the movie, there was still a soundtrack. It is very heavily based in southern rock & blues music and I absolutely loved it all. The songs were not only great on their own, but they also fit the tone and style of the movie really well.

This is one of those weird movies that have two directors sharing credit. So if the movie is bad, we got two people to blame. Luckily, the movie is very stylishly directed, but not in a bad way. Sure, it’s not as stylish as “Drive” or anything by Wes Anderson, but it still got a lot of style and uniqueness to it. And it’s interesting to see the different parts of the American south that our “heroes” do their trip through because the southern parts of the U.S. interest me a lot.

This movie has been well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an 89% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 77/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6,4/10.

“Mississippi Grind” is a pretty damn great movie about gambling addiction. It has a great plot, great acting, a great soundtrack and great directing. Time for my final score. ALL IN! My final score for “Mississipi Grind” is a 9,88/10. It most definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Mississippi Grind” is now completed.

What’s your favorite poker/gambling movie?

Movie Review: Black Hawk Down (2001)

*Ron Perlman voice activated*. War… war never changes.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got a… “Black Hawk Down”.

In 1993, a band of American troopers were sent in Mogadishu, Somalia to try to take down a local warlord who is the cause of a civil war. However when one of their Black Hawk choppers crash in the city they have to fight for survival against essentially everyone in the city… or at least a lot of heavily-armed Somalis. And while the story doesn’t have a lot of cultural empathy, it’s still one hell of a ride. What we have here is a really intense war story and how it affects different people in this situation. And it was all very riveting. There is rarely a calm moment in this movie, so when there finally is a bit of calm you never really take it for granted. But I have to say that it was really interesting, intriguing and pretty well handled.

The characters in this movie are nothing to write home about. They are all bland and never really develop at any time. And I know that you might be sitting there like “Come on, they’re in a war, there is no time for character development”. Three words: “Saving Private Ryan”, a war movie that is just as intense but takes the time to develop it’s characters and keep them interesting. The only reason you care for the characters in this movie is because the movie makes you root for them but introducing them in the beginning and making sure you don’t completely hate them. The only one I actually still really cared about was Josh Hartnett’s characters, but that’s really only because he gets the most space out of everyone. That and his performance is pretty great. That is something positive I can say: while the characters are bland and such, the acting is still fucking phenomenal, great work by everyone in the movie.

The score for the movie was composed by the ever so masterful Hans Zimmer. It is tense, emotional, big and badass. I would really say that it perfectly fit a war movie of this size and scope while also working very well musically overall. I also like the good mix of licensed tracks in the movie because they all worked really well in my opinion.

“Black Hawk Down” was directed by Ridley Scott who I am a huge fan of and once again, he delivered. First off, the movie is masterfully shot and directed and never really has any of that terrible shaky-cam bullshit. And the action scenes are very well handled too. They are both masterfully crafted and plentiful, so anyone in need of realistic war-action, look no further. I will just say that at one point there was so much intensity going on that I thought I was gonna get a heart attack from this damn movie. Thankfully the movie felt like quieting down for a bit around that time so I could catch my breath.

This movie was well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 76% positive rating and a “Fresh” ceritifcation. On Metacritic it has a score of 74/100. Roger Ebert gave it 4/4 stars. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,7/10. The movie also won 2 Oscars in the categories of Best film editing and Best sound. It was also nominated for an additional 2 Oscars in the categories of Best director and Best cinematography. 

“Black Hawk Down” is a really intense war movie with an engaging plot, bland & uninteresting characters, great acting, great music,  great directing and excellent action. Time for my final score. AAAAAAHHHHH. My final score for “Black Hawk Down” is a 9,38/10. I would say that it’s worth buying.

My review of “Black Hawk Down” is now completed.

Only the dead have seen the end of war. 

The “Captain America: Civil War” trailer is officially here

How are you doing today guys? I just came here to share the latest big trailer that just dropped. Yes, I rarely touch upon trailers for movies, television or games, but this time I felt that somethign that I really wanted to talk about dropped. As the title of the post suggests, this is the recently (last night) released trailer for the highly anticipated “Captain America: Civil War”. So here we go!

I first off wanted to say that I was a huge fan of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and was therefore incredibly happy to see that the Russo brothers who directed that movie would be returning for this one because “The Winter Soldier” was an awesome movie. It was dark, it was badass and it was intense and it looks like this  new one might be very intense as well. I would put it like this: the last “Cap” movie I felt was kind of like a mix of “Metal Gear Solid”, “The Rock” and of course “Captain America” which really sounds like the best combination ever.

So what is the plot of the movie? Well it is basically a retelling of the classic “Civil War” comic, only without the rest of the Marvel universe. That’s right, since the rights of the characters are split up between several movie studios, you will not get to see characters like Wolverine or the Fantastic Four. But the basic plot of the “Civil War” is that the government have gotten sick of superpowered beings (and Iron Man) running around in a very uncontrolled manner and doing their thing, too destructive and such. So they put up a regulation that prevent them from doing that. Of  course, Steve Rogerrs (Captain America) is not very happy about that, so he stands against it with a bunch of other characters. But on the other end of the spectrum we have Tony Stark (Iron Man) who is completely for this, being in favor of the regulations. So this of course ceates a bit of a conflict and starts a bit of a… civil war. Now since we don’t have the entire Marvel universe to have fun with, the movie will focus more on the Avengers splitting into teams, fighting eachother with the newest additions of Black Panther and (apparently) Spider-Man (Sidenote: Spidey did play a huge part in the comic) to the MCU. But even though there are limitations on which characters will be in the movie, we still seem to have a good amount that will show up and join in on the fight. Even general Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) and his awesome mustache will make a return, being the one giving Cap the news of the regulation (as shown in the trailer).

I can at least say that based on the cast and trailer that I am pretty hyped about this movie. Hell, I’d even dare say that I think it will be pretty fucking awesome. I’ll leave a link to the trailer so you can check it out for yourselves and then maybe tell me what you thought about it.
Enjoy!

 

Movie Review: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Here’s a good question for you to think about: what’s the most peculiar mix of genres you have ever experienced in a movie? And what movie was that? I am asking because the movie I am reviewing today has a weird (to say the least) blend of genres. And I guess that’s one of the reasons I wanted to check it out.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Bone Tomahawk”.

This movie follows a very unlikely group of gunslingers; a sheriff (Kurt Russell), an old assistant deputy (Richard Jenkins), a crippled cowboy (Patrick Wilson) and a well-dressed gentleman (Matthew Fox) as they go out into the wild west to rescue a bunch of people who have been kidnapped by cave-dwelling, inbred, cannibalistic savages… yeah, you figure out how they came up with that. But do you see now what I meant by peculiar mix of genres? The movie decided to try to combine western with horror. And how did it turn out? Actually, it was quite good. The story is told in a very slow moving and suspenseful way which I honestly think worked to the movie’s advantage. Like I said, the movie moves a bit slower than most western so if you don’t have a good amount of patience, you might not enjoy it… but I did. Also, the suspense is really good in this movie.

The characters in this movie all feel very realistic and fleshed out thanks to some good writing and some damn fine performances. Kurt Russell gives a terrific performance in this movie as the sheriff who has sworn to go out and save the kidnapped people. I would even dare say that he gave one of the best performances of his career. Patrick Wilson plays like I said earlier, a crippled cowboy who is coming along because one of the people who got kidnapped was his wife. And Wilson was great in his role. Matthew Fox was a very well-dressed and well-educated man in this movie, but he was also a douchebag… and he did a great job. And Richard Jenkins as the elderly “assistant deputy” was pretty damn great in the movie too. Everybody was really good in the movie. What’s sad though is that both Jennifer Carpenter and Timothy Olyphant were rumored to have important roles in this movie… how awesome wouldn’t that have been?

The score for the movie was provided by Jeff Herriott and S. Craig Zahler (Sidenote: The director of the movie). And it’s pretty great. It’s slow-building, beautiful and tense, in other words perfect for the movie. It’s not huge and extravagant, but it never needed to be.

Seeing as this is a western and me not being able to change, I guess I have to talk about the shooty-bang-bang bits in it’s own separate segment… here we go. The shootouts are fine in the movie. There’s never really any conflict in the movie that requires two or more people to shoot at eachother. But when Kurt Russell or any of the other guys have to shoot at someone or something, it is pretty satisfying.

As previously stated, the movie was directed by S. Craig Zahler and as a little fun fact, this is his directorial debut. And does he make an impressive debut? Yeah, he does. This movie is very well directed and everything looks terrific. Sure, it’s not perfectly directed, but since this is a debut I guess I can kind of look past it.

This movie has been pretty well received even though it hasn’t been seen by too many people. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an 89% positive rating (100% if you go by “Top Critics” only) and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 71/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,1/10.

“Bone Tomahawk” is an impressive directorial debut from S. Craig Zahler featuring a really good plot, great acting, great music, good shootouts and great directing. Time for my final score. *Cough*. My final score for “Bone Tomahawk” is a 9,83/10. That means it gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

“Bone Tomahawk” is now reviewed.

Remember the question I asked at the beginning of this? Please leave an answer in the comments.

Movie Review: Slow West (2015)

I don’t think there’s a point for me to even do some kind of intro when I review a western, because you guys already know that I am a western fanboy. But in this case I still feel like I should do one to mention how fun it is to see that there are still westerns being released. Sure we have gotten some real stinkers in recent years like “The Lone Ranger” and “Jonah Hex” (I feel sick just mentioning those pieces of shit). But I do still have hope that a western might be good/might entertain me. So let’s see if this one is any good.

Ladies and gents… “Slow West”.

So in this movie we follow young, Scottish man Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who have traveled to America to find his beloved girl named Rose (Caren Pistorius). Of course he doesn’t have the easiest time doing this on his own, but luckily he runs into an outlaw named Silas (Michael Fassbender) who is willing to help Jay find Rose. And from that we get a very unique western with a very well told and entertaining plot. The plot touches a lot on the themes of love, right & wrong and a lot of other things that I didn’t expect from it which is something that makes me appreciate a lot more. I also like how the plot has a slight sense of dark humor to give it a very fun style/mood. In conclusion, I liked the plot a whole lot.

The characters in this movie all evolve pretty well and are consistently entertaining. Kodi Smit-McPhee gives a terrific performance as this young, inexperienced yet determined man. Michael Fassbender is terrific as he always is, playing a rough  and badass outlaw who still has a little bit of a conscience. Caren Pistorius who pops up now and again throughout the movie in flashbacks and such is great as well. And I have to touch on Ben Mendelsohn as an outlaw named Payne who appears in this movie… he’s fucking great. That’s it, I have nothing else to say about that.

The score for the movie was composed by Jed Kurzel and I think he did a great job with it. I would say that it is very “Wes Anderson-ish” in style. If you have seen some of Wes Anderson’s movies you know what I’m talking about. Sort of quirky and whimsical but still done in a way where it could be used in a serious way. Does that makes senese? No? Well, I still thought it was great and fit the movie very well.

Since this is a western I have to do this thing where I touch on the shooty-bang-bang parts of the movie. And I do think they are great. Sure, they are kind of few and far between, but this is also a pretty short movie, so I’d say that it’s just proportined to the running time. And like I said, when the shootouts happen, they are pretty damn great. SImple, but effective.

This movie was the directorial debut of John Maclean and I think that he did a fantastic job directing the movie. The shots are steady and it is gorgeously shot. Of ocurse I then have to give some cred to cinematographer Robbie Ryan because the cinematography in this movie looks fantastic. And I like how they used actual environments when they filmed and not jsut some generic green screen soundstage. A lot of cred should be given to the crew of this movie.

This movie has been pretty well received by people and critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 92% positive rating and a “fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 73/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,0/10.

“Slow West” is a very traditional western that still does a lot of unique things with it’s story while also having interesting & entertaining characters, great music, great shootouts and fantastic directing. Time for my final score. *Bang Bang*. My final score for “Slow West” is a 9,87/10. It definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Slow West” is now completed.

In one scene he goes from Michael Fassbender into Michael Fassbendrunk.

Movie Review: Southpaw (2015)

It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge
Of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all with the
Eye of the tiger

Ladies and gentlemen… “Southpaw”.

Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is boxer, and a damn good one at that. I mean the guy is the junior middleweight world champion. Well, he is that until something happens. Something that makes him lose everything. So now he has to find a way to work his as back up in life, and for that he takes help/training from Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker). And I have to say that rarely have the plot of a movie depressed me as much as “Southpaw”. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that Billy’s life goes from fine, to bad, to shit, to lowest low. And with his life falling down, so goes your emotional dominoes. That’s right, the plot made me feel like shit and I think that is a bit of a plus. I even have to admit that there were a few points where I almost teared up a bit. Sure, the story is cliché in a lot of ways, but the movie uses those clichés to it’s advantage and that is a good reason for me to like it.

I think it goes without saying that Jake Gyllenhaal is fucking phenomenal in the movie as boxer Billy Hope. Te guy has proven himself time and time again that he is one of the best actors working today and this is jsut another example of his talents. He commits to the role both physically and mentally and is perfect in the role. Forest Whitaker gives one of, if not the best performance of his in recent years. Rahcel McAdams is also really good as Gyllenhaal’s wife. 50 Cent is also in this movie, basically playing Jake Gyllenhaal’s manager and he is actually realld good in the role. In the movie we also have relative newcomer Oona Laurence playing Gyllenhaal’s daughter and I would say she gives a damn fine performance. I rarely like child performances, but she was really good in the movie. Everybody did a great job in the movie.

The score for the movie was provided by the late (and great) James Horner. It is emotional, it is a little thought-provoking and it is pretty damn good. And the use of all the licensed rap songs is perfect. Sure, if you’re not a fan of rap music then you might not enjoy them, but I liked the songs and I thought they fit perfectly.

This movie was directed by Antoine Fuqua and you notice that he was very passionate about this project. You can see how much effort he put down to make sure this movie was as well directed as possible. The overall direction is great, but where it excels is in the boxing scenes which are intense, fierce and brutal. I especially kind of love the first-person shots they sometimes do where you see the actor throw punches at the camera and you see it weave away and dodge, those shots were really cool. Here is a little fun fact for you: This movie was intended as a follow-up to “8 Mile”, this movie was even set to star Eminem. But since there were some scheduling conflicts, Eminem had to drop out and the part went to Gyllenhaal, which may or may not have been for the better.

This movie has gotten some mixed reception. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 59% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 57/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,5/10.

“Southpaw” is a movie that features a pretty cliché story that actually uses the clichés to it’s advantage while also having great emotion, great acting, great music and great directing. Time for my final score. AAAAAAAHHHHHH! My final score for “Southpaw” is a 9,84/10. It gets the “SEAL OF APPOVAL!”.

Review of “Southpaw” is now completed.

Did you see how much Gyllenhaal beefed up for this? Jesus Christ.