Some Amazing Movies, a Cave, and a Cop Killing People While Holding a Baby + a Pregnant Man

A Separation

A separation starts with a wife leaving her husband and plows non-stop towards more and more drama. This entire movie was absolutely fantastic. The acting was superb, through the entire movie I felt like I was just an outside viewer to a real story. Especially because just like real life, there are no 100% good or bad guys. Even though I might not have agreed with all the characters I  could understand why each was acting the way they were. It was refreshing to have a movie with no extreme good or bad guys. The movie was really interesting because it gave a really good look into a different society that is so different from anything I've run in contact with. I didn't know that in Iran they actually have a religious hotline that someone can call to ask religious questions. It was just so fascinating to think that having a women take care of a house where a single man lives is scandalous.
Verdict: Own it!!! This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Definitely in my top 10.

This is England

The first thing that hit me about this movie was fashion. It is fashion, in the form of bell bottoms, that leads the kid to his first fight of the movie. Its fashion that makes him officially part of the skin head gang. Its 80s fashion that is one of the reasons this movie is so visually appealing. The movie is about a fatherless troubled kid who finds friends in a group of skinheads. The skinheads are a nice people, maybe a bit mischievous, but nothing like the skinheads we think of today. All is fine until a recently released from prison skinhead returns to the group. This skinhead is an actual racist-nationalist and things start to go downhill. I liked how human everyone feels. Just a bunch of people going through life and except for two super-racist idiots, everyone is relatable. It was also wonderful to see such a young kid act so well. 

Verdict: See it now! Its well worth your time.

Hard Boiled

Your probably asking yourself "Is that man holding a baby in one arm and a shotgun in the other!?" And the answer is "Yes." In fact that baby has probably seen more people die in this movie than you have killed in Halo (ok maybe not that many but still alot). With an endless amount of cronies jumping from behind corners this felt like a shoot em' game at an arcade. Nothing special about anything except the endless amount of bullets fired.

Verdict: See it if you like action movies and can handle 90's music

Starship Troopers

This movie is cheezy and it knows it. It knows that its not a good movie and tries to play off of that fact but doesn't do it well enough. Black Dynamite is a movie that knows its bad and becomes amazing. This movie knows its bad and plays off it enough to make the movie bearable to watch. Fun things about the movie, the fact that a gun with a small magazine can fire 200+ bullets without reloading, and the caption when he unemotionally declares "They sucked his brains out." Other then that its a simple 90s action flick without too much going for it other then being scifi (this automatically bumps up any film a few notches).

Verdict: Watch it with friends so you can laugh how absurd/terrible it is.

Junior

Its a pregnant Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Diveto, haha! The plot of the movie is almost funnier then the entire film. The jokes aren't the best and the acting from Arnold isn't fantastic but I think the movie still worked. The movie is slightly heavy with stereotypes, ie Arnold becomes a 'perfect' housewife when he becomes pregnant. He suddenly has learned how to cry during movies and cook dinner for the family. In the end it does raise some questions about female/male roles. One of my favorite lines is when the female scientist in love with Arnold declares "You can't take pregnancy from us, its one of the last things females have." (this isn't an exact quote)  

Verdict: A fun movie to watch with friends. Try to keep an open mind and it'll be good

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

This movie was a beautiful display that humanity transcends time. This documentary, from one of my favorite directors Werner Herzog, is about Chauvet Cave. This cave is home to cave paintings that are 32,000 years old! And these paintings are gorgeous. Some of them are the same image painted multiple times and overlaying each other but in slightly different positions. This has the effect of showing movement. What makes this documentary great is its subject matter. Viewing items of such beauty that are 32,000 years old builds a bridge to other humans across time. In turn it creates a bound to those around right now.
Verdict: It is well worth seeing! Roger Ebert called it the only movie worth seeing in 3D

Start with the Best

Valhalla Rising

This movie was so much fun to watch. The main character never says one word and at any moment may kill everyone around him. The dark dreary landscape mixed with such an explosive and unpredictable character meant that, while most of this movie consists of slow long shots without explanation or dialogue, I was never bored. The cinematography was outstanding. Mix that with the rugged wilderness that they shot, and every scene in this movie was beautiful. This movie was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and I'm excited to see more from him. His unique artsy style can be seen in his other amazing films, Drive, the Pusher Trilogy, and Bronson. While he's not for everyone I can't wait to see what he does next.

Verdict: See it is you like artsy films! I loved it!

Four Rooms

This movie was directed by four different directors and each take a scene in a different room, hence the title 'four rooms.' The first room was full of witches with a story that was stupid and a style that was slightly less stupid. The main character is present throughout the entire movie as an intelligent idiot. Some scenes it works, some it doesn't. The start of the movie it fails but by the end the character has changed enough, and it seems not by some journey through the film but just because the directors realized the first version was just bad. I liked the third room (seen in the photo above) because it has a crazy Antonio Banderas and two hyper children. The fourth room, Quentin Tarantino's room, might have been good if he hadn't had acted in it. He's kinda of a bad actor and when he plays a main role it doesn't go well. I'm glad the scene had Bruce Willis to save it a bit. The story of the fourth room had a typical Tarantino feel but he just didn't pull it off like he normally does. This is probably because the scene is too short, he made himself the lead, and its the 90s. 

Verdict: Only see this if like 90s corniness or you just needed to see it cause its the last movie of Tarantino's filmography that you need to see (thats why I saw it).

The Last House on the Left

This movie doesn't deserve a picture. I won't talk much about it because it was so bad that I want to forget ever having seen it. Its a 70's gore film with nothing of worth to talk about. I don't shy away from violence or gore but this type of movie with its brutal torture scenes and being about the worst scum of humanity brings nothing of any worth to anything.
Verdict: Screw you Wes Craven.

La mala educación

La mala educación (Bad Education)

This movie is about transgender, homosexuals, and a pedophile so you can probably guess that this movie gets really awkward at times. For example a few of the gay sex scenes are fairly graphic and pretty much whenever the subject of pedophilia is brought up. I wasn't surprised at all when I found out this movie had a NC-17 rating. Despite the shock value the movie was fairly interesting. I enjoyed how the movie is about a film within in a film. A director gets approached by an old schoolmate's brother with a story to film that is based on his own life. Old love interests are renewed and a crazy, drug addict, transgender, black mailer is revealed to be the person who everyones world, at some point, has revolved around. This has those type of shock-jock moments but in the end the director does a wonderful job about making it about the characters and their story. 

A Big Batch of Movies

Today I'm going to present a big batch of movies. I've been watching them but haven't had time to write about them. Let us begin with

Die Hard 2

This picture is probably a good way to describe the movie. The picture has Bruce Willis, which is awesome, but its bit lame. Its the same with the movie. Everything feels a fairly generic and neither the characters or the story present anything novel. One interesting thing about the movie is how obvious that this movie is from 22 years ago. The difference in how they treat a terrorist situation at an airport then is so radically different then airport security is treated now. If the movie was made today the story would feel ridiculously fake. Maybe that's one of the reasons I didn't enjoy the movie more. It didn't age well.

The Hunger Games

I Present Katniss aka Jennifer Lawrence who is frickin awesome! I loved her in Winter Bones and she did a really good job in this film as well. I'm excited to see more from her. This movie was fun to watch. The director did such a good job of presenting the beautiful scenery and manipulating the camera. He would get really close to the actors faces which helped make the movie more personal and intimate. There were a number of times when the story was just heartbreaking. I felt like the backstory wasn't well documented but they described enough to get the gist of everything.

The Man Who Fell To Earth

Despite having David Bowie in this movie this movie was one of the worse movies I have ever seen, and I'm not exaggerating. I absolutely love David Bowie, so much so that I was him for halloween once. His music is amazing! One could say my opinion of the movie would be biased from having David Bowie. Well it wasn't... this movie was so terrible it was hard to find much worthwhile in it. It is 1970s art house film at its worse. Any barely discernible plot was revealed only through ten seconds of speech for every ten minutes of nothing do to with anything but being artsy filming. And it wasn't especially good filming at that. Without having much dialogue or an understandable plot I spent most of the movie having no emotional attachment to the film. I weep for the fact David Bowie would be part of such a horrible project.

Tower Heist

Tower Heist had potential. It had a bunch of fairly good actors (minus Precious actress Gabourey Sidibe whose Jamaican accent was horrible... they just should have gotten Brad Pitt from Meet Joe Black to play the character), with Casey Affleck being so good at everything he does. It had an interesting story line that plays off the current landscape of anti-wallstreet but it fell short. The writing wasn't horribly good and I didn't find it that funny. The car was beautiful though. 

Carnage

This movie was really enjoyable to watch. I loved the fast paced dialogue and how following it requires focus. Its like a fun mental exercise such as sudoku. All the acting was superb and the fact that they never left the room was really cool. I like how the dynamics of the relationships between the four parents was always changing. First one group of parents vs. the other, then male vs female, etc. Recommendation: Go see it!!

The Adventures of Tintin

I grew up reading Tintin and I was really excited to hear that it was coming to the big screen. I felt the movie did a wonderful job of keeping Tintin's character fun, upbeat, and action packed just like the book. The animation was really impressive. All the objects seemed to interact with the environment quite naturally. The only two scenes I thought were over the top were when the pirates ships were hooked together and one was flying through the air and the last car chase scene when there going through building and such. While I enjoy a little fantasy, when action scenes become so removed from reality that I think "this isn't even remotely possible" its really annoying. Overall though it was a really fun and I'm hoping that they continue on to make more of these films.