The King's Speech

The King’s Speech

                The King’s Speech is the 2010 biopic about the life of King George VI, played very well by Collin Firth.  This movie chronicles his rise to the throne, and the stammer that threatened to keep him from being successful.  Before he became the king his was the king’s second oldest son also known as the Duke of York who had struggled with a stammer since the age of five.   A stammer in the early 1900’s already carried a stigma with it, and when you add that to being a member of the royal family that stigma is doubled.  The Duke’s wife Elizabeth (Helena Bohnam Carter) had sought out the help of lots of different therapist with no results to show.  This brings them to the unorthodox methods of actor turned speech therapist Lionel Logue(Geoffrey Rush).  The movie shows the treatment of the king as well as the friendship that buds between the two men.  The movie culminates with the Duke becoming King, and addresses the British people as they enter World War 2. 

                The Movie was good with a very solid story and strong acting by the big three of the movie.  Collin Firth was excellent as the king and his stammer was very good and he did a great job of showing his frustration with the stammer that he has lived with for so long.  Collin Firth also grabbed the Best leading actor Oscar for this role based the difficulty of the role and his great overall performance.       Geoffrey Rush was very good as the speech teacher and I enjoyed watching the teaching sessions where it was just him and Collin Firth.  The back and forth between the two of them were some of the best parts of the movie.  Finally Helena Bohnam Carter as the queen was a big surprise.  She always seems the play kooky characters who dress and act incredibly bizarre, but in The King’s Speech that is not the case.  She plays the queen who acts and dresses in a very proper way.  She also does a great job showing her love and support for her husband as he struggles with the stammer and becoming the king. 

                The movie was an all around good movie, and I can see why it won the best picture Oscar this year.  I have seen several of this years contenders and I am not sure that the King’s Speech is the best it was a very good movie and it was probably a pretty tough choice between it and the Social Network.   

I give the King’s Speech 4 out of 5 paw prints.

My next review will be over the 2010 chick flick Love and Other Drugs.

And as always, “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here.

Resident Evil Afterlife

Resident Evil Afterlife

                This is the fourth movie in the Resident Evil franchise.  This movie starts with Alice, played by Milla Jovavich, taking down the Umbrella corp., headquarters in Japan.  She then decides to take off after her friends, who went to the supposed safety of Arcadia in Alaska.  While there she does not find the safe haven but she does find Claire(Ali Larter) with a strange device attached to her chest and a bad case of memory loss going on.  The two of them load up in Alice’s plane and head up the coast where they run into a group of survivors holding up in a Los Angles jail.  This is where they find out that Arcadia is not a place but a ship.  The rest of the movie is spent escaping the zombie horde and trying to get to the ship. 

The Story and acting are pretty much what you would expect from this kind of movie.  It was not very good acting wise, but I did not think it was all that bad either, that is with one exception.  Shawn Roberts plays Albert Wesker the main bad guy and he was just terrible I think he was either trying to do or not trying to do an accent and failing miserably either way.  The movie also came out during all the 3D hype and they tried very hard to make it look cool.  Since I watched it on a regular tv I did not get the full 3D effect.  It might have looked really good in 3D and you could tell they were trying really hard but it ended up looking kind of silly that everything had to be coming at you.

Overall I did enjoy the movie but I have also seen all of the other movies in the series including the less popular animated feature Resident Evil Degeneration.  The action sequences were pretty good and I do tend to enjoy movies in the zombie genre. 

I give Resident Evil: Afterlife 3 out of 5 Paw Prints.

My next review will the 2010 Best picture winner The King’s Speech.

And as always “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here!”      

Predators

Predators

                Predators, is the fifth movie in the predator franchise.  It begins with Royce, played by Adrien Brody, in a free fall to a jungle below.  His parachute opens and he meets up with six other strangers who are all for the most part armed to the teeth.  The group comes together and as they are talking they all realize that their jobs require them to be armed and it most cases it requires them to be killers.  Once they figure out who they all are that’s when the fun begins by first finding out they are on another planet and it is some kind of hunting reserve.  They also realize that they are not the only things on the planet being hunted when they come across cages attached to parachutes as well.   The hunters of course are the predators and they have a few new tricks up their sleeve this time, my favorite being the alien hunting dog they use.  The movie follows our group along as they are being hunted and picked off one by one. 

                This movie had so many problems that I am just not sure where to start.  The first problem is Adrien Brody in an action role. I have seriously had enough of him after seeing two of his last movies(Splice and Predators) he is just bad and not what I would consider an action hero.  The second problem was the music that played throughout sounded more suited for a spooky episode of Looney Tunes than a sci-fi action film.  The final problem was that the “surprise” twist that happens at the end of movie was not so much of a surprise and by that point you just did not really care.  All I can say is one of these things is not like the other one of these things just doesn’t belong.

                Overall I just had a hard time enjoying this movie the only parts I did enjoy were Laurence Fishburne’s part and the alien hunting dogs.  I just keep seeing predator movies hoping that one these times they will get it right and give these great characters a movie that does them justice.

I only recommend this movie if you really like the predator movies, or if you are in for a good not thinking movie.

I give Predators 2 out of 5 paw prints, and that is probably being generous

My next review will be over the fourth Resident Evil film Resident Evil: Afterlife

And as always “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here.”

   

Green Zone

Green Zone

                Green zone is the 2010 Matt Damon film about the search for wmds in Iraq during the most recent Iraq war.  The movie follows chief warrant officer Miller (Damon) as he and his team follow tips from an Iraqi source on the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction.  Chief Miller keeps getting frustrated by tips that turn up nothing when a chance meeting with an Iraqi citizen put him on the trail of a high ranking Iraqi general.  The pursuit of the general also causes Miller to question the reasons for the war and whether there really are any weapons.  I thought this movie was good.  It definitely had a stance on the war and whether we should have been there or not, but I did not feel like it was trying to portray itself of as the truth or fact.  The story was interesting and the acting was good.  Matt Damon does a good job making his character believable and likeable.  Greg Kinnear also appears in the movie as Clark Poundstone the pentagon official who is the arch nemesis to Chief Miller during the whole movie.  Kinnear does a good job of making his character very unlikeable and he really seems like the politician who has his own agenda.  The action in the movie was decent although for a war movie I was hoping for more.  In the end this movie felt more like a political thriller then a war/action movie.

Overall this movie was good, not great.  If you like war movies or political thriller this movie would be right up your alley.  This movie would also be good if you like Matt Damon who is good as always in the lead role.

I give Green Zone 3 out of 5 paw prints.

I am not sure what my next review will be but it will be up in the next week

As always” You don’t have to go home but, you have to get the hell out of here”

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2

                Kung fu panda 2 is the story of Po, who is voiced by Jack Black, and the Furious five as they race to save China and Kung fu from the evil peacock Shen(Gary Oldman).  Shen has harnessed the power of gun powder and is using it to try to destroy kung fu and conquer China.  This of course does not sit well with the dragon warrior and his friends who are off to stop him before his plan can come to pass.  The movie also has a nice sub story that tells you about Po’s past and the role Shen plays in it.  The voice acting is really good in the movie with a lot of big names contributing such as Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, and Seth Rogan all reprising their roles from the first movie.  The animation as really good and I especially enjoyed how the movie would switch from the computer animation for most of the movie to the cruder hand drawn animation for the flashbacks.  It added a depth to the look and feel of the movie that helped set it apart from other recent animated films.  I also liked the fact that the first movie was mentioned but you did not have to see it to understand what was going on in this movie.  I liked this movie just as much as the first one but my wife said she liked this movie more which is a good thing because the end of the movie set up another one so I am sure we will be seeing Kung Fu Panda 3 in the years to come. 

                This movie was a great family movie especially for families with little boys even though girls would like it too.  This was the first movie that we have ever taken our kids to in the theater and they loved it especially my almost four year old.  There was a good mix of action and comedy in the movie and it flowed along at very good pace, with the final run time with previews it lasted about an hour and a half. 

I recommend this movie for anyone who has young boys or if you are just looking for a fun movie. 

I give Kung Fu Panda 2, 4 out of 5 paw prints.

My Next review will be over the 2010 Matt Damon Iraq war movie Green Zone.

As always “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here!”  

Gnomeo and Juliet

Gnomeo and Juliet

                Gnomeo and Juliet is Disney’s 2011 reimagining of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  The story is about gnomes in neighboring gardens, the reds and the blues, that have been fighting since before anyone can remember.  Gnomeo(James McAvoy) a blue gnome is on a late night raid on the red garden when he catches a glimpse of Juliet(Emily Blunt) as she goes out to find a rare flower.  Love blossoms from there as the two star-crossed lovers try to keep their respective families from finding out about them.  They also have to figure out a way to keep their families from destroying each other as well.  I really enjoyed this movie it was a great family movie with lots of funny things for kids as well as adults.  I am always a big fan of movies that add humor in them that kids won’t get but adults do, and this movie had an abundance of them.  I was also impressed with the actors they got to play in the movie.  They had some big names like the two mentioned above as well as Micheal Caine, Jason Statham, and Ozzie Osbourne.  The animation is very bright, colorful and well done, which is not a surprise since it is a Disney movie.  I very highly recommend this movie for anyone looking for a fun family night in.      

               

I give Gnomeo and Juliet 4 out of 5 stars.

My next review will be over Kung Fu Panda 2 it will be up next weekend sometime. 

As always "You don't have to go home but, you have to get the hell out of here"

127 hours

127 Hours

127 hours is the story of Aron Ralston, who was hiking through Blue John Canyon when he dislodges a boulder and it pins his arm to the canyon wall.  Ralston, played by James Franco, is an experienced outdoorsman who decides to take a weekend visit to the canyons in the Moab desert in Utah.  Unfortunately he forgets to tell anyone where he is going and ends up knocking a boulder loose and getting his hand trapped between the rock and the canyon wall.  During the 127 hours that Ralston is trapped he runs out of food and water and is forced to make some very tough decisions if he wants to survive.  Franco does an amazing job playing Ralston.  This is the first time I can ever really think of seeing Franco in a serious role and after watching this movie it is not hard to figure out why he was nominated for an Oscar.  Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy do a great job of taking Ralston’s book and turning it into a very entertaining movie, and that cannot have been an easy job.  The book was very long with each day he was trapped taking at least fifty pages.  They stayed fairly close to the book with a few additions and omissions along the way.  The one thing that was left out of the movie that I would have liked to see was all the rescue effort that his family and friends put into finding him.  It was interesting to me to read about all of the frustration and joy that comes from planning a rescue operation with very little information.  They obviously had to leave out some parts of the book but I think the rescue operation would have been an interesting addition to the movie.    

                I highly recommend this movie if you have not seen it already.  It is not the most action packed movie ever but the story is solid and the acting on Franco’s part is just fantastic.  It also has the whole overcoming adversity thing that personally gets me every time.    

I give 127 hours 4.5 out of 5 stars.

My next review will be on the reimagining of a William Shakespeare’s classic “Gnomeo and Juliet.”

Now as always I will end with, “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here!”

The Town

The Town

                The Town is the 2010 heist movie staring, co-written, and directed by Ben Affleck.   The movie takes place in big surprise Boston following a crew of bank robbers as they execute different heists.  The two main members of the crew are Doug MacRay(Affleck) and James Coughlin(Jeremy Renner).  The two grew up like brothers but have very different ways of getting things done.  Doug is the thinker and brains of the group while James tends to act on impulse and doesn’t always think things through.  The movie follows them through a serious of robberies all while being pursued by federal agents.  The movie is overall pretty predictable and is a basic heist movie, but I actually liked the movie more than I thought I would.  It had a decent amount of action and the story moved along at good pace.  Affleck and Renner where both decent in the main roles, nothing spectacular, but they played the rolls well.  Affleck does a good job of making you root for Doug, which isn’t an easy job for two reasons: One he is a bank robber, and the other reason being he is played by Ben Affleck, but through it all you like Doug.  The same can’t be said for James while he does have his moments he is mostly just a Jerk.  Jon Hamm and Blake Lively also appear as a FBI agent and James’ slutty sister respectively, and they are mostly not memorable in their roles. 

So overall I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it if you like heist movies or Ben Affleck.  I give it an overall ranking of 3.5 out of 5 stars.  It was entertaining but not one I would run out to buy.       

My next review will be over 127 Hours and should be up next week sometime.

As always I will end with “You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here”

Bear

Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids

                If you think this is a chick flick then you would be wrong.  While it does have some aspects of a chick flick it has way more parts that would be considered straight up comedy.  I don’t think I have laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. Kristen Wiig plays Annie who is a little down on her luck and whose best friend Lillian(Maya Rudolph) has just picked her to be her Maid of Honor.  This Job is made increasingly more difficult by Lillian’s new friend, the very wealthy and seemingly perfect,  Helen (Rose Byrne).  As Annie and Helen battle it out to prove who should be the maid of honor the jokes  flow out of the regular situations that brides and bridesmaids go through leading up to a wedding.  The funniest scene is the one where they are trying on dresses.  The jokes were pretty dirty but I did not feel that they took up the entire movie and were actually pretty mild compared to some other comedies I have seen lately.  The jokes didn’t seem forced either,  like the writers were just trying to fit in as many funny things as possible.  The acting was good and while each person brings something different to the movie I felt that Kristen Wiig and Megan McCarthy stood out amongst the rest.  Kristen Wiig just has a way about her that kills me. She says almost everything in such a straight way that It always makes me laugh, and considering she also co-wrote the movie I have a feeling that we will be seeing  a lot more of her in the future.  Megan McCarthy, who played the groom’s sister, benefited from a character that was so odd that it helped make her mark on the movie.  Between her bizarre behavior and Kristen Wiig’s dead pan humor they contributed 90% of humor in the movie.  I also feel the need to mention Jon Hamm and Chris O’Dowd.  They both play Annie’s love interest and play complete polar opposites with one being the world’s biggest d-bag and one being king of the nice guys. 

If you want to go see a good date movie that both you and your significant other will enjoy or if you just want a good laugh then I highly recommend Bridesmaids.  I give it five out of five starts. I am hoping to get some sort of graphic for the stars but I am still new to the whole blog thing and have not figured it out. 

My next review will be over the 2010 heist movie The Town. Hopefully it will be up this weekend.

And now I will end this review the way I ended every movie night that was at my house. 

“You don’t have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here.”

Bear

First Post

I decided that since I was a big fan of movies and I watch a lot of them I am going to start writing reviews.  These can be new to theaters new to dvd, an old movie that I had never seen, or one of my favorites that I watched again.  I will write reviews on everything that I wach and I tend to watch a little bit of everything from chick flicks with my wife to kids movies.  I personally watch  a lot of action, sci fi, comedies,  and fantasy movies.  I will try to keep spoilers out of my review and I will try to do at least one review a week but over the summer it will probably be more than that.  Feel free to leave comments on any of the movies I review or feel free to recommend movies for me to review.  I won't review them all but I will try to review as many as possible.  I am always up for a debate about movies so if you agree or disagree with me I want to hear from you.  My first review will be up some time in the next couple of days.

Thanks

Dan