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