Gorgon Reviews

I would definitely describe my feelings towards Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as..”Wait, what?”.

Never heard of this movie when it came out. Just saw that it had a really long feeling title, and that it was nominated for best picture. I also heard the term Oscar bait being tossed around, but besides that I had no idea who was in it, nor did I remember it ever being in theaters.

So yeah. Blank slate watching indeed!

Okay, so its about a kid who is ashamed of his face. Who yells a lot?

Oh, there we go, its a 9/11 movie.

Oskar (Thomas Horn) is a kid with Aspergers living in New York City. His dad (Tom Hanks) seems to be the only one who ‘gets him’. They go on scavenger hunts, looking for clues of the missing sixth Burrow of NYC, and other seemingly useless items. They are designed by his dad to get him talking to others and branching out socially.

But then the towers are hit and his dad is killed in WTC. Lot of confusion. Lot of anger and denial. Mad at his mother (Sandra Bullock) who he has never been close to. But one day, while looking in his father’s closet he accidentally knocks over a vase, inside is a key. Huh.

He goes to a locksmith to figure out to what, and the locksmith says it can be anything, hard to say. But there is one clue, the word “Black”. Clearly that is a last name for someone and maybe they have the next clue. Time to find and talk to every Black in NYC (over 200) and hopefully one day find out where the key goes to, to solve one last mystery!

Also featuring his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell) who lives next door, her mysterious guest (Max von Sydow) and he lazy doorman (John Goodman).

They missed out not making this movie in 3D.

Don’t you dare quote me on this, but I have a feeling this might be one of the cases where the book is better than the movie. Ahh! Not that I read the book. But it must be.

The overall plot and what goes on is interesting. But what bugged me more would probably be how the story was told in the movie, and other decisions a director might decide. Having every other scene be a flash back to 9/11 got old quickly, instead of giving us the full story, and dragging it out longer.

Because I definitely found the search for the missing lock interesting, both his interactions with strangers and his weird relationship with old guy neighbor who doesn’t talk at all.

The kid did a pretty good job. Had a lot of quirks with the way he talked, and seemed like more than just a kid who talked a lot, and didn’t know manners. So he was pretty awesome.

Interesting story, but a lot of scenes edited in ways clearly as “oscar bait” which just made me mad.

Fifty Dead Men Walking, while a horribly titled movie, is a real life story involving the heroics of a man, undercover and infiltrating the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 80s and 90s as a spy, and saving the lives of other men.

How many men? Apparently over fifty. Didn’t want to leave the reasoning of the name hanging for you.

You’re welcome.

How does he get in that situation though?!

Marty McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is just a street hustler in his early 20s, and living in Ireland. Pretty simple. The IRA wants to recruit him, but he doesn’t want to join them. They are a pretty violent group and he doesn’t like violence!

Instead he gets recruited by the British and agrees to infiltrate the IRA ranks and give the British nice information. Hooray! Mostly because he hates the IRA, not the British. His handler Fergus (Ben Kingsley, who looks nothing like Ben Kingsley) is the only one to know about his double agent status, which works well for protecting his family and loved ones. Like his girlfriend, Lara (Natalie Press) who greatly dislikes his involvement in the IRA (once she “finds out”).

He has to work his way up through the ranks, getting into worse and worse aspects of the IRA, despite his moral objections to committing these acts himself. But Fergus convinces him to keep on going. But what happens when the IRA find out he is a spy? Well shit. Torture.

Against all odds he is able to escape, and he realizes he will never be safe again. The end of the movie notes that he is still on the run today, and the IRA still hates him. There was an attempted assassination attempt in 1999 where he got 6 bullets, and well, still survived. But you know, cant see his family ever again. Film also has Kevin Zegers and Rose McGowan, but Ben and Jim are the main two that matter.

Okay, he kind of looks like Ben Kingsley. But not by much.

Although I thought the acting from Jim was top notch in this movie, and found him able to carry the movie on his own, I still felt extremely uninterested in a lot of the movie.

Parts were cool I give you that, but other parts, well you know. I know shit is stupid in Northern Ireland, and that the IRA is mean, but I don’t know if that was enough to firmly entrench me in the story that this movie wanted to tell. It is also one of those movies where you know how it is going to end, so aren’t surprised as much at his escape or what happens to him. That is what sucks about real life stories.

Somehow, when Steven Spielberg makes a movie, people take notice. But when I heard about War Horse? I thought meh. Whatever. Horse movie. Animal movies in general just seem weirder to me. And the last two Horse movies I saw (both racing) were incredibly boring to me.

That’s why for this movie, that I’ve had access to for a month, I am finally watching. Just never felt like the right time to watch it.

And you know, Horses a- aww look at it’s eyes.

The movie is about 140 minutes, and packs a lot in it. It starts from humble beginnings, the birth of the horse on the farm. Learning to walk and run. Once it is old enough it is taken to an auction in the city. Albert (Jeremy Irvine) convinces his dad (Peter Mullan) to bid on the horse, despite it being a colt and them really needing a nice plow horse. But when the landlord tries to drive up the price, the dad stubbornly out bids him, using all of their money (and making it hard to pay the landlord his rent). The mom (Emily Watson) is mad, but they agree to pay the full rent by autumn and want to plow an extra rocky field to make the money.

But first the horse needs training, and is trained to follow a call. Can’t jump well, but can run fast. If only he can teach it to PLOW though.

World War I comes about, and due to the rent circumstances, the horse is sold to the army. Albert is pissed, but the officer (Tom Hiddleston) claims he will protect it as if he did all the raising himself. In training with another officer, the horse meets another horse, a darker bigger horse, who might be going on the adventure with it.

The horses find themselves switching sides, to be cart bearers for the Germans (with Leonard Carow), an old man jam maker (Niels Arestrup) and his granddaughter (Celine Buckens), back to the German side to face the gruesome heavy artillery duty (under Nicolas Bro). Many close calls over the years.

But will he ever get to see Albert again as promised, who is now a soldier (with Robert Emms and Benedict Cumberbatch as other soldiers).

Horse BFFs.

This film is also based off of an old children’s book in the 80s, and a play that came out about 4-5 years prior. Not an original Spielberg picture.

But boy was it powerful.

The only thing I really knew about the tale was that it featured a “lot of different stories” and that made some people uninterested in it. Well, sure, quite a few plot points end up happening, but at least its all the same horse. Not a whole bunch of “War horse” stories (well, because it is in so many different horse positions, we get to see them all, but still one horse show). To me it felt like an entirely epic Homeward Bound, without talking, just how the horse changed so many lives.

I got way more into it than I would have guessed, even crying near the end. Sad things occur. Since you know, it is a war after all.

I do think that they could have put more effort into making sure we knew the many different characters, and how they related. I had to wiki some of the characters at the end, not knowing how they all mattered for the story. That was the landlord’s son? Oh okay.

If you haven’t heard of The Avengers, then fuck you.

In 2008 a great thing happened. Comic book movies kicked ass. The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, and Iron Man came out, in reverse order between May and July.

After the success of Iron Man, they quickly announced their three (turned into four) year plan. After Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk. Then another Iron Man movie. Then Thor. Then Captain America.

Then? The fucking Avengers. Each hero getting at least one movie before hand, bringing them together for an epic never before seen in film. It’d be like if the Lord of the Rings had a movie back story for Legolas, and the other people I don’t remember.

How many more nerd hits can I get before the actual review? Not sure. But needless to say, this movie has been something I have been waiting four years for, and it delivered in every way possible. May the Fourth be with us indeed.

Didn’t even tell Steve about casual Fridays.

The movie begins with the Tesseract (introduced at the end of Thor and in Captain America) going crazy. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going crazy, red alerts. Agent Coulson is trying to catch up Nick Fury on the cube, but unfortunately is is confusing. We also get to meet Agent Maria Hill (Robin from HIMYM). Because we need more than 1 woman character in this movie.

Either way, turns out it opens a portal from another part of the universe, and out pops Loki! He fucks shit up, takes the cube, and also takes Professor Selvig (From Thor) prisoner, along with some other members. And well, he is thinking about using that unlimited energy source to open up a permanent portal, bring up an army of space aliens, and you know take over/destroy Earth. He is mad at Thor and Asgard for kicking him out, so he wants vengeance on the world Thor loves so much.

Fighting demigods means you need to bring in the big guns. S.H.I.E.L.D. attempts to do just that. Getting in touch with Thor is hard, but not Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, or Hawkeye. They also need Bruce Banner (Hulk), but only to use his brains for finding the cube, definitely not for Hulking. (cough).

So what is the movie about? Stopping Loki before he takes over the world. Trying to not resort to nuclear bombs. Trying to see if a team made entirely of egos (and Captain America) can actually work together and not fight it out. Trying to control the Hulk. And so much destruction of Manhattan.

Hey, Pepper Potts is also in this movie.

Again, they first have to work out their own differences and motives.

OH MY GOODNESS THE AVENGERS.

GUYS THE AVENGERS. PLEASE READ THIS AS ME YELLING.

After Disney bought Marvel I didn’t even think this would be possible, but this is the first of the Marvel films to have the full Disney backing and they didn’t disappoint. The movie has everything. You will laugh and cry, be excited and maybe scared. You will laugh and be excited a lot though more than the others, and it feels like nonstop action too. A good feeling for a movie that clocks in over two hours.

The amount of extra nerd detail put into it, small moments watching the Avengers team up and use specific movies? It is amazing.

In case anyone is curious, next year we are supposed to get Iron Man 3 and Thor 2, and then 2014 a sequel to Captain America, probably taking place in WW2 still, before the frozen events.

A sequel to Avengers isn’t likely until 2016 or so, which is good them to not be rushed. They gave a middle of credits hint to the sequel too, and it looks great. Probably a Dr. Strange movie is in the works for 2014/15, and maybe even Ant-Man. With a Joss Whedon movie, I was surprised there was no Nathan Fillion cameo as Hank Pym.

I have a good feeling I will be seeing this movie in theaters again, and many times in the future on Blu-Ray. Just think, we also get The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus, and Amazing Spider-Man this summer.

Daybreakers took me awhile to watch mostly because I assumed it was supposed to be some sort of horror film. There is no elements of that though, just straight up action.

Action, with some science talk and lots of vampires.

It also has crossbows. You know. Because bullets “don’t hurt”.

Ethan Hawke is a vampire! But most people are. The world is mostly vampire, and they can all think still. No worries. But, there are less and less humans out there. And they are running out of blood. He works for a company that extracts blood, and has blood farms in order to help sustain the population, but if they don’t solve their issue, they will run out within a month. He is a farmer, while his brother, Michael Dorman, is a hunter who goes out to collect humans.

He also doesn’t drink human blood. Guess he feels guilty. Well accidentally he finds a group of humans, including Claudia Karvan, and protects them from being caught. Somehow they trust him, and he is a scientist, so they bring him back to their hide out. BUT WHY. There he finds a really weird looking Willem Dafoe…with bite marks! Yet he is in the sunlight. Heck, he is a human again. Somehow he found a cure.

So now that he is on the run anyways, he works on developing a cure for vampirism. Hopefully no one finds out, and tries to use this knowledge to solve the blood shortage by turning prisoners into humans. Like his boss, Sam Neill. Or his scientist buddy, Vince Colosimo.

I don’t know how to insert Isabel Lucas into the plot summary but she is a human too, and a rather important one.

Also, some weird ass shit is going on here.

I can’t help but think that a lot of this is supposed to mirror oil and energy. But if it is…what? It sounds like it is supposed too, but in the metaphor of the vampire world, the solution to the oil crisis seems to be forgo technology and go back to the way we used to be before oil. Aka return to being humans. Which is a stupid solution to energy use.

Doesn’t help that “use less” energy/blood and “find alternative solutions” to energy/blood have already been explored by these vampires, and it looks like they are fucked. Are they saying our world is fucked, and nothing will work except for a trip back to the 19th century?

I don’t know at all. Bad parallels. Bad acting. Weird cure and then additional way to cure at the very end. Not at all sensical.

Zombies!

And lawls?

Alright. It has been done before. But by the British, and no one likes the British. So an American version might be more crude, or at the very least, better graphics. I’m talking 3D stuff. Or at least flashy lights. It is a Zombieland after all.

Consider my dreams reached.

How did the zombie outbreak happen? Some bad meat or something, but it spread quickly like all zombie out breaks. And these get to be the weird ass fast zombies. Thankfully our hero, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has a list of rules to keep him alive. Work out his cardio, be afraid of bathrooms, always wear a seatbelt, double tap to assure death, etc. Definitely don’t be a hero. This is a war! Because he was a nerdy shut in, he missed out a lot on the initial craziness, when his neighbor from 406 (Amber Heard) attacked him. Sucks, because she was hot too.

He meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a middle aged man who wasn’t good at much, but turns out is very good at killing zombies. They have code name in order to not get close to each other. Such as where they are from or where they are heading. He is a simple man, who just wants to survive, and really find a twinkie to eat.

They meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who con them out of their vehicle and weapons. Shit is serious. Very rude. The rest of the movie involves them working to get their car back, possibly trusting strangers, and maybe even breaking a rule or two.

Oh, and there is a cameo by Bill Murray, which is great. Especially since I only like Murray when he is in cameo form.

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Home run right there.

Good things tend to happen when you take an already outrageous accepted genre and do outrageous things during it. Most of the jokes don’t come from dialogue, they come from the few actors in this movie behaving to real zombie situations. Turns out it can be amusing to watch a bunch of fat zombies in a grocery store getting their heads knocked off with a bat. Or riding in a roller coaster with a shotgun. Or hitting a zombie by driving by with the door open, for shits and giggles.

The plot of the movie pretty much boils down to “The world has zombie now, it sucks, try to survive”. Really the only plot I could give was just back story that we learn throughout the movie, since I don’t want to actually say the entire story. That’d be bad for the four of you who haven’t seen Zombieland.

Its a very enjoyable movie with a budget big enough to put on some pretty over the top awesome scenes.

Uh oh, The Squid And The Whale? You know that means it will be a quirky movie.

An autobiographical, quirky movie too.

Jeff Daniels looking like a hobo? Must be artsy too.

This is supposed to be a story about the youth of Noah Baumbach. Who is that? He is a writer, who works on a lot of Wes Anderson movies. I mean, hey, if you want to make a movie about your life, go for it.

Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are going to get divorced! Jeff is a pseudo famous writer, who used to be a big shot. Now he just works at a university, having a hard time writing about great work. Laura got better at writing thanks to him, and is even about to get a nice book deal! But that isn’t the cause for concern. They argue a lot, so it is divorce time.

Their two sons, Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, obviously don’t like this. They have joint custody (without lawyers) so have figured out the schedule for the two to go between their home with the mom, and the dads new home.

Jesse is pissed off at the situation, and blames his mom, thinking she is mad at the father for not being as successful any more, and even more mad when he finds out she cheated. Owen sides more with his mother, as he only really knows his father as teh stay at home / teacher guy who has never really been a success and drinks a lot. The mom begins to see Owen’s tennis coach (William Baldwin) and the father pursues a current student of his (Anna Paquin).

Jesse also starts dating Halley Feiffer, who is someone he is interested in, but thinks he can do better. (Yeahhh). He also claims to have written the song “Hey You” by Pink Floyd, playing it at a school talent show (this is the 80s). Eventually he has to see a school counselor (Ken Leung, from Lost!). By the end, when he is able to conquer his own fears and see the Squid/Whale exhibit at the Natural Museum, he realizes the truth of his situation, and how blinded he had been the whole time.

ALSO look at that head!

So one thing to note is all the characters do a really good job in this movie. But most notably the different kids reaction to the divorce, and the eventual realization of why they take the sides that they take. But more importantly, Eisenberg’s character acts a HELL of a lot like his later portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. The level of assholery it is there, and he is an intelligent character, just not as intelligent. But the way he talks to his girlfriend? His reaction towards others?

Sure he is a bit more emotional, but besides that, I would not be surprised if they saw this film and gave him Zuckerberg because of it. It is weirdly similar.

The character’s have different names from the director, which I guess is him making it less of a biography and more of a story, but I have to assume Jesse plays the director, and not the little kid.

It is a pretty touching movie that doesn’t hold itself back at all, and really relies mostly on the actors and emotions.

The Losers is one of those “Oh this is based on a comic? Why?” type movies. No super heroes involved, just your normal run of the mill elite black ops team, who gets set up/framed, and have to fix it. A story I might have wrote about yesterday, and very popular.

This movie came out around the same time as The A-Team though, which means you were far more likely to not ever see or hear of The Losers, as they are easily compared.

But this one has more than four people. And a woman! Eventually.

Ooh, lets try and do this the team way!
First we have Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) the leader of the group.
Then there is Roque (Idris Elba) the second in command.
Jensen ( Chris Evans) is the communications/tech guy, and a lot of the comic relief.
Pooch (Columbus Short) is the driver, and soon to be family man.
And finally, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) their ‘long range specialist/sniper’, wears a hat, and doesn’t talk much (At all). So mysterious. So deadly.

Well the missions they take are never officially wrote down, very very covert, don’t technically exist in the government. They are in Bolivia on a search and destroy mission for a drug cartel, but find that the camp has dozens of slave children. They try to call off the attack to their handler, Max (Jason Patric) but he ignores them. So they do the reasonable thing, break into the compound, kill the drug lord, rescue the children and barely escape!

On the helicopter sent to pick them up, they decide to stay behind and save the children instead. And when it gets up to leave. BAM. Missile. It was meant to kill them instead. They know there will be huge back lash here, so they decide to fake their deaths as if they were in the helicopter, and plot their revenge against Max. Which they get four months later, when another mysterious person, Aisha (Zoe Saldana) has a plan. But can she be trusted.

Stealing hard drives, and getting to Max is the rest of the movie, and having to go through his “top notch security” (Holt McCallany). Also filled with betrayal, the Losers try and stop Max before he acquires new age weapon technology, and you know, start a new world war.

The “mind bullets/tech support” scene is one of the better scenes. Of all time. Complete with Journey!

Seriously though, you will probably enjoy that scene even without the rest of the movie. That is what comic relief character gets you. Great scenes.

It is definitely more action than comedy, not everything is laugh out loud heelarious, but the movie is not meant to be taken too seriously. The first picture of the review is just covered in campiness.

Other aspects I found boring. I enjoyed it, but on a rewatch, not as much interests me as it did before. So its definitely a one and done kind of film. Won’t blow your socks off, but can be enjoyed if you are in the right mood.

“We’re going to watch the female Bourne Identity movie.”

“Err what?”

Apparently that is how some people are referring to Haywire. Not sure why, not like she is a secret weapon or anything. I think it is more based on the realistic fighting than anything. What I’m trying to say is, I had no idea what this movie was about.

Sexy fighting maybe?

Gina Carano is just hanging out in a diner, when Channing Tatum comes in, and eventually they fight! He wants her to leave, for some reason. This looks like legitimate fighting too, not what normally happens when a woman is involved. She gets punched in the face! A random diner patron, Michael Angarano, intervenes, allowing her to break Tatum’s arm and escape. With Michael, in his car. Woot!

She goes over the last week of events. Turns out Tatum and her used to work for a private covert firm. The firm is run by Ewan McGregor (also her former boyfriend?)! They get a job from an agent in DC, Michael Douglas, to rescue and Asian guy in Barcelona, who is being held hostage. Their Spanish contact is Antonio Banderas. Don’t worry, I am not done name dropping yet.

Well, despite it being hard, they succeed! Back in the US, she gets a second secret mission, that is also meant to be easy. She just has to pose as the wife of a British agent, Michael Fassbender, in Ireland. No sweat! But during the mission she finds out that the Asian guy they saved…has been killed! And made to look like she did it. Set up by her own firm! But why?

The rest of the film is her trying to figure that out, on the run with that random stranger. A lot of scenes involve her kicking peoples asses too, so that is fun. Also her dad is played by Bill Paxton! So many famous (men) in this movie.

Gina’s claim to fame is MMA fighting and being “Crush” on the American Gladiators reboot.

In terms of fighting, I tended to like those scenes a lot. The most, compared to the rest of the scenes. Definitely important for an action movie with a lame plot. I am surprised by how many famous actors are in this movie, despite how I barely even heard about it coming out in theaters.

Obviously I thought the acting was a bit weak, especially from Gina, who…hasn’t really acted in anything before. But thankfully they have a lot of the other people do most of the talking. Scenes in her flashback were kind of weird, like randomly switching to a slow motion black and white adventure when they were in Barcelona. Disrupted the flow for me and felt cheesy.

Although the plot isn’t too interesting, it is fun to see her kick a lot of peoples asses. Especially Ewan. I have no idea why that is so rewarding.

Confessions Of A Shopaholic looked like a fun romp through fashion and credit debt. Pretty much the funnest things ever, like, omg, am I right?

I don’t expect to find anything profound with this movie (like credit debt is bad? excessive shopping is bad?) but hopefully at least I will laugh a bit and not find every situation entirely avoidable. I mean, if the character is smart at least.

She looks like a fairy tale woman. Somehow in NYC she never gets mugged wearing stuff like this all day.

Anyways, the lesson you are supposed to learn is the difference between price and worth. But they say that a lot, don’t worry.

Isla Fisher likes to shop. She works at a garden magazine, but wants to do fashion! Loves credit cards, but has a problem paying them off. She even lives with her best friend, Krysten Ritter, and her boyfriend, and they all seem to help her avoid the creditors. Her parents (John Goodman, Joan Cusack) tried to teach her to value money and shop at thrift stores and saved up, but their hippie ways failed.

So she tries to work at a fashion magazine, but the only magazine owned by the corporation with an opening is the financing magazine, lead by Hugh Dancy. Despite a bad interview, she gets drunk and sends a letter to the fashion people with a sample article about worth, and hate mail to Hugh, but gets them mixed up. Congrats! She now has a job with a finance magazine, despite knowing close to nothing and being 15k in debt.

When she eventually gets an article published, it sky rockets as the next best thing. The owner of the corporation, John Lithgow, personally loves it, and so does the fashion people. Including some famous fashion person, played by Leslie Bibb. But she is a villain in the movie. So is Robert Stanton, a “mean old” debt collector who she is avoiding throughout the movie.

But will everyone realize she was lying the whole time, like he has been her whole life? What can she do to fuck up her friendships too? Can she bang the main editor, or will Bibb beat her to it?

In the ‘zine world, sleeping with your employees is fine.

Let me be detailed with why I dislike the movie now. Hooray!

1) All of her problems are easily fixable, and by never thinking they escalate. And yet still even after initial escalation, they are still easily fixable. By avoiding her debt collector, she sets up for him to go to drastic measures to catch her attention. By not telling her work, she sets up a big fall. Well, despite being a finance magazine, it didn’t mean she had to be good at paying bills.

2) Her friend got mad at her, because she lost the bridesmaids dress to a thrift store, and a homeless lady was wearing it. How? Because of the shopaholics meeting the friend made her attend, not from unwarranted spending. No reason for them to be mad at each other, as it wasnt Isla’s fault.

3) There was a tape to stop being a shopaholic, and involved throwing out all the excess. Well she didn’t. Guess how she raised her bill money?
By (gasp) selling a lot of her shit back. HOW IS THAT NOT THE MOST OBVIOUS THING EVER. You will be mad because that is clearly the right thing to do, and pays the bills, and good to go. But she keeps trying to throw it out, despite the debt? Dumb as shit.

4) Why the hell is the debt collector a villain? She pretty much stole from these companies for months and continuously lied to them. Yet she “gets him” at the end? That is some bullshit. Accept responsibility and pay your bills with class, please.

And you know, also weird messages about giving up on your dreams, and accepting the simpler things in life. Blah.