Tag: Alex Russell

What is this Unbroken thing? It isn’t Unbreakable or Unstoppable or Unthinkable. It is Unbroken? What does that even mean? I didn’t even know there was a word to describe something as not-broken. I just assumed it was the general state unless otherwise noted as broken.

English is weird.

My first thought seeing the trailer was Oscar Bait. My second thought was, wait, haven’t I already seen this movie? It was also based on a true story, during WW2, prisoner of war who got abused by a Japanese man but never gave up and overcame great struggle? Yeah. That was The Railway Man. This is just the same movie but a bigger budget and more CGI right?

Oh. That one was British and this is American. That’s the difference.

Yep, just replace him with a lad instead of a boy and it’s the same scenes.

Unbroken is the “true story” of Louie Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), an Italian-American hero or something like that. As a kid he got picked on for his nationality, so he had to run away a lot. Well, he got fast at running, noticed by his better brother Pete (Alex Russell). Next thing you know, he is on the track team, breaking records, and hey, even going to run for the Olympics.

Then boom, World War II. Next thing you know, Olympics are canceled, and Louie now a good boy wants to join the war effort. He gets to fly in planes, and protect us from Japan!

Then his plane gets shot down and they crash land in the Pacific. Fuck. A couple dudes, some sharks, no food, and nothing that can save them. Just like the Life of Pi, basically. And of course, as the trailers tell you, they eventually get found after a long ass time. Just by Japanese soldiers. So it is off to prisoner work camps for them, far from home, to be abused and treated like animals!

Boo animals!

Also featuring Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Finn Wittrock and of course Takamasa Ishihara!

Run like no one is watching.

Look, I know Angelina Jolie directed it. And I know parts of it were written by the Coen brothers. But man, there was some questionable choices throughout this film for me.

First of all, the what felt like terrible CGI when they had the plane scenes bugged me. The film had some overall filter on it that got on my nerves. Was a subtle annoyance.

But also it had a lot of good things. Jack O’Connell was pretty good, although his accent could have used work. I enjoyed the scene where everyone beat the crap out of him. The backstory pre-war was entertaining for me. Some emotional stuff in the middle.

However, I think overall I liked The Railway Man more, because that confrontation between the the prisoner and his torturer were intense and a great build up. It was a bit more boring, technically, but it felt a bit more real and a lot less cheesy. This one didn’t have a great build up, but instead just your typical worse and worse until they are in a terrible camp, not just a bad camp.

In particular, near the end when main character finds extra strength despite being a beaten prisoner so that he can lift up wood high? That might as well have had cheese falling out of everyone’s ears. It made me cringe and think it was some ridiculous American power fantasy. I didn’t find it inspirational, I found it laugh able. Because up to that point too, the movie felt enjoyable enough for a 3 maybe. Even with all that time spent on the boat.

But then they went full Oscar bait or something. And I just had to shake my head.

2 out of 4.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I am willing to say it: The original Carrie is not that scary of a movie. Or at least it isn’t scary anymore.

When it first came out it was probably shocking, sure. Part of the reason it would have been terrifying is not knowing the bloodbath that would occur at the end of the film. There was no internet, spoilers didn’t run rampant, people could watch it and actually see something new.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t know how the original Carrie ends. They might not know the finite details or how it occurs, but they know blood gets dumped on a poor girl, who then takes out a school who bullied her.

So why bother with a Carrie remake in 2013? The only real reason is to either change the story so that audiences won’t see the ending coming or ramp up the creepy details to a new notch in order to make it more of a horror film. You know, give us a different reason to remember her name.

“How do we make Julie look crazy?” “I don’t know…frazzle her hair a little bit!”

Carrie (Chloe Grace Moretz) came from humble beginnings. She used to be home-schooled, but the state of Maine intervened and forced her to go to public school. Not sure why. Her mom (Julianne Moore) was a perfectly adept teacher. She taught Carrie about Jesus, God, and she even gave her a nice tiny prayer closet under the stairs to “study” in.

Despite the fact that she is a senior in high school, she gets her period for the first time in gym class. Must be Satan at work in her loins. The other girls find her fear amusing, make fun of her, and promptly get in trouble by the gym teacher (Judy Greer). They have two options, put up with a week of grueling physical activity, or get suspended and miss prom. Clearly neither option is ideal, and it must be Carrie’s fault putting these girls in that situation.

Which is why the mean girl (Portia Doubleday) and her boyfriend (Alex Russell) do the whole dump pigs blood on her head at prom thing. That’ll show her.

That’ll show everyone.

Gabriella Wilde plays the nice “mean girl,” and Ansel Elgort her boyfriend.

Huh, she looks cute in red. Really, the reason anyone came to see this movie was to watch the prom scene and see the path of destruction that Carrie would lay in her wake. The rest of the film could be boring, but as long as the prom scene is excellent, the director will have delivered. The prom scene is longer in this version, there are more creative deaths with less hoses, and there is more destruction outside of the school, but miraculously a lower overall body count. Huh.

Basically, this film is identical to the 70’s version in terms of…well most things. Even the dialogue is basically the same, minus the upgrades in time/technology.

The few things that are changed are who lives and dies at the end, one other “twist”, and making the mother a bit of a masochist. Okay, a huge masochist, she loves that self infliction stuff. Basically their attempt at making the film a bit more creepy throughout.

Overall, I would say that this film was a bit disappointing in that it was made so similar to the first film (and maybe the book, no idea on their closeness). It really doesn’t add anything new to the mythology, and was made to upgrade a film literally everyone already knows the plot about. I hated most of the no name actors, but surprisingly I enjoyed Ansel Elgort as the nice boyfriend. He was so good at being kind to a weird red headed girl.

If you are looking for scary movies in theater for Halloween, unfortunately Carrie is your only hope. Somehow, this is the only horror movie the entire month.

2 out of 4.

I first heard about this movie before it came out to theaters, a friend of mine saw the trailer and shared it and I was like, whoa, this looks pretty awesome.

I then “forgot about it” in that I could not remember the name. At all. I remembered what it was about. But the name?! I kept confusing it with Project X, not for similar subject matter, but I could imagine a lame title like that for the trailer I saw. It wasn’t until a few days ago when someone suggested I watch Chronicle. I was like, “Chronicle? Never heard of it, let me go to IMD-OH MAN THAT MOVIE!”

I was seconds away from downloading it illegally too, but don’t worry, it came out on DVD/Blu-Ray Tuesday!

Ah, they don’t look worried.

Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is a kid in high school, who is bullied and generally keeps to himself. He lives in a bad household too, where his mom (Bo Petersen) is dying of cancer and his dad (Michael Kelly) beats him and is verbally abusive. Because of this he decides to video tape his life as a self project, so that others can know what he goes through, have the last moments of his mom, etc.

People find it weird. People HATE being video taped, they just assume he is creepy. He is feeling all bad at a party his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell) made him go to, when Steve (Michael B. Jordan) the popular high school president friend of Matt makes him grab his camera to check out something cool. Matt and Steve found a huge hole in the ground that makes weird noises! So of course they investigate it. Well they find a giant blue crystal, weird noises, gives them headaches and nose bleeds, and breaks the camera.

Three weeks later? Oh hey look, telekinesis.

They figure out that it works like a muscle. Gets stronger the more they practice with it, and nosebleeds happen every time they exert too much power. Basic things cause it at first, but eventually these bitches can move cars. And fly! But dissension occurs amongst the ranks, as they realize certain things are bad, but other people don’t like being controlled. They plan to fly around the world together, after they graduation. Maybe visit those Tibet monks.

You know, as long as they don’t start fighting it out all telekinetic power wise, and have people die and shit.

I am just going to leave this here.

In case you didn’t know, this is a “hand held camera” movie, but don’t worry, it isn’t some found footage crap. It is just showing the film through whatever video collecting device was running at the time. Whatever it may be! That three week pause is because he didn’t get a new camera, so we get to avoid the delay of discovering they have powers, straight to them playing with them and figuring out what they can’t do. I didn’t find the camera too distracting either, and it kind of helped out the movie in a lot of ways just feel more realistic.

Matt’s pseudo love interest (Ashley Hinshaw) is supposed to help ground Matt, I guess, who might secretly be a smart guy but afraid to show it or else not be popular? Pretty much that aspect of his character is the only thing I didn’t like. He said a feel philosophical things, but they always felt a bit random to me and I think they threw that aspect into the character without fully defining the why aspects.

But everything after that I loved. The visual effects for this movie were great and like I said, everything just felt super real. Predictable events don’t always mean a bad thing, because even if you know which character is going to turn mean, you don’t know what he is going to do when he IS mean.

4 out of 4.