Tag: Benedict Cumberbatch

I try to not go into movies biased, but with going to a lot of movies, I am forced to see a lot of previews. Mother fucking movie previews bias the crap out of me. I miss the days where I could watch most of my movies without knowing a lot about it before hand.

The good news is, I never saw the trailer for 12 Years A Slave, nor did I know what it was about. I mean, I can guess, with a title like that. But I don’t know the real plot details. That is awesome.

However, I did know a lot of hype from my reviewer friends. Every single damn one of them loved this movie and there is much talk of Oscar buzz. I guess I should make note: that type of stuff biases too. Whoops. Oh well.

Oh man. Enjoy that dinner guy. It is all about to suck for you after this.

Soloman Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man. He lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children. They are pretty well off too, living in a nice home, fine clothes, and instruments! Soloman plays the violin, and he is quite good at it. Performs at very exquisite dancing balls.

Well, his wife and children go on a trip that will take them away for about three weeks, leaving Soloman all alone. Later that day, in town, he meets two gentlemen, performers, who offer to bring Soloman on trip to Washington and back, overall two weeks. They need a man to play music for them and their other acts, a fancy circus of some sorts. He agrees, given his current free time, and hey, good money is good money.

Then, after a night of drinking in Washington, he finds himself in chains. Hmm. This must be some misunderstanding. A pretty serious and unforgiving misunderstanding. There is only so much you can do in chains however, and when people with whips say otherwise, you must listen.

And so began the unfortunate story of Soloman, a free educated and wealthy black man, kidnapped into slavery for, you guessed it, 12 years of his life. Away from his family, friends, and any sensible human being. There is a huge cast of characters in this film, including: Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch as slave owners, Paul Giamatti as a slave trader, Brad Pitt a Canadian sympathizer, Paul Dano as an overseer, Lupita Nyong’o a hardworking female slave that becomes an obsession of her master, and Adepero Oduye a woman who becomes separated from her children.

FUCK YOU FASSBENDER. I HATE YOU NOW. I HATE YOU. YOUR CHARACTER WAS A DICK AND NOW I THINK YOU ARE A DICK!

So gritty and unforgiving, and so true. The film is adapted from a book of the same name, written in the 1850s by Soloman Northup. The book gives a first hand experience of years of being a slave, by a man educated enough to accurately recall the events and get them written down. A vague book, that not a lot of people are aware of, but a book that will have sales boosted exponentially due to this movie. Shit, the book was even verified later as being very factual and accurate on all the accounts that could be fact checked.

But it being a true story shouldn’t affect the rating of it as a movie.

Thankfully, it doesn’t even matter, as this movie was incredible in every way. It was emotionally draining, as bad event after bad event occurred to our hero. Yeah, we know he obviously eventually gets out of his predicament, or else how could he write the book? That fact doesn’t change any amount of agony that the watchers and character feel during the events in the story, and it is very eye opening.

I am super stoked this movie isn’t political in nature or trying to change anything (because how could it? It already stopped), but instead focuses only on telling a full, accurate and strong story.

Chiwetel Ejiofor was stupidly good in this movie. The emotion he carried with his eyes alone made everything seem so believable. I already mentioned Fassbender, who had an almost equally powerful performance, enough to make me hate his real life self.

I will warn that there is some graphic stuff in here. I am talking whip scenes, rape scenes, just general beatings, and an incredibly long and well shot hanging scene. You might have to look away, and you might feel squeamish. “12 Years A Slave” is probably the current front runner for Best Picture this year in my book, with only 1.5 months left to go int he year. Shits good. Slavery is bad. I am sad.

4 out of 4.

Movies based on true events are always a tricky endeavor, especially if those events are within the last few years. If they are based on a single person, who happens to be alive, then it can get all sorts of awkward.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks is currently living in the Ecuadorian Assembly in London. If he ever leaves, London is going to send him off to Sweden for what he claims are bogus charges, who are then going to send him back to the US for all sorts of “War crimes.” If you never heard his name, and don’t know who he is, then The Fifth Estate is probably the movie for you!

I wouldn’t describe this as a thinking movie, but there are a lot of thinking scenes.

Despite being about Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), this film is told from the perspective of Daniel Berg (Daniel Bruhl, who was also just in Rush). Daniel started to work with Julian in 2007, drawn into the idea of Wikileaks, which was a way for whistle blowers to anonymously report wrong doings and keep their identity secret so that they can not face repercussions.

A nice idea. They want to make the world more transparent, allow everyone to have secret information, and protect those that give that information. But what if WikiLeaks becomes more about Julian Assange than the original message? What if they don’t care about protecting lives anymore?

It should be noted that the movie is based on two books that came out in 2011, one written by Daniel, who was no longer with the company, both with a negative bias towards Wikileaks. Because of that, it is hard to say how much of the events in this film are accurate in their portrayal.

Despite their now aggressive relationship with each other, we get to see into the workings of the early years of Wikileaks, their volunteer army, their expansion of servers across Europe, their battle against banks and in the courts for free speech and some of their biggest scoops. It also tells the story up to including the famous Afghan War Diary, its biggest scoop, that was taken from the government by Bradley Manning.

As far as other actors, I guess they are important enough to mention. Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, and Stanley Tucci all play various US Government employees, Lydia Leonard and Moritz Bleibtreu (from Run Lola Run / In July fame!) play other members of Wikileaks, and David Thewlis the main reporter for The Guardian who is covering Wikileaks.

Bunch of lookers too, but not in the way that phrase normally means.

Needless to say, Julian has gone on record to say he doesn’t agree with his own betrayal in this movie, calls it one sided and a smear campaign against Wikileaks. He has at least one point going for him: If powerful organizations want to discredit Wikileaks and cause it to lose trust in citizens of the world, then discrediting Julian as a bad person is one way to go about it. They mention it in the movie, and he says it in real life a lot.

In fact, the ending of the film is Benedict recreating an interview that was done with Julian, about his thoughts on the film. Sure, it made the movie end weirdly, but encouraged the viewer to do their own research on the subject. Kind of meta, kind of cool.

Of course, Julian also hasn’t seen the film, just read several scripts, so I can’t take his word completely either.

The Fifth Estate definitely makes Julian look like a dick, but also a guy who more or less has his heart in the right place. He wants to make the world a better place, but at the same time he is only human.

I think the main problem with this film is they made this story far too melodramatic that it almost made it seem either over the top, or just no longer real. The film even comes complete with “visual metaphors” because making movies about the internet and data is pretty hard without making it look silly. So there are many scenes of a warehouse, almost infinite in size, with desks and computers showing the Wikileaks army at work. What I am getting at is they still end up just looking silly.

Benedict did an excellent job at acting as always, really doing his best to imitate Julian and also seems to be a fan of the man from interviews. There is a documentary coming out eventually, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, which may give a more accurate portrayal of events. But until then, we are only left with this okay melodrama, about a man and his website.

2 out of 4.

For whatever reason, just like my previous review of Star Trek, I am finding the right words to describe Star Trek Into Darkness.

I feel like a fake, a liar. I am a nerd who knows not a lot about the Star Trek series and never really cared to find out. So as to whether or not this movie fits the Star Trek world, I can’t comment on. But I tell you what I can do. Ignore the source material and just tell you if the movie is awesome or not. Basically what I do for every movie anyways!

I honestly don’t know if this is from the first or second Star Trek. The movie takes place right where we left off. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still captain of the Starship Enterprise, with the exact same crew. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is the first officer, Sulu (John Cho) the pilot, Bones (Karl Urban) the doctor, Scotty (Simon Pegg) the engineer, and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) as whatever they do on the ship.

Well, things quickly hit the fan when a bombing occurs in one of Star Fleet’s libraries, plotted by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a former Star Fleet officer. That’s right, someone turning against his own former employers! Must have received a very poor severance package. After a few other attacks, he escapes to Kronos, home planet of the Klingons, the warrior race who wouldn’t mind having a reason to conquer Earth.

Well, crap, I guess they are screwed. Unless…

Clearly the best plan of action is to use long range Plasma Missiles to take him out (no trial needed), while hopefully not starting an intergalactic war. I trust Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) personally, so I am sure the strategy will work.  Bruce Greenwood also returns as Admiral Pike, and Alice Eve is brought in as mysterious science/weapons expert Carol.

Nope. No Shame at all here at Gorgon Reviews.I saw the sequel in 3D and I am almost certain it didn’t warrant the higher price. The film was made for IMAX and later changed to include 3D, so it was a sort of afterthought. In terms of “rounding” out the picture, it didn’t really work for me, and felt wasted. But hey, some sticks fly at your face in the beginning, and I might have actually tried to dodge them.

I loved Star Trek Into Darkness. It was exciting, it was action packed, and it refilled my lens flare quota for the rest of the year. It is of course beyond perfect. I left out a lot of plot details, but I disliked that problems introduced early in the film were fixed only a few minutes later. It made me wonder why even write those problems in the first place and made me feel like they were rehashing the first movie.

I also hate that they introduced regenerative blood into the series. Regeneration itself is a very tricky subject, as it becomes a deus ex machina. Unfortunately it also appeared in Iron Man 3 and was one of the worst plot fixers in both movies.

I’d stil suggest watching the movie and avoid IMDB/Wikipedia, there are spoilers everywhere.

Despite not being a Trekkie, I am deep enough in this Pop Culture game to understand a lot of the throwbacks and homages to the original series/films. In fact, I liked this film enough that I almost want to try and watch the older Star Trek films, out of curiosity. Almost.

3 out of 4.

Watch out everyone, movie event of the year coming through.

Sure, that is debatable. After all, Twilight Ended, the year isn’t over yet, and the end of Batman Trilogy and Avengers went down. But The Hobbit still may have been a greater buildup. After all, the previous LOTR movies were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the last one won!

This is a new trilogy, taking in more than just the Hobbit book, with tons of lore, and stretched into three movies. I AM ALLOWING MYSELF SPOILERS IN THE SECTION IN BETWEEN PICTURES, BECAUSE WELL, most people know this story anyways. The Animated Movie was a thing, after all. That middle section is normally reserved for plot anyways, and I feel like its hard to really give away shit, because its so well known.

Either way, spoilers in the middle warnings!

Spoiler: Only one hobbit is really focused on in this movie. That’s 75% less Hobbits than LOTR.

As most of you know, The Hobbit takes place before LOTR. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a simple Hobbit, who doesn’t like adventure. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) comes by, fucks it all up, and without warning, thirteen dwarves have crashed the place and are eating all his food! Oh noes!

Why? Because they want to reclaim their ancient kingdom, that a terrible dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) has taken over! Thorin (Richard Armitage) is the last line of Dwarven royalty, and technical king of a home they don’t control. He sent out a call for dwarves to help him take back the mountain, and only 12 answered. But according to Gandalf, they also need a Burgler, and he has decided that Bilbo will fit the bill.

The first hobbit movie ends after the encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis) and the escape from the Goblins, and then the further escape from the orcs by Eagle Power. We also get an appearance of Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and a pre-evil Saruman (Christopher Lee). Balin (Ken Stott) is the next main dwarf, Azog (Manu Bennett) is the pale orc main antagonist, Figwit is now Lindir (Bret McKenzie). AND THEN WE HAVE RADAGAST THE BROWN (Sylvester McCoy). A mother fucking druid/crazy wizard?

Don’t remember him? Because like I said, this is more than the Hobbit. A lot of the Tale of the Necromancer is in here too, and was only set up in this movie. Gandalf left the Hobbit a lot to do his own shit, and he was doing the necromancer stuff. This added a lot to the movie that I wasn’t expecting.

One other thing I liked? Well, as most of you know the story, you know that Gandalf and the Eagles are a Deus Ex Machina on a stick. Rarely do they solve their own problems without one or both of the groups coming to save the day. Same thing happened in LOTR, and it was pretty annoying. One of the biggest examples is when they are in the trees with the orcs and worgs attacking, then the Eagles come and carry them away. Well, in the movie, that scene is QUITE longer and a bit more inspirational. Yes, it ends the same way, but damn it, the Dwarves don’t just sit their crying. They fight back, they give it their all, they show courage and bravery. I loved that change. Same result at the end, but I think the way they got there was a little bit better.

Pictured: Actual Trolls picking apart the Hobbit.

First off, no I didn’t get to see the movie in 48 fps. They decided to can the wide release idea, and only have it in select theaters. Sucks to suck, I might get to see it next week that way, all depends on if I want to see it again. The 3D on its own, was very nicely done, rounding out the movie in a good way, like Life of Pi did.

Martin Freeman felt really good as Bilbo. I understand the direction they took the character is a bit more witty and awesome, versus kind of a selfish asshole. Same with the dwarves, but really, I think it made the story better. There were like, three songs in this movie, maybe a throw back to the animated movie. None as silly as those songs, unfortunately.

I also read an article telling me the main 19 differences between the book and the film, and honestly, it mostly seemed like harmless fluff changes that didn’t matter. But when I left the theater, I heard lots of grumblings in regards to changes from the book still. Oh well, one day people might not have a shit. Just kidding, it will never got away.

It had its flaws, and some pacing issues in it. Personally the rock giant fight scene came completely out of nowhere for me, and didn’t really make…any sense. Just happened in the middle of traveling, no explanation, no buildup, and then it was done. Really disliked that scene.

3 out of 4.

SPY MOVIES.

But this is not your James Bond type of Spy Movie. This is the more subtle, information based spy movie. Of course more secret government organizations. But it is also British, and with other European people. As a hardcore American, that is a negative to me. Because we are the best.

But honestly, I knew absolutely nothing about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy before I watched it, just that it was probably a book.

Reading is sooooo European.

The movie begins with Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) sent to Hungary by the head of the Circus (British Intelligence nickname?) (John Hurt) to meet a native to buy secrets! Too bad he gets shot and captured though. That is not the plan, so the head gets canned, and his aide, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) get into forced retirement, and the head dies soon after from being old.

They get replaced by Tinker (Toby Jones) and his new right hand man, Tailor (Colin Firth) and also Soldier (Ciaran Hinds) and Poorman (David Dencik ) also move up the ranks. Bet you thought that last code name would be Spy? Yeah, what teases. Spy would also be a poor code name.

Speaking of poor nicknames, they move up the ranks due to Witchcraft! Russian secret intelligence they have found and traded to the Americans for even more intelligence. Smiley is brought back out of retirement from Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), as there are reports of a mole in the British government, someone who has been there for quite some time.

He has obvious suspects, but starts with those who left around the same time as him and works his way inward. He gets a team of people, including someone played by Benedict Cumberbatch, to do some secret espionage stuff to find out who the mole is, and if the initial outing of Smiley and others was all part of someones plan.

Other secrets to find out! Just what the mole was doing, the true purpose of the Hungary visit, and how jerky some peopl can be.

LOOK AT HIM. Not even an unrelated caption. Just do it.

In other news, this is efinitely not a movie I could watch again and again. It is a slower pace, obviously, and strictly feels like a very tame game of chess. The actors involved all do wonderful jobs, but personally I didn’t see a need to give Gary Oldman more props than the rest of the cast (Nominated for Best Actor for the film). When everyone does a fine job, I just find it harder to praise a single person.

However the plot I never really seemed to care for. Couldn’t relate to older British intelligence officers, go figure. I was just hoping the American’s wouldn’t get screwed over or made seem stupid in the movie. And well, it kind of happened. Whoops.

Decent movie, but just not my kind of film.

2 out of 4.

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.

3 out of 4.