Tag: Ed Harris

Danger Zone? Take My Breath Away? Great Balls of Fire and You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling? (Technically)

The original Top Gun had a pretty stacked soundtrack, especially when it had at least two very famous songs that were made for the movie. The latter two already existed, but damn it, we had pilots singing them, so they were memorable too.

I personally hadn’t seen the original Top Gun until a couple of weeks ago. And yet, I knew everything about what happened in the movie. I knew how it would end, I knew who would die (spoilers?), I knew how the volleyball would game. Top Gun has been completely culturally osmosised, which I am going to count as a word here. But really I wanted to finally watch it to make jokes like they do in Flight of the Conchords, how everything is like Top Gun.

Like a lot of people, I went in expecting the sequel film, Top Gun: Maverick, to be utter shit. Sequels several decades later, based on a movie that had a very weak plot, aren’t usually allowed to be good, let alone better. But I guess everyone agrees, Maverick is a better film than the original.

Never get into a four way with jets. Unlike, I guess, you are a jet too?

Remember how Top Gun ended? Maverick (Tom Cruise) said he wanted to stay at Top Gun and teach pilots? Well, apparently that didn’t last long, because he became a test pilot instead, so he can fly experimental new aircraft. He has a need for speed. And for putting his life on the line. But its modern day, and he has to get on with the fact that most of the planes are going to be drones now, and they are wasting money on new pilot planes. Apparently Iceman (Val Kilmer) being one of the main admirals is the only reason he is still on the payroll.

But now he has to go to one final outpost. He has to go back to Top Gun, because he needs to train former Top Gun graduates, most of which are firsts in their class. The best of the best. Even though he crashed and burned as a teacher, he is the only one who they have available left to teach them, as the only one who has similar experience flying under these conditions. It is a complicated plan, to take out a nuclear bomb facility before it is turned online. It involves going fast and low, twists and turns, avoiding anti-aircraft missiles, and some tight up and down maneuvers at the end. Also they have to have two different direct hits on the target, with basically only two shots overall to get both hits. Great.

Maverick, reluctantly agrees, because he also doesn’t want to quit flying, not yet. And he can still have fun with this. But things will sour and overcomplicate when he finds out one of the pilots in the program is Rooster (Miles Teller), son of Goose, whom Maverick still feels responsible for his death even though he was cleared of wrong doing. And for sure, Rooster hates Maverick, and thinks he is going to not go on the mission, even if he has earned it, if Maverick pulls him for guilt.

Lives are on the line, guilt is in full force, and a 60 year old man is going to have to prove he can make some hard decisions this time.

Also starring Ed Harris, Glen Powell, Greg Tarzan Davis, Jay Ellis, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, and Monica Barbaro.

Still legally obligated to post a mustache picture if they show up.

Is Top Gun: Maverick better than Top Gun? Yes. But you have to understand, and this will be hard for a lot of people. Top Gun is not a great movie. It can be memorable, and exciting for the time, but it technically wasn’t even a great movie in the 1980’s even if it made a lot of money. It was a propaganda tool, with a cool soundtrack, and a really, really, dumb plot.

So Top Gun: Maverick should be easily a better film. Does it rely on nostalgia? Yes, it starts off with Danger Zone again. I was worried all the main hits would be replayed, but they only did half of them. One of its issues was taking its time dealing with the fact that the first film ended with him going into teaching, and the sequel clearly not wanting that to be the case, so that he could come back decades later. They had to have him fail and run away, and some other suspicious backstory they crammed in with new actors/actresses over the run time of this film.

I will say, him becoming a test pilot definitely feels a lot more true to his character, so I will give the sequel that. Having to deal with the complicated decision of sending his former best friend’s son to his potential death, or refusing to let him go even if he earned it, was a great decision to grapple with. It did carry a lot more weight than I was expecting for this sequel film.

And yet, some of the decisions in the sequel feel hollow. After all, having a whole film where he is told he needs to know when to let go and to move on, when to let someone else to take the controls and fly, and his character struggling with that acceptance the whole film? Again, makes sense. Buuut, if they throw it all away for One Last Mission™ then did it really matter? It reminded me of the last Bad Boys movie, making something actually interesting with Martin Lawrence being a pacifist, just to get rid of it when convenient and make a generic action film.

Again, Top Gun: Maverick is better than its predecessor. The fight scenes are actually watchable, the maneuvers are exciting, and it is overall more entertaining. That does not make it a top tier film, just an okay entertainment flick.

I am a goddamn geophysicist, and it took me until almost half of a year later to watch goddamn Geostorm.

IT IS ABOUT EXTREME WEATHER. AND THE EARTH. AND I AM A GEOPHYSICIST.

It would have been unacceptable for me to watch San Andreas way late, like I did with Geostorm.

And hell, I have been relatively kind to natural disaster films on this site. I liked Into The Storm, and you already forgot it existed! Bring on the disaster, especially if it is fun.

Are those ice zombies? What are those soldiers going to do to those poor popsicles?

The Climate is fucked. After the storms started getting worse and worse, these extreme weather events began to get out of hand. Heatwaves killing thousands in an afternoon. Parts of NYC getting flooded. It just needed to stop. So the world finally came together. They couldn’t stop the climate change. But they could try to curb it.

With all nations actually working together, they developed technology, and put satellites into the orbit. Using science or whatever, these satellites around the globe can disrupt big weather events and counter act them through…I dunno, science/technology stuff. Just trust us, it works.

Hurricanes be gone, droughts be gone, whatever. The world is now a happy and prosperous place. The main creator Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) was taken from his design though, because he was hard to work with. The US Government wasn’t a fan, especially because he wanted it to be perfect enough for the technology to be controlled by the UN, not the USA. Once he is kicked out, and his brother (Jim Sturgess) is put in charge, he feels like it is still fine, but nope. Time for exile.

He is just going to be needed years later, when the satellites begin to malfunction. Now these big storm events are starting to occur, people are dying, and bad things are happening. If these storms continue, they will start to cause other storms, until they get big enough that the whole world will be under weather advisory. A Geostorm.

Also starring a lot of other people: Like Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Eugenio Derbez, Amr Waked, Adepero Oduye, Andy Garcia, Ed Harris, Richard Schiff, Robert Sheehan, Zazie Beetz, and Mare Winningham.

Surprise! Half of this film takes place not even on the geo!

Goddamn it. I wanted to watch a terrible nature disaster movie. But Geostorm isn’t really a terrible disaster movie. It is really just a terrible political thriller, that has climate disaster consequences.

Fuck that.

I mean, if it was a good political thriller and about climate change, it would be one thing. But it is terrible at explaining the disasters, and a terrible thriller, with terrible action. Everything about it is terrible!

Well then why isn’t it a zero? You know, if I hated it, and the acting was bad, and the plot was bad, and the disasters were bad?

Well, they called the satellite program the Dutch boy. You know, referencing the fable about him sticking his finger in a dyke. That makes me chuckle. That is a solid nickname. That is worth a slight price of admission.

And unfortunately, Butler is a scientist in this movie, and mostly in space. So we don’t get to see him fighting a tornado or anything cool. Very disappointing.

What a month for horror. And to think it is September, not October.

It came out a two weekends ago and is smashing September box office records, which just means that people love being scared by clowns or feel nostalgia from the previous TV adaption.

But then we get mother! just a week later. Which advertising for has been all over the place. One thing for certain, we know it is a Darren Aronofsky film, so we can expecting something fucked up and hard to explain.

Or not?! mother! is getting a wide release and has a huge star attached, maybe this will just be a run of the film horror movie. Schyeah, and maybe David Lynch will make a straightforward film as well.

And maybe this wall is just a wall and not a metaphor about bees or some shit?

This film is about a woman (Jennifer Lawrence) and a man (Javier Bardem), living in a house in a field on their own. She is slowly rebuilding it after a fire some time in the past, and he is a poet who hasn’t written in awhile. They are both always working and their love is straining, but they are alone and they are alive.

And then a man (Ed Harris) appears at their door. He is old, sickly, and he thought their house was a bed and breakfast. The poet is a generous person and lets him spend the night, despite being a stranger. And the man is sickly and coughs throughout the night, but in the morning he is fine. And also in the morning, his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up at the door. Huh, he didn’t mention anything like that, and now there is two of them. The poet is still generous, and fuck it, who cares what his wife thinks? They can stay too, because they like his work and he likes their approval. But house guests who make themselves at home can be quite annoying.

Especially when their sons (Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson) come over as well, arguing about estate and will disputes, and one son kills the other in their house. Holy shit, these are terrible guests.

Things get worse from there as more and more strangers enter their home, making our “mother” feel more distant from her husband, but that is all just the vaguest details I could get out about this film. Because in reality, it is a lot stranger, darker, and twisted than anyone should expect.

Oh, and of course, Kristen Wiig. Can’t forget about her.

“And no one is fucking using coasters!”

I wish I could have just sat in the theater after mother! and just reflected on the experience that unfolded in front of my eyes. But it was late and I had to rush home to pass out, needing sleep before work.

Days later when finally writing this review, it is still fresh on my mind. Partially because of the graphic nature and story in a story that it told. And partially because I knew that this film would have a hell of a shit storm from the regular movie going community. This is not the sort of film that should have gotten a wide release and marketed as some sort of home invasion horror. It is an art house film and it is being exposed to people who are going to expect something completely different and be upset about being bamboozled.

Like it or hate it, those are the only two options people will have from this movie. Anyone who said they thought it was okay is probably just lying. Despite its polarizing attributes (Which again, are going to amplify to the negative), people WILL be talking about it and remember it for a long time. That is not always a good thing, because being infamous for being really bad or gross doesn’t make a great film.

But in all honesty, this is a pretty great film. It did incredible things inside of a one location suit. It should make the viewer feel claustrophobic and a whole lot of other emotions. It should leave the viewer thinking and change their perspective on a few things. Or it will just be considered some strange torture snuff shit and have people walk out of it, especially when it ramps up even further near the end.

Good on Jennifer Lawrence for doing a project like this. She breathed hard and panted her face off in this film to make us uncomfortable, and it really worked.

Adderall is a drug designed to help those with ADHD calm the fuck down and get their work done. That is how I understand it at least.

Adderall is also a drug that goes around college campuses or weird professions, where the user will take it in order to focus more on a task. The amount sold under the table on colleges increase more around final exam times. So yeah, people might use it to “study better” or finish an essay or stop looking at their facebook every few minutes. It has also been used by journalists and writers, I am sure.

Basically, the plot of Limitless is the guy takes Adderall5000 and his extreme focus lets him do a shit ton of things. What fun!

The Adderall Diaries, if anything, is a shitty title to a movie. Adding Diaries to something is just unoriginal. This one is based on a book, but the book came out in 2009, so it was already past the point when Diaries was a cool thing to add to a title. So I am going into this movie pretending it is just 1995 and the title was cutting edge.

Of course I was six then, so I probably thought this was how to ride a motorcycle.

Hans Reiser (Christian Slater) might have killed his wife. Who knows. That is what the trial is for.

For some reason, this case drives the interest of one Stephen Elliott (James Franco). He is a writer, who writes stories based on his life. He had a rough child hood, with a dad (Ed Harris), who was abusive, left him to make him homeless, and eventually died. He has a book deal, an advance from the publishing company and more thanks to his wonderful agent (Cynthia Nixon).

But he has writers block. So he wants to write about this case instead. It drives close to home. Not that anyone wants any of that True Crime shit right now. They want his personal stories. While watching the case, he meets Lana Edmond (Amber Heard), a journalist. They start doing stuff together.

Oh and hey. His dad isn’t dead. Stephen lied about that. This creates problems, as other big moments might be lies as well. Add to the fact that he isn’t writing, no one wants the new stuff, and more, his life might come crumbling down as well.

Also featuring Jim Parrack and Wilmer Valderrama.

A VHS tape? Man, getting my head set in the 1990’s is actually pretty easy.

Last year, Franco starred in True Story, where he played a guy who might have killed his wife and kids and a journalist, Jonah Hill, was trying to tell his story. And now he is a writer, trying to get the story of a guy who maybe killed his wife.

Similar? Yes. Annoyingly so? Still yes. Franco loves independent films. So much that he is more of these indie films than he is bigger well known films, and that includes the stoner ones. And for the most part, all of these films he is a part of just seem to be incredibly lacking. It might not all be Franco’s fault…it could also be his agent specifically picking lesser roles.

This film is dull, but in a slow burn way. Franco’s character is all over the place. There are quite a few sub plots and they don’t seem to mesh together fully. There are some tense moments. There is a lot of yelling. There is some classy text over the screen to make sure you are a paying attention. But overall it just feels like the entire story is pointless.

At least in True Story we had great cinematography and a better story. This one just doesn’t seem cohesive and I am left wondering why quite a few scenes even happened.

I don’t even know what to say about Run All Night. This movie kind of came out of nowhere for me. I had at least heard about things like Non-Stop or A Walk Among The Tombstones

Like, months of notice. This one just in the last few weeks before coming out.

Is this guy even trying anymore? Does he do any serious drama anymore? Who keeps giving him these paychecks for these types of movie? Is it like…is he the next Mr. Cage? After all, he will take literally anything.

I think there must be a robot similar to AWESOME-O doing this. But instead of Adam Sandler movies, it keeps popping out generic Neeson movies. Has to be the only logical solution to what in the hell is going on.

Tag Teaming with pre-accident RoboCop.

Good news! Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) is an asshole and not an anti-hero! He was a hitman for many years, to his good friend Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Shawn ran the ports of NYC, a pretty big task, got stupid wealthy, and lives a nice life now. Jimmy the Grave Digger? Well, he is a drunk who has a bad relationship with his son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman). Mike knows of Jimmy’s past. He doesn’t want that around his wife (Genesis Rodriguez) and kids.

Fair enough.

Well, Mike gets into some trouble. Due to no fault of his own, while driving a limo, Shawn’s son, Danny (Boyd Holbrook) wants to kill him. Danny ignores everyone and tries it anywhere, forcing Jimmy to protect his own son. Well, now we got a dead son of a gangster. That isn’t allowed. So Jimmy and his son have to go into hiding. They have to Run All Night, until Jimmy can figure this whole mess out. How to protect his family, how to get rid of his guilt, and how to…well, not suck.

Including Vincent D’Onofrio as a detective who was never able to bring Jimmy Conlon to justice, and Common as a hitman hired to get Jimmy and Mike. Yes, you read that correctly. COMMON is playing a “bad guy”, not a cop on the good guy side. This is truly a historic moment.

Not as historic as this restaurant, that is clearly dedicating itself fully to the color red.

Run All Night has a terrible title. I feel like I should mention that, as titles I haven’t been bringing up as often. It sounds just super generic. Not Fighting generic, but real close.

Speaking of this movie, it wasn’t as terrible as I had thought. First of all, I am stoked again that Liam Neeson doesn’t play a good guy or an anti-hero. He plays definitely a bad guy who tries to redeem himself for his son. So he kills bad people, and has been a bad dude all his life, thus his alcohol/depression. Great. I prefer this.

The action wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. The plot was pretty predictable, and it even started with a scene near the ending, just so you can make sure you know where the whole thing is going towards. Genesis Rodriguez was wasted in this movie, barely having any lines, and not even being able to freak out about her husbands sudden life of crime. She was passive as fuck.

I liked that they featured the NY Rangers and a hockey game pretty heavily, but as you will see from one of my FB posts here, they also butchered the whole thing up.

What I am getting at is that this movie could drag, but also entertain. It is a storybook 2 out of 4. I am mostly happy that it just wasn’t super terrible though.

Alright, let’s pretend for an instant that I can give this movie any fair chance. You know it, I know it, I really can’t. I gave the Planes the most zero of zeroes I could give it. It was a strange review, in which I just went over all the scummy ways this movie was released, turned from straight to DVD bullshit to a cash cow thanks to advertisements.

But I digress. After I saw the movie, I realized it was still a 0 and deserved my scorn.

Now we have the sequel. Planes: Fire & Rescue. This should have less bullshit qualities, technically. The third film hasn’t been officially announced, but let’s assume next year too since they can churn these out pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, no other animated movies appear to be coming out soon, so this one will make decent box office as well. Hell, two weeks before it came out it probably already broke even with toys alone.

The sequel with mostly new characters instead of the old ones for obvious reasons.

Set sometime after the events of the first POS, Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) is now a big star. He is winning more races, people like him, and everything is going well. But during a routine manuver, something goes wrong! His gearbox is worn down, and he has to keep the vague torque dial below the red zone or else his engine will stop and he will die. [Note. I think they said his torque could go up to 140, but the dial showed 65. The “doctor” said 80% was his max, which was definitely not “112 Torque”.]

What does that mean? That means Dusty can’t race. His dreams that he spent forever getting in the last movie, literally changing out almost every plane part (including a gear box I bet), to do it, are now ruined. So he sulks off like a little bitch, and a fire happens due to his shitty gear box. This is almost a disaster, but it is solved. Too bad the fire inspector deems the fire truck as inept and old, so they shut down their run way. This is bad news when their corn fest (?) is in one week and expecting a big turn out thanks to Dusty.

So Dusty does what he has to do, I guess. He goes to get certified as a fire fighter. This causes him to go to totally not Yellowstone park, to train under Blade Ranger (Ed Harris) and his crew. A girl plane Lil’ Dipper (Julie Bowen), who as the only real female character in the movie is a stalker to Dusty, an older helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi), who is an incredibly racist caricature of a Naive American, and a bunch of tiny Honka looking bulldozers meant to sell toys.

Anyways, days of training and other bullshit happen. The “plot” comes from the fact that some luxury car (John Michael Higgins) opened up a new lodge in the area and is a dick. Nothing he does makes a lot of sense, but he is our cheap villain/not a villain character. After several days of bullshit training, like a week, CAN DUSTY SAVE THE DAY WHEN FIRE HAPPENS?

A few other voices I recognized included Curtis Armstrong, Hal Holbrook, Jerry Stiller, and Fred Willard.

Just. Just Fuck.

Just a kids movie. World building. Continuity. Bullshit.

I think that is the four ways I’d break down this analysis.

“But it’s just a kids movie!” I don’t know how much I have talked about that before, but that is one of the dummbest things anyone can say. Saying it is just a kids movie, or just a summer flick, is literally like being that kid on the playground who said his made up fighter character had a magical invisible cape that would reflect spells last minute. Bitch, everyone knows that is lie, and does not protect you. Just like a movie being geared towards kids. How can we even say that anymore when we have had dozens of nice “kids” movies that everyone can enjoy and get things out of over the last decade? It literally should have killed that excuse, yet somehow it goes on.

It is the reason we get low budget, cheap CGI, rushed crap, just to sell toys. If you forgot, Planes was last minute pulled from straight-to-DVD status and given a new guy to do the main voice and that was it. This was being made before that even happened. Cheap. Shit. Saying just a kids movies just lets them keep producing this filth.

This movie only creates more problems with the world building of this cars/planes universe crap that they are building. We already knew it was Earth. Sure. This is definitely set in America, with references to California and other states. It is very awkward. They, however, amplified the cars aspect of it all with all the animals being cars as well. In particular, John Deere equipment roamed the forests. What? The fuck?

But that isn’t it. I have talked before how it is all odd that 1) clearly they are made entities and cannot breed out more cars/planes, or 2) are made by other preexisting cars/planes in a factory or something. But the faulty gear box amps it up. The driving factor of the plot. Why not replace it like everything else? Because of course, that gear box is out of production and there is literally nothing they can do. The mechanics can’t fix it because it is complicated and needs factory precision.

So in their world, they have cars/planes making cars/planes parts somehow, and they can stop them knowing full well they are potentially killing hundreds/thousands who rely on that part? That is pretty damn fucked up.

Why do they even need a few people to put out forest fires? I can’t imagine forests having a huge need in a planet without humans. They should just let the mother burn.

Re: rushed project/CGI. There were many fire scenes. All of them were terribly ugly.

In terms of continuity, it is the simple basics they just didn’t care about. Early on we find out that the corn festival is in one week. He then spends almost a whole week in the fire training camp. Then? Then after events, he is knocked out for five days. After that? Yay time for the corn festival. How many fucking days are in a week again?

These minor things add up, showing that the people who wrote it were just pulling shit out of a hat and animating it. Coherence is for suckers. Didn’t Dusty have a girlfriend? She wasn’t in this movie at all.

Bullshit. So much bullshit. The film starts off saying it is dedicating the movie to all the firefighters out there. Aka the people who aren’t in the movie at all, and instead all of the emphasis is placed on their equipment not the men who drive the vehicles. At one point, Dusty worries about going into a cave because they might suffocate. Shit, planes need oxygen now?

The characters are all stereotypes. Including the terrible Windlifter. The plot is taken from 80s action movies without any of the fear. The only issue is his gear box, of which he keeps a secret despite it clearly affecting him quite often. Once it does get brought up, he is told to just get over it. Then he gets over it. Moral? You might have a failing heart, but fuck it, just ignore it.

I watched this movie in a packed theater. The only times the audience laughed in a big unit was during the two fart jokes. Everything else? A few giggles, but mostly silence.

Just think. A third movie is definitely happening. Maybe in the third one, Dusty will get bored of racing and decide he wants to be a frog next?

It took a few years, but today I finally get to finish a trilogy of reviews on this site. I don’t know why it took me so long to see The Way Back, as I got it probably two years ago. Just needed the right moment.

Although un-officially, The Way Back is the second movie of a trilogy. The other two are of course The Way and then The Way, Way Back. I know I watched them out of order, my bad. But those two movies made me really excited about this one, mostly for the fact that I gave them both 4 out of 4.

I don’t necessarily enjoy watching bad movies (despite the number that I do see), so anything to give me hope that a movie might be amazing is fine in my book. Even if the logic is absurd.

If I remember correctly, no other movie in the “Trilogy” uses the word Gulag.

Life during WW2 was probably hard. Not too much Freedom in Europe, people dying, and if you were really unlucky, you might have been sent to the middle of nowhere Siberia to live in a Gulag. A Gulag was a nice labor camp where people had to work and eventually die. You may have saw one in Muppets Most Wanted. They aren’t too hard to get out of either, because there is generally no way someone could survive the harsh weather and get anywhere safe. There are many animals who would kill you, and communities all around know they will get a bounty if they return any escaped criminals.

But that’s not to say that people didn’t try anyways.

Like Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess), a Polish POW who was sent to the gulag and definitely doesn’t want to be there. After some cruel conditions, lack of food, and harsh weather, he finally gets a group of people to escape with.

We have an English engineer Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an actor Khabarov (Mark Strong), Zoran (Dragos Bucur) a Yugoslavian accountant, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgard), a Latvian Priest, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist, and Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky) a Polish man with night blindness. Hmm. Who else who else. Oh of course, Valka (Colin Farrell), a Russian criminal.

I would like to thank Wikipedia for giving me their ethnicity and work information because there is damn no way I would remember most of that.

Unfortunately, after traveling through the winter storm areas, with some men dying along the way, they find that Mongolia seems to be under Communist command. That is just escaping into more enemy territory. No, it looks like they might have to walk even further from Siberia. They may have to walk to India, through the Himalayas and Tibet, through a grueling desert and treacherous mountains. Oh boy. That is a long way back.

Also, at some point they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl with questionable back story.

My theory is that she used to be that stick.

The Way Back is not run of the mill action escape movie. It also isn’t necessarily about the initial escape either, so there isn’t an hour of lead up before they break out. The movie is about the journey after they escape and their long walk to freedom.

It could be considered an Epic of sort, because it is literally a hard drama about people trying to survive in harsh conditions. Everything felt so realistic with their journey as well, from blisters and swelling, to dry caked lips. It was hard to watch at times, knowing that if I was in a similar situation I probably wouldn’t have made it out of Siberia.

I see it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Makeup and it was extraordinary. That, coupled with the excellent cinematography and scenic views really draw you into the film and make it a memorable experience.

At the same time? Eh, it lulled a few times in the movie. I can’t tell really if this is supposed to be a true story, but it is inspired by a book. I think the film suffered from too many characters early on. They might have needed them just to kill some people off and showcase more the harsh conditions, but it became a bit harder to tell who was who (when they were all bundled up and frost bitten) and who would just be movie fodder.

Overall a really well done film though.

I first heard about Snowpiercer like a lot of people when I was getting insulted by people with a lot of money.

Despite making boat loads of money in South Korea where it debuted, The Weinstein Company wanted to delay its release in the US, like everything they grab. Why? To make cuts to the movie. The original movie is right at two hours, but Harvey said no, 20 minutes have got to go. Why? So that the film “will be understood by audiences in Iowa… and Oklahoma.” If you don’t get it, that means he is saying that the average American couldn’t handle this film and it has to be dumbed down. You know, to take out some drama and story elements and giving us a shorter film that is much closer to a regular run of the mill action story.

Fuck that. Fuck that so much. That is one of the most insulting things I have ever heard from a movie executive. He says Americans are dumb and won’t like the movie that way. Just how patronizing can a person be?

Well, it turns out, as much as they want because the American viewer cannot do a damn thing about it. The director, Joon-ho Bong, was able to hold out though. After months of arguing, he was able to get the full version released to the American market. The only issue is, it is now limited release instead of wide release. Well, sucks for those guys in shitty markets, but as long as I get the full cut, I won’t be mad.

Well, I guess I could still point some blame towards Harvey.

In the future year of 2014, Global Warming is scary. So scientists have made a chemical that can reduce the effects of the gasses and counteract the rise in the temperature. They released too much though, causing the world to go into a very quick ice age, killing most of the life on the planet.

The only survivors are the people who made it onto the Snowpiercer train. It is a perpetual-motion engine so it can run forever. It travels the entire globe and also takes a year to return to a past point. That last part isn’t plot important, just kind of cool.

But life on the train isn’t all peaches and cream. A caste system was quickly formed, with a majority of its inhabitants taking up cramped quarters in the tail of the train. They are fed protein bars and occasionally some kids are taken from them. They have to learn their place. Past riots and attempts to move on have failed. But this time? This time, they are ready.

It will be lead by Curtis (Chris Evans), influenced heavily by Gilliam (John Hurt) an old wise man in the train car. Their plan involves breaking into the train “prison” to release a man (Kang-ho Song) who helped make the security between the cars to help move them through.

Featuring a lot of people, such as Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ah-sung Ko, Ewen Bremner, Ed Harris and Alison Pill.

How cold is it? Flavor Flav has turned white!

For those that hate cramped conditions, you might feel a bit uneasy in a movie set entirely on a train. However, for those who like trains a lot, like Denzel Washington or that guy from The Railway Man, this would be the perfect movie for you.

For having an entire film set in a train, they did a real good job of not making it feel incredibly repetitive. The train itself is very long, housing a large number of people with quite a few amenities, so there are several different places we get to go.

I thought Snowpiercer was downright incredibly. It has some powerful themes that are pretty easy to relate too, resounding in the United States with the occupy movement still in recent memory. They aren’t anything new, but I really just loved how it was presented in this movie.

The issue with my review is that I just loved so many aspects of this movie, I am finding a hard time using words to describe just what made this movie so great. From the acting, to cinematography, to the action and drama, to the twists and turns. Just all aspects were phenomenal. Tis a good movie. Glad it didn’t get cut up.

I first heard about Gravity a few months ago, and it scared the shit out of me. Floating through space, darkness all around you, no one to talk to, just alone?

Yeah. A mountain of nope. Then I heard talented actors were at the helm? Aw hell yeah, time to do this movie so hard.

How hard? Harder than sex in space suits.

This film takes place in…Space! Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is on a short mission with a tiny crew, to install some hardware. She is up there for her first time ever, after six months of training. Doesn’t matter. Going home tomorrow. She has help of course, like Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), a very experience astronaut who loves to talk, and would probably live in space if he could.

Well. Bad things happen. Then more bad things happen, and gosh darn it, we got our selves a movie. Ed Harris supplies his voice for mission control, but other than that, no other real characters. How lonely.

“I’m floating in a most peculiar way, and the stars look very different today…”

Well, first off, if you go to see this in theaters, and don’t see it in 3D, then Fuck You.

Secondly, if you buy this on DVD and not Blu-Ray, then fuck you again.

There are many things that can be said about Gravity, but the one main thing that everyone can agree on is that it is a CGI space extravaganza that can cause eyegasms. It is possibly the BEST thing I have ever seen with 3D glasses on, in terms of “worth it ness” for the extra ticket fee. If there is an IMAX in town, I’d suggest watching it in 3D on that. The bigger the screen, the better. Just go all out. That will get you the full experience.

But I digress. A movie needs to have more than extreme sexiness for me to love it, or else I would have loved Avatar. Right?

I can say that the fear and the conflict are incredibly real. Not just because there is shit flying in your face. Thanks to the cinematography of this movie (which is extremely creative and diverse for every scene, by the way), when a character is alone floating through space, you will feel alone as well. Shit, depending on your screen, you might feel like you are in space as well. Everything is working together so well to give you those feels, including the excellent sound mixing. After all, in space, sound doesn’t really travel.

The plot is scary, and I will admit, parts of this film just feel like coincidence after coincidence. Everything works out so perfectly for the film to happen, but technically most movies fall that way. It is just a bit exemplified because, you know, space. I can’t say all of the science is correct either, but those are factors I am willing to forgive for the excellent story told.

The film is just under 90 minutes long and honestly it works really well in a film like this. I might go crazy if they packed in a lot of extra time just to make you feel extra lonely. Gravity made me laugh and cry, and affected me so hard in such a short time. Highly recommend it.

For those who have the time, please watch the Trailer for Phantom. Did you? No? Too lazy? Fair enough.

Well, it is short, less than 90 seconds, and extremely crappy. Like, seriously, the quality is very low, it looks like a made for TV movie. Or a strange episode of Last Resort. I had to sit through this trailer multiple times in theaters, just for it to not even touch the state of Iowa (I think). Normally when I review a DVD movie, I try to have it within a week of coming out, but this one took several. I didn’t take me awhile to watch it, saw it the next day it came out. Just apathy after the fact. Super deep apathy.

About as apathetic as an old Russian on a submarine in the winter, I’d imagine.

Demi (Ed Harris) is an old Russian naval commander. He has done it all, and only a little bit with submarines. After all, this is only the Cold War now, and submarines aren’t that old yet. Well, he has had some problems in the past, and just got back from a voyage. He can only have one mission left before he retires, and it involves using an older submarine as well. Literally the day after he got back. Shit. Same crew. Sucks to suck. Also, some KGB agents are going to join them as well. Bruni (David Duchovny) have a secret mission on the sub, and can’t tell anyone about it. Yet.

Well, eventually it is made clear. The Russians have developed a new technology, that when turned on, will reflect a different signature when other objects use sonar against them. So when a USA submarine comes near, the sub thinks they are some commercial ship. Whoa. Phantom technology, lets them have stealth submarines. That is useful, but why is that important?

Oh, because they want to pretend to be a Chinese sub, send Nukes against America, and start a new war while being in the clear.

Aww yeah. Wait what?

William Fichtner plays the second in command. Will the crew do the unthinkable, or turn against their own government for a task they feel is wrong?

Who is that on the line David? Your agent? Your life has sucked since The X-Files? Huh, go figure.

I don’t want to spend a lot of words on this movie. It hurts my psyche. It was boring and dull. Submarine movies tend to be at a disadvantage, because the viewer tends to be stuck in a small vessel with them. So there is no change in scenery. Small amount of actors, limited drama, limited threat.

It was strange to find out they were Russians. I normally don’t care about accents, but because the whole thing is in English (thankfully not a Russian movie), I am surprised there are literally no accents. Everyone talks as they normally do. I couldn’t even fathom they were all Russian because of that. At least trying for an accent is better than nothing, I’d say.

Simple film, maybe worse than a made for TV movie.