Tag: Jim Sturgess

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.

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.

Upside Down hit theaters in the first half of March, but it ended up only getting limited release. I am not sure, everything about it made it seem like a movie America would go bonkers over. A nice love story, science fiction, CGI, famous people, and a decent sized budget.

But due to its limited release (11 in the USA its first week), and no one hearing of it, it might as well have gone straight to DVD. Very strange indeed. It was totally released in other countries first, including Russia all the way in August 2012. Fucking Russians, starting to get random foreign yet still American movies before us.

This is the second movie to feature Miss Dunst kissing in a strange way.

In some other part of the universe, we have two planets that rotate around a star. However, these planets are very very close to each other and spin together, around the star. They each have their own gravitation field and humans living on them. But an item that is created or born on one planet will only be affected by the gravity field on that planet. No, it doesn’t make sense in real science terms, but its a movie, so lets call it magic.

You can offset your weight with items from the other world and fall the other way of course, but the matter on different planets will get hotter over time if in contact with each other and eventually burn up. Apparently, in this movie, matter doesn’t include humans, just items.

Either way, one planet sucks, the other is rich. The rich one exploits the poor one, pretty standard stuff. Adam (Jim Sturgess) ended up accidentally meeting a girl from the rich planet, Eden (Kirsten Dunst) when they were kids, climbing mountains that almost go up to each other. Due to an accident they stop seeing each other and go on with their lives.

Ten years later, Adam has decided to join “TransWorld” as a scientist, the only building/company that attaches both planets in one miraculous building. He has been working on a special powder/cream that is anti-aging, or at least anti-gravity, if you catch my meaning. But really, he is doing it just to get access to the top planet, find out if the woman of his dreams remembers him, and hopefully woo her off of her feet. Figuring out how he can stay on their side of vice versa, without getting jailed is a problem to think about later.

Timothy Spall gets a shoutout here, for finally being in a movie where he isn’t a slimy villain like character.

So if you think about it, even Timothy Spall is topsy-turvy in this movie.

I did spend most of the plot outline going over just how the world works, in non spoiler-y terms. Not specifically what Jim and Kirsten actually do in this movie. Why? Well, the actual plot itself is very weak. They spend a good deal of time at the start going over the worlds like I do, and then apparently spend the rest of the movie ignoring their set in stone rules. Incredibly inconsistent with what is going on, numerous plot holes, and they use one of the laziest story writing techniques out there: Amnesia. Ugh.

The climactic ending scene ended up only being confusing, never sure which way was up, down, or who was in danger at any given moment. But it definitely had guns, and definitely had people with very poor aim. The actual end end scene felt cheesy and rushed.

Overall, this is incredibly disappointing. The concept is fucking amazing, with endless possibilities, but this film doesn’t deliver. It has many inconsistencies with the rules and what happens, so the sci-fi nerds will rage over that. The romance is a bit weak, so those romantics will also be disappointed in it.

It should be noted that the film is very gorgeous. It is CGI heavy and they put a lot of work into it. That is the biggest plus it has going for it, which is a shame.

And then there is Cloud Atlas.

What? Don’t like that I kind of just started this review mid thought? Well get used to it, if you want to watch Cloud Atlas. Featuring an all star cast, this movie takes place over time and space, to tell a simple message.

And by simple message, I mean you might have to see this movie multiple times.

Just like they might have to give actors multiple roles. For symbolism!

You might be wondering, “Hey, Gorgon Reviews. What the fuck is going on in this movie? It looks confusing! Do I have to think during my movie time? Is it really 3 hours if you include previews? Fuck that noise.”

Well first off, I don’t know what that last part means.

But hey, I can explain the structure. There are six different settings that the story takes place in. South Pacific, 1869, a lawyer goes to settle a transaction (slavery!), but finds himself extremely sick on the way back home. He befriends a stowaway slave, and must fight the poison.

England, 1936, a young gay musician travels to work for an old and dying composer, becoming an apprentice and making his own work entitled Cloud Atlas.

San Francisco, 1973, a crime story involving a young reporter getting a big scoop that things may not be on the up and up at a new nuclear power plant.

London, 2012, no Olympics. The story of an older publisher who gets into some crime trouble, then forced to live in a retirement home where there is no escape. Yes, this is the more comedic storyline.

Neo Seoul, 2144, a story of a clone who escaped her job and learned to develop feelings, knowledge, and become a god.

Hawaii, 106 years after “The Fall”, a goat herder, haunted by his past, has to work with a technologically superior human to figure out where they all came from.

Get all that? Those are rough descriptions of the eras, that have their stories interweaved throughout the movie, sometime simultaneously. If for some reason you didn’t know yet, all of the characters play multiple roles, some of the bigger ones being Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Jim Stugess, Ben Whishaw, and Doona Bae.

Hell, just to confuse you more, some actors play the same character, just in different times of their life. I’m looking at you James D’Arcy. There are other big names as well, with lesser roles, such as Keith David, David Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, Xun Zhou, and Hugh Grant. I was personally confused by Mr. Grant, as I only noticed one of his roles when I first saw it, and had my brain convince me that Hugo Weaving was doing a REALLY GOOD Hugh Grant impersonation.

Dude. Bro. The Future Bro. Dude.

Like all crazy movies, this one is not without controversy. Namely the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, because yes, some of the white actors were asian characters in Seoul. They complained of eye make up, and that they should have just found some nice asian actors for the role. You know, making one part of the movie completely different from the others because of people playing one role. But because they didn’t care about Doona Bae wearing white ginger make up, or Halle Berry as a white woman, I am calling their complaints racist and turning the table on them. Get out of her guys.

I actually did make a flow chart on my board, mostly as a joke. I’d suggest only looking at it, here, if you have seen it to avoid any spoilers.

The best way to describe this movie is Intense. There is so much going on, so much kind of connected, and so much feeling. When you are done with it, you are left only with feelings. Unfortunately the plot isn’t perfect, there were things I am still confused on today. I could read the book, but ehhh. There are a lot of themes, most of them relatable, but mostly I think it is about the emotions.

Cloud Atlas is going to be a movie that requires multiple viewings to get the full effect out of it, and I am glad The Wachowski Siblings made it, if only for the large mammal sized balls they must possess.

Beatles. People love The Beatles. I can understand their cultural impact on rock and music afterwards, and appreciate it, while not caring about their music at the same time.

Now that that is out of the way, moving on!

Across The Universe is a musical, not adapted from Broadway (original (almost!)), and features only Beatles music. Yay! Well, more or less that means nothing. I knew I’d watch it one day, just wasn’t rushing to the stores when it came out to see it. They can’t all be Mamma Mia!

I bet if I showed random pictures, hardcore Beatles fans could guess the song associated with it, even if they haven’t seen the movie.

Across The Universe is a few different stories wrapped into one, about different people in the 60s/70s America. Each character has its own plot, and gets wrapped up in the rest but all come from their own different backgrounds. Jude (Jim Sturgess) (Come on, you knew someone would be named Jude) is a individual from Liverpool, who has never known his dad, an American who was came over during WW2. So he gets to the USA, illegally, to look for his dad.

At the university where his dad works (janitor), he meets Max (Joe Anderson) a rebellious spirit, and eats dinner at their house, where Max’s dad is very angry about his sons lack of prospects. Jim also meets Max’s sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who is upset because her boyfriend is going off to war. After an argument, Max leaves the house and Jim agrees to get an apartment with him in NYC (BFFs instantly!).

They find a loft sharing with the much older, trying to make it as a female rock star Sadie (Dana Fuchs) who provides a nice outlet for singing Beatles songs if there is no good context. Yay bands in musicals. Jo-Jo (Martin Luther) leaves Detroit after the 60s riots, where his younger brother was killed, and eventually finds and joins Sadie’s band as a lead guitarist before she hits it off big. Also interracial loving.

Also Prudence (T.V. Carpio), an asian cheerleader who just finished high school, left the area for being in love with another girl and unable to show her feelings. She also moves to NYC (and that apartment), falls in love with Sadie, but she doesn’t like chicks. She also is pretty emo, runs away a lot, joins a circus and shit.

Main storyline wise, eventually Lucy also goes to NYC after her boyfriend dies in ‘Nam, and develops feelings for Jude. Max also gets drafted and goes to war where everyone assumes he dies. Jude is a painter, and can’t get into protesting as much as Lucy does (who might be getting it on with some anti-war people), and eventually gets sent back to the UK for being here illegally. In the UK, Jude assumes Lucy dies in a home made bomb explosion, and lots of sad things happen, before some happier things.

Also are cameos by Bono and Eddie Izzard, both involving drugs and other free spirit hallucinogens.

And then stuff like this happened.

That was a shit ton of story lines, and plot, and I left out plenty. But lets face it, if I put another paragraph explaining the ends to all the storylines, you wouldn’t mind much. You want to watch this movie for the music, not the acting or plot lines. But still, plot wise, I found a lot of it interesting. I found the Prudence plot line a bit more confusing, must have missed it a bit in the beginning. I liked Jo-Jos a lot, and Max’s, but the main Jude/Lucy plot line felt weird to me. Just didn’t believe it all, too much weird angst.

The movie also movies very fast, and is over two hours to encompass all the plot (and more music, of course). Generally most of the songs were good, and as far as I could tell, most sounded a lot like the Beatles versions. There were obvious changes to some, and mixed songs, which were generally decent. My favorite parts would be the Let It Be/ Come Together scenes, involving Detroit riots, the brother, funeral, and Jo-Jo leaving. Felt pretty powerful to me. Also only click that first one if you want to be sad.

A lot of the choreography was really good as well, in particular the I Want You (She’s So Heavy) song, which I hadn’t heard before. But that one is also incredibly weird.

So hey, overall I will give it to the filmmakers for trying something different, direct to film musicals are always rare, and generally try for wider appeals. But jukebox musicals are an easy way to get it done. “Like the Beatles, then you will love this song!”. Overall, despite the decent singing, good choreography, I felt the film just had too much going on in it. Crazy ass visuals were distractions for me, and harder for me to grasp what was actually happening at times.

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.

One Day is a British movie, based on the British book of the same name. Creative right? In fact, this book was apparently so good, it was made into a movie pretty damn quick from when it came out. But why is it called One Day?

Because it tells the story of a man and a woman. On one day of the year. For twenty years. July 15, 1989-2009, to be exact.

St. Swithun’s day and Eddie Griffin‘s birthday. But I am sure you knew that.

Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess play the main two roles, and thus are the only people that matter. It starts with them graduating from some UK college, and spending the night together. They decided to be friends, and over the next many years they end up working on their goals to be famous and be a writer. Also with different (sometimes plentiful) lovers, and at different times loving the other. Very unfortunate.

What is fortunate is that so much happened on July 15 between them. Pretty handy! It also has Patricia Clarkson, as the mother of Jim. I don’t think Anne’s parents are talked about at all.

You know what I don’t care about? Accents. To say someone from an area has the “wrong English accent” or a bad accent, or whatever, sounds completely stupid. All people from an area do not talk identical. It is based on how they hear a lot of their earlier words. Parents and shit. I will never care about someone’s accent, and if it is “real” enough or not, because technically, there isn’t a real accent at all. To do that would be stereotyping, people.

(There is also complaints that her accent changes throughout the movie. Which makes sense, as she moves around to different parts of Europe in the movie, and overtime, that shit changes.)

It was probably hard for them to find people who could look the ages of 22-42, or whatever the range may be. They change their hairstyles a bunch and do a pretty good job. They also make Anne look like the adult female version of Harry Potter at the beginning.

You’re welcome for that.

The story was interesting, and of course sad at a lot of parts. Sometimes the “date” that was flashed on the screen was hard to see, and I wouldn’t necessarily know it was a new year. They should have been less clever with that. It was an okay story. Probably rushed, compared to a novel. I think there definitely could have been more. Decent movie, but not the best. Also, there is some nakedness, which is shocking for a PG-13 movie, but not shocking for an Anne Hathaway movie.