Tag: Viola Davis

Being a Widow must suck. You know, getting married, being in love maybe, marriage for decades possibly! And then your spouse dies. I also learned recently that the term widow only refers to a woman who lost their partner. I guess that is good, because then I never have to be a widow. And you know, I just talked about how that must suck.

Widows is a movie brought to us by Steve McQueen, who has not been too busy since he had a movie win best picture. He famously directed 12 Years A Slave for a 2012 release, and since then this is his first theater film. Someone clever might say 6 Years NotInTheSpotlight for McQueen. Does this mean that Widows is going to be 3 times as good as 12 Years A Slave (because 12 Years came out 2 years after his previous film)? Yes. It has to mean that.

You can’t argue with science.

Having the funeral really cements in the widow status.

Veronica (Viola Davis) is wealthy, giving, and in love with her husband (Liam Neeson). He might be into some corrupt shit, working with political campaigns an doing jobs, but she doesn’t know the specifics and it does put her life in a good place. And then? Well, a job goes poorly, and he gets killed dead along with three other men, leaving her to feel quite sad, notably poorer, and alone.

But she isn’t given time to grieve. It turns out in this final job, her husband stole from some powerful people, and they know who robbed them. So they have to now harass Veronica, to look into their savings accounts or whatever to pay it back. Or else.

Unfortunately, nothing like that really exists, as far as she knows. She does end up finding a notebook, with plans on robbing an even bigger fortune. If she can pull off this heist, she will be able to pay off the goons and have a lot left over to live comfortable and worry free after that. She just needs a team, and she isn’t the type to know about this sort of stuff.

There is an idea for a team though. She wants to find the other women who just lost their husbands. They are probably hurt and need funds as well. Maybe they are all desperate enough to join her.

Starring Michelle Rodriguez, Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo. Also starring Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Molly Kunz, Jon Bernthal, and Robert Duvall.

It is impossible for the guy in purple to be a Widow. We talked about this.

If you are thinking about 12 Years A Slave still, which scene do you think about? It is likely the one where the main character is being hanged by his neck for a few minutes, with kids playing in the background, him struggling to breath, and of course, eventually not dying. It was scary, and intense, and the camera did not move away.

I love a long scene that doesn’t cut, and there is one very exciting scene in Widows that is similar. It doesn’t show violence, and it isn’t scary, but it is just a long cut of a very short car ride in Chicago, showing how quickly it takes for one to go from a poor to a rich district. During this scene is a conversation as well, and it would be one of the best scenes of 2018, if we got to see the characters talking as the drive occurred. The camera didn’t focus on them, just on the scenery, so it is most likely that they did the conversation later and just edited it on top. But it is still a great scene and shows that McQueen has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

Davis is the star of this film and has to carry a lot of it with her face and eyes. There is no doubt she is a great actress and does a fantastic job in this one. I do want to point out another actress though, because it was a surprise. Debicki, who has been in plenty of films, and never been the one reason you want to see it. Her character had a lot more going on than her normal characters, and by golly, she felt like a real actress and not just a model who is in a bunch of movies. Hell, she could have a best supporting from this for all I know. It was also great to see Erivo in this film, who was one of the best parts of Bad Times At El Royale. She is having a great year and she came out of nowhere.

To highlight one male actor, I will point out that Kaluuya was scary. He felt like a wildcard in the realest sense of the word, and I loved seeing him on the screen.

Widows is suspenseful, with a few twists that I didn’t fully expect. It hits hard and is not afraid to throw any punches. It could have been better, but the over two hour film just flew by and it was good enough for me to just love.

I do love it when a play becomes a film, assuming the play is a good one of course. I am a huge fan of dialogue, and plays usually give me good dialogue.

But what about a play I actually know? I don’t own a lot of plays, but I do own Fences. I never read the whole thing, but I had to read parts of it for a college level drama class. And the parts and themes that I saw I really enjoyed. So needless to say, I was pretty excited to see this coming out as a film.

And here is an even bigger reason to get excited. This play was actually given a revival in 2010 on Broadway, starring…Denzel Washington and Viola Davis! They both straight up won Tony awards for their portrayals. That means this film is them reprising a role they already kicked ass at, for the world to enjoy, six years later. That is pretty darn gosh nice of them.

And here are some other cast members because it is awfully hard to find pictures of anyone else.

Set in the 1950’s, we get to meet Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) and his friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson), getting done with work. It is Friday, pay day, they work on the back of a garbage truck, and Troy might be getting fired for asking about why no black men get to drive the garbage trucks.

But Friday means pay day, and drinking day, so it is a good day. Even when his old son Lyons (Russell Hornsby) comes to visit to borrow money. Even when his wife, Rose (Viola Davis) gives him an occasional hard time. Even when his son, Cory (Jovan Adepo) is seemingly throwing away his future by wanting to go to college for sports instead of getting a real job.

And his poor older brother, Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), who went off to World War II and got injured. Now Gabe has a metal plate in his head, isn’t all there, and receives a government check.

Nah, but Troy loves his life. No reason to mess it up, people respect him, and he will live out the rest of his life care free, assuming he ever shuts up.

Also featuring Saniyya Sidney.

And I didn’t even talk about the fence.

For those that didn’t know Fences was based on a play, I’d hope they’d realize in the first ten minutes. Characters just hanging out in the back yard, telling stories, giving long lines, and talking, talking, talking. For those who hate excessive dialogue, you will not enjoy this movie.

Not all play movies feel like a play, but this one certainly does. Over 90% of the film takes place in or around a single house, with characters walking in and out. I was a bit surprised how many different cuts and angles they threw into the film. These are people who have rehearsed these roles and done them many times over, so they could have done entire scenes in one long go, but Washington decided to embrace the movie aesthetic and let us get emotional shots and not just artistic long shots.

Acting of course was amazingly good. Washington gets nominated for Best Actor all the time, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he won it again. Casey Affleck for Manchester By The Sea is the favorite I believe, and either of them would be totally worthy of the big prize given their performances. And Washington wasn’t the only good part. Davis is a virtual lock for Best Supporting Actress.

But Henderson and Williamson also were pretty damn good, with a bit more limited screen time. Henderson also was in the Broadway version, so it is nice to see him still acting well. Fun Fact: Henderson was ALSO in Manchester By The Sea. Williamson did amazing as Gabe, a special needs character, but also you might remember him as Bubba from Forrest Gump. Apparently that is just a talent of his.

Fences is emotional and deals with a lot of themes. Despite being set 60 years ago, they all still resonate today. Troy is a terrible person and character, but at the same time, it all just seems to make sense given his upbringing. The Sins Of The Father trope is a strong one in stories, but it is illustrated excellently in this story an instant classic.

I wasn’t always scowling at Suicide Squad. When they first announced it, well, I guess I had to google it just to find out what it was. Villains having to save the day. Sure, alright, cool.

What really made me excited is that Tom Hardy was signed on to play a role in the film! It was stoked. Then he left. Oh, okay. But then they got Jake Gyllenhaal to replace him! Oh shit, yeah! Good going! And then he turned it down as well. Fuck. What in the. Okay okay, then they got Joel Kinnaman, which does nothing for me. But I didn’t get annoyed at the film yet.

No, what really killed me is that during filming there were almost daily “leaks” from the set, or quick glimpses from a random persons twitter, or whatever. Too much hype can really bring down a ship, and I hate a constant bombardment of advertisements. Not only that, but of course we have Jared Leto as his edgy Joker, maybe as the villain, maybe on the team, I have no clue. I just know that he was “method acting” and kept giving all of his cast mates shit, playing pranks and what not, to get into character. Honestly, he sounded like he was being an asshole.

That is what made me frown and choose to ignore the pre-screening. That is why I didn’t want to wait hours just to see it. I knew it would wait. I don’t care how good the trailers for it were, because Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman both had amazing trailers and yet they were disappointments. So that is where I am coming from for this film.

So here is a non asshole character and a non asshole actress, giving someone a new asshole.

The US Government is starting to get scared. What if another Superman shows up, but this time, he isn’t friendly? They need to have a task force to bring them down, preferably some of their own strong people who are under their control. Well, they don’t have any, or at least they don’t have any that they can force to work for them. So Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), vague government official, decides that their team will be made up of criminal metahumans, who they have leverage over and who they can kill without too much of a worry.

So she gathers her team. Like Deadshot (Will Smith), who never misses. Like Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who…looks like a human crocodile for some reason. There is El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), a former gang member who can control and make fire, but has since atoned for his crimes. Someone named Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) who can…throw a boomerang really good and piss people off? And Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who has actually no powers at all and really shouldn’t fit this metahuman role they are crafting.

But that is just one prison. She has the mystical heart of the Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), an ancient being trapped in an archaeologist’s body who has to obey her commands. Her main field officer, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) is in love with her as well. And there is Slipknot (Adam Beach), who can apparently climb anything, where his climbing is metahuman levels or something. Finally, there is Katana (Karen Fukuhara), who wields a sword that captures the soul of those it kills. She isn’t even a baddie, she is just helping out while occasionally avenging her husband’s death.

Either way. Shit quickly goes down right after forming the team, good timing. And they are forced to help out of course to clean up a mess that is basically started thanks to the team forming in the first place. Hooray!

And yeah, Ike Barinholtz plays a dick guard, David Harbour a random government official, and some Jared Leto Joker nonsense.

And drinking on the job, I guess that is Boomerang’s other power.

Suicide Squad ended up being a mess of a movie, from beginning to end. The characters, the plot, the pacing, all come together beautifully to make this disaster of a film.

They explain that the Suicide Squad is set up to stop a Superman like being from dominating the world and battling him with other superhumans. Sure, fine. Now explain why Harley Quinn, described entirely as a wild card, on the team? Why is Captain Boomerang? The only ones that seem to have any amount of actual power and ability are the Enchantress, whom yes, is the main villain, and El Diablo, who barely uses his powers. Deadshot and Katana have some sort of powers or gadgets that make them above average, and Killer Croc is basically a mutant, but they are all just really good fighters. And what in the fuck, Slipknot? Can climb anything? Not even power based, but using gadgets? A complete waste of a character and has no purpose in this film (and the filmmakers must have known that).

Harley Quinn is actually in this film just so we can have a Joker connection. When I say “for whatever reason,” the reason ends up being so the writers can move the plot forward without thinking things through. She is there just to be chaos and her character has no point. Sure she is a scene stealer, because they give her the camera time and the personality. And she magically has a cell phone so that the Joker can intervene as well, how helpful.

Katana is an interesting character. The Enchantress should have been an interesting character. El Diablo was an interesting as fuck character. Captain Boomerang was very amusing and should have been able to do something in this movie to not feel so pointless. But these characters are not expanded upon enough, because it is not actually an ensemble film. It is all Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Amanda Waller.

I picked these three as my pictures as the more interesting characters who didn’t have a lot of time to be important.

So the pacing is also whack. Bad things start happening in Midway City (certainly not New York City). Big portals, scary stuff, mass death. And we find out before they get to the big baddie that it has been three days since it has started. Three days! So little fucks given from anyone in the world, including The Flash and Batman, which are established characters in this film and movie universe.

When they show up and finally confront our villain, oh hey, their spell had just finished and now the world can be destroyed. Your timing is terrible, unless they decided to just wait to finish it until their loved ones were all dead first.

There could have been a good movie in Suicide Squad. It needed to not have earth ending events though, given the people we know who could have saved the day. It needed small scale disasters that actually made sense for the team to accomplish. It needed to not have such a messy plot and so many unnecessary flash backs. And it certainly didn’t need repeat what BvS ended up doing. Killing off a character and ending it with a just kidding. Two films in a row in the same universe? That is far worse than Marvel.

Movies in 2014 brought us some incredibly new and wonderful experiences. Boyhood took 12 years to film, doing a little bit each year to watch the actors grow old. Birdman was edited in a fine way to make it seem like just one long continuous shot. Both fantastic films, my 1 and 2 from the year.

But there was another movie that was unique last year that interested me. The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby. On its own, it doesn’t seem like that innovative of a film. However, it is collectively three films in one.

On the surface it is just about a relationship. Specifically, the three versions are called Him, Her, and Them. Him is the plot from mainly the guy’s point of view and Her is the girl’s point of view. Them is a more typically told story, telling bits and pieces of their sides and is a much more standard film.

And I wanted to see it all of 2014. I wanted to watch it as soon as it hit Blu-Ray. It has been on Netflix for months, all three parts! Welcome to Day 3 of my Fucking Finally week.

First comes love…

Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) have had a long relationship. They even married! Serious stuff. But no one would describe their lives as remarkable. Eleanor came from an academic family, but left her PhD program in Anthropology, when she got pregnant. Conor is the son of a restaurant God in NYC, who also has bad relationships, and is now attempting to run his own restaurant without his dad’s help.

But then one of the worst things happen. They lost their baby boy, really young. Their grief came in different ways, driving a wedge between them. After a few months, Eleanor wants to take a brake from their relationship, frustrated where things are going, and that is really where our story begins.

In Him, we mostly get to see Conor flailing about trying to deal with his emotions by repressing them like a motherfucker. They still come out in bursts, like when he has attacked unruly customers. His best friend and chef (Bill Hader) is even getting sick of his shit.

Conor sort of starts to stalk Eleanor a little bit as well, following her around but never having the courage to talk to her until he resorts back to a kid in middle school and passes her a note, quite creepily. His story also features Ciaran Hinds as his father, and Nina Arianda as an employee who has feelings for him.

Then comes stalking after heartbreak and sadness…

In Her, we don’t even see Conor for the until the awkward scene above. James McAvoy is barely in this film and it is definitely all about Eleanor.

It starts with her injury and then her going on her own to the hospital. Eleanor decides to go home with her parents and sister. The mom (Isabelle Huppert) is French through and through, always seen with a glass of wine. Her dad (William Hurt) is still a psychologist at the local university, and her younger sister (Jess Weixler) has a little boy of her own, but no man or boyfriend in her life. She was already living with the parents still. Her family tries to get her help, but can’t seem to provide enough help on their own, the awkwardness of the whole situation. Some psychology degree, am I right?

So she does go to the local college to take a few classes. There she develops a nice bond with another psychology professor (Viola Davis), who is able to talk to her like a real person about normal things, since she knows nothing about Eleanor’s last few months. Her time alone allows Eleanor an attempt to find herself, and interact with Conor on her own terms in her own ways. Slowly, surely, and eventually full of hope.

In Them, it is the longest of the films at just over 2 hours. However, it is literally just everything you seen before. You still get the scenes between them, but this time you also get some of their individual scenes.

Them is packaged in a way so that it can be their complete story in a regular time frame for a regular movie. A movie about sadness and grief and how two different people cope. Technically, some of the scenes between them we see from a few different angles, but it is just a cram packed version with less individual detail on each character. Although, when watching it, it still felt like it featured a lot more of Her than Him.

Then comes alcohol to end all of the sadness!

Five hours, twelve minutes. That is how long watching these three movies took overall. That is if you want the full experience. The good news? You don’t have to see all three for the full experience!

In fact, you shouldn’t watch all three, and definitely not in the same week. You should only watch Him and Her, or Them, not all three. If you just watch the first two, you will get a very unique experience and you will get it in three hours, nine minutes. A much more reasonable amount of time. If you are feeling lazy or want a very regular saddish drama, then just go for Them. Its like a not very effective cliff notes.

Now, I watched them in Him, Her, and Them order because it just seemed to make sense. I knew the films were about the woman leaving, so it makes since to keep some mystery and watch Him before Her. Doing so allowed the film to answer questions are different times and felt like the best experience.

This only matters if you care about my recommendation of course. The best experience would just be Him and Her, no Them, because it is mostly repetitive. It sucks that I cannot wipe Him/Her from my memory before Them to give an unbiased review of it. But Them on its own didn’t feel like a great movie. Obviously I had the issues of it being full of scenes I had already seen (does that sound weird?), but it also cut out a lot of other scenes that I felt were necessary.

That’s right. Watching the condensed two hour version felt lacking. Shocking discovery, I know.

Them is Shit. Him and Her combined are a good experience. If you were going to watch just one of Him and Her, it won’t be good. It would just be odd and you don’t want to be odd.

Oh yeah, for whatever reason, the movies end differently. I have no idea why this happens, but Her has the best ending, in my ever so humble movie reviewer opinion.

Welcome to Blackweek! Yes, that is the official name of the week, no you can’t make me change it.

It is simple. Every movie this week begins with Black. Part of the reason you may have realized is that in January, literally three movies came to theaters called Blacksomething. So all three of them are featured, plus two more! Boy, do I love me some theme weeks.

So we got Blackhat, a (shudder), January movie, one of handful of January movies I have yet to see. I was forced to see the trailer a long time before it came out, and was immediately turned off from it. It is a “hacker” movie but with more action than computers it looks like. It is directed by Michael Mann, which is a dude with a lot of followers for some reason. I can’t say I have any strong opinions on him one way or another.

But did I mention this movie had a terrible trailer?

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But a snazzy bullet proof vest.

Shit is going crazy everywhere. Some HACKER is hacking into technical mainframes of nuclear reactors and things and causing explosions. EXPLOSIONS! That is in China. In Chicago he is hacking into stock markets and changing the prices around. Oh man, we got a world villain here. So we need China to bring people over to investigate and work with the FBI. Yeah. So we got Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) who was put in charge. That is good. His old roommate was a really good hacker. Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), currently in prison for hacking related crimes. He is so good, you know. But now they need his help to get this other guy. Who are the we? Oh well, Chen’s sister, Chen Lien (Wei Tang). I have no idea how Chinese names work apparently. Also our FBI person, Viola Davis!

And then you know. Shenanigans. Terrorism. More and more explosions and action action action!

That is literally all I can say about the plot.

Here is some more characters. John Ortiz, Holt McCallany, Andy On. Eh. I’m done.

We could easily make this a comedy if those escalators were going the opposite way.

My entire plot description wasn’t long so I will keep this part brief as well.

Blackhat wasn’t an entertaining movie. It wasn’t exciting action wise, character wise, or anything. It was a huge steaming pile of dull.

I was hoping it could actually be bad enough to find parts funny, but I didn’t laugh, just yawned. I mean, the entire thing is ridiculous as we already know, making some hacker also be an action star because why not. Of course they are involved. I think there is a really detailed plot description on Wiki. Read that instead of watching this movie.

Hemsworth is wasted. Wang was kind of interesting. Davis was giving us nothing new.

And yeah. Good start to Blackweek. With a yawn!

What is going on with Chadwick Boseman?

For the most part, he is relatively new to the movie scene. He has had a bunch of temporary roles in TV shows, mostly one offs. But then he got to play Jackie Robinson in 42. Then he got to play a highly sought after draft pick in Draft Day. And now? Now he is doing another biography, but this time not an athlete.

He is going to play James Brown, because of course, Get On Up is his story.

Damn Chadwick. James Brown and Jackie Robinson? Who will he play next, Oprah Winfrey?

James mother fucking Brown (Boseman). A cultural icon from the 1900s, a man who seemingly was around and performing forever, and in the news for sometimes less than glorious reasons. He came from humble beginnings, living in a small shack in the woods with his mom (Viola Davis) and dad (Lennie James). After that, he was working for Ms Honey (Octavia Spencer), a madame. After that? Prison.

That is where he met Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), not a prisoner, but a local singer, and James impressed him with his own unique sound. Next thing you know, he is part of a gospel group dabbling in that R&B, and eventually the dabble takes over and James Brown and the Famous Flames become a thing. The rest? Well, you know. Drugs. Wars. Marriage. Kids. Drugs. Friendships. Drugs. Egos. The story basically writes itself.

Featuring a bunch of people, who I will try to write in order of importance: Dan Aykroyd, Jill Scott, Craig Robinson, Fred Melamed, Brandon Smith as Little Richard, and two small cameos with Allison Janney and John Benjamin Hickey.

And this isn’t even his final form.

When I left Get On Up, I felt good. I didn’t know that I would. I felt nice too. Not sure how to describe the nice feeling, maybe sugar and spice? Hard to say.

Either way, if I can say anything about Get On Up it is that it is certainly entertaining. A lot of energy was put into the film, especially early on where it seems to go everywhere hard and fast. The movie isn’t told in a linear order, splicing in scenes from his childhood through a slight narrative of events, and finishing those events when the film felt like it. It also featured some breaking of the 4th wall, allowing Brown to narrate his own story to the audience and explain things.

But the real stars of the film are, well, the stars of the film. Chadwick Boseman and Nelsan Ellis. Holy shit. First off, Boseman, knocked it out of the park (its a baseball metaphor, get it?). When he was Mr. Robinson, I thought he did okay, but it didn’t seem like a lot of acting going on. He acted the shit out of James Brown though. He had the voice, he had the moves, he had the charisma. I was a little bit skeptical, but he did a really amazing job.

Nelsan Ellis? I don’t watch True Blood, so I don’t know a lot about him, but the amount of heart in his role was incredible. He looked so sincere about everything and my emotions tended to match whatever he was feeling versus Brown’s emotions.

Some aspects of the film were disappointing of course. All of the music in the film is actual James Brown recordings, so no we don’t get to hear Boseman try out that voice. Probably impossible, I guess.

It didn’t go a lot into his troubles with the law in the last decades of his life, but gave you enough to figure it out.

This film doesn’t make out James Brown to be a saint (probably because everyone knew he wasn’t) and mixes the good with the bad and a whole lot of soul.

I have been putting off watching Doubt for quite a long time. The only reason is, in 2007, before the movie came out, I ended up seeing the play version for free. The play version of Doubt has only four characters: priest, old nun, young nun, kid’s mom. That is it. No children at all in it, so side nuns, nothing. Just these four characters and it was a very powerful play. A play that asked a lot of questions, made a lot of assumptions, and did it in a very simple format.

So I never really wanted to watch the movie, as I would no doubt just compare it to the play. Who cares how many awards it was nominated for?

And then? Then Philip Seymour Hoffman died. I still haven’t reviewed a movie with him since his death, but was able to get a Paul Walker movie within two weeks of his death. Even had a shitty Cory Monteith tribute review, kind of.

But Mr. PSH was kind of special, and I knew I just would have to eventually go and watch this movie for him, before anything else of his came out. I just knew it had to be Doubt.

I guess you could say there was no doubt in my mind I would see this movie soon.

Doubt takes place in a land without cell phones, the past. I assume somewhere in the 1960’s, mostly because they are dealing with issues of segregation.

It also takes place at a Catholic Church / school, where nuns teach, and the word of God is rule. The most feared nun in the nunnery is Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), who is the main nun and will have no shenanigans. She doesn’t want the church to get away from its traditional teachings, or give into technology, or all of that crap.

But then the school has its first black kid in its midst, a boy. They were worried the kids would be picking on him, but no one seems to care. No one, except Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who takes the boy under his wing, makes him an alter boy and protects him.

However, Sister James (Amy Adams), a fresh new nun, who doesn’t want people to fear her, notices something strange about the boy. He seems dejected. He seems to have lost whatever spirit he had. He seems to have…alcohol on his breath?

Doubt asks the age old questions, really. Is the Catholic priest conducting in inappropriate behavior with a student? If so, is their any proof? Viola Davis plays the kids mother.

Red hot Catholic bench action right up in here.

In honor of the play I obviously only tagged the four main characters.

For whatever reason, the movie felt very short. It was only 1 hour 40 minutes, but the first 20 or so are just character defining scenes to get you to know our cast, and the rest of it feels like only four or five scenes. The scenes are all very long with tons of dialogue (see: the fact that it was a play), and they are also incredibly intense. All four of the main cast members had their moments to shine in the movie, displaying a lot of emotion in a simple way.

Was Hoffman good? Yeah, he was excellent. Was Streep good? Yeah, she was excellent. So were Adams and Davis, in fact, this may now be some of my favorite roles for the last two, even if it was arguably Streep’s movie overall.

Great plays make great movies. Simple fact as that. A nice watch, although again, the timing on it felt a bit odd while I watched it. Large cast was necessary I guess, but they could have given the kids less lines and made them mostly background characters.

Hey look, a movie based on a book! You know. Like most movies.

But this isn’t any book. This is Ender’s Game. A very famous sci-fi novel from the 1980s, that is required reading in some/many schools now! So, that can mean a few things. It can mean angry mobs of book fans when the movie of Ender’s Game turns out unfaithful, or it can just mean a buttload of money.

That’s right. Buttload. Not even getting into the personal thoughts and opinions of the author, Orson Scott Card, but there are 20 separate books/collections/short stories that he has published in this story. Ender’s Game was the first one to get published, but it is now like, the middle book. Jeez.

Apparently his games just involve very large octahedra dice.

In the future, shit is all bad. Big alien force came and killed a lot of people, but a hero was able to think on the fly and saved the day for everyone. Hooray!

Well now, almost fifty years later, the alien forces are building again and the threat of a new attack is high. They have begun to train children to become their new generals and commanders. Due to growing up with realistic war video games, they are not as afflicted by things like morals or death or killing. Heck yeah!

Our hero is Ender Wiggan (Asa Butterfield), third born from his family, and taking a stab at joining the academy. Well, he is good. He just has to march through rank after rank, school after school, to be deemed good enough to eventually, finally, maybe, go against an actual alien fleet. But until then, it is really just a series of…games.

Harrison Ford is a commander, Viola Davis some sort of…officer. Abigail Breslin is Ender’s sister, Nonso Anozie a sergeant, and a bunch of other kids are played by Aramis Knight, Suraj Partha, Moises Arias, and Hailee Steinfeld. Hailee, who of course starred in True Grit and was called a supporting actress back then! Whoa.

Yes of course Ben Kingsley is in this movie. Just in the last third.

I decided to sleep on the analysis part of the review, and not write it all in one sitting like usual. After watching the movie, I still had so many questions. Ones I would bring up here, but I can’t spoil them because I am not a dickface.

I am really surprised this movie was under two hours, because it felt a lot longer. Here is why. Most of the movie is Ender training at consecutive harder and harder levels. He has to go through a fleet academy thing, he has a break down, then battle school, then battle school at the next tier, he has a break down, then battle school leading his own group of “soldiers”, then he has another break down, then he has to go to commander school, then another breakdown, then his final test.

Just. So many god damn tiers. It felt long because I knew that even though the beginning felt super rushed, the ending confrontation with the evil bug aliens would also have to be potentially rushed. So it felt like a lot of waiting to me.

Outside of that annoyance, and certain inconsistencies near the end that really had me confused, I did enjoy many parts of this movie. It dealt with emotions and morals that are very important and need to be discussed, but it didn’t delve on them as much as I would have liked. Aka, it was just quick, like a lot of the movie. Nothing really felt dealt with, and I don’t want to wait for another movie for things to be dealt with. Probably won’t happen. It didn’t make a ton of money, and Thor 2 is next week. Sooo, yeah. Probably going to be considered a flop, unfortunately, because acting was good.

I am sure that if I read the book a lot more would make sense. Presumably a lot was left out, and I hate it if I have to read a book to fully understand what a movie is trying to convey.

Honestly, when I first saw the trailer for Prisoners, I wasn’t really impressed. It didn’t look like it was going to offer anything new. Sure, a torture scene. But despite the high star count, it just looked like it would be a lot of people yelling at each other, and then eventually somehow a crime gets solved.

Yeah. I was wrong. It is wonderful and unique. Fuck trailers, seriously.

He probably deserves everything that happens to him. He wears GLASSES, the nerd.

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for eating food and watching the Lions lose a football game. A whole week of buying electronics cheaply on Amazon.

Well, the Dover family (Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello) and their two kids have decided to eat at their neighbors house down the street. The Birches (Terrence Howard, Viola Davis) also have two kids, of similar ages to the other kids.

Well, due to some confusion, the two youngest daughters are able to go back to the Dover home on their own…and then not seen again hours later. Shit. Fuck. Missing kids. That is never good. In fact, they think the kids were abducted. They were seen playing around an RV earlier, and the brother is pretty sure someone was inside. But when they find the RV later, the driver is Alex (Paul Dano), an IQ of a ten year old with no physical evidence of the kids in his vehicle.

Well, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is on the case, and he has never left a case unsolved. He just doesn’t have a lot to work with, with Alex being clean, and his mother (Melissa Leo) explaining his circumstances. No, there is a lot more at work than what we know. It just takes piecing a lot of different puzzle pieces together.

But time is of the essence, and when your daughter’s life is at stake, what would you be willing to do to save her?

“Hey you should just show pictures of people being rough with Paul Dano.” Okay!

Well, here is something I realized. Unfortunately, it is only for the male stars. I really love these guys. For three of the four male stars, their last movie on my website was given a 4/4. The only one who doesn’t match this criteria is Hugh Jackman, because I had to sit through The Wolverine and Movie 43, but he still had Les Miserables right before that. My last movie for Jake was End of Watch, for Howard it was The Butler and Dead Man Down, and Paul Dano it was Ruby Sparks.

Looks like these men get another highly rated movie to their resumes. No offense to the ladies, but they have been in a lot more crap recently. Oh well.

So yeah, this movie was incredible. I thought it would be a joke from the trailer, honestly. It looked overly melodramatic. When I found out it was 2.5 hours long, I groaned. How could they fill it with 2.5 hours of content?

Apparently it was really easy, because the time flew by and I was captivated the entire time. They don’t waste time either. The girls get kidnapped within the first ten minutes of the film. The torture scene alluded to in the trailer happens within the first hour as well. Yet somehow, there is more to it than those few events.

The director does NOT hold your hand throughout the film. There are some plot lines you have to figure out on your own, through flashes of story and connecting the dots. It is a great film to go with others just to make sure you can figure out all of the looser ends. The ending itself is a bit controversial. I will admit initially I was kind of pissed off, but it has grown on me, and now I like it a lot.

The acting is fantastic in this film. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal carry it on their backs with exceptional performances, but even though Terrence Howard had a smaller role, he worked it well. One scene in particular, the fists and hammer torture scene just was so powerful, it will stay with you for some time. Howard was in the background of that scene, but his face says it all. Paul Dano also was pretty great in a role where he wasn’t given a lot to work with dialogue wise.

The women were for sure underused, so I am just not sure if the writer knew what to do with them. Viola Davis had one pretty intense scene, but then wasn’t really talked about much. Maria Bello’s character was pathetic and on drugs, so she wasn’t given much to work with either.

Oh well. Go see Prisoners. Probably the best movie to come out this month for sure.

Supernatural Teen Romance is a genre now, in case you missed it. Yes, it existed before Twilight, but Twilight really made it take off in a big way. I think it even has its own sections in book stores now. Unfortunately, that means everything will then be compared to Twilight if it has supernatural romance in it, which is of course silly. Twilight is a straight up Drama Romance, while something like Warm Bodies is a Comedy Romance (but not a RomCom).

Beautiful Creatures seems to fall somewhere in between the two.

Don’t be so scared guy, it is just a witch dinner.

This film takes place in Gatlin, South Carolina, which means two things – Southern Accents, and the Bible Belt. This town is the location of a small civil war battle, but that is the only thing it has to its name, so the town celebrates the reenactment every year. Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) loves to read and learn, separating him from most of the locals. Of course when a girl from a recluse family moves back to town, they all assume she is a devil worshiper and bad news.

Ethan doesn’t care, she reads books too, so she is perfect. Who cares if Lena (Alice Englert) actually ends up being a witch? A witch who doesn’t know if she will be good or evil until her 16th birthday, you know, when all female witches have it chosen for them, based on their “True self”. Why just the women and not men? Not sure, sexism probably. Can he handle a woman with powers, and her family (Uncle = Jeremy Irons, Cousin = Emmy Rossum, and mother) forcing her in different directions?

Also featuring Thomas Mann as normal best friend, Emma Thompson as his super religious mother, and Viola Davis as his guardian/librarian friend. After all, a story needs normal people in as well, or else we have nothing to make fun of!

I think he looks like an older Eddie Munster. Does that add to the supernatural feel?

Beautiful Creatures is of course based on the novel, and from what I can tell, if you like the novel, you might hate this movie! Like all great book to film transitions, things change, and frankly I don’t care how different it is from the book, because I like what I saw.

The main two leads are relatively new to the movie scene and I haven’t seen them in anything personally, but I loved them both. Alden made me laugh almost every time he talked, and not just because of his strong accent combined with “smart people” words. Alice and Alden had great chemistry together, and despite being a quick teen romance, I found it believable.

The movie had its issues of course, sometimes it felt like it had B-movie special effects, and it definitely was predictable at parts. I am confused at why they cast Kyle Gallner as the brother, who looks far too much like Robert Pattinson. That is just asking for more Twilight comparisons.

More impressively, the “dinner scene” was done almost entirely without CGI, a rarity in movies these days, and pretty dang impressive in general. I say give it a chance, and try not to get lost in the paper thin religious towns people.