Category: Uncategorized

If there is one thing that has been made abundantly clear over the last few years, it is that teenage based romance novels turned into movies make a lot of money. Why? Fan girls, mostly. But as long as it is teenage and romance, then it will make money. Most of them have seemed to do well, assuming they actually have a big following, unlike random shit like Vampire Academy.

Which is why it should come to no surprise that The Fault In Our Stars was breaking presale records.

Even if the movie ended up being shitty, I can’t get mad at it being made. Because after it gets made, then it is done and over. This is not a trilogy that will have the third book getting broken up into ten parts. Just one complete story, no cliff hangers, no bull shit. And really, that makes this feel a little bit more special for me.

I can see they are also showcasing the Hillary Rodham Clinton look in this movie.

Speaking of being special, Hazel (Shailene Woodley) is a girl who had cancer when she was thirteen, got over it, then had some lung issues. Now she has problems breathing, has one of those oxygen tanks by her at all times, going into her nose. Kind of hard to be a normal teenage girl like that! She can’t make friends, or even a boyfriend.

Until she goes to a support group. There she meets Isaac (Nat Wolff), a guy going blind from his eye cancer. But he isn’t important. His friend, Augusts Waters (Ansel Elgort), who is there to support Isaac is the important one. He had some cancer stuff, lost half of his leg, but now he has survived and wants to live life to the fullest. No worries. No problems. And he wants to do it all with Hazel.

Hazel is of course unsure of this boy. How could anyone like her? She has plastic in her nose!

Well, after finding out he is also pretty smart, willing to read the same book she likes and discuss death in a nice way, then yeah, she kind of likes him.

They have some goals. Like figuring out a way to go to Amsterdam, not for debauchery, but to see a recluse author (Willem Dafoe) and his assistant (Lotte Verbeek) to figure out what happened to the characters after the book ends and to talk about life and death. Augustus wants to be remembered when eventually goes away. Hazel just wants to be loved before she goes away even earlier.

Also starring Sam Trammell and Laura Dern as her very optimistic parents.

It is good to see Dr. Ellie Sattler still getting work. Even if it is awkward.

The first half of this movie, I was sitting in the theater wondering what is the point? It felt extremely basic, and almost a shitty non realistic love story. Bordering on disliking the film entirely.

Then the second half happened.

If there is one thing you hear about this book/movie ahead of time, it is probably that it is sad and to bring Kleenex. Well, that seems to be absolutely true. I can’t actually point out the number of times I cried, just that it happened on multiple occasions, sometimes for scenes that were pretty long. They just kept happening, both from being sad and beautiful/sweet.

And that literally is most of the reason I have to talk about this movie. Very touching and sad and beautiful. A first half that drags, and a second half that is a tear jerker. Does that mean it is great? On its own, it just means it knows how to tug on our emotional strings. Yet at the same time, I loved it for doing so.

I didn’t think the acting was anything special. I hated a few of the plot points. But at the same time, I think this is the type of movie I could watch multiple times and still feel an emotional connection with it, knowing what happens or not. That is a solid enough reason for this rating, in my eyes.

The first time I saw a trailer for Deliver Us From Evil, it definitely scared me. It was simple and basic, but it did the trick. They made a more plot based trailer eventually, but I never saw it.

It should have been of no surprise that I found the trailer terrifying, because the writer/director of this movie also wrote/directed Sinister from last year, which I loved. He seemed to have a real knack for the build up and tense moments, with the occasional jump scare to poop thine pants.

Basically, I was kind of excited, is what I was getting at, despite my dislike of being scared.

Who actually likes being scared anyways? Who? Who? Who?

The story mostly takes place in the distance past, 2013, with Sergeant Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana, sporting a pretty accurate to me Bronx native accent) rolling around his turf, stopping bad guys. He has had a rough couple of cases recently, some dead babies, a dude who beat his wife, a lady who threw her baby into a lion pit.

Whoa now. Let’s go back to that. A Jane Crenna (Olivia Horton), mysteriously threw her baby over the side, then the lights went out in the whole park, causing everyone to flee. She was found later in the park, digging holes and singing The Doors very quickly. There was also a mysterious painter (Sean Harris) who was seen at the lion den, but got away, also mysteriously.

Things just are not going Ralph’s way. He is getting angrier at all of these stranger events, affecting his home life with is wife (Olivia Munn) and daughter.

But things don’t really get weird until he starts to see the connections between a few of his weird events and things I didn’t say. Unfortunately, it might even take a priest (Édgar Ramírez).

Also starring Daniel Sauli, as a mean man, and Joel McHale, as a character who is a cocky asshole. But this time the cocky asshole has a slight accent and a bit more relevant character traits than normal. Oh, he is also Ralph’s partner.

Man, that painter really doesn’t understand his job description.

First things first, yes, I did indeed get scared during the movie. There were a lot of jump scares too, a significant amount to say that they might have been a majority of the scares, which is annoying. But some of these came at such random times, just out of no where, that they did shock me. There was also fear in the build up and scene building, as I mentioned above that Sinister had. So despite the jump scares, the fear is real.

The plot? I actually enjoyed the plot. There is obviously an exorcism in this movie. Why else would we have a priest? They kept it mostly fresh and action packed. The fact that this was a sort of crime/mystery + horror movie really got you invested into the plot. Eric Bana was at his best and really flourished during this movie to I thought. Good job Bana. Everyone else? Eh, take it or leave it.

However, there was something incredibly terrible with this movie. Sound Editing/Mixing/Whatever. Holy crap, it was terrible. I feel like a real reviewer using these words, yes. Okay first off, yes, the main character began to hear things that other people could not hear. It was static noise, kids playing most of the time (and the kids playing used a very recognizable sound clip, so it was awkward every time it ran). But the rest of the movie’s sound was all over the place, screams out of nowhere as part of the music basically, despite nothing making the noise. Not just normal movie horror noise. Just very loud, all over the place, disjointed. It took me out of the movie numerous times.

There were a few cheesy moments too. The detective who was watching the exorcism from a distance made snide “OMG” like comments every now and then, un-tensing one of the final important moments of the film. Minor things like that. But mostly the sound editing.

So I don’t think it is as good as Sinister. But it wasn’t also trying to be inspired by a “True story” so that is another good bonus for Sinister over Deliver Us From Evil. Still very watchable.

I am already starting to get overwhelmed with these movie screenings that are available to me. Too many a week, with too much of a time commitment. Why the review of Think Like A Man? Why, because it’s sequel, Think Like A Man Too is coming out shortly, of course! I missed the first one from 2012 some how, probably because I lived in the farming midwest and it never came to a local theater.

But then I move down South and I got the tickets to see this movie early. I would have, too, but first I had to watch the previous movie, damn it. Also, I didn’t want to drive 75 minutes, to wait two hours in line, to watch a two hour movie, and drive 75 minutes back home. No, that sounded dreadful.

But it gave me time to relax and watch Think Like A Man, without staying up super late at night to get it done!

I also had sports to watch watch.

This movie, based on the book, is about four relationships, and a few other people around them. All of the guys are part of a group of friends who play basketball together, which include Bennett (Gary Owen), “the Happily Married Guy” and Cedric (Kevin Hart), “the Happier Divorced Guy”. Thankfully, the four couples that exist are all presented in a nice way to split this review up into parts.

“The Mama’s Boy” vs. “The Single Mom”

Michael (Terrence Jenkins) is a man who listen’s to his mother (Jenifer Lewis) and helps her out with everything. He is about to start seeing Candace (Regina Hall), who has a son, the father is out of their life for good, and really wants someone that won’t just leave at the first sign of trouble.

“The Non-Committer” vs. “The Girl Who Wants the Ring”

Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara) and Kristen (Gabrielle Union) have been living together for awhile now and everything is just cool. Hell, Kristen likes everything Jeremy likes and doesn’t care that their relationship doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Psyche!

“The Dreamer” vs. “The Woman Who Is Her Own Man”

Dominic (Michael Ealy) has problems keeping jobs and relationships, because he has goals, but he never sets out to accomplish them all the way. He is about to meet Laruen (Taraji P. Henson), a young black woman CEO of a large company, successful, rich, and someone who doesn’t need anything from a man, but still would like one in her life.

“The Player” vs. “The 90 Day Rule Girl”

Finally, we have Zeke (Romany Malco), a guy who hits the clubs and sleeps around, who runs into Mya (Meagan Good), who is tired of “giving up her power” and sleeping with men just for them to forget her name and not return phone calls. So she decides to resist the temptation, and make this new guy wait.

What do they all have in common besides basketball? The women have all found and read Steve Harvey‘s Book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man, which is a real book in which Steve “sell’s out his gender” and gives women advice on how to secretly control their men and get what they want out of the relationship. However, two can play that game, as the men also find the books, to play on defensive.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES, GO!

Steve Harvey is Public Enemy #1. How could you Steve?! How. Could. You?!

Well, I will just say that I think there were far too many characters involved with this film. Four couples, means eight people. Some have additional characters like friends, parents, children. Then we have Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey, and Gary Owen too. I guess Gary was mostly ignored, but Kevin Hart was butting into most of the friend’s lives, so there was just so much going on.

I am not going to say it would have been better without Hart, because he was decently amusing, mostly serving as a good narrator. Just. There was so much going on, in two hours, to make it not confusing, they had to make the narrative structure very simple to follow in order to not get lost.

So, it is good that it was super simple to prevent us from getting lost, but at the same time, it was still super simple and didn’t break too much new ground in the making of this movie. It is like four different romance/comedy plotlines, only two of them which could probably stand on their own legs as their own film (dreamer/OwnMan, and noncommiter/wantaring), but then, they have been done before too.

The film had some amusing moments in it, and it also had some lame moments in it. Overall, it was adequately average.

Live. Die. Repeat. That is the slogan of Edge of Tomorrow, which people were quickly to point out that it looks like Groundhog Day, but more sci-fi/action and a lot less Bill Murray.

The title is kind of strange, but way better than its original title of All You Need Is Kill, the title of the story that the film is based on. I mean. Just seriously, what the hell does that mean? The time traveling element allows Edge of Tomorrow to make some sense. But All You Need Is Kill? I can’t even begin to unawkwardize it.

Tomorrow? Tom, you might first have to worry about the edge of your face, first.

In Future Earth, Aliens have invaded, landing in the middle of Europe, and kind of just fucking up everything. Things are going bad. These “mimics”, as they seem to adapt to military strategy pretty well, are just destroying and taking out battalions, always knowing what is going to go down. Until we design awesome battle suits, and they seem to crush the mimics. Special Forces soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) is able to kill 100 mimics by herself in a battle, helping turn the tide of war. So now they are going to organize a massive attack from different flanks, thousands of soldiers in battle suits, to help turn the tide of war!

And Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) is being asked to join them. Storm the beach with a media crew, to show the good tidings and have them give hope to the world. Cage isn’t a real soldier, he is just in media, doesn’t even know how to fight. So of course he refuses, but well, higher ups demanded it and now he found himself waking up a day before the invasion at an airforce base, with papers saying he is a private and a deserter. Oh, poor Major.

Needless to say, the invasion fails, and after getting covered in alien blood goop, the Major dies and wakes up…back at the airforce base! This can’t be! But you know this part of the plot. It appears the Major is now stuck in some sort of time loop causing him to relive this day over and over. That could drive a man mad. But maybe it can help them save the day?

Bill Paxton plays Master Sergeant Farrell Bartolome, Brendan Gleeson as General Brigham, and Noah Taylor as a alien biology scientist. Of course he also got soldier friends in his unit, but I don’t remember them individually enough to type out character names (Tony Way, Kick Gurry, Franz Drameh, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, Dragomir Mrsic).

In a world of do-overs, there is rarely a need for emergency kits.

As an additional note about this movie, I got to see this one in IMAX 3D, my first time watching a film this way, and oh boy were the fight scenes something else. Spectacular, pretty, explosion heavy. So much going on. Without sounding cliche, I was often near the edge of my seat because it was so exciting to watch it all.

Exciting and amusing. They didn’t drown us in the same scene over and over, just a few minor ones to get the point. On his first repeat day, we didn’t have to see Cage freaking out the entire length of his first travel time. They knew how to keep it short when needed. When it was short, we often got blasted with different ways he died as he tried new things to make it further during the war. Sometimes it was hilarious, but when it was frustrating, they knew how to play that card as well.

So these are good first steps! Good action, good comedy, a nice sci-fi element. But how about the plot? That surprisingly was well done too. How the alien armies worked, the secret to taking them down, why Cage was stuck in a loop, all of it was given a nice rationale and well thought out to make it believable in that universe.

Literally, I don’t know how they could have made the movie better either. You get to see so much and it is a thrill ride, but it doesn’t feel like a 4 out of 4 film to me, which is sometimes all it takes to lower the rating I guess. A very exciting movie, despite what I went in thinking, and a nice notch to add to a list of recent well done sci-fi movies. I think it is going to bomb financially this weekend too, as audiences apparently don’t like Tom Cruise anymore, which is a shame, because it is strong showing still pretty early in this summer.

Hey boys and girls! Did you like Ted? Well, then you might like the next movie, A Million Ways To Die In The West!

That is what advertisements told me at least. But I only thought Ted was okay. Was entirely pop culture based humor, so it was a movie that won’t be as amusing in a few years because nothing will be relevant. Although it had a decent plot and Marky Mark, so that is fun.

But now we are going out west, back in time, and director Seth MacFarlane is actually going to star in it. Hopefully it is more than just a few dude’s hangin’ out.

Damn it, this looks like two dudes just hangin’ out!

Set in the 1800’s in Arizona, near Monument Valley (like every other western), lives our hero Albert (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer and a pussy. He doesn’t like to shoot a gun, because he never has, and thus he is bad at it. But somehow he keeps getting himself into shoot outs.

Albert starts to hate himself after his long term girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him. Now he hates life. He also is a cynic, pointing out all the things that can kill him in the west. Thus the movie title. He does all this until Anna (Charlize Theron) walks into his life. Just kidding, he continues his moping ways, but now there is this mysterious woman who can shoot better than any he knows. Maybe she can change his life and stop him from getting into gun fights.

Just kidding. He does some stuff, getting him into fights with Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), the owner of the Mustacherie, and Clinch (Liam Neeson), an outlaw and the fastest hands in the West. Oh Albert, you are so silly.

Also starring Giovanni Ribisi, as his best friend, dating a whore Sarah Silverman.

“Huh? Why would Neil Patrick Harris every run a mustache store?” – GorgView Hate Commenter

I think I would rather watch Ted in four years than see A Million Ways To Die In The West.

The humor is very Seth MacFarlane, I will give it that. You can go in expecting that, and if you enjoy that enough, you will maybe have a good time. Maybe.

To me, this comedy had huge stretches of time without a joke. Trying to maintain some western tropes, there were scenes of traveling and just looking at the scenery. But that wasn’t the downtime. Literally just long periods of the movie moving on without very many jokes. It doesn’t help that quite a few of the jokes were in the trailer, most of which giving the entire set up and punchline so none of it was left to surprise. I am most disappointed in even the TV ads giving away one 1980’s related scene, which would have been amazing if kept secret.

Not that surprise is needed for comedies, no. A good comedy can keep you laughing through many viewings. The humor that was present just for the most part wasn’t for me.

There were some okay moments. I really liked the mustache song. Sarah Silverman ended up making me chuckle on more than one occasion. So I guess I thought the small side plot was more amusing than most of the film. That happens some times.

TL;DR, for the most part, A Million Ways To Die In The West just felt like 2 hours of boredom, with an occasional chuckle. Having the main character be a relatively modern man felt a bit half-assed. And I didn’t even get into how much of a unlikable character he was. Mr. Mopey. Ever have a friend who complains about everything, as if the experiences are unique to them? Yeah…

Ah, another re-imagining. I think the last one recently was Jack the Giant Slayer, but I probably forgot a few other ones recently. This time, Maleficent, we are tackling the Sleeping Beauty tale. Instead of just telling the story a different way, we are getting it from Maleficent’s point of view.

So, at this point, the movie could go two directions. They could show us that Maleficent was really a good/misunderstood character (which is hard, being one of the more evil Disney villains ever), like what Wicked did, or they could give us a movie about a bad ass mother, who don’t take no crap off of nobody.

Do we get the awesome force of evil doing awesome things? Hell no, this is a Disney related property. You are getting a PG movie, Maleficent won’t be evil, tables will be turned. I mean. Wicked did it. Of course it is going the Wicked route.

But now there are some changes.

This film begins when Maleficent is but a young girl. She is also a fairy. Some dumb war between the fairy kingdom and human kingdom going down. She meets a human boy, finds him sweet, they frolic, he leaves to do human things and they grow old apart.

Now, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is an adult fairy, protector of the forest because she is better than the other fairies. The human kingdom is at war now with the magic land. Maleficent pisses some people off. Long story short, a metaphor that strongly resembles rape occurs, and her long lost child hood friend, is now the new King Stefan (Sharlto Copley).

So that curse thing happens, basically just like in Sleeping Beauty. But now, instead of Maleficent searching for Aurora (Elle Fanning) for sixteen years, she finds her like right away and becomes her silent guardian, protecting her from harm. Why? Not really sure.

Then a whole bunch of events happen, nothing at all like the events in Sleeping Beauty, and everyone lives happily ever after.

We have the three fairies again, but they have different names now, for some reason. They are now Thistletwit (Juno Temple), Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), and Flittle (Lesley Manville). We also have Sam Riley as the raven boy thing and Brenton Thwaites as Prince Phillip.

Oooh, there is the Maleficent we know. Even if it is for just a short while.

Here is one difference between Wicked and Maleficent. Wicked, more or less, took the aspects of the original story, kept them all basically the same, and added in a lot of new material and made it great. Maleficent had one aspect of the original story the same (the baby girl scene), then changed everything else about Sleeping Beauty and called it a day.

If it was a “misunderstood villain” story and they actually did it in the context of the original story? Great. If they decide that she is misunderstood because someone told the story wrong? Boring and pathetic almost.

“But movie reviewer! You don’t take the source into context!” Well, that is true. Unless they bring the source material into context for me. Thankfully this movie includes in the actual film one of my least favorite things of the last few years, telling me the story I heard was wrong and this is the real way. Or that I don’t know the truth. It is one of the worst things to hear, and it just keeps happening.

Maleficent had some cool special effects. Her awesome magic powers were vague with what she could actually do. Sometimes really awesome creation magic and spells? Cool! Destruction? Yeah! But that was like, only once, all used for the trailer. Her magic became something that could do basically anything for her, unless it would have made the plot lame. The movie isn’t really dark like the trailer suggests. The middle chunk of the movie is just Maleficent standing around, peering behind bushes while the theater sleeps.

There is a lot wrong with this film, in my eyes. They took a beloved villain and made her a metaphorical rape victim. They made her really powerful, with out displaying any of this power. They made her wear a catwoman like jump suit at one point.

I think that last line really makes my points clear.

In an attempt to broaden my interests and review types, I set out to watch more documentaries. You know whose documentaries I usually enjoy? Why, those HBO Documentaries! I really only remember one specific one, Hot Coffee, and that one was really good. So why not another?

I picked Miss You Can Do It mostly because I liked the title. I went in knowing that it would talk about the first woman with a physical disability making it to the Miss USA pageant, and that she started a pageant for young girls with special needs as well.

And uhh. Well. That is basically the story I guess. And that is basically the documentary. The girl in question is Abby Curran, who at 20 won Miss Iowa 2008, sending her to Miss USA. She has cerebral palsy, just a milder version that mostly messes up her walk only. She made the Miss You Can Do It pageant actually in 2004 though, when she was sixteen, which is the miraculous part.

People from all over the US come and compete. I can’t tell how often it happens, but it is for young girls, most likely middle and elementary school.

Look, one of the girls dressed up as a sailor for her casual wear. CASUAL WEAR. That’s how you know their lives are rough.

So let’s get to the real talk. Not a lot happens in this documentary. They show us the lives of ten of the pageant girls. Their home life, school life, interview process, talks with their parents and more. Good insight, some are harassed, we get that. Also over the last decade or more, it has gotten a lot better. Kids/students are being more acceptable of those with differences. You hear every year about how a girl with down syndrome or confined to a wheel chair gets picked for prom queen instead of some popular girl.

But how much of that is fair, really? This might be a tangent, but hey, it relates to the movie. It is now getting to the point that if there is a voting based competition, and someone has a disability, they have a good chance of winning it now. Which is fine, if they deserve it the most, but the ultra PC-ness has lead to people voting that way because they think its the right thing to do only. I feel bad for the other girls who might have been dreaming of this moment their whole life, only due to sympathy.

Is sympathy the right way to vote though? I don’t know. I feel like it might be one of several categories to consider.

I only assume people have these hopes and dreams thanks to movies. My own high school experience didn’t have anything ridiculous like that.

However, like this is awesome and helpful for a self-esteem point of view. Watching this documentary and watching the happy faces of these girls who live lives I can’t even comprehend was joyous. I also might think the sympathy vote is what a lot of girls would use to win a competition.

I don’t know if I fully made any points here actually. The TL;DR is that the sympathy vote is crap, and every time I see a disabled person win a popularity contest, I wonder how much of it was from sympathy and how much was from actually earning. It is the cynical part of my mind, I guess. I won’t go into any further thoughts my cynical mind might have.

This documentary on it’s own doesn’t do a whole lot, just showcases a thing that exists that you might not have known about. No debates, no changing point of views, nothing. So it is okay. Kind of disappointing from an HBO Doc point of view, but okay nonetheless.

The first and only time I heard about the movie Dom Hemingway was as a trailer before The Grand Budapest Hotel. The latter movie was fantastic, so that felt like a good sign for Dom Hemingway.

But the trailer? The trailer made me want to see Dom Hemingway right after I watched my Wes Anderson picture. You should watch the trailer right now. t

So, a few months and a move later, I can watch hopefully a very interesting character driven movie.

With characters who drink in the public with no regards to laws or facial hair restrictions!

Dom (Jude Law) has been in prison a long time, twelve years in fact. He hasn’t said a word about his former boss after the gig went south, but he is still kind of pissed over it all. Dom used to be the best safe cracker in the biz, now he is stuck in prison, missing his wife who died of cancer and daughter who was just a teenager when he left.

But then the call came through. Dom is free to go. So he reconnects with his old buddy Dickie (Richard E. Grant) and demands that he go see his old boss Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir) to get the money he is owed, plus interest, and maybe a little bit something extra for keeping quiet for so long.

But Dom? He is a drinker and a drug user. He has a lot of sex and rock and roll to catch up on thanks to the last twelve years, and his mouth and filthy habits might get the best of him. Like when he sees Paolina (Madalina Diana Ghenea), Mr. Fontaine’s girlfriend. Smoking. He wants that. He also wants to re-kindle the relationship with his daughter, Evelyn (Emilia Clarke). He also wants a shit ton of money and to never stop partying.

Good gosh, what will become of this sad little man? Also starring Kerry Condon as a very strange extra role and Jumayne Hunter as a new gang leader who might need a safe cracker.

Whatever it takes. That safe is getting opened. Maybe.

Dom Hemingway started out as everything I had hoped it would. A 1-3 minute conversation from Dom to what appeared to be the camera about his penis and how hard it was. Yes. That is exactly what I need.

But seriously, the beginning of the movie was fantastic. Dom living life up large, all the way to getting to Mr. Fontaine’s house. I thought I was on a wild ride that wouldn’t stop. Then a small twist happened, and the rest of the movie began to change as a result. Dom was left a broken shell of a man who had lost his way, with nothing going right. That part, although still acted really well, just kind of felt off from the first half. The second half definitely had some exciting moments, but it felt a bit slower and less exciting than the first half.

So that is where I am at. Jude Law? Fan-fucking-tastic. Really great. He killed this character and it was great. I want more Dom Hemmingway. I want a movie where he is just hanging out in prison for twelve years. I don’t want any character development, I just want the black comedy that I knew this thing could be.

The movie delivers on some aspects, but the ending just…loses so much interest for me. Hard to describe. But I think it failed to maintain the high bars it set early on.

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.

X-Men, oh X-Men, where art thou X-Men?

This is the seventh film of the franchise. SEVENTH. X-Men: Days Of Future Past. When I first heard about this, I was excited. It was a very ambitions plot and storyline to go for, time travel tends to do that. Couple that with the fact that X-Men: First Class was actually decent meant the series might be headed off in a certain way.

But you know what was terrible? The advertisements for this movie. By having two time lines of cast, we have a shit ton of characters, and Fox decided the best way to advertise it was to give every character its own…thing, whatever. So, magazines would have 30 unique covers, or 30 individual character posters, or whatever. No giant cast pictures, no, just an overabundance of individual character shit.

Here is one of the real reasons this bugs me. Anna Paquin. It was stated a long time ago, in the year of 2013, that she was basically cut from the movie. Then it became a rumor. Then it became true and then changed to say that she would just be a cameo. Just a cameo? And still getting full ad treatment? Boo. That is almost worst than the 47 Ronin ad issues, because she is supposed to be a bigger character.

Finally, in the credits, her name was higher than many other people in the film. Because she is more famous? Than Ellen Page? Fuck that. She was in the original X-Men movies then a shitty TV show, while Page has had a big lucrative film career. It is just nonsensical, and most of this doesn’t matter for the actual movie.

No, but these robots matter. AW YEAH SENTINELS!

In the near future, everything is bad, lots are dead. Mutants. Humans who would give birth to future mutants. The sentinels have destroyed it all. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has an unexplained ability to also let people go back in time with their consciousness to their body and like, change the future. But only for a few days, maybe a week. This is long enough to help their band of mutants survive and run, but not long enough to fix it.

No, they’d have to go back to the 1970’s, before Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) (who’s actual mutant power seems to be very limber leg maneuvers) kills the creator of the Sentinels (Peter Dinklage). But the process to send back a consciousness would tear apart a brain. Unless of course, the brain can heal itself. Hmm.

Enter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ready to travel back in time, convince past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and past Xavier (James McAvoy) to work together, change the future, and fix their stupidity.

Here is where I talk about everyone in the film, but in one giant paragraph. Maybe the new people first? Like, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Toad (Evan Jonigkeit), Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).

Of course we have Old Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Storm (Halle Berry), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and of course ROGUE. Just kidding. Bullshit cameo.

Do we get Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), Cyclops (James Marsden), or Old Beast (Kelsey Grammar)? Well, maybe.

I will only advertise one character per picture, as per movie tradition.

Yay Sentinels! Like a lot a folks in my age bracket, the Sentinels were one of the first X-Men plots I was exposed to, thanks to the first two episodes of the X-Men Animated TV Series on Fox. Shit, that is where I learned most of my basic plot lines, and why to fear the motherfucking Juggernaut. They were fascinating to see and I love the changes made to them. They were TERRIFYING and kept the viewers on the edge of the seat.

What else rocked? Most of the movie. Sure, some plot elements could have been explained better. But the Xavier/Magneto back story was great, a good continuation from First Class. Speaking of dickheads, Fassbender as Magneto is a huge one, and it was awesome to see. The best part is, you can easily relate to where he is coming from and he isn’t just a mindless villain.

Speaking of even more awesome, Fox’s adaption of Quicksilver was so entertaining. He didn’t have the bigger role in the movie, but whenever he was on screen, you paid attention to him and no one else. They really went all out to make him stand out, kind of a big middle finger to Marvel, daring them to raise the bar in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

To make this long review a bit shorter, here is the quicker analysis: So many characters, but outside of tiny cameos, they all were great and wonderful. Special effects and action was good. Story and plot was good. Holy shit, give me Apocalypse.

Did this 100% fit the continuity issues between a few of the movies? Heck no, but at least it gave it a good try and an entertaining one to boot.