Tag: 3 out of 4

Not going to lie. I was not at all interested in seeing Oblivion this week. Unfortunately I have taken to following other reviewers, although I hate knowing what other people think of a movie before I see it. But they all hated it. I disliked the preview. Everything looked pretty darn obvious to me from them. I also disliked just how many previews I had to see of it, without ever changing. I also disliked that the main characters name was Jack, but I will get into that later. But finally the title. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was some movie about the video game. Nope. Future and aliens.

That’s a lot of bad things to go against movie. You unfortunately have a biased, uphill battle to climb!

Thankfully they put quite a bit of money into the graphics department. Oooh, my eyes are happy.

It is about 60 years in the future. An alien race called scavengers came down and fucked up all of our shit. Turns out humans are stubborn and won’t just let our stuff get messed up, even if they took out our moon (causing earthquakes and tidal waves), so we nuked the fuck out of them. Hooray! We won! Small packs of scavengers roam the landscape, but they totally lost overall. Too bad the Earth is basically a barren wasteland at this point. Areas of high radiation, lot of dead. So the humans evacuated, and GTFO first to a big space station in the sky, then on ships en route to Titan, a moon of Saturn.

Only two people are left on the world, Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Jack is a tech guy, repairing drones that cover their perimeter and protect them from scavengers. Once the plants suck up the last of the sea water (which can be used for energy later?), they can return to the space station, and head off to Titan in two weeks! Woo!

Too bad those fucking scavengers keep messing up their shit and make their last two weeks hell. Not to mention an old space ship crash lands on Earth, with the drones attacking the human survivors, including a woman (Olga Kurylenko) who has been haunting his dreams! What in the hell is going on!?

Also featuring Morgan Freeman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as mysterious humans, and Melissa Leo as their space communications rep.

The internet is making wild claims that Morgan is barely in this movie, only 15 minutes max. Psha, I clocked him in at about 19.

Well, fuck me. I found Oblivion entertaining.

Yep, despite the negativity and the huge climb, I walked out happy, nay, excited. I had to quickly talk about it with others who saw it, about the ending, the twists and turns.

You see, it is pretty dang obvious from the trailer that certain things will happen. They are obvious twists in the movie that won’t come to be a surprise at all. That is what I thought the film would give me, and I was ready to be bored. But you know what Oblivion did? Sure, it might have had those “twists”. But the twists came in unexpected ways and then layered on more turns that I was not expecting after that.

Too many twists can ruin a movie, because then you just get tired of it all, and refuse to pay attention until the end. Like Trespass. The barren Earth they created is also hauntingly gorgeous, just like the CGI as well. I generally don’t like Tom Cruise as much when he is in his serious action roles, like this, but I didn’t mind this one.

The acting was okay, the plot overall could have been better, and I might have disliked the last scene in the end, but overall, pretty interesting.

If I actually went in with an open mind, it might have been a 2, but this is what exceeding expectations does to ratings!

3 out of 4.

“What the hell is this shit? It is 2013 and you are just now reviewing the Best Picture winner from 2010? No one cares anymore! We already know its good!”

I have the meanest readers some times. Yes, I am a bit embarrassed that I am just now reviewing The King’s Speech. I just kept putting it off. I did see it a long time ago, but before I reviewed it, I felt like I should probably…you know…re watch it on Blu-Ray. Yeah, technology!

Enough excuses.

After all, did King George VI ever make excuses? All the time? Well damn.

Before King George VI was King George VI (Colin Firth), he was just the son of King George V (Michael Gambon). His older brother, King Edward VII (Guy Pearce) (“Hey, why is everyone a King?” Shhh) is set to be King before him, which is great, because George6 has a problem.

He sucks at talking. He has a terribad stutter, and it is frankly down right embarrassing. He is royalty, and he muffles all of his words! No one can take him seriously if he cannot give a simple command. They tried everything, including throwing money at the problem, but nothing seems to work.

So his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) decides, against his knowledge, to go off the beaten path to look for help. He has basically given up hope and doesn’t care anymore. He would just rather hide instead. As it is with movies, the man she finds is named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) and quite unconventional. He wants to get into psychology, and determine why people may stutter. That is personal shit, a bit too personal for a potential king.

OH NO. CERTAIN HISTORICAL EVENTS HAPPEN AND KING GEORGE VI BECOMES KING GEORGE VI. Fuck. Now he has to talk. He really needs to fix dat stutter and fast. But can he? Can he do it?

Just like any problem, all the king really needed was helpful aides.

There is a reason this movie won Best Picture, and it lies almost 100% with Colin Firth, who also won Best Actor. I know I’ve used this phrase before, but it is really the only thing fitting of this situation. Colin Firth acted the fuck out of this role, and there is no touching him in this movie. Stuttering is not too hard to pull off, if you want to mock a person and be an asshole. But to pull off I guess a “sincere” stutter, throughout an entire movie? And have it all look completely real and natural? Damn, maybe he just has a strong jaw and tongue! It is just insane how great he is at this role.

I tried to tip my movie after I saw it because I had such a great time. Oh yeah.

Everyone else is good too, notably Mr. Rush, as always. Not sure why Helena was nominated for her role, she is barely in this movie. But hey, congrats to her a anyways!

The story itself is not one I can see myself watching again and again, after all, there are some boring parts. But for the topic at hand, it made a seemingly “Who Gives A Fuck?” topic a star experience and helped everyone care about a now dead British King.

3 out of 4.

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question… 42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

I feel like a bad Ben Affleck fan. Here I am, talking about his greatness, despite having finally seen Pearl Harbor, but I have not seen a third of the movies he has directed. That means the first movie he directed, Gone Baby Gone. I might not have really known it existed. Whoops. Of course he has his brother in it, but it is nice to know his first work that lead up to Argo, right?

Damn straight. Forgive me Affleck Fans 4 Lyfe, my former Myspace group that I was in. I have redeemed myself in your eyes I hope.

But maybe not in the eyes of Ben’s brother.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is a private investigator, with his long term serious girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan). On the news, there is a story of Helene (Amy Ryan) who’s child has been abducted, and she is pleading for the police to find her quickly! The police chief (Morgan Freeman) is super sympathetic to the cause, because he has lost a child himself, and has made child protection his number one goal as head of the department.

The next day, Patrick and Angie get a visit from Beatrice (Amy Madigan), the sister of Helene, wanting to hire them to find the child. This is a special case, they do specialize in finding missing people, but that means people on the run, not people who have been kidnapped. The last thing they want to do is find the child in a ditch somewhere, kind of ruins the mood. Eventually, they agree to help Beatrice, Helene, and Beatrice’s husband Lionel (Titus Welliver), while also trying to not get in the way or ruin the police investigation at the same time.

What follows is the dark paths their investigation take them on, the reprecussions that follow, and the many months of aftermath of uncertainty and grieving. You know, without giving too much away. Ed Harris and John Ashton play cop guys, and Michael Kenneth Williams is of course a drug dealer.

OH GOD I HAVE SPOILED THAT THERE IS BLOOD IN THIS MOVIE. MY BAD.

To fully enjoy Gone Baby Gone, you definitely can’t multi task through it. There is a lot going on in this thriller, with many layers of information coming in at different rates. But it is also not your typical mystery to figure out the ending, because it is actually the last thought on your mind while watching it.

Nay, loyal readers, the main point of this is the characters themselves, and their lives as they are all affected by this simple child abduction story.

But then again, personally, I did think it was going a bit slow early on, after they agreed to take the case. You know, because clues are hard to find then. I just didn’t expect so much of the movie to take place after the case had been “solved”. Solved in quotation marks can mean lots of things, so stop guessing!

Either way, it is a well acted drama/crime movie, I just think it could have been a little bit more entertaining (or quicker?) with certain developments.

3 out of 4.

As you all know, I am a patriotic American, so if there is a movie out there that will increase my patriotism, by golly, I will see it!

Not that I needed any more convincing to see Olympus Has Fallen. I love a lot of the actors in this movie, even though certain male leads may be pushing out a lot of crap in a row. But hey, this looks like Die Hard meets the White House! That is especially good news given out A Good Day To Die Hard turned out.

Arguably, both this and Die Hard 5 are going to be political. Probably. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) used to be the best secret service agent there was, working for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, after leaving Camp David on a snowy night, his limo hits a bridge and they are only able to save the President, not his wife. Mike didn’t do anything wrong, but the President just doesn’t want to be reminded of his dead wife every time he sees him.

Few years later, he now is stuck with some desk job. Can’t shoot anyone in the office (legally), damn it! He still relives that night, and his long term lady friend (Radha Mitchell) can’t seem to help him.

But unfortunately today is a day where everything will hit the fan. A fighter plane is able to make it into the DC airspace, and begins to open fire on the white house while the President has the South Korean Prime Minister under his care. But in the panic room, it turns out not everything is as expected. Surprise, North Korea is behind all of this! Not only have they locked the President and Vice President in the panic room, but they have taken over the building as well, and have pretty egregious demands for the country that they are holding hostage. Clearly only one man is good enough to save the day here.

Featuring Rick Yune as the bad guy, Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House and now acting president, Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett as government women, and Dylan McDermott as an also former secret service agent.

 

Honestly, to me this looks like they are just dancing. Sometimes you can get an idea that is so crazy, so wild, that it works on some grandiose scale, and I believe that is what is happening with Olympus Has Fallen. It is action packed (after the icy intro and set up) and entertaining. Sure, you can probably figure out how everything is going to end before its through, but that doesn’t even matter in this movie.

That’s right, no real big surprise twists! I think if the entire point of a movie is a twist at the end, it really loses its potential to watch it again for fun (unless you are watching with new people). That means Olympus Has Fallen is rewatchable!

Now there are some pretty dumb characters. I think the President is a moron, but at least he is a bit hard assed. Part of the conflict involves getting three passwords from three individuals, through torture! The President has the last password, and orders the other two to give up their own because there is “no way” he would ever give his up. You know, to stop their torture. Gee, I guess he didn’t realize that they will probably just torture his friends to get the password out of him, since it basically worked two times in a row.

But this movie is about Gerard Butler kicking ass, and damn it, he does. Nice fights, guns, explosions, and a high body count. This movie was so great that I am no longer looking forward to White House Down. When there are two similar movies within a few months of each other, one of them will always outshine the other. I don’t think there has ever been a situation where both have been amazing, but at least the other one has Jaime Foxx playing the President.

3 out of 4.

An Evil Dead remake is something that has been talked about for a long time. Heck, theoretically, Evil Dead 2 was a remake of The Evil Dead, in a way. Continuity and all be damned! But everyone knew this was going to happen for the last decade, and like everything kind of involving Sam Raimi, it took its sweet time.

After all, he has mentioned remaking it himself. Or adding a sequel. Or making a movie off the musical (which is fantastic). Just nothing happened with any of that, until now. But this isn’t Raimi’s film, this is someone elses. Can they do what he hoped to accomplish with the first Evil Dead, with a higher budget?

With some more “real actors” too, instead of just his college buddies?

Oh hey look, the movie begins before the actual plot. That is nice. Get your sacrifices on yo.

Much later, we have a cabin in the woods with a work shed. Mmm, work sheds. We have Mia (Jane Levy), out of Michigan St, with her friends, a nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and high school teacher Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci). But they are waiting for her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez) to get there. That asshat is late. Eventually he shows up with his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and they are ready to start their stay in the family cabin!

But why? It’s old and decrepit. It also smells bad. Well it turns out that Mia is there with her friends and family for one main reason. To quit using hard drugs cold turkey. No matter what, they can’t let her leave, no matter how much she begs and pleads, and makes up excuses. I think you know where this is going.

It turns out the unbearable smell is coming from the basement, which is full of dead animals, burn marks, and a book wrapped up in barb wire and trash bags.

Then you know. Shit goes down.

Including everyone’s favorite Evil Dead cliche, tree rape!

Hey! Do you like blood and gore and outrageous scenes of decapitation and demonized people? Well, hopefully you do, since you are thinking about watching an Evil Dead movie. I think this film has everything that the first film wanted to do, which is great, because it was the goal and all. There is some sick fucking shit in this movie, and I definitely felt uneasy, but hey, that’s the point of this movie.

I love that there is little to no CGI in this movie, and that all the effects are done with make-up work and prosthetics. It makes it feel more real, and thus more gross.

Certain staples in the first and second Evil Dead made it into this film too, but they were not used the same way. I loved that the film was able to keep me guessing as to how all the events would go down. Hell, even the trailer did a good job of not spoiling everything, although it did feature scenes that did not make it into the movie. Probably a good thing in my eyes. They might be in the unrated version of the film, aka the version that originally was given an NC-17. Yikes.

Right now the current rumor for the future of this franchise is between two ideas. This current updated version is probably in the same universe as the beloved 80s version, and will either have a sequel or be a trilogy. If it is just a sequel, there is rumors that there will be an Army of Darkness 2 starring Bruce Campbell, then a 7th movie overall connecting the survivors of this franchise with Bruce in a final final film. I personally doubt we see an Army Of Darkness 2 (see earlier comments on Sam Raimi), so I think they will do the trilogy route then have the 7th connecting film. But hey, we will see. They could make surprise me and make me as giddy as a school girl.

Did I mention this scared the piss out of me?

Don’t forget to watch the entire credits!

3 out of 4.

Spring Break: a time for debauchery and nakedness! That is what I learned about it at least when I was growing up in the 90s, watching MTV six week specials. Seemed like the best time of everyone’s life, no worries, just party. Even Andrew W.K. would probably approve, although for different reasons.

But what if Spring Break itself offers some even darker and deeper undertones about society and the filth we ignore? That’s right. Spring Breakers is a movie with a message, and not just an R Rated Teen Sex-Venture. That means you have to get on your thinking (or artsy) caps before viewing!

But I will give you a minute alone first without your hat on if you’d like.

Four girls are from who knows where, USA. They are in college, lower middle class, and bored during spring break. They wanted to go to Florida, to live it up, to experience life outside of their normal boring mundane existence, to escape for once, but they just can’t as they have no where close to enough money. Until three of them decide to rob a local cafe, gain hundreds in cash, and go on the trip of a lifetime that is.

Faith (Selena Gomez), the morally sound one did not participate in the robbery, but still participated in its gains. Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Brit (Ashley Benson) perpetrated the crime with a mallet and a fake pistol, while Cotty (Rachel Korine) was their getaway driver. Drugs may have been involved as well.

But hey, whatever, Spring Break forever! Well, it turns out Florida isn’t just a party central where white privileged individuals can get their party on and do whatever they want. There can be consequences as well. Partying too hard gets them arrested, and they don’t have the funds to bail out of jail. Thankfully, a local, Alien (James Franco) is willing to lend a hand. But does he have ulterior motives (outside of hot girls needing some help) for them? Also starring Gucci Mane as another drug king pin in the area.

Let James Francos grill and corn rows sink in a bit before you continue.

Here is a plead. Don’t watch this movie without an open mind. That is all you need, I think, to maybe get something out of it.

The director is not a standard one, and the movie will maybe feel disjumbled and out of order (because it partially is). There is a huge lack of dialogue in terms of actual conversation between characters. Most of it can be heard as monologues during the events in the film. But a movie can have plot without dialogue — it can still tell a story.

Sure, there is a lot of repetition and not being sure of when certain events are occurring, but they aren’t that hard to get through. The music in the movie is there to help guide your journey, perhaps imitating a drug fueled trip on its own as our leading ladies experience the same.

But is that the point of the movie? Maybe. Depends on what you take out from it.

Personally, I think the point the director is trying to make is that white privilege is a real thing, college aged girls can basically get away with murder and still live out their lives, while other people of color or lower incomes are stuck where they come from and can never escape in America. Yeah, that is a pretty intense statement for a movie about Spring Break.

James Franco acted the hell out of his role, something I have never seen him in before. I am just mad he didn’t have that much passion (or creepiness) in Oz The Great and Powerful. He must have an On/Off switch somewhere. Don’t worry, this movie still features lots of naked women and dancing, if that’s what you want. It also had its problems, I only really knew one of the girls actual names in the movie, and couldn’t really tell Brit and Candy apart.

Most importantly, I think this movie offers something different than your normal cinema fare, and that excites me. It isn’t perfect, but I sure as hell think essays can be written about it later. Just not by me, I am experiencing my own post-Spring Break slothiness.

3 out of 4.

Again, with the random Redbox rentals, I usually try to find something that might give me a good review. Shitty movies can lead to great reviews, so picking things I’ve never heard of can be amazing. That is what happened with 1313 Cougar Cult. But with The Loved Ones, it looked like a random prom based horror. Could be hilarious accidentally. Not to mention it is foreign. Australia? Heck yes.

I mean, she is cute I guess. Kind of creepy with the power tool.

Prom is a wonderful time for everyone, except maybe those who don’t get dates. Take Lola (Robin McLeavy), she is a nice girl, but a bit lonely. She tries to ask out Brent (Xavier Samuel), but he turns her down. Not for any malicious reason, but because he has a girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine). Makes sense, no harm no fowl.

Well, unless you are Lola. She isn’t a fan of that. When Brent is on a self hike in Australia, he finds himself knocked out, and yes, awakening in a house, tied to a chair. Oh joy! Oh hey, he is in a tuxedo now, and Lola is there, in a dress. What in the hell?

Looks like he is indeed going to prom with Lola, and her crazy family, but prom is now going to be inside. Her dad (John Brumpton) is there to help with the festivities, and grandma to be all weirdly lobotomized and awkward. Can Brent escape from the date from hell, before he get tortured to death in this hell house?

It is important to note that not everyone has a bad prom night. His good friend Jamie (Richard Wilson) asks out a hot goth chick Mia (Jessica McNamee) and has the time of his life. She has a missing brother too. Interesting indeed.

This is what you get for not cheating on your long term serious girlfriend.

I know what you are thinking. This film is stupid. Well, thankfully I am here to tell you that it is much better than the plot makes it see.

It is kind of a torture porn, featuring one guy, but some serious fucked shit ends up happening, including that power drill, and a few attempts at escape. But really it is an interesting and kind of unique stuff happens. The ending basically blew my mind, when the secrets of the family and her past issues came to fruition.

But it is also easy to feel uncomfortable during this movie. Lot of screaming, and slow pain. The best pain? Not sure.

I wouldn’t call this a scary horror, jut uncomfortable. But there are also some comedic elements thrown in to break the tension at important points. I will put this under the win column for random foreign Red Box films.

3 out of 4.

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.

3 out of 4.

If you saw the trailer for Side Effects, you probably found yourself confused. It tells you practically nothing; something about pills, a doctor/therapist/pharmacist getting in trouble, and maybe someone dying. There really isn’t enough here to convince the average person to check out the film. But what if “mysterious” is what the movie was going for? A trailer for a few weeks many months away, then nothing, and let the lack of any ads drive people in droves to figure it all out.

Yeah. That’s a terrible strategy.

No amount of thinking will make this a good strategy, Jude.

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is a lonely woman. She used to suffer pretty hard from depression. Why? Because her husband (Channing Tatum) was sent off to jail for four years for insider trading.

Well he is finally back and they can get their life back on track and everything will be great again! Right?! Wrong! Bam, Emily crashes her car on purpose and sent to the hospital. There she meets Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who reluctantly lets her back home despite the attempt on her own life, but only if she will come to therapy sessions a few days a week and take some anti-depression pills.

But every pill has its own side effects associated with it, which could lead to irrational behavior and other strange issues. Also featuring Vinessa Shaw as girlfriend of Dr. Banks, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as her former psychiatrist.

“I just don’t understand doc, what’s wrong with sticking your dick in crazy?”

Hopefully you noticed I still tried to keep the plot description vague, because frankly, it helps. Going in to see this movie, I knew nothing, which is how I prefer to watch films anyways. I am glad the trailer was vague and didn’t give the entire movie away. So I tried to keep the favor for you readers, but give you a bit more detail to hopefully spark some interest. Because, as it turns out, Side Effects is pretty darn good!

Not only is it directed by Steven Soderbergh (Who has given us the Ocean’s Trilogy, The Informant!“, and “Magic Mike“. Okay, one of those doesn’t belong), but it is apparently going to be his last film for awhile. Officially, he is retiring, but I am sure that within a decade he will be back.  The only person to successfully quit the film industry has been Rick Moranis.

Side Effects is more than a simple “Who Dunnit” story by focusing more on the why and the how. Throw in some ethical debates about the role of doctors and medicine, and you might also earn a minor in philosophy by the time the movie is through. While watching the movie, I found myself getting angry in the best way possible. I was mad at the events happening on screen, at the loopholes and the needs for a scapegoat, but most importantly I was mad that it was incredibly realistic. The actual events in the movie I don’t think would ever happen in real life, but the reactions to those events were so spot on, I almost did a little “This is what’s wrong with the country!” rant in my head.

If you want to have some emotion evoked in your movie watching experience, I suggest checking out Side Effects. Give Steven Sonderbergh a reason to come back to film in a few years.

3 out of 4.