Category Archives: Drama Movie Reviews
Django Unchained (2012)
Django Unchained (2012)
Django Unchained was a bloody masterpiece in film making. Quentin Tarantino did a fantastic job writing and directing the film. He even gave himself a fun cameo appearance in the film as he often likes to do in his movies. He has a tendency to choose the perfect actor for each role in his films. Somehow Tarantino seems to have the power to obtain the best possible performances out of each and every actor in all of the movies that he makes and Django Unchained was no exception.
As with most of Tarantino’s films, Django Unchained was a carefully executed and well scripted exercise in goriness and vulgarity. I think that this excitement and intensity that is shown in previews often will actually turn a person off from seeing the film. They may think that the film looks too violent or too R-rated.
These days there are so many straight-up violent movies filled with so much unnecessary blood, torture, cussing, and pure evil such as Hostel (2005) and its sequels, or Saw (2004) and its almost yearly sequels. It seems like the main intention of those films is to see how far they can push the envelope in gruesomeness. They always have to one-up the previous film of its kind.
When Quentin Tarantino first started making movies it seemed like they were almost strictly for shock value i.e. Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Pulp Fiction (1994). Don’t get me wrong, both of those films were solid movies in their own right, but they lacked meaning and story. They did however, have great characters portrayed by superb actors spouting very colorful dialogue.
In recent years Tarantino has perfected his craft. He has successfully penned films with true meaning and spectacular stories. His best example of this is Inglourious Basterds (2009) and I believe Django Unchained to be his second best film. Although his films continue to be extreme, they are no longer strictly for shock value. They are very edgy, but they will entertain you if you give them a chance.
Django Unchained is about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) who teams up with a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to try to reunite with his wife and free her from slavery.
Christoph Waltz delivers an unquestionable Oscar worthy performance in Django Unchained. The funny thing about that is that I thought his performance in Inglourious Basterds was also without a doubt, valuable enough to receive an Oscar. Waltz did in fact; win back to back Best Supporting Actor Oscars for both Tarantino films. At the rate that he is going, I would not be surprised if Christoph Waltz wins another Oscar in a Tarantino movie in the future.
In Django Unchained Waltz stole the show. Jamie Foxx did a wonderful job as Django, but his performance was overshadowed by Waltz. Leonardo DiCaprio would have won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in the film if Christoph Waltz wasn’t in it. If Dicaprio had given the same supporting performance in a different movie in any other year besides 2009 or 2012 he would have won the Oscar. Arguably the only performance better than that of Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained was that of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.
There were so many excellent actors in this film, that if I tried to list them all, I would certainly miss a few. A few more certainly worth mentioning were Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson and James Remar. James Remar (probably most known as Dexter’s adopted father in the television series Dexter.) actually played two different characters in the movie, but nobody seemed to notice. I caught it right away though and I thought that it was a little weird.
Django Unchained is a new-age Spaghetti Western of epic proportions with heart and soul, splattered with lots of blood and violence throughout. It definitely deserves an R-rating, but it also definitely deserves a watch. I have wanted to see the movie for a long time and I almost went to it about a dozen times in the last couple of months. I’m glad that I finally saw the film.
I rate this movie a 10 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
Robot & Frank (2012)
Robot & Frank (2012)
In the near future an aging retired thief (Frank Langella) receives a robot from his son (James Marsden) that can help assist him with cooking, cleaning, and chores around the house. The thief decides to come out of retirement when he realizes that the robot can assist him in other things like stealing.
The casting of Marsden, Liv Tyler, and Susan Surandon are all pretty much after thoughts in Robot & Frank. The true stars of the show are in fact, the giant Lego man-like Robot and Frank Langella. The movie is witty and original. The interaction between Langella and the Robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) is priceless.
The advancement of robot technology that is depicted in the film makes me wish that I had a robot to help me with my everyday chores around the house. The robots that are in the movie seem so real that they make me believe that this could one day be a possibility.
Obviously if robots were truly capable of what is seen in the movie, then everybody and their mother would own one by now. They would be flying off of shelves like bottled water after forecasted news of impending doom from an upcoming natural disaster. The fact that Robot & Frank takes place in the future is a contributing factor in why the viewer is able to suspend their disbelief that robots are not able to do what is seen on screen. We do not know what the future holds and therefore cannot question technological advances in robotic technology that is portrayed in the film. In fact, the movie itself plays on the excitement of guessing what robots of the future could be like.
I hope that the improvements of technology in general that are shown in the film are one day possible. This would make the world a better and more fun place to live.
Bravo to this truly unique film. It was a little slow at times, but amusing to watch. I had a blast!
I rate this movie a 7.5 out of 10.
Buy, rent, or run? Rent.
The Paperboy (2012)
The Paperboy (2012)
The Paperboy delivers a story riddled with nonsense, boredom, trashy characters, gratuitous vulgarity, and wasted talent. It was amazing the amount of scenes in the movie that were completely unnecessary.
The film is about a newspaper reporter (Matthew McConaughey) who teams up with his brother (Zac Efron) and a work colleague (David Oyelowo) to investigate the case of a prisoner (John Cusack) who is on death row. Along the way, they get help from the prisoner’s pen pal girlfriend (Nicole Kidman).
The movie takes it’s time setting the stage for what it is going to be about. Once you understand the goal that the characters are trying to accomplish, the story takes a left turn and does not come back to the main point until it is no longer relevant. In other words, the film is left without a purpose and you are left watching characters develop for a story that is hard to follow and no longer matters.
Much of the movie is narrated by Macy Gray. Gray was an extremely poor choice for a narrator. She is definitely no Morgan Freeman. It seemed as if she had trouble reading her lines. She mumbled her words very slowly and at times, she was hard to understand. This took even more away from the film and made it harder to follow.
Many times I was so bored with the movie that I wanted to turn it off. Other times I wanted to turn off the movie because of how unnecessarily vulgar and pointless it was becoming. I should have turned it off. I wish that I had turned it off, but I wanted to see if it would get any better, and I wanted to be able to tell my readers my honest opinion of the entire film.
The Paperboy had a very capable cast. They are all mostly good actors, but with the material that they had to work with, they were all doomed. Nobody had a chance to give a standout performance because the writers had made sure of that with their dreadful dialogue and horrible storyline.
Do not waste your time or money on this worthless excuse for a movie.
I give this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Run and hide!
I think that this movie could easily have won the prize for worst movie of 2012. I was trying to figure out which movie was worse, this one or Killing Them Softly. The Paperboy takes the cake. Beware!
Flight (2012)
Flight (2012)
Flight transports you into the depths of a dark and lonely place only to bring you back feeling better about it all. Alcoholism, drug addiction, loss, grief, sorrow, anger, and pain are all symptoms of this darkness.
Is it a feel good movie? No, but you will probably feel better about it at the end. Not because it is over, but because of how it ended.
The film is about a hero pilot (Denzel Washington) who crash-lands a doomed plane like no other pilot could. The pilot has a drug and alcohol problem and is therefore under investigation to decide whether or not he was the root cause of the plane going down.
Some parts of the film were hard to watch. It all got a little bit more intense than I had anticipated and that caught me by surprise. This was not a bad thing, but it is hard to enjoy watching appalling scenes in a movie and feel good about them. These scenes would not have been so hard to watch if they had not been depicted so well. That being said, the severe moments were very necessary to the rest of the movie and kudos to the cast and director for making them so powerful.
Robert Zemeckis did a wonderful job directing Flight. The flying sequences in the movie were remarkable, but the performances by the all-star cast were what really made the film.
Denzel Washington supplied his best acting since American Gangster (2007) or Déjà vu (2006). The raw emotion and realism that he brought to his character is enough in itself for me to recommend that you watch this film.
Don Cheadle and Bruce Greenwood were both at the top of their game.
Although he played such a skuzzy character, John Goodman portrayed that character very well.
Each actor and actress played so well off of the other that it seemed to bring their acting ability to its highest potential.
Even though some parts of the film were very extreme, I think that it is absolutely worth the watch.
I rate this movie an 8 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
If you liked Flight, then you will most likely enjoy:
Broken City (2013)
Broken City (2013)
Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe both let their presence be known in Broken City. Each man carries himself with such tenacity and vigor that when you put them both in the same movie together, you are certainly in for a show. Put them both in the same scene, and you are in for fireworks.
In this film, Crowe reminds us all just how powerful his acting can be. He seemed like he was very comfortable with his part and was having a lot of fun with it. That aspect of it was pretty obvious and made the movie more enjoyable.
Wahlberg has been choosing his movie roles very carefully lately, and makes yet another wise choice. He has definitely shown us that he can act with the best of them and delivers another very raw, intense performance. Obviously he is the lead in this film and he was billed first before Russell Crowe, but I think that he has rightfully earned that position. He has paid his dues and has reached the superstar status.
The movie is pretty dark. It is filled with deceit, dirty cops and politicians, murder, and violence. It’s almost scary how well it was all depicted. It was all very well written, well directed, and skillfully filmed. It was all rounded out by a superb supporting cast: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey Wright, and Kyle Chandler. The latter three of those four are all very solid character actors and they were all at their best.
I have noticed a trend recently. Female lead characters have not had much of a chance to develop their characters in movies. It just seems that more and more, actresses are not given too many lines or very big roles in larger movies as of late. They may be main characters, but the men usually dominate the film. Obviously this happens a lot in movies, but usually when the movie has a big budget and a high caliber cast, it also gets a couple of strong female lead characters to go with it. Broken City continued the trend of weak or underdeveloped female lead characters. This may have taken a little bit away from the movie, but at the same time could have contributed to how and why the male characters went off the deep end. Their female counterparts were a little too withdrawn.
Broken City was reminiscent of old Humphrey Bogart private detective movies such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), or The Big Sleep (1946). Of course it is a new age and more intense film than those were, but it just reminded me of them while I was watching it. Those were classic films that were fun to watch.
Overall, Broken City was a very strong, entertaining film.
I rate this movie an 8 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
If you enjoyed Broken City, then you will probably like:
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Gangster Squad (2013)
Gangster Squad (2013)
With a huge squad of big name actors, Gangster Squad definitely had enough firepower and got the job done right. Although with such a high caliber cast, one would have to try very hard to not make a good film. With Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Robert Patrick, Michael Pena, Anthony Mackie, who could go wrong? The supporting cast is an endless number of recognizable awesome character actors and I couldn’t name them all if I tried. Every other scene I recognized another face. I kept saying; Wow he’s in this too? Or, I like that guy. What else have I seen him in?
This could just be perhaps, Josh Brolin’s best performance. He was excellent! His role fit him like a glove.
Ryan Gosling was his usual suave and slick self. Once again he was paired with Emma Stone as they were in Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011). They were a great couple again, but her character in my opinion, did not get much of a chance to develop. She was the big love interest, but she really was not in much of the movie.
Gangster Squad is Sean Penn’s best movie since Mystic River (2003). He has quite honestly been pretty disappointing on and off the screen in the last decade. This is a solid comeback movie for him. His character far exceeded my expectations.
Speaking of comeback movies, Nick Nolte surprised us all with a major comeback and Oscar worthy performance in the movie Warrior (2011). Even though his role in Gangster Squad was pretty minor, he reminded us that he can still act.
Giovanni Ribisi never ceases to disappoint and he continued that tradition once again.
Robert Patrick’s film career peaked when he played the T-1000 robot in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). He has been in many movies and TV shows in the last 22 years since then, but none of his roles have ever lived up to T2. He gives a good supporting role in Gangster Squad.
Michael Pena and Anthony Mackie have both been up and comers for a while. The two of them were both fun additions to the film.
The filmmakers did a remarkable job recreating Hollywood in the 1940s. Everything about the movie seemed real and believable. The clothing, the cars, the buildings and surrounding landscapes, and even the way people talked and acted were all works of art in themselves.
Gangster Squad is one of the best movies that I have seen in the last year. I was only a little disappointed that Emma Stone did not get much of a chance to develop her character. Even the much lesser known Mireille Enos, who was Josh Brolin’s wife in the film, seemed to have a bigger role than Emma Stone. If the film was a little longer and had developed its female characters a little more, I think that it would have been even better. The film was pretty amazing though, and if you have not done so already, you should check it out!
I rate this movie an 8.5 out of 10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
A solid, raw, dysfunctional drama that felt real. It was refreshing to see a movie in the theatre where the actors were actually given the opportunity to act. Instead of relying solely on special effects or action, this movie relied only on acting and story. It did not disappoint.
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Jacki Weaver were all superb. The film was so well scripted that is felt believable. But, it only felt believable because of how wonderfully it was portrayed on screen by the actors. The chaos and craziness and drama were there all the time and it was a treat to watch.
Even though Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are 16 years apart in real life, their chemistry together in the film made that unnoticeable.
Although this film is classified under the drama genre, I classify it under my own made up genre: dysfunctional reality. It also could be called dysfunctional drama or true drama. It is a genre that some people are afraid of because it is too real. The stories that belong to this genre are too honest and true to life. Usually the dialogue is very realistic to the point where it doesn’t feel written; like it has to be real because nobody could have come up with it.
In a great line from the movie, Bradley Cooper’s character says, “I don’t have a filter when I talk.” To me, that is a perfect line for this movie because true to my made up genre, you can’t write this stuff. He is not filtering what he is saying as if he is reading from a script. He goes with his gut, with his instincts, and the words just flow.
I rate this movie an 9 out of 10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
Lincoln (2012)
Lincoln (2012)
Lincoln is a very well crafted film. It is Steven Spielberg filmmaking at his best. Even though the film crept along at a snail’s pace, and felt longer than the 2 ½ hours running time, it was definitely worth seeing.
Begin the movie with expectations that it will be slow and long and you will be pleasantly surprised by the Oscar worthy performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and his supporting cast of what seemed like an endless number of major character actors such as Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Jackie Earl Haley, John Hawkes, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Jared Harris, etc., etc., and then some. You probably do not recognize half of those names listed, but you will definitely recognize their faces when you see them in the film. Every couple of scenes, I was surprised to see another familiar face of a very likable character actor.
Because so many people hopped aboard the Steven Spielberg train that is Lincoln, I think that the only ones that could win any awards for their performances would be Daniel Day-Lewis, Steven Spielberg himself, or maybe Tommy Lee Jones.
There did not seem to be a whole lot of character development for any one supporting character and I believe this is because there were almost too many characters to try to develop.
Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Lincoln was amazing. He was the spitting image of Lincoln. Bravo to the makeup crew. It must have taken a couple of hours to make him look like Lincoln every day. If I didn’t know that it was Daniel Day-Lewis acting as Lincoln and you showed me footage from the film, I would have believed it was actually Lincoln.
These days, it is risky to make a film like Lincoln. But without risk there is no reward, and in this case maybe a few awards.
I rate Lincoln an 8 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Buy.
Killing Them Softly (2012)
Killing Them Softly (2012)
It was one of the worst movies that I have seen all year and the worst Brad Pitt movie that I have ever seen. It should have been called killing the audience quickly. It was literally that horrible. I almost asked for a refund on my ticket. Thinking about it now, I should have gotten a refund on my ticket. You would have to pay me to watch that movie again.
English: Brad Pitt at the Berlin premiere of Inglorious Basterds in July 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With as excellent of a cast as this movie had, you would think they could do no wrong. Even if the storyline is bad, the actors will make it better right? Wrong! It was almost as if they tried to make it bad.
Scenes with Brad Pitt were bearable to mediocre. Scenes without Brad Pitt made me almost physically sick.
James Gandolfini was an absolute wreck and Ray Liotta looked like death.
The movie was successful in portraying drug addicts, alcoholics, and overall skuzzy people in a very realistic way. When you weren’t watching people cussing up a storm, drinking themselves to death, getting stoned out of their minds, getting shot in slow motion, or beaten to a bloody pulp, then all they were doing was blabbering back and forth to one another. The majority of the dialogue of the movie was diarrhea of the mouth except for when Brad Pitt or Ray Liotta was talking.
65th Festival De Cannes (Photo credit: PanARMENIAN_Photo)
It was almost as if Brad Pitt was in a different movie than everybody else and they edited him in to their train wreck of a film to try to make it better. Instead of actually making it better, it just gave you a couple moments break from being terrible whenever Pitt was in a scene.
Do yourself a favor and stay far away from this movie. Save your time and money by not seeing it. I wish I had.
I rate this movie a 2 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or, run? Run.
James Gandolfini (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
English: Steve Carell pauses for a moment to take in the grandeur of the 82nd Academy Awards, March 7, in Hollywood, Calif. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Review of: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
It is actually kind of a shame that this is the first review that I am going to post on my blog because the movie was really, quite utterly, less than mediocre. I am not going to bother with a spoiler alert, because I would not want you to waste your time watching this movie in the first place. Read the review. It will save you money and time, that is, if you were thinking about watching this movie in the first place.
The 40-year-old Virgin (2005) meets Armageddon (1998) except there is no comedy and no action. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is about a man (Steve Carell) who works as an insurance salesman in order to be prepared for the worst. He and his wife find out that the worst is actually on its way in the form of a 70-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with the earth. The asteroid is set to end their world as they know it in 3 weeks time.
His wife immediately leaves him upon hearing the news. He is left with a job that no longer has any meaning. He has no family because his Mother has passed away and his Father ran out on them when he was a kid and he has no siblings. He detaches himself from his self-destructive friends.
Rules do not really seem to apply to anyone anymore because of the world’s impending doom. Everything around him turns to anarchy. His apartment building is set on fire and he is forced to leave.
Along the way, the man joins together with a much younger woman (Keira Knightley) neighbor whom he has never met before even though the two live in the same building.
English: Keira Knightley at the 2011 Venice Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
They venture out into the now insane world, in order to find the man’s high school sweetheart. They fall in love along the way. She gets in touch with her family and he reconciles with his father.
He puts her in his Father’s plane in the middle of the night while she is sleeping and has his Father fly her home to her family.
He goes back to their apartment building and listens to her records in her apartment while waiting for the world to end. After a little while she returns to find him there and the two lie in bed and talk as the world ends.
I am a big Steve Carell’s comedy and even though this movie is not a comedy, I expected it to have a few laughs. I did not laugh once during the entire movie. Many scenes were on the verge of being funny, but they didn’t quite make it there.
The chemistry between Steve Carell and Keira Knightley’s characters did not really exist until almost the end of the movie. Knightley played her part well, but the story and writing left her with very little to work with.
The movie was very slow to the point of boredom. It started to pickup a little bit towards the end of the movie, but then it ended.
I think that Steve Carell should stick to comedies because that is definitely what he is good at. He was cast way against type in this role and it did not suit him.
I give this movie a solid 2 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Run.
I’m glad that I watched this on DVD because I would have been thoroughly disappointed if I had seen it in the Theatre.
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