The Hurt Locker

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Written by Mark Boal

Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty

As the film states "war is a drug". After the first fifteen minutes of the film you will understand perfectly what that qoute means. The Hurt Locker takes control of you and doesn't let go for two and half hours. It tells the story of small bomb sqaud of three in Iraq who risk their lives everyday in life or death situations as they defuse bomb after bomb, and the tole the human psyche takes.
There is almost a taboo on movies based on the Iraq War. People feel that it is too soon, or that all these movies fail because they are so one sided and only try to appeal to certain crowds. The Hurt Locker doesn't have any political agenda its trying to shove down your throat, its just the story of three soldiers. Whatever your views are on the war, it won't try and make you change your mind. It's hard to imagine the life of soldier since I am not one, but The Hurt Locker is the very best attempt from a film to try and make the audience see life through a soldiers eyes. Even if that window of time is only for a couple hours.
Every scene is packed with drawn out suspense so intense the audience will be holding their breath, gnawing their finger nails, and jittering their legs the entire time. One wrong move and things will end horribly for Staff Seargent William James and his men. There are spots of humor with witty banter between the men. But the tone changes on the turn of a dime and your sucked right back in.
The Hurt Locker is almost as perfect a war movie as you can get, and is the best movie this year by far. Do yourself a favor, find the nearest Indie Film theater, and go to the next showing. It's a movie that is not to be missed and should become an instant classic.

5 out of 5 stars

Public Enemies

Directed Michael Mann

Written by Ronan Bennett and Michael Mann

Starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale

I think everyone can agree that 2006's reenvisioning of Miami Vice was Michael Mann's big career flop, luckily he learned from his mistakes and has redeemed himself in this years crime drama Public Enemies. Its the true story of John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp) the notorious bank robber from the 1930's, being chased by an FBI squad led by Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale).
All of the performances in this movie were wonderful. It's great to see Depp in a darker, serious role than what he has been doing the past few years working with Disney and Tim Burton. And Christian Bale leaves behind his Batman-car-muffler voice to play a down to Earth FBI agent. The rest of the characters and the story are very engaging and should keep the audiences attention throughout the movie.
What Mann's highest strength as a filmmaker is in his fire fights and scenes of violence. He drops the viewer right in the middle of the fight with some amazing camera and sound work. You feel the weight of a shotgun blast blowing through a wall, or a tommy gun shooting through a window. These scenes are truly visceral and the high points of the film.
The only criticism I have with the movie is on a technical basis. It was shot on a HD video cam (a trademark that Mann has used in his past few releases) and while some scenes look extremely crisp and clear others don't. When the camera or characters start moving too fast there is an awkward blurring effect that just doesn't look right. And in some needs the lighting seemed off and you can definitly see the grain from the underexposed video. Granted using HD video for feature films is still a new technique, filmmakers are still figuring out the best way to use them for optimal picture. But most veiwers won't even care or notice, so really it's not that big of a deal. Though usually I am a fan of the hand held shaky cam, there were points where it is excessivly shaky.
Otherwise Public Enemies is a great gangster drama that just about anyone can enjoy. So far its the years best crime movie that is smartly written, has great acting, and is intriguing, even if his filming techniques needed some work.

4 out of 5 stars

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Directed by Michael Bay

Written By Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci

Starring Shia Lebeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro


The follow up to 2007's biggest summer release is out, and man, what a horrible mess it is. This review is going to be harsh, and lot of you will think that I'm expecting too much from a movie about toys, but Transformers 2 is bad. Reeeaally bad. So let us begin.
Shia returns as Sam Witwicky, he has graduated from high school and is now moving on to college life where apparently every single girl is extremely attractive and acts like a slut. One day while putting on his favorite shirt, a small piece of the "Allspark Cube" falls out of his shirt, he touches it and goes crazy. In the entire two year span between the films take place, after all the times he has worn and washed that shirt, how does he not know about it until now? The movie is filled with these plot holes and just gets worse as it progresses. Speaking of plot, there is none what so ever. Yet the story gets so convoluted and wrapped up in its own bullshit. It becomes one giant clusterfuck. My mind literally shut down about half way through the movie for about twenty minutes. Then I snapped back to reality and realized I was still in this God forsaken mess.
But story isn't what Michael Bay is here to do. He here to make huge action sequences and to fit in the highest amount of explosions into one shot as possible. Even these scenes fall apart because there is no human element, no emotion into any of them to draw me in. Bay throws in a comedic one liner (that isn't funny) every 15 seconds, and separates viewers attention from the action and draws them even further away. I felt no connection with the characters or the action at all. The humorous dialogue is horribly written and in scenes when I'm apparently supposed to be sad, I felt nothing.
Being that this is a Michael Bay movie, there are certain signature camera movements that appear in everyone of his films. The famous slow motion 360 spinning track around the characters with a bright sun in the background gleaming into the lens of the camera. Bay went all out in this one, he over uses this shot way too many times. Its almost a cliche by now.
As a director, Bay has the job of "directing" his actors to bring out their full potential to portray emotion on screen.... Every single actor was terrible. TERRIBLE! One in particular is Megan Fox, who again redeems herself as the worst actress in Hollywood. She is only there for looks and to act like a skank.
Transformers is like a cake with 10 layers of icing, your least favorite flavor, and you're forced to eat it for two and a half hours. All flare, no substance. Mr. Bay has out did himself this time. He took his one "good" movie, mixed with the sequel formula (bigger, badder, dumber and more badass) and absolutely drove it into the ground. Only on an extremely hot summer day, when you want to escape the heat and you have absolutely, ABSOLUTELY nothing to do would I recommend seeing this. Hats off to you Michael, a 44 year old man child who can't do shit but make loud, stupid, obnoxious movies and still make millions from it.

1 out of 5 stars

The Hangover

Directed by Todd Phillips

Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha

The year's big comedy is finally here. The Hangover is crude, insane, and absolutely hilarious! The story is of four friends, one of which is getting married, spending the night in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The morning after the groom is gone missing, and the other three men have no recollection of what happened the night before and set off on a quest to find their buddy before the wedding and understand what happened the night before.
The cast is spot on for their roles. Bradley Cooper plays Phil, the level headed, cool leader of the group. Ed Helms plays Stu, the worry wort dentist. For his first major role in a big film he was wonderful, it was good to see another side of Ed's talent instead of being a huge dork, like he does in The Office. But the best performance was from stand up comedian, Zach Galifianakis, who plays the bride's brother that is not-all-there in the head. Zach was meant for this role, anyone familiar with his work will know that Zach is just as insane as the character he plays on screen (check out his Live at the Purple Onion, or in The Comedians of Comedy, he is brilliant).
There are a couple things I have to gripe about. First is that there are some plot points that seem way too ridiculous and don't seem to fit in with the flow of the rest of the movie and are really out of place. Secondly, after all the events leading up the finale the ending was resolved way too easily and was a total cop out. You'll understand when you see it. And third, Ken Jeong's character is really annoying. He was funny the first scene you see him, probably because he didn't talk, but after that he just got worse and worse. But that's all I really have to say. I loved the rest.
The Hangover is the best comedy to come out yet this year. If your not into raunchy humor, or a lot (a lot) of cussing, then maybe it isn't for you. But for the rest of us, it should keep you laughing for a long, long time.

4 out of 5 stars

Land of the Lost

Directed by Brad Silberling

Written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas

Starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, and Anna Friel

Land of the Lost is probably the most ridiculous movie to come out this summer. Viewers should know before to take all sense of logic out of their minds when watching this, as the movie itself doesn't take itself seriously at all. It pokes fun to all of the cheesy sci-fi/fantasy adventure movies from the 50's and 60's, you can tell from the cheap set design and laughable lizard costumes.
Will Ferrell plays a fumbling scientist who thinks he knows everything, but in fact seems to be wrong about 90 percent of the time. Its good to see that he isn't playing the same Ron Burgundy character that he has many times before, but there is still a Ferrell-ism to the movie which will be the deciding factor for audiences; whether they love or hate Will Ferrell. I don't mind him, and I think he is pretty funny, but his act gets old as the movie plays out. Danny McBride remains consistantly funny and is definatly the shining star of comedy for this movie.
About half way through the movie is starts to lose steam and there are many dry patches where you won't laugh at all. For only being just over an hour and a half long, the movie drags on too long and overstays its welcome. But for those looking for a ludicrous romp that has plently of laughs to share then it might be worth your time seeing.

3 out of 5 stars

Up

Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (Co- Director)

Written by Bob Peterson

Voice Talent by Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, and Jordan Nagai

Pixar again proves that they are the best at what they do, and no one else even comes close. Their latest release, Up, is a shining beacon of light in a dark world where throw away computer animated features come out left and right, that shows the true potential the genre has in the right creative hands.
I don't want to give too much for the story because it is something you should experience for yourself, but it tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen(voiced by Edward Asner) an old man who once had grand childhood dreams of going on adventures, but now whose life has moved on too quickly for him to ever fulfill his passion. Until now! Along the way he is grouped with Russell the boyscout (Jordan Nagai) and a talking golden retriever named Dug (a little absurd, I know, but he's hilarious).
What audiences will be surprised to see is that this is the most mature Pixar (and any family film for that mature) to date. If your eyes are not slightly moist by the first twenty minutes then chances are you cannot conceive human emotion, and are soulless. Pixar handles these mature themes with such a delicate, and sensible matter that parents shouldn't worry about what their kids are watching. Fear not though! Because it is still a ton of fun and there is plenty of hysterical laugh-out-loud humor to it. Pixar is able to blend moments of action, comedy, and touching moments perfectly together.
Up is also by far the best computer animated film to date. It looks absolutely gorgeous! You won't help but be stuck in awe, mouth agape looking at the fluid character animations that bring them to life, and the level of detail in every frame. It's truly breathtaking.
This is definitely a must see for everybody. Pixar goes above and beyond the rest of their competition. Dreamworks wishes they could pull something like this off, but one dimensional characters and pop culture references won't get them any where. Up is a completely original story with brilliant, clever humor, and amazing unforgettable characters. It's impossible to not feel "Up" afterwards (pun intended).

5 out of 5 stars

Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon

Starring Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Robert Williams and Bill Hader

First and foremost, I hated Night at the Museum. For anyone who did like it and is looking forward for the sequel should stop reading now... Ok, my biggest gripe with this movie is that it is NOT FUNNY at all. I think I counted a total of three times that I actually had a small chuckle. The movie relies heavily on a formula that takes a gag (that isn't funny in the first place) making the character repeat the same lines over and over, and then dragging it on and on and on and on until you will want to shoot yourself in the face. And why does every comedy that comes out nowadays need the cast of The Office to appear as random cameos in it. They serve absolutely no purpose at all for why they are in it and are not funny. It's like they just magically appear as if to say "Hey! Remember me? I have a career too!". The only cameo that did get a couple laughs out of me was Jonah Hill playing the guard on duty, but even that bit falls apart fast and you have to watch another irritating two minutes of him and Stiller bicker.
Speaking of guards; the halls of the Smithsonian are running amok, windows and glass being shattered, yet there are no guards on duty what so ever in the entire museum. Plot holes like this are seen through the entire length of the film.
I really thought Ben Stiller redeemed himself with Tropic Thunder, and its sad to see him back as his old character he has played a million times before; the straight man who awkwardly mumbles through his lines.
But what can you expect from a family friendly kids movie, perhaps I'm being too harsh. I just don't fall under the correct target audience. I don't have kids, I'm not thirteen years old, and I absolutely hate the Jonas Brothers.

1 star out of 5