Man on Fire

Man on Fire is one of those movies that really takes you by surprise and holds your attention for the entire runtime. I am by no means a Denzel Washington fan but this is the movie he was born to be in. He captures the viewer's attention every second he is on screen and is a complete bad-ass 99.99% of the time. He gives an unbelievably great performance that was ignored by critics because they felt the movie was needlessly violent and the movie received many less than positive reviews when it was released in 2004. I was it when it came out in 2004 but had no real appreciation for the story or the complexity of the characters in the movie. On another note, this is not the first adaptation of the story in movies, with the first being a 1987 film starring Scott Glenn.

The movie tells the story of John Creasy, who is a former Marine Force Recon officer, that is looking for work to essentially support his drinking habit. He has a former colleague, played by Christopher Walken, that tells him to come to Mexico City so he can find some work as a bodyguard. Creasy soon comes into the employ of a wealthy family living in Mexico City and he is tasked with protecting the daughter, Pita played by Dakota Fanning, who has been out of school because there has been a string of kidnappings in Mexico City. At first Creasy is uneasy in getting to know Pita and is against getting to know her in any way. Over time his guard is broken down and he begins to bond with her and becomes somewhat of a father figure to her because her real father is on business trips most of the time and does not spend time with her. She is then kidnapped after her piano lesson and Creasy manages to kill several of the kidnappers but is severely wounded in the process and Pita is taken any way. He is then charged with the deaths of several police officers because the men he killed were "off duty" police officers who help kidnap children for ransom money. This is where the movie kicks into high speed and Creasy's plan for vengeance begins. He then starts to systematically torture and murder everyone that was involved in the kidnapping.

FROM THIS POINT ON THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

This is not a movie for the faint of heart and if you are squeamish about brutal violence then this may not be the right movie for you. Many critics did not understand why he was doing what he did and interpreted that he was taking pleasure in killing all of the people involved in the kidnapping. Everything he is doing is to avenge the supposed death of Pita and he will stop at nothing until all involved with the kidnapping are dead. When he finds out that she is still alive he is willing to give his own life for hers in order to let her live a full life. Creasy is a tragic figure from the beginning of the movie and sets upon a path of redemption that ends in his death. This is a fact that eluded many critics and I suppose they had it out for the movie once they saw just how brutal it could be. Do not listen to people who did not actually pay attention to the movie. Most critics are influenced in some way by their peers and contemporaries and that really skews their views in most cases. This movie is definitely worth a viewing and is a very good revenge movie.

Hugo

Hugo is a beautiful movie from the mind of Martin Scorsese. This is his love letter to early cinema and to the creators that preceded him. This is one of his less action packed movies and lacks the crudeness of a lot of his other films. This is a family friendly PG movie that also deals with a lot of grown up themes as well. The cast is excellent consisting of Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Jude Law, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Scorsese does a superb job of getting the cast top give great performances and he also incorporates many elements from classic movies into this one that he does not usually use.

Hugo tells the story of a boy with the same name who has recently lost his father, and his search for answers. He lives in a train terminal in Paris and winds the clocks in the train station. He has an automaton that he and his father were restoring and he is searching for the key that will allow him to start it up and hopefully find some answers that he is searching for. He meets Isabelle(Moretz) while she is working at her guardian's shop in the terminal and they form an instant bond. They each help one another in their own personal journeys with Hugo taking Isabelle on an adventure and Isabelle giving Hugo the key to the automaton. The movie then takes off from this point and the real adventure starts. Taking the viewer into the minds of some of the earliest directors in Hollywood and showing what went into the movie making process in the early 1900s.

The main theme that runs through the course of the movie is the fixing of broken things and never giving up. Through the course of the movie, the character of Hugo has a compulsion to fix broken things, both mechanical and human. Each of the characters in the movie are broken in some way be it mentally, emotionally, or physically. Hugo is not really broken but he is looking for answers as to what he should do because he has been left with no one to guide him and he has to fend for himself. He helps mend the characters of the movie in all different ways and the most profound is with Kinsley's character who is George Melies, who was one of the first people to film surreal style movies. Melies in the fictional movie had renounced his film career after World War I because he felt people just threw away all of the art that he put his heart and soul into. Hugo finds a way to show him that there are still people who appreciate his work and this inspires him once again and he snaps out of his depression.

This is a fantastic movie that can be enjoyed by all age groups. People going into this movie looking for the Scorsese trademarks may be disappointed because this is totally different than his other works. This is a movie that sucks you in and gets you fully immersed in the story from start to finish. Just be aware that at times it is slow and takes some patience to get the story moving at a good pace. This movie deserves a 9/10 for bringing me back to a time when story ruled over sex and violence.

The Hangover Part II

I really get a kick out of people saying that the sequels are never as good as the originals. In reality, most sequels are just money grabs for studios looking to make a quick buck, just look at the entire Saw franchise. The first movie had a logical end point and then the studio took a brilliant movie and raped it until they had to put it out of its misery. The same thing is happening to the Paranormal Activity franchise and sure there will be many other franchises to follow. I fully recognize that The Hangover Part II is a money grab but that doesn't detract from the fun that I had watching it. The laughs easily equaled that of the first film and this movie definitely takes more risks than the first part. Stu, Phil, and Alan are all back for more Wolfpack adventures. This is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen and easily sits side by side with the first one, and right beneath Old School. Who can resist a coke dealing monkey who chain smokes and Mike Tyson tattoos.

The movie is a continuation of the first movie taking place several years after the first movie. Stu has a new fiance and he is getting married in Thailand, and the Wolfpack(Stu, Phil, Alan, and Doug) start a new adventure of debauchery. Chang comes along for the ride this time as an ally and Stu's fiance's little brother also tags along for good measure. I am not going to describe a lot of the events in the movie because it would really take away from the experience of see them on screen for the first time. I will leave you with three phrases that will prepare you. Lady men, a bump of cocaine, and spider nest. That is all you get in terms of spoilers.

I would like to take the rest of this time to dissect that fact that people were unhappy with this being essentially the same as the first movie but just in another setting. Is that really such a bad thing, the first movie is one of the funniest movies of all time and the second equals it in almost every way. I really don't see anything wrong with that situation. Do people complain when they see the 9th version of Paranormal Activity? If you are a paying customer and don't like a movie I can respect your opinion but if you laughed throughout the movie or actually liked the 9th sequel of a sub par horror franchise then don't hide that you liked the movie. I fully acknowledge that the Friday the 13th series has mostly been comprised of crap films but I love them all and I will tell anyone who asks me that I love them. The same goes for the Nightmare on Elm Street series and every Jason Statham movie since he cam out with The Transporter. Don't see the movie if you don't want to see another crap sequel, no one will blame you. I know this is turning into a really long rant but that's just the way this is going to turn out. The Hangover Part II was awesome and you should see it if you liked the first movie.

I am also not defending cash in sequels as well. Michael Bay is the prime perpetrator of this and has committed some of the biggest atrocities in cinematic history starting with Transformers 2. That movie was a steaming pile of shit and everyone working on it said it as well. I have never been so hyped for a movie and then been let down so badly before. This is the movie that killed Megan Fox in my eyes, I will never watch a movie with her in it again. There was no work put into the movie to make a coherent story or any chemistry between characters. This is the movie that turns people away from sequels. Every animation studio is guilty of doing the same thing by spitting out shit sequels that don't even come close to the original.

I fully realize this review went a little off the rails and I can't really say that I am sorry. I got some things that needed to be said off of my chest and in the process got to blast some pretty shitty movies. I also hope that there is another sequel of The Hangover. If the writers change up the story and allow the characters to actually know what is going on in the next installment then I think it has a real chance of being great. See The Hangover Part II because it really is a great comedy. See it for yourself and don't listen to other people. If I went by what people told me all the time about movie I would have missed out on a lot of great experiences. The movie deserves an 8/10, as good as the original but just needed a little more originality.

Due Date

Due Date is another insane buddy comedy from the mind of Todd Phillips. This movie fits in with the rest of his movies and almost plays out like a toned down version of his other films if they were all combined together. Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis make a really good comedic duo. This movie is also not of the quality that I have become accustomed too with Phillips and his crew. I will get more in depth with that point later in the review. Galifianakis, just as he does in most movies he is in, manages to steal almost every scene that he is in. The duo of him and Downey is what carries a somewhat decent movie to be a good movie.

Due Date tells the story of an uptight businessman, Peter(Downey), and his quest to get back home to Los Angeles to be there to witness the birth of his child. He comes into contact with an aspiring actor, Ethan(Galifianakis), who wishes to make it big in Hollywood. Their first meeting could not go worse with Ethan getting Peter kicked off a plane, shot by an air marshal, and put on the no-fly list. When Ethan offers to drive Peter cross country, he reluctantly agrees and this is where the movie goes crazy with the situational humor. Through the course of the movie, there are a series of misadventures dealing with a hyper violent paralyzed veteran who has a penchant for making reservations at Chili's, a strange pot dealing couple, and a masturbating dog. All this time Peter is learning how to deal with people he can't get along with and also learns how to depend on other people for things. His flaws are also exposed over the course of the adventure and he learns that he must fix his flaws in order to be a good man and a good father. Ethan is in search for a friend and he finds that in Peter even though he puts Peter through hell, the situation becomes better through the movie.

This is a good buddy comedy, nothing Earth shattering, but is is a very well done comedy. The main problem I had with the movie is that nothing felt natural, a lot of the bits feel extremely forced and the viewer is guided to laugh. Great comedies get you to laugh at even minor things happening on screen or things that weren't planned to carry a scene. I never really felt that way at any point through the run time of this particular movie. If they had made a movie of just Galifianakis going across the country with his dog on a giant misadventure then that would have been great. I never really found Downey to be doing anything particularly funny through the movie, his character does not carry the scenes, he simply reacts to the outrageous things that Galifianakis' character does during the movie. His reactions in many scenes are priceless but at times they are just hurtful and aren't all that funny. The forced nature of the movie is ultimately what dampened the experience for me. Still worth a watch, its just not an essential viewing. Due Date deserves a 7/10, not a great comedy but is still a solid one.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil

Tucker & Dale vs Evil was the best horror movie I have seen all year and upon a repeat viewing take the crown for being best movie of the year. This is also the best buddy comedy I have seen since Hot Fuzz. Everyone involved in this project seemed like they had a great time making the movie and it really translates onscreen. The fact that the writers turned the crazed hillbilly dynamic on its head and made the hillbillies the reasonable ones in the movie was a really inspired choice. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine also make a fantastic team and there should definitely be a sequel or another collaboration between the two in the future. This is the way that horror/comedy movie should be made. Get actors that have a great time working with each other and then find a story that is great to compliment them.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil tells the story of two well meaning hillbillies, Tucker(Alan Tudyk) and Dale(Tyler Labine), who are going away for the weekend to fix up their newly bought vacation home. At the same time a group of college students are going up to the same lake for a Memorial Day weekend trip. The college students are the typical "frat" types with the girls being airheads and the guys being Hollister model wannabes. One their first night on their trip, Tucker and Dale go fishing in the local lake and the college kids go skinny dipping at the same time. One of the college students, Allison(Katrina Bowden), falls into the lake and Dale dives in and saves her. The other college students think they are kidnapping her and this is where the story starts going into overdrive. The college students start to attack Tucker and Dale but in the process accidentally kill themselves in many situations because they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. While the college kids are killing themselves, Tucker and Dale are trying their best to stay calm and do not realize that the kids are trying to kill them at all. While this is all going on, Dale and Allison start to have feelings for each other and get to know each other extremely well through this whole situation. Watch the movie and you will see that this movie is head over heels better than its competition in lost every way.

This movie does a fantastic job of going against genre conventions and telling an entertaining story that feels fresh. Using two lovable hillbillies as the main characters was a great idea because they seem like two normal guys just trying to get some work done and have a good time at the same time. The college kids in the movie are pretty standard characters with the rich white kid, token black guy, and the airhead blonde. Nothing really changes in horror movies when it comes to the college kid archetype. As they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Dale is the main focus of the plot because he is an underdog in almost every way. People think that he is stupid, ugly, and useless. Over the course of the story we find out that he is extremely intelligent but lack book smarts and he is charming without really trying. The character, Allison, comes to see all of this over time when she lets her guard down and actually interacts with Dale. The buddy dynamic is also something that is not usually used in the horror genre because most of the time characters are isolated and then killed off one by one in the movie. Tucker and Dale are rarely separated from each other in the movie and when they are they are extremely vulnerable and left open to attack. This is the story of how strong the two characters' friendship is as well as being an amazing horror/comedy.

After seeing this movie for a second time, I can truly say that this is the best movie I have seen all year. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are a great comedic team and should really think about teaming up for another movie in the future. Katrina Bowden is also an up and coming talent who really is a talented comedic actress, so she has the brains to go along with the beauty. This along with Children of Men are the only two movies that I have seen that really deserve a 10/10. This is easily the best or one of the best movies that you will see all year.

The Warriors

The Warriors is a small cult film from the 1970s telling the story of a gang, The Warriors, and their struggles to get back to Coney Island from a meeting gone wrong. I actually forgot how much I liked this movie and left it out of my Top 20 because it just escaped my mind when I was coming up with a list. Walter Hill directs this masterpiece which combines the feel of a comic book and a 70s exploitation movie. The story is based off of a book from the 1960s and is also based of a story in ancient Greece that tells the story about a small legion of soldier caught behind enemy lines that must make it home.

While on their way to a meeting of all of the major gangs in New York, The Warriors, who control Coney Island and the area surrounding it, are introduced. Their leader is Cleon, second in command is Swan(the central character), then there are Ajax, Cowboy, Vermin, Cochise, Fox, Snow, and Rembrandt. Each plays their role in the gang with Cleon and Swan being the main leading force of the group. They are on their way to Van Cortlandt Park to hear a speech from Cyrus, the leader of the largest gang in New York, about his plan to unite all of the gangs and take over the city. During the meeting a member of another gangs assassinates Cyrus and blames The Warriors' leader Cleon. During the resulting chaos The Warriors manage to escape except for Cleon who is beaten to death. From this point on this movie is a giant chase scene, with the Warriors trying to get back to Coney Island while every gangs is out for their heads. The Warriors do not even know that they were blamed for the death of Cyrus and just think that the truce between all of the gangs has been erased with the death of Cyrus. They find this out about 3/4 of the way through the movie.

The characters in this movie are fantastic. Swan, the reluctant leader of the Warriors finds his inner strength and becomes a great leader in the process. He is willing to do whatever needs to be done in order to ensure that him and his crew get back to Coney Island in one piece. He is one of the only members of the group to actually stay on point and try and get back to their turf, where as other members of the group are more willing to diverge from their goal to give into their carnal desires. Ajax, the tough guy of the gang, is caught while trying to rape a woman in Central Park, after the woman handcuffs him to a bench. Others in the groups get taken in by an all female gang and narrowly escape with their lives. Swan and Ajax are the two main characters in the group and they represent both sides of the leadership spectrum. Swan, the unexpected leader who excels in his position, and Ajax, the hopeful leader who has no idea what he would do with the position. Swan is mostly emotionless and tries to examine a situation before he decides on an action whereas Ajax is willing to run into a situation, outnumbered, if he thinks he can beat the other group. This is a story of how to be a leader, and Swan is the reluctant recipient of that title but he does the best he can in the role.

I am a huge fan of 70s exploitation films and cult films from the 70s and this is one of the best of the bunch. Everything screams "1970s" in this movie, from the clothes, the disco gang, to the shots of the seedier sections of the city. Each neighborhood has its own gang and some of them are much stranger that other such as the Baseball Furies, who's members wear face paint and carry baseball bats, to the Gramercy Riffs, which is an all black kung-fu gang. The thing in the story that surprised me was how fast all of these gangs were to turn on the Warriors and believe a scummy gang such as the Rogues. If that name doesn't scream liar then I don't know what does, on top of the fact that the head of the Rogues, Luther, actually looks like a rat.

This is a fantastic movie that may seem dated in some ways but it is as good a watch as ever. This is easily one of my favorite movie and I just needed a refresher to remind me of that fact. The Warriors has a significant effect on pop culture, the rap community being the epicenter and that is for a good reason, which is because this movie is magnificent. Give this movie a watch and you won;t regret it. This movie easily deserves a 9/10. Having a good time watching a fantastic movie.

Another Earth

Another Earth could be categorized as a beautifully twisted movie. This is not a happy movie and deals with very serious subject matter. It also challenges the viewer to think of what they would do if they were in the same situation as the characters in the movie. The movie succeeds in every area that you could imagine. Beautiful cinematography, original story, emotional acting, and believable situations. Brit Marling also shows herself to be one of the more promising young actresses in Hollywood and also proved herself to be a fantastic writer in the process due to her crafting this masterpiece which was her first work. I really wish more writers took the time to actually create movies with the passion that she has. For a first time writer, this was as an impressive of a debut as I have seen in a long time.

The movie tells the tale of a young woman, Rhoda played by Brit Marling, who after being accepted in MIT, gets drunk at a party and goes for a drive. While driving, she hears a news report detailing that a mirror planet of Earth has appeared in the sky. As she looks up at the mirror planets she slams into a car carrying a college professor, his wife, and their son. Flash forward 4 years and Rhoda is released from jail and she has to get her life back together. The movie details her daily struggles of adjusting to a normal life and also questioning what this mirror world could mean for her. She also comes into contact with the man who's family she killed four years earlier. He does not know who she is and was in a coma for several months after the accident, so his memory is not at full strength. The rest of the movie deals with Rhoda trying to win a contest to go to the other planet, and she also beings a romantic relationship with the man who's family she killed.

The story of the other planet mostly takes a backseat to that of the tragic love story that unfolds throughout the movie. There is also a theme of redemption that runs over the course of the movie. Rhoda tries to do the best she can with her life and she only comes to terms with her situation and is able to move on when she is able to see that the man she hurt so much finally has some hope. The man, John played by William Mapother, is a completely hopeless individual when we first meet him in the movie and we see his evolution over the course of the movie. Each character is instrumental in the redemption and evolution of the other. They just don't realize how they are effecting each other right away and it takes some time in the movie for each character to realized how they have each changed. Rhoda does realize that the whole situation is very twisted but she realizes that she is making John happy and is willing to hide the terrible secret in order to preserve his new found happiness.

This is a movie that does an unbelievable job of creating questions within the viewer and really puts you into the shoes of the characters in the movie. I am not completely sure that I would have been able to do what Rhoda did through the entire movie. I feel as though I would have wanted to have gotten my life back to the way it was before the accident and put the past behind me. Rhoda goes the opposite direction and she cannot move on with her life until she has helped the man she hurt so badly. I'm also not sure that I would want to meet another version of myself. The other version will essentially be you but not truly because they have made different decisions and have a different way of thinking and reasoning. This is a strange thing to think about and in a universe where anything can happen then it is entirely possible that a mirror image of our planet exists in our universe. There must be other life in the universe and this movie take a very plausible situation and puts it on to film. The possibilities of this happening are slim but if it were to actually occur then that world may be entirely different than our own because of minor changes in decision making processes of it may literally be the same world as our own just as it is portrayed in the movie. The movie states that two worlds only started to differ when they each learned of the others existence.That was very interesting to show in the movie because the moment the two planets' discovered each other is also the moment that had profound effects on the main characters of the film.

This is easily one of the best movies that I have seen all year, and it ranks in my top five of the year. Brit Marling is an immensely talented individual and I hope she gets more opportunities to showcase her abilities on a larger scale. The plot and the questions it brings up really took this movie to another level because it kept you thinking of the movie for a long time after you saw it. This is a movie that really deserves to be watched and needed a bigger push from the studio to get more viewers. This movie deserves a 9.5/10 and could have probably gotten a 10/10 with a look at the other Earth after the discovery of our Earth. Watch this and enjoy, you will thank me later.