Details: Released in 2000. Stars Christian Bale. About an hour and forty minutes long.
A lot of times when I’m writing these posts/reviews, I want to discuss the substance of whatever it was I watched rather than just review it without spoilers. After some thought, I decided to just review the thing and give it a recommendation or not.
The premise of American Psycho is as follows: Patrick Bateman is a big, investment banking CEO and tries to indulge in his murderous, psychopathic desires while hiding it from those who know him.
This is a very adult movie with some graphic violence as well as explicit sex scenes and nudity. The movie attempts many things and is, in my opinion, mostly successful. One of the things this movie attempts is to offer some insight into the mind of a psychotic individual. Bateman is clearly crazy and the movie does a good job delving into his psyche.
The movie also attempts to deliver an opinion on the financial sector and, to a greater extent, society as a whole. The world Bateman inhabits is a superficial world obsessed with nothing other than greed and status. His friends, coworkers, and lovers all fit this theme and are superficial and contribute to his psychotic behavior.
It’s a wild ride and reminded me a little of Scorsese’s Wall Street film in that it gives an opinionated glimpse at a similar time period and section of society, in this case, the financial sector.
The cast is very good and has a surprising amount of big names in it. Some of these names are Christian Bale, Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon. There are a lot of familiar faces here whom I’ve since seen in many subsequent movies and television shows. They’re all good and help construct this grim world that Bateman inhabits.
Overall, I would recommend this movie for a watch. It’s a subjective view into the life of a successful investment banker who can barely control his murderous urges. I imagine that many people in finance might be able to identify with Patrick Bateman. I do not recommend this for the squeamish or for kids. Lots of violence and nudity in this film.
Details: Released in 2016. Over two hours long. Stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Ethan Hawke.
If you’ve seen trailer for this movie, then you should have a pretty good idea what this movie is going to be. The Magnificent Seven is a remake of an older movie of the same name, which was a movie that took heavy inspiration from the classic Akira Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai.
The premises for all these movies is the same: a town is beset by wrongdoing from a group of bad guys. The town takes all their possessions and go out and hire seven men to help defend the village and defeat the bad guys.
While this movie is unlikely to win any Oscars, I greatly enjoyed the movie. It’s your standard Western, remade with modern stars. Most recognizable are Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D’Onfrio. This isn’t there best work, but they are good and help sell the movie.
The story is your classic underdog facing impossible odds story. I have a weakness for these kinds of stories and as such, I enjoyed this story very much. It doesn’t get more courageous to me than seven bad guys in a bad world putting their lives on the line for a town that has nothing to do with them, to risk their lives for the principle of protecting others. I know it’s a cliche story, but I can’t help getting choked up when being told this specific type of story. There’s a lot of familiar Western action here, which isn’t bad a thing.
Overall, a good movie with some good Western action. If you like Westerns, I recommend it.
Details: Released in 1995. Almost three hours long. Stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer. Directed by Michael Mann.
I was looking for some movies to watch and I realized that there were a lot of classics which for some reason, I’ve never seen. Movies that could be considered mandatory watching for true movie fans. Heat is one of those movies.
I’ll try to avoid spoilers and keep discussion of anything related to the narrative to a minimum. The premise is this: Robert De Niro plays a career criminal who commit heists with his crew. Al Pacino plays a cop who specializes in bringing down criminals like De Niro’s character. The two clash in a game of cat and mouse as Pacino tries to catch De Niro.
The heart of this story is crime story. This is a heist movie and it’s easy to see how many other works of fiction took inspiration from this film.
There are so many great scenes in this movie. So many scenes which are undoubtedly a part of cinema history. Almost every line uttered by De Niro and Pacino is memorable. Seeing these two legends share scenes together is sight to behold.
While I will keep as much of this review spoiler free, two scenes need to be mentioned: the shootout and the scene where Pacino and De Niro talk. I’ve watched behind the scenes footage and interviews with the actors in regards to the shootout scene. They all trained to operate real guns and I’ve even read somewhere that the armed forces used footage from this film to show trainees the ideal way to reload a weapon. The action in this movie, and specifically the shootout scene, were amazing in their direction and their editing. The sound of the guns along with just how much chaos spills out make this one of the most memorable action scenes in film history. When anyone talks about this film, this scene is almost always mentioned.
The other scene that is almost always mentioned is the talk between Pacino and De Niro. Having two of these Hollywood legends in the same movie and not letting them share at least one scene would have been criminal. Luckily, Mann let the two have that scene and it was amazing. I won’t say anything about what happens there, but the tension, the emotion, just ooze from the actors and even though it’s just dialogue, you aren’t really sure what’s going to happen.
Overall, a great crime film that is required watching for any cinemaphile. Heat is a classic which I would recommend to almost anyone. Except children. This is a very adult film with some graphic violence and adult subject matter. Don’t let kids watch this.
Details: About two hours long. Stars Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.
I originally heard about this film after watching some reviews for it on YouTube. It received glowing reviews, which is interesting because it mostly flopped at the box office. After watching this movie, I don’t think it was that great nor was it terrible.
The Nice Guys is a film that attempts to replicate or take inspiration from films like Chinatown with Jack Nicholson, or L.A. Confidential, or any other old noir, detective story. The only difference from those films is the tone; this film is a comedy.
The premise is this: Ryan Gosling plays a private detective and meets Russel Crowe, who plays a thug, while investigating a case. Together they try to solve the case and see where the case leads.
In regards to the plot, the film was very reminiscent of Chinatown in that there was this big subplot involving Detroit and the big three car producers which didn’t really have that big of an impact on the overall story. That’s the thing with noir films, they have all these subplots that don’t really matter. The most interesting part of noir films are the dialogue, the interactions between characters, the surprise twists, and eventually the big reveal of who done it.
While there is certainly elements of suspense and noir here, those elements are not the primary draw of this film. The best parts of this movie are the funny pieces of dialogue between Russel Crowe and Ryan Gosling. This movie is essentially two hours of watching these two guys make fun of each other and screw around, which is great if that’s what you’re into. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that entertained.
A noteworthy mention is the actress who played Gosling’s daughter, Angourie Rice. She was good, but good child actors generally creep me the hell out. Rice had a lot of fairly adult lines she was asked to say, which was somewhat uncomfortable. Watching her mostly reminded me of all the child entertainers who tried to make it in show business and mostly grew up into messed up adults. I hope Rice has a better experience with show business.
It was okay. I didn’t find it that funny. The movie tried to be somewhat noir, but noir films generally have a mess of a plot and that was true here. I’d recommend it to Gosling or Crowe fans. I’d also recommend to people who want to see topless women. I saw an R rated version and there was a substantial bit of nudity. If you enjoy seeing young, scantily clad women, you may want to give this film a watch.
Details: About an hour and a half long. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Stars Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart. Released in 2016.
As I watched this movie, I could practically imagine the exact conversation that took place when they decided to finance and make this movie. It probably went something like this:
“This amazing thing has happened. Captain Sully is an American hero and he landed a plane in the Hudson River. Sully landed a plane in a city with a horrible history of airplanes. and he saved all one hundred and fifty-five passengers on board. No deaths. We can make some money off of this. We need the movie rights for this. Sully seems like a nice guy. We could probably get the rights from him and the rest of the passengers for a song and a dance. Hey, they might even appear at the end, make everyone feel good about the movie they just watched.
“So who will we get to direct? Anyone have the number for Clint Eastwood? He loves directing this American hero shit. We could probably get a discount on his fee. Now whose going to star? Well you know we got to get America’s favorite every-man, Tom Hanks. I mean he doesn’t have any range, but he’s perfect for these relatable, middle-aged white guy roles. After that shitty Walt Disney movie and Captain Philips, this seems right up Tom’s alley. Let’s just make sure we find some half decent supporting actor to help him along, maybe Aaron Eckhart since I just had a phone call with his agent yesterday. With Clint and Tom in the movie, the movie practically pays for itself. People will watch anything with those guys in it.
“As for budget, about sixty million sounds good. Most of it will go to Clint and Tom, but their the ones selling the movie so whatever. This doesn’t need to be an expensive movie. Just some interior scenes with no name actors.
“And lastly and least importantly, what’s our plot? Well we got to show the plane landing in Hudson. And yes, that whole thing happened in about a couple of minutes. Even evacuating the passengers took only twenty-four minutes. My goodness, there really isn’t a lot of conflict there or a lot of story. Ah well, I’ll go down to my local Starbucks and find some random screenwriter to stretch it out somehow. I’m sure we can get an hour and a half out of this thing.”
End imaginary quote.
In my opinion, this movie was pretty silly. It was mainly Hollywood’s attempt to monetize a pat on the back for Sully. They tried to introduce some conflict with an insurance inquiry, but that clearly fizzled out if you kept track of what happened to Sully in real life. There was a clip at the end of the actual Captain Sully and the passengers having an emotional moment. That minute of footage could probably have replaced the whole movie, but then the makers of this movie wouldn’t have been as successful milking money out of this cow.
Score: 5/10 Not a bad movie, just pointless with no real conflict. I would’ve preferred a documentary. This would probably be a good airplane movie if it wasn’t about a plane crashing.
Details: About an hour and a half long. Stars Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, and Matthew McConaughey.
Obviously, Kubo and the Two Strings is a stop motion animation movie. That means that in order to make the movie, they take miniatures and dolls and other small replicas and take a lot of pictures of the things in different positions, then they play those images in however many frames per second it takes to make it look like they are moving. It’s a time consuming yet visually beautiful method of making movies that you don’t see all that happen.
Kubo and the Two Strings has some of the best stop motion I’ve ever seen. I compare it to films like The Nightmare Before Christmas and greatly appreciate that, at least technically, the film is far smoother and visually pleasing than prior stop motion films that I’ve seen. While part of that is likely improvements in setting up and taking pictures of the miniatures, the other is probably the use of computer generated images sprinkled throughout the film. Appreciably, computer generated images are used in such a way that it meshes well with the stop motion animation.
In regards to the plot, the premise of the film is this: Kubo is the song of a celestial being and a great samurai. After being found by his evil, god like grandfather, Kubo must journey with some companions he meets along the way to find powerful weapons and armor that can defeat his grandfather.
It’s a very standard quest story that was clearly written to imitate or take inspiration from other classic fairy tales. This story is not based on any specific fairy tale. Based upon their names, this was written by two very not Japanese guys, despite the use of samurais and moon deities. Accordingly, you get the mismatch of various themes and characters reminiscent of other Asian stories you might have heard, but not entirely from any one story. Regardless, it’s a satisfactory story that had me choking up at certain parts. however, overall, it was just an okay story for me and plainly a vehicle for the gorgeous visuals achieved by the stop motion animation.
The voice actors were good. Charlize Theron has been fairly active the last few years and I have yet to see a performances from her I did not like. Parkinson is also great and McConaughey… is Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey is basically only able to play a guy from south Texas so it was weird hearing him voice a samurai beetle. I didn’t know he was in the film, but when you hear that south Texas timbre he has, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is Matthew McConaughey.
Score: 6/10 A good children’s film with some aspects that border on adult, as many fairy tales do. Worth a watch for the visuals alone. I’d recommend it.
Details: About two hours and sixteen minutes long. Stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving.
I watched this movie again the other day and I decided to write a review. I thought a lot about whether or not to include spoilers in this review and decided that this movie had such a profound impact upon me, that the reveals in this film were so integral to the film that this needed to be spoiler free.
I first watched this film back around the year 2000. I did not watch it in theaters, but on video. Somehow, despite the ridiculous popularity of this film at the time, no one spoiled it for me. When I eventually did watch this film, it was in it’s whole, unspoiled glory. I then understood why everyone I knew was buying Matrix sunglasses, wearing black trench coats, and admiring overpriced cell phones. This movie was transformative for me. I must have watched this video over one hundred times. I watched this film to the point where I memorized every single word of dialogue spoken by any character. It was insane. I had never seen such a movie as this. Fast forward to a few nights ago when I decided to give it another watch and this movie still holds up wonderfully. Despite its age, this movie is still one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen.
The premise is this: a hacker (played by Keanu Reeves) is contacted by a mysterious figure named Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) who offers to reveal the truth about this world. That’s really all you need. There are so many reveals in this movie that anything more might take away from the film.
It’s been so long that many people likely forget the impact this film had on the movie industry. This film was one of the first films to truly show what computer generated effects are capable of. This film coined the term “bullet time,” where we not only go into slow motion, but the camera moves around while the characters are moving in slow motion. This was something that before this point had never been done nor been done this well.
However, where this film shines and truly elevates itself to a timeless classic is in its practical effects. I’ve watched the behind the scenes featurettes on this film and what they went through to create some of these scenes is amazing. Reeves, Moss, Fishburne and Weaving spent months with legendary fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping and his team training in martial arts and wire work in preparation for this film. Their efforts are apparent in this film and add an authenticity and realism that is often done wrongly in other films. There are not a lot of Western films that can portray Chinese style martial arts action well, but this is one of them. It is a joy to watch these action scenes.
I’d love to talk more about the action but I don’t want to spoil this film if I can help it. All I can say is prepare yourself for guns and kung fu.
And we haven’t even gotten to the performances. While Keanu is certainly a wet blanket, the rest of the cast do an incredible job. Most notably, Hugo Weaving does one of the most iconic performances of a villain in cinema history. His performance reminds me of Carl Sagan with a little more evil added in.
It’s just such a great movie with such a unique, memorable tone. This movie oozes style and throughout the film, I was reminded of ideas and images from comic books and anime that I’d seen before. It just attempts so many things and had so many imitators subsequently try to copy what this film achieves.
If you have any doubt whether or not you should watch this film, don’t. Go watch this film. Do no ask anyone about their opinions nor should you go and search the internet for anything regarding the film. Rest assured this is a great movie and one of the greatest action movies ever made. It is so good, so forward thinking that it easily holds up, even now.
Details: Over two hours long. Stars Felicity Jones and Diego Luna.
The first thought I had after watching this movie was… why did they make this movie? I know it’s obviously for money. Disney paid a billion dollars for the Star Wars franchise so they have to milk that cow, but I don’t think this movie needed to be made. It didn’t tell a story I needed to hear.
The premise is this: Jyn Urso is found by the rebel alliance and sent on a mission to find her father who has information on the empire’s new super weapon. In the overall Star Wars timeline, this takes place after Revenge of the Sith and before A New Hope.
I felt like this movie should have been a book or a comic book, not a full fledged movie. It’s just a side story that doesn’t push the overall Star Wars narrative in any direction. I feel like nothing was accomplished here.
I can see that they were trying to achieve a grittier, more realistic, more personal story. Unfortunately, there are so many characters we barely get to know anyone. I think in genres like science fiction of fantasy, character development is the crux of these types of stories. Character development was severely lacking here and I didn’t feel anything when bad things happened to the characters.
The actors give fine performances. The weakness of this film was just the story. The whole film felt like one big wink wink, nudge nudge towards existing Star Wars fans with constant references to the other movies. This movie is fan service. Unless you are a hardcore Star Wars fan, I probably wouldn’t recommend this movie.
Details: Stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. About two hours long.
I just came back from watching this film at Lincoln Center and there is a lot I feel towards this movie and a lot that should be said. I am listening to the soundtrack as I write this and getting choked up again.
The premise is this: Mia (played by Emma Stone) and Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling) are two aspiring artists. Mia aspires to be an actress and Sebastian a jazz musician. They meet and fall in love while chasing their dreams.
This is a musical through and through. I remember seeing a clip on YouTube where the director stated that the film was meant as a 1960’s era style musical in a modern setting. I think this is exactly right. If you don’t like musicals or romance, this film is not for you.
With that said, I loved this movie. I don’t want to go into spoilers and fortunately, there are aspects of this film which are very formulaic in terms of musicals and can be discussed. For instance, the opening number is your standard, big, flashy, tone-setting musical number that you’d expect in other musicals or Disney movies.
I found myself having a strange reaction to the first two musical numbers. It was jarring to me and I realized that it had been a good, long while since I’d seen such a flamboyant musical as this. I missed musicals like this. And while I did not love the first two songs or how they meshed with the plot, they reacquainted me with this genre and I thoroughly enjoyed each subsequent song and dance number.
The strongest parts of this film are easily the musical arrangements and the visual imagery. Bright colors are in vogue throughout this film and delight the eyes. There are many, many long shots throughout the film which lend authenticity to the performances and make you question just how far the choreographers and directors had to plan in order to get these shots. I advise you watch the opening number with an eye towards how many cuts are used. Answer: there are none. It was all shot in one shot. It was amazing. The main theme is wistfully threaded throughout all the plot points and songs in the film and really triggered my emotions each time I heard that melody.
The performances, at least dramatically, were great, especially the scenes between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Which leads us to the weakest part of the movie: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s singing and dancing ability. While watching this film, I had flashbacks to West Side Story and Singin’ In the Rain, and it was clear that, unlike the protagonists in those films, these two were actors first and singers and dancers second. There was something undoubtedly muted about their movements and songs. Emma has a decent voice and has a good song towards the end, but it’s clear that more octaves should have been included to add more feeling to that song. That would likely have pushed it outside her range unfortunately. Gosling’s singing sounds like Gosling’s talking, which wasn’t all that impressive. Gosling’s saving grace was that he tried to put some emotion into it, covering his lack of ability.
The dancing was generally great, but, again, there was something missing. I thought about the dancing that I’d seen from prior musicals and there is a clear difference in energy and movement between one who has trained in this style of dance all their lives versus someone who spent a few months in pre-production trying to get up to speed. This is simply my opinion. I imagine that a person who is not analyzing the film as closely as I was may have a different opinion and not even notice. In fact, a friend that I watched the film with liked that they were less talented in regards to singing and dancing. She said that it added authenticity to their performances.
Furthermore, I’m not sure casting no names with greater dancing, singing, and acting ability would have been a good idea despite my complaints. Star power is a real thing. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are familiar faces and have worked together on two prior movies. They have convincing chemistry on screen and in this film. I’m not sure this movie would have worked without that name recognition or that chemistry. I’d watched a clip on YouTube where the director comments that he casted the two because of their chemistry, that they were like a Bogart and a Bacall. After watching this film, I agree. This film centers on the relationship between these two and without Stone or Gosling or another pair of known actors with similar abilities, this film probably wouldn’t work. There would likely be a lot less people who would even watch it.
Score: 8/10 By the end of the film, I was choking back tears. A friend asked what I thought and it was all I could do to give a thumbs up. I applauded along with the audience I watched it with. It’s a great film done in a style that has not been seen in a while. Don’t listen to the soundtrack first. Don’t go in with too many predictions or expectations. Just walk in with an open mind and give it a watch. You’ll have a good time.
Details: Stars Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Runs for under two hours. Rated PG. Released in 2016.
Moana is the latest animated movie to come out in a year of many good animated children’s movies. Despite the many positive reviews I’ve read, I felt fatigued from this movie, similarly to how I felt about Doctor Strange and other superhero movies. I still liked the movie, I just didn’t love it or find it as emotional as other reviews I’ve read.
The premise is this: Moana, the chieftain’s daughter in her island village, must seek out the demigod, Maui and return a magical stone in order to prevent the corruption of her island and the seas.
I felt like this was watching the classic Disney formula at work. First, find a foreign, non-white culture. Check. Get some big names, like the Rock, in there. Check. Throw in some music written my a well known song writer (like Lin Manuel Miranda). Check. Cute animals? Check. Adventure where protagonist finds herself? Check check check check.
It’s retread territory. Furthermore, I felt that this movie had less adult elements in it than a film like Finding Dory, which made it harder for me to appreciate the movie. Whenever I watch a kids film, the adult elements hidden within are what keep me interested. There was few of that here.
The music was also generally not great. I mean it was good, but most of the people aren’t great singers. The Rock isn’t a great singer. Lin Manuel Miranda also doesn’t have much range and that’s mostly why he mostly raps in Hamilton. However, while their singing parts weren’t great, the music overall was pretty good.
The best part of this movie was easily Auli’i Cravalho and the songs she sang. Her songs were the most moving and best sounding parts of the movie. She was a really good casting decision as Moana.
One final note: they cast Alan Tudyk as a chicken. Why the heck would you do something so cruel Disney? Give the man a better part for crying out loud.
Score: 6/10 Feels redundant, like I’ve already seen this movie before.
Muse Bank 