Admission

    So, this movie was different than what I expected. It was much more serious, but still pretty good. Paul Rudd and Tina Fey were both good (as was expected), and their chemistry was pretty good. I'm just not entirely sure I really liked the different plot.
    So, my expectation, which came from the trailer, was that it would be a funny movie about a quirky admissions officer's falling in love despite herself while traveling around the country to do her job. The movie wasn't exactly different from that, but the focus really changed from being on the weird/stressful admissions job to an interesting plot twist that explains the guarded nature of Tina Fey and also turns her into a bad admissions officer (but a good person).
     Like I said, the twist was good for character development and definitely pushed the story along to make it a little more than your average romantic comedy. However, I'm not entirely sure I actually liked it. I don't really know what it was. Maybe it was the fact that Tina Fey's character let one moment ruin her life. Maybe it was the fact that that one thing continued to mess up her life (she does not end the movie as an admissions officer). Maybe it's because it "shine a light" on the shitty admissions process that made me uncomfortable having gone through two cycles of rejections thus far. I'm not really sure. All I can say is I left the theater unsatusfued with the movie, and that dissatisfaction was not because of the acting, the jokes, the seriousness, or the ending.
    It wasn't a movie where I laughed the WHOLE time, but it was pretty dang funny. But seriously, how could it not be with the leads? I have yet to really hate (or not laugh in) a movie with Paul Rudd as the lead (I haven't seen This Is Forty yet, so I'm not saying it doesn't exist). Tina Fey is funny too. But since this had a serious turn, there were also definitely moments where I could not laugh.
    I the end, I give this a 6 out of 10. Not great, but not bad.

The Master

    So, this was an interesting movie. It was really hard for me to find the point, so I kept watching, hoping that it would all make sense and come together at some point. Unfortunately, it did not. The acting was stellar, hence all of the awards nominations, but the story itself just wasn't there. A movie is more than just it's moving parts, but this movie did not seem to embrace that concept.
   The trailer, and the descriptions at the awards shows, describe this movie as one that goes through a man's journey through life and his involvement in a famous cult. I love The Following, Criminal Minds, really any crazy, psychological, crime drama, so needless to say, I was very intrigued. This also just made me very disappointed as well. I also recently discovered that this was supposed to be a description of the beginning of Scientology which also makes it even more lack luster.
    There really is not much for me to say, because there really wasn't much to the plot. Joaquin Phoenix was a drunk, and maybe a druggie, who made his own alcohol that included paint thinner and things (old-timey meth?) that may have actually killed a man who drank it.  After he maybe kills the man, he runs, goes on a bender, and somehow ends up on Phillip Seymore Hoffman's boat full of cult-like followers. Phillip Seymore Hoffman then tries to change and better Joaquin Phoenix, but ends up failing (I think). There is the background of Phillip Seymore Hoffman trying to combat the cult charges against him, but that is really secondary to the hodge-podge development of his relationship with Joaquin Phoenix. None of it really makes sense, to me.
    So, in the end, this gets a 3 out of 10 in my book.

Independence Day

    So, I know this isn't prototypical of my reviews, but I am doing this because of a special request. :) I love this movie. It was great when I was a kid, it is equally great now, despite all of its little flaws. Sometimes it's just the imperfections that really make you appreciate how magical something used to be.
    I grew up with this movie, it was the start of the doomsday alien movies for me, and it was a great one. Will Smith was, and still is really, super hot, Bill Pullman is, and probably always will be, one of my favorite presidents, and you can't go wrong with Jeff Goldbloom or Judd Hirsch. Yes, Jeff Goldbloom may be an asshole, but he does well as the neurotic asshole in dramatic, end-of-the-world type movies.
    Now, the plot is a bit ridiculous for many reasons. As Francis pointed out, how is it that an alien race that is so far superior with defenses, weapons, general intelligence, etc. is taken out by a simple computer virus. How crazy is it that they did not have a super advanced form of Norton or McAfee to go along with their impenetrable physical defenses? Also, they spent at least 15 minutes blowing up holes in the big alien ship outside of Area 51, that does no damage, BUT one man in one plane goes up the center of the HUGE ship and then it falls to pieces? I think not, but that is the magic of an end-of-the-world action film, impossible things happen and you love it! Even bringing up these questions does not shake my love of this movie!
      Some more unexplained scenes: Area-51 has a full medical center that even in the late 1990s cannot stop internal bleeding, they have a chapel, and they have a room where bullets literally bounce off the walls....with a "poing" and all! There is nothing wrong with nuclear infused fireworks. Fire somehow does not go in every crevice available. And, again, a superior alien race is taken out by a 1990s computer virus.
     Now, as I started, I love this movie. The fact that I am pointing out some obvious flaws only makes me appreciate how much I enjoyed this movie. It is ridiculous, it is kind of supposed to be (sort of), and the imperfections really do just make me like it more. I can have even more fun with it!
    In the end, I give this movie an 8 out of 10.

Wreck-It Ralph

     This movie is updated version of Toy Story. Instead of your stuffed animals coming to life and having a whole separate, secret world, your video games do. It's a cute idea, and of course there is the growing and learning and blah that always accompanies children movies, but it fell short of my expectations.
    Part of the disappointment might stem from my intense hatred of Sarah Silverman. She is the worst. But I don't think that is entirely it. However, she is one of the stars by being a fellow outcast that leads to the defeat of the true evil character in this story, so it definitely relates to the movie as a whole.
    This was a cute movie, don't mistake me, I enjoyed it. But, it was not what I was expecting. My problem with children's movies is that I keep trying to hold them all to the same standard as Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles, etc, yet, rarely does a children's movie meet those standards. I get it, not every movie can be as good as Finding Nemo, but man, I feel sorry for parents who have to sit through these movies over and over and over again. They are cute for seeing once, maybe twice, but they would be insufferable to watch as much as I'm sure a child would.
    Like I said, I feel like this is today's version of Toy Story. All of the children now are playing video games, computer games, cellphone/ipod games, and this movie brings them to life outside of the game. That is a cool idea, and it could have been a great movie. It just wasn't. The story was moving along very well, Ralph was sad, he was moving from game to game and causing problems. Jane Lynch got involved and had a pretty terrible back story. It was kind of cute. Then it stalled on one super sweet, high pitched whiny story. That's where things kind of fell apart.
    They tried to fix it by having the bugs be a continuous under current (no pun intended for those of you who have seen the movie, hehe), and connecting the original evil to the end, but it still just fell short.
     In the end, I give this a 6 out of 10. It was cute, just not up to snuff.

Zero Dark Thirty

     Kathryn Bigelow really likes her war movies. And why not? She's pretty good and them. The Hurt Locker was a pretty powerful movie. This one is a close second. There is a flaw, it is about 20 to 30 minutes too long. She moves along pretty well by covering 10 years in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Then she ends by covering about 20 to 30 minutes in about 45. It is the climax of the movie, so lots of attention needs to focus on the details, I get it, but man, I was simply exhausted and this ending really made me remember that.

    I also did not appreciate the ending very much because it kind of ruined Osama Bin Laden's death for me. My understanding of what happened at the compound was that the Navy SEALs had no choice but to kill the people there, included Osama Bin Laden, however, that is not how the movie portrayed the events. Yes, they had to kill some people because they started shooting first, but they did not have to kill everyone there, and they certainly did not have to kill Osama. I'm going to leave it at that and not soap box. Be proud of me.

   Jessica Chastain did a great job. She was haggard, she was a bitch, a lot of bad things happened to her and her friends. She was obsessed. She was everything you'd expect a badass CIA woman who found Bin Laden to be. That being said, I definitely liked Jennifer Lawrence better, but that might be just because I liked her character more. I felt like Jason Clarke was truly the unsung hero of the film. He was fantastic. He played a completely detached CIA operative turned Washington suit excellently and really stole the whole show for me. He was the only character I actually liked in the whole film.

    Like I said, Jessica Chastain was a bitch. She was obsessed with finding Bin Laden, so I was not particularly surprised she did. I was not cheering for her to win, but I was interested in seeing how the whole story played out. Not because I wanted justice to be done, not because I empathized with her, not because I  wanted her to get redeemed and find success. I was interested in the story, not the characters involved in it. Aside from Jason Clarke, I really liked him.

    On the whole, this was well done. And the fact that I did not care about a majority of the characters, but still enjoyed the movie should speak volumes for this movie. Thinking about how that played out, I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before. It really was a good story that was done well under Kathryn Bigelow's proven direction.

    In the end, I give this an 8.5 out of 10. I'm glad I watched it; I will probably watch it again at some point and more than once; I will not own it.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

   This is the Unexpected Journey portion of the book turned trilogy series, as such, it is appropriately named. I loved the Hobbit, and I was kind of excited when I heard Peter Jackson was dividing the book into more than one movie. Despite what some of the critics say, there is A LOT in the Hobbit, so it needs to be separated into more than one movie to do it justice. However, I draw the line at two. This does not need to be a trilogy, as evidenced by this movie.
   Normally, I dislike movies from books that I have read because the movie never really seems to do the book justice. There isn't enough attention to detail, things are left out, things are completely changed, etc. This movie did not have that fault. It has been a while since I read The Hobbit, about 13 years I believe, but I'm pretty sure this hit every single line in the book so far. So, you would think I would have LOVED it. But alas, it still fell short. I appreciate that when you turn a book into a movie, you're going to have to leave something out to make it a good movie. This movie proves that.
     I know I seem overly harsh because on the one side I hate it when they take too much out, but then on the other hand I also don't enjoy it when they leave too much in. However, this is because there is a reason to read the book and a reason to see the movie. One is more for entertainment than the other. A movie is not supposed to be 9 hours long, then it's a mini-series. It is supposed to be a quick fix. I brings the book to life in a way that most people can't. It's a companion, not a replacement. Turning The Hobbit into a trilogy makes the movie replace the book, not accompany it.
     There is not THAT much entertainment value in almost 3 hours of setting up all of the things that are going to happen in the next movies. Yes, I enjoyed it, to some extent, but I was also bored to some extent. I want to see the next installment now, not in a year. However, that desire is because I want to see the truly exciting parts of the story that I already know, not because this movie left me wanting that much more.
    Sorry for the diatribe on books to movies, but I felt like this was the best way to explain my feelings about the movie. It was boring, not because I wasn't invested, but because I got lost in the bark when Mr. Jackson should have been loosing me in the forest. (Sorry for the over-used forest for the trees analogy we law school kids have heard too often these last almost 3 years!) The acting was good, the story-line is, obviously good, the connections to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that I missed when reading this prequel before LOTR, is fascinating, and I do look forward to seeing the other two films. I was just underwhelmed with this movie standing alone.
     In the end, I give this a 6.5 out of 10. If I didn't love the story so much it would be worse.
 

Django Unchained

    In a word, overrated. Now, don't write this off as a reflection of how I simply don't like or appreciate the true genius of Quentin Tarantino. I absolutely loved Inglorious Basterds, I really liked Kill Bill Vol.1 and 2, I loved Pulp Fiction, etc. I genuinely do like Quentin Tarantino's work and do not begrudge him his taste for excessive violence. In fact, I generally find his violence horribly hilarious.
   That being said, I was disappointed by this movie. I don't mean I didn't like it, though a horrendously bad mood caused me to think so immediately after watching it. I just meant that I wanted something better. The Academy seems to agree since they "snubbed" him in not nominating him for Best Director, though his film did receive many other nominations. My bone to pick is not with individual scenes, not with violence, not with the psuedo mockery of slavery, slave owners, and the entire slave culture. My bone to pick is with the disconnectedness of the whole film/story and Samuel L. Jackson.
   It starts with Christolph Waltz only wanting Jamie Foxx because he knows what a couple bounties look like. One bounty, and done. However, because Jamie Foxx's "wife" is a slave named Broomhilda. The name is from a German fairy tale and purports to set the plot for the rest of the movie. For a while it does, and I guess in the end it does, but not in the best way. The problem comes in when Samuel L. Jackson fucks shit up and acts like a crazy. I usually appreciate his crass and stupidity, but here I did not. I especially disliked his moderately useless soliloquy towards the end of the film. Though I guess it does make it a little more fun when he does ultimately die.
   There are some really funny moments in this movie. Jamie Foxx gets to pick his own outfit, and it's excellent. There is a whole wanna-be KKK scene that severely mocks the entire organization that is also excellent. Quentin Tarantino gets blown up, and a woman gets blown into oblivion, which are also funny. Chistolph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio were both excellent, and Jamie Foxx was predictably good.
   So in the end, I give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. It's no Inglorious Basterds, yet it wasn't bad.