A Monter Calls

This is one of those times where an advertising campaign grossly misadvertises the movie. Remember when everyone thought "Lady in the Water" was going to be a horror film but it ended up being a fantasy? Same thing here. I thought this was going to be a fun fantasy "Boy and his creature" movie in the same vein as "E.T." or "Pete's Dragon," but this was actually a very serious drama. It was well acted, the CGI on the monster is some of the best I've ever seen (between this and the Beast in the "Beauty and the Beast" remake, I'm getting more and more amazed and impressed at how CGI/motion capture is getting more realistic, without being creepy like with "Polar Express") and even the story, though it was depressing was still very well told. My one issue with the casting is that Hollywood for some reason loves to cast Sigourney Weaver in mean roles. Every movie I've seen her in, her character is the meanest in the film. It's been that way for 30 years, to the point where it's almost a trope like "Sean Bean must die in everything he's in". She is very good in this, but it's the same character as every other movie she's been in. Personally, I didn't like this movie. I wanted to, but it was just too depressing. There is no hope to this film, and it just leaves you sad. Personally I blame that on the marketing advertising it as something it wasn't. Now that being said, the film is done very well. It's hard to get a huge range of emotion from child actors, and the actor who plays the boy absolultely rocks it. His sadness and anger feel genuine. When he has to come to terms with the bad hand life has dealt him, you understand why he does what he does. Sometimes the film was a bit hard to understand (is the monster real? Is he a metaphor?) and the story didn't flow very well at times. But I get it. The film is based off a book (which I haven't read) so things need to be taken out for time reasons. It was a well-made movie but it was super depressing.

Grade: C    7/10    3.5/5 stars

La La Land

I can see why this won Best Picture, even if it was only for 30 seconds. This film was fantastic! I'm not usually a fan of live-action musicals, which is why I waited to rent this one, but this was a great movie! Although, it is a little pretentious and narcissitic, but hey, it's an Oscar-nominated film. That's the very definiton. Given that this is the only movie that I've seen Ryan Gosling in, I can't really compare his role in this film to previous works, so for what I got it was great. His singing is pretty good. And now we move to Emma Stone. As far as acting goes, she was fantastic, but her singing ability is average, and at times a bit off key. I've heard better, but I've definietely heard worse. This movie goes into date-night movie territory, but never chick flick territory, thank goodness. (Hey, I'm a guy. I'm not the target audience for those). Overall this was a fun romp, and it deserved every award it was nominated for and won with the exception of Best Costume Design. (What costumes? It's just regular clothes.) The story was pretty good, the chemistry between Gosling and Stone was believable, although sometimes the drama and arguments were a bit overacted, and the choreography and songs were awesome! I am going to be listening to the soundtrack on repeat for a long time. I cannot get these songs out of my head. It's a mix of jazz, pop, funk, a little bit of everything. There's something for everyone to love in this fun musical romp.

Grade: B  8/10  3.5/5 stars

Assassin's Creed

I was really skeptical about this one, because it's a video game movie, and those are hit-or-miss. (Mostly miss.) I also knew very little about the source material going in, but that gave me an advantage because I was able to judge it purely on its own merit as a film and not based on whether or not it was a "faithful adaptation." I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot was a little silly at points, and some times it felt like it was hitting me over the head by constantly reiterating "This is the hero's goal. This is the artifact we're looking for. Don't forget it. You won't foreget it because we're going to drill it into your head 20 more times in the next 10 minutes," and that got annoying really fast, but overall I enjoyed this movie. It had a sort of futurisitc "Indiana Jones'' feel. The acting from Michael Fassbender was fantastic. His performance was by far the best one in the movie. The action sequences were well choreographed, and this film was super fun! Unfortunately, since this is a video game movie which did terribly with critics, this probably won't get a sequel, which is a shame, really, considering that the film ends on a mild cliffhanger. (Why couldn't this have just stood alone?) Seems like the filmmakers put the cart before the horse by planning on making this a franchise before seeing how well it actually did. I really want a sequel to this, but even if we don't get one, I still enjoyed myself. It was a lot more fun than I expected, and surprisingly well-done, especially for a video game movie.
Grade: B. 8/10 4/5 stars

Lion

Congrats to me! This is my 150th post!

This movie was amazing! I'm still overwhelmed by how fantastic and beautifully done this was! It's one of the few non R-rated Best Picture nominees of 2016, so I decided to give this rare oppurtunity a shot. I'm so glad I did. This is an absolute must see. The first half of the film is in different dialects of Indian with English sutitles, and that can be kind of hard to get through, but about 45 minutes or so into the movie when the dialouge is mostly in English for the remainder of the film. Dev Patel and costar Rooney Mara have something in common. They've both starred in terrible films, but have redeemed themselves with Oscar nominated films. (Patel was in that garbage "Last Airbender" movie, and Mara was in the most recent "Fantastic Four" remake and "Pan", but has starred in "The Martian which I liked.) This deserves the Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay awards it won. I agree with some critics that some parts of the film moved at a slow pace, but in my opinion the emotion portrayed in those scenes far outweighs the slow pace. The film is emotional and nearly made me cry. It's an absolutely fantastic and brilliant piece of cinema. 

Grade; A+  10/10  5/5 stars

Boss Baby

Sadly, this wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. It was still pretty good, just not the laugh riot I was expecting. It's still clever, but it's...a Dreamworks movie. You get what you expect when you hear Dreamworks. It was by no means a bad film. I actually quite enjoyed it, it just could have had a bit more effort thrown in to it. The plot is pretty clever (although some of it doesn't really make sense, but hey, it's a kids movie. It's supposed to be silly), the voice acting is pretty good (Especially from Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Kimmel), but overall I don't think most people will remember it in 5 years. It will probably be the same case that it was with "Over the Hedge" or "Shark Tale" where when you mention it people will say "Oh yeah...that came out..." Still a pretty good, cute, harmless kids movie (kids will definetely enjoy it) but overall, not very memorable. The film has some really cute moments, and there were some jokes that I laughed at, but it wasn't as good as the trailers made it seem. 

Grade: B   8/10   3.5/5 stars

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I was extremely skeptical about this movie. I actually thoght the people who saw it opening weekend were suckers. Why would I see a movie that I already own, just with a different cast? Why should I support this extremely blatant cashgrab? But after literally almost everyone I know raving about how amazing and marvelous it was, I finally decided "Well, I haven't really heard anything bad about it. I'll give it a chance.", and I'm glad I did. This was amazing! Everything from the sets, to the costumes, to the CGI, to the acting was marvelous. I dare say that in some ways it was even better than the original. I try to keep my reviews spoiler free, but unfortunately mild spoilers are needed in this review so I can give specific reasons why I thonk this is superior to the animated one, so if you don't want spoilers stop reading now.

Some complaints that most people had with the animated version were:

"Why does the witch curse the beast when he was a child and was only following stranger danger rules?"

"Why did all the servants get cursed too? They were innocent!"

"Why does everyone turn their nose up at Belle for reading of all things?"

Here's what happened. This version makes more sense and that is why I think this one is superior.

It begins with the Beast (as a human) as a young adult and he is at a ball with potential suitors one of whom will be his wife. Big age difference. The line in "Be Our Guest" changes from "For 10 years we have been rusting," to "For so long we have been rusting."

The servants were cursed because after the Beast's mom the queen died, his father became cruel and abusive, and the servants got cursed because they just stood by and watched. (Which doesn't make much sense either, but it's better than the "Because they just happened to be there" reason in the original)

Everyone is a jerk to Belle because they are illilterate, so it doesn't make sense for her to read.

The songs were awesome! I had no idea Emma Watson had such an amazing voice. Ewan McGregor still can't do accents, but his singing is still pretty good. Dan Stevens (The Beast) should be on Broadway, because he has some impressive singing chops. Luke Evans (Gaston) doesn't sound brutish enough, which is one aspect where the animated is slightly better, but they made up for that by making him a creepy stalker, so it balances out. Josh Gad....oh boy....well,....he does his typical schtick. I don't like it, but I know what I'm getting. He has one character. He's not good, but I knew what I was getting going in to it.  As much as I hate to say it, I'm actually quite excited for the next Disney live action remakes. Are they unneccesary? Yes. Will they be good? Who knows, but if they do what they did here, I think they will be. 

Grade: A-    9/10     4/5 stars

Kong: Skull Island

Man, oh man, was this movie fun! While I liked Peter Jackson's version, this definetly blows it out of the water! It's totally epic! I'm surprised this wasn't released in the summer, because it's definely got that summer blockbuster feel. One criticism people had with 2014's "Godzilla" was that it moved too slowly and took forever for Godzilla to actually show up, and I agree. This fixes that mistake by showing Kong in the opening scene to tide us over, and then doing the buildup. The tone and feel of this movie reminded me of "Indiana Jones." It's a fun island survival movie. In my opinion, one thing "Godzilla" suffered from was the human characters just weren't that interesting. That was not the case here. The characters are written very well, with clear goals and conflicts. The scale of Kong and the island as a whole are impressively huge. Do not watch this movie on your phone. Watch it on the biggest screen possible with an epic sound system for full immersion. Keep in mind the movie, in my opinion, really pushes the PG-13 rating. Some of the violence and deaths can get really brutal. Yet it still manages to balance it out with humor. (Particularly from John C. Reilly's character.) Godzilla had a very dark, bleak, and overall depressing and hopeless tone. (Although those monster fight sequences were awesome!!!!!) This has an action movie tone and is extremely intense at times. Some of the creatures they came up with for the island are really cool, and definetely not stuff I felt I had seen before. It's impressive that a movie that's been remade and redone again and again and again since the 30's still manages to bring something new to the table, while also retaining that classic feel. 

Grade: A-  9/10  4/5 stars