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Reviews
Murder Mystery (2019)
Lighthearted enjoyment
This movie is definitely not very serious, but not in a bad way. So if you are going in expecting Oscar-worthy material. You'll be disappointed.
However, the movie does exactly what it is meant to do. It is quite riveting and it definitely entertains. It's funny, the action scenes are exciting, and the chemistry is great between the actors.
This is a great way to pass the time and have a laugh along the way.
Paddleton (2019)
What a refreshing film
The movie spells out its plot right in the beginning which I'll touch on. But don't worry, even if you do read spoilers, it wouldn't change the experience. The filming was great, and everything served its purpose.
So right off the bat Michael (Mark Duplass) is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Andy (Romano), his best friend is gonna help him see it through.
I knew what would happen for the rest of the film, but I wanted to watch it anyway, and see it to the end.
The film was simple in many ways, but one that really captured a true male friendship. Not a lot needed to be said, but everything was said. Not a lot really happened, but a lot happened. I felt like I was watching two people who had been together their whole lives. There was excellent chemistry, with some really casually funny moments. I didn't even realize that I was seeing the film through Andy's eyes. That I was thinking what he was thinking, and by the end I was feeling sad, but ultimately I was happy that Michael got to live how he wanted to.
So in summary:
If you want to watch an easy film that somehow magnifies the true importance of each day with the people you truly love spending time with. Then you should watch Paddleton.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Nearly a perfect masterpiece for fans, fantastic continuation of the old series.
There are no spoilers in this, which makes it vague, however if you are going to see the movie this is what you need to know, it's not specifically about the movie, but the experience.
Ever since I was a tiny boy I have loved Star Wars. I am now 21. Lucas had the vision for this fantastic universe, but ruined the execution, as a kid I didn't notice and fell in love but as an adult, I realized all the flaws and it upset me somewhat. However! When I went in to see this film before anybody spoiled it for me, It took me right back to my childhood, I was instantly 4 years old, totally captivated and in awe of this universe, I had goosebumps many times, I cried during the film in joy and sadness.
First thing is the acting, a big round of applause, the actors all were phenomenal, the characters were funny and played their roles in a manner that made them seem like real people in a crazy galaxy, However! The stand out performance goes to Harrison Ford. Han Solo, even as an old man is at his all time best, he is A witty, funny, cynical, wry, smooth talking fast shooting, troublemaking fearless bad ass. He is everything you could envision and how the books (Non canon) depict him and I feel like this is one large part why everyone connected with the movie so well.
Secondly Is that JJ Abrams lets you feel the emotions, if you recall. Lucas's style was to do this thing where if the scene was meant to be emotional, he would force it onto you to the point where it got cheesy in the originals, or cringeworthy in the prequels. In this film, emotional scenes are not dragged on, the actors don't pull crazy faces, but somehow, the weight of it all is there and the director lets you feel it yourself.
Adding to that, the film really lets you figure things out, it doesn't include every piece of information you need, it gives you some, and then you fill in the obvious blanks, the plot was very believable and followed a fairly natural trajectory, scenes didn't feel odd and out of place, Lucas fell down there big time, No useless scenes that don't add to the movie like staring out windows for long periods of time, or big dragged out, unnecessary dialogue which states the obvious.
The fourth thing I wanted to talk about were the actions scenes, my goodness they were fantastic. Blasters were powerful like the original trilogy, they cause a lot of damage, and the shootout scenes are believable. People actually get hit, the scenes are dark and frightening like war should be, and Stormtroopers are very lethal, these guys really, really know how to shoot. Another hallmark of a captivating film, The director has not gone crazy on jump cuts, many of the action scenes are shot from only a few wider angles so you can see everything that is happening like you are out there watching, I was transfixed, wide eyed and awed watching the Star Fighter scenes, they were incredible, just as tense as the Trench Run, but even more brilliantly put together, and again, shot from wider angles so you can see how they manoeuvre, the amazing skills of the pilots flying at breakneck speeds in life or death situations.
There is lightsaber battle scenes, and these are also well shot, tense and not over the top, it's not a series of spins and backflips that at times got out of hand in the prequels, which were definitely cool, but I feel like they got it right in this movie, they are tense and exhilarating and really show the skill levels of the different fighters, rather than a cool blur of blue and red which while exciting, is hard to perceive who is winning, I won't reveal any more on the subject.
As a proper review I will point out a few issues that I didn't mind, but were present. - The plot seemed slightly rehashed at parts, perhaps this was to draw in the old viewers with something familiar -Because the film was only two hours long, it did feel slightly rushed towards the end, like a key step was missed, however at the same time I feel it might not have been necessary because some points in the plot, like the battles were more of a secondary plot to what was really being focused on in the film, a backdrop if you will. - Characters skill sets were impressive without much backstory for them, however I could put it down to letting us fill in the blanks and letting us imagine how before the film they became skilled rather than throwing in one or two scenes of somebody training.
Overall The film was the best Star Wars yet in terms of direction. Perhaps the other ones had better plots, but the lack of obvious holes, fantastic direction and use of only the important scenes really makes it shine.
Any viewer, whether they have loved or hated Star Wars, or even seen the other movies will enjoy this film tremendously, a fantastic Sci- Fi flick all on its own. 9.5/10.
Funny People (2009)
Slightly Confused, but refreshing.
Funny People was an interesting movie, some people say it isn't funny at all, but it really is at times, it's just darker than your usual comedy, it's definitely not the horrible reviews some people give it. Also there is no spoilers here, what I type is in the trailer anyway.
George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a rich and lonely a-hole, who used to be a huge Stand Up comedian and made some shoddy movies, Kind of like Eddie Murphy in that sense, then George becomes ill and decides to seek some meaning in his life, he has an epiphany of sorts I suppose, in doing this he heads down to the local stand-up comedy parlor and meets a young comedian, Ira (Seth Rogen) and befriends him and offers him a job writing Jokes for him, he ends up becoming his best friend, his only real friend, Ira is the only person who knows about the illness and George Simmons life is starting to change, he stops being a self centered, a-hole During this time we meet Ira's friends and see the nice various little sub-plots going on with some relationships and the film starts to get really interesting, and you want to get involved.
Now shortly after this, the film kinda goes haywire, a big twist, I am not going spoil it and say what happens, but many of those subplots I was talking about disappear and a new main plot takes place, much of the humor comes from this, but similarly a lot more drama takes place, and Adam Sandler is not-that-great at the Drama side of it, his voice goes all quiet and croaky, perhaps it could have worked with a different actor, I don't really know, Sandler did okay, but he handles his drama wrong. The movie is still good and I feel that what occurs during this twist is great and very complex, confusing at times, and interesting, but it comes at the cost of what began unfolding at the start of the film which is a shame.
The film has a great resolve though, I really like the ending, while the route to it was confused, complicated and or contorted, I like how it ended, it returned to its roots at the close. Unfortunately I am left missing the sub plots that were never fully explored.
The Life & Times of Tim (2008)
I haven't laughed so hard at a Show for a while.
So in Australia SBS is the channel with weird-as sit on late at night, IE; A cartoon about a lady bus-driver who sucks every passengers...yeah.
Anyway I was bored, it was 11:30 at night, and this show came on, I watched from the beginning, the show looked shaky at best, less than a minute in I was chuckling, it then turned into non-stop laughs for me, by the time I had recovered from one hilarious section, another hit me, I couldn't stop laughing, it was hilarious, the combination of terrible situations combined with dry humor/sarcasm at the ridiculousness of the situation makes this a great combination. It's like when your friend crashes his car, get's out and says "Well this is good."
10/10 Very dry, very original, very funny.
Doraleous and Associates (2010)
This show is brilliant.
This is definitely the most hilarious short film Saga on Youtube I have ever seen, the voice acting is awesome, and not at all cheesy. The show places Doraleous who is a normal sort of person in a world with unusual cartoon like characters.
What seems totally normal to other characters completely dumb-founds doraleuous, like when Bruf wears a mustache and Nobody recognizes him, but Doraleous finds it ridiculous, these kinds of Gags are prevalent playing on the ridiculouslessness of the characters in the show which consists of now 25 short episodes between 5-10 minutes long, people old and young will enjoy the show since it's just funny, but not stupid, it's quite clever as well in its humour.
Looper (2012)
Very enjoyable, impeccable acting, interesting storyline.
Alright today i saw Looper, i have been wanting to be seeing it for some time, straight up i will tell you it's a great film, definitely worth a watch unless you're one of those people that hates anything that isn't exactly like real life, that's what a lot of negativity for the film is for, forget about the world, get into the world of the movie you are watching, who gives a darn if time travel is ridiculous? In our world it is, but in the world of the film it is not. Transformers doesn't get picked on for being unrealistic, neither does The Terminator, Spiderman, Superman, anything like that, so this film should not be picked on for those reasons either.
Where to start? Well i'll outline the plot without spoiling it, a looper is a person who kills people from 30 years in the future so as to remove them from existence, in Loopers Joseph Gordon Levitt is given a job to kill his future self who is played by Bruce Willis, this is an interesting concept in itself which makes more sense when you watch the film, through the use of tight directing and techniques this will become apparent to you.
Looper went too great lengths to make sure the plot was tight and lacking inconsistencies/holes, everything made sense in the film and it wasn't a hard film to follow, that's not to say it didn't make me think after-wards, smaller details within the film were also kept track of, they didn't seem to forget any details at all, the film also seemed real, guns were nowhere near as accurate as Hollywood makes them out to be in a shoot-out, even the hero made plenty of stuff ups which i liked, it made the action sequences more real, not simply the enemies having bad aim and the main Character just being perfect with a gun.
Technical details aside the plot was brilliant, plenty of twists and turns, not jarring, but enough to keep you interested and making it hard to guess exactly what's going to happen, a few times in the movie i thought i knew what was going to happen and i turned out wrong, there were some false trails put into the movie to try and put you off-track and have you guessing at the wrong possibilities, thinking back the story arc was a bit strange in the direction it ultimately took and the ending was not what i was expecting, nobody was expecting, the whole cinema was quiet when it ended which was saying a lot considering half of the cinema was full of teenagers. Despite having said this at the the same time i appreciate that the story was changing direction because some sections of the film did drag on a few minutes longer than i would have liked. The acting? Now this was one of the films very strong points, Joseph Gordon Levitt is a damn fine actor, he will be as mentioned by many, a star. He plays a cocky young killer, he nails it 100% and picks up a whole bunch of Willis mannerisms which most definitely make a difference in making JGL seem like a younger Bruce Willis, coupled with great direction you see plenty of close-ups capturing those minute facial expressions which mean so much more than even large obvious expressions, a slight shift of the eyes change JGL from a cocky young killer to a man worried about his mortality. As always Willis is good playing his usual role so i don't think i need to go there. Emily Blunt, She played her role in the film well, so well she invoked in me the frustrations that other characters in the film undoubtedly felt.
By the way if you're worried about not understanding the story, don't worry, the characters are distinctive and easy to remember and the plot isn't made to be confusing like films such as Inception. but it will make you think. Go see the film, but don't be one of those guys, by that i mean "This film sucked! I mean time travel in 30 years? The mob running cities? Killing your older self? That's stupid."
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Terrible terrible horror movie satire blah blah.
I am very confused as to what this movie was trying to achieve, it certainly tried many but failed as listed below.
1. Horror? Well no it wasn't scary in the slightest,(except in the beginning when an old man storms out of the gas station, but that wasn't even meant to be scary) sound was used poorly and the effects sucked and the story made no sense whatsoever.
2. Satire? Well it failed at that too, Tucker & Dale vs Evil was satire, this was perhaps trying at it at some points, but it was muddled with actual attempts at horror.
3. Comedy? All attempts of humor failed in my eyes, except for perhaps one joke, i did however laugh, but only because of how stupid it was, kinda like when a friend makes a terrible joke, but you laugh because it was so dumb.
4. Interesting Plot? Alright, the plot was bloody ridiculous unless you happen to believe in creationism and Egyptian gods, the plot didn't make any sense at all, it was just stupid, like the whole film.
This is the first time IMDb has given me such a horribly incorrect recommendation at 7.4 with 580+ reviewers, pure garbage this film is, don't even waste 2 hours on it.
The Watch (2012)
It was fun, a little breath of fresh-air.
First off, don't read other reviews about this, it will ruin the unexpected plot and you will probably go in with a negative view. Somebody else said that this isn't a cinematic masterpiece and that's pretty much what i agree with, but it wasn't meant to be, it had some refreshing dialogue that wasn't so much punchlines, but funny conversations,the whole movie itself was just funny in general, the plot was ridiculous but at the same time it was really funny because it was just a big joke. The same people who rate this movie down are the same people who go rate down Schwarzenegger films because they have a silly plot, it's not about the plot, it's about hardcore action and silly punchlines, just like this movie is about funny conversations and a fun plot.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
It was great.
Batman was fantastic, it was a little over-hyped though, i think it was on par with the second one actually.
Performances - As usual all the acting was great, they were clearly real people and the dialogue sounded real, no stupid punchlines that no-one would ever say.
Plot - It was decent, played out very similarly to the first two in core elements, Gotham is fine, evil Bad-guy comes etc, though i do wish the scale of Havoc and destruction in the film increased more, we didn't really see a whole lot of what bane was doing, i think 165minutes wasn't long enough for this movie, they should have extended it a little more.
There were some tear-jerker moments and i dropped a few inconspicuous ones in the cinema, and similar to the Dark Knight's line from Luscious Fox concerning his job "Guess you didn't get the memo" at the end of the film, which just adds a nice touch.
Overall 9/10, it was a good film with plenty of action but it didn't quite live up to it's hype, it was close though.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Eh, finally got around to seeing it...
I loved the other spidermans, but this was laughable, i don't mean that as in it was pathetically poor, i mean that i was actually laughing at how silly Evil Spiderman is, the black fringe, the ridiculous strut as he walks down the street pointing at women he thought were pretty, i actually laughed at how stupid it was.
The beginning of the movie was okay though, Spiderman was getting a big head, but Spidey and Harry were beginning to make-up. Then of course we meet the bad guy, or rather he is thrust on us with no background story at all, just some random guy out to cause havoc for no reason.
They unfortunately screwed this movie, i give it 5 out of 10 because it started out OK, but slowly deteriorated into a ridiculously stupid movie filled with spite and revenge which generally just makes you feel bad.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The best most imaginative films of all time.
The star wars films are such hope invoking and awe inspiring films to ever grace me, i have watched them several times since i was young, and have read over a hundred books 2 or three times, perhaps more for some.
The films are so imaginative and were the first real films of their kind in my opinion, the characters are brilliant and relatable and the film is so incredibly epic.
Honestly i cut the review short, i don't want to ramble for 100 pages on why it is great and about all the characters, so i will just say how much i love the star wars universe and how i would love to be amongst it.
Star wars is brilliant, a must watch.