127 Hours (2010)

From Academy Award winning Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later) comes 127 Hours an Adventure Thriller about the true story of Aron Ralston, the hiker who got his arm caught literally between a rock and a hard place. James Franco stars and does a fantastic job tackling a role that is outside of his norm. It seems odd that a film with very little narrative, but is intended to entertain, actualy does hold the viewers interest.

Aron is doing some mountain climbing when he runs into a few lost hikers. He shows them a good time then splits off on his own. While climbing he attempts to descend a canyon when a boulder he uses for leverage gives way and traps his arm. The majority of the film take place over the five day span in which he is trapped and tries to free himself.

He first tries to chip away at the boulder but its clearly not working. After suffering for days with little food and water and suffering through moments of delusion but still pushed foreward by past memories and sheer will to live. Finally he gives in an knows what he must do, sever his arm. In a scene that will be talked about by anyone who sees the film, the ampution is one of the most gruesome bits of film I've ever seen. He eventually cuts himself free and is able to travese his way through the canyon and find help.

I was honestly almost in tears of joy at the end of the film. James Franco was fantastic and deffinetly deserves a nomination for Best Actor and I'd expect him to get one. The film does a really great job of blending the use of the High Tech studio cameras with the use of a handheld to truly feel those moments of realism. It is really a film worth checking out not the best of the year but if your looking for good acting and a great feel of realism I reccomend it.

127 Hours recieves 7 "Jars of Pickles"...out of 10.

The Social Network (2010)

I was absolutely blown away with this movie I really didn't expect much of it, I know it was getting award recoginition but I originaly chalked it up to a down year in film this year, but HOLY CRAP this just blew me away.

From Mega-Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, Benjamin Button) comes the story of the creation of one of the worlds most popular websites, Facebook. Who would have honestly thought a movie about the creation of a website would be this good, I sure as shit didn't.

The Social Network boasts a tremendous cast with Jesse Eisenberg portraying world's youngest Billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, and Andrew Garfield portraing his best-friend/co-founder, Eduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Napster founder, Sean Parker.

Mark is a student at Harvard who is a computer whiz. One night while on a bender he creates a website comparing the hottest girls on campus which gets 22,000 hits that night crashing the Harvard network. A few weeks later he is approached by a few jocks looking to setup a sort of match.com but for Harvard students which leads Mark to the idea of TheFaceBook. We see the whole start-up and the eventual lawsuits that come when dealing with Billion dollar ideas. People get screwed and friendships get ruined but as the tagline says, "You don't get to 500 Million friends without making a few enemies".

The movie is just all-around fantastic, I didn't want the movie to end. Thats my only gripe with it, its only 2 hrs long but I could have sat through so much more, it's that enjoyable. This is definetly my front runner for the Oscar this year and it already won the Golden Globe so it seems like a lock.

I extremly reccomend seeing this movie, it iw wonderfully well written and brillently acted, anyone who has ever used Facebook would have some intrest in the film and even if you dont have an account it is a truly griping story of human interaction in the modern age.

The Social Network recieve 9 "Andrew Garfield as the New Spidermans"...out of 10.

Crazy Heart (2009)

Jeff Bridges stars in this Academy Award winning role as "Bad" Blake a once great Country musician who is down on his luck. Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors and I'll love anything he in. This film has a lot goin right for it, great acting, great writing and great music.

Bad Blake is going through a rough patch in his life. Hes taking life hard to the bottle and hasn't wrote a new song in 3 years which results in no record opportunities nor big gigs. Following on small bar show he gives an interview to a local reporter, Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), through a few interview sessions the two become very close. She knew the risks before begining a relationship with Bad, but she caved anyway. She often would urge him to quit drinking or at least not drink in front of her son, and just when he seems to be making a real change his drinking causes him to lose her son at a mall, and finally forces himself into AA.

I can't help but compare the style of this film to another great from '08 The Wrestler. It is very similar to that, in regards to the main character at least, just with 2 different outcomes.

The performances of Bridges and Gyllenhaal ar fantastic and great minor appearences from Robert Duvall and Colin Ferral. I havn't yet seen all the nominees for Best Actor but I doubt any of them will be as good to me as Bridges was.

And as with many automatically great films, it makes you care about the characters. I cannot stress enough how important this is in writing screenplays because if you don't care about what happens to the characters...then what was the point in the film?


This was an overall good film that anyone who like Jeff Bridges, Country Music or Musical Biopics should give a watch.

Crazy Heart recieves 7 "Achievers"...out of 10.

Brothers (2009)

It's not often that I may say this about a particularily bad film but if it had been a little bit longer it would have been better. It felt very rushed and before I knew it, the film was at its climax. Which they basically show in trailers.

This film has a few major flaws and leaves me wondering if there are any ORIGINAL ideas left in Hollywood. This was basically a feature length film of the romance aspect of 2001's Pearl Harbor. Being that one guy (Tobey Maguire - Sam) goes off to war, is pronounced dead. Then a friend, or brother in this case (Jake Gyllenhaal - Tommy), begins a relationship with the fallen mans wife or girlfriend (Natalie Portman - Grace). But it turns out he is not dead and it ruins everyone's relationships. except in this film Tommy and Sam's wife do not hook up, it's all in Sam head.

The other subject the film borrows from is Homer's Odyssey. Sam's heli goes down in Afghanistan and is captured by terrorists. The only thing that keeps him going it the hope to one day see his wife again. I love anything to do with ancient greece but i'm getting tired of movies borrowing the subject and I'm still wating for a big-budget production of the actual Odyssey. So if I want to if people apparently want to see the Odyssey...why not make the actual movie. There has only been one acceptable substitute in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

There is no point in giving a real summary because weve seen it all before. The acting on the other hand was very sub par for these "established" actors. Nothing was believable their grief their anger it just felt they were...just acting, not getting into the role. Portman's role gets a pass because if she didn't seem sincere in her grief it's because her character did not feel like Sam was dead. I am no fan of Tobey Maguire and this did not help my opinion of him. I still have hope for Gyllenhaal though. I hoping he can give a good name to video game - movie conversions.

Brothers recieves 5.5 "Frank the Rabbits"...out of 10

An Education (2009)

In my experiences with Sundance films turned unknown Oscar Noms, I found most of these movies to be either confusing, boring or just and overall piece of shit...This is NOT one of those movies. This is the 5th Best Picture nominee I've seen and my 2nd favorite of the bunch.

I was very suprised by this film. I came into it expecting it to be complete garbage, for the reasons stated above, and it's a Romance film, Im a guy that hardly appeals to me. But I was not disappointed and it was actually a hell of a lot better than I was expecting.

My film tastes have been changing as of late and I've been straying away from just liking the overall plot and zoning in on the detail of the film, the acting and the writing. As I've said many times before, if a film can make you care about the characters, its a good film.

Im a sucker for a film where the main characters have an obsession for culture, be it film, literature or music. Even more so all 1960's British and French culture and as a World History buff I love foggy old London town =).

In an Oscar nominated role Carey Mulligan portrays Jenny who randomly strikes up a relationship with the older David played by Peter Sarsgaard. Jenny who was on track to go to Oxford, falls in love with David and begins to learn a different kind of education, one you cannot learn in books (this is what i got out of it and possible origin for the title). Her grades begin to slip but shes gaining a once in a lifetime cultural experience traveling and spending time with David. But David has a darkside to him...that I will not detail so as to not give away too much.

This was a film that took me by suprise and I'm happy netflix randomly sent me this.
An Education recieves 8 "Eiffel Towers"...out of 10.

The Lovely Bone (2010)

When I first heard about this movie a little bit less than a year ago, I knew this was going to be a good one and it was being directed by one of the greats, Peter Jackson. So I read the book and enjoyed it, then it was movie. Due to poor timing I never got the chance to see it in theaters.

Lovely Bones tells the tale of Suzie Salmon and her murder. Suzie's souls is stuck in the "inbetween" because she cannot let go of her life on earth. Looking in on her family and their struggle to cope without her. Simultaneously she is keeping tabs on her murderer, Mr Harvey, played by Stanley Tucci in an oscar nominated role. There was not much notably different from the novel in terms of major things. I only noticed they altered the relationship between the parents and the investigating cop.

Peter Jackson score big on this one, the cinematagraphy is grade A. The "inbetween" is beautifully done, vivid and imaginative. He really shows his talent for directing in this film. Stanley Tucci goes deep for this role as Mr. Harvey and although he does not have many lines in the film, his time on screen is great. The dialogue before the murder is funny yet demented especially when you know what is coming soon.

Despite enjoying the film, I'm keeping the review short because I really wasn't thinking in terms of a review when I was watching it. I was keeping tabs on the relevance in comparison to the book and the acting.

It was a good film that didn't stray to far the novel, this has been one of the better book adaptations I've seen, but then again I really havn't seen that many. If you read the book go see it, if not, make up your own mind on it.
The Lovely Bones recieves 7 "Creepy Dollhouse Stares"...out of 10