Iron Man 3

The summer season is upon us, and what better way to kick off the most fun part of the year than with a super hero movie? Last year, we had The Avengers, the year before that, we had Thor, this year, we have another installment in the Marvel canon, Iron Man 3. By now, you've probably heard the movie getting some mixed reviews. Some love it, while others say it's the worst thing since Batman and Robin. But don't worry, I'm here to tell you the truth: This movie is actually pretty freaking awesome.

People will hate me for saying that, but wait til they here this: Iron Man 3 is my favorite of the 3 movies revolving around Tony Stark. I could already feel the heat of the hatred of a thousand angry fanboys burning my veins as I typed out that sentence. But it's the truth, 3 times really is a charm in this case. However, I can see how fanboys would rage at this movie. I had a friend tell me that his one problem with my blog is that there are times where I am too apologetic to the fans I'm insulting, but in this case, I am being absolutely legitimite, I feel for the fans. The reason being that there is a twist halfway through the movie that practically rewrites the story and changes the perspective on one of its key characters. Specifically, The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley. I'm not going to say what they did with the character, but I'll put it to you this way, if they had pulled that sort of thing with The Joker or Bane in a Batman movie, I would boil with furious anger, yell so loud that I would practically Fus-ro-dah the screen into oblivion (one movie I refuse to see because of Tom Cruise's presence), and storm out and beat the shit out of the manager until he gave me back my money. However, they didn't do that to my favorite character, and for the movie, I thought it really worked well.

The other high point of the movie is the always great Guy Pearce, who I should really just call Douche Bag, because let's be honest, Guy Pearce can play a douche bag like no other. Even his face is just one of those that I just want to punch, it's so smug. He plays the only other scientist with swag besides Tony Stark, Aldrich Killian, inventor of a drug called Extremis, which helps wounded people heal and replace dead tissue. Or is that all it does? It's not, it makes them super strong and turns them into fire benders from Avatar: the Last Airbender. That sounds stupid, and I thought that at first, but then I considered how awesome it would be to make someone's face melt just by touching it, and I learned to just run with the idea.

The movie itself is really enjoyable. It was written and directed by Shane Black, who penned the screenplay for the Lethal Weapon movies, as well as directed and wrote the criminally underrated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and his style of writing really shows in the dialogue. I think he is one of the only screenwriters who is able to make an action movie with alot of humor and still make it feel primarily like an action film. In the same way that The Dark Knight is a drama with a crap load of action, Iron Man 3 is an action movie with a crap load of humor. And much like the other Avengers tie-ins, it does enough to remind us that it's part of a bigger universe, while still allowing it to stand on its own and not feel like a sequel to Thor or any of the other movies.

Final Grade: A-, See it again and buy it on Blu Ray

Hannibal (TV Show)

Okay, before we get started, I have to admit that I feel like an idiot right now. Back when I wrote about unnecessary prequels and shows, I had mentioned this one and how I thought it was going to be about the relationship between Clarice and Hannibal, which is what I had been told at that time, and how I thought a show about Will Graham and Hannibal would be a much better fit considering there is more material there and while we already kind of know what was going on during that time, it would still be interesting to see. Turns out that the people making the show had the same idea because that's exactly what the show is about.

And I gotta say, for a show that I was ready to shoot down at the first episode, I have to admit that I was all wrong. I thought it was just going to be another corporate attempt to hook audiences with a familiar title. And while that may have been the case at the beginning, it's easy to see that the people actually making the show are actually invested in what they are doing. The tone is perfect, making you feel creeped out but always wanting to know what happens next. The storyline is good, with it being one continuous narrative rather than they just solve a different mystery every episode and we're done with it. And I think the casting is superb. I'm not familiar with the actor they chose to play Will Graham, but he does a good enough job, and is able to create his own character that's independent of Edward Norton's version of the character in Red Dragon, but is still a creation of his own. Laurence Fishburne, while he is different than Harvey Keitel and Scott Glen, is still a good Jack Crawford. He's tough as nails and very in-your-face when he has to be, but you can tell that he is concerned and really cares about Will Graham. Freddie Lounds, while usually a male in both the novel and the film adaptations of Red Dragon, has been turned into a female. Not exactly sure why, but the actress chosen is good at being bitchy and pretentious about what she's doing. I just can't get over the fact that she is Philip Seymour Hoffman in another universe. But of course, the one casting that I was going to be critiquing the hardest was that of Hannibal himself. He is played by Mads Mikkelson, better known as the villain in Casino Royale. At first, I thought this was the studio saying "We need someone that can play a villain, and we are too cheap to call Gary Oldman or Ralph Fiennes, let's just get this guy that played a villain in another popular movie". But again, much like the rest of the cast, he's different than the characters that I am used to seeing, but he still delivers. I'm actually able to forget that he is played by Anthony Hopkins. And since this takes place before he was caught by the FBI, that means we get to see a whole new side of him that we didn't get to see in Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs, we get to see how he was with his patients and how he was with other people.

It's an interesting show, and I don't regret DVRing it at all. If you are a fan of the novels and the characters, then this is definitely worth a watch. Heck, I've even talked to other people who are not familiar with the story and they seem to enjoy it too.

Olympus Has Fallen

Action movies seem to be a pretty safe genre. If you make an action movie, and people really like it, then you can bask in the glow of the success that is yours. If the movie turns out to be crap, you can muscle your way out of it with "It was just meant to be a fun action movie!" Unfortunately, we seem to have more and more movies ducking behind that excuse rather than actually trying to make a good flick. I'm looking at you, Michael Bay, and whoever directed that god awful GI Joe movie. Not the new one, the first one. I haven't seen the new one but from what I hear, I'm not missing much. But I digress. Olympus Has Fallen is one of those movies where I went into it with the mentality of "It'll just be a fun action movie, nothing more", and boy was I surprised. This movie is like the first Die Hard if it was written by the head writer of 24. It has some good action, though I will admit, I found myself giggling at a bit of horrid CGI at the beginning, but it's only for a second and since this movie is focused more on practical effects for the rest of the runtime, I can forgive it. It has good action, the characters are cool, and the villain, who if it were written by anyone else would be witty and have a sympathetic element to him, is a completely soulless douchebag. And honestly, I don't mind that. If your villain is a terrorist who hates America with every fiber of his being, then I don't really think you need to make him sympathetic, you just need to get us to hate him. And they do a good job of that, half of it has to do with the writing and what he does, and the other half is the strong performance of the character playing him. While we are talking about strong performances, I have to bring up Gerard Butler. Of the action stars that have been coming on the scene in the past few years, he is by far one of my favorites. Sure, not all of his movies have been great (and I'm being nice when I say that), but the guy is a good actor and I think he is much like Liam Neeson in that we know that he can do more heavy dramatic stuff, but the one thing everyone likes to see him do best is kick someone's ass. And in Olympus, I feel like we got to see both sides of his acting ability, the ass kicker and the more dramatic side. Though, when it comes to the action, he is the love child of John McClane and Jack Bauer, he even has a badass torture seen that I thought was very reminiscent of some of the stuff we saw Jack do in 24. And again, much like an episode, or even an entire season of 24, there is always that scene where the audience learns the ultimate endgame of the bad guy, and you realize that there is so much more at stake than we first thought. You'd think that the life of the president would be as far as they go. But you would be wrong. DEAD WRONG. When I went into this movie, I had no idea I would be sitting on the edge of my seat during the final act, but there I was, almost falling off my seat.

So overall, I would really recommend this movie, especially if you are an action junky.

P.S- I'm thinking of starting a new grading scale for the movies I see here. I'll still be doing the regular letter grades, but I'll be adding an additional comment on the side. Something like "Buy it on blu-ray" or "Save it for the dollar theater" or the classic "Don't bother". I know that's not very original, some critics do that all the time, but I have had a number of people ask me stuff like that, so I figured I would give it a try on here.

Verdict- A-, buy it on blu-ray

The Following

It has occurred to me that it has been almost a month now since I had written something here, and part of the reason is that I have been extremely busy and have not had much time to get to the movies. The last thing I saw in the theater was Identity Thief and that movie was so forgettable that I didn't even bother writing a review for it. But we aren't going to talk about that now. Today, we're gonna look at a show that I have been having mixed feelings about towards the beginning.

So you all know that I am a big Kevin Bacon fan, and when I saw that he was going to be doing a new show for Fox (and told on facebook by several different friends), I got pretty hyped, but then I saw the trailer for the show, and to be honest, I didn't really have high hopes for it. I mean sure, it had Kevin Bacon in it, but apart from that, I didn't see much promise in it. The premise looked cool, but I didn't understand why they decided to make a show as opposed to one or even two movies. And I still got that feeling during the first few episodes of the series. As time went on, however and the plot has progressed, I can see why they made this a show. It probably won't last very long, I'd give it 2-3 seasons tops.

So what is it about? Well we have a sereal killer played by James Purefoy from Rome who escapes from prison days before he is supposed to be executed. The FBI calls in the agent that caught him, played by Kevin Bacon, because he is the only one who understands him. And I have to point this out, this is a cliche that really bugs me. It was one thing when they said "You're the only one who understands him, that's why we need you" in the 80's, but nowadays when a character says that, I always wonder if they pause after saying it and think "Wow, I really am a character in a movie". Back to the story. The real trouble comes from not just the killer, but his followers. It would appear that in the years he spent in prison awaiting his execution, Carroll was not just twiddling his thumbs awaiting the end. Oh no, he was busy at work contacting people over the internet, sweet talking people that visited him in jail, so now he has his own cult of Manson-esque followers ready to do his bidding. At first, it looked as though he had only a few people under his command, but those people went out and recruited more people and now I compare them less to the Manson family and more to the Death Eaters from Harry Potter. These people have drive, they have purpose, and even though they are clearly crazy, they don't appear to be all that messed up. If anything, they just started out as being gullible and really impressionable, and Joe Carroll took advantage of that, promising them purpose and a better life if they follow him. It's actually pretty believable how he was able to seduce all of these people and get them to do his bidding. You hear them say things like "When you kill someone, your life has more meaning" and it just brings chills to my spine because I can actually imagine people using that as justification for horrific acts.

The show does a pretty good job of balancing out the narrative and whose story we are told. Almost every character has a backstory to them and it's interesting to see the flashbacks where Joe's followers visit him in prison and he works his magic on them. Again, I don't see the show lasting for extremely long, but I don't think the writers intend on it lasting very long either. They probably know that this sort of concept can only stay afloat for very long before you start shark jumping. But for now, I'm just gonna enjoy it. If you are into shows like Law and Order and enjoy movies like The Silence of the Lambs, I'd give this a watch. If you enjoy cop shows but are more of the fun-loving kind like Psych or Monk, then I would steer clear.

Oscars 2013 pt 2

So earlier this week, I posted my thoughts on the Oscar winners in the categories of acting and screenwriting, and now I am going to get more into the ones that I took issue with. Starting with

Best Animated Movie

Who won: Brave
Who should have won: Frankenweenie or Wreck-it Ralph
Now, I'm not going to go into some anti-Pixar rant, because I am a huge fan of their work and while I did like Brave, I thought it was extremely underwhelming, especially for Pixar standards, and I thought that my two picks were far superior and underappreciated, especially Wreck-it Ralph. In fact, I was kinda shocked when I found out that it wasn't made by Pixar, that's how damn good I thought it was.

Best Director

Who won: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Who should have won: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
I have nothing against Ang Lee, but his movie this year seemed to have alot of pretense to it, and to be honest, there were a few people who I felt got the shaft when it came to getting nominated. The 3 specific ones are Ben Affleck, Katherine Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino. If those 3 were nominated, I would be alright, if Spielberg had won, I would be okay because I was blown away by Lincoln and I have said numerous times that I think it ought to be shown in history classes.

Who got forgotten?

This is mostly in the acting category, because I thought that a number of people had some overlooked performances. Namely Michael Fassbender as the android in Prometheus and Tom Hardy for either Lawless or The Dark Knight Rises. Fassbender joked that he took the role of David because it gave him an excuse to turn in a wooden performance. But the thing is, he really made it work, and Tom Hardy had one of those performances as Bane that made me forget that he was acting, and I could accept that Bane was on the screen. Sure it helped that he had a mask, but the fact that he was able to deliver an emotionally powerful performance using only his eyes is really saying something.

As for Seth Macfarlane as host, I was really impressed. I often feel with Seth, there are times where he thinks he is funnier than he really is, or that it doesn't matter what he puts up there, because people will find it funny because it's Seth Macfarlane, and the fact that he has that kind of ego annoys me. But, when he hosted, I found myself rolling on the floor at some points and I really liked how he made fun of the actors, but not to the degree of Ricky Gervais where it just got mean after a while.

And another thing, I'm not going to get political on you guys, but I have to ask what was the point of having Michelle Obama announce the best picture? Nothing against the woman, I'm sure she's a nice lady, but I often get the feeling that the media is trying to build her up as the next Jackie. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into it but either way, it seemed kind of unnecessary

2013 Oscar Reactions

It's that time of year again, that time when people yell at their TV's about how corrupt and liberal Hollywood is... Actually, come to think of it, there was only one time where I thought that, and it was at a pretty obvious moment. I don't really even need to say it because you probably thought that too, but we'll get to that later. The Academy Awards have now past and it's now my job to tell you who should have won.

Best Supporting Actor.

Who won: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Who should have won: Christoph Waltz actually. I was betting that either him or Tommy Lee Jones would get it. Being that all of the people who were nominated tonight had at least one other Oscar back at home, the competition was fair game for this category, and I don't think that any of them winning would cause controversy or hate.

Best Supporting Actress

Who won: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Who should have won: Kristen Stewart... I couldn't even type that with a straight face. Anne Hathaway, because she is an angel. Moving on

Best Actress

Who won: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Who should have won: Anybody but the kid. All the other actresses were seasoned and had years and years of training and preparation and the 9 year old just came out of nowhere. I don't doubt that she had a good preformance, but I think she has to work more before she gets the trophy. And if I have to be honest, I was really pulling for Jessica Chastain, who has really become one of my favorite actresses

Best Actor

Who won: Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln

Who should have won: Personally, I was rooting for Hugh Jackman, since this was his first nomination and it was for doing what he does best. Though again, I don't have any gripes about Daniel Day Lewis winning because apart from being one of the best actors ever, he gave a superb portrayal as Abraham Lincoln

Best Screenplay

Who won: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Who should have won: Again, no argument here... Did Oscar get it right this year?

So that's the first bit of my Oscar reaction, I'll give you the rest tomorrow

Mama

January is a bit of a weird month. Christmas is gone, but the cold is still here. Everybody's back in school and almost everyone is trying to get in shape again after being wracked with guilt over their indulgence of the holiday season. January is also one of the worst months of the year. Why? Because the movies that come out in January always suck! Every now and then, though, you get one movie that is actually really good. It may not be anything special, but it's at least entertaining and it gives you some hope that there will be more good movies to come this year. Mama is one of those movies. Now, I know that I listed this as one of the movies I was most looking forward to, but to be honest, I was really just looking for padding so the list wouldn't look so flimsy. I just wanted to see it because it looked entertaining. And it was.

The one complaint that I've heard about this movie is that this is all material that we have seen before in other horror movies in terms of scares. And I would not debate that. It's true, this is all stuff we've seen before and while that may be a turn off to some folks, I didn't really complain. For starters, this movie may not be groundbreaking or a game changer, but it never claimed to be. What you see is what you get. And as far as this all being familiar, we may have seen this stuff before, but this movie did it better than a lot of other movies I've seen, mainly for M. Night Shyamalan.

So what's the story? Well, we start with a father who goes nuts because his business and his marriage are failing. He snaps, kills two of his partners and his wife and runs away with his two daughters to an abandoned cabin in the woods. Before he commits murder-suicide on his two daughters, he is grabbed and killed by a phantom who then raises the two girls in the cabin as its own. Five years later, the girls are discovered in the cabin and taken to live with their uncle (who is their father's twin) and his girlfriend played by Nikolaj-Coster Waldau of Game of Thrones (who doubles as both brothers) and a punk rocker Jessica Chastain, who continues to impress more and more. Things seem okay and the girls' recovery seems to be going alright, except for the fact that both are still obsessed with this Mama character, who has followed them back to their uncles' house. From there, freaky ass thing after freaky ass thing occurs and the couple race to find out what the deal is with this ghost and why she is out to get them. If you like ghost movies and are just looking for a solid thriller, then Mama would be the perfect movie. It's nowhere near being a new horror classic like Cabin in the Woods, but it's an entertaining flick and many would and have found it enjoyable.

Final Grade: B, See it in the theater