My All Time Favorite Movies: 9. O Brother Where Art Thou (2000)

http:/I have been toying with the idea of doing a series of posts on my all time favorite movies for a little while now. Working at a movie theater again has started all of these conversations about movies and I always love to hear what people have on their lists of favorite movies. I decided I would take my 20 favorite movies of all time and write a blog entry about each of them. There are no set qualifications for a movie to be on this list. These are simply my 20 favorite movies of all time. They will not be numbered. Do not assume that I am going in order from 20-1. I will probably do that starting at 10, but honestly 11-20 are not numbered. They kind of exist right outside of the top 10. A few things you will realize as the list goes on are how recent so many of them are, and how Americanized the list is. I make no apologies for this. I know most people who are deep into film as I am often have many movies from the pre-1970s on their lists, but you will only find 2 or 3 of those here. I do not dislike "classic" movies in any way, but they have never stuck with me as much. I respect the craft, but I am rarely left feeling like they are my favorite movies. I cannot really explain it further than that. I am not xenophobic, but when it comes to cinema, I just prefer the American Aesthetic. I have roughly 10 foreign films that I love, but they do not make it into this list. Again, it is just my personal taste. Each post will be labeled as "favorite ever" so you can easily find them as I go on. As always, I love to hear feedback, if not on my choices, on your choices for some of your favorite movies of all time. Okay, onto this week's post. Oh and there will probably be spoilers about each title on the list.



We have reached the highest ranking comedy on my list. I love this movie so much, my dad, brother and I went to see the music live in concert. Yes, I willingly went to a concert full of bluegrass and country music and it was amazing. Of course, the music fits the film perfectly and only adds to the greatness of the film. The Coen Brothers, masters of the weird, off the wall brilliance have crafted 4 movies that many people would call brilliant (this one, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men). In all honesty, I think all four are pretty perfect. I just happen to prefer this one to the others. I am not sure why, Part of it is the re-purposing of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey." Another part of it has to do with the stellar cast, and the goofy tone. However, it mostly comes down to the writing. Very few great movies have as much fun with dialog as this movie. The dialog has bursts of wit, absurdity, seriousness, insight and even has a tender heart in places, but all of it works. Everything fits and each character has a distinct voice, which is hard to do when all of the characters have below great levels of intelligence.

Set in 1930s Mississippi, O Brother Where Art Thou follows three escaped convicts as they look for the treasure the leader promised the other two that he hid before he was caught. Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) is the leader of this bunch. he is a slick talking con man who probably should never be trusted. Unfortunately, Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro) are not exactly bright guys. McGill has convinced them he robbed an armored car and stashed 1.2 million dollars. They are chained together, which is why he tells them this and why they break out together. However, the law is hot on their trail, so they cannot stay in one place for too long. What follows is a wonderful road trip movie where two of the guys get baptized, they meet a black guitarist who may have sold his soul to the devil, they meet Baby Face Nelson and drive his getaway car, they are lured to sleep by sirens, one of them may or may not get turned into a frog and two of them have a confrontation with a mammoth one eyed John Goodman. They also record a massive hit song, and they have a run in with the KKK.

Told with a wacky sense of humor, wonderful music, great acting and the steady hand of the Coen Brothers, O Brother Where Art Thou is one of the more rewatchable movies I know. I desperately wanted to show it to my Freshman class last year after we read The Odyssey, but there was not enough time. No, it is not a perfect adaptation of that story, but it hits a lot of the same story beats. This is not about how good of a version of Homer's poem the film is though. This is about how wonderfully delightful the film is. First off, it is perfectly hilarious. It has clever laugh out loud dialog, immensely successful physical comedy (Clooney trying to box someone takes the cake), and it has off the wall random nonsense that makes me laugh every time, such as Baby Face Nelson's dislike for cows. I think the real treat though, is the throw away lines. The film is full of these one-liners that out of context would make zero sense, but within the film they are just absolutely hilarious. The film never loses this sense of whimsy, and foolish optimism, even when it feels cynical at times. Clooney, Nelson and Turturro could not possibly be more perfect. Clooney, always a master of cool togetherness, allows himself to just get wacky with this film. He plays on Clooney-esque vanity, and he makes a great dimwitted leader. He never thinks of himself as above the silliness and it shows throughout the film. Tim Blake Nelson, who is not a terribly known actor is the perfect fool in the bunch. Not that the other two characters are geniuses, Nelson's Delmar is the most childlike. he is dumb, but sincere and he gets many of the best lines. He has a playfulness that keeps him from seeming too much of an idiot to function. He is instantly likable. Turturro has never used his fiery temper to better use. Turturro is often an actor who can overdo it. He is wonderful with wonderful directors, and here he is exactly at the right level of over doing it. His hot tempered Pete gets, in my opinion, the wackiest stuff and he takes it all in stride.

No matter how ridiculous the road trip element of the story gets, this movie stays from getting too far off course. It is, at its core, the story of three people searching for one thing, but finding something else. The Coen Brothers know exactly how to balance absurdity into a story. Sure, it is absurd that 90% of the stuff that happens in this movie actually happens, but you never stop believing it. There was a moment in this film where I actually thought maybe Pete did get turned into a toad. Why? Because Delmar believed it so much and it may have fit in with the whimsical nature of the film. The Coen Brothers are usually pretty great with film pacing, but I feel like here, they really knocked it out of the park. Road trip movies often get derailed by staying in one place or in one situation for too long. It can get tedious, but this film has no such problem. Characters enter and exit with extreme quickness. Whether we like the cameo character or not, they are not around long enough to outstay their welcome. No, this movie is about McGill, Delmar, and Pete, and how they react to the silliness surrounding them.

the music in the film, as I mentioned is perfect. The song they record "A Man of Constant Sorrow" is a hit record. Seriously, it could be a real hit record. I loved how the film weaved music in organically by having characters singing sngs at appropriate times and the black guitarist they meet plays a wicked guitar in a rather touching sweet scene in the film for all of the characters. There are a lot of movies that have become synonymous with their music, but none have as much fun with it as this movie. Watching Clooney, Turturro, and Nelson lip-sync to "Man of Constant Sorrow" is an absolute joy and I feel like many movies would not have given us the entire song like that. This is a rare movie that knows exactly when a scene should end and exactly when a scene should linger just a little bit longer to give us the laughs.

O Brother Where Art Thou is not the funniest movie in the world, but it is the best movie that is also hilarious. it tells a wonderful story with great acting, great writing, great music and perfectly pacing. The Coen Brothers will probably continue to create brilliant films, but it will be difficult for them to top this in my opinion. It has everything you want a light hearted wacky film to have. When it is over, you will humming the songs and trading one-liners. At least that is what my family does. It stands as one of the Hadley family's favorite movies. My dad and I still quote it to each other on occasion.

My All Tim Favorite Movies: 10. L.A. Confidential (1997)

I have been toying with the idea of doing a series of posts on my all time favorite movies for a little while now. Working at a movie theater again has started all of these conversations about movies and I always love to hear what people have on their lists of favorite movies. I decided I would take my 20 favorite movies of all time and write a blog entry about each of them. There are no set qualifications for a movie to be on this list. These are simply my 20 favorite movies of all time. They will not be numbered. Do not assume that I am going in order from 20-1. I will probably do that starting at 10, but honestly 11-20 are not numbered. They kind of exist right outside of the top 10. A few things you will realize as the list goes on are how recent so many of them are, and how Americanized the list is. I make no apologies for this. I know most people who are deep into film as I am often have many movies from the pre-1970s on their lists, but you will only find 2 or 3 of those here. I do not dislike "classic" movies in any way, but they have never stuck with me as much. I respect the craft, but I am rarely left feeling like they are my favorite movies. I cannot really explain it further than that. I am not xenophobic, but when it comes to cinema, I just prefer the American Aesthetic. I have roughly 10 foreign films that I love, but they do not make it into this list. Again, it is just my personal taste. Each post will be labeled as "favorite ever" so you can easily find them as I go on. As always, I love to hear feedback, if not on my choices, on your choices for some of your favorite movies of all time. Okay, onto this week's post. Oh and there will probably be spoilers about each title on the list.



In 1996 I discovered a love for hard boiled and pulp novels. I started to devour Elmore Leonard novels and short stories. This eventually let to the uniquely hard boiled writing style of James Elroy. Elroy wrote fictional cop stories and also true crime. His books were set in Hollywood's Golden age of the 1940s and 1950s and his cops wanted that Hollywood image. His characters spoke in pulpy short sentences and Elroy's writing style can be difficult to digest at first. Eventually I stumbled onto the novel, L. A. Confidential. It quickly became the gold standard for this type of novel, for me. Everything pulpy, everything with hard boiled detectives and mysterious dames got judged against this novel. The hardest thing to do when you love something in such a way is to watch someone screw it up on screen. Today, I am much more able to separate the love I have of something from its remake or adaptation, but in 1997, I could not. If L.A. Confidential had been a mess, I would have never forgiven anyone involved. Luckily, it was and still is a brilliant detective story full of pulpy twists, wonderful performances, crackling dialog, steamy sexual tension and wonderfully perfect costumes. In fact, I loved this movie so much upon my first viewing that I went back to Blockbuster and rented everything the director, Curtis Hanson, had previously directed. I even went so far as to track down everything the screen writer, Brian Helgeland had written to see if he was always so great (side note, he was not). I could imagine going in how they would get the aura of the novel so well, and they ended up getting everything about what I loved so very right. However, as the years went on and I kept watching the movie, I realized that I loved the movie as a completely separate entity. It was not because it was such a good adaptation, it was because it is just that damn great a movie.

Set in the world of sleaze and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, L.A. Confidential tells the story of three cops all out for a different kind of truth, and realizing that maybe, just maybe, they are all searching for the same thing. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is the police force's Golden Boy. He is a pretty face, he is determined and he is always out for truth. He will do anything to get it as long as it stays within the confines of legality. He is a rule follower and it makes him hated among other cops, but loved by his superiors. Bud White (Russel Crowe) uses brute strength to get his justice. He is a cop with a temper and is always on the verge of beating people within inches of their lives. Not known for intelligence, White is feared by all. Finally, Jack Vinscennes (Kevin Spacey) is a pure Hollywood cop,. he wants the glitz and glamour of high profile arrests. He wants to be in the papers and he will always take the easy way out. A multiple homicide in an after hours diner sets the film in motion and the film is about finding out who did the killing, but it is also about uncovering the truth of deep seeded police corruption, a prostitution ring that involves girls made to look like high profile actresses, and the crime boss opening left by Mickey Cohen's arrest.

First of all, L.A. Confidential is based on a novel that runs about 500 pages long. It is a multi layered novel with three cops each getting tons to do. it is the third in Ellroy's L.A. Quartet and some of the characters from the other books show up in this book weaving a complex series of stories spanning years within one book. It is complicated to say the least and Curtin Hanson and Brian Helgeland do an amazing job of capturing the complexities of the stories, and the characrers in the 2 and a half hour film. Every single scene pops with wonderful dialog and insight into this world they recreated with pain staking detail. Hanson blends wonderful action with effective thrills and even manages to have entire scenes of meaty dialog without anything ever feeling boring. The action weaves between the three characters at just the right pace so you do not feel you are missing anything. We are able to digest each new piece of information, but do not have long enough to sit back and wonder what it really means because there is more to chew on coming very quickly. The twists ans turns happen on a dime and even though we follow these three characters, we are never truly sure how many, if any, we can really trust. Dante Spinotti's cinematography manages to perfectly capture both the glitz and the sleaze of Hollywood, which gives the film the perfect backdrop. His camera also captures these wonderfully perfect costumes in all of their glory. The detectives are all in perfectly tailored suits and perfectly fitted fedoras and the girls in wonderfully lush gowns with perfect hair and make up for the time period. These details may seem small, but this is not a small world being created, so every detail helps.

Beyond that, Pearce and Crowe are magnetic. In 1997, Crowe had two American film credits to his name and Pearce had zero. They were nobodies and they were carrying a huge load in this enormous project and they are both outstanding. I have no idea how Pearce did not turn into a massive star after this film launched him. His Exley is the moral center of the film, but he is not always good. He is not always smart. He is kind of weak at first and Pearce shows all of that and as the film goes deeper into sex and murder and mayhem, we see Exley slowly come to terms with what he has to do. He has a few scenes where he just lights up the screen with this intelligent intensity. Crowe, as White makes a seriously imposing figure. It helps that his scenes are in the darkness. His character is not afraid to get dirty and he is no fool, but he lets you believe he is a fool. I feel like Crowe really connected to White's plight in this film. his character, in my opinion, goes through the biggest transformation and he becomes the underdog. He also has some wonderful scenes with Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her supporting role as a high class prostitute made to look like Veronica Lake. She and Crowe have a smoldering heat between them. In fact, Pearce and Basinger also have this smoldering tension between them, and the scene where it comes to a head is one of my favorites in the entire film. Crowe and Pearce, while both not being American born, look like they were born to play 1950s cops in Los Angeles. Everything about them works. Of course, Kevin Spacey is no slouch. Coming off a few years where he won an Oscar, played a fearsome serial killer, and the worst boss in the world (The Usual Suspects, Se7en, and Swimming with Sharks, respectively), Spacey is virtual perfection as the ultimate Hollywood cop. He is the collaborating cop on a cop TV show, he gives heads up to gossip rags about drugs and sex busts of high profile actors and Spacey does it all with the easy confidence of a pro. However, he also plays the more intense scenes very well. His ability to move from easy charm to quiet intensity makes Vinscennes my favorite character in the film. If you add James Cromwell and Danny Devito to the mix, you get an incredibly solid cast for an incredibly wonderful film.

L. A. Confidential is telling a tricky story and it allows the film to unfold at exactly the right times. No turn is telegraphed and no twist comes at you too early. It is easily described as Film Noir, but I think it is something different. The story is not really the point. In fact, for much of the film, the events that happen seem incredibly disconnected. What is key to this film is how the characters react. This is a story about how characters are affected and shaped by events. The film is more concerned with how the three protagonists will handle all of the things thrown at them. It is why it was so vital for these roles to be perfectly cast, and they are. The focus on the characters never gets lost, either, even in the most brutal violence and this film has one of the most realistically brutal beat downs I have seen on film. Today, L. A. Confidential seems insanely relevant. We now turn trials into television spectacles and we are all using our cameras to capture wrong doings. We are still obsessed with Hollywood. It would not surprise me if there was a place on-line where you could get girls/guys who look like celebrities to come sleep with you for the right price. That element of the film will probably always be spot on.

For every twist and turn, L. A. Confidential maintains it wonderful easy pacing and its complex characters trying desperately to stay ahead of the criminal underground. It cares about what happens to these people, and it allows us to care about what happened to them. Each of the three protagonists has a distinct personality and a very distinct way of reacting to every single thing that goes on. We understand that morality is not black and white and that these characters are at once, moral and immoral and that is a magical thing to watch.

The Great Gatsby

Before I begin a warning: I am not going to spend much time in this review comparing the movie to the novel from which it is adapted. I believe a film should stand on its own away from the source material. I will be looking at it specifically as a film, with the exception of talking about the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald that are featured in the film. This will not be a place where I hate the film because it can never live up to the book. I cannot count 5 movies that equal or best their source material. I just strongly believe nothing you see on screen can match what you see in your head. What you see on the screen is one man's vision of something millions of people have their own visions of. It is not fair. That being said, The Great Gatsby is one of my five favorite books and it was tough to separate the two In fact, this might have been the most I have struggled with those ideas in terms of comparing a book to the adaptation.

Just who is Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio)? That is the question on Nick Carraway's mind as he moves in next door to him in the early 1920s. Gatsby lives in a castle in the West Egg village of Long Island. Nick moves into a little shack next door for peace and quiet to read up on stock brokerage. Carraway has dreams of being a writer, but he does not think himself very good, so he makes his money in bonds. He hears whispers of this Gatsby fellow, and he can feel Gatsby staring at him from Gatsby's castle, but he has not met him. Hell, even when he does finally meet him, Carraway realizes he knows nothing about this Gatsby character. No one does. There are rumors of course, but who can separate the rumors of murder, espionage,and mob ties from the truth? Perhaps, Carraway's cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) can because once, long ago, Daisy and Gatsby were lovers. When Gatsby went to war, she waited and waited but eventually met and married Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). Daisy and Tom are miserable, and Tom has never been faithful to her. In fact, Tom even takes Nick on a trip to the city to pick up his mistress and party with her and her friends. Carraway is unsure of what to make of all of this noise, but he is also getting sucked in deeper and deeper. His submission into this rich world is complete when Jay Gatsby sends him a formal invitation for one of his infamous parties. No one ever gets an invitation, they just show up for the decadence and debauchery. The liquor is freely flowing, the jazz is hot, the morals loose, and the surroundings are lush and vibrant. It is everything the 1920s were if you were lucky enough to have wealth. Eventually Gatsby introduces himself to Carraway and Nick is immediately taken in by Gatsby's charmed life. he even goes as far to set up a meeting between the long lost lovers. Daisy and Gatsby reconnect and it sets off a chain reaction of events that take up the final 45 minutes of the film.

Baz Lurhman is a director who often focuses much on style over substance. His films are lavish, and almost always have an overwrought love affair at their core. I love them all. I think he mixes contemporary visuals with classic stories. I love his visual flair, and his theatricality. He is, in a way, the perfect person to direct this film. He is, in a way, the absolute wrong person to direct this film, as well. The Great Gatsby is a classic American story of the emptiness of the decade of decadence. It is a story that points to the insane differences between the haves and the have nots. The bright, loud colors and parties are starkly contrasted by the greys and dull blues of the city where the poor reside. It is about the waste of the American Dream, the lack of substance and caring of those wealthy people who let everyone else clean up their messes. Baz gets this story half right. His movie is half successful at telling a story with a social conscious. He is, however, fully successful at telling a sweeping romantic tragedy. It will depend on what you want from this story. If you want the lavish parties, the loud music, the wonderful clothes and the debauchery of the roaring 20s, you will be happy. If you want a romantically tragic story between two people who appear destined to be together, but in reality, could not be more different, you will be happy. If you want a film that fully discusses the differences of the class system, of how the roaring 20s were a hollow time for mountains of people, you might find yourself a bit disappointed.

Me, I am in the middle. There are things I absolutely loved about the film. First off, DiCaprio and Mulligan are fantastic. There is no one better for the iconic Jay Gatsby than DiCaprio. He embodies the empty charms of a man who has no idea who he is because he has been lying to everyone. He is utterly magnetic through the entire film, but he is at his best when Jay is coming undone. Mulligan's Daisy is pitch perfect. I wish the script had made her just a bit less whiny and pouty, but Mulligan handles it with grace, charm and ultimately turns Daisy into the vacant obnoxious character she always was. The big confrontation in the final act is perfectly played by her, turning Daisy from someone you are almost rooting for into a character you cannot believe has two men fighting for her. However, the best performance in the bunch belong to Joel Edgerton. His Tom Buchanan lights up the screen. He delivers a layered performance for a character is a bit under written. His Tom rises above being a stock villain of the roaring 1920s. I have enjoyed Edgerton's performances up to now, but here he raises the bar. He almost makes Tom a sympathetic character. There are some great supporting performances as well, and a few nice cameo performances that round out the cast. Then, there is this nagging down spot in the acting, Tobey Maguire. Maguire is first, too old to be believable as the wide eyed Nick Carraway. He is our point of view character, and it is very tough to hear him narrating lines written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. he does not sound right in this time period. His entire performance is all off. I can think of a few actors who would have been much better. In fact, the only thing he does well, is befriend Gatsby, which makes sense because DiCaprio and Maguire are great friends. Their chemistry is good and it almost makes Maguire believable.

Baz' theatricality is also welcome during the first half of the film. The parties are wonderfully shot, edited together and costumed. Everything is in its perfect spot and all of the parties make you wish you were there. The best visual moment of the film, though, is when Carraway first goes to visit Daisy and Tom. Tom opens the door to a lounging room and it is full of white curtains flapping in a clam breeze and we just see the silhouette of Daisy and hear her giggle. It is this wonderful introduction to Daisy. Daisy, draped in the innocent white of these curtains, flashes just her hand at first, then reveals the rest of her and in that moment, we are convince Daisy is as pure as they come. That momentary fantasy is destroyed throughout the course of the film, but man what a gorgeous moment. There are tons of wonderfully gorgeous shots of Gatsby's mansion, and of the Buchanan mansion as well. The staff of these mansions are all perfectly choreographed and impeccably dressed. Gatsby's bright yellow car is a stunning marvel of a vehicle and the sequences of driving are all kind of thrilling. The set up is wonderful. The scene where Daisy and Gatsby get reacquainted in Gatsby's castle is wonderfully romantic and the clothes he throws at her are wonderfully vibrant and that moment is wonderfully rich in depth. A man has so much that he can just throw his clothes around like they were nothing.

Much has been made on-line of the music of the film. Baz has always favored contemporary music in his films and The Great Gatsby is no different. I found the marriage of jazz and contemporary music the most successful thing in the film. The rap music blasts as Nick narrates the story, and then as the focus shifts to being in the scene, the rap fades out, and the jazz comes in full blast. It lets us know that this story is not just about the 1920s, but about our time period now. We are in another decade of decadence where the haves party away ignorant to the struggles of the have nots. Rap music embodies that idea. Gatsby is hip-hop. He is a man who came from nothing and did what he had to do to get where he is. He throws part after party, but is ultimately empty. Rappers love to reference Scarface because they love the decadence, but Gatsby would be a more apt reference, except rappers do not like to talk about the emptiness. They only want to show the excess alcohol, the girls and the drugs. The allusions work for me in this film. The idea is a bit half baked, but because I am in tune to rap culture, I understood what Baz was doing. He blends the ideas incredibly well. He uses the songs from the soundtrack perfectly, especially Beyonce's "Back in Black" and Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful." Actually the melody of "Young and Beautiful" haunts the film on more than one occasion.

Everything else in this movie is a mess. The second half particularly is a mess. Once the story shifts to being completely about Gatsby's obsession for Daisy, the film loses steam and it loses real focus. The second half is a very poorly paced, and there were moments where I was even bored and I have never been bored in a Baz Lurhman film until now. Part of that was me feeling the film was missing a chance to make a bigger statement, part of that was that Lurhman's visual flair gave way to a much more traditional form of story telling. Gone were the weirdly quick edits, and quirky camera work. Everything became very by the numbers. I also loathed the narrative framing device of Carraway telling this story after it happened in a sanitarium. He is writing his story after his doctor at the asylum told him he should write it down and he could even burn it after it was done, but it would be good to write it down. My girlfriend pointed out that it makes Nick an even more unreliable narrator, and I like that explanation, but I have to see the movie again with that lens before I can see if that works for me. Honestly, it felt like a cheap way to allow Carraway to narrate the story and the narration appeared to be the only way for F. Scott's gorgeous words to make it into the movie. I am not sure how else his words could have been worked in because the places where his words were in the dialogue felt out of place because his writing is so unique. However, leaning on F. Scott's words almost point out glaring dialogue miscues because the writing in the film is not up to the level of F. Scott. This leaves us with narration that features lush wonderfully written sentences full of perfect word choices and deep meaning, but dialogue that can be flat, stilted and meandering. Also, the scenes of the character driving into the city do not properly represent the desolation of the poor. The film kind of glosses over that aspect of the 1920s. If they had driven that point home more, you might have felt Gatsby's emptiness more. We might have understood the loneliness of those big lavish parties.

It becomes impossible to talk about the themes of The Great Gatsby without talking about the novel, so I am just going to say this, the film definitely focuses more on the love affair and obsession Gatsby has with Daisy. In that undertaking, the film is successful. You understand, at first, why Gatsby loves Daisy and why Daisy allows herself to get wrapped up in the foolishness of it because she honestly believes "that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool..." It is a quote that girls all over cling to as some romantic idea, but the film exposes it as the thoughts of a shallow girl who toys with people because she has no idea how to be happy. There are definitely opportunities missed to reach something more, but for a piece of mass consumption, The Great Gatsby is probably going to be successful. Baz Lurhman sure knows how to create a functioning world and the first half of this film is a complete and total home run. In the end though, I was left feeling too "ehh" about the whole thing.

Oh for those wondering, most of the most popular quotes from the book are featured in the film.

Final Grade: C+

The Place Beyond the Pines

Any time a movie has the audacity to span generations, I get a bit nervous. I did not going in that this movie was going to be so expansive in its scope of time.. The trailers made me think it was going to be a fairly intimate cops and robbers drama with some family dynamics thrown in. I was wrong. Instead, The Place Beyond the Pines is a grand sprawling drama about fathers and sons and how the actions of men can determine the lives of their sons. It is an ambitious undertaking and director/writer Derek Cianfrance has certainly assembled two great Oscar nominated leading men to help him try and focus this drama. Those two leading men, Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, share only one scene together, but they are as vital to the movie as any leading men.

Luke (Gosling) is a motorcyclist. That is his life. He is the daredevil of a traveling carnival and he is the key draw. Looking like Gosling would certainly help draw people in. When he arrives back in Schenectady, New York he is met by a woman, Romina(Eva Mendes) with whom he once shared a brief but passionate affair. He gives her a ride home and wonders i there could be more there, but she already has a man. Luke shows up to her house before he leaves town and Romina's mother answers the door with a little boy who turns out to be Luke's kid. Luke does not want to be a deadbeat like his own father, so he tries to figure out how to provide for his kid. He meets a man who used to rob banks and this man convince Luke it is easy to rob a bank and soon the two start robbing banks and Luke is able to throw some money at Romina and his kid, but Romina and her new man, are not too terribly keen on it. After a violent confrontation with Romina's new man, Luke realizes he might not be that good of a guy and he wants to leave, but first he wants to leave Romina with enough money to raise the boy. He decides he wants to rob multiple banks in one day, causing his partner to pull out. Luke goes ahead with his plan, but does not realize that his first bank is not a great bank to try and rob. The plan backfires and he finds himself in a chase with the cops. He eludes a few on his motorcycle and is soon being chased by officer Avery Cross (Cooper). After he crashes his motorcycle, he leads Cross on a foot chase. After their one scene together, the entire movie shifts gears and Cross becomes the focus. Labeled a hero for what he did, the wounded cop is forced to a crossroads, and realizes he is not meant for field duty. Cross is the son of a very prominent judge and Cross himself graduated law school and decided he wants to be a cop much to the dismay of his family. Cross gets mixed up with some dirty cops and eventually decides he has to blow the whole thing wide open and use it to his advantage to move up the ranks. His ambition, that he swore he did not really have comes to front as he exposes the entire dirty cop ring. From there, the film shifts focus again, jumping 15 years into the future and dealing with the children of Luke and Avery.

The ambition of the sprawling family drama is admirable. The shifting focus is also admirable and it honestly works better than I expected it to when I realized what was happening. The tone of the film manages to stay very solid even as the film violently shifts focus the first time and then again when it jumps in time and completely changes the kind of film it is. If there is one thing that really nagged at me when the film was over, it was the cleanliness with which it wrapped up. This film felt like it deserved a messier or more ambiguous ending. That is not to say the story wraps up in a bow, but I felt there was too much closure for this kind of film. The film came full circle, almost in a "well duh" kind of way and none of the movie up tot hat point had really followed in that fashion. There are other issues as well, but that was the one I was left with when all was said and done. Cianfrance does a great job of setting his story up and he really drives the themes home without being overtly obvious until the very end.

I was impressed by Gosling and Cooper, but that is not surprising. I have been fans of both men for a long time and in a review of Yes Man many years ago, I wondered why Cooper was not a huge star, and now he is. However, he is proving he is more than just a gorgeous face. His acting breakout in last years The Silver Lining Playbook has opened up a whole new avenue for him and I hope he continues to travel down it and give layered interesting and introspective performances like this one in this film. He ends up carrying a majority of the film, even though he is a supporting character in the third act. He has the most to do in terms of heavy lifting in the acting department. With Luke, Gosling incites the action and he is, of course, great in his minimal approach to acting. The opening scene finds us following the back of Gosling's head in a single take shot through the carnival and it is only when he gets ready to put his motorcycle helmet on that they reveal that pretty face of his. Gosling always fully commits to roles, but here, he goes through a total transformation, from the dozens of character tattoos (including a face tattoo) to the ridiculous clothing, Gosling embodies a man desperate for something bigger, something better. He wants to give his kid what he never had, and when he understands the kid might be better off without him, he tells Romina to not tell their kid the truth about him. That moment sets up the entire third act of the film.

Cianfrance has a great eye for visuals, as the film looks great. He captures the "pines" gorgeously and even though the opening one take shot does not mean anything thematically, it is a great way to grab us from the first moment. He handles the focus shift in an engaging way, which makes sense since he is working from his own shift. However, the most impressive thing about The Place Beyond the Pines is the sound. This might seem like such a small thing in a film, but here it looms large. There is a sequence in the second act where Cross is being led to a secluded spot by one of the crooked cops and the sound design in that moment alone is breathtaking. The screen is almost fuzzy as we hear Cross start to panic as he follows this dirty cop. The less in focus the screen becomes the more prominent the sound of Cross breathing becomes. Soon as he can focus on his how heavy and panicked his breathing has gotten. It is nearly suffocating for us as we beg him to turn around, or roll down a window, or something, anything to make the panic stop. It is claustrophobic in a very real way.

I found the themes of fathers and sons very well done, even to the point where we do not know much about how Cross was raised, but we understand in his two scenes with his father, why he turned out the way he did. Of course, that sets off a chain reaction to how cross treats his son. Cross did not want to be like his father, so he became a cop, and ended up a politician, just like his father. In turn, Cross' kid, AJ(Emory Cohen) is a punk. He talks with an awful Jersey Shore type accent and lingo. He actually seems to embody the Jersey Shore lifestyle. He is looking for drugs when he meets Jason (Dane DeHaan). They form a tumultuous friendship that spirals into craziness because of the secrets of their fathers. Jasons never knew his father and that turned him into an introvert, and a kid who questions everything. He goes searching for the truth about his father and that leads him down a path similar to his father when the film fades to black. Cianfrance is curious about the repercussions our actions have even fifteen years down the road. In order to do that, he has to create a whole world before even getting to the big key of the film. It mostly works, but you have to be willing to go with it.

Final Grade: B

Pain and Gain

I love Michael Bay movies. I am not ashamed of this fact. He makes noisy nonsensical movies and I think he makes them better than anyone else. There is something to be said for being the best creator of mass noise. When I first heard he was going to make a smaller action/comedy, I was immediately down for it because the first Bad Boys movie had a smaller feel and is still an excellent movie. When I heard that Anthony Mackie and Mark Wahlberg would be starring in it and that it was going to be based on a truly wild true story, I got even more excited. Then, The Rock joined the cast. If you follow my blog at all, you know I love The Rock. He makes movies better just by being in them. His cartoon like stature has been utilized in action movies and kids movies for the last decade of so, but those of us who watched The WWE know he is hilarious. The man can do comedy and he actually showed it in the ill advised Get Shorty sequel Be Cool way back in 2005. For me, this combination of actors and director could only spell A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) believes in fitness. He believes he can change the world through being a personal trainer, but he is poor and he is tired of being poor. He has a positive attitude, a great work ethic and now he has a plan. He is going to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub), and force him to sign over his entire fortune to Lugo. Then he just plans to let him go and move on with his life. He enlists his buddy, Adrian Doorbal(Mackie) and eventually Paul Doyle (The Rock). The three of them make the three stupidest criminals ever, but after 3 failed attempts at kidnapping, they successfully kidnap Kershaw and after a series of ridiculous torture methods convince Kershaw to sign over everything. There is a problem though, with Kershaw being one of Lugo's clients, Kershaw knows it is Lugo and therefore, the trio must kill Kershaw. They force feed him alcohol and try to create a drunk driving accident, but when that does not work, they set him on fire, but that still does not kill him. Eventually Lugo convince Doyle to run over Kershaw's face, but that still does not kill him! Oh, did I meantion this is a true story? It is, and among the points the film gets right, are the failed murder attempts. it is the kind of overly ridiculous film moment if it were not true, but because it is true, it is even more ridiculous and unbelievable. Kershaw gets free and begins to plot his revenge by hiring a Private Investigator to find out what is going on. The cops do not believe him and Lugo has all of the proper legal documents stating that Kershaw signed everything over to him. Of course, once poor people get some money, they will want more and the private investigator starts to worry they will do it again. Of course, Doyle soon runs out of money because of his reoccurring cocaine habit and Doorbal needs money because he spent it all on the house he bought for his new wife, who is also the nurse who ingests him with shots in his penis to get him hard because steroid use has left him impotent. Lugo is the only one doing well, but even he realizes with Kershaw free, they will need more money to get away, so they try and set up the whole thing again.

Told through a series of voice over narrations, flashbacks, and a variety of edits and jump cuts, Pain and Gain is as ridiculous and silly a movie can be that is based on a true story of kidnapping, attempted murder, theft and actual murder. There is never a dull moment and the movie moves at such a quick pace, there is never really a moment to question if this could possibly be real. There is a great moment, when after a super ridiculous and unbeleivable thing happens, text flies across the screen reminding us that yes, this is a true story. Bay manages to direct a really great movie that is basically void of serious explosions and that has a run time under 2 hours and 20 minutes. Often his movies can feel a bit bloated, and while there are things here that I could have done without (Ken Jeong's entire contribution), Pain and Gain never overstays its welcome. Plus, Bay gets to keep his usual visual style of nonsense slow motion, swooping camera shots of people looking up at the sky, the bizarre color pallet, and visual sight gags. In this movie, most of the sight gags involve sex toys, because the guys kidnap and keep Kershaw in an abandoned sex toy warehouse. it is totally pointless, but it adds something to the heightened sense of stupidity to the film. Bay understands how to make everything in the scene add to the theme of how in the world did these idiots pull this off?

Wahlberg plays meatheads very well. This is no surprise. He can also play comedy very well as evidenced by Ted. Here Wahlberg gets a chance to do a bit of everything. He is the "brains" of the operation, and the leader, but he also gets a good amount of comic relief in his flabbergasted state that he is working with people even stupider than he is. Wahlberg does a great job diving into the character of Lugo, who you know is doing a bad thing, but he is not all together unlikable. I would not say I was rooting for him, but I understood that he really believed he was doing a good thing. Kershaw was a total jerk and everyone hated him. Lugo gets the money and does good things with it. He treats the employees of Kershaw's shop better, he starts a Neighborhood Watch in his new mansion and he funds the gym where he works so they can have the best machines. He believe in changing lives through fitness, remember. Mackie is his usual solid self, proving that he is an invaluable character actor. Rebel Wilson, as Mackie's wife is excellent. She does not have much to do, but she is hilarious and the character even breaks your heart just a bit as the whole thing comes crashing down.

However, the MVP of this film is The Rock. Talk about a breakout performance. The Rock's Doyle is a man fresh out of jail, believing God can rehabilitate him. He is a big dumb oaf, who is too trusting and too willing to help. His performance is flat out awesome. It will never get awards notice, but it should. Beyond his intimidating physical bulk, the Rock transforms himself in this role. He throws everything he has at it and we, the audience, are rewarded with a layered performance that is manic, tragic, hilarious and drugged up. The Rock makes the entire film pop every time he is on the screen. If you think I am overselling this, you are wrong. I was rooting for The Rock to find a great break out role and I truly believe this is it. I was laughing hysterically at him when I was supposed to be laughing and I was worried for him as he faced the possibility of killing someone. It was fun to watch someone so scary looking be the one who most despises violence. It leads to a few key moments between Wahlberg and The Rock.

Pain and Gain is hilarious in a dark way and in an unabashedly goofy way, but knowing 85% of the film is the true story makes the ridiculous comedy even more hilarious. Bay directs what is probably his tightest movie and all of actors shine where you need them to shine. The color pallet of the film takes a bit to get used to, if you are not used to Michael Bay's heightened sense of Florida, which I am. I had pretty high expectations for this film and they were all met.

Final Grade: B+

Oblivion

Take every generic moment you can think of from a Science Fiction film trailer, and put them together. That is the trailer for Oblivion. Every single moment from the trailers looked generic. It made the movie look like every other science fiction movie out there. In fact, Oblivion is the first of at least 3 movies coming out this year, where Earth is not the prime place for humanity to reside. I imagine that of those 3 films, Oblivion will be the middle one. After Earth will probably be terrible and Elysium will be awesome. Oblivion falls somewhere between terrible and awesome. Oblivion is a better movie than the trailers suggest, but it suffers mightily under its own crushing weight.

After a war with aliens left Earth depleted, humans left Earth and are living in a spaceship (I think, this was kind of vague). Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Risborough) have two weeks left on their mission on Earth before they can go back to their new home. What is their mission to make sure the drones are operational and that the scavs (Their name for the aliens) are not coming back to deplete the resources even more. The humans created this machine that turns the remaining water on Earth into energy in hopes of one day finding a planet on which to live (Again, kind of vague). Jack is bored and he misses Earth. He is having memories, which is impossible because five years ago all of humanity's memories were wiped in case they were caught by the Scavs. Jack and Victoria are co-workers and lovers, but Jack is dreaming of another woman. jack flies around in this ship and repairs drones while Victoria communicates with Sally (Melissa Leo) who is in charge of things wherever the humans are now. Jack questions everything and wants to read books and live in a cabin away from everything. He occasionally disobeys orders and can be reckless. One night there is a crash and when Jack goes to investigate, he stumbles upon a ship of humans in sleeping pods and finds the drones firing on these humans, killing them. He saves one human and is suddenly questioning why the drones, who are supposed to protect humans, are actually killing them. Jack is then kidnapped by a group he believes are Scavs, but they turn out to be human and that possibly everything Jack believes is a lie.

The film opens with voice over narration by Jack explaining everything that happened. It is a tidy bit of exposition, if a bit long winded, vague and convoluted. However, later in the movie when we meet Julia, who has been asleep for 75 years, Jack has to explain everything to her. Therefore we get the exact same piece of exposition twice within 45 minutes. This is the one of the biggest flaws in this film. If you are going to have to give a character the entire exposition speech then why give it to us at the start of the movie? Let us be in the dark a bit, and then fill us in when you fill in the character. As an audience we do not need exposition twice in a movie, especially when the exposition is so vague. It adds unnecessary time to the film and I think, if I had been in the dark during the first half, I would have found it more interesting. Being told everything up front meant I basically did not need to pay much attention to the first 35 minutes of the movie. I already knew everything that was going to happen until the action got moving. Not only did I get 2 sets of exposition, I got 20 minutes at the beginning that filled in the world that was already explained to me! This is simply poor script work by everyone involved.

Once the movie gets going, it gets better. There are two killer action sequences and the twist is kind of neat and I did not really see it going to the place they took it. I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I love the imagination of Jack's flying vehicle, and I loved the design of the home of Jack and Victoria. There are some neat little touches that made me think there could have been a much better movie here. The idea for the film started as a graphic novel, but the graphic novel was never produced and they turned it into this movie instead. Perhaps a graphic novel would have been a better way to go, allowing them to focus on the smaller details more because this film is just so broad. The strokes of this film are too wide. Everything stays so general. Not even Morgan Freeman's presence really saves the film from crushing under bad pacing, poor writing and sloppy editing.

Cruise is good, but I would expect nothing less. He handles the lack of material well. He has always been a believable hero and here he is a believable as a man who wants more, and is frustrated that he has no real memory. Once the twist comes, he handles it very well. There are bound to be some snickers once the reveal comes and the epilogue is kind of weird. It feels a bit creepy, even though I know it is not and it fits with the story. There are elements to many different Science Fiction films to be found here, most specifically Independence Day. The climax feels lifted from Independence Day and while Oblivion's chase scene is dazzling, it does feel like we have seen it before. I definitely preferred this director's vision from Tron: Legacy much more than I enjoyed this knock off.

Oh, one last thing, the sound is incredible in this film. I rarely say that, and I will say that again later this week in another review, but the sound mix was perfection.

Final Grade: D

Iron Man 3

After The Avengers ended Phase One of Marvel's cinematic takeover, I was curious where things would go. We knew we were getting an Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2 and The Avengers 2. But, where would the individual series take us? How would the individual movies weave through what came before and would they discuss the other characters, or explain why they do not call The Avengers to help? I feel like those are pretty common questions to have had once Phase Two began this weekend. With the second biggest opening weekend ever, Iron Man 3 proves that marvel is still doing things right, and they managed to create a film that works as a stand alone picture without ignoring the events from The Avengers. If you were looking for something that basically continues the Avengers, you are going to be disappointed. You will also be disappointed if you want a film that plays exactly like Iron Man and Iron Man 2. With Jon Favreau stepping away from the director's chair, Iron Man 3 looked to infuse new blood into the franchise by bringing in Shane Black to direct and co-write the script. If you do not know who Black is, stop reading, go find Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, watch it and you will understand why Black being brought on to this project made me infinitely more excited than I already was. Yet, you will also understand why the movie was probably going to be a bit different. Black likes to turn tropes and cliches on their heads. He likes to fake out the audience and subvert expectations. it is what made him such a highly sought after screenwriter in the early 1990s. Giving Joss Whedon the keys to the franchise for The Avengers showed that Marvel/Disney was not afraid to take chances and letting Black take over the most profitable character that Marvel/Disney have, shows even more guts. And if you think letting Whedon direct the Avengers was not risky, you are a silly human being.

Set months after The Avengers, Iron Man 3 finds our hero, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) still shaken. He does not sleep. He cannot explain what happened to anyone. He experiences severe panic attacks. In order to cope, he tinkers in his workshop all day and night. He is currently working on his 42nd Iron Man suit. There is clearly something wrong, but he cannot figure out how to deal. He stands up Pepper (Gwyneth Pantrow) for date night and eventually breaks down to her, but it does not fix anything. Quickly his world is rocked by a villain who calls himself The Mandarin. The Mandarin is setting off bombs across the world, but no one can find the bomb after the mess clears. He also likes to take control of the airwaves with videos of Anti-American rhetoric, threats and ominous warnings. Stark wants Rhoades (Don Cheadle) to give him some information on The Mandarin, but Rhoades tells him it is not superhero business. Stark lets it go until The Mandarin sets off a bomb in Los Angeles and knocks Stark's former bodyguard Happy (Favreau) into a coma. Then it becomes personal and Stark's ego gets him in trouble when he announces his home address on television daring the Mandarin to come get him. On other side of things there is a man named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) who used to know Pepper and actually met Tony in 1999. In 1999 Killian was a nerdy ugly guy with a limp and Tony had some fun at his expense. In 2013 Killian is a very good looking well put together man whose Think Tank has come up with a way to regenerate human limbs. He brings it to Pepper to invest, but she sees it only as a weapon and a way to create super soldiers, so she passes on it. Killian and The Mandarin are working together but in what way?

Iron Man 3 is not perfect, but it is ridiculously entertaining and even reaches beyond just being entertaining. The movie does not, however, deliver on the expected. It is a move that will probably frustrate hordes of comic book fans for years to come, and it was a daring move, but remember what I said in the opening, Shane Black likes to subvert our expectations. Rarely is a summer blockbuster shocking or surprising and honestly Iron Man offers one hell of a shock about 2/3 of the way in. Black and Marvel gets props for being willing to take that risk and while I will not divulge it here, I will say this, it worked for me. It worked for me because the rest of the movie is so awesome and because Ben Kingsley's performance as The Mandarin is so great. He throws himself fully into the character that I wanted to follow it wherever it was going. That being said, I understand why people would be disappointed, but if it is the sole purpose for not liking the movie, I cannot get behind that. Black's screenplay is not perfect and a second viewing pointed out one glaring hole that I cannot seem to reconcile story wise, but his handling of the twist and his handling of Stark's character post The Avengers is excellent. I did miss having Nick Fury and Agent Coulson around and I was a bit dismayed that Coulson did not get a shout out, seeing as how close Pepper and Coulson had gotten, but since this is essentially a stand alone picture, I understand.

For his part, Robert Downey Jr. is mesmerizing. I know it sounds silly to think he should be considered for awards nominations for this, but that is how good I felt he was. He gives Stark a few new layers in this film and he commits to every new layer and every new character development. Yes, the smug wittiness of Stark is still front and center, but the panic attacks, the sudden insomnia all show chinks in his armor. There is even a moment early on when his new suit, the 42, basically attacks him as he tries to get it on. It sets up the metaphor of his suits attacking his life in a great way and that metaphor carries through the movie as his suits are called a distraction by more than one person. For me, through, the greatness of RDJ comes out the most during the middle section when Stark has no suits and he is in Tennessee investigating a bombing that looks eerily similar to The Mandarin's but happened before the Mandarin started taking credit for the bombings. Stark joins forces with an 11 year old kid, Harley (Ty Simpkins) and their chemistry and their rapport are just stellar. I love how Stark talks to the kid like he would any other adult. This shows that A. Stark is a bit out of touch, and B. That smugness of his is not actually a front. It is who he really is. The best lines in the whole film come during their scenes together. It is when the film is at its funniest and also its most interesting because we are not used to seeing Stark in need of anything, well except that whole thing above his heart keeping him alive.

The action sequences are well paced and well timed and they flat out rock. The first big action sequence where Stark's mansion gets destroyed is quite thrilling and quite a feat of Computer generated images. It was very quick and serious demolition and to see Stark's mansion destroyed with such ease was kind of shocking, even though we see it happen in the trailers. There was something about seeing it happen with such ease that put me in the mind that maybe Stark was really going to struggle in this film. The CGI is leaned on heavily in this movie and I felt they did an excellent job. Once the secrets are out about Killian's experiments and we see all of his soldiers with this fiery lava coursing through their veins, the film really takes off in terms of action. Without his suit, Stark has to avoid these seemingly indestructible beings, using just his wits and his fighting technique. He gets tossed around a bit which was, again, weird to see. I loved that action sequence though because it showed that Iron Man is not just a suit of armor. Stark has become heroic in every sense of the word and even without his suits, he finds a way to be a hero. The scene I was most looking forward to in the film was hinted at in the trailer where Stark has to catch a bunch of people who were free falling after Air Force One was compromised. The movie did not disappoint me in that scene. it is not the biggest action scene and it is not a loud explosive scene, but there was this thrilling element to it and even though I figured the outcome, I was still on edge. Plus, it had a weird humor to it and it felt very much like something Black and RDJ would have concocted together.

With any big budget action movie, you have to have a massive scale climatic action sequence and Iron Man 3 is no different. Stark and Rhoades, outnumbered by a whole grip of Super Soldiers, call on Stark's ample supply of Iron Man suits to save the day. What we end up with is these remotely controlled suits battling super soldiers, Rhoades trying to save the President, and Stark trying to fend of Killian and save Pepper all at the same time. It is a dazzling display of camerawork, editing, effects and pacing. There are explosions galore, great hand to hand fights and this incredibly cool sequence of Stark going in and out of all these different Iron Man prototype suits as Killian slices through the metal with his fiery body. The climax is one of my favorites from an action movie in a while. No, it is not as thrilling as The Avengers climax, but what is?

Iron Man 3 is a clever, fast, and thrilling summer blockbuster. it also manages to wonder aloud how a world can be afraid of anything human after they watched aliens and Gods all over television in The Avengers. it turns out the answer is to give them a face on fear. Give them fear they can recognize. Give them a fear that looks an awful lot like the face of fear in a post 9/11 America. It makes perfect sense. The thought might not be fully flushed out in the film, but I can see what Black was going for. There is a pageantry to the human terrorism in this movie and Stark remarks about the theatrical nature of the fear. When we are given a face to put on fear, it focuses us. Killian understand that. This film understands how much fear we still have of people from another country bombing us. We hate fear we cannot understand from humanity. I think that fear from aliens or Gods makes sense, but fear from other humans is still the most terrifying thing.
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Final Grade: A-

My All Time Favorite Movies: Goodfellas

I have been toying with the idea of doing a series of posts on my all time favorite movies for a little while now. Working at a movie theater again has started all of these conversations about movies and I always love to hear what people have on their lists of favorite movies. I decided I would take my 20 favorite movies of all time and write a blog entry about each of them. There are no set qualifications for a movie to be on this list. These are simply my 20 favorite movies of all time. They will not be numbered. Do not assume that I am going in order from 20-1. I will probably do that starting at 10, but honestly 11-20 are not numbered. They kind of exist right outside of the top 10. A few things you will realize as the list goes on are how recent so many of them are, and how Americanized the list is. I make no apologies for this. I know most people who are deep into film as I am often have many movies from the pre-1970s on their lists, but you will only find 2 or 3 of those here. I do not dislike "classic" movies in any way, but they have never stuck with me as much. I respect the craft, but I am rarely left feeling like they are my favorite movies. I cannot really explain it further than that. I am not xenophobic, but when it comes to cinema, I just prefer the American Aesthetic. I have roughly 10 foreign films that I love, but they do not make it into this list. Again, it is just my personal taste. Each post will be labeled as "favorite ever" so you can easily find them as I go on. As always, I love to hear feedback, if not on my choices, on your choices for some of your favorite movies of all time. Okay, onto this week's post. Oh and there will probably be spoilers about each title on the list.



Martin Scorsese's second and final entry onto my list is my all time favorite film dealing with the mob. There are quite a few great movies about classic gangsters and the mob, and one in my top 10 has some dealings with it, but this is the epitome of films dealing with that era of gangster. The costumes, the score, the props, and the sets are all top notch and Scorsese paces the entire film perfectly. Of course, none of that should come as a shock in any way. Scorsese is a master film maker and Goodfellas is, in my opinion, the peak of his still awesome career. Scorsese co-wrote the script with Nicolas Pileggi and there are times where the film plays like a documentary, which is fitting since this is the true story of Henry Hill's rise, fall and eventually turn away from organized mob crime. Pileggi was the journalist the real Henry Hill told all of his stories to before entering witness protection and the best thing about the film is how real it feels. In fact, the emotions, moods, choices and consequences of all of the characters stay with you for days after the movie is over.

The first time I saw Goodfellas, I was opened to the world of film that was not about plot, because Goodfellas is essentially without plot. There is a driving story here, but there is not really a plot to the story. It is a film about characters, specifically Henry Hill. All his life, all Henry wanted to be was a gangster. They were his heroes growing up. They were the people he saw as influences growing up. From the time he was a young man in New York watching gangters out of his window, to the time he grows up and becomes one himself. However, Hill slowly realizes there are consequences to his actions and believes he might be in too deep, thus the story was born.

If you are watching a Scorsese film there are a few things you can be assured of, first of all amazing music. The score, and the songs in this movie are perfectly married to the visuals. The second thing being, the camera work. There is a POV shot as Henry takes his future wife on her first date past the long line outside of the club, through the security check, down a corridor, through the kitchen and service area, into the main part of the club, where a table is literally lifted into the air and dropped in front of everyone else, so Henry and his date can have first row seats for the show. That is the kind of power he has. His date does not know what he does yet, but when she learns, the film takes to a whole new level because she joins the voice over narration and we start to see things from outside of Henry's perspective. The brilliance of the POV shot is the ease with which the camera flows through the scene. This is a violent movie, a brutal movie, but everything moves so smoothly, it is almost jarring that a movie so nasty and violent could look so smooth and beautiful.

Another great thing about the movie is how it unfolds. It unfolds in easy chapters where characters are never introduced in a forceful way. The entire thing is organic. It gives us an idea that we are in Henry Hill's world because we meet people when he does. We follow him. And since we do follow Hill everywhere, making sure Hill is well played was key and Ray Liotta is definitely up to the task. Liotta's performance lives with you when the movie is over. We understand why the romance of the mafia appealed to him, but we also understand why he slowly, then not so slowly starts to rethink the entire enterprise. Liotta should have been a huge A-list star after this movie, but he became so synonymous with the mafia role that it became tough for him to break out of it. In a movie with big presences like Robert De Niro, Paul Sorvino, and Joe Pesci, Liotta manages to hold his own and make sure the movie never gets away from him. He remains the focus and Scorsese makes sure we understand that.

Of course, Pesci, De Niro and Sorvino are excellent. As is Lorainne Bracco, as Henry's wife, who has her own character arc realizing that mob wives do not do much. They do not see anyone not in the mob and they are quiet, mostly submissive types and that never quite sits well with her. Pesci won an Oscar for his turn as a mob member with a serious temper. His "Clown" speech has been satirized/parodied countless times, but when you watch the movie and see this scene in context, it still works every damn time. Pesci takes a character that could easily just be a cartoon character, but he adds depth, and a real human aspect to him that draws you into his temper, then you watch it explode at the same time Henry does and we are left with the same sense of horrific feeling that Henry is left with.

There are dozens of reasons to love Goodfellas, but there is a scene towards the end of the film that personifies everything I love about it. The scene follows Henry in one day where he has to make a drug deal, cook dinner for his family, make his mistress happy and deal with the possibility of being followed. it does not further the plot of the film, but it serves as a way for us to see how his world is closing in on him. All of these things have to get done, but the guilt is overwhelming him. He is slowly losing his mind, but he has to do all of these things. I think The Sopranos exists because of this movie and because of this scene. We see this member of the mafia have to juggle his criminal world and his personal world. It is a brilliantly paced/shot/edited/scored and acted scene. Scorsese knows when to push in and when to pull out. He understands the rhythm of the scene as it fits in the rhythm of the entire picture.

The entire world of Goodfellas is gripping. Scorsese's best picture will change from person to person, but for me, this is it. It takes a subject with which he has much interest and knowledge and he mines it perfectly. There is not a single frame out of place, not a single touch off center that was not there for a reason. But it is not just technically brilliant, it is full of emotion. It rocks you back and takes you on a journey. You see the highs and lows of one character who never really had a chance to be anything but a gangster, but finds that when he got what he always wanted, it left him cold. yet it shows his guilt in more than one way. He feels guilty as to what he has done, but he also feels guilty that he cannot uphold the code he has lived by for his whole life. It is chaotic for him and confusing for us, but also so perfect.

42

I feel as if I have been waiting my entire life for a Jackie Robinson biopic. As a baseball lover, and as someone who follows civil rights battles closely, Jackie Robinson has long been a hero of mine. It is impossible for me to view this film without any of that swirling around in my head. It would be tough for me not to, at the very least, appreciate this film for what it was trying to do. Until I saw the trailer for this movie only 2 trailers had ever made me tear up: United 93 and The Pursuit of Happyness. I can now add 42 to that very short list. Anytime people say sports do not matter, I want to scream at them to look up Jackie Robinson. Change happens slowly, but someone has to be first and Robinson was first. Robinson broke barriers and allowed for change to begin. Of course, he could not have done it without the gutsy, progressive ideas of Branch Rickey. That was actually the part of the film I was most interested in because what gets lost in much of the Jackie Robinson conversation was the move by Rickey to find the right person to break the color barrier. He knew the player not only had to be talented, but cool under pressure. For anyone who thinks this film is just about the legend of Robinson and that it is old or out of place, allow me to connect it to our contemporary world. Some day soon, I hope, one of the major male team sporting leagues will have the very first openly gay player. One day, perhaps, there will be a film made about him and we will all get to witness history being made. Rumors are swirling that there are 3 or 4 NFL players who might take that leap forward this year. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to be the first openly gay football player. In that aspect, 42 is incredibly relevant and continues to be.

In 1945 Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) has the wild idea to integrate a black player into Major League Baseball. He is the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that just does not have what it takes to win the pennant. He and his advisers scour the profiles of African American players looking for the right one. Sachel Page is the first name brought up, but Rickey wants someone who has a long career ahead of him. Rickey understands this decision could change the entire landscape of America. Eventually the name Jackie Robinson is brought up. Robinson is a tremendous ball player and military veteran. There is a problem though, he is a bit of a hot head. he has an attitude that scares people. Rickey decides he is the right man for the tremendous task of ushering in a new era of baseball and possibly America. Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) does not fully understand what is being asked of him at first, but when Rickey explain to him that the first black player has to remain calm and not fight back, and that not fighting back would be true strength, Robinson just says, "Give me a glove, and a number on my back and I will show you the guts." The rest of the film centers on his only year in the minor leagues and his first year in the major league. He is booed everywhere, called the most awful names, and even gets baseballs thrown at his head by opposing pitchers who resent him integrating baseball. He has to just take everything thrown at him. Luckily for him, he is an incredible baseball player who lets his bat, his glove and especially his legs do the talking for him. It is so tough for Robinson that one point his teammates all sign a petition saying they refuse to play with a black man. Not only does Robinson have to worry about the hatred from the crowd and the other teams, his own teammates loathe him, even as he is helping them win. All Jackie has is his owner, a black reporter who wants to help Jackie succeed and Jackie has his wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie). Jackie and Rachel have a tender, loving, strong relationship and he often looks to her to ground him and calm him down.

Written, directed, shot, edited, and acted like a classic old Hollywood movie, 42 succeeds on every level, if it does come off a bit formulaic. Brian Helgeland wrote the screenplay and directed the film and clearly holds the story in great reverence. The baseball scenes are expertly executed and paced. Often times in baseball movies, the camera never quite catches the action in a fluid or logical way, but here, the swooping cameras effortlessly catch the pitcher/hitter dynamic and do an even better job of capturing Robinson's speed on the base paths. I loved how well they rendered the old baseball stadiums and how perfect the costumes, sets and props looked. The old style uniforms and especially the gloves all give you a very real feeling of being in the late 1940s. I felt transported back to the era and I think that is important to establish very early on. This is a story that requires care and love because it has to show us an ugly side of our country and it is tough for us to see. By making sure we can feel a part of the 1940s, it opens us up to see our own history. Helgeland has won one Oscar and been nominated for another for his screenplays, so the man knows how to write a successful screenplay and this is no different. Not only does the arc of Jackie's character have the rises and falls you want to see in a character, there are 6 or 7 characters that have these great character moments that fit like a jigsaw puzzle into Jackie's story. It never feels tired or boring, which happens to many biopics, and I think by only focusing on two years of Robinson's life, Helgeland does us all a great service. We get an exceptional idea of who Jackie Robinson was without needing his entire life story.

Of course, a screenplay alone does not make a great movie. Embodying heroes is not easy. Imagine the pressure of playing a national hero, a man who means so much to so many people. Can you imagine how difficult that must be for anyone, let alone an actor with whom not many people are familiar? Well Chadwick Boseman is clearly up to the challenge. Played with blazing intensity, heart breaking vulnerability, and an abundance charisma, Boseman's Robinson soars. The man can say so much with just his face, which is good because Robinson was not able to talk back to all of the people saying nasty, vile things. Boseman has to say what he is thinking with a look, or a twitch. Robinson only loses it one time in the whole movie and that is in the hallway to the locker room and because he has it bottled up the entire movie, that moment is as powerful as possible. Even in that moment though, everything is small, tight, contained. Boseman could easily be nominated for an Oscar for this, but this performance is beyond awards. He manages to give people like me who have only ever seen Robinson footage look like history, a chance to see Robinson like we were really in the 1940s. I was awestruck the first time he was on base and I got to see those famous Robinson legs shuffle and twitch like he had ADD. I loved watching Robinson take that famous swing and jack home runs. Everything Boseman did just felt right. It was a chance for me to see one of my heroes on the big screen and Boseman did not disappoint. He found the humanity in a legend which is not always easy to do. Also, Harrison Ford's Rickey might have been a little cartoonish with his super gruff voice, and cigar chomping, but it worked for me. Ford has never been a great actor, but he completely threw himself into this role. As I said earlier, I was curious about this character and the film gave me exactly what I wanted from him. Ford makes him strong and intelligent and there were many moments I forgot I was watching one of the most recognizable stars in movie history.

I was moved to tears multiple times, for heart warming reasons and out of shame for what our country was like. The biggest scene in the movie is also the best scene and the most vile scene and it reduced me to a mess. Playing against the Phillies, Robinson comes up to the plate for the first time only to be met with the nastiest most vile string of words possible. Phillies manager, Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) vocalizes the kind of nastiness that so many have thought and that so many have wanted to say to Robinson, and he gets in Robinson's head. Tudyk does an amazing job portraying the most hardcore racist in the film. Watching him tear into Robinson and watching Robinson have to just take it, turned out to be the hardest thing to watch. It also turned to be a turning point for the movie. It showed humanity in Robinson, and showed vulnerability in him. It gave a direct face to the vile nasty racism. It gave us the fear of white America in the late 1940s. It is one of the hardest scenes of any movie that does not include physical violence. Based solely on the words, I was cringing and wanted to hide. It shows the power of words and they had to find the right actor to play that part, and Tudyk was clearly the right guy. By all accounts Chapman was a funny former player and not a vicious villain. Tudyk plays him as a guy who is trying to get laughs from other people, not as a straight villain. It adds texture to the scene and while the scene goes on and on, it needs to. It does not feel out of place or overly long. It is exactly how it is supposed to be.

42 delivers on everything I had hoped it would. It is a straight forward film with amazing performances that tells an amazing story. I was waiting the entire movie for the moment Pee-Wee Reese put his arm around Robinson on the field and when that moment came, all I could do was weep. Reese was the marquee player on the Dodgers at the time and that is what it took for people to realize that Robinson was a man, just like us. This movie takes us on a journey through a very specific moment of American History and shows us the importance of it without feeling overly preachy. I think that is what I admired most. It knew it was telling us the story of a legend, but never felt the need to beat us over the head with the importance, at least in my opinion. 42 takes us back to a time when baseball really was the National Pastime. It approaches the game with reverence and it treats the subject matter honestly. It gives us the man behind the legend and just how much he had to go through to get to the place where he is as celebrated as he is. I am sure if this film were rated R it could have delved even deeper into the racism, but honestly, I felt it was brutally honest without needing to rely too heavily on the awfulness. We got enough of it to understand. Besides, having a pitcher throw a fastball at your head because you are black does as good of a job of showing racism as any language could do. If you have any passing interest in America or baseball, please get out and see this movie. It will most likely end up in my top 10 for so many reasons, but mostly because it is that great of a movie.

Admission

Paul Rudd and Tina Fey are possibly the most likable actors out there. Okay, maybe not, but it is difficult to find two actors who are much more likable that these two and just thinking of them in a movie together feels right. They just feel like they would have adorable witty chemistry together. At least that has always been my thought. The trailers for Admission looked to confirm these thoughts. The film did not look laugh out loud funny, but looked witty, intelligent and cute.I did not have high expectations and it took us awhile to finally get around to see it, but when I did, I was not terribly surprise to find that I like it, if my liking it lacked much enthusiasm.

Portia Nathan (Fey) is on the admissions board for Princeton university. She goes to high schools drumming up excitement for students to apply to Princeton and she reads files of potential students and makes a judgement based on what is in the file. She takes her job very seriously and has for the entire 16 years she has worked there. She is a very serious person who lives by her routine. She is not good with kids and very much wants a quiet safe existence. Everything was going according to plan until she gets a call from John Pressman, who works at a new high school and wants her to come visit and talk about Princeton. At first it appears fine, but Pressman eventually drops the bomb that he believes one student, Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) is her son. Pressman and Nathan went to college together, did not know each other, but knew a common person and the specific date and time of her giving birth stuck with Pressman all of these years. He believes that Jeremiah would be perfect for Princeton, but also he thinks Jeremiah wants to know his real mother. This throws Nathan's life into complete disarray. Unrelated to this, her boyfriend leaves her because he got an awful woman pregnant with twins and Nathan is truly on her own and she hates it. Eventually Nathan starts finding reasons to visit Jeremiah and John Pressman and starts to feel like maybe she is a part of something. The problem? Jeremiah, while incredibly bright, had a rough first three years of high school and getting him accepted is going to be a seriously uphill battle.

Admission is witty, warm, predictable, and ultimately very middle of the road. Fey and Rudd are likable and both do a good job with the material, but the film never quite takes off like I wanted it to. There are a few laugh out loud moments, mostly provided by Lilly Tomlin's perfect being, but for the most part, it was just so awkward/uncomfortable that even nervous laughter would not work. Fey and Rudd are working hard to mine the material for laughs, but honestly, I think I would have enjoyed the movie if the awkward moments were played in a more serious tone. I think I would have liked the movie as a whole more if it had picked a tone and stuck with it. I am all for movies that are funny and serious, but there is usually a tone that runs underneath the whole picture, and here it just felt wonky. I could not tell if it was trying to be a super awkward comedy with serious moments, or a more serious drama with a few funny moments. That could be the fault of the screenplay, or through Paul Weitz' uneven direction. I am not sure, but the movie feels confused.

That being said, the relationships work. I loved seeing the Rudd character and his adopted son clash over different desires from life. That little kid was cute and did a great job. Rudd and Fey are great, but Fey and Tomlin need a tv show together. They make a perfect mother/daughter team. Every time Fey's character went home the movie got just a bit better. Also, the kid who plays Jeremiah plays socially awkward well, to the point where I wondered if the character was on the autism scale. It is never mentioned, but it felt like the kid could have had Asperger Syndrome. This is not even remotely important to the film, but I was distracted by it because I just wanted someone to acknowledge the possibility. The scene between the kid and Fey were just too awkward for me. That is where the biggest problem lies. I know they are supposed to be awkward because, well she thinks he is her son that she gave up for adoption and she has no idea how to interact with him, but the laughs are just too ridiculous. The scene where she goes undercover as a college student to try and make sure he is okay is not only cringe worthy, it is just stupid.

Admission is as milquetoast as a movie can possibly be. Everyone deserves better. I almost wish the entire movie had done away with the birth mom aspect, and just focused on the college admission process. I feel like there is a really great movie about the depths high school kids and their parents go to to get admitted to a prestigious college. I would like to see that movie as a biting social drama with curt sarcasm. Or, maybe just see the version of this movie where Tina Fey is the screenwriter, and not just an actress in it.

Final Grade: C-

Evil Dead (2013)

Over opening weekend of this movie, I watched at least a dozen people leave this movie early because they were too grossed out. I am not sure what they were expecting, but the trailers for this remake/re imagining/sequel/band-new-movie-set-in-the-same-world-as-the-original were brutal, bloody and unrelenting. Why would you watch an Evil Dead movie if that is not what you were expecting? When they first announced the film, I was not nearly as opposed to it as so many others. I know a big part of the charm of the original Evil Dead was the low budget look of the film and how creative Sam Raimi had to be in order to get what he needed from each shot. It was a micro budget movie that turned into this awesome cult classic, that has even spawned a stage musical. However, if there is one place where remakes have been successful, it has been in the genre of horror. I can name a handful of remakes that I prefer to the original in the horror genre. Now, this was not to be a straight remake, as the character of Ash (Bruce Campbell) would be nowhere to be found, so it was more like a whole new story following the path of the original two movies. There are enough callbacks to the original to call this a remake, but a remake with different character. Ah, does it really matter what it is, is it any good?

Starting with your standard 5 young attractive people in a deserted cabin formula, Evil Dead wastes no time getting going. Mia, David, Eric, Olivia and Natalie head up to Mia and David's old family cabin for a few days in order for Mia to detox from the various amounts of drugs to which she is addicted. Mia and David are siblings, but they never got along because David left her to take care of their dying mother. Natalie is David's girlfriend who has no real attachment to the group otherwise and Eric and Olivia are life long friends of the siblings. Olivia and Eric inform David that Mia will say or do anything to get out of the cabin and they all make a pact to not let her leave. In the cabin Mia smells something awful and after the group investigates the basement, they discover a bunch of dead, hanging cats, blood everywhere, and the smell of burning human flesh. They also discover a book that is that completely covered and wrapped in barbed wire, which would seem to be the universal sign for DO NOT OPEN!! Eric opens it, reads a few words that someone wrote in the book not to read, and suddenly Mia is possessed by a demon who needs 5 human souls in order to rise from the ground rule the world.

Once Evil Dead gets going, roughly 10 minutes in, it is a nonstop gory romp with unrelenting blood, noise and cringe inducing moments. There is barely time to breathe between disgusting moments and it does leave you feeling a bit woozy and your limbs might hurt when all is said and done. It is lightening fast until it starts to drag during the climax, but even as it drags, you find yourself cringing and wondering how much more these characters can possibly take. The tone is definitely dark, but there is a hint of very dark comedy that exists throughout. Granted, a good majority of it is nervous laughter at the disgusting things going on, but the on-going gag of Eric surviving everything that hits him is petty funny in a not-really-supposed-to-be-laughing kind of way. In fact, most of the laughter comes from those moments that you know are not funny, but you are not exactly sure how you are supposed to react.

Much has been made on relying on practical effects/make up for the film and it shows that great care went into crafting this continuation of the original film. The make up is flawless. I greatly admired the slow transformation of Mia and what happens to Olivia is not only gnarly and incredibly difficult to watch, it is so well crafted. The make up on her jaw is quite something, but it is hard to admire as she is cutting her jaw off. I loved all of the quick P.O.V shots at the beginning when Eric first reads the book and there is a wonderfully dark scene early on when Mia is trapped by the forest. That sequence might have been my favorite as it is a dark twisted version of The Wizard of Oz or even The Lord of the Rings. It is easy to see why Sam Raimi wanted to work with first time feature director, Fede Alvarez because they are very like minded. They both have a visually pleasing aesthetic and both love to set up shots and stories in similar fashion. I will be curious to see where Alvarez goes from here, because it does appear that Evil Dead is going to be a nice little hit and from what I have read, not too many people are super upset at the movie existing after they watched it. If you look at Evil Dead as a horror movie and not the relaunch of a much beloved series, the movie really works on its own. I know many people who grew up worshiping the original because it shows that you can make a good movie without money, if you have vision and I understand that, but this version of the film has nothing to be ashamed of.

That being said, horror has become kind of stale and no amount of blood, vomit, severed limbs, bloody rain or zombie demons change that. Evil Dead is not terribly scary. It has two good jumps, but it does not set up to scare you. it just wants to gross you out. That kind of gross out horror gets old kind of fast and always has for me. I like the tension of quiet horror movies, and how everything is what you see in the corners of shots, and Evil Dead is not that film. I have worlds of respect for how this film was made and it succeeds in what it wants to do which is gross you out. It is clear from the very beginning that is the mission of this film. There is nothing wrong with that, but I think I was hoping for just a bit more of a difference. I was looking for a Raimi type of camera work, and a cleaner story, but when the movie was over, I definitely felt it and some times, that is enough.

Final Grade: B-

G. I. Joe Retaliation

G.I. Joe was not a great success in terms of entertaining someone who was a giant fan of the cartoon and action figures. Dennis Quaid was awesome because it was clear he was drunk in every scene, but the film was kind of boring. I was pretty damn surprised when I heard they were going ahead with a sequel, and when it came out that most of the cast in the original would not be used in this one, I was even more confused. Enter The Rock. The Rock, who can basically do no wrong in PG-13 or R rated films, seemed like the perfect guy to energize the franchise. Hell, it worked with The Fast and Furious series. Fast 4 was okay, but Fast 5 was spectacular. This sequel to G.I. Joe was to have a new director and a whole new direction, but it got delayed for nearly a year because they wanted to convert the film to 3D. Instead of cashing in on Channing Tatum's monster 2012, they waited. Maybe it was because the movie was not good enough to stand up to the big summer movies, maybe it really was for the 3D conversion, but whatever the reason, it meant we would have to deal with seeing trailers for this film for roughly an entire year. That sort of overkill really sucks out any true desire to see the movie and when it was finally released, I was not nearly as excited as I should have been for a movie starring The Rock and also ninjas.

The G.I.Joes are a secret Government military project. They do the dirty work and their next task is to go into Pakistan to grab their nuclear weapons as that country is in turmoil because their Prime Minister is killed. the President orders the strike, but the President is not who he seems. He is really Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) in disguise, and he has world domination on the brain, but first he needs to find where Cobra Commander is being held captive. The Joes easily get the nukes, and are just awaiting morning to transport them, but before they can leave, they are attacked and completely obliterated. Only 3 Joes survive: Roadblock (The Rock), Lady Jay (Adrianne Palicki)and Flint (D. J. Cotrona). Roadblock gets only a moment to honor his fallen best friend before they must get moving, and try to save the world. Cobra Commander is located, freed and quickly takes his place as the leader of COBRA. Zartan, as the President, tells the world that he wants to meet with all of the leaders of Nuclear countries for a Nuclear summit, but he has nefarious plans in store. The Joes, meanwhile, realize that the President is not the President and try to figure out what they are going to do when they are only 3 people. Enter the return of Snake Eyes Ray Park). Snake Eyes is a bad ass ninja who does not talk. He is rivals with COBRA's Storm Shadow, as they grew up together and Storm Shadow killed their ninja master, or did he? Roadblock also knows a retired Joe, for whom they are named, and they find him (Bruce Willis) and recruit him, who recruits a bunch of retired Joes for the fight.

G.I. Joe Retaliation is definitely not as silly as the first entry into the series, but that does not mean that it is not silly, because it is. There are very cool moments, like the ninja mountain fight, and there are overly stupid moments, like the whole story. John M. Chu, best known for directing such cinematic gems as Step Up 2, Step up 3 and Justin Beiber's Never Say Never, manages to stage action sequences pretty well, but he cannot handle anything else, but he was given a weak story, so it cannot all be his fault. There is an action sequence early on, when the Joes are recovering the nuclear weapon from Pakistan, that is slick, well choreographed and very well executed. The action moves fluidly from character to character, never losing a moment of intensity, and it actually made me think that maybe this would be a better movie than I thought. That all changed during the slower story driven moments. There are lengthy stretches where nothing at all happens and I found myself just waiting for The Rock to punch someone, anyone! I also loved Cobra Commander's jailbreak scene, but mostly because of Walton Goggins awesome performance as the prison warden. That dude has always been a solid actor, and here he pretty much lights up the screen with his fast talking character. if I am being completely honest, he might be the only character I actually cared about in the entire film.

The Rock does a fine job taking over the franchise. As I have mentioned before, I love the Rock because he looks like a live action cartoon character. It is laughable how he towers over everyone. In order to combat the Rock, the film enlists Ray Stevenson (ROME, Punisher 2, Dexter) to play Firefly, the COBRA counterpart to Roadblock. The Rock and Stevenson have one decent hand to hand combat scene and they have a good chase during the climatic action scene. I like how they play off each other and I think it would be fun to see them go against each other in a better film. The Rock is funny enough to provide a nice levity from the death and destruction and the guy oozes charisma from his years performing in the WWE and of course, he is completely kick ass. Roadblock has to be played by someone kick ass because he gets the biggest gun and he gets to blow up tank after tank. If it was someone other than The Rock, it probably would not work. So kudos to the casting department. Adrianne Palicki, who I have loved since Friday Night Lights, does no get nearly enough to do here. She is an actress capable of depth, vulnerability and toughness, and here she is basically just sex appeal. When the Joes get stuck, they put her in revealing clothing and she gets the information she needs. Do not get me wrong, she is gorgeous and her body is stupid sexy, but she can do so much more and I was disappointed to see her reduced to just using sex. I guess I should have expected it in this type of film. Bruce Willis does not really offer anything to his role except a few decent one-liners, but one has to wonder why he agreed to do this film and after seeing him in Looper last year, I have decided that he just chooses not to try in most movies. He sleep walks through his glorified cameo.

The ninja mountain action sequence is definitely the best part of the whole movie and it makes me wish they had not spoiled any of it in the year's worth of trailers we got for it. I am typically over the whole sped-up-then-slowed-down action scenes, but they are effective on the side of a mountain with ninjas leaping to and from mountains to attack each other. My biggest complaint with the ninja sequence and the ninja experience overall in this movie was the lack of sword fights. I was underwhelmed by the hand to hand fighting here. The climatic action sequence starts with the silliest plot point I have seen in a while. Once Zartan has all of the world leaders in a room together, he asks them to deactivate their nuclear weapons and when they refuse, he launches America's Nuclear weapons and then all of the world leaders pull out their nuclear suitcases and launch their weapons! Why would all of the leaders just be carrying around their nuclear weapon suitcases? There had to have been a more logical way for that whole thing to play out. It is ridiculous and pretty much pulled me out of the final 20 minutes of the film.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation has its moments, but I was hoping for so much more. I was expecting worse than I got, so in that aspect, the film succeeds. I still feel there is a way to do a really great live action G.I. Joe movie, but with the studio being 0-2, I doubt we will get a chance to see a third one. The 3D did not do anything to enhance the film, but did not take away from it either. The chemistry between The Rock and Channing Tatum certainly made the first 20 minutes better than the rest of the movie and I just felt there was too much wasted potential with the movie.

Final Grade: C-