Sunday, 25 August 2013

Don John


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This is the writing and directorial debut of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and he also stars in the title role as Jon, a young man who runs a routine and sticks to it. He loves his family, church, boys, girls, apartment, and most importantly his porn. Why does he love these things? Because they all give him a feeling that is unmatched by anything else in the world. Don Jon will most likely be remembered as “the movie about porn” but there are a lot of things that prove that statement to be wrong.

Okay but first thing’s first, yeah there is a lot of talk about porn in the movie. Jon loves it and states that every guy in the world loves it. He’s even quite poetic when he digs deep inside himself to try and explain to the people around him who don’t understand. There’s something that he feels when watching porn that he never feels when he’s with an actual woman. He describes it as “losing himself,” but even he can’t understand why he doesn’t lose himself when he’s with a girl.

This guy-driven romantic-comedy goes through its motions when Jon meets Barbara (Johansson) at a club. After tracking her down on Facebook (porn and Facebook, how modern!), they have lunch and start a relationship, but Barbara wants to get to know Jon, his friends and his family before they ever sleep with each other. While this disappoints Jon at first, he knows he’ll always have his porn.

What happens between Jon and Barbara makes for a good discussion. The greatest aspect they both have going is that they’re both incredibly attractive, but beyond that they’re very different. This part of the plot demonstrates a careful pen in Gordon-Levitt’s screenplay. Barbara is a type of loud-mouth bitch that we’ve seen before, but it’s shown with reason by the way she was grown up and the love stories she believes in. Plus, I’m sure she’s not alone in the world when she believes that watching porn while in a relationship is considered some kind of cheating.

While Jon changes and attempts to recreate himself to meet Barbara’s needs, he really doesn’t make substantial changes until the unlikely friendship of another student blossoms. What I like about the interactions between Jon and Esther (Moore) is that just because she’s older doesn’t mean she has all the answers. Her life is in shambles but still does offer an insight that Jon could never have reached by himself.

Don Jon offers a variation of the rom-com for guys that comes off as fresh because of some reinventions. The film benefits from the chemistry of Gordon-Levitt and Johansson, who tip-toes around their complicated characters and situations as well as you could without over-acting. And after it’s all over, it’s tough to not be happy for Jon, who with the help from everything he loves, finally learns to lose himself.

 

Thor







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I’m not a movie critic, and don’t have anywhere near the insight or vocabulary that my friends at the A.M.P. Movie Reviews site have, but I love movies.

Always have, always will and I’d like to share my ‘amateur’ thoughts with you on some of the films I see.

Ok, first things first – I’d like to come clean about something.  I’m a geek. I love sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, horror, etc.  However, I’ve never really been into ‘American’ comic books and graphic novels until very recently.

As a boy, I read Commando, Eagle, The Beano, Dandy and Wizzer & Chips on a weekly basis.  But the Marvel and DC estates never appealed to me in their paper form.  Loved the Superman films, Spiderman tv series, but could never get along with the comics.

Hence why I came to this movie cold – I’ve never been interested in Thor as a character.  In fact, there was something about him that I actually disliked.  So I sat down to watch this movie purely as preparation for the Avengers movie next year.

In theory, the film should be brilliant. Kenneth Branagh directing, Anthony Hopkins playing Odin, and a supporting cast of Natalie Portman, Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd and Rene Russo and many other great actors – surely a recipe for success?  But then they said that about Hudson Hawk…

This is an ‘origin’ movie, that is it explains who Thor is and how he becomes a superhero on Earth.  A headstrong, arrogant warrior who, cast out of the fantasy world of Asgard by his father, has to live as a human without his considerable powers.  Fish-out-of-water jokes ensue, a little bit of love interest, redemption and a whole load of CGI effects!

And you know what?  I absolutely loved it!  It’s not going to win any Oscars, but it delivered everything that I want in a superhero movie.

Branagh handles this action film with great gusto, with newcomer Chris Hemsworth grabbing hold of the hammer as the hero Thor.  Apparently Hemsworth was in TVs Home and Away and I’d completely forgotten him playing George Kirk in the recent Star Trek reboot, but after this performance I’ll certainly keep an eye out for him.  Playing Thor with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek and campness required for such a fantastical superhero, I actually cared about the character.

Supporting cast did exactly that – support.  None of them showboating which was a refreshing change.  Branagh favourite Patrick Doyle provides the rousing score, which in parts rivals his work on Hamlet (one of my all time favourite scores) and the CGI manages to be over the top, but not eye-jarring.

Is this film perfect?  Far from it.  We’re not talking Shakespeare here people!  The plot is pretty damn thin, and I didn’t quite buy the villain Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, who is returning to the role in the forthcoming Avengers.  Hopefully he’ll be given a bit more to work with to flesh out his character.  I also found the traditional Marvel post credits scene disappointing.

But, and it’s a big but – it ticked all the boxes I was looking for – redemption and victorious return, camp cheesy jokes, characters I actually liked, and a world that I definitely want to see more of! The good news is that not only does Hemsworth return as Thor in the Avengers movie, but Thor 2 has been slated to follow.

In fact, as far as Marvel movies go, I’d probably put it slightly below Iron Man, on a par with Norton’s superb Hulk, and well above the sadly disappointing Iron Man 2 and Bana version of Hulk.  Haven’t seen Captain America yet, so I’ll revisit that at a later date

Rush





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Rush, like most films directed by Ron Howard, is pretty much exactly the film you expect to see when you walk into the theater. The trailer sets up a good racing movie, with a rivalry between the hotshot, go-for-glory mentality of James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) vs. the cautious, intellectual approach of Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl), and basically shows how their rivalry developed over a number of years, culminating in their season long dual in 1976 for the F-1 Championship. And that is precisely what Howard delivers, in a film where the racing scenes are expertly staged, and the performances are top notch. The one thing about the film that did surprise me – pleasantly – is how it never takes sides. It doesn’t turn Hunt into a hero, and Lauda into a villain, or vice versa. Instead, it presents two men, with completely different views on what it takes to be a winner – and lets the audience decide who was right, and who was wrong – or, if you’re like me, decide that they were equally right. Both men raced the way they needed to if they wanted to win.

 

The movie sets these two drivers up as polar opposites – and benefits greatly from the performances by the two leads. Chris Hemsworth, who has never really had a chance to show his acting chops (he’s fine as Thor, but there are no nuances to that character) portrays Hunt as foolhardy – a fun loving party guy who drinks, smokes and screws constantly, and when he’s behind the wheel, he depends on his own intuitions. He has no fear, gleefully accepts the prospect of death, and goes for broke every time out. It’s a fine performance – and I suspect American audiences are going to be on his side more than not – even though Hunt was British, he is almost a prototypical brash American – and Hemsworth relishes the opportunity to play this charming bad boy. He doesn’t have all that more depth than Thor – but it’s a different role, and one that suits Hemsworth. Daniel Bruhl is even better as Lauda – a man who doesn’t care if anyone likes him, he’s just there to win. He’s more involved with the mechanics of his car, and knows every detail of the race he’s going drive. He is a technical driver, one who relies on his intellect to win. At first, he is the much less sympathetic – and likable – character. But he is also given more depth than Hunt. It would have been easy to turn him into an unfeeling villain – but Peter Morgan’s excellent screenplay doesn’t do that. In fact, by the end, I was rooting for him.

 

The racing scenes are some of the best of their kind ever put on film. Working with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, Howard has crafted scenes that are loud, brash and exciting – often putting us behind the wheel with the drivers. Although at times Howard does rely on some rapid editing, he never loses focus – and you never lose perspective on what is happening. You feel the rush (pardon the use of the word) of the races in your guts as they are going on – that mixture of excitement and fear, that feeds the drivers need to go out there week after week and risk their lives.

 

As a narrative, Rush follows a fairly well-worn path – the two rivals start off hating each other, and gradually they build up a begrudging respect for the other person. They still may not like each other, but they realize that in a way they need each other – the presence of the other fuels their desire to get better, and pushes them to places they otherwise would not get to. That’s not exactly an original observation, but it gets the job done.

 

And that pretty much describes the movie as a whole – not exactly original, but it gets the job done. Howard has always been a gifted technical director – and this has to rank as one of the best of his career in that regard. And he has always been good with actors – and he gets career best work out of Hemsworth and Bruhl (the rest of the cast is pretty much disposable – but have some nice moments). And Peter Morgan’s screenplay is very good – stripping the movie of much of the filler movies like this often have, and concentrating on what works. Rush is precisely the movie the previews promised it to be – and for me that makes it an immensely satisfying, if not overly original, movie.

2 Guns







Starring: Denzel Washington (Robert 'Bobby' Trench), Mark Wahlberg (Michael 'Stig' Stigman), Paula Patton (Deb), Bill Paxton (Earl), Fred Ward (Admiral Tuwey), James Marsden (Quince), Edward James Olmos (Papi Greco), Robert John Burke (Jessup), Greg Sproles (Chief Lucas), Patrick Fischler (Dr. Ken).

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are two very talented actors, who spend most of their time coasting on their considerable charm. Before last year’s Flight, Washington had spent basically a decade doing this – and Wahlberg, while occasionally throwing in a film like The Lovely Bones and The Fighter – basically does the same thing. You know what you’re getting when you walk into an action movie starring one of these two guys. And to both of their credit, they don’t simply phone in their performances – they perform them to the hilt, even if they aren’t really challenged by them. That can be said about their first onscreen team-up – 2 Guns. This is a likable, late summer action comedy with double and triple crosses, an ever twisting plot, and multiple trips across the border into Mexico.

 

When the film opens, we meet Bobby (Washington) and Stug (Wahlberg) as they walk into a dinner across the street from a bank. They want to rob the bank, and are there for two reasons – one, to scope out their target, and two, to make sure that this dinner “with the best donuts in three counties” won’t mess up their job. Needless to say, not everything is what appears to be. They pull off the robbery – only to discover they have both been lying to each other, and whoever gave them the information in the first place has also been lying. What follows is an over complicated plot featuring a Mexican drug dealer (Edward James Olmos), a crazed CIA agent (Bill Paxton), the DEA (represented by Paula Patton), and the army (James Marsden). The plot is busy, but never confusing, and the movie breezes by easily – coasting on the considerable charm of Washington and Wahlberg.

 

The film was directed by Baltasar Kormakur, who had made some pretty acclaimed films in his native Iceland, before coming to Hollywood. His North American “debut” was last year’s Contraband – also starring Wahlberg – and also having one of those plots where nothing is as it seems. Personally, I thought Contraband overstayed it’s welcome – tried too hard to pull the wool over the audiences eyes a few too many times. 2 Guns seems to be constantly threatening to do the same – but never quite does. The film is short, violent, funny, briskly paced and ends just as I was starting to get tired of all the plot twists. In short, it’s an effective genre piece – not much more – but a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

 

Washington and Wahlberg are surprisingly good together. It didn’t surprise me to find out after the movie was over that it was initially meant to be a vehicle for Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (perhaps they backed out when Google came calling) . The film was most likely re-written to better suit its current stars – but this is still an buddy-comedy/action movie – and Washington and Wahlberg play well off each other. It also helps that the rest of the cast is game as well. Olmos is having fun playing the stereotypical Mexican drug kingpin – and I’m not sure what movie I’ve seen him in the last decade or so where he’s been better. James Marsden once again proves why he’s better suited for these type of odd, quirky supporting roles than as the leading man. Paula Patton is a standard issue “love interest”, but she does the job well. Best of all is Bill Paxton, who just may be insane.

 

Overall, 2 Guns doesn’t attempt to do anything too new. There’s nothing wrong with making a solid, fun, genre movie – and that’s precisely what the filmmakers have done here. I do hope that it isn’t too long before Washington and Wahlberg stretch their acting muscles again, but for now, it’s good enough to see them at their charming, movie star best
 


 

Iron man 3


Shouldn't be a surprise that I loved it, and probably as much as the first.

I will admit that the first's story is a lot tighter while the second has a lot more going on with its larger cast of characters - I wouldn't say the pacing drags, there's just a lot more to absorb in a short frame of time & I can see how the bigger ensemble & their arcs could be made accountable for this. It also doesn't have the political relevance the first film had. I didn't seem to get affected by that though, I was totally engaged the whole way through.

Downey again nails Stark to a T, and while he makes a return to his ego-tistical, prick-ish ways he still manages to keep us on his side. Rockwell's Hammer is in fine form, and does an excellent job of portraying used-car-salesman-turned-weapons-dealer (loved his little Hammer dance at the expo). Scenes with Downey & Rockwell in the first act are worth the price of admission alone. I was pleased to see Faverau give himself increased screen time as Happy - he had some great comedic moments. Scar-Jo is serviceable as Black Widow as was Sam as Fury, but I just didn't feel Gwens turn as Pepper (or the romance between her & Stark) this time round & apart from Vankos/Rourkes initial appearance, he never really came across as the uber villain of the piece, which were probably the weakest elements of the film for me.

I'm pleased ILM have really been let off the leash here, because the action sequences are excellent and way more impressive than the original. Whiplash's debut, Tony's Birthday party & the final battle being the standout sequences.

And for the all Marvel fans, yeah stay until after the credits - there's some gold to be had.

This sort of film is the reason I go to the cinema, to be thoroughly entertained & to have a decent laugh.

4.5 stars out of 5

I gave it an extra 1/2 star because of how well War Machine was realized - that being my comic book dream come true. Also neglected to mention that Cheadles' turn as Rhodey made me go "Terrance Who?". He was really that much stronger in the role compared to t

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