Public Enemies

Yeah I don't think there's such a thing as a bad Michael Mann film centered around bank robberies.

It's been a minute since I've seen this movie. I did see it in theaters when I was 14 and even owned it on video but it's been awhile since I sat down and watched it again. It's as good as I remember it, a very non-romanticized account of notorious bank robber John Dillinger being pursued by the still forming FBI and it's G-men. I can't remember exactly what drew me to see the movie back then, both me and my mom were big Johnny Depp fans and the advertising media looked pretty good, and I don't hear anybody talk about it nowadays. It's pretty good though, if you're familiar with Michael Mann's work then no doubt you'll want to see it, and it does have some fine star power. Basically if you loved Heat then you should check this movie out, it kind of has some similar concepts here and there and the action scenes are shot really well. I do have to give big credit to the production team, it really does look and feel like 1930s America with the fashion, cars, and events, it just looks absolutely great. There's a lot of handheld footage in this movie even outside of shootouts, but it's not at all shaky cam and the director obviously knew how to get his shots, so the gunplay is damn good. The movie also does a fine job of getting you to sympathize with the criminal, Johnny Depp really brings his charm and affability to the role and while he robs banks and does shoot down cops, you do want to see him reach his goal of retirement with his girlfriend. I bought the chemistry between Johnny and Marion Cotillard, and it services the story's enjoyment but it's nothing too grand to write home about. It is pretty interesting to also see her and Christian Bale in scenes together about 3 years before The Dark Knight Rises and he does great work, with the film splitting almost entirely in half between these two guy's performances. The soundtrack is mostly music of the era which is nice but the main theme for Dillinger is more recent, and while I will fully admit it's a great song and one I immediately got after seeing the film, if you really listen to the lyrics it don't got much to do with bank robbing. Though it's still a strong song with an unfortunate but all too real subject matter. All in all it was great seeing this movie again and to see it holds up quite well, it's by no means Mann's best work but it shouldn't be disregarded. There's plenty to like and actually would make a great introduction to his body of work, so I do recommend this movie. I give it 3 stars, 7.5/10, and no doubt we'll have a real banger tomorrow so I'll see you down the road.

Ford Vs. Ferrari

Not my usual fare, but interesting nevertheless.

I'm just not a car person, I can appreciate designs for a car but it's a practical machine first so why did I go see this movie? Because I have gearheads in my family, yet I must admit despite me not knowing anything about the technicals of cars or the story about Ford making a racecar to best Ferrari at a race in France, I liked the movie. I felt Matt Damon and Christian Bale had great screen chemistry together and the relationship their characters had was fun and really good. It was truly the driving force of this movie for me (no pun intended of course). I'm not a person who has a liking for loud noises, but the racing segments were shot great and I was able to see everything with crystal clarity, so I must really thank the director and camera men for doing such good work and of course the stunt drivers have nerves of steel, not many people can take a job where you deliberately crash a car for a living so I have mad respect and admiration for such people. I think the best part of the movie was the relationship between world renowned driver Ken Miles and his wife Molly, they really just brought a smile to my face and I thought they were amazing in every scene even if not in close proximity to one another. I was surprised how the film looked, there is some damn good shots in this movie with the driving scenes in the city at night time looking fan-friggin'-tastic, with one quiet scene having such a gorgeous atmosphere and was a bit moody and it was easily the best scene in the film for me. It's entertaining, I have to say it's faithful and told the story straight if only just because I have no grasp of any real historical facts so for all I know this is could be 100% Grade A nonsense, but it was a good movie. Maybe not entirely my scene but trust me it could have been worse, so I was happy to see it regardless. I give it 3 stars, a solid 7.5/10, if you are any type of car fan chances are you've seen it already but it's worth the time even if you're curious about a slice of automobile history.

This might be the last new movie for awhile, I will truly try to see the Mr. Rogers movie this weekend but things have went ever so slightly south which sucks man. I wanted to see The Lighthouse and Jojo Rabbit but it will have to wait for now. I don't think I can do as many reviews now. Not just quit here and now, but scale it back from 3 to 2 reviews a week. I really don't want to but hard times be here man. Hopefully December will be better but I'm seeing Star Wars even if I have to sell other people's kidneys, just saying.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's time for Knightfall.

The end is here. All those years, all his enemies, and the Bat was broken. But he came back, 8 years of nothing before Bane comes to Gotham and took the city, making it a no man's land. And the Dark Knight came out of retirement to take control of his city. Was it worthwhile? Was it a brilliant end to an iconic trilogy? Well here's the thing, answers don't give you a sense of satisfaction, sometimes you have to brace yourself for disappointment. I mean, think about it! You've seen this series since it began, the birth of the Batman, the crazy and chaotic Joker pushing him to his limits, and then bang! The ultimate fight for Gotham ensues and ends. Would you be happy? Does it make sense? How come the true villain sucked ass? Well, let's start at the beginning. 8 years since the Batman has been seen, and not all is well. True, Gotham seems to be in a time of peace but Bane has different plans, severing all ties to the outside world and keeping Gotham in his pocket thanks to a four megaton nuclear bomb. He broke the bat, threw him in a pit, and is about to do what Ra's Al Ghul was always planning: destroy Gotham. And hell, that's just the brief basic synopsis. Good gravy is there a lot going on in this movie! What with Bane controlling the city, Bats coming out of retirement, Catwoman doing her own thing, and poor Jimbo scrambling to restore order, it's a miracle you remember what happened in the first movie! But specifics are key here, and really there isn't much to talk about casting and production wise, except for Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. Great job guys! I thought she was awesome! Now I think the problem many people did not get was this is NOT a Batman story. At all. It's a Bruce Wayne story. It deals with him coming out of retirement, defending a city that hates and fears him, and just him trying to do one last good deed in his lifetime. This is important to know if you choose to see it again. Now onto the villains! Bane is damn near pitch perfect, I mean Tom Hardy friggin' nailed it. This is the comic book Bane, and for those of you who read the comics know what I am talking about, he's brilliant, super genius intellect almost, incredible strength, military backing in some cases, this guy is a true force to be reckoned with. He broke Batman's back, no one has ever hurt him like that before. This shows a capable villain who is a great character in and of himself. But then they done screwed it up! I have no qualms spoiling this, because it's absurdly obvious to the comic book fans, and means precisely nothing to those who want to just watch the movie. The whole mastermind behind all this is Talia Al Ghul, Ra's daughter. Thanks for taking away such excellent menace from Bane and just pissing me off! Seriously?? What the shit is she doing here??? There's no reason!! None! Whatsoever! The character is meaningless, she doesn't even reveal her name until about 15 minutes before the end! Are you fraking kidding me?! This movie is 2 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES LONG!!! God I hate her in this movie, now you might be saying "But Dude that's the point! You're not supposed to like her! She's the bad guy!" but that is not the point! You built up an incredible villain, faithful to the comics, with a damn fine performance, and just chucked it all in to the fraking trash! I knew her whole schtick once she babbled on about having balance or order or some bullshit in the world for the 8 millionth godforsaken time! Also, worst death ever! Oh yeah, she dies. Not in a even slightly satisfactory way! It is literally, the worst on screen death I have ever seen! I mean for Christ's sake, that was the best take you could get?? It's horrible! Oh my God! How do you do this man? Besides that....disgustingly horrible aspect, the rest of the movie is fine. When I first saw it I found it very underwhelming because I didn't want it to end, but you know, it's been 5 years, and the movie has grown on me. I like the scale of the movie, the tone of the movie, (most) of the characters in the movie, the action is very good, the drama hits hard and by the way, shame on you Bruce! You made Alfred cry! That ain't right man! It's a perfectly fine ending to The Dark Knight Trilogy, they just done fraked it up in terms of villains. In fact, just watch the How It Should Have Ended video of this movie, if you don't feel like sitting down for almost 3 HOURS! There are movies that warrant that run time, this one....not so much. I can totally get why someone would not want to sit through a movie like this for that long. But honestly when I sat down, it took about 20 minutes for me to get interested and then the rest of the movie pretty much flew right by. But then again, I am used to such run times. 3 hours is a powerful repellent to the uninitiated, but we are initiated aren't we? The ending pissed people off too, I frankly didn't mind. I mean damn, it's all gone now, we got Batfflec and all these new kickass superhero movies coming out, so get over it! Oh, and The Joker totally called it. He was right about everything. That's why we love you Heath! But anyway, I'm done. New reviews next month, you know the drill, thank you so much for reading and I need some ice cream cake now. Happy Birthday to me, The Dude reminding you that the movie reviews will never die.

The Dark Knight

And...here we go!

What can I say? The Dark Knight is not just an amazing superhero movie but also an amazing movie in general. I saw it not once, not twice, but 3 times in theaters and surprise! I love it. The story is great, picking up about a year after Batman Begins with Bats facing off with The Joker for the first time and subsequently brought to his breaking point. Now let's just get this out of the way, Heath Ledger is outstanding and far worthy for his Academy Award. I mean, I thought Jack Nicholson was pitch perfect, ha ha ha ho hee ha ha and I thought my jokes were bad. Heath blows Jack out of the water, and that a stiff fraking order! Top Jack Nicholson as The Joker! Almost an impossible feat but he did it!! Don't know how, don't even care, cause I love him. Now moving on, Aaron Eckhart is Harvey Dent and he is great, bringing my absolute favorite Batman villain to the screen, though I do admit I wish I saw more of him, quite like Scarecrow in the previous movie. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachael Dawes......oh lord, I thank you for this good performance and for not having Katie back. Truly you have great wisdom. Thank you! And everybody in supporting cast is still kickass and I love seeing them again as these characters. Now for the more, intricate parts. I thought Chicago looked good in the first movie, I mean it looks absurdly great, it adds much more scale, and depth, and it looks glorious. Action scenes have improved by leaps and bounds, and I am so thankful for that! The dialogue, oh boy the dialogue, it's just as good. Hell in fact, I enjoyed this movie so much more than ever before due to one single scene and the actions of the characters afterwards. Jim Gordon's "death". Wow, I mean you don't buy into it cause, how do you kill Jim? It cannot be done! But really take a step back and look at how people react to it. For all intensive purposes, Jim Gordon is dead. How does Batman take it? He...snaps, almost killing people because he wants The Joker because he killed his friend, his partner in crimefighting. How does Harvey take it? He holds a guy at gunpoint, threatning to blow his brains out all due on a coin toss. Damn. That adds so much more character, and even more when they discover he is alive. That speaks volumes about how they viewed each other. And when it comes down to the wire, and the suspense and drama hit, it packs an explosive punch. Top notch direction, acting, editing, and cinematography in these scenes. The Tumbler, which a lot of people didn't see as a true Batmobile gets demolished and thus we get the Bat Pod, which looks awesome and many people liked more. And now we reach the ending, and so many people complained about, "Why not blame The Joker for all the deaths? Why does Batman have to take the fall?" and well, The Joker is an easy way out. They knew the direction they wanted to go in the next movie, and they set that up. No question about it. That part was essential in the making of the last movie, which of course we will look at to cap the week off. All in all, great movie, need to see it if you haven't already, and soon the legend ends....or does it?

Batman Begins

Well it's birthday week again, so screw it. Let's finish the Batman movies!

The first of The Dark Knight trilogy, how is it after 10 long years? It's a great start, it builds the world it wants, executes an origin story on a more realistic setting, and kickstarted the most acclaimed Batman movies ever made. Do I need to spout off the plot? Well just so I can talk more, absolutely. Bruce Wayne has been missing for several years, training with a mysterious organization known as the League of Shadows, and returns to Gotham City to fight crime and reclaim his city. But the League has a few tricks up it's sleeve, including the first live action potrayal of The Scarecrow, easily one of my top 5 Batman villains played brilliantly by Cillian Murphy who has a helping hand in the destruction of Gotham. I won't give much else away, but believe me when I say it's a great movie. Now onto the cast! Christian Bale on first viewing for me, was nothing special. But as I grew older, and started appreciating the story and the characters more, he does a fine job. As Bruce Wayne, he is cool and unassuming and as the Dark Knight, he is a force to be reckoned with. Supporting cast ranges from perfection to what the flying hell were they thinking. Michael Caine as Alfred? Fan-flipping-tastic! Very difficult to replace Michael Gough, but he puts his all into it. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon is terrific, well that's pretty much Gary Oldman in general. Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox? A more unknown character, hell Morgan was an avid reader of the Batman comics and didn't know who he was, but still very likable and entertaining. It's God for crying out loud, how can you say bad things about him? Alright, Liam Neeson as Ra's Al Ghul.....he's not terrible, but didn't really feel like Ra's. Plus I hate how they pronounced his name, I know that's nitpicking but it seriously gets irritating after awhile. He plays the part well but it just felt off, character wise not performance wise. Katie Holmes as Rachael Dawes. Good God, she is bad in this. I'm not bashing on Katie Holmes but she sucks in this. Her character is just so boring! There's no development, no depth, she just acts kinda bitchy and there you go, there's her character! Might as well wrap up the rest of the negatives while I'm at it. The fight scenes are horrendous, they are so closely shot, so fast with motion, it is almost fundamentally impossible to tell what is happening. And that's kind of an important part of a superhero movie, where you know...people fight crime! I don't know what they were thinking but at least they learned. Also, criminal underuse of Scarecrow, Christopher Nolan is a cerebral filmmaker so I expected Scarecrow to be a terrifying force, front and center of the whole film, main villain being awesome. But nope. Cillian Murphy gets to be Scarecrow for maybe five minutes, and he is great! He is awesome! I fully believe this is a guy who experiments on people with fear toxin! Spot on acting sir! And that's about it really. Good stuff as is follows, great story, great retelling of an origin story, good acting, a memorable script, decent effects, using Chicago as a backdrop for Gotham which I am totally cool with even though it's quite obvious Gotham is a gothic caricature of New York City, and for the first installment of a trilogy it does it's job well. Also, side note the reason I fraking LOVE Batman movies is because somehow, I don't know how, the movies keep getting better as time goes on. But not....film wise, kinda. I'll try to explain. You see when you delve into this mythos, these stories, these characters, you notice little details. Call them easter eggs, call them references, whatever but once you know something you can connect it to something else, especially in comic book media. It's like, every adaptation, every retelling, every version of this story compliments everything so much. People hated that Jim Gordon drives the Batmobile in this movie, but recently Jim Gordon actually becomes the Batman in the comics! The whole scheme of destroying Gotham is strikingly, even suspiciously too similar to Arkham Knight with Scarecrow and his plans. It's that sort of references that always make it well worth my time to revisit and watch not just these movies, but all things Batman. I live it, I breathe it.....because I'm Batman!!!

Howl's Moving Castle

I'm back! Sorry about yesterday, had some things to clear up. But moving on to our next review, Howl's Moving Castle!

All the good points that I said about My Neighbor Totoro are even better in this movie. The voice acting, the animation, the real emotion you have with the characters, all that. So this story takes place in a world filled with magic and sorcery, where a young woman named Sophie has a curse put on her and she has to seek the help of a reclusive wizard to help her break the spell, and she falls in love with him and has to even save him from himself. The story is the greatest part of this movie, for several reasons. One big reason is just the world that our characters live in, like I said it's a world of magic and sorcery which means the movie can do so many creative things and do so much and it greatly succeeds! And the only real shame about it is, you want to know so much more about the world and you're only given glimpses of it. And that is not a bad thing. Now I know the movie is based off a book so it probably delves deeper into the world, so I can't complain much. Second is the characters, very much like in My Neighbor Totoro the characters act very real even though the film is set in a fantasy realm. They have conflict, they have backstory, they have wants and desires and the situations they are put in, although very mystical and impractical they treat it very real and very seriously. And I just love how everything is designed, not just the characters but everything! This animation far exceeds the animation of My Neighbor Totoro, the colors are bright and bountiful but can still be very dark when needed, every main setting has a distinct and beautiful look to it, even the run down castle in it's own way, everything is just so much bigger and deeper and more articulate than before. So if you thought the animation in My Neighbor Totoro was really damn good, you're going to be awestruck at the immense attention to detail and color in this movie. The characters are original, I mean I dare you to compare them to other characters because I can't. They are just so different from what you normally see in movies. The music is a beautiful composition by Joe Hisaishi, especially the main theme which is very much like a waltz, and it is emotional and beautiful music. You know how I said in my last review that Miyazaki's work is very difficult to explain? Well I think I figured out an accurate description for this movie: it's a movie where nothing is as you expect it. Because whenever you think of magic in movies, it's pretty simple compared to this movie in how it uses magic, it's unlike anything you have grown accustomed to. Howl's Moving Castle is a spectacular animated film, with tons of emotion in the story, and should really be given a chance even if fantasy and films with magic are not your thing. Give it a watch, and see it for yourself.

So tune in next time where we cap off spring with yet another Miyazaki classic.

American Psycho

You ever want to smash someone's face in with an ax while listening to some 80's music?


I love that scene, it's just hilarious to me and the song is awesome. So this is American Psycho, cult classic and one of the movies that made Christian Bale famous. So American Psycho is about this business man, played to perfection by Christian Bale who is a psychopath. It's set in the late 1980's and the film is just incredible. I heard good things about the movie before, but I really had no idea what to expect the first time I watched it and...I laughed my ass off and had a blast. You really think a movie about a psychopath couldn't be quite humorous but it is, I honestly think you have to be a bit of a psycho to get the humor and the story cause otherwise you will just see this as a very odd and disturbing movie. This is obviously not a film for everyone, made for select few who like movies about psychopaths, like dark humor, and really enjoy 80's music. Seriously this soundtrack is fantastic. It's really hard for me to explain a movie that is very cerebral and as dark as this movie is, but I can try. The story is about Christian Bale who is a business man by day and a psychopathic killer by night and we literally just watch this guy sink deeper and deeper into madness. Everyone does a fantastic job in this movie, Christian Bale is both threatening and hilarious, everyone who works around him and all the secondary characters do great jobs. The humor is very, very dark but if you are a fan of that you will no doubt have a few good laughs. There's this scene which I stated at the beginning where Christian Bale's character has this guy over at his house and this guy is drunk and just out of it, and Christian Bale plays this song by Huey Lewis and the News which is catchy as hell and he starts dancing, and he grabs this ax and smashes it into this guy's head like five or six times. The first time I saw that, I was grooving to the song and laughing so hard cause it was so unbelievable. This movie is absolutely hilarious! Maybe I'm a psychopath for enjoying this movie, but I am not the only one, and I take pride in knowing that! I honestly don't know who I could possibly recommend this movie to besides me, but it's on Netflix so you can check it out and see what you think, but I will give you fair warning this movie is just insane. And hilarious.

Even if you don't want to watch this movie, just go to YouTube and look up some of the scenes, they are well worth it. I'm thinking of adding a schedule list, you know a list of movies I will review each week. I think that will help cause it will give me time to plan, and it won't be a random review of a movie I just watched. I just hope I can keep to it, cause college is not easy.