OBLIVION

I know, I know. Yes, I went to see OBLIVION on opening night. I can't help my obsession with Sci-Fi, action, thriller movies.  I should have realized that it was going to be a spoon fed script, and it was. I should have known it was going to have a Tom Cruise happy ending, and it did.  I should have known a rad actor like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau would have a small 'sort of" supporting role, with meaningless dialogue,  and he did.

I will say that I should have read the book first. I didn't. However, the film did surprise me sometimes.  I didn't hate the movie. I was entertained but not in a thought provoking way.  The opening scene is Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) telling the audience everything that he thinks has happened over the last fifty years while we watch him and Vica wake up, eat breakfast, workout, shower and start their day.  

I wish so badly that the filmmakers would have shown us more and told us less.  The story has such great potential to make the audience think, guess, wonder, discover and truly care about the characters.  I almost got to each of the points I listed above. Almost but it didn't really get me there because it wanted to be dumbed down for a wider audience.  I think this is a mistake being made frequently in Hollywood.  Audiences want to think more than Hollywood gives them credit for.  The use of original songs that we've heard over and over in other movies was so lame.  I would have liked to spend more time with Jack Harper actually reading and studying the old books than being told about it in Voice Over.  I would have also liked spending less time with present day Jack Harper and more time with the real Jack Harper and his mission crew.  Why not add more scenes with the present day humans in hiding? I didn't leave the film bored but I did leave unimpressed.

I give OBLIVION a COOL! But only because it really could have been a RAD if the writers and producers would have risked it.

Anna Karenina

I recently rented Anna Karenina from my trusty old pal RED BOX because I wanted to spend a Sunday evening watching movies.  I was never interested in seeing this movie in theaters because of Hollywood’s obsession with casting Keira Knightly in period pieces. I figured it would be another romantic drama with close ups of Keira looking sad, confused, in love and totally wealthy wearing badass gowns from said period.

This Sunday afternoon I decided to order Thai food and rent a couple of movies from the big RED Box.  I went with Les Miserables, why not, it's Sunday and I didn't see it in theaters either. Then the Anna Karenina poster seemed awfully similar to the period in Les Mis so I thought, why not?  Let's make it a period piece filled with forbidden love on a Sunday.

What a pleasant surprise the film turned out to be.  It is magical, unique and extremely impressive filmmaking.  I absolutely love the sets, the score, the costumes, the cast and the camera work.  I watched it twice so I could take it all in.  I have to give this Keira Knightly period piece credit for its uniqueness even though it used the worlds most highly type cast period piece actress.  The men in this movie do such a wonderful job with their characters.  Jude Law, Domhall Gleeson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his beautiful blue eyes and my most favorite Matthew MacFadyen.

I give this film a RAD! It is truly worth watching.  I do wonder if the producers might have risked casting an unknown as Anna if the film would have been much better received.  Because they cast Keira I think most moviegoers felt it was a "been there, done that" movie.

Wrong!  SEE IT!

Django Unchained

This is the best movie of 2012, in my opinion of course.

Have you seen it? No, you say.  Oh, you should.  You won't regret it.  You will fall in love with Quentin T. all over again.  I definitely had to cover my eyes in two brutally violent scenes but I know that I am going to have to do this for every Quentin Tarantino film so I am always prepared to do so.

The entire cast is incredible.  Can we talk about Leonardo DiCaprio for a minute? Wow.  He was unbelievably fantastic.  Everyone was. I've always liked Christoph Waltz but you will fall madly in love with him and his character, Dr. King Schultz. Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson kick ass.  The supporting cast is also great, as usual.  Tarantino can write, as we all know.

I am disappointed that the film and cast didn't get more attention during the award season.  The films and actors that did were all excellent but this films stands out to me.  The subject matter is history and I have no doubt that these characters existed to some degree and that this story is not so far from the truth of so many lives in the time of slavery in America.  Just when I thought the subject matter might be sugar coated it was harsh, honest, horrific and disgusting, yet totally normal and typical at the same time, at least to some of the characters.  You understood where every character was coming from and why they were whom they were, which is huge considering the horrible scripts being made in to movies these days.  I was exceptionally thrilled when many characters found themselves dead but not because I like violence but because I knew why this character died. They met their death because of who they were, how they lived and how they treated others.  Sweet Revenge when you know your characters is so juicy.

I give Django Unchained a RAD!

Lincoln

Welcome to the future of high school history classes in the United States of America, people.  Call me crazy but Lincoln, although the performances, hair-make-up, costume and set design were stellar was as boring as sitting in the dentist chair waiting for the dentist to finally inspect your teeth.  I can't pretend that it was the best film of 2012 and thankfully it wasn't.

I can agree that it is probably the best film ever made about Abraham Lincoln and his final days as the 16th president of our wonderful country but that's as far as I can go.

It was Hollywood doing what it does best, flashing its obese budgets and casting name actors making thousands of dollars for a day or two on set. In any other film the role would be considered a background player speaking role, cast by some unknown, struggling L.A. actor and paid as such.  It was silly to see all these great actors play supporting actors who were animated caricatures, Hollywood uses actors as Band-Aids and filler and Lincoln is an example of this very practice.

I cannot mess with the performances by Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field and David Stratham. The best casting in the film, in my opinion of course is James Spader as W. N. Bilbo.  Awesome decision Spielberg! I was also very taken with Tommy Lee Jones character, Thaddeus Stevens, not that it was a far cry for Tommy to play this person or anything, but the story line is special during those times.

When I left the movie theater I thought about high school and how damn boring history class could be at times and how this movie is changing that boredom for future generations.  History teacher's can now play Schindler's List, Lincoln and Platoon in one week and spare high school students weeks and weeks of reading those old, heavy and not always interesting history books assigned to them each school year.  Don't get me wrong, history is one of my favorite classes and I still study history to this day.  The difference between self-study and public school study is choice and choices made by the learner are so much more exciting.

I give this film a cool for all future high school students and the two hours of peace for all high school history teachers.