Movies One Must See Before They Croak

Burton did amazingly with those films like he always does!!
*grabs a hatchet* scuse me while I murder Schumacher

Oh trust me I'll get to HIM later...

LET ME ASSIST YOI!

Before I Go to Sleep



This movie, while not anything lasting or groundbreaking, was still a very enjoyable experience. If you like movies that are more like puzzles than movies you're probably going to like it.

The basic premise is there's a woman who's an amnesiac is the main character Christine (played by Nicole Kidman, who does phenomenally I may add). She forgets everything up to her 20th birthday I think after the end of every day and she tries to piece together her life with the help of her psychiatrist by keeping a video record of what happens every day.

I enjoyed the entire plot and the twists and turns that happen throughout it. I didn't find my attention wandering at all. 

However it follows a few cliches and leaves a plot hole unexplained which I'm sure is answered in the book. 

But all in all, I'd call it a win! I'd recommend a viewing!

The Cabin in the Woods.

This movie is such a mind-fuck. I've seen it three times and it's quickly becoming my favorite. 

Aside from the classic, college kids in the middle of no where/mass murderer hunting down said kids, it's pretty unpredictable. 

Seriously you guys have to see it.

I've heard of that movie but I've never seen! Still got to! >.<

DOUBLE FEATURE!


The Interview
This movie was a laugh a minute! I absolutely found it hilarious! Some say the whole North Korea situation spoiled the comedy, but I say it strengthened it! The mere fact everyone is taking so seriously this film that doesn't even take itself seriously is just a gut buster to me! Seriously guys! Check it out! Support 'Murica! 

Red Dragon
Now in a completely different tone is Red Dragon! This movie was Hannibal Lecter's first chronological appearance and let me tell you it is amazing! Put it this way, if you want a really good psychological study of not one, not two not three but FOUR engaging characters you'll find yourself extremely pleased with this one!

The basic premise is this cop named Will Graham is hunting down this serial killer and enlist the help of Hannibal Lecter (whom he himself arrested) to help him in the case. However Lecter's not very forgiving over getting arrested and subtly helps both Graham and the killer... FROM JAIL I MIGHT ADD! 

If you loved Silence of the Lambs, you're going to adore this film like I do!

DOUBLE FEATURE!


American Sniper
Clint Eastwood is one of those directors that very rarely goes wrong, and this film is a great example of his work. It's one of those true story war movies based on Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in American history with over 160 confirmed kills (number could be 255, but only 160 of them have witnesses to confirm it) to his name all to defend his country and wife. He's played by Bradley Cooper who does a great job at showing us a patriotic soldier, a man struggling with PTSD, and eventually a returning parent who's come to terms with it all. It's extremely tense, not just an onslaught of mindless violence. When Kyle gets ready to pull that trigger, you can literally feel seconds go by before he pulls it and when it's pulled, you know shits going to start. The movie almost felt like the perfect embodiment of what a sniper goes through. Scope out the situation, take aim, wait for the perfect opportunity and then BANG! You could feel everything that man went through just be the editing alone. NOT FOR THE FAINT AT HEART.

Spaceballs
On the flip side from American Sniper is one of Mel Brook's finest parodies. This film takes shots at classic sci fi movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien and lots of others. Each joke makes you laugh and it's quotable from beginning to end. There isn't too much I can say without ruining the humor so go check it out and May the Schwartz be with you!!

Revenge of Frankenstein

Now this is one of those old cheesy monster movies, but surprisingly this isn't on this list for laughs. I actually found myself enjoying it. The main reason for this I think is because of the characters, namely Dr. Frankenstein or as he's referred to Dr. Viktor Stein as he's been made infamous after his incident with our favorite green monster and can no longer use his name. 

What made Dr. Frankenstein so gripping as a character was partly due to the actor that played him, Peter Cushing (better known as Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars), and just the material he's given. He's a man who's single mindedly devoted to his research to the point of casting aside morality itself. Whereas before he created the monster to sate his mad obsession with resurrection, he now does it out of spite toward the scientific community that he feels wronged him by condemning him for his greatest achievement. I found this point in particular to be deeply interesting as it's not just rehashing the last movie. It's changing his motivation but doing so in a logical (for a madman) way, making the character even stronger because of it. After all, characters can't be constricted to only one motivation. They have to be able to change over time given different circumstances I feel.

Further on that point of change for the better, the good ole doc has learned from his errors in his last experiment and tries to fix them rather than blindly trying the same thing again. This once again shows logical character growth. Dr. Frankenstein, while proud of his work, is still a man of science and is perfectly willing to accept that he can make mistakes. However he never once let this deter him, making him almost an admirable character despite the heinous things he's doing. 

Putting aside characters for now, my only complaints could be that the ending was a bit rushed and at no point was this scary by today's standards. However I never went in expecting it to be anyway. Also few of the original iconic characters show up. Sorry but I missed Igor in that, even if his absence once again made sense for the story.

At no point do any of the characters make a blatantly stupid move like you'd expect in modern horror films. In fact there's only one point where you're thinking, "Well he's a goner." But even that surprisingly I was wrong. 

If you're a fan of the classic monster movie mythos, I'd highly suggest this one. It's a testament to the genre of the time period in the best possible ways.

Sharknado


Just look at that poster. Do you honestly think a concept that stupid would be able to go on the big screen... and not become one of my all-time favorite bad movies?!  

It's one of those gems that are so bad that it's actually good. The writing, awful. The editing, beyond horrendous. The acting, terrible. It fails to tell a story on every fundamental level. 

But it's so tranfixingly bad you'll find your sides splitting. Seriously guys, if you love cult classics, you'll love this one!

DOUBLE FEATURE TIME!


Birdman

Friends, if a filmmaker can fall in love with a movie's style, then I just bought this movie roses and chocolates and am going to propose to it. It was fantastic in every cinematic way! The editing, loved it. The camera work, ADORED it! The story, great! The acting phoenominal! 

The premise is an out-of-work former superhero actor (played by Michael Keaton ironically enough) is working to become relevant again by putting on a play he made himself. Throughout the movie, he struggles with a belligerent actor (Edward Norton), his former drugee daughter, a cruel critic, and his own mental conditions.

It's an Academy Award favorite for a reason! If you love those, definitely take a look at this one!



Cinderella.

A couple of things I want to clear up.
1. I got dragged to this.
2. I personally didn't like it.
3. However it wasn't not bad enough to write it off as a bad movie.
4. 1 again.

The designs for a lot of the movie were certainly creative and impressive, I liked how they actually fixed one of the biggest plot holes from the animated Cinderella (aka how the hell the evil stepmother didn't recognize her at the ball) and how the prince and her actually do spend time together rather than giving us the typical love at first sight bullshit. 

However it still left the ending a bit nonsensical (did they seriously need a shoe to determine who Cinderella was rather than just having the prince use any of his five basic senses?) and the villain was without a compelling motive. Though to be fair, she didn't really have one in the animated version either. They tried to give her a motive but it was just kind of half assed in my opinion. 

Personally, I didn't care for the film myself but I can see why other people would like it. It wasn't the quality of the film that bored me, it was the story itself. But I didn't go in with very high expectations anyway.

Insurgent

I liked this movie a lot more than Divergent and here's why. You know all those nagging questions I complained about back when I saw Divergent? They finally got answered! 

Tris's character was very well acted, so well done there! The effects were great and the action was very enjoyable to watch. It kept all of the intrigue of the first film with a slightly more coherent story. 

Is it a groundbreaking film? Probably not, but even so I'm glad I went to see it! 

I don't think the 3D element added too much to it but it wasn't wasted entirely.

One complaint I could make is this movie is a bit cruel to the uninitiated at times. A lot of time passed between Divergent and Insurgent production wise so those of us who didn't read the books forgot a couple of things/characters and we had to piece together things all throughout the film. 

But overall I'd say it's worth a look!  Enjoy!

Insurgent's out? i saw divergent, but wasn't impressed with it overall. I'm not usually the type that props up their glasses and snorts 'the book was better', but i honestly thought it was for Divergent.

guess it's time for me to torrent  go to the cinema to see it, if it's out in the UK!

Yeah Divergent didn't do much for me either. Namely I was uninitiated and left a lot of unanswered questions as I mentioned previously

Avengers Age of Ultron

GO SEE THIS FILM. That is all. Good day :3

Mad Max Fury Road:

If badass and batshit insane had a baby, Mad Max Fury Road would be the baby. It's actually very hard to describe this film, it is THAT crazy! I wouldn't even being doing it justice by trying to describe the plot, it just needs to be seen.

So I'll say just one thing and you tell me if it sounds like anything you've ever heard or seen before. A blind guy wearing a skull playing heavy metal music on a guitar that doubles as a flamethrower on top of heavily modified truck designed like massive speakers. Yeah, I dare you to find something crazier than that. 

What's more is that guy is just a very entertaining sideshow compared to everything else. The action is really epic and intense, the world is very interesting, the designs... holy shit okay? They are amazing!! 

It's just an all around exhilarating film! I felt like I needed a nap after some of those action scenes that's how they got my heart pumping. 

One thing I will say though is, if you're faint at heart STAY AWAY! There's a lot of really grizzling and heavy dark themes in this. It does add to the dispersity of their world and just how savage things have become but it wouldn't suit one looking for a light hearted romp at all. 

But that's all the negative things I can say about it. I've not even seen this film all the way through but have enough pieces to know that it's easily the best film we have playing now. I even plan on seeing it after work one day all the way through that's just how much I love the parts I've seen! 

If you're looking for badass action and a world of insanity, you won't be disappointed in Mad Max Fury Road.

Jurassic World

You've seen the other Jurassic Park movies, yeah?

Good. Now go see this one.
Go see it. Right now.

This movie is far better than the last two. It's right up there with the first one.

The plot was great. The plot twists were even better! The fucking dinosaurs were amazing. The filming was just awesome. And Chris Pratt.

Okay, so we all know what a disaster Jurassic Park (the theme park) was, so why on earth would we try to reopen it? I dunno, but they did. And it is awesome. Seriously, you get so wrapped up in how amazing this theme park is that you almost forget what happened ten years ago.

Until it happens again.

But! This is not a retelling of the first movie's disaster. This goes one notch up. You are on your toes the entire movie (once it gets to the nitty gritty that is).

Also, I feel the need to share with you that I was gripping my friend's hand throughout 90% of the movie, it was that intense. And there are emotions.

My one issue with this movie is that the female protagonist isn't as badass as we've seen the other females be. But, she did ultimately the best she could and.... No spoilers.

Go see it.

>.< I HAVE to see it!

i don't know if it's been mentioned yet but kung fury is incredible.

it's on youtube, it's thirty minutes long, and it's a cheesy 80s action movie that is beautifully funny and entertaining. me and my best friend watched it for the first time together, and i wish i had a full length movie of this and not just 30 minutes.

it manages to fit an entire arc of a typical action movie into that short span of time, and it's just so surreal and funny that it's hard not to fall in love with it.

First off, one I'll check that out and second, PHOENIX!!!!! O__O Is that really you?!

So I just saw Jurassic World as well! And here's my impression!

AWESOME!!!!!

To be fair though, not as good as the first one, but years ahead of two and three. It's definitely a welcomed addition to the franchise, and considering my usual hatred of fourth films that says a lot. 

So here's what I loved. Christ Pratt was great in the film, no Sam Neil (Dr. Grant) but a cool character I wouldn't mind seeing come back. 

I was worried that CGI was going to ruin it, but it didn't. The beginning had me concerned for a bit but then things smoothed out and became good again. 

One thing I loved was they explored new areas never before seen. Such examples were genetic mutation, the raptor's power structure and the like. 

The scoring was beautiful and fit the movie perfectly.

But by far my two favorite parts of this film were the homage they paid to the original Jurassic Park (the first one, not the other two but let's be honest, the first one is the one people care about.) and the action. The last scene of the movie was one of the most epic action sequences I've seen in a while and I adored it. 

I had only two complaints with the film. One was a lot went unexplained with how InGen was able to reopen the park after not one, not two, but THREE major disasters transpired because of it. Second, the kid characters seemed to be little more than a plot device to get the main characters deeper in the park, but this complaint is minor since they did have some touching and funny scenes together. 

I had feared that one of the ultimate messages of Jurassic Park ('Life finds a way' aka Nature is always superior') would be ruined because of the genetic mutation, but they keep on message albeit in a different but still cool way. 

Go see it! You'll absolutely love it!

Ralph Baski's Lord of the Rings

So not many people know about this little animated film, but I watched it. Would I call it a masterpiece? Probably not, but there was some things really worth talking about in it.

It's a very faithful adaption of Lord of the Rings and Two Towers, so that's the first thing. Second I really enjoyed how experimental it was in it's animation. Some of it is rotoscoping (drawing over a frame of real life video), some is classical 2d animation and they mix these two together. Sometimes it looks really great, particularly what they did with the orcs and ringwraiths but there's other times when it's really distracting. 

But still I admire how it played with these methods, trying to push the boundaries of what was possible for that time. It's more than I can say for a lot of other film *coughCoughMichaelBayCough* So while the experiments didn't always work, you always have to admire their creative spirit for doing it. They made their very own image of Lord of the Rings and no one can take that from them!

Ant Man

Talk about the complete opposite of Fantastic Four! Where FF was a dark, personality deprived action-less  chore-of-a-movie, Ant Man was a light hearted, personality driven action-filled joy ride.

Paul Rudd was great as Ant Man in many respects. For example, he had a very believable motive and was truly a character you could get behind and support. He was funny, good natured, badass and overall likable! He did a great job and I can't wait to see him with the Avengers! 

In fact no one in this movie really acted poorly, each role was really good! I especially liked Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Sure he wasn't like I pictured in my head but he was a lot of fun to watch! He's like what I'd be as an old man, not to mention I've always liked Douglas as an actor.

But let's leave acting alone for now. The story was good, but for me it was the action and comedy that stole the show. The humor in this movie was great and paced well, and the action was enjoyable and badass.

This was similar to Capt America Winter Soldier where it truly felt like the hero and villain were on an even level with each other. It felt more like a clash of two titans instead of hero vs the-bad-guy-the-hero-will-beat-up. This is quickly becoming one of Marvel's strengths I feel with it's story telling. 

I highly recommend it! It was a lot of fun! Go see it!

Maze Runner: Scorch Trials

Honestly there's not too much to really go into depth with about this film. Sorry this will be a shorter review but... honestly there's really not much to say.

I don't believe this film is as good as Maze Runner. It lacks as interesting a story, devolving from a mystery mixed with action to a more simplistic 'escape the bad guy'. That was a bit disappointing to me.  

But those points aside, it's a really fun, well paced joy ride. The action was impressive and exhilarating and the world was interesting. Admittedly at times it seemed to be lifting from the Walking Dead but I enjoy walking dead anyway so it's fine! 

I'd say go see it at least once or wait until it comes to redbox or netflix. It's definitely a very solid movie.

Suffragette. That's all I'm gonna say. Worth all the money I spent watching the premiere.