Sports Movies Pay Attention!

The Damned United is exactly what a sports movie should be. The Damned United follows famous English manager Brian Clough as he takes over one of England's biggest clubs at the time Leeds United. He only stays on as manager for 44 days before he is fired. The first thing that stands out about this compared to other sports movies is that it is about a failure. It isn't some fairy tale run where you know the underdog team is going to rise above the odds and win some unimaginable competition. It is about a big club which had won the English title the year before falling flat on their ass.

The movie is much more about Brian Clough and his right hand man Peter Taylor than anything else, so for the producers to tell this story they could have chose one of their many success: winning the European Cup with Nottingham Forrest, winning the English First Divison with Derby County, but instead they chose the biggest failure of Brian Clough's career. What this did was allow the movie to be a real story with a lighthearted feel.

This movie was not a comedy, but unlike other sports movies there was no lame cliched inspirational soundtrack, there was no inspiring speech in slow motion, instead there was irony, humour and a taste of realism. Nothing is romanticized it is just told to you the way it is.

What really keeps the movie going is the clever wit of Brian Clough played by Michael Sheen. I would recommend learning a bit of the back story before going to see the Damned United, especially on Clough because Michael Sheen portrays him perfectly. One of the highlights of the film is Clough's first speech to the players when he arrives at Leeds. For those who are fans of British humour, the Damned United is a must watch.

For directors out there looking to make an original sports movie look no further than the Damned United for inspiration. The Damned United is proof that not all sports movies have to be heavy-handed, dramatic, underdog stories.

Eli's Book of Awful

If you are a bible lover that believes in the passage of god and his eternal sight than you might like this movie. For everyone who doesn't give a fuck you are going to like about 35% of this movie because the other 65% is about the passage of god and his eternal sight.

The movie is a unexplained, post-apocalyptic, biblical, thriller about a guy, who you are to assume is named Eli, walking across America to protect a scared book. After coming into a town to stop for water and to get some sort of battery fixed he finds that the "mayor" of the town wants the book too and he will kill to get it.

Although this movie had a "hidden", "underlying" motif of god (which usually equals a lame movie) this movie was able to keep the action pretty intense and quick paced. The first fight taken place under a bridge in a silhouette style which looks fucking awesome! With only two swords ( probably sharpened by god) Eli is able to cause massive damage.

Although the movie was about god and what not it was able to do the opposite of Passion of the Christ and keep a comedic tone about it. After Eli has escaped a town he finds a pretty old couple and ends up in a fire fight with the evil mayor guy. Now it might not sound funny but it quite comedic.

Now although I didn't like the movie I must say that Denzel Washington is the best apocalyptic, blind, country walking, monk that has ever hit the silver screen. He was absolutely amazing in this performance and with Gary Oldman as the stunning evil character the movie was filled with brilliant acting.

If you would like to watch a movie in which once again tries to capture the essence of god then go ahead please waste your money because all this movie does is explain a crazy man's dilution for walking with a book.

Vampire Reversal

A vampire movie that isn't stupid.

The movie Daybreakers creates a society in which the default role of humans hunting  vampires becomes reversed. It was very cool to see that way that the society functioned. The movie takes place in the year 2019 were a plague has caused all humans to turn into vampires. 

The main conflict of the movie is that the human blood supply is running out and when the vampires do not get the proper amount of blood they turn into some sort of retarded giant bat thing with 50X as much muscle as the normal vampire has. Edward Dalton ( Ethan Hawke) was "turned" by his brother. Since he didn't want to become he is obviously going to be the main character in this "original" plot line. 

The best part of the movie comes from how true this movie stays to vampires because for some reason youth today feel that it is okay for a vampire to go outside, and not only do they not die, they fucking sparkle. These vampire can't go outside/need to drink blood/get killed by stakes...etc. 

The vampire harvest and form human in order to have enough blood to sustain society, which they need or else they turn into retard bats. Now there are still quite a few humans out in the bloodsucking world, these humans have figured out a way to turn vampires back into humans through sunlight ( awwww what beautiful irony) Since there are so few humans they need to band together in order to survive so they go out and get each other. Most of the humans actions happen at nighttime, this begs the question: Why the fuck would you do anything at night? and then guess what happens ( Spoiler Alert) THEY DIE! 

I my personal opinion the special effects in this movie were lacking realism. At one point a truck slides into a wooden plank and it looks about as realistic as the effects in a bad porno. The was good but it lacked something like ummm... a... AN ENDING, this movie leaves you with some sort artistic beautiful ending not actually ending the movie, this emotion of turns into the feeling of Why did I just watch this movie if I am not going to know what happens?/ What the fuck happens? The unique movie idea was pretty cool, but had quite a few flaws, but at least it isn't about vampires that stalk there "lovers" or have their babies eat their way out of them.

Overall Rating: S-A-B-r-e

Overall Rating: S-A-B-r-e

Welcome to the Future

At one point in Avatar the military unit on Pandora throws gas canisters into the home of the Na’vi. A shot shows one of these gas canisters hitting the ground and rebounding; sitting in the theatre with my 3D glasses on I flinched. 3D is cool.

Approximately fifteen years after originally conceived, Avatar is finally in theatres and it is, amazing. The story centres on Jake Sully and his experiences on a planet called Pandora that humans have recently discovered. On Pandora there are all kinds of new life including the Na’vi, a race similar to humans except overall just better. Due to really really cool technology Jake controls an avatar (a body that looks just like a Na’vi) and can see, hear and feel through his avatar all from the comfort of the lab. Soon he (as in his avatar) is living with the real Na’vi, learning their ways, falling in love and eventually protecting them against the greedy, capitalistic humans. This story is complicated but James Cameron has almost three hours for it to develop and the plot never feels rushed.

The story alone is interesting enough to make this movie worthwhile but it is the visuals that set this movie apart. A whole new world has been created with this movie. Pandora looks like Discovery Channel’s Holy Grail; every minute detail is incredible, from the Na’vi to the plants in the background of some unimportant scene. The hours logged to make this movie must be astronomical. Even the technology of the humans is cool and least remotely realistic. Giant planes and helicopters, impressive ironman-robot-type-deals, hell the breathing masks are cool.

And then there’s the 3D. Avatar is considered the first 3D movie directed at adults; translation being: this movie will make or break the future of 3D. Luckily it’s made it. Besides the whole “look-something’s popping out of the screen” gimmick 3D is amazing because it makes everything look ultra-high-definition. Scenes are given layers and the audience is brought that much closer into the film. This movie has shown that even romantic comedies could have 3D in the future; maybe James Cameron is king of the world.

What this movie needs now is a prequel. How did humans discover/locate/get-to/land-on/settle/learn-the-language/set-up-a-school/create-avatars/discover-that-expensive-mineral/develop-the-technology/etc./etc./etc.? And what about on earth, are there avatars there, are wars being fought with casualties that aren’t real? What do people think of Pandora, how are the international politics playing out? If it takes six years to get to Pandora but you don’t age during that time, that’s got to create some weird things; a mother could end up six years older than her child. Avatar ignores a lot of questions that could fit into a whole other movie.

Avatar is the future of film, there is no doubt in my mind that more and more action movies will begin to be made in 3D, with other genres soon to follow. James Cameron has created an epic movie, that movie-goers will swarm to and that will inspire the film industry and its future direction. And it only took fifteen years and three hundred million dollars.

This... Wasn't It

Or... This is shit, but I didn't think it was THAT bad,

This Is It is a movie everyone should have heard of through the mass hype and hysteria of Michael Jackson's mysterious death. Though he isn't actually dead, thats beside the point. This movie follows behind the scenes of Michael Jackson's preparation for his huge completely sold out final concert tour "This Is It". The movie follows around Michael, his kiss-ass director, and the back-up dancers, singers, and band members of the huge concert.

The premise of This Is It sounds amazing, a 2 hour movie of backstage access with the biggest icon in music history. Alas, it turned out to be just an extremely long 2 hour movie with very bad audio, with a few good special effects here and there. Michael seemed very picky about all of his tendencies, and the movie did not shine a very good light on how he was as a person. Having a director that listened to everything Michael said and dancers that were crying every five seconds because of the opportunity they were given makes you want to cringe. Also, did anyone notice how big his hands are? That just seemed disgusting...

Though, there were some bright spots in this otherwise bleak movie. Michael still had the dance moves he had in the 80's, you can tell that the concert would have been a spectacle for the ages, and the guitar playing girl was sexy while shredding.

This Is It was a major struggle to watch all the way through, and should have been made much shorter, with less pointless interviews with pointless people. If each song was given the audio clarity it deserved, and the movie was cut down to around the hour and a half range, then maybe I could have stayed interested. Instead, they tried to give you an inside look at the boring and pointless rehearsals for over 2 hours.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (so as to become Jedi Warriors and create world peace while possibly under the influence of LSD) Any questions?

Even from the title, a person can guess that this movie will be different. Men staring at goats doesn’t seem like the most interesting plot line; maybe then does the movie aim to be original rather than just having commercial appeal? The answer is a resounding yes. Men Who Stare at Goats is absurd, odd, hilarious, amusing, definitely original, possibly good and not at all what you would expect.

The plot, well the plot is complicated and involves a present-time storyline that is broken up between flashbacks. In short, George Clooney and Ewan McGregor are on one hell of a road trip in Iraq while Clooney tells McGregor about his time in a secret army training program, bent on creating Jedi warriors. So it’s your typical movie. What it really is is one of those smart-and-dumb-at-the-same-time-comedies-that-involves-George-Clooney; films such as Burn After Reading and The Informant (which he produced) also fall into this category.

Whether you like this movie or not, will depend on how accepting you are of the ridiculous. The movie deals with developing Jedi warriors in a comedically serious way that will be just too much for some people. The sixties counter culture is popular target for jokes in films, but an army program run by a long-haired hippy, working on world peace by dancing, that’s pushing it. My personal feeling for the movie was overall positive; it was original and some segments were genuinely funny. Also on the plus side was the acting. The two leads were good, though McGregor had some accent slips, but the supporting cast was also impressive. Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Stephen Lang all embraced the absurdity of their roles and played them with relish.

As for the comedy, the movie is funny. Some parts drag on a little long with no laughs but patience is always rewarded. Jokes in this movie are both smart and dumb, mixing slapstick with intellectual comedy. Clooney running over someone he’s trying to rescue falls in the slapstick category; a guy explaining why the US has to finance the Jedi training because the USSR thinks there already financing it is smart funny. Kevin Spacey’s “psychic voice” is just plain funny.

To finish off, I can only think to repeat that the movie is absurd and just plain odd, but then again so is real life. If the US can torture people with Barney why can’t they train people with Star Wars?

It was Good, Not Biblical

"Law Abiding Citizen" my ass more like "Saddam Husseining Citizen"

Walking into this movie there was an odd feeling in the air that this might be just another action movie with an awful plot line and a bunch of horrible actors and the only thing good about it would be the somewhat cool action scenes. Luckily the feeling walking out of the theaters would be completely opposite to the feeling walking in.

Law Abiding Citizen is about Clyde Shelton ( Gerard Butler) whose wife and little girl were killed. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) was unable to put both killers in jail. So Clyde seeks justice for the rest of his life, in whatever way is necessary. The entire movie is trying to create a political statement about the justice system and how blah blah blah now for the action.

The script writers in this movie were not amateurs at killing people, they had it figure out quite well in fact. Some of the killing tools used in this movie could sit on the same murder trial case as the ones in Saw. If Clyde wants you dead you're dead it might be a gun that makes you paralyzed so he can chop you up or he could put a bullet in your cell phone that would take a huge chunk out of your head or he might even puncture your jugular with a T-bone from a steak. He will fuck you up ... oddly it makes for a good movie.

The movie fit into an unorthodox category of a murder mystery where you already know who the bad guy is and yet it is still extremely suspenseful. The acting in the movie had its flaws especially when Gerard decided every so often that he was in 300 again and turned on his accent. Jamie Foxx did a marvelous job playing his character of Nick Rice. The only real flaw in the writing of the script was that they killed the hot girl and the only piece of eye candy left in the movie was Jamie Foxx's middle aged wife.

At some parts in the movie it is about as realistic as Twilight Zone, I mean come on (Spoiler Alert) there is no way in hell that a prisoner, who has been creating a circus of the justice system, would be able to escape from solitary confinement everyday. Then, when the entire city is being locked down Mr. "I will fuck you up" can walk out of his jail cell and waltz straight into city hall and then, after being searched and frisked can still assemble and plant a bomb that would blow up city hall.

Although the movie was not the best I had ever seen it did a very good job. The movie did have some flaws of an unreal plot line and a bad accent changing actor but for the most part I was pleasantly surprised at the finished product.

Overall Rating: S-A-B-r-e