Movie Review- The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker

Every year we get a couple of Iraq war movies and they always turn out to be flops. The Hurt Locker doesn’t star big names but is getting the best reviews of the year. This movie doesn’t display the usual anti-American sentiment. It doesn’t treat our soldiers as evil (unlike Avatar), or as stupid, and drunk hoodlums. It shows the psychological effects on soldiers who know any day could be their last. This provides for some good drama as most war movies do. Although I thought it was well directed and well acted, there wasn’t enough there for me to call it a good movie.

The movie stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty as officers William, JT, and Owen. They are a bomb squad in Iraq who are called on to disable road bombs. If you have watched any news on the Iraq war you will probably know, there are a lot of road bombs out there. William is the bomb specialist in the group that has to get up and close to these bombs and disable them. JT and Owen watch his back and assist him in these missions. William is also the new guy in the group and immediately sets himself as a risk taker. JT on the other hand is cautious and plays everything by the book. This will bring William and JT at odds with each other throughout the movie. Owen agrees with JT and seems so nervous on missions that he is about to have a mental breakdown at any moment.

The movie is filled with several bomb disabling missions and then JT and William arguing back and forth about the missions. JT thinks Williams’s inability to listen to him and follow his commands is putting all their lives in danger. He likes to follow his own instincts and doesn’t seem to work with the team. I think most people would have to agree with JT it does seem like he is putting himself in danger over and over again instead of doing what is safe. Why does William act this way? William has such a determination to disable the bombs that it seems that he will die before giving up. Does he have nothing to live for? That doesn’t seem to be the case; he has a family waiting for him back home. It seems that he enjoys risking his life day in and day out more than going back to the safety of his home. I don’t understand why this is, and it’s one of the problems that bothered me throughout this movie.

Critics seem to love this movie for its thrills and intensity. I on the other hand didn’t feel tensed or thrilled. Disabling a bomb over and over again isn’t really that interesting. It takes about 10 minutes to put on the big suit and walk over to the bomb, and then another 10 minutes to disable it. It’s actually quite boring to watch and there are about 5 scenes just like that, that take over most of the movie. I was never scared for the characters because I figured hey they can’t die they are the main actors and I still have an hour left of this movie. When not disabling bombs JT is constantly getting after William which gets annoying and in one awkward scene they are fighting for no reason. Other scenes just drag on and seem to have no point to them. What is the goal for these soldiers in this movie? It seems to me that it is just to survive their round in combat until they get to go back home. It just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason for me to care about this movie.

Grade- D

Rated R- Lots of cussing and violent images.

10 Films From the Future

Here is a scenario that I made up recently just for the fun of it. What if you had the chance to go back in time 60 years into the past and you can only bring 10 movies to show people how the movie industry has changed in the future. At least one movie has to be from the 60’s, one from the 70’s, one from the 80’s, one from the 90’s, and one from the 2000’s. What movies would you bring and why? Here is a list of the movies I would bring and why. I am also going to list them in the order that I would show them.

1. Planet of the Apes:

- I believe that the makeup and costuming in this movie was revolutionary for it’s time and would show people how it can be used to effect a movie.

2. Star Wars: A New Hope:

- This movie was groundbreaking for its special effects for it’s time. Not to mention great sound effects, makeup, costuming, musical score, and set designs. Plus this movie is very creative and would seem pretty wacky for people 60 years ago.

3. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark:

- This shows what a great fantasy/adventure/action flick looks like in the 80’s. Great action shots of near escapes, it’s tense, and a little scary. Plus what’s better than seeing someone’s face melt off?

4. Jurassic Park:

- This movie took special effects to a whole new level in the 90’s with realistic looking dinosaurs.

5. Matrix Reloaded:

- This movie takes action to a whole new level with gravity defying stunts and great use of slow motion action shots. Fight scenes like Neo taking on 100’s of Agent Smiths, and the motorcycle chase scene would blow people’s minds.

6. Toy Story:

- This movie shows the future of animation and the advances of technology using computers to animate objects that now look 3D.

7. The Phantom of the Opera:

- This shows what a great musical will look like in the future. Use actors that can sing very well. Also great costumes, set designs, and imagery.

8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:

- This movie is great in telling a very creative story in a non-linear fashion. The non-chronological order of telling the story I think actually enhances an already unique story line. Great use of science fiction and fantasy images, and in the end a great love story.

9. Avatar

- Another leap in advanced movie making technology. CGI blue aliens that are motioned captured by real people opens up a huge door of what we can do in the future.

10. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King:

- I would show this movie last because I think it caps what is best in movie making today. No other movie combines special effects; make up, costumes, sound effects, and cinematography, set design, use of miniatures, CGI, and musical score as good as this movie. It’s also one of the greatest epic/fantasy/adventure movies ever made.

Oscar Picks

Next Tuesday the Academy will reveal their nominations for picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, original screenplay, and adapted screenplay. These are my predictions of what will be nominated.

Best Picture

The Hurt Locker

Avatar

Inglorious Basterds

Up In the Air

Precious

An Education

Invictus

Up

Nine

Crazy Heart

I believe the top 5 will be The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Inglorious Basterds, Up In the Air, and Precious. If we only had five nominations these would be the five that would get nominated. So the bottom 5 is a little bit harder to predict, so I’m not a 100% confident. I’m sure there will be some surprises like there is every year.

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges

Morgan Freeman

George Clooney

Jeremy Renner

Colin Firth

Best Actress

Meryl Streep

Sandra Bullock

Gabourey Sidibe

Carey Mulligan

Helen Mirren

Best Director

Kathryn Bigalow

James Cameron

Quentin Tarantino

Jason Reitman

Lee Daniels

Best Supporting Actor

Cristoph Waltz

Stanely Tucci

Matt Damon

Christopher Plummer

Woody Harrelson

Best Supporting Actress

Mo’Nique

Vera Farmiga

Anna Kendrick

Marion Cotillard

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Movie Review- Up In the Air

Up In the Air Movie Review

I finally got around to seeing the soon to be Oscar nominated movie, Up In the Air today. A lot of critics are putting it on their lists for top movie of the year and I will have to agree with them. This is a very good movie. It’s funny and witty and has some good dramatic moments at the end that really hit you in the stomach. It’s one of those rare movies that is fun to watch and makes you think at the end.

The movie stars George Clooney as Ryan, his job is to travel around the country and fire people personally and hopefully tries to help them move on with their lives. It’s an art form that Ryan has perfected over the years and he is really good at it. I will have to warn you not to watch this movie if you have just been fired, because the movie is littered with scenes of people getting fired. Most of the people react in an angry fashion and it’s almost comical in way they show these montages. Then there are people that react with a sadness and desperation that really makes you feel their pain. Ryan explains that he spends some 300 plus days traveling and a miserable 43 days at home. Through his travels he gives speeches at different hotels about putting your life in a backpack and feeling that weight. Your different attachments in life weigh you down. So he believes in having no attachments. His life is freer without being attached to other people so naturally he feels more at home up in the air and in hotel rooms. In fact the only thing he is attached to is his elite status as a frequent flyer which he flaunts as much as possible. His life is complete only when he reaches a certain number of flyer miles.

Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga play Natalie and Alex in the movie and their characters provide a challenge to Ryan’s way of life. Natalie is a young college graduate with big ideas that will change the way Ryan will do his job. Ryan is not happy about this and thus there is conflict between the two. Ryan’s boss, played by Jason Bateman, pairs Natalie with Ryan so that Ryan can show her the ropes. Their totally different personalities and philosophies on life clash and these provides for most of the funny and witty dialogue of the movie. Ryan is an older man who is calm and full of confidence in his job and in his life. Natalie on the other hand is young, naïve, and looks unsure of what to do most of the time. Alex is another business room that Ryan meets on the road and has a fling with. During the course of the movie they keep in contact and hook up as much as possible. Natalie seems to be just like Ryan in life only in female form. Ryan enjoys being with her so much is seems that he is reconsidering his whole theory on not being attached to other people. Is it possible that Natalie and Alex can change his whole outlook on life? That’s obviously where this movie is headed.

So what is this movie all about? It’s about life. Pretty simple but yet very complicated. There are two philosophies on life presented in this movie. There is Ryan who believes that relationships are the heaviest objects you can put in your backpack. Relationships weigh you down in life. There’s too much negotiations and compromise that you have to do. You can’t be truly happy with all these attachments with other people. As he likes to say, if you are not moving you are dieing. In a way we can see he is right. Relationships can be hard; you have to work hard at it. It’s a drag sometimes. The people you are the closest too end up hurting you the most. We’ve all felt this at sometime in our life. We see in Ryan’s life that he has no close relationships. He has no girlfriends, he has no plans to ever marry or have children, he has no close friends, he hardly has a relationship with his two sisters, he fires dozens of people daily and feels nothing for them, and he seems just fine with that. Natalie on the other hand can’t help but being attached to other people. She has fond dreams of being married someday and having children. In fact she believes her life is not complete without this. You also see this when she has to fire people. She can’t help but feel very bad for these people and can’t detach herself from the situation of seeing these peoples lives destroyed right in front of her.

So at the end of the movie you have to ask yourself, are attachments and relationships worth the effort. The answer I came to be is yes, they are. At the end of the day what keeps you going in life. Is it your possessions or is it the love of your family? For me nothing can compare to the love I get from my family and friends. It’s unmeasureable.. As they say you can replace your possessions but you can’t replace your loved ones. This philosophy is even more evident in this movie when you think about the people who are fired in this movie. They are devastated by this turn of events but they also realize that they couldn’t get through it if it wasn’t for their family. You can lose everything but as long as you have a family to go home to you can be happy, you can have hope for the future. Without these relationships you are alone and have no one to help you through the bad times. So I would think about your own life and be grateful for all the people in it.

Grade- B

Rated R- Lots of use of the F-word and other cuss words through out the movie, 2 seconds of nudity of Vera Farmiga, lots of sexual innuendo and vulgar talk between George Clooney and Vera Farmiga.

Top 10 movies and television of the last decade

Best Movie

1. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

2. Once (2006)

3. Signs (2002)

4. Radio (2003)

5. The Last Samurai (2003)

6. Frequency (2000)

7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

8. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001)

Best Comedy

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

3. School of Rock (2003)

4. A Mighty Wind (2003)

5. About a Boy (2002)

6. Anchor Man (2004)

7. Shanghai Knights (2003)

8. Best in Show (2000)

9. Fever Pitch (2005)

10. Blades of Glory (2007)

Dodgeball (2004)

Best Comedy Performance

1. Jim Carrey-How the Grinch Stole Christmas

2. Jack Black- School of Rock

3. Will Ferrell- Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

4. Johnny Depp- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

5. Ben Stiller- Dodgeball

6. Will Ferrell- Anchor Man

7. Ellen Page- Juno

8. Robert Downey Jr.- Tropic Thunder

9. Kevin James- Hitch

10. Jon Heder- Napolean Dynamite

Favorite Male Acting Performances

1. Russell Crowe- A Beautiful Mind

2. Heath Ledger- The Dark Knight

3. Adrien Brody- The Pianist

4. Tim Robbins- Mystic River

5. Jim Carrey- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

6. Tom Cruise- The Last Samurai

7. Don Cheadle- Hotel Rwanda

8. Joaquin Phoenix- Gladiator

9. Paul Giamatti- Sideways

10. Will Smith- The Pusuit of Happyness

Favorite Female Acting Performances

1. Ellen Page- Juno

2. Hillary Swank- Million Dollar Baby

3. Julia Roberts- Erin Brokivich

4. Amy Adams- Junebug

5. Helen Mirren- The Queen

6. Charlize Theron- North Country

7. Sandra Bullock-Crash

8. Jennifer Connelly- A Beautiful Mind

9. Renee Zellweger- Cold Mountain

10. Jennifer Hudson- Dreamgirls

Worst Movies

1. Meet the Spartans

2. Nacho Libre

3. The Hulk

4. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

5. King Kong

6. American Dreamz

7. The Brothers Grimm

8. Street fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

9. Spider Man 2

10. Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Best Animation Movies

1. Toy Story 2

2. Monsters Inc.

3. Cars

4. WALL E

5. Over the Hedge

6. Kung Fu Panda

7. Ice Age

8. Shrek

9. Up

10. The Simpsons

Best Documentary

1. Murderball

2. Born into Brothels

3. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

4. March of the Penguins

5. Grizzly Man

6. Anvil: The Story of Anvil

7. Super Size Me

8. Deliver us from Evil

9. Man on Wire

10. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Best T.V Show

1. The Office

2. Lost

3. Castle

4. Boston Legal

5. The Gilmore Girls

6. Arrested Development

7. 30 Rock

8. Friends

9. Parks and Recreation

10. Monk

Best Reality Show

1. American Idol

2. Amazing Race

3. So You Think You Can Dance

4. American Chopper

5. Project Runway

Best T.V Performance

1. Nathan Fillion- Castle

2. Steve Carell- The Office

3. William Shatner- Boston Legal

4. Jason Bateman- Arrested Development

5. Lauren Graham- The Gilmore Girls

6. James Spader- Boston Legal

7. Tony Shalloub- Monk

8. Jon Krazinski- The Office

9. Josh Halloway- Lost

10. Tina Fey- 30 Rock

Best of 2009

Best of 2009

Best Movies

1. 500 Days of Summer

2. Taken

3. Away We Go

4. Up

5. Terminator: Salvation

6. Star Trek

7. Adventureland

8. Anvil: The Story of Anvil

9. The Blindside

10. 2012

Favorite Acting Performances

1. Liam Neeson- Taken

2. Sharlto Copley- District 9

3. Joseph Gordon Levitt- 500 Days of Summer

4. John Turturro- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

5. Sandra Bullock- The Blindside

6. John Krazinski- Away We Go

7. Tom Hollander- In the Loop

8. Jamie Foxx- The Soloist

9. Brad Pitt- Inglorious Basterds

10. Jackie Earle Haley- The Watchmen

Worst Movies

1. Street Fighter: The Rise of Chun Li

2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop

3. Duplicity

4. Wolverine: X-Men Origins

5. Year One