Movies I've seen...

...but neglected to talk about for the past half year:

• Reservoir Dogs
• Troll 2
• Micmacs
• The Maltise Flacon
• Amelie
• The Rocketeer
• The Graduate
• Crazy Stupid Love
• The Fall
• Attack The Block
• Paul
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Charade 
• The Lion King *in 3D*
• Saboteur
• The Muppets 
• Puss in Boots
• The Adventure of TinTin

Favorite in-theater summer movie: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Favorite DVD summer movie: Micmacs
Favorite DVD summer movie second place: The Fall

If you couldn't tell, this blog has been on hiatus... Maybe I'll continue it soon. It was fun writing this stuff up.

I WANT TO WATCH MORE NOW... next will probably be Mission Impossible 4 :)

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass (2010)

• Directed by Matthew Vaughn
• Produced by Matthew Vaughn, Brad Pitt (?!), Kris Thykier, Adam Bohling, Tarquin Pack, David Reid
• Screenplay by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman
• Based on comic book series of the same name
• Starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz Plasse, Mark Strong, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage

Thoughts!

• Hit Girl is scary awesome.
• My friends kept raving about this movie and I FINALLY got around to watching it... I thought it was going to be dark, but then I didn't thinkso because my friends really liked it, but then I watched it and concluded it was kinda dark.
• The lead actors were really great, most notably Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz.
• The relationship with the main guy and the girl made no sense. MORE unbelievable is the guy's friend relationship with the girl's friend. whhHHAaat?? Maybe... to get the girl... the trick is to pretend you're gay... #lifelessons
• Good movie. Pretty kick-ass.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)*

• Directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist)
• Produced by Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
• Written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
• Starring James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Andy Serkis

Thoughts!

• This movie... is sooo cooool...
• This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, oddly enough. The other was Suckerpunch. I'm not exactly sure why I was looking forward to this. Maybe I just like the idea of a bunch of apes wreaking havoc on some unsuspecting humans.
• Do know that the trailer is a little misleading because it makes it look like apes are the bad guys. But they're not! They just want freedom from the oppressive humans! Even the movie poster makes Ceasar look kinda evil. I would have been fine with evil apes, but the director's choice to make the humans evil is done very well and I think the film is better off for it.
• I really liked all the references this film makes to the old movies. Spear-throwing and whatnot.
• Duuuude... that Freida Pinto is like a model....... wait I just looked her up. Apparently she was a model.
• James Franco was the weakest part of the movie, even though he did a good job. I think I was just too aware of him as a movie star that I didn't find his acting compelling, if that makes sense.
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes is such a great movie. Not so much in an artsy fartsy way, but in that it has a nice summer blockbuster feel to it similar to it. It's something you go see with your friends and have a good time.

Watching the trailer makes me want to watch it again.

Captain America

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)*

• Directed by Joe Johnston (Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, Jumanji, October Sky, Jurassic Park III, Hidalgo, The Wolfman)
• Produced by Kevin Feige
• Starring Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving

Thoughts!

• Mini Review: Not amazing, but solid.
• Review Pt.1: I liked the movie! I think one of the biggest challenges the film had to overcome was for it to not become trite. You can slap a Captain America suit on a guy and tell him to take down Red Skull, but in the end it's just a movie about a macho good guy defeating an evil bad guy. Even the bad guy isn't very creative - he has a secret weapon that he can take over the world with? Come on, I've already seen James Bond.
• Review Pt.2: Other than it being about Captain America, the film it does try to set itself apart from others in the genre. It takes place in the 1940s with Sky-Captain-esque technology flying around. Chris Evans' transformation from scrawny lil dude to big buff dude was entertaining to see (gash, if I had seen this in 3D his super pecks would have been too uncomfortable).
• Review Pt.3: In the end, the movie is just... well, solid. It has just enough stuff to not be bad, but not enough to be really good. Go ahead and quote the eloquent magnificence of that last sentence.
• The ending was sweet. (I'm referring to the non-Avengers part ending.) (Although the Avengers part was a different kind of sweet.)
• The Germans didn't speak German. DOCKED ONE POINT!
• Stan Lee's cameo was kinda dumb, the scene was such a non-sequitur.
• Mini spoiler: Question: The scene where they train-jack the train - why didn't they ALL just run up to the front? Instead of dropping down in the middle carts?
• Dag, yo, Joe Johnston directed a lot of notable movies, yet I don't think his name is very commonly spoken about.
• "Someone get that kid a sandwich." There were so many lines like this to really point out how small prepubescent Chris Evans was. We GET IT, he's SMALL, we can SEE THAT.
• Maybe I'm just bitter that I look more like small Evans than big Evans. HAHA.
• More on this subject, Chris Evans should've had a slightly higher pitched voice when he was tiny. #nitpicky
• I still remember Neal McDonough from Timeline. He was the guy in that movie who (spoiler) died... and that's about all I can recall from it. He's pretty cool in Captain America, though! He has a neat mustache.

You've probably already seen the trailer, but have you seen THIS ONE!?

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Pt. 2

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)*

• Directed by David Yates (Part 1, Half-Blood Prince, Order of the Pheonix)
• Produced by David Heman, David Barron, J.K. Rowling
• Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Thoughts! (Contains some story *SPOILERS*)

• The movie was good. I liked it.
• As a person who has only read 2.5 Harry Potter books, I think I can look at this movie with more objectivity than those who have read all 7. It was entertaining and the acting was good and all that stuff, but there's a certain magical touch that I thought it lacked as a film. I'd say 20% of what makes a good movie is the events that happen. The other 80% is how those events are told by the film makers. So while Snape's death was super sad, it probably wasn't as sad as it could have been.
• The movie very much plays like the last half of a book. So this is good?
• This review by Margot Harrison says a loooot of stuff I agree with: http://www.7dvt.com/2011harry-potter-and-deathly-hallows-part-2
• Man there were so many "OH SH*T" moments. Professor McGonagall was awesooome. You go, McGona-girl!
• I KNEW IT, SNAPE WAS A GOOD GUY!! His flashback thing was the most interesting part of the entire movie.
  
• Harry should've used that time necklace to create two of him.
• The broomstick flying segments looked kinda lame. I think they went for a look that was akin to riding bikes in the air, but I think it should've been more like riding snowboards in the air in regards to resistance and weight distribution. That's just me being haughty though.

And now a letter:

Dear Hollywood,

Post-converted 3D movies are really lame. I want it 3D to feel like I'm looking through a window to really mimic how our eyes perceive 3 dimensions. But in movies like HP7, the, uh, blur effect is still used (not sure of the terminology). That is, when a character is close up in the foreground, the character in the back is blurred out in the background, and vice versa. It's a technique that DOESN'T WORK FOR FILMS LIKE THIS. It makes sense in a 2D picture, but putting it in a 3D picture just flattens the image! Our eyes should be able to focus on any part of the space in a 3D film (usually not all at once, of course, just on parts that we the audience choose to focus on). But adding 3D in post production... it doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. All I got out of the 3D glasses was a slight glare for the entire movie. Please don't do this again.

Thanks, Kevin

I'm not sure if I made sense this post. Here's a great fake scene my friend posted on Facebook!

Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich (1999)

• Directed by Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Where The Wild Things Are)
• Produced by Steve Golin, Vincent Landay, Sandy Stern, Michael Stipe
• Written by Charlie Kaufman
• Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich

Thoughts!

• Mini review: Awesome concept, so-so execution.
• The beginning was promising, and funny parts were sprinkled around the place, but in the end I didn't like any of the characters. All of them were kind of jerks.
• It reminded me of something Michel Gondry would make.
• Speaking of which, the chase sequence reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because-- WAIT A MINUTE the writer who wrote Malkovich wrote Eternal Sunshine! Huh! That Charlie Kaufman.
• I encourage you to watch this simply for its bizarre uniqueness. Just... be sure to keep below average expectations.

If you don't know what the film is about, here's the trailer:

Midnight Run

Midnight Run (1988)

• Directed by Martin Brest (War Games, Beverly Hills Cop, Meet Joe Black, Gili)
• Produced by Martin Brest
• Starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin

Thoughts!

• I did not like this movie. Charles Grodin was sooo annoying, it didn't make sense why De Niro would even give him a chance to speak. I also didn't find the movie that funny. I found it to be, like, 10% comedic even though this is supposed to be a comedy.
  
• It's not all bad though! Robert De Niro was pretty great doing his tough guy "I ain't gonna take shit" attitude, and the other bounty hunter, Marvin, added a very interesting element to the film. The scene where they got the cash using the "litmus configuration" was also really cool. But overall... Charles Grodin was too annoying to be funny.
• It's really weird how I don't find movies like this, Ghostbusters, and The Blues Brothers that funny even though they're considered "comedy classics". I'd attribute it to the fact that the sense of humor back then was different, which could be true, but I think some 80's movies, like Beverly Hills Cop (also directed by Martin Brest), are hilarious! It must be different jokes or something.

Watch the trailer and decide for yourself if it's something you'd like...