PLOT -
An unnamed guy (David) is being chased by two aliens, who look like humans (Hal Friedman and Harrison). But the guy finds out that their weakness might make them the worst aliens to ever exist!
ACTORS -
David, Hal Friedman and Harrison.
The very first short film I made this year at New York Film Academy summer camp. The short film tributes old stupid & cheezy 50s sci-fi / alien invasion movies. Enjoy!
Moonrise Kingdom is directed by Wes Anderson, and stars Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban and a cameo by MR. WHITE!!!!!!!!!!! REALLY!!!!!!! So the movie takes place in the summer of 1965, where we have two kids (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) who are in love with each other. They decide to flee their hometown and try to live a happy life. But when the adults find out that there gone; it causes them to have a local search party lead by the town's sheriff (Bruce Willis), the girl's parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and the boy's scout master (Edward Norton) to find them. And what we get are hours of quirky humor and non-stop laughs.
Now I was really looking forward to this movie, even though the trailer weren't anything fantastic. But overall, it looked like a really good movie. I hate to say that I've only seen one Wes Anderson movie and that was "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and it was great. But I have to say, this movie was AMAZING all the way through, I was surprised. Right from the first minute, I knew that this movie was going to be great.
One of the best things about the movie by far is Wes Anderson's vision. Like all of his movies, every single tiny little scene looks absolutely beautiful. His direction is pitch-perfect, one of the best directed films of 2012 so far. Every frame, shot and more is just unbelievably good. It's so beautiful that it looks like a painting that he's created. His depiction of the 1960s are so well-done and so detailed that you can't take your eyes off it. It looked like a movie he wanted to make and then he did, so he decided to put special care into it and put whatever was in his mind into the movie but make it compliment the story. On top of that, The cinematography is great, the art direction is outstanding and the locations are just beautiful and detailed. To me the movie is a bit like "Fantastic Mr. Fox" from the atmosphere and the soundtrack (which I'll get to later).
The performances here are also great. Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward do a really good job in their debuts as the child-couple in love. Their chemistry is real sweet and have well-developed character traits that is also heartbreaking. The other kid actors do great too especially the Khaki scout boys where the boy use to go to. The actors betraying the scouts do really well together and felt like actual friends. The adult actors do an amazing job especially Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and Jason Schwartzman. Bruce Willis always does a great job and here he's really interesting and funny. Edward Norton does a great job playing the boy's scout master in which he's funny and we feel for his character several times. Jason Schwartzman for little time he had, he's hilarious and interesting. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand do a good job playing the girl's parents and they are really funny. Bob Balaban is underrated here as the Narrator and he's really good and interesting. And then finally the cameo by MR. WHITE!!!!!! (or Harvey Keitel if you didn't know) is great to see.
The humor in the movie, though quirky, is well-written and handled well. You get like these uncomfortable scenes with kids doing things they wouldn't normally do today. Like there's a scene where the boy and girl french kiss and then the girl asks the boy to touch her chest and he does. And then there are other scenes where kids smoke and drink alcohol and more. This is due to a smartly-written script that is in my opinion just plain gold. The characters are all likable especially the adults and you are attached to their personalities even though there are some characters you hardly get to know.
Lastly, the soundtrack is great. Like I said before, the soundtrack for the film reminds me of the soundtrack for "Fantastic Mr. Fox". The soundtrack just puts you into a happy mood and makes you feel proud of life. It just fits really good with the environment and overall I really don't have a lot to say about the soundtrack, it's really good.
So overall, the movie is amazing with it's outstanding visuals, great acting and characters, beautiful direction, a fantastic script, well-written humor and a really good soundtrack. Even though there's nothing special about the story, it's a story that was handled differently due to the talents of Wes Anderson's visuals that compliment it. It's worth seeing for any Wes Anderson fan and anyone else who likes movies in general will enjoy it. I think this movie is my favorite film of the year so far. Also, I think it's actually better than (WHAT A SHOCK!!!!!!) . . . THE AVENGERS!!!!!!!!! Yeah, it's that good. So I totally recommend you to go see this over any other movie that is out right now. This movie is destined to be a cult classic one day.
A long time ago, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Barsoom series, which inspired many other movies and books like "Star Wars". For a long time, the film was in development hell for years until now. The film is directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), and stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, Ciarán Hinds and Thomas Haden Church. Set in the 1800s, Civil war vet John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) gets accidentally transported to Mars a.k.a. Barsoom for some reason. Here, there are two alien races that have been at war for a long time. Now, the planet is dying and it is up to Carter to save them and must also stop a princess (Lynn Collins) from marrying another man.
Now, I was kind of excited but mostly due to the special effects which made me thought that this would be a good movie. I haven't read the series but I heard it inspired films like I said "Star Wars" and "Avatar". And also, it was directed by Andrew Stanton of Pixar fame. Now I'll admit, while I don't think this is a masterpiece, this is a really fun action movie. Now I KNOW this movie has problems, but I just accepted it as a fun matinee action sci-fi movie.
One of the best things about the movie is Andrew Stanton's imagination. Every scene looks great and beautiful. The green screen, production design and some parts looked like it was filmed on actual locations (maybe not really), I mean Stanton directs this movie well. I love the way the world is built and it is so detailed. You can believe that he tried his best to create a cool sci-fi environment and it does feel like a sci-fi environment from a long time ago.
And the budget for the movie is $250 million, THAT'S HUGE. While I don't think these are the best special effects of all time, they are great. The creature designs are all detailed and are nice to look it, from a guy who has been working on CGI films really does it well here. Yeah there are some effects that look poor like one scene where John Carter is trying to jump onto a giant building that looked kind of iffy. The action is excellent, it is filmed well, Andrew Stanton does a great job shooting the action. They're cool, inventive and fun to look at.
I like the tone of the film which I think the movie is a cross between "Star Wars", "Avatar", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Planet of the Apes", "The Lord of the Rings" and "Jason and the Argonauts" (which some of them were inspired by the book series). The first half was the part I especially liked because it was like a western-sci-fi-action-comedy just like what "Star Wars" did. The comedy in the first half worked mostly because one of the jokes I liked was that the aliens kept calling Carter "Virginia" several times even though it's not actually his name and that it's the place he lives in. The second and third half were good but not bad.
The acting is all around descent. Taylor Kitsch is good, he looks a lot like Jason Momoa from "Conan the Barbarian". While some of his lines are cheezy, he still delivers a performance that he tries his best to do. Lynn Collins as the princess is awful and annoying. Her dialogue is bad and there are times where they try to give her humor and it fails. The rest of the cast like Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Chuch, Samantha Morton and Ciarán Hinds all do a fine job.
Lastly, the score by Michael Giacchino is fantastic. It's very adventurous and an Indiana Jones type too. It's also really intense music and it puts you into the right mood of the environment.
Now like I said before, there are A LOT of problems with this movie. One of them is the romance between John and the princess and I didn't feel the chemistry at all and whenever they tried to have chemistry it felt totally forced. Also, while the script is not bad and it has some good ideas, there's nothing special about it and it's not Oscar worthy like there's a subplot that involves the princess being forced to marry another man to save Barsoom and I thought that was goofy and I couldn't take it seriously. And there were some things that I don't understand like why is Mars called Barsoom? Maybe they explain that in the books.
The biggest problem that I have is that it is a bit long like 2 hrs. 30 something min. and there were some scenes that were kind of slow or boring or not really needed.
So overall, I really enjoyed the film. It's no masterpiece, but it's worth seeing in theaters especially in IMAX 3D because the 3D was really good. Like if this movie was made before "Star Wars" and "Avatar" and it had a better screenwriter, I would've been blown away saying "WOW, THIS IS THE MOST ORIGINAL AND IMAGINATIVE THINGS I'VE EVER SEEN!". But for what it's worth now, It's a fun movie. It is goofy and cheezy at parts. But if you just go in thinking about the problems and nitpicks you have, just try to enjoy it. Maybe I should read the books after seeing this.
On Monday, I watched the show "Comic Book Men" on AMC. The show is a reality show that takes place in "Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash" in Red Bank, New Jersey (a comic book store that's owned by film director Kevin Smith), where we capture the lives of fanboys who work at the store. Also, we catch interviews with the employees including owner of the store . . . KEVIN SMITH.
Now when I first saw the commercials for this show, I was excited because I thought that it was my kind of show. But just to scrape it all out, I've never seen any Kevin Smith movie (although I want to see mostly all of his movies except for Clerks II, Zack and Miri and Red State), so I didn't know what to expect from his humor but OMG, this show is funny and entertaining.
This is the perfect show for those who are a fan of Kevin Smith or people who are just a fan of comic book stores. The characters are all likable and cool, my favorite is Bryon because he just looks like an average but cool guy, he's also the funniest one out of all of them.
This show is so hilarious. Now I'm totally into Kevin Smith's humor even though this may not be the humor that you fans know but still it's funny. This is totally my kind of show even though I'm not the hugest comic book fan, this show is just plain interesting. I'm totally nerding out right now, this show is just for a nerd, any kind of nerd. The store is in New Jersey, I have a family member that lives there (seriously; but I'm not going to tell you who).
Overall, this is a hilarious and interesting show that will appeal to Kevin Smith fans, comic book nerds or any kind of nerd. The characters are all funny and likable. Also, it's just a show that's by the end when it's over, you just feel good about yourself. I'm excited for the rest of the episodes, they could be good or bad. Who knows?
The name of the movie is "Safe House" which makes you think that there is a safe in the house full of money. BLAH BLING!
Safe House is the new thriller directed by Daniel Espionosa, and stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. The movie's about CIA-operative Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) who is in charge of guarding a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. He is asked to guard rogue ex-CIA agent Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), the safe house gets attacked by mercenaries who want a chip that Frost have and now Weston has to escort Frost to another safe house.
I was really looking forward do this movie, I was actual excited, I thought it would be a really good action film. Now I will admit, I don't hate this movie. But was it good? NO. This movie is just the same average action movie with nothing special about it. I was really disappointed with this movie.
The acting was really good by Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds especially Denzel Washington because he's Denzel Washington (that's good). The supporting acting was fine nothing special about it, just average action movie acting.
The characters are all wooden and uninteresting (Maybe I wouldn't say the characters are uninteresting but still), their not developed well at all. The reason for that is due to the script and plot which is unoriginal and we've seen it done so many times done so much better. The dialogue in the movie is really bad and there were times where people in the theater laughed. I don't know if it was entertaining or it was just bad that it just made them laugh.
The action scenes was what really disappointed me. The action and fight scenes are filmed poorly with a lot of shakiness going on. Seriously, do directors really think filming action is hard and that shaking the camera would make it easier and exciting? NO! It's not exciting. Even the cinematography is bad, it's shaky and I don't have any words to describe how bad the cinematography is.
The biggest problem with the movie is the direction, The directing is just standard. There are scenes where Ryan Reynold's eyes start to spark like sparkles that look like he's about to cry or something and it's so bad it's bad. I keep saying bad a lot.
Overall, it's not a horrible movie nor is a good movie, it's OK. I was entertained by this movie, this movie is entertaining and watchable, it's just that this movie is mediocre. The movie just really disappointed me. Even though there are some redeemable qualities about it like the two leads, it's just not worth seeing in the theater.
Chronicle (No not "The Chronicles of Narnia" or "The Spiderwick Chronicles" just Chronicle) is the new found-footage (I like to call it "shaky cam") superhero movie directed by Josh Trank and it stars Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan and Michael Kelly. The movie's about three teenagers who get superpowers after getting exposed by some alien ship. At first, they start to use their powers for fun and pranks but until one of them gets out of control with his powers, things start to get serious, and I mean REALLY SERIOUS.
Now some people were mixed by the trailer, some people were excited and some people weren't. I was mixed and I didn't think it was going to be good but man was I surprised by this? This movie is EXCELLENT, I'm serious.
Now my favorite found-footage movie is "Cloverfield" because it was so scary and you felt for the characters. But the found-footage movies recently are going downhill from films like "Apollo 18" which was awful. But now, this might be my favorite found-footage movie and probably one of my favorite superhero movies.
The acting all around was great. All of the actors including the minor ones had perfect chemistry with each other. From the trailer, I thought the three leads were going to be unlikeable people that we were suppose to root for when one of them goes out of control. But NO, they were all great especially Dane DeHaan who plays Andrew. You can feel for Andrew since you know why he uses his powers for bad. He has an abusive father and a mother who is sick but then later you know he's going to use his powers against his father.
The director of the film is "Josh Trank" which this is his directorial debut and he does an AMAZING job. He uses the most amazing tricks during the movie especially one where one of the characters uses his powers to hold the camera and it's just spectacular the way he does it. The other thing that's great is that usually in found-footage films there would be title cards at the beginning saying stuff like "The Government recovered this footage" but at the beginning, they just show the company logo and then the movie begins immediately no title cards no nothing and that's awesome. Trank is going to direct the "Fantastic Four" reboot, MAKE THE REBOOT TRANK, DO IT.
The script is also strong to because it first becomes this laugh-out loud comedy and then it turns into this dark dramatic superhero film. By the way the movie is really funny too the jokes are funny. The characters including the minor ones are developed well due to the way the tone of the script goes when it becomes a comedy or a dark drama.
The character that is the most well-developed is Andrew because when we first see him, we know why he wants to film everything and not doing it because he just wants too. We also get to see his really bad life due to (like I said earlier) he has an abusive father, his mother is sick and he is bullied a lot so you really feel for him.
The last half of the movie is OMG (OH MY GOSH) FANTASIC. We get to see the thing that you were dying for, A KICKBUTT SUPERHERO CLIMAX FIGHT. Let's face it, the ending in "Apollo 18" just ruined the movie but this ending is the best one in the found-footage genre so far. The ending is really intense, dark and even gritty. The city just gets TRASHED and DESTROYED from all the chaos that is happening. The payout for what happens was unexpecting (I'm not going to spoil what happens). It's the perfect way to end the movie and you want to hear something that will pee your pants, I WANT TO SEE A SEQUEL TO THIS, some of you may not want to see a sequel but this ending just leads up for a sequel and if they do make one, I HOPE IT'S GOOD.
And last, the effects in the movie are FANTASTIC. Their extremely impressive and I can't believe that the movie was made on a budget of $15 million and they made it look this epic and good especially in the climax.
I have NO problems with this movie but if I had one minor thing to nitpick at the climax, what happened to the camera? I know numerous camera were used for the sequence but I want to know what camera was there during the climax. But besides that, this movie is fantastic and is one of the best movies of 2012 so far and is my favorite found-footage movie of all time. It's the most original found-footage movies I've seen in a while and is also different from the other ones. BEAT THAT APOLLO 18. I was originally going to give this 4.5/5 Stars but my final rating is 5/5 Stars.
