Movie Reviews By Movie Reviews Pro

Crazy Heart

Rating:

Movie: Crazy Heart (2009)

Studio : Fox Searchlight

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 112 min

Website : foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxb7utw

Review:

As of this writing, Jeff Bridges has already won a Golden Globe for his performance in Crazy Heart, and he is expected to receive an Oscar nomination, if not win the award entirely.

And he deserves it. Bridges disappears completely into his portrayal of Bad Blake, a 57-year-old alcoholic former country star whose career has been reduced to playing in front of small crowds in bowling alleys and bars. Subsisting on a steady diet of cigarettes, whiskey, and longnecks, Bridges can still entertain the crowds of loyal fans who request songs, and he’s still suave enough to be able to take groupies back to his hotel room.

Things begin to look up for Blake when he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a reporter for a small New Mexico paper, who wants to interview him. They talk about music and life. Soon enough, predictably but endearingly, they’re soon doing more than talking. She has a four-year-old son and has made mistakes in her life as well, but has held it together. We see that there’s potential for change in Blake, but he’s so worn down, so accustomed to the hard-drinking, nomadic lifestyle that change can be just out of reach. There’s a heartbreaking scene where he takes Jean’s son for some quality time at the playground, and he shows here that he could just be an effective father figure. Upon bringing him home, he sneaks away to take a swig from his flask.

This is a wonderful movie. Bridges doesn’t play Blake; he embodies him. He and Gyllenhaal create a convincing chemistry, and we root for the relationship to drive Blake to throw away the bottle and settle down with a family. Colin Farrell does a good job as the country star who was mentored by Blake and is still loyal to him, and Robert Duvall has a small but powerful role as an old drinking buddy of Blake’s who’s sober. Duvall’s presence was no doubt inspired by his Academy Award-winning performance in Tender Mercies, a similar film about a down-and-out country singer. I haven’t seen it, but now plan to.

I’ll also add the music. The soundtrack, which I also intend to find, had my head bopping throughout. I’m not a huge country fan, but I do have Toby Keith on my iTunes, and I’m listening to him as I write this review. Like most of the country songs I’ve heard, Blake’s revolve around alcohol, heartbreak, and regret, strong themes in his life. One of his songs goes, “I used to be somebody, but now I’m somebody else.” But does he need to stay that way? We know the answer, but the center of the film revolves around whether he learns it. It’s a masterpiece.

-Craig Wynne

Uncategorized

Up in the Air

Rating:

Movie: Up in the Air (2009)

Studio : Paramount

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 109 min

Website : upintheairmovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxavvdg

Review:

I once read an article in which George Clooney revealed that he sometimes sleeps in a closet with only his pet potbelly pig to keep him company. All that fame and adulation, I remember thinking, and yet he still sounds like a lonely guy. The same may well be said of Ryan Bingham, whom Clooney portrays so admirably in Up in the Air.

Bingham’s job is firing people on behalf of employers who haven’t got the chutzpah to do it themselves. An upmarket loner, he prowls the sterile airports and corporate offices of the nation, stoically clocking up as many employee scalps and air-miles as he can manage. Like any good sociopath worth his salt, he uses an expert line of bullshit to convince himself that he performs all of his duties with the utmost respect and humanity. Once he meets Alex, his soon-to-be lover and fellow traveller, however, cracks in the charming but smugly emotion-free facade begin to show.

The notion of home, and all that it entails, forms the gentle backdrop to the abrasive foreground of this movie. What is brave and refreshing about how Reitman depicts Bingham’s estrangement from ordinary life is that he does not ram it down your throat. It would have been an easy target perhaps to simply accuse Bingham of being the bad guy for firing people in recession-era America and to leave it at that. Instead Reitman builds a subtle web of choices into which Bingham treads at the same time as the viewer. How will he treat Natalie, the snot-nosed young Stanford upstart as he brings her out on the road for training? Will he ever have the balls to step up to the plate and declare his growing feelings for Alex? Thanks to Reitman’s taut and cliché-free direction, we learn the sometimes uneasy answers to these questions at the same instant as Bingham does and this keeps you on your toes throughout. In an age of predictable plots and unearned emotional resolutions this sort of approach to character – where you’re genuinely not sure what he will do in the end – is almost revolutionary.

Interestingly, the people you see being fired by Bingham throughout the movie are in fact all real-life employees who have recently been let go from their jobs. Up in the Air doesn’t lay out the political or economic reasons why this has happened – but it does successfully burrow under the surprisingly sensitive skin of the kind of character that eased it right along.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Status

Daybreakers

Rating:

Movie: Daybreakers(2010)

Studio : Lionsgate

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 98 min

Website : daybreakersmovie.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox9ot1f

Review:

When the Spierig brothers plotted out this film, you can tell from the start that they have a passion for vampires and the culture around them.

The world of Daybreakers is a reflection of our own, cast in a shadow where the dead work at night through a Metropolis-inspired cityscape as they drink their coffee mingled with AB positive. From sun-blocking tinted panels to LCD mirrors, the design of this alternate reality is perhaps the most breathtaking thing about this film.

We step into this world long after humanity was given an ultimatum to live as vampires or die as their cattle. Unfortunately, living this way has led to a decline in the once mighty human population, and humans are becoming rarer as vampires begin to starve. What’s worse, those that starve do not simply “die,” but instead lose their sentience and mutate into mindless bat-human hybrids (think Nosferatu). The fear of starving and the greater fear of mutating is creating havoc within the populace, and the only salvation to be found is in a blood substitute that will keep vampire society alive.

Ethan Hawke plays Edward—did they really have to name him that?—a researcher for a “Big Brother” pharmacy agency that is trying to find a blood substitute while trying to maintain their dwindling supply of humans to feed the country. He is also one of the only humanitarians of this world and brother to a soldier who enjoys life as a vampire. Along the way, Edward encounters a small colony of humans and a potential new way to save vampirekind.

The movie starts off as interesting, but the storyline can not seem to hold up. It wants to be a horror film, but really comes off as more of a thriller with action elements. I don’t mind this, but a lot of cheap scare tactics get thrown in to prove its origin and it gets annoying. Worse still, the luxurious pace of the film fails as it goes from a scenic stroll of this new world into a clumsy gallop past the interesting grotesqueness of this rotting society. It’s a shame considering there’s so much detail that is easy to miss by the later half of the film.

I think this film would have been better as a mini-series. With what the Spierig brothers made, it would have given more time to love being in their vampire-dominated society and made it that much more horrifying to watch it slowly crumble away. As it stands now, it’s only a good idea with a half-baked execution. Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of cult potential, and at a 20 million dollar budget this is an impressive film, but I don’t see it winning the recognition it has the chance to gain.

-Donald Lee

Action, Horror, In Theaters, Thriller

The Princess and The Frog

Rating:

Movie: The Princess and The Frog(2009)

Studio : Walt Disney Animation Studios

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 97 min

Website : disney.go.com/disneypictures/princessandthefrog/

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxaghsp

Review:

Set in New Orleans (or “N’awlins” if you’re a local), Disney’s newest “Princess” is anything but that. Tiana is not a girl who makes demands but fulfills them. She is a workaholic who loves her parents enough to make it all she ever thinks about. Her goal is not a fantastic dream, but the American dream: starting her own restaurant where the world will come and acknowledge her late father’s cuisine.

Her foil is a prince who is comparable to the villainous Gaston from Beauty and The Beast. As royalty, he cares only to entertain himself, and to woo women. When he is cut from his parent’s fortune with an ultimatum to marry into a rich family, he immediately accepts until he encounters a Shadowman (voodoo magician) with plans of his own. It is only their adventure along the way that slowly lets these two understand what they actually wanted and needed in life.

This film is so different from what you would expect out of Disney that I consider it a welcome surprise. One point I particularly like to point out is Tiana’s best friend Charlotte, who is not only someone who shares a mutual friendship with her, but is not the rival you would expect these kind of movies would shape her into. Even more surprising, there is actually a subtle suggestion of racism from one of the characters that gets in the way of Tiana’s dream. To be frank, even the idea of an interracial relationship may not seem very daring these days to a generation that grew up past Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, but in my eyes it’s another surprise from a conservative company like Disney.

Originally, I was led to believe that this film was going to be totally cel-drawn, but then found out that it was not totally done that way, and I’m glad. There are certain scenes in the film that could only be done with CGI without looking messy. That aside, everything about this film melds together and you really feel this tapestry of N’awlins as you are guided along.

After dealing with a lineup of films that included such awful ideas like an endless torrent of Dwayne Johnson movies and show-inspired teeny bopper fodder, I am glad Disney has finally come to their senses and brought something not only a little more daring, but something that everyone can enjoy for once that doesn’t have a Pixar logo on it.

-Donald Lee

Animation, Family, In Theaters