True Grit

Hailee Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross is taking the ‘Best breakout performance of 2010’ award away from Chloe Moretz’s Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass. There, I said it. Outside of acting there is a lot to praise True Grit on, it is beautify shot, surprisingly funny, well paced, involving, and it manages to be a lot of fun while having some depth, with that said, the only disappointment is the narrative itself, an issue that didn’t really come into effect until about half way into the movie.

Mattie Ross is off to find the man who is responsible for her father’s death Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), of course she can’t get him herself, she’s only fourteen. So she recruits the meanest U.S. marshal she can find Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and then happens to meet LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) a man who will never let you forget that he is a Texas Ranger and just happens to already be looking for Chaney for another crime he committed. So after some very hilarious scenes young Ross manages to get LaBoeuf and Cogburn to go after Chaney and she even manages to get a horse of her own so she could go along with them. After all of that wonderful build up, you know you’re in for a ride … oh wait.

Here’s where the film drops in quality for me, the trip divulges into an on and off again relationship between Cogburn and LaBeouf, one minute LaBeouf gives up, then he’s back, then he quits again, then he’s back. It’s made up for slightly due to little interactions between Cogburn, Ross, and LaBoeuf when they are getting along and discover that Chaney is riding along with a group. And when they finally make it to Chaney, wow, what a let down. I get that Chaney isn’t supposed to be the toughest person given the unflattering description he’s given by most people and Brolin plays him fit to that description. But its like ‘this is the guy you were going after?’ why not make it the leader of the gang he’s riding around with. As a character, Chaney is effective in almost no way whatsoever. I’m having a hard time believing that he did anything that they say he did. The character does eventually link you to a stellar climax featuring other and more interesting villains. And then comes an ending that probably would have been better if the last five minutes were cut, they weren’t bad, but they felt a bit excessive.

Now with all of that said, its still one of the better movies of the year. I wouldn’t describe the narrative as bad, it’s just for all of that great build up, the end result just ends up being a bit disappointing. The cast still shines through. The accents, the costumes, and the production design are all authentic. And it still retains quality that would only come from the Coen’s brothers.

Come Oscar season it’ll probably be appreciated more for its acting and technical achievements, but that’s a no go on ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’. The Coen’s still did the book justice and it’s not a bad way to introduce younger audiences not willing to sit through the 1969 True Grit to the story.

Final Score: 3/4

Black Swan

Well this little number has definitely garnered a lot of attention in recent weeks, both as the movie with tons of Oscar potential and as the movie that features Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis getting it on. Does it live up to the hype for the former reason, yes. As for the latter reason, since I’m not professional critic I have no problem saying it lives up on that end also.

The film starts out with Nina (Natalie Portman) a young and highly dedicated ballerina vying to be the star of the show the company is producing which is a slightly revamped version of Swan Lake. Nina is seemingly innocent at the start, which is the reason why her director (creepily, but effectively played by Vincent Cassel) criticizes her for not being able to play ‘The Black Swan’ despite her being able to play ‘The White Swan’ so well. He casts her regardless, believing she has some bite in her. So the film is mainly about her transformation into becoming the ‘The Black Swan’, though instead of her just perfecting it in dance, she also begins to become ‘The Black Swan’ in real life. Her slightly odd relationship with her mother becomes strained in the process and things aren’t improved with Lily (played well by Mila Kunis) around who the director believes can also play ‘The Black Swan’.

The best thing about this movie is its cinematography. While Inception had wondrous visuals well shot, this movie steals the spotlight by engaging you more with so much less. The dance sequences are wonderfully filmed and that camera never stops moving showing you the grace of the pieces from all sides.

Natalie Portman gives the performance of her life as Nina she starts out as the white swan becoming the black. She believably shows you the many aspects of a ballerina’s life, the good and the bad, and the director loves to show you the bad. She’ll make you smile one minute, cringe the next, and then just do something that’s makes you say “what the @#$%”.

For all the beauty that comes out of this film, there’s something right around the corner to make you cringe. Whether it’s the visuals of cracked toenails made from dancing too hard, inducing vomiting, close up shots of cuts fingers. While its definitely my least favorite aspect of the film, its still done effectively.

Now let’s talk about the direction, while Arnofsky keeps you engaged, he does lay it on a bit thick with a few excesses. The film has the horror element that divulges into a what’s real and what’s not, or better yet, what is actually happening and what is symbolism. Nina looks at herself in the mirror, but her reflection moves or another one where she’s walking down an alley and she sees herself, those bits are done to very little effect, but the film definitely gets you jumping once you realize the transformation is actually happening. By that point it really does become a real mindbender, which will have you questioning what was real and what wasn’t.

I’ll also compliment the script. Despite a few awkward lines involving the sexual parts of the movie, it’s decent.

Overall, I’ll say that Black Swan is one of the best movies that I never want to see again. For all of its beauty it has too much ugliness that personally I’m not willing to sit through again.

Final Score: 3/4

The Social Network

For the record, it really bugs me that I saw this opening day and I just now typed this review today.

Wow. That’s one way to sum up this movie. Direction, writing, acting, cinematography, yes I said cinematography, all top notch.

Essentially ‘The Social Network’ is dramatized version of a few of the accounts given about the creation of Facebook (previously known as ‘The Facebook’). Essentially Mark Zuckerburg (Jessie Eisenberg) starts out as a sophomore at Harvard who has just been dumped by his girlfriend (Erica Mooney), the dialogue from that opening scene gives you an idea of what you’re in for in the next two hours. It’s what Mark does in reaction to that break up that kind of triggers the rest of the film, even if Erica is just a fictional person in real life.

One can easily tell you where the plot goes from there, but I rather tell you why you should see it instead of telling you what you’ll see, I don’t want to ruin too much.

Cinematography is something I only considered to be important in action movies, but this movie proves that it can add to any genre. Everything is so crisp and so clean and this hard work really pays off to a sequence in the middle featuring a row boat race, sounds dull, but combine the pace, the score, and the cinematography and you get an amazing sequence.

The smartest decision about the movie was to shift back in forth between the scenes discussing the dual lawsuits that Zuckerberg is facing from his best friend (the new Spiderman Andrew Garfield) along with Cameron/Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) and their associate Divya Narendra (Max Minghella). How they got a British guy to convincingly play a character named Eduardo is beyond me. Anyway, the pacing allows for some very interesting transitions between past and their present, its more than “Okay, let tell us about Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake)”, “Okay I will tell you about Sean Parker”, the scenes just flow into each other seamlessly.

As for acting, David Fincher managed to get a great performance out of everyone he casted, and I mean everyone, including some of the people playing minor characters and it really pays off. One can easily right off a lot of the characters in this film as assholes, but everyone manages to keep their character likable and interesting. The Winklevoss twins could have easily just been your college douches from any crappy college movie, but Armie Hammer plays them both wonderfully. Justin Timberlake is a scene-stealer as Sean Parker (the creator of Napster) from his introduction all throughout the movie. Andrew Garfield has the American accent down to a tee, and plays it great as the supporting friend, but when its time for him to take charge and stand up for himself, he does it well in one of the best scenes of the movie. Jessie Einsenberg is a machine as Zuckerburg, just cold and piercing, in some scenes, while in others he plays it more vulnerable and sympathetic which gives much meaning to one of the last lines, “You’re not an asshole, you’re just trying so hard to be” spoken by Marilyn Deply (Rashida Jones) a 2^nd year associate to the lawyer firm working with Zuckerberg. Of course this goes against the “You’re an asshole” which came from his girlfriend at the beginning. By the end of the movie you probably would have picked one of the two statements to be true.

The cherry on top would be the score that just adds so much to the scenes, whether it’s a sense of fun, adds some gravity to the tenseness of certain scenes, and if you’re like me gives you something to listen to while doing some computer programming. It’s definitely worth listening to.

The movie’s only flaw is that the story itself doesn’t carry that much weight, its not that you don’t care, its just I never found myself concerned for much and while you can’t really blame the film makers for it that since most of this actually happened, it just ends up keeping it from perfection.

One can give this movie so many praises, but in the end this will definitely get one of the best picture slots at the Oscars and Aaron Sorkin is definitely walking away with the best adapted screenplay Oscar. Is it the movie of the year, no, but its definitely up there and a must see.

Final score: 3.5/4

Opening Blog

Hello, people, all three of you who are reading this (if I’m even lucky) welcome to my blog. This is simply an exercise in writing on my part. I honestly can’t say there’s anything special about this blog. I plan on doing movie reviews, game reviews, I’ll give some commentary certain on news stories, links to funny videos and pictures, and my thoughts on whatever I can think of that seems interesting. I tend to be kind of lazy so there might be posting droughts on my end every now and then, but I’ll try not to let that happen. So in the end I’ll post and if you like what you see, stick around.