Spring Breakers (2013) Review

Spring Breakers has been making it's waves since the release in March of this year. I finally got my hands on it and I can honestly say that it gave me more than I expected. This is my first Harmony Korine film. As much as I like this movie, I have never had any desire to watch Gummo or Trash Humpers. After seeing Spring Breakers, I will continue to watch his films from now on. This is not a perfect film, but what it does, it does well.

I am not one for spilling the entire plot because you can read a summary anywhere. In a nutshell, this film is about four girls who want to go on spring break and once arriving they get arrested at a party. After the judge sentences them with fines and two days in lock-up, they get their bail paid early by Jame's Franco's Alien. When I watched the many previews for this film, I was ready to dislike Alien, but the film gives him plenty of room to show his various sides. He might be a drug dealer. He might be an avid collector of weapons. He might be a show-off...but he actually has a heart. Alien's life revolves around having fun and he is his own boss. He doesn't make waves for himself in the city and he lives in a quiet house on the water that seems to be his own paradise. In the end, I liked Alien more than the four girls that he takes under his wing. He is the product of the beach town that lives and dies by the spring breakers.

Korine never lets you forget that it is spring break. The many many montages and flashes of naked women on the beach, constant flow of alcohol and the presence of narcotics will keep your mind on the fact that St. Pete's Beach is the location and spring break is in full swing night and day. The four girls are seen in every sleazy, run down place the beach has to offer. For the all the reasons that Alien has to be the way he is, the four female leads seem to have no reason for being the way that they are. Throughout the movie they call home and speak of how their lives have changed and how the trip has been so amazing. Some of these phone calls are the truth and some of them are boldface lies. Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Harmony's wife Rachel Korine play their roles in great fashion. If you know of Selena and Vanessa outside of acting and you role your eyes at their film career, then I would push you even more to see this movie. They all have different characteristics to set them apart, and the actresses become these characters very well.

Make no mistake. This movie is not for everybody. There is genuine dark moments within this film that do show the dangerous side of the spring break lifestyle and then there are other moments of plain strange scenarios. The scene in the bed with Franco and two of the girls comes to mind. If anything is working for this film it has to be the soundtrack. The opening with Skrillex sets the tone perfectly for what is about to take place. It is mostly hip-hop and electronic driven, but the Black Keys and Britney Spears make appearances. The entire sequence with the Britney Spears song "Everytime" is my favorite moment in the film. Cliff Martinez's name is also in this soundtrack and he is becoming a huge part of Nicolas Winding Refn's films for good reason.

The shots Korine got in this film and way he decided to film some of the scenes will keep me coming back to this movie and to his future films. Come for Alien, come for bikini clad women, come for an original film, come for the music, or come just to hear Franco keep repeating "Look at my shit".

Elysium (2013) Review

I am very confused about my feelings for Elysium. It really seemed to give me everything I expected to get out of it. The action was reserved and not overdone. The emotional edge was a little weak. We still care about these people, but not to the point that we are going into tears over them. We hope things work out. The villain(s) are good enough. I gave this film a 4/5. If it deserves anything else, it deserves to go half a point higher.

Visually, the film is top notch. Nothing looked fake or CGI'd, though a lot of it was. Elysium itself looked great and Los Angeles looked bombed out, but still good. There was nothing there we haven't seen before in these type of film. Sand, dust, graffiti, and partial structures. Maybe I like Elysium more than others because I can see a version of this happening. The most far-fetched idea is the healing chambers. We don't possess that technology and I don't think it is from lack of funding; this is something the wealthy have no say about. The trailer does a great job of laying groundwork for this film. Matt Damon gets exposed to radiation and has days to live. His childhood sweetheart has a child this is dieing of leukemia. The hospitals are completely overrun with the sick and the even sicker. The only option for anybody with terminal illness is the healing chambers on Elysium. That is the main plot in simple sentences.

Elysium is the name of the structure that was built out in space by the wealthy to house them separately from the rest of the less fortunate. If these times did exist, Elysium is the place you would want to go, but most of us would not make it there. It is a very controlled population and it is built with defenses to keep anything away from it. Jodie Foster plays Elysium's Secretary of Homeland Security and it is her that seems to decide what comes into Elysium.
The whole plot of how and why I will leave out of this review. Everything makes basic science fiction sense. The weapons are spectacular. There is almost a new weapon every action sequence. As far as action junkies are concerned, there are 2 main sequences. The action is fast and it is well done, but outside of those two scenes you will little else for you action fix. This is not Pacific Rim. It takes a good approach to its pacing. You never bore of what his happening, but you might not care as much as the rest of the theater. I loved all the scenes and all the characters. I had more fun at Pacific Rim, but this film has more going on and a more plausible situation.

Most of us can identify with the issues it brings: the separation of classes. We truly feel for the sick people on Earth because we are those sick people. So many of us are those people that can't afford to get sick because we will lose our job. We are those people that need to stay strong for our children. We are the parents who look out for kids until the end. We are the desperate citizens looking for the money and take dangerous jobs. We are the people who would fight to get to Elysium.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) Review

"Neeson? How are you comparing Liam Neeson with Jon Voight? Jerry, we’re talking about Joe Buck. If you can play Joe Buck, Oskar Schindler’s a cake walk."

That was a quote from Jason Alexander as George in Seinfeld. I agree with George here in the fact that Joe

Buck is a very complicated character to play. He is the Midnight Cowboy that the title refers to played by Jon Voight. This movie was nominated for 7 Academy Awards in 1970 and won for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Out of all the nominations, Midnight Cowboy should have won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor which would have gone to Dustin Hoffman for his character, Ratso. The quick summary of this film is a Texas cowboy decides to go to the Big Apple with dreams of becoming a male prostitute. Once arriving in the city, we have little hope for Joe. He finds a place to stay and when he thinks everything is going well, the city turns on him. Before the world totally collapses on Joe, he meets Ratso, just a hustler trying to make enough money to get to Florida where he thinks paradise awaits. Joe and Ratso eventually begin to survive the harsh city together. 

There are a few key scenes in the movie for me than speak to who Joe Buck really is. One scene is in a movie theater bathroom and involves a watch. This part of is shown later as well in the same type of scene and we are shown how much Joe has changed. The other is towards the end of the movie when Joe is trying to spell words during a game. We really get see what makes Joe different than other people. He is a terrific character study. Joe and Ratso are perfect examples of static and dynamic characters. Joe is forever changed and Ratso stays Ratso. It would be interesting to see Ratso's life up to the point where him and Joe cross paths. He seems to have a dark past that never gets fully discussed in the movie. We are invited into Joe's past with very good flashbacks and audio clips. 

This movie actually needed to grow on me, but it didn't take long. The characters were too good. There is some dragging in the film, but you always are integrated in what these two will try next. The psychedelic climax at the party is almost too much for the senses to take; colors flash and pop and the edits come fast and often. I have to recommend Midnight Cowboy. If for nothing else, the character study alone if worth your time. 

Pacific Rim (2013) Review

Remember being amazed in a theater while watching a movie? I do. It was the summer of 1993 when I saw Jurassic Park. I viewed that movie three times before it left theaters. To me it was a perfect movie. It was everything you could hope for. Today I got to see another movie that will be a defining experience in my film history. I got see aliens come from a portal in the ocean and battle against robots. It is also worth mentioning that these aliens are robots are around 280 feet tall. The tallest dinosaur was around 60 feet tall. That is a moving robot about 28 stories high. That scale is never diminished in Pacific Rim. You are always aware that this mechs are enormous.

One thing to love about the movie is the opening scene. We are brought up to speed on what has been going on in the world and what led to the designing of the giant mechs called Jaegers.These machines were built to stop the beasts known as the Kaiju from destroying the planet. These creatures pass through a portal on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Once arriving they exit the water and wreak havoc on land. The Jaegers were the only things that could stop the Kaiju in a timely manner. They became the defenders. Then politics interferes they want to stop funding the Jaeger project and focus on building a wall along the coastlines to keep the Kaiju off of land. I am going to stop my synopsis right there. I haven't given a film a perfect score so far this year, but this movie truly won me over. It was the most fun I have had so far this year in the theaters. The effects are some of the best you will see. All fight scenes are choreographed well. You never get bored of watching these towering beasts crash together and fight.

Is seems so simple. Giant Robots fighting Giant Aliens. That was all it took to make a great movie. There is still so much to see this year, but you can't pass this one up. The dialogue is cheesy most of the time and the main character is extremely weak. Other characters in the film make up for his poor development. Check your head at the door and just go watch something you've never seen before. I am not high on Bay's Transformer's and this movie shows why. Giant robots hitting each other becomes boring and I had that problem with all three of those films. Here, Guillermo del Toro shows us that these types of fights can be made interesting if you know what you are doing and you know what the audience wants. I don't see you can go wrong with this film. It will fill a gap in you that you didn't know you had. We didn't know we wanted this until del Toro put it out for us to see. Now, I have tasted epic and I want more!

Synecdoche, New York (2008) Review

If this movie is your favorite movie, then please let me know because I was with this movie for about 30 or 40 minutes and then it lost me and and by then end I was very uninterested in anything happening onscreen. The acting is all great. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing in everything and this movie is no exception. He plays Caden Cotard, a theater director who is struggling with his family and his grip on reality. He gets the McArthur grant and decides to use that great sum if money to make a play for the ages. He also wants this work to be figuratively and literally big. During the entirety of this production, his wife and daughter leave him and he starts to face am enormous amount of health problems that seem have no rhyme or reason for their relentlessness. By the time he is sitting at somebody's deathbed being forced to ask for forgiveness, you understand that the movie is just being absurd for the sake of being absurd.

Unfortunately, all these actors seem to think they are in a better movie than this. I am not sure who is a fan of movies where you never know if what you see onscreen is ACTUALLY happening. You quickly learn that this is one of those films and when all is said and done you still don't know if certain scenes happened. I don't have complaints about mindbending movies, but I will need some help and not random scenes where I just have to guess if it true or not. These scenes zap all of the credibility that the film had.

This is a Charlie Kaufman film. He wrote and directed it. This is the same guy who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. I didn't enjoy those movies, so I should have known better than to think this would be different. I will admit that I need to revisit Being John Malkovich to see if I still dislike it. This movie still stands as too jumbled to be cohesive. You see the giant play going on and it is so massive and so involved that you think something big will happen, but the film continues to spiral. If you enjoy Charlie Kaufman, then maybe this is for you. If you enjoy movies that aren't a mess and have a purpose then look elsewhere. 

Despicable Me 2 (2013) Review

This will be short, just because we all know Gru, the girls, and, of course, the minions. There is very little to say here. Kristen Wiig returns as Lucy Wilde, a different and much more likable character. She is the big addition. I think everyone else is still minor additional characters. If you enjoyed the first movie, I don't know how you don't like this movie. It is more of everything that you enjoyed from the first one. The minions are still amazing. Gru has changed, but not for the worst. He is a parent now and he takes his duty seriously. The girls are growing up, but it seems that was only truly shown in Margo, the oldest. Agnes and Edith seem to be the same after the years from the first film. 

The villain was good, but not great. His evil plan didn't seem as good as another plan might have been. He was a great character, but a mediocre villain. I know the minions are getting a lot of attention for the laughs, but it should be noted that everyone get their fair share. Gru and Lucy are the center of the movie, so they share a lot of screen time and provide plenty of comedy. Anybody who was interested in the first movie should see the sequel. It is one of the best, if not THE best, animated sequel. Monsters University dropped the ball earlier this summer, but don't be skeptical of this film.  

The General (1926) Review

Yes, movies used to be silent, and yes, they were still great. The General from 1926 is the proof. Buster Keaton stars has a railroad engineer in the South during the Civil War. After an attack on Fort Sumpter, there was a surge of people wanting to enlist to fight for the South. Buster Keaton's Johnny Grey was one of those people, but was turned down because he could be a better assistance on the railroad. This was my only complaint about the film. I understand why he was turned down, but I don't understand why they never told him he was turned down. He even tries to pass through the line again, and they still don't tell him. I understand the need for him not to be enlisted; the whole film relies on him being turned down, but the excuse seemed too weak to support the rest of the film. For the movie's sake they can't tell him why, and in that regard they should have used another excuse. Onward and upward, when the North lays out a plan to hijack Johnny's train, The General, and follows through, he must get his train back, get his girl back, and warn the South that the North is coming on a sneak attack.

The General is filled with tension, comedy, and drama and all of it works. As any good silent film star, Keaton needs no words to describe what he is doing. He is the only character in the movie worth watching, but he is so big and so great that you get very involved in his quest. I was very aggrivated by the girl in the film, but she was only there for story. There is not much more to say. The film is a short 78 minutes, which works well with the silent format. The General delivers more in it's 78 runtime than most modern films do in two hours. There is a lot to be said about a movie that uses all of it's time on important scenes and dismisses filler just for sake of stretching out the film. If you worry that the film is too old to bother with, I urge you to change your mind.

Touch of Evil (1958) Review

I think so many people know of the famous opening tracking shot, but no one really hears about the rest of the film. The movie is still a good movie, but nothing surpasses that opening scene. Welles worked hard to get that scene and I appreciate it because starts the movie's story and introduces our two main characters with the other main characters following soon after. Welles is behind the camera as well as in front of it where he gives the best performance of the movie as Police Captain Hank Quinlan. He is quite possibly one of the dirtiest cops in history, especially considering how highly regarded he is with the people. Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh are good as Mike and Susan Vargas. I particularly enjoyed the Grandi boys. They were the most horrific part of this movie. I think the "evil" is the title refers to Welles' Quinlan, but I think the Grandi's were more terrible when they are onscreen. Touch of Evil falls in the second act and is resurrected in the third, not to mention the strong first act and in those acts is where the 4 star rating comes from. I think the evil holds up well considering when this film was made, but the dragging middle is...well..just that - dragging. Welles seems to always churn out good movies and this is no exception. I think Citizen Kane has it's flaws, so this is no better or worse. I say give it a shot if you like a director with style and vision (I noticed that he seemed to shoot the camera from the down pointing up to his character a lot) and Orson Welles always had that in spades.

Monsters University (2013) Review

I should start this review out with confessing my adoration for Monsters Inc. It was a flawless film and to this day one of Pixar's greatest achievements. So imagine my surprise when I was watching this prequel and found that I was laughing very little. The jokes that were coming at us were very bland and very Stooge-like. There are some that make you laugh out loud and those are mainly jokes that could only exist in the Monster's universe. However, instead of laughs, you get a really good plot that does unravel at the climax and an even better setting. The university is a great place and even the interior of the buildings were very well designed. Pixar has made a place that you would WANT to visit. I have two kids that love these movies, so I know I will be revisiting this on Blu-ray when it gets release. All I can hope for at this point is to find something that I missed in the theater. Maybe that something will ignite a fire, but right now I miss the campus and not the movie that took place on it.

Double Indemnity (1944) Review

I had high hopes for Double Indemnity and then when the opening scene was presented to me, my hopes were deflated. That might have been good. Giving the ending away at the beginning of the film was my first and biggest problem with Sunset Blvd. Double Indemnity opened just the same way, but it turned out that the events that led to up to the ultimate finale was much more entertaining. I felt the characters were able to do enough with the characters to keep me interested.
For those not familiar with definition of the term "Double Indemnity", it was used in the life insurance business when the insured would die under specific and very rare circumstances. When the insured perished in one of the specified acts, the insurance company was forced to pay out double. You can imagine how much the insurance companies hated to see these claims come across their desks. In the insurance world, the job of the claims adjuster is to look at the claim and all the facts presented and decide if the company will be paying out to the insured or will be denied and most likely go to court. That is where Double Indemnity begins, with insurance salesman, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), confessing his crimes to the company's claims adjuster, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), via a recorded memo. This sets up a series of flashbacks paired occasionally with Neff's voice over. The first flashback begins with Neff stopping by a house. The owner of the house a Mr. Dietrichson; his auto insurance has lapsed and Neff wants to stop by and see if he will renew with him. This is where Mr. Dietrichson's wife, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) enters the picture. Neff is instantly taken with Mrs. Dietrichson and their first encounter is rather something to watch. Neff wastes no time in his advances and Phyllis keeps him at a close distance. It isn't long after this encounter that the plot truly begins to unfold and the characters take full shape. We are also introduced to Lola, Mr. Dietrichson's daughter from his previous marriage. Lola has her reasons for hating Phyllis and those reasons of course play a role in all of this. Friendships are tested and love falls and breaks as these people are poisoned by their decisions. Walter's plan is extremely slick and well crafted and fun to watch unfold, but the real scene I enjoyed was the single scene with Richard Gaines. Watching Robinson and Gaines interact was great in my opinion. There is a lot to love here. The tension was nearly nonstop and the script is great. Neff has a great line towards the beginning about "Philadelphia with two F's", which I really love. Almost all of Neff's dialogue is perfect. I enjoyed every time Edward G. Robinson was on-screen. I wanted to mention Lola played by Jean Heather who really turns in a good performance here. She makes the most of the few scenes she is in.
It's obvious why Double Indemnity is a classic. It demands your attention and does almost everything right. This is nothing but great dialogue and great characters for 107 minutes. This what I miss about Hollywood, but that doesn't mean you can't revisit when Hollywood was making pure gold and Double Indemnity is just that.

Mama (2013) Review

I think I disliked this film more than most. For all the originality, decent actors, and passable dialogue, this film takes far too many missteps to win me over. Mama is marred by the darkness it reveals in the opening sequence. The effects are not first rate and the movie doesn't redeem itself in its finale. The original story starts to feel played out early on in the film. Even if the movie had ended on the note I was hoping for, it would still only be, at most, a 1 and a half to 2 star film.

Fritz Lang's M (1931) Review

Fritz Lang's M is impossible not to enjoy. This film could come out in the theaters today and still be relevant. I couldn't help but watch his camera techniques and marvel over how he shoots this film. I realized my viewing of the movie was not enough. It wasn't until after trying to recount events in the movie to my wife that I started to appreciate it even more. Lang always get me guessing as to what was coming next. I didn't know what to expect, but I always liked what I saw. Based on true events in Dusseldorf, M is about a city's reaction to a child murderer being on the loose. The climactic scene in the movie is something to truly behold. Lang clearly has feelings about the German justice system and this movie would also work today in an American town, putting the American justice system in question. Peter Lorre is great in his performance. He rarely speaks, but uses facial expressions masterfully. Perhaps in the end you feel sympathy for M, or perhaps you still want to grab the rope. Either way, for 1931, this film is way ahead of its time and deserves your utmost attention.

Welcome to The Reel Opinion

Welcome Movie Fans,

I created this blog out of my passion for film. I have always been interested in people's movie opinions...especially the unpopular ones. When I meet someone the first thing I want to know is "what is your favorite movie." I have since learned that a lot of people don't know what their favorite movie is! This seems absurd. You can't watch movies and not have a favorite of some sort. If you had only watched three films in your life, how could you NOT pick which one was better than the other two? I think that is a cop out, and a bad one at that.

Everyone who is into film has opinions and all opinions are great. They can lead to great discussions and many times cause people to defend their side and can lead to a better understanding of your own side and the other persons side. Sharing opinions is NOT great when one side thinks their opinion is "right". No opinion is right or wrong, it is simply an opinion. This blog is called The Reel Opinion. I have joked with people in the past that MY opinion was correct and backed by scientific facts. This is obviously untrue, but I do have strong opinions and usually have statements holstered for an argument. My opinion is just as equal as everyone's own.

This blog will consist of movie reviews and personal opinions. I don't review every movie I see, but that is simply because of time. I DO have something to say about every movie, though. People around me can hear those useless rants free of charge. 

My film tastes go from the movie coming out in the local theater next week all the way back to the silent era. Every film gets a fair shot in my opinion. When I walk into the theater or start a new Blu-ray that movie has the potential to be perfect movie. It is up to that movie to keep the 5 star rating until the end. Movies earn their perfect scores and there will be more posts about how I feel about rating films. 

Anyone who is knows me personally knows that I am an avid Blu-ray collector. More on that format in another post as well. 

Film is the best medium in existence and The Reel Opinion is for those who feel the same way. Now lets get started with those opinions.