Tag: film

Playing for Keeps review

Director:
Gabriele Muccino
Cast:
Gerard Butler
Jessica Biel
Dennis Quaid
Uma Thurman
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Rated: PG-13

Gerard Butler can’t seem to escape the romcom void.

“Playing for Keeps” is the story of a retired soccer player named George (Butler), George has fallen on hard times, struggling financially and is trying to connect with his son even through being divorced from his wife Stacie (Biel). Eventually, George is sucked into becoming the new soccer coach for his son’s soccer team and through doing so he meets a few characters who make his attempts to reconnect with his family more difficult.

One of the problems with “Playing for Keeps” is that they tried to take a bunch of different plots that seemed to come from different movies, and smash them together into a sloppy mess. Not only do they bring in a bunch of different plots, they cut them off after a certain amount of time or make them significantly underdeveloped. They have a romantic comedy subplot; a divorce drama subplot and a father son bonding subplot, and each one of them don’t really go anywhere or mean anything.

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Rise of the Guardians review

Director:
Peter Ramsey
Cast:
Chris Pine
Alec Baldwin
Jude Law
Isla Fisher
Hugh Jackman
Rated: PG

I wonder what group of characters they’ll team up next.

“Rise of the Guardians” mainly follows the story of Jack Frost (Pine), who 300 years ago was chosen by the Man in the Moon to be the one who brings cold, ice and everything in between to the world. Fast forwarding to the present, Frost has no memory of his life before becoming a force of nature and feels like he is largely ignored by most of the world. This causes him to not exactly be much of a team player.

Frost is forced to work with others though when he is called upon to be a member of “the Guardians,” a crew consisting of the Sandman, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. The group is brought together because the Boogeyman, named Pitch Black (Law), is threatening them and the children of the world. Because of this, the five have to go after Pitch, however Frost still feels a bit out of place which causes some mishaps.

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Lincoln review

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” based off the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” is the story of the days in Abraham Lincoln’s presidency when he made efforts to pass an amendment to abolish slavery. The film follows Lincoln’s attempts to garner the necessary votes through the House of Representatives to get the amendment passed. To do so, Lincoln and members of his cabinet have to speak and try to not only unite the Republican Party, but get some Democratic Congressmen on their side.

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is superb as the 16th president. The biggest achievement that he pulls off in the film is humanizing the very larger- than-life man that Lincoln has become through the ages. This is in main part due to the multi-layering that Day-Lewis does with Lincoln’s character. The audience is really able to get to know who Lincoln is through the screen, instead of just learning what he did in documentaries and books.

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Wreck-It Ralph review

Director:
Rich Moore
Cast:
John C. Reilly
Sarah Silverman
Jack McBrayer
Jane Lynch
Rated: PG

This movie is worth getting some quarters together for.

“Wreck-It Ralph” follows the story of the title character (Reilly), a video game villain in an arcade game where his job is to destroy a tall building and it is up to the game’s hero, Fix it Felix (McBrayer) to repair the building and knock Ralph off the top of the building. The game, and all the inhabitants in it are now 30-years-old and Ralph is fed up with the life of the villain. Because of this, he decides to leave his game and go to another one, Hero’s Duty to get a medal which will change his life and make him a hero.

The plan goes badly in Hero’s Duty though and Ralph ends up in the racing game Sugar Rush. There he meets Vanellope (Silverman), who, after a rough first meeting, the two end up working together to achieve their goals of being better recognized by other characters in their respective games. Meanwhile though, Ralph made a huge mistake in Hero’s Duty and the main character of that game Sergeant Calhoun (Lynch) has to work with Fix it Felix to get Ralph back to his game as well as stop a threat to the whole video game world.

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007: Skyfall review

The twenty third Bond film, “Skyfall,” Begins with 007 being seemingly KIA in a mission to receive codes containing the whereabouts and identities of the agents of MI6. Bond manages to survive though and lives in seclusion for a while. That is until MI6 comes under attack by the mysterious organization who stole the codes.

James then returns to London to take up the mission, However Bond hasn’t been in the game for a while, is getting older and might not be as great as he used to be, none the less he still goes on the mission. What this leads to is an exploration into Bond’s past, his upbringing and a villain who has ties to MI6.

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Paranormal Activity 4 review

Director:
Henry Joost
Ariel Schulman
Cast:
Katie Featherston
Kathryn Newton
Matt Shively
Rated: R

It’s funny to think that three short years ago, I actually loved the first film and now I really dislike this series.

“Paranormal Activity 4” picks up five years after the end of the first film. The movie follows a new family who appears to have no connection to the previous movies. However when the character Katie from the previous movies comes and moves in next door and hidden facts begin to be revealed. I won’t go much more into the plot just because of spoilers.

With the first “Paranormal Activity,” I really enjoyed it mainly for its simplicity in so many sections. The budget was small but they used it well and did many things that were crafty, the story was also very simple, there was no major back story or major mythology, it was just a simple haunting, I enjoyed that. I didn’t know much about what was going on, and that worked. This made the film such a lightning in a bottle project, and probably should have stayed just one movie.

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Here comes the Boom review

Director:
Frank Coraci
Cast:
Kevin James
Salma Hayek
Henry Winkler
Bas Rutten
Rated: PG

“Here Comes the Boom” follows the story of Scott (James), a teacher who was once really confident in education and school however has recently lost his drive. At the same time he finds out that the music department of the school, as well as other departments are going to be cut, which would mean Scott’s friend Marty (Winkler), would lose his job.

This sets Scott off on a quest to try to raise some money to rescue the music department. After watching a UFC fight with a man named Nikko (Rutten), who Scott teaches in a night class for American citizenship, he decides to go in and try to raise money by fighting since he had experience as a Division I wrestler in college.

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Argo review

Welcome to the elite director club, Mr. Affleck.

“Argo” is Ben Affleck’s latest film as a director, and apparently the third time’s the charm as this one is as good, if not better, than his previous two projects. The film takes place during 1979, when six Americans escaped the U.S. embassy in Iran and went into hiding with the Canadian ambassador. Affleck plays the role of Tony Mendez, a CIA agent who specializes in extracting hostages. Mendez is tasked with coming up with a plan to help the six diplomatic personnel escape from the revolution-torn country.

Mendez eventually comes up with a dangerous but workable plan that involves creating fake identities for himself and the six people that are in Iran. Fake identities would label that the seven are a film crew scouting areas for a sci-fi movie. The plan is selected and Mendez gets the help of Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, played by Alan Arkin, and make-up specialist John Chambers, played by John Goodman. Together they set a plan in motion to create publicity for a fake film called “Argo,” so that Mendez has a plausible story for being in Iran and getting the six out.

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Pitch Perfect review

Director:
Jason Moore
Cast:
Anna Kendrick
Rebel Wilson
Brittany Snow
Skylar Astin
Rated: PG-13

Never imagined there could be a cappella battles but this movie proved me wrong.

“Pitch Perfect” is a comedy centering on a college music group called the Bellas, an all female a cappella group that is trying to win a championship. Anna Kendrick plays a freshman college student named Beca, whose main focus is being a DJ however she has the ability to sing real well too. This is discovered by the head of the Bellas, Aubrey, played by Anna Camp, who recruits Beca into the group.

The film’s plot takes place over the school year and shows the Bellas compete with their on-campus rival all male a cappella group the Treble Makers. Things become a little more complicated when Beca begins feeling a romantic connection with on of the new Treble Makers, Jesse played by Atin.

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Hotel Transylvania review

Director:
Genndy Tartakovsky
Cast:
Adam Sandler
Andy Samberg
Selena Gomez
Kevin James
Steve Buscemi
CeeLo Green
Rated: PG

Adam Sandler and his entourage are invading animation now.

“Hotel Transylvani”a is the new film from director Genndy Tartakovsky, who was the director of the cartoon show “Dexter’s Lab.” The film is basically a play on the Universal Monsters from the 40s, with Dracula (Sandler) running a hotel for monsters. Frequent guests are Frankenstein (James) and the wolfman, in this movie named Wayne (Buscemi).

For the most part life is pretty normal for the monsters except that Dracula has a teenage daughter named Mavis (Gomez) who wants to explore the outside world; however Dracula feels it’s important to keep his daughter safe so Mavis is not allowed to leave the castle.

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