Friday, January 31, 2014

Last Vegas

Last Vegas is an incredibly mean-spirited movie.  I'm not even sure who the market is for this movie.  I'm not kidding.  Who was this movie for?  People definitely went to it.  Last Vegas made back four times its budget!  But I cannot understand which demographic would want to see this movie.  Is it elderly moviegoers?  Maybe.  They could've been enticed by a movie about retirees and just ignored how derisive the trailer is toward people over 60.  Is it for 18-35 year olds?  Maybe.  They could've been enticed by the Hangover-esque bachelor-party-in-Vegas scenario and just ignored the lack of jokes or partying in the trailer.

Last Vegas is a movie about four guys whose age is never stated (they are just indiscriminately old), but they've been friends since childhood.  When Billy (Michael Douglas) announces his engagement to his 30-year old girlfriend, Sam (Kevin Kline) and Archie (Morgan Freeman) round up the grumpy Paddy (Robert De Niro) and set off for Las Vegas to throw Billy a bachelor party.  They meet an indiscriminately old lounge singer named Diana (Mary Steenburgen) who shows them around Vegas and teaches Billy to not have relationships with hot, young women.

There are lots of Viagra "jokes."  Kevin Kline talks about balls a lot.  There several scenes where characters fake infirmity but are really quite spry! (Unless the joke requires the character to actually be infirm.)  Last Vegas is relentlessly unfunny.  That's the worst.  Dramatic failure can be unintentionally funny, but comedic failure is brutally miserable.

I learned a couple of things from this movie about being old.  Number 1: It's horrible to be old.  There is nothing good about it.  People of retirement age have stopped living and are merely awaiting death.  Number 2: If you are going to marry a hot, young girl, that is terrible.  You should marry a woman closer to your own age.  But if you are married to a woman your own age, you should try to sleep with hot, young girls.  I'm not sure if these lessons should be applied to real life, but they were definitely messages sent by the movie.

I guess my big issue is that the comedy isn't jokes about being old.  The comedy is just making fun of old people.  And there's big difference there.  The difference is especially highlighted because there are a few "jokes about being old" in the movie too.  It creates a contrast which makes the parts where they make fun of the elderly all that more shocking.  This movie never lets you forget that old people are gross and dumb and weak.

How does a movie like this happen?  It's all in the script.  That's were jokes in movies come from.  No writer in their 50s or 60s would ever write this.  It would be offensive to them.  Last Vegas could only come from a relatively young person.  And it did.  It is written by Dan Fogelman who is best known for writing children's movies.  Last Vegas has the broad, ugly humor of a modern kid's movie.  Fogelman ought to be ashamed of himself.

But apparently five Oscar winning actors were so hungry for a paycheck and/or attention that they took part in maligning people who're the same age as them (and humiliating themselves in the process).  Michael Douglas (aged 69 with 2 Oscars) comes off as a "dirty old man" and an over-tanned clown.  Morgan Freeman (aged 76 with 5 Oscar nominations and 1 win) comes off as barely alive.  Robert De Niro (aged 70 with 7 Oscar nominations and 2 wins) is portrayed as a grouch and perpetually stuck in the past.  Kevin Kline (aged 66 with 1 Oscar) is unable to function in the modern society and is stymied by any technology produced after the Kennedy assassination.  Mary Steenburgen (aged 60 with 1 Oscar) fairs pretty well but is basically just being used to look good for her age.  To be fair though, as Hollywood actors, they all look good.

I can't recommend you watch something else enough.  Last Vegas is not a good movie.  The film does try to squeeze in a little sweetness in the end, but none of that sweetness concerns the good side of being old.  It's just some trite nonsense about friendship.  If you want to watch something funny about a group of geriatric friends, then go rent a couple seasons of The Golden Girls.  Those gals are awesome!

3.5 out of 10

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

I love Jackass.  I just want to put that out there.  I think that not just the movies but also the TV show are brilliantly anarchic.  I am someone who is predisposed to like this cinematic spinoff, Bad Grandpa.  What I'm getting at is that if you're not a big fan of all things Jackass, then you should probably stay away from this movie. 

Bad Grandpa is the first Jackass movie with a plot.  It's not much of a plot, but it does have one.  Basically, Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville is his old man makeup from the TV show) is tasked with taking his 8 year-old grandson, Billy, to stay with his father while Billy's mom is in prison.  This requires a road trip and the pair get into trouble along the way in the form of Jackass pranks.

Despite my affinity for Jackass, this movie didn't really win me over.  The big problem is the presence of a plot.  The previous films established that audiences did not require a story to link the shenanigans together.  When the scenes come up in Bad Grandpa that are supposed to progress the story, all they do is bring the movie to a complete stop.  One of the great things about the films is the relentless, manic energy.  In Bad Granpda, that energy is broken up after every stunt/prank set piece.  Not every Jackass stunt/prank is funny, but the movies have a momentum that carries you through them.  You're laughing and/or disgusted the entire time.  Bad Grandpa lacks that momentum and the lesser pranks become a chore to sit through.

Johnny Knoxville is great.  He's been doing this character for a long time and he's mastered it.  Jackson Nicoll plays Billy and he's fantastic.  Jackass has always been good at finding smart ass kids with a quick wit.

There's some super funny parts.  There's some parts that don't really work.  But on the whole, I would tell any Jackass fans to watch it.  Bonus reason to watch Bad Grandpa: It's nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup!  It has the same amount of nominations as Prisoners and Before Midnight. 

5 out of 10

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2


There are few sequels that turn out better than the original.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball 2 is one of those sequels.

CwaCoM2 picks up right where the first one left off.  The CEO of Live Corp, Chester V., comes to Swallow Falls in order to clean up the leftovers from the island.  The entire populace is relocated for the duration of the cleanup.  After Flint gets a job at Live Corp, he is approached by Chester (his childhood hero).  Turns out that the FLDSMDFR is still creating food.  And not just any food.  It's creating living food!  Chester convinces Flint to go back to Swallow Falls and stop the machine.  Even with the help of his friends, can Flint save Swallow Falls without being eaten by living food?

I really liked the first movie.  The characters were fun and the story was good (despite its deviation from the book).  But with CwaCoM2, we get to skip all the parts where we meet the characters and learn about them.  We already know them and get to dive straight into a super fun adventure with them.  Plus we get a couple great new characters like Chester's orangutan with a human brain, Barb (flawlessly voiced by Kristen Schaal) and Barry.

The design and look of CwaCoM2 is way better than in the first movie.  The food animals are fantastic and really clever.  I really liked the way that the food is practically photo realistic, yet the characters are extremely cartoony.

I thought CwaCoM2 was really funny in very kid-friendly way (which means lots of chuckles for adults).  There's some in-jokes that grown-ups will get but for the most part, this is not a movie striving to provide something for the parents in order to make sitting through it less painful.  CwaCoM2 is a well made movie made solely for kids.

I do have two issues with the movie, however.  First, the lack of rat-birds.  The best part of the original gets almost no screen time in the sequel?  Second, the villain.  This isn't really a spoiler, because the character is pretty openly sinister, but just to be safe for the spoiler-sensitive: SPOILER AHEAD!  Chester is the villain.  And I am sick and tired of kid's movies having the main character's childhood hero be the villain.  I hate this!  We are showing kids that they can't trust their role models.  Every studio should watch the Chuck Norris/Jonathan Brandis masterpiece Sidekicks.  That's how role models should be handled.  Your heroes should be there to help you not try to kill you.

This is a great movie for the kids.  Even an adult can get caught up in the crazy fun of it.  Just be sure to remind your kids that food rots if you leave it out.  These movies seem to forget that.

6.5 out of 10

Rush

Rush is Ron Howard's best film in nearly a decade.  It may even be one of his best films (despite having an extremely uneven filmography, that's still saying something).

This is the "true story" of James Hunt and Niki Lauda, two Formula One racers that held an intense rivalry during the 1970s.  Most of the movie focuses on the races during 1976, but there is plenty of time devoted to their rise through the lower Formula Three.  Basically, they are both assholes (and they say as much to each other several times).  Hunt is a womanizer with plenty of charisma to make up for his devil-may-care attitude.  Lauda is so dedicated and clinical that he is not well liked, but he has so much talent that his skill supersedes his cold exterior.

This is a pretty great movie.  I think that it could've faired better from focusing on one man or the other.  In a perfect world, we'd have seen two films about the same events from each man's experience.  It just feels as if the movie is a bit rushed (*rimshot*).  Not enough time is given to what made these men who they are.  They talk about it a little, but good storytelling is showing not telling.

That's not to say the film is lacking character development.  The rivalry is established and the men grow in respect for each other.  They each have a pretty decent arc.

It's the performances that fuel this film.  This is especially true with Daniel Brühl as Lauda.  He's kind of incredible.  He plays Lauda as a man who cares about nothing but winning.  He's there to race not to be liked.  Yet, you can always see that he does want to be liked.  He wants to be accepted.  Chris Hemsworth plays Hunt by doing what he does best: being super charming.  But he also wants to be like Lauda.  He craves that control that Lauda has.  Bonus for the ladies: Lots of Hemsworth's nude butt in this movie.

Ron Howard is good with actors.  Regardless of the movie, he gets people to act well (although even he can't get a decent English accent out of Olivia Wilde).  But this is a rare time when his film has some visual style.  It's very kinetic.  The races are shot extremely well with plenty of wide shots to establish the drivers' positions on the track as well as shots so close up that the camera is inside the helmet.  Rush is at the very least an exciting movie.

I really got a kick out of this movie.  What could've been a soft PG-13 snore-fest turned out to be an R-rated, ass-kicking race car movie.  I doubt that it'll convert any Americans to Formula One fans (you should watch some though), but it is like an island in the sea of Nascar movies.  If you need a break from the perpetual left turn of Nascar, check out Rush (or Grand Prix or Fast Company or Le Mans).

7.5 out of 10

Friday, January 24, 2014

In A World...

This movie has almost everything I like.  It's about the world of movies.  It's funny.  It's a really sweet romance.  It represents a strong female voice.  All it needs are dinosaurs and it'd be perfect.

In A World... is about voice-over actors.  These are the men who provide the soothing baritones that sell us products and entice us to watch movies.  One of these men has a daughter, Carol, who is looking to break into the business too.  Sexism, family troubles, and relationships will all get in the way of Carol securing her place in the world of voice-over.

This film marks the directorial debut of Lake Bell (who wrote it and is the star).  She has crafted a marvelous little movie.  How often do we get to see a feminist comedy?  And In A World... is definitely feminist.  Somehow, Bell manages to make this an explicit element of the film without ever resorting to preaching.

There's not a single false note struck in the movie.  As I've said before, I just want sincerity from my movies especially the romances.  In A World... is brimming with that sincerity.  Is it cliché at times?  Sure, it is.  It's a rom-com.  But the film always earns its emotional beats.  There's also plenty of moments where the conventions of the romantic comedy are subverted in completely dorky and relatable ways. 

I loved this movie.  In A World... would make a killer date movie.  Fellas, listen closely.  Rent this movie and watch with your lady (single people are encouraged to watch it too).  When it's over, light some candles and cook up sandwich bar.  Trust me.

8 out of 10

Machete Kills

I often talk about how I support films by people who aren't white men.  I like that I've been seeing more movies made by women lately.  I love that a couple of 2013's better movies were made by black filmmakers.  So, I was very excited for a movie made by a Mexican-American filmmaker about kick ass Mexicans.  After watching Machete and Machete Kills, I must say to the Mexican community, I'm so very sorry.  You deserve better.

Whereas films by minority filmmakers tend to try to dispel stereotypes (especially when the subject is their own group), director Robert Rodriguez has chosen to make a movie that reinforces every negative stereotype about Mexicans you can come up with.  If these movies had been made by the Texas rednecks who serve as the films' bad guys, you'd probably end up with a more enlightened portrayal of Mexico and immigrants than what actually ended up in theaters.

In Machete Kills (which is a far worse movie than the already abysmal Machete), Machete must stop a nuclear missile from being fired from Mexico into Washington D.C.  I'll stop there, because other than that sentence, the plot makes no sense.

Danny Trejo is awesome.  He should be given a heroic lead role.  He's got an iconic look and the man is a for real badass.  If you want to see just how awesome he is, go watch the documentary Champion.  He's incredible.  What he's doing here is not awesome.  He's the butt of a joke.

The whole movie is a joke and not in a good way.  Rodriguez claims that the Machete films are throwbacks to exploitation films.  If that's his intent, then he has failed.  Exploitation films may have had some wacky elements, but they were limited.  And that wackiness was endearing because the filmmakers were sincere.  Machete Kills is not sincere.  Exploitation films were limited in budget and distribution which forced them to exploit whatever elements they had available be it a car or a monster or a naked lady.  Machete Kills is not exploiting any elements to compensate for its production value.  The film revels in its awful production value. So is Rodriguez making fun of exploitation films? Maybe.  But if that's the case, then he's really bad at it.  If you need to see how to mock exploitation cinema, go watch Black Dynamite.  If Machete Kills is exploitation, then it is only exploiting Mexicans.

Run from this movie.  It's dreadful.  It is riddled with horrible computer effects that make the SyFy channel look like Avatar.  The only thing I liked about it was the casting of Chilean action star Marko Zaror.  That guy is incredible.  Go watch some of his films instead.  They're way better than the garbage you'll have to endure with Machete Kills.  When they promise a third installment before the movie starts, it just seems like a bad omen for the movie you're about to watch.  When they promise it again at the end too, it seems like a threat.

2 out of 10

Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine marks the best performance of 2013 that I've seen (and admittedly, I've missed quite a bit).

This is a movie about a woman, Jasmine, whose husband's wealth was amassed by him engaging in illegal finance.  After he is arrested, Jasmine finds herself broke and is forced to move in with her sister.  The stress of her fall from grace starts to take a rather serious toll on her.

Woody Allen usually makes really good, if not masterful, movies.  This is one of the masterful ones.  Blue Jasmine is not a comedy.  Sure, there are some funny bits.  But don't let the presence of Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay fool you.  Not a comedy.  It's more of a psychological melodrama. 

Cate Blanchett is the movie.  Without her incredible performance, there is no Blue Jasmine.  A viewer would never believe the story.  Her facial tics, her arrogance, her despair.  It is all there.  Blanchett goes through physical transformations in the film and it's all just her face.  No makeup.  No CGI.  She just transforms.  It's like watching John Barrymore in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (hopefully someone reading this knows what I'm talking about).

The rest of the cast is stellar too.  Obviously, Sally Hawkins is amazing (obvious because she and Blanchett are Oscar nominees for this movie) as Jasmine's sister, Ginger.  She has her own pride despite feeling inadequate next to the wealth that Jasmine has.  Whereas the role of Jasmine is a woman who falls, Ginger goes through many ups and downs.  Hawkins plays as a woman constantly torn between two forces: her sister and her boyfriend, her boyfriend and her lover, or her current life and the life she covets.  She's the human element of the movie.

It's not a flashy movie, although it is well filmed.  Allen lets the actors (and his Oscar nominated script) carry the film.  He's a smart filmmaker and he knows that that's all the movie needs.  There's no need to gild the lily.  Blue Jasmine is not to be missed.  A real "must see" movie.

9 out of 10

Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips has been nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture.  It is an incredibly entertaining movie.  But does it live up to the hype?  Sure.  I think it should still be nominated for six Oscars, but it should have the Best Picture nomination dropped in favor of a Best Actor nod for Tom Hanks.

No Best Picture nomination?  So it's not a good movie?  As I said before, it's incredibly entertaining.  Trouble is that all the entertainment is in the second half.  The first hour has some good moments but felt very uneven to me.  However, once the pirates get Phillips in the lifeboat, the movie becomes an exercise in high-octane tension.  It takes a lot of skill to maintain any level of suspense in a film wherein people know the outcome.  Despite having a final hour of riveting intensity, there were movies more deserving of that Best Picture nomination last year: Blue Jasmine or The Spectacular Now or Frances Ha or Before Midnight or Spring Breakers or Only God Forgives or The World's End. 

But it's hard to imagine that Tom Hanks failed to make the cut for Best Actor.  Captain Phillips is one of his best performances.  I think the problem is that, much like the movie in general, he doesn't do much until he's in that lifeboat.  The performance from first time actor Barkhad Abdi did get some recognition from the Academy and deservedly so.  He's scared and desperate and proud and bitter and a dreamer.  He brings so much humanity to not just his character but his whole pirate crew that you can't help feeling sorry for them.

Captain Phillips is a film that definitely maintains the style of director Paul Greengrass.  He has vérité style of filmmaking that works perfectly with harrowing true stories whether it's "The Troubles" in Ireland (Bloody Sunday) or terrorists hijacking a plane (United 93).  His style is so captivating that when he lent it to The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, it changed the way Hollywood filmed action (the dreaded "shakey-cam").  I did notice that with Captain Phillips, there seems to be a touch of Hollywood gloss to it (such as a greater dependence on an emotional score).  Maybe that's a sign of a shift or growth in Greengrass' direction. 

But with Greengrass' pseudo-documentary visual style comes a lot of jarring, gritty camerawork.  I'm sure that the editor, Christopher Rouse, was faced with a daunting amount of virtually incoherent footage.  That he was able to piece together an exciting story from hours and hours of handheld bedlam is an incredible feat.  Rouse has earned one of the film's Oscar nominations and he deserves to win.  It should be said that I'm not implying that Captain Phillips is a film that was "saved in editing."  Rouse and Greengrass have been working together for a long time, and I am certain that Greengrass has a method for the way he shoots.  It's just amazing how well Rouse assembles such a rough technique.

Captain Phillips is, despite its dubious Best Picture nomination, one of the better films of 2013.  There's a bit of controversy surrounding the "true story" aspects of the film.  I would've rather seen a movie that portrayed Phillips more accurately, but I also understand the appeal of making him a hero.  Regardless of the film's veracity, it's well worth 2 hours of your time.

8 out of 10



Friday, January 17, 2014

Enough Said

I'm pretty hard on romantic comedies.  I find most of them to be insincere at best and sexist at worst.  Force me to watch the new Katherine Heigl movie and I will rail against that movie and other like it.  This behavior may lead people to believe that I, like so many men, just have a problem with romances.  Not true.  Let it be known that I am a big softy.  Romance movies, whether comedic or serious, are some of my favorite movies.  I love to watch characters fall in love.  Brief Encounter (the greatest British film ever made and one of my top five favorite movies) stills gets me choked up and I must've seen it 15 times.  All I ask of a romance (and especially rom-coms) is for sincerity.  These are movies and realism need not be a factor, but I do need the filmmakers to earn the romance.

So does this new romantic comedy, Enough Said, have what it takes to please a picky, opinionated romantic?  I'm happy to say that it surely does. 

Enough Said is the story of a divorced massage therapist, Eva, who is grappling with inadequacy and impending loneliness in the face of her only child leaving for college.  She meets a woman, Marianne, whose life she covets and they strike up a friendship.  Mostly Eva and Marianne complain about their ex-husbands.  Eva takes a chance on dating Albert, a divorced man whose only child is also preparing to go off to college and a romance develops.  Through her conversations with Marianne, Eva realizes that she is dating Marianne's ex and the constant complaints from Marianne begin to sow the seeds of doubt in her relationship.

This movie was written and directed by Nicole Holofcener.  Not much can be said of her direction.  She's smart enough to keep a strong stylistic stamp out of the film.  This is a movie about characters and their interactions.  The last thing the film needs are a bunch of flashy shots or overt quirkiness.  Holofcener never presses her hand as a director and therefore never distracts the viewer from what is important: the snappy script and the brilliant performances.

The script is fantastic.  Not a single line is wasted.  Every word builds characters and every action drives the story forward.  On top of that, it's really funny.

James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are phenomenal in Enough Said.  They are natural and hilarious and flirty.  Chemistry is an undefinable thing that can make or break a romantic movie.  These two have it in spades.  They are adorable together.  Gandolfini is magnificent.  He goes against type to play a teddy bear of a man.  He's sweet and gentle and fragile.  Louis-Dreyfus is basically playing an older version of Elaine Benes.  And that's just fine by me as Seinfeld is one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

In recent decades, movies about romance have become so cynical and manipulative that I'm lucky if I see one or two good ones a year.  This is one of those good ones.  Heck, it's a great one.  It's perfect for a date night or even a night alone with a tub of ice cream (give it a shot fellas). 

8 out of 10

Fruitvale Station

This is the film that won the Audience and Grand Jury prizes at Sundance in 2013.  Basically, it was universally deemed the best film of the festival. 

Fruitvale Station is an account of the last day of Oscar Grant's life before he was shot by BART police in San Francisco. 


Some of the events of his day are real and some are invented, but the point is that the police did murder this young man.  The event, which occurred on New Year's Day 2009, was captured on cameras and cellular phones.  The film opens with one of the videos of police assaulting and then shooting Grant in the back as he lies face down on the ground.  It's a brazen introduction to a film.  It grabs your attention and lends an ominous sense of dread to the minutiae of Grant's final hours.

The entire movie hinges on Michael B. Jordan's performance as Oscar Grant.  And he's fantastic.  Jordan is an actor with a lot of promise.  He juggles a myriad of emotions effortlessly.  Fruitvale Station could've been just another independent film plagued by clunky, amateur acting, but Jordan lends an air of humanity to the film.

And humanity is the intent of the movie.  It captures a sense of the complexity that exists in each of us.  Despite the racial issues and largely black cast, Fruitvale Station is not a "black movie."  If anything, it's a "gray movie."  Nobody is perfect and nothing is black and white in this movie.  I have seen some complaints that Grant is depicted as a martyr in the film.  The only thing that makes the role feel that way is the charisma of Jordan.  Grant is a loser in the film.  He's a criminal and can't hold down a job.  While he may not be perfect, the point is that he feels real to the audience.  When Grant is killed in the end, it's not an injustice because he's a good person; it's an injustice because a human being was senselessly killed.

One worrisome thing about these types of stories is that it fosters a hatred of police.  The officers responsible for Oscar Grant's death are the least developed characters.  They literally materialize to assault Grant and his friends.  Nothing more.  For all the focus on the gray areas that this movie has, this part of the movie felt a little too black and white.  Other than one officer being confused as to why the other shot Grant, it does feel like the police are monsters that made an unprovoked attack on young, black men.  The vast majority of police officers are good people who're just trying to their best in a relatively thankless job.  Giving people weapons and power and placing them in dangerous and tense situations will inevitably lead to abuses of that power.  That does not excuse those abuses and any instances of police brutality should be intensely punished.  I'm just saying that the grotesque horrors of the police's arrival felt out of place in a film that otherwise never glorified or demonized its characters.

Fruitvale Station is phenomenal.  It's heartbreaking and funny.  It celebrates life and it shows the devastation that the loss of one life causes.  While there are other films from Sundance that I liked better, Fruitvale Station is the only one that seems like it could get people talking.  It's the one film from Sundance that feels important.  Watch it.


8 out of 10

You're Next

This is a great movie.  You're Next embraces horror conventions just as openly as it discards them.  When horror films invent new conventions, they become the next phase in cinematic terror.  But when a horror film discards convention, it is always a comedy.  And You're Next is a hilarious horror movie in the vein of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil or Severance.

The plot is essentially your standard home invasion type horror movie.  A couple is celebrating their 35th anniversary by having all their grown children (and the spouses) home for dinner.  Before they can finish eating, three men donning white animal masks and armed with crossbows lay siege to the house.  What do they want and how can this family survive the night?

You're Next is endlessly clever and relentlessly funny.  The kills start off as standard horror fare and escalate in gruesomeness, but a point comes where the only way to one-up the kills is to become completely ridiculous.  Because the film balances wildly disparate tones so well and embraces an "anything goes" craziness, it maintains a level of suspense.  You never know what will happen next.  And the few times you do know what's coming, you'll be on the edge of your seat begging for it to happen.

You're Next also inverts the damsel-in-distress motif rampant in horror films.  This is a movie about an awesome chick being awesome.  It's not often that a horror movie gets to be a "girl power" movie too.

This is my favorite horror film of the year.  It's smart and wicked and super fun.  For the movie nerds out there, there's some shout outs to other horror movies.  For the non-movie nerds, it's just a badass movie.  Don't miss it.

8 out of 10

The Spectacular Now


The Spectacular Now is a "coming of age" tale about a young man with absolutely no desire to come of age.  And it's one of the best films of 2013.

Sutter Keely is a high school senior (and very likely an alcoholic) who prides himself on being the life of the party.  When his "perfect" girlfriend dumps him, Sutter throws himself even more into is philosophy of living in the now.  Eventually, he meets Aimee, a sweet and quiet girl from his school.  A romance develops and as graduation  looms, Sutter's past and future begin to interfere with his living in the now.

The leads in The Spectacular Now are incredible.  Miles Teller plays Sutter, and he is an actor that could be really great.  I do worry that his stuttering, naturalistic acting style is all he has, which is fine as he's a fun actor to watch, but he seems to have a limited range in his films so far.  The real standout is Shailene Woodley.  She is perfect in this movie.  I hated her character in The Decendents (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination), but I didn't realize how good she was until I saw her turn as the heart-breakingly sweet Aimee Finecky.

Director James Ponsoldt has a way of finding beauty in alcoholism.  Not in a way that glamorizes it though.  He's able to capture the loopy joys of intoxication and then juxtapose it with the terrible consequences.  His previous film, Smashed, is entirely about alcoholics.  I hope he gets away from that in whatever film he puts out next, but the guy handles the subject very well.  He also has an impeccable eye in The Spectacular Now.  Ponsoldt filmed the movie in his hometown of Athens, Georgia and the movie plays as sort of love letter to the place.  It's a beautiful movie.

It's a magnificent film.  I was constant worried about the pain that Sutter could cause Aimee and rooting so hard for Sutter to get his act together.  These characters are so endearing and relatable that it's hard to not get swept up in their story.  I fell in love with this movie.

8.5 out of 10

Carrie

Back in 1976, Brian De Palma directed the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel, Carrie.  It was a huge critical and financial success.  It even earned two Academy Award nominations.  It would spawn a sequel in 1999 (a critical and financial failure), a TV movie in 2002 (a critical failure), and a Broadway musical (a critical and financial failure).

So when some producers approached Sony with the idea of making yet another Carrie, Sony took a look at the property's track record and said, "Absolutely not!"  Oh, wait.  Sorry.  I got that wrong.  Let me try that again: Sony took a look at the property's track record and said, "Here's $30 million!  Go make this movie."

The remake is essentially the same plot as the original except that it's awful.


I have very few good things to say about this movie, so I'll just get them out of the way right now.  I applaud any movie that casts Judy Greer.  I'm also a big fan of Julianne Moore who really tries to out crazy Piper Laurie from the original.  Finally, there's some really good songs on the soundtrack.

Now, let's get into the bad things.

Poor, poor Chloe Grace Moretz.  She's a pretty good actress, but she is horribly miscast here.  Carrie doesn't have to be ugly, but shouldn't be the best looking girl in school.  In the remake, the filmmakers never even try to make her look like anything less than Chloe Grace Moretz.  I can't understand why she's so reviled by her classmates.  They hate her because she wears overalls and hugs her books to her chest?  They despise her because she's religious and doesn't talk to anyone?  Sissy Spacek and Angela Bettis (in the TV movie) are also shy, but they are also super weird and awkward.  They are also not very pretty but have a distinct look.  Basically, we can she how they would attract unwanted negative attention from their classmates.  But when Carrie is some conversation skills and a sex-ed talk away from being the most popular girl in school, the entire foundation of the film falls apart.

The remake also has Carrie develop her mind powers way too early.  By the time she goes to prom, she can do anything with incredible skill and precision.  The shock of seeing her decimate her mocking classmates is therefore diluted.  In the original, Carrie snaps.  What she does to her fellow students is essentially out of her control.  Her vengeance is like an explosion.  It's sudden and indiscriminate.  We feel bad for Carrie.  Despite the carnage she has wrought, she is still innocent.  In the remake, Carrie relishes in her vengeance.  She singles out people and subjects them to torturous and elaborate deaths.  Another good example is when Carrie crashes Billy's car killing Chris and Billy.  In the original, Billy and Chris hunt Carrie down and she managed to mentally stop herself from being run over.  In the remake, Carrie hunts down Chris and Billy and then revels in the death she inflicts on them.  The Carrie of the remake is a monster.  She is evil.  The audience cannot feel pity for a remorseless murderer.

 The Carrie remake seems overly influenced by superhero movies.  We actually get to see her practice the mastery of her powers like she's Spider-Man (a Sony movie... coincidence?).  Carrie also gets a nemesis who behaves like an embittered supervillain.  Chris (Carrie's biggest bully) has the weirdest motivations and lines.  She screams several times about how she'll "get Carrie for this!" and blames Carrie for her fall from grace (like a Spider-Man movie... coincidence?). 

Carrie uses her hands to move things.  This may seem like an odd complaint, but let me tell you why it's a bad thing.  It's in the movie because the filmmakers think you (yes, you personally) are too stupid to understand that she shut a door or broke a mirror or picked someone up with her mind.  Every time Carrie waves her hands to make something happen, some folks in Hollywood are telling you that you're dumb.

Carrie's prom date is killed by a tin bucket that falls ten feet onto his head (spoilers!).  This is comparable to being killed by someone tossing an empty beer can at you.

The remake does so much to show how important restraint is in a horror movie.  By trying to be a bigger movie than the original, all the suspense goes out the window.  All you're left with is a movie that is mostly dull because it's trying so hard to be exciting.  Just watch the 1976 version.

P.S. This movie's screenwriter, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, co-wrote the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and wrote several Spider-Man comics for Marvel... COINCIDENCE?!

4 out of 10

The Butler

This movie is pure Oscar bait.  The cast has six Oscar winners and one person who's been nominated.  It deals with social issues from a left-wing point of view without pushing into the realm of controversy.  It's "inspired by a true story."  Unlike when director Lee Daniels' film Precious was nominated several years ago, 2013 was a pretty good year for movies and The Butler wasn't nominated for anything.  This is pretty common with films that feel like they were made explicitly to get attention from the Academy.  For the most part, Oscar bait movies are mediocre and largely forgettable.  However, The Butler (which will probably be largely forgotten) is actually pretty dang good.

It is the story of Cecil Gaines, a black man who worked as a butler in the White House for decades.  That's pretty much where the true story part stops and the "inspired by" starts.  The rest of the movie is a Forrest Gump-esque journey through civil rights history. 

The Butler is a fairly generic film bolstered by an all-star cast.  Not a single actor seems to be giving less than 100 percent.  In fact, some of the performances are stellar.  David Oyelowo as Gaines' eldest son threatens to steal the whole movie (some of that is because his character is the one who is actually involved in civil rights activism).  But it's Oprah Winfrey who gives the strongest performance of the film.  Her character has the best arc and the widest range of emotion and Winfrey rises to the occasion.  Couple this with her heart-breaking role in The Color Purple and you can see that Oprah is an actress of incredible skill.  Maybe now that she's done with her talk show, she'll start taking more film roles.

I'm a sucker for civil rights movies.  When I watch a war movie, regardless of the war, I can understand the motivations and cause of the fighting even if I don't agree with it.  When it comes to America's struggles with racial equality, I absolutely do not understand it at all.  Not only does bigotry and segregation make no sense to me, but how recent the civil rights movement was in our history is baffling.  As such, I find this subject matter captivating.  It's that strong subject matter and history that makes this movie good.  Cecil Gaines is just a framework on which to hang America's shame and it's progress.

The Butler is definitely worth your time.  It's fast paced and despite its subject, never takes itself too seriously.  There's plenty of comic beats to help keep the viewer from getting too bummed out.  Despite its PG-13 rating, I think it would be an appropriate movie for kids slightly under 13 and would serve as a sort of civil rights Cliff Notes.  

7 out of 10

Riddick

Riddick was one of the weirdest and most fun mainstream movies I saw all year.  And I like my movies weird.
This film picks up five years after The Chronicles of Riddick.  Riddick gives up his position as leader of the Necromongers in exchange for the location of his home world.  His is betrayed and despite killing the traitors, he is abandoned with a broken leg on a strange planet.  Riddick finds a building with a distress beacon.  He activates it in hopes of luring in a ship that can take him off the planet.  But he ends up calling in two ships: one with a ragtag crew of bounty hunters and the other with high tech mercenaries.  And they all want Riddick.  To make matters worse, a massive thunderstorm has unleashed swarms of vicious monsters and they are heading Riddick's way.

Riddick is essentially a bigger, weirder remake of Pitch Black.  I'm going to be using the word "weird" a lot in regards to Riddick.  Everything that happens in it is bizarre and often inexplicable.  The dialogue is laughable in its attempts to be hardcore.  The sexual elements of the film are baffling.  This is a movie wherein Riddick wanders around a desert fighting water-scorpions with the help of his trusty space dog.  Then he rides around on his space motorcycle.  Then he compliments a lesbian on her nipple color before promising that she'll ask him for sex (and she does).

The action scenes are crazy and gloriously over-the-top.  While the alien hordes are just a retread of Pitch Black, the critters are different enough to make the fights interesting.

I had a really, really fun time watching this movie.  That said, I'm not claiming that it's a very good movie.  It's mostly just hokey and weird and off-the-wall.  If you like the previous Riddick movies, then you'll probably get a kick out of Riddick.  If you just like bizarre, action cinema, then you'll probably get a kick out of Riddick.  If you like coherent movies with intriguing plots and strong dialogue, this is not for you.

6 out of 10

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Closed Circuit

Closed Circuit has a lot going for it.  It has so many elements to it that, for me, would make for a great movie.  It has a cast I like with Eric Bana, Rebecca Hall (huge movie-crush), and Jim Broadbent.  Director Jim Crowley also made Intermission, which is a movie I love.  It's a political/legal thriller.  It's British.  So with all these elements in the mix, is Closed Circuit a great movie?  No, but it is a pretty good movie.

Basically, a pair of lawyers (who used to be lovers) have to defend a terror suspect who is accused of setting off a bomb in London.  As they negotiate the bureaucracy and build a defense, they begin to uncover a conspiracy that may involve MI5 (basically the British FBI).

First off, Closed Circuit is a great looking movie.  It's a cold almost sterile blue-gray movie.  The camerawork is also wonderful.  There's only a few "fancy" shots.  Mostly, it's a competently filmed movie with the focus being on conveying a good story.

And a good story it is.  It addresses issues that are on the forefront of people's minds, not only in England but in the U.S. too.  Too much governmental power, security agents spying on civilians, terrorism, abuses of the legal system.  It's all there.  Closed Circuit does an excellent job of establishing a sense of paranoia and maintaining it. 

None of the performances are stellar, but they are all good enough to get the story told without being distracting.  I actually felt like (acting-wise) I was watching a really, really good episode of TV.

Closed Circuit is a solid thriller.  Give it a watch.  It's a very short movie, so it winds up being very fast paced.  This isn't going to win any awards or change the world or even enter the popular culture, but it's a really nice bit of entertainment.  And that's all we can really ask of a movie.

6 out of 10

Thanks For Sharing

Did you see Shame and, when it ended, wish that they would make a sequel?  But did you also wish that that sequel would be a romantic comedy?  Well, you're in luck!  There's a movie called Thanks For Sharing that fulfills your wishes.

Now, it's not actually a sequel to Shame, but it sure seems like it.  Mark Ruffalo plays Adam, a hyper-successful New Yorker who has been 5-years "sober" from sex addiction.  On the advice of his sponsor, Mike (played by Tim Robbins), Adam begins dating again and meets Phoebe (played by Gwyneth Paltrow).  Adam must deal with having a relationship, fighting his demons, and being a sponsor to a young man, Neil.  Meanwhile, Mike has to face his past when his former addict son suddenly returns home.  Also, Neil befriends a sexually addicted girl and they become friends in order to recover together.

Thanks For Sharing isn't a bad movie, but it's not all that great either.  The problem is almost entirely in the script.  It's terrible.  The story is pretty good and the characters have nice (if clichéd) arcs.  But the dialogue is awful.  Really awful.  Much of the movie is people joking and/or flirting with each other and it's the worst.  The jokes aren't funny at all and the flirting is just plain awkward and weird.  To be honest, the dialogue reminded me of plays and screenplays I tried to write in junior high.  The difference being that it only took me one reading to realize that my words were unnatural and that I wasn't as clever as I thought.  Somehow, writer/director Stuart Blumberg (an Oscar nominee for writing) was unable to see that in his own writing.  And I guess that Oscar nod blinded the producers.

What you're left with is a film that coasts on the charm of its cast, which is ample.  Mark Ruffalo almost sells his lines but he does sell the conflict of being a sex addict who's trying to find love.  Gwyneth Paltrow is irritating, but she's in her underwear a lot, so I'll give her a pass.  Tim Robbins does a fairly good job when he's playing the wise, old sponsor, but it's not so believable when the emotions start flying.  The real standouts are Josh Gad and Pink (credited as Alecia Moore, but ask The Rock how being credited as Dwayne Johnson is working out).  Their storyline had the most progression and the script never has them flirt, so they come out looking like champs.

Here's a weird thing I noticed: none of the characters really overcome their impulses.  Just as they are about to give in, the phone rings.  This happens a half a dozen times in the movie.

For every good thing, Thanks For Sharing has something working against it.  I'm giving it a very slight recommendation (mostly because it has a great soundtrack).  Don't go out of your way to watch it, but there are worse ways to spend your evening.

5 out of 10

Runner Runner

This should've been a really good movie.  It's all about gambling and conspiracy and mafia-like behavior.  Instead, Runner Runner ends up being a really forgettable 90-minutes.

Justin Timberlake plays Richie, a Princeton student who loses his savings trying to earn his tuition through online gambling.  He discovers that he was cheated and travels to Costa Rica to seek out Ivan (Ben Affleck), the head of the gambling website, in hopes of getting his money back.  Ivan convinces him to stay in Costa Rica and join his business.  But the world of online gambling is not what it seems.

Runner Runner tries to be topical and relevant, but it fails.  There's a lot of time in the beginning dedicated to establishing the threat that online gambling poses to college students.  Then it throws "the economy" at you as well.  But it manages to feel rushed and underdeveloped at the same time.  The best solution would've probably been to not have any of that set up at all.  Isn't it enough that Richie is cheated out of his money and goes to get it back but gets seduced by the riches that the business promises?  Does a ham-fisted intro and constant moping about Wall Street raise the stakes of the film at all?

Only two and half actors make their screen time worthwhile.  One is Ben Affleck.  He makes a convincing villain.  He's charming and threatening.  Affleck is the best thing this movie has going for it.  Second is Anthony Mackie.  His role is so poorly written and cliché that it's super impressive that he doesn't sound like an idiot.  The 1/2 is Gemma Arterton.  She just looks amazing and I love the accent but the script gives her nothing to do.  Justin Timberlake delivers his lines like he's in a church play.  He's better than this, but you'd never know just watching this.

The biggest sin Runner Runner commits is being kinda boring.  No movie about gambling or conspiracy should be boring, and this movie has both!  Doesn't matter though.  The greatest asset of Runner Runner is that it's 91 minutes.

I had hoped that this was a smaller budgeted, crime movie that just slipped under my radar.  Turns out it slipped under my radar for a reason.  Runner Runner is a movie you catch on TNT and fall asleep to on a lazy afternoon.

4 out of 10

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Don Jon

Do you feel that pornography is superior to actual sex but have never been able to adequately articulate your argument?  Then I have a film for you!  It's called Don Jon and it's written by, directed by and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
This is a movie about a young man's porn addiction and the impossible expectations from women that it creates in him.  Through relationships with a couple of vastly different women, he has a moment of clarity and becomes a better man.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a great job on his directorial debut.  His script is smart and funny.  The film seems very assured for a first-timer.  I would even say that Gordon-Levitt has a wonderful eye for montages.  The best scenes (both in scripting and directing) are his weekly visits to the confessional.  These serve as extra, comical benchmarks for his character's arc.
This is definitely a movie wherein the cast must be talked about.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jon is solid as always, although his Jersey accent is a bit on the comical side.  Tony Danza is amazing as his temperamental father.  Glenne Headly steals every scene she's in as Jon's mother.  Brie Larson (whose having an amazing year with well-received parts in Short Term 12 and The Spectacular Now) makes continuous mute texting feel like a great performance.  But the real stars are Scarlet Johansson and Julianne Moore.  Johansson gets to play as sex kitten, sweetheart, and manipulative bitch.  And she kills it.  Moore brings a much needed weight to her role.  What could've been an awkward role with dialogue that over explains the movie's themes becomes a hypnotic role of a sweet, awkward, and broken woman.  The whole cast is stellar.
Don Jon talks a good hard look at the way that men view women especially in the context of pornography.  It also has takes a tangential look at the ridiculous expectations that women have for men and compares romantic-comedies to pornography.  Basically, both sexes have crafted exceedingly selfish ideals for their partners.  The movie takes a long time to get to the point but when it does, the message is not rushed nor does it beat you over the head.  And the ending is incredibly sweet.
Don Jon is an excellent movie that any grown up should see.  It's especially poignant for people in their 20s and 30s who've sexually matured in a culture of instant porn.  That said, it's not a movie for everyone.  There's a lot of nudity (mostly clips of internet porn) and the subject matter is constantly and brazenly sexual.  I know that kinda thing makes some people uncomfortable regardless of the quality of the storytelling.  But if you're in for the tale of a man who learns that sometimes actual sex is better than masturbating to pornography, you will be greatly rewarded.
7.5 out of 10

2013 Movie List

This is it.  The list of everything I watched in 2013.  An asterisk denotes a film that I've never seen before.


1) Jeff Who Lives at Home*
2) House of the Devil*
3) Tokyo Drifter*
4) Lawless*
5) Red Dawn (2012)*
6) I Saw the Devil*
7) Detour*
8) Timecrimes*
9) Killer Joe*
10) Road to Nowhere*
11) Beasts of the Southern Wild*
12) Vamps*
13) Dark Knight Rises
14) Footloose (2011) *
15) [REC]3*
16) Paranorman*
17) Pirates! Band of Misfits*
18) Wreck It Ralph*
19) Ghost and Mrs. Muir*
20) Hail the Conquering Hero*
21) Silver Linings Playbook*
22) Salome's Last Dance*
23) Zero Dark Thirty*
24) Searching for Sugar Man*
25) Lincoln*
26) Three… Extremes*
27) Amazing Shadows*
28) JLA: Doom*
29) Superman vs The Elite*
30) Four Lions*
31) Frankenweenie*
32) After Porn Ends*
33) The Street Fighter
34) Return of the Street Fighter
35) Sister Street Fighter*
36) Batman: Year One*
37) A Separation*
38) Premium Rush*
39) Cat People (1942)*
40) Les Miserables (2012)*
41) Seven Psychopaths*
42) Marriage Italian Style*
43) Flight*
44) Yesterday Today and Tomorrow*
45) Bitter Victory*
46) Chariots of the Gods*
47) The Raid: Redemption
48) The Invisible War*
49) 5 Broken Cameras*
50) The Sessions*
51) True Legend*
52) Max Manus*
53) Brainstorm*
54) Argo*
55) Skeeter*
56) Mother's Day*
57) Buried*
58) The Life of Pi*
59) The Great Adventure*
60) The Man from Nowhere*
61) Celeste and Jessie Forever*
62) Rock of Ages*
63) Rio Bravo*
64) The Black Cat*
65) The Ballad of Cable Hogue*
66) The Good, the Bad & the Weird*
67) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*
68) Samurai Cop
69) Cobra Woman*
70) The Queen of Versailles*
71) Margaret*
72) Showgirls*
73) The Warriors*
74) A Tale of Two Sisters*
75) How to Steal a Million*
76) Bachelorette*
77) Robot and Frank*
78) How to Train Your Dragon*
79) Missing*
80) The Master*
81) Pitch Perfect*
82) Run Lola Run*
83)  Songs from the Second Floor*
84)  Mad Doctor of Blood Island*
85) Up!*
86) Taken 2*
87) Criss Cross*
88) God Told Me To*
89) Wreck-It Ralph
90) Jurassic Park (3D)
91) Melancholia*
92) The Robber*
93) The Old Dark House*
94) Chicken With Plums*
95) Evil Dead (2013)*
96) Dr. Strangelove
97) Sugar Hill*
98) Hysteria*
99) Cult of the Damned*
100) Fellini Satyricon*
101) The Apple*
102) The Black Stallion*
103) Topkapi*
104) Friday Foster*
105) Inserts*
106) The Monkey Hustle*
107) One, Two, Three*
108) Passion of Anna*
109)  Violent Playground*
110) Golden Needles*
111) Anna Karenina (2012)*
112) The Intouchables*
113) Cutter's Way*
114) The Mercenary*
115) Dillinger*
116) 10 to Midnight*
117) Blood Creek*
118) Cinemania*
119) Iron Man 3*
120) Breaker, Breaker*
121) Night of the Demon*
122) Howl*
123) Michael (2011)*
124) Howling 3*
125) Small Soldiers
126) Sans Soleil*
127) Police Story
128) Walker*
129) The Outlaw*
130) Smashed*
131) The Thin Man*
132) Baby Face*
133) Waterloo Bridge*
134) The Isle*
135) Red Headed Woman*
136) Django Unchained
137) The Seven-Ups*
138) Manda Bala*
139) The Night of the Grizzly*
140) Dr. Hekyl and Mr. Hype*
141) Clueless
142) Dan Aykroyd on UFOs*
143) Rapt*
144) Oz: the Great and Powerful*
145) R.O.T.O.R.*
146) Dinotasia*
147) The Mountain*
148) The Curse if Bigfoot*
149) Snitch*
150) Hansel & Gretel*
151) Tiny Furniture*
152) Jack the Giant Slayer*
153) The Last Exorcism Part II*
154) Stoker*
155) The Wolf Man (1941)
156) American Werewolf in London
157) Citizen X*
158) Jack Reacher*
159) The Call*
160) Upside Down*
161) No*
162) La Femme Publique*
163) Thief*
164) Five Fingers of Death
165) Auntie Mame
166) Summer With Monika*
167) Man of Steel*
168) The Lone Ranger*
169) The Impossible*
170) Warm Bodies*
171) Nosferatu (1979)
172) After Earth*
173) Side Effects*
174) Naked*
175) Dead Man Down*
176) The Host*
177) Spring Breakers*
178) Admission*
179) Diary of a Chambermaid (1946)*
180) Despicable Me*
181) Penny Serenade*
182) Wuthering Heights (2011)*
183) Rust and Bone*
184) Nostalgia for the Light*
185) The Hangover: Part 3*
186) 42*
187) Bullet to the Head*
188) Star Trek into Darkness*
189) Rumble in the Bronx
190) Top Hat
191) Trance*
192) The Wolverine*
193) The Perks of Being a Wallflower*
194) Now You See Me*
195) G.I. Joe: Retaliation*
196) This is 40*
197) Welcome to the Punch*
198) Two Headed Shark Attack*
199) Operation Condor
200) Umberto D. *
201) Dinocroc*
202) Fast & Furious*
203) Commando*
204) Ruggles of Red Gap*
205) Operation Condor 2*
206) Oblivion*
207) Antiviral*
208) To the Wonder*
209) On the Road*
210) Mud*
211) The Place Beyond the Pines*
212) Fast 5*
213) The Kid (1921)*
214) Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers*
215) Taxi Zum Klo*
216) Mother (2009)*
217) Elysium*
218) Olympus Has Fallen*
219) The Big Wedding*
220) The Company You Keep*
221) Scary Movie 5*
222) Epic*
223) Amour*
224) War of the Gargantuas*
225) Rolling Thunder*
226) Pain & Gain*
227) The Great Gatsby  (2013)*
228) The Iceman*
229) The Lords of Salem*
230) Punisher: War Zone*
231) Alienator*
232) Striker*
233) Riddick*
234) North Face*
235) Afterschool*
236) The Bling Ring*
237) World War Z*
238) The Room*
239) Room 237*
240) Shotgun Stories*
241) Survival of the Dead*
242) The Car*
243) I'm a Cyborg… and That's OK*
244) Fish Story*
245) Uncommon Valor*
246) Doctor Detroit*
247) Wet Hot American Summer*
248) Sleepaway Camp*
249) This is the End*
250) The Croods*
251) Knives of the Avenger*
252) The Blob (1988)
253) Casino Jack and the United States of Money*
254) The Devil's Rock*
255) Tabloid*
256) Super Mario Bros.*
257) The Unknown (1927)*
258) The Heat*
259) Creature (1985)*
260) Pacific Rim*
261) Maniac (2012)*
262) Dead Silence*
263) The Beyond*
264) Prince of Darkness*
265) The Bride of Frankenstein
266) My Amityville Horror*
267) The Internship*
268) Before Midnight*
269) The House on Telegraph Hill*
270) The Conjuring*
271) Only God Forgives*
272) The Red and the White*
273) The Last Days of Disco*
274) She*
275) Gravity*
276) Streets of Fire*
277) Cool As Ice*
278) Airport*
279) The Fury*
280) Extraterrestrial*
281) Trees Lounge*
282) Bloody Sunday*
283) The Piano Teacher*
284) R.I.P.D. *
285) Monsters University*
286) Grown Ups*
287) Witchfinder General*
288) Grown Ups 2*
289) Passion*
290) White House Down*
291) I Am Love*
292) Ender's Game*
293) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter*
294) Turbo*
295) Frances Ha*
296) Meek's Cutoff*
297) We're the Millers*
298) Percy Jackson: Lightning Thief*
299) Planes*
300) Zeta One*
301) 2 Guns*
302) The World's End*
303) Pride & Prejudice (2005)
304) Paranoia (2013)*
305) Mama*
306) RED 2*
307) The Little Mermaid
308) Getaway*
309) The Canyons*
310) The 3 Worlds of Gulliver*
311) Frozen (2013)*
312) The Smurfs*
313) Seeking a Friend for the End of the World*
314) The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones*
315) The Smurfs 2*
316) Paths of Glory*
317) I Spit On Your Grave 2*
318) The Purge*
319) The Snowtown Murders*
320) Killzone
321) Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan*
322) For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism*
323) Fast & Furious 6*
324) Side by Side*
325) Cobra*
326) Man of Tai Chi*
327) The Way, Way Back*
328) Kick-Ass 2*
329) One Direction: This Is Us*
330) The Family*
331) Prisoners*
332) Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters*
333) Memories of Murder*
334) Sector 7*
335) Insidious: Chapter 2*
336) The Young Girls of Rochefort*
337) Gallipoli*
338) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes*
339) The Quest*
340) Carrington*
341) Pumpkinhead*
342) Hollywood Boulevard*