I had such high hopes going into this movie. Brad Pitt starring and Andrew Dominik directing. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is my favorite movie and has been since I saw it in 2007. (If that seems random, Brad Pitt Starred in that and Andrew Dominik directed). But this movie just didn't meet my expectations.
With undertones of the Recession being shoved in your face at every scene and nothing really quite flowing, Killing Them Softly is about greed and the effect the recession has on Mob bosses and their employees. Interesting concept, but it comes off as everyone just being a whiny little bitch (excuse my French).
When three nobodies rob a mob controlled game and frame one of the card sharks for it, The mob bosses bring in an enforcer, played by Brad Pitt, to control the situation. And he does. But the entire time, everyone is just complaining about the recession and how it has affected times. But they're mob bosses in a non-Martin Scorsese gangster movie, so you don't care about them.
This is another case of a movie trying to be something that it's not. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It wanted to be a gangster movie but also have a deeper meaning, while also pointing out how bad President Bush was (We get it. He's the reason your life sucks, now move on!).
If this film had just been a gangster movie about a hit man hired to take out the idiots that knocked over the card game, it could have been great! But that wasn't enough.
This movie wasn't completely bad, though. It had great acting by everyone involved, and very good cinematography. Although, the writing and story left something to be desired.
My Grade: C
But, as always, form your own opinion. You may enjoy this movie more than I did.
ATTENTION! I WILL BE RELEASING THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE MIKEY AWARDS JANUARY 10th COINCIDING WITH THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS! I WILL POST THE WINNER ON FEBRUARY 24 DURING THE OSCARS!
I'm not a fan of the Bond series. I don't dislike them, but I don't claim to be a fan. So I don't know if Skyfall is a good Bond movie. But it is a damn good movie by itself.
After a mission goes awry that leave M and the rest of MI6 believing Bond is dead, and the names of several agents in the hands of a cyber terrorist, 007 must come back from his retirement to help MI6 find the man responsible. Bond-esque chaos ensues.
Directed by Sam Mendes, who has directed everything but action movies, Skyfall has one of the best villains of not just any Bond film, but of any film. Javier Bardem steals the spot light, in my opinion, as the flamboyant and eccentric villain out for vengeance against M.
Playing a completely different kind of evil from his evil character in No Country For Old Men for which he won the Oscar, I believe his performance will bring the first Oscar consideration for acting in a Bond Film. And along with that, I believe Daniel Craig might receive some consideration as well, although I think it is less likely.
Skyfall is a fun, action packed movie with great cinematography thanks to the GREAT AND POWERFUL ROGER DEAKINS.
This is my favorite time of year for movies. From the months of September to the end of December is THE best time for movies. That's not opinion either. That is a statistical fact. And there are a few reasons for that.
To begin, let me tell you about how studios decide when to release a movie. These are patterns that I noticed after spending the past 7 years working for a movie theatre. And if you look back at recent years and see what was released on any given weekend, you'll notice the pattern as well.
January:
January is an interesting month. The quality of the movie could go either way here. For one, the cut-off date to be a contender for the Oscars is December 31st. But many Studios find a loop hole by only releasing their films in LA or New York to test the waters so they can more accurately predict how well it will do nationwide. And what a bunch of bastards they are for doing it. I can't tell you how many movies I've wanted to see that I put their "release" date on my calendar only to find out I have to drive an hour or more just to go see it, because I'm impatient.... and a tad bit crazy.
But I digress. In January, you will often see the wide-release of several Oscar contenders, just trying to refresh the Academy's memory of how good they are. Take last years Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Musical Score and Best Costume Design winner, The Artist. It was "released" in the New York Film Festival on October 14th, 2011, and then in the Austin Film Festival on October 25th, 2011. It was finally released to a limited audience on November 23rd, 2011 (Which by the way is the same day this year that Hitchcock will be released.... hopefully wide released). In this case, limited "release" means it was released on 4 screens. As a comparison, my theatre played Twilight on four screens at one time with one reel. And also had it playing on 6 other screens. At that was one theatre.
"Released" In January
January is also notorious (Notorious, the movie about Biggie was released on January 16th, 2009), for releasing action movies that weren't expected to do well competing with the summer blockbusters. Movies like The Green Hornet (2011), Contraband (2012), Legion (2010), and The Book of Eli (2010) would not have fared well with their summertime counter parts. Some barely broke even with no competition. And it's not their fault. January is Oscar time. The time where non-movie buffs see what all of the buzz is about.
February:
February is where movies go to die. Unless your a romantic movie released on Valentines day, or a horrible remake of an old 80s horror movie, you will be lost and forgotten. Studios usually book their unimpressive movies for this month. The reason being that people just don't go see movies in February, except on Valentines Dates. It's right smack dab in the middle of Winter and Spring breaks for all students. Everyone is two busy to see movies in February.
The only exceptional movie I have ever seen in February was Shutter Island (2010). That movie should have been released between September and December and should have contended for the Oscars. But for some reason, the studio did not see it fit to be released in another month. Who knows.
March:
The first or second week (depending on the date the Friday lands on) in March usually houses the years first potential blockbuster. For instance, John Carter (2012), Battle Los Angeles (2011), Alice In Wonderland (2010), and Watchmen (2009) were all released within the first two weeks of March. Despite what other people think, John Carter wasn't the bomb that everyone thought it was. Yes it took a long time to make back it's $250,000,000 budget, but it's world gross as of August 2012 was $282,778,100. So at the very least they made their money back and got some pocket change.
April:
In April, the heat kind of dies down again. Theaters aren't as dead as they are in February, but have varying attendance's from week to week. The excitement of going crazy and getting drunk enough during spring break to spend $11 on a movie ticket has since past, and ordinary life has kicked in. Movies released in this month make decent money, but not the crazy money of Summer blockbusters. April is kind of the Wild Card of Movie Theaters.
May:
If you look at the released for may, it usually is the release date for Marvel Superhero movies. Ever since the first Spiderman. Spider-Man, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, Spider-Man 3, Ironman, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ironman 2, Thor, Marvel's The Avengers all were released in May. X-Men wasn't because that was before they tested out the month of May. Sam Raimi did some drugs and released Spider-Man 3 in June, only to be disappointed with a measly $783,766,341. And Captain America: The First Avenger was released in July, probably to coincide with patriotism... or not compete with their own Thor, which is more probable. The hot weekend for May are the first and last weekends of the month.
Pixar also released many of its films in May until they decided June was cooler, for some reason. All four of the Shrek movies were released in May as well as the entire Star Wars Saga.
June and July:
I think everybody knows this one. Blockbusters come out in June and July. How could you not know that? It makes perfect sense. The kiddies are out of school and everyone is taking a vacation at some point during these months. You'd be stupid not to release your best action-packed mindless movies during these months. Transformers, The Dark Knight, some of the Harry Potter series. Movies that were designed to put butts in seats.
August:
The blockbusters bastard children are released in August. But, like April, it can be a bit unpredictable. Movies like G.I. Joe, Total Recall(2012), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, and what have you can also be released alongside such greats as District 9, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Help, and Lawless. It's gotta me something about the letter 'A'... or it's just a coincidence. I'm no doctor.
Now we come to my favorite time of the year. The time where the Oscar contention starts to heat up. From September up through December, great movie after great movie is released. At least the ones I see are great, but I know my taste very well. If you've been reading my blog at all, you might notice that with the exception of one movie, none of them have been given a low grade. The Master, Dredd (Not going to win an Oscar but still very entertaining), Ruby Sparks, Looper, Argo, Seven Psychopaths, The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Cloud Atlas, Flight and Wreck-it Ralph were all fantastic. Not one of them left me disappointed.
Before the month is over, I want to see Skyfall, Lincoln, Anna Karenina, Hitchcock, Life of Pi, Rise of the Guardians, and Killing Them Softly. And that's just in two weeks! We still have the entire month of December left, and thats when they REALLY start pumping in the good movies.
Oscar season is the best season of them all. Unless you're really silly or don't do much research, it's hard to go see a movie and not enjoy it even a little bit. And then, in February when all the movies make me want to throw up, I can consult the Oscar nominations and see those movies.
Oscars > The Superbowl... and I burn less Queso Dip while watching the Oscars.
Below is the List of movies I want to see for the rest of the year. If you've seen any of these, please tell me what you thought. Everyone is a critic, and that's a good thing. Make your own opinions.
How funny would it be if Joseph Gordon-Levitt was nominated for an Oscar for playing a young Bruce Willis before Bruce Willis got nominated for an Oscar at all?
Granted, I'm sure Bruce Willis doesn't care about Oscars. After all, he is John McClane.
Looper, starring the above mentioned, takes place in the not-so-distant future where time travel has not been invented yet. However, there are hit-men called Loopers, who are employed by people in the future where time travel has been invented, but outlawed. They use the time machines to send people they want dead back into the past to be killed and disposed of. But when a new criminal is running the futuristic world, he starts sending Loopers back and having them killed by their younger selves.
One day a Looper named Joe comes face-to-face with his older self, and hesitates allowing... uh...his older self to.... get away from... his younger self.
Younger Joe's bosses start hunting him to fix the mess, but Joe hides from them while older Joe looks for the new boss who killed his wife and sent him back to kill him as a child.
I have no idea how the hell Rian Johnson, the writer and director of this movie, pitched this or summarized the script. He's a genius for doing so, because I feel stupid just trying to explain it. But this is also why he is a big-time director and I am a guy writing a blog... I'm a failure.
Some of you may remember Rian Johnson from his first feature Brick, also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His writing style is unique and with enough chances could become as iconic as any other writer/director. And if you haven't seen Brick yet, do yourself a favor and do.
Anyways, this movie was not anything that I expected. I thought it would be more about the older and younger Bruce Willis characters fighting each other, but it had more to that. That was only a small part of this story. There was also a lot more to the characters than I thought there would be.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was unrecognizable as a younger Joe. He has Bruce Willis' mannerisms down so well that it wasn't hard to forget who he was and let myself be engulfed in the story.
I should note that Paul Dano, who plays Joe's friend Seth, though he played a small part, was fantastic. Not many actors can take a small part and make it memorable, but that's exactly what Dano did.
Looper is a great sci-fi movie that I'm sure will be remembered for quite some time.
