Movie Reviews

A Good Day to Die Hard

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  • Title: A Good Day to Die Hard
  • IMDB: link

a-good-day-to-die-hard-posterThe original Die Hard did a lot of things very well, but one of the most remarked upon was its simplicity. Isolating the protagonist to a largely empty office building, Johh McClane spent most of the film without guns, gadgets, even shoes. Playing the game this straight let all of McClane’s accomplishments shine harder, and stacked up the stakes even more hopelessly against him.

But you don’t need simplicity for a great film. That’s surely something the filmmakers of A Good Day to Die Hard kept in mind with this fifth film in the series. This time around, McClane flys to Russia hoping to get his ne’er-do-well son (played by Jai Courtney, not great) out some trouble he’s run into.

Turns out that the boy is undercover – John Jr. has become a professional at one of his Dad’s recurring hobbies – saving the world, or something like it. Both McClanes become entangled, despite their estranged relationship, on a mission to rescue a political prisoner.

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A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Love Story

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  • Title: Warm Bodies
  • IMDB: link

warm-bodies-posterNever was there a tale of love condemned more than that of Julie (Teresa Palmer) and her zombie boyfriend (Nicholas Hoult). One is a human-acting zombie from the wrong side of the tracks. The other is the tempestuous daughter of the leader (John Malkovich) of the army obsessed with blasting the brain-eaters off the face off the Earth.

From writer/director Jonathan Levine (50/50, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) comes a post-apocalyptic zombie love story take on William Shakespeare‘s classic Romeo and Juliet which definitely has a pulse.

Presented from the point of view of R (Hault), a thoughtful zombie who begins to believe he can be more than just an undead scavenger after meeting Julie (Palmer) and eating her boyfriend’s (Dave Franco) brains, Levine’s script is far more clever than I expected. Warm Bodies may not reach the heights of Shaun of the Dead, but with some heart and a good sense of humor this new take on a classic love story embraces the more absurdist elements of it’s premise and is a surprisingly compelling and entertaining story.

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Quartet

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  • Title: Quartet
  • IMDB: link

quartet-posterQuartet, which marks actor Dustin Hoffman‘s first time behind the camera in the director’s chair, is a perfectly fine (if completely unremarkable) film.

Adapted by Ronald Harwood from his play of the same name, the plot centers around the goings-on at a British retirement home for musicians. Our leading foursome is made up of a stroke victim who has lost the ability to censor himself (Billy Connolly), an increasingly confused busybody dealing with the on-set of Alzheimer’s (Pauline Collins), and the buttoned-down Reggie (Tom Courtenay) whose life is thrown upside down by the arrival of the famous former fourth member of their illustrious quartet, his ex-wife Jean (Maggie Smith).

Most of the film is devoted into two stories. The first involves Jean trying to earn Reggie’s forgiveness and reconnect with the love of her life who she lost to a terrible mistake in judgement decades ago. Pretty much by the book, you can probably guess exactly how this plotline plays out.

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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

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  • Title: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
  • IMDB: link

“Whatever you do, don’t eat the fucking candy.”

hansel-and-gretel-witch-hunters-posterHansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters offers audiences the further adventures of Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton), the young brother and sister first introduced by the Brothers Grimm 200 years ago. After a brief retelling of the classic fairy tale (with one or two important tweaks) in which the young children fight off and kill a powerful witch living in a candy house in the woods, we catch up years later with our hero and heroine after they have become the world’s most famous witch hunters.

The plot by Tommy Wirkola (who also directs) and Dante Harper isn’t all that imaginative as Hansel and Gretel are pitted against a grand witch (Famke Janssen) with plans to use the rare event of a Blood Moon to make her coven invincible. What makes the film work, often in spite of itself, is its sense of humor and constant awareness of what it is. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is dumb fun embracing the ridiculous with witches more than a little reminiscent of Deadites and a pair of likable heroes that get knocked around repeatedly over the course of the film. It’s a film about life and death that never takes either all that seriously.

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Zero Dark Thirty

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  • Title: Zero Dark Thirty
  • IMDB: link

zero-dark-thirty-poster
The Best Movie of 2012
Three years ago director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Marc Boal collaborated on The Hurt Locker which won them both individual Academy Awards as well as taking home the coveted Oscar for Best Picture. With Zero Dark Thirty the pair reunite to examine the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden.

The project was not with pitfalls or controversy. Bigelow and Boal were about to start filming an entirely different script when news hit that American forces had found and killed the man responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Scrapping their initial project, Bigelow and Boal refocused to examine the work that went in to finding America’s most wanted.

The film’s detractors (almost none of whom have seen the film) attack it for what some believe is a pro-torture stance, the filmmakers access to classified information surrounding the search for bin Laden, and some have even argued against what they (wrongfully) believe is a pro-Obama propaganda piece. None of these allegations are true. What is true, however, is Zero Dark Thirty is the best movie of 2012.

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