Movie Reviews

The Ides of March

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Ides of March
  • IMDb: link

ides-of-march-posterThe loss of innocence is the theme for George Clooney‘s latest directoral effort which centers around a high-ranking political staffer whose idealism is shattered over the course of the two-hour film as he learns just how dirty a business politics really is.

The youthful Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling) has worked on more campaigns that most staffers twice his age but he believes he’s finally found the real thing in Governor Mike Morris (Clooney). Morris is one of two front-runners for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. With Myers help he might even make it, if he’ll agree to make the backroom deals to get him the delegates needed to sew-up the nomination.

Myers is approached by the campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) for Morris’ opposition who attempts to woo the wunderkid over to his campaign. Although he declines the offer, Myers’s hyper-paranoid boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is angered over his protege’s willingness to meet with the enemy.

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Real Steel

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  • Title: Real Steel
  • IMDb: link

real-steel-posterReal Steel is a rather simple story about the connection between a father and son mashed up with a movie adaptation for Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. It’s not going to wow you, but it’s a farily harmless family film with better than average effects, its share of charm, and lots of fightin’ robots!

In the not-too-distant future boxers have been replaced with robots. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a former fighter who never got his shot, now works the edges of robot boxing in state fairs and underground clubs. Charlie barely makes by, owes markers to everyone he knows, including the daughter (Evangeline Lilly) of his former trainer, and has just been given the responsibility of raising a son (Dakota Goyo) who he has never bothered to get to know.

Seeing how the boy’s aunt (Hope Davis) wants to adopt him Charlie makes a deal with her husband (James Rebhorn). For $100,000 he’ll take Max (Goyo) for the summer and then sign him over afterwards. In Charlie’s mind, everyone wins. And so father and son hit the road with Charlie’s new robot in tow.

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Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

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  • Title: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
  • IMDB: link

“Oh, hi de ho officer. We’ve had a doozy of a day. There we were, minding our own business, just doing some chores around the house when kids starting killing themselves all over my property.”

tucker-and-dale-vs-evil-posterYou’ve seen this story before, but never quite like this. A group of college kids on a road trip run into a couple of unsavory types in the back woods and terror and mayhem ensue. So what makes Tucker & Dale vs. Evil so different? The script by Morgan Jurgenson and Eli Craig turns the overused premise sideways and provides one of the craziest movies of the year.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil casts the two scary looking hillbillies not as potential killers but victims in a world turned completely upside down. Dale (Tyler Labine) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk) are no killers. They’re just a pair of guys looking for some time away at their new summer home in the Appalachian Mountains.

When they save one of the girls from drowning her friends believe they pair have kidnapped Alison (Katrina Bowden) and plan to kill her. What follows is a level of insanity that’s hard to describe without giving away some of the film’s funniest moments.

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Moneyball

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  • Title: Moneyball
  • IMDB: link

moneyball-posterIn the early 2000’s the Oakland A’s had just lost three of their big name stars and the small market team was in trouble in terms of continuing to compete in a league where they could be outspent by more than $100 by the likes of the New York Yankees. A’s General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) knew something had to change.

Hiring an assistant (Jonah Hill) who believed the team could compete by relying on sabermetrics (created by Bill James) rather than traditional models of building a team, Beane became an innovator by showcasing how a small market team could compete against the big boys.

The film begins with the playoff loss to the Yankees in 2001 and follows the rocky course of Beane instituting a completely new way of thinking to the old school baseball front office scouts and staff. The film highlights the early struggles and eventual success of the team over the 2002 season as well as focus on Beane’s relationship with his daughter (Kerris Dorsey).

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Killer Elite

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  • Title: Killer Elite
  • IMDB: link

killer-elite-posterTired of killing, the world’s best mercenary (Jason Statham) calls it quits only to be pulled out of retirement a year later by an oil sheikh (Rodney Afif) who holds one of his oldest friends (Robert De Niro) hostage to make sure Danny takes the job.

It seems a few years back the British S.A.S. killed three of the sheikh’s four sons. Now he wants vengeance before he dies and has chosen Danny to be the instrument of that revenge. In return he’ll release his friend and agree to pay Danny and his team (Dominic Purcell, Aden Young) $6,000,000.

Simple, right? Well it would be if it wasn’t for the fact that the Her Majesty’s Special Air Service are the best trained soldiers in the world. And if you didn’t know that going in the movie will remind you, more than once (except, of course, when our hero needs to dispatch nameless agents with relative ease).

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