2 Razors

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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  • Title: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
  • IMDB: link

extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-dvdBased on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close follows the search of nine year-old with Asberger’s Syndrome who finds a key in his father’s (Tom Hanks) possessions and embarks on the kind of adventure his father used to create for him before his death on 9/11.

Oskar Schell’s (Thomas Horn) adventure takes him all over New York in an attempt to find a man or woman with the last name of Black who may be the only person who knows what lock the key fits. Over the course of his search Oskar meets several people including the mysterious mute renter (Max von Sydow) of his grandmother’s (Zoe Caldwell), who Oskar begins taking with him on his search.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is too cute for its own good. Although similar in the type of story told in Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated (one of my favorite films of 2005) director Stephen Daldry struggles with framing the tale.

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The Darkest Hour

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  • Title: The Darkest Hour
  • IMDb: link

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After traveling to Moscow only to get screwed out of a lucrative business opportunity Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) run into an attractive American twenty-something (Olivia Thirlby) and her Australian friend (Rachael Taylor) at a swanky Russian bar just hours before the Earth finds itself invaded by aliens seeking to drain all electric conducting minerals from the planet.

The aliens appear as near invisible glowing clouds of light which can instantly burn through and disintegrate matter on contact. The foursome find themselves stuck in the storeroom of the club for days with the Swedish businessman (Joel Kinnaman) who screwed them over. With their rations exhausted finally the five journey out into a world vastly changed from the one they left only a few days before. Can they make it to safety? Will they find a way to fight back? Which ones will die? If only we cared.

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The Hunger Games

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  • Title: The Hunger Games
  • IMDb: link

hunger-games-poster

Long before the young adult novel by Suzanne Collins on which The Hunger Games is based, Hollywood has enjoyed the idea of a culture putting murder on display as reality television for the enjoyment of the masses. From the enjoyable The Running Man to the deplorable The Condemned the results have been mixed.

And we’re not even going to get started on the dozens of gladiator and horror movies that use some version of the tale as well. Originality is not this film’s strong suit. And with a running time of 142 minutes neither is brevity.

The Hunger Games gives us a world in which the twelve poor outlying districts attempted to rise up against the rich capital state 74 years ago only to be thwarted and beaten back down. Now, in memory of the events and to keep the populace in line, one male and one female between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen by lottery to kill each other on live television in “The Hunger Games,” with as much pomp and circumstance as they can muster. Murder, of and by children, it seems is to be the sport of the future.

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Wrath of the Titans

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  • Title: Wrath of the Titans
  • IMDb: link

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I’ll admit to being somewhat surprised with Wrath of the Titans, not because it’s good, but simply because it’s far better than the utter trainwreck the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans turned out to be. Of course, that’s not exactly a high bar to measure up to.

I’m a fan of the original 1981 Clash of the Titans which gave the story of Perseus (Harry Hamlin) the Hollywood treatment with some terrific stop motion monsters provided by legendary special effects creator Ray Harryhausen. For me, the 2010 supremely awful remake was like watching the entire cast dig up Ray Hauhausen’s grave and with the sole purpose of taking turns defecating on his corpse.

With no direct film to measure up to, Wrath of the Titans is able to craft its own story (such that it is). The story picks up a few years after the end of the first film. Although a legendary hero, Perseus (Sam Worthington) and his young son Helius (John Bell) live simple lives of fishermen.

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The Three Musketeers

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  • Title: The Three Musketeers
  • IMDB: link

the-three-musketeers-blu-rayOne year after breaking into the secret vault of Leonardo Da Vinci to steal plans for a flying war machine for France only to be betrayed by the duplicitious Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), the thee most famous Musketeers Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), and Aramis (Luke Evans) find themselves down on their luck only to be roused back into action by the impetuous and cocky young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman).

The screenplay from Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies far more resembles a braindead action flick than the original tale of Alexandre Dumas. As you’d expect from director Paul W.S. Anderson style and ridiculous action sequences involving flying boats take precedence over story at every turn as the Musketeers try to save their foppish king (Freddie Fox), prevent a war, get revenge on Milady, and relive their glory days.

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