Horns 2013

2013 Horns directed by Alexandre Aja has to be one of my favorite movies. It features Daniel Radcliffe as Ig Perrish, Max Minglela as Lee, and Juno Temple as Merrin Williams. This film starts with a scene where Ig and Merrin are laying on a blanket in the woods with barley a care in the world. Its not clear if that is a dream or a memory but it soon transitions to Ig laying on the floor of his house with news reporters outside. We learn quickly that Merrin is dead and Ig is being prosecuted as her murderer.

Ig’s and Merrins love can be traced back to when Merrin first moved to their small town.  Ig wasn’t the only one to fall for Merrin, His friend Lee fell for her too. Lee never really acted on his feeling until later in life right before Merrins death.

After a night of drinking and urinating on a memorial to Merrin Ig finds the he is starting to grow horns. When he tries to talk to people about them they don’t seem to weirded out by it and tend to tell him exactly how they are feeling and odd truths. With the truth barring horns Ig decides to start looking for Merrins true killer and on the way he finds that she was hiding things from him.

I personally love the use of music in this film. The music mixed with the editing really helps this film flow. The use of special effects is cool but I feel like they could have been a little better. Over all I give this movie a 9 out of 10. I never read the book so my opinion is based entirely on how the film is as a stand alone.

Geostorm 2017

The 2017 film Geostorm directed by Dean Devlin has everything you could ever want in a movie. It has action, love, tears, space, and the threat of the end of the world. In the future our only defense against global warming is a giant network of satellites connected to a weather machine. This just opens the possibility of people hacking into the software and trying to destroy the world. And thats exactly what happens. We follow the Lawson brothers in this epic tale of the century. Jake lawson, played by Gerard Butler, who designed the system is called back to save it years after he was kicked off the project by this brother Max, played by Jim Sturgess. The two haven’t talked in years since Jake was thrown off the project until Max asks him to back back up into space to investigate. They must work together to get to the bottom of who’s trying to create a Geostorm.

This film showes the repair of a bond between two brothers. It holds promises to daughters and It takes about how global warming is real and how its stupid to think otherwise. I loved this movie. There are so many close ups on faces that show the emotion in the characters eyes it felt personal. I give this movie an 8 out of 10. I felt like the ending was a little predictable but other than that I loved the story and they way they portrayed it.

Gremlins 1984

1984 Gremlins is one of the weirdest Christmas movies out there. Randall Peltzer, Played by Hoyt Axton, just wants to find the perfect Christmas present for his son Billy, played by Zach Galligan.  Randall searches high and wide looking as he is also trying to promote his inventions that only work sometimes. In his journey he ends up in a mystical part of some cities china town. There he meets a boy that lures him into his grandfathers store where the boy says everything is for sale. Once they get there the grandfather is having none of it with the invention. When Randall hears something coming from a covered cage in the store he is naturally drawn to it. There he discovers a gremlin who he later names gizmo. After the grandfather refuses to sell the gremlin to Randall they boy goes behind his grandfathers back and sells the little creature to Randall.

There are three rules that go along with owning a gremlin. 1. They do not like bright lights 2. Never get them wet 3. Never feed them after midnight. Billy tried to follow these rules but the only one he didn’t accidentally break was the bright light one. After water falls on Gizmo he starts multiplying. The first clone being the leader of the rest. After they trick Billy into feeding them after midnight they turn into these slimy creatures that just want wreak havoc.

This film along with Indian Jones Temple of Doom are why we have pg 13 as a movie rating today. Weather it was the gremlin in the microwave scene or the most depressing Christmas story ever told that was just randomly put in yet made this movie 10 times better, it was probably the microwave. I give this movie an 8 out of 10. The puppetry used was great and they story was unsettling and funny. Nothing says merry Christmas more than furry little creatures turned green, slimy, and evil.

Good Burger 1997

The 1997 movie Good Burger directed by Brian Robbins is one of those movies you watch when you are have a bad day or just feeling down. It follows Dexter Reed, played by Kenan Thompson, as he has to raise money over the summer to pay for the damages to his teachers car that he totaled. He tries to get a job at the opening burger joint Mondo Burger but he just cant get the rhythm down of how they make their burgers. So he goes across the street to good burger where he is hired right off the bat and starts working alongside Ed, played by Kel Mitchell.

Unknown to Dexter Ed is one of the reasons why he hit his teachers car. Well that and the fact that Dexter doesn’t have his drivers license so he’s not the best at driving. When bonding with Ed Dexter finds out that Ed has created his own special sauce to put on his burgers and not tastes amazing. Naturally Dexter gets ed to agree to serve his cause and that he get more of a cut then Ed does because it was his idea to serve the sauce. With the addition of the sauce to the burgers business at Good Burger starts to boom. This causes Mondo Burger to try to sabotage Good Burgers sauce with poison. As Mondo Burger Poisons the sauce Dexter and Ed are escaping from a mental hospital and start to work towards exposing Mondo Burger for using chemicals to enhance the size of their burgers.

The use of over acting in this film really helps tie in the comedy. It has its serious moments but it always goes back to Eds happy go lucky personality. This helps balance everything out. I give this movie a 7 out of 10. I would have liked it to more in depth about Ed and how he ended up working for Good Burger, but I understand that would have been to much and a little out of place in this film.

Cat’s Eye 1985

Cat’s Eye is a 1985 film written by Stephen King. In the film we follow a cat on his journey to save a little girl. We are shown three story lines and each once gets closer to an ending than the last. The first story shows Dick Morrison a man determined to quit smoking. Yet he may have chosen the wrong company to help him. As a scare tactic the show him a room with a metal grate floor with the cat in it. They tell him that if he continues smoking they will put his wife in the room. As they say this they turn on an electric current that then makes the cat “dance”. Of course the man has to have at least one last cigarette. The company hold up their end of the deal and the cat gets out when Dick is trying to free his wife.

The second story is about a man named Cressner. Cressner is a gambler and he’s good. He like to gamble on life. He bets on if the cat will make it across the street alive and he makes a bet with Johnny Norris, Cressner’s wife’s tennis coach turned lover. He bets Johnny that if he can make it around the outside of the building he can have money and Cressners wife. When Johnny does make it Cressner is a sore loser and give him the head of his wife. The cat helps Johnny by tripping Cressner and we are left with him falling to his death from the building.

The last story is the one the cat has been searching for.  Amanda, played by a young Drew Barrymore, is having trouble sleeping at night because a troll is trying to steal her breath. Her parents don’t believe the dreams she is having and refuse to let the cat sleep in her room with her. In the end the cat is able to defend her against the troll and defeat it. The parents have to face the truth when they see the troll guts.

As a child the only part of this movie I saw was when the troll was actively stealing the little girls breath. I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t sleep alone for years. My cat always had to be in my room if I was going to sleep. The film its self flows very oddly. I was left wanting more from each story. I give this movie a 7 out of 10. I feel like the cat should have more to do with the other stories to help it flow better.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle 2017 (Contains Spoilers)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle 2017 is the sequel to the 2014 movie Kingsman: Secret Service both directed by Matthew Vaughn. These films follow the story of Eggsy played by Taron Egerton as he learns about a secret organization called The Kingsman and joins them. Within the first 10 minutes they kill off all the Kingsman except Merlin the info guy and Eggsy who was at a dinner with his girlfriend’s parents. The way the killed them off made no sense either. All Kingsman properties were targeted with rockets and everyone was home except Eggsy. How did this super intelligent organization not have a procedure in place to prevent something like this?
After this extermination Eggsy finds that Merlin played by Mark Strong is the only other survivor. Merlin then leads Eggsy to an underground bunker where the Kingsman left their doomsday protocol which ends up just being a bottle of Whisky. After they toast to everyone how has lost their lives in the past few hours they end up very drunk. By luck they see that the whisky was made in Kentucky by the Statesman. This sets them on a journey as to why their doomsday protocol was whisky and who these Statesman are.

Once they get to the United States they decided to break into the Statesman Distillery. In suits. They stick out like sore thumbs yet they are still able to get into a room alone where the believe is a hidden room. They were not alone for to long before Tequila played by Channing Tatum arrives and starts fighting them. After the fight comes to a standstill Tequila decides to take the men as prisoners and starts questioning them on how they got to where they were. Before things get too violent it is discovered that the Statesman’s doomsday protocol is just a kingsman Umbrella and that they are actually related companies.

The film goes on introducing more characters and explanations why they are in the US, why drugs should be legalized, and why the United States President is an asshole. They introduced to many charters it was hard to follow and the whole plot with the main villain made little to no sense. They kept the choreography of fight scenes like the first movie but used a little too much CG. I give this movie a 4 out of 10. It felt forced and crowded. So much stuff was going on all at once it barely made any sense. I did like how it tried to keep the cartoony style of the first one but again it felt a little too forced.

V For Vendetta 2005

The 2005 film V for Vendetta directed by James McTeigue follows the story of a masked man called V played by Hugo Weaving. We don’t know much of V’s early life its even explained that V himself doesn’t remember where he came from. All he knows is that he has to change the government that made him. He has created a character for himself called V based on Guy Fawkes a man who once planed on blowing up the parliament building in Britain but failed. V is not Guy Fawkes, he his nobody, but he is everyone.

The first 5th of November V makes himself known he runs into a girl named Evey Hammond played by Natalie Portman. He saves her from some corrupted watchmen. As the film progresses we find out that she has ties to rebellions. Her mother and father were rebels before they were taken away. This is no coincident “There is no coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence” (Moore V For Vendetta Vol. III). There are many “coincidences” in this film. As the story progresses Evey falls in love with V. She falls in love with the idea of change.

This film shows an interesting outlook on society. Historically accurate with how a revolution would be started. The Editing is phenomenal and really pulls you into the story. I would give this film 9 out of 10 stars. I wanted it to continue. It makes you want to be part of it. Everything I would change with this movie I know I wouldn’t be able to because everything is the way it needs to be to get the story through to us the way we need to see it not the way we want to see it.

Memento 2000

Christopher Nolan’s 2000 film Memento follows the story of Leonard Shelby played by Guy Pearce. Leonard is on the search for his wife’s killer but the night she was killed he suffered head trauma that has resulted in him not being able to make new memories. He remembers things from before that night but he can no longer make any new memories. To get around that he has been leaving clues for himself leading him to his wife’s killer. He tattoos himself, takes pictures, and leaves things in places where he knows he will find them.

The opening scene for this movie is Leonard killing a man but played backwards. The rest of the movie are scenes played in opposite order leading up to the the first scene. There are some parts that that are put in that stay in chronological order throughout the movie. These scenes are in black and white until the movie catches up with them. Through this ordering of scenes we get the same confusion that Leonard must be feeling as well as the struggle of putting the clues together.

Leonard isn’t alone in his search. He has befriended a man named Teddy played by Joe Pantoliano and a woman named Natalie played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Throughout the movie you get the sense that his friends are just using him to their own advantage because he wont question it as long as it is connected to his wife’s death in some way.

As someone who struggles with short term memory in the past I feel like this film portrayed it in a nice way. You find yourself second guessing the memories you do have and wondering if the people around you are just telling you what you want to hear or if they are telling you the truth. For these reasons I give this movie 8 out of 10 stars. Even with the flow of the scenes I still feel like the story was a little rushed at the end. I understand thats where it is supposed to get the most interesting but I still feel like it could have gone a little more in-depth into the relationships of the characters. We get a lot of where Leonard is coming from or where he thinks he’s coming from but Natalie seems to only be there to put him against himself.