Crazy, Stupid, Love.

At one point, Crazy, Stupid, Love. was my favorite movie. And you'll notice, this movie also has Steve Carell in the starring role. This is the only romantic comedy I've ever really loved, and it's probably the only romantic comedy I'll ever really love. This movie is so good because it doesn't rely on stupid tropes to fuel the plot. This movie has so much going on it in and it's all concentrated in the plot. The music, the wardrobe, the shot composition, all fairly unimpressive; They're fine, but unimpressive. This movie fully relies on plot and acting and it's amazing. It's what every romantic comedy wants to be-- clever and unassuming-- but it's actually that. It's actually funny, there's actually something to be learned, the acting is great, it deals with a real life situation not some stupid fairy tale. I love this movie and if you don't like it I likely don't like you.

Spotlight

Spotlight is a movie that throws you against a wall, coddles you when it realizes you're hurt, then punches you in the face when it sees it's just a few scratches--it is absolutely brutal on your emotions. I did not actually want to see this movie, I didn't think it looked that interesting. Granted, I didn't actually know the extent of what this movie was exploring. I was not aware of just how big this story was. I think Spotlight executed this touchy topic really appropriately. It's done with a lot of care; that isn't to say that they tiptoed around the reality of the situation. There were parts where some of the things discussed were hard to listen to, but they were handled with a sensitive tone. I guess what I am saying is so many words is that, despite the situation being pretty gruesome and, frankly, gross, the information presented was not done to gross out and appall the audience. It was more to inform and the events were not exploited in order to increase shock value for the audience. I think that was extremely respectful, while also trying to inform the audience of the reality.
This movie points a spotlight on the section of the Boston Globe called "Spotlight" that in 2001 investigated the sex-abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church and attempted to expose those who are committing these crimes, and in fact, the Spotlight team divulges more than they ever thought they would.

The Revenant

This movie was goddamn phenomenal (and based on a true story). The shot composition, the landscape, the dialogue (or lack thereof), the way the storyline is pieced together, the actual execution of filming--it's all amazing. Leonardo DeCaprio is amazingly expressive in this movie and his lack of dialogue does not impede on his ability to emote and tell the audience what is going on. I thought if there was going to be one weak performance it would have beenWill Poulter, who is usually cast as the villain in YA movies. He actually played his character phenomenally well. Adding to the amazingness of this movie was the fact that every performance was on point. They were all on target with the tone of the movie; not one of the performances diverted from the vibe everyone else was giving off. Every actor was on it in every scene. This movie did an incredible thing where they pulled all these actors who have had a big few years as side-characters or as co-stars (with the exception of Leo DeCap) and put them all in a parts where each of their talents are exemplified and made into an incredibly compelling performance. It was so breathtaking how brutal this movie actually was as well; the director makes you sit through a whole lot of hard things only to deliver redemption to the audience in the last hour.

The Big Short

The Big Short is a really inventive movie; it's like The Wolf of Wall Street mixed with Too Big To Fail. It was super funny and super dark-- often at the same time. The Big Short's most impressive accomplishment is making our mysterious stock market seem understandable to the normal movie goer. With all the talent that's packed into this movie there's no real place for weak performances, however, I was surprised how Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling were advertised as the main characters when really I thought Steve Carrell and Christian Bale were the actual main characters and Brad Pitt was just there to aid two characters played by virtually unknown actors. Ryan Gosling reminded me of a less egotistical version of Leonardo DeCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. I wouldn't have been so confused in the beginning if the previews and trailers for the movie reflected the actual cast and their roles. In the trailer I saw it showed two of the main characters played by lesser known actors once together and one alone. In both shots they just look like bank executives and neither of them speak at all so I didn't appreciate it when these two guys were all in my movie when I really just wanted to see the four big wig names.

The Hateful Eight: 70mm Roadshow

Inglorious Bastards is still my favorite Tarantino movie but The Hateful Eight comes in a close second. The thing with this movie is it's really just Tarantino patting himself on the back the whole time. It is a really amazing movie, but at times I was thinking, this is just for him isn't it? There is nothing unoriginal about this movie, like most of his other movies. Every little twist that happens throws you off a little bit more; it's so filled with events that will throw you, that the best summary someone can get without spoiling anything is that a bounty hunter has caught a woman who is worth $10,000 and due to a blizzard, is forced to stop in a log cabin where seven other people also congregate because of the blizzard. The basic conflict of the movie is that this bounty hunter is super paranoid that someone is working with his captive woman to set her free. Any more explanation past that would ruin some sort of revelation in the film.

The Danish Girl

I was really unhappy that this movie has only received the equivalent to a C rating. Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander gave incredible performances. I personally think Alicia Vikander gave a more diverse performance but Eddie Redmayne's performance was an incredible one in the way that he portrayed two people who, in a way, had two completely different personalities. I don't know how accurate this movie is when it comes to Lili Elbe's relationships, but since it is based off a novel 'm assuming most of the main conflict is accurate.

2016 Golden Globe Awards

I watched the Golden Globes last night and boy was it underwhelming and particularly disappointing. I don't think the Golden Globes did some of the best movies of 2015 much justice. Some of the award presenters were super awkward and weird. There was that awkward Jonah Hill bear joke where Channing Tatum said Jonah couldn't make it but the bear from The Revenant would stand in for him and Jonah came up in a bear hat thing. It wasn't that funny except for when Jonah Hill mentioned that "...theres a few directors that I would like to claw tonight--just kidding but remember I am a bear" I thought that was pretty funny but otherwise a lot of the audience was not feeling it. It was also awkward when Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell presented because it seemed like they were trying to stay on stage for as long as possible and nothing they were doing was funny. However, Andy Samberg and, surprisingly, Jim Carrey were super funny in their presenter speeches; they were probably the best along with America Ferrera and Eva Longoria. It certainly wasn't the greatest award show I've ever watched but it definitely wasn't the worst.
The list of awards are not in the order they were presented in.

2001: A Space Odyssey

This movie was first, out the ass weird, then out the ass dull as nothing happens for 45 minutes straight, then it was out the ass weird again, then it turned trippy as all hell and then ended on a solid horrifying note. This movie, much like A Clockwork Orange, had me considering whether or not I was going to have to bail on everything. I am not 100% sure why I was so scared by the end of this movie but I was not coping well with everything that was happening.
Also when we decided to watch it I thought we were watching Armageddon with Bruce Willis and Jake Gyllenhaal, so you may understand my confusion when there was twenty minutes of dudes dressed up like monkeys doing literally nothing at the start of the movie.

Krampus

The first thing I am noticing is that this movie poster radically understates the extent of just how Krampus-y Krampus' fingers and nails are. They are very Krampus-y; that hand looks like it could be remotely human aka nowhere near the reality of a Krampus hand. This movie isn't necessarily "scary" per-say but I found the monsters in it really cool and the sequence of events was more interesting and funny than it was scary to me.  I overall really enjoyed myself while watching this movie. It certainly isn't a classic holiday movie by any means but it was good enough to go to the movies to see it. And just a forewarning I started writing this the second I got back from the theater so a lot of this is first impression soup and little things that I noticed. Side-note: This director is set to direct X-Men Apocalypse which I don't know why, but I found that surprising.

Trainwreck

This movie is funny, but it's also pretty dumb. I really hate romantic comedies, like, they pain me to watch. A group of my friends wanted to watch Bridget Jone's Diary and I got to the part where Hugh Grant was a pig and was cheating on whats-her-face and I left. By in large, romantic comedies drive me up a wall with their sexist plot devices (manic pixie dream girls, the inexperienced virgin, the clutzy nerd-turned-hot girl, the soulless "other women", a boyfriend/husband completes a woman, the career-woman who is saved by a man--need I go on). But now lets talk about Trainwreck. It's dumb. It's goofy. But Amy Schumer's character is a frisky ass girl who likes sex, and smokes weed. There are obvious tropes with her character in regards to her love life (she has daddy issues so she can't commit) that are problematic, but for her personality in general, it's pretty good for a romantic comedy.

Edge of Tomorrow

This has, of recent times, been the movie that I almost always make people watch, solely because I want to see their reactions, because I think this movie is great. I've seen Edge of Tomorrow at least 7 times, probably more though. The time travel in this movie is pretty damn interesting, that saying, it is not without its flaws. This is one of the only movies I have seem with Tom Cruise in it; I've recently watched Risky Business and it did not convince me to watch anymore young Tom Cruise movies, so I think I'm going to stick with more recent Tom Cruise movies i.e. Edge of Tomorrow, Mission Impossible, Minority Report-- basically nothing before 2000. Anyway, I have been watching more action movies lately, starting with this one, and damn I actually don't hate them anymore.

Trumbo

Trumbo does a great job showing the injustice of the blacklist throughout the late 40's and the 50's. I've always been interested in the time period because, in the way I have always looked at it, the persecution of communists seemed so incredibly unconstitutional, so much so that I always thought I was missing a part of the story; luckily (or unluckily), I wasn't missing anything and my assumptions about the status of the blacklist are actually quite true. Through Dalton Trumbo's story, audiences can see the greater implications of the blacklist and the persecution of communists in America at the time of the Cold War.

Everest

"Never Let Go" the movie poster says, even though they all let go. I saw Everest with two other people and they loved it, however all I could think about was why in the world would anyone want to do that? Especially when they have a family; what in the world is so fun about this thing that looks horrible even when shit doesn't hit the fan? My roommate let me know that people don't do it because it's fun, they do it because they have something to prove to themselves, which just led me full circle to think what about this could be so meaningful people would risk their lives to the degree that 1 in 4 people die on Everest. Despite this very logical stream of thoughts, a bunch a people went to summit Mount Everest in 1994 and pretty much all of them die.

Let Me In

This movie is an adaptation of the Swedish film Let the Right One In. The premise to both the films is that this bullied boy living in suburbia meets this girl who lives with her father but never really leaves her house, and they become friends. The whole thing takes a pretty drastic turn when the audience finds out (before the boy) that the girl is actually a vampire that doesn't age and her "father" is actually just a dude she met that she's been shacked up with and he kills people and gives their blood to the vampire girl so that she doesn't have to kill people.

Hot Fuzz

Out of all the three movies in the Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz was probably my least favorite. There were a some good twists and it was pretty funny, but I just thought it was slow. I could pretty easily predict the ending, but there were too many delays to get there. Then once the ending twist was revealed, the movie took way to long to finish up. It could have ended a few times before it actually did. I remember getting to a part nowhere near the end and checking the time that was left and there was honestly, like, 40 minutes left and I couldn't imagine what could possibly happen between now and the next 40 minutes.

Black Mass

When I saw the trailer for Black Mass, I saw a clip of the scene where Jimmy (Johnny Depp) is just casually shooting an automatic gun in broad daylight in a parking lot, and at that point, the main reason I wanted to see Black Mass was to watch that scene. I wanted to see that scene and I wanted to see Johnny Depp in all that makeup (just a step under Steve Carell in Foxcatcher). I was not disappointed. I have previously talked about how much I enjoy violence in movies and I have now realized there is a difference between Quentin Tarantino's over the top to the point of ridiculousness violence, and this serious, cringe-y, very much real violence that came up in Black Mass. Not saying I disliked the violence in Black Mass, I just couldn't derive any joy from it, especially because the people who are killed in this movie are people who are a threat of gangsters, so they aren't doing bad things and in no way deserve to die unlike the amazing violence that takes place in, specifically, Inglorious Bastards.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Easily the best, quirky, weird movie I've ever seen, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is so entertaining

and discombobulated you have to watch it twice just to get the whole picture and maybe a third time for giggles. I found a Fantastic Fear on Netflix so as of now, you can watch it as many times as you want. A neurotic writer, Simon Pegg, through writing his television script about serial killers, becomes paranoid that he is actually being stalked by a serial killer. With a mixture of mediums tied in through storytelling, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is the most unique movie I can think of; it reminds me of a Wes Anderson film but not not as coherent. It didn't get great reviews on any of the official review cites, but you have to have an open mind.

Pan's Labyrinth

I don't necessarily have a favorite director, but every Guillermo Del Toro movie I've seen, I have been absolutely been amazed by. Pan's Labyrinth was my introduction to Guillermo Del Toro; I saw it in my 11th grade Spanish 4 class and at first, it freaked me the hell out. I then saw Mama and realized Guillermo Del Toro was involved (executive producer) and they kind of had the same sort of ending (come to think of it every Guillermo Del Toro has sort of the same ending). I've recently re-watched Pan's Labyrinth and I think that because I wasn't in a class being forced to watch it, I enjoyed it more, even though a lot of the parts still did/does still freak me out.

The Martian

I was not expecting to come out of this movie liking it. I thought I would be impressed with the visual effects but otherwise I was not really expecting much mostly because of the fact that I am not a fan of Matt Damon (probably because of those goddamn Jason Borne movies). I think the theme of abandonment on a planet, and the similar cast and vibe to interstellar (you know what I mean if you've seen Interstellar) also made me kind of wary of The Martian, simply because I thought it was going to be too much like it, and I am not one of those people who could watch Interstellar twice. But, as my friends and I were deciding between seeing Black Mass and The Martian, they raised some points about the other cast members and the scientific accuracy of it and the visuals and they outnumbered me, so we saw the Martian, and I did not have any strong feelings against it.

The Fly

I've enjoyed my fair share of weird movies, but I only recently watched The Fly, and I've got to say that is the most fucked movie I have ever seen. Even though its from 86', it really doesn't seem that dated, which surprised me. I was surprised that it didn't just seem kind of goofy with bad effects, but it actually really got me, and I was so shocked afterwards it has since been the only movie ever that, when it ended, I was sweating. I caught myself a few times with my mouth just hanging open. I can't say whether or not I liked it, but I definitely appreciate it and the effect it had on me; I've never seen a movie, except for The Grudge, that had such an impact on me, and even with The Grudge the only prolonging repercussion from that movie was that I couldn't sleep on or look under my cover for a while, and I couldn't be in stairwells alone, you know, because of those scenes. However, if I wasn't in my bed or in a stairwell alone, I didn't think about it and it wasn't a problem. The issue with The Fly, is that even when I'm just walking around town or something is, if I'm thinking about it, I worry about it becoming a pseudo King-Kong Situation where this "185-pound fly" is going to escape and terrorize masses of people and somehow make its way onto my middle-of-nowhere, in the mountains college campus and we'll be stuck with it and no one will save us. I've thought about that extensively. The Fly was so disturbing that I wouldn't necessarily make the decision to ever watch it again by myself, but I was damn intrigued and fascinated and I'm super glad I watched it.