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J. E. hoover movie review

Clint Eastwood directs a powerful biopic in J. Edgar. In a little over two hours the director takes us through the complicated life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of The FBI. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays the man who held the position until his death at age 72. It is an amazing portrayal. (DiCaprio underwent six hours of make up transformation to play the elderly J. Edgar Hoover.) Between the talented director and lead actor they manage to paint the tormented Hoover as a sympathetic character. And that wasn’t easy to do because the man was despicable!

In J. Edgar, Hoover was a ruthless and cruel FBI director with little regard for the civil rights of the people he classified as “subversive” or “criminal”. He was also a man with some real “momma issues” which conflicted with his latent homosexuality. Oh, he was a complicated man!

Judi Dench plays Hoover’s mother in the film. Her performance reminded me of some of the characters Betty Davis often played in some of the horror movies late in her career. Naomi Watts is Hoovers’ loyal secretary and Armie Hammer plays Clyde Tolson his loyal aid and lifelong “companion”. All of the performances are excellent and a slew of Oscars will be coming their way at Academy Award time.

My only issue with the film was it didn’t have enough balance. Hoover was a racist who waged a one man war on Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders during the civil rights movement of the 60’s. The movie gives him a free pass on that. But, I understand the movie depicts J. Edgar from his character’s perspective.This movie really answers alot of unanswered questions about Hoover.

Eddie Murphy’s Tower heist

Tower Heist would be well received at any “Occupy Event” currently happening in NYC or anywhere else in the country. It’s a caper film about working folks who are bilked in a ponzi scheme by a Wall Street investor (Alan Alda). The working class clients, who are robbed of all their life savings, plot a scheme of their own to get back the money that was stolen from them.

Ben Stiller plays Josh Kovacks, the manager of the opulent hotel tower housing the Bernie Madoff wanna be. Eddie Murphy is Slide, a petty thief who trains Josh’s team to “storm the castle” and rob the impenetrable penthouse apartment. Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick and Michael Pena round out the rest of Josh’s crew. All turn in fine supporting roles that keep the movie rolling. Gabby Sidibe (“Precious”) is also part of the ensemble cast. She plays a Jamaican maid who joins the team when they need a specialist to assist with the robbery.

The Chemistry between the cast is terrific. Especially the teaming of Stiller with Murphy. The movie is directed by Brett Ratner who directed the “Rush Hour” series. There is definitely a “Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker vibe” between the two lead actors.

Tower Heist is outrageously funny. Eddie Murphy’s character could be Reggie Hammond (‘82’s movie-48 Hours) 30 years later and all grown up. It is a fun movie with plenty of action and non-stop laughing. This movie is rated PG-13 for some foul language.Tower Heist is a must see so go check it out.

Real Steel Movie review

Real Steel is a hodge podge of many different movies. You’ll recognize the obvious comparison to ALL the Rocky movies, you’ll see a bit of “Transformers” in there and, with the driving Eminem music during the pivotal scenes, you’ll see a bit of “8 Mile” in there too. The good news is “Real Steel” took all of the best parts of those movies to make a really good one! It’s like a mix-tape movie.

“Real Steel” is set in the not too distant future where robot fighting has replaced boxing and MMA as “the next big thing”. Hugh Jackman is Charlie, a former boxer, who now hustles small time “bot boxing” events at dives and county fairs all over the country.

When the movie starts he’s a real low life. It takes an 11 year old boy, his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo), to turn his life around. Together, after they dig up an old sparing bot from the junk yard, they go on a journey to make robot fighting history and in the process they build the father and son relationship that hadn’t existed before. It’s a sweet movie.

The best parts of “Real Steel” are the robot fight scenes. Director Shawn Levy borrows heavily from Michael Bay’s (Transformers) animated robot fight scenes, but hey why not “sample” something that works. Clanking steel and smashing bots make for a fun filled couple of hours of movie watching.

There is nothing original about “Real Steel”, but it’s a “stand on your feet and cheer, feel good movie” (I sampled that line from a previous movie trailer). With plenty of action and romance “Real Steel” is the perfect date movie.

The Hunger Games

Lastnite during the MTV’s VMAs  Lionsgate finally unveiled a first glimpse at The Hunger Games, the anticipated adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ series of books, in the form of a 60-second teaser trailer. So of course, MTV now has an online version of it, which includes a brief intro from Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss Everdeen, as well as the all-forest-set Hunger Games footage. This is only just a tease, but shows some bow-and-arrow action that we’ll see plenty of as Katniss goes up against the other Panem tributes.

The hunger games Katniss is a 16-year-old living in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem. Every year, one girl and one boy is chosen from each of Panem’s 12 districts to fight each other to the  death. The Hunger Games is written and directed by Oscar nominated filmmaker Gary Ross, director of Seabiscuit, but also writer of Big, Mr. Baseball, Dave, Lassie, Pleasantville and Seabiscuit. This mpvie was adapted from Suzanne Collins’ popular series of novels, first published back in 2008. Lionsgate is bringing The Hunger Games to theaters everywhere starting March 23rd, 2012 I think it will be a good movie?

Movie Review For The Green Lantern

Ryan Reynolds is the Green Lantern and Martin Campbell, who directed the James Bond movies Golden Eye and Casino Royale, is in charge of this huge special effects budget film. Director Campbell throws every dollar up there on the screen and the special effects are amazing. As a matter of fact the effects ARE the film. They are so heavy handed they overpower the story.

The summer of comic book movies continues with the release of the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern on the big screen. People really get caught up in this comic book stuff. I guess it’s because of their fond childhood memories of following their favorite superhero in the pages of a comic book. They know all of the background info on their guy and things like the oath he has to take to become Green Lantern (“In Brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight”). It’s a trip!

I fall on the other end of the spectrum. Sure, I’d heard of Green Lantern, but I wasn’t aware that the Green Lanterns were a brotherhood of defenders who covered each part of the universe looking for evil (did you?) or that they had their own planet. I just remembered that he was in The Justice League with Superman, The Flash and Aqua Man and them on Saturday morning cartoons. But, even with my limited knowledge, I was still able to follow the movie. So, that is good news for you if you fall into my limited knowledge category.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

 This weekend Captain Jack Sparrow crosses paths with the enigmatic Angelica, he’s not sure if it’s love or if she’s a ruthless con artist who’s using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. She forces him aboard the “Queen Anne’s Revenge,” the ship of the legendary pirate Blackbeard, Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn’t know whom to fear more Blackbeard or Angelica, with whom he shares a mysterious past.

It’s fitting that this fourth instalment of the mega booty-hauling franchise revolves around a quest for the fountain of youth. Here’s a property that would give its right arm for some rejuvenation, having worn out its welcome last time round, way back in 2007. And having already paid an arm and a leg to persuade Johnny Depp to reprise his Jack Sparrow role, you wouldn’t imagine it had many more limbs to spare.

But the logic seems to be, if you’re splashing out on your star, you’d better make a splash with the rest of the movie. This splashes so much, its stranger tides almost drown it. It’s a succession of ever-escalating action sequences and grand settings. At first they’re stunning, then they’re routine, then they’re wearying. There is at least some new blood to power this rejuvenation exercise.

Depp is his usual mincing self but Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have walked the plank when aboard clambers Penélope Cruz, as a duplicitous old flame of Jack’s. Being Cruz, she’s Spanish and feisty, and that’s about it. And fitting right in as the new villain of the piece is Ian McShane’s Blackbeard – a mystically powered captain whose orange, leathery complexion suggests he’s spent long years trapped in a tanning salon.

Throw in Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa (now with a peg leg), and the British and Spanish navies, and you’ve got something close to a piratical wacky races. Everyone’s racing to get to the fountain of youth, negotiating perilous terrain and fantastical episodes and stitching each other up. The freshest new monsters are some vicious but seductive mermaids, which are rather cruelly hunted, slaughtered and tortured along the way. That could traumatise a few younger viewers but being just about the only other women in the movie apart from Cruz, it also suggests something more worrying beneath the light-hearted mateyness. Worse still, everyone else is so scheming and self-centred and double-crossing, it’s not always clear who to root for, who’s in cahoots with whom, or what anyone’s going to do if/when they actually find the sacred fountain.

Movie Trailer And Review For Paul

Paul is ET meets sex, drugs and Rock and Roll! In Paul non stop laughs follow a runaway alien and two British geeks who come to the US for a holiday of trekking to all the famous UFO hotspots. The two super geeks get more than they bargained for when they come to the aid of the victim of a car crash and instead come face to face with the escaped alien.

The two Brits are played by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg who were previously paired in the comedies Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. The two actors are fall down funny as the straight men to the huge eyed, ill mannered and often naked alien, Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen).

The movie is filled with pop culture references and inside sci-fi jokes like when Paul asks for some Reese’s Pieces when his two travel companions hit the mini mart for snacks or when, in a flash back scene, Steven Spielberg gets tips on making ET from the real extra terrestrial. There are also a few surprise appearances in the movie. This movie is just flat out funny. I was concerned that, like in many big screen comedies, the trailer contained all of the good jokes, but Paul was filled with enough laughs to fill the entire hour and a half of the movie. I was pleasantly surprised. Paul is rated “R” for harsh (foul) language, sexual references and drug use.

The Lincoln Lawyer Movie Review

Coming out this weekend The Lincoln Lawyer starring Matthew McConaughey as he plays a lawyer who conducts business from the backseat of his Lincoln town car for high-profile clients in Beverly Hills. As he travels between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence it’s about negotiation and manipulation. So when a Beverly Hills playboy gets  arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Mickey to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years It’s a defense attorney’s dream. And as all the evidence begins to  stack up, Mickey comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career. Then things change as someone close to him is murdered and Mickey discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal in order to save his own life.

The Lincoln Lawyer is directed by upcoming filmmaker Brad Furman, of numerous shorts and the indie The Take previously. The screenplay was written by veteran screenwriter John Romano (Dark Angel, Intolerable Cruelty, Nights in Rodanthe) and is based on the book The Lincoln Lawyer written by ace crime novelist Michael Connelly who literally reinvented the L.A. noir novel with his realistic procedural series. This movie is being produced by Lakeshore and Lionsgate.

Mars Needs Moms Movie Review.

Mars Needs Moms uses the latest technology in capture animation. It’s a Disney movie but it was produced by the studio of Robert Zemeckis, who brought us Forrest Gump and Back to the Future. The technology, paired with the 3D animation, blurs the lines between animation and real action on the big screen. It’s an amazing experience.

Mars Needs Moms focuses on Milo, a 9 year old boy that thinks his life would be much less complicated if his mom wasn’t in it. His wish comes true when his mom is kidnapped by Martians in the middle of the night. He stows away on the ship and travels to Mars to try and save his mom.

On the planet he meets a fellow human who lives in the garbage pit with the rest of the Martian men. The Martian men play and dance all day while the Martian women run the surface of the planet. Likewise, Martian boys are exiled to the dump while each girl Martian is assigned to a nanny to be cared for and nurtured. Mars Needs Moms to program the robot care takers to be good mothers.

The story is a sweet tale of a little boy who realizes he needs his mom’s love and fights to get it back. It’s also a story that can be enjoyed by little kids and grown ups alike. I enjoyed it very much. It was just a fun movie. Be sure and stay until the very end of the movie to check out the out takes of how the capture animation works in the filming of the movie.

The movie is rated PG and lasts just under :90 minutes this is a great family outing movie.

Red Riding Hood Movie Review

No this movie has nothing in common with the famous fairy tale, although Valerie does have a grandmother (Julie Christie) who lives alone in the woods and whose  odd behavior catch the eye of the werewolf hunters. This movie is Set in a medieval village that kinda reminds you of a generic middle age time setting that is haunted by a werewolf. This Renaissance festival like film unfolds in an isolated town that for years has suffered from the depredations of a werewolf.

Valerie (Seyfried) is a beautiful young woman torn between two men. She is in love with a outsider, orphaned woodcutter, Peter (Fernandez), but her parents have arranged for her to marry the wealthy Henry (Irons). Unwilling to lose each other, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they learn that Valerie’s older sister has been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village. For years, the people have maintained an uneasy truce with the beast, offering the creature a monthly animal sacrifice. But under a blood red moon, the wolf has upped the stakes by taking a human life. Hungry for revenge, the people call on famed werewolf hunter, Father Solomon (Oldman), to help them kill the wolf. But Solomon’s arrival brings unintended consequences as he warns that the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them. As the death toll rises with each moon, Valerie begins to suspect that the werewolf could be someone she loves. As panic grips the town, Valerie discovers that she has a unique connection to the beast–one that inexorably draws them together, making her both suspect and bait. If you liked twilight it’s a must see.