The Golden View (w/McConnaughay)

[McConnaughay]

I wanted to begin posting up all of these reviews at one time or another, however, I have been preoccupied with other things. Every Monday and Thursday, I'll post a new movie review up on this topic. I could post up all the reviews that I've done immediately, but I think that this will allow for actual discussion, disagreements, agreements, and reaction.

Rankings:
1. Boy Wonder - 9.0/10.0
2. The Rum Diary - 7.5/10.0
3. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 - 6.0/10.0

For those wondering, this isn't a top-list, but a ranking of the movies that I have reviewed from least to greatest.
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Welcome rabies and germs to The Golden View and for today's edition we'll be taking a look at the second Hunter S. Thompson movie to feature Johnny Depp focused as the centerpiece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas being the first. The Rum Diary is a 2011 film written and directed by Bruce Robinson and began filming in Puerto Rico in March of 2009. The movie was released on October 28th, 2011, and garnered miniscule gross in terms of box-office as well as mixed reviews from critics. If you've ever read anything or seen anything from Hunter S. Thompson, you probably won't be surprised with what lays ahead in your journey with the Rum Diary. The movie is a rambling and barely coherent story that often replicates sheer insanity.

I don't necessarily say that as a criticism, the randomness and unorthodox way of doing things is precisely what makes a story from his mind worth reading. The story begins with a back-story on the title-character, Paul Kemp, played by Johnny Depp, who is an author that hasn't been able to sell a book. He has wrote multiple stories but can't seem to successfully get published, however, he does manage to land a job at a newspaper in Puerto Rico. There, he meets Sala, and most of the people that he would intermingle with for the entirety of the movie. He checks into a hotel and while on a boat, he sees Chenault who's avoiding a Union Carbide party to skinny dip while her boyfriend gives a speech.

Her boyfriend is Hal Sanderson played by Aaron Eckhart, or as I like to call him, Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight, who's two-faced character manages to eventually become somewhat of the antagonist in this story for his shady antics and decisions. The story has an underlining theme symbolizing corruption as well as standing up for what you believe in with a little Hunter S Thompson thrown in. What this means is that there is going to be chicken-fights, and they're going to end up playing much more of a role in the story than what they actually should. You have to take the good, the bad, and everything that comes in-between with this movie, if you want to enjoy it.

I would say that it's actually the strangest movie that I've ever seen, not in-terms of how actually strange it is, if I were going that way I'd probably choose something like Lo, or one of the Japanese movies that I watch every other week, I am actually talking about the pace of the movie and how I chose to perceive it. The pace of this movie is actually relatively slow, I wouldn't say it's Lord of the Ring's slow, or anything like that, but for over two-hours, you're following Johnny Depp's character, and for two-hours, more than half of it probably could have been cut out without much of anything being missed.

There's a lot of time for body-language and slow, precise execution throughout this movie, and what makes this strange is that I didn't perceive it as being slow pace whenever I watched the movie. I don't know what it is about it, maybe it's because I was watching Johnny Depp, an actor that I deeply respect, or maybe it's because of the scenery, and the way that the moments although are slow-paced aren't actually dragged. Johnny Depp as expected manages to successfully give an admirable performance in this movie, he doesn't play the wise-cracking in-your-face set-the-world-on-fire kind-of character that you might have seen in something like Pirates of the Caribbean or anything, however, he does play a very enjoyable character that actually does manage to crank out a couple of funny moments.

Harvey Dent or whatever his real name is, Aaron Eckhart comes across decently, he has the ability to come off genuinely likable one minute and hateful the next, which is a talent, I think, and you could also believe him in his role. I think I'd give him the number-two in this movie, Amber Heard who played Chenault did fine, but her character seemed more like a prize than a character. She seemed wild and crazy, but I never really found anything distinguishable about her personality traits. In conclusion, I am not going to say that this movie is a great movie, because it isn't, the story isn't very powerful, and it's more about having an entertaining ride than having one that is deep.

Although, I will credit the moments towards the end when Johnny Depp's character Paul Kemp had hit his stride of bitterness and rage, standing up against the quote unquote bastards. I will, however, say that it's a very enjoyable movie that provided me with good entertainment for the two hours, and I won't tell you that the time zooms by, but I enjoyed the ride. I am giving this movie a seven point five out of ten. Johnny Depp has sounded off with saying that he'd love nothing more than to play Hunter in The Curse of Lono, The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved, as well as Hell's Angels, and describes the roles as a good way to go back to his late-great friend who he financed being shot out of a cannon. I say that he should go for it, and I am really interested in seeing what is cranked out because of it.

Thanks for joining me on this edition of The Golden View, and I'll see you next time.

[CelluloidChild]

Thanks for the detailed review.

I also thought Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary went a long way towards paying reverent homage towards his friend, Hunter S. Thompson, and towards portraying Thompson's irreverent f you attitude towards authority.

At the same time, however, I think that both The Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - no matter how good the acting is and the intentions are - demonstrate the inherent difficulties in translating the zany genius of Thompson's writing to the screen.

[McConnaughay]

Reasonable. As for Fear and Loathing, while it has gotten something of a cult-following, I didn't really enjoy it all of that much. There wasn't much of a theme or point to it for a lot of time besides Johnny Depp doing silly things. Thanks for reading.

[McConnaughay]

Note: Considering the abundance reviews that I have, I think that I am going to post four reviews a week, two movies on Monday and two on Friday.


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Welcome ladies and gentleman to The Golden View, and I am your host Nicholas McConnaughay. For today's episode we'll be continuing our Halloween Masochism as we take a look at Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, a 1988 horror film directed by Tony Randel. The movie served as a direct sequel to the original movie, also directed by Tony Randel and also produced by Clive Barker. The movie drew heavily upon the first movie and was made up of the same cast and crew as its precursor. As a point of thumb, I think that numerous recognize a reoccurring pattern throughout movies in-general, and that is that sequels generally don't come with positive results.

Men in Black may have been one of the most perfectly made comedies out-there, but after a series of unfortunate events, they lemony snicketed their way into making Men in Black 2 which was the exact opposite. The second Halloween wasn't as good as the first, and this is for both the remake and the John Carpenter's film, the second A Nightmare on Elm Street was horrible, and, well, I think that you get my point. Alas, you come to a stifling contradiction the minute that you realize that no matter what they do, they can't possibly make anything worse than the first Hellraiser. The movie may have been one of the worst horror-movies that I've ever seen in my life, and considering that horror's the worst genre that I've ever seen in my life, that's saying something.

Actually, wait, second-thought, I think that found-footage movies may be the worse, but that's not important. Hellraiser 2 for everything that it was, it actually wasn't all of that bad. I think it's probably because we didn't have to sleep through all of the grotesquely boring dialogue that they tried to pass off as character development in the previous film, however, that does mean that we didn't get much character development in this movie. Which we didn't, they introduced a couple of new characters, but they didn't introduce anything too earth shattering or mind-bending.

The story begins with Kristy from the first movie waking up in a psychiatric hospital, shades of a lot of other horror movies, and what happens is, of course, nobody seems to believe her. This all changes whenever Kyle MacRae, the assistant to the doctor that is supposedly taking care of Kristy, goes to Dr. Channard's house and sees that not only does Dr. Channard believe her, but he is desperately looking to prove her correct by bringing back Julia, who had died in the first movie. Meanwhile, Kristy becomes friends with a near-catatonic girl named Tiffany, with an uncanny gift at solving puzzles.

Kristy begins reading messages written in blood on the mirror telling her that someone is Hell and asking for help, she presumes it's her father, and this basically sets the stage for the rest of the movie. The second installment in the Hellraiser series brings about the same laughable acting, however, innovates the series with a better sense of style and flash, a certain individuality that separates it from the previous movie. I'd hate to say it, but at times I feel like the difference is that this movie actually had a little bit of effort in it. Don't take my praising too seriously because whenever I give this movie praising, I am giving it praising in a down in the mill, this is Hellraiser kind-of way.

I've said it in my previous review for the first movie, I like Hellraiser at the crux of it all in the sense that I enjoy Clive Barker. I think that he's a gifted writer and his idea was good, but how the idea projected itself onto the screen was horrible. This movie had a detectable amount of wit, and deep down at it, Jesus, did this movie actually go ahead and add a little suspense. Towards the end of it whenever what happened to Pin-head happened, I had myself convinced that that was the case. The wit that I was talking about earlier was in small doses, however, because the last movie was so depleted of anything even remotely good or decent, I found myself astonished with even the smallest molecule of it.

In conclusion, I wouldn't really go as far as to call this movie a good movie, because the flaws are still there when it comes to the acting and the lack of pzazz. I mean like, for example, with the first A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, the themes weren't necessarily riveting, but you had Heather's commendable performance as Nancy and Robert Englund's borderline perfect performance as Freddy Krueger. In this movie, you have Ashley Laurence, who can say her lines alright, I guess, if you can overlook some of her over-dramatic and yet monotone, "Oh my God's," can somewhat say her lines well, and Doug Bradley as Pin-Head, who, don't get me wrong really has a presence to him, is as generically dark and methodical as they come, but I would call this a decent movie.

The movie proudly manages to sneak away with a six out of ten, a low-grade but higher than anything that I actually thought I'd give Hellraiser, and that's The Golden View, thanks for joining me guys.

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Welcome ladies and gentleman to The Golden View, as always I am your host, Nicholas McConnaughay, and for today's edition, we'll be taking a look at a movie called "Boy Wonder". I've actually been wanting to take time out to go ahead and watch this movie but I just haven't been able to make time for it until now. Really, the only time that I ever watch movies these days is whenever I have a friend over, and we each pick one movie, then agree on a third movie that is the quote unquote main-event of it all. That's not important, and you don't care, but basically, that's why I always kind-of put off movies that I want to watch even if I think that they have the odds of actually being any good.

We've been doing the Sunday Night Movie Night with three movies for the past two weeks, and although, last week we went with three Japanese movies with sub-titles, I basically put my foot-down in saying that I wanted to watch something in English. He ended up choosing a movie called Alter Ego, a movie that I reviewed in the previous episode, and we topped it all off with watching V/H/S. However, the movie that I picked was the movie that I'll be reviewing right now. Boy Wonder is a 2010 America drama and psychological-thriller about vigilantism. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't necessarily live up to the title in the sense that I was crossing my fingers that it'd somehow be about Robin, but I am more than happy with the experience that I had with the movie.

The cast of this movie is entirely unheard of to the masses, as this is an independent movie, I couldn't find a page that told me anything about the lead-role, Caleb Steinmeyer, who I thought cranked out a terrific performance. Zulay Henao who played the detective Teresa Ames appeared in both S. Darko and Hostile Part 3, I haven't actually gotten a chance to watch Hostile 3 yet, I finished Hostile 2 recently, but anyway, I think it's fair to say that she's limited to pretty low-key sequels to series' that have already jumped the shark. Besides that, the movie has James Russo, Bil Sage, Tracy Middendorf, and Chuck Cooper. Enough getting out the things that you probably don't care about let's focus on the story.

The story focuses on the character of Sean Donovan, a young adult that is withdrawn, quiet, and lives alone with his dad. His mother, whom he adored, was shot in-front of him in a carjacking gone awry. After all was said and done, he believes that his mother's murderer was never brought to justice, and after years of unsettled feelings, he begins to take on a sense of vigilantism. This doesn't feel shades of somebody like Dexter, who kills because it puts gas into his tank that is on empty, or even like any mainstream superheroes that fight crime for the betterment of mankind.

He tells himself that the reason that he's doing these things is because he's doing it to right wrongs, but honestly, I think that the underlying theme throughout it all is that he is filled with anger and rage that he doesn't know how to get rid of. He doesn't take satisfaction in doing it, it doesn't seem like something that he wants to do or enjoys doing, it seems like something that he feels inclined to do. Meanwhile, detective Teresa Ames watches the occurrences as they happen, and tries to put the pieces to the puzzle together. The movie reminds me in a way of The Ugly, a nineties New Zealand horror-film, in which, he seems to depict things in a different way than what they are, a more angrier and sinister way.

The acting in this movie was great for the most part, and the pace of this movie really made it become something that I could sink my teeth into, much more than something else that could have wrapped up this story in fifty minutes or an hour. I found the story to really capture my attention with suspenseful happenings, and really, it's just very enjoyable watching the wheels turn inside of the character's head. You root for him in a way because there have been things that have happened to him that are unfair but at the same time, you feel a little uncomfortable doing so, because you comprehend that what you're seeing is wrong.

I am not talking about him thwarting criminals, I couldn't care less, I am talking more about the decisions that he makes about the people around him. There's not a whole lot of criticisms that I can say about this movie, I guess that my only grievance is that the chase between the characters and him could've been longer than what it was, but honestly, it's not broke, and I see no reason to try and fix it. The way that it was shot was tremendous, one of the reasons that I don't like some independent films that I watch is because some of them have a quality of cinematography that makes it look cheap and generic. This movie didn't look cheap or generic, it looked good, every bit as good as something that you might see from a big-time thriller.

In conclusion, I found myself becoming very invested in the characters and the story, and I think that I can honestly say that it found its way as being one of the best movies that I can ever remember seeing. I remember the music really sticking out to me whenever I watched it. The movie walks out with a nine out of ten, and I'd recommend this movie to anybody that likes psychological thrillers or in-depth looks on the inner-workings of somebody suffering from traumatic events. Thanks for joining me on this edition of The Golden View, and I'll see you next time.

[McConnaughay]

http://www.thegoldenview.net/uploads/5/2/9/7/5297423/512744496.jpg?162 I didn't write a review over this movie as quickly as I might usually write a review over any other movie that I have seen in theaters, and that may or may not be because of how much time was needed to truly digest what I had seen. I needed a little time to decide what my thoughts were on the admitted silliness of the story as well as the twist that I remained considerably iffy on. I came out of the theaters with a mixed-bag of overwhelmingly positive and one or two large problems that I had with the movie. I went to see this movie with three of my friends, and all of them basically came out of it with the same reception as I did. The only difference is that they didn't seem as bothered about the twists as I did, and I think that part of the reason is that I am not entirely sure whether they all enjoyed it so much to the point that a moderate discrepancy could prove to be as fatal as it was for me.



I think that I've basically summarized to myself what I think about this movie, and the key-points that I want to praise or criticize. Welcome to The Golden View, and as always, I am your host, Nicholas McConnaughay, and for today's edition, we'll be taking a look at the 2013 American caper film directed by Louis Leterrier called Now You See Me. The movie carries an enormous ensemble of actors in-retrospect spanning from Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, and Isla Fisher, but the sole-person in the commercials that made me want to see this film was Jesse Eisenberg. Then, after looking at the rest of the cast, I saw that Woody Harrelson would be in it as well. I think back to the dynamics between Jesse and Woody in Zombie Land, their chemistry, etc., and then, it wasn't hard before I decided that this was my most anticipated movie since Iron Man 3.

The story focuses on an affiliation of magicians that seem to be somehow capable of pulling off impossible things through the alleged use of magic. This leaves for FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes to follow their tracks and figure out all of the ways that they did everything that they did. One of the biggest problems cited by critics can be found after unraveling how they managed to accomplish all of their endeavors. I wasn't expecting for anything absolutely brilliant, and by this, I wasn't surprised or disappointed with the answer that we got. If anything, I found myself saying to myself, "That will do pig, that will do," when they answered the question. It made as much sense as it needed to, and with suspension of belief, it comes off as somewhat logical.

I didn't anticipate this movie expecting for it to have a complete grasp on reality, and I won't get too frustrated when it doesn't. It's like asking how Batman was able to get back to Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises, if we can suspend belief enough to fully accept that there's a man in black going around fighting bad guys, and a brute destroying football fields, I think we should be able to accept that there's going to be other loosely coherent happenings. I will say that I'm not particularly a fan of the twist bestowed upon us a little bit before the end of the movie. You can tell that they were building up to it from the very beginning (somewhat predictable as well) but that doesn't change the fact that it was a little too silly for my tastes.

More like to say that it purposely went in the exact opposite direction of where it looked to be heading in a way that made it feel cheesy and excessive. I would probably say that's about the only genuine criticism that I have with any weight to it, however, it, like The Departed, significantly hurt the movie in my opinion, although, this one wasn't nearly as heart-shattering, it was just kind-of stupid. Actually, in-retrospect, the brewing romance with Isla Fisher and Jesse Eisenberg's characters could have been done much better than what it was and by the end of it all, it seemed to have been a throwaway, filler relationship. Moving on, I found the movie itself to be extremely entertaining with Jesse Eisenberg being absolutely amazing in his role, making me wonder if he could perhaps be my favorite-actor of the last couple of years alongside Joseph Gorden-Levitt.

Woody Harrelson did especially well as well, him and Jesse seeming to have this profound chemistry that cannot be underestimated. They weren't the only ones that brought considerable performances with Mark Ruffalo impressively being basically the protagonist of this movie, and the rest of the cast carrying themselves with the very same oomph. The movie has flash and extravagance to it, then, at the same time, you can also feel the strong amount of imagination and creativity circulating around many of their actions. The story is engaging, and for the first time in a long time during a movie, I found myself on the edge of my seat while I wonder what's going to happen next. It was a near two-hour experience that felt as fast as the snap of the finger, and the entire time, I was entertained.


I don't know if the movie had the same intelligence that a lot of people might have been expecting for it, but I do think that the movie is riddled with wit, charm, style, and memorable moments. I also think that it's the best movie that I have seen in the theaters thus far this year finding an 8.4 out of 10.0. Thanks for joining me on this edition of The Golden View and I'll see you next time.

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This is an old-review, however, I thought that I'd use it as a way to get the ball rolling again, it has been awhile since I've wrote a review, but I am going to try and get back on the ball once again.