MovieMan8877445's Movie Reviews

A "Hollywood" movie which is first released in January in the U.S., at least any more, tends to be a film which the studio is dumping as counter product to films trying to win Oscars. Now, I know that many people hate "Oscar-bait" movies, but in general, January has the highest percentage of films released which the critics are never allowed to view in advance (that way, the crap reviews won't cancel out the opening weekend grosses, if any). They also tend to be geared toward teenagers, and while there's nothing wrong with gearing movies at the people who actually buy the tickets, they tend to be more among the bottom of the barrel than the cream of the crop. They are usually movies dumped on the market, never expected as anything but an ad to try to sell DVDs in April.

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MovieMan's Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies For 2009:

1. Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)



Persoanlly, I this has potential to be the best movie ever made to me, because IMO, the story for Watchmen is the best story that I've ever seen. It's easily better than any book, TV, or movie story, and it looks as if they've casted the characters perfect. I mean Jeffery Dean Morgan is just perfect for the role of The Comedian, and Patrick Wilson has really showed me that he's perfect for the role of Dan, at least of what I've seen of him so far. And James Earl Haley has got the perfect Rorschach voice down to me, even though I have heard some complaints with that. The only one I'm really not sure about yet it Billy Curdup as Dr. Manhattan, but I'm sure I won't be disappointed once it finally comes out. But I'm just so happy that it's only 2 months away and I don't have to wait any longer to see it.

2. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)



Okay, so I basically no nothing about this. All I do know for it is that it's about World War II, which really facinates me, and it's directed by Quentin Tarantino, who is my all-time favorite director. It just upsets me that I have to wait all the way to August to be able to see, but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait because Tarantino has yet to disappoint me.

3. Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2009)



Much like Inglourious Basterds, I basically no nothing about this, but there's two things to this movie that gets me really hyped to see it. The fact that it's directed by Martin Scorsese, who's one of my all-time favorite directors, and that's it's based on a book from the same author as Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, both of which are some of my favorite movies, Mystic River being my all-time favorite movie.

4. The Soloist (Joe Wright, 2009)



Now unlike the two above, I've actually seen the trailer for this, which is what got me so excited for it. Because to me, it just looks downright amazing from the trailer, Robert Downey Jr. has also been becoming one of my favorite actors over the past year as well, so it's great to see him starring in it, and I've always like Jamie Foxx as an actor. But if you haven't watched the trailer yet, you should go and do so.

5. Where The Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)



Now much like Inglourious Basterds and Shuttler Island, I basically no nothing about this, other than I remember it being one of my favorite books as a kid. I can't really remember what it's about at all, but I do remember some of the pictures from it and for the pics for it that I've seen, it looks like they've got it down. I'm looking foward to seeing a trailer for it in the near future, it should be great.

Cheech And Chong’s Up In Smoke (Lou Adler, 1978)

I have to admit before I start this review, that I did have sort of high expectations for this movie before I watched it, because I thought it was going to be really hilarious. I’ve got to say though; I was pretty disappointed when the movie ended. Most of which that I had expected for it, wasn’t even met. I found the movie itself, pretty slow. I didn’t even really find it that funny, that’s the main thing that disappointed me the most, I mean I really haven’t seen many stoner comedies, the main one that comes in mind to me right now is Pineapple Express, which was sort of what I had expected this to be, but it wasn’t. I think that may have been the main problem that I was having with this, maybe with a re-watch it’ll turn out better though.

The worst thing about this movie is that it really has like no storyline. It randomly jumps around so much, that for some scenes I had no idea where they even came from. One of the most confusing things with the storyline for me is when Pedro and Anthony get deported to Mexico, but just a minute before they do, they say that they have their green cards, so there would be no reason for them to be deported. I mainly think they did that, just to try and give it some storyline though, because if they wouldn’t have done that, then the movie would still be just as pointless. Now I know it’s supposed to be a ‘fun’ movie, but most of the ‘fun’ movies that I’ve seen at least had a storyline to it that didn’t get me totally confused. I really tried to enjoy the storyline because it supposed to be a ‘fun’ movie though, but I just couldn’t.

Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong had no chemistry though; I mean it seemed like the forced to be friends or something. I can see why though, I mean the whole plot started out with Pedro picking up Anthony because Anthony was hitchhiking, but then they suddenly become best friends after that, I don’t know, but that makes no sense to me. That was just another problem that I had with the storyline. I mean, even though I wasn’t too big a fan of the Harold and Kumar series though, I thought Kal Penn and John Cho had great chemistry together, I still did like the Harold and Kumar series some though. The rest of the movie’s characters were just randomly thrown in there at random points of the movie, just another thing wrong with the movie because of the storyline.

I never believed that a movie with a lack of a storyline could affect a movie so much, but it actually really did. I mean most movies without storylines have at least some good acting, and for comedies some good humor. The humor in this was just plain bad though, maybe it was just my taste in humor, which I actually thought would fit really well with this movie. But I swear, I only laughed like 3 times throughout the movie, but thank god the movie was short, I wouldn’t have been able to make it through if it was any longer. I guess this is a movie that you’d really have to be high while watching to really find funny. So I guess if you do drugs a lot, then you should check this movie out sometime. I really do hope with a re-watch though that I’ll like this better, I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to, but we’ll see.

Funny, I've seen Up in Smoke at least three times in full (all of them sober), and I'd say my rating is more of a +. My main problem with it is that the entire third act of the film (where Pedro and Man end up entering the Battle of the Bands) is comparatively unfunny compared to the first hour of the film. The first hour, on the other hand, is one I find to be very funny, randomness and all.

That's actually part of the joke - despite the fact that Pedro and Man are bona fide American citizens, the immigration police will still deport them to Mexico, either out of stupidity or racial profiling or both.

If you do give it a rewatch, I find that like most comedies, Up in Smoke is actually better when you have someone to watch it with you.

P.S. Love the fact that despite listing your "most anticipated movies of 2009", you still add "2009" after the titles.

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Oh, I guess it is a little funnier now that I know it's joke, I still find it weird. I hope with a rewatch that it'll get better with rewatch, like Pineapple Express got better with a rewatch for me. And yeah, I just did that, because, well I don't know why. It just made them look better to me.

I'll be the first to admit that a little bit of Cheech & Chong, especially in movie form, goes a long way, but Up in Smoke, for all its overlength (especially the concert BS), is their magnum opus, and I find it hard to believe that even my grandmother (R.I.P.) would have laughed only three times. I watched Pineapple Express last night and laughed a lot, but it's about a half-hour longer than Up in Smoke, and there were quite a few times I wondered why the scene kept going on and on. I don't know about you, but I thought that Stacy Keach's Sgt. Stedenko was a much-better character than any of the supporting characters in Pineapple Express, and for the record, I like the Pineapple plenty and more than Up in Smoke. I enjoy reading your reviews, so keep up the good work, but when I read something such as "Cheech and Chong have no chemistry though", it makes me wonder what you're thinking about. You do know the history of Cheech and Chong as a comedy team, yes? They were basically playing the personae they had perfected after 10 years of working together. If you don't understand why two stoners would "become friends" so quickly, that's OK too. It's fine to dislike the movie and you gave several reasons. But maybe if you looked at Up in Smoke as the first Super Stoner Heroes movie, you could see it as an origin story.

That's definitlely gonna be a reason why I'm gonna rewatch it, but maybe it's just me (I really think I'm alone on this now), but I just didn't think they had that great of a chemistry (maybe I will with a rewatch though). And if my opinion on it changes some, then I'll come in here and update my review.

Pineapple Express (David Gordon Green, 2008)

I’ve seen this movie 3 times now, and personally with each viewing of it, it just gets better and better. Now it’s really hard for me not to like a Judd Apatow movie, I just seem to love all of his movies, with Drillbit Taylor being the only odd one out so far. This is a stoner comedy that I really love, I’m sure it’d probably get ever better if you’re high, but I guess I’ll never be able to find out. What I really loved about this one though, is that this is the first Apatow movie to actually make me laugh at least once in every scene, Superbad was close to achieving that, but it just didn’t quite. But one of the things that were just so great about this was that it never really seemed to slow down for me, there was always something happening in it.

I was actually very surprised that I loved this so much though, because this really didn’t seem like a Judd Apatow movie. This really didn’t have much focus on sex jokes like all of the other Judd Apatow movies, this really felt like a stoner comedy. Like I just said though, this is one of those rare comedies that makes me laugh at least once in every scene during it. My favorite scene that really stood out from all the others though, is the scene where Dale and Saul first meet with Red at his house. Like most of Apatow’s movies though, it just seems to get even better with a re-watch, because personally my first viewing of this, I didn’t really love it as much as I had hoped. I do think some of the scenes do go on a little longer than they should though, I mean none of them really went on too long, but they could’ve been a little bit shorter. I was also very impressed with how they put so much action in it to go along with the action, namely the second to last scene of the movie, which is a great action scene. This had some of the funniest one-liners that I’ve ever heard though, but most of the comedy in Pineapple Express doesn’t come from the lines, but from the way the lines are delivered. James Franco’s actions while delivering the lines is probably one of the things that just make this movie so hilarious. The best example of that is after Dale and Saul stole the cop car, and just the way that Saul was driving the car.

The biggest surprise in this for me has to be James Franco. I really never knew that he could be so hilarious. I was actually surprised that I liked him so much, seeing as Seth Rogen is my all-time favorite comedian. This is probably the first movie that I’ve seen Rogen in that he wasn’t the best in the movie, but Franco just really overshadowed him in this. I feel that he had the best acting of 2008, some of that may be because he was the biggest surprise for me. Franco and Rogen made a great team together, unlike my feelings about Cheech and Chong (which may change with a re-watch for that), I felt they had great chemistry together. They just seemed like the perfect team together, even though I still do think Rogen and Bill Hader do make a better team together though. I was actually surprised not to see many of Apatow’s regular’s in this, besides Rogen there was barely any of his regulars in this. Except for the small part that Hader had the very beginning, Joe Lo Truglio (who I really only know as that guy from Superbad) had a small part in the beginning, and Craig Robinson who actually did have a semi-big role, I was happy to see that because I think he’s hilarious, and needs some more funny roles. That’s it basically though, except I do know that Franco was on Freaks And Geeks, but I still don’t know if I’d consider him one of Apatow’s regulars. Danny McBride was also a very big surprise in this to me though, I also sort of see him becoming one of Apatow’s regulars, so I hope he does because he’s definitely funny enough. It had a great summer though; I mean first this than Tropic Thunder.

This was easily my favorite comedy of 2008 though; I think this has shown that it holds up better with a re-watch than Tropic Thunder. It may not though, depending on well Role Models holds up with a re-watch, which I’m hoping it will. I still doubt that I’ll like it better than Pineapple Express. This is truly an ‘epic comedy’ though, probably one of the few that I’ve actually seen, which I hope to change that sometime soon. Personally, I consider this one of my all-time favorite comedies, along with most of Apatow’s other comedies. This is a movie that I think everyone could enjoy to some extent, so if you haven’t seen this yet, you should definitely go and try to sometime. I’d definitely recommend it to Apatow fans, but more than likely, if you’re an Apatow fan then you’ve probably already seen it.

My rating for Pineapple Express see-saws between and (more often leaning towards the former). I like the premise enough - the main problem being that for me, the movie really doesn't start to get good until the initial murder scene. Prior to that, I kept thinking "Oh, God, not more of these guys sitting around getting high and making moronic jokes about each other." After that, I felt the film improved significantly. I thought it was a decent take on the action genre by making the heroes horribly incompetent. I found the physical comedy was much funnier than the dialogue - my favourite scene in the entire movie is the fight scene at Red's house.

I don't really feel like the performances were anything particularly brilliant - contrary to your own opinion, I reckon Rogen has never been the best in anything he's done. The guy just irks me, and it's not like the supporting cast manages to pull anything show-stealing out of the bag either (except possibly Danny McBride - and his Mustafa-like inability to die eventually got annoying). I just get the feeling that there was a lot of wasted potential here.

"Dave's not here man."

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

This is probably the one movie that I think everyone likes, but I can see why because it’s really hard not to like. This film, in my opinion, is plain perfect. I do think that without this film, the entire film industry would be drastically different than what it is today. I was actually surprised at how nostalgic it turned out for me after watching it tonight for the first time since I was a little kid, and I really only think that I had only seen it once before. This is the one movie that has terrified people of going in the ocean for decades, and it still does today as well, at least for me. But I’ve always been pretty afraid to go into the ocean; this movie is one of those reasons. I think I actually liked this movie more because I’ve always been pretty interested in sharks, they’ve been my favorite animal that’s not extinct for a long time now, since I was a kid, seeing this just helped me remember of why I love sharks so much. You can definitely enjoy this movie not liking sharks that much, I actually think it’s better to see this if you’re afraid of sharks like I am, because it just makes the movie even more special.

Much like Jurassic Park or John Carpenter’s The Thing, the effects in Jaws is way ahead of it’s time. Jaws even outdates the two I mentioned, without Jaws I think those two wouldn’t have even had the amazing effects that I knew they had. One of the best things about Jaws though, is the suspense it creates. This is by far one of the most, if not the most, suspenseful movie that I’ve ever seen. One scene that’s a great example of this is the scene with those two guys at the docks trying to lure the shark in, just everything in that scene fits so perfectly. The last 15 or 20 minutes is another great example, surprisingly though, it didn’t seem to get slow at the ending, I mean if someone tells you what happens it may sound slow, but when you actually see it play out it’s just amazing. Steven Spielberg is such an amazing director. My favorite scene though is when we first get to see the shark though, it just gives you a quick glimpse of his head underneath the water, it just looked so real, which also just happened to be another really suspenseful scene in the movie.

Now I considered Steven Spielberg to be the greatest director of all-time for the longest time, but I have noticed that has been flip-flopping around for about a year now. But in these past few weeks, I’m pretty sure that I ultimately think that he is the greatest director of all-time, with such movies like this, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and Saving Private Ryan. He also seems to pick the perfect casts for his movie; I mean I honestly believed that Roy Scheider was completely terrified of the ocean, and who knows maybe he was. I would have loved to been there when they were filming this though, I can just imagine the scenes on the boat for the ending would have been so much fun to be apart of. Scheider and Dreyfuss had amazing chemistry together though; they seemed like the perfect team for the movie, which just shows another thing about how amazing Spielberg is with picking his casts for his movies.

I know some of you may get tired of hearing that this movie is probably going to make it into my top 10 with a re-watch, but personally how many movies of those actually end up in my top 10? But just get ready to hear it again, but unlike the rest, this really is probably going to make it into my top 10, I’m going to find a spot for it either later tonight or sometime tomorrow, but I guarantee you that it’s going to find a spot somewhere in it. This movie is a true cinematic masterpiece, without this movie ever being made, there would be a huge gap missing in the film industry. This is one of the very rare movies that I think is just perfect for everyone, I find it really, really hard to not like this movie. I don’t even think I can even if I really tried, but that’s just my opinion on it. I would say you need to go out and see this movie, but more than likely you’ve probably already seen it, to be a true movie fan IMO, this is a must see.

I think it's time for me to watch Jaws again.

One word - meatwadsprite.

Other than that, great review. Jaws is truly brilliant.

I always like to remind people (or inform them) that the film is the way it is as a result of, well fate is the word I guess, or maybe default. Since the shark was not operational for the first few weeks they had to take a more implied atmosphere to the film, leaving alot to the viewers imagination, much like Hitchcock would do. Or even use the sharks point of view, the camera is the shark. Great film, I agree with your 5/5, glad you liked it. Another of my favourite Spielberg films is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, although I seem to be in the minority when it comes to that film.

Watch the below clip from about 0:24 onwards to find out just how lucky everyone was that the shark didn't work...

That's actually one of the few Spielberg movies that I've yet to see, it's very high on my 'too-buy- list. I just found out a little whil ago though, that Best Buy has discontinued it, so I'm probably gonna buy it off Amazon.

Gangs Of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002)

I finally got the chance to watch this for the first time last night, and I’ve wanted to buy it for a while now. But since I’ve been really getting into Scorsese lately, I decided to pick it up, but I wasn’t too sure about it, because for some reason I like never hear any talk about it (that may be just me though. Boy was I pleasantly surprised when I finally got to watch it. I can definitely say that this is one of my favorite Scorsese movies that I’ve seen so, I can call it the most underrated Scorsese movie that I’ve seen so far. I do have to say though, that the opening sequence to this has to be one of my favorite opening sequences of all-time. Martin Scorsese is definitely becoming one of my all-time favorite directors, and pretty high on there as well.

I do have to say though, that the scenery fro this was just amazing. They really made it look like the movie took place in the Civil War era. The cinematography is also very amazing, maybe the best cinematography that I’ve seen in a Martin Scorsese movie so far, well maybe tied with Raging Bull. But what I really loved is that even though it was over 2 and a half hours long, the pacing just worked in it so well, because it felt (to me at least) that it was only 2 hours at the maximum. I do hate the DVD for it though, they didn’t need to break the movie up in two parts on two separate discs, I just hate when movies do that. The ending to this was almost as great as the opening to this, these two scenes are probably some of my favorite action sequences of all-time, which is odd because this isn’t even an action movie. I also seemed to get a Sweeney Todd feel to it, maybe it was just because Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in this just reminded me so much of Johnny Depp’s character in Sweeney Todd.

The acting in this is phenomenal though, especially from Daniel Day-Lewis. This has to be Daniel Day-Lewis’ best performance that I’ve seen so far, his performance in There Will Be Blood comes really close though, but I also really haven’t seen many of Daniel-Day-Lewis’s performances. Leonardo DiCaprio was also great in this, I wasn’t very surprised about this though, seeing as DiCaprio is one of my all-time favorite actors, and this is just another great example of that. I didn’t really like Cameron Diaz’s character in this much at first, I saw me liking her character more as the movie progressed though. I mean her acting was fine in this, it’s just I don’t think her character was very likeable in this. I was glad to see John C. Reilly to get a small role in this, I’ve always really liked him as an actor, but I barely see him in any movies. I was also very happy to see Liam Neeson get a small role in this, now he’s probably in my top 5 favorite actors; I just wish he could’ve got more screen time other than just at the very beginning. I do know that whole movie focused around his character, much like Watchmen’s entire story focused around The Comedian.

I think with a re-watch that this may be bumped up an extra .5 of a point, because I just really loved it, that all depends if it holds up as well with a re-watch. Like I said before this is IMO, Martin Scorsese’s most underrated movie so far, that I’ve seen. I still have a few more movies of his to watch though, like The Aviator and New York, New York. I just love seeing Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio in some more movies, and I plan to see even more in the near future. I do think that this is a masterpiece; I’m just a little upset that it got nominated for 10 academy awards back in 2002, but yet it didn’t win any. Daniel Day-Lewis totally deserved the academy award for his role in this, he just went completely psycho for this role, and I just can’t stop mentioning how much I love Daniel Day-Lewis in this for some reason. The only thing that felt weird while watching this, was that this movie felt nothing like a Martin Scorsese movie, most of his movies seems to have some kind of the same feel to me, but this one had none of it. I think if you haven’t had a chance to see this yet, you should go out and rent it or buy it sometime in the future, because I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Just expect a Martin Scorsese movie that feels like nothing he’s ever made so far.

Daniel Day Lewis did deserve an oscar for this role, but Adrien Brody was also exceptional in the Pianist, if you haven't seen this film directed by Roman Polanski (Chinatown) I would recommend it MovieMan. Also, if you're looking for another great performance from Daniel Day Lewis, I highly suggest My Left Foot, the film that brought him his first Best Actor award.

Defiance (Edward Zwick, 2008)

Now before I walked in to see this movie today, I had some really high expectations for this because the trailer for it looked amazing IMO, and because of how much I loved Blood Diamond, which was Edward Zwick’s last movie. I guess you can say that I was sort of disappointed when I finally walked out of theater from seeing it, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it though. I still really liked it, just no where near as much has I had hoped to like it. My main problem with this is that it tries to be this decade’s version of Schindler’s List way too much. I really think that they based Daniel Craig’s character off of Oskar Schindler from Schindler’s List. Even the overall story sort of reminded me of Schindler’s List, it was just no where near as amazing as Schindler’s List was. Another thing that I didn’t really like much was the accents, I don’t get why they just can’t keep their same voice for a role, I couldn’t even understand what some of the actors were trying to say some of the time. Those were the main bad things about Defiance that I feel need to be mentioned.

Aside from its story reminding me of Schindler’s List, it actually had a pretty well made story. I think that it was just too depressing for my tastes though; there were only a few minutes in the movie that I actually felt were happy. This actually had more action scenes in it than I had expected, especially the ending scene to it, which was probably my favorite part of the entire movie. The score for Defiance really was great though, I wasn’t surprised though, I mean Hans Zimmer is one of my favorite movie composer’s. The cinematography was also very well done for this, I mean I doubt it’s going to be nominated for anything this year at the academy awards or anything, but it was still very well done, it’s got some serious stiff competition this year.

Daniel Craig, despite having that incredibly bad accent, actually did some pretty good acting in this. Liev Schreiber stood out the most of the cast though; he had the best acting in this movie, and really overshadowed everyone else in the movie. I do think that he had the best acting in the movie because his character was my personal favorite character in the movie. Jamie Bell’s acting was surprisingly pretty good in this as well, I said surprisingly because the only other movie I’ve seen him in is Jumper, which wasn’t good at all. The main thing that impressed me the most though, was that the three of them really felt like brothers to me, they just had some great chemistry.

I still really liked this though; I didn’t quite love it though, like I had originally hoped. I would still recommend seeing it before it leaves theaters though; just expect a pretty depressing movie when you do see it. I was glad that it was the length that it was though, because I felt it if it were longer than that, it would’ve been overly long. The main reason that my rating is what it is though is because it just tried to be Schindler’s List way too hard to me; I wish it could’ve been more original. I do say that if you do go see this, don’t expect something as great as Blood Diamond was though, because you’ll probably be disappointed.

Well it's a true story so it does have that going for it I suppose. I don't know why people seem to think that the rest of the world needs to see every single true story that occurred during the holocaust but they do. That's their prerogative I suppose and its their dime. Doesn't mean its a good film, which I agree with you, this one isn't. I bet if you watch it again your rating will drop.

I did like the music, but like I said in the movie tab, if that's the best thing you've got going for you during a holocaust film then you have serious problems...

Anyway, nice write up.

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