Now You See Me TRAILER (2013) - Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher Movie HD

Best Movies of 2012

The Avengers

After 2 movies Hollywood finally was able to capture The Hulk exactly like he was in the comics.

Silver Lining Playbook

Very cool movie about Real People. Bradley Cooper finally proves he is a Leading Man.

Breaking Dawn

I dare anyone to show me a vampire movie that was filmed better than this. I didn’t read the books and I was on the edge of my seat. I was thoroughly entertained.

Flight
At 58 years old Denzel once again proves that he is one of the Best Actors in Hollywood. This is the movie he should win an Oscar for. The ending was on point.

Cloud Atlas

Hanks and Halle’s best performances in years. The most creative movie of the year. I can’t wait to see it again.

Le Miz

My pick for the Best Picture of the year with Cloud Atlas as a close 2^nd.

Arbitrage

This is what Wall Street 2 (God that movie sucked) should have been. This is a film that nobody saw or cared about but Richard Gere rocks.

The Master

Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix give the audience a dazzling performance.

Ted

The casting of Mark Wahlberg was genius because we laughed our heads off as he talked to a plant in The Happening so why not have him talk to a Teddy Bear. Seth MacFarlane is right now the smartest guy in Hollywood.

Think Like A Man, Act Like A Woman / What to Expect When Your Expecting

These are 2 RomComs that are not on critics top ten lists but were funny and well done.

 Retro Honorable Mention from 1968:

Night of the Living Dead:

I became a HUGE fan of The Walking Dead this year which stars a new, cool, Leading Man, British actor Andrew Lincoln (from Love Actually). The show also stars Danai Gurira in her breakthrough role as Michonne (I love her performance and character on the show). While waiting for Season 3 to continue I decided to watch the film that started it all by George A. Romero.

Night of The Living Dead is brilliant and Romero was way ahead of his time.  The casting was excellent and the other than the clothes and the cars the film does not feel dated. As with The Walking Dead the writing is great and the characters are well played.

It is sad however that Romero didn’t own the right’s to this original classic and that there have been dozens of spin offs and billions of dollars made on Walking Dead people.

Check it out in original Black and White if you haven’t already, one of the best horror movies of all time!

Zero Dark Thirty

Director Kathryn Bigelow has done a few movies I liked, Near Dark, Blue Steel, and I was one of the few people that loved Strange Days. I didn’t like Hurt Locker and I am not that fascinated like the other critics by Zero Dark Thirty. It’s a good movie but it’s not great. Reason why it is not great because at over 2 hours long you don’t ever get to know who the lead character is? The movie is a chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.

The best part of the movie is the end where Bigelow recreates how Osama bin Laden was executed. It takes into fact everything we have heard and read about how it went down. Not sure there will be another movie that will be able to recreate this event as good as Bigelow does. That part of the movie is really all you need to see. The rest focuses on torture methods and Maya, Jessica Chastain’s, relentless pursuit of Osama.

The flaw in this movie is that the audience never gets to know what drives Maya’s character. Did she have someone die on 9/11? Why was her life so private in the movie? For 157 mins. long Bigelow could have given us a little more insight.

Verdict:
It’s like King Kong and Titanic but not anywhere in its class. You know that the ship and the ape are going down but you want to be entertained before it happens, and you want to know and care about the characters. You don’t get that in Zero Dark Thirty.

After Earth - Official Trailer | HD | Will Smith

Les Misérables

It’s been 10 years since I have seen this play in NYC and I forgot how great the songs were. Director Tom Hooper does a masterful job of weaving the story and the music together for 157 minutes and there is not one minute of boredom. The story takes place in 19th-century France, Hugh Jackman, Jean Valjean, who has been hunted for decades by the ruthless policeman Russell Crowe, Javert after he breaks parole, Jackman agrees to care for factory worker Anne Hathaway, Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever.

This is Hugh Jackman’s Oscar moment. He brings his versatile skills from Broadway to this film like no one can ever do. Russell Crowe should not be overlooked. I know that they are focused on giving Anne Hathaway an Oscar for this performance but without Crowe the movie would not have worked. Crowe turns in his best performance in years.

This is the first movie I have ever seen where people were crying on both sides of me in the theater. I Maned Up however and not a tear was shed on my part but bring Kleenex just in case.

Verdict:

One of the best movies of the year. It will make you want to see the play again. My prediction is that this will win the Oscar for Best Movie of The Year.

Django Unchained

Many of you will disagree with me, including Dr. James Patterson who states that this movie will be a Classic??, but I didn’t enjoy Django and I felt it was one of the worst movies Tarantino has made to date. The story focuses on Jamie Foxx (Django) and with the help of his mentor ,Christoph Waltz, sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

I was looking forward to this film because I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino.  He makes “Cool” movies. Pulp Fiction was cool, Reservoir Dogs was cool, Kill Bill was cool, even Inglorious Bastards was cool, but Django at 165 minutes was boring for the first 2 hours. The witty dialogue that Tarantino usually has in his scripts was missing and replaced with the “N Word” repeated over 100 times. I don’t have a problem with that but I thought the term “Coons” & “Darkies” was the term used most often during slavery. Tarantino is in a brief cameo role in the movie refrains from using the “N Word” and refers to Django as “Black” Spike Lee may have a case here.

Django is basically a Black Exploitation movie. Go on Netflicks and watch “Mandingo” (which is a a more accurate movie about how blacks were treated during slavery); also rent “Buck and The Preacher” a Western where Blacks win against whites. My point is The Emperor (Tarantino) Has No Clothes On because he just made a movie that has previously been done before and better. Critics who have not studied film have drank Tarantino’s Kool – Aid and are praising this weak ass movie. The only bright spot is Christoph Waltz performance; he makes Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance look like DiCaprio should go back to acting school. Yes, that’s how good Waltz is.

Finally to see the great Samuel Jackson with shoe polish on his face playing a Step pin Fechit House “N Word” was a devastating thing to watch. I hope Turantino paid him a lot of money because Turantino will make a Boatload of money on this movie that Exploits Blacks and the history of slavery.

Verdict:
Everything old is new again and there is nothing new in this movie. This Generation that missed the Black Exploitation movies of the 70’s will however enjoy seeing Black men win against Whites. Tuarntino recently mentioned in an interview that he wanted to retire before he starts making bad movies. If the overall quality of Django is what we can execpt from him in the years to come then he should retire now.

Worst Flicks of 2012

The Devil Inside:
So bad it’s funny.

Battleship:

My Holiday wish is that I hope I never have to see Brooklyn Decker, Rhianna, and that John Carter dude in another movie.

Rock of Ages:

Take “A” List actors and tell them they can play rock stars then add that overrated idiot, the ex Mr. Katy Perry, and you have a bomb for the ages.

Total Recall:

Now I know why Colin Ferrall cannot open a movie. He has zero star power.

Bachelorette:

Why try to do Bridesmaids again, WHY???

Alex Cross:

Madea trying to be Wesley Snipes, need I say more?

Killing them Softly:

This put me to sleep softly.

Resident Evil: Retribution:

Enough already, yes she looks good in the suit but let’s get to the end of this circus already.

John Carter:

I tried 2 times to watch this (once on a plane) and then I gave up. The hype for this movie made me waste my time trying.

Argo:

The most overrated movie of the year. Ben Affleck portraying a Latino without any effort? He needed to study Al Pacino in Scarface. Also why all the cheap tension building theatrics? We know that they will escape so why not spend more time learning about the enemy? I felt cheated especially with the airport scene at the end where they made the enemy look like The Three Stooges. The Town was a much better movie. What do you think?

Jack Reacher

It seems as if Tom Cruise is not satisfied with having the successful Mission Impossible franchise so with The Jack Reacher books Cruise attempts to launch his next series of films. I have never read any of the Jack Reacher books but early word was that Tom Cruise was too short to play the title character. The story is about a homicide investigator who digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims. The movie is well cast but there is not a lot of punch (no pun intended) in the screenplay. Cruise does his best with the material and he has surrounded himself with a good supporting cast but the movie lacks some of the action that you now can now see at home on cable TV with great shows like Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, & The Walking Dead. There is however a great car chase as well as an interesting view from a sniper’s perspective that I have not seen on film.

Verdict:

This movie builds the foundation on the Jack Reacher character. Cruise fans may feel cheated and want more but I wouldn’t count out this franchise. This could be the case where the second film in this franchise is better than the first.

Pain and Gain Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Michael Bay Movie HD

Cloud Atlas

I am one of the few people who enjoyed all 3 Matrix movies. The first one was the best and the third one was a bit too much but the Trilogy was a daring breath of fresh air from the Wachowski Bros. Consider Cloud Atlas the same. I had no idea what I was going to see because the studio marketed the movie poorly so it was not on my top ten movies to go see. When I finally went to see it I had one of the best movie going experiences in 2012. It’s one of those movies where it actually deserves one word praise such as Innovative, Refreshing, Daring, Breakthrough, Great, etc. Mine would be that Cloud Atlas is one of the Best movies of 2012. It breaks the mold of all the movies that are out today.

The story is about an exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
I tried to figure out the movie from the beginning and I was very frustrated. My advice is to NOT do this and to just enjoy the excellent performances from Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. Everything comes together in Act 3 and you won’t be disappointed. Both Hanks and Halle give their best performance in years and if the person who did the Make-Up does not win an Oscar for this flick then the fix is in.

Verdict:
A movie that you must see on the big screen. This is the movie that Halle should win an Oscar for and not the garbage she starred in with Billy Bob years ago.

Oblivion - Official Trailer (HD)

Hitchcock

There are only 2 reasons you need to see the movie Hitchcock if at all. First Anthony Hopkins gives an amazing performance as Hitchcock. Second reason is if you want to see how he went about making the movie Psycho. That’s it! The movie is poorly scripted and does not tell you much about the man. All the actors involved are “A” List and does the best they can with the script. Even Jessica Biel (Mrs. Justin Timberlake) gives her first decent performance in years. Director Sasha Gervasi focuses on the love story between Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville, played by the great Helen Mirren, during the filming of Psycho in 1959.


Verdict:
Hopkins and Mirren are great but need better material. This movie was better than the HBO Hitchcock movie but not by much.

This should have gone straight to DVD or premiere on Showtime.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Official Trailer (HD)

Killing Them Softly

A full year of drinking election Kool-Aid the very last thing I needed during my movie going experience is a director’s view on politics. That is how Killing Them Softly starts and ends. Director Andrew Dominik makes a huge mistake by adding this in the movie right after an election. The second mistake he makes is casting 2 key actors from the HBO series The Sopranos. The movie is about Jackie Cogan, played by Brad Pitt, an enforcer hired to restore order after three stupid guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. The one right thing about this movie is Brad Pitt who does the best he can with the material. There is lots of slow motion shots and endless dialogue that could have been handled better by Quentin Tarantino.


Veridict:
A must not see! While watching this mess it made me think of why doesn’t HBO just pay David Chase a Gazillion dollars to make The Sapronos movie? Do you think we will ever see a Sopranos movie?