J Edgar

Think of the movie masterpiece Capote where Phillip Seymour Hoffman captured the essence and depth of the character he was playing and won a well deserved Academy Award. Well now that’s not what you get from Clint Eastwoods’s J Edgar.
The culprit of this movie is poor editing and for those of you who had a hard time following this movie doesn’t feel bad because we were all were frustrated.
The story is about a man who led the CIA for 50 years. J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his career.
The secrets were what I was looking forward to (cross dressing, elicit affairs, his hate of Martin Luther King) but Eastwood only gives a high level overview and you are left with an empty suit of a man.
Back to the editing, the movie is very slow and there are too many flashbacks to the past. When you start to get captivated by a scene it flashes forward to the present then back to the past. The Lindbergh kidnapping, which was a key event during J. Edgar's tenure, is focused on too much in the movie.
This is far from Clint Eastwood's directing best. If DiCaprio wins an Oscar for this movie it will be like Al Pacino winning an Oscar for Scent of a Woman when he should have won if for The Godfather.

Verdict:
Think Jack Nicholson in Hoffa. if you didn’t see Hoffa then you don’t need to see this and if you did then you know what to expect if you see it.

This Means War trailer HD

Tower Heights

Everyone always ask why are Black comedians no longer funny after they become famous?
Let’s look at Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, & Eddie Murphy. They all are very similar yet when they went Hollywood they lost their funny. The reason for this is because they have lost their connection with the Street, the Hood, the Ghetto, whatever you want to call it. All of their comedic sketches and characters came from the street and when these comedians became rich they became detached from what made them funny in the first place.
With Tower Heist Eddie Murphy tries to recreate the magic that he had 20 years ago and it seems forced. It’s like a fighter trying to make a comeback and his timing is off.
It was a huge mistake for Murphy to play the criminal in this movie. The hit making idea would have been to have Ben Stiller play the criminal and for Eddie to try and stretch himself and be funny as the building manager. Director Brett Ratner has done this type of casting before with Money Talks and the Rush Hour franchise with Chris Tucker playing the criminal. I mean Chris Tucker playing Eddie Murphy, so now that Ratner had Eddie Murphy I guess he didn’t want to take any chances.
Don’t get me wrong, Tower Heist is an ok movie but it would have been a monster hit if the roles were reversed.

Verdict:
Go see Tower Heights if you must, then watch Eddie Murphy in the first Beverly Hills Cop movie (which HBO has been playing endlessly due to his upcoming Oscar hosting gig) and you will see one of the greatest comic actors ever. The move is not dated and it’s amazing to watch his performance because it’s natural not forced, and he is the coolest person in the movie. Reason why: He was still connected to The Streets.

In Time

The best thing about this movie is that it's not a reboot. It's an original idea.
The story takes place in the future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth.
The worst thing about the movie is Justin Timberlake who plays Will Salis. Timberlake is multi talented but he still needs to work on his acting. This movie could have been a hit with Christian Bale, Leonardo DeCaprio, or Tom Hardy. Their grittiness and believability is needed to carry this film. Vincent Kartheiser from the AMC series Mad Men is perfectly cast as a baby faced Wall Street type bad guy. Amanda Seyfried also does a solid job but these 2 actors are not enough to carry the film. There are many questions that are not answered so you would assume that the Director was hoping for a sequel.
You can't make a sequel if the first movie flopped.

Verdict:
A waste of time.

The Thing (2011)

This movie is a prequel to the 1982 Kurt Russell classic. Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. does an outstanding job of filming this movie so that if someone were to watch both of these films for the first time they would not realize that the Kurt Russell movie was made almost 30 years ago. The cinematograpy and the music is similar and the director does not overwhelm viewers with updated special effects.
The story takes place at an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd, played by newcomer Mary Elizabeth Winstead and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson played by Ulrich Thomsen.
This flick has a few suprises and flows into the 1982 version seemlessly.
I recommend that you watch this movie then go home and watch the Kurt Russell version on Netflicks if you still subscribe to them after the price increase.

Verdict:
Well done, you will not be disappointed.

The Ides of March

The timing of this movie is on point with the 2012 Presidential election on the horizon. The film stars Ryan Gosling who plays an idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate, played by George Clooney. Gosling gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. With everything that has gone on with John Edwards and other politicians this movie comes off a little stale. It is true that truth is stranger than fiction and this fiction is really not as interesting as today's television political coverage.
The interesting aspect of the script is what opportunities that are available to people who attach themselves to candidates who end up losing. Gosling's chracter is cocky and sure of himself but his naivity does not ring true.
If you do decied to see this movie see it for the star power. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei do an excellent job in supporting cast roles. They continue to display their Oscar winning talents.

Verdict:
Stay home and watch Fox Political News coverage, it's more entertaining.

Real Steel

The time has come where we can now take old movies and have robots replay roles originally played by real people.
Real Steel is pretty much the Rocky movie (and a bunch of other parts from movies we have seen various times) with a robot playing Sylvester Stallone.
A robot boxing promoter, Hugh Jackman, feels he's found a champion in a discarded robot. He also discovers he has an 11-year-old son, played by Dakota Goyo, who wants to know his father.
Evangeline Lilly, who we have not seen since the TV Show "Lost" stars as Jackman's love interest however this is primarily a father and son story. In other words don't go to see this if you have the hot's for Ms. Lilly.
The director tries to get us to cry once the father and son bond but we have all seen this before. Dakota Goyo however is a young actor to watch.


Verdict:
As we all boxing movie's the best scenes are the ones where fighting is taking place howvever this movie is not worth going to a theater to see.