Watch What I Said 5

IMDb: 7.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

My Grade: A

So as part of adding content to this increasingly shitty blog, I've decided to include a weekly segment detailing a movie-a-week that people should check out. I know anyone that reads this blog does so primarily for my reviews, but I'm lazy and don't want to review anything right now. This weekly segment may also contain suggestions from other members of the Public Nerdity Podcast from time to time.

Yes, I'm aware I haven't written one of these in a while. But I'm back now. And I have got quite a fantastic film for you. And as an added treat, I'll post a couple of recommendations. The film I decided to pick this week was one that I firmly believe was robbed of a Best Actor Oscar, featuring one of my favourite performances. This week's pick is A Single Man, directed by fashion designer Tom Ford. The amazing performance, in question, is from Colin Firth, who plays George, a man desperately trying, and failing, to find anything worth living for after the death of his longtime partner Jim (Matthew Goode). As George goes about his day, teaching his university class, while being pursued by a charming young student named Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), and having dinner with his old friend Charlotte (Julianne Moore), we hear his inner turmoil. We see him flashing back to happier times with Jim, and the life they had built together. And we see when he finds out that Jim has died, in a scene that should have won him the Oscar, because it's one of the most heartbreaking scenes you'll see. Also, Jon Hamm is the voice on the other end of the phone. Tom Ford creates a beautiful film, that relies on performance and subtlety to engage you, as well as a gorgeous visual asthetic.

With a score of 7.6 on IMDb, and 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, you should do yourself a favour and check this film out. Currently, it's available on Netflix.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) Movie Review

Full disclosure right at the top of this review: I'm a massive Mission Impossible fan, and an even bigger Tom Cruise fan. So going into Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (directed by Christopher McQuarrie), I kind of already assumed I would enjoy the movie. In my opinion, there seems to be a weird witch hunt against Tom Cruise because of his religious beliefs, which are admittedly out there, and this somehow constitutes him as being a bad actor. If you hold this belief, then you're an idiot, because there's no one in Hollywood who can do what Cruise does, and remains, for the last 30 years, as Hollywood's best action hero.

Following the events of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, CIA operator Hunley (Alec Baldwin) is set to shut down the IMF, while William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) is try to keep them afloat. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has been hunting for a terrorist organization known as The Syndicate, armed with the same training as the IMF and ready to cause complete controlled chaos. When the IMF gets shut down, Ethan goes off on his own to stop The Syndicate, and their leader (Sean Harris). Along the way, Ethan gets help from old friends Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames), and crosses paths with a mysterious woman (Rebecca Ferguson). Listen, this is all plot stuff. You wanna know if Tom Cruise runs really hard at something. AND YOU'RE GOD DAMN RIGHT HE RUNS SO HARD. STRAIGHT HANDS, HIGH KNEES, CAN'T LOSE.

Yeah, I enjoy the hell out of these movies. Mostly because Tom Cruise is just so damn committed to showing you he does his own stunts. He's great again as Ethan Hunt, really tailoring the role to his strengths as an actor. Pegg, Renner and Rhames also bring back what has made them stay in the franchise, all doing solid work. Though I wish Renner had more to do. Harris is superbly menacing as the leader of The Syndicate (I'm not revealing his name since it's a mystery for a lot of the movie), and there is good work from Baldwin, Simon McBurney as the head of the MI6, Atlee, and from Tom Hollander as the British Prime Minister. However, it's Ferguson that really steals the show here, as a female member of these movies is given more to do than look attractive and occassionally do a couple of fight scenes. Here, she shows she is just as game as anyone to lay down an ass whooping. Side note: Can someone write me a part for a movie like Ving Rhames has here? Just wearing a crooked fedora and saying sassy things?

I was a little hesitant when I heard that Christopher McQuarrie was going to be writing and directing this, mostly because I loved what Brad Bird did with the previous installment. But McQuarrie holds his own here, delivering a satisfying movie full of big set pieces, action packed chases and a solid cat-and-mouse spy element that makes all these movies great. Yes, there are issues with the film, such as the pacing not being the greatest, and an underdeveloped villain. But overall, I shouldn't have worried about a guy who has written The Usual Suspects and Edge of Tomorrow.

Ultimately, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is a nice addition to a franchise that clearly has staying power. While not quite as good as the recent installments by Brad Bird and JJ Abrams (you're never gonna get a better villain in this franchise than Philip Seymour Hoffman), it is very enjoyable and leaves you waiting for the next film.

Ex Machina (2015) Movie Review

This is how actors keep looking so young.

How far are we from truly intelligent artificial intelligence? Are we a decade away? Or a couple of decades? Or have we already begun to experience it, just one major announcement from it being an essential part of our daily lives? ANSWER ME SIRI, YOU ICE QUEEN ROBOT BITCH. These are questions I tend to ask myself whenever I haven't eaten for several hours. Regardless, these are also questions I began to think about after seeing Ex Machina, the directorial debut from Alex Garland.

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) is a coder at Bluebook, the worlds most popular search engine. When he wins a special lottery at work, he is given the opportunity to spend a week with the company's president and founder, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Nathan is young, brilliant and a fun time to be around. However, Nathan has something much more interesting in mind. See, Nathan, being a genius billionaire, has been attempting to create intelligent AI, and he may have cracked it with the creation of Ava (Alicia Vikander), a robot with the figure and face of a beautiful woman. He tasks Caleb to interact with this AI and see how well it functions and if she is really as intelligent as Nathan hopes. Caleb takes an instant liking to Ava, and begins to evaluate her. But is there more to Ava, and Nathan, than we initially believe?

The cast are all universally excellent. Gleeson plays Caleb with a sense of naivete that slowly begins morphing into suspicion and distrust. He draws your attention towards him despite being the most quite aspect of a scene, giving a performance along the caliber of his father, Brendan Gleeson. Vikander holds her own opposite Gleeson, as she plays Ava, a robot who knows she is a robot, but yearns for so much more. You can hear the thought and emotion in her voice, despite the fact that she may not be sure what they are. She effortlessly glides between innocent, sexual, cunning and intrigued, covering a range of depth most actors want. And Isaac is in typical fantastic form here as Nathan. I've been a big fan of his since I saw Inside Llewyn Davis, believing that he deserved a lot of love for that. He plays Nathan in a way that feels like Nathan believes in his own hype about being some kind of tech god among men, yet clearly is able to back it up. Nathan comes across as a wildcard, never quite clear about what his motives actually are. He continues to prove he's one of the best young actors in Hollywood. All three actors give performances that deserve to be seen.

Alex Garland, who also wrote the film and whose previous writing credits include 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Dredd, has created a taut, intelligent thriller that is one of the best science fiction films I've seen in recent memory. It shows that good sci-fi doesn't need all the bells and whistles of ballooning budgets and James Spader being a smarmy voice. Instead, he crafts a believable world that instantly draws you in, and makes you question whose side you are on throughout the film. Nothing is quite as it seems.

The score feels like if David Fincher decided to make a science fiction film not about aging backwards. It elicits a tension and urgency in each scene that makes you want to keep moving forward. Similarly, the cinematography is fantastic, giving gorgeous frames and allowing us to feel as the characters do. When we need to feel enclosed and claustrophobic, we feel it. And when we need to feel as though we are seeing things from a new perspective, we have that as well. Strong work from cinematographer Rob Hardy, who I assume is Tom Hardy's less talented and less handsome troll brother. 

Ultimately, Ex Machina is one of 2015's best films, and I highly doubt that will change. It's smart, stylish, urgent and well made. More films should aspire to greatness the way this film does. A definite must-see for science fiction and movie lovers alike.

Grade: A+

Watch What I Said 4

IMDb: 7.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

My Grade: A

So as part of adding content to this increasingly shitty blog, I've decided to include a weekly segment detailing a movie-a-week that people should check out. I know anyone that reads this blog does so primarily for my reviews, but I'm lazy and don't want to review anything right now. This weekly segment may also contain suggestions from other members of the Public Nerdity Podcast from time to time.

Another week, another Netflix recommendation. I know I'm a couple days late on it this week, but it's not like anyone is reading this anyways. But I digress. As many people know, I have an affection for George Clooney that I reserve for only the finer things in life, like good cheesecake and velvet jackets. The reason I enjoy Clooney so much is because he's able to balance his pretty boy looks and charm with interesting projects that show off a lot of his interests. That's why my pick for this week is his 2011 directorial effort The Ides of March. Clooney plays the supporting part of Mike Morris, a presidential candidate, who has to deal with one of his top campaign specialists hiding secrets. That specialist is played by Ryan Gosling, in one of his best performances in recent memory. The cast for this movie is stacked, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marissa Tomei, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella and Jeffrey Wright all being in this film along with Gosling and Clooney. The stand outs are really the two leads, and Hoffman, who commands the screen every second he's on it. Clooney proves he's quite excellent at crafting a deft political drama like few others can.

Boasting a 7.1 score on IMDb and an 85% Rotten Tomatoes score, you'd be foolish not to check out the film, especially if you are a fan of Clooney, Gosling or Hoffman.

Watch What I Said 3

IMDb: 7.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

My Grade: A+

So as part of adding content to this increasingly shitty blog, I've decided to include a weekly segment detailing a movie-a-week that people should check out. I know anyone that reads this blog does so primarily for my reviews, but I'm lazy and don't want to review anything right now. This weekly segment may also contain suggestions from other members of the Public Nerdity Podcast from time to time.

So, by now, we know that Ben Affleck has truly capitalized on his career resurgence. He's going to be playing Batman, he's won an Oscar and has gone from a mediocre actor to a Hollywood heavyweight. Some people may say he started this turn around with his role in Hollywoodland, where he played TV's first Superman George Reeves, in which he was fantastic and got a Golden Globe nomination. Personally, I think he really kick started all of this with his feature film directorial debut, and my pick for this week, Gone Baby Gone. With his directorial efforts, most people will have seen Argo or The Town by now, as both films are quite good, but Gone Baby Gone is damn near a masterpiece. It's a tightly wound crime drama, centering around a little girl being kidnapped, and the manhunt to find her. Affleck assembles a phenomenal cast, including his brother Casey, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Titus Welliver, Ed Harris and Amy Ryan, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role here. Casey Affleck shines in this film, giving a performance rivaling anything he's done before. And Ben crafts an expert film, one that I would call one of the best of the decade, and among my favourite films of all time.

With a solid 7.7 on IMDb (which is way too low), and a sparkling 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, Gone Baby Gone is a film you should actively seek out to watch. It's currently available to stream on Netflix.

Watch What I Said 2

IMDb: 7.1

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

My Grade: A

So as part of adding content to this increasingly shitty blog, I've decided to include a weekly segment detailing a movie-a-week that people should check out. I know anyone that reads this blog does so primarily for my reviews, but I'm lazy and don't want to review anything right now. This weekly segment may also contain suggestions from other members of the Public Nerdity Podcast from time to time.

You'd be forgiven if you have no idea who J.C. Chandor is. He's not exactly a household name, nor does he make big budget movies you're clamouring to see. However, in the past couple of years, he's made All Is Lost (with Robert Redford) and A Most Violent Year (with Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain and David Oyelowo). So what I'm saying is that he makes damn good movies. So my pick for this week is his feature film debut, Margin Call. This film follows the 24 hour period before the 2008 financial meltdown that saw the economy flushed down the toilet. What this film does is take that giant mess and turn it into a tightly wound drama, featuring excellent performances from everyone in the cast. And, boy, what a cast Chandor got. This movie has Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Penn Badgley, Demi Moore, Simon Baker, and Stanley Tucci. Quinto, in particular, proves he can hold his own opposite heavyweights Spacey and Irons. The film was also nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. This is a film that everyone should make time to see.

With a 7.1/10 score on IMDb and a strong 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, you're doing yourself a disservice to not, at least, give it a chance. Margin Call is currently available on Netflix.

Watch What I Said

IMBd: 8.0

Rotten Tomatoes: 99%

My Grade: A+

So as part of adding content to this increasingly shitty blog, I've decided to include a weekly segment detailing a movie-a-week that people should check out. I know anyone that reads this blog does so primarily for my reviews, but I'm lazy and don't want to review anything right now. This weekly segment may also contain suggestions from other members of the Public Nerdity Podcast from time to time. 

So without further ado, this weeks selection that people should check out is a little film that I absolutely adore called Short Term 12. The basic premise revolves around workers at a juvenille detention facility and the stories of neglect and abuse that follow. If it sounds like a downer, that's because it can be at times. But it also tells a beautiful story, with rich, fully formed characters. The performances from the likes of Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr and Keith Stanfield are all outstanding, and there will be numerous times throughout the film that you'll have a lump in your throat and will be fighting back tears. Larson, in particular, delivers an Oscar caliber performance that was so unfairly overlooked in 2013. In truth, this was a movie that stuck with me long after I saw it, and one that I mananged to get Pasan and Justin to check out.

Boasting an 8/10 score on IMDb and an astounding 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is simply a film you must check out. Currently, Short Term 12 is available on Netflix.