Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Go see this movie.  Go see it now!

There is a theory as to why we haven’t been visited by being from another planet.  It goes something like this: When an intelligent species first makes its way into space, they so pollute their orbit with debris that it ends up making space travel impossible thus dooming them to life on one planet.  Something tells me that the idea for “Gravity” came from that premise.

“Gravity” is an absolute visual and aural feast for the mind.  There are times when so much is happening that you can barely breathe.  The soundtrack is pitch perfect always.  As if seeing someone twirling out of control isn’t panic inducing enough, the music gives it that extra oomph to really get your heart into your throat.  But at the same time, you can not help but be in awe of the majesty of the backdrop they find themselves in.  Fear and awe come together like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

The science in this movie is pretty solid as far as I can tell.  Things move like they should move in microgravity.  I thought that maybe Earth was rotating a bit slowly in some of the backdrops, but it was hard to say for certain given the various angles that were used to terrific effect.  I do wonder if the space suits could have taken some of the abuse they did.  There was also a bit of overuse of the decompressing airlock popping open leaving the astronaut to hang on to the hatch for dear life which I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to do in a space suit.  And I don’t remember for sure, being so much in awe as to what was going on, but I believe the space shuttle post-accident was not spinning nearly as much as it should be.

This is as close to a perfect movie as you can get.  Every little element creates a depth and immersion that you don’t get to see very often on the silver screen.  Even the hour and a half runtime was absolutely perfect.  I would see this movie in the theater again and I don’t say that very often.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Good story.  Engaging characters.  Made racing interesting.  Excellent racing scenes.  Beautiful backdrops.

Niki Lauda is a complete asshole.  Everybody thinks so.  Everybody says so too.  But here’s the thing.  James Hunt is equally an asshole, but everyone loves him.  Well, except Niki Lauda.  To Niki, James represents everything that is wrong with racing.  James just happens to be an asshole in all the socially acceptable ways while Niki is not.  In the end, they are two sides to the same coin.  Driven.  Frightened.  Crazy.

“Rush” tells the true(ish) story of the rivalry between the two men.  They are both the best at what they do and that’s drive cars at irresponsible speeds.  The two best are bound to be rivals, but I think this is fueled more from the mutual recognition that there is something in the other that both James and Niki crave.  James wants Niki’s methodical determinism.  Niki envies James’ free spirit and devil-may-care attitude.  The rivalry makes each better than they every would have been alone.

The storytelling is very effective.  You quickly get a feel for both Niki’s and James’ character.  Where they come from.  What drives them.  What their weaknesses are.  It drags slightly during the middle third but only for a while.  There is also a bunch of inside racing stuff that is sure to be fun for all the people who know more about cars than I do.  Niki Lauda was quite a mechanical genius in addition to being a top driver.  Changes he made during his time revolutionized the racing industry.

And since this is a movie about racing, something should be said about the race scenes, no?  They are top notch.  Filled with beautiful camera angles and spectacular cinematography.  You get a good feel for why someone would be stupid enough to strap themselves in to a speeding bomb and race other people in an effort to see who doesn’t blow up.  Friends who know much more about formula one racing than I do say that it was much more interesting in the 70’s than it is now.  Like all racing, more interesting means more dangerous.

“Rush” is a great effort by Ron Howard.  I don’t think it’s good enough for Oscar contention, but it’s certainly the kind of movie that generates Oscar buzz.  Regardless, it’s a movie worth seeing.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Showed lots of promise.  Too long.  Some ineffective storytelling.  Some stupid detective cliches.  Great acting.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to see a movie that I was actually looking forward to seeing.  “Prisoners” was such a movie.  The concept is excellent.  Children disappear and signs point immediately to an individual.  When the individual proves to be too stupid to have committed the crime and there is no evidence to tie him to the crime, the police have to let him go.  He is soon thereafter kidnapped by the parents of the missing children and “enhanced interrogated”.

The movie starts really promising.  The introduction is crisp and clean.  You get an immediate feel for what kind of person Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is.  Hope for the best.  Prepare for the worst.  Do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.  All of this sets him up perfectly for the events that are about to occur.  More importantly, you believe him capable of the actions he performs to get his daughter back.

Fifteen to twenty minutes into the movie and the girls are already missing.  And the race begins.  Judging from the intro, I was expecting a taut, effective search for two missing girls filled with agonizing decisions and dead end leads and the all around effective storytelling that comprised the opening half hour of the movie.  What I got instead was a bunch of overly long, occasionally plodding scenes that bore no resemblance to the introduction.  At 153 minutes long, I was worried that we would be shown an hour long saccharine view of the family life of two girls before their disappearance even happened and the search for them would be shallow and perfunctory.  Now I wish that the movie was like that.  It is desperately in need of a good half hour more of scenes thrown to the cutting room floor.

A lot of the problems with the movie surround Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal).  It is quickly established that he is a great detective and that, in true movie cliche fashion, he has solved all of his cases.  Why then does he not make a painfully obvious deduction that links two of the characters together?  Why do they use another pathetic detective cliche of throwing things around in a fit of rage only to have a valuable clue stand out from the mess?  This is sloppy storytelling of the highest degree.

On the plus side, the acting is really top rate all around.  Hugh Jackman really brings to life a man who is all about control and completely loses it when that control is threatened.  Maria Bellow plays his wife as exactly the kind of wife you’d expect a control freak to marry.  Terrance Howard and Viola Davis play the parents of the other missing child and beautifully provide both the enabling of Hugh Jackman’s actions and the only voice of sanity.  Paul Dano and David Dastmalchian play incredibly effective creepy guys.  And Melissa Leo, oh I loves me some Melissa Leo.  No one plays earthy characters better than she does.  She is one of those people that makes me want to see a movie regardless of how good it is just because she’s in it.  If I had my way, she would be in every movie.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

After seeing an absolutely hilarious rated R preview of “This is the End”, I couldn’t wait to see it.  Sadly, time and schedules got in the way and its time came and went.  Then, shockingly enough, there is “This is the End” showing in theaters once again.  I’m not entirely sure how that happened (pushing for an Oscar, I’m sure), but I was sure going to take advantage of it.

How disappointing.  I likely would have liked the movie more if I didn’t have such high expectations going in.  It was still pretty funny, but I kind of wish that I had just watched the preview again.

The concept is solid.  Everyone plays themselves and the rapture happens while they are all at James Franco’s house party.  Nobody at Franco’s party gets raptured and most of them soon die horribly leaving James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride to fend for themselves in Franco’s house.  Much of the movie is spent trying to figure out what happened and then, after coming to terms with it, trying to figure out how to get into heaven.  Chaos and some hilarity ensues.

I don’t know if you would call something a cameo when everyone is playing themselves, but there were many good cameos in the movies.  These include Michael Cera as a coked out sex fiend, Emma Watson as the butt of an actually funny rape joke, and Channing Tatum as, well, you’ll see.

I was surprised at how much effort was put into the special effects.  It’s not quite what you’d expect from a comedy, but the demons and monsters are quite well done.  There are a few effects that come off as a bit cheesy, but other than that they are quite effective.

I think the biggest problem with the film was the middle portion where it kind of dragged and I got a bit bored.  The beginning was excellent, though, and it picked up again near then end.  So I’m going to say that this could have been a better than average showing if it had some of the fat trimmed.

This movie also features what has to be the biggest dong ever shown in a movie.  No, not that one.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  Yeah, that one.  I also found myself wondering what happened to Emma Watson at the end.  Not that the dong and Emma Watson had anything to do with each other in the movie.  It was just a stream of consciousness thing.  I’ll shut up now.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

I went to see this movie because my brother really wanted to see it.  He greatly enjoyed the first Percy Jackson movie, “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief”,  and was looking forward to the second.  He gave me the DVD of the first movie to watch before going to see this movie.  It was enjoyable as was this one.  It is not necessary to see the first movie before seeing this movie, but having a familiarity with the main characters does help some.

Imagine if Greek Mythology were real.  The gods are real and they sometimes descend from Olympus to play on the mortal plain.  And by play, I mean make with the sexy time with mortals and produce offspring.  Percy Jackson is such an offspring, a demigod, the child of Poseidon and a mortal mother.

After coming off of the high of a successful quest to save the world from Zeus’ wrath, Percy has settled down to a life of mediocrity in his demigod training camp.  He’s definitely one of the better demigods, but he never seems to be able to win at any of the demigod games.  He worries that he may be a one hit wonder and will never be able to complete a quest again.

All that changes when the tree that provides the magical barrier for the camp is poisoned and a mechanical bull runs amok in the camp.  Without the barrier, the demigods are defenseless.  The tree must be healed and the only thing that can cure her is the Golden Fleece.  This calls for a quest!  Percy Jackson to the rescue!  Oh, wait, no, they pick someone else to go.  Percy and his friends, of course, go anyway.

The action in the movie follows a very basic formula: travel to a location, discover a mythological wonder, do something with that wonder, repeat as necessary.  It’s basic, but it’s enough.  Well, it’s enough if you like Greek Mythology like I do.  It’s doubly pleasurable because they actually seem to care about the mythology, at least to the extent I remember from my college Greek Mythology class.  This makes the Percy Jackson books and movies a great introduction to mythology for children.  I saw a girl on the train reading a Greek Mythology book and immediately wondered if we had Percy Jackson to thank for it.

I certainly have my quibbles with the movie.  Like how the whole thing with poisoning the tree ends up being a completely useless action with the sole purpose of creating a reason for the quest.  But you know, it’s a kid’s movie.  These things can be forgiven.  I think kids would find the movie very enjoyable and there’s enough to entertain mythology loving adults too.

Jean-Paul’s Rating 5/5 stars

I generally reserve five stars for movies that I could see myself seeing again and again.  “The World’s End” is such a movie.  It is the third movie in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, the other two being “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”.  That the trilogy is named after an ice cream treat that figures pretty much not at all in each film should tell you a lot about what kind of comedy we’re talking about here.

All three movies are comedy gold, but “The World’s End” is by far the best.  It is full of gags and giggles and guffaws and genuine laugh out loud moments.  The overarching premise is familiar to anyone who has seen any of the three movies. People living life as normal only to find out that things are far from normal.  “Shaun of the Dead” had zombies.  “Hot Fuzz” had cultists.  “The World’s End” has alien robots.

The most surprising aspect of the movie to me was how good the action was.  It was both comedic and well choreographed.  Lots of exploding heads and flying robot body parts used to maximum comedic effect.

The end of the movie gets a little weird.  Given the general weirdness of the movie in general, that’s saying something.  It was a little bit of a letdown, but not nearly enough to ruin the fun of an excellent movie.

I foresee Three Flavored Cornetto Trilogy viewing marathons in my future.  Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and the gang know how to make quality comedies.  I hope they’re not done.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

“Kick-Ass 2”, like its predecessor, is a hyper-violent romp that looks into the world of ordinary people who dress up like superheros and patrol the streets.  Strip all of that away, though, and you get a mildly depressing glimpse into the psyche of individuals who you believe actually would dress up like superheros and patrol the streets.  Saddest of all is the couple whose son went missing and dress up to make the streets safer for other peoples’ kids.  Their superhero name?  For Tommy.

The second movie picks up a few years after the first one finished.  Dave/Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor Johnson) and Mindy/Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) are in the same high school together, only Mindy always ditches school to improve her crime fighting skills.  Dave, sick of the banality of high school and wanting to be a real superhero convinces Mindy to train him to be a real Kick-Ass.  Mindy is soon discovered ditching school by hacking the school’s computers to give herself a perfect attendance and then not being there to pick up her award and is forced to give up her role as Hit-Girl.  Dave, feeling abandoned, goes looking for superhero support groups and starts teaming up with other masked crusaders.

Meanwhile, Chris/Red Mist/The Motherfucker (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) plots revenge on Kick-Ass for killing his father with a bazooka in the first movie.  This is where most of the humor in the movie comes from.  The interactions between Chris and his right hand man, Javier (John Leguizamo) are priceless.  Chris acts like the privileged rich white kid that he is and Javier tries to keep Chris at his evilest without coming off as a dick.

The movie does a few things quite well.  The glimpses into the reasons for people becoming superheroes is touching sentiment in an otherwise mindlessly violent movie.  It would have been interesting if they did the same with the villains, but alas, they did not.  There is also a “Bad Girls” type glimpse into the lives of high school girls and how they are pressured into being things that they are not that is effective except for the denouement which is filled with unfunny toilet humor.

All in all, another fun summer movie that won’t really stick with you much past the next movie that you see.  This one is worth seeing, but if you haven’t seen the first one, I’d recommend that over this one.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 1/5 stars

Science fiction in the wrong hands is a dangerous weapon.

“Elysium” tells the story of Max (Matt Damon), a man with a checkered criminal past who is trying to make things right.  He has traded in his car thieving ways for a job with a legitimate company.  He is one of the few Earthlings who has a job.  The rest live in squalor and do everything they can to eke out a living.  The uber-wealthy live on an orbital space station in obnoxious luxury.  The two worlds will obviously collide in Matt Damonish style.

“Elysium” is to the Gilded Age what “District 9” was to Apartheid.  That they were both written by the same author, Neil Blomkamp, is obvious.  They are practically the same movie.  You have a person somewhat on the inside of a horrible system.  You have the person being betrayed by the system.  You have the person undergoing a transformation.  You have the person fighting to make things right.  “District 9” was a far superior undertaking, though.

All the complaints that I had with “District 9” were present in “Elysium” only supersized.  You start out with a pretty interesting social justice premise and then you go off the rails with a convoluted action movie.  “District 9” worked despite its faults because the premise was believable and the main character was sympathetic.  “Elysium” is the opposite.  Max is kind of an ass, he is surrounded by friends that are kind of asses, and the super rich are complete douches.

To add to the general trashiness of the movie, you have the same tired “save the girl” trope.  This time, it’s supersizes just like everything else.  So you have the “save the girl and the girl’s girl” trope.  Ugh.  This is the kind of trashy one-dimensional sympathy card that gets played when you really don’t have any ideas.

And the technology!  Don’t even get me started on the technology!  Instead of Elysium being a pin prick in the sky, it’s the size of the moon.  That would mean that it was either enormous beyond comprehension or that it was stationed in the Earth’s atmosphere.  Given the closer shots of Elysium, it is not that big so it must be in the Earth’s atmosphere which means it would have crashed and burned to the ground before they could even build it.  Then there’s the fact that Elysium is not enclosed and it’s atmosphere is held in by centripetal force.  So they can accomplish that but they can’t geoengineer Earth’s atmosphere to be better quality?  And the robots!  Why have human workers when you have robots that are stronger and better equipped to perform the work?  And what sense does it make to expose those robots to high levels of radiation when they are being made?

There is also a lot of pointless violence in this movie.  Some of it is kind of cool, but most is just gratuitous.  Blow one person up in a cool way, fine.  Do it a bunch more times and show some graphic results, really?  Why?

Jodie Foster is also in this movie.  She plays Dick Cheney.

This is a movie that should be skipped.  It’s a mess.  If you haven’t seen “District 9”, I’d recommend you just rent that.  Otherwise, just sit at home and read a good sci-fi book.