Win-Win

Win-Win was available on Cinemax on demand and I heard good things and saw it was tracking 94% or something crazy high on rotten tomatoes. I'm a pretty big fan of Paul Giamatti despite the fact he really is normally the same character of an older, generally calm guy who has bouts of intense yelling and anger that is generally awesome. Good additions of Amy Ryan (of The Office fame), Jeff Tambor, Burt Young (Pauly from Rocky), and newcomer Alex Shaffer who is excellent in the role of Kyle. Giamatti has two daughters and is married to Amy Ryan. He runs a struggling law office where his primary clients are the elderly. He finds a hidden gem in Burt Young's character, an elderly man in the early stages of dementia who can no longer take care of himself, but doesn't want to go to a home. Giamatti notices he would receive $1500 a month to be his guardian, so he tells the court he'll take care of him and keep him at home, but he enrolls him into an elderly home all the same when his daughter fails to answer any of the letters or calls his law office makes. Kyle shows up at Paul Young's house and says he's his grandson and things start to get real interesting. Great story, acting, writing, EVERYTHING. A solid film throughout carried by Giamatti similar to Sideways. Kyle Shaffer was a great high school wrestler which shines through in his performance, but his career ended when he broke his L-5 vertebrae (www.imdb.com SHOUT-OUT).

Bottom Line: 8.6 out of 10. I really liked the movie and besides some unavoidable slower parts I thought it was really good. I'm probably too high on Shaffer, but for your first acting performance he certainly held his own.

Hobo With a Shotgun

I fell for the bullshit "grindhouse" like movie Hobo With a Shotgun because Rutger Hauer is cool shit and I wanted to see an action movie. It's not so much an action movie as fucking garbage. They might have just picked random names out of a phone book to place with Rutger Hauer. Molly Dunsworth as Abby the prostitute would be the only other actor worth mentioning. Story is Rutger Hauer is a hobo who becomes disgusted with a town which is completely insane with evil and bad people. They do horrible things lead by a guy named Drake and his two idiot sons who suck at acting and I imagine life. There are a few cheap laughs and pure gross-out bullshit throughout. I don't really want to talk about it, it's fucking terrible.

Bottom Line: 1.8 out of 10. I'd rather slam my dick in a car door than see this again.

Safe House

I jumped on this one just because of Denzel's name being attached to it. The movie itself is not at all what I thought it would be. Ryan Reynolds is an agent who watches a C.I.A safe house in South Africa. Denzel is an uber badass who defected from the C.I.A. and sells secrets and info for money on the black market. He runs into a U.S. Counsolette/embassy out nowhere and he hadn't been on the radar since 2011. He is taken into custody into Reynold's safe house and shit just goes crazy. Denzel has an interesting back story you slowly learn as craziness happens all around you. Reynolds wants to do anything to get a promotion out of house sitting for the government and it leads him to do crazy shit to try to bring Denzel in. Good story, well written, good cast, and some cool twists and turns. Well done film.

Bottom Line: 8.2 out of 10. Everything is really good and solid from top to bottom. It's worth checking this film out.

Paul

I saw Paul after some recommendations about it and I thought it was alright. Starring Simon Pegg and the other guy from Shaun of the Dead, Seth Rogan as the voice of Paul the alien, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Sigourney Weaver. Strong cast. The story is Paul the alien is on the lamb from the government and Simon Pegg and other guy are nerds who write and draw sci-fi books. They try to help Paul get to his undetermined destination where he's going to get picked up by his people and go back home. Zaniness and wackiness happens, it's strangely child-like, but still has very adult language, it makes you feel weird.

Bottom Line: 6.7 out of 10. Good for a few laughs and it's really got a strong cast for being a strangely kiddy movie with bad language.