Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

I am a HUGE fan of the Hunger Games movies thus far. Jennifer Lawrence has become a certified star through the films and she is surrounded by excellence in Donald Sutherland (Amazing as President Snow), Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, and more recently Julienne Moore & Phillip Seymour Hoffman (R.I.P., and he should be proud of his work in this film). The story is clearly great since it's sold an aircraft carrier worth of books, so that can't go wrong. I have been very impressed, so enough on that. This film picks up with Katniss in a "hospital" setting following her shooting an arrow attached to wire to the THUNDERDOME-esque forcefield during the last film. She doesn't know if her family is OK, or what happened to Peeta, which is of significant importance to her. She awakens and shakes off various injuries to find herself in District 13, which she thought was rubble. It's a militarized district that has continued rebellion against the capital. Julienne Moore is the "President", though they insist on democracy. They inform her they are in open rebellion and the other districts are being attacked by the capital via bombings and outright executions. She commits to being their "Mockingjay"/propaganda tool, especially after she is informed Cinna (Lenny Kravitz in a great role) was murdered and her Mockingjay outfit was his work. They show her District 12, her home, which has been destroyed and most inhabitants murdered. She then fully commits to rebellion and fighting against the Capital. Peeta is being used as the mouthpiece for the Capital, but also to taunt and torture Katniss. There is an interesting back & forth between the two that continually escalates. I'm so glad I didn't read the books because the suspense and not knowing what is coming up is fantastic. I don't want to give much of the story away, but I was impressed with pretty much all aspects of the film. Bottom Line: 9.1 out of 10. If you aren't on board, see the other two and go see this. I think the films are excellent. Great acting, story, and pretty much everything. There are a few boring patches, but overall it's excellent.

Interstellar: Stephen Hawking Consulting Firm

Interstellar is a journey more than a movie, like standard Christopher Nolan fare. This movie digs DEEP into Black Hole theory and space/time stuff. Mr. ALright, Alright, Alright, is excellent, as are Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine (SIR MICHAEL CAINE probably), Casey Afflack, etc (Great casting). The story is set in the future where Earth is rejecting us and crop failures are common place. They convince COOP (Not Trey Parker from BASEketball) to man a space craft to go through a Black Hole near Saturn to explore other possibly inhabitable planets to sustain life. 11 missions already went out and 3 were still in contact with Earth and potentially habitable. Anne Hathaway, dude from the Hunger Games with the crazy facial hair who Donald Sutherland has murdered, and a black scientist guy who I haven't seen in any other films go out and attempt to find which planet would be best for Earth part 2. The visuals are excellent in IMAX, though nothing is 3D or anything revolutionary, it just looks great. The bass is overwhelming and it makes for some strange sound related issues, but that was probably the theatres fault. You are subjected to crazy, WAYYYY above your head scientific theories, but the story and acting carry the day. The fact I know nothing of space/time continuum stuff didn't ruin this one for me. It's an emotional rollercoaster that's worth being a part of. DO NOT read into spoilers/etc, the less you know the better, per usual. Bottom Line: 8.8 out of 10. Very good film that is worth throwing $15 at to see properly in IMAX. It's very impressive on all levels.

22 Jump Street: Hill & Tatum Smell Their Own Farts

22 Jump Street had me laughing, a lot. It also had me looking away and shaking me head in disgust a decent amount. It was a crazy blend of hilarious stuff and stupid shit that makes no sense and tries way too hard. The cast is excellent again bringing back a lot of the same dudes, including James Franco's brother & Rob Riggle in a great cameo that's awesome. Add a little Nick Offerman and some Jilian Bell (WORKAHOLICS!) & Peter Stormare (Any movie featuring a dirty Eastern European dude like Bad Boys II & Fargo) and you've got some funny people around some kind of funny people in Tatum & Hill. Ice Cube has a bigger role and he's awesome in it, OF COURSE. Letting him unleash the comically angry and racist black dude is amazing. He needs a spin-off all by himself just yelling at white people. This follows Schmidt (Hill) & Janko (Tatum) into college, because they don't look old as shit or anything, which is a crappy, but sometimes funny running joke, especially with Jilian Bell. They are trying to find drugs, etc, while getting into hijinx that end up just pissing me off so much. The making fun of itself, but still trying to piece together a real plot gets ridiculous and stupid beyond belief or what's acceptable. , or stomachable. If you liked the first one, you'll like the second one. Bottom Line: 7.1 out of 10. Even though I was often openly complaining and making fun of this thing, I laughed a lot, so it's certainly worth seeing. If you dno't give a shit about how ridiculous things get, you'll love this thing.

Heavy Heart and a Head Full of Thoughts

Last Wednesday my Uncle Rob passed away. It's impossible to begin to talk about what he meant to my family and others, but here's where I'm going to try to commit parts of this to memory to reflect on down the road. The closest anyone's come to explaining it was my cousin Eric, who simply stated after explaining he wasn't going to try to commit his love and admiration to words: "He was as cool as they come and always there when you needed him." I've always loved that because it's so simple, true, and lovely. Uncle Rob suffered from pain from his sciatic nerve in his back that would've been unbearable to most. Rob frowned away from painkillers except for when he needed sleep, which I doubt came to him very often. It never seemed to have any effect on his mood or amazing outlook on life. He continued to be the life of the party and funniest guy in the room wherever he went. He was the person you always wanted to come to anything you had going on. Something as simple as playing a board game, or cards, was made special with Uncle Rob there. It's impossible to gauge the impact and how much he'll be missed during all of our family outings. I also would wager that about 5 people would say they lost their best friend. My sister and I were seriously wondering if all of his brother's (4, including my Dad) would have secretly listed Rob as their favorite brother. His love of sports was at various times of his life hampered by his physical ailments, including a couple of heart valve replacements, and eventually a pacemaker. His playing days ended, but his love of the Brewers, Packers, Bucks, and all things WI sports was incredible. I had the pleasure of sitting around going through some of my dad's old sports cards and just hearing some of his stories of the old Brewers, Braves, and Bucks was a real joy I'll never forget. I know there are so many stories and experiences I'm missing out on, but I keep trying to focus on how lucky we were to have Rob for as long as we did and how the myriad of physical ailments are now gone for him. It was so strange to see him without a smile on his face for the last time I'll ever see him because that was the standard. He never complained or even mentioned how much pain he was in. I had to have it explained to me when I was in my 20's because you would have never known. It makes me want to try to live more like that. Joyful despite any hinderance going on, physical or other. There was so much to be learned by the example that was Uncle Rob. Selflessness, humbleness, humor, living life to the fullest, and just being the best you could be on a daily basis. I asked my Dad who would be giving the eulogy and I'm not certain anyone thought they could get through it without crying. They thought about opening it up to tell stories, but I'm certain that could have lasted for a few days. Just someone very special to a lot of people in many different ways. Robert Andrew Boll: "As cool as they come, and always there when you needed him."

Stand Up Guys: Oscars Thrown Out the Door

I decided to buy Stand Up Guys since the pedigree of Walken, Pacino, and Arkin is unreal. I thought it might be equivalent of Glengarry Glenross where you combine great actors and dialogue and get greatness. I knew the reviews were less than kind, but I figured what the hell. Pacino is pretty charming, per usual, and Walken is very good as well, but the story is awful. Pacino is getting out of prison after 28 years. He was thrown in after accidentally killing the bosses son in the crossfire of a messy job gone bad. Walken, his best friend, picks him up from prison for his last night on earth. Walken is tasked with killing him by 10:00am the next morning as final retribution for his past crime. They do old guy stuff and some young guy stuff, but it's all fairly boring and uninteresting. It's awkward because parts of the movie make it seem like old people are similar and can do all the same stuff young people do and other parts make jokes of how old and behind the times they are. It's confusing in the aspect that it tries to combine humor, sentimentality, and a little bit of action all in one, and of course it misses the mark. It's all very strange in the sense that with your last night on earth after just getting out of prison I would do things differently. Walken doesn't even seem to juggle the responsibility and gravity of having to kill his best friend at 10:00am. Maybe that's because he never actually planned on doing it at all. The ending is a strange shoot-out with their former boss who Pacino pissed off by murdering his son, but it fails to bring closure and it's pretty dumb. Bottom Line: 5.7 out of 10. Far from worth seeing, but if it's on TV with nothing else I'd take a flier on it for a little Pacino and Walken together. Jon Bon Jovi wrote original songs for it apparently, which is also inconsequential and pointless, much like the film.

Grave of the Fireflies

Flier #2 was a Japanese Anime film called Grave of the Fireflies. I knew very little heading in and got my lid peeled back. I was expecting something a little tamer than Japanese film about after we bomb the shit out of them and ruin children's lives. Don't let the cartoonism fool you, this thing was SUPER CEREAL. Serious as anything the cute Japanese artistry did nothing to soften the horrific fact the movie was about the last parts and surrunder of Japan in WWII. The A-bomb hits close enough to the hometown of a young teenage boy (I'm guessing his age) and his toddlerish sister (5ish maybe?). Their mother dies from burns suffered in the bombing and their father is in the Navy, so he's certainly dead, though they don't know that at the time. They are taken in by a horrific human being of an Aunt and decide, after several mini blow-ups from the Aunt, they are heading off on their own to lives in a bomb shelter. Things go from bad, to horrible, and it's tough to watch. Bottom Line: 5.9 out of 10. I'm almost certain the fact I was not expecting something this harsh and brutal lowered the rating considerably, but I frankly doubt I can bring myself to watch this movie again. I'm not certain if I opted for the original language with English subtitles if it would have been better either, I just felt like this film was a slow and monstrous gut-punch. SPOILER ALERT: Watch if you enjoy a movie where everyone dies horribly and slowly.

Straw Dogs: The O.G. Dustin Hoffman Version

Taking a flier on some movies that imdb.com rated very highly and that were $3.00 or so online, I stumbled upon Straw Dogs and wanted to give it a run. I knew the premise: SPOILER ALERT! Hoffman and his wife return to her roots to a small town in Ireland where they are generally harassed and her "past" is used to attract the wrong folks from town. Eventually it leads to crazy, blood stained vengence. Hoffman already had the Graduate, but this certainly was some earlier work for him. Sam Peckinpah also wrote and directed The Wild Bunch, so he's far from adverse to violence. He tried some close-ups and camera tricks with this film that were pretty unsuccessful I felt, but you can see where thrillers/action movies borrow some elements from this. 1971 was a long time ago, so I tried to keep that in mind while watching. It was also hard to smoother my violent and rampent jingoism as well, but I tried. Hoffman is unreal and this certainly helped cement his stardom/leading man quality after his turn as Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy & his role in the Graduate earned two Best Actor Oscar nods that he missed out on. He carries the film and the rest of the cast does enough, though nobody else stands out besides a beautiful Susan George for completely different reasons besides acting. Bottom Line: 7.2 out of 10. I thought it was a good movie and the premise of the story certainly didn't help it progress along for me. It's far from exciting until the last 30 minutes where the lid gets blow off. Worth watching at some point, though I wouldn't recommend this one for a date movie...

The Maltese Falcon

I probably have already blogged about this film and my deep love for it. It's Humphrey Bogart's coming out party as before this film he was often a "thug" and usually died in the film. Here he is the definition of a "leading man" and star. He carries a VERY complex and difficult role and film. The premise follows Bogart (Private detective Sam Spade) as a women comes into his office with the proposition of following a "dangerous man" to find out where he is staying. He's "taken" her sister and she worries about her and wants her to return to Hawaii (I think) at the wishes of her family. Spade's partner (Archer) agrees to the task and is promptly shot for his efforts that night. The story bobs and weaves, twists, turns, and contorts for another 1.5 hours until, after you're lost and don't know who/what to believe, it's over and you want to watch it again. There's great lines ("People lose teeth talking like that", or "It's the stuff that dreams are made of"), some great 1930's speak, which I'm a huge fan of, Bogart, film noir, black and white with close-ups, it's all perfect to me. This is a film worth seeing and enjoying yourself. You can see how many other films have attempted to imitate, or borrow ideas from this great film. Bottom Line: 9.7 out of 10. This is probably too high, but it's certainly one of my all-time favorites. The story unfolds and has so many twists and turns that I've seen it 4-5 times and I find myself constantly looking for things and hints. Similar to Memento in that regard, but obviously it's not told in reverse or anything THAT fancy. Bogart is just amazing and it's been out for so long the history and sets are wonderful and special in their own right. The clothes, technologies, speech, everything is interesting and special to me in the film. It does receive an ever so slight downgrade from perfect due to the low quality of some of the extras poor acting, but that's the only knock I can hang on this great film.

Philomena: Judi Dench and Her Greatness

I'm so happy that Judi Dench hasn't retired, or even slowed down her acting career. She is a real treat who can play such an intimidating and tough "M" in the new Bond movies and make it look just as believable as the Irish Grandma who has seemingly never been outside of her small Irish town. The story follows her as she attempts to find her son that was taken from her while she was in an Irish convent working away her debt to the nuns and convent for taking her in for being a pregnant teenager who was disowned by her family. Steve Coogan is also spectacular as a former Government official (his title alludes me) who is asked to resign on a mistaken e-mail that he didn't actually send, it's almost like a running joke. With his spare time and while looking for something to do he decides to start writing again, possibly a book on Russian history. Judi Dench's character (Philomena) and her story falls right into his lap and he decides, originally against his will, to pursue her story. There are a lot of twists and turns and Coogan and Dench are amazing throughout. It's possible I liked it too much Dench's character reminds me of my Grandmother's and I was raised Catholic, so it's easy to identify/understand some of those parts as well. It's based on a true story/book and it's amazing, tragic, sad, triumphant, and so many other things. Bottom Line: 8.9 out of 10. It's easy to see how this was nominated for Best Picture and Best actress awards, and probably a few others (journalistic integrity checked out already, so I didn't bother to look it up).