Wednesday, February 18, 2015

2015 movies I'm looking forward to

 Either I really wanna see these movies, or at this point, I'm on the fence. You can tell which ones I'm on the fence for by the messages in the parentheses.

February
Maps to the Stars
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Hot Tub Time Machine 2


March
Chappie (giving you one more chance Blomkamp)
While We're Young

 April
Furious 7 (I guess)

May
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Mad Max: Fury Road
Tomorrowland
Aloha

June
Love & Mercy
Jurassic World (I guess)
Inside Out

July
Magic Mike XXL (kinda)
Terminator Genisys (just barely)
Ant-Man
Trainwreck
Pan (kinda)
Mission: Impossible 5 (maybe)
Southpaw

August
Ricki and the Flash
The Man from UNCLE
Straight Outta Compton

September
Jane Got a Gun
Triple Nine
Black Mass
Pawn Sacrifice

October
Steve Jobs
Crimson Peak
St. James Place

November
Spectre
Peanuts Movie
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2
Creed (kinda)
The Good Dinosaur
The Martian
Midnight Special
Untitled Christmas Eve Project

December
In the Heart of the Sea
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Joy
The Revenant
The Hateful Eight

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Ken, come on already! The Theory of Everything & Mr. Turner reviews

The Theory of Everything

It was surprisingly pretty solid. Redmayne was great.

Mr. Turner 

I love the world of this film. I loved delving into the art world atmosphere that JWM Turner was in, but I felt a little too detached from the title character to really fall in love with this film.

I give both films a B, though I prefer Mr. Turner over Theory.

I know, I know. Where's the full reviews? Well, I've been busy and I just want to get 2014 done with already. No more 2014 movie reviews from here on out! The Oscars are next Sunday, then it's time to move on!


Sunday, February 1, 2015

American Sniper, a short-ish review

American Sniper



It's been over a month since "American Sniper" initially came out and it seems the chatter surrounding the film has finally calmed down. Clint Eastwood's film has drawn the ire of liberals while simultaneously becoming a rallying cry for the right. Well, my position on the film will satisfy neither party.

I don't think "American Sniper" is a dimwitted film that justifies the War in Iraq. I also do not think it's a masterpiece of filmmaking. "American Sniper" is a competently made film with some very tense war scenes that delves into the heart and mind of a soldier, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), who is absolutely single-minded in his devotion to his country. Once he joins the Navy SEALs, he is their brother for life. He is absolutely committed to joining his fellow soldiers in combat, ultimately doing four separate tours of duty when all is said and done. But, those tours of duty comes at the cost of his family. Each tour is like a dagger in his wife's heart. Chris Kyle wound up becoming the deadliest sniper in American history, but that meant little to his wife, who just wanted her husband to come home and play with his kids.

Eastwood takes a very straight-forward approach to the material and it inevitably causes a bunch of problems, seeing as how the source material for "American Sniper" was actually written by Chris Kyle and adapted to the screen by Jason Hall who did everything he could to serve Kyle's story as faithfully as possible. So it just feels like we're missing a lot of nuance and complexity, as if we're not really being told the full story. The movie goes a little bit into Kyle's battle with PTSD and then, suddenly, pretends that it magically disappears towards the end of the film. And while I didn't expect the film to show how Chris Kyle died, the way it went about explaining Kyle's death felt weird, as if it's sugarcoating a heartbreaking story. Chris Kyle was killed by another former soldier who was also suffering from PTSD. By ignoring details such as that and taking a soft approach to Kyle's own battle with PTSD, "American Sniper" ultimately winds up feeling like irresponsible filmmaking. Eastwood treats Kyle like the war hero he was, but he fails to really drive home how soldiers such as Kyle were mentally affected when they were away from the battlefield.

By avoiding those key details, "American Sniper" ends up just being another average war film that does little to distinguish itself from other films of its genre. It may be making a buttload of money at the box office, but I can't help but feel that this film was a giant wasted opportunity.

Grade: C-

5 year anniversary: a collection of every single one of my reviews

To celebrate Kenoncinema's five years of existence, I've decided to compile/link every single review I've done into one post. Some reviews were short, others were very long. Some barely count as reviews, and there are others that were actually posted from another site but was linked here. Altogether, I have written 225 reviews thus far. If you count the three top 100 lists of the '80s, '90s, and '00s... then that means I have written about 525 films in total. Is it cheating to count those lists? Maybe, but 525 is a big number. I like big numbers.


2010 reviews

1. Shutter Island - 2/25/2010 
2. Alice in Wonderland - 3/11/2010
3. Hot Tub Time Machine - 3/13/2010
4. Green Zone - 3/13/2010
5. Get Him to the Greek - 4/20/2010
6. Robin Hood - 5/19/2010
7. Toy Story 3 - 7/3/2010
8. Karate Kid - 7/6/2010
9. Inception - 7/17/2010
10. Greenberg - 7/19/2010
11. Iron Man 2 - 8/2/2010
12. Cyrus - 8/2/2010
13. The Kids Are All Right - 8/2/2010
14. The Other Guys - 8/17/2010
15. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - 8/17/2010
16. The Ghost Writer - 8/17/2010
17. The Last Exorcism - 9/17/2010
18. Kick-Ass - 9/17/2010
19. Winter's Bone - 9/17/2010
20. The Town - 9/28/2010
21. The Social Network - 10/1/2010
22. Due Date - 11/11/2010
23. Despicable Me - 11/11/2010
24. Never Let Me Go - 11/11/2010
25. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 - 11/23/2010
26. The Fighter - 12/21/2010
27. Black Swan - 12/27/2010
28. True Grit - 12/31/2010
29. The King's Speech - 1/16/2011
30. Somewhere - 6/30/2011
31. Another Year - 6/30/2011


2011 reviews

1. Paul - 3/9/2011
2. Rango - 3/9/2011
3. Cedar Rapids - 3/21/2011
4. Source Code - 4/2/2011
5. Win Win - 4/17/2011
6. Thor - 5/10/2011
7. Bridesmaids - 5/16/2011
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - 5/21/2011
9. The Hangover Part II - 5/26/2011
10. Super 8 - 6/11/2011
11. Midnight in Paris - 6/20/2011
12. Horrible Bosses - 7/10/2011
13. X-Men: First Class - 7/11/2011
14. Bad Teacher - 7/11/2011
15. 30 Minutes or Less - 9/21/2011
16. Contagion - 9/21/2011
17. Our Idiot Brother - 9/21/2011
18. Drive - 9/23/2011
19. Moneyball  - 9/23/2011
20. 50/50 - 10/16/2011
21. The Skin I Live In - 10/16/2011
22. The Ides of March - 10/16/2011
23. The Descendants - 11/10/2011
24. The Tree of Life - 11/11/2011
25. The Muppets - 11/29/2011
26. J. Edgar - 12/2/2011
27. Hugo - 12/3/2011
28. Shame - 12/9/2011
29. Young Adult - 12/14/2011
30. The Adventures of Tintin - 12/16/2011
31. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - 12/22/2011
32. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - 12/30/2011
33. War Horse - 12/30/2011
34. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - 1/21/2012
35. Martha Marcy May Marlene - 2/6/2012
36. Margin Call - 2/6/2012
37. Beginners - 2/6/2012
38. The Artist -2/6/2012
39. Melancholia - 2/9/2012

2012 reviews

1. Haywire - 2/6/2012
2. Wanderlust - 3/1/2012
3. Friends With Kids - 3/9/2012
4. Jeff, Who Lives At Home - 3/16/2012
5. 21 Jump Street - 3/23/2012
6. Bully - 4/1/2012
7. Damsels in Distress - 4/13/2012
8. Cabin in the Woods - 4/16/2012
9. The Five-Year Engagement - 5/4/2012
10. The Avengers - 5/5/2012
11. The Dictator - 5/17/2012
12. Moonrise Kingdom - 5/27/2012
13. Prometheus - 6/17/2012
14. Magic Mike - 7/2/2012
15. Ted - 7/5/2012
16. The Amazing Spider-Man - 7/8/2012
17. Brave - 7/13/2012
18. Your Sister's Sister - 7/17/2012
19. To Rome With Love - 7/17/2012
20. Beasts of the Southern Wild - 7/21/2012
21. The Dark Knight Rises - 7/24/2012
22. The Campaign - 8/13/2012
23. Lawless - 9/3/2012
24. The Intouchables - 9/9/2012
25. The Master - 9/16/2012
26. Celeste and Jesse Forever - 9/16/2012
27. Looper - 10/8/2012
28. Seven Psychopaths - 10/12/2012
29. Argo - 10/13/2012
30. Flight - 11/2/2012
31. Skyfall - 11/10/2012
32. Lincoln - 11/12/2012
33. Life of Pi - 11/24/2012
34. Rust and Bone - 12/1/2012
35. Killing Them Softly - 12/1/2012
36. Silver Linings Playbook - 12/4/2012
37. The Deep Blue Sea - 12/13/2012
38. Zero Dark Thirty - 12/19/2012
39. The Hobbit - 12/19/2012
40. This is 40 - 12/21/2012
41. Les Miserables - 12/26/2012
42. Django Unchained - 12/29/2012
43. The Impossible - 1/11/2013
44. Sister - 1/24/2013
45. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - 1/24/2013
46. Amour - 1/24/2013
47. Compliance - 1/24/2013
48. End of Watch - 2/4/2013
49. The Invisible War - 2/4/2013

2013 movies

1. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III - 1/11/2013
2. Side Effects - 2/11/2013
3. Sound City - 2/18/2013
4. No - 2/18/2013
5. Stoker - 3/5/2013
6. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - 3/17/2013
7. Spring Breakers - 3/19/2013
8. Admission - 3/22/2013
9. The Place Beyond the Pines - 3/27/2013
10. Trance - 4/12/2013
11. Upstream Color - 4/12/2013
12. 42 - 4/17/2013
13. Oblivion - 5/1/2013
14. To the Wonder - 5/2/2013
15. Iron Man 3 - 5/10/2013
16. The Great Gatsby - 5/16/2013
17. Mud - 5/21/2013
18. Before Midnight - 5/28/2013
19. The Hangover Part III - 5/28/2013
20. The Way, Way Back - 5/29/2013
21. Frances Ha - 6/5/2013
22. Star Trek Into Darkness - 6/6/2013
23. This Is the End - 6/15/2013
24. Man of Steel - 6/20/2013
25. Monsters University - 6/24/2013
26. The Bling Ring - 7/2/2013
27. World War Z - 7/7/2013
28. Pacific Rim - 7/8/2013
29. Blue Jasmine - 8/1/2013
30. Fruitvale Station - 8/7/2013
31. Only God Forgives - 8/12/2013
32. The World's End - 8/26/2013
33. Elysium - 8/27/2013
34. Lee Daniels' The Butler - 9/3/2013
35. The Spectacular Now - 9/14/2013
36. Prisoners - 9/21/2013
37. Don Jon - 9/27/2013
38. Gravity - 10/7/2013
39. Captain Phillips - 10/17/2013
40. 12 Years a Slave - 10/20/2013
41. Blue is the Warmest Color -10/27/2013
42. The Counselor - 10/31/2013
43. Dallas Buyers Club - 11/8/2013
44. Thor: The Dark World - 11/9/2013
45. Nebraska - 11/17/2013
46. Catching Fire - 12/2/2013
47. Inside Llewyn Davis - 12/9/2013
48. Out of the Furnace  - 12/13/2013
49. American Hustle - 12/15/2013
50. Her - 12/20/2013
51. The Wolf of Wall Street - 12/28/2013
52. Anchorman 2 - 12/30/2013
53. Lone Survivor - 1/15/2014
54. Philomena - 1/20/2014

2014 movies

1. Monuments Men - 2/8/2014
2. The LEGO Movie - 2/13/2014
3. Non-Stop - 2/27/2014
4. Bad Words - 3/6/2014
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel - 3/8/2014
6. Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 - 3/10/2014
7. Need for Speed - 3/13/2014
8. Enemy - 3/20/2014
9. Muppets Most Wanted - 3/23/2014
10. Noah - 4/9/2014
11. Captain America: Winter Soldier - 5/9/2014
12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 5/9/2014
13. Neighbors - 5/17/2014
14. The Immigrant - 5/20/2014
15. Godzilla - 6/4/2014
16. X-Men: Days of Future Past - 8/8/2014
17. Edge of Tomorrow - 8/8/2014
18. 22 Jump Street - 8/8/2014
19. Boyhood - 8/9/2014
20. Guardians of the Galaxy - 8/11/2014
21. A Most Wanted Man - 8/15/2014
22. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 8/17/2014
23. Life Itself - 8/17/2014
24. Magic in the Moonlight - 9/20/2014
25. They Came Together - 9/21/2014
26. Under the Skin - 9/29/2014
27. Obvious Child - 10/6/2014
28. Gone Girl - 10/10/2014
29. Whiplash -10/16/2014
30. Birdman - 10/22/2014
31. Fury - 10/31/2014
32. Nightcrawler - 11/1/2014
33. Interstellar - 11/6/2014
34. Two Days, One Night - 11/9/2014
35. Snowpiercer - 11/9/2014
36. Foxcatcher - 11/16/2014
37. Mockingjay Part 1 - 12/7/2014
38. The Imitation Game - 12/8/2014
39. Annie - 1/10/2015
40. The Interview  - 1/10/2015
41. Top Five - 1/12/2015
42. Ida - 1/13/2015
43. Frank - 1/13/2015
44. Skeleton Twins - 1/22/2015
45. Calvary - 1/22/2015
46. Locke - 1/22/2015
47. Inherent Vice - 1/23/2015
48. Selma  - 1/23/2015
49. A Most Violent Year - 1/25/2015
50. Chef - 1/26/2015
51. We Are the Best! - 1/26/2015
52. Men, Women, and Children - 1/26/2015

And I have 3 more 2014 movies left to review...