Man of Steel - A Movie Review By Andrew Lawrence

"You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders."

Ever since Batman Begins came out in 2006, the world has seen more superhero movie releases than ever before. Considering the incredible success of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, everyone knew it only was a matter of time before Warner Bros would initiate yet another reboot of one of DC's most popular superhero franchises. I personally wasn't surprised to see a certain caped kryptonian soar across the screen of my local theatre when I went to see The Dark Knight Rises in the summer of 2012, but that doesn't mean it wasn't extremely exiting as well. I've been looking forward to seeing Man of Steel ever since, but truth be told, I've also been very concerned about it. Warner Bros had a lot of money and their reputation at stake with this project, and there also was a decent possibility that they were gonna fall victim to the same inevitable problems that several comic book characters, especially Superman, have suffered greatly from on several previous occasions. Did Man of Steel live up to its hype? Is Zack Snyder still capable of directing big time blockbusters? Is Superman still wearing his underwear on the outside of his suit? Let's find out, shall we?

Man of Steel starts out the same way that all other Superman-origin stories have in the past. The planet of Krypton is dying, and in a last moment attempt to save their newly born son, Jor-El (played by Russel Crowe) and Lara (played by Ayelet Zurer) decide to send him off to a much younger and simpler planet than their own; the planet Earth. Everyone might have seen this done before, but Man of Steel does it a very cool and different way in my opinion. Instead of just breezing over this important part of Superman's story, we actually stay on Krypton for a good 20 minutes before skipping to the actual story, witnessing how Jor-El and his wife struggle to save their son, how the kryptonian people react to their inevitable doom, and how the planet's military leader General Zod (played by Michael Shannon) tries to "save" his people from getting extinguished. In my opinion, this opening act is the best of its kind since the bank robbery opening in The Dark Knight, simply because of how insightful it was to see what Krypton was like before its decimation. Another great thing about this part of the movie is Russel Crowe, who's straight up phenomenal as Jor-El. His character becomes incredibly important to the plot very early on in the movie, mainly because of how likable and strangely relatable he is, and this character's motivations and principals made me root the shit out of him. It's not often that I get to say that my favourite part of a movie is the very first act, but thanks to Crowe and Man of Steel's writers, that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

To say that it's all downhill from here on and until the credits would be an overexaggeration, but honestly, the last two hours of Man of Steel never reach the same heights as it's opening did. We skip directly to seeing Clark Kent as a grown up man after Krypton meets it's inevitable doom, and as the story begins to pick up, we're told what happened during Kal-El's childhood, which is what Superman is called in this movie, through several flashbacks that intertwine with the things that are going on in the present. Seeing as Man of Steel is the first part of a reboot and therefore also is an origin story, this part of the story absolutely had to be great in order for the movie and its upcoming sequels to have something to base everything that happens upon, and it therefore saddens me to confess that it isn't as good as I had hoped it would be. The individual flashbacks are all great when watched separately, but when they're combined and mixed with the events that take place in the present, it does become sort of messy at times. What I mean by this is that the plot never really gets a chance to "cool down" after one big scene has ended, before the melodramatic music starts playing again and something new and monumental takes place. I do see what Zack Snyder tried to do with this segment of the movie, but the entire thing feels a little choppy and overdone as a result of the way it's constructed. I also find it a little too overly convenient that Kal-El always seems to find himself within the near proximity of flame-engulfed oil platforms, raging tornados and school busses that drive into rivers, but then again, I guess that's just an inevitable part of being a superhero.

I hadn't heard about Henry Cavill before seeing the first Man of Steel trailer, and honestly, I didn't have high hopes for him going into the movie. Filling out Christopher Reeve's shoes is an almost impossible task for any man of cause, but I have to admit that Cavill did a great job with the material he was given. He actually doesn't have too much dialogue now that I think about it, and even though it did feel like he delivered some of his lines a little weirdly, I think he did an over all good job. The guy certainly looks like Superman, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing him in the upcoming sequels and in the Justice League movie, because of how human he was in this movie. My main problem with superhero movies is that the main character often feels way too superhero'ish and too invincible, but just like Christopher Nolan's batman, Zack Snyder's Superman managed not avoid that. Cavill aside; it's time to talk about the character for Kal-El himself. As previously mentioned, Man of Steel is the first movie after the Superman reboot, and the movie therefore deals with Clark Kent's insecurities and doubts about himself a lot. Having to initially suppress his powers and and hide the fact that he isn't a normal human being would be devastating for everyone, and even though it was told in a somewhat clunky fashion, I could absolutely understand what Clark Kent/Kal-El was going trough. Kevin Costner plays Jonathan Kent in this movie, Superman's earthly father, and he's almost just as awesome as Russel Crowe is as Superman's real father. Costner's character is responsible for learning his adopted son why the world isn't ready for him and his powers yet, and the back and forth conversations between the two of them in the flashback scenes are some of my favourite parts of the whole movie. To recap what I said before: the second part of this movie has some really great moments here and there that work very well as individual scenes, but the way they are put together could have been done better. 

Now that Superman's character has had some time to get introduced, the normal superhero-movie cliche dictates that the main bad guy should start thinking about taking control of every single television set in the entire world, and then proceed to deliver his cliche bad guy speech about how powerful and almighty he is. As we all know, this part is usually followed up by the cliche bad guy stating his cliche bad guy requirements and the cliche bad guy consequences that will follow if said cliche bad guy requirements aren't met, and what do you know, that's exactly what General Zod does! Seriously though, apart from his done-to-death introduction, there's nothing specifically bad to say about Michael Shannon as general Zod. In my and hundreds of thousands of other people's opinion, Shannon is one of the best actors working today, so seeing him throw down with Superman was that one thing about Man of Steel that I absolutely couldn't wait to see. As it turns out, Shannon did a good job at portraying a believable and well created villain with understandable motivations and realistic strengths and weaknesses, but when it comes down to it, his character just didn't demand as much attention as Tom Hardy's Bane did, as an example. Zod's principals and reasons for being who he is weren't as fleshed out or as understandable as Tom Hiddlston's Loki was either. Even though I'm giving him a hard time right now, Shannon's General Zod isn't a bad villain by any means, he just comes up a little bit short compared to some of the more recent bad guys. I'll do a little Q&A to sum it up: Was General Zod an overall disappointment? No. Did he have the potential to be much better? Certainly. Was he even close to reaching the same level of menace that Heath Ledger did as The Joker? No freaking way. 

Alright, I think it's time to talk about the element of Man of Steel that has been dividing audiences and critiques the most. I'm of cause talking about the huge amount of actions sequences that take place in the second part of the movie, and to begin with, I think it's important to mention that I usually don't care for movies with huge amounts destruction and mayhem in the slightest. That being said though, I'm actually on the action-appreciators' side in case of this movie, because I think the incredible amounts of fighting and destruction of infrastructure was just what this movie needed. I mean honestly, Kal-El has been living "undercover" as Clark Kent for 30 years, and now that the world finally needs his powers, let's see him kick some serious kryptonian ass for God's sake! The way it's done is really impressive in my opinion; everything from the computer generated effects to the practical special effects and the way the fight scenes were filmed looked great, and had it not been for the bad and grainy looking 3D that my local theatre makes use of, I'm sure these scenes would have been absolutely astonishing to look at. The only time where I felt like less action would have been better was when Superman has to deal with one of General Zod's giant machine thingies, and even that wasn't nearly as bad as I had heard it was supposed to be. The inevitable final showdown between Superman and Zod is the greatest action segment of the entire movie in my opinion, especially the over-the-shoulder shots were awesome, and the way the confrontation ends is flawless in my personal opinion. I was afraid that the fight scenes were gonna drag on forever based on what I had heard about Man of Steel before watching it myself, but I have to say that it wasn't no way near as big of a problem as I had expected. 

When it all comes down to it, Man of Steel is an enjoyable movie that I'd recommend everyone that likes action/superhero/comic book-movies to watch, and even if those kinds of movies aren't exactly your favourite, the 6th adaptation of Superman still is a very fulfilling experience. The simple and very recognisable plot wasn't too big a big problem for me, and even though the movie is crammed with Christ-references and a few overly cheesy cliches, Zack Snyder still manages to make this movie his own. Man of Steel feels and looks like a big summer blockbuster, something that Hans Zimmer's ridiculously epic musical score plays a big part of, but the movie still manages to keep it's feet on the ground for the majority of its runtime. The first 20 minutes on Krypton were fantastic thanks to Russel Crove, who in an ideal world should receive some kind of nomination for his performance as Jor-El, Kevin Costner was great as well, and the rest of the supporting cast was alright too, although a little bit misused. I didn't get to talk about Lois Lane in this review, but I think she was alright as Superman's romantic interest. The movie does have its fair share of flaws though, the major one being the way the content in the second act is managed. Man of Steel definitely is the best superhero movie to come out in 2013 (I'm looking at you Iron Man 3), and with that in mind, I'm gonna give it a very solid seal of approval. (4/6)

Man of Steel IMDb link here

Man of Steel trailer here

Into The Wild - A Movie Review By Andrew Lawrence

"I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

Into The Wild was recommended to me by a good friend a couple months ago, and based on what he told me, I thought it was gonna be yet another Robinson Crusoe story about someone who gets lost somewhere and has to survive alone for X amount of time. The funny thing is that I watched the movie Cast Away (IMDb link here) starring Tom Hanks just 24 hours before watching Into The Wild, a movie that follows the cliche Crusoe-recipe down to a tee. I thought Sean Penn's fourth directorial feature was gonna do the same, and I swear, I've never been as positively surprised by a movie as I was by this one. Cast Away and Into The Wild might seem similar in a lot of ways when briefly summarised and compared, but in my opinion, two movies that share the same main plot device could not be more different. The movie is based on real life events, so if you decide to watch it, keep in mind that the things that take place on screen are slightly "Hollywood-ised" and altered with.

In Into The Wild, straight A college graduate Christopher McCandles from West Virginia one day decides to leave his old life behind, and go on a backpacking adventure. Chris is a very uncommon 22-year-old who loves things like literature and philosophy and despises everything materialistic and superficial, so in other words, he doesn't fit into the normal 20th century way of living. He's very judgemental of the people around him who don't feel the same way as he does, something that often leads to fights with his rich upper class parents, and it's safe to say that Chris is a 'misfit' because of his very radical and outspoken personality. He gives away all his money and departs from his old life without telling his parents, and literally goes into the wild to start living life the way he thinks it should be lived; on the road and under the sun, with no possessions other than the bare essentials.

The most important thing about this movie is the main character Christopher McCandles and his way of thinking, along with his motivations for doing what he does. Going into the wild and providing for himself is something he chooses to do because he's fed up with the normal American lifestyle, and living by himself with no strings attached to anything is the only way for him to feel alive and free. I went on youtube to watch a couple of this movie's trailers prior to writing this review, and I found something very interesting and thought provoking in the comments section of one of them that I'd like to share, something that ties into the element of doing things that are out of the ordinary perfectly. One guy stated: "Sorry, this guy was an idiot. He went into the woods without prior experience, without proper equipment, and without appropriate knowledge of the place he was going into. Even Thoreau had a house, but the moron insisted on entering the wild world with a blank slate. Contrast this with Richard Proenneke, who managed to survive into his 80s in the wild.", to which another guy answered: "That's the beauty of it mate. No one takes risks anymore. If he was too cautious, he wouldn't have experienced what he experienced. I believe that he's an inspiration. He taught us that if we want anything in life, we just reach out and grab it. We all need to search for a higher existence." This perfectly summarises Chris' ideas and his way of thinking; he had no idea what he was doing, but he did it anyway, because he felt trapped and concealed in a world where everyone is afraid and cautious. 

Emile Hirsch does a good job of portraying his opinionated character in a way that makes the audience understand what kind of person Chris McCandles is, but with that comes the undeniable fact that he is somewhat of an arrogant douche. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this guy literally has no respect for people that don't have the same opinions as himself, and I couldn't help but disliking his disrespectful personality, no matter how admirable and inspiring his attempt at finding his personal ideal way of living is. He does meet several people that are somewhat like himself though, and his interactions with those people is the source of some interesting dialogue that portrays certain parts of the human mind in a great way, and especially the conversations that Chris shares with Ron Franz, an old and lonely war veteran, struck home with me completely. Ron is nearing the end of his life, and his fears, concerns, reflections, regrets and thoughts on life's are incredibly emotionally effective, though provoking and true to my own thoughts on dying and growing old. For this reason alone, his character is my favourite supporting character in this film by far.

Sean Penn, the man who directed this movie and wrote it's screenplay, is a very politically outspoken and opinionated person, and you can definitely feel his presence throughout the entire movie. In my opinion, Penn uses this film to lash out at the elements of today's society that he doesn't agree with, and the result is a very interesting and original movie that has stayed on my mind for many days now. I believe that making his audience think about their lives was Penn's main intention when making this movie, something he succeeded in completely. No matter how thought provoking Into The Wild is though, the movie doesn't shine in any other aspects than it's philosophical take on life and modern society, and as a result of this focused way of telling it's story, a lot of things in this movie aren't as impressive as they could have been. This is gonna be a somewhat short review, simply because there isn't much else than the philosophical aspects to talk about. There's nothing about this movies that I straight up disliked, I just don't think that anything other than it's main message is spellbinding enough to earn the movie my highest rating. I had a very good time watching this movie none the less, and I'd definitely advise anyone that loves good movies to check it out. In the end, I'd say that Sean Penn's Into The Wild is worth buying on BluRay. (5/6)

Into The Wild IMDb page here

Into The Wild trailer here

The Tree of Life Movie Review - By Andrew Lawrence

"Where were You? You let a boy die. You let anything happen. Why should I be good, when you aren't?"

I've never truly understood what a so called "drug movie" is, but that changed completely when I saw The Tree of Life for the first time yesterday. I first heard about the phenomenon when I was watching a documentary about Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and from that I leaned that people apparently used to do drugs before watching this 1968 sci-fi masterpiece, in order to get an even greater kick out of the drugs. My saying that I think The Tree of Life is that kind of movie doesn't mean that I urge everyone who reads this review to go out and get high on drugs, I'm just merely trying to explain how trippy and weird the film is. It contains a bunch of beautifully shot scenes overlapped by transfixing songs and philosophical narration, but other than that, even trying to define what The Tree of Life is about is completely impossible. 

Tarrence Mallick, the man who wrote and directed The Tree of Life, is well known for his very stylistic and artsy way of creating movies. I've never been a big fan of his work myself, and to say that I liked this film would be a lie, because of how incredibly boring I ultimately think it is. It's Mallick's most abstract and most existential project ever, and even though it benefits a little bit from his incredible ability to make his films look visually astonishing, the lack of storytelling and plot coherence in the over all product drags it down immensely. Sure, beautiful forests, lakes and trees are nice to look at for a few minutes at a time, but then again, it's not that impressive either. The same thing goes for curtains rustling in the wind, closeups of characters who are looking all existential and thoughtful, children playing, people crying and planets exploding, which is all that this movie consists of. 

As I mentioned before, you can't deny how beautiful this movie's visuals are. In my opinion there's a limit to how much of one element you can cram into a movie before it becomes too much though, and The Tree of Life surpassed that limit within 15 minutes. From that point on, the scenes that consist of nothing but waterfalls, planets and mountains did exactly the same for me as the explosions and fireworks in Transformers III did; they annoyed and bored the shit out of me. By the time I saw the twentieth set of slowly rustling curtains and the thirtieth closeup of a boy playing with his brothers, I wanted nothing more than to stop watching this movie and go sleep. That's how boring this movie is. The whole thing about God's plan and how one of the young boys begin to question it when he witnesses the loss of innocence is interesting enough, but the fact that it goes nowhere and just fizzles out killed it completely for me. 

A lot of diehard Mallick fans have accused people who don't like this movie of being too impatient and incapable of understanding quote on quote 'good movie making'. I personally understood 90% of what The Tree of Life had to say, so in my case 'not getting it' isn't the problem, I just think it's a bad movie. I understand that Mallick wants to make his audience think about stuff like the meaning of life and death, regret, sorrow, ambition, childhood and traumatic events, but this movie tried to do that in a very convoluted and incoherent way in my opinion. I'm a big fan of great storytelling and symbolic plot devices, but in the case of this movie, the existential and philosophical aspect got totally out of whack way too fast. There's no real story arch in The Tree of Life, and I spent way more time trying to figure out which of the three boys from the countless flashback scenes was the one that was gonna grow up and become Sean Penn's character, than I spent thinking about my childhood and how fragile life is, which probably is what Mallick would have preferred. 

Speaking of the characters, I have to admit that most of the cast did a good job in this movie. Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt did great at portraying a standard Tanzanian couple from the 1950's, and the actors who played their three children were surprisingly good as well, even though they probably had no freaking idea what they were doing while the movie was being filmed. I don't know whether Sean Penn did a great job or not though, because of how little he has to do in the movie. He has one line of regular dialogue, and the rest of it is delivered as narration in form of whispered oneliners. I've seen an interview with him in which he explains how he's got no idea what he's even doing in the movie, and according to IMDb's trivia page, an entire separate movie can be made from the footage of him staring out of windows and into the camera that was cut from the actual movie. The final 15 minutes of the film is where he has the most screen time, and I have to admit that I've got no freaking idea what's going on in these scenes. Penn is just wandering around looking at his younger self on some beach, and then the movie ends. Come again, please?

The Tree of Life is a beautiful and well acted movie, and I imagine that Mallick was very keen on creating something that would take the world by storm in the same way that 2001: A Space Odyssey did, when he was writing the screenplay for it. Even though the two movies differ in a lot of ways, they also have a lot of things in common; things such as the beautiful visuals, the classical music, the existential and religious undertone and their incredible small amounts of dialogue. 2001 is a much better over all movie though, and I won't be surprised if The Tree of Life is all but completely forgotten in a few years. Mallick's vision, his beautiful camera work and the good performances by most of the cast are the only interesting and entertaining elements in this movie, and when compared to all the negative things I had to say about the pretentiousness of the rest of it, The Tree of Life ultimately isn't worth anything but a frustrated facepalm. (2/6)

The Tree of Life IMDb page here

The Tree of Life trailer here

Heat - A Movie Review by Andew Lawrence

"A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.""

Heat is a movie that came out in 1995, which is one of my favourite years in terms of movies. The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Toy Story, Casino, Twelve Monkeys and Braveheart were all released that year as well, but Heat is easily the most underrated of them all in my opinion. This movie is director Michael Mann's undisputed masterpiece in every sense of the word, and it features some of the best storytelling I've ever witnessed, the best action/heist scene in movie history, but more importantly, it's a picture perfect example of how beneficial good character development can be to the overall succes of a movie.

The cast consists of stars like Val Kilmer, Jon Voight and Natalie Portman, but also the first onscreen pairing of the all time greats Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. In the first fifteen minutes of Heat, Niel McCauley (De Niro) and his crew of expert criminals overthrow and rob a money transport. Waingro, the newest member of the team, eventually starts shooting the people that were guarding the van during the heist, a fatal mistake that starts off a chain of inevitable events that eventually leads Niel and the hard nosed police lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Pacino), the cop who's assigned to solve the case, on a collision course. After the opening act finishes and the crew starts planning their next big score, the movie slows down a lot, and the character development part of the movie begins. The audience is introduced to some of the more personal things that the different characters are dealing with, and the astonishing detail in which Michael Mann does this is one of Heat's strongest selling point in my personal opinion. 

It's revealed that De Niro's character is an incredibly lonely man who lives by the quote that you see written under the title of this review, and it turns out that Lt. Vincent is one of those cops whos' only real passion is his job, which in turn leads to a chaotic family life. Even though these are the two main characters of the movie, Michal Mann still leaves room to develop a lot of the supporting cast as well, the stand out being Val Kilmer's character, Chris. This guy seems like a total dickhead at first glance, but thanks to the Michael Mann, he actually turns out to be an incredibly emotional character who's willing to do anything for his wife and his child. Kilmer might not have as much screen time as De Niro or Pacino, but he's my personal favourite character of the movie, Simply because of how fleshed out Michael Mann allowed his and all the other supporting characters of this movie to be. 

As the movie starts to get going and the main problems that the characters have to deal with are introduced, another great thing about this movie becomes apparent. It might not seem that important to most viewers, but the cinematography in Heat is essential to the tone of the movie, and it would not have been the same without it. The background score is very important as well, and when combined, these two elements create an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty that's as effective as it gets. A lot of critiques and audiences have complained about the length of this movie, but to me, when cinematography and music come together to create an atmosphere that is as powerful as it is in Heat, 2 hours and 50 minutes isn't too long at all. My father once described Heat as "a Christopher Nolan Batman film without Batman", and now that I've seen the movie twice, I completely agree with that statement. Remember how The Dark Knight's storytelling, moral dilemmas, confrontations, all consuming feel of grandness and character development kept you on the edge of your seat for two and a half hours the first time you watched it? Heat will do the same thing, because the tone and the atmosphere of both movies are as similar as they are. 

Writing about Heat without mentioning the downtown Los Angeles bank robbery scene would be an even bigger crime than stealing 12.1/12.2 million dollars and killing 50 police officers in the meantime. In a scene that has become one of the most famous actions sequences in recent memory, McCauley and his crew pulls of their biggest score ever about 90 minutes into the movie. The actual bank robbery is tense and exiting in itself, but the shootout between the cops and the criminals that ensues afterwards has gone down in history as one of the all time greatest action sequences. Little things such as the sound of guns being fired is greater in this scene than in any other shootout I've seen before, and the fact that you can hear the echo of the shots bounce off of the surrounding buildings is a testimony to the care with which this movie was created. According to IMDb's trivia page, the tactics that the criminals use to retreat is similar to the tactics employed by armies all over the world, and even though it seems like Val Kilmer's gun has 200 rounds in each magazine, the scene feels oddly realistic and grounded in reality. 

The way each of the characters behave when their cover is blown and everything is reduced to the principal rule of "kill or be killed" is remarkable to say the least, and it's my personal favourite part of this famous scene. Kilmer's character goes into a complete frenzy and starts killing cops left and right, and De Niro plays it smart and uses tactically efficient and well though out methods to escape. Another person from their crew simply just takes his part of the stolen money and bails the scene completely, and Pacino does everything he can to stop the criminals and reduce the amount of injured civilians as much as possible. No words are spoken in this entire scene, but it still says incredibly much about all of the characters that are involved. A lot of noteworthy things happen during this scene, and it's baffling to me how Michael Mann managed to make an element that usually just focuses on big guns and explosions become something more than just that.

Michael Mann knew that the Robert De Niro/Al Pacino showdown would be this movies strongest selling point, and he also knew how big a potential he was dealing with. The way he set these two actors up against each other reflects that completely, and even though they only share about 10 minutes of screen time in this 170 minute movie, he handled it flawlessly in my opinion. Lt. Vincent Hanna and Niel McCauley are polar opposites in terms of their choice of profession, but they're almost exactly the same in all other aspects. They're both troubled men who're 100% dedicated to what they do, they both wish that their lives had turned out a different way than the way it did, and they share the same way of thinking professionally. The two characters respect each other immensely, and when they finally meet to talk over a cup of coffe as regular men, every single line they deliver is memorable and chillingly effective. As great and important as the bank robbery scene is, it doesn't even come close to the level that this first on screen conversation between De Niro and Pacino reaches. The final moments of Heat are as emotionally effective and masterfully created as anything I've seen in a long time, and the memories and impressions that Michael Mann's masterpiece leaves me with are indescribable. It's a tragic and unsettling movie to say the least, but it's still one of the best crime dramas of our time, which is mainly because of De Niro and Pacino's fleshed out characters and the way they clash. 

Even though Heat was marketed as being an action-jackson movie with gunfights, babes, explosions and fireworks, it's a much deeper and more philosophical movie than I'd ever expected. Michael Mann's directing and the way he set up each and every single character to be important and impactful to the over all story is incomparable to 99% of the movies I've ever seen, and as a big fan of character development and dark plots with emotional twist and turns, there's no way to describe how far up my alley this film is. Michael Mann's vision and Kilmer's, De Niro and Pacino's characters are enough to earn Heat the rating of Movie Magic, but everything else about this epic movie is top shelf cinema gold as well. (6/6)

Heat IMDb page here

Heat trailer here

V/H/S - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"Joey, you're all gonna fucking die up here..."

V/H/S is a found footage-style horror movie (sounds familiar, right?), that came out in 2012. I have read a lot of positive things about it on various forums and news sites over the last year or so, and in an effort to change up the content on my blog, I convinced some of my friends to watch it with me last night. The main story of the movie is about a group of unpleasant guys that break into an old man's house in order to steal some video tapes, and when they eventually find them, the guys begin watching the tapes one by one. Every time a new VHS tape is put on, the audience gets to watches the contents of that tape as well, seen from the perspective of one of the robbers. This means that the movie consists of five short horror movies that are "framed in" by the main storyline, and this gimmick is the thing that sets V/H/S apart from the other 800 found footage horror movies that have come out over the last ten years.   

Well, yea. I'm no horror movie expert, but as a big fan of movies in general, I feel pretty confident in saying that this movie is very very bad. I have not seen a horror movie since Paranormal Activity III came out because of how uncomfortable I am watching those kinds of movies, so when I, one of the easiest persons to scare you'll ever find when it comes to horror movies, think that a movie that is created with the intent of scaring people was flat out boring, somethings clearly gone terribly wrong. The first of the five shorts affected me quite a bit, but from then on and until the end, it was all down hill. Even though I watched the movie at 3.00 AM in a dark room with the lights out and the volume way up, there was no point during the entire movie where I felt legitimately scared by what was going on on the screen, so you could say that the film failed completely at doing what it set out to do. Because I was so busy being bored by 90% what V/H/S had to offer, I had plenty of time to pick up on a lot of other major flaws that the movie suffers from, so they'll be what I'm gonna focus on in this review.

One of my main issues with this movie and a lot of horror movies in general, is how riddled it is with cheap jump scares and a wide variety of this genre's hundreds of other done-to-death run-of-the-mill boring-as-fuck cliches. Something creepy was jumping up in my face every time the background noise died down for just a second, stupid but good looking young women were taking off their clothes just before they got killed extremely regularly, and every time someone heard a murderous noise from some creepy room down the hallway, their imitate reaction was to enter that room to "check it out". Granted, the idea of having five smaller movies be the center of one overall storyline is great, but when all of these shorts are made up of things that everyone has seen time in and time out again, the whole thing falls completely flat. V/H/S's gimmick actually has a lot of potential, but it's just completely wasted by the banality of the story. The last short actually went as far as to bust out the old "let's have a Halloween party in this old haunted house"-story, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the third one seriously tried to pull off the "lets go to this desolate lake way out in the woods where some kids where killed a few years ago"-storyline. To whoever decided to use these brilliant plots in this movie; I'm sorry, but that shit just isn't entertaining anymore. 

Being a found footage horror movie, V/H/S pretty much spelled it's own demise before it even got released. I'm having a hard time believing that anyone creates these types of movies for any other reason than to make money any longer, and it's honestly very sad to witness a genre that used to demand loads respect on such a steep downfall alongside the brilliant idea that the found footage gimmick once was. Being nothing more than yet another cash grab, V/H/S feels incomplete and utterly incoherent, which is more sad than usual, because of the potential I believe it had. Me and both of the guys I watched it with thought that the movie would have been much more enjoyable, if only the five shorts had made any sense at all when compared to each other and the over all story that framed them in. Apart from the previously mentioned cliches and the found footage element, none of the shorts had even the slightest amount of things in common, and as a result, the whole movie seems totally out of place. It would have been so cool if all the shorts somehow were connected to the main story, and a big shocking reveal towards the end or something like that would have saved a tremendous amount of this movie's lost potential. Sadly, V/H/S just fizzles out and dies instead. 

This is going to be one of the shortest reviews I've written in a while, because I honestly don't feel like spending a lot of time thinking about this movie and how much it bored me. Apart from the creepy girl form the first short's creepy face and her even creepier pose, nothing from this movie scared me even slightly, so I don't see how it would be scary to anyone else either. V/H/S deals with the same problems that every other found footage movie does; flaws like the "why the hell would you be filming this anyway?!"-mystery and the "by now any normal person definitely would have stopped filming!"-phenomenon, and the story lacks any and all sorts of coherency and logic. I'm not saying that all movies should be explained in furrow detail or else it's a shitty movie, that way of doing it is actually even worse in my opinion, I'm just trying to explain how big of a mess the story of this movie is. It's easy to see that this movies is made up of five stories that are created by five different directors who decided to come together and mix their five half assed ideas into one big, bloody, sloppy and tasteless smoothie of bad horror cliches that lasts for almost two hours, and anyone who confuses the unexplained occurrences with clever and secretive storytelling is just plain wrong. V/H/S had a lot of great potential in my opinion, but it turned out to be nothing more than the first eyegouger to appear on my blog. I guess that's still something though. (1/6)

V/H/S IMDb page here

V/H/S trailer here

Psycho - A Classic Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"It's not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?"

Alfred Hitchcock is widely considered to be one of the greatest directors of old Hollywood, and watching and writing about some of his classics is something I've been looking forward to ever since I decided to start reviewing older movies here on my blog. I actually bought his 1960 cult classic Psycho on BluRay about six months ago, but it wasn't until very recently that I actually sat down and watched it. The movie takes place in the late 1950's, and it focuses on Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh), a beautiful young secretary from Phoenix, who steals 40.000 dollars from one of her employer's clients. She flees the city in fear of getting caught by the police, and after driving for two days straight with little to no sleep, she decides to spend a night at Bates' Motel, a desolate but nice looking place she just happens to stumble upon. This is where the story really begins to get going and where things become dangerous, especially when Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins), the Motel's proprietor, starts acting a little weird.

People have been calling Psycho the scariest movie of all time in many years now, but to be honest, I was very sceptical about this statement before watching it. Knowing that it's over 50 years old, I didn't have very high hopes for the horror element of the movie, seeing as the perception of what's scary and what isn't changes very rapidly as time goes by. Things that were scary 50 years ago aren't necessarily nearly as scary today; a great example of this is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It's a fantastic movie, absolutely, but to me, it just isn't as extremely horrifying and nerve wracking as people make it out to be. I wasn't expecting Psycho to be that scary either, seeing as it's 20 years older than The Shining, and now that I've seen It, I can confirm that it isn't. This doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the movie as whole though, it just didn't make me feel the need to cover my face with pillows and blankets. 

Seeing as it is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho is an extremely well directed movie. The shots and the angles are well chosen and well edited, the phasing is great and the tone of movie is suspenseful and believeable, which all in all makes the movie very visually appealing and easy to go along with. It's one of those movies where you're able to feel how much the director cared about what he was doing, and some of the things that Hitchcock did in this movie are truly fascinating to me. Little things such as the imaginative conversations that Marion Crane has with herself about how people around her react when they find out about her crime, the overlaying closeups of Norman Bates' face and a skull near the end, and some of the scenes that are filmed as if seen from a bird's perspective are all extremely cool in my opinion. Alfred Hitchcock has definitely deserved his reputation of being one of the greatest directors of all time, and as a fan of movie creation and attention to detail, I appreciate everything this man did for the industry. 

No matter how well Psycho is directed, I do have one major issue with the script that I need to address. Even though the story is simple, thoughtful, surprising and easy to catch on to, almost none of the characters in the movie have more than an hour to "live" in. Some get killed 30 or 45 minutes into the movie, others take as long as an hour to get fully introduced, and the main character of the whole movie only has about 40 minutes of screen time. I honestly felt as though the movie was way too short to handle as many characters as it wanted to, and as a result, I almost didn't care about any of them on a personal level. Scenes that were supposed to make me cringe and shutter only made me raise my eyebrows, because I hadn't had enough time to connect with the characters that were involved. 

The performances that went into these short lived characters were all great though, and Norman Bates was especially well portrayed in my opinion. He's the main character of the movie, and even though he isn't introduced until 20 minutes into the sory, he definitely is the one with the most depth and the most screen time. I loved the way he was able to seem creepy and out of whack even when he was talking about regular every day stuff, and he definitely is my favourite part of the whole movie, simply because he's the only interesting character in it. Perkins' ability to deliver Alfred Hitchcock's extremely well written dialogue is incredible, and had it not been for the way the movie ended, Norman Bates could have been one of the most iconic and mysterious characters in movie history. By having Dr. Fred Richman explain every single detail about Bates and the mystery that has been the center of the entire movie, the conclusion of the story leaves nothing open to interpretation at all, which in turn means that the movie ends when the credits have finished rolling. I personally love it when a movie leaves me with a bunch of stuff to think about after it has finished, and by having Psycho end as it does, no sort thing is possible.

When everything is said and done, Psycho is a fairly exciting and mysterious movie about a human being who has lost his grasp with reality. By today's standards it isn't a very successful horror movie however, even though it does have some tense scenes and a some exciting elements to it. The problems I had with the character development and the way the movie ends drags Psycho down a lot for me, so I'd be lying if I said that the the movie left as amazed as other classics have. Hitchcock's incredible ability to create iconic and memorable movies does shine though the surface quite often however, and combined with Anthony Perkins' incredible portrayal of Norman Bates, the legendary director does manage to create a memorable movie that kept me entertained from start to finish. In spite of its problems, I'd say that Psycho is worth the watch because of it's legacy, its iconic elements such as the shower scene, Hitchcock ingenious ability to direct, and Perkins' incredible portrayal of Norman Bates. (3/6)

Psycho IMDb page here

Psycho trailer here

PS: This is what happens when Blockbuster goes on sale:

Only God Forgives - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

"When I was pregnant with you... it was strange. You were different. They wanted me to terminate... but I wouldn't. And you're right. I don't understand you, and I never will."

In my opinion, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, the movie for which he won the Best Director's award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, is the best movie to come out of Hollywood in over 40 years. This fact makes trying to explain how much I was looking forward to watching Only God Forgives, Refn's second collaboration with Ryan Gosling, about as difficult as trying to explain to a blind man what colours are. I was surprised to hear that the movie was getting absolutely slammed by critiques all over the world, but now that I've sen it, I'm extremely happy and thankful to be able to kindly ask those critiques to go fuck themselves with a rake. In my opinion, Only God Forgives is the best movie to premiere since Drive, and it's sad to see that it isn't getting the recognition I think it deserves. 

A lot of people have been complaining about the plot of Only God Forgives, claiming that it's weak and without purpose, but the way I see it, this element of the movie is actually pretty simple and straight forward in a lot of aspects. Yes, the way it's being told makes it seem more convoluted and weird than it actually is, but I'm 99 % sure that this was a completely intentional move on Refn's part. The main story of this movie is about Julian, a cold hearted and emotionless yet successful Bangkok drug lord, who is coaxed into taking out his brother's killers by his exploitive and power hungry mother. Everyone who's seen the movie will accept this plot synopsis and think of it as being accurate to what they saw, myself included, but what they don't realise is that it deals with a bunch of other themes as well. These themes are dealt with through some surreal and sometimes even unexplainable scenes that are placed regularly throughout the movie, scenes that are easily written off as incomplete or incoherent, and their presence and eventual importance to the main message of the movie is Only God Forgive's main turn off/problem for a lot of people.

Now that I've spend so much time trying to justify the subplots of this movie, you're probably gonna wonder why I'm not gonna go into specific detail about all the ins and outs of every one of those freakish and artsy scenes I was talking about. Sure, I'd really like to, but doing so without ruining some of the best parts of this movie is impossible. One of the things I enjoyed the most about Refn and Gosling's latest collaboration is how it got me thinking and wondering, and I want everyone who enjoys good movie making as much as I do to experience the same thing. I feel safe saying that some of the themes that this movie deals with, apart from the main revenge-based story line, are things like redemption, self forgiveness, spirituality and Oedipus complexes, but how they come into play is something I want you to watch the movie and figure out for yourself. Enough of the plot, let's get to the real meat of this review. 

If you're a sensitive person who doesn't like bloody and violent movies, well, Only God Forgives is not for you. Refn's latest movie is his most gory picture to date, and its sheer amount of mangled corpses and separated limbs has proved to be very unsettling for a lot audiences. I can understand how people who just don't like looking at such things will be repulsed by this movie, I get that, but those critiques who have been saying that Only God Forgives is violent just to be violent and that it serves no actual purpose whatsoever, are 100 % completely wrong. I'm a very understanding person who accepts other people's opinions in general, but in this case, I'm gonna go out there and say that those opinions are just wrong. The violent content in this movies is absolutely vital for it to create the right tone and atmosphere, more specifically, the feeling that death is lurking just around every corner, ready to cut your hands off with a freaking samurai sword. The fact that I felt as though the grim reaper himself was present in every single scene, just waiting to claim his next soul, was one of the absolutely most enjoyable yet unsettling parts of this movie, and this element wouldn't have been marginally as effective without the very graphic violence that Refn has created. 

As anyone who loves Drive will know, Nicolas Winding Refn is a demi-god behind a camera. Every single movie he's ever made, well or poorly received, has been created with near flawless craftsmanship and care, and Only God Forgives is as well. The camera work in this movie is some of the best I've seen since I started reviewing movies, and to me, its most memorable scenes are the ones that are the most beautiful to look at. The slow-panning hallway steady-cam shots were particularly incredible to me, because of the suspense they added to the scenes in which they were used. Character closeups are another vital element to this movie, because of they way they're used to display what a specific character is feeling at certain moment throughout the movie. A lot of times the director would have his actors express their character's emotions through facial expressions instead of dialogue, and it worked incredibly well for this movie. A picture says more than a thousand words as they say, and Ryan Gosling's, Kristin Scott Thomas' and Vithaya Pansringarm's facial expressions does the same in this movie. 

Being as beautiful on the outside as I knew this movie was gonna be, one of the things I was most worried about before watching Only God Forgives, was whether or not it was gonna be able to suck me into its story and have me believe that I was watching real events instead of a movie, in the same way that Drive did. And oh my lord did it ever. About 80 minutes into the movie, 10 minutes before it was gonna end, was when I suddenly remembered that what I was watching actually wasn't real. The last time it took me nearly so long was when I saw Gladiator for the first time, and that movie is one of my top three favourites of all time today. Because this element is the very essence of great storytelling in my opinion, any movie maker that can do this to his audience deserves to be praised tremendously, and Refn is the only director who's managed to make me feel that way in two consecutive movies. 

Being as heavily reliant on visuals and atmosphere as it is, you absolutely have to see Only God Forgives in the a theatre, in order to enjoy it to its maximum potential. This sadly is the movies greatest downfall in my opinion, simply because a lot of people aren't going to do that, based on its very bad early reviews. Waiting for Only God Forgives to come out on BluRay and DVD so you can download a low quality version of it and watch it on your 14" laptop with a pair of cheap earplugs is a horrible idea, and it'll diminish everything fantastic about the movie completely. Appealing to large audiences isn't important to me when deciding how good a movie is, but it's still a shame that this one will get a reputation of being a "bad movie", because of the low amount of people who are gonna watch it the way it was meant to be seen. 

To sum it all up: If you're a person who only likes to watch movies like Transformers and The Fast And The Furious, Only God Forgives will be complicated and hard for you to watch, simply because you're not used to using your brain while watching movies. I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just trying to explain what kind of audiences this movie will entertain, and what audiences it won't. Only God Forgives is very artsy and atmospheric, but I don't think it's nearly as pretentious as a lot critiques make it out to be. I strongly believe that Nicolas Winding Refn believes in treating his audience with respect, and by that I mean that he doesn't cram every single plot detail down the throats of the people who are watching his movies. 

In the end, Only God Forgives is a must watch for anyone who considers themselves a movie enthusiast. It has some of the best cinematography and camerawork that I've seen in ages, and the way it managed to just suck me in and keep me under its spell for its entire 90 minute duration is impressive to say the least. This film definitely has a lot more style to it than substance, but if that isn't a problem for you, Only God Forgives is sure keep you nailed to your seat. The only reason why I won't be giving it the rating of Movie Magic is that when I think about it, all the movies that I've given that rating in the past are slightly better movies that I just enjoyed watching a little more than this one. Still, I'll definitely be picking Only God Forgives up on BluRay as soon as possible. (5/6)

Only God Forgives IMDb page here

Only God Forgives trailer here