Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: http://cms.polimoli.com/images/1536/2014/04/11/t1-horz.jpg

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Screenwriters: Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Evan Daugherty
Stars: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner
Trailer link
IMDb page

But first a bit of soul cleansing:

Yes, I, the person who named a three hour long french movie about two lesbians the best movie of 2013, went to the theater to watch a ninja turtles movie. I know, I almost can not believe it myself either. As far as excuses go, I have a pretty solid one: two of my less cinelitterate buddies wanted to go out for a burger and a movie, and this was the only one they wanted to see. It was two against one, so the choice was either Michael Bay and Megan Fox or nothing. They had me in a corner with my back against the wall. I simply could not help it, and I solemnly vov to watch at least five black/white movies per week for the next three months so that I may atone for my sins and continue down the path of the true film buff.

Oh Michael Bay, how we've missed you:

The latest big screen adaptation of every 1990's kid's favourite team of ninjas is produced by Michael Bay, and it shows from the very beginning. Anyone familiar with his Transformers series will not be surprised to hear that this film has about as much story to tell as a 30 second shampoo commercial, and contains characters that are about as deep and interesting as the dirt under your fingernails. Megan Fox plays April O'Neal, the main human character in the ninja turtles universe, who in the animated series served as the main connection between fact and fiction and who allowed the turtles to feel relatable and somewhat believable. In this film however, she is more of a liability than anything else. After her character has served its purpose and the turtles and the main "conflict" has been set up, she is demoted to her typical "damsel in distress"-type of character who cries and screams all the time, has 2-3 lines of dialogue every 30 minutes, and who only exists so that the heroes have someone to rescue during the nauseating actions sequences. Hooray for Michael Bay!

Indecisive about its target audience: 

Yes, any film featuring 8 feet tall turtles who fight with katanas, live in the severs and eat pizza all day long is gonna feel unrealistic to anyone but children, and I realize that I might not be young enough to be of the target demographic anymore. This particular ninja turtles movie is rated PG-13 and is supposed to be a film for kids and young teenagers, but there is absolutely no way that I would let my thirteen-year-old watch it if I was a parent, because of how creepy and gratuitous it is at times, especially when it comes to Will Arnett's character. Going all out with the unrealistic stuff is completely fine as long as you stick to that recipe and always keep in mind that what you are making is a kid's movie, but this film does not do that. No movie with a title as ridiculous as this one should have the power to offend or outrage people, but based on its roots and its childish nature, some of the heavily suggestive dialogue and "revealing" shots in this film are just completely misjudged in my opinion.  

See no evil:
I personally think the TNMT universe fits quite well into the superhero genre, and the one thing that a superhero movie needs even more than a strong and believable protagonist(s), is a worthy and rememberable villain. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles does not have that, not by any stretch of the imagination. Shredder, one of the best and most menacing villains ever created in any cartoon, comic book, television series or movie, is a complete joke in this film, and basically serves as a glorified henchman whom you could not care less about. As someone who loved the animated series when he was a kid and experienced how brutal and frightening the Shredder character can be, this was the single biggest letdown of the entire film. William Fichtner plays the other main villain in this film, and even though he does a very good job based on the material he is given, his character falls so heavily into the "evil corporate hotshot who appears goodhearted on the outside"-cliché that I lost any and all respect for him within minutes. Based on its lack of prominent antagonists, you never get the feeling that anything is actually at stake while watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which in my opinion is its single biggest downfall. 

Credit where credit is due:
This review has been an absolute hammering so far, but before we cap it off, there are a few slightly positive things that I have to mention. The actual ninja turtles are in fact somewhat well characterized in my opinion and serve as the only source of laughter in the film, but by the time you start caring for them just a little bit, it is far too late to matter. The elevator scene near the end of the movie is the only sequence that reminded me of the entertaining nature and likable personalities of the masked tortoises who I know and love from the television series, but for a 101 minute movie, one 20 second sequence obviously does not cut it. The CGI-work which went into the film is another thing that deserves to be mentioned, and even though it sort of feels wasted on the chaotic and way too shaky action sequences that we have come to expect from Michael Bay movies, I do realize that a lot of very talented graphics people must have worked on this project for months. They are the real heroes of this otherwise extremely subpar movie, but in the end, not even their contribution manages to salvage much of anything. I like the universe, the characters and the idea of adapting the animated series into a movie, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is everything but "shellshocking". 

Andrew Von Lawrence Presents: Troels the Existential Dinosaur

A wild idea appeared!:

I do not watch a lot of cartoons or animated shows/movies anymore, but for some random reason, I recently wanted to try and make one myself. As with most ideas, the inspiration behind this one kind of came out of the blue, and as ever, the story ended up being completely different from what I had initially intended. This probably is the quote on quote "best" skit I have made to date though, seeing as I ended up investing way more time into making it than any other project so far. I just pray that putting a piece of copyrighted Hans Zimmer music in it will not motivate the NSA have to me executed or something. 

Andrew used editing!:

My guess would be that this 5 minute video took about 15 hours to create, the biggest time consumer by far being the editing process. For some reason it did not occur to me that taking still pictures would be the easiest way to go about making a stop motion cartoon such as this one, and as such, I ended up having around five hundred small clips that all had to be trimmed down and matched together. Even though this particular video only runs at four frames per second, creating just under a thousand 0,25 second clips was a major pain. 

It's not very effective...:

Apart from switching to still pictures, the next cartoon I make will be shot on a desk or a chair or something, and not on my goddamn bedroom floor. After three hours of sitting on the carpet rotating small paper stars and moving badly drawn dinosaur carcasses half a centimeter per frame, my spine and my ass were basically ready for amputation. It was hilarious. Seriously though, I did have a good time making this video, and stop motion is definitely a technique I will be working with again in the future. 

You can find this video as well as a few others on my Youtube channel.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: http://americanlivewire.com/2014-04-07-captain-america-the-winter-soldier-tops-weekend-box-office-continuing-marvels-streak/

Director: Anthony and Joe Russo

Writers: Christopher Marcus, Stephen McFeely

Stars: Chris Evens, Scarlet Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford, Anthony Mackie

Trailer link

IMDb page

Having a lot of making up to do:

I am just going to come right out and say it: I do not like the Marvel cinematic universe very much. I trashed Iron Man 3 to bits when I reviewed it a year ago, and since then, my opinion of these super hero movies have not changed a lot. The fiasco that was Thor 2: The Dark World did not exactly do the genre any favours, and with that in mind, I had very little to no hope that Cap 2 was gonna be any different, despite its stellar cast and overwhelming popularity. As it turns out however, Captain America: The Sinter Soldier is not just a good action movie in itself, but the best Marvel film since the first Iron Man. Who would have thought. 

Layers like ogres:

In my opinion, the second film about Steve Rogers and his spandex suit might be the deepest of the Marvel movies thus far. Themes such as freedom versus fear and surveillance versus trust are constantly brought up and discussed, and even though the film's huge amount of action sequences kind of muddies them a bit, these ethical dilemmas are constantly an issue that Cap and his buddies have to deal with. Unlike the first movie, the second Captain America film is successfully selfaware and reflective on behalf of America itself, and I think the writers did a good job of portraying the corruption that sometimes comes with great power, at least for a while. Several of these themes and other plot lines do begin to step on each others toes at some point however, but from a Marvel film, this should not come a huge surprise to anyone. 

So many A-list actors, what do we do?!:

In terms of believable characters, this film has more than enough. Marvel has always been successful at casting really great actors and actresses in their leading roles, and with Sam Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford and Luke Evens himself, this films is not an exception. All of these guys did a good job at delivering their surprisingly smart and snappy dialogue all throughout the movie, and I was surprised by how much Johansson's and Jackson's characters in particular were allowed to grow. I am not going to name the actor who played the winter soldier himself in fear of spoiling one of the movie's main mysteries for the few people who have not figured it out himself, but I am going to discuss the character itself for a while. 

The winter soldier:

Ironically, this guy is both my favourite and least favourite part of the whole film. Someone must have been watching The Terminator when they came up with the characteristics of this villain, because for about 90 minutes, he was almost as menacing, mysterious, brutal and interesting as Arnold has ever been. Lore wise I knew who he was as soon as I heard the title of the movie, but the way in which he is thematically displayed and used as a link between the past and the present felt very convincing to me, and small things such as his costume and theme music made him one of the best Marvel characters, not just villains, that I have seen so far. He is also massively misused however, and when the movie's main revelation takes place and the big baddies finally step out of the shadows, the winter soldier as a character kind of falls in the background. He was the most interesting aspect of this film by far, and the fact that some ludicrous 70-year-conspiracy pushed him out of the lime light two thirds into the film made the character feel somewhat wasted. 

Lots of good, bits of bad:

As a whole, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a refreshingly enjoyable and interesting action movie, and it has successfully revived a good amount of my appreciation for the super hero genre. I for once never felt bored by the action sequences and found myself enjoying the spectacle and admiring the good aspects instead of brooding over the bad stuff, and for a good 90 to 100 minutes, I though Captain America was going to overthrow Iron Man and make this the best Marvel film to date. As previously mention however, I personally felt that the best element of the film was pushed aside to make room for a far less engaging and fathomable one, which is too bad considering how invested I had gotten in the story and its characters up until that point. Still, watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a very fun and rewarding experience, and it has firmly earned its status as the best sequel in the Marcel cinematic universe so far.

Atonement (2007) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: of http://gimmemorebananas.blogspot.dk/2010/08/atonement.html

Director: Joe Wright

Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton

Stars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan

Trailer link

IMDb page

Tough odds: 

Before watching Atonement, the only thing I knew about it was that it won the golden globe for best drama over There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men back in 2008. I had no idea what it was about, who the director was or how other people feel about it, and thus has no real idea of what to expect. It was one of those titles that only exist in the foggy outskirts of your mind, one you stumble across on IMDb once in a while, but ultimately does not catch your interest.  I was more than a little sceptical going in to the film however, since I had a very hard time believing that a film I had never heard anyone talk about could be better than NCFOM and TWBB.

A setup you can only dream of:

Apprehensive and trepidatious as I was, the first hour of Atonement completely swept me off my feet. This portion of the film takes place on an English holdfast in 1935, where a young girl who thinks she knows everything there is to know about love set off a chain reaction of equally sad and ironic events, which ends up shaping the lives of everyone around her for the worse. What we have here is not just a setup like any other, but a beautiful, shakespearian tragedy of greek proportions mixed with a heavy dose of innocent Coen brothers chaos and unforgiving randomness, where every second is utilized to its fullest potential and where every character has something important to do. On its own two feet, the first hour of Atonement is easily worth the price of admission, and I count it among some of the best introductions to a film that I have ever seen.  

In the wake of great things..:

It pains me to say that after a thrilling first half and a very convincing point of no return, it kind of feels as if the film looses its feet. The three main characters leave the holdfast and break the frame of what had previously been a small, enclosed environment where everyone knew each other, and we as an audience follow them as they try to live with and accept the event that split them apart. The themes of consequence, frustration, forgiveness and longing work perfectly well here, but the magic I felt during the introduction of the film never really reappeared. There are a few sequences which work very well and remind you of how great the earlier parts of the film were, but also several scenes which feel unnecessary and a bit contrived. Going second is always tough, and the looming shadow of Atonement's first hour ultimately overwrites much of its second, in spite of its comparatively high standard. 

Taking an idea and running with it:

The main thing I love about this film is sort of a double edged sword, in that it works incredibly well at times but serves as a negative in other cases. What I am talking about is the way in which the film in some instances sort of expects its audience to accept certain things about its main characters based on emotions rather than forced symbolism; a successful example of this being why two of the main characters love each, and an unsuccessful one being why fighting in a war is mentally degenerating. I understood why McAvoy's and Knightley's characters could not live without each other within seconds of being introduced to them and did not need 45 minutes of buildup to understand why splitting them apart would mean tragedy and suffering for all, which left so much more room for the establishment of other themes.  I do not need to see McAvoy's character stumble across the bodies of twenty dead school children in order to understand that war is bad however, and had the film stuck to its guns and remained confident in its ability to sell feelings and emotions throughout its entire runtime, my over all impression of it might have been better. 

To hate or appreciate, that is the question:

As an over all product, Atonement is a very solid piece of work that I am extremely happy that I chose give a shot. People who have already seen the film will know that I left out a lot of plot and character explanation in this review, which was an entirely conscious choice on my part, because of how important complete and utter unknowings was to my personal enjoyment of the film. Keira Knightley does a good job in the film and James McAvoy is even better, but none of these two established actors manage to rival the performance of Saorise Ronan, who was only 12-years-old when she was cast. She plays the young girl who sparks the fire underneath the lies and tragedies on which the entire film is build, and she is yet another reasons why the first half of the film is significantly better than the last. I loved 50% of this film, liked 45% a lot and sort of disliked about 5%, but as a whole, I found Atonement to be a hugely enjoyable film. 

Lawrence Uncut: My Most Anticipated Movies of the Upcoming Oscar Season

Summer and all its big comic book Blockbusters has come and gone, and it is finally time for film buffs such as myself to come out of hiding in preparation for this year's Oscar race. Now and again a good old CGI-heavy popcorn extravaganza can be really good fun, but for me personally, the last four months of the year is where the real action is at in terms of movies. With new films from directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and  Alejandro González Iñárritu coming out, the fall of 2014 looks particularly promising, and thus I find it only fitting to take some time to write about some of my most anticipated films on this year's Oscar season. 

Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice

Currently, PTA is my favourite film director, and Joaquin Phoenix is one the most interesting actors working today. Alas, it should come as no surprise that their latest collaboration finds itself on the top of my own and hundreds of other film fans' lists of upcoming films to look out for. This one is a contender in all the main categories as far as I can tell, although its biggest potential probably lies in the leading actor's category (Phoenix) and possibly the adapted screenplay category as well (Anderson). We have not seen a trailer from this film as of yet, but the vibe I get from the posters and the interviews that I have been able to find is that of a smokey, weird, 1960's detective film noir, which seems to fit the Anderson/Phoenix combo perfectly. Saying that I am extremely excited for Inherent Vice is an understatement, but I will just leave it at that for now. Getting too hyped for a new movie can often spell its downfall, but I in this case, I simply just can't help it. 

Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler

Take a look at this poster, claim that you are not excited to watch Nightcrawler, and the world will know you for a liar. I had no idea who the director was or what he had done in the past when I first laid my eyes upon this visual feast of a poster, but I instantly knew that this was a movie I just had to watch. Call it successful marketing or visual manipulating if you want, but as someone who loves films such as Collateral, Taxi Driver and of cause Drive, this poster and the film's two trailers struck a nerve in my head that had me hooked form the very beginning. The fact that it happens to star Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role does not hurt my anticipation in the slightest, as he happens to be one of those actors who overcame a somewhat rough start and has gone on to become one of the biggest talents in Hollywood, and one of my personal favourite actors. This film is a lock for the Oscar for best poster as far as I can tell, although I have to admit that I don't see it winning any main awards because of its indy-ish vibe. 

David Fincher's Gone Girl

Yes. Please. Ben Affleck has been proving everyone wrong over the past few years, both behind and in front of the camera, and based on the incredibly high standard of everything Fincher has been involved with over the last  two decades, I see no real reason to believe that Gone Girl is going to be anything but spectacular. My one reservation would be the fact that the film is an adaptation of a very popular novel written by Gillian Flynn, who interestingly enough wrote the adapted screenplay herself as well. Whether this is a good or bad thing is somewhat hard to say, seeing as successful authors don not always turn out to be good screenwriters, Cormac McCarthy. Finding a better director to take good care of said script would prove incredibly difficult however, and as far as I can tell, Gone Girl is a major contender in all the major categories come November 2015. This could very well be the year where Fincher takes home his first Oscar, and if that indeed happens, I would neither be surprised nor upset. 

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar

I am about to trespass on holy ground here, but please, stay with me for a moment. Yes, I agree that Chris Nolan is a very talented director, and yes, his Batman films were a lot of fun, but I do not think that he is the Messiah of movies in the same way that everyone else does. He has yet to make a better film than Memento in my opinion (which is an incredible movie), but who knows, Interstellar might be the one to top it. The film finds itself on this list mainly because of its spectacular cast and the success of its first teaser trailer, which given its ambiguous nature and sense of mysterious grandness remains the best trailer of the year so far, but I'm still not entirely convinced that the film is going to be as "epic" as most people would have you believe. Unlike a lot of people, I personally do not think that the academy has "robbed" Christopher Nolan of any awards in the past either, but I would not be mad at all if he ended up taking home an Oscar or two for Interstellar. Still, I do not see that actually happening. 

Final thoughts:

Although most of these films probably could be considered the "cream of the crop", they are in fact just a few of the many, many upcoming films that I am extremely eager watch. Titles such as Birdman, Foxcathcer, The Imitation Game and A Most Wanted Man are all very high on the list as well, along with a bunch of films from the earlier parts of 2014 which are not available in Denmark as of yet, such as Boyhood, Frank, Locke, Calvary and Snowpiercer. The next few months contain a lot to look forward to for a film nerd such as myself, and I solemnly vow to watch every single one of the previously named titles, in order to make as in depth and varied a top 10 list as possible once the season is over. Movies, ho!