The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Trailer
Nice retro inspired visuals with hints of Sin City scenes. I think I’ll have enough time to watch the show it’s based on.
Category Archives: Feature
Review: “Kingsman: The Secret Service” Is 50 Shades of Delightful Destruction
Excerpt: The thing that makes Kingsman: The Secret Service stand out from any alternative film coming out this Valentine’s Day weekend is that you will actually enjoy this one. It does have violence, sex appeal, and a very penetrating (almost unnecessary) final scene like it’s competition, but this film has an engaging (and consensual) story and great character interactions with people obviously enjoying themselves. As the body count rises, our enjoyment rises with it. Did I mention the villain’s name is Valentine?
RATING: ★★★★★★★(7/10 stars)
To read my full review, go to TheYoungFolks
Interview – The Team Behind Stan Lee’s The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence & Contest
Excerpt: We were able to talk to the creative team (sans Stan Lee) behind Disney/Marvel/Stan Lee’s most recent written project. It’s called The Zodiac Legacy and Book One: Convergence was recently released. We get to talk to the Stuart Moore (co-writer), Andie Tong (illustrator), and Nachie Marsham (editor). The story follows a Chinese-American teenager, named Steven, who is thrown into the middle of an epic global chase when twelve magical superpowers are unleashed on the world. He’ll have to master strange powers, outrun super-powered mercenaries, and unlock the mysterious powers of the Zodiac. You know you’re already interested, but check out our interview just so you understand exactly why you should be even more excited. Stick around at the end of the interview and enter to win your very own copy, along with original character sketch by the talented Andie Tong.
Read the rest of the interview and enter the contest at The Young Folks
Hitman: Agent 47
Hitman: Agent 47
This seems way different, and a little less fun, than the actual video game it’s based on. Maybe it could be awesome!
Cinderella
Cinderella Trailer
This looks like it’s going with Disney’s new attempt to make all of their popular animated films into live action ones.
Editorial: Why Post-Grammy Beck/Beyoncé Bashing Makes You Worse Than Kanye
Excerpt: Kanye is once again in the spotlight for his bold move and even bolder ideas, but he has become good friends with bad press. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and Kanye is no stranger to making his sometimes outlandish opinions known, but there is a time and place. Neither of which are at an awards show he willingly attended about how they don’t support creativity. That just sounds like the perfect reason to boycott or not attend something rather than perform not once, but twice at this same show. Although he would argue against the very idea, Kanye is not the foremost authority on music. He does make a lot of music I do personally enjoy, but that by no means makes him the best judge for who is deserving of an award. Honestly, if it were up to him, he would get all the awards because, well, he is obviously flawless. He is a small part of a large music industry, and even though he does have knowledge on music, he has no right presuming who is deserving of accolades, and especially no right criticizing or ranking another person’s creative contributions. Now, we have arrived to the point.
Read the rest of this editorial on The Young Folks
Review: “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
There are few things in this or any other world as satisfying as the completion of something. Like finishing a big project, eating an entire wheel of cheese, or watching the last film in a trilogy that had no right being a trilogy in the first place. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies gives you that euphoric rush of fulfillment, partly due to the bombastic ending, and partly due to finally reaching the end of this severely elongated trilogy.
We return to Middle Earth for possibly the last time. Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) is on his way to destroy Lake-town. He is harpooned by Bard (Luke Evans), but not before he sets the whole town ablaze. Meanwhile, our plucky group of dwarves led by Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman) have take over the mountain, but now they must defend from not one or two armies, but 5. Thranduil (Lee Pace) comes with his army to take the mountain for himself, but then changes sides when the forces of darkness attack, wanting their piece of the prize.
Meanwhile, Gandalf (Ian Mckellen) is being held captive by Sauron and his forces while Sarumon (Christopher Lee), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett, and Elrond (Hugo Weaving) come to save him. Gandalf quickly gets to his feet and rushes to the battle, trying to save the situation and unites the forces of elves and dwarves. The only question is, will they be enough to take out the massives battalions of orcs and goblins?
I’ve been a long fan of Tolkien, Middle Earth and really any underdog tale involving hobbits, but this particular film trilogy took a toll on me. Everything in The Battle of the Five Armies is really the only moment I was excited to see this story created cinematically, and it Peter Jackson did a good job bringing it to life. Good, not great. The CGI explosion of fighting at the end seemed overly bombastic with a lot less emotionally invested, and a little too reminiscent from our first Middle Earth trilogy. Namely Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, except that in the vast armies we still felt a connection to the conflict. This time around, we are bombarded with a full screen, small scale battle, not really caring which side wins or loses because that is not the focus of the film. The pay-off was as satisfying as it could be, but at the same time it did not merit a trilogy.
There is little that made this entire trilogy worth even watching up to this point and it was Martin Freeman and Ian Mckellen. The charismatic and quirky Bilbo, played by Freeman, gave life to the stagnant panoramic shots and the sometimes glacially paced scenes. Coincidentally, one of my favorite scenes in the film didn’t actually occur in this book, but in “The Silmarillion”, and the sequence was also the most originally done (cinematically) in this second trilogy. That scene is when Gandalf went to face Sauron and then was saved by his friends. That intimate (in comparison) battle is what won me over this time around because it didn’t leave me feeling like I was lost in a crowd. With the heavy handed CGI and heavily watered down story, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies manages to finally draw to a close this long, drawn-out trilogy with a feeling of satisfaction.
RATING: ★★★★★★ (6/10 stars)
Review: Chris Rock Is In His Prime In “Top Five”
I’ll admit, when I was in elementary school, I was a class clown. I was always quick to crack a joke, make a pun, and just overall lighten any mood. I was never taken seriously, and as a child, I was fine with that. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I wanted to be taken seriously, but the title stuck. Everything I said was thought to be a joke, and even the serious things were thought to be jokes; unfunny ones at that. Top Five is all about the comedy and tragedy behind trying to become something more than what people think you should be.
Recovering alcoholic and stand-up comedian/film star Andre Allen (Chris Rock) is trying to break out into different genres, unsuccessfully. Being critically panned for his high grossing, low brow costumed bear films, he has aspirations of doing something more serious. Like say, a film about a Haitian uprising. On the eve of his film’s release, his bachelor party and his wedding to reality star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union, he agrees to have a writer from the New York Times shadow him for a day. Writer Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson) is much more than she appears to be, and suspects that Andre Allen is also, as she prepares to find out more about his life, his past and hopefully, his future.
This isn’t Chris Rock’s first attempt at the writer/director/actor trifecta, but this is the first time he was a resounding success. His humor has always been pretty much on point, but in “Top Five” we are given it in controlled doses. This helps bring his point home because at its core, this film is about control. It’s seen not only in his nimble use of humor in a sentimental narrative, but also in the story of overcoming alcoholism. The feelings don’t come off as false or forced, and that is because they come from a place of truth and genuineness. Less than a decade ago, Rock lost his brother to alcoholism, and you can feel his remorse in Top Five as we witness a story that might ring a little truer to Rock’s life than we have any right knowing about.
There also romantic aspects mingled with social commentary about celebrities and public perception vs. real life. Rosario Dawson and Gabrielle Union personify this concept perfectly as they each play Rock’s love interest. They weren’t the only stand out cast members, but if I listed every comedian and celebrity cameo in the film, you would already by on your way theater to see the movie rather than finish reading this. This film was co-produced by Kanye West and Jay-Z, so naturally their tracks makes up the film’s soundtrack, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I laughed, I let out a sympathetic “Awwwww”, and I cried (because I laughed so hard). Top Five is a hybrid, not without its flaws. This clearly self-referential “dra-medy” is just the right mixture of Chris Rock’s best of comedy, and thoughtful, emotional depth to show us that he is much more than just a stand-up comic proficient in situational humor and quippy one-liners. This film will take a well-deserved spot in your “Best Comedies of 2014” lists. Might even be in your Top 5.
RATING: ★★★★★★★★(8/10 stars)
Review: “Exodus: Gods and Kings” Is A Plague All Its Own
There are old stories that are so well known that they transcend the genre they belong to. We all know them, even if we don’t believe in them. One such story is the sordid past of rampant whitewashing in films. The other is the story of Moses. Exodus: Gods and Kings unnecessarily reminds us of both.
We know the story well. Moses (Christian Bale) and his brother (in the comradery sense) Ramses (Joel Edgerton) were both the Pharoh Seti’s (John Turturro) favorite, with Seti favoring Moses a little bit more. Seti’s wife and mother of Ramses Tuya (Sigourney Weaver) hated this fact and would find any reason to banish/kill/imprison Moses. After meeting with Hebrew elder Nun (Ben Kingsley), and being told he is also Jewish, Moses kills a guard and leaves the other for dead. Tuya finally has her excuse so with Ramses’ blessing, he is exiled to the dessert where he meets a woman, has a child, chases some sheep into the mountain, has a grave head wood, sees God as a British child, and sees a burning bush. Hallucinations be damned, he goes into Egypt, under the occasional guidance of child God, also with the help of Joshua (Aaron Paul), and demands the freedom of his people. Then the plagues come into play, only to placate us until the climax that should have been parting of the Red Sea. It was, like the rest of the film, anything but climactic.
There is no point in retelling a story that has been told so many times before unless you’re adding something new to it. Despite Noah‘s many flaws it did at least introduce original aspects, unlike Exodus. Hell, we’ve even seen this story whitewashed before in The Ten Commandments, and whitewashed Egyptians in Cleopatra, so what does this film have to contribute to the already over-produced story of Moses freeing the slaves from Egypt? Nothing, but some fodder for religious skeptics and more than a few angry religious believers. The only reasons The Ten Commandments and Cleopatra were able to get away with it is because not only was is a completely different time in American cinema, but also because of the grand scale of the production.
This production was grandiose in it’s own way. The sheer amount of computer generated people and battles will make you think you’re in Middle Earth instead of Egypt. That’s not all! The accents will make you think you are in England. The only thing that keeps this over-the-top production from being an outright joke is Christian Bale’s completely serious and professional approach to it. He portrays Moses with a sort of respect even though everything else about this film is disrespectful on more than a few levels.
There will not be a mass exodus from Exodus: Gods and Kings. Frankly, the people who will go see it, those not part of the #BoycottExodus protest against the film’s whitewash casting, won’t get a chance to make their exit until the end. You will be left in the theater long after the credits have ended, only to be woken up by the theater usher telling you that you need to go so they can clean up. Despite Bale’s performance, there is very little reason to go see this film. This is one of those films that deserves to be watched if only so you can tell your friends how right they were to boycott it/not see it. It commits many cinematic sins, but the two most unforgivable ones are that it wastes your time and it wastes your money. Neither of which you can ever get back, no matter how much you pray.
RATING: ★★(2/10 stars)
Insurgent
Insurgent Trailer
The first Insurgent trailer is up. Notice any changes from the books?
Still To Be Scene 