Fight Club review

I was listening/watching Taking Back Sunday’s “Cute Without the E” and one of the comments was, “I just realised this whole song and video is essentially Fight Club.” and that reminded me of how I haven’t seen Fight Club since I was a tween.

Fight club was a classic movie that young me couldn’t appreciate as I was too young to care about movies that weren’t fun like Jurassic Park or Josie and the Pussycats. So what did 20 year old me think instead as I watch it?

It is excellent. It has been a month since I watched it again and everyday I think about it at least once, which to me indicates a good movie as it has lingered in my brain long after I watched it.

The synopsis is mainly about this man who remained unnamed throughout the film (Edward Norton) and how he is essentially bored with his existence until he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and that was how Fight Club was formed. I knew the plot twist as I have watched the movie prior, but knowing makes this movie much more enjoyable.

This movie may appear to be speaking to working middle-class men in their 30’s but I feel this movie speaks to all of us in its themes. It is essentially a coming of age film which targets adults, and it spoke to me by thinking about how we all are taught to live life with the same structure: school. work. marriage. retire. die. In order to break this cycle we must rebel against the system, and I think that as someone who hasn’t reached the “work” part of my life yet, this is enlightenment really.

Jared Leto is also in this movie, and as a hardcore fan of his work I am deeply disappointed that I did not know this!

I will get into spoiler territory now, but this movie is 16 years old so I would be surprise if there is someone born before 1999 who does not know of this twist.

Here we go.

Ed Norton’s character is Tyler Durdan. An overwhelming twist I would presume if one has seen the movie without knowing the twist. However if you are to re watch it again, it actually makes so much sense. Fincher really had an eye for detail like how almost all characters when Norton and Tyler were together only ever looked at Norton and how those screen shots art the start should’ve indicated that Norton was close to breaking point when Tyler was created.

I love this film. Like I think I like it so much I will have to watch all of Fincher’s films again. I have seen many of Fincher’s films and the only one to have disappointed me was Alien 3 and I haven’t seen Full frontal so I am unsure about that, but his work as a director has been incredibly impressive. Heck, he even made me like Tyler Perry in Gone Girl this guy is incredible.

Marla is also an interesting character who really is so similar to Unknown guy which I guess links back to the fact we are all trying to make our lives interesting and seek the thrill. Helena Bonham Carter is of course incredible in this role, but she generally is! She is a messed up woman willing to be with a messed up man, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Overall, this movie is twisted and I love it.

I will give it 4.8 Jack’s raging bile ducts out of 5.

 

Batman v Superman trailed dropped!

I have been delaying writing anything for the last few weeks because my real life has been pretty busy and San Diego comic con was happening so I will wait til anything drop… and oh boy did it drop alright!

My most anticipated movie for the last 2 years has been Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, there is no doubt! The big two get it on on the big screen with also the first big screen appearance of Wonder Woman: how could I not be keen!

The trailer dropped and the last few days I have been raping that replay button because it is so beautiful and I could cry.

It starts out with Holly Hunter’s character (senator by the sounds of it) giving Superman a trial for all the death and destruction that he has caused in Metropolis by fighting Zod in Man of Steel. There was also a crowd of protesters for good reason: because let’s face it if we had an alien who destroyed a lot of our city, we won’t be welcoming him with welcoming arms anytime soon.

Then it turns to Bruce Wayne seeing the destruction of the Wayne tower in Metropolis and being a badass what does he do? Run towards the freaking falling building. I can totally see where this anger is coming from now. He starts getting back in the game by getting fit again.

Then there is monologue from both Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and his mum Martha (Diane Lane) giving Clark a speech on his importance and role in humanity. I particularly like Martha’s speech when she claims he doesn’t owe anyone anything because that is essentially the truth about Superman. He doesn’t owe humanity anything but yet he gives them everything, which to me is what embodies superman.

This was a shot that pulled at the heart strings of anyone who is really into that one comic books that really killed me. When the Joker killed Robin… I could cry thinking about it. This was a nice homage to it, and I am telling you the comic book references don’t end there.

Death in the family

There was this:

All Star Superman

And this:
The Dark Knight returns

I am now going to mention the most exciting moment in the trailer for me, because as a woman who loves strong women (doesn’t matter is emotionally or physically), this moment made me go “HELL YEAH GIRL POWER!”

WONDER WOMAN IS IN THE TRAILER DAMN IT.

Only negatives may be Jesse Eisenberg because he always plays the snarky rich guy so I am sick of that but we shall see (minute criticism).

So after all the magnificent glory I just described, is it obvious that I am too keen for this? BECAUSE I AM. So if you haven’t seen the trailer yet: GO. NOW.

No excuses.

Enjoy.

Minions movie review

To avoid the children a group of friends and me decided to watch the Minions movie at 9 (we also were watching Kingsman and didn’t want to stop half way aha). This was also for my friend’s 22nd birthday so I guess this movie is adult enough for all of us.

I had my expectations lowered by a friend who saw it in the afternoon, so I went out of the theater fairly ok.

Minions (2015) is a prequel to the box office monsters Despicable me and Despicable me 2, and is essentially just showing how the beloved minions we all know came from the beginning of time and to how they ended up where they are (watch Despicable me if you have no idea where they end up in the end). It is set in the 1960’s prior to the current events with many references that will definitely keep the adults happy.

It has massive star cast such as Sandra Bullock (Scarlet Overkill), Jon Hamm (Herb Overkill), Michael Keaton (Walter Nelson) and of course the director and voice of the Minions itself, Pierre Coffin.

Scarlet Overkill is the main antagonist which the minions initially set out to work for only to accidentally betray her. Her character was a generic villain with obvious motives so don’t expect a world class villain when watching her. I guess this film is targeted towards kids so I cut the character some slack, but it would’ve been nice if they explored more on why she became a villain rather than the same old background story (think of the most generic villain background story and then that’s it). They should’ve named her Generic Overkill. Sandra Bullock’s voice was really well suited though, so props for that.

Her husband, Herb Overkill, was really funny and his scenes with the minions is one of the best parts of the movie. He is kooky and cocky and I loved how this film just gave him the right amount of parts and not over-do his character’s presence. I have not seen Mad Men yet (on my list), but I somehow imagine Jon Hamm’s character to be fairly cocky in it which was why they got him to voice this character (I could be extremely wrong haha).

The stars of the films were three minions named Kevin, Bob and Stuart. These three set off to find the rest of the minions their new villain to follow, with Kevin being the leader of the group. Kevin is the sensible minion, Stuart is the chilled minion who didn’t even know what they were doing and Bob is the cute one with child like characteristics. Let me say though my absolute favourite minion was Bob, because he was so kind-hearted and helpful that you can’t help but love him. I swear the marketing team is genius because now I want my own Bob toy and a pet rat (watch the movie and you will see what I mean).

This film had some fun moments and some slower moments but overall I say it’s a good time at the cinema so I shall give it 3 minions out of 5 bananas.

Jurassic World review

The park has opened again, and by now you would think these people would learn their lesson.

Jurassic World is directed by Chris Treverrow, who only has a few films under his belt. The film is basically about how 22 years has passed since the events of the previous Jurassic park and there has been a new park titled “Jurassic World”. It revolves around these two kids who get sent to see their aunt, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who manages the park. There has been a recent hybrid created called Indominus Rex which appears dangerous, and obviously in good old Jurassic Park fashion, things go down.

Chris Pratt plays Owen who is a guy who is a Velociraptor expert who can train these creatures (I know right so awesome!). He was easily the best character in the film, which is expected because Chris Pratt is so likable. Unfortunately he was the only human I liked in this film, because the real stars of the films were the dinosaurs.

Like how cool is this bad boy. He is eating a FREAKIN’ GREAT WHITE SHARK DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG THOSE COOL THINGS ARE LIKE WHAT!

Also the Velociraptors were so cool, and be prepared to be extremely attached to them but cry at the same time about it.

I wish I could talk about another cool dinosaur but that will be heading into spoiler territory so I can’t go there. The kids were sufficient enough in this film, with some scenes between the two brothers being sweet which is hard for me to feel when it comes to children in film.

Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Claire, is alright but I felt she was essentially a blend of cliches put into one character. If I tell you she is a hardworking manager, think of every cliche ever placed about a woman in a role similar and you will get it right. I must say I am glad she was not useless in this film, with scenes of her actually helping out but being the spectrum of reason. Those heel running skills though… girl, teach me!

Now the dinosaur hybrid was a very interesting and cool design, with it essentially being a T-rex hybrid with arms that is actually long and retractable. It sort of reminded me of the 1998 Godzilla (forgive me for mentioning it), but actually scary.

I will not compare this to the original films because that is unfair, as this film has its own merits with cool effects and some moments which were fairly touching (the herbivores will make you upset, because it nearly killed me watching it). It is a summer blockbuster film essentially, but I am unsure if it earned the title of ‘classic’ but I say it is a film that one should at least check out in the cinema.

I shall give this 3.5 Velociraptors out of 5.

Why I started blogging about movies

I have only been blogging for an extremely short time (less than 5 months) and I am still learning how to blog because I have written all my life, but not very well so writing is more something I enjoy rather than it being a talent.

I only got into movie reviews in the last 3 years, with the YouTube channel AMC movies being the first inspiration for me. It was 2012 and I was aimlessly procrastinating my year 12 studies, when I came across a channel which was talking about movies. 

My initial reactions were, “Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do than to talk about movies?”. I clicked on the video anyway, and then I watched another, and another until I subscribed to them. 

That then spawned what I called my movie ecstacy. I was obsessed with these people talking about movies, and so later on I started watching a lot of movies they talked about and even subscribed to more of the mainstream movie reviewers on YouTube (Jeremy Jahns and Chris Stuckmann etc.).

What caught me about these individuals who spoke about movies was how relatable the way they review is, because I always thought movie reviewers were snobby, white men smoking cigars while riding their high horses (some still are), but these guys made me believe that anyone can review movies). 

  
In mid 2014 I created a blog with Weebly, but I had no direction. I blogged about random crap and I didn’t even know how (I still don’t haha), but that just made me give up and I did for a couple of months.

It was in late 2014 when I was staying in Canada and I just watched Gone Girl. That movie was the one that made me think, “I need to write about this.”. I never got around to writing about Gone Girl (maybe one day), but when I came back to Australia I created a WordPress account and so here we are. 

I have barely any followers and I struggle to even get a like, but hey we all start somewhere!

Favourite Zoolander quotes

Zoolander is not just a film. It’s the film. I am joking, I know it is not the best film, but to me it is a cinematic masterpiece.

What makes it exceptionally brilliant is the quotes which are just so hot right now (eh!). So here are some of my favourite quotes:

“You know what would help you sort through these important issues?”
“What?”
“Orange mocha frappachino!” 

“It’s that damn Hansel, he’s so hot right now” 

“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is”

“Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty”

When Matilda said, “When I was in 7th grade, I was… the fat kid in my class.”, and Derek’s brilliant response was, “Ew!”.

“Obey my dog”

And the big gun favourite: 

“What is this? A center for ants? How are we expected to teach the kids to read good… if they can’t even fit inside the building? It needs to be at least… Three times bigger than this!

So this was my favourite quotes from this amazing film! If I left anymore awesome quotes please leave a comment!

Thank you for reading this my little piglets.

Original movies: a dying breed?

There have been multiple amounts of movies coming out in these last few years which are either sequels, reboots, prequels etc. and many people are wondering if Hollywood has an original idea left in its body.

Majority of these reboots are fairly poor in quality, and if I have to list them I would have sore fingers. A movie that came out recently though is an example of why reboots can be a good idea, and that movie is Mad Max: Fury Road. It was masterfully made by the original director of the franchise which is different but stuck to its roots at the same time. So it’s not always bad, but why do they keep doing it even if the gamble is still high? 

  
 Now, I do have an idea why many studios want to do reboots: money. Believe it or not movies studios and producers want only one thing: money, and who can blame them I mean it is their jobs and life hood on the line.

So to be safer when it comes to earning money a franchise that already has a pre-existing fan base is always a good way to earn money. Also the box office don’t lie, as many of these reboots earn a hell of a lot of money despite quality. 

Pitch Perfect 2 is a sequel that came out recently, and crushed the box office with its 70 million dollar box office in the US alone. Tomorrow land, an original (ish) idea based on the Disney land theme ride made only around 30+ million in its opening weekend, granted the reviews have been mixed. This is just one of the many examples of sequels, prequels etc. making heaps of money. So of course if it keeps making the dough, the studios will keep making bread. 

  
But are original films dying? No. There are (believe it or not) many original films coming out this whole year: Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Crimson Peak, Black Mass, The Hateful Eight are some mainstream ones I can think off, but most original films which are coming out this year are mostly indie films. 

  
What’s the lesson then? 

If you want more original films, then support them when they come out in cinemas! That’s the only way original ideas can still be kept in the mainstream film industry. If you want to watch more original films, then expand yourself to other styles and see for yourself the many options that the

Mad Max: Fury Road review

Oh what a day… WHAT A LOVELY DAY!

Oh what a film… WHAT A LOVELY FILM!

I’ve been waiting for so long to watch this film and I was going to watch it last Thursday, only to fall super sick and having to wait one more week. That week is over and I have finally seen one of my most anticipated films of the year: Mad max!

Mad Max:Fury Road is a non-prequel, sequel who knows what directed by the mastermind himself, George Miller. It is set in a post apocalyptic Australia (Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!) with the lead character being Max Rockatansky, an ex-cop who essentially only has one goal in this hell hole: survive. He gets caught by the War Boys, a cult like group with a tyrant of a leader named Immortan Joe.

This whole film was action packed from start to finish, without moments of exhaustion which is one of the most impressive thing this film has done for me. The film also contained the most beautiful cinematography I have seen in cinema this whole year, with every shot easily being poster worthy.

This guitar player: AWESOME.

Now let’s talk about the acting. Tom Hardy (cough my husband cough I wish) is always a good actor, and he really portrayed the broken soul that he was, with the flashbacks of the dead really giving insight into why he is the way he is despite his limited dialogue. Some people may be off-put by the little dialogue, but I found it reasonable as he wouldn’t have had proper conversation ever since the apocalypse happened.

Charlize Theron is literally the highlight of this entire film, and she plays Imperator Furiosa who wants to save the wives of Immortan Joe who sees them only as property. She is a brilliant actress who gave emotion without showing emotion at times, as she obviously care for the girls but her emotions may not reflect that. I love that her character is gender less, meaning that it doesn’t matter that whether it is a girl or a guy playing it. I have heard of the drama of some Men’s rights movement or something yadayada, but it is so stupid that it’s not worth discussing about it.

I am glad though to see a movie where a female is not sexualise or objectified and can be useful to the overall plot. That doesn’t mean the wives aren’t sexualised, but they are all strong women who aren’t completely useless on their own.

 The wives are played by supermodels (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Abbey Lee), Aussie model and actor Courtney Eaton, and two actresses with famous parental backgrounds Zoe Kravitz and Riley Keough. These were my biggest fears, as I was afraid they would be helpless the whole time and not doing anything in this world of madness, but nope I was wrong they were serviceable and were decent in the parts given to them.

An underdog in this film’s praise is Nicolas Hoult as Nux, a war boy who used Max as a blood bag. He started out as a War Boy who wanted to please his ‘god’ Immortan Joe, but evolved into so much more giving him the strongest story arc along with Furiosa. I can’t talk about it without getting into spoiler territory but seriously this reminds me of how underrated he is as an actor. I hope one day he will get more recognition as he gets further on in his career.

This film is up there with Kingsman for me, so I will give it a solid 9.5 out of 10.

Have a lovely day now.

Pitch Perfect 2 pitches.

I wanted to watch Mad Max, however my sister was more keen on Pitch Perfect 2 which fits the genre she generally watches. I always do what she says anyway so we ended up watching this film. I liked the first Pitch Perfect, it was so surprising how good it actually was.

So this was a film I expected to be at least an enjoyable time in the cinema, and it was.

Anna Kendrick and crew returns for another musical comedy that has taken on a larger scale now, with the world Acapella competition being the main focus as they need to win it to continue as a group. However they encounter fierce rivalry with a German team called Das Sound Machine, and I don’t speak German very well (I struggle even with basics), but even I know “die” is more grammatically correct than “das” but hey most people wouldn’t know the difference.

They are freaking awesome in this movie, and I felt that the Kommissar who is one of the leads in the group, played by Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, was pretty funny and had a super cool voice. Flula Borg, of youtube fame, was also pretty great in this movie and I never knew he was so talented given that I have only watched very few videos of his.

Now the real giver of laughs though was Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy/Patricia, who at one point made me laugh so hard, the people around me were staring and my sister cracked up. I honestly think if she wasn’t in this film, this would’ve been a crap film, because she is the one who carries this film unlike the first one where Anna Kendrick owned the movie. However, Rebel is playing the same characters she always plays: the fat girl who is hilarious and makes jokes at her expense.

Anna Kendrick is after all the lead in this film, but I somehow felt she has taken a backseat and her story arc was sufficient but not exactly enough for me to care. This film never explored her relationship with Jesse much, and her inability to decide between internship and Bella’s is so generic and overdone that I could give two craps about that knowing she will choose both blah blah. She is still a great actress, and her scenes with Kommissar really gave me a chuckle.

Hayley Steinfeld is the new chick in this film, and someone who I assumed was casted in hopes of taking the mantel from the group. She played a dorkyish girl named Emily who dreamed of joining the Bella’s due to her mum being an ex-Bella, making her a legacy. She was an a serviceable character with not as much charisma as the other ladies but she played her role to the best of her abilities.

This film was nowhere near as coherent and good as the first film, but it was enjoyable with enough laughs and cool acapella moments to keep me satisfied.

I will give it 3 Bella’s out of 5

Teaser of a teaser for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I seriously think at this point the creative team at Warner Bros. can drop a picture of Batman’s dump and it would still make big news.
The teaser for the teaser of Batman v Superman has dropped and DC fans are dropping their panties in full excitement.
The teaser only consists of the suits for Superman and Batman which was tweeted by Zack Snyder who said:

“Confirmed 4.20.15 #BatmanvSuperman @IMAX special teaser screening events. Limited space. RSVP http://www.batmanvsupermandawnofjustice.com/imax/ ”

I am so keen for this trailer but I am so upset that it is still a year away before we can even watch the movie.

Watch the teaser here.