Recent Films I've Seen and Ratings

Fade to Black 2/5

Skyfall 4/5

GoldenEye  2/5

10 Things I hate about you 3/5

Being John Malkovich 3/5

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle 4/5

Pitch Black 3/5

Men in Black 3 3/5

The Descent 3/5

In Time 3/5

Mimic 2/5

Funny Games 1997 3/5

Safety Not Guaranteed 4/5

Side by Side 4/5

A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas 3/5

I Love you Man 3/5

Adaptation 3/5

The Godfather Part 3 3/5

Rush Hour 3/5

Hellraiser 3/5

Halloween 3 Season of the Witch 2/5

Best Worst Movie 4/5

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Identity 4/5

Walk the Line 3/5

Layer Cake 2/5

Blade 2 3/5

Get the Gringo 2/5

Crazy Stupid Love 3/5

Perfume: The story of a murderer 3/5 

3:10 to Yuma 4/5

Quantum of Solace 3/5

Looper 4/5

21 Grams 3/5

The Bucket List 4/5

The Bourne Identity 3/5

Sideways 3/5

Battle for The Planet of the Apes  2/5

Argo 4/5

Event Horizon 3/5

Chronicle 3/5

Young Frankenstein 3/5

Best Worst Movie 4/5

Semi-Pro 1/5

The Bourne Supremacy 3/5
JFK 4/5 

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Paul  2/5

The Raid: Redemption 3/5

Liar Liar 3/5

Munich 5/5

Dark City 3/5

Bruce Almighty 3/5

Final Destination 1/5 

Shutter Island 3/5

The Terminal 2/5

50 First dates 2/5

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 3/5 

Training Day 3/5
Dead Snow 2/5

In the Line of Fire 3/5

The Devils Rejects 2/5

Moon 3/5

The Butterfly Effect 2/5

Apocalypto 3/5

Con Air 3/5

Knocked Up 4/5

Million Dollar Baby 4/5

Collateral 5/5

The Intouchables 3/5

End of Watch 4/5

Alien Raiders 2/5

Dredd 3/5

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Red State 4/5
Arthur (2011) 2/5

Zack and Miri Make a Porno 3/5

True Romance 4/5

The Nightmare Before Christmas 3/5

Tombstone 2/5

Lost Highway 2/5

Happiness 4/5

Videodrome 3/5

Detention 2/5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall 3/5

The Life of David Gale 3/5

Hard Candy 2/5

Grosse Pointe Blank 3/5

Outbreak 3/5

Sling Blade 2/5

Back to the Future Part 2 4/5

Insomnia 3/5

Hard Eight 2/5

Superman 3/5

Barton Fink 3/5

21 Jump Street 4/5

Moneyball 2/5

The Amazing Spiderman 3/5

Underworld 2/5

eXistenZ 45

Land of the Dead 3/5

Waynes World 3/5

Traffic 3/5

Spaceballs 3/5

Mystic River 5/5

The Rock 2/5

Gone Baby Gone 3/5

Hotel Rwanda 3/5

Bad Santa 3/5

Lucky Number Slevin 3/5

Ted 3/5

25^th hour 3/5

Inside Man 3/5

Misery 4/5

Lord of war 3/5

Little Miss Sunshine 3/5

Into the Wild 3/5

R.I.P. Tony Scott

News Today that Top Gun director Tony Scott died from apparent suicide, my heart goes out to his family, such an awesome director, loved True Romance. 

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Panic Room 3/5

The Dark Knight Rises 4/5

Punch Drunk Love 3/5

Paths of Glory 2/5

Zodiac  5/5

The Game 3/5

The Frighteners 3/5

Carrie 3/5

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 2/5

It 2/5

Secretary 2/5

The Hunger Games 3/5

Wolf Creek 3/5
The Happening 2/5

Best Movie Endings

Best movie endings

Today I analyze the greatest movie endings, based on memorability and just a plain good ending to a film, for an ending to be good, the movie first has to be good.

Boogie Nights 1997

I love all of Paul Thomas Andersons films, but I had to pick this one, the movie is basically about the porn industry and throughout the film not a single Vagina or Dick is shown despite it being about that, and once the dick of Dirk Diggler is finally revealed, since there is a lot of talk about his dick in the movie, about how big it is, you just know it’s the end, and the film closes beautifully on Electric light orchestra, Livin thing.

 The Shining 1980

A classic steadicam, dolly? Shot that must have been excruciatingly difficult for the operator, its pays off, the camera zooms in on a picture, which shows a smiling Jack Torrance among a crowd of people (probably dead) the lighting is just perfect and the eerie ballroom music, midnight the stars and you plays out loud, echoing around the empty hotel, the symmetry whilst the camera moves in is graceful and works well with the whole tone the film has set, a memorable and amazing film ending.

The Shawshank redemption 1994

Frank darabonts masterpiece, after all that Andy and Red have been through, the trials and tribulations of these great friends, and most of the film taking place in a dark and horrible prison, the embrace on a clear beach overlooking the pacific is just so memorable and beautiful.

The Searchers 1958

 One of John Waynes greatest performances, the physical frame the door has created as he walks off into the desert, giving the sense and showing that he is a loner, the dark surrounding the wooden frame and the rectangle of sunlit desert, with a man walking with a hunch into it, is just one of the most beautiful endings ever commited to film.

Gangs of New York 2002

A great film, the ending is not just a great shot, but a great use of the technology we have available to us, we literally see the growth of New york from low dirty buildings to structures that pierce the sky, and we come to appreciate how much the city has grown from the hellhole depicted in the film to this magnificent city of steel and our evolution over the recent centuries.

The Changeling 1980

The whole film is a nightmare, some of the scariest moments in American cinema, and when all the chaos is done, the camera zooms in on the closed music box in the midst of the charred remains of the house, as the key turns by itself and it flips open, a creepy image, an eerily beautiful song plays, and you come to appreciate just how good and frightening this film was, and it ends with the creepy tune of the music box, cinema at its best.

Dawn of the Dead 2004

Zack Snyder is a great director, no doubt about that, after the gruesome grisly events of the film, the ship silently gliding into the endless sea is beautiful beyond words, and the main character, a heroine, aware the hero is on the docks, is going to kill himself (bitten) the suicide is not shown on camera, but is represented by the heroines expressionless face as the gunshot rings and the film blacks out. Jim Caroll bands song, people who died, one of the greatest music choices for the end credits of a film, plays.

Memories of Murder 2003

Crazy good film, so they don’t catch the killer, literally the whole film is about catching this one killer, and this is years after the incident, and the detective visits the scene where one of the crimes took place, he now has a family, he speaks to a girl, and she says that a guy came and told her he did something here, and the audience is left in dumb awe as the detective turns and looks straight into the camera, as if looking at the killer in the audience, the film fades out and  a women starts humming a beautiful song, then it fades in on the much seen rice fields, leaving a cloak of awe on the people watching the film.

 

Black Christmas 1974

One of the most frightening slashers ever made, it basically invented the whole POV killer thing, not  Halloween, and the phone stalking thing, not scream, and once everyone thinks its safe,  we discover the murderer’s still in the house, and the most nerve wrecking phone ring occurs whilst the credits roll, leaving the rest to the audience, great cinema.  

Zodiac 2007

Unlike Fincher’s bombastic se7en, Zodiac backs away and lets the audience take in what’s happening. It ends on a low but powerful note, like memories of murder, they never really catch the killer, and the film uses the ending to play on this, instead of the detectives face in the close up, it’s the victims, stating 22 years after he was shot by the Zodiac, that the man in the picture was him, the film ends here with Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man playing which can also be heard distinctively on the radio in the beginning of the film, a stalwart and powerful ending.

Reservoir Dogs 1992

A fast paced and brutal film, Reservoir dogs ends with a bang, the ending is far from subtle and is like a kick to the head, It leaves one in need for more Tarantino, although it won’t be for another 2 years.

The Dark Knight Rises Review

The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan, it stars Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Modine.

It runs at 2 hours and 44 minutes, a ridiculous running length for a movie nowadays which only someone like Chris Nolan and a few others could pull off.

(Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Peter Jackson)

It has a huge budget of 250 million dollars, more than the Avengers and any other movie that’s going to be released and has been released so far this year.

I personally enjoyed the film, it had a heavy dose of action expected from the last in the trilogy, the villain was definitely not a let down.

But not without some problems, firstly the sound mixing, in the IMAX theater (which the film looked stunning in) where I was struggling to even hear what the characters were saying, this was usually because of the booming Hans Zimmer music playing constantly throughout the film.

The various plot holes, where the hell did Bane drop Bruce off, looked like the middle east or something and how did he get to Gotham so fast, and why was he dressed like he was out on a Friday afternoon when he greeted a fully equipped Cat woman, mind you this is whilst the whole damn city is under siege by the United States Military and a superhuman Terrorist Leader is ruling it.

The point of Matthew Modine, what the hell was this character for?

How Bruce got from a bearded recluse with a walking stick to a clean-shaven superhero.

The running time, Jesus, the first scene after the prologue where Gordon is talking at Wayne Manor and blah blah blah all that is completely pointless.

Some characters not developed very well, Marion Cotillard for instance, and the after sex scene with her and Bruce seemed cliched and a little bit forced.

This seems like a direct sequel to Batman Begins, this whole movie jumps back to the plot of Batman Begins and all that (league of shadows, Ra's Al Ghul) shot in a similar way as well, jumping away from the different cinematography in the Dark Knight. The audience wants something new! We're done with Ra's, the Batman world has tons of Great villains they could've introduced, the ventriloquist, Killer Croc, moth man.

These are just the things I don't like about the film and felt Chris should've changed, no doubt he’s one of the best directors working now and pulling something off of this scale was definitely a challenge, but look, Peter Jackson did it, but then again, the Lord of the Rings was filmed as one movie whilst Nolan went on to do Inception before jumping back into the Batman world.

The Good Things

The good thing is the Villain, Bane played by Tom Hardy, this guys just a ton of fun to watch albeit not as good as Heath Ledgers Joker!

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, great casting choice, she's great in the role.

Joseph Gordon Levitt, fantastic actor, plays it well; his character is really fleshed out.

The prologue, although not as good as the Dark Knights is still holy fucking shit cool.

The longer usage of the IMAX camera, the most visually stunning form of cinema as far as I'm concerned, 3D is great but enough with the 3D CONVERTED films.

Bad use of 3D

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (converted)

Clash of the Titans (converted)

Good use of 3D

Hugo (filmed in 3D)

Avatar (filmed in 3D)

The Adventures of Tintin (filmed in 3D)

Another good use of IMAX was in Brad Bird's MI4 Ghost Protocol.

IMAX is a not much appreciated format and not much known format, whilst everyone knows 3D.

Amazing action scenes, very realistic, I mean, things felt REAL, and made me wonder how the hell they did that, I won't compare to any other films.

The score, this is expected of Hans Zimmer, who always delivers the best.

It pays off, the movie everyone’s been waiting for has given everything they wanted, things feel BIG and EPIC.

Lots of great Easter eggs as well!

To conclude The Dark Knight Rises can’t match up to The Dark Knight, but nonetheless it’s an epic end to the Batman Trilogy.

Rating 4/5

R.I.P. Ernest Borgine

Rest in peace Ernest Borgine, the legendary actor who acted in such films as the wild bunch and baseketball, i managed to finish baseketball but after watching the first 42 minutes of the wild bunch I turned it off.

Why A song of ice and fire needs to be made into a movie or mini-series

A Song of ice and fire, aka a game of thrones for the tv show is not being supplied enough money! I heard for the second season they only used a measly 60 million dollars, this is a ridiculous amount compared to the fellowship of the rings reported 94 million, this is also considering the fact that the actual fellowship of the ring book is less than half the length of a clash of kings, and the whole damn lord of the rings is roughly a 100 pages over thousand, just a bit longer than a clash of kings, and considering each lord of the rings movies took 94 million us dollars to make which equates to 281 million dollars, a phenomenal amount, which a clash of kings is apparently 221 million dollars short, not saying hbo should have funded a clash of kings with 285 mil, that would have been impossible, but saying that to fund that much they either need to make it into a miniseries, like the wonderful heavily funded band of brothers and the pacific (Hanks and Spielberg where are you?!!) or a two part movie, like Steven Soderbergh's che and David Yate's the deathly hallows, which to be frank didn't really need  to be split into two damn movies, but for a song of ice and fire, a miniseries for each book perhaps? or 3 part movies? I personally go with three part movies, it is a big risk but a one worth taking, each movie would be would be funded 60 million dollars, equaling to a healthy total of 180 million dollars, each movie would be roughly 3 hours long, equaling to 9 hours for the whole thing, almost the same amount as the tv show (10 hours) and with no limit to what they can do, that means the movie series would span 8 years (for now) because a storm of swords is being filmed at this moment, and clash and games have already came out. 360 million dollars for the last ice and fires? seems good to me, well until George releases the next addition to a song of ice and fire, my complaint was sparked by the miserable battle at the end of a clash of kings and numerous other things, firstly it was cutting out the battle which Tyrion took part in in A Game of Thrones, then Jaqen H'ghars ending was ruined by the stupid hide and show effect, the part when Arya was with Yoren and the boys and they were fighting the Lannister men was also cut down to a few swordfights, the battle at last was missing the three whores, or bitches i'm not sure(trebuchets), and there wasn't even the magnificent ship battle like in the book, only a wildfire explosion and then fighting at the gates thats all(where was the chain!??), damn thing looked too modern and fake, probably because it wasn't shot on film but was shot on the much famed Arri Alexa, or maybe just because the colorists were too lazy, it really dishonored the book, i mean, compared to the siege of minas tirith in return of the king, this was just crap, and the reason being because it was on tv, television, despite being hbo and all that, if it was a movie, with paramount or 20th century fox funding it with the billions they have the directors could do anything, 3 parts for one book, seems great, its a risk but if it succeeds like lord of the rings or harry potter did, and they did, harry potter making close to 8 billion dollars and lord of the rings close to 3 billion, then it will be a great feast and dance indeed. 

Recent Films I've Seen And Ratings

The Devils Advocate 3/5
Contact 4/5
Mean Girls 3/5
Finding Neverland 2/5
Prometheus 4/5
Mallrats 3/5

All the books I've read so far this year and ratings

A Game of Thrones-George R.R. Martin (Continued from last year) 2/5
An Okay, book, watched the tv show first, read the  first half back in october then dumped it, then picked it up again in april because season 2 was coming out, weird cause for the first book i thought the tv show was better but for the second book i thought the book was better, probably because i watched the tv show first for the first one and watched it after for the second one.
Congo-Michael Crichton  3/5

Good book but dragged on about the technical stuff and characters seemed one sided, i liked amy, she was cute.

A Clash of Kings-George R.R. Martin 3/5

Okay book, end didn't pay off, considering it was almost as long as the entire lord of the rings, battle lasted only a couple of pages, tv show was much worse.

1984-George Orwell 3/5

Good book, seemed ahead of its time and has many simalarities to soviet russia, eg. 2+2=5 was a saying people adopted after Stalin wanted the five year plan to be completed in four years, in 1984 2+2=5 is featured prominently to show freedom of speech.

Brave New World-Aldous Huxley 3/5

Was great until the end, where it became pretty random, characters have very weird names, eg.Lenina Crowne

Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury 3/5

Good book but the ending wasn't very great, characters were well developed, very much liked the setting.

Enders Game-Orson Scott Card 4/5

Great book, characters were rich and well developed, ending ruined it a little bit, hope the movie isn't gonna be a piece of crap.

Attempted Reads:

One hundred years of solitude-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy

Reading right now:

It -Stephen King

Going to Read over Summer:

The Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the rings Trilogy-J.R.R. Tolkien

11/22/63-Stephen King

The Stand-Stephen King

Dune-Frank Herbert
Pet Semetary-Stephen King
Foundation-Issac Asimov
A Storm of Swords- George R.R. Martin

Recent Films I've Seen

Boogie Nights 5/5

Dead Man Walking 2/5

The Fog of War 2/5

Cube 3/5 

Blade 4/5

Das Experiment 3/5 

The Avengers 3/5 

Saw 2/5

As Good as it Gets 4/5

Cronos 2/5 

Near Dark 2/5 

30 Days of night 3/5 

The Lost Boys 3/5 

Dolls 2/5 

The burning 2/5 

Black Christmas 1974 4/5 

Tourist Trap    2/5 

From Beyond 3/5 

Dog Soldiers  2/5 

Hell Night 1/5 

Black Dynamite 3/5 

Pineapple Express 3/5

The Changeling 4/5

The Omen  3/5 

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Ed Wood - 3/5
Dead Ringers - 2/5
Man on Fire - 3/5
Face/Off - 4/5
Immortals - 3/5
Tootsie - 4/5
1984 - 2/5
Magnolia - 4/5
Total Recall - 4/5
Awakenings - 4/5
Zulu - 3/5
Fast Times at Ridgemont High - 3/5
The Cabin in the Woods - 4/5

1984

After reading 1984 I can name a 2 movies that seem very similar to it

Equilibrium. WARNING SPOILERS because instead of Thoughtcrime, people commit sensecrime; sense offenders as they are called in the movie, and basically if you feel anything, passion, hate, disgust; anything, you get killed, as like in 1984 where you get vaporized for contradicting thoughts about the government, and plus, instead of having big brother in the movie, they have someone called the father, who as we find out in the end, doesn't exist at all, as in 1984, we are left edging towards the thought that Big Brother also doesn't exist, also in Equilibrium, any objects that might produce emotion, such as paintings and books are all destroyed, whilst the same happens in 1984.



Brazil, WARNING SPOILERS. because the fact that the main character falls in love and gets apprehended for it; and their is apparently a ministry called the ministry of information, whereas in 1984 there is the Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace etc, he also ends up getting tortured by the government like in 1984, and the place that he works looks very much like George Orwells Description of the Ministry of Truth.

and no folks, I have yet to see THX 1138!

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Senna     5/5
Grizzly Man 4/5
Malcolm X 3/5
Pirates of Silicon Valley 3/5
Manhunter 3/5
Austin Powers International Man of Mystery 2/5
Capturing the Friedmans 4/5
Eastern Promises 4/5
Constantine 1/5
Baraka 3/5
Kung Fu Hustle 2/5
Bowling for Columbine 4/5
Koyaanisqatsi  4/5
The Triplets of Belleville 3/5
The Dinner Game 4/5
12 Angry Men 2/5
Spirited Away 4/5

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

 I Saw The Devil 4/5
A Prophet-2/5
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-4/5
Hero-2/5
Hugo-3/5
Joint Security Area-3/5
Tae Guk Gi:The Brotherhood of War 5/5
Mother 3/5
Cold Fish 3/5
The Artist 3/5
Lost In Translation 4/5
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind 2/5
3 Idiots 3/5
Taken 4/5
Pleasantville 2/5
Akira 4/5

Recent Films I've seen and Ratings

Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol   4/5
Sherlock Holmes A game of Shadows  2/5
 The Girl with Dragon Tatoo (US)   3/5
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)   1/5
The Adventures of Tin Tin (2011)  4/5
Warrior  2/5
We Need to Talk about Kevin 4/5
A Separation 4/5
Final Destination 3 4/5
Sparrow 2/5
Memories of Murder 5/5
Come and See 2/5
Ichi the Killer 4/5
28 Weeks Later 3/5
Battle Royale 4/5
Hoop Dreams 2/5
Audition  3/5
The Thing (2011)  2/5
13 Assassins  4/5
Ip Man 4/5

1-Horrible
2-Mediocre
3-Good
4-Excellent
5-Benchmark/Amazing