Director - Ben Affleck
R; 120 min
This movie is pretty fantastic. Ben Affleck as an actor? Well... he's had his moments I suppose. He doesn't need to do anything special in this role, and since he directed himself I will give him credit for instructing himself to just read the lines ont he page and let the story do the talking. As a director Affleck is 3 for 3 in a sense, with Gone Baby Gone and the Town both being very watchable movies. This 'based on a true story' tale of a, until somewhat recently, unknown sub plot of the Iranian hostage crisis is beautifully shot and solidly portrayed by all the supporting actors. Tension is created out of nowhere and juxtaposed with some great light hearted comedy thousands of miles away from the action in none other than Hollywood itself. Do not pass on this one - it is one of the best of the year.
***** out of 5
Director - Martin McDonagh
R; 110 Min
Martin McDonagh directed one of my favorite films of the past decade, In Bruges, so my hopes were maybe just a weeeee bit high for this one, and so it probably isn't a surprise that it didn't live up to my expectations... wait a minute... let me re-phrase that... I didn't get this one at all and I was bored the entire time. A cast full of noticeable names and characters doesn't always work, but I assumed this one would go somewhere... it didn't. A strange story of, well, seven psycopaths, really, doing their thing in a messed up way just never came together for me and at times I felt like I was watching paint dry on Chritopher Walken's face, although he was the only one I somewhat enjoyed. Plot description? Meh... no thanks... I'll just leave it at this and you can decide for yourself if you wasted time and money.
No rating from me... Maybe I'ma just too stupid
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Directors - Tom Tykwer; Andy and Lana Wachowski
R; 172 Min
Based on a book that was popular with some people and confusing to others and one I never read nor heard of, this very long film is woven into 6 segments throoughout time in which various characters sort of live and die with certain other characters in varying degrees of strangness. The ultimate point, well, who really knows, but I suppose it has something to do with our souls and how we are connected to certain other people and even after death we never really leave those people. Did I like it? Well, I didn't not like it. I did nod off once, but that's because there are 6 story lines nad 1 or 2 of them didn't interest me at all, while 2 or 3 of them were pretty damn good. I don't know what to tell you - It's a 3 hour+ experience with getting there, watching previews, etc... and it is a strange film in many ways, but just seeing a lot of wonderful actors portraying multiple characters throughout time was worth it to me. If you want to kill a weekend afternoon or even catch a morning show I say give it a shot, especially if you're a little bored with the conventional movies.
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