Live long and do fancy hand salutes

Star Trek: Into Darkness:

Story:

The crew of the Enterprise faces a new threat when the Federation is targeted by Khan, a dangerous individual hellbent on destroying the Federation.

Review:

Several years ago J.J. Abrams introduced us to his version of Star Trek, a faster paced adrenaline rush that introduced a new generation to a series that the older generation loved and respected. Now, the sequel is here, showing us a darker, more thrilling side to Star Trek, while keeping everything that made the first film amazing intact.

I loved Star Trek: Into Darkness. As the title suggests, it truly brings us to the dark side of the franchise with the terrifyingly malevolent Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. His intensity is horrifyingly real and he is pure evil with his role. Chris Pine is more serious as Kirk, and Zachary Quinto is both very human and robotic as Spock when the time calls for it. Not to mention the countless other amazing performances by the other cast. The effects are surreal, the story is brilliant, and the action is intensely amplified by the equally great soundtrack. This is a film made with effort and intelligence and it shows.

Overall Star Trek: Into Darkness is an amazing film and I now have high hopes for J.J. Abrams foray into the Star Wars universe.

The redneck version of Twilight. Still a heck of a lot better.

Beautiful Creatures:

Story:

Ethan, a normal teenager living a normal life, meets Lena, an immediate outcast. Together they begin to fall in love, unaware of the chain of events they have caused.

Review:

So much to talk about and so little space to talk about it. Just kidding.

If you want to read the rest of this without the part where I trash Twilight, then skip the two bits below this and continue to the third bit.

Remember when the only mushy fantasy film series to watch was Twilight?

I don't, but we should humour the Twihards for just a second so I can make my point. So Twilight rolled through theaters as a series of terrible films that most of us only watched because every film ended in a cliffhanger. The books were written by a formerly polygamist woman who trashed Stephen King, a man who is widely known for his stories. He got his revenge, and the wench named Stephanie Meyer forever held her tongue. Apparently a Twilight sequel was in the works, until a certain other filmed based on a Stephanie Meyer novel called The Host flopped and floundered because it was an even worse version of Twilight except with aliens. This all proves Stephanie Meyer is the Nicholas Sparks of Fantasy novels. They're both terrible and should never ever write again.

So why did I just go on a rant about that? Because unfortunately enough, drivel like Twilight is what brought other movies like it into theaters. Every movie studio wants their own slice of the teen fantasy pie. Beautiful Creatures is no exception, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS ACTUALLY GOOD.

Beautiful Creatures manages to do what Twilight could not: weave a romantic story together with both young and old characters all while keeping the integrity of everyone involved intact. The soundtrack doesn't distract you from the film, the main character is a realistic teen with a background story that a lot of teens can relate to, and his love interest is also a relatable character.

As for other awesome parts of Beautiful Creatures, the actors are really good and very genuine, the special effects are perfect if a little under used, and the plot is paced perfectly.

Hopefully Beautiful Creatures sees a sequel, unlike a certain film franchise that should stay as dead as half of its sparkly main characters are.

Hasta la vista, terrible movie!

Story:

A Columbian drug cartel leader tries to escape imprisonment by cutting through a small town, unaware that the sheriff is determined to stop him.

Review:

The Last Stand is one of those movies that you'll see testosterone pumped guys watching. It really doesn't contribute much to the action genre other than that it's a cliched action flick with three or four non-white characters. That wouldn't seem like too much of a stereotype but the two Hispanic characters are very racially stereotypical. Oh and The Last Stand is about a fictional bridge in Arizona that connects to Mexico, that is completely unsupervised. Even for an action film that is ridiculous.

Anyways, The Last Stand isn't very entertaining. All it has is a lot of bland shootouts and a few very short car chase sequences. Arnold is getting old and his age is really starting to show, the other actors were very forgettable and were honestly more wooden than Hayden Christensen was in Star Wars, and I didn't notice the soundtrack at all; yes the soundtrack is there, but it just goes by unnoticed. There is nothing about The Last Stand that is remarkable, even the main character is forgettable. By the time I was done watching it, I felt like I had just stared at a wall for an hour and a half.

This is especially odd because the director, Jee-woon Kim, is actually a fairly competent director, having previously directed A Tale of Two Sisters, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, and I Saw The Devil. I guess every director has their terrible film.

Overall, a forgettable film.

What do you get when two Japanese people are kidnapped, tortured, and killed? A ridiculous movie. Oddly enough, it's more ridiculous in a good way than a bad way.

Grotesque:

Story:

Two young Japanese people are kidnapped and tortured by a sadistic individual.

Review:

I firstly want to say I hate the people that recommended this movie to me. Grotesque is truly a film that lives up to its title. It is disgusting, disturbing, and discomforting. Ironically enough, it has a good background story and is oddly romantic.

As far as story, there's a surprising amount more than is implied from the synopsis, and it actually develops fairly well considering what this film is about. The romantic bit was well appreciated relief from the violence, and there is a part that can be viewed as comical if the person's sense of humour is dark and disgusting enough.

There is a lot and I mean A LOT of blood and gore in Grotesque, and I get the feeling this may have been made to poke fun at other torture horror films that were released before this one.

Overall this was quite a different film than I thought it was. Violent, dark, and disturbing yet also mildy romantic and mildy comical. The actors are genuine in their pained expressions and the plot is perfectly paced.

I don't know if I can recommend this to anyone. If you liked Hostel or Saw you might like Grotesque.

It was not A very Good Day To Die Hard

A Good Day To Die Hard:
Story:
John McClane goes to Russia to see his son Jack before he goes to prison. What he doesn't know is that his son is undercover attempting to exfiltrate Yuri Kamarov, a convict who has explosive secrets about a powerful figure
Review:
The first time I went to see this movie I unfortunately fell asleep in the first few minutes, too exhausted to watch anymore. I woke up at the end of the movie, having missed roughly an hour and a half of the action packed spectacle that the Die Hard series is known for.
I just recently watched this and found out it would have been better had I not watched the lastest Die Hard installment. It's an all action film with a ten minute story and a plot that is filled more with bullets than an actual plot. I am a fan of the series, and was extremely disappointed with this.
So let's get into what made this bad.
The lack of story is what bothered me. I mean, it had a basic story that established why everything was happening but that was it with the exception of three minutes later on. This is by far the one Die Hard with the least amount of story. There are more bullets per minute than story per minute. Not only that but the story is so typical it fits ANY movie in the action/spy genre. ANY. It's easy to imagine Steven Seagal doing this same film, or Jean Claude Van Damme, or Arnold Schwarzennegger except it would in fact be better with any of those actors.
That is not the only problem, since the director seemed more content making the one family bonding subplot one that is only five minutes of the film, and as such it's resolved too fast.
The action sequences are creatively entertaining and the special effects are dynamically explosive, but that isn't all that makes a Die Hard movie a Die Hard movie. It still needs a story. Every Die Hard film before that had a story that fit the McClane family's troubled connection into the story. A Good Day To Die Hard barely managed to do this, and tried to fix the barely existent story by filling it with bullets and explosions. That's not how you fix the barely existent storyline.
The actors don't help at all. With a barely coherent script that has less time than the bullets and explosions, they actually make the film flounder even more by barely acting and only having two emotions throughout the whole film (technically three for a few of them) that you can barely detect. Even Bruce Willis barely does anything except prove how old John McClane really is.
Overall not a very good action film. If anything, watch it only if you're watching one of The Expendables films first.

The most hypest of the visual films out there. Oh snap. I just got Gatsby'd. Or Baz'd. Or both.

The Great Gatsby:

Story:

A meeting with the mysterious Jay Gatsby leads Nick Carraway down a path of intrigue.

Review:

Anyone else feel echoes of Moulin Rouge when they watched The Great Gatsby?

It's like Moulin Rouge except with better actors, better story, and better visuals.

But before I go into detail about the good, I want to go into the bad.

This is a film built on what Baz Luhrman likes making films about: love. A universal theme hat is in basically every film created (or close to).

So why the problem?

They focus almost entirely on it throughout the film. To the point where I think they left content out of the book just to focus on it. Nick Carraway was the side character to Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, yet he was the most interesting character in the film and the film is told in Carraway's perspective. You could tell there was more to Nick that was never touched upon. Hell, there was more to every character that was never told.

With that said, it's time to get into the good.

The visuals are astoundingly amazing and I'm tempted to say they're perfect. The amount of careful effort that went into making each scene picturesque is astounding. Definitely an accomplishment that I hope is recognized by other viewers.

And what good is picture perfect visuals without an awesome soundtrack? Mixing modern with old, the soundtrack manages to capture the feel of the movie and actually becomes a part of The Great Gatsby at several points.

Combine those two with an awesome script, engaging plot, and beautiful story and you have an overall great movie. Highly recommended.

For a differing opinion from a fellow colleague, check out:

http://dannykaimak.com/2013/05/12/00002/

What happens when you put a camera crew, two innocent high schoolgirls, and a principal in a haunted school? A disappointing movie.

POV:

Story:

After a bizarre supernatural occurrence during the filming of a TV show, the camera crew and hosts investigate, leading them to a high school with a tragic past.

Review:

I like J-horror to some extent, as I've mentioned numerous times with movies like Noroi and Marebito. As such, I was excited when I found POV. It has multiple similarities to Koji Shiraishi's films, yet strayed in terms of technical skill.

To write specifically about POV, I'd have to say it's a found footage film with both Noroi and Ringu style scary moments, providing both clever and intense sequences instead of jump scares. I did however find myself forcing myself to keep awake while watching this.

Unfortunately, what ruined POV the most is the acting. Granted, most of the time it was evident the atrocious script was the cause, but the rest of the time the actors and actresses were just terrible. Two different facial expressions does not equal good acting!

The special effects were very well done, comprised of various low budget techniques that actually helped the spooky parts seem more real. But unfortunately that is the only good part about POV.

Overall POV is a very lacklustre horror film with some interesting low budget effects. I hope more films like this (but better) are released soon.