Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is the real life story of Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) and his men, who in 2009, were hijacked by Somali pirates led by Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi) and eventually saved the U.S. Navy.  It's your typically good cinematic thriller, as you would most certainly expect from director Paul Greengrass.  The real standout, however, were the powerful performances of Hanks and newcomer Abdi, who both conveyed much without the need for dialogue.  Having a nice pace that builds up quite effectively, the best of these moments culminats with the performance of Hanks' character breaking down after the whole ordeal is over.

Cutie And The Boxer

The life of married couple and fellow artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara is looked at in this 2013 documentary.  This is a really charming film examining their beautiful and tumultuous life together and mirrored art that sustains and supports them both.  Told through their own words, including old video footage from their 40 years together and an a nice film animation of the now rising work of Noriko's alter-ego character Cutie, this documentary is just as much art as it is about chronicling the life of artist. It's a nice and touching view of the marriage of art and real life on so many different levels.

The Raid 2: Berandal

I don't even know where to begin in describing this much anticipated film.  The Raid 2: Berandal picks up directly where the last one began and our hero, policeman Rama (Iko Uwais) now has to go undercover and take down an even more sophisticated network of gangsters, killers, and corrupt policemen.  The mostly good reviews I had already read about prior to seeing it, are absolutely correct. If you like action movies, straight up martial arts films, and even gangster films, you will love this movie. In my mind, it's already an instant classic, seriously.  It's such a serious step up from it's predecessor, in that the story isn't confined to just one area and task to go kicking ass in.  Welsh director, writer, editor Gareth Evans has done some serious ascending on this film from The Raid: Redemption, with a bigger budget, brilliant soundtrack, a sophisticated storyline that equally balances and moves the action along, and the most amazing modern day set pieces, fight choreography, and car chase sequences I've ever seen in a martial arts movie in at least a decade.  Throughout the film, there are so many influences from other classic films that he has amazingly blended. Notably the obvious ones include John Woo's Hard Boiled and Bullet In The Head, Alan Mok's Infernal Affairs trilogy/The Departed, the Korean classic Old Boy, Bruce Lee's Game Of Death, The Bourne Identity series, or any of the best American gangter movie classics.  A special note of even more direct influence are the classic Tony Jaa films of the last decade that with a new found freshness in choreography, kept the martial art film genre alive and well.  A note to fans is that The Raid 3 has been announced with stars Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais starring together.  Can you fuckin' believe that and how fuckin' awesome that would be!?  I can't even begin to fathom how they could even top this movie, because Iko Uwais and Gareth Evans have really taken it to an entirely new level that will be hard to beat.  The Raid 2: Berandal is an awesomeness in aesthetic, over the top, straight up (no wirework chaser), martial arts action that those of us who are fans of the genre, are guaranteed to be thoroughly thoroughly satisfied with.  Rarely has a movie given me this much of a rush.  The Expendables or Die Hard movies are sleepy, compared to this.  Now don't get me wrong, those who like other aspects of action will also equally be impressed.  For example, the car chase sequences in this, have also taken it to a new level that equally best The Bourne Identity milestones.   It's not even just fair to say that they have just amped up the budget, thrown more obvious money, better storyline, soundtrack, and general scale to the film. The martial arts action is the best thing they've improved upon clearly with the fights being longer, more sophisticated and brutal, but also more creatively awesome.  It builds on a scale that leaves the final, brutal, climactic, fight a cinematic masterpiece to behold that is an updated homage to any other film, western or eastern, that came before it.  That fight will be one of the best you've ever had the pleasure of viewing.  Let me not forget to reiterate that the storyline is really a great improvement. There are unexpected surprises and one of those surprises (spoiler alert) for those of you who missed the character Mad Dog from part 1, the actor/martial artist who played him is back again and doing his shit.  Go see this on the big screen if you can. It was a delight for me, having the whole theater to myself, minus 2 other folks.  Needless to say, I will be foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the dvd release. Now my previous review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I clearly like and all, is  already pale in my mind so soon. Bottom line, fuckin' A, two thumbs up, the Shit, whatever, is The Raid 2: Berandal.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

One of the many great examples of a film series that learned from it's initial film blunder is Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Let's face it, Captain America: The First Avenger was rather shitty and I'm not really mad at that because for one thing it's rather hard to say the least in going up against more cinematically appealing characters like Iron Man and Thor with the likes of an old school, campy, patriotic good guy like Captain America in an age of modern day, global terrorism threats from all over and within.  I mean how do you sell that, as obviously Captain America is also essential to the culmination of The Avengers storyline? Well, apparently you embrace the obvious struggles and weaknesses of the character and throw him into the modern day drama of the shadow world and modern technology.  It's a smart and almost the only thing one could do.  Well, they didn't do this half heartily, recruiting no less than Robert Redford  (special note of Three Days Of The Condor and Spy Game) to bring an espionage authenticity to the table.  The Captain America of the so called "greatest generation" goes thru the ringer in having everything and everyone that he thought he believed in reveal itself as an illusion or betrayal. The technology and special effects are all still impressive enough, as we saw in The Avengers, but the filmmakers were smart enough to better highlight the low tech, raw fighting skills of Steve Rogers.  Perhaps, they took the obvious lesson from The Bourne Identity movies that even the latest James Bond series had to update and reboot to.  The major thing I didn't like, was that there was inherently too many nods to obvious other movies or movie influences that can sometimes look too much like a generic, fucking copy and paste thing.  That and ironically, the addition of other major characters, seemed to make it a bit less of a Captain America movie, however smart that was or wasn't in detracting from the unique character identity of him.  I enjoyed Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow character development the most, though.  Spoiler alert here.  When it becomes obvious that the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization has been long used as a front for the sinister HYDRA organization and all the revelations and fall out that rapidly ensue, the internal fight within and choosing of sides chaos that followed was a bit extreme, messy, and unrealistically rather tidy in the compunctional explosions to follow. Now I don't watch televisions Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so maybe I'm missing some understanding to that faction of the story, but the plot seemed a bit too frantic for the outcome.  So at this point in the film, the plot was very eerily interchangeable with the G.I. Joe films.  However, a good summer blockbuster action movie, it certainly is.  Of course, there is the now customary reveal for the next series of Avenger films near the end of the credits with the introduction of two new characters, who seem more in keeping with the X-Men franchise.

Gravity

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are the medical engineer and NASA astronaut who end up stranded in space.This is truly one of the most incredible movies I've ever had the pleasure to view. The closest comparisons I can make to it have been the recent Robert Redford film, All Is Lost and the Jodie Foster film, Contact. Now Sandra Bullock does do a good job in the film, though its debatable whether it's on the same caliber of a Foster or Redford. But it's certainly a movie that is visually captivating, magnetic, and engaging. The drama of modern day realistic space travel converge with the plight of man. Gravity is a journey on so many levels that is rivetting to view and later think about .

Riddick

2013's Riddick was considerably more enjoyable than it's predecessors, I admit.  It's definetely not the best action movie, but it is interesting enough to view, particularly the first third of the movie that focuses on Riddick (played by Vin Diesel) isolated plight on a treachurous planet.  It's been nearly 15 years since the role originated for Diesel and 10 years since the last installment, so of course, he should have made some headway in his portrayal of the character. Perhaps, that why I like the dialogue free part of the movie.  By the time the rest of the cast enter the film, it quickly deviates into the predictable action mode fare.  Yet the nice aesthetic style of the film, does show that something can be learned from other contemporary action films like the Resident Evil series.

Thor: The Dark World

Well, the trailer certainly looked good and coming off the frenzy of The Avengers is certainly a lot to live up to for the second Thor installment.  This time around, the god of thunder must deal with the threat on his own world from beings awoken who use dark matter energy to destroy the universes of Earth and Asgard that are now coming into orbital alignment after thousands of years. For this to happen, Thor must reluctantly recruit his brother Loki to help. Understanding better what dark matter is, via the recent Cosmos episodes, it's an intriguing plot for sure.  I'm glad we to see Heimdall (played by Idris Elba) in action this time around and the pivotal plot concerning Thor's mother (played by Rene Russo) were nice additions to the series. Add to that, the charismatic and sinister Loki, played so well by Tom Hiddleston, and it sounds like a nice mix.  Turns out, Hiddleston is actually the best part of the movie as the humor with him and the further fleshing out of his complex character, is a relief from the other rather boring plots that take place with the other characters on Earth and Asgard.  But then again, this type of typical earth humor seems to be a bit overwrought and also out of place at times too, given it's coming from a being who's not human. For all it's special and visual effects pomp, Thor: The Dark World is a bit disappointing.  Was the Earth story even really needed given the relationship with Thor and Jane is rather tepid at best?  She seems to only be there to exacerbate the problem and be saved by Thor.  I didn't like the way her character of all people, just happened to stumble into this portal and get transported and infected.  That was just too contrived. In fact, Natalie Portman's role is more akin to to Kristen Stewart's role in the Twilight films.  Minus the increased intrigue and humor of Loki, it's a typical formulaic action film with the world always at stake. Better than most, yet lacking in balance.