Man of Steel Review

Alright Superman fans, get ready to yell, scream and criticize me.  Here is my review of Man of Steel.  This is a movie I have been anticipating for a while, but I have to admit, I was seriously underwhelmed.  I am of the opinion that Christopher Nolan is the most ingenious storyteller in Hollywood and Zack Snyder creates some of the best visuals of any director working today..  So when I saw they would be producing and directing this film respectfully, I thought this would be the best superhero film this side of The Dark Knight. However, I was wrong.

This movie had flashes where it was absolutely brilliant, especially in some of the flash backs looking back to Clark's childhood and his interactions with his father, played by Kevin Costner.  However, when it came to the main story it just felt that there was something lacking most of the movie.  The story of this film is that a general banished from Krypton comes to earth seeking Clark because Clark's father gave him the key to rebuilding their race.  The only problem is this general believes that humans need to be destroyed in order to make room for the rebuilding of the Kryptonian race.  Therefore we have Superman needing to save the world from aliens that are trying to destroy earth.  In other words we have The Avengers and Green Lantern made over again, but with a tougher superhero.

Once the fighting begins, it becomes clear that Snyder is more concerned with the visuals and the effects than creating a good fight scene for a movie.  For much of the major climactic fight between Superman and General Zod you can't even see the two as the go flying through buildings.  All you see is explosions and large skyscrapers that are falling over since they went through support beams.  It seems like a bit of a cop out to me.  The effects are top notch, but it isn't enough to save the scenes.

The biggest problem I have with this film was the casting.  There are supporting roles in this film from five different Academy Award Nominees/Winners (Amy Adams, Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe, Lawrence Fishburne, and Diane Lane) but ask Henry Cavill, who's biggest film role was in Immortals to carry the film.  The only problem is he does not have the screen presence to do so.  It would have been okay if others had been given bigger roles to help carry the film, but most of this film requires Henry Cavill to carry a particular scene.  Adams, Lane and Fishburne all give sub par performances by their standards.  Crowe and Costner give great performances as Clark's birth father and adopted father respectively, and their interactions with Clark are some of the more touching scenes of the movie.

Overall I was expecting greatness and came out very seriously underwhelmed.  This is a movie that I think has become a victim of it's serious hype both from media and fans, but true fans of the comics will be disappointed.  If you want mindless action you will like it, but if you, like me, enjoy the intricacies of good film making you will be sorely disappointed.  I give it a C-.

The Newsroom on DVD

I know that I am supposed to be doing movie reviews, but I feel that this is good enough that it deserves a special mention.  This week the first season of HBO's The Newsroom was released on DVD.  While this show does not receive the pomp and circumstance of other past and present HBO staples such as The Wire, The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, this may very well become the best show HBO has.  This show was created by the world's greatest living screenwriter in Aaron Sorkin and he also serves as executive producer.  Every time he has done that on TV he has hit a home run.  He has created The West Wing, one of the ten best drama shows of all time, and two of the most underrated shows of all time in Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

I will admit, when I first saw commercials for the Newsroom, I was convinced I would not enjoy this show largely because I have never been a fan of Jeff Daniels.  He's been in some of my favorite movies like Dumb and Dumber, State of Play, and Traitor but he has always been a supporting guy, never the star.  In this he stars as news anchor Will McAvoy, who early in the first episode is described as the Jay Leno of news anchors in that he is popular for never bothering anyone.  While I may not normally be a fan of Jeff Daniels, he carried this show with a tremendous performance in every episode and he had me hooked from the first scene of the first episode, and this incredible monologue:

This speech on whether or not America is the greatest country in the world is not only provocative, it is legitimately though provoking.  Jeff Daniels in this show is incredible and earned the Golden Globe nomination for this show.  What is a travesty is that his co-star, the always talented Emily Mortimer, did not earn a Golden Globe nomination for her turn as executive producer, and Will's former girlfriend, MacKenzie McHale.  Together they turn their show around and turn it in to a news show that they can be proud of and together tackle many recent real news stories such as the BP oil spill, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the Tea Party takeover.

What makes me impressed about this show is how great the cast is from top to bottom.  Every member of this cast does a great job no matter how big or small their roles are, and Sorkin does a great job of giving everyone their moment to shine.  Whether it is little known actor Dev Patel, who plays a blogger who wants to become a producer, or Alison Pill who goes from being Will's assistant to a producer or Olivia Munn who plays an economist who works on Will's show, every young and relatively unknown cast member in this show is amazing.  The one that I love the most though is Sam Waterston, the former star of Law and Order, who plays Will's boss.  He does an incredible job and also deserved nominations for his performance in this show.

Unlike other Aaron Sorkin creations like The West Wing and The American President, where he shows his incredible left wing bias, Sorkin does a great job of creating a right wing character he can be unbiased at most all situations.  I love how this show lacks the political skew it could have taken.  It is in my opinion the best show that premiered in the year 2012 and is one of the 5 best shows currently running on television, along with Dexter, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Game of Thrones (not particularly in that order).  If you missed this show find a way to watch it because you are missing out, and I promise you will not regret it.

My Favorite Sports Movies of All Time

I just saw a couple lists of Top 10 Movies so I figured I would make one of my own.  Here is my list of the Top 10 Sports Movies I have ever enjoyed.

10. Chariots of Fire

This is my dad's all time favorite movie and one I have grown up with since I was a kid.  It chronicles two incredibly talented, though incredibly different runners that ran for the 1924 British Olympic team, Aubrey Montague and Eric Liddell.  It is an incredible film with great acting and a timeless score that you know even if you have never heard of this masterpiece of a film.  It is one of the few sports movies to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture, and it truly deserved it.  A wonderful piece of film making.

9. Jerry Maguire.

I know many people don't qualify this as a sports movie but I do.  I'm sorry if you think otherwise.  This is a great film with a great heart.  Tom Cruise, in an Oscar nominated role, plays a high power sports agent (not unlike a Drew Rosenhaus) who loses everything when he sends out an office wide memo that goes against everything that his office has ever stood for.  Only one client stays by him (played by Cuba Gooding Jr in an Oscar winning role) and he is followed by a secretary from his work, played well by Renee Zellwegger, who in full disclosure I generally don't like.  This is another great film.

8. Brian's Song

This is one of the only films that has ever made me cry.  This wonderful film about the friendship between real life Chicago Bears teammates Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers.  I understand this is a made for TV movie but it is still a wonderful film and James Caan gives an immensely passionate performance as Piccolo, the ill-fated Chicago Bears player.  This story has, for a long time, served as the inspiration for the kind of friend and teammate I try to be and it is one we should all be able to learn from.

7. Rudy

This is the mostly true story of Daniel "Rudy" Ruttiger, a lifelong Notre Dame fan who decides he wants to be a Notre Dame football player.  Four years after high school, he moves from Joliet, IL to South Bend, IN and ends up working his way into college, making the team on heart alone and eventually getting to play in one game his senior year.  He is still the last player to ever have been carried off the Notre Dame field by his teammates.  It is a great story of perseverance and following your dreams and is an inspiration to any person who loves what they do.

6. Moneyball

"There are rich teams, and there are poor teams.  Then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us," explains Billy Beane, the General Manger of the Oakland A's baseball club, as to why their team struggles from year to year.  This movie is geniusly written by the greatest living screenwriter in Aaron Sorkin and is powered by amazing performances from Brad Pitt as Beane, and Jonah Hill as his assistant.  It is the story of how the Oakland A's changed baseball scouting forever through the process of sabermetrics and the historic season that follows.  Most teams have slowly started adopting this, notably the Boston Red Sox and St Louis Cardinals, both of whom have two World Series titles since adopting Billy Beane's philosophies.

5. Eight Men Out

The story of one of the darkest episodes in Major League Baseball history, the 1929 World Series and the scandal of the Black Sox is depicted with class and dignity in this amazing film.  Eight members of the team were accused of throwing the World Series for money, including the great Shoeless Joe Jackson, who has forever been banned from baseball (including his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame) for breaking baseball's cardinal rule.  This is a great film with great performances which handles a major episode and black spot on baseball with grace and dignity.

4. Knute Rockne: All American

Now we start getting in to the cream of the crop.  This is a movie most anyone reading this list has never seen, but I tell you it is incredible.  The story of former Notre Dame player and coach Knute Rockne.  He is a legend to anyone who is a fan of either Notre Dame or college football in general and ranks only behind Ara Parseghian in the list of greatest coaches in Notre Dame history.  And Ronald Reagan gives a great performance as "The Gipper" who gives one of the most memorable speeches in sports movie history so well, "I gotta go Rock...tell them to go out there, and win just one for the Gipper."

3. Hoosiers

This is another great movie that has stood the test of time.  Gene Hackman gives an all time great sports movie performance as a disgraced college basketball coach who comes to Indiana and takes a small Indiana high school all the way to the state championship.  You will cheer for these kids.  You will yell at the coach.  You will wonder how it could possibly be a real story, but that is what makes it great.

2. The Natural

I've always said that this was my all time favorite sports movie until I sat down to make this list and realized I was wrong, but it definitely deserves to be here at number 2.  This is the greatest movie about America's pasttime ever made.  Roy Hobbs is such a staple in American culture that it is almost like he really was a baseball player.  His fictional story reminds me somewhat of Rick Ankiel, formerly of the St Louis Cardinals.  Ankiel was supposed to be the next great pitcher as a young kid before he lost control of his arm.  Instead of quitting baseball, he went to the minors and remade himself into a hard hitting outfielder.  It is a triumphant story with superb performances from Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger and Wilford Brimley.

1. Rocky

Is there any other choice for the best sports movie of all time?  I have heard arguments for others, but I'm sorry, this will always be it.  It, like Chariots of Fire, won an Oscar for Best Picture.  It garnered two different Oscar nominations for Sylvester Stallone, one for acting and one for writing.  Two other members of the cast were nominated for acting Oscars as well.  This is the ultimate underdog story, and will remain that for years and years to come.  Plus, has there ever been a more memorable line from a sports movie then "Yo Adrian.  It's Rocky"?  If the final fight scene of this movie does not make you cheer, then you seriously need to check your pulse.

Fast and Furious 6 Review

Yeah, I am aware this movie came out 2 weeks ago but I just finally saw it.  I am kind of depressed about that though as this is one I was really looking forward to.  The Fast and Furious movies have always been some of my favorites.  They are ridiculously entertaining and I love the cars despite the enjoyably bad acting (Walker and Diesel are the Magic and Bird of bad acting - let's be honest) that has marked these movies ever since their inception.  I am not sure when The Fast and The Furious was made back in 2001, I don't know if Rob Cohen ever thought his movie would become one of the most successful action franchises since Die Hard.  And what makes these movies unique is that unlike many series, they get better with age.  They have consistently gotten better each time (with the exception of Tokyo Drift, which I don't include since it isn't part of the main story line).

What I love about these films is that they know exactly what they are and don't try to be anything else.  They are great action movies.  Great action movies don't need great acting but a decent plot and some great one liners to keep it upbeat.  Bad Boys is perfect at that, and Fast and Furious movies are only a step behind.  This movie is no different.  Our plot goes something like this, a team of drivers that are as crazy as Dominic Toretto's crew is looking to assemble a weapon that, if used, could destroy millions of lives.  Agent Hobbs has been chasing them for however long and now has four days to catch them.  Rather than going and getting Seal Team 6 (who killed Osama bin Laden mind you - for those who weren't breathing on May 1, 2011, or never saw Zero Dark Thirty) Hobbs decides the best person to bring them down are Dominc Toretto and the crew of fugitive criminals that stole 100 million dollars from a drug kingpin.  All of them are living lavish lives very safe from harm, until Dom calls them all and brings them in for this "one last job" (I feel like I have heard this before).  Why would they do this?  Well, Letty, whose death caused Dom to kill like 200 people and cause like a billion dollars in property damage a couple movies ago, is somehow alive and working with the bad guys?!?!  I'm not sure how that happened, but needless to say, Dom is in.

Thus begins the action.  Dom and his team, along with Hobbs and a new partner in stopping crime, go after Owen Shaw, a spec ops soldier who specializes in "vehicular warfare" (oh, now I understand why I need Dom Toretto to bring this guy down - Seal Team 6 could never catch him).  For much of the rest of the movie, we get explosions, car chases, crazy mid air stunts, jumping from car to car, and everything else you could ever expect from a Fast and Furious film.  Even the acting in this movie isn't half bad, like in some of the previous films.  Much of that I attribute to the writing, which is much better in this film than in some of the past ones.

I will say this about the Fast and Furious films.  The one thing about them that I have always respected is how much it shows the importance of family.  That theme is a pillar of these films that I have always respected.  This film has no shortage of family unity and I absolutely love that.  Overall this movie was everything I hoped it could be.  It was a fun movie that was ridiculously entertaining.  It was even sentimental and at the end had me even a bit emotional.  It had solid laughs and great action.  Even though the stunts were completely absurd, they were definitely awesome.  Overall, this is a great film in what has become one of the all time great action franchises.  I give it an A.

End of Watch Review

I haven't been able to make it to the movies so I figured I would do a review for one of last year's movies that I just barely saw.  Here is my review of the police drama End of Watch.

David Ayer has either written or directed (or both) some of the best cop movies of the last decade plus.  He did Training Day which garnered Denzel Washington an Oscar and SWAT which may be the most underrated cop movie of all time.  Here he creates a masterpiece of a film that may be the best cop movie I have ever seen.

This movie follow two police officers, Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala, who are loosely based on a real life partnership from the 90s.  They work for the LAPD Newton District, which they describe early in the film as one of the most dangerous districts in all of Los Angeles, and throughout the film it definitely lives up to that.  Both of the young, but distinguished cops, get caught up making trouble for a Mexican drug cartel and the cartel "greenlights" them, or puts out a hit on their lives.  This leads to the third act which is one of the most intense 20 minutes of any film I have seen in a long time, much like Ben Affleck's fantastic ending to The Town some years ago.  The ending will leave you breathless, and that is all I will say about it.

When I first saw the preview of this, I thought it would be just a bunch of shooting and arrests, but it is so much more than that.  This movie is about family, and the importance of looking out for one another.  In one scene of the movie Taylor reluctantly follows his partner into a burning building to save a child, and then later tells him that he will have to follow him into a building.  These exchanges, along with others show, with great power, the importance of love and friendship and brotherhood.  Even the two men's wives grow to be like sisters throughout the movie.

What blew me away in this movie was the acting and cinematography.  Jake Gyllenhall gives the best performance since Donnie Darko, if not his entire career, as Brian Taylor and it is a travesty he did not get an Oscar nomination for this movie.  His performance in this was unquestionably better than Denzel Washington in Flight, and I would argue better than Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables.  Michael Pena gives a fantastic performance as Mike Zavala as well.  It is probably the best performance of his career, including Crash, which I consider to be one of the best movies of all time.  I would be willing to argue that he also deserved an Oscar nomination over Alan Arkin from Argo (which, full disclosure, I consider to be the second best movie of last year behind Zero Dark Thirty).  Even the supporting roles from Anna Kendrick, as Taylor's wife Janet, America Ferrera as a fellow officer, and the always solid Frank Grillo were tremendous.  But what really blew me away in this movie was the cinematography.  97% of this movie is shot amateur documentary style from the perspective of  Officer Taylor, who is shooting for a film class he is taking.  It makes the movie very real.

In full disclosure, this movie is incredibly gritty.  If you are at all sensitive, do not see this film.  It is the sixth most profane movie every made (other than a documentary on the F word) and the violence is sometimes very in your face and realistic.  Much of this is because of the documentary style so some people are shot at very close range right in your face.  David Ayer does not apologize about the violence that sometimes come from police work.  Overall though, it is very well done and in the right taste.  I never once felt that this movie glorified the violence like in some other movies.

I will say that this movie, now having seen it, rocketed to my top 10 list of all time movies.  It is solid from beginning to end, and the themes of family and love should tug at your heart a lot.  If the ending of this movie doesn't make you emotional then check your pulse.  The acting is tremendous, the writing and directing are first rate and this movie will be hard to top in its genre for a long time to come.  I give it an A+.