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Showing posts from November, 2017

A Bad Day in Black Rock Review

A Bad Day in Black Rock  is a 1955 mystery thriller written by Millard Kaufman/Don McGuire and directed by John Sturges. The film was nominated for three Oscars that year: Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Director. Story An army veteran named Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) stops into the very little town of Black Rock for reasons that are not at first made clear. He is treated with suspicion and passive aggressive hostility from the locals, especially when he starts asking the wrong questions. The film does a good job of keeping you invested in the mystery of both who Macreedy is and why he's here and what the town is so skittish about, especially when we find out that the two parties are connected in some way. I don't want to give much away because being a mystery it really is best experienced going in blind. The main character is immediately likable and intriguing. He has a quiet politeness to him which is simultaneously pleasant to experience and immediately suspect bec

It Review

It  is a 2017 horror film written by Chase Palmer/Cary Fukunaga/Gary Dauberman and directed by Andy Muschietti. Based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Stephen King, the film was a box office smash grossing $58 million in its opening weekend. It's also garnered very positive review scores, with an 85% on the critic cite Rotten Tomatoes. Disclaimer: a lot of this will sound very similar to the Nostalgia Critic's review of the film since I have most of the same things to say about it. While I did see the review before I saw the film and this most likely effected my viewing experience, I believe that I have distanced myself enough from that review in order to give my genuine thoughts and feelings on the film. Story After his little brother goes missing, Billy (Jaedon Lierberher) begins searching for clues as to what happened to him. During his search, he comes across and makes friends with a group of town misfits and they discover that they've all seen a strange, horr

25th Hour Review

25th Hour  is a crime drama written by David Benioff, who also wrote the novel the film is based on, and directed by Spike Lee. The film was critically acclaimed upon its release and is considered to be one of Spike Lee's best movies, second to Do the Right Thing . Story Monty (Edward Norton), a drug dealer, is arrested by the DEA for possession. He now has only a few hours to spend time with his friends and girlfriend before he's sent away for seven long years. That's pretty much the plot of the whole film. Sure, there are other things going on throughout the day and night the movie focuses on, but in the end what we have here is a Candide-esq character study, with Monty looking back on his life and all the decisions that brought him to where he is now. It's a movie about excepting the consequences for what you do, as demonstrated not only in Monty's prison sentence, but also in the actions of his friend Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a high school teacher in

Blade Runner 2049 Review

Blade Runner 2049  is a 2017 sci-fi/mystery thriller written by Hampton Fancher/Michael Green and directed by Dennis Villeneuve. Despite high praise from critics and audiences who've seen it, the film has generated poor box office results, having made only $197 million by its third weekend against a budget of $150 million according to Indie Wire. Story Set 30 years after the original film, replicant Blade Runner "K" (Ryan Gosling) discovers a clue that leads to a miraculous discovery, drawing him into a conspiracy that leads him to question not only his own existence, but the structure of his entire world as he knows it. That's all I'm willing to give away because since this is a detective story at heart it's best going in knowing as little as possible about the plot. The world they've set up in this film, like the first Blade Runner , is good, but has its questionable rules of how everything works. I understand that the film isn't going for reali