Another year has almost finished, so as is tradition it is a good moment to look back at the past year in both blogging and in movies.
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Tag Archives: 2013
Prisoners (2013)
No matter how good you think you know yourself, there will always be unexpected situations which can bring out a side you did not know you had in you. In those situations you might act strictly on instinct, forgetting about the rules of society. In Prisoners two families are shocked when their daughters disappear. The fathers, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) both react differently. Although they initially start searching together, the way they handle once a suspect (played by Paul Dano) has been arrested could not be more different. Continue reading
The Crash Reel (2013)
If you were to ask me about snowboarding as a sport I would not be able to tell you much about it. I know that involves a lot of tricks and if I had to name a famous snowboarder the only one I could tell you would be Shaun White (and that’s because he had a game that was named after him). He might be the most famous now, but a few years ago he often became second after Kevin Pearce.
They were initially close but their friendship started falling apart and a rivalry started to form. In order to stay on top the tricks they were doing had to get more complex. Red Bull built a half-pipe just for White to practise with a special pit filled with soft foam to try out new moves. Seeing this Kevin Pearce needed to follow suit. He had a half-pipe built and learned new tricks with the help of a safety cushion. When he got the confidence he started doing the things he just learned and during one of his runs everything went horribly wrong. This documentary opens with that moment and the consequences it has on the rest of his life. Continue reading
Drinking Buddies (2013)
Some movies can win you over with just a single performance. Drinking Buddies to me is one of those movies thanks to Olivia Wilde. Straight from the start she makes her character a very likeable one. A woman who acts like one of the guys and is cool to be around. As the movie progresses her character starts struggling with things that happen in her life and I started to feel for her. Continue reading
Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth (2013)
During the eighties and early nineties Mike Tyson was huge athlete. As a boxer he seemed unbeatable and each fight was an event nobody wanted to miss and everybody was talking about. Fights could be decided within the first round and Tyson was a monstrous force within the ring.
Unfortunately outside the ring that monster came out as well and resulted in controversy and even jail time. He made hundreds of millions during his career (not only through boxing but also through his endorsement deals with Pepsi, Toyota, Kodak, Bank of America and many others), but had to file for bankruptcy in 2003. He had retired from boxing, but showed he still had a fighter’s spirit and has since written books, appeared in TV shows, documentaries and movies. He is currently touring with his one-man show and director Spike Lee captured it when he performed in Brooklyn. Continue reading
Getaway (2013)
On paper some movies sound better than the final product. Getaway is a great example of that. When brainstorming about the movie the team behind it had some great ideas. They must have thought about how much audiences love car chases and that a whole movie almost completely consisting of them is a lot better than only having a couple. Then they remembered how cool the car was that Nicolas Cage used in Gone in Sixty Seconds, so they decided that would be the ride to star in this movie.
Since you can’t have a movie about a car being chased some people and an actual story is also needed, so they looked in the big book of Hollywood cliches and found some amazing ideas there. Just like in Taken someone is being kidnapped (in this case a wife) and a former racedriver (because they know how to drive cars really fast) should be the husband doing everything to save her. Of course this can not be all because only worrying about his wife is not enough. There also needs to be some drama in the car, so adding a teenager in the car is a great idea since teenagers can be dramatic about anything. String it all together and that’s the concept of your movie done. Continue reading
Escape Plan (2013)
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were two of the biggest action stars on the planet during the eighties and early nineties. Both have a lot of entertaining movies to their name and the two always made small jokes about each other in their movies (for example in Demolition Man you hear that Schwarzenegger was president, in Last Action Hero there is a poster of Terminator 2 with Stallone as the cyborg).
During that time the two didn’t appear together on-screen, but they did work together in setting up the Planet Hollywood chain. It would not be until The Expendables that the two shared the screen. For action movie fans it was comparable to De Niro and Pacino finally working together in Heat. It was only a short scene, but in The Expendables 2 it was expanded more. Still a true Schwarzenegger/Stallone movie still had not been made, until now with Escape Plan. Continue reading
Life Tracker (2013)
As a movie blogger I regularly am contacted by producers or directors if I am willing to watch their movie. With hundreds of movies being released each year it can be hard for smaller films to get any attention and unless the movie does not appeal to me I often agree to check out their work. As you are in close contact with someone involved in the movie I always feel some pressure in trying to remain as objective as possible. You know that someone has spent countless hours making their movie and when you do not like it you do not want to only be negative, as I do think each and every movie has potential, which sometimes just is not realised. At the end of the day I am only giving my own opinion and it’s up to others to agree or disagree with me.
Life Tracker is an indie film which deals with very interesting subject matter: What if it was possible to determine what would happen to your health and life (including the day of your death) based on your own DNA? How would this affect you and the people around you? This “found footage documentary” tries to provide some possible answers. Continue reading
Prince Avalanche (2013)
Each movie has an audience. No matter how bad/weird/abstract a movie is there will be people who will love it and who will watch it endlessly. Earlier this year I reviewed Robert Redford’s All Is Lost, a movie which I really could not appreciate, but I know it will receive a lot of praise as well. I feel Prince Avalanche is also one of those movies. It is not something I was able to enjoy, but there is definitely an audience for it. Continue reading
The Internship (2013)
Weight. Each and every movie carries some weight with it. There are movies like Schindler’s list which makes you feel like you have cement on your feet and you are being pulled to the bottom of the ocean, others will push you against a wall and make you think about what you have seen. Then there are the movies which will put you on a cloud, away from everything around you, managing to stay in your mind and keep you on that high for some time after watching them. If The Internship had weight it would best be described as a helium balloon, it is very light, can take you up and make you laugh if you inhale some of the helium, but it won’t take long before you are back on earth. Continue reading