The Debt

The Debt

Rating 6 out of 10

Wow, I've been seeing alot of movies this month.  It's crazy especially since not long ago I was whining about all the crappy movies that were coming out and nothing I wanted to see in the near future.   Most of the movies I have seen lately have been pretty good.  As is this one.

This movie is most definitely a hard sell.  They did try as I saw several commercials for the previews the month before it came out.  Back in 1966 a trio of Mossad agents go on a mission in East Berlin to capture a very nasty Nazi war criminal.  They catch him and get him back to the hide out.  Problems arise in getting him/them out of the country.  That is where the problems really begin.  Some want to put a bullet in his head and flee.  Others demand he stand trial for what he did.  Decisions have to be made.

Flash forward to 1997 and the three are national heros for the mission even if the story is not completely true. They wrestle with what they have done.

The movie has some very good actors.  The always wonderful Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington (from Avatar), Tom Wilkinson and a new actress I think will be popular soon Jessica Chastain.  Not big names that will send people running for the theater but actors that know what they are doing.

This is a well made movie.  I would have rated it higher.  I just don't agree with some of the directions they went.  Not the choices I would have made.  This will make a good rental.

Moneyball

Rating 7 out of 10

This is a movie based on a true story.  Not way back in time true story.  This happened in 2002 and I remembered most of it.  Billy Beane was a can't miss five tool baseball prospect that missed.  When the baseball career ends he becomes the general manager of the Oakland Athletics.  They find life hard as a small market team with very little money for payroll playing against the ultra rich dreaded Yankees.

Billy decides to bypass normal baseball thinking and go with his computer guys new ideas on how to run the team.  Everyone thinks he is crazy.  Somehow he makes it work.

You don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this movie.  Amazingly enough I saw many females in the audience that did not appear to be baseball fans.  Maybe it was that pretty boy Brad Pitt.  He is in his pretty boy finest.  Combed his hair and shaved his grungy beard.  Even did a good acting job.

This is a fun movie that I enjoyed.

I Don't Know How She Does It

Rating 5 out of 10

When you are married you learn early on there is a thing called "compromise".  For you young males that means when you have date night with the wife you go see the move she wants to see.  Proof of this is we never see the new Action movie on date night.  Often I am the only male in the theater.  The things you do for a wonderful wife!

While this is not a movie I would have picked it wasn't horrible.  Never been a big Sarah Jessica Parker fan, but she does a decent job here.  She plays a working mother of two small children and a successful husband (Greg Kinnear).  Her position at a high profile banking firm takes off and she gets to deal with the pressures of being a good mom and a businesswoman.  The movie has all the cliches.  Feeling guilty for missing childrens functions, the good looking male she has to work with, other stay at home moms looking down on her because she works...

This is a paint by the numbers movie that works for what it is.  The cast is surprisingly good.  It tugs heartstrings when it's supposed to.  Chick flick from A to Z.

Drive

Drive

Rating 6.5 out of 10

I have found myself becoming a fan of Ryan Gosling.  He was very good in Crazy, Stupid,
Love and is good here.  This is not a big budget shoot 'em up as the trailer would lead you to believe.
This is more of a lower budget thinking movie where the characters don't really talk that much.

It was my friend Jim's birthday and I was taking him to a movie.  We took a test and our testosterone
levels were way too high to see The Help so Drive it was.

Gosling plays a young man working in an auto repair shop with some movie stunt driving on the side.
To pick up some extra bucks on the side he drives the getaway car on heists.  He is very good at
driving and has nerves of steel.  He meets the cute neighbor lady and her young son.  Starts having
feelings for them about the time her ex-husband returns from jail. Trying to help he gets mixed up
in a bad situation.

As I said this is a bit of a slow paced movie considering it's named Drive.  There is surprisingly little
Driving in the movie.  There is some good action scenes and a few gory fight scenes.  The supporting
cast is very good with Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, the lovely Christina Hendricks and the always
good Ron Perlman.  For me a down side was Carey Mulligan playing the cute neighbor.  I just don't
care for her.  She is too mousey looking and not a very good actress.

If you like a movie that slowly simmers to a boil this is one for you.  I liked it.

Warrior

Warrior 

Rating 8.5 out of 10

Usually when a movie gets a rating on rottentomatoes.com of 80% or better it throws up all kinds of red flags for me.  Movie reviewers are a strange bunch (I'm proof enough of that) and usually when that many agree on a movie there is something wrong with it.  Try to follow my logic?  With the 83% rating I was in no hurry to see this.

My movie buddy Ted and son Danny both gave it a hearty thumbs up so off to the NCG theater I went.  Rottentomatoes.com absolutely got it right this time!  This is a great movie.  Definite top ten on my list.

I do understand this movie can be a hard sell.  I can tell you this is not a movie about MMA (mixed martial arts) fighting.  This is a movie with a good story that happens to have MMA in it.  The acting overall is very good.  The movie gets close to the line of hokey sports cliches yet never crosses.

Two brothers are separated by divorce in their teen years.  The divorce is mostly caused by the drunken father played by Nick Nolte.  Nolte hasn't been in a good movie in a while but I feel he should get an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.  Both brothers are very bitter toward the father even though he has given up drinking and is making an attempt to clean up his life.  One brother goes into the Marines.  The other becomes a school teacher that has fallen on hard times with a sick daughter.

Both brothers end up in a big MMA tournament that has a $5 million winner take all purse.  If you have seen the trailer you know they fight each other in the finals.  Don't let the violence scare you away from this movie.  There is some action but for the most part it's done tastefully.

This is a very good movie folks.  Go see it.

Devil- Rental

Devil

Rental

After the bazillion movies I have seen in my many years one genre I have become tired of is the scary/horror type.  There seems to be two or three prototypes where they insert different actors and change the dialog a bit.  All the slasher movies where the heroine stabs the bad guy, drops the knife right beside him and slowly walks away.  Amazingly enough 110% of the time the bad guy gets up and comes at her again.  The funny part of this story is I LOVE Halloween.  My favorite holiday by far.  My scary decorations have sent more neighbor kids into therapy than Charlie Sheen has had STD's.

I rented Devil mostly because I have the Blockbuster deal where you can have two movies out at a time and there was nothing else.  Expectations were very low.

I won't say this is a great movie but I was pleasantly surprised.  Why they named it Devil is the big question.  By the end of movie you know why but it's not a name that get people flocking to the theater.
I guess they could have named it people stuck on an elevator with a demon but that probably wouldn't help either.

The movie is just that.  A mixed group of people get stuck in an elevator.  Every now and then the lights go out and when they come back on something bad has happened to one.  It plays better than it sounds.  Attempts to get them out gets delayed time after time.  No big name actors but several good character actors you will remember from this movie or that.

It's not a slasher movie or a scary from start to finish.  It has some scares and a good bit of suspense.  Overall I'd say it was well worth the price of the rental.

Fall Tv starts!

I'll admit the TV-Nerd in me gets a little excited this time of year.  My old favorites from last year are back after a several month layover.  Also I am hopeful that when I throw all the new tv shows that appear to have promise a couple of them stick.  All I can say is thank God for my DVR.  It will get plenty of use in the coming months.  

Returning tv shows.  I really like Modern Family and Big Bang Theory.  They both never fail to make me laugh out loud. Most of the time I think Mike and Molly is very funny too.  Curious to see how Two and a Half Men does without Charlie.  Ashton could be a breath of fresh air or a nail in the coffin.  I'm looking forward to NCIS even though I think last season (after it became a top five show) was the weakest of the bunch.  I'm letting House sucker me in with the big changes (Huddy is gone) even though last year was mostly dreadful.  Always look forward to The Amazing Race!  I watch Survivor mostly out of habit.  Have watched it since the first episode and figure I'll try again this year.  Rocky and I watch Nikita mostly because we'd love to have Maggie Q kick us in the head!  I'm going to give CSI another try with Ted Danson joining the group.  I became bored last year and took it off my record list.  Also, I'll admit it.  I look forward to Glee starting back up.  I like the Mentalist alot too.  It probably had the best cliffhanger of them all last season.  

New shows I think have promise. 

Comedies Two Broke Girls and Whitney both look pretty funny.  They are both written or created by the star of the second show (Whitney Cummings).  Reviews are much better on Two Broke Girls.

Terra Nova looks interesting with the families moving to some place with T-Rex's running around eating people.  It has a decent cast but this looks like a hard one to keep the plot moving over time. 

I'll give Last Man Standing some time until Tim Allen proves he can't be funny.  Fingers crossed on this one.  For a show with a big star like Allen it's getting surprisingly little pushing from the network.  

Unforgettable looks interesting.  The blonde lady from Without a Trace now is the redhead that has a photographic memory that somehow helps her solve crimes.  I'll give it a shot. 

X-Factor is getting alot of press.  I have never been an American Idol fan but I'll give this one a try.  

Person of Interest looks like it has potential mostly because of the great cast.  Same with the show Grimm. 

Shows that don't do a thing for me...

All the Retro shows.  Pan Am, Charlie's Angels and the Playboy Club.  How could I not like a show about the Playboy club?  It just looks cheesy.  

Up All Night has some funny commercials running ALOT and I do like Christina Applegate.  I just don't see how they can keep the story going more than a couple episodes much less a couple years.  

I Hate my Teenage Daughter.  What a stupid name for a tv show.  This rates up there with @#*& My Dad Says.  

Did I miss anything???

Comments?

I'm glad someone has found this blog mildly entertaining.  I'm having fun putting my thoughts down on paper (cyber-paper).

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Columbiana

Columbiana

Rating 5 out of 10

This is an action movie that many have probably never heard of.  No real big name actors in it.
If you like the revenge type movies you will enjoy this one.  Instead of a musclebound man
doing the killing this time we have a slender attractive female.  Zoe Saldana (the main blue
woman in Avatar) while a nine year old girl sees her mom and dad gunned down by a bad
mafia type in Columbia.  She escapes and finds her way to the US where her Uncle teaches
her the art of being a hit woman.

As she grows up her only goal is to make the guy pay that killed her parents.  All the while
the FBI is on her tail for all the bad guys she has been killing.  When the action starts it
keeps coming.  Zoe does a good job and overall acting is better than you would expect
in a movie like this.

You know what you are getting when you walk in the door.  If you like this type of movie
you will be entertained.  We enjoyed it.