Winter's Bone (2010)

Ebert, I guess called this the thriller of the year, it's far from that. I will say it does possess a pretty good story and in saying that, I didn't think it was that thrilling. The movie is about Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) a 17 year old girl who because of her mother's sickness is forced to take care of her younger siblings in Missouri. The sheriff comes to the door and tells Ree that they are looking for her father and that her father placed a bond on the house. So, now Ree is on the hunt to find her father and she discovers an ugly truth about her father's where abouts. The movie almost seems mafia like, the way most of her the neighbors around her act. It's not a bad movie, butto me it doesn't fit the bill completely.  I give the movie a B- only because Jennifer's acting is absolutely superb and they really found some weird looking people that fit the bill of hicks in Missouri.Talent scouts and casting agents really do a good job finding people to pay certain roles and they achieved that in this film. So a big salute from me to the unsung heroes of these films.

True Grit (2010)

First off, I should start this by saying that if your expecting 3:10 To Yuma or Tombstone, then your sadly mistaken. However, I really believed that this was an excellent story and the real question is would I see it again? In the theater, I wouldn't go again, but I probably would see it again on DVD eventually. The movie stars newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, a little girl whose father has been killed and she wants revenge. So,she hires an old drunkard Marshall named Rooster Cogburn (played by the excellent Jeff Bridges) and runs into a Texas Marshall named Laboeuf (played by Matt Damon) who also wants to catch the man who shot Mattie's father for a different reason. Together, these three embark on adventure they'll never forget. The movie also stars Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men) as Tom Chaney, Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan) as Ned Pepper, and a full cast of interesting characters. I give the movie an A-

Tron: Legacy 3D (2010)

First, I want to start by saying that I loved the film, but there's always a catch to every review that I make. The little disclaimer at the beginning of the film that stated that most of the movie was shot in 2D with some 3D. Thank God, My nephew had a military ID so I was able to see the movie for the price of a regular ticket. So, whether the movie was in full 3D or not it was still worth the money. I saw a lot of reviews stating that you had to have seen Tron in order to understand this one and that's just a bunch of nonsense because the story is simple enough. The boy's father disappears for a long time, the boy grows a resentment towards the dad's company until his fathers partner and best friend discovers that he received a page from his dad, the kid goes to investigate and gets sucked into the world his father is in. Not too hard to understand! Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is trying to perfect the world and thinks he discovered what might do it until Clu (played by the CG version of the young Jeff Bridges)thinks he has been betrayed and the battle ensues between them in what we are guessing is the 20 years that Sam (Garrett Hedlund) hasn't seen his dad. Sam gets sucked into this world he thought his dad had made up. Now Sam has to try and stay alive in the game and try to save to himself and his dad at the same time. He also has to save what Kevin feels is the cure for earth, a isotope played by the sexy Olivia Wilde (House, Year One). The movie also stars Michael Sheen (Underworld), Beau Garrett (Turistas), Bruce Boxleitner (Tron 82), Anis Cheufra (Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun Li) as Rinzler, and James Frain (The Count Of Monte Cristo). I give the movie an A. Bravo!!!

A new blog

I'm developing a new blog just for horror movies and it's going to completely analyze the movie so If you don't want spoilers, then you might not want to view the blog. I've got movies like Return to Sleepaway Camp and much more to review. So Stay Tuned...

Saw 3D (2010)

I should have posted this a couple weeks ago when I viewed the movie on halloween day, but hey better late than never. I just want to say that I thought a lot of the acting in this movie was flat out awful and the 3D was a waste of money. This is supposedly the final chapter in the Saw saga, but that remains to be seen. The movie stars Sean Patrick Flanery (Boondock Saints) as Bobby, a self proclaimed Jigsaw survivor, who may have bite off more than he can chew, when he is suddenly trapped and faced with a task to prove whether he can survive or not. Costas Mandylor (Saw Series) and Betsy Russell (Cheerleader Camp) reprise their roles for hopefully the last time as Costas is trying to kill Jill Tuck. The movie even features Chester Bennington (Linkin Park Lead Singer) making a cameo in one of the traps. The traps is what always keeps this series interesting and I loved the traps. The one person I could have done without in this movie is Chad Donella, who plays internal affairs agent Gibson. This was probably the worst acting job I have ever seen and it didn't belong in a movie that your charging people 15 dollars to see. It was nice to see Cary Elwes (The first Saw) return to this movie and wait until you see what his involvement is in this film. I give this movie a B- because of the factors I listed above.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Maybe I'm being a little brash in my judgement over this movie, but I am old enough to remember the original starring Robert Englund (Nightmare 84) scarring the living daylights out of me when I was a child. The new one which stars Jackie Earle Haley (The Bad News Bears) as the child killer known as Freddy Kreuger in this re imagining of the classic 1984 horror film. The only thing that disappointed about this film is Jackie's costars. I really hated the New Nancy (Played by Youth In Revolt's Rooney Mara, Kris (played by Katie Cassidy) who replaces the character of Tina and not to mention she seems to be too old for a high school student, the troubled Jesse (played by Thomas Dekker) who replaces Tina's troubled boyfriend Rod (played by a very convincing Jsu Gracia in the original), and Quentin (played by Kyle Gallner whose been playing a teenager for the last ten years) who replaces Johnny Depp's first character Glen. What bothers me the most is that the original teens were very convincing in playing insomniacs afraid to fall asleep, not to mention the kill scenes were better and Johnny Depp doesn't survive. I know this is a re Imagining of the film and that they wanted to explain Freddy's motives in more detail, but do it justice. Jackie Earle Haley as I said was a little difficult to get used to, but I see where they were going with him and I bought that. If there is a sequel which there probably will be, I hope they pick better actors to complement Haley next time. I give the movie a B- (riding the thin line of being a C+).

Case 39 (2009)

Before I entered the theater I was a little skeptical about Case 39 and the reason is very simple. How many times in Hollywood have we seen movies about kids and how something goes terribly wrong. Well, we had The Omen, The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, Orphan, and every Japanese Horror movie we've already seen. The other problem with the film before I describe the positives is that because of it's late release, we've grown more accustomed to enjoy Orphan more than this film.

The positives to the film are the actors German Director Christian Alvart (Pandorum) hires to act in the film. Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones's Diary) stars as do good social worker Emily Jenkins, a woman so involved in her work that she breaks the number one rule of child care services, never get involved with your work. After her boss (played by Adrian Lester) dumps another case on her already full agenda, she becomes intrigued by the case and decides to get involved. After she discovers this little girl from case 39's parents are trying to kill her, she decides to save her and has the little girl move in. She soons start to discover that the little girl known as Lilith (Played by Jodelle Ferland) isn't as innocent as she plays herself to be. Things start to go terribly wrong for Emily as she discovers Lilith's terrifying secret that she's no normal child. People start to die and everyone is puzzled as to why it's happening.

As I have said in the beginning of the article that when you see the film, you feel as though you have seen this before and everything seems predictable. Ian McShane (Death Race) who plays Emily's friend Detective Baron, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) who plays his typical Suave role in child psychologist Doug really carry their weight in gold in this film. I feel if it wasn't for them this movie would be worse than it is. I will admit that the cinematography is pretty top notch in this film as they tried to film this movie in some unorthodox ways just to try to keep your interest intact. The movie also stars Callum Keith Rennie (The Butterfly Effect) and Kerry O"Malley (Rounders) as Lilith's parents respectively. I give this movie a C for trying, but there weren't enough real scares and it sort of lacks originality.