Attack the Block

Attack the Block is a relatively low budget alien invasion movie set in London. It follows a group of "hoodies" who discover a crashed alien and then all hell breaks loose. I have been wanting to see this movie for a while, but I hadn't been able to find to time to do so. When I finally sat down to watch it yesterday, I was not disappointed.

As I understand, a hoodie in the United Kingdom is just a young thug. Which makes sense because when you first meet the hoodies that the movie follows, they are mugging a woman. One of the things that I loved about this movie, is that it takes a group of kids who you first meet doing something awful, and by the end of the movie you end up rooting for them.

One of the things that first drew my attention to this movie was the involvement of Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). Don't go into this movie looking forward to alot of Nick Frost. It wasn't a bad performance, he was just in it a lot less than I feel like was advertised.

Attack the Block was a very good movie. If you have trouble understanding heavy British accents, then you may have a hard time understanding some of what is being said, but you get the idea of what was said from the reactions of the other characters. I would suggest this movie to anyone who is looking for something fun to watch with some friends, or who are just interested in a movie that is easy to watch.

True Grit (2010)

When this movie first came out in 2010, I was very excited to see it. I was and still am a fan of the Coen brothers as well as two of the stars of the film Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, Tron) and Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity, Good Will Hunting) . For what ever reason I couldn't find the time to go see it. Much to my surprise as I was going through Netflix I saw this movie sitting in the Newly Added section. Without hesitation, I hit play and started watching it.

The movie is about a girl played by Hailee Steinfeld (She's a Fox, Grand Cru) whos father was killed by a member of a gang. She enlists the help of a stubborn marshal played by Jeff Bridges to lead her into Indian territory to help her find the man who killed her father.

I am not normally a fan of child actors and actresses. I feel like most of the time they just don't end up working that good in movies. So, I was very surprised when I found myself enjoying Hailee Steinfeld's acting throughout the entire movie.

True Grit is a character piece who's plot is primarily propelled by the dialogue between characters. This means that to fully understand the movie, you have to pay attention. There are also very few gun fights. The lack of gun fights may be a strength of the movie though, because it makes the few times guns are used much more powerful. It is a slow paced movie that may not be for everyone.

If you are the type of movie watcher that doesn't mind a slower paced movie, than I would highly suggest True Grit. While it wont get you adrenaline pumping with amazing action scenes, you will grow very attached to the characters.

As of writing this (1/6/12) True Grit is available to stream through Netflix.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

When I started this movie, I was under the impression that it was going to be a generic slasher movie. I was wrong. What I ended up watching was a comedic homage to the slasher genre much the same way Shaun of the Dead was to the zombie genre.

The movie stars Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Suburgatory) and Tyler Labine (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Sons of Tucson) as two hillbilly friends who buy a dilapidated "vacation" home in the middle of a forest. Mean while, a group of college students are camping nearby. Eventually, the college students mistake Tucker and Dale for murderers and all hell breaks loose.

As I said before, I did not expect this to be a funny movie. Luckily, I am a fan of comedy movies so I wasn't disappointed. There were laughs throughout the whole movie, without being too slap-sticky in its delivery. I grew attached to the characters, and got sad at the bad things that happened to them. As well as being well written and acted, it is also gratuitously gory, and very violent.

Overall I would highly suggest this movie to everyone, unless you are not a fan of gore. It is charming, funny, and above all very entertaining. As of writing this (1/5/12) it is available to watch on Netflix Instant Watch.

Drive

Going into Drive, I didn't know what to expect. Everyone I had talked to had said that it was awesome and a must see movie, but I had my doubts. For one, I was under the impression that Ryan Gossling (Crazy, Stupid, Love., The Ides of March) was just a pretty boy type actor, which I found to be false within the first 15 minutes of the movie.For most of the movie, he stayed very calm and collected, which worked very well.

With so many action movies coming out these days, there are not many that are well made. More often than not, they are poorly written or are poorly acted. Neither of those were the case with Drive. the onscreen chemistry between Ryan Gossling and Carey Mulligan was fantastic. most of their scenes had very little talking, and consisted mostly them just staring at each other. Though, both Gossling and Mulligan were fantastic, the one actor that I found most entertaining to watch was played by comedic legend Albert Brooks (Finding Nemo, Taxi Driver).

Over all I found Drive to be very entertaining. As far as action movies go, I would rank it up around Bourne Identity, Die Hard, an First Blood in the sense that it has a good story, is well made, but also stays very entertaining all the way through to the end. I would highly suggest this movie to everyone.

Also, please feel free to tweet me or contact me some way to send me suggestions of things to watch.

The Game

The Game is one of those movies that I have been waiting to watch for quite some time. I am a fan of the director, David Fincher(Fight Club, Seven, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), and was curious to find out how the plot to this movie was going to unfold. In short, it did not disappoint.

The Game is a movie about San Francisco Banker Nicholas Van Orton  (Michael Douglas) who receives a present from his brother (Sean Penn) to play a special type of game. It isn't long before Nicholas Van Orton finds himself questioning what is reality and what is part of this elaborate game.

Apart from the unique story, my favorite part of this movie has to be the amazing performance put on my Michael Douglas. Over the course of the movie, I found myself shocked and awestruck at his gradual slide into insanity. Also, with a run time of almost 2 hours, I didn't find myself checking the time at all.

One thing I was not a fan of was that there were too many "What If" parts of the movie. Without giving anything away, a few things that happen over the course of the movie may have been disastrous if something minute hadn't happened earlier.

Over all, I would suggest this movie to people who are a fan of psychological thrillers. If you want a movie to watch absent mindedly as you do chores of some sort, you would probably not enjoy this movie much at all. At the time of writing this (12-25-11) it is available to watch on Netflix Instant Watch.