Archive for January, 2014

Olympusat,

Adam Leadbeater, Lorena King, Cecilia Huete, Vivi Pineda, Eddy Acosta

Four teenagers have the bad luck of running out of gas in the middle of nowhere and take a ride from a local resident of Shady Grove, a little town with a lot of urban legends. One is the story of Shane a boy who was chained to a tree and tortured as a young child, but who eventually escaped and survived in the woods. Nobody seen him, until he shows up to hunt down this little group one by one.

This is a little horror film about a crazy serial killer hiding out in the woods and picking off the stranded children. So give it a zero for originality. But let’s not dismiss this film quite that easily. Granted it’s really hard to come up with a new slasher film that isn’t like something else. But for a low budget serial killer B movie, this one is way better than most. The acting is halfway decent here, and the thrills and suspense are really well done. The cinematography is really well done, and the scenery and the creepiness of the surroundings makes this better than a lot of others. The cast is interesting, with a strong presence of Latino actors who bring a fresh approach to the suspense. Nothing really new here, so unless you’re a fan of slasher style horror films, you’ll probably want to skip this, but for those of us who dig horror movies, this is a really decent approach to the genre. This is a decent horror film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 


 

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Follow Through Productions, Salamander Pictures, Laura Ziskin Productions,

Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, John Cusack, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, David Oyelowo, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, Liev Schreiber, Robin Williams, Clarence Williams III

Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) was a child share-cropper working in the fields beside his father. Events were cruel on the plantation and his family was destroyed. When Cecil got away from that life, he became a hotel butler, and threw himself into it will all his might. He became so good at it, that he was chosen by the White House to serve on the staff for eight presidents. During the key days of the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s he served pretty much in silence, doing his job and staying out of the way, while his son became an outspoken Civil Rights activist which drove them apart.

Ok, right off the bat, I have a bone to pick with Lee Daniels. I know he’s a writer, a director, a producer, and certainly an actor. This film, “The Butler” he director. He didn’t write it, nor did he produce it, nor did he appear in it. He aimed the camera. I don’t know what causes us to have to look at his name in the title, but I have gotten so sick and tired of seeing Tyler Perry’s on everything he does, that I have decided to never watch another Tyler Perry movie. I know what I’m going to get, and I’ve seen it all before. He’s over promoted himself to the point where I don’t really care what he does anymore. I feel the same way about this movie. I read good reviews and I had friends who enjoyed this movie. I really like Forest Whitiker, too, which was another reason to watch this film. Historically it was pretty decent. It covered a lot of events of the years I spent growing up, and touched briefly on events that occurred during 8 different administrations. The actors who played the individual Presidents did a decent job, and all of that was really well done. But the turn into civil rights took over the film, and the bad white people were the focus of the film. It’s long, and must of it is based on how bad white people are. Even the Presidents who were fighting hard for civil rights and equality, were pretty much glossed over in order to get to the juicier parts.

So basically it’s a good story, with a lot of side trips down the lane, and it drags a bit and is much longer than it needed to be. I would be a lot happier if we were a bit more creative on the title, but it’s worth watching.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Forest Whitaker’s Significant Productions, OG Project,

Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O’Reilly, Ariana Neal

Oscar (Michael B Jordan) is a young man living in the bay area trying to make a better man of himself. He’s determined to be a better son, better boyfriend, and better father to his young child. But on New Years Eve in 2009 a series of events take place that make National news on the platform of the BART train at Fruitvale Station. This film is very tightly based upon that actual events of that night.

This is a mostly true to life story produced by Forrest Whitaker’s production company. They took great effort to include the numerous cell phone recordings of the incident and the writer did a good job of pouring over the court transcripts and testimony to try to bring as much truth to the story as possible. But it’s a complex story for sure. In the end, this is a dramatized movie, not a documentary, and though they tried really hard to be unbiased, I think some bias did creep in. I’m not an expert of the case, and like anything, it’s very hard to make up your mind based upon the emotional reports of the events of that night. Certainly it was a useless event that should not have ever happened at all. But the majority of the movie is spent in background on the “new” Oscar. It’s easy to get caught up in the tendency to bestow sainthood on a young guy who was the victim in a senseless crime. Truthfully, they do show the flaws in Oscar’s life, and truthfully I think he wanted to improve some things. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because sometimes people can change their life around and become a better person. But it’s also a very difficult thing to do, and most times people just don’t change that much. This is way too complex a dilemma for us to decide after the fact what the future would be for anyone in this film. I don’t fault the movie much in this, although a few of the myriad of Oprah quotes would have been okay. Did the owe Oprah in some way, or is Oprah actually the spiritual leader of the African-American community that this movie portrays? I’m not sure, but certainly the point of view of the writers and producers does taint the view a little. But I don’t suppose there is any way to avoid that. Still, it’s hard not to take the side of the victim as the actions of the security team was certainly uncalled for. But there is no doubt that this is a very well done and very worthwhile movie. I enjoyed watching the film, and then researching the events of that day, and I must say I was touched by the story. I highly recommend this movie as one that is very worthwhile. It was a story that needed told, and I recommend this film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday January 28, 2014

  • 1
  • Ass Backwards
  • Bonnie & Clyde
  • Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
  • Concussion
  • The Fifth Estate

Author: EdG

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SimonSays Entertainment, Stephen Tedeschi Production, Intrinsic Value,

Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Joey Lauren Adams, Tim Blake Nelson, Cassandra Freeman, Leo Fitzpatrick

This biopic is the story of a young boy brought to the states and mentored by a bizarre substitute father who teaches him how to kill. The two of them set out in the Blue Caprice to kill 10 random people in the 2002 Beltway Shootings. [Here is the Wikipedia article on the shootings]

I was anxious to watch this film. I saw the news coverage of the crazy story that had everyone in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. are in terror back in 2002. I was sorely disappointed. The story was very poorly done. Granted, they wanted to make this look like a documentary, but when you’re done watching it, you’re more confused about the why of the story than when you started. With no apparent attempt to get into the minds of these two, this story just plods along like a reality TV show. Most of it is really boring, and we don’t get into the psyche of these guys at all. There is very little background info at all, and it’s a lot like a high school civics report on the subject. If you read the articles on the internet you’ll have as much understanding of this story as you will get from the movie. I was really bored silly and quite put off by the whole thing. I can’t believe I wasted the time I spent watching this. I kept thinking that it would get more interesting as we got to the climax of the movie. It never did, and when it was over, I just found myself wondering why they bothered with this. Skip this one. It truly wasn’t worth it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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