The Dark Knight

Well I couldn't go to long without talking about this movie cause well, lets face it, it was amazing. "The Dark Knight" was by far my favorite movie for the year. Christopher Nolan, I tip my hat to you sir. I have to admit though, when I first heard that Heath Ledger was playing the Joker, I just couldn't imagine him playing that role at all. I mean how do you go from the gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain to one of the most cynical villains in the history of comics. You can really see his range of acting and the sheer talent that this guy did have as an actor. Along side him, Christian Bale, Michael Cain, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman all had amazing performances as well, but what truly made these performances so amazing was all the behind the scene work. To begin with, this story was perfect. They portrayed the Joker the way he should have been, as a person who "just wants to see the world burn" and with this central idea, true havoc can be caused and that's what they did. The writers included a bunch of master minded plans for the Joker to carry out and that helped the story stay fun, interesting, and suspenseful. On top of this, the character development was great, especially with Harvey Dent. It was nice to see each character evolve so well, which I'm sure will help with future movies. Lastly, something that I enjoyed a lot was the visual effects and the makeup. My god, the makeup was amazing. To see the Joker and Two-Face like that was a sight to behold. I'd go out on a limb and say that this was the best comic book movie I've ever seen so far. It's sad to see Heath go though, I would have liked to see another Joker movie with him. I can only hope that they do as good of a job on the next movie as they have done on this one. They've really set the bar high on this one, so they better not disappoint on the next one.

View the trailer HERE.

The Village

This time around I'm going to be taking a look at M. Night Shaymalans's movie, "The Village". Released in 2004, "The Village" is the story of, oh wait, what the hell is this movie about? That's pretty much what you'll be saying the entire time you watch this movie. Ok, Ok, whats this movie really about, well its about a village that's set way back in time when people didn't have the luxuries we have today. Oh but that's not all, there are also these mysterious creators that terrorise the village people. Yeah ok so the plot does have potential and the actors in the movie are pretty good yet some how M. Night Shaymalan manages to screw it up. How does he do it? Well first off these "creatures" are only seen about twice in the movie, which means that for about an hour and a half you're forced to listen to nothing but dialog. On top of that since you never really find out whats going on till the very end, the plot NEVER progresses. The dialog is the same for an hour and a half. Let me sum the movie up for you right now. "What the hell are these things". That's it! But what is quite passably the worst part about this movie is how big of a let down the ending is. I mean you would at least think that with all the confusion and drama and hours of suspense, it would at least make up for it in the end, but nope. All you are left with at the end of this movie is the sense of "what the hell was that"! M. Night Shaymalan, what happened to you? You started out pretty well with "The Sixth Sense" and now you've been reduced to this? Very disappointing.

Pan's Labyrinth

So far I've given you my best and worst movies of all time but from here on out I've decided not to rank any more of my movies, its really just to hard to do. So in no particular order I'll just be reviewing movies that you should either be sure to go see, or be sure to say away from. The next movie that I've decided to take a look at is "Pan's Labyrinth," otherwise known as "El Laberinto Del Fauno". Directed by Guillermo del Toro in 2006, "Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a little girl (Ofelia) and her pregnant mother who move to the country side of Spain in 1944 to live with their new father and husband, Captain Vidal. During their stay, Captain Vidal (a twisted man) is in a constant struggle with refugees during World War 2 and thus Ofelia creates an imaginary world in order to escape her reality. In this imaginary world, Ofelia is asked to do 3 separate tasks, but in doing these tasks, she often puts her life at risk in both the real and imaginary world. There are several reasons why I love this movie. First off It's an independent film so it has the advantages of "real" acting and personal touches in script writing. Even though It's an independent film, the film still has amazing visuals and has won academy awards for best art direction, best cinematography, and best makeup. Though, what's really interesting about this movie is that it's not your ordinary child's fairy tale. Actually, this movie really does have quite a sick and twisted side to it and there are a few scenes which are pretty graphic. This is actually nice because it's not a constance stream of gore like other movies so it keeps the movie interesting and changes the tempo often so you're not board. On the flip side, between the beautiful sound track to the movie and the fact that It's entirely in Spanish, (with English subtitles) the movie has a really beautiful feel to it; even among the violence. Lastly, I love the ending to this movie, It keeps you in suspense for awhile and has a nice "fairy tale" end to it that really makes you think. All in all, this movie is worth your time so make sure you go see it.

View the trailer here

My worst movie ever!

Sadly, picking the worst movie I had ever seen was harder to do then picking my favorite movie because as many good movies as there are out there, there are just as many bad ones as well. There were a few movies that I had gone back and fourth between in my head, but ultimately I decided that the worst movie I have ever seen has got to be "Junior". For those of you who know this movie, I'm sorry and I share your pain. For those of you who don't know this movie, it was released in 1994 and directed by Ivan Reitman. Why is this the worst movie I've ever seen you ask? Well lets start by looking at the plot of the movie. Two scientist are working on a new drug to help reduce the amount of miscarriages that can occur during the initial stages of pregnancy (so far so good). But when their funding for their research is denied, one of the two male scientists decided to test the drug on themselves by impregnating one of them (Oh god). Yup, that's right its a movie about a male going through pregnancy, every woman's dream right; now a man gets to see how hard it is. But wait, here's the kicker, the male scientist who becomes pregnant is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe now you can see why I've picked this as my all time worst movie ever. I don't know, maybe its just me but the idea of the "Terminator" having a baby is just a bit to abstract of an idea for me. I'm sorry, but watching Arnold Schwarzenegger go through an hour and a half of hot flashes, cramps, mood swings and then finally having a baby is one thing I would have been happy not seeing in my lifetime. How was he elected Governor after this, never mind the pot smoking what about this movie, its far more of an injustice if you ask me. Clearly, the movie was a fail from the start. Did the movie try to be funny? Sure, but it failed and in the end the movie was really more of a drama then it was a comedy which only makes the whole thing that much worse. So if you ever have a friend, relative, or random person ask you to watch "Junior" with them, smack them across the face and run away as fast as you can.































(Pretty painful isn't it?)

Feel free the watch the trailer here (though be warned it is also a wast of 30 seconds of your life).

Kill Bill

I've thought pretty long and hard about this one and I know some of you might be thinking "Kill Bill, what about The Godfather or Goodfellas?" Or perhaps some other classic like Citizen Kain or maybe something more recent and technologically ground breaking like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings or The Matrix. Nope, I think I can say with ease that my favorite movie of all time is Kill Bill. Kill Bill (and when referring to these two movies I typically lump them both together because its one progressive story that was merely cut in half due to its length) has all of the qualities that make a great movie. Directed and written by Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill is the story of a deadly assassin who seeks revenge for the murder of her unborn child and near death of herself at the hands of her former lover who's name is Bill (hence the title). There are several reason why I love this movie but some of the key points include it's stunning attention to aesthetics, interesting writing (including several plot twist), quality of acting, and most of all the dramatic features and hidden messages which can be applied to ones own life giving great insight. In addition to these main points, the movie has a lot of action to it as well. So for those of you who can't sit still for 5 minutes without seeing an explosion and hate the movies that are none stop dialog, I think you'll be fairly happy with the many fight scenes. On the flip side, for those of you who do love in depth dialog, I think you'll be fairly happy as well. All in all I absolutely love this movie and for those of you who haven't seen it I suggest you go see it right now. Stop what you're doing, even if its important and go see it.