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Movie Reviews Movies

Blu-ray Review: No Country For Old Men

“There are no clean getaways” – no truer is this phrase than in No Country For Old Men. Adapted from the 2005 novel written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, this extraordinary film is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and is part western, part thriller, and is relentlessly violent.

Set in the desert landscape of 1980’s West Texas, welder and Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting when he comes upon the corpses of several Mexican drug runners and their vehicles. It’s the scene of a drug deal gone tragically wrong, and Moss finds two million dollars in a satchel near the massacre. Rather than reporting the incident to the police, Moss takes the money and drives back to his trailer and wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald). Feeling unsafe, Moss sends his wife off to Odessa while he travels separately with the money.

Two million dollars going missing is bound to raise alarm bells, and it’s not long before people are sent out to retrieve the lost funds. One of those people is deadpan sociopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who not only has a funny haircut but a slaughterer’s gun. Chigurh is a dispassionate killer who leaves behind dead bodies wherever he goes, and after some investigating, tracks Moss down to a room at a motel. Chigurh also finds three Mexicans after the same prize and kills them with a silenced shotgun. In the meantime, Moss makes an escape with the money. The chase is on.

More details after the jump.

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Movie Reviews Movies

Blu-ray Review: Cloverfield

Brace yourself and get the barf bag ready as Cloverfield is set to take you through a dizzying tale of escape and survival in a besieged post-911 New York city.

Cloverfield, by rookie film director Matt Reeves, is filmed from the point of view of a single camera. It starts early in the morning as Jason Hawkins (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) videotape their preparations for a farewell party for Jason’s brother Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who is about to leave for his job in Japan. As the party gets started, Jason entrusts Hudson “Hud” Platt (T.J. Miller) with videotaping the testimonials for Rob. As Hud goes about his duties, he tries (unsuccessfully) to flirt with his crush Marlena Diamond (Lizzy Caplan). The party is interrupted as the building shakes and suffers a power outage. Shortly thereafter, a huge explosion rocks Lower Manhattan and sends debris flying towards the building. As the partygoers escape the building, the streets become filled with panicked citizens, Hud records what seems to be a giant alien monster between the buildings…

More juicy details after the jump.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: Felon

Felon tells the story of a hard-working man Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff) who has a thriving construction business, and lives a comfortable life with girlfriend Laura (Marisol Nichols) and their young son Michael (Vincent Miller). Porter’s happy existence turns to a nightmare when he chases and unintentionally kills a burglar who has broken into his home. In this type of situation the law states that you must physically protect yourself from robbers within the confines of the home. Porter killed the burglar outside his house and is summarily arrested and charged with second degree murder. To avoid the mandatory 15-year life sentence, Porter reluctantly accepts a deal from the district attorney and is sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews Movies

Blu-ray Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The fourth and in all likelihood the final installment in the Indiana Jones franchise sees a 65-year-old, virtually indestructible, Harrison Ford still slugging it out with the bad guys 27 years after he first cracked his iconic whip on the silver screen.

To be honest I wasn’t holding out much hope for this film considering Ford’s age and the huge amount of time that has passed since the last Indi movie. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that nothing changes in the alternate universe of Indiana Jones – he’s still a dead eye with his whip, ever ready with a sharp quip (that usually gets him a smack in the mouth from a bad guy), and devoted to hunting down the weirdest and most powerful artefacts in order to prevent the baddies getting their hands on them.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: Weeds Season One

Doobie, dope, roach, reefer, grass, Mary Jane, boom, splif, ganja, herb. Marijuana goes under several names and is a contentious issue with many people. And Weeds Season 1 takes a satirical look at it in an affluent, suburban context.

In Weeds, housewife Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) is a recent widow living in the Los Angeles, California suburb of Agrestic. Having lost her breadwinner husband to a heart attack, Nancy is hurled not only into a financial crisis, but into a single-mother role, having to console sons Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould) as they mourn their father’s passing. As the debt increases, Nancy discovers the community’s insatiable desire for marijuana, and becomes the neighbourhood weed dealer to make “easy money” and maintain the lifestyle her family is used to.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: Iron Man

Meet Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr). The son of deceased weapons manufacturer, Howard Stark, Tony is an arrogant (yet charming) billionaire and genius who spends as much time building machines as he does chasing the ladies. As a stop on his globe-trotting tour, Tony is visiting Afghanistan to promote his company’s state-of-the-art missile system, the Jericho, when his convoy is attacked and he is taken prisoner by a terrorist group, the Ten Rings. Injured in the attack, Tony is nursed back to health by fellow prisoner, surgeon, and translator, Dr. Yinsen (Shaun Toub). Already possessing a vast cache of Stark Industries weapons, the terrorists want Tony to build the new Jericho system for them as well, and in exchange they will set him free.

Will Tony submit to the terrorists or does he have other plans in mind? Read more after the jump.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: 3:10 to Yuma

Even though the Western genre has fallen out of favour with the general movie-going public in recent decades, it doesn’t prevent filmmakers from trying to revive it. And 3:10 to Yuma is latest attempt to bring the Western out of the cold. Based on an Elmore Leonard short story that was last adapted to screen in 1957, director James Mangold remakes 3:10 to Yuma into a less psychological but more action-packed film.

In 3:10 to Yuma, Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a simple man deep in debt, trying to hold his family together and save his ranch from the ravages of drought. In desperation Dan volunteers to be part of the posse that will escort notorious train robber Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a town named Contention, where he’ll be put on the 3:10 train to a prison in Yuma. For this, Dan will be paid a much-needed $200 by the railroad company.

Will Dan and the posse deliver the prisoner to Contention in time?

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: Superbad

In Superbad, best friends Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) are two weeks away from graduating high school, and are desperate to lose their virginity before going off to different colleges in the fall. They are, however, far from popular — Evan is a shy sweater-wearing geek and Seth is chubby potty-mouth who can turn any conversation into a lewd sexual innuendo.

Seth has finally scored them an invite to a house party but only if he can bring booze for the under-age crowd. The only problem is that both Evan and Seth aren’t old enough to buy alcohol legally, but their uber-geeky friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) says he can organize an ID. Optimism quickly fades as Fogell rocks up with the horrendously fake ID claiming he’s a 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor whose name is simply, McLovin.

Is this the start of a slippery slope to disaster? Find out after the jump.

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Entertainment Mindlessness Movie Reviews

The Day The Brain Stood Still

If the likes of Roger Ebert and the stoutly Barry Ronge can review movies, I don’t think it’s a far stretch for me to try my hand at it.

So, with brevity in mind, and a not-so-solid grasp of the English language, behold my movie review!

The Day the Earth Stood Still

What it should have been called: The Day The Brain Stood Still

The plot: We puny humans are horrible caretakers and as a result global warming is killing the Earth. Some alien elders are not pleased about this, and send a spaceship to Earth, bearing an emissary Klaatu and his large robot, GORT.

Klaatu has come to assess whether humanity can reverse the environmental damage we’ve done to the planet. His mind gets practically made up when he gets shot by the military and detained. Using cunning alien trickery he escapes and decides that the humans need to be destroyed to save the earth.

It is now up to astrobiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), her obnoxious step-son Jacob (Jaden Smith), and altruism expert Professor Barnhardt (a cameo by John Cleese) to try dissuade him. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to guess the outcome.

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Entertainment Movie Reviews

Blu-ray Review: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

“America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad ass speed”. This (fake) quote from Eleanor Roosevelt sums up America’s fascination and lust for speed. To give you an idea of how popular NASCAR racing is in America, the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama has seating for 175 000 spectators! By comparison the largest NFL stadium in Washington, D.C. can only accommodate 80,000 spectators.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby tells the story of Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) who was born in the backseat of his Dad’s speeding car. The dope-smoking Reese Bobby, Ricky’s dad (Gary Cole) skips out on the family and Ricky grows up treasuring the only bit of wisdom his father left him — “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

Ricky and his best friend, Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), become drivers for the Wonder Bread NASCAR racing team and are soon known as the “Shake ‘n Bake” duo. Ricky becomes NASCAR’s most popular driver, and enjoys the fruits of his labour, amassing an obscene amount of money, a bleached-blond trophy wife, and two cute (but utterly rude) sons Walker and Texas Ranger.

Ricky’s perfect world is about to hit a speed bump. Hit the jump to see where it goes.