American Sniper Movie Review

Searching through all the “Academy Award Madness” on the Internet, I came across one major theme: American Sniper was not worth the several nominations that this movie received. Because of this, I didn’t have the expectations for this movie to be the best movie of the year; all I wanted was for me to be entertained. This was a very good movie, but I feel it came out at the wrong time for this kind of movie. Even though it was nominated for Best Picture, I felt this movie could have been so much better if it had released two or three months later. All the awesome award movies released recently overshadow this piece that would’ve been fantastic a month or two later.

The story of Chris Kyle is interesting, to say the least, and it was adapted well for the big screen. My goal of this review is not to say anything about the man of Chris Kyle himself, but rather to speak of how this story was adapted as a film. That means that, in this review, you won’t hear me go one way or another on what Chris may or may not have done in his life. That all being said, I enjoyed this movie. It is probably Eastwood’s best as of late, and it had a good perspective on the aspects of war. Not everything is black and white, us verses them, and it shows during the movie. Chris had to make several choices in the film that made me reflect on what I would’ve done if I were in his position.

Bradley Cooper had a solid performance in this film, but nobody else really gave a stand-out performance besides him. Did Cooper deserve the Academy Award nomination? Ehh… probably not. On the other hand, Eastwood did provide some awesome tension towards the end of the film, and I felt that that was the final act was the best part of the movie. The last couple scenes of it were no short of awesome. When the credits popped up, nobody in my theater seemed to want to get up and leave. That kind of ending resonated with me and everyone else in the theater, so the movie deserves some props for that.

For a movie with the title “American Sniper,” Chris Kyle didn’t actually do that much sniping within the movie. He was on foot with a machine gun probably half the time he was in combat, so the title could have been tweaked a little to make the film a little more credible. That being said, I don’t deny that the real Chris Kyle was probably the best sniper in the history of America.

American Sniper has some really awesome visuals. It had some great cinematography and had some variation in the focus of the dialogue scenes, which all added to the movie and enhanced my movie-watching experience.

Is American Sniper the best movie of last year? Probably not. Is it still a good film? Heck yes. I don’t think that it should win Best Picture, but if it does, feel free to call me out in the comments down below. It was a solid film, but no way the best of the year.

Interstellar Movie Review

Ever since I saw Interstellar over a week ago, I have been pondering the movie and hoping to do a review. No review I tried seemed to really justify the movie, so I just let the movie be for a while. I wanted a review to fully encompass my thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the movie and do it justice. While pondering the movie, I have come to this conclusion: Perfection is nearly impossible. So many filmmakers struggle and grind, such as Christopher Nolan, to make a film unique, familiar, and perfect in every aspect. Nolan came pretty dang close; however, to having that perfect movie.

I want to start by stating the main gripe I had with this movie: there was no scene in which Matthew McConaughey stares out at a binary sunset, dreaming of getting off his home planet. In my perfect world, he would be doing so to the accompaniment of John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. When I try to imagine McConaughey as the Luke Skywalker, my mind explodes with possibilities. That casting would have been epic beyond epic. When this is my main gripe in a movie, that film has to be pretty awesome.

Interstellar is directed by the beloved Christopher Nolan; a man who spikes almost as many fan-boy arguments as George Lucas himself. (Maybe a bit of a stretch, I know) It is written by both Chris and Jonathan Nolan, and they go the extra mile in being as scientific and precise as possible. It is the story of the end of humanity and the one mission that is for sure the last hope for salvation of the human race. There are so many scientific concepts in the film, and it all fits together, for the most part, very well. There are a few minor conveniences and one instant of some not-so-subtle foreshadowing, but the movie is so thick that these can almost be easily forgiven. Even though it is almost a three hour movie, I don’t see how they could have shortened it at all. With so much packed into one movie, the film does suffer a tad from so much content in a very small time frame to convey information. It’s not bad, though, just a little choppy at times.

The film starts Matthew McConaughey as Cooper, who absolutely destroys his role as the ex-astronaut turned farmer. There’s not much else to be said about him here: he’s awesome. In the other main rolls are Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain, David Gyasi, Wes Bentley, and even Topher Grace and Matt Damon are included in the mix. Christopher Nolan should now be known as Nick Fury for the rest of his life because I don’t see how he could’ve assembled a cast so big and popular. Everyone does extremely well in the film and the cast fits very nicely together. A big shout-out needs to go to Mackenzie Foy; however, for being the greatest kid actor in a movie pretty much ever. The acting is superb, which is expected out of this all-star cast.

Technically speaking, this film may top the charts. The scenery is beautiful, massive, and is out of this world. Even how good the visuals are, the greatest thing in the film is the sound. Hans Zimmer’s score is off-the-charts good and gives the audience the experience what the characters are feeling. IMAX is a must and is so worth the couple extra bucks when experiencing the film.

The crazily-hyped film Interstellar is a spectacle only to be seen in theaters. I feel bad for hyping this movie up because as we’ve seen in the video-game world recently (cough, cough Destiny), over-hype is a detriment for anything. You need to experience this film yourself in IMAX to really understand why hype is bad. Go see the film and give it the try it deserves.

Image from: http://creativepromag.com/interstellar-poster-art/

Birdman Movie Review (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Seeing a title of a movie that sounds like a lame comic-book hero movie, I had little hopes that Birdman could impress me. Included in the cast ensemble were some former superheroes in Edward Norton and Michael Keaton, so I didn’t exactly know what to expect out of this movie. The film was not only a pleasant surprise, but a fantastic feature that deserves much more buzz out of the box office than it is currently getting. It is easily one of the best movies of the year.

Birdman is a film directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu (good luck saying that five times fast)  that follows Michael Keaton as Riggan, a former action hero star trying to find success on Broadway long after his career has ended. In addition, some mental issues strike him and family issues he has to juggle. His daughter Sam (Emma Stone) has faced drug problems in the past and struggles to maintain good relationship with her father. To top how much Riggan is struggling in his life, one of the leading actors in his production, Mike (Edward Norton), is a scumbag whose only redeeming quality is his phenomenal acting ability. Norton steals the show as Mike, even given the fantastic cast that surrounds him. Everything that Riggan has is banking upon this play, so he has to make certain sacrifices to make it great. The entire cast acts perfectly, and the story is excellent.

The score of the film is excellent and very original. It felt very much as the score of a theatre between scenes and blends in a perfect amalgamation with the rest of the movie. If anything, the score carries the movie.

The best part of this film is the editing. Everything is shot as if the whole film was one shot, and the editing is very clear and precise. There are many scenes with mirrors that leave no trace of a movie crew, camera, or any abnormality from the set. Never once did the editing feel cut up; everything flows easily and very well. The camerawork and direction are fantastic and very original and deserve much praise.

Birdman is one of the best movies of the year and is a major Oscar contender, for good reason. The film is fantastic and deserves the audience of a summer blockbuster. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before and is a perfect blend of acting, direction, set design, score, and editing making is a kick-butt film overall. Go see this film, it deserves a huge audience for the hard work that was put into it.

Godzilla Movie Review

I will start off this review by saying: I had thought Godzilla was a giant ape until a week ago. Was I wrong! Godzilla is a movie of a giant monster and of the imminent destruction of humanity. Although much death and destruction occurs, the movie is based upon the humans and their reactions to the threat at hand. Godzilla was an awesome movie because of the focus on the humans.

Godzilla is a hard movie to summarize without spoilers, but it basically follows the death and destruction that prehistoric monsters are causing to the human population. Ford Brody, the main character, is sent on a mission to save hundreds of thousands of people from almost certain death.  The movie does a great job of showing just what kind of a threat humanity is facing, and Ford was the man to save them all.

Godzilla was directed by Gareth Edwards and stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ford Brody. Ford was pretty well acted, but the actor didn’t have very much emotion put into his role. This may be excused; however, because Ford is a soldier in the military, and sometimes militaristic people swallow their emotions in order to get a job done.  In this sense, Aaron Taylor-Johnson played his part very well. The best actor in the whole movie was easily Bryan Cranston; he killed his role. One of the few things I didn’t like so much about this movie is that Bryan Cranston is not in the movie enough. Bryan Cranston plays Ford’s father Joe Brody and is an important character in the beginning of the movie to set the story in place, but isn’t used later in the story. The rest of the cast acted well enough, but I didn’t like how Ford has a wife and kid. These characters were thrown in there just because the main character needs a family in post-apocalyptic worlds. Similar to the movie World War Z, I would have liked there not to be a family because every scene with them seems like filler. The scenes containing family members could be cut and I wouldn’t have been disappointed at all.

Godzilla had a pretty good plot except the main character wasn’t all that important. One thing Ford did to really impact the story occurred a little before the climax of the story; I felt it was somewhat rushed and that it wasn’t done very well. Ford did have a more important role later in the film, and it was handled perfectly. Although there where a few plot holes, the plot worked even if it did seem a little all over the place. I still felt the story was really good, but needed just  little more polishing. A pretty major plot hole I found happened towards the end of the film is when the characters are supposed to not use any technology, but they do anyways to speed up the plot and find what was needed to be found. This plot hole may have been smoothed out if there was a little more time put into the film.

Gareth Edwards did a very nice job knowing when the movie should have ended and did an excellent job with the cinematography. The CGI was incredible, but the director knew not to cram it down our throats. The battle scenes obviously contained CGI, but if I had seen these battle scenes in person, they most likely would have gone down this way. I felt that when the characters were in a particular setting, it seemed that I was there with them. The setting put the characters in the world. Godzilla was a well-edited and smooth movie in terms of cinematography. Only once did I really notice green screen that really took me away from the film and that was when Elle Brody, Ford’s wife, was running away from Godzilla while on a  road filled with cars. It was so obvious that she was running in place in front of a green screen that it took me out of the experience for a minute or two. Every other part was well edited and didn’t detract me from the experience. The movie needed just a little more polishing and it would have been fine.

In terms of audio, I’m going to give the score one of the best comments you can give to audio, and that is I didn’t notice it. The score and the movie blended together in a great way that it should definitely be seen with surround sound. See the movie in theaters; it is meant to be seen that way.

Overall, Godzilla was an epic movie that I felt was handled very well, but it needed just a little more polish. I loved seeing buildings and humanity being destroyed, and the director did a very good job of putting us, as the viewers, in a world that “Godzilla” is a real living thing. It was a good movie, and you should see it if you haven’t. 7/10

Jnortainment introduction

Welcome to the Jnortainment blog!

If you are new to Jnortainment, it is a blog based upon American entertainment like movies, TV shows, sports, video games, and maybe some books as well. I am teenage guy in high school, and I want to put my perception of present-day entertainment out there for the world to see. One of my favorite things in the world is a story filled with rich characters, deep plot, and amazing action sequences. When a story hits this trifecta, I feel it deserves a positive review on this blog. You may consider me a critic, but I will try to keep my reviews up-beat and light-hearted if possible. I will attempt to post to my blog about once a week beginning this summer whenever possible.

So welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy your stay, and I accept your feedback. Thanks for checking out the blog! Now kick back, relax, and welcome to Jnortainment!