Future Star Wars films

So you might be wondering, have I seen Rogue One? And if I have? Why haven't I done a review for it?

Well I don't know if I've actually stated this before but Star Wars is my favorite movies of all time. I love the prequels, I love almost everything about them. I know that the prequels are not good movies, but I still have a love for them that makes me watch them every year the same way I watch the original trilogy. I am also really into the expanded universe of Star Wars or what is now called "Legends". I've played almost all the video games, read some of the books, but above all, I was almost a historian of Star Wars lore and mythology up until they said fuck it and retconned all of cannon. I could make a whole post on that and I might have already, but my point is, I am an absolute Star War nutjob.

And that's why I don't do reviews for those movies. I didn't do one for The Force Awakens, I probably won't do one for Rogue One, and I probably won't do one for the entire saga. Who knows, I could change my mind, but for now, that's how I'm feeling. I don't think I could be partial and give you a really unbiased response to those films. Now I have been addressing some of my innate bias that I have for movies as of late, regardless of whether or not that bias is good or bad, so maybe I could change my mind, but I had to watch Rogue One twice to really point out the few things I didn't like about it. Also there are so many things that have already been said about the Prequels, that it's hard to really say anything new or meaningful.

So what do I do instead? I'm going to make a commentary of what I think of the Star Wars movies so far, and where I think the franchise is headed. These will probably be the closest things I will do that will resemble something like reviews for films like The Force Awakens or Rogue One, but overall, I'll be talking about how I think the franchise is doing so far and what kind of predictions I can make about it's future.

If you know about the history of Star Wars, you'll know that nobody, not even George Lucas thought this was going to be such a hit or even a huge story.

Initially Star Wars was George Lucas's middle finger to studios that wouldn't let him go off and make a Flash Gordon movie. And even when Star Wars became what it was, it was a simple concept of a fantasy set in space.

I mean think about it, it's a story about a young farm boy going off to save a princess from an evil space wizard with the help of a good space wizard. Like George Lucas says that Star Wars was supposed to be about family and about the relationships between fathers and sons, but a lot of people question if he even knew that Vader was going to end up being Luke's father when he started on this quest. He definitely didn't know that Luke and Leia were going to be brother and sister.

So the point here is that the movie definitely had humble beginnings and expanded beyond what anybody ever thought it was going to be.

Fast forward to the 2000s and Disney buys Lucasfilms and intends to make Star Wars a revitalized franchise similar to what they did with the Marvel movies. Their intention is to make 3 more episodes, continuing the story set up by the original trilogy and the prequels but set 20 years later.

And I'm not gonna lie, when I heard this was a thing, I thought that I died a little bit inside.

I mean look at that picture and tell me your soul doesn't cringe a little bit. Disney makes some great films, but you're handing over something I've loved for so long and something that has felt like it's own thing, and it's going to be commercialized to no end.

But to my wonderful surprise, the trailers came out for The Force Awakens, and then the movie came out and my tune changed very quickly.

Suddenly, I was incredibly excited about the incredible possibilities that could happen in the Star Wars galaxy. And while I initially was worried about the kinds of movies they were dishing out, after The Force Awakens, all I could think of was the possibilities. I was one of the few Star Wars fans that saw the possibility with retconning the cannon and the opportunity to make something totally new and great with the new cannon, especially with my revitalized confidence and excitement for the franchise.

We're given a timeline for these films with the promise that more are probably to come. I'll go through each one, the ones that have been released and the ones that are to be released and what I think of them.

So The Force Awakens comes out.

Contrary to some of my friend's beliefs, I do love The Force Awakens. It actually goes back and forth between my 3rd and 4th favorite Star Wars film, jumping rope with Return of the Jedi. The characters are strong, it's a great blend of old and new, and it's a great adventure.

And like I said, I was going to love anything they put out. I had my doubts when the movie first was announced and I didn't hear anything about it, but after I saw the first trailer, there was no way I wasn't going to have a lot of fun with this movie. And that's what it was, a lot of fun.

Are there problems with it? Oh yes. I could talk about those problems and while I'm writing this, I'm thinking I might as well do a review for this film, but I'm not sure yet.

The biggest problem I had with The Force Awakens is that it relied too much on nostalgia for the original trilogy and in many ways it felt like a retread of not only A New Hope, but Empire, and Jedi. In fact there's a great video that explains the pieces of Empire and Jedi that The Force Awakens takes from and repurposes it to make a great nostalgic journey but not really the Star Wars movie I was expecting.

My thoughts are, The Force Awakens was a necessary step for Disney. Above all, Disney is a smart business and they've been doing this long enough to know when to play it safe and when to make a leap of faith. The Force Awakens was not their time to take a leap of faith.

The Force Awakens was going to be the first outing into the Star Wars galaxy we had had for a decade, a decade of us bitching about the prequels and making George Lucas's life a living hell. Again, I know the prequels are bad films, but I will defend them to my dying breath because at the end of the day they are Star Wars films, and they're important to me.

So again, The Force Awakens was not time to do something different, it was an opportunity to show the fans that the new movies were going to be like the original trilogy and not the prequels. It was also an opportunity to cash in on people's nostalgia for Star Wars. And that's where the easter eggs come in, that's where the similar storylines come in, that's where everything feels new, but isn't exactly to the point where it actually is new. Again, I think The Force Awakens was a good movie and it was a good stepping stone into the franchise, but it was a nostalgic stepping stone and it did borrow a lot from the original trilogy. A necessary step back so that we can hopefully take a step forward.

So since TFA made all the money and was pretty well received by critics, if I'm a Disney executive, I know that I can comfortably put money into future Star Wars episodes following this story and it's going to make money because people are interested. Check that box.

Rogue One was a different box all together.

Rogue One's job was to assure executives that Star Wars is profitable even if the main characters are not any of the recognizable names like Luke Skywalker, Rey, or even Darth Vader. Vader is in Rogue One but not nearly as much as he probably would be if the point of this movie was to prove that it could be done.

Disney's plan was to not just create three more episodes following the story of Luke, Han and Leia, but to create spinoff movies on side characters and expand the universe even more so we get more Star Wars as the years go by.

But even still, they had to be careful. While Rogue One is centered on characters that are totally new, it is full of call backs to the original trilogy that seem like they're just trying to make the audience feel comfortable and familiar while they're learning so many new things and meeting new people. Again, Darth Vader is in this film and he was incredibly prevalent in the trailers but I felt like we got Jared Leto Jokered a little bit because of how much he was in the trailers and yet he had about 2 scenes. They were great scenes, but still only two. But overall it felt like a marketing scheme more than an actual character. Now, he makes up for it because his scenes are awesome. But it's just an example along with a couple of other cameos and easter eggs that just felt like they were back to the tricks they pulled in The Force Awakens.

On top of that, the story, while something different, is directly tied in with A New Hope. Again, it's baby steps and Disney is seeing how far they can go and how much the audience is actually interested in before they do something different.

But overall, the biggest problems I had with Rogue One, being as objective as I can, were problems with certain moments, not arcs or scenes overall. I had an issue with the lack of Darth Vader, even though I feel like I was promised more, and just a few other scenes that felt weird or just poorly edited together.

Overall, I really enjoyed Rogue One and thought that they really toned down the nostalgic kicks to the stomach. And since it made all the money, I would hope the big thing they pull from this is that people are interested in Star Wars stories.

Rogue One was a different enough movie and had the objective to make us care about characters that weren't the Skywalkers. I still think it was a safe choice because how it was directly connected to A New Hope, but it could open the door to more spin offs and more Star Wars in general.

And that's all we have right now. There's been news about Episode 8 the Han Solo standalone film (and believe me we will get to that) but that's another thing about Star Wars that makes it hard to review, I don't like reading into these movies before they come out. I just want to go into it free of as much insight as I can and just enjoy them the way I did with the prequels and the original trilogy when my dad first showed them to me. I love theorizing about the films, but not to the level I do with Marvel and DC films.

So I will talk about Star Wars episode 8 and 9 very similarly because let's be honest. As much as I can point at the bad parts of The Force Awakens, I really liked it. I'm invested in the story of Rey, Finn, Poe, and everyone else in that story and nobody is going to not see both 8 and 9, even if they're bad. The Force Awakens was good enough that people are already curious of how it's going to end and they want to get the answers to their questions.

My only qualm with these movies is that I hope since The Force Awakens made all the money, it makes them realize that they don't need to rely on nostalgia and instead they can do original stories that aren't callbacks to the original trilogy so much. I have no doubt that the next two episodes are going to be good and I really can't believe that this time next year, I'll be talking about what I thought of Episode 8.

But the real impact I have seen in this past year is the effect that Rogue One will have on the future of the spinoff movies and this is not as clear cut.

Rogue One was a great step in what I consider the right direction because it centered on a part of the Star Wars story that was close enough to the original trilogy so it was familiar for audiences, but it still expanded the lore in a constructive way.

The only other standalone film that is confirmed right now is the Han Solo prequel film starring Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo. And when I say young Han Solo, I'm pretty sure they mean, Han Solo when he's about the same age as he was in A New Hope or a tad younger. And that to me does not make any sense whatsoever.

This movie is being directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the guys who made the Lego movie and 22 Jump Street. They're very funny guys. On top of that Donald Glover, who I loved in Community, is playing Lando Calrissian. These are all choices I don't hate.

But while Rogue One was a step in the right direction, I can only feel like Han Solo is another step but in the absolutely wrong direction.

I mean, I get it. Han Solo had a pretty awesome role in The Force Awakens and with the revitalization of the franchise, I suppose someone thought, why not explore more into this beloved character.

But I can't help but feel like that was something we would have liked to see immediately after The Force Awakens came out, and if you've seen it you know why. Han Solo is such an important and emotional character in the movie that it's not surprising why they thought it'd be a good idea to explore that character more instead of letting it just sit with where he landed at the end of the movie.

But by the time 2019 rolls around, we're going to have so many other questions and interests in the Star Wars franchise that a Han Solo film will just be weird and we'll have to revert back to the original question, why try and recreate a character that was so quintessentially Harrison Ford?

But it's also going in the wrong direction because it doesn't really expand the universe in the right way.

Han Solo was such a great character because it didn't matter where he came from, what his backstory was, he was just a smooth scoundrel that we came to know and love because of his actions during the original trilogy. And I don't want that changed at all.

I don't really need to know how he got his hands on the Millenium Falcon, I don't need to know how he met Chewbacca, I just don't need an origin story of a character who is already so awesome.

But because Disney wants to cash in on a public interest in a character that has honestly died down to normal levels by now, they're missing the opportunity to do a lot of different stuff and find something new to make a movie of.

The reason Rogue One was such a good movie was because it was different enough that it didn't feel like an episode but it was connected enough to be fun and relatable to a new fledgling audience.

Han Solo seems like a safe choice that nobody wants and we miss out of hearing the other great tales they could be telling, but they don't want to yet for this reason or that.

Now if Disney wants to stay on the safe route, I think there are better stories to be told in the Star Wars universe than Han Solo. There are even talks about those particular films and I think the best example would be that of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Now it just so happens that Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of my top 2 favorite characters in all of Star Wars, (oddly enough sharing number 1 with Han Solo). But the reason this makes more sense than a Han Solo standalone film is for a couple of reasons.

Execs at Disney and LucasFilms have suggested that Obi-Wan's role in the Star Wars episodes might not be over and we could still see him in episode 8 or 9.

I am personally of the belief that Rey is actually the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which would make his own personal story of what he's doing between Episode 3 and 4 all the more interesting and compelling of a story. But even if Rey's parentage has nothing to do with Obi-Wan Kenobi, having a wise Jedi like that as the main character, going on an adventure in the 20 years that we only assume he's been just hanging out on Tattoine could create for a great adventure.

And Ewan McGregor is about the right age to portray a slightly older Obi-Wan but not too old that he's blending into Alec Guiness. There's no need for a recast of an iconic character and it makes for a smoother movie. On top of that, Obi-Wan could continue the path that Rogue One had where there is some familiarity to it, but still introduces new characters, new worlds, and new dilemmas that aren't directly tied to the stories we're familiar with.

Not to mention, it is cannon that Darth Maul is still alive... so that could always be something that comes back.

I think Obi-Wan is a great segway into those totally different stories that they don't want to do now because they're playing it safe.

The prime example of a story that should be made but won't because of Disney's safe play is that of Knights of The Old Republic.

Everyone who is a real Star Wars fan has been waiting for this movie to be announced and there's a very good reason for that. If you don't know the property, it takes place thousands of years before the events of the Star Wars episodes and it tells the story of a battle between the ancient Jedi and the ancient Sith.

Now, there are a couple reasons why I don't think they've made this game into a movie. The first reason is that it is so far removed from the events of the Star Wars episodes that Disney might be worried that there aren't enough people who would be able to find this relatable. While Rogue One had totally new characters, they had cameos from familiar characters throughout. Knights of the Old Republic would be totally new characters in a time with no connection to the original trilogy.

But I think the big reason is actually the fact that this would be a video game movie.

I still haven't seen Assassins Creed... or Warcraft for that matter, but we still live in a time where Video Game movies just don't make money and even if they do, they're critically panned.

I thought for a long time that KOTOR wasn't being made into a movie because of the time period it falls under and how there is nothing familiar within it. And while this is still the case, I think the studio is also shying away from it because they haven't seen a video game movie do well. And you may be saying that this would be a Star Wars story adaptation, not a video game adaptation, but I don't think that matters to studio executives.

I don't know, I could be wrong, but if Rogue One has told me anything it's that there can be movies that expand the universe and focus on other stories beyond the Skywalkers and they can be done on film.

The first thing I thought of after the second time I watched Rogue One was why don't they make a Jedi Outcast film. It follows similar characters and while it takes place close to the events of the original trilogy, they can still do something different and have cameos from familiar characters. But again the question of would Disney adapt a video game comes up.

And that's something that Disney needs to overcome. I don't know if it will take every movie being a success or for one of the films to be a failure, but I think there's a bright future for the Star Wars franchise, it just needs to find itself in the spinoff movies it does after episode 9, cause I'll tell you, as much as I want Boba Fett to come back, I don't want a standalone film focused on him.

But those are my thoughts on the future Star Wars films. I felt like this post was more of a rant than something with an actual point, but I wanted to say something about Star Wars with the release of Rogue One and the increased interest that comes with Star Wars around this time of the year now.

What're your thoughts? What kinds of spinoffs should be made after the trilogy we're on is done? Obi-Wan? KOTOR, Jedi Outcast? Let me know! Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future or topics I should discuss. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Maybe this is too easy but here's the How it Should have Ended for A New Hope. Enjoy!

Crash

So Crash is an interesting case for me because I've heard a lot about it, but not all of it is good. It won Best Picture back in 2005 and it had a lot of really good actors attached to it. I also heard about it as a really raw look at race relations in America and the kinds of prejudice that people have towards other, especially if they look different. Now race in America is a tall order and it's tough to make a film that really captures racism in the 21st century correctly, but let's see if Crash did it.

Crash is a collection of stories about an ensemble cast of people of all different races and the experiences that ties them all together in a span of about 36 hours.

The underlying theme that ties them all together? Racism.

It's kind of hard to explain exactly what this movie is all about because it's more of an anthology of stories that are connected in one way or another. Think Love Actually but much darker and all about racism.

You've got Sandra Bullock playing a pampered wife of the District Attorney (played by Brendan Fraiser) and their experience of being car jacked and dealing with the fear that is only fueled more by innate prejudices. The District Attorney is working with a detective (played by Don Cheadle) who is investigating a homicide of an undercover police officer. In the same department, you've got Matt Dillion and Ryan Phillippe's characters who pull over Terrance Howard and his wife played by Thandie Newton and there's definitely some racial profiling going on and some misconduct happening on the part of Matt Dillion who is dealing with his father's medical issues and is overtly racist towards a black worker at the HMO. Oh and remember the carjacking? That was done by Ludacris and his buddy and they're talking about their experiences being black in Los Angeles. And then there's a story about Michael Pena being a locksmith, oh and by the way he was the locksmith at Sandra Bullock's house after she got carjacked. And he works on a store owned by Shaun Toub, and Michael Pena is dealing with the stereotypes of being latino, while Shaun Toub is dealing with stereotypes of being Middle Eastern, and it's all these connecting stories, and there's just a lot to it.

I am by no means calling it bad. The movie actually does a really good job connecting all the stories in a really fascinating and dramatic way. Yeah it's all dramatized and a little bit over the top if you think about it, but it's actually done pretty well.

The one issue I have with it is that it's hard to really pinpoint story in all of it because a lot of the time it feels more like these are just a compilation of people being racist or dealing with racist scenarios. I mean I know that there are a lot of characters and the movie kind of needs to get to the action quick so there isn't enough time to show each and every character and get to know them the way we get to know others. But that's the problem, even the characters that I was really interested in, there wasn't nearly enough time to get to know them and get really invested, so when there's really emotional moments, there's not really enough to make me feel as much as I think I should be.

And this isn't necessarily a complaint, but something the clashes with that is the grey area that prejudice puts these characters in. Matt Dillion for example. He does some shady shit, especially in the beginning and overall, he's kind of a racist piece of shit. But then he does something heroic and I'm not totally sure how I'm supposed to feel about him. And the opposite happens too. There are characters that you think are good people and then they do kind of shitty things later on in the film.

In doing so, the message of the movie gets a little bit muddled. I think the point of it is that we all have prejudices, it's how we act on them that make us good or bad people... maybe...

But the other issue is that this movie is so on the nose about the message that racism exists. Like I said before, the movie is so focused on the action and these scenarios of people dealing with racism that it's cringe worthy but not for the right reasons. For example, Ludacris. I have never been a huge fan of his acting. But in this movie he actually does a pretty good job. The problem comes with all his dialogue. Race relations is literally ALL he talks about. I know people who get fired up about race the way Ludacris does in this film, it's definitely a thing. But they also talk about other things. Everything Ludacris says in this film is a political statement about race. And it's not just Ludacris. Every bit of dialogue seems to be some form of micro racism or passive racism and the parts that aren't are parts where people are talking about race and what it means to be "blank". Again, I get that that is the point of the movie, but if you want me to be interested in these characters, I need to know that they are humans, not social commentary.

Now that's not to say they don't get it right at all. There are some really strong performances in this movie and nobody does a bad job. Forced on the nose commentary or not, everyone really brings their A game in this movie. And the MVP of it all is clearly Michael Pena.

I think this was pretty early on in Michael Pena's career and I think he got a lot of his acclaim from the work that he did in this movie and I totally understand why. He is down right talented and he has some really genuine moments in this movie, especially early on. Because he has this genuine moment that is sort of social commentary but more just talking about him as a person, it makes the really dramatic moment in his storyline work all the more, and I'm not gonna lie, I was crying hard when his story comes to a climax. And he actually has an incredibly small part in this movie! That's how great his character was written and that's how great of an actor he is. It's just fun seeing him in such different roles every time I see him. In this he's just a locksmith who grew up in a bad neighborhood but is trying to do right by his daughter. In Shooter, he was an FBI agent, in Ant-man he was the comic relief. The man is incredibly talented and he was hands down the best part of this film. Like this movie is pretty much worth the price of admission just for Michael Pena, I kind of wish this movie had been all about him.

A couple other performances worth mentioning are that of Terrance Howard and Ludacris. Ryan Phillippe has a really good exchange with Terrance Howard and I really enjoyed that. Overall, I can't say there was anybody really bad in this film. I would say the biggest problem with this film is that it's trying to be big because the issue they're discussing is big and yet if it's not personal like it is for Michael Pena's character, it doesn't have the impact I think it needs to.

You could probably make a movie out of each one of these characters and they'd be pretty powerful movies about race and prejudice. In fact I would watch almost all of these movies. Don Cheadle's could be a detective drama with a racial twist. Michael Pena's could be a story of pulling yourself out of a bad situation but dealing with the cultural norms that are put upon you and the environment you grow up in (I really liked Michael Pena in this movie). Sandra Bullock could be all about white privilege and how that's a thing she eventually acknowledges.

Now Crash overall definitely has some great things about it. It does have a pretty poignant message about prejudice and how it exists across the board, no matter your race, gender, or social status. Like I've said, it has great performances and a couple really strong moments. But the message is too on the nose, too simplistic creating a hyperbolic world where racism is way too overt and really just for the sake of making a social commentary. Racism does exist, prejudice does exist, but Crash makes it way too over the top and I think the message is a little bit overstated, not really making the point it was supposed to make.

But what do you think? Do you agree? Do you think Crash's message is on point? Let me know! Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. The last movie I have on my list that is talking a lot about race is Fruitvale Station. Here's the trailer.

The Usual Suspects

So this movie wasn't officially on my Netflix list, but I have been interested in seeing this movie for a long time. It also doesn't really hurt the fact that the film is pretty well known, critically acclaimed, and has a lot of good talent like Spacey and Del Toro. I think perhaps the reason it took me so long to watch this movie is because I think I knew the secret to this film before I watched it and I wanted to get enough time in between so I had maybe forgotten... but I didn't.

The Usual Suspects follows the story of 5 criminals who are brought in one day to stand in a line up because they are, the usual suspects. The team includes Dean Keaton (played by Gabriel Byrne), Fred Fenster (played by Benicio Del Toro), Michael McManus (played by Stephen Baldwin), Todd Hockney (played by Kevin Pollack) and Verbal Kint (played by Kevin Spacey). While in holding, they hear of a job that they all can get rich off of and they agree to go into it, not knowing the dire consequences that end up for them all through the consequences.

All of this is mainly told in a flashback told by the character of Verbal Kint who is at the end of the story and telling the cops exactly what happened from his perspective.

This film was directed by Bryan Singer and he brings this very interesting Neo-Noir feel to the film in this pretty quick and very personal story that was actually pretty enjoyable.

Everyone in the film does a pretty good job because it is a group of pretty well known and high performance actors. Obviously you've got Kevin Spacey, but you've also got Gabriel Byrne who I actually haven't seen in a movie prior or since this movie. Kevin Pollack gives a really great performance and hell even Stephen Baldwin does a great job in this film.

I have become a pretty big fan of Benicio Del Toro since I saw Sicario, but I can't say I was overly impressed with him in this film. But he has a pretty small part so there isn't actually a lot for him in the film.

This film works because it's not just a crime thriller. It's a lot more than that. I can't say a lot because I really don't want to give anything away because I imagine the movie is a lot better if you have no knowledge of any kinds of twists at all, but the film is very strong and there's a little bit more than you expect, especially in the end.

Yeah I don't know, this might be a short review because there's only so much you can say about this film.

If you take it at face value, it really is a good action crime thriller and that could be it. But there really is more to it and even if you know what I knew, you still come out of the movie pretty impressed.

Are there problems with the film? Yes, there are.

It does take a little bit for the movie to actually get going and even when it does, it does take a little bit of time for you to totally understand how this story is structured and how exactly this can really be something more than a confusing structural mess of a story. However, when you get to the end, you realize why this all ties together and the more you think about it, the more you will like the film.

I just finished it maybe a half hour ago and I think that I want to go back and watch it again to get everything from it. And the best part is, it's a pretty short movie. It's about an hour and 46 minutes and it doesn't feel very long at all. Like I said, it does take a little bit to get into the beginning of the film, but once you're in the meat of it and it's going, it's a roller coaster all the way to the end and I don't necessarily feel that I got all of it the first time around.

I think the best way to go into this movie is to think of it like a smaller more personal version of the movie Heat. I love Heat and I think I actually like that movie more than The Usual Suspects, but for totally different reasons. Again, it's hard to explain totally with the nature of the movie, but I highly recommend you check this movie out for yourself and let me know what you think. And whatever you do, don't look up anything about the plot or any of the twists and turns that go along with it.

But those are my thoughts on The Usual Suspects. Probably a much shorter review than I've wanted to do with any film, but definitely one I recommend. It has a bit of a slow beginning, but once it gets rolling, you won't want it to stop. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should be reviewing in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I went into this movie knowing that Kevin Spacey was going to be great in it, and I left unsurprised with that assumption. This movie does make me want to go back and finally watch all of House of Cards Season 4 but I will definitely leave that to 2017. In the meantime Enjoy this!

Cinderella Man

So I watched this a couple of days ago but I got caught up with the holidays and hanging out with family that I haven't gotten around to reviewing the film until now. Here's my review of Cinderella Man.

So I feel like I've been watching a lot of movies that other people have recommended to me. Movies that either were highly praised by friends and they pushed me into watching it, or movies that were highly praised in general and I thought it was just a film that I needed to watch to stay in the conversation. Cinderella Man is not really a movie that I was losing sleep having not watched it, but when I saw that it was on Netfix, I immediately put it on my list. Ever since I watched Creed late last year I've realized that I have not watched enough boxing movies in my life. Put on top of that that I really like Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man was a film that I was actually interested in by my own volition.

Cinderella Man takes place in the midst of the Great Depression. It's the true story of James Braddock (played by Russell Crowe) as he used to be an up and coming name in the world of boxing. Now he faces injury and eventually breaks his hand during a fight making him unable to compete.

This is extremely difficult for him as he only wants to provide for his family, including his wife (played by Rene Zellweger) and his 3 children.

The story basically centers around him falling to the lowest of lows and his climb back up to fame and fortune as eventually he trains to get back in the ring and take on the best of the best boxers of the time.

And this is a very emotional movie. There is a part early on in this movie that I was legitimately tearing up because of the desperation this guy hits. This is not just a story about boxing, but it's also about the haves and have nots. This is a story about the heart ache and the desperation seen during the Great Depression in one of the most emotional representations of the times I've seen before. The Great Depression really hasn't been a time period I've been interested up until some of the movies I've watched pretty recently and Cinderella Man is probably the best representation of how hard people were hit during the time, but again, it's a story of resilience.

I don't know if its the music, the performances, the story, or maybe a little bit of both, but this is a very emotional and dramatic movie that really spoke to me. I was tearing up more than once in this film and I loved it.

The great part is you want this guy to succeed. His struggle is painful and it's worth so much when he builds him and his family up.

You grow to love him as a person who will stop at nothing to provide for his family, you grow to love his family, and the harsh conditions they're in.

At a certain point, Jim Braddock becomes the every man's hero and it works really well. Now it might be a little bit sappy here and there, but I thought it worked really well and if it's just playing to people's emotions, it worked on me.

The first thing when you think of this movie might be a Rocky film set in the Great Depression and while that is a part of it, Cinderella Man really isn't too much of a boxing sport movie rather than it being a dramatic emotional movie that happens to center around boxing. Russell Crowe is kind of channeling his own Sylvester Stallone from Rocky in this film, but the difference is that Crowe is just a stronger actor and he brings a really great performance.

Renee Zellweger plays his wife and she brings another aspect to the desperation of the Depression because she's the one at home with the kids and she's the one who is probably hit hardest by the Depression because she can't provide basic food and proper shelter for her children.

But it gets really good when the boxing comes into the story.

Paul Giamatti plays Braddock's fight manager and the great part about this character is that he just always seems to have Braddock's back. He's a realist and he does what he needs to do in his line of work, but at the same time he has all this hope in Braddock and pushes him to be the best.

And the boxing matches themselves are really great.

If I haven't said it already, I will say it multiple times in this review, this is not so much a boxing movie as it is a drama about perseverance with boxing as one of its cornerstones.

The cinematography of the fights may not be as great as the Rocky films but the movie is more focused on the emotional impact and what these fights mean to Jim rather than just giving the audience a cool fight to watch. That being said, the boxing matches are still intense and they will leave you on the edge of your seat because there is such an emotional stake in this fight.

Something cool they add in the fights are the x-ray shots that show the impact of certain punches on the fighters bodies. They might be a little inconsistent for the time period and may seem out of place, but they still get you nervous and make you cringe a bit. But the real call back to the emotional trauma in this movie is the flashbacks showing Jimmy's kids in poverty and what is driving him, again, falling back on emotional punches being thrown instead of the physical.

Like most true stories I review on here, I can only say that "based on a true story" is a little bit of a liberty used to make the story more emotionally charged. It sounds like a lot of this happened but at the same time a lot of it didn't. The more important thing to focus on is the drama and the story being told here and know that there is some sense of truth being told.

I would honestly say the only problem I have with this film is not even one I have but something I imagine others would have with it, and that is the movie's sappiness. Like I mentioned it is pretty emotional and there were a couple of moments where I cried because the performances were so good powerful. But I was in the right mood and mindset to watch this movie and be brought it by it. You may find yourself finding this movie a little bit sappy at times, but I think it works for the credit of the film and the performances within it.

Overall, I can say with a good bit of certainty that this might be my favorite film of the long list of films I've reviewed in the past few weeks as I've been clearing out my Netflix list. I think it's a great story of resiliency and something I would definitely watch again if I needed a good pick me up.

You might ask if this is going to set me on a path of watching a lot of boxing movies and for a minute there I thought I was going to, but the truth is, I just don't do that.

I had the same emotional reaction to this movie that I did when I saw Creed last year. I was so wrapped up in the emotional power of this movie that it makes me think for a second that I'm going to binge watch all the Rocky movies.

And while I probably could, I don't really know if I want to. To me, boxing movies have a great impact with the suspense and usually the story driving it and I love the adrenaline I get from watching them. I don't want that to go away and I feel like watching them like that would make that feeling go away.

I'm hoping to start watching movie Rocky films as I kind of said I was going to do that last year, but it will definitely be at a slow pace.

But overall, Cinderella Man was a great sports movie, it was a great period piece, and it was a great drama about overcoming obstacles. If you haven't seen it already, go out and check this one out, it's definitely worth the time.

But those are my thoughts on Cinderella Man! What did you think? How does it compare to the Rocky films? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. This is totally unrelated but apparently Carrie Fisher just passed away. My thoughts go out to her family. While I'm surprised how quickly this video went up, here's one remembering her.

Oldboy

I'm not a huge foreign film guy. I've enjoyed them before but I definitely don't watch them nearly as much as Western films. Oldboy was put on my list because a good friend of mine recommended it for years. Plus, a part of me wanted to check out the 2013 Spike Lee remake even though I've heard it wasn't that good, but I couldn't watch a remake if I haven't seen the original. At least not in this case.

Oldboy is a Korean film following the story of a man by the name of Oh Dae-Su (played by Choi Min-sik). At the start of the movie, he is a drunken fool who just isn't a very great person. But very

quickly, he is kidnapped and held in an apartment as a prison for 15 years. Before he was imprisoned, he had a wife and daughter that had no idea what happened to him after he was imprisoned.

You can tell that the grasps on sanity aren't totally kept by the end of his 15 years in captivity and his only window into the outside world is a small television.

Dae-Su starts plotting his revenge to get to the people that imprisoned him for 15 years and starts training before he is eventually released. When the day does come that he is released, Dae-Su goes on a journey to find the people responsible, figure out why they imprisoned him, and ultimately kill them once he knows the truth.

The first day he is released, he meets a young woman by the name of Mi-Do (played by Kang Hye-Jung) and the two of them go on a sort of Bourne Identity mission to find out the truth.

What follows is actually a really interesting story with great visuals, a lot of twists and turns, and pretty good acting from the cast. While I say it's kind of like the Bourne Identity, that's more of a frame of reference for the revenge plot line in the story when really it couldn't be anywhere near that.

There are some really great action sequences, but this is not actually a full fledged action movie. It's a lot more of a mystery thriller and focused more on the drama and secrets being held from Dae-Su and the lost 15 years of his life.

Again, I don't watch a lot of foreign films. Nothing against them in general, they're just not usually my style and I need to be in a totally focused mood to watch them, especially if there are subtitles. Now that might be your style of film, but you should just be aware of what you're getting into before you jump into Oldboy.

The biggest issue I have with this movie is the pacing.

The first act of this movie, you basically think that this is just going to be a revenge flick where he suffers during his time in prison and then he's going to go out and just kill everyone in his way to finding the bad guy.

But that's not actually what this movie is about, but there's a weird in between phase where the movie is just trying to get to the point where it becomes intriguing and the mystery starts unraveling.

Before that, it's a pretty standard action revenge flick and the transition to the mystery and the pacing by which it finally gets to that last act is really wonky. I was pretty close to actually giving up on this movie and just skipping it all together because besides some pretty cool visuals, I thought I knew how this was going to end.

However, you have to keep watching.

This is a very cerebral film. You have to recognize that before you start this movie. There are a lot of really great visuals and it's a very distinct movie than anything you've probably ever witnessed before and the visuals and transitions definitely work into that.

It's kind of hard to explain this movie and why it's so psychologically mind bending because it really doesn't pay off until the very end where it looks back on everything you've just watched and suddenly starts to make you question it all. However, that makes it very difficult to review so this might be a pretty short review.

The big things to touch on.

This movie is a very hard R. The violence is graphic, the subject matter is pretty heavy, and there are some actually very graphic nudity and sex scenes in the film.

With the wide variety of films I've been reviewing, I feel like I should point that out. I mean I reviewed Angry Birds earlier this month, this is definitely a change of pace from that.

Like I said before, the pacing is the biggest issue with this film. I thought it was going to be a lot more of an action film than it actually is and that made the movie very slow. Don't think you're going to be getting a lot of action in this film. The action you do get is good, but besides the scene in the hallway where it's one continuous shot of him beating up a bunch of guys, the action is kind of lacking.

The movie is acted pretty well. I think because it's a Korean film some of the choices are more of an industry thing rather than good or bad acting but overall I was always at least a little bit invested in figuring out who this guy was and why he was imprisoned.

And finally, the most important thing to mention about Oldboy is that the ending does pay off. It may not feel like it will, but the end will shock you and it does make the movie come together very nicely.

Is this movie going to be for everyone? Probably not, what movie is. But if you're looking to delve into the foreign film realm, this might actually be a good way to start.

On top of it all, you get to see the main character eat a live octopus. Like legitimately, there is a scene where he eats a live octopus and you see the tentacles moving, it's actually kind of impressive.

But those are my thoughts on Oldboy. What did you think of it? Are you a big foreign film fan? Are there any foreign films that I definitely need to check out? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Animal House

So when I was a kid my parents never showed me the National Lampoon movies. I mean, for good reason. There's a lot of nudity and swearing and just material not really suitable for kids to be watching. But for some reason all my other friends watched Animal House and the other National Lampoon movies and I never have until now.

I'm gonna be honest, probably the only reason I had any interest in this movie was to figure out the pop culture references behind it and see what the hype was all about.

Oh and to finally figure out what the hell the context behind this picture is.

I know now... good for me.

Animal House takes place in 1962 (even though the movie was made in 1978, believe me I will talk about that) at a college called Faber. The story at the start centers around two young freshmen, Larry and Kent (played by Thomas Hulce and Stephen Furst respectively) as they try and pledge a fraternity in order to get women, have alcohol, and just have the quintessential college experience.

They make a few passes at the more prestigious fraternities on campus but they finally make their way to Delta Tau Chi, the worst fraternity on campus.

There they are greeted by a cast of wacky trouble makers and their out of control fraternity, and then the hi-jinx ensue. This crew includes Bluto (played by John Belushi), Eric Stratton the pledge coordinator (played by Tim Matheson), the fraternity President Robert Hoover (played by James Widdoes, Boon who has to choose between his girlfriend (played by Karen Allen) and the frat, and a bunch of other mischievous pranksters.

I haven't watched a lot of the National Lampoon movies, but I'm getting the feeling from this film that they're not exactly story driven.

The basic premise of the story is just these guys doing their fraternity shenanigans, pulling pranks on the other fraternities, and trying to get laid.

The story I guess is more within the realm of the Dean of the School (played by John Vernon) and his quest to get the fraternity kicked out of Faber and have them all expelled. He utilizes the other fraternities, the ROTC program, and everything else within his power to break the spirits of the Deltas and he never really succeeds.

I get the feeling this is going to be a short review because there's not a lot to talk about with this movie. Like I said, there's not much of a story structure. The point of the movie is more to show you these fun scenarios and make you laugh. And I'll give them credit, it's pretty funny.

I get the feeling this is more of a movie that is funnier with a group of friends but I did think there were a lot of funny moments. And yeah, a lot of it has to do with John Belushi.

I honestly haven't had a lot of exposure to John Belushi. I don't think he's bad by any means, I just haven't watched a lot of his movies or his time on SNL. I've seen Blues Brothers but that's really about it.

And I didn't know anything about this movie prior to watching it and I thought the movie was going to center all around John Belushi. The truth is, he's just there for comic relief and the story centers around the more straight characters throughout.

However, Bluto in this movie is really funny because he's the stereotypical frat guy that your mind immediately goes to when you think of fraternities. The guy created a stereotype with this performance and it's really well done.

Now I personally think it's funny if you imagine Bluto as a rambling homeless guy in this film... because that's basically what he is, but I think they realized half way through that Bluto was going to be the funniest part of the film and they made him more of the center of attention in the end.

I almost wish the movie had been centered on him more because the other aspects of the film, while funny, are somewhat dated and not always the greatest scenes.

And while we're speaking on the datedness of the film...

I know that National Lampoon is not supposed to be a movie taken that seriously and it is the farthest from far from something you should speak politically about.

But does anybody have an answer why the movie was made in 1978 and yet they placed it in 1962 before the Civil Rights movement and integration of schools?

You don't really realize it until the fraternity hearing where they mention the date of the film being in 1962 and then you realize, looooottta white guys at that school and there's a reason for that.

And then there's that kind of awkward scene where they go to a black bar and end up running out of it yelling, THE NEGROS STOLE OUR WOMEN...

I guess they couldn't get away with that joke if the movie was set in the 70's?

Also... there's a really awkward scene where an underaged girl passes out at a party and Tom Hulce actually has a moral dilemma of whether or not he's going to have sex with a passed out girl...

The devil and angel trope has been used many times but it's not really funny when it's a debate about date rape.

I don't mean to call this movie out for being racist or promoting nonconsensual sex. It was a different time and these subjects weren't as sensitive as they are now. I don't think there were any malicious intentions but it just shows the changing of the time and how this movie really hasn't aged well in close to 40 years.

But hey neither has Thomas Hulce...

My point is, Animal House is kind of like that politically incorrect relative you have. He can be really funny, and I'm sure he was a looker in college like Thomas Hulce. But now, not all of his jokes translate that well to 2016 and he's gotten pretty old and not as good looking.

Overall, I liked Animal House. It was a fun time and going back to it, it's National Lampoon. It's not a movie you need to take that seriously. It's more a movie you put on to remind you of college and get a couple of laughs out of a really funny comedian like John Belushi that was taken too soon.

But those are my thoughts on Animal House. What did you think? Did you have any great college party stories like this one? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Making of videos are always great right? Enjoy!

Dead Poets Society

Am I the only person who misses Robin Williams so much? If you watch a lot of William's movies, you'll find that a lot of his characters are very similar and they tend to follow the same trope. They're dreamers who see ways the work can get done in a way that is most unorthodox. You see it in Patch Adams, you see it in Good Morning Vietnam, and you see it in Dead Poets Society.

Dead Poets Society takes place in 1959 at a private all boys school called Welton. The school prides itself on being one of the top private academies to teach boys how to be men and become successful doctors and lawyers. The story mainly follows the semester of a group of young men. There's Neal (played by Robert Sean Leonard), who's parents have high expectations for him and expect him to go to law school. You've got Todd (played by Ethan Hawke) whose brother went to Welton and was the valedictorian so he has a lot of expectations laid upon him. And then there's Knox (played by Josh Charles) who falls for a girl who is currently dating a joke from a public school not far. These boys are hard workers and have a lot of expectations set upon them. But their lives change very quickly when a new professor comes to Welton.

Enter John Keating (played by Robin Williams) who has a very unorthodox teaching method and really turns the worlds of the boys in his class upside down.

On one of the first days, Keating actually has his class rip out pages of the text book about poetry and encourages them to feel rather than quantify their lives.

Basically, Keating starts giving them a liberal arts education. I say this because I've been in a class like this where the topic is something like English but the things that are taught are more focused on developing the students into free thinking individuals. That's exactly what happens in Dead Poet's Society. Instead of focusing on the quantifiable ways to rate poems, Keating pushes the boys to write their own poetry and seize the day.

The funny thing is it's actually hard to watch this movie after watching this episode of Community because their parody of Robin Williams played by John Michael Higgin's character is actually spot on and hilarious.

There are a couple of moments in the movie where you actually kind of wonder what the hell they're actually learning in this class. And again, it really goes back to the free thinking liberal arts education that for some people it works well and for others it doesn't.

And of course it's not the way the professors of Welton seeing teaching should be and they do not approve of Keatings "MOST UNORTHODOX" method of teaching.

But that doesn't really stop him as he introduces them to a club that he was in when he attended Welton called The Dead Poet's Society.

The boys decide to start the club back up again and the rest of the film is very much a coming of age story as these young boys find out who they are as people utilizing the teachings of this out of the box thinking teacher.

And it's done pretty well.

This movie was made in 1989 and if you watch a lot of movies or watch House, you're going to find a lot of familiar faces besides Robin Williams and not only will you recognize them, you'll be surprised how young they look in this film. I was just saying in my review of Boyhood how young Ethan Hawke looked back in the early 2000s, try looking at him in one of this first big breakout roles.

And the movie is mainly focused on these kids. Yes Williams has a pretty big role and I will talk about his role and his performance in a little bit, but the kids are front and center for 80 percent of the film.

They do a really good job creating this environment for these kids that seems very serious to them but not making it over dramatic or life or death scenarios... well... for the most part.

Without getting into spoilers, there's a tragedy near the end of the movie that I kind of rolled my eyes at. Without giving too much away, one of the boys wants to pursue the opportunities that come with poetry, art and acting, and that goes directly against the wishes of his parents who expect him to learn the orthodox way and do exactly what is expected of him.

The clash of these opinions between him and his parents does come to a climax and I'm gonna be honest, I think they may have delved into the ridiculous and over dramatic area near the end of the film.

And I wouldn't be too bothered by it if it wasn't kind of the climax of the film. The rest of the film is filled with a lot of good moments, especially just looking at kids growing up and trying to meet the expectations of their parents while still following their passions, I just thought the ending gets a little dramatic.

And of course there is Robin Williams.

Now I mentioned at the start of this review that Williams tends to play very similar roles of the dreamer who bucks the establishment. And yes, that's pretty much what he does in this film. But by god is he not phenomenal at that role.

Like I understand why he keeps getting roles like that because he is such a strong actor and when he plays these roles there is so much passion and love for his characters that it's a little heartbreaking watching it and figuring out such a powerhouse of an entertainer is no longer with us.

I don't think it's Williams strongest performance, but in comparison with other great performances like Good Will Hunting and Good Morning Vietnam, that's a high bar to clear and even a lesser performance than those movies is still really good in my mind.

As I mentioned before, he's not really the center of the movie but he is for sure a strong presence in the film and he drives the movie.

Now I thought for a long time that I had actually seen all of this movie at one point when I was in high school. But watching it now I realize that I actually hadn't seen all of it.

I had see the big parts of the movie like the scene where Williams leads them out to look at the pictures of former Welton alumni and whispers Carpe Diem. In short, I've watched enough to get the meta references that poke fun at this movie.

But that's one of the strengths of this film. There are moments in this movie that are just iconic and really stick out because they are just that good.

I will say not all the scenes in the movie are like that and like I said, they do kind of jump the shark in a way by going in the realm of over dramatic scenes, but overall, it's a really great story about breaking with conformity and going off to do what you are passionate about. Perhaps it's a millennial movie because I feel a lot of this movie speaks to a generation like mine. But it's definitely one that deserves to be talked about, even though I'm not sure it is as much anymore.

I recommend going out and seeing Dead Poets Society if you haven't and if you have, I don't think it would be a horrible thing to have this movie come back. The important part is finding the balance between pursuing your dreams and living in a reality, but this is a movie that can remind us of the dreamers in all of us.

But those are my thoughts. What did you think? A part of me is wondering if this movie is a little bit too pie in the sky, but overall it's charming to me. Do you think so too? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Along with the Seize the Day teacher from Community, I really can't help but think of this clip when I think of Dead Poets Society. But if you're looking for something a little less silly, here's a rare interview about Robin Williams and his casting in Dead Poets Society, it's kind of heart warming. Enjoy!