The Great Gatsby

My husband took me to see The Great Gatsby last night. I knew I would enjoy seeing the fashion, hairstyles, and cars even if I didn't like the movie.  I haven't read the book and me and my husband were both wishing we had while we were watching this. This movie was at least 20 minutes too long. It was pretty drawn out. Baz Luhrmann has a pretty unique style and I'm a fan of his other films but this one didn't have quite the same pizazz as some of the others. Don't get me wrong, there was some pizazz for sure, but this was a much slower moving film. The costumes and cars and everything were great but I think I was expecting more of a WOW factor as far as the scenes went.  The characters in this story are hideous people so I didn't really enjoy watching them for 2 and a half hours. Leonardo Dicpario was outstanding as usual though. I think I'd see any movie he starred in. Carey Mulligan did this really annoying thing with her voice the whole movie.  It was like a high pitched whine. I did not enjoy that for 2 and a half hours either. The story all said and done is pretty intense and unique. I'll probably read the book this summer to compare.

I'm going to grade this one a B.

Star Trek Into Darkness

I'm pretty behind on my movie blog at the moment aarrggh. I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness last week finally.  Had to catch a 10:30 pm show during the week just to see it! We saw the 3D version which was pretty cool but sometimes distracting.  I was already pretty tired and the 3D was making my eyes even more tired and heavy!

ANYWAYS, I went into this movie hearing how unbelievably great it was and was expecting a great story and character development and that is definitely not what I got. I hadn't watched all the Star Trek series, I had only seen a couple episodes of the original and of Next Generation. My old babysitter used to make us watch Star Trek the Next Generation when we were pretty young and we hated it at the time. We wanted to be watching TGIF! Now that I'm older I appreciate these types of shows more and have more interest in them.

After seeing Star Trek Into Darkness, I felt it was kind of predictable, didn't have much story or character development, and was purely an action movie. We went to a friend's house the next night and watched Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan and also the Star Trek original series episode starring Khan. Seeing the older series and movie, and talking with my friend's I can see that there really wasn't much character development and very little special effects (obviously).  I can now truly appreciate the greatness of how awesome they can make Star Trek now compared to what it used to be by seeing the difference then and now. Had I known I was in for an action movie I think I would have enjoyed it more.  Now I can't wait to see it again! Thanks Victoria and Brandon for showing me the originals!

I'm going to grade this one an A.

Iron Man 3

I went to see Iron Man 3 opening day with my husband and a couple friends.  I don't usually like to go opening day but I couldn't wait to see this! This is definitely my favorite of the three movies! It was 2 hours and 20 minutes long but did not feel that long at all. I love when that happens! They kept it exciting to watch the whole time and there wasn't a lot of fluff. Some parts of course were a little crazy and unbelievable but I expect that in these kinds of movies. Pepper Potts definitely gets more air time in this movie and in a surprising way that was super cool. I did read that in the real comic books she does have a few moments where she comes into play like she does in this movie and I think that's cool that they are trying to keep it authentic, at least a little. Robert Downey Jr. is amazing at playing this character!!! They couldn't have picked a better actor and it's nice to know that this has been a very positive influence and change for his life. I might be seeing this one again in the theater because I don't think I can wait too long to see it again!

Pain & Gain

                                           Pain & Gain

Me and my husband went to see this movie last night with no expectations.  I am a fan of Mark Wahlberg as well as Dwayne Johnson which was my motivation to go see this movie. I'm so glad we did! They were both outstanding in this! Not once during the movie did I get bored or start not paying attention (sometimes I accidentally do this).  I was glued to my chair for the entire movie! This was based on a true story and is pretty unbelievable. I love watching movies that are based on true stories even though I realize half of the movie is exaggerated or untrue. It still feels like I've accomplished something after watching a "true story" movie!

Pain and Gain is a great example of the absolutely horrid things people will do to get what they want. It's pretty scary to know that there are people like this in the world. While the characters in this movie are definitely not role models or people you would aspire to be like, it's still fun to watch and see how different people interpret different things and how they handle different situations. If you have a queasy stomach when it comes to some gore I wouldn't recommend this to you.  It's not super gory but if you aren't used to watching gore it may be too much for you.

Bottom line, I'd say this is worth seeing in the theater! This was a great movie to kick off the summer movies!!!!! Woohoo!! So many good ones coming out this summer!!!!!!!!!!!

Oblivion

O

                                                Oblivion

Me and my husband went to see this movie opening day.  We had been waiting forever for something to come out that was worth spending the money to see at the theater.  That is another bad thing about the tail end of winter.  No good movies at the theater.  As if we aren't all depressed enough this time of year waiting for winter to end.  It seems every movie company wants to release all the big long awaited movies during the summer thinking they will make more money I guess. That makes for a pretty busy movie seeing schedule for me every summer. I seriously get stressed out trying to see everything in time that I want to see throughout the summer before it leaves the theater!! I have to schedule everything out in my calendar or I start missing ones I want to see! If it were me releasing a movie, I wouldn't want so much competition by releasing something in the summer and I would pick between January-April because there isn't much competition but that's just me I guess.

ANYWAYS, this was definitely worth seeing in the theater and I'm glad we went. This movie falls in the sci-fi category and was pretty cool. I didn't know exactly what it would be about and they definitely keep some things a mystery until later in the movie to keep it interesting.  I even had to ask my husband at the end of the movie a few questions to make sure I got everything out of it and didn't miss something. I can't wait to see this again! It's one of those movies that you can't wait to watch a second time knowing what you know now.  Tom Cruise is of course a good actor as always in this and there were some other fresh faces which was a nice change.

I don't want to give anything away but I do want to say if you get a chance, go see this movie if you're into sci-fi!

Silver Linings Playbook

                                   Silver Linings Playbook

So I was spoiled this weekend and went to see 2 movies!! I saw Silver Linings Playbook along with OZ.  I was wanting to see this pretty bad before it was nominated for Oscars and once I saw the outcome of the Oscars that was my push to actually go.  I am so glad I did! This is my favorite movie so far this year that I have seen!! It was such a pleasant surprise!  I didn't really understand fully from the previews what it was going to be about so I didn't have great expectations. That made me enjoy it even more!

I don't want to say too much about the movie and ruin it but I will say it is a super romantic, great love story between two crazy people. This movies offers something for everyone.  It's funny, sad, romantic, mysterious, and involves sports which most guys would enjoy.  It's not a total chick flick like I expected.

Life can be pretty F'd up sometimes and this has great examples of that. It wasn't some unrealistic chick flick that gets girls hopes up for unrealistic expectations for their own love life. It's a real life story.

I finally got to enjoy watching a movie that didn't follow the same formula as every other movie.  I loved not knowing exactly where they were going with it and what would happen next. Watching so many movies all the time, I can usually guess the outcome before it's finished and that gets tiresome.

I loved the cameo of the Led Zeppelin song "What Is and What Should Never Be". Greatest rock band ever and fit in with the scene beautifully!

The cherry on top would have been Bradley Cooper winning an Oscar as well as Jennifer Lawrence but going up against Lincoln, that's a tough one to beat!

So basically see this in the theater if you get a chance! I'm hoping it comes out on video soon so I can buy it!

OZ The Great and Powerful

                               OZ The Great and Powerful

Me and my husband went to see this movie on this past weekend as a date to celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary. I don't normally go on opening weekend to see a movie.  It has to be a special occasional or some really anticipated movie coming out.  In this case it was both!

This was a really cool concept for a movie and they definitely tied it in with the original Wizard of Oz movie in several different areas. I didn't catch any real loop holes. It added so much to the Wizard character and all the witch characters.  I never paid much attention to the fact that Dorothy's house lands on the wicked witches sister in the original movie. I knew it happened but it is a short little part that you forget about. That witch that gets smashed under Dorothy's house is a full blown character in this new OZ movie which is so cool!

If you aren't even a fan of the Wizard of Oz this would be worth seeing even just for all the special effects and computer graphics.  It's sooooooo colorful they almost even went overboard but I guess they figure why not go overboard since we can do these special effects this day in age! And of course Disney can pretty much afford anything right?!

Danny Elfman supplied the music for this film which is always a winning situation! Here's a funfilled fact too about Danny Elfman: He was the lead singer and songwriter for the band Oingo Boingo!! They did the song "Wierd Science" for that film and "Wild Sex (in the working class)" that was in the John Hughes film Sixteen Candles.  I knew of his composing for The Simpsons, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and all other Tim Burton projects but never that he was in an 80's rockband! That just makes him even cooler!

One sad thing is that I don't think this will match up with the Dark Side of the Moon album but at least we got Danny Elfman!

Bottom line, you should definitely see this on the big screen in the theater!!

Safe Haven

                                             Safe Haven

I went to see this movie last night with my mom and sister. I was expecting your basic Nicholas Sparks chick flick and that's exactly what we got.  It did deliver. I wasn't pouring out tears like I did with the Notebook but it was definitely good. I'm not a big Julianne Hough fan but I did like her more in this movie than anything else I saw her in.  Josh Duhamel was a pleasure to watch as usual. I liked this Nicholas Sparks story more than some of the other ones. I won't say anymore about the movie because I wouldn't want to give anything away!

THEATER!!!

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

                           Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

I saw this movie last night with my sister. Sometimes I feel the need to see movies that I know are probably going to be a disappointment but I appreciate them trying to come out with a new concepts of old ideas that nobody really cared about to begin with. I didn't expect much of this movie but they did surprise me a little bit. 

This was pretty violent and graphic and they made the witches super duper ugly.  There was a pretty good amount of blood and gore in this movie too.  I think they were trying to compensate big time for this just being a children's story and go in the completely other direction and make it super gory and violent and made for adults. It was an interesting take on Hansel and Gretel. It did involve one nude scene too.  At this point I grabbed my phone to see what the heck this movie was rated.  I guess I assumed it was PG-13 because this type of movie would probably be most appealing to teenagers but it was rated R! The previews didn't really lead me to believe that it was going to be a hard core version but hey I'll take it!  

RENTAL (unless there's nothing better to see and you really feel like going to the movies like me for this week.)

Django Unchained

                                       Django Unchained

                                                                      (the D is silent)

I saw this probably a month ago.  Bottom line, if you are a Tarantino fan you need to see this.  I don't even want to talk about this movie because it is too awesome to give any details away about it. Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Sam Jackson are amazing in this movie.

Basically just decide if you are willing to sit in the theater for 165 minutes or if you think you can wait for this to come out on video.

It was really long but I would see it again in the theater!!

Warm Bodies

                                            Warm Bodies

I went to see this movie two weeks ago.  I was way more excited than I should have been. Zombie movies are always a priority of mine and I had high hopes for this one.  It was a good idea for a movie but I feel like they kind of half assed it. There weren't enough events taking place and maybe that was the whole point of the movie? They wanted you to feel like a zombie and get bored? Either way it had it's moments few and far between and I would definitely wait to rent this one. The perks of this movie would be some good music and of course John Malkovich. The annoying thing about this movie was they were pretty much making up their own rules about zombies as they went along and being a fan of zombies I didn't enjoy that much.

RENTAL

A Good Day To Die Hard

                                  A Good Day To Die Hard

My movie pick for this week was the new Die Hard.  Considering I've seen the first Die Hard movie about 800ish times and the second one about half that and the 3rd and 4th a considerable amount also there was no way I was going to skip this one. 

The most shocking thing to me about this movie was how short it was! 

Die Hard was released in 1988 and was 131 minutes long

Die Hard 2 was released in 1990 and was 124 minutes long

Die Hard With a Vengeance was released in 1995 and was 131 minutes long

Live Free Or Die Hard was released in 2007 and was 128 minutes long

and finally A Good Day To Die Hard was released February 14th 2013 and is a whopping 97 minutes long!!

That is soooooo much shorter than all the other movies it caught me by surprise.  I was all comfy in my theatre seat (well as comfy as you can be in those) and ready for a nice long action movie starring Bruce Willis and it was over before people finished their popcorn! I do have to point out that there really wasn't much dialogue going on in this movie. There would be some big awesome action scenes and then they would make Bruce Willis say something really deep and considerate out of the blue. At times that just felt kind of awkward. This was a good father son movie though for sure! If you wanted to do something with your dad it would be a good time. 

This movie definitely didn't have the same feel as the first and second Die Hard movies and I would say they are as good as the order they were made in. The first Die Hard is obviously the best and will never be topped and they gradually get less good as they keep making them.

With all this said, if you are a Die Hard "die hard" like me you should definitely go see this on the big screen if nothing else for the explosions!