movie review

Rocky (1976)

rocky

Director:

John G. Avildsen

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Talia Shire

Burt Young

Plot:

Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the heavy-weight champion, Apollo Creed, in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.

Review:

Rocky is one of those movies that you don’t really need to watch and yet you already know everything about it. It’s become part of our culture.

I didn’t really want to watch it but my husband insisted that since he bought the box set I had to watch them all.

It was fun to see how young Stallone was and just how much better his accent has gotten. I liked that Adrian was not some gorgeous knock out and was just your girl next door. I also liked the ending, even though I knew it was coming.

It did drag in a few places and like I mentioned his accent was at times hard to understand, but overall it was a decent movie.

3.5/5

Philomena (2013)

Judi Dench in Philomena

Director:

Stephen Frears

Starring:

Judi Dench

Steve Coogan

Plot:

A world-weary political journalist picks up the story of a woman’s search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago after she became pregnant and was forced to live in a convent.

Review:

I knew this movie would make me cry but for whatever reason I wanted to watch it. Possibly because I was hoping for a very sappy happy ending. I did not get that ending, but oh well. It was still a sweet movie, though it could potentially make you hate nuns.

Seriously, having not been raised catholic I’ve formed the opinion, based on this movie, nuns suck.

Anyway, I could never do what Philomena did in the end and the fact that she seemed genuine in her decision is mind boggling.

3/5

August: Osage County (2013)

august osage county

Director:

John Wells

Starring:

Meryl Streep

Julia Roberts

Chris Cooper

Ewan McGregor

Margo Martindale

Benedict Cumberbatch

Plot:

A look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Oklahoma house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.

Review:

I’m not even sure I should review this movie. After watching it I’m not positive what it is I was watching, which makes me feel stupid. It seemed to be about a family that each had their own individual issues coming together and dealing with their family issues. There was nothing positive. I learned nothing, except maybe how not to act or that I do not want a family like theirs. It was a pretty depressing movie and the ending was just Julia Robert’s character looking out across Oklahoma.

Wtf?

Seriously I do not understand movies/plays/books that are like this. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something. I ended up reading the Wikipedia entry for the play and feel like I might have either missed some scenes in the movie or they were just not there, but it still didn’t make sense. Why am I supposed to like this? Seriously if someone wants to tell me I’d love to know.

Fair warning, even with an explanation I probably won’t like it.

1/5

Parker (2013)

parker

Director:

Taylor Hackford

Starring:

Jason Statham

Jennifer Lopez

Michael Chiklis

Plot:

A thief with a unique code of professional ethics is double-crossed by his crew and left for dead. Assuming a new disguise and forming an unlikely alliance with a woman on the inside, he looks to hijack the score of the crew’s latest heist.

Review:

Poor Jason Statham. He’s a super attractive man that can kick some serious ass. Why does he insist on starring in such shitty movies? Is it just the scripts he’s getting? Are there no good action scripts out there? God I hope that’s it. I’m going to spend my free time writing an action script that doesn’t suck.

I can’t think of one redeemable part of this movie. It had Jennifer Lopez in it, but she didn’t really need to be. There didn’t need to be two women in this movie, they could have brought it down to one.

Statham should never, ever, ever do a southern accent ever again. Ever.

1/5

Delivery Man (2013)

Delivery man

Director:

Ken Scott

Starring:

Vince Vaughn

Chris Pratt

Cobie Smulders

Plot:

An affable underachiever finds out he’s fathered 533 children through anonymous donations to a fertility clinic 20 years ago. Now he must decide whether or not to come forward when 142 of them file a lawsuit to reveal his identity.

Review:

For whatever reason my local Red Boxes did not get many copies of this movie and it took forever to finally get to rent it. I started out just kind of wanting to see it but after being thwarted for so long I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Normally that would be a set up for disappointment but this was a solid 3 star movie.

There were just the right amount of feels for a comedy. Too often, lately, comedies have tried to be too emotional (I’m looking at you How I Met Your Mother) really shooting for that emotional moment and not delivering as well on actual comedy. This movie had the emotional bits but I didn’t feel overloaded.

Having said that there wasn’t as much comedy as there could have been. That’s what makes this a 3 star and not higher.

3/5