Tuesday's With Movies: 9/3/13

Now You See Me: Loved it. Can't wait to check it out again. Here's my review.

The Iceman: Based on a true story about Richard Kuklinski, a hitman and also a family man - whose family had no idea his true profession. Stars Michael Shannon and I am pretty intrigued.

Arthur Newman: Stars Colin Firth as a man who has faked his own death to escape his life. Firth has never really drawn me in as an actor. But, his costar Emily Blunt has - not enough though to want to check out this movie.

Empire State: Liam Hemsworth and Emma Robert go to rob an armored truck - The Rock plays a cop looking to stop them. I don't even think this film made it to the theater - and if it did it wasn't there long, which is odd for the stars in this film. I actually think I will check it out.

English Teacher: A former student returns home after failing as a playwright. Nope, not interested. Not even a little bit.

Theater Review: Now You See Me

I put up a small poll on my Facebook page to see what film I was seeing when I was able to get out of work early one night. The choices were Now You See Me and This is the End.

With an overwhelming, and somewhat surprising, difference in the outcome - Now You See Me won pretty easily.

So, off I went. And by the time I was seeing it, I was one of the few people in the theater - which I love.

Now You See Me is pretty much right up my alley, so I was happy to see it. I am a huge fan of films like Ocean's Eleven that have heists committed, and then give you how its done and the reason behind the heist itself. In this film, though, instead of costumes and disguises - magic is used and everyone know who is committing the crimes, but just can't seem to prove that they are.

The film stars an unlikely quartet as the Four Horsemen. Jesse Eisenberg plays J. Daniel Atlas, and is probably the most talented magician of the bunch - and he plays a little different than his usual quirky roles he has played in the past in say Social Network. He is actually sort of playing a stud - which was nice to see him play something different, and I came away liking him a little bit more.

Isla Fisher plays Henley Reeves, Atlas' former assistant who has now branched out on her own and is now more of an escape artist, ala Harry Houdini. She is also very talented, and I think we need more of her in films. Woody Harrelson plays Merritt McKinney, who is more of a mentalist than a magician. Harrelson has become one of my favorite actors over the years, he always seems to do an amazing job.

The surprise of the movie - Dave Franco. Franco plays Jack Wilder, a street magician who uses slight of hand to pretty much rob those around him. Franco sort of sticks out as not really belonging in this group of actors - sure maybe his brother James would fit in, but Dave? But, honestly, he was a standout to me. He was probably my favorite person in the movie.

So, the Four Horsemae are brought together by a bunch of Tarot cards and an unknown benefactor. They join forces to put on a handful of shows, which are sponsored by an insurance tycoon Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine).

Their show, though, doesn't just entertain the audience - it makes them wealthy. By robbing from a bank and showering the money out into the audience. But, how did they do it?

With more shows in the future, the authorities believe this will continue and FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent) are put on the case to figure out how it was done so they can pin it on the Four Horsemen.

They also bring in Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), a former magician who now makes money revealing the secrets of other magicians' tricks. It's Bradley that Rhodes and Dray are hoping can figure out how the robberies are taking place.

I cam away really loving this movie. It had a lot of what I love, a great heist, great execution, action and a lot of comedy. Though, some forced love occurred as well - something that always seems to happen in these films. There was no real reason for it, but it didn't take away from anything.

The acting was top-notch, Caine, Freeman and Ruffalo are all outstanding actors. The lowest tiered actor was Franco, and as I said before, he stoodout to me in this film.

There are some twists and turns as well, some of which I figured out during, but it didn't take away from the overall movie. Looking forward to seeing it again.

Grade: 

Top 10: Summer 2013

Every so often there is a summer that is robust with films that I want to see. Occasionally, there is a pretty bland summer with just a few, but looking over summer 2013 it looks like another great year for movies.

I know that the summer movie season seems to be moving further and further into the spring (and sometimes end of winter) months, with G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Oblivion and even Jurassic Park: 3D being released already. But, I am only going to count the months of May-August for my list.

 So, here are my Top 10 movies I am most anticipating this summer.

Honorable Mentions: The Internship, Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim. All three of these movies look like they could be good, but as of now they did not crack my Top 10.

10) The Wolverine

This would probably be higher because of how much I have enjoyed the X-Men series, and I even liked the Wolverine origin story. So, I will no doubt enjoy this as well. But, the first couple trailers have not pulled me in as much as some of the other films on this list. Although I am anticipating seeing this, for now it is at No. 10.

9) Elysium

Last week this may not have even been on this list. I don't think I had even heard of it, but I finally was able to check out the trailer a couple days ago and it looks amazing. Although I wasn't as big a fan of District 9 as everyone else seemed to be, it did look great. This one, so far, looks like it may look great and have a good story to go with it.

8) Now You See Me

Probably the least likely film on this list out of all the summer blockbusters. However, I love me a good heist film - the Ocean's Eleven movies will always hold a special place in my heart. This looks great - using magic to pull off the heist. And, it has a ton of fun actors in it as well.

7) This is the End

This will be incredibly stupid, but also - I am hoping - incredibly funny. The red-band trailer that came out a few weeks ago was down-right hilarious and if all of the gags weren't in that trailer than this film should not disappoint.

6) Monsters University

Honestly, as much as I love Pixar, even I am getting a bit irratated about the amount of sequels they are churning out. But, if the story is funny and has that Pixar heart involved, I am definitely going to be checking it out. Knowing the main characters already just helps with the attachment to the film - and looks like some of the new ones will be just as funny.

5) Man of Steel

I guess it's a good thing that I have slowly gotten into superheroes, mostly because of my son, because there are an absolute ton of superhero movies being released. I really thought about making this No. 4, but as cool as Superman is there just has not been a great movie made about him, in my opinion. This one has the chance to be the first, but I was burned with Superman Returns. Hopefully, they got it right this time.

4) Fast and Furious 6

Though I might be more interested in Man of Steel in the end I went with what was more familiar and what has worked in the past. It's odd that we are now on the sixth film of this franchise (seven if you count Tokyo Drift) but, for the most part, all of the films are really enjoyable. And, with the gang back together it's even better.

3) Kick-Ass 2

Didn't check the first film out in the theater, and I think it took me awhile before I finally checked it out on DVD, but I absolutely loved it. Hit-Girl is an amazing character and I have probably watched the trailer for this movie 15 times. Very excited to check this one out.

2) Iron Man 3

As of right now, Kick-Ass 2 is pretty darn close to being No. 2 on this list - but my love for The Avengers last year and knowing how great the Marvel films have been I am still expecting a lot from this movie. I really don't think they will let us down with the first film after Avengers.

1) Star Trek: Into Darkness

Was there even any doubt? When Star Trek came out in 2009 I was so pumped - and for the film to not only live up to my expectations but to surpass them was amazing. One of the first films in awhile I absolutely had to see again as soon as I stepped out of the theater. And, I feel this new film may even have a chance to out do the original - which may have been my favorite movie in the past four years.