Tuesday's With Movies: 7/31/12

Back from a week off. No major releases last week, and not many this week as well. But, here they are.

LOL: I had never heard of this, and I guess I am sorta glad I hadn't. Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore star in a film about a text message abbreviation. Yeah, I think I will stay away.

Detention: Looks a lot like Breakfast Club meets Friday the 13th. Some odd releases the past few weeks from Josh Hutcherson - dude seems to take any gig. Wonder if that changes with Hunger Games?

ATM: Two horror flicks this week. Two films I will be skipping. Too bad too, I like Alice Eve and Drake and Josh's Josh Peck is in this too.

Tuesday's With Movies: 7/17/12

After a lackluster week of releases last week, this week seems to make up for it with an abundance of well-known releases.

Lockout: Not much hype about this film, which probably means it isn't very good. But, something about the trailer has me locked in. I will definitely be checking this one out at some point.

Three Stooges: Was never a fan of the television show, or older movies, or whatever the hell they were. I enjoy slapstick, but the original group just wasn't that funny to me. So, when this was announced I had absolutely no interest in seeing it. As time has progressed, though, I now feel I will give this a shot.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: A Ewan McGregor-Emily Blunt movie that I had never heard of, not once, until looking to see what movies are being released this week. But, even as I tried to do some research on the film, I got bored - not sure if I will ever be checking this out.

Get the Gringo: Mel Gibson, who apparently gets arrested in Mexico and is thrown into an extremely tough prison - the only way to survive is with help and he gets it, from a child. Not sure if I will look into this one or not, perhaps later.

Casa de Mi Padre: When I first heard of this I thought it was a bit for his Funny or Die website. Will Ferrell in a mostly Spanish film. I never enjoy reading my films to begin with - so, no real reason to jump into this one.

Intruders: Random horror film being released this week. As always - NEXT!

Friends with Kids: Probably the only film out of all of these that I absolutely want to see and have since I saw the first trailer. Great ensemble cast and appears to be rather funny. So, this will be seen as soon as it arrives.

42/50x2: Mystic River

I may have stated this before, but I was never drawn to Clint Eastwood as an actor. Maybe it was because I just never enjoyed westerns (until recently), but I can barely recall many Eastwood films that I have seen.

Now, I have finally seen three Eastwood films - directed by at least. The first two starred Eastwood himself - in Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby. I have been meaning to see Mystic River forever, and I was finally able to.

The film follows a trio of friends in Boston. We start with them as kids, playing hockey on the streets when one of them decides to have all of them write their names in some wet cement to not only 'be bad' but leave their legacy in the cement.

They are caught, however, by what appears to be a cop and one of the boys is told to get into the backseat - and he goes missing for four days.

Fast forward to today, the boys are no longer friends - mostly because of what happened so many years ago. Sean (Kevin Bacon), who was once the leader and rebel of the trio, has since become a cop; Jimmy (Sean Penn), who followed what Sean did as a kid is now a store owner, but also a former (and possibly current) criminal; Dave (Tim Robbins) was the poor kid who went with the police who turned out to be pedophiles.

Dave has a young child and wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), but has a lot of demons inside of him because of what happened to him. Jimmy has a wife, Annabeth (Laura Linney) and a handful of children, including his oldest, Katie (Emmy Rossum). Sean is also married, but his wife has run out on him and he has no idea where she is - he is also partners on the police department with Whitey (Laurence Fishburne).

The guys, who were once inseparable, are now nothing more than acquaintances. Sean is the one mos distant as Jimmy and Dave are now 'related' by marriage.

One night, Jimmy's daughter Katie goes out with some friends and doesn't come home. She also doesn't show up the next day for work - or to her sister's communion that afternoon.

Sean and Whitey are called to a crime scene where it is discovered that the car belongs to Katie, and they end up finding her body in the park a little away from the car.

The rest of the film is Sean and Whitey trying to figure out who murdered this poor girl, while Jimmy and his gang, the Savages, are searching for the killer in their own way. Dave, meanwhile, continues to spiral out and he soon because a suspect in the case - and Jimmy begins to believe that he did it.

This was by far the best of the three Eastwood directed films that I have seen, and that says a lot since I enjoyed the other two as well.

The acting in this film is superb. Robbins and Bacon were amazing, and though I don't always enjoy him, Penn was outstanding.

Grade:

Tuesday's With Movies: 7/10/12

American Reunion: This is my generations Porky's. This group of people are supposed to be my exact age - they were seniors graduating in 1999, just like me. I relate to these people - and the movies were downright hilarious. I loved the first one and I really liked the second one. American Wedding had some great moments, but isn't as great as the other two. So, I am really excited to see this one - especially since everyone is supposed to be back.

Margaret: I heard about this movie a few years ago, so I added it to my queue. And there it sat - for years. No idea why it took so long it to finally be released, especially with such an amazing cast - Anna Paquin, Kieran Culkin, Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo. So, eventually - after years in my Netflix queue - it will make its way here.

Flowers of War: I had never heard of this film, but it appears to be a film from China and for strangely stars  Christian Bale. It looks to be a foreign language film, but I am not sure how much, if any, Chinese Bale is speaking. I think I'll just stick with the major Bale release this year and pass this one up.

Tuesday's With Movies: 7/3/12

The Hunter: Wow, I added this movie to my Netflix queue when I first heard about, but I honestly had know idea what the movie was about. I just figured that Willem Dafoe with a gun out in the wilderness had to be pretty awesome. I just read, briefly, what it is about and it's about  finding a tiger. You know what? I am still interested.

God Bless America: Bobcat Goldthwait was very funny to me during the Police Academy films. Since the, though, I haven't seen him do too much. I know he has been behind the camera mostly, and I will probably check out his World's Greatest Dad at some point. But, I have been really looking forward to seeing his new film. Not sure why, but it looks really good.

The Forger: Pretty slim pickings on this 4th of July week of releases. Here is the third best film being released on DVD. Starring Peeta, or Josh Hutcherson, from Hunger Games and Hayden Panettiere of Heroes' fame. It appears to be about art forgery. Not running out to check this out, but if I run across it I may give it a shot.