Movie Preview: January 2015

It's the new year, which means it's now time to look at what the month of January has to offer. January is always an interesting month. The first part of January is always dominated by the holiday holdovers. This year will be no different on that front as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Into the Woods, Unbroken, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb will be remaining towards the top of the box office at least for the first couple of weeks. Then in the middle of January we'll have the Oscar nominations revealed, which will see all these award-contenders taking advantage of the the newly found attention to earn some more cash. Selma, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything are examples of movies that will be taking advantage of this opportunity this time around. As far as the rest of the month's releases goes, January is typically seen as a dumping ground. While there are new movies from January that people will like, studios save their more promising releases for later in the year, leaving movie-goers who have already seen the holiday and award-contending movies to suffer a bit. So without further ado, let's jump into this month and take a closer look at these movies.

January 2nd - 4th-

The first weekend of January is a weekend that studios mostly avoid as the holiday holdovers dominate. This year is no different as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is poised to win its third straight weekend. The Hobbit will be closely followed by Into the Woods and Unbroken with Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb not too far behind. However, throwing itself into the mix will be The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death. The past three years has actually seen a new trend take place during the first weekend of January. While it's still true that this weekend is generally avoided, studios have found that throwing in a horror movie into the mix has proved to provide great counter-programming. The Devil Inside, Texas Chainsaw 3D, and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones all opened north of $15 million on this weekend in the past three years with The Devil Inside getting as high as $33 million. The first Woman in Black came out in February 2012 and was a surprise hit, both in terms of box office totals and reviews. With no Daniel Radcliffe this time around and reviews reaching basement level, this one has the recipe of a dud. However, it appears that the Woman in Black brand is apparently stronger than thought as based on early box office totals it is actually following the trend of the previously mentioned January horror movies. While not quite as has as those others, it is posed to open north of $15 million, which is a lot higher than some were expecting. It's likely to fall hard, though. By the middle of January, this will probably be a forgotten movie.

Sneaking into four theaters on Wednesday (New Year's Eve), thus officially being called a 2014 release, was A Most Violent Year. As suggested by the title, this is about a really violent year. Specifically it's about New York City during the year 1981. Director J.C. Chandor is fairly new on the scene, but he did get a Oscar nomination for best original screenplay in 2012 with Margin Call. Last year he directed the Robert Redford movie All is Lost, which was thought to be an awards contender, but got almost completely left out, getting nothing but a sound editing nomination. A Most Violent Year was thought of as the movie that would redeem Chandor, but early predictions suggest that this will  follow the trend of All is Lost. Oscar Isaac is a potential for best actor here, but that's looking like a long shot, so the best chance at an award will be Jessica Chastain for supporting actress. She picked up the Golden Globe nomination, which is a plus, but whether or not she gets the Oscar nomination is in question right now.

January 9th - 11th-

The second weekend of January has Selma and Inherent Vice expanding to additional theaters, with Selma being the big contender out of the two. With very strong reviews (100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this post -- that's after 76 reviews), a timely release around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and many Oscar nominations to come once they are announced on the 15th, Selma is likely to be a huge player in January. However, I've already talked about both of these movies in my December preview, so check that out here.

The new movie of the weekend here is Taken 3. Back in January 2009, Taken became a surprise hit as it made just under $150 million in the US box office. Taken 2 opened twice as high in October 2012, but wound up just below Taken's total. Now the third installment goes back to January as it hopes to replicate the success of the first two. If you saw the first two Taken movies, you'll know exactly what to expect with this third movie. This time around, Liam Neeson's character Bryan Mills is accused of murder and is being chased by the government, so he heads out to find the true killer and clear his name. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. It's Liam Neeson kicking everyone's butt in the over-the-top style of the first two.

January 16th - 19th-

Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend is usually the busiest movie weekend of January. This year that is especially the case as not only do we have a movie about the man out that you would think would get special attention, but also there's a couple of big movies that should help dominate as well. The first of those is another movie I talked about in my December preview, and so I won't spend much time on it again. But this is the nationwide expansion of American Sniper, which was already poised to have Lone Survivor-esque numbers from last year. The movie has been huge in limited release. In only four theaters, it's already earned nearly $2 million, which is insane. If it gets any Oscar nominations to go along with that, we could be looking at the new January record-holder.

The new challenger to face-off against Selma and American Sniper is the new Kevin Hart comedy  The Wedding Ringer. Speaking of that January record, it is currently held by Kevin Hart himself, having set the record on this exact weekend last year with Ride Along. Hart later went on to help two other movies from last year open up north of $25 million with About Last Night and Think Like a Man Too. So it's safe to say that Kevin Hart's brand is really strong right now. The Wedding Ringer co-stars Josh Gad (voice of Olaf from Frozen) and The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco and is a wedding comedy that has Kevin Hart in charge of a company that provides best men for those who can't get any and Josh Gad's character is in that exact position. In fact, he requests seven best men. There's a lot of popular wedding comedies, so this has the potential to join that club.

Joining the crowded weekend as yet another movie that has potential to do good business is Paddington. This was originally supposed to come out on Christmas, but backed out because of too much competition. So this goes from one crowd to another crowd, but the big difference is the number of family movies. On Christmas there was Annie, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and Into the Woods fighting for family audiences. Adding Padding to the mix would've made it so one of those movies would've been ignored, which most likely would've been Paddington. So this is a really good move since Paddington has zero competition. This movie is a British comedy as Paddington Bear has been an classic character in English children's literature since the 1950's and has also made his way onto TV several times. Now he gets his first movie. Paddington already came out in the U.K. back in December and they loved him, so the bear has done his job already. Us Americans will be late to the party due to the release date change. This movie doesn't need to be huge here to be considered successful as its already made $85 million internationally, but it probably will be anyways.

Last but not least is the crime drama Blackhat. It might be hard for this to completely breakout because of the competition, but this does have the fire power to make it the fifth movie of the weekend to do good business. Blackhat stars Chris Hemsworth in what will be a very busy first half of the year for him alongside. The premise of the movie centers around a cyber criminal that American and Chinese authorities are trying to track down. Chris Hemsworth's character is the one they release from prison to get to help them stop this cyber criminal. With a good cast and a subject matter that feels quite relevant given recent cyber attacks and threats, this could be a decent sleeper hit that gets people's attention.

January 23rd - 25th- 

After a very busy Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, the fourth weekend in January will deliver a bunch of duds, which means whichever movie ends up taking the top spot over the long weekend will most likely rule for this weekend as well. The best of the likely duds will be Johnny Depp's Mortdecai. This movie is based on a series of four comic thriller novels written back in the 1970's by Kyril Bonfiglioli, an English author. Front and center of all the advertising is Johnny Depp doing what he does best, acting weird and kooky. That at one point could've been considered a big draw, but at this point a lot of people are really tired of Johnny Depp's shtick, so there is a good chance that this backfires instead of helps this movie.

Next up is Lucasfilm Animation's Strange Magic. At one point of time, the idea of a story by George Lucas would've been considered a big deal. Not so much here. Lucas' idea was to have a story with elves and goblins that is about finding beauty in strange places. The story is inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and has been in production for quite some time, well before Lucasfilm was purchased by Disney. While the story does come from George Lucas, Lucas himself has not been involved with any of the screenplay, writing, or directing, for better or for worse. While the film is called Strange Magic, the word strange is what best describes people's reactions to the trailer. In theory this could pull off what The Nut Job did last January, being a surprise hit that everyone thought was going to tank, but that seems less likely.

The final movie of the weekend is The Boy Next Door. Jennifer Lopez' career was resurrected when she became a judge on American Idol, but that success has been strictly on the music side of things. It's been a long time since we've seen Jennifer Lopez as a lead star in a movie that has been a big hit, which is what the attempt is here. Lopez stars as a recently divorced high school teacher who has a one-night stand with a young boy living next door, who quickly develops a very unhealthy obsession with her, turning from what might look like a romance movie in the first part of the trailer into a psychological thriller. The "young" boy next door that stars along side J-Lo is 27-year-old Ryan Guzman.

January 30th - February 1st-

We've made it to the final weekend of January, which happens to include one day of February. If you've read up on my movie previews, you'll know that if a weekend is split between months, I always include it in the month that started the weekend, which is January here. This weekend has a huge disadvantage as Sunday February 1st is the Super Bowl. Movies don't do well that weekend. In fact, the only two movies that opened north of $30 million on Super Bowl weekend were movies that were directed towards females. No coincidence there. So essentially these movies this weekend have to rely solely on Friday and Saturday. The one with that will probably have the most success will be Project Almanac. This is a movie that has gone through a lot of production issues. It was supposed to come out last February, but got pulled nearly last second and put off for a whole year. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you may know the movie better as Welcome to Yesterday, because that was the original title before they changed it. If you are still drawing a blank, then just know that this is a found footage style time travel movie involving teenagers. Found footage was once a really popular genre thanks the the Paranormal Activity movies, but people quickly got sick of it after it got over-used, so it's a disappearing genre. This movie won't resurrect the genre at all, but it might be a decent hit. You can make a lot of comparisons to Chronicle, another teenage found footage movie that came out at the beginning of February a few years back. Chronicle became a surprise hit and if Project Almanac gets anywhere near that level, the makers of this film will be ecstatic.

Next up is Kevin Costner's Black or White. When the trailer for this first showed up in theaters, I thought that this was a movie starring Kevin Costner and Quvenzhane Wallis. I thought this was a good idea. However, it is not Quvenzhane Wallis at all. Instead it's a little girl named Jillian Estell. Anwho, this is a movie where Kevin Costner is in a custody battle over his granddaughter who he helped raise for her entire life. Along with Coster and Estell is Octavia Spencer. This seems like the type of movie that would get at least a bit of attention during awards season if it was released at the end of the year instead of in January. If for some reason it actually was eligible for this year and I missed that, it got zero awards buzz. As of now it's just a drama at the end of January that will get ignored by most.

The final movie of the month is one that I have not seen advertised at all. If there have been attempts to advertise this movie, I have totally missed them. This movie is The Loft. In fact, I had not even heard about this movie until I went to do this preview. Now it's very possible that it just flew under my radar. That's happened before, believe it or not, but I think they are going to have to do a bit of marketing for this if they are wanting to make money. The Loft is a thriller that is about a group of friends who own this loft for their extramarital affairs. One day a dead woman shows up in that loft and of course crazy things happen from there. This is definitely not the type of movie that would appeal to general audiences, which makes me feel like it'll be just another January movie that won't even show up on many people's radars.

Big Eyes Review

I bet if you looked at the title of this movie, saw the poster, and then realized it was directed by Tim Burton, you might immediately assume that this is yet another one of his weird, crazy movies. And you'd probably make the assumption that the movie stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. I mean, Big Eyes sounds like a creepy movie. And the poster is of a little girl with giant eyes. That looks a bit creepy. However, this is not what you would expect it to be. This doesn't star Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. It stars Chistoph Waltz and Amy Adams. And it's actually not creepy at all. This is a very normal movie. Yes, you heard me. Tim Burton has made a normal movie. Now personally I do enjoy a lot of Tim Burton's weird movies. But I'm also impressed when someone can go out of their comfort zone, so to speak, and give us something very different from what they usually do.

While Big Eyes sounds like a creepy title, it really is referencing the type of paintings that one Margaret Keane liked to paint. She painted people, typically children, with big eyes because it had a lot of meaning to her. Yes, Margaret Keane is a real person and this movie is essentially a biopic of her, focusing on the big legal issue with her and her husband Walter Keane. Shortly after they got married, Walter began a small white lie by telling someone that he painted wife's painting. That one little lie led to another little lie and before you know it, both of them were trapped in a huge lie that was hard to turn back on because he suddenly was becoming a huge painter. Margaret didn't like him taking credit for her paintings, but she didn't have the strong personality to stand up and stop him, especially since he was experiencing so much success that gave the both of them a lot of money. Adding to that is that he had a very outgoing, strong personality that made it more difficult for her to stand up against.

This leads to a very interesting story that I was completely invested in. At first you like Walter because he is a charming, fun guy. But then as he continues this lie, you like him less and less. And the whole time you are rooting for Margaret to somehow make it through this. What makes the story even more interesting is the very strong performances from both Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams. Christoph Waltz does overact a bit I think, but he still does a good job. Amy Adams is what makes this movie, though. The more I see of her, the more I am in love with her as an actress. And this performance here I think is her best performance. By now she is definitely an Oscar darling as she has been nominated for five Oscars in the last ten years. I think she deserves to get her sixth with this performance. And I say that because her performance felt very honest. Sometimes you'll see actors in Oscar-bait roles trying so hard to get that Oscar that it makes the performance feel less impressive. This is definitely not the case here. I felt Amy Adams was simply doing her best job to be the best Margaret Keane. It didn't seem like she was trying to act her best to finally get that win she deserves. Because of that, I think she deserves the nomination. The win? I don't know. I haven't seen all the performances yet, so I'll judge then.

In the end, I didn't quite know what to expect from this movie going in. I was hoping it would be good, but I wasn't crossing my fingers. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised as I just adored this movie. It was a great story with great acting that sucked me in completely. I was cheering out loud as good things happened and I was yelling at the screen with bad things happened. When you get me that invested in a movie, you know you did a good job. And don't worry, I didn't bother anyone around me in the process. I had the theater all to myself. So yes, Big Eyes is an excellent movie that you should definitely give a shot. I was really impressed with Tim Burton in doing this very normal film. And I was even more impressed with Amy Adams at how honest and real of a performance she pulled off in this. Give that woman her sixth Oscar nomination! My grade for Big Eyes is a 9/10.

The Imitation Game Review

"Starring Benedict Cumberbatch" is all you need to tell me to get me excited for a movie. Ever since I watched Sherlock, the man has been one of my favorite current actors. Not only is he the perfect Sherlock Holmes in my opinion, but every movie I've seen him in he has done a great job. Even if the movie itself isn't that great, it's pretty much a guarantee that Benedict will do his best. Now if you take this to the next level and say that Benedict Cumberbatch is almost guaranteed to earn an Oscar nomination because of a certain role, that's a movie that I really want to see. And of course that's never actually happened until now because Benedict has not yet received on Oscar nomination. This will be his first. Yes, The Imitation Game has been a movie that I have been wanting to see for quite some time because it has received quite a bit of praise ever since it's film festival debut. After months of waiting, which included several weeks of it playing the limited release game, it finally showed up in theaters on Christmas and that was a very nice Christmas present for me. Like always, Benedict did an amazing job. Unfortunately, this was one of those movies that didn't quite captivate me. It was good. I won't deny that. But it didn't live up to all the hype.

If you haven't yet heard of it, The Imitation Game is a movie about the life of Alan Turing, which to be honest was someone who I had never heard of before this movie started to be advertised. I don't know if I just missed the boat when it came to this guy or if he is someone who is actually lesser known, but I was really glad that this movie brought him to my attention. Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who lived in the early to mid 1900's. The biggest thing he accomplished, or one of the biggest anyways, was working to break the Enigma code during World War II. What does that mean? Hmmm... I was hoping you wouldn't ask me that. But that's what this movie was about. Basically the Nazi's were using some sort of secret code to hide their plans and Alan Turing was part of the group trying to decipher the code in order to help win the war. That's the basic skeleton anyways. If you want to know in better detail, google Enigma.

This is one of those instances where I was made aware of a part of history that I didn't know about. I like it when movies do that. However, Hollywood isn't the place to learn about history, so me being curious, I went to do a bit of research on the actual Alan Turing and what he did. I actually enjoyed the experience of learning about this man. Turns out this movie Hollywoodized his life quite a bit. But that didn't bother me that much. You can still make a good movie even if you don't have all the facts perfectly in order. Especially when there's themes in the movie you are trying to get across and of course that's the case here. I don't want to get into too much depth about everything that went on in the movie because I went into the movie having not really known much at all about it and I liked the experience of having a lot of the twists and turns be a surprise. So I'll let you experience those on your own. Needless to say, Alan Turing went through quite the ordeal in the movie and it brings up quite a few touchy subjects. If you've seen the movie, you'll know what the main theme is in the movie, and although I'm not going to say what it is, I will say the movie did a really good job of representing what it was like for that certain group back in the 1940's and that's sure to resonate very strongly with current members of that group.

Yes, that's a bit vague, I know. But I want you to experience this movie for yourself without me telling you much about it. Personally I had my expectations for the movie really high. With all the hype, I was hoping that this would be one of the best movies of the year. It's a good movie. But one of the best would not be how I would describe it. It's tense at times, but not really intense. It has some good emotion, but it didn't captivate me and move me like I was expecting it to. It's good. It's not great. I hope that makes sense. But despite the movie itself, Benedict Cumberbatch is great. He gives this movie 110 percent and he is just perfect. Based on his previous performances, I almost expect nothing less. Maybe that's harsh. But I'm continually impressed at how he always delivers. It's like if you were the coach of a basketball team and you expected your star player to go out and get you 30 points every single night without fail. That's a bit harsh. But it would be impressive if that player not only went out and got you 30 points every night, but he actually got you 40 each night without fail. That's how I feel about Benedict Cumberbatch. Loved this performance. So yes, I hope he does get nominated for the Oscar. But speaking of acting, I've done all this talking about Benedict Cumberbatch, but there is another individual who needs recognition. That's Keira Knightley. Someone once told me that she can't act to save her life. I don't know who that person is, but they are wrong. This girl can act. Twice this year I have seen her give it her all and do an amazing job. The first was Begin Again. The second is this. She's going to get an Oscar nomination and that is also very deserved.

So in the end, I went into The Imitation Game with very high expectations. Turns out my expectations were a bit too high because this isn't an amazing, mind-blowing movie. But it is a good one. It taught me about a man that I didn't know much about that concurrently taught me about an important aspect of World War II that I also had no knowledge of. And that was cool. But I didn't walk away from the movie thinking that I had just experienced one of the best movies of the year. This is good, not great. But despite that, the acting in this movie is the best part of the movie by a long shot. Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley both go out and give it their all. I like both of them and I think both of them are very deserving of the Oscar nomination that they are about to get. And I wouldn't be too upset if they won. I would be upset if the movie itself won best picture because it doesn't deserve that over movies like Birdman or Boyhood. My grade for The Imitation Game is an 8/10.

Movies of 2015: The Good, the Bad, and the Maybe

Can you believe it's already time to look forward to the new year in movies? This past year just went by too fast. Each year at about this time I've done this yearly movie preview, but I did it differently each year. After much experimentation that way, I decided that I liked the way I did it last year, so I'm going to do it again this year. If you didn't read my post from last year, what I did is split the movies of the year into three categories: the movies I think look good, the movies I think look bad, and the movies that I'm on the fence about. This isn't an all inclusive list. A lot of my favorite movies from 2014 weren't even on my radar at this point last year. These are just a lot of the major titles that are on the radar that will give us a taste of what we can look forward to this year. I also won't go into too much depth. A few sentences is all. That way I can look at a lot more movies. The order in each category is done by release date. So without further ado, let's dive in and see what 2015 has to offer!

The Good:
This year is a year in movies that I've been looking forward to for a while now. So many great movies to look forward to.

Blackhat- 1/16
This movie is about a cyber criminal that the government is trying to take down. And they turn to Thor for help. I mean, Chris Hemsworth. Given recent circumstances, this feels oddly relevant and looks rather intense.

Paddington- 1/16
This was supposed to come out on Christmas, but it wisely chickened out due to high competition. It did come out in the UK and they loved it. It just looks like a really fun family movie.

In the Heart of the Sea- 3/13
Here we have the Ron Howard directed movie that tells the true story that inspired the legend of Moby Dick. I knew nothing about this until the trailer showed up in the theaters and it also looks amazing. And it has my boy Chris Hemsworth on triple duty in the first half of this year.

Furious 7- 4/3
A dumb, but fun franchise turned extremely awesome when the fifth installment arrived. That doesn't happen very often. With the death of Paul Walker delaying this movie, this became a must see.

Avengers: Age of Ultron- 5/1
Oh heck yes! The Marvel Cinematic Universe has yet to disappoint me and this sequel to one of the biggest box office hits ever as well as one of my favorite movies ever looks like it could be even bigger and badder than the first.

Jurassic World- 6/12
I really don't know why people in this Jurassic Park universe keep thinking that living with dinosaurs is a good idea, but they sure make for great movies! Or, um, most of them do. I try to forget that Jurassic Park III exists, but this one sure looks awesome!

Inside Out- 6/19
Pixar took the year off in 2014 due to a lot of production issues with the movie The Good Dinosaur. But they're back! After three lackluster movies (Cars 3, Brave, Monsters University), it looks like they are going to get back on track with this one. The teaser filled me with all kinds of nostalgia and the first trailer had me laughing hysterically.

Minions- 7/10
Millions of kids all over the world are ecstatic for this spin-off movie and I'm probably more excited then all of them! I love both Despicable Me movies and the minions made me laugh like crazy in both movies. Of course I can't wait for them to get their own movie.

Ant-Man- 7/17
After delivering Age of Ultron earlier in the Summer, Marvel now goes for their risky movie of the year. Ant-Man? Really? OF COURSE!!! Remember when Marvel tried to adapt this unknown comic book group that included a raccoon and a tree? That worked out really well, right? Now it's time for Marvel to blow us away again. The cast of this is amazing and the premise actually sounds really interesting.

Pixels- 7/24
1980's video game characters are attacking New York and the military turns to a bunch of video game experts to save the day? Haha! That premise sounds hilarious!

Everest- 9/18
The end of the year is drama time and as a part of that we are going to go with Keira Knightley, Jake Gyllenhaal, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, Emily Watson, and Michael Kelly right up the tallest mountain on earth. I guess I don't know how many of those are hiking with us, but I'm ready!

The Jungle Book- 10/9
We were going to get two live action Jungle Book movies in two years. Both had amazing casts. But the second one wimped out and is coming in 2017 instead of 2016. But this first one is staying put. This adaption has Jon Favreau at the helm and stars Scarlett Johannson, Idris Elba, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Walken, and Lupita Nyong'o. I hope it's as epic as that cast.

The Peanuts Movie- 11/6
The first trailer for this movie came out early in 2014. That means by the time this movie actually comes out, Blue Sky will have been advertising it for almost two years. I don't know why they felt they needed to get the word out so early, but I'm totally down with a Peanuts movie.

Spectre- 11/6
That's a recently revealed title. If you didn't hear the news, this is the newest James Bond movie. And I guess they're allowed to have a very British title if they want. I thought Skyfall was great, so I'm way excited for this.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2- 11/20
The end is here. This franchise has hit a grand slam with all three previous movies so far and there's no reason to believe this will be any different. In fact, they've done so good that I know this finale will pull all my emotional strings and thus potentially be the best of the series.

The Martian- 11/25
The end of the year always throws out a bunch of Oscar contending movies that I usually don't hear of until the middle of the year. I'm not sure if this is one of those Oscar contenders, but this sounds interesting nonetheless. We have Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Matt Damon, Sean Bean, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a Ridley Scott directed movie about an astronaut stuck on Mars.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens- 12/18
Oh my goodness. OH. MY. GOODNESS. I just did a movie preview where Star Wars: Episode VII was mentioned. And it doesn't even have "Episode VII" officially in the title, but who cares! STAR WARS IS COMING OUT THIS YEAR!!!!! WAHOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Mission Impossible 5- 12/18
And after Star Wars hits theaters, we'll end the year with another Mission Impossible movie. I loved Ghost Protocol, so I'm totally down for this one! I'm sure we'll also get a whole slew of Oscar contenders that I'll love, but I don't know what those are yet, so this is how I'm going to end this part of the list!


The Bad:
With all the good movies coming out, there's also a slew of movies coming out that I'm really wishing wouldn't come out. And a lot of them are in the beginning of the year, so we're getting a lot of crap before we hit the real gems.

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death- 1/2
Ok, the subtitle "Angel of Death" sounds cool I suppose. But did The Woman in Black really need a sequel? It doesn't even have Daniel Radcliffe in it, so what's the point?

Taken 3- 1/9
I'm usually down for brainless action movies and I am a huge fan of Liam Neeson. However, I thought Taken was a really stupid movie and Taken 3 makes me want to hunt Liam Neeson down and ask him what in the heck he was thinking.

The Boy Next Door- 1/23
The Boy Next Door. Really? Are you serious? Anything that has to do with the boy or girl next door just sounds like a dumb idea.

Mortdecai- 1/23
I'm usually one who defends Johnny Depp. He's a good actor that can actually perform good roles. But I got no defense for this one.

Strange Magic- 1/23
You would think an animated movie done by Lucasfilm would be a good idea, right? Or at least there was a point in time where Lucas' name on something was a good thing. Not anymore. And I'm not one to hate on a project just because it says Lucas or Lucasfilm, but go watch this trailer. One of the worst trailers I've seen in a long time. This movie looks downright awful.

Fifty Shades of Grey- 2/13
This risky Valentine's Day soon-to-be hit has lose/lose written all over it. If it's not NC-17 or a strong R, fans of the book will be mad. If it is, most everyone else will be mad. Given the content of the book, I don't understand the point of doing this if it is PG-13 and I have zero interest if it's not. Moral of the story is that I really don't think this should've ever been done.

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension- 3/13
What happens when a horror movie that costs only a few thousand dollars to make earns nearly $200 million worldwide? The answer is you have a sixth one six years later. Everyone wants this franchise to die. But I don't think it ever will.

The Divergent Series: Insurgent- 3/20
Here's a controversial pick for this list. I thought Divergent was a complete rip-off of every other young adult book-to-movie adaption of it's kind. Zero originality. And the trailer for Insurgent looks like it's going to take a huge step down from that pile of garbage.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2- 4/17
Yup. Paul Blart: Mall Cop is getting a sequel this year. I guess if the kids like it, then fine. But I really question Kevin James' choices at this point.

Pitch Perfect 2- 5/15
Let the war cries begin. Get your torch and pitchfork everyone and head on over to Adam's place, because I know I'll lose friends over this one. I hated Pitch Perfect with a fiery passion. And the trailer for this sequel makes it look so bad that I can hardly stand to watch the two minute trailer when it shows up in the theater.

Terminator: Genisys- 7/1
I wasn't necessarily opposed to another Terminator movie. But then the trailer came out. And it looked terrible. Poor Arnold. He's tried so hard to make a comeback after his stint as Governator, but it's just failed.

Hotel Transylvania 2- 9/25
I like animated movies. I was looking forward to Hotel Transylvania leading up to it. But then I saw it and it was so bad that it wasn't funny. It had a lot of followers and it made a lot of money, so of course we have this. I'm sure a lot of people are excited for this. But I'm not.

Scouts vs. Zombies- 10/30
How 'bout this for a Halloween movie? No? Sounds too weird just by reading the title? Yeah, I can agree with you on that one.

Friday the 13th- 11/13
Why are we trying again with this franchise? The original is an 80's classic horror movie. I get it. But can't we leave certain franchises alone? I think fans were sick of this after only a few sequels. But we're in double digits now.

Alvin and the Chipmunks 4- 12/25
There are times to be excited when a franchise of movies makes a fourth movie. But those moments are few and far between. And this franchise is not one of them that deserves excitement. The chipmunks are fun. But stop it please.


The Maybe:
Now for the category where I am on the fence. These movies could be good. Or they could be terrible. I'm just not ready to make the call yet.

Project Almanac- 1/30
A time-travelling found footage movie? It sounded really interesting when the trailer first premiered. Then it got postponed for a year. Then they changed the name from Welcome to Yesterday to Project Almanac. All that made me nervous. And a January release date doesn't exude confidence from the studio.

Jupiter Ascending- 2/6
Another movie that I was excited for, but now I'm nervous because they postponed it and gave it an early February release date. This could be awesome. Or it could be a complete disaster. We'll found out soon!

Seventh Son- 2/6
A random fantasy movie in February? Ok, cool. The marketing on this has been like non-existent and I think it will come and go without people realizing it came out. But it kinda looks cool.

SpongeBob: Sponge out of Water- 2/6
I've never been a big fan of SpongeBob. I think it looks fun for little kids, but I've never understood how or why adults my age can love it so much. But I'm putting it on this list because I'm willing to give it a shot. Although I can't help but notice that some scenes in the trailer look inappropriate for kids, which is not good in a movie directed towards kids.

Kingsman: The Secret Service- 2/13
As you can tell already, January is a dumping ground and February is often not much better, but there's always a surprise or two from February which is why I've included so many titles from February on this list. I'm hoping this movie is that surprise, but I'm not going to bet on it.

McFarland, USA- 2/20
It's Kevin Costner doing what Kevin Costner does best. Starring in sports movies. But the question is this going to be a sports movie that stands out or is it going to be another generic, cliched sports movie? I'm not sure.

Cinderella- 3/13
If you haven't noticed, we've been on quite a fetish recently with creating live-action remakes of classic Disney movies. And it's not just Disney doing it. Several studios have joined the party. The odd thing, though, is that every time Disney has done it in the last few years, it's been a disaster. And this Cinderella adaption is Disney, so I'm not crossing my fingers.

Home- 3/20
It's Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory voicing an alien for Dreamworks. And no, I don't mean Jim Parsons. I mean Sheldon Cooper. Go watch the trailer. It could be fun. But Dreamworks has been hit and miss for me lately, so I'm not getting too excited for anything they do.

Mad Max: Fury Road- 3/27
Another Mad Max movie? I'm down! I think. I need to go catch up on my Mad Max before this hits theaters, though.

Tomorrowland- 5/22
This is going to sound really weird coming from me, but I know absolutely nothing about this. All I know is that the really vague teaser came out and suddenly half the world starting freaking out, making me feel like I've missed something. But hey, if everyone else is ecstatic, that means I can be ecstatic? Maybe?

San Andreas- 5/29
Movies about natural disasters have the potential to be really awesome. But some of them can be disasters in and of themselves. We'll see what happens here as we go back and revisit what this deadly fault has done to California in the past.

B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations- 6/5
Dreamworks is up again! And I don't know why they switched this from Halloween time to June, because this sounds like a good Halloween movie based on that title. But like I said above, I never know what to be excited for and nervous about when it comes to Dreamworks animation.

Pan- 7/24
Peter Pan is a character that we've adapted to film many, many times. This time around, Edgar Wright has gone where no one has gone before with Peter Pan. This is a MUCH different world than we're used to when it comes to Peter. On one hand, you can commend them for doing something different and not making the same movie over again. But on the other hand, you gotta wonder if they took things too far.

The Fantastic Four- 8/7
Why are we getting a Fantastic Four remake? I mean, the other movies aren't that old. Oh yeah. Fox needs to keep their rights. And with Marvel taking off, all the other studios are trying their best to keep up. Fox has done well with their X-Men franchise recently, but I don't know about this one.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials- 9/18
This is almost the same story as Divergent. Except I actually enjoyed the first two-thirds of The Maze Runner, even though the ending left something to be desired. I'm crossing my fingers that this sequel impresses me.

Victor Frankenstein- 10/2
Recently we've been trying to remake the old classic Halloween characters. Last year we got weird versions of Frankenstein and Dracula. Now we are going back to Frankenstein again by telling the original story from the point of the monster. I hope this is good. James McAvoy seems like a great choice for Victor Frankenstein, but I really don't know why Daniel Radcliffe is Igor. Seems like an odd choice.

The Good Dinosaur- 11/25
Pixar is making up for missing 2014 by having two titles in 2015, something that will become a trend for them in the next several years at least. Normally I'd be excited for a Pixar movie, but this specific one has gone through so many issues that I can't help but be a bit nervous.

Into the Woods Review

About two years ago, I reviewed a movie called Les Misérables. I think some of you may have heard of it? For me personally, it was a pretty miserable experience. Because I'm always honest in my reviews, I let people know that I wasn't a fan and boy did I get backlash on that one. I feel like all the Les Mis fans got together and jumped me, giving me quite the horrible beating that left me scarred for life. Ok, that's an exaggeration. What's not an exaggeration is that there were at least a few people that never trusted my reviews again and I was given the label by several others as someone who hated musicals. Now all the people disagreeing with my opinion on that movie didn't bother me that much. I'm an opinionated person and thus I'm used to people disagreeing with me. What did bother me was that label. Say what you want about my opinions, but at least get them right. I personally LOVE musicals. I just didn't like THAT musical, but no matter how many times I said that, I couldn't get rid of that label. So now fast-forwarding time to this year, when Disney had this major musical coming out, I got excited. Not just because I enjoy musicals, but I was happy to show the world that I do by giving one a huge amount of praise. I crossed my fingers that this plan would work out. Lucky for me it has. Into the Woods is not only a dang good musical, but it's also one of my favorite movies of 2014.

I'm going to go right out here and say that I don't know much about the Broadway musical this is based off of. So if you are wanting a review of here's what the play does vs. here's what the movie does with all the comparisons and contrasts that go with it, you're not going to get that. Because I know nothing about the original play. This review is strictly a judgment of what I saw on the screen. And when it comes to musicals, the most import thing to look at is the music itself. Now there's a few ways to do movie musicals. First, you can cast the actors that fit your role regardless of their musical talent and just auto-tune their voices to sound perfect. Second, you can cast the actors that fit your role regardless of their musical talent and use their natural, unaltered voices regardless of how good they are. Third, you can cast the actors that fit your role who also actually know how to sing. The first method is cheating and makes the musical actually sound bad. Yes, I'm looking at you 2014 Annie remake. The second method has it's support. People appreciate the natural, raw aspect of the terrible singers doing their best. But I'm sorry. It hurts my ears. Russell Crowe should never do another musical in his life. Every time he started singing in Les Mis, it made me want to punch him in the face. And then there were a few other singers in Les Mis who over-sang their parts. Not cool either. Into the Woods on the other hand took the third route. Everyone in that movie actually knew how to sing and they all did a dang good job. There was no Russell Crowe moment at all. All of the music was actually enjoyable.

Another reason why I loved the music in Into the Woods is that it followed the style of musical that I enjoy. They had talking moments. In other words, they talked, then they sang, then they talked, then they sang. You get my vibe. I'm sorry, I just don't like the opera-style of musical where 100 percent of the musical is singing. I've tried to appreciate it more. I went to a couple of operas in the last couple of years in order to become more acquainted with the style, and I guess it's not bad. It's just not as entertaining for me. And it's harder for me to follow the story and appreciate the story when all they do is sing. I appreciate the style of musical where they have normal, non-singing dialogue. Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and hundreds of other musicals that I actually enjoy all take this route. This is what Into the Woods does as well. This sounds like a silly complaint, but I felt like I needed to get that out. Finally, and probably most importantly, I loved the individual songs in Into the Woods. Sometimes when you are watching a musical, they start singing and you're listening to the music, but you aren't feeling inspired by the music or you're not getting into it. Those are boring moments that make for bad musicals. I promise I'm not taking a specific jab at any musical with that comment, but it's happened in my life before. You have to have great music in a musical or else the musical just sucks. Into the Woods had great music. I was not familiar with it before going in, but I enjoyed the heck out of it to the point where I want to go listen to it more and become more familiar with it. That's the sign of a great musical.

Now about this plot. If you are like me and you are unfamiliar with the Broadway musical, Into the Woods combines a bunch of classic fairy tales all into one. You have Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella all in one world happening at the exact same time. And on top of that, you have the story of the baker and his wife. A witch comes to them and says they will never have any children unless they collect Jack's cow, Rapunzel's hair, Red's cloak, and Cinderella's shoe in the next few days. She didn't use those words, but that's what I'm using because it's easier. This makes for quite the enjoyable, entertaining ride as you see all of these stories crossing over in quite a brilliant way. I loved every second of it. Then we get to the second half and things take quite the turn. This is where I've been hearing the most complaints. And I don't understand them at all because the second half of this movie turned a fun musical into an incredible musical. I'm not going to go into all the details of the plot, because I think it's better for you to discover that part on your own, but essentially what this does is dive into the question of what happens AFTER the happily ever after. Is life just all rainbows and butterflies for the rest of forever? No. And in diving into this, there are a whole ton of themes that are just inspiring. I was moved. I was touched. I was almost brought to tears. This is a very deep and powerful story that I just fell in love with.

What made all of this work was the amazing cast. Not only were they all talented singers, but they all pulled off amazing acting jobs as well. You have arguably the greatest actresses in Hollywood history holding the whole story together, that being the great Meryl Streep as the witch. At the very least, she's Oscar's favorite actress of all time as she's been nominated a mind-blowing 18 times. This performance will most likely get her nomination 19 and that will be well-deserved. Giving us a powerful trio of ladies in this movie to go along with Meryl is Emily Blunt and Anna Kendrick, playing the baker's wife and Cinderella respectively. It's been a great year for Emily Blunt is she's now starred in two of my favorite movies of the year with this one and Edge of Tomorrow. And I am a big fan of Anna Kendrick. I think she's literally the only bright part of Pitch Perfect. And she's good in lots of other roles, too.

On the male side of things, James Corden is brilliant as the baker. I'd say he almost stole the whole show, but he didn't because everyone did a great job. What his performance did do is officially make me excited for him taking over Craig Ferguson's spot. Man, Stephen Colbert followed by James Corden? That's going to be great! Next up is something you better take notes on because you don't hear this very often, but I loved Chris Pine as Cinderella's prince. I don't usually like Chris Pine. In fact I hate him in the Star Trek movies. But I really love it when an actor I normally dislike turns around and surprises the heck out of me. It's great. Johnny Depp is also in this movie for a brief stint as the wolf. My only complaint on that front is that I wanted more of him. But oh well. He does great in the little time that he gets. Wrapping up the adult parts are probably the weakest characters in the movie. I wasn't a huge fan of Mackenzie Mauzy and Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel and her prince, but they did fine.

Last but not least might be my two favorite characters. The younger two. 13-year-old Lilla Crawford played Red Riding Hood and 15-year-old Daniel Huttlestone played Jack. Both are adorable and do an extremely good job in this. Daniel actually played Gavroche in Les Mis, which was one of the best parts of that movie in my opinion. So he's two for two in my book. And this was Lilla's film debut, so great job for her. Apparently she's done some great work on Broadway already, so that's cool. I wish both of them a very bright and successful future. It's not that often that I can spend this much time talking about the cast of a movie. But it needed it. This is one of the best ensembles that I've seen all year. Everyone did a great job.

So in the end, Into the Woods is a musical that just gets everything right. No, I have not seen the Broadway musical version that this is inspired by, but I hear that it's even better and more inspiring than the movie. If that's the case, then I really want to search that out so I can experience this for myself. Into the Woods has an extremely talented cast. Not only do all of them do a great job of singing, but they all pull off a great acting job as well. The story in this is very fun during the first half as you see all of these fairy tales interweave and very moving during the second half as you watch all the deep life lessons unfold. Finally, the music in this is amazing. All the songs are beautifully written both lyrically and musically. So yes, all this combined makes for one of the better musicals that I have seen in a long time and definitely one of the best movies of 2014. There were a lot of great movies in 2014 that are going to make it tough for me to make my top 10 best movies of the year list, so I'm not going to guarantee that this will show up. But at the very least it will get strong consideration for one of those spots, which is a big complement given how many movies I have seen this year. Into the Woods is definitely deserving of a strong 9/10 from me.

Unbroken Review

The story of Louis Zamperini is an absolutely amazing one. I've been hearing about the movie Unbroken for quite some time as it had awards bait written all over it for a really long time. I love following awards season and there are a few sites out there that I enjoy following that follow all the awards buzz all year round. This is how I was able to hear of Unbroken almost a year ago. Fast forward to August. I drove down to San Diego to visit my brother and before I went home, he downloaded the book Unbroken onto my phone for the ride home and in listening to that I was blown away. That book is such an amazing book. By this time, I believe the trailer had been out already and it looked good, but after reading that book, I realized what all the buzz was about. His story is such an amazing, inspirational, emotional story that will stick with me for a long time. Thus the movie instantly became my most anticipated movie of the year. I was a bit nervous when the rating came out. I'll get to that later. But I was still excited. However, after seeing this movie, I'm sad to report that it falls short. Big time. And I usually hate to be the one who gets all nit-picky with the book-to-movie conversion about it not being exactly the way the book was, but this is more than just nit-picking. There are some major, MAJOR sins that this movie commits that make it so it doesn't do the book justice. At all.

If you haven't read the book or heard of the story, Louis Zamperini was a man who had a pretty messed up childhood, but turned things around when he got into running. He got so good at running that he competed in the Olympics in the late 1930's and was planning to run in the next Olympics. Those got cancelled because of the war. So he enlisted. In war, he became a bombardier for the United States serving on the Japan side of the globe. While doing this, his plane crashed in the ocean and he and a couple others had to survive on a life boat for over a month. After he survived that, his situation was an out of the frying pan and into the fire sort of situation as he was rescued by the wrong side and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war in Japan. And by goodness were the Japanese terrible when it came to their prisoners of war, so he went through quite the ordeal. This aspect is all covered by the movie and they do a decent job. However, that's not what makes this story a unique one. There's thousands if not millions of soldiers in World War II that all went through a huge ordeal and in theory you could make a good movie about most of them. What makes his story a unique one is what happens to him after the war.

Yes, Louis survives. But that's not a spoiler. He lived to tell his story. That story got turned into a book. That book got turned into a movie. Obviously we knew that he was going to survive or else we wouldn't have had a movie. I guess you could argue that a heroic war story could be told through second-hand sources of those who did survive, but Louis Zamperini was also in the news this year as he passed away back in July at the age of 97. I don't know why I spent so much time justifying myself, but the point is this movie is all about the journey, which is the case for most war stories. And this specific journey continued long after the war was over. Louis was a pretty messed up man when he got home as he suffered from PTSD and what makes his story great is how he overcomes all of this. That I'm not going to divulge, but needless to say it's great. And what made this movie frustrating is that it almost completely ignored that aspect of the story. Their whole focus was what happened to him during the war. His early years are told in flashbacks and his later years are told in a few sentences afterwards. I realize that this was already a long movie and in order to do this complete justice, we needed to make a long movie longer. There is a good number of people that check out mentally when a movie goes over two hours, but in this instance, we needed that extra time to finish the story. Because when all is said and done, they only told the first two-thirds of Louis' story. And when the best part of the story is the last third of it, you CAN'T cut that out. If you are so worried about time and don't want to make a three hour movie, then cut down on the war part so you have time to tell the end. This was unforgivable. Just imagine if they adapted your favorite book into a movie, but ended right before the climax. That would be frustrating right? Right.

Now with that huge issue out of the way, it's time to discuss the secondary issues of the movie. I feel the whole movie that was there was holding back. The scenes with him as a bombardier, on the life raft, and in the prisoner of war camps were very brutal and intense. But the movie wasn't that intense. And I hate to jump on a ratings discussion, but I felt that they were holding back so that they could get the more family-friendly PG-13 rating. So instead of showing a lot of intense, brutal scenes, they showed a few scenes like that, but mostly showed us scenes of beating down, tired, suffering soldiers sitting or standing. And when we did get those scenes, it was like hit, hit, punch off screen, punch off screen, brief shot of bloody face, then a quick jump to a later moment where he is perfectly cleaned up. No blood. No bruise. No mark. No scar. It was like the Japanese let them go wash off after they beat them up. It took me out of the movie a bit. Getting into specifics, a lot of really intense things happen when they are on the raft with the sharks. Mostly glanced over. The first place they land is probably the most brutal part because there were no rules for the Japanese to follow. Mostly glanced over. Miyavi wasn't that intense and scary as "The Bird." Disappointing. I know movies like Schindler's List and 12 Years a Slave are brutal and hard to watch because of how intense they are, but those are the movies that stick with you. Unbroken won't stick with you. Thus it's just an average war story. There's a lot of much better war stories told. Lone Survivor, The Railway Man, and Fury are examples from off the top of my head from just this year that are much better.

Was the acting good? Yes. Jack O'Connell was great as Louis. He's a fairly new actor and I'm excited to see where his career is going to go. Domnhall Gleeson was also great as Phil. Domnhall has been in a couple movies recently where I've been very impressed with his performance. An example of that is About Time. And if you don't know him yet, you're about to become very acquainted with him as he has been cast in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Miyavi did do a good job with what he was given. Wasn't his fault that his character wasn't written is sadistic and scary as in real life. Was the movie shot well? Of course it was. Roger Deakins was the cinematographer. And even though some might call him cursed for not winning an Oscar, I take the other route and say you can call him one of the best cinematographers out there based on the fact that he has been nominated 11 times. Everything he does looks perfect. Is this his year he finally wins? Probably not. He'll most likely lose out to Emmanuel Lubezki from Birdman. But oh well. So with all this good stuff, I have to point the finger of blame at Angelina Jolie. She a great actress, but a very inexperienced director. I just wonder what this movie could've been if we had a director in place that was experienced in doing wartime dramas. The Coen brothers helped out with the script. Don't know what went wrong there. They're usually excellent.

Overall, I can't claim that Unbroken is a terrible movie that will make it onto my top ten worst movies of 2014 list. It won't. Because it's not horribly awful. However, I can claim that it is one of the most disappointing movies of the year. I love book and I love Louis Zamperini's story. If done right, this could've been one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite movie of the year. It could've been this decade's Schindler's List or this year's 12 Years a Slave. But it's not. If you've never read the book, I suppose you might go into this movie and walk out having been entertained. But I beg of you. Go read the book. Or do what I did and listen to the audio book. This is an amazing story that's worth your time. But you won't get the full story by watching this movie. All you'll get is an average wartime drama that held back a lot in order to get the PG-13 rating. And it could've been so much more. My grade for Unbroken is a 6/10.

The Interview Review

Can you think of a movie that could be called more controversial than The Interview? Did you ever imagine that a dictator from another country would threaten the United States with terrorist attacks if they released a movie into theaters? This is unprecedented. I think this would've actually been less of a big deal if everyone just ignored North Korea in the first place. I mean seriously, what can North Korea actually do to us? The threat they gave was that they were going to attack every theater that showed this movie. Really? Really?!?!?! How many theaters are there in the United States that were planning on showing this movie? Somewhere around 3,000? This attack would not have been possible. All the theater chains should've done nothing. They should've let the move come and people should've gone to the theaters unphased. But no. All theaters chicken out, causing Sony to make the weird decision to pull the movie. Criticism ensued by lots of people, including the President Obama. Rightfully so. That was a stupid decision because it gave North Korea the idea in mind that they had won. And what message would that give to other terrorists? That they can just threaten the United States with ridiculously absurd threats that would be impossible to realistically implement and we'll just give in? Smart move Sony. Luckily they manned up and put it back in theaters. Kinda. Only 331 theaters took it. Once again, stupid. But Sony made the smart move and came up with agreements to release the movie on Google Play, YouTube, and VOD for about the price of a matinee ticket so that everyone could have access. 

What does all these mean? Well, when all is said and done, Sony should be ecstatic. You can't buy this type of attention. They originally had an average at best comedy on their hands that has suddenly become a must see for many. I'll admit, I got sucked into this. The Interview is the type of movie that I usually avoid. I mean, I see a lot of movies, but one genre you will almost never see on my blog is a raunchy comedy. I just don't find this type of humor clever, creative, unique, or funny at all. But because of all this fuss, I rented this movie on Google Play to give it a watch. Even though it's not my type of movie, I guess you can say I watched it to make a statement. A statement that says I'm afraid of stupid threats from North Korea. I was also legitimately curious to see how the movie actually turned out. After seeing the movie, I can say that this whole situation is even more ridiculous. This is the movie that sparked all this controversy? Really? Kim Jong-un is an idiot. Why? Well, there's many responses to that. But in this case, he is an idiot for even throwing a fuss about this movie coming out. This is just a stupid movie with a stupid premise made by stupid people.

In case you haven't heard anything about The Interview, or you are reading this in the distant future wanting to know what all the fuss was about, The Interview is a movie directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen and stars Seth Rogen and James Franco. Franco plays the host of a celebrity news program while Seth Rogen is his main producer. The two come to learn that Kim Jong-un is a huge fan of the show, so they set out to have him on the show so they can interview him. After Rogen calls them up, North Korea agrees to an interview in North Korea, so the two set out to go to North Korea to do this interview. Before they head out, the CIA contacts them and sets up this plan for Rogen and Franco to assassinate Kim Jong-un. One of the things that I found especially interesting about this movie is the fact that this isn't just a jab at North Korea and their crazy leader. This movie takes a huge jab at the media in the United States. All the tabloids in the grocery store check-out aisles are full of ridiculous, pointless news that for some reason we as a country are fascinated with. And not just there, but just go look on the internet and see the trending stories on whatever social media or search engine you please. On facebook this morning, there was a story on the trending section about how Dustin Diamond, the former Saved by the Bell star, was arrested in Wisconsin for having a switchblade. Who the heck cares? The other day, the big story was how Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter split. Sometimes the things we consider "news" is ridiculous and this movie assaults that front hardcore. But that's not all, in addition to attacking North Korea and the news media, it also attacks the CIA in similar ways.

So yeah, all things considered, this whole controversy is just stupid because this isn't just a movie attacking North Korea. Now if I'm ignoring the whole controversy, the overall point of a comedy is such that it is supposed to make me laugh. Did it? Yes, actually. In a few parts. But if I'm watching a comedy, I do expect to laugh a whole lot more than I did in this movie. Most of it is stupid comedy that I don't find funny. Some might though. The personality of Franco and Rogen's characters make a dynamic that should be entertaining for some. Franco plays the bonehead while Rogen plays the serious one. They have their moments. I've never really been a fan of Rogen personally. Occasionally he shows up in various movies and does a decent job, but when he's in his comfort zone doing things he enjoys, I really don't think he's that great. Franco on the other hand is a mixed bag. He does do a lot of stupid roles like in this, but he also has a lot of serious roles where he does do a great job. So he's hit and miss.

Overall, this whole situation is just ridiculous. First off, the world would've been better off if this movie just was not made. I don't know why the makers of this movie thought that this was a good idea. But oh well. It's here and there's nothing I can do about. Nor would I want to do anything about it because I appreciate the fact that people can make whatever movie they want. I wish that North Korea would've just shut up about the whole thing and spared us all this drama. But since they did, I don't regret my decision to spend money on this movie because I felt like I sent my message that I'm not afraid of some stupid North Korea threat. If you feel like doing the same thing, I'm not going to stop you. Go ahead. Just know that this movie is a really stupid movie. If you are the one that decides you just want to ignore the whole situation, you'll probably be the one that gets rewarded by not having to watch a stupid movie. However, if you are a fan of this type of comedy and you really love Seth Rogen and James Franco, controversy aside, you might actually enjoy this. My grade for The Interview is a 5/10.