The Transporter Refueled Review

Did the world really need or want a reboot to the Transporter franchise without including Jason Statham? Heck, did the world even need or want one with Jason Statham? I guess I'm not really qualified to answer that question since I've never really seen any of the previous three Transporter movies. I could've done one of those movie marathons that I've done this year and watch all the Transporter movies before I went to see this one, but I have to be honest. I wasn't extremely interested in catching up on those movies. Is that a bad thing? If you are a fan of the Transporter franchise, please explain to me why I need to see these movies. I just look at the reviews for each movie and the box office totals (or lack thereof) and conclude that this isn't an action franchise that I really need to catch up on. They don't make much money. Not many people actually enjoy them. Yet somehow they are on their fourth movie? How is it that we get a fourth Transporter movie, yet there's so many movies out there that deserve to be a franchise that don't even have a sequel yet? Like I said, technically I don't have the right to complain or judge this franchise because I haven't seen them yet. Normally I don't jump into a franchise at the fourth movie, but since this one was a reboot, I figured I'd be safe. Whether or not you are a fan of the franchise, I do feel I am safe to say that this movie is one you can probably just skip.

I will say right off the bat that this isn't laughably bad or painful to watch. You can sit through this and be mildly entertained. This was the type of movie where I went into the theater and did my best to turn off my brain and enjoy. But I just couldn't help myself. I had to turn on my brain for this movie because I was trying to figure out what in the heck was happening. It wasn't a situation where I felt I was jumping into the middle of a complex story like would be the case if I jumped into other fourth movies in a franchise. This is definitely a reboot and a standalone story. It was just a confusing one that got unnecessarily complex partway through. Things were happening and I didn't really know why they were happening and I think I was supposed to care about the characters, but I didn't, which didn't help matters. As far as this story goes, something happens in the intro. I didn't really catch exactly what happened or what the point of that was. But then we jump 15 years into the future for some reason and all the characters that I think we saw during that intro were supposed to be 15 years older, but they just had different haircuts and thus all looked the same age. Then we go to a dude that was previously Jason Statham from what I gathered and he's having Daddy issues when a random girl calls him for his help in getting from one place to another. Turns out there's three girls and they're robbing a bank and our main dude helps them escape and then he's planning on abandoning them when he finds out that a fourth girl in their little girl gang has kidnapped his dad and apparently poisoned him, forcing our main dude to take part in some sort of confusing plot to save his dad?

Get my vibe? Whoever wrote this movie did a really bad job with the script, the story, the characters. All of the above. None of it is interesting. As far as our characters go, the actors playing them didn't do a bad job. Ed Skrein was our Jason Statham replacement. He was fine as an action star. But I didn't really care for his character. I don't really know why they thought that getting rid of Jason Statham was a good idea. At the very least, Statham does a good job of pulling off a really believable action star and a very likable character. But maybe the problem was that Jason Statham didn't want to do this. If that was the case, perhaps that should've been a sign for them to NOT go forward with a franchise reboot. The other actors are also fine. We have Ray Stevenson as the dad. Loan Chabanol was our main female. They didn't do a bad job. I just didn't really care for them. Then I look at the choice of director and I see that it is a guy named Camille Delamarre. Having never heard of him, I look up his filmography and I see that the only thing he's directed was that Paul Walker version of Brick Mansions? Outside of that, the dude was an editor for other Luc Besson produced action films like Transporter 3, Colombiana, and Taken 2. That's right. They picked a guy to direct who is mainly an editor and whose only directing experience was a pretty bad action movie that no one cared about. Did they even care about making a good movie or was this just a quick cash grab? The movie only made $9 million in its opening weekend, but the budget was only $22 million, so with a little bit of foreign help and a somewhat decent hold, this movie could actually turn out a profit for them.

If you ever sign up for any film class in whatever level of education, one thing they'll always tell you is to look for the good in a movie. Any given movie is someone's passion project. People spent a really long time putting something together that they really hoped audiences would enjoy. So is there some redeeming qualities in The Transporter Refueled that could be praised? Yes, there are. Being as the director is actually an editor, for some reason that made me pay closer attention to the editing in the movie. All the shots were very well edited. I don't know if that had anything to do with the director or if it was just a coincidence, but that was a plus. Along those lines, the movie is a well shot movie and visually is pretty. So yeah, all the cinematography in the movie was great. And if I'm being completely honest, all the action in the movie wasn't bad either. There are several sequences in the movie that are fun to watch. I didn't really know what was going on or why it was going on. I still thing all the writing in the movie was putrid and the actors, while not bad, didn't do enough to make me care for them, which could partially be blamed on poorly written characters. But the action sequences were done well. It made me think that if the people attached to this project actually put more effort into the story, the characters, the script, etc, this could've been a decent movie. But decent action alone doesn't save a movie when everything else about the movie is crap.

All in all, this is definitely a movie that fits the release date. There's a lot of movies that come out in late August or early September that really just aren't worth your time. This year there's been several action movies that have come out in this time period that have tried to be the next cool action movie, but in every single case except for American Ultra, I have made the recommendation that you should check out Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation instead of seeing this movie and I'm glad that this advice has been followed because after over a month of being in theaters, that movie is still in the top 5 at the box office. Once again, that's the same story with The Transporter Refueled. Don't bother with this. Yes, it's better than Hitman: Agent 47, but that's not a high bar as even The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a far superior movie, which is rather embarrassing. Sure, some of the action sequences are fun to watch. No, this is not a painfully bad movie. But it's just not worth your time. It's a very forgettable movie. After a really busy weekend, I finally got around to seeing this on Saturday night and even though it's been less than 48 hours, I still struggled to remember what I did and didn't like about the movie. It's that forgettable. So please. Do yourself a favor and watch something else. My grade for The Transporter Refueled is a 5/10.

Movie Preview: September 2015

The Summer for Hollywood is officially over and if you read my August preview, you'll know that I wasn't surprised at all that the Summer ended with a whimper. No new August release outside Straight Outta Compton could do anything, thus the N.W.A biopic ruled for three of the four weekends and it only took a measly $13 million to win that final weekend. In fact, the month was so bad that Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, a July release, remained in the top three for the whole month. In fact, in Calendar grosses, four of the top six movies in August were July releases. Outside Straight Outta Compton, the only other movie to break that top six was Fantastic Four, but even that was a colossal failure as it could only muster up just over $50 million for the month. In comparison the previous two attempts at that franchise still both made over $130 million with all the bad reviews. September always starts slow as the box office suffers from the August hangover, but always picks up at the end of the month. This September, the opening weekend record for a September release is set to be broken... twice. Plus, it's the beginning of Oscar season, so in the next four months there are a lot of smaller Oscar hopefuls to talk about in addition to the big name releases. With all that in mind, let's dive into this month and see what the Fall opener has in store!

September 4th - 7th-

Labor Day weekend has never been a great weekend for the box office and this weekend will be no different as we get two movies that, at best, will be good competition for the fourth weekend of Straight Outta Compton, which is only expected to be around $10-$12 million for the four-day weekend. The first of these is The Transporter Refueled. This is the fourth movie in the Transporter franchise, which has been written and produced by Luc Besson, who is best known for the Taken franchise. The first three movies kinda made some money and were liked by a few people. The first two were directed by Louis Leterrier, who went on to direct The Incredible Hulk and Now You See Me. The third was directed by Olivier Megaton, who has directed a bunch of action movies that no one has cared about. All three movies starred Jason Statham in the lead role. The Transporter Refueled has failure written all over it. First, it is directed by Camille Delamarre, the editor of Taken 2 whose only other directing effort came with the Paul Walker led dud Brick Mansions. Second, for some reason they decided it would be a good idea to continue this franchise without Jason Statham. Third, no one asked for another Transporter movie. Fourth, it's been seven years since Transporter 3 made only $31 million total at the box office. Fifth, early reviews are in the cellar. Yeah, not many people are going to see this movie and those who do probably won't enjoy their time.

The other movie coming out this weekend actually was released on Wednesday and that is A Walk in the Woods. On paper this looks like a much more appealing movie, especially for adult audiences. The movie stars Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, and Emma Thompson and is about a guy who returns to the U.S. after being in England for two decades. Upon coming here, he decides to go for... a walk in the woods. Yes, I just did that. Specifically he goes to the Appalachian Trail with one of his best friends. Despite such a prestigious career, Robert Redford has never actually won an Oscar for his acting. He's won a directing Oscar, but not an acting Oscar. After being such a big star in the 60's and 70's mainly, he has experienced a bit of a career rival recently. He was almost nominated for his role in the movie All is Lost back in 2013 and played the main villain in the Marvel hit Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He is in the conversation for an Oscar nomination again this year, but it's not for this role. He stars as Dan Rather in the movie Truth later this year. A Walk in the Woods did hit #1 on Wednesday, so it could carry that over to a win for the weekend, which would be impressive considering the light marketing push and the mediocre reviews. But like I mentioned earlier, winning this weekend isn't saying much.

September 11th - 13th-

After what should be a slow as normal Labor Day weekend, the second weekend of September is where things start getting interesting. First up is everyone's favorite director, M. Night Shyamalan, back at it with The Visit. There was a point in M. Night's career where he was seen as the guy who could be the next huge director in Hollywood. The next Steven Spielberg, if you will. This came after his first few movies consisted of such hits as The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. Now he's become a punchline after a huge string of duds. Some have almost been impressed with how consistent he's been with giving us horrible movies. He followed up Signs with The Village, which received mixed reviews at best. That was followed up by The Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, and After Earth. None of those four have very many fans, to put things lightly. So what's the story going to be with The Visit? Is he going to continue the trend of awful movies with this? The movie is a straight-up horror film where two kids visit their grandparents and things go horribly wrong. This might surprise you, but the movie is actually receiving positive early reviews. So is this actually a return to form for Shyamalan? Helping his case this time around is he has teamed up with producer Jason Blum for this horror movie and Blum has a whole string of successfully produced horror movies under his belt. At the very least, it seems like Shyamalan is heading in the right direction with this by not giving audiences yet another awful movie.

Those not wanting to give Shyamalan's latest a shot, or wanting to get double the thrills on the weekend, have the option to check out The Perfect Guy. While The Visit is a horror, The Perfect Guy is a thriller where a woman experiences a painful breakup. Following the breakup, a new guy shows up in her life and at first seems like the absolute perfect guy. So far so good, right? Well, sometimes in life things that seem too good to be true often are and that's what happens here. There's more to this guy than it initially seemed like. Thus is where our thriller aspect comes in. Having both The Visit and The Perfect Guy come out on the same weekend could end up hurting one or both at the box office, but there is another movie that stands as a good comparison to The Perfect Guy and that is last year's No Good Deed, which also came out on the second weekend of September. Both movies were PG-13-rated thrillers. Both movies come from Sony's Screen Gems branch. Both have a largely black cast, at least in the lead roles. Both movies are about a mysterious guy that ends up being more than meets the eye. Both movies star a fairly popular lead as that mysterious role - Idris Elba in No Good Deed  and Michael Ealy in The Perfect Guy. No Good Deed surprised some by opening to $24 million. Is The Perfect Guy up for a similar weekend total?

The final wide release of the weekend finds Hayden Christensen playing a character who miraculously survives an accident that should've killed him. And no, I'm not talking about a re-release of Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith. I'm talking about 90 Minutes in Heaven. This seems like a movie that is a combination of two movies from last year, one being If I Stay - which was about a girl who got in a car crash and almost died, the other being Heaven is For Real - a movie about a boy who almost died and said he saw and visited Heaven. Unlike If I Stay and very much like Heaven is For Real, 90 Minutes in Heaven is in fact based on the true story of Don Piper who got in a collision with a semi-truck and should've been killed, and was assumed dead for a short while, before miraculously coming back to life and experiencing a long and painful road to recovery. There's a lot of faith-based elements in this one that could once again bring that crowd out to the theaters. As big as Heaven is For Real? Probably not, but if last month's War Room is any indication, these types of movies can come out of nowhere to do well.

September 18th - 20th-

If the second weekend isn't enough to wake up the box office (which it probably will be), then the third weekend is where things will definitely get real with several highly anticipated releases. The biggest of theses is Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. Ever since franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight were huge hits on the big screen, Hollywood has been constantly searching for the next big Young Adult book series to turn into a successful movie franchise. Many of these have failed, but they scored huge with The Hunger Games and had decent success with Divergent. Another one that was a surprising success was last year's The Maze Runner. Last September it opened to a decent $32 million, but the big story was how well it held for the genre as it ended up cracking $100 million domestically. An even bigger story was how huge it was overseas as it's final worldwide total came in at $340 million, which is actually a bigger worldwide total than Divergent. That of course was more than enough money to justify turning the entire series into movies and thus The Scorch Trials was immediately green-lit. Because of all this, The Scorch Trials has received a lot of positive buzz that will lead it to achieving an opening weekend total similar to Insurgent's $52 million from earlier this year and will have a great shot at holding better than that movie did. That of course means The Scorch Trials is headed for the September opening weekend record, which was set at $42 million back in 2012 by Hotel Transylvania.

The next movie of the weekend is a movie that you could call the first major Oscar contender and that is Black Mass. This is a movie about Whitey Bulger, one of the most notorious gangsters in U.S. history. In the late 70's, Bulger was the leader of the Boston Irish mob who became an FBI informant. The FBI ignored his actions in order to get inside information on the rival mob, Boston's Italian Mafia. This secret deal went on for many years and spiraled out of control to the point where Bulger was eventually second on the FBI's most wanted list, behind only Osama Bin Laden. Black Mass as a loaded cast that includes Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger as well as Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton, Dakota Johnson, Corey Stoll, Kevin Bacon, and Peter Sarsgaard among others. What's really caught people's attention in the trailers is Depp's performance as Bulger. Depp hasn't exactly had the best track record recently, but this performance looks like it will be a return to form for him and has him in serious Oscar talks for best actor.

Finishing up the wide releases for this weekend we have another faith-based movie and that is Captive. This isn't quite your typical faith-based drama in that it stars two big name actors, David Oyelowo and Kate Mara, and is more of a Christian thriller if you will. Kate Mara plays a single mother who is a recovering drug addict and gets taken hostage by an escaped murderer. Typical thriller, right? Well, you can probably guess where the Christian element of this comes in. In recent marketing, David Oyelowo talks that he really wanted to do this movie because it teaches that people can learn to find faith in the most unlikely circumstances. Like 90 Minutes in Heaven, this movie is also based on true events. As I said earlier, these movies can come out of nowhere to do well and because of the huge success of other faith-based movies such as Heaven is For Real and God's Not Dead, Christian filmmakers have discovered that this medium is a successful one in spreading the word and so they've been jumping on the opportunity to do more of these movies.

While that's it for the wide releases of this weekend, let's talk about some movies currently scheduled for a limited release this weekend that will eventually expand into a nationwide release. The first of these is Sicario. In Mexico, Sicario means hitman. At least that's what the trailer says. The movie is about the war on drugs on the border between Mexico and the United States. Emily Blunt stars as an FBI agent who is recruited by Josh Brolin, who plays an elite government task force official, to aid on the war against drugs. Their team leader is Benicio Del Toro, who is an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past. The director here is Denis Villeneuva, the director of Prisoners. The movie was released back in May at the Cannes Film Festival and based on reviews there, this looks like this will be another successful, audience-pleasing thriller just like Prisoners. Sicario will also be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival a week before it's limited release and will be expanding nationwide on October 2.

The second limited release of the weekend is Everest. The premise here is simple, just like the title. We have a group of hikers climbing Mt. Everest. This movie is based on the 1996 disaster on Everest where several were killed and several more were stranded. Jon Krakauer was one of the survivors and he wrote down his experience in the book he titled Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, which was published in 1997 and turned into a TV movie later that year titled Into Thin Air: Death on Everest. Now, nearly 20 years after this experience, we are getting major motion picture being released into theaters based on this. An unfortunate coincidence to this is that during the filming of the movie, there was an avalanche on April 18, 2014 where the death total topped that of the 1996 climb that the movie is based off of. Everest stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawks, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, and Sam Worthington among others. After it's week in limited release, Everst will expand nationwide on September 25th, where 3D IMAX will be a huge draw.

The final movie that I will discuss this weekend is a movie that was first shown in last year's Toronto International Film Festival and is finally experiencing a theatrical release a year later. That movie is Pawn Sacrifice. This movie is a biopic of chess champion Bobby Fischer who got caught up in quite the chess battle as he faced a Russian named Boris Spassky. This became much more than just a chess match, though, as Bobby was essentially used as a pawn against the Russians in the midst of the Cold War. Tobey Maguire plays the lead role of Bobby Fischer and the word on the street is that he is excellent in this. An Oscar nomination? Maybe not. But he could put himself into the conversation if the movie is received well. The expansion for this one will most likely be a lot slower than the previous two as it will depend on how well it actually performs in limited release.

September 25th - 27th-

In addition to seeing the nationwide expansion of Everest, the final weekend of September will see four brand new movies getting a nationwide release. The biggest of these is Hotel Transylvania 2. I mentioned last week that the current September opening weekend record is held by this movie's predecessor, Hotel Transylvania. That record will be broken by Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. However, there is a very good chance that The Scorch Trial's reign won't last very long at all as Hotel Transylvania 2 will be looking to take the record right back. The original Hotel Transylvania was quite the surprise hit back in 2012 as it went on to make nearly $150 million after its $42 million opening as it was timed very well for the Halloween season. This movie should have similar success. The whole gang of voice actors from the original are back, headlined of course by Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Selena Gomez as well as a whole slew of others like Steve Buscemi, Adam Samberg, Mel Brooks, and David Spade. The only other family affair for the Halloween season come with Pan and Goosebumps. Even with plenty of space between those and Hotel Transylvania 2, the later still might be the preferred Halloween movie for families, especially when it comes to parents and their younger kids.

Next up for this weekend is a comedy/drama called The Intern. This movie stars Robert De Niro as a 70-year-old retired man who has decided that retirement isn't all that it's cut out to be, so he decides to get back into the work scene by becoming an intern at an online fashion site. Anne Hathaway plays his boss. The trailers remind us that both of these actors are Academy Award winners, which often means that they are hoping for some Oscar nominations. That probably won't be the case with this one, but the premise and the lead actors might be enough for this movie to attract a decent crowd. The movie is written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who's had some pretty good success with movies such as What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, and It's Complicated. None of these opened super high, but all held very well to end up with a great final total. That's looking like it could be the case here, thus making this movie a bit of a fall sleeper.

Halloween is coming a month early this year it seems as in addition to M. Night Shyamalan's horror film The Visit and the family fare Hotel Transylvania 2 which was just discussed, we have two additional horror films this weekend that will try to get horror fans out again before the bigger horror flicks in October. The first of these two movies is Eli Roth's The Green Inferno. This movie has had quite the journey to the big screen. It was first released back in September 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was supposed to be released in theaters in September of 2014, but was postponed due to financial issues and now is finally coming to theaters two years after it's initial festival release. The movie is about a group of student activists who go on a trip to the Amazon to save the rain forest. They are met with quite the horrifying surprise which leads to quite the violent, gruesome affair. "No good deed goes unpunished" is the tagline for this movie and they take that quite seriously as part of the hard R rating is for "aberrant violence and torture" as well as "grisly disturbing images." They're going for the "eat you alive" type of horror in order to scare people, which could be very effective. It could also limit their audience quite a bit as many people might not want to deal with that level of violence.

Those not wanting to dive into the violent affair that is The Green Inferno also have the option of checking out a much lighter affair in Before I Wake. The PG-13 rating could provide a bit of counter-programming, otherwise it would seem suicidal for one or both movies to be released on the same day. Before I Wake stars Kate Bosworth in her second movie of the month (90 Minutes in Heaven is her other one) and is about a young couple who adopts a child and learn that his dreams manifest physically as he sleeps. If the kid has a nightmare, the whole household is in a lot of trouble. The movie is directed by Mike Flanagan, who's only other major directing effort is last year's horror dud Oculus, which isn't the best sign. I say that this could provide some counter-programming to The Green Inferno, but it seems more likely that horror fans not wanting to check out The Green Inferno will instead decide to save their money for next month's Crimson Peak, especially since they will have likely already spent money on The Visit from earlier in the month.

War Room Review

I'm going to preface this review by saying that I consider myself an active, faithful Christian. I believe in God. I believe that he plays a big role in our life. I believe that prayer is a powerful tool. So I should love a movie that is all about the power of prayer in our life, right? Wrong. There's a lot of faith-based movies that I really enjoy. I can even excuse some bad acting and lesser-quality production skills if the movie itself presents a good positive message that believers and non-believers can both appreciate and learn from. But at the same time, there are a lot of really bad faith-based movies that just make me cringe when I watch them or facepalm afterwards. Honestly, all of the movies put out by the Kendrick brothers fall into that latter category. We have five of them now. Flywheel, Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Courageous, and now War Room. When I first saw Flywheel, I wasn't impressed. Facing the Giants was kinda fun because it's football, but it still had a lot of the same problems. Fireproof was atrocious and Courageous was almost as bad. Now we their worst one yet in War Room. I know a lot of people will be shocked at these statements, but I'd like you to hear me out and let me explain why I think these movies are flawed and actually harmful to non-believers.

The story line in ever single one of these movies is exactly the same, which is a problem in and of itself. You have someone or a group of someones who is going through a really hard time. Someone else tells them to believe in God and read the Bible and everything will work out. They do so and miraculously everything works out perfectly and they go on with their lives having perfect faith in God. That's it. Every movie. War Room is no different. In fact, War Room also deals with a marriage that is falling apart, which is exactly the same plot in Fireproof. They're like the same movie, just with different actors and a slightly modified story. Tony and Elizabeth Jordan are a couple that have been married for 16 years and have a 10-year-old daughter. Both of them have jobs, but Tony's job as a salesman pays him a whole lot of money and causes him to be away a lot. The communication in their marriage isn't good and Tony is always yelling at Elizabeth for things big and small and doesn't spend much time with her or their daughter. Elizabeth doesn't want her marriage to fail, but she sees it falling apart. One day while she is working her job as a realtor (I believe) and she meets this hilarious old black lady who tells her that she needs to pray and believe in God and that will save her marriage. Can you guess how it turns out? Yup, you're right.

What really frustrates me about these movies is that these are good principles that they are trying to portray. In order to make a marriage work, there needs to be communication. Both parties need to focus on figuring out what they need to do better to help their marriage. You need to spend time with your spouse and children instead of focusing on your effort on your career. So this has potential to be a great message. But the movie portrays everything as black and white with no gray area. If your marriage is struggling, it's because you are only lukewarm at best when it comes to God. If your business is failing, it's because you don't have faith in God. If your football team is losing, then it is because you don't have faith in God. However, when you turn your life over to God, immediately everything will change. Your business will succeed. Your football team will win. Your marriage will succeed. And all this will happen immediately. NO! Not true. I know this may sound like blasphemy, but I don't think God really cares about the outcome of a football game. I think he will allow you to fail in your career or at school even if you are super faithful. A family built on the foundation of God will definitely help a marriage, but it's not going to change over night the second you turn to God. It takes time to fix a marriage and sometimes a relationship just doesn't work out, even when both parties are putting their trust in God. Moral of the story, sometimes life still sucks like crap when you put your faith in God and I think that's a very important thing to learn that none of these movies even touches on.

Shall we get into specifics with this particular movie? That last paragraph was pulling examples from all their other movies. Technically I will be divulging spoilers from the some parts of the movie, but I need to prove a point here and like I said, they make the same movie over and over, so spoiling the movie isn't really possible, is it? Anywho, if you don't want to know anything from the plot, then feel free to skip this paragraph. Otherwise continue. First off, there is a point in the movie where Elizabeth is getting ice cream with her daughter and the old lady. A crazy man comes to them, pulls out a knife, and demands money from them. Elizabeth is about to give in and give him money (smart move), but the old lady refuses and instead tells him in the name of Jesus to go away. He does and they aren't harmed. I'm sorry, in the real world that would be a dumb thing to do and the old lady might end up dead. Next, we learn that the husband is cheating on his wife and is about to go home with a different girl. Well, the wife had found this out and prays that he doesn't go through with it. The second she prays, the husband gets sick and decides not to go through with it. I laughed. Towards the end of the movie, we find out that the husband had been doing stuff that was very illegal and he should've been sent to prison. Well, because he made right with God and was honest about the situation, he was completely pardoned. Ha! That wouldn't happen.

Get my vibe? I won't divulge any spoilers anymore, but stuff like this happened the entire movie where life just worked out perfectly because this couple decided to turn their lives over to God and it got frustrating because of how unrealistic the situation seemed. It was also frustrating because this was their fifth straight movie full of B.S. like this. Like I said, I'm a Christian and I think these are good principles, but situations like this in real life are a lot more complex and want to see more of that complexity. I want their next movie to end with a relationship failing or the business collapsing or the football team losing all of their games and have the movie show what a good Christian would do despite these continued hardships. But I know that will never happen with the Kendricks. Honestly I think that is a bad message to send to non-believers. I can honestly see someone watching movies like this and trying it out for themselves and coming to the conclusion that God actually doesn't exist because their situation didn't improve overnight. In fact, that's a very common complaint. If God exists, why are all these bad things happening? Why do we have such a crappy world? Why is it that people pray to God and it seems like he ignores them? I want a faith-based movie that satisfies these questions and none of the movies by the Kendricks do that at all, especially not War Room. Their message is that if you turn your life over to God, everything will immediately improve and all your problems will be solved right away and that's just not true.

On top of this, there is some dialogue and preaching in this movie that is simply bad. When Elizabeth first decides to turn her life over to God, she starts out by praying out loud in her closet. Why she decided to completely empty everything out of her closet didn't make sense to me, but whatever. I'm fine with her praying out loud in her closet. But then as a part of that prayer, she leaves her closet and is yelling and crying at the top of her lungs in the middle of her front room for Satan to leave this house and never return. This yelling prayer goes on for quite some time and by the end of it I had completely lost it. I was laughing hysterically. I felt bad that I was laughing at a prayer, but it was so over the top and ridiculous that I just couldn't help myself. Then we had our preaching by the old lady. Boy did she preach. Think of what it's like when you go to some Baptist or Protestant church and the preacher is straight up yelling at the congregation. Yup. That's what this old lady does on multiple occasions. I wasn't in the mood to get preached at. I just wanted to watch a faith-based movie. Let's tone it down movie. Please? Pretty please? No? Ok.

After being officially done with the movie, I did look up some of the reviews and apparently there's a lot of people that are disagreeing with me on this. The movie won the box office on Friday and will challenge Straight Outta Compton for the top spot this weekend with over $10 million, which will be the highest opening yet for the Kendrick brothers. The movie also was awarded an A+ cinemascore and is at 88% on Flixter. So if you've liked the previous movies by these guys, you'll most likely love this one. I'm sorry, I just can't get into them. Yes, the technical aspects of this movie are very well done and some of the acting is decent, but that's it for me. This was also way too long. It's the type of faith-based movie that only needs to be 70 or 80 minutes, but it clocks in at 120 minutes. So yes, this is almost an hour too long. At the very least, they could've kept this to 90 minutes because it was at that point where I was begging this movie to end, but it kept going and going and going and going. Moral of the story is that I am not going to recommend this to anyone and I personally would keep it far, far away from any non-Christians. My grade for War Room is a 4/10.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Review

Oh man. Sometimes in life you bite off more than you can chew. I was attracted to The Diary of a Teenage Girl for two reasons. First, it was a movie that got praised at the Sundance Film Festival. Second, the critics thus far have praised it as it has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This sounds like the perfect formula for me. I love indie movies and I seek out indie movies that get praised by the critics. However, I was slightly hesitant going into this one because I did know of the subject matter, but I decided to go for it anyways because I figured that I could handle it and I would come out with a positive experience. But holy cow was this heavy. I don't know exactly where the line is for in terms of what exactly is too heavy for me to handle. Usually I'm pretty good. But whatever that line is, it was crossed with this movie. I felt uncomfortable watching this movie. It felt wrong being in the theater and I wanted to leave. But I stuck through it and luckily I was in an empty theater so playing around on my phone was an option to distract me. No, this isn't a bad movie. But proceed with caution. Know what you are getting into before jumping right in.

That was a very vague paragraph, so allow me to go into a little bit more depth. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a movie where we get very personal with the deep, dark secrets of a teenage girl's life. Specifically, our main girl is 15 years old and has come to the point in her life where she has a huge desire to be sexually active. It's that weird moment in life where she is not quite an adult but her body wants to be an adult and do adulty things and her mother didn't really teach her the power of abstinence. In reality, her mother isn't the best example in the first place. So this girl goes for it. In the most awkward and uncomfortable way. She starts sleeping with her mom's boyfriend who is somewhere between 35 and 40. This is just a sick and uncomfortable romance. No man who is in his 30's should sleep with a teenage girl, especially not a girl who is not a legal adult. But they both love each other, so it's fine, right? WRONG! Call the cops and get that man arrested for sleeping with a minor. That's what was going through my mind. Now let's get one thing clear. The actress who plays our 15-year-old girl is 23 in real life, so nothing illegal actually happened in the filming of this movie. But she definitely has a baby face and pulls off 15 very well, so it's still disturbing, especially since Alexander Skarsgard is 39, which is 16 years her senior. Of course things get very complicated and since this girl has now become addicted to this sexual activity, she goes off with all kinds of people regardless of age, race, or even gender to satisfy her need for physical intimacy.

Yup. Like I said. This is very heavy. I'm not quite sure why so many people loved this so much, but I have an idea and it's a pretty darn good idea. This is an extremely honest coming of age drama that doesn't hold back. It attempts to dive deeply into what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl as she is going through this awkward phase of her life. We all know how it feels like to be a teenager. I don't need to go into detail about that. But this movie feels the need. Quite honestly it does a dang good job of showing what life can be like for a teenage girl and I guess that this honest, raw, unbridled look at the life of a teenage girl pleased a lot of people. So I guess it could please you as well, especially if you are familiar with the source material of which I didn't even know existed until I watched this movie. But personally I don't need explore in detail what goes on in the life of a teenage girl. I don't. But yet I did with this movie and it was uncomfortable.

In terms of the technical aspects of this movie, I do have to be an honest and say this was a very well shot movie. Our main girl is an aspiring artist and as the movie is told from her perspective, it seemed fitting for random artwork to come to life. There were times when animated butterflies started flying around or fireworks shot off in the background. She'd even talk to some animated characters sometimes and other times the whole movie turned animated for a few seconds. I thought that was a clever way to help paint the picture of what was going on in her mind. I also have to admit that the acting in the movie was good. Yes, Bel Powlie as our girl and Alexander Skarsgard as the old boyfriend did a good job. I just didn't care one bit about either of their characters. There was one girl that I did care about, though, and that was the mother who was played by Kristen Wiig. The whole time while her daughter and her boyfriend are doing this behind her back, you feel awful. She's already gone through a lot in her life up to this point. She didn't need to have her boyfriend cheat on her with her daughter. But then Kristen Wiig figures this out and holy freaking cow was her acting phenomenal. She gave an Oscar-worthy performance. I really hope that this movie gets completely ignored at the box office and by the Academy, but if Kristen Wiig were to get a nomination for best supporting actress, I would not complain.

In the end, this is not a movie that I would recommend you seeing. I went into this movie because it had raving reviews and it was an indie movie coming out of Sundance, but this is one of those instances where I actually disagree with critics. Yes, that does happen. This movie took things too far. We could've told a coming of age story that dove into the life of a teenage girl without getting graphic, detailed, and disturbing. There's plenty of those. Off the top of my head, The DUFF from earlier this year is one of them. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is another fantastic coming of age story from this year. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a movie that just doesn't need to be seen. I felt horrible while watching it. The girl was talking to the tapes telling no one to listen to them and I felt like I was invading her privacy. It was an awful experience. This is not a bad or poorly made movie, so I'm not going to give it an extremely bad grade, but it's just not one that I think the world needed. I really hope it just stays under the radar and disappears from theaters without many people seeing it. My grade for The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a 5/10.

We Are Your Friends Review

This month we've had the pleasure of experiencing several musical dramas. The first is one that I still have yet to see, that of Meryl Streep's Ricki and the Flash. I'll get to it eventually. The second is one that I really didn't think I would like because in general I hate rap music, but despite that I was shocked that I liked the movie Straight Outta Compton. The third one, despite the poisonous release date, was actually the one that I was most intrigued by, that of We Are Your Friends. Intrigued is an interesting word, though. I wasn't necessarily excited to see a movie about Zac Efron aspiring to be a popular DJ, but I was intrigued because I love electronic music. In fact, you could call it my favorite genre of music. My expectations going in weren't actually super high given the late August release date combined with the poor reviews. Mostly I walked out with a desire for them to make an actual biopic of some early pioneer of electronic music. That could be really good. However, I was also surprised that I didn't hate this movie as much as some others have. It's nothing special, but it's also not the typical late-August crap that usually gets released this weekend.

No this isn't a biopic. It's not based on the true story of some DJ. Instead it's exactly what I said in the last paragraph. Cole Carter, played by Zac Efron, is aspiring to be a popular DJ. That's it really. He plays at a lot of small clubs full of mostly high school students and possibly some young college students and hangs out with a weird group of annoying friends that you never really care too much about until maybe the very end. One night he is at a club about to be up to DJ when he runs into none other than Seneca Crane who takes him under his wing to help him be the next big game maker for the Hunger Games. Oh wait, wrong movie. We have Wes Bentley, who plays Seneca Crane in The Hunger Games, show up to the club and invite Cole to come to a party with him. Cole decides it's a good idea to just skip his DJ-ing gig for the night to go to this party with a random stranger where he ends up on some weird drugs that turns everything into a cartoon and before long makes him black out and wake up on this stranger's couch the next morning. There he is reunited with a girl that he met the previous night before Wes showed up that turns out to be Wes's girlfriend. All is well, though, because Wes Bentley is actually a guy named James who is a big name DJ and decides to take Cole in under his wing and help him be a better DJ.

Based on that, you could probably guess what is going to happen in this movie and you would probably be right, especially if I hinted you in on the fact that Cole has the hots for the girlfriend, who is played by Emily Ratajkowski. Like I said, this is nothing special story-wise, although there are some good aspects of the story that I did enjoy. First off, we do have moments where the movie is trying to teach the audience about electronic music. You get some insight on what it takes to be a DJ. Believe it or not, it does require a lot of skill to try to create the perfect song that will get the party moving. And that DJ board is fairly complex. It's a different type of skill than what makes your typical rock star or pop artist popular, but it does require skill. Then there the moments where Wes Bentley is teaching Zac Efron about how to be a better DJ that will stand out, showing him that he can implement actual instruments like drums and pianos instead of just mixing everything on a computer. These were great moments and I was actually liking the direction the movie was taking me. Sadly these moments were few and far between. Instead of going the direction I wanted the movie to go, it got really boring and cliche. I found myself playing around on my phone for much of the movie instead of giving the movie my undivided attention. Yes, this was fine because I was the only one in theater, but the movie lost a lot points in my book because I got bored.

The acting in the movie was actually pretty decent. Zac Efron himself wasn't anything special. He didn't do a bad job, but he felt replaceable as our main character. His group of friends were the same. In fact, they were really pointless for most of the movie. Things would've been better without them or at least with less screen-time for them. The other two, though, were really good. Hitting it out of the park in this movie and almost single-handedly saving it was Wes Bentley. His character was actually really interesting. He had a lot of baggage that we don't really dive into, but we can tell he is a broken individual and thus a really deep character. Things get interesting in the second half of the movie and I think the movie wanted me to think that Wes Bentley was the jerk with Zac Efron being the guy that I care for, but it was actually the other way around. I really liked Wes Bentley's character and I was hoping things turned out well for him. What made this happen was a great acting performance from Wes. Huge round of applause for him. The other character that I really liked was Emily Ratajkowski. I was really skeptic about her because up to this point she's just been typecast as the hot girl who doesn't need to act because she's just there for people to look at. I mean, she's one of the girls in Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines music video if that helps you understand what I'm getting at. But being that she was the lead female in this, I wanted to see some acting out of her and that's what I got. Yes there were plenty of shots where she wore skimpy outfits and the camera made sure to remind us that she has a really good figure, if you know what I mean, but for the most part she actually acted and was a character I cared for, so props to her. Hopefully she can do more of that in the future.

I told you that a lot of this movie was boring and cliche and I stand by that. However, the second half of the movie actually did get fairly emotional. Yes, it still was cliche, but it was done well enough that I started to care for the characters, even the annoying friends that were mostly useless in the first half of the movie. Yes, I knew everything that was going to happy. There were no crazy twists or turns. But I was into it. I also really liked the thing that Zac Efron came up with at the end of the movie because you know the movie is going to end with him doing a huge DJ gig. That's not a spoiler. That's common sense. And it was a lot of fun. In general, the whole soundtrack of this movie was fantastic. This is where me being a fan of electronic music helped me enjoy this movie more. If you hate this style of music, you might think it's just loud and noisy, but I thought it gave the movie just enough energy to keep in interesting. I payed close attention to the end credits where it showed all of the songs that were included in the movie and I was rather blown away by how many amazing artists were included in this. I'm not going to name them because if you aren't a fan of electronic music then it'll just be a bunch of random, meaningless names that you've never heard of. But nevertheless I'm going to have a lot of fun going through this soundtrack and downloading it all to my apple music library.

Overall, I was intrigued when I heard of this movie because I like electronic music, but I wasn't super excited because movies that are released in late-August are rarely good and the early reviews weren't too encouraging. No, this isn't a great movie. In fact it's boring and cliche for much of it. But I ended up enjoying it more than some other people have. It's not a bad movie. Do I recommend it as a movie that you need to see? No. You could skip this and you wouldn't really be missing anything, but if you like going to a lot of movies like I do, then this isn't a bad option. Zac Efron gives a decent performance as the lead male and Emily Ratajkowski gives a surprisingly good performance as the lead female. Best of all, Wes Bentley knocks it out of the park with his performances as the supporting male in the movie and almost single-handedly saves the movie. Also, if you are like me and you love electronic music, then you at least need to look up the soundtrack of this movie because it's rather incredible. My grade for We Are Your Friends is a 7/10.

No Escape Review

I saw the trailer for the movie No Escape in theaters for the first time a few months ago and honestly I was intrigued. We had Owen Wilson playing the lead role in a dramatic film that seemed like a historical thriller. Knowing nothing else about the movie, a whole bunch of interesting thoughts went through my head. These seemed like a movie the Academy would like. Is this going to be one of our Oscar contenders? Could Owen Wilson get his first best actor nomination at the Oscars? I liked that idea. Suddenly I envisioned myself rooting for Owen Wilson to win an Oscar. Then I saw the release date of the movie. Late August. Oh. Suddenly all of these thoughts were completely wiped away. The last weekend of August is not a date that the Weinstein Company would put a movie that they are hoping can contend for an Oscar. In fact, that's a weekend that a lot of b-level action, thrillers, and horror movies get put to die. This year the Weinstein Company will be pushing movies like Carol, Burnt, and/or The Hateful Eight for the Oscars. Not No Escape. In fact, they probably are just hoping that they can sneak in a few extra dollars with this release. Suddenly I was a lot less excited to see this movie, but oh well. Perhaps I can go in and have a good time.

I mentioned that I thought this movie looked like a historical thriller. It's not. Not really, anyways. It is a thriller, but the historical thing not so much. Owen Wilson plays a fictional character named Jack Dwyer who has decided to move his family to Southeast Asia to start over. Thailand, I believe. He got a job offer there that he's excited about. As it turns out, this is a situation where he gets diagnosed with a bad case of being in the wrong place at the worst time. Less than 24 hours after he gets there and is all settled in, there is some sort of huge violent outbreak where all the natives have decided that they are going to mercilessly kill all the foreign people in the area and so Owen Wilson quickly finds himself running for his life with his family to try to find somewhere safe to settle in. Now if this was a historical drama based on actual events or an actual war or civil war that happened in Thailand, this would be a really interesting movie. As is this is just a fictional thriller where all the natives are seen as violent madmen that are out to kill all the Americans. I don't know much about the politics of Thailand and what, if anything, is going on over there, but this felt wrong. It felt racist. Maybe I'm just completely off my rocker, but I had a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach about whatever message this movie was trying to portray.

Throughout the movie I was trying to figure out what the purpose of this film was. Were they trying to portray some sort of political message? Were they trying to accurately portray the lifestyle of the people of Thailand? I hope not, because if that is the case I feel this could be an offensive movie. Were they just trying to make a harmless thriller? These seems more like the case here, but if that were the case, I feel they could've had a better approach. Instead of it being Owen Wilson, the American, being a victim of all these horrible savages that live in Thailand, perhaps it could've been Owen Wilson being the target of a random, fictionalized organization. That would've been better. As is, I felt a little unsettled throughout the course of the movie. However, if I were to ignore all of that and focus on the actual thriller aspect of the movie, this was a really intense movie. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and honestly I had no idea if the whole family was going to survive. The movie went back and forth from being quiet and still to being really intense and thus it made all the quiet moments even more intense. In fact, a comparison that I thought of during the movie was World War Z. The difference was it was angry Thai people instead of zombies. But outside that, the two movies were fairly similar.

I do want to talk about Owen Wilson for a moment. He's actually been one of my favorite comedy actors for quite some time. His comedic timing is always really good and even when he's in a bad movie, it still feels like he is having a good time. I can't think of too many times where he has done a completely serious role, though. He's always doing comedy. But this is a case where he does pure drama. Sure, there are moments where he tries to be funny, but he's not being funny for the audience. He's being funny for his kids in the movie, telling the classic dad jokes that make his young kids laugh. Outside that, he is completely serious the whole time and he does a dang good job at it. It gave me the feeling that if he got a lucky break and was cast in an Oscar-bait movie, he has what it takes to pull off an Oscar-worthy performance. I always like it when an actor or actress can step outside of his or her comfort zone and still pull off a great performance. I love comedians who can do serious roles. Those are the best comedians. Owen Wilson has now proven that he is among that class of comedians, so major props to him. As a side note to Owen Wilson, they did some close up shots of him at the beginning while they were on the plane and for the first time I noticed that Owen Wilson is getting old. In fact, I looked up his age afterwards and learned that he will turn 47 later this year. I found that interesting.

As far as the cast around Owen Wilson, they also did a great job. Lake Bell plays Owen Wilson's wife in the movie and the two of them have really great chemistry as a couple. I don't know her too well as an actress. I had to look her up afterwards to remember what else she was because she looked super familiar and that's when I realized that I remember her from the baseball movie Million Dollar Arm. She's the main girl in that as well. She was good in that, too, so props to her. We also had James Bond come to save the day several times in the movie. I'm talking about Pierce Brosnan. He always shows up in the most intense moments and does a great job of giving the audience a quick breather. Every time he showed up, I felt like our family was safe, whereas when he's not there and our family is on their own, things are extremely intense. Speaking of those intense moments, another thing that did bother me was the use of the shaky cam in the movie. I'm not one of those that thinks shaky cam is inherently bad. If done well I think it's extremely effective. But in this instance it got in the way. I wanted the camera to be more stable because I was feeling a bit dizzy in some of the scenes.

In the end, if you are bored this weekend and are looking for a decent time at the movies, this is a better option than a several other recent releases. It's meant to be a thriller first and foremost and if I were to grade it solely on that, I'd give it high praise because it's a very good thriller. It also had great performances from Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, and Pierce Brosnan to further push it forward. However, I can't praise it too much because it did make me feel unsettled in how it dealt with the locals. I wanted the movie to either be an accurate, historical representation of what was going on over there. That would've been interesting. But it's not. It's just a work of fiction and as such, if they are going to go that approach, I would've rather the villains in the movie be a random fictional organization that Owen Wilson is trying to escape from instead of some mad savages from a foreign country. Yes, it did remind me of World War Z and that is a good thing, but the fact that it's local savages instead of zombies just didn't sit well with me and because of that I feel like the movie is a bit of a wasted opportunity. Thus my grade for No Escape is a 6.5/10.

UPDATE: After posting this review, I realized that Thailand doesn't border Vietnam. While the movie is filmed in Thailand, they don't actually say what country they are in, but they do have a goal to escape to Vietnam, which is bordered by Laos and Cambodia. I just assumed this took place in Thailand because that's where it's filmed. But whether this is supposed to be in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia, the idea is the same. They portrayed a whole country of people as angry savages and that didn't sit well with me

Once I Was a Beehive Review

Yes, I know exactly what you are thinking right now. You're snickering at the title of this movie. You look at that and think that this is another one of those dumb, cheesy church movies that you'll only like if you are a 12-year-old Mormon girl. If you are a guy, you are especially thinking that this movie is not for you. How do I know that you are thinking this? Because those are the same thoughts I had. I heard about this movie back in March during the LDS Film Festival in Orem, Utah when I went to the movie Freetown. I was skeptic back then and even though I had nearly six months to decide if I was going to see it when it hit theaters, I was still unsure about it when it actually came out. That's why you're getting a review of it now instead of two weeks ago when it was actually released. I debated back and forth, but there ended up being a few reasons why I chose to go see it. The first reason is that not many people review these LDS films comparatively, so I felt an obligation to get my review out there. The second is that it is directed by Maclain Nelson, lead actor in the Saratov Approch, and I wanted to see what he put together. Finally, Jason Gray from Studio C posted that he loved the movie, so that was good enough for me. I was in. And holy cow was I stunned by this. Not only is this actually a really good movie that I, a male in his 20's, enjoyed, but I'm going to go as far as saying that this is one of the best LDS films that I have ever seen.

If you are reading this review, there is a good chance that you are a member of the LDS church and already know what a beehive is. But for the chance that you aren't a member, allow me to explain. No, we aren't talking about the home of one of those black and yellow flying, stinging insects that we call bees. The LDS church is a very organized church with a lot of different groups and classes that we split up into for various reasons. The young women of the church have their very own organization where the girls aged 12-18 are split into three different groups, based on age, called Beehives, Mia Maids, and Laurels. Don't ask me where they got those names from, but that's what it's been. Beehives are the girls aged 12-13. Thus our movie title. Once I Was a Beehive. The movie actually follows a non-member teenage girl named Lane who is suffering from the loss of her father. On top of that, she is also upset that her mother got re-married as fast as she did to a faithful Mormon guy. With this marriage she has a new 12-year-old cousin that she quickly becomes close to and through a certain chain of events, she agrees to go with this cousin to girl's camp, which is where the majority of this movie takes place.

If you've followed my blog long enough, you'll know that I've developed a strong love for indie movies because without a large budget, they are forced to rely on the basic elements of film in order to make a good movie instead of just a bunch of awesome special effects. When I say basic elements of film, I specifically mean a well-thought out, well-written story; good characters played by good actors; and some good old-fashioned camera work. You don't need a lot of money to make a really good movie and this here is a perfect example of that. First off, this is an amazing story. I thought it was just going to be a girls camp movie, but it was much more than just that. This is mainly about a girl trying to deal with the death of her father and thus this has a very high level of emotion. I didn't really know what to expect going in, but I certainly didn't expect to be brought to tears in several occasions, but that's what happened. There were a few different scenes where I almost completely lost it. I've dealt with the death of several people that were really close to me and it sucks. You try to look at things from a bigger picture and try to be positive, but it's still very hard to deal with. This movie could've dealt with things in a cliche, predictable way. It's very raw, very honest, and very real. Because of that, this felt like a very personal movie that really moved me.

This isn't just a sad, depressing movie the whole time. This movie is also a blast. Yes, there were several scenes that almost brought me to tears, but there were even more scenes that had me busting up laughing. Seeing a non-Mormon girl jump head first into Mormon culture without much warning or knowledge of what she was getting herself into was played rather well and was very amusing. In addition to that, you get all the different stereotypes with these Mormon teenage girls as well as their leaders and it's just fun to watch all of them as they go throughout the week. I haven't ever been to a girl's camp before, so I don't really know what it's like, but I've been around enough girls growing up that I feel that this movie was most likely spot on with girl's camp and all the fun, crazy adventures and stories that come from that. I made sure to gauge the reaction of all the girls around me because I was one of the few males actually in the theater and they all seemed to love every minute of this movie. I think there's two things that you can take from this. First off, I had a lot of fun with this movie, so this isn't a movie where you have to have been to girl's camp to enjoy. Second, if you actually have been to a girl's camp at some point in your life, this is an absolute must see. All the girls around me were laughing and bawling the whole movie. I was secretly listening in on conversations as I was walking out of the theater and reaction was extremely positive. In fact, when the credits rolled, my theater gave the movie a standing ovation.

I say that I haven't ever been to girl's camp. This is true. But I did go on plenty of week-long scout camps when I was a teenager in the church as well as plenty of high-adventure camps and outings and even though a guy's camp and girl's camp are obviously going to be very different, I feel there are several principles that are similar. The main thing is you have a lot of different people at different ages with different backgrounds all coming together for a week. There's always ups and downs throughout the week, but despite the differences, there's a special bond that you all form that week. Because of that bond, there are many memories that are made that you will never forget. In fact, these memories are some of my best childhood memories. I'll never forget the time we went on a 50-mile hike over the course of three days or spent the week in the Uintas or the Teetons. It's the best. This movie did a very good job of capturing this. All these girls are very different from each other, but they all form a great bond and it's fantastic watching them all come together. This is done so well due to great performances all around. I could start name dropping here because I've never heard of any of these actresses, but they were all great. I especially liked our main girl and her new 12-year-old cousin who were played by Paris Warner and Mila Smith. Huge props to these girls for carrying this movie and huge props to all of the supporting cast around them.

On top of all this, all the technical aspects of this movie are done very well. All the camera work looks very professional. There are a lot of great shots in this movie with great lighting, great camera angles, and great editing. All in all, the cinematography is excellent. Yes, I pay attention to all of those little details, especially in smaller films like this. It's interesting to see how well they compare to bigger budget movies. This movie looks very professional. I was impressed. There are a lot of small LDS films that look very cheaply made. This is not one of them. This is fantastic. There's a lot of crew members that I could attribute this success to, but the big name that I will attribute this to is that of Maclain Nelson as he wrote, directed, and produced this film. I'm always curious about actors that I like that jump behind the camera for a change. It's not always a successful transition, but in this case it is. Looking at Maclain's filmography, this is technically not his first directorial effort as he co-directed a movie called Vamp U that I've never heard of back in 2011, but that's it. So he's fairly new to this directing experience, which makes this even more impressive. I mainly know Maclain from The Saratov Approach as he played Elder Propst, one of our kidnapped Elders. He was great as an actor in that and now that he's done great as a director, he's someone that I definitely have my eye on.

Overall, I was super impressed with Once I Was a Beehive. I almost chose to not see the movie at all because it didn't seem like a movie I'd enjoy, but I'm glad that I decided to give it a shot because it was a great overall experience. It had a moving story that hit home for me. I was almost brought to tears several times. I also had a whole lot of fun with the movie as I was laughing out loud throughout. Great story. Great writing. Great characters. Great acting. Great message. This is a movie that needs to be seen. According to the movie's facebook page, this will be leaving Utah soon, so if you live in Utah I'd recommend you don't hesitate with this one and see it as soon as possible, before it disappears. If you live outside of Utah, this will be expanding a bit in the next month or so at least to places like Idaho and Arizona. If you can't catch it in theaters, then you need to find it when it comes to DVD. It will be all over in places like Deseret Book before too long. Will you like this if you are not of member of the LDS church? I don't know. Maybe? But if you are a member, you need to see this regardless of your age and gender. It really is one of the best LDS films in my opinion. My grade for Once I Was a Beehive is a 9/10.