Spotlight Review

I saw this movie about two weeks ago now. There's a few reasons why I didn't get my review up right away. The first reason is that I was honestly super busy. The second reason is that this is the type of movie where people don't rush out to see it. The awards buzz is super high for this movie and the closer we get to awards seasons, the stronger that buzz will get and thus the more attention this movie will get. So there wasn't a huge hurry and so I chose to focus my efforts elsewhere with my blog for the time being. That said, this is a movie that I was super excited for. There's two main things that drew me to this. The first is that if you legitimately say best movie of the year and strong contender for best picture, you have my attention. I look at Oscar predictions pretty much year round and right now this looks like the movie to beat. The second main thing that drew me to this movie is that it's a journalism movie, specifically an investigative journalism movie. I dig those. I think there's a lot of reporters that get a bad rap when they actually do a lot of good. This movie shows how investigative journalism can save lives and it's really fantastic!

The issues discussed in this movie are issues that I'd kinda heard about, but didn't know a whole ton about. This movie shines a "spotlight" on this issue and is really eyeopening. This isn't the type of movie you go to in order to be entertained. You go to be educated because the issue I speak of is the Catholic Church scandal. I say scandal, but I really mean scandals. Thousands if not millions of scandals worldwide over the last century that have been swept under the rug and consequently been the cause of thousands if not millions of lives being ruined and destroyed. It's the huge issue of Catholic priests molesting children. "It's just a few bad apples," the Catholic Church has said, lying through their teeth as they fight and fight to keep this issue hidden. And for years and years they've been good at hiding this to the point where they have deceived most of the world into thinking that it actually wasn't a big issue. The movie Spotlight follows a group of investigative journalists in the early 2000's who work for the Boston Globe and call their group Spotlight. They are made aware that there may be a huge issue in Boston regarding Catholic priests molesting children. They're unsure what to think of at first, but they start digging and the more they dig, the more they realize how big this issue is. I don't want to reveal how big this issue is. I want you to watch the movie to find out for yourself. But nevertheless, to call it disturbing is probably a huge understatement.

I do want to be careful here. I don't want to go out and say that the Catholic Church is inherently bad and should be referred to as the great and abominable church with everyone who follows it being a follower of Satan. That's going way too far. But nevertheless, this is a movie that hit a nerve with me. And it should hit a nerve with just about everyone who sees it. If you care at all about children, it should hit a nerve. It's one thing to say a Catholic priest molested a child. I mean, that's horrible and awful in every single way. But it's another thing to have that described to you. It's like the Ray Rice issue last year. We all heard the story of him punching his then-fiancée (now wife) in an elevator. That was bad enough. But then the footage got released and people saw him punching his fiancée and that's when they really reacted. He outright decked her, knocking her out cold. Then he dragged what looked like a lifeless body out of that elevator. We were all horrified. The Ravens cut him, the NFL suspended him indefinitely, and he has not played a down of football since. It's actually kinda sad because plenty of other players have done similar, if not worse things and got a second chance. Ray Rice appealed the suspension and won, being officially reinstated. He's extremely apologetic and his fiancée even forgave and married him. But yet no team has even dared to sign him and they probably never will. Why not? Because we all saw the video. It's unfair, but that's how the world works sometimes.

This is exactly what Spotlight does. No, we don't get shown what the Catholic priests do. But our team of reporters go out and find victims that are willing to share their story of what happened to them when they were young boys. One victim in particular is talking to one of the reporters in private and when he gets to the part of his story where he got molested, he simply says, "And then he molested me." But that's not enough for this reporter, who in this instance is played by Rachel McAdams. She wants him to go in detail. So he does. I'm not going to describe in detail in what he said, but it's heavy. Like I said, it's horrific enough to hear that a young boy was molested, but to hear exactly what happened takes it to a new level of disturbing, which absolutely crushes you and makes your blood boil. What makes it worse is that these are spiritual leaders doing this. It's bad enough for a football coach or a neighbor to do this. But to have a young, vulnerable child be molested by someone who they trusted with spiritual matters is heart-breaking to say the least. These kids may never trust any religion again because they tried when they were young and it got them molested. And all of that will be on the heads of these priests. I myself am a religious person and this disgusts me. I won't quote scripture, but needless to say God is not going to be happy with these priests. And there's a lot of them doing this.

I will say that there are only a few scenes in which these events are described in detail by victims. This is probably a wise choice. It wouldn't be good to shove this down our throat for the whole movie, but enough is told to make everyone emotionally invested in this story and so when these reporters uncover more and more about how big this story really is, you get more and more emotionally crushed knowing that this isn't just a few bad apples doing horrific things. Then you think about how many years this has been going on without you realizing it or not thinking about it enough, and it becomes even more sad. This is touched on directly as there comes a point in when our reporters realize that they had the opportunity to uncover this years ago, but didn't take it seriously. You don't hate the reporters for this. Rather it gives them a very human element because then you realize that perhaps no one had done anything about this for a long time. But then there's so much admiration for this group that they were the ones that finally took this monster down. This movie is a very emotional, yet honest ride. For most of it, it's simply a movie about reporters reporting. You might think that this is a boring premise, but it's not. At least it wasn't for me. And by the looks of things, I'm not the only one here that was completely invested. It's at 8.6 on IMDb (which has actually gone up the more votes it's gotten) and 98% percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

As I see it, this is a great example of a real-life super hero story. Many of us have loved the superhero movies that have come out in the last decade. In these, you have a hero or a group of heroes who use whatever super power they have developed or discovered to save the world from an evil villain who has done and wants to continue doing very bad things. Spotlight actually follows this formula. We have a group of reporters who we should refer to as real-life super heroes. The power that they have developed is the power of investigative journalism, which has saved lives. Journalism is my major and I have taken an investigative journalism class. Once you know what is public record and the information you can uncover if you are persistent in digging, you can uncover a lot of things that people are trying to keep secret for whatever reason. The group of reporters in this movie are fighting the monster that is the Catholic Church. Like I said, not every Catholic is bad. In fact, the majority are very good. But there is a high enough percentage in the church that are monsters that it makes for a vicious fight for our heroes. A fight that is emotional and rough because timing and technique is everything in order to actually make a difference and stop what is happening.

There are a lot of people worth praising in this movie, but I am going to quickly focus on the three that really stood out to me. Those three are Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams. Let's start with Michael Keaton. After making it huge in the late 80's and early 90's with roles in movies like Batman and Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton's career took a nosedive, which is sad because I think he is fantastic. Last year's Birdman was his career rival in a huge way, giving him his first Oscar nomination. I'm glad he has followed that up with this role because in my opinion this is just as memorable as his Birdman role and I hope this newly found success continues. Next up is Rachel McAdams. She probably gives the third best performance of the three of them, but I was really impressed with her in this role because she usually has done romantic dramas in her career and although she's always been likable, she's never been one that I've taken too seriously. Until now. This is the best I've ever seen her and I hope she continues getting these types of roles. Saving the best for last is Mark Ruffalo. This is a man that has done many amazing things in his career, but especially in the last five or so years. In fact, he's become one of my favorite actors. With that in mind, this next statement should blow your mind. Mark Ruffalo gives the best performance of his career. If I were to pick one person to win an Oscar from this movie, it's him. But in terms of awards, I hope I don't have to pick. I hope all three of these people at least get nominations, because they deserve it.

Yes, this movie did hit a nerve for me. I knew that this issue with Catholic priests was a problem, but I didn't know how big it actually was until I saw this movie. This was a very eyeopening experience for me and I would say that this is one of the most important films of the year, if not the most important film. I loved the story. I loved the direction. I loved the emotion. I loved the acting. I loved how it shows the power of investigative journalism and the impact that a group of reporters can have on the world. I'm also glad that this is a movie that actually is getting a lot of attention from everyone. Last year there was a movie called Kill the Messenger that was also a story about investigative journalism that I think is almost just as powerful as this. It didn't deal with child molestation or the Catholic Church, but it dealt other big issues and also effected me emotionally in different ways. I ended up putting that movie in my top 10 favorite movies of the year last year. Sadly it was ignored by most people -- critics, awards people, and general audiences alike. I'm glad that Spotlight isn't suffering the same fate as that movie. It deserves the praise and recognition. Just like Kill the Messenger made my list last year, Spotlight is sure to make my list this year. In fact, as of the posting of this review, it is my favorite movie of the year. I'm hoping that a certain movie that that comes out in less than two weeks takes that crown, but for now it belongs to Spotlight. As such, my grade for Spotlight is a 10/10.

The Empire Strikes Back Review

After writing my review of the original Star Wars last week, it's now time to move forward in my series of Star Wars reviews to The Empire Strikes Back. If I'm being honest, The Empire Strikes Back wasn't always my favorite Star Wars movie. Growing up I liked Return of the Jedi best because it was a whole lot of fun and it resulted in the ultimate triumph over evil. The Empire Strikes Back was always the dark movie with a depressing ending and thus as a young kid I didn't always gravitate towards it. However, as an adult I've now come to realize how amazing this movie actually is. As I stated last week, Star Wars is a very simple movie. As the quintessential good vs. evil movie, it's actually pretty black and white. You have your evil empire that has the ability to destroy planets with their new Death Star weapon and you have the good rebels trying to stop them. You also have the perfect underdog story as a whiny, farm boy becomes an unlikely hero and saves the galaxy. All of this works perfectly and is very beautiful. It also establishes an amazing universe that is a part all of our souls. The Empire Strikes Back takes all these characters and this story to a new level. This isn't just a dark and depressing story. It's deep and complex. It's thought-provoking. There's a lot more gray area than the previous installment. 

As far as the actual plot goes, we continue the trend of being very simple. After destroying the Death Star, the Empire isn't too happy to say the least, so the rebels decide to hide out on this ice planet called Hoth. They're of course discovered and thus ensues the battle on Hoth. This is a fun opening scene. We see Luke captured by the abominable snowman, After Luke escapes by using the force and his light saber, Han rescues him and takes him to safety despite his odds of survival, according to C-3PO, being very slim. After a brief battle against the Empire's forces, all parties escape and most of the movie becomes a large goose chase between Darth Vader and our small band of heroes because, after the events of the last movie, Darth Vader has become very obsessed with capturing Luke Skywalker. In our first brief shot of the Emperor towards the beginning, him and Vader determine that Luke has become their new enemy and Darth Vader has decided that he's going to try to turn Luke to the dark side. Following the instruction of Obi-Wan, Luke escapes to the Dagobah System to be trained by Yoda. Because of this escape, Darth Vader decides to use Luke's friends as a trap to get Luke to come to him and it works like a charm.

I want to cut to the chase here with this review and talk about Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. We'll get to the other stuff in a bit, but this is relationship that is the meat of both this movie and the next. Going into this movie, all we know is that Luke Skywalker has a connection to the Jedi of old because his father, Anakin Skywalker, was a Jedi, a great pilot, and good friend of Obi-Wan. Darth Vader was a pupil of Obi-Wan who betrayed the Jedi, killing Anakin. That's what Obi-Wan told Luke, anyways. If they had stayed with this story and not thrown a huge twist at us, this would've still made for a good, intriguing story. Now that Luke knows the truth about his past and his father, wanting revenge on the man who killed his father is great motive to want to go after this guy. It also makes Darth Vader better than just your average villain. Not only does he look and sound awesome, but he was a Jedi at one point who betrayed them and killed Luke's father. Now Luke wants revenge. That's a good story. I wish I could remember the first time I watched this movie so that I could remember what my reaction was when I first learned that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are actually the same person. But I don't. I imagine it would've been similar to my reaction when I first watched the movie Psycho and learned the secret behind Norman Bates. Utter shock.

Best twist in movie history with The Empire Strikes Back? I don't know. Possibly. The aforementioned Psycho might take that crown. But it's up there and it's certainly a game-changer. And of course you know that I have to mention that the actual reveal is one of the most misquoted scenes in movie history. Not only that, but it's also one of the most well-known misquoted scenes. By that I mean that every Star Wars fan will be anxious to tell you that the scene is misquoted. So is it really that misquoted? That's beside the point. But anywho, the whole conversation is such an emotionally powerful moment. "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father." "He told me enough. He told me you killed him!" "No, I am your father." WHAT?!?!?!?! The evil Darth Vader is the father of our hero??? Had that been done before in movie history? Has anyone dared to do it since without being seen as a rip-off of Star Wars? Earlier in the movie, Darth Vader had been talking to the Emperor and gave the suggestion that perhaps he could turn Luke to the dark side. Ha! That ain't gonna happen, right? No way our hero even thinks about joining Darth Vader. But does that change once we know they are related? "We can rule the galaxy as father and son," Vader suggests to Luke following the reveal. Does this suddenly become a tempting offer? What is Luke going to do?

Luke never knew his father, but your father is your father. You only get one of them. Luke's reaction to the reveal is one of shock and disbelief. Knowing he's backed into a corner, the only thing he can think of doing is falling into the whatever it is that he's above, landing him in the whatever thing he lands, to be quickly rescued by Leia, who he has an obvious force connection with. The force is strong in the Skywalker family. Which begs the question, if Darth Vader felt such a strong connection with Luke and thus figured out that Luke was his son, why didn't he feel the same thing in the first movie when Leia was right next to him? I guess I'll forgive them for that. Moving on. Once Leia rescues Luke and Luke is lying there in the bed, trying to call out to Obi-Wan as he wonders why Obi-Wan never told him the full truth, another conversation happens between Darth Vader and Luke, this time from a distance. "Father!" "Son!" This is a young, innocent son crying out to his father and the father responding back. Luke never never his parents. He grew up with his aunt and uncle. Darth Vader never knew his son. In this moment, a deep, strong, emotional connection is made. It's obvious that both of them yearn to live in a family setting that neither of them had, but is now available to them. Yet this can't happen because they are both fighting on opposite sides of the war.

Wow. Just wow. This is definitely one of the best on-screen relationships in movie history that takes two characters that were already great and transforms them into two of the most interesting characters in movie history. I want to spend a bit more time on both of them individually. First Luke. As I stated in my review of the first Star Wars, a lot of people have noticed the fact that Luke is a really whiny character. But this isn't a bad thing. There's this thing called character progression and Luke's progression throughout this trilogy is beyond beautiful. Already in the beginning of this movie, we can tell that he's progressed a ton from where he was at the beginning of the first movie. He gets trapped by the abominable snowman and is hung upside down in that cave, waiting to be dinner, but he uses his knowledge of the force to get his light saber and free himself. But he's still far from being a Jedi, which is why ghost Obi-Wan tells him to go to Yoda to continue his training. Yoda, by the way, is fantastic. Knowing that Luke won't recognize him when he gets to Dagobah, he decides to act like an annoying little creature and pester the heck out of Luke to see how he will respond. Yoda concludes that Luke doesn't have patience. He's not ready to be a Jedi. He's too old. He almost refuses to train Luke because of these things, but ghost Obi-Wan argues with him, reminding Yoda that Obi-Wan was the same way when Yoda began to train him. That's right. Yoda trained Obi-Wan. Not Qui-Gon.

So Yoda gives in and trains Luke, but Luke is obviously very troubled. He's also very vulnerable, which is shown by one of the most thought-provoking scenes in the movie. There's a point during the training where Darth Vader suddenly shows up in Dagobah and the two engage in a light saber duel, which ends in Luke chopping off Darth Vader's head, cutting off his mask, and seeing that it is himself, Luke Skywalker, that's behind the mask. I don't know if this was a vision or what, but it shows that Luke is not ready for a confrontation. He needs to stay there with Yoda and continue his training, which is what Yoda and Obi-Wan beg him to do. Luke feels that his friends are in trouble. Yoda tells him he is sensing the future and suddenly Luke decides that he needs to leave immediately leave to go save them or else they are going to die. His desire to go save his friends is respectable, but it also shows that his immaturity. He shouldn't have gone. He should've listened to the much wiser Yoda, but he didn't. He goes after his friends and as Leia says once he gets there, "Luke, it's a trap!" Yeah, it's Leia that says that classic line first. But even though he shouldn't have gone, all these experiences help him continue to learn more and more, which will show in Return of the Jedi. But even so, he is still able to put up one heck of a fight in his first actual meeting against Vader. It's amazing watching Luke's journey during these movies and because of these we get an amazing payoff in our finale.

Now it's time to talk more about Darth Vader. Specifically, I want to take advantage of this moment to explain what it is that makes a great villain, because Darth Vader is one of the best villains in movie history. First off, Star Wars is really good at making good villains. Grand Moff Tarkin is a good villain. The Emperor is a good villain. Jabba the Hutt is a good villain. Even in the prequels, Darth Maul is a good villain. Count Dooku is a good villain. General Grievous is a good villain. If you look evil, sound evil, and/or act evil, you can be a good villain. Darth Maul is someone we knew absolutely nothing about and he didn't really talk, but he was painted black and red and had the spikes on his head. Add in his scowl and the double-sided light saber in which he was boss at and he was a villain people loved. Dooku was played by one of the greatest actors in history who knows how to act like a villain and so even though his character was poorly written, Christopher Lee made him a good villain. Grievous was the sweetest looking droid in all of Star Wars who fought with four light sabers at once. That was pretty boss. Grand Moff Tarkin didn't look spectacular, but man was that guy was cold. He carried himself as if he had no soul and even garnered respect from Darth Vader. The Emperor looks like the most evil man alive, speaks like the most evil man alive, is cunning and manipulative, and shoots electricity out of his fingers. That's a good villain. As far as Jabba goes, well we'll talk about him more next time.

All of these guys are good villains, but in my opinion a great villain is someone who has the attributes of a good villain, but they also have something more. They are villains where the audience actually has an emotional connection to. If you want a good example of this, go watch any Hitchcock movie ever. The villains in Hitchcock's thrillers aren't just people doing bad things for the heck of it. They all have a very human element to them. There's a reason why they are who they are and that reason often is very emotional and almost relatable. You feel bad for them. You don't approve of what they're doing or the choices they've made, but they have a whole lot of depth to their characters. It's not just an evil person doing evil things because the story requires an evil person doing evil things. This is something that a lot of comic book movies recently fail at. They need a villain for the superheroes to fight, but instead of giving them depth and making them relatable, they just give them awesome, unstoppable powers and call that good. As much as I love and enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a lot of their villains are very unmemorable. But then there's Loki, who has a ton of depth to him and is such a fascinating character. That's a great villain. Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho is a very deep character with a lot of psychological issues that make you feel bad for him. Understand the difference?

Now to tie this all into Darth Vader. In Star Wars, Darth Vader is a very good villain. His whole persona is very grand and ominous. The mask. The helmet. The outfit. The cape. All of that being black, the color that represents evil. It's fantastic. Then we have the voice by James Earl Jones. Man. That voice is one of the most epic voices in movie history. When his goal is to sound evil, dang does he sound evil. And then the way he acts is pretty much pure evil. He was a Jedi. He was a friend of Obi-Wan. Yet he betrayed and killed many Jedi, almost causing the complete downfall of the Jedi Knights. That is evil. He also shows no mercy. He's perfected the force choke. He is pretty dang good with a light saber. This is such a good villain. But then The Empire Strikes Back goes ahead and gives this villain so much depth. He's not just a villain. He's a father. He was a good friend to those around him. He had a lover who he probably cared a lot for. Yet for some reason, he was seduced by the Emperor and betrayed his friends and family. His lover died. His two kids were hidden from him. For many, many years he let whatever it was that was troubling him consume his very soul and he turned pure evil. Yet when his son Luke comes into the picture, suddenly his human element starts to show again. He's not just a villain, he's once again a father. And we see that he has a desire to be a father and have a good relationship with his son, despite him still being consumed with this darkness. All this combined is why Darth Vader is so great.

Yes, I've gotten this far into this review and I've only really talked about Darth Vader and Luke. Well, this is my one opportunity to review this movie and so this was completely necessary in my mind. I needed to dive deep into Darth Vader and Luke because that relationship is why this movie is so good. Even if the rest of the movie around them was kinda cheesy, their relationship alone would've been enough to carry this movie. But the thing is, the movie around them is far from being cheesy. It's actually pretty dang good. And there's really only two storylines going on in this movie. We have Luke's adventures that I've talked extensively about and we have Han and Leia's adventures. That's it. And the whole group starts together on Hoth before they go their separate ways and later reunite at Cloud City. Yes, the themes of the movie are deep and complex, but the storyline is simple. I think there's a lot of power to having a storyline that is simple as opposed to some of the prequels where there's four or five different storylines going on at the same time. I'm not saying a complex story is inherently bad, but when you can pull off simple and deep, you usually win most of the time. If you go for a complex story, you run the risk of losing your audience's interest.

Back to Han and Leia, I'm sure you were wondering why I haven't talked about them yet. It's not because they aren't important. They aren't just the side order or the frosting on the cake. Their side of things may not reach the grandeur that is the story between Luke and Darth Vader, but it gets pretty close. First off is the romance. This is arguably one of the best romances in movie history. Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford have fantastic chemistry throughout the whole series, yet both of them have very strong personalities. Han is a very selfish person at the start of this series and Leia is definitely no damsel in distress when it comes to female characters. This is why the butt heads through much of the first and part of this second movie. But you can tell that despite this clash, they are slowly coming together because their is a mutual respect and attraction, even if neither of them want to admit it at first. Then they kiss for the first time and that is a beautiful scene, watching them finally come together. C-3PO coming in and interrupting the moment without even realizing what he's doing, before or after, makes the moment even better. Han sarcastically thanks C-3PO, trying to send the message that he interrupted, but C-3PO is totally clueless. Then after Han and Leia have finally come together, we have the tragic departure when Han is captured and put into the carbon-freezing. Their exchange is also one of the greatest moments in history. "I love you!" "I know."

In between this, of course, we have the introduction to another fascinatingly complex individual. Lando Calrissian. After Han and Leia escape Darth Vader by travelling through the asteroid field that will make every astronomer facepalm and landing on the asteroid that wasn't an asteroid, Han makes the decision to take cover in Cloud City with his buddy Lando. Then we get dive into this issue of trust. Han trusts him. Leia doesn't. Who's right? Leia, of course. It was a trap. Vader and Boba Fett got there first. But we as an audience are playing this trust game right along with them even after Han officially gets taken captive. Lando seems like a good guy, but is he? Would a friend betray another friend like Lando did? No. But yet Lando says he had no choice. We don't know what Vader threatened him with. Would Vader have killed him and everyone in the city if he had resisted? So was Lando actually in the right by doing what Vader said, then trying to help them all escape when the moment was right? I don't know. It makes him another fascinating character in a movie stuffed full of amazing characters, classic moments, and thought-provoking themes.

All of this brings me to my final point. I've talked about how great this story is. I've told you about about how well-written these characters are and how deep this movie is. It takes everything from the first movie and brings it to the next level. Return of the Jedi is also a good, fun movie, but it does take a slight dip in quality and I'll talk about it next time. But I bring this up because this is actually the one movie where George Lucas' stamp is less present. He wrote and directed Star Wars. He wrote and directed all of the prequels. He didn't direct Return of the Jedi, but he stepped in and helped write the screenplay. In The Empire Strikes Back, he essentially does none of that. He didn't direct. He didn't write the screenplay. All the credit he is given in the movie is story credit, executive producer, and editor. This seems like the movie where he did the most listening instead of the most decision making. Irvin Kershner is the director. Lawrence Kasdan stepped in to help write the screenplay. Is it a coincidence that the best Star Wars movie by far is the one where other people did more of the decision making? I don't think so. I have all the respect in the world for George Lucas because he is the creator of this universe. But I think the special editions, the additional changes in the DVD and Bluray releases, and the prequels are all evidence that this universe is better off in other people's hands.

In wrapping this review up, there have been many times where you have seen me use the phrase, "one of the best in history." I don't just say that to say that or because other people say that. There are so many aspects of this movie that are the top of the line when it comes to all movies, not just the Star Wars movies. But in talking about the Star Wars movies, I love the original Star Wars movie. I think it is fantastic. I even gave it a perfect score. You'll notice next week that I also love Return of the Jedi. Even though I have come to realize that it is the third best best movie of the original trilogy, I still think it's great. Yet the more I think about all these movies, the more I realize that there is absolutely no question as to which movie is best. It's The Empire Strikes Back. Sure there are people that are mad at it because it made them wait three years to figure out what happens next. You could point out that it is only half of a movie because it doesn't resolve hardly anything. But neither of those bother me. In my opinion, the fact that it presents all of these issues and doesn't solve them right away makes it even more thought-provoking than the other two that are more fun than deep. There's not really a score I could give this movie that does it complete justice and I'm not going to create a new rating system that goes up to 15 or 20 or something like that just for these types of classic movies. But yes, this is one of the best movies ever made in my opinion and as such of course I'm going to give it a 10/10.  

The Good Dinosaur Review

It's been a really long journey for The Good Dinosaur to make it to this point. Production for the movie started way back in 2009 and the movie was supposed to originally debut in theaters in May of 2014. But yet the production of the movie just hit a brick wall as all kinds of chaos ensued leading the movie to be pushed back until now. If you were wondering why the world didn't get a Pixar movie last year, that's your reason. Pixar has been very consistent in releasing their animated movies and the last time they had missed a year was in 2005. That was an eight-year streak they were on that got broken. But do you know what, sometimes in life stuff just happens. Movie making is a very rough business and even the best of the best run into obstacles every once in a while. The Good Dinosaur was almost completely trashed, but yet they persevered and got a movie onto the big screen despite all the chaos. There's a good lesson to be learned there. And do you know what, production issues don't always equate to a bad movie. There's a lot of great movies that went through a ton of productions issues where everyone fought through and ended up pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Unfortunately this is not one of those cases. The Good Dinosaur comes to theaters feeling very bandaged and scarred.

The idea of this movie is actually a very good one. Pixar is really good at coming with super genius ideas for movies and this was another golden idea. Here we have a premise for a dinosaur movie in which we ponder the question of what would've happened if the meteor that killed all the dinosaurs missed the earth. We all love dinosaurs. We all love Pixar. I can just imagine what the meeting looked like when this idea was suggested. Eyes must've lit up. Yes, the idea of dinosaurs and humans living together has been done before with Jurassic Park. But that's an instance where humans brought the dinosaurs back. We've even had other instances where we time travel back to the time of the dinosaurs. I can't think of a specific example for that one, but I know it's been done before in a movie and/or TV show of some sort. Dinosaurs never going extinct in the first place is a genius idea that you can do a ton with and I don't think it's an idea that actually been explored The problem is what do you do with that premise. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but if I were to guess, I'd say this is where they got hung up on and it doesn't seem like they ever really came to a solid decision because the execution of this brilliant idea is pretty sloppy.

First and foremost, if you're going to tackle the subject of dinosaurs, you've gotta do something that's unique because as much as we all love dinosaurs, dinosaurs have been done in Hollywood many, many times. The idea of the meteor missing the earth is definitely unique, but what actually happened with the story is the most unoriginal idea that they could've come up with when it comes to dinosaurs. Let's take a couple of examples. The Land Before Time. Little Foot is separated from his family because his mother dies and he and a group of other random dinosaurs are on a journey to the Great Valley. Dinosaur. Aladar is a dinosaur growing up on an island of lemurs when one day a meteor hits the island, killing most of the family, and causing Aladar and the remaining lemurs to join a group of dinosaurs travelling to find the Nesting Grounds. Let's now go away from dinosaurs but keep the prehistoric theme. Ice Age. A huge herd of prehistoric animals are travelling south to avoid the Ice Age. Sid the sloth falls behind and one thing lead to another and before too long we have an odd group of animals and baby human travelling to reach a certain destination. The Croods. A family of cavemen have their home destroyed, so they go on a journey together to find a new home, collecting an odd bunch of creatures along the way.

Finding a theme here? We can even look at a fellow animal movie The Lion King where Simba's father dies, causing him to be separated from his home where he forms an odd group consisting of a lion, a warthog, and a meerkat. The plot eventually leads to Simba on a journey home. So please, Pixar, if you're going to do a dinosaur movie, let's do something different. Let's not have a story where a young dinosaur experiences the death of a parent or other family, or perhaps having his home destroyed, thus causing him to be separated from his home and having to go on a journey with an odd assortment of animals to either find his old home again or a new home to live in. It's been done before. PLEASE?!?!?! Something new? Is it too much to ask for? I mean, you have a brilliant initial premise. Pull out your Pixar magic and do something new and creative to go along with your idea. No? You're not going to be creative? In fact you're going to do another variation of the plot that's been done before a hundred times? Oh. Well that sucks. I wanted something different. I wanted something new. I wanted something super creative because I know Pixar has come up with a ton of unique ideas.

Here's the other problem. If you're going to make the decision to follow the same exact formula done in every other dinosaur or prehistoric movie, then at the very least do it well. I'm not going to say that this movie is bad. It's not. It's a fine movie. There are a lot of really fun moments and several really good characters. But remember all those movies that I brought up to prove the point that this movie is very unoriginal? All of them are better movies. They are refined. They are focused. They know what they want to accomplish. They provide powerful messages that hit you emotionally. The Good Dinosaur is just all over the place. The whole first act is completely lifeless and boring. When our main dinosaur finally establishes a friendly connection with this human creature that acts like a dog, it gets really interesting and I really love the two of them as characters, but their journey goes in about a thousand different directions. It's like Pixar had a ton of ideas of what to do, but they couldn't settle one specific direction, so they did them all. Individually these moments are actually pretty darn funny and clever, but as a whole the movie just feels like a mess. There's no focus. There's no direction. There's no real purpose.

Pixar is always really good at having a few Pixar moments, if you know what I mean. Moments that are super emotional and touching. In fact I saw a meme or a comment somewhere talking about all the Pixar movies and how they make you realize that toys have feelings, bugs have feelings, monsters have feelings, cars have feelings, fish have feelings, feelings have feelings, and so on and so forth. Well now you can add to that list that dinosaurs have feelings because The Good Dinosaur still manages to have several of those moments, especially at the end. But overall, it didn't pack as big of an emotional punch as other movies. Another thing that Pixar is good at is making movies that kids and adults both fall in love with. Their movie from earlier this year, Inside Out, was a great example of this as it had a powerful message that probably hit adults stronger than it did kids. The Good Dinosaur falls short with this. This is a Pixar film that seems like it's directed just at kids. Which I guess is fine. Disappointing on my end, but if the target audience is kids, then I have to be honest. Everything that I've complained about thus far are things that kids won't even care about. Kids are going to watch this movie and have a blast from beginning to end. They're going to love the characters. They're going to laugh at all the jokes. They won't care if the story is a retread of a bunch of other better movies. They'll still love it. But as an adult who likes Pixar movies that are good for all ages, this is a slight disappointment.

I certainly can't leave this review without talking about the animation in this movie. There's two separate aspects to cover when it comes to this. The characters and the scenery. First off, I'm going to talk about the scenery because holy freaking cow this is a fantastic. There are several times in the movie where it shows a close up shot of the water or the rocks or the trees that quite honestly looks like they took an actual camera out into the wilderness somewhere and took some shots. It looks real. It's some of the best animation that I've ever seen as I was just blown away the entire time. Even in the moments where I knew and could tell that it was obviously animated, the details of the water, the dirt, the sky, the clouds, the trees, the mountains, the waterfalls, and everything regarding scenery is just fantastic. If the Oscar for best animated feature were to be awarded to the movie based solely on the animation, this should win hands down. Just as long as you ignore the creatures, that is. That's the other thing I wanted to talk about. All the creatures are very cartoonish. Like to the extreme. There was no effort to make these dinosaurs look real as this was an obvious stylistic choice. I get the idea here. This is a kids movie only this time. But still. I felt the contrast between the amazing scenery and the cartoonish characters was a bit distracting. It's like the dinosaurs didn't belong in this animated world that was created.

Is this a bad movie? No. It's not. And if it was done by any other studio than Pixar, I may have been a little nicer with this review because there were a lot of good things that this movie had going for it. However, when I go into a Pixar movie, I expect greatness out of them because that's what I have received time and time again. That feeling of greatness just wasn't there this time around. It's just a decent, fun movie that kids will love and parents will get a few chuckles out of. Movies like this are fine. But that's not what I'm used to from Pixar. When push comes to shove, I keep thinking back to all the production issues that this movie went through and overall I'm going to give them a pass this time. Like I said, even the best filmmakers or the best studios have their rough times. Sometimes you'll have a great idea in your head, but when you go to work on it things just don't work out as planned. When things like that happen, you just gotta pick yourself back up and move forward. This isn't a great film. I think Pixar knows this isn't a great film. But do you know what, this film was almost scrapped altogether, but they persevered and through all the trouble and headaches, they got a final product put together. Good for them. Now it's time to move on and do better the next time and I think they will. The trailer for Finding Dory is already out and I think we're going to get great things from that. As far as The Good Dinosaur goes, I'm going to give it a 7/10.

Movie Preview: December 2015

The holiday season is a fun time of year for most people. Hollywood always does a good job of taking advantage of this by releasing several big name movies for everyone to enjoy. But usually those movies are just a supplement. It's Christmas we're all counting down to and these other movies are just there for us to enjoy along the way. This December we're all definitely counting down. But it ain't Christmas we're counting down to. It's the biggest movie event of all-time that we're counting down to. One of the biggest that is. Of course I'm talking about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In fact, the hype is so large that I don't even need to really do this movie preview. You've all seen the trailers a thousand times. You all have your theories about what's going to happen. You've all purchased your tickets. And there's a chance that you don't even care about what else is coming out this month. This is Star Wars month. Christmas is even an afterthought. But do you know what, there are other movies that are coming out and I'm going to talk about them. Because that's what I do. And maybe one of these other movies will catch your fancy, so let's jump right in.

December 4th - 6th-

Horror movies are a dime a dozen these days. Christmas movies always come out around Christmas. Yet it's not very often that Hollywood combines those two genres. Krampus does just that. We all know about Santa Claus. He's the jolly, white-bearded, fat man giving gifts to kids every year on Christmas. The origins of Santa Claus trace back to St. Nicholas who was an actual person in history who gave gifts to children around the 4th Century A.D. Krampus is a lesser-known figure, but he's been around in folklore for just as long as Santa Claus has been as he's the horned demon punishing the bad kids while Santa is giving presents to the good kids. It's easy to see why Krampus isn't really a part of our American culture. It'd be kinda mean to scare your kids like that. But that's the lore that the Krampus movie is taking from. A kid accidentally summons Krampus to their town. With so many horror films these days, you have to do something interesting and unique to get people's attention and honestly this could do the trick. Going with the PG-13 rating also might be a smart move to expand the audience beyond hard-core horror fans. A lot of teenagers are going want to go check this one out and thus this could have a decent run this month even if it doesn't open super high.

Sneaking into 1,000 theaters this week is the faith-based film The Letters. These faith-based films have experienced quite the audience in the last few years and because of that there's been a lot of them that have shown up. The Letters comes to us via Freestyle Releasing, who has helped with distribution of quite a few of these films, the most significant being God's Not Dead, which was a huge, surprise hit last year. The Letters won't hit the same heights as that movie. A better comparison might be Freestyle's other recent films in Left Behind or Do You Believe? Both of those came home with a decent chunk of change, but nothing compared to God's Not Dead. What is The Letters about? This might turn your head a bit. It's about Mother Teresa. It tells her story through a series of letters she wrote to one of her spiritual advisers over the course of many years. The lack of advertising might hurt this, but the concept is definitely there.

December 11th - 13th-

There's only one movie choosing to come the week before Star Wars and that movie is In the Heart of the Sea. It's been a long journey for this movie as this was initially scheduled to come out in March of this year. The movie tells the true story of the events that inspired the legend Moby Dick. It's directed by Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, and our new Spider-Man Tom Holland. With that premise as well as the cast and crew, this had the potential to make a lot of money back in March. I think that it could've competed with Cinderella and Insurgent. Better those movies than The Force Awakens, that is. So why make the move to put the movie in December as opposed to leaving it in March? It wasn't production issues that caused them to postpone it. Warner Bros. felt like they had something special with this movie that could compete for awards and usually movies released in March get completely ignored when it comes to awards season. So they sacrificed the financial aspect of things in order to compete for awards. Could this work out? Perhaps. It has all the necessary pieces in place to compete for awards. Director. Cast. Premise. But I think this would've been better off staying in March because the awards season has gotten really crowded recently and I don't think this has enough firepower to actually win anything. But we'll see.

December 18th - 20th-

Christmas comes a week early this year for most of the world with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This isn't just the movie event of the year. It's not just the movie event of the decade or the 21st Century so far. This is one of the biggest movie events of all time. George Lucas' universe has been ingrained into our souls and after some disappointing prequels (that still earned a ton of money), J.J. Abrams and company seem to be doing their best to give us the Star Wars follow-up that the world has been waiting 30 years to receive. If Jurassic World was any indication of the power of nostalgia in the box office, then all signs are pointing to this movie being huge. It's already earned $50 million in pre-sales. Theaters have been sold out for a month now as they broke ticket sites when they announced tickets were on sale. The question isn't will this be big. The question is how big. It's already a foregone conclusion that Jurassic World's opening weekend record of $208 million isn't lasting long. It also seems like a foregone conclusion that Avatar's all-time domestic box office record of $760 million is in jeopardy. Avatar also holds the worldwide record of $2.7 billion. $2 billion worldwide is a done deal. Can The Force Awakens hit $3 billion? How about we look at the all-time domestic chart when adjusted for ticket price inflation. The leader of that list is Gone with the Wind at $1.7 billion. That actually seems a bit too lofty for The Force Awakens, but can it hit $1 billion in the U.S. alone? If it does, that'll be good enough for a top 10 on the aforementioned list. At the very least, The Force Awakens will make it to the level of The Phantom Menace, which stands at $753 million when adjusted for ticket price inflation.

With Star Wars out of the way, what else matters? I might as well end this preview right now, right? Well, unfortunately that's not the case. I gotta talk about the seven movies this holiday season that will try to persuade people to see their movie instead of or in addition to Star Wars. Two this week. Five next. There's gotta be some pretty good counter-programming here to compete with Star Wars and first up is the raunchy comedy Sisters. It's safe to say that Star Wars isn't a franchise enjoyed by men only, but if I were forced to pick a gender that's less into Star Wars, it would be the female gender. Universal is hoping that a few of those females decide to pick Sisters instead of Star Wars as this is a movie that seems to be targeting the female crowd. It kinda reminds me of The Other Woman from last year, another female-centric comedy. In addition to being called Sisters, this is also from the director of Pitch Perfect and stars Amy Poehler and Tina Fey as two sisters who decide to throw one last house party before their parents sell the family home. It does have the R-rating, so those who like R-rated comedies stuffed full of language and sexual humor might also check this out at some point during the holiday season.

The second movie facing off directly against Star Wars is a movie that hopes to attract the younger crowd to the theaters and that is Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. This could be seen as a decent move to go up against Star Wars in that smaller kids aren't going to be as interested in Star Wars like their older parents are. Yes, the parents are the ones buying the tickets, but if they want to take their young kids to a movie, this makes for a great option, especially considering the popularity of the franchise. The original movie did just fine against I Am Legend and National Treasure: Book of Secrets back in December 2007 while the squeakquel made for one of the biggest weekends ever as it went toe to toe with Sherlock Holmes and Avatar in December 2009. So the problem here isn't the competition necessarily. The problem is franchise fatigue. The first two both made over $200 million in the U.S. box office, but the third one barely cracked $100 million in 2011. Now it's been four years since Chipwrecked and family audiences don't seem to be that interested in this franchise anymore. If parents want to take their young kids to a movie this month, chances are they'll choose Pixar's The Good Dinosaur instead.

December 25th - 27th-

As if Christmas wasn't already super busy with Star Wars being released as well as Sisters and Alvin and the Chipmunks trying to provide counter-programming, this actual Christmas weekend sees four wide releases and one major expansion. The interesting thing is that I think most of them are in pretty good shape. The first two are major Oscar contenders and the biggest of these two appears to be Joy. Not only does it seem fitting to have a movie called Joy come out on Christmas, but this is the third time in four years that director David O. Russell has teamed up with stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. The previous two were Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, both of which scored huge with audiences and critics alike. The two movies combined for 18 Oscar nominations and both earned over $130 million at the U.S. box office, which is a great number for an Oscar contender. It's yet to be seen if Joy can continue this success, but you certainly can't count it out, especially since Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are more popular right now than they've ever been. And this movie sees the return of their Silver Linings Playbook co-star Robert De Niro. Now while I say that a movie called Joy is fitting for a Christmas release, I should mention that this movie is the true story about a woman named Joy. Joy Mangano. I'll let you look up her story, but it has to do with her being the founder of a big family business dynasty.

The other major Oscar-contender getting a wide-release this weekend is Concussion. This movie sees superstar Will Smith looking for his first Oscar nomination since The Pursuit of Happyness in 2007. And by goodness talk about relevant. The concussion issue has been a huge one in the NFL over the last several years especially. There's a lot of head-to-head contact in football that lead to a lot of head and brain injuries. Athletes persevere through these injuries and oftentimes even ignore their existence so that they can stay on the field and play. In the heat of the moment, many of them don't realize or don't care that they are throwing their future away and sadly the result is that a lot of football players end up with severe mental issues after they retire that in some cases have led to premature death or suicide. The NFL has made huge efforts to protect their athletes in the last few years, but they're not quite there yet as there have been several examples this season of athletes who stayed in the game when it was later revealed that they were playing concussed and should've been taken out. The movie Concussion attacks this issue directly as it tells the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, who uncovered the truth about brain damage in football and went to war with the NFL over the issue. Ads for the movie have been playing all over ESPN and during football games this season, reminding us all that this is a serious issue that needs more attention.

On a less serious note, the third movie that seems to be in fine condition is the family comedy Daddy's Home. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg team up once again in a dad vs. step-dad movie. Will Ferrell is trying his best to be a great step-dad to his wife's two children, but Mark Wahlberg comes in as the real dad and makes things hard for him because Mark Wahlberg is perfect in every way and despite all of Will Ferrell's efforts, he just doesn't seem to live up to him. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg worked really well together in The Other Guys and carried that movie to pretty good success. Yet that movie was targeted for more of an adult audience while this one is aimed at families with only a PG rating. I wasn't sure about how successful this would be when I first started to see it advertised, but since then I have been paying close attention at how kids react to the trailer when it's shown in theater and almost every time it has all the kids busting up with laughter, so this looks like it could be a success. Most of the time Will Ferrell's humor is aimed at adults, but he has had plenty of success with the family audience, the Christmas classic Elf being a great example.

Before I get to the fourth new wide-release, I'm going to sneak in the major expansion right here because I think it also has potential to find an audience despite the crowded market and that is The Big Short. This is actually scheduled for a limited release run starting on December 11th before it expands nationwide on the 23rd, so we'll be able to follow it and get a sense of how big it could be pretty soon here, but super early reviews are very positive and it's looking a lot like The Wolf of Wall Street, although perhaps not quite as controversial as that almost scored an NC-17 rating. Yet despite the controversy, or perhaps partially fueled by it, The Wolf of Wall Street earned $116 million and scored five Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. I compare the two movies because the premises of both are similar. The Big Short tells the true story of a group of four guys who take advantage of the collapse of the financial market in 2005, flourishing and succeeding based off of other people's failures. The movie stars four Oscar-nominated actors in Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling.

Finally, the movie that I think is in most trouble this weekend is Point Break. This is a remake of the 1991 movie also titled Point Break which earned a respectable $43 million at the box office and has since gained a pretty large cult following. The movie starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves and was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. It was about an undercover FBI agent seeking to take down a group of bank robbers who might be surfers. This time around the plot is pretty much the exact same, although it's directed by Ericson Core, who is mainly a cinematographer, but did direct Invincible. It's written by a guy who wrote the Total Recall remake. It stars Luke Bracey and Edgar Ramirez in the roles previously played by Swayze and Reeves with Teresa Palmer as the lead female in the movie. She being the star of Warm Bodies, I Am Number Four, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. So pretty much there's not very many notable names attached to this remake. People are kinda mad at all these remakes of 80's and 90's movies that they enjoy, so this movie had bad will begin with and coming out the week after Star Wars should be enough to kill it pretty fast as it will be aiming for the same crowd. It'll be lucky if it makes as much as the original did 24 years ago.

Before I end, I do have to mention that there are a ton of movies coming out in limited release this month that I did not cover. Spotlight, Brooklyn, and Legend are doing decent business right now. Carol and The Danish Girl are sure to succeed as they expand more throughout the month. We also have Macbeth, Youth, and Son of Saul among the crowd of limited releases that I could've brought up. Part of this is due to personal time constraints, but the other part is that covering every last movie, big or small, would make for a really long post. Being that this is already pretty long, I figured it would be best to keep it simple by just talking about the wide releases. I especially want to note that I did not mention two of the biggest movies of the month outside Star Wars: The Force Awakens and that is The Revanant and The Hateful Eight. But don't worry. I will talk about both of these movies. Next month. Both of them are playing it smart by releasing in limited release on Christmas in order to officially be eligible for awards consideration, but are waiting until January to expand when the Star Wars rush has died down a bit. So I'll talk about both in my January preview. Look forward to that!

Star Wars Review

I've now finished my reviews of the prequels and so it's time to tackle the much more daunting task of writing movie reviews for the original trilogy. Star Wars has been a part of my life since before I can remember. Literally. I was born six years after Return of the Jedi was released and since my whole family were huge Star Wars fans, I grew up watching these movies from a very young age and I've always loved them. In reviewing the original trilogy, I think it's important to mention that I will be reviewing the ORINGAL trilogy. As in the movies George Lucas made before he learned he could screw them all up with modern technology. There's so many dumb things he did in the Special Editions as well as the subsequent DVD and Bluray releases. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. These movies weren't broken, yet he tried to fix them. So I choose to ignore those changes. As such, I will also be referring to to these movies by their original titles. So this first one isn't Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. It's just Star Wars. I think there's a beauty in the simplicity of that title, which is what I will get into. So let's begin!

One thing that really stood out to me as I was watching Star Wars this time around was the simplicity of it. This simplicity starts with the opening crawl. We're given a very minimal introduction, which I think is fantastic. There's an evil Galactic Empire that's planning on building a huge weapon called the Death Star. There's a rebellion that's trying to stop this empire. As a part of this rebellion, Princess Leia is attempting to steal the plans for the Death Star. That's it. This simple introduction allows us to dive right into the action at this space station in the sky where Darth Vader is. Leia is trying to sneak around unnoticed but ends up being captured by the Empire, but not before she uploads these plans onto a random droid called R2-D2. No one from the Empire pays much attention to R2-D2 or his buddy droid C-3PO and thus they are able to escape to the planet Tatooine where Obi-Wan Kenobi is hidden. R2's mission is to find Obi-Wan because, as the message states, he's Princess Leia's only hope. After this opening sequence, the movie is split into three easy-to-follow sections: 1- Obi-Wan, Luke, and Han's introductions on Tatooine; 2- The rescue of Princess Leia; 3-The attack of the rebel forces on the Death Star. That's it. That's Star Wars.

With all this, we are introduced to several amazing characters, all of whom experience beautiful character arcs. First, we have Luke Skywalker. He starts out as a pretty whiny teenage boy who we learn is the son of a great Jedi named Anakin Skywalker. Anakin was one of the best pilots around and was a great friend of Obi-Wan. Sadly, Anakin was betrayed and killed by the Jedi known as Darth Vader, who was a pupil of Obi-Wan's. This betrayal led to the fall of the Jedi, who were defenders of the Galactic Republic for 1,000 years, and the rise of the evil Galactic Empire. Almost all the Jedi were killed. Obi-Wan and the later introduced Yoda appear to be the only two Jedi remaining. Thus the ways of the Jedi, including their use of the Force, are pretty much seen as mere myth and legend that few people seem to believe in. This whole background is relayed to us by a simple conversation between Obi-Wan and Luke, who seem to meet up almost by chance. Because of the death of his father, Luke is living with his Aunt and Uncle on Tatooine and they go to buy some droids. R2 and 3PO are their choices. R2 runs away to find Obi-Wan. Luke hunts down R2. After being attacked by Tusken Raiders, Obi-Wan finds and rescues Luke, the message is relayed. Obi-Wan tries to convince Luke to come with him, but Luke declines until he learns that in his absence, his Aunt and Uncle have been brutally killed by the Empire, so he is in.

This is a really beautiful introduction to this universe. This whole history of the Jedi and their fall paints a great picture in our minds of what happened in the past and where we are in the present. Thus we are immediately submerged into this amazing story. And it's all done through simple conversation between Obi-Wan and Luke. George Lucas decided to turn this beautiful past into a trilogy of movies, but ultimately they fail in comparison to this simple conversation. Thus I feel that it would've been better if the prequels had never been made. Let this picture that is painted in our heads remain in our heads. There is an element of imagination that is actually rather powerful. This is the strength of Star Wars. What we are shown on film in this first movie is a very, very small portion of this universe as a whole. It's just a sliver in time where plans for the Death Star are stolen, which in turn allows for a small group of rebels to attack said Death Star. But this universe that is created is so huge and so beautiful that it literally provides an endless bank of stories that could be told. Think of all the books that have been written. The video games that have been created. The TV shows that have been made. The movies that are being planned now that Lucas has given the rights to his universe to Disney. Yet we've barely scraped the surface of the stories that could be told. Not everything has been deemed as official cannon. These stories still exist and they're still a lot of fun.

That's why Star Wars is so great. It's not just because of the specific story that is told. It's the universe that has been created and the millions of people that it's inspired. This universe has been embedded into our culture. It is a part of our souls. There's a reason why so many people passionately hate the prequels. They didn't live up to the extremely high bar set by the original Star Wars. This universe that is a part of our souls got messed with and tarnished. This backlash represents how important and nearly sacred this Star Wars universe is to so many people. There's a reason why Star Wars: The Force Awakens is about to become the highest grossing movie of all-time. Advertising has led us all to believe that we are finally going to get the follow-up movie in this universe that we have all deserved. Most of us purchased our tickets a month ago. Those who haven't purchased their tickets still plan on going within the first week or so. If the movie is as good as we all think it will be, how many people will go see it twice? Three times? Four times? Five times? More? Getting my vibe? Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. That's why this review has been so daunting. How do I put this into words? Is it possible to write a review that does this movie complete justice? Perhaps not. But I'm trying my best anyways.

Now that I've gone off on that tangent, let's get back to reviewing this movie. Whiny, young Luke has decided that he's going to join Obi-Wan and learn the ways of the Force. Which by the way, whiny Luke doesn't mean bad Luke or bad acting on the part of Mark Hamill. Bad acting is Hayden Christensen. I'd call Mark Hamill's acting good because the character of Luke goes through a whole lot of progression. Compare Luke at the beginning of this movie to the Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi. It's impressive to see who he becomes. Major kudos go to the writing of his character as well as the acting on the part of Mark Hamill. Same thing goes for Harrison Ford's character of Han Solo. He starts out as a selfish, almost unlikable jerk. He doesn't care about the well-being of others. He doesn't seem to care about this war between the rebels and the Empire. He's only looking out for himself and his money. He has this huge debt to pay off to the mysterious Jabba the Hutt (who does NOT appear in this movie George Lucas) and when confronted about that by an alien named Greedo, he shoots and kills Greedo without even giving Greedo a chance to defend himself. And he feels no remorse about that. He joins Luke and Obi-Wan not because he wants to do good, but because they offer him a huge sum of money. He doesn't even believe in the Force. In fact, he spends his time mocking Luke and Obi-Wan for believing in it.

So now we have the whiny kid, the selfish jerk, two droids, and of course the temperamental Wookie Chewbacca joining the wise old sage on this mission to save Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader. This is quite the underdog story as a very unlikely group of heroes are out to save the day. After a beautiful introduction to this story and universe in the first act of the movie, this second act is quite the blast. Han and Luke dress up as Stormtroopers after killing the ones that were guarding their ship. They use Chewie as their "captive" to get all three of them around. R2 and 3PO play the behind-the-scenes heroes as still no one from the Empire pays them any attention. Finally, Obi-Wan is out to hunt down Darth Vader. Stormtroopers are everywhere making for a lot of fun showdowns involving blasters, since Luke isn't well trained with a light saber yet. When they finally find Princess Leia, she is definitely no damsel in distress. She is a very strong lead female character who actually does most of the work in getting them out since Han and Luke don't really have a good escape plan. At the end of this scene, we get our first light saber fight. Even though it's less exciting than some light saber fights in the prequels, this feels more honest and less choreographed. It also ends pretty quickly as Vader strikes down Obi-Wan, which he'll later regret as ghost Obi-Wan quickly proves to be much more powerful and important that old man Obi-Wan.

Enter act three. Luke has made the decision to learn the ways of the force. Princess Leia has been rescued. Our unlikely group of heroes have succeeded thus far and now it's time to use these Death Star plans that have been stored in R2-D2 to start an attack on the Death Star. Luke joins the rebel squadron in this attack. He hopes Han will help as well, but Han refuses. He collects his money and appears to be gone. Luke and the rest of the pilots board their X-Wings and fly to the Death Star. Once they get there, Darth Vader leads a group of TIE Fighters to stop them and now we're on an intense race to see who destroys who first because now the Empire knows where the rebel base is and is about to launch an attack to destroy them. We saw them early on blow up Leia's home planet of Alderaan, so we know this thing is powerful. In order to stop them, the X-Wings have to have the absolute perfect shot. This makes for a really epic conclusion that captures the essence of Star Wars, or what Star Wars should be. Think of the title. Star. Wars. Wars in the stars. Yeah we have our scenes on land, but those are more or less supplements to the scenes in space. In fact, most of this movie takes place in space. The whole second act is in space. Most of the third act takes place in space. Even a portion of the first act is in space. It's Star Wars. The prequels kinda missed that as most of the important scenes were in land with the space stuff being the supplement or the afterthought.

Wrapping this up, who is the one that saves the day? Luke. Our whiny, young farm boy. While a lot of his team is being blown up around him by Darth Vader's crew, he listens to ghost Obi-Wan and instead of using his own skills of what he can see, he lets the Force guide him and this is what allows him to make the perfect shot that is needed to blow up the Death Star. He's far from the level of a true Jedi, but he already shows a lot of progression in this one film. But he's not the only one who saves the day. Han Solo, the selfish jerk who only cares about himself and his money, finally comes around. Before Luke takes his shot, Darth Vader is onto him and his about to destroy his ship as well. Who stops Vader's crew? Han Solo with his Millennium Falcon. At the very moment when Luke is about to be shot down and the Death Star is about to blow up the rebel's base, Han flies in and shoots the group of TIE Fighters, which allows Luke to take his shot as guided by the Force, destroying the Death Star. Our unlikely heroes have won. The following sequence shows Han and Luke being awarded medals by Princess Leia, which is super epic mainly because of John Williams' fantastic score.

There is so much symbolism that can be taken from this movie. So many lessons to be learned. Not only is this a fun movie from beginning to end, but it's also pretty deep. It's the movie that I have decided to call the quintessential good vs. evil story. When I came up with this phrase, my first reaction was to figure out exactly what quintessential actually meant. Dictionary.com defines the word as follows: "of the pure and essential essence of something" and "of or relating to the most perfect embodiment of something." Yeah that's a pretty darn good word choice if I do say so myself. Pure. Essential. Perfect. Those are great adjectives for Star Wars. Many people have attempted to tell a good vs. evil story, both before and after Star Wars, but Star Wars is definitely the perfect embodiment of a good vs. evil story. I could dive deep into the specifics of all the symbolism and how applying the story of Star Wars can really help you out in your life, but I'm going to let your creative juices flow through you and let you come up with that on your own. I'm also excited to share with you my thoughts on The Empire Strikes Back, which takes all of these amazing goodness that this first movie provided and builds upon it, taking this series to the next level. The best level. But that's next week. As for now, it's time to give you my grade for the movie Star Wars. I'm sure you could see this from a mile away, but of course I'm giving Star Wars a 10/10.

Creed Review

The Rocky franchise has been close to my heart for as long as I can remember. My dad has always loved these movies and so has most of my family for that matter. One of my all-time favorite things to do is to sit down on the couch with my dad and have a Rocky marathon. Even the installments that are slightly more cheesy are still enjoyable in my opinion. There's just so much to love about these movies. After growing up watching these movies over and over, when I was 17 years old, Hollywood graced us with another Rocky movie in Rocky Balboa. That was a calming of the beast movie, so to speak. A one last hurrah. I loved it! It was great to see Rocky  back one last time. Or so I thought. Hollywood being Hollywood wasn't ready to let this franchise go and decided to bring us a spin-off following Apollo Creed's son with Rocky as his trainer. A lot of people were worried at first, but I never complained. I didn't expect a masterpiece, but I was excited to see Rocky once again. The trailers appeased many of the haters and made me even more excited. Yet despite all the anticipation, I totally did not expect what I got. Many have said that this movie is as good as the first. I'm hear to tell you that they're right. Creed is a masterpiece, just like the first Rocky.

As a bit of a refresher, Apollo Creed was Rocky's opponent in the first movie. The two faced off again in Rocky II and became allies in Rocky III. One of the most emotional scenes in the franchise is when Apollo Creed died in the ring at the beginning of Rocky IV. In this new movie Creed, our main character is Apollo Creed's son, Adonis Johnson, who goes by Donny. He obviously never knew his father, but boxing was always a part of him anyways. It was in his blood. He was never officially trained by anyone, but rather he trained himself by watching videos of boxers fight, specifically his dad and Rocky, and replicating their moves. When he was young, he was raised in foster homes in Los Angeles mainly until his mother found him and decided to take him in. When he comes of age, Donny decides that boxing is what he needs to do with his life, so he leaves his home in Los Angeles and moves to Philadelphia where he finds Rocky and asks him to train him. Rocky is hesitant at first because he has moved on from that aspect of his life, but he eventually accepts and the two become a small family.

If you reflect back on the first Rocky, you remember that it's actually a fairly slow-moving movie. Yes there is plenty of action, especially at the end, but the training montages and the the boxing matches aren't the main focus of that movie. The main focus is on the character of Rocky. We are introduced to him. We follow his life. We see his struggles. We watch his relationships develop, particularly the one with his girl Adrian. We really dive deep into fictional character's life and because Sylvester Stallone is so good, we immediately develop a strong emotional attachment to him. The movie doesn't rush into the action or the fighting. It takes it's time getting to know the characters and thus when we do finally get to the fight with Apollo Creed, it means a whole heck of a lot more. This is the same exact formula that Creed follows and it works. The character of Donny is so well written and thus his story is so interesting to follow. He knows his heritage. Yet he goes by the name Johnson because he doesn't want to let that heritage define him. He wants to create a name for his own separate from his father. But to be honest, he is a little lost. He has an identity crisis and throughout the movie we watch as he tries to discover who he really is. And the movie takes its time to develop this character. Deciding to take things slow is always a big risk, but in this instance it becomes a beautiful character piece.

Donny obviously isn't the only character we follow in this. We also dive pretty deep into the character of Rocky once again. Thus in addition to serving as a spin-off movie with this new character that we grow to care about, this movie also serves as a seventh movie in the Rocky franchise. I don't want to even touch any details about what Rocky is going through in this movie, but this essentially picks up where Rocky Balboa leaves off as we dive deeper into an older Rocky who's far past the prime of his career and struggling with his own issues. Thus we get double the character development as we follow both of their individual stories. But you can almost call it triple because in addition to diving into their own individual challenges, we also dive into their relationship together. Rocky wasn't ready for this. Donny just shows up and essentially throws this on him and there's some real growth and struggles in this relationship that's essentially an uncle/nephew relationship. Yet it transforms from that at the beginning of the movie into a more father/son relationship as we go on. Donny never had a father figure in his life. Rocky did have a son, but that son is not really a huge part of his life at the moment and thus Donny fills that void.

A well done character piece is hard to pull off, but when it is done right, they are some of the most memorable movies out there. They key component to getting this type of movie right is to have the perfect cast that give it their all. Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone do just that. Michael B. Jordan is an up and coming actor that I've had my eye on for a while now. He was in the TV show Friday Night Lights as well as the movie Chronicle in 2012 and Fruitvale Station in 2013. Every time that I've seen him on screen recently, he's given it his all. He had the potential to break out in a more commercial way when he was cast as Johnny Storm in the recent Fant4stic movie, but sadly that opportunity was crushed when that movie turned out to be a disaster. Wasn't his fault, though, and I was hoping he would get another opportunity to shine. Well he has. I'm happy for him because he blows it out of the park in this movie in what I think is an Oscar-worthy performance. Speaking of Oscar-worthy performances, the other part of this duo, Sylvester Stallone, is probably even more worthy of an Oscar nomination. This is the role that Stallone was born to play and not only is it great seeing him in this role again, but it is amazing to see him once again knock it out of the park with a performance that is equal to the performance in Rocky that actually got him an Oscar nomination. I really hope this movie is able to get him another nomination.

I've gotten this far in this review and yet all I've really talked about so far are these two characters and how amazing they both did in these roles that were so beautifully written. This should tell you something about this movie. If you are hoping for a movie with non-stop boxing action, you're going to the wrong movie. But just like in Rocky, when those boxing matches do come, they are absolutely phenomenal. It's not just your average boxing match. It means something a whole lot more and thus becomes something very symbolic to what the characters are both going through. The cinematography for these scenes are absolutely stunning. There's even one of the matches that goes all out Birdman on us. That was incredible. If you don't know Birdman, that movie had some absolutely fan-freaking-tastic camera work combined with magical editing skills that gave the movie the illusion of being done in one long shot. Not all of the fighting sequences are done like this in Creed, which is probably a wise decision, but when they do go with it, it's phenomenal. Yet when they also go the typical route of plenty of cuts showing different angles and different perspectives, it's also pretty darn good in its own way. It adds some real great intensity to the emotion we are already feeling because of what we've watched the characters go through.

Finally, I can't leave this review without talking about the score for this movie. A good score is always key for any movie, but especially this genre. You need to have the proper build-up during the emotional scenes. You need to have the perfect song in place for the training montage that occurs right before the final fight. You need to have the appropriate music during the fight and when the fight ends. This often makes or breaks this type of movie. There was especially a lot of pressure for Creed because the Rocky movies nailed this. The song "Gonna Fly Now" by Bill Conti is one of my favorite songs and is definitely the best training montage ever. But that's not the only thing, the score in general is simply perfect. And Rocky III also produced the classic song "Eye of the Tiger." Yeah, the pressure was pretty high and they delivered. What I really liked is that the score in Creed was very representative of the type of movie this was. The movie flooded us with nostalgia by bringing Rocky back and continuing his story, yet it was also the dawn of a new potential franchise following Michael B. Jordan as Donny. As such, Creed used a lot of elements of the classic Rocky score and it was great hearing that music again. On top of that, the movie also added a brand new score and new themes for Donny as he progressed and thus the whole score, old and new, was simply beautiful.

In the end, Creed went above and beyond my most lofty expectations. I always go into a movie hoping that it will be great and I love it when I witness a movie that is almost complete perfection. Few feelings in life match the feeling of exiting the theater after witnessing a near perfect movie. I didn't expect the latter to happen for Creed. I expected a fun, Rocky spin-off. In fact, when it comes to this genre, I find that I am pretty easy to please. There's a definite formula that these boxing/fighting movies follow, but it's a formula that works and its a formula that pleases me. I enjoy all the Rocky movies. Not all of them are made equal, but they are all enjoyable. Even other movies similar to Rocky are usually pretty good. Warrior was one of my favorite movies of 2011 and Southpaw still remains one of my favorite movies from this year. I didn't expect perfection out of Creed, but I had no reason to believe that I wouldn't enjoy based on my history. Yet perfection is what I got and that made me super happy. When it comes to boxing movies, it doesn't get much better than Creed and thus I am going award Creed with a very deserving 10/10.