REVIEW: American Sniper

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There have been a lot of post 9/11 war films to come out in the last decade that seem to all blend together. They are always vehicles for freedom, the military, and overall Americana.  Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is one of those films, but it slightly shifts this status quo to make a devastatingly human war film.

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is a United States Navy Seal, and he is infamous for being one of the most lethal snipers in American history.  The film is about his true story, on how he finds his way into the Navy and becomes one of the most legendary snipers ever.

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The first act is very clunky, it feels like Clint Eastwood is just check off life events right after another to quickly give back story. A scene with his father and him hunting, him as a cowboy, falling in love with his wife, watching the Twin Towers be attacked, joining the Navy, and entering the war. It moves at such a strange pace that it creates a disconnect, and that stabilization is key to getting Kyle's character down.

When the second act hits, Cooper and Eastwood have finally found their footing. This is where the movie really begins and the story telling becomes rich.  When Kyle is in the war on his first tour, he becomes legendary for sniping the most enemies.  There is a haunting scene with Kyle having to take out a mother and child because they have a grenade that they were going to use on a convoy. This is Kyle's first kill, and it takes his toll on him because he never imagined that a child would be his first in what will soon be a very long list of deaths.

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When he returns home from his first tour, his wife and their child miss him. He becomes vacant, but wants to be there with his family, but the war is still inside him.  His wife tries to connect with him asking him what happened over there and what he's feeling.  Kyle cannot make a connection with her anymore because he feels like he needs to protect her from the war, but she doesn't care. She just wants her husband back.

As the film progresses, Kyle becomes more acclimated to the war and less to his home life. During his tours he finds a nemesis who is also a sniper. Once this sniper is introduced in the film, Kyle gains more purpose and drive. Its not just he is in the war to eradicate an evil he believes is over there, now he has a main target. Someone who's killed his friends and is almost good as a sharpshooter as him.

Chris Kyle posing for his photo for his book American Sniper
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Eastwood has created a magnificent  war film that is pro-military, but anti-war. Kyle's fellow soldiers show their disdain for the war, but they are happy to fight for their country.  Kyle's character is extremely interesting because his humanity throughout the film slowly goes away to cope with the war. It creates a strange dichotomy with his fellow soldiers. The more the war gnaws at his friends, the more emotional they become. The war is bringing out their humanity. With Kyle, his humanity slowly seeps back inside him. He looks normal all the time, but inside he is not. His friends look like they are struggling, but inside they are acting as normal as they can be.  The war left when they got back home. The war never ended for Kyle. Its refreshing to see a war film that focuses on the people this war effects instead of the politics in which it involves. I give American Sniper 5 Hulked up versions of Bradley Cooper out of 5.

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Selma REVIEW

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Selma covers two very busy years in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. The film opens with the 16th Street Baptist church bombing of 1963 and ends with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The moments in between portrayed landmark events throughout the civil rights struggles including Annie Lee Cooper's attempts to register to vote, the marches on the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, conversations Dr. King had with President Lyndon B. Johnson, conversations Lyndon B. Johnson had with J. Edgar Hoover as well as Alabama governor George Wallace, a few speeches from Dr. King (no, they didn't include that one), and a whole lot of violence. 

Not that Selma
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Ava DuVernay  directed the screenplay from Paul Webb. The amazingly talented David Oyelowo  (who was snubbed by the Academy...) portrayed Dr. King with the beautiful Carmen Ejogo as his wife, Coretta Scott King. The queen of daytime television, Oprah Winfrey, not only produced, but also portrayed Annie Lee Cooper. The star-studded cast also featured the talents of Giovani Ribisi, Tom Wilkinson, Common, and Tim Roth.

Running 2 hours and 7 minutes, the film covered a great deal of content, maybe even too much. Many critical events in American history were given only a few minutes' of screen time. Malcolm X was introduced to the audience briefly during a conversation with Coretta Scott King and his death was only mentioned in passing during the funeral of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson.

The film was held together by an incredibly well-cast ensemble of talented actors (none of whom received any recognition from the Academy) as well as emotionally devastating imagery. However, the narrative was somewhat directionless. DuVernay didn't budget screen time as well as she could have. Some critical issues seemed rushed while many bureaucratic conversations were drawn out. Despite this, the film has received the Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Although I disagree with their decision to nominate the producers and not David Oyelowo, the film is still definitely worth watching. 

3/5

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The Interview REVIEW #2

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So there's this Seth Rogen James Franco comedy called The Interview that caused a ridiculous amount of hoopla last year. It all started when Sony Pictures was targeted in a hack that stole basically all of their information from confidential emails between executives, employee personal information, budgets of different films, silly cat photos, etc. This information began leaking onto the internet for weeks with no stop in sight... unless a certain film, which was suspected to be The Interview, was pulled from its Christmas release date. Things began to escalate when Sony employees were threatened by the hackers, only know as The GOP,  or Guardians of the Peace (Not the Republican GOP). Then it really started to get out of hand right before Christmas when a "9/11" style threat was put upon any theater showing the film. Major theater chains like Regal and AMC backed out of showing the film and ultimately Sony announced that it was scrapping the release. A huge outcry from Hollywood and people alike thought this was a terrible idea to back down from the hacking threat so then Sony was like "JK LOL" and announced that it would release the film onto Video on Demand and into small independent theaters all across the country. Which now leads to the big question. With all this pandemonium surrounding the comedy, is it actually any good?

(WARNING: This film has an adorable puppy named Digby)
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For anyone who has been Tom Hanks Castawaying on a deserted island or been using a shitty internet provider like comcast for the past few months, The Interview is about a big time talk show host (Franco) and his executive producer/best friend (Rogen) being asked by the CIA to assassinate the president of North Korea, Kim Jong-un under the guise of an exclusive interview. So yeah you can see why that might cause some controversy.

Turns out a lot of people ending up streaming the movie
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I came into this movie expecting it to be a comedic misfire of overplayed jokes and maybe having handful of funny parts tops. Something that wasn't special and just meh. Almost like with what happened earlier this year with the big disappointment in A Million Ways to Die in the West. Mainly because quite a few of the early press reviews were pointing in that direction.

 I was wrong. I found it to be hysterical!

"Been spending most our lives living in a dictators paradise!"
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The film is absurdly funny and crass! There's ridiculous death scenes, a large amount of Lord of the Rings references between Franco and Rogen, and there's a lot of honey dicking #FakeBromancing. Plus seeing those two try to be master spies is exactly how you would imagine. What also made it great was the portrayal of the North Korean dictator. In it, Kim Jong-Un (Randall Park) isn't just some bad guy who we can't wait for to die. He's actually just a dude who's got some really messed up daddy issues... and also happens to be a dictator of an infamous rouge country. The Jong-Un/Franco bro down chemistry was great and gave the movie the perfect conflict of Franco having second thoughts about killing his new friend after a fun filled afternoon of tank joy riding, tequila, and Katy Perry. Overall if you are a fan of some of Rogen and Franco's comedies, especially This is the End, then you will definitely enjoy this film. I give it 4 tigers with night vision goggles out of 5.

Into the Woods Review

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Into the Woods is about several different fairy tale characters, Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, all crossing paths in the mysterious woods due to a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) trying to lift a curse brought on them by a witch (Meryl Streep).

Cinderella's shade throwing game is on point!
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This isn't exactly the PG musical with classic fairy tales you would expect. There are actually several different darker tones going on. The main being "Be Careful what you wish for?" A majority of the characters get their happy ending half way through the movie and then realize that that's not what they wanted at all. Then there's some adultery, blinding, a giant who comes down from the sky going ape shit on the Kingdom, and people dying.

Boss Ass Witch!
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A large highlight of the film was the fantastic casting. Meryl Streep is outstanding as the witch. She's creepy, eccentric, an over protective mother, and holy fuck does she have an amazing voice! She will more than likely get an Oscar nomination for this. Anna Kendrick was awesome as always. Johnny Depp as the somewhat pedophile wolf was oddly uncanny. Newcomer James Corden was great as the central character, the Baker, and I look forward to him taking over the Late Late Show. And who knew that both Chris Pine and Emily Blunt could actually sing very well as the over acting Prince and Baker's wife respectively.

The Brothers Grimm, however, were not in the musical.

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Overall I really enjoyed this film. Though it felt like it was starting to drag on for a little (2 hour 5 min length) and slightly kidish at times, it is a family film after all, the amazing cast, adult themes, and enjoyable songs (ManChild is surprisingly a sucker for musicals) were more than enough to keep me interested and excited throughout the entire film. I give it 4 Princes tearing off their shirts mid-song out of 5.