REVIEW: Lincoln

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Uncle Critic

lincolnLincoln seemed to be Steven Spielberg’s comeback to directing great movies, I wouldn’t say it succeeded as the amazing piece of film that I had hoped it would be, but it was pretty good. There were some flashes of greatness in the movie; James Spader, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes and Michael Stuhlbarg were all great. Lincoln was an amazingly charismatic guy in the movie, he had some great stories and Lincoln had jokes too, though I guess it helped that he was played by Daniel Day-Lewis. And my god, what an amazing job Daniel Day-Lewis did. Lincoln wasn’t the best movie of the year but Daniel Day-Lewis by far played the best role of the year, he was simply amazing as Abraham Lincoln. I don’t think they could have done a better job casting that role (though I do find it kind of Ironic that a British actor is playing one of the most iconic presidents the United States of America has ever had). Though from these points the movie kind of goes downhill, Sally Field and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were in this, they weren’t bad, though it wasn’t their best work. As much as I like historical movies it did kind of seem to drag at points, time could have been cut out of this movie for sure. Though the biggest thing that annoyed me was the focus of the movie. It was called Lincoln but it was really about the thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlaws slavery. If you wanted to focus on that, that’s fine but don’t trick me into thinking I’m seeing a movie about Lincoln. Even worse the movie made it seem like the Civil War was being fought over this Amendment, anybody that knows US history knows that slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War, yet nothing else was even mentioned in the movie. Historical inaccuracies aside it was a pretty decent movie. If you like period piece about the US you’ll get some enjoyment out of it.

Get Lincoln from Amazon HERE

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REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Uncle Critic

In advance I’m going to say here I’ll try to keep my comparisons to the pervious Spider-Man movies to a minimum…however it’s going to happen. So let’s get one out of the way right off the bat, The Amazing Spider-Man’s biggest problem is that Spider-Man was made in 2002. I really liked this movie, but I felt pretty bored watching it. There was a ‘oh hum seen it before’ feeling throughout most of it, if Spider-Man hadn’t been made ten years ago I’d have probably loved this one. The problem with rebooting a movie so soon after a series is made is its just rehashed things that are still fresh in your head, do we really need another origin story again? The answer is a strong no. Most of your people going to watch these movies know what’s up, there’s no need to go through it all again. Now let’s get negative for a bit, the things I didn’t like about this. There was no “With great power comes great responsibility” line, this might seem trivial to a lot of people, but it’s pretty fucking iconic. There was no J. Jonah Jameson; this seems silly that he wasn’t even in there for a second, of course as far as I’m concerned you’d have to cast J.K. Simmons again, because he is Jameson. And lastly Peter Parker is REALLY bad at keeping his secret identity. People complained about this in the last series but I think Spider-Man runs around without his mask way more in this movie than the previous three combined, not to mention he tells Gwen Stacy the first chance he gets, it’s pretty ridiculous. On the plus side there was a lot of good. Andrew Garfield seemed way more ‘Spider-Man’ than Tobey Maguire, their Peter Parkers are pretty even though. The spider suit in this one I actually liked better, it wasn’t as close to the comic as the previous but it didn’t have that annoying silver webbing standing out as before. There were some changes to the origin but nothing really that I couldn’t look past (though the whole Gwen knows thing was really annoying). As far as the cast goes, as I said before Andrew Garfield is pretty comparable to Tobey Maguire. Rhys Ifans did a great Connors, though I did like Dylan Baker as well in that role, I’d call that even. The look of the Lizard was pretty bad. Denis Leary did a great Captain Stacy, Martin Sheen was a great Uncle Ben and Chris Zylka was a near perfect Flash Thompson. Sally Field was a decent Aunt May but I liked Rosemary Harris way better. And finally we come to Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Emma Stone is Gwen Stacy, she’s picture fucking perfect in this role, in fact I’d say her filling the role of Gwen Stacy is the best thing about the entire movie, it’s as good as a match up as J.K. Simmons and J. Jonah Jameson. So I guess in closing here, decent flick, I’d even say really good, but kind of old news at this point. There were things I liked about it and things that annoyed me (a lot of each I held off on other wise I’d be writing all week) but good effort. I wish they’d have just continued from the point where Parker had powers instead of starting from the beginning again but what are you gonna do? If you’re a Spider-Man super fan you’re going to see this regardless of what you’re told, if you’re not a Spider-Man superfan I say check this out if you get a chance but it’s no must see movie for you if you’ve already seen the Sam Raimi one.

Get The Amazing Spider-Man from Amazon HERE

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REVIEW: Young Adult

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Uncle Critic

Young Adult, the new movie Written by Diablo Cody (writer of Juno) and directed by Jason Reitman (Director of Juno and Thank You For Smoking). With these credentials, and the fact that it has Patton Oswalt it was a sure thing that I was going to see this movie. Little did I know that would not be the best use of my time. The movie centers around Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron), a woman that writes Young Adult books. Her life is pretty much a wreck; her career isn’t going much better than that. She’s a mess of a person that’s pretty much still acting like a dumb teenager. Her old boyfriend has a baby so of course she decides to go back to her home state to try and break up his marriage and get with him. Ninety percent of this movie is pretty painful to watch, it’s filled with such awkward scenes you want to turn away from the screen. And not like in that uncomfortable funny awkward, just that ‘ugh why am I watching this’ awkward. Basically the only people in the movie I didn’t hate were Matt (Patton Oswalt) and his sister Sandra (Collette Wolfe), the rest of them, ugh they could fall into the ocean and the world would be better off. Sandra doesn’t have much screen time in the movie, in fact I think she’s only seen four times, and three of them being for less than a minute. Matt however has a decent amount of screen time, which is good because he’s really the only semi-saving grace of the film. Almost every scene with Matt is a great one, Patton Oswalt really is not only a great comedian but a great actor and it shows here. Plus on a nerd side of things every scene he’s in is like a nerdgasum of ‘spot the cool things in the background’. From the punk band shirts and stickers to the comic posters and figures I kind of feel like they told Patton to just show up in whatever he was wearing and they went and filmed in his real house. I know I felt a connection with this sad bitter nerdy drunken person. Let’s get a spinoff show of him and forget the rest of the movie.

Get Young Adult from Amazon HERE

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Top Movies and Music of the first half of 2011

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Uncle Critic

Well June is here, and you know what that means? It’s time for the first half of the year lists. It’s been a fucking great year for music so far in 2011. The top music list I already hate myself for having to knock so many great releases so far down the list but it’s just been stellar release after stellar release. On the movie side of things though it’s been a pretty slow year, so instead of the standard top five for the half I’m only going to do a top three. So let’s go ahead and get this underway!

Top 3 movies – First half of 2011

1. Green Hornet
2. Hangover 2
3. Thor

And the worst movie of the year so far is…

No Strings Attached

Now on to the music, normally I split these into a few posts but because it was a short movie list I’m just cramming everything here. If you didn’t make the list, fear not, there’s still half a year for things to get moved and you’re probably on the list somewhere anyway (if it’s good). I’m also splitting things up a little different this year so there’s actually more lists, you’ll see.

Top 10 albums – First half of 2011

1. Motorhead: The World Is Yours
2. Deep Sleep: Turn Me Off
3. Sundials: Never Settle
4. Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin’
5. Rendondo Beat: Meet Rendondo Beat
6. Power Quest: Blood Alliance
7. Mind Spiders: Mind Spiders
8. The Underground Railroad to Candyland: Knows Your Sins
9. The Dwarves: Are Born Again
10. Spraynard: Funtitled

Top 10 EP’s – First half of 2011

1. Rational Anthem: Bread Line
2. Night Birds: Midnight Movies
3. The Fucking Cops: Fuck You Up With Some Truth
4. Cell Mates: Shoulda Kept That Quarter!
5. The Slow Death: Turnstile Comix #1
6. Chixdiggit!: Safeways Here We Come
7. Teenage Bottlerocket: Mutilate Me
8. The Typos: The Typos
9. The Zits: Summer Pop Dreams EP
10. Clint Maul: Great Dividing EP

Top 5 splits – First half of 2011

1. Direct Hit/Tit Patrol
2. Dopamines/Dear Landlord
3. The Queers & Killtime
4. Wax Phantom/Criminal Culture
5. Unwelcome Guests/255′s

Top 3 Singles – First half of 2011

1. Mikey Erg: Heart Shaped 12″
2. Brain F: So Dim
3. Big Eyes: Why Can’t I

And I’ll just throw this in for now since there hasn’t been too many demo’s I’ve come across this year (less than 5!!), I hope the second half picks up on this front.

The best Demo of the year so far:

The Masked Intruder: Demo

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REVIEW: The Runaways

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Uncle Critic

The Runaways, a movie that tells the story of the band of the same name, ne of the first all girl rock bands. Started by Joan Jett and Sandy West with producer Kim Fowley. The band consisted of Sandy West, Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Currie, and many bassists. Most of the band is just glossed over the entire movie, you see Sandy when she meets Joan and Lita when the band has an argument besides that they’re basically extras. The movie pretty much centers around Joan Jett played by Kristen Stewart and Cherie Currie played by Dakota Fanning and Kim Fowley played by Michael Shannon. Overall the movie was ok, the first half of the movie is pretty great. The band forming, making it, and the early days of touring. But as it goes in it goes down hill. The second half of the movie pretty much drags on, yet someone feels rushed at the same time, totally skipping years. I really think they could have fleshed out the post breakup of the band and Joan’s solo career, but that might have been a bit much for a movie about the Runaways, and no just Joan Jett, however at the very lest they could have made the band’s life more robust. The movie isn’t very long to start with, just an hour and forty five minutes, adding another twenty or thirty minutes to cover a few missing years could have made a huge difference. Because of the lack of part of the movie the whole thing really suffers. As far as the acting, I was actually pretty surprised. I’m really not a fan of anyone in the movie but that didn’t stick out as badly as I thought it would. Fans of the band will most likely enjoy this movie for what it is, but I think people who don’t know the band might be bored with this one especially when it gets to the sluggish second half.

Get The Runaways from Amazon HERE

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