Directed by Gavin Hood (Tsoti)
Starring Huge Jackman, Live Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, will.i.am
Has any series been as weirdly developed as the X-men series? The first one was good to build up a sentimental and in depth plot, but lacked any cool action and development of some of the most memorable cartoon and comic action heroes of all time. X2 was fantastic and it’s a film I hold high when mentioning “greatest comic book movies of all time.” The Last Stand, without Bryan Singer, was a total display of forced action and ignorance of a strong plot it held in the first two.
Enter Wolverine, the most popular character of the comics and of the movies, and arguably the biggest male actor on staff, Hugh Jackman. Don’t let the title mislead anyone, it’s called Origins, not Origin, which is the graphic novel this is loosely (and I mean loosely) based off of. It takes less than a fraction of parts from the graphic novel, adds in some absurd and confusing X-men plot turns that seemingly don’t add up, and develops a load of silly questions that lead up to the beginning of the first X-men film.
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Starring: Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Deenis Haysbert, Alfre Woodard
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
A twist on a classic love story about falling in love with your childhood best friend, Love and Basketball presents the conflicts between the love for the game of basketball and the love for another person. Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s first feature film, co-produced by Spike Lee, looks beyond the surface of a coming-of-age tale, and further explores a feminist view of the relations between women and the world of sport through the trials and tribulations her characters face.
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473 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Directed by John Singleton
Starring Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nia Long, Morris Chestnut
During the early and mid-90s, Hollywood saw a number of movies dedicated to showing the experiences of young black men growing up in the ghetto, most notably New Jack City, Menace II Society, Juice, and, to a lesser extent, Don’t be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. With the growing interest in West Coast gangsta rap and the stories that they told, Hollywood decided that it was time that these stories were told on screen, accurately and tastefully. Enter Boyz N the Hood, which was written and directed by John Singleton, who based the movie and characters on events and people he was familiar with while growing up in South Central Los Angeles.
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489 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Directed by April Maiya
To kick off the 2009 year, hip hop was granted one of its many wishes: a biopic about Notorious B.I.G. Unfortunately, Notorious [read review] was greatly underachieving with a variety of flaws, misled information, and bad casting. It wasn’t the movie everyone was expecting and sadly, it just wasn’t a good movie (let alone a biopic). Enter April Maiya, a saving grace to those still hungry for a proper visual Christopher Wallace homage. She presents the world with a sixty minute documentary on his hip hop life: the art of his rhyme, concert footage, quotables, and his persona. It’s an important film, and Maiya does a great job of bringing the audience along on a ride where they can actually connect with Biggie, much more than the aforementioned feature film.
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574 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Notorious, the biopic of Christopher Wallace, deals with the struggle, the hustle, the rise, the fame, the women, the game, and the eventual “fall” of the Notorious B.I.G. Ranging from Biggie’s time as a kid to his funeral along Fort Greene, this George Tillman Jr. film provides us with stunning performance visuals of the Black Frank White, but lacks grit, decent dialogue, and noticeable details that hip-hop heads everywhere will notice. Instead, we are given mountains of fluff, numerous quick fixes, and some good/bad casting for characters that aren’t engaging.
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141 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swindon, Taraji P. Henson, Julie Ormond
Written by: Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider, Munich)
Directed by: David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac)
Yes, it’s worth all the acclaim. I’ll say that off the bat to put everything at ease. It should and will win a bunch of awards. With that said, we can move on. The Curious Case of BB is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the same name. The author that penned The Great Gatsby (possibly one of the greatest pieces of modern literature) conceived this idea of an infant being born with a “curious case” and through it, delivers a great commentary on the unpredictability of life and all the tasty metaphors that come with it. One of Hollywood’s best directors, David Fincher, takes it on and turns out one of the best theatrical releases of 2008.
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Starring: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson
Directed by: Gabriele Muccino (Pursuit of Happyness)
Curiousity can do a lot of crazy things to a person. It can make them ask rather silly questions, swallow their pride, go beyond their limits, or even take particular risk. What does Seven Pounds do with our curiousity? It wastes our time.
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72 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Irrfan Khan
Directed by: Danny Boyle
It’s been a minute since a movie review has been posted up on the site, and quite frankly, none is more worthy than the new Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire. It is supposed to be this years ‘little engine that could’ Oscar nomination similar to Little Miss Sunshine and Juno in past years, but it is much closer to a tour de force in the form of a classic Mustang, as opposed to any little engine. The script, the score (including brilliant placements of M.I.A.), the cinematography and the direction is tremendous and the vision from the original book, Q and A, is a perfect translation, in which all the necessary changes and updates were made to fit many tongue-in-cheek commentaries and jabs regarding the ‘American’ Dream.
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253 views | Posted in Movie Reviews
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pit
Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men)
Whatever hot streak existed in Hollywood belonged to the Coen Brothers. Coming off of the scorching (and deservedly so) No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan decided to change pace from the gritty and intensely violent to their other favourite type of genre, comedy. Most of their films include a type of comedy, whether blatantly joyful or vigorously dramatic, they manage to find comedy in violence, horror, and danger. Their vision is certainly amongst the elite in the biz and their track record speaks volumes about it. They are so prolific that their most recent picture, Burn After Reading, combined former Coen-ers with new Coen-comers to form an elite cast of A-list actors in this mysterious comedy that has laughs at the forefront to present a much lighter side of the Coen’s.
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Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr.
Directed by: Ben Stiller (Cable Guy, Zoolander)
The “Tropic Thunder” experience begins without warning as fake trailers starring the soon to be protagonists are shown. The quick 10 minute batch of trailers provides a quick shock, but it is simply a warm up. It’s a perk that this film has that not many are able to have (this also includes borrowing competitor corporate names) and director Ben Stiller uses this, along with many other pieces of ammunition, to unload a barrage of satire, comedy, irony, and action all into one film.
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Starring: Seth Rogan, James Franco, Rosie Perez, and Gary Cole Jr.
Directed by: David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls, Snow Angels)
The gap between hip hop and Seth Rogan really isn’t that large. If you have seen Knocked Up, you may remember the first song to be heard was “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” by none other than Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Superbad, another movie Rogan had a large part in, contained “Here I Come” by the Legendary Roots Crew and also the DangerDoom logo, which appeared in a character’s room. It didn’t stop there, as Pineapple Express contained a beautiful usage of M.I.A’s “Paper Planes” for the trailer and even had Dilated Peoples and Cypress Hill joints on screen. While I appreciate his taste in music, I more so appreciate his acting and his writing along with long time friend (and Canadian) Evan Goldberg. Together, it is safe to say that they have gone three for three (the two aforementioned movies) as Pineapple Express is an all around great movie with very few flaws.
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Starring: Dave Chappelle and plenty of Hip Hop Acts.
Directed by: Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind)
The movie opens with a man having difficulty starting up his car and getting help from Dave and another man. Behind him, a band (The Brooklyn Steppers) is playing “Overnight Celebrity” in such a beautiful manner. It should give any hip hop fan chills. There is so much more where it comes from.
The premise is that Dave wants to throw a block party in Brooklyn, but not just any block party, he wants to get some of hip hop’s biggest acts to join him with no price attached. It really is a dream concert consisting of acts like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, Common, The Roots, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Dead Prez, The Fugees (who provide the greatest climax because they reunited just for this) and more that I’m probably missing. The documentary also consists of Dave handing out golden tickets (similar to that of Willy Wonka) to unsuspecting people to come to the free show (yeah, I forgot to mention that the show was free).
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Starring: Will Farell, John C. Reilly and Richard Jenkins
Directed by: Adam McKay (Talledega Nights, Anchorman)
If the trailers didn’t have you laughing, don’t worry, there are still plenty more laughs to go around in this 90 minute laugh-fest. What you didn’t see in the trailer were some other ridiculously crude moments that provide some of the biggest laughs. The trio that made “Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” work so well are back for more as Will Farell, John C. Reilly, and director Adam McKay all have a hand in providing what could be the funniest movie you see in 2008.
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Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine
Directed by: Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins)
This is not a comic-book movie; it is in a league of its own. While others have claimed this summer to be loaded with tremendous blockbuster pictures and such, I differ. I think we’ve seen all of this before; the typical big special affects blockbusters, the occasional big money making comedy, and the superhero movie. Ironman has more or less been the only post-Oscar movie to wow me this year in any shape or form. The Dark Knight didn’t wow me, in fact, it left me speechless, gasping for air, questioning if this could possibly be the best comic-book adaptation ever, and lastly, questioning if this could possibly be one of the best movies to come out in the last decade.
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Starring: Will Smith, Jason Batemen and Charlize Theron
Directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom)
With this being my first movie review, let me start off by saying that I am a huge movie buff. If hip hop is my first love, movies are a very close second in a tie with hockey. With that said, I mark movies very similarly to how I mark albums: out of 100 with the score being the conclusion of many elements that are taken into consideration. Theme, concept, execution, delivery, acting, vision, cinematography, dialogue, action scenes, realism, target audience, etc. Movies are beautiful when done right; it just so happens my first film to review is a film that was not done right, Hancock.
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