Update: Ryan's going on the road.

I know I havent updated in a while, but Im actually making my way down to the united states today for almost two weeks. Ill do my best to try and update from the road so stay tuned for that.

Movie Review: Inside Out (2015) - Holy shit another early release man I'm getting lucky with these.

Okay so I know I said I was going to do Terminator today and inside tomorrow, but something came up tomorrow afternoon and so I had to see Inside Out tonight. Now it was basically a choice between a movie I had already seen and thoroughly enjoyed or take a risk on something new and my god am I glad that I took that risk.

Plot Summary - Inside the mind of ten year old Riley Anderson (Kaitlyn Dias) live the embodiment of her emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). All seems well in Riley’s life with Joy usually manning the controls until Riley and her family move to San Francisco. During a particularly sad day for Riley, Joy and Sadness are both accidentally removed from her mind and thrust into the memory banks of Riley’s mind and have to make their way back.

Pros - Every single thing about this film is amazing. First off the way they explain how everything works inside of Riley’s mind not only stays consistent and logical within it’s own mythos, but it also manages to fit into how the memories and emotions of any human works in a way that kids can understand and adults can actually find interesting as well. The voice casting is solid, there’s not a single weird voice or any noticeable mistakes. You honestly get just so drawn into the characters and what you’re going through you just match the voices with those characters. Hell I didn’t even realize Mindy Kaling was Disgust until I looked it up. The animation is fantastic, the jokes work overall (even making the two noticeable adult jokes work in a way where kids can interpret it as something child friendly) and it even manages to do the one thing most kids films are afraid to do anymore: MAKE PEOPLE FEEL SAD! Seriously though, every kids films these days has those moments where you almost feel sad like when they think someone has died, but every single time now there’s always a “oh something sad has happened oh wait nope never mind everything is actually fine yay!” moment. I could and want to go further than this but then I’d have to go into spoiler territory.

Cons - Someone somewhere is gonna go on about “oh the human emotional spectrum is much more complicated than just five emotions” but I’d be the first to tell that guy to lighten the fuck up.

Final Score - 10/10

I’m going to acknowledge a slight bias here as someone who did have to move cross country when I was a child, but honestly even if that’s never happened to you it’s still a very relatable movie for anyone who’s had days just like that. Seriously go watch this movie.

So, one of the theatres here is getting a movie I’ve been dying to see for a while, I just don’t know when I’m seeing it yet.

Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: Spy (2015) - In all honesty, they should fire whoever the hell made that trailer.

So, I finally got around to seeing Spy today. I would’ve had this up earlier but I had to go eat a small helping of humble pie first. Now anyone who knows me knows I usually go into any movie with the lowest of expectations, and while at first I thought I was only laughing out of desperation, after a few times I found myself actually enjoying it. That’s not to say it’s still not flawed, but let’s get to the review shall we.

Plot Summary - Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a desk clerk and assistant to CIA Spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) who dreams about doing more in her work at the CIA. When Bradley is killed during a mission however, Susan volunteers to help find Bradley’s killer and unravel the plot he was trying to stop. With Rogue CIA Rick Ford (Jason Statham) following and trying to finish the mission himself, Susan must overcome her inabilities and faults and save the day.

Pros - Right of the bat, Jason Statham is hysterical. I’m not sure how long he’s been wanting to do basically a parody of every character he’s ever played, but he just nails it. The line I’m going to quote the most is one of his, and honestly I’d watch the whole film again just for that one joke. All the supporting characters are great too, even managing to throw 50 Cent into the mix at a key moment in the story and it was genuinely unexpected and funny. I think the biggest surprise though was how well the chases and fight scenes were well done, including one in a kitchen that managed to make full use of the space and everything in it in both a funny and thrilling way. And once she gets going, Melissa McCarthy is intense, funny, and they do actually let her be a real spy while managing to keep the jokes timely and tasteful as well.

Cons - I want to say first that Jude Law is heavily underused in this film, and anyone who knows how much I like Repo Men should tell you how much I like Jude Law. I don’t want to go into spoilers, but seriously, underutilized. The bigger thing though is the jokes you see in the trailer and the jokes like that through out the film. The oh look she’s a lonely fat lady in her 40’s ha ha ha thing. The trailer I saw made it look like that would be the whole film, and that’s why I didn’t want to see it originally because I thought they were going to beat that one joke to death. Surprisingly though they keep that mostly in the first third of the film roughly, although I will say whenever Rose Byrne cracked one they worked mostly (although we’ll get to her in a second.)  That being said, it makes the first third a bit hard to watch mostly because again it gets old fast. Like I said though, once they break away from that and let her actually be a spy, the movie gets so much better. Hell even though I won’t say it here I know the exact scene in which the movie finally grabbed my full attention. FInally Rose Byrne. She plays a one note character and while I do admit she has some good lines it also gets old fast although the movie manages to casually brush her out when it needs too so that it doesn’t get overbearing.

Side Note: The opening theme song is honestly really good, it could’ve actually been used as an actual bond song probably. I don’t know if that’s good or bad so I’m not listing it as either but I still wanted to make a note of it.

Final Score - 8/10

I almost gave it a 7, but just because of how much it actually surprised me and the fact that I’m actually willing to say I misjudged how much I was going to enjoy it (I blame the trailer entirely for that) it’s gets an 8 out of lets say begrudging respect.

I’m actually excited for the next review, because tomorrow there’s a big screen showing of the first Terminator movie. After that will most likely be Inside Out because I will do my best to see that movie ASAP.

So until then I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: Jurassic World (2015) - One of the few times I get these out before Friday edition

So through a series of somewhat lucky events I actually got today off and I learned there was an early screening of Jurassic World playing tonight. So I figured why not and made my way out to see it tonight.

Plot Summary - 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World has been built on top of the ruins of the old park and pulls in thousands of tourists a day. However, in a bid to boost numbers the genetics team at the park has bred a new species of Dinosaur called Indominus Rex. However, when it gets out of it’s pen and heads towards the park Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) must find a way to stop it.

Pros - Chris Pratt is really good as Owen, and the supporting cast is really good as well. The dinosaurs for the most part look really good and the story holds up well for the most part.

Cons - I have one major problem and one minor problem. The minor problem is the design on a couple of the dinosaurs, mostly because they flash so quickly but when they did I got distracted by what they looked like and that pulled me out of the action. The big problem I have is with the story. Most movies usually have a main plot and a sub plot, Jurassic World has a main plot and basically two half sub plots. The first half is following the two kids from the trailer, who are actually the nephews of Bryce Dallas Howard’s character who basically runs the park. There’s nothing really original in terms of their story, but they play it out well and the actors were pretty good. The second subplot concerns the raptors also from the trailer, but I don’t wanna spoil that so all I’ll say is that the way they tie it together feels kind of clunky.

Final Score - 8/10

A clunky mid story shift and some weird looking dinosaurs kind of hold it back from being an epic like the first one, but honestly it’s still really entertaining and I definitely recommend it.

There will be probably more retro reviews, but I’m also trying to still see Spy. You can probably tell how well I’ve been committing to that notion from the fact that I still haven’t seen it.

So until whatever the next review is, I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Retro Review: The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - Would you believe I almost watched San Andreas instead of this?

Avid readers would know that once or twice I may have mentioned my working in a movie theatre. Well, right around this time is what we call the calm before the storm, all the kids are still in school and it’s not quite summer blockbuster season yet. Also the movie selection has been quite unappealing to me so I’ve been looking through stores buying older films on DVD. I found a three movie set of Steve McQueen films, including the one mentioned above, the original version of the film you probably saw that had pierce brosnan in it (I’ve reread that sentence a few times and that’s the best way I can write that.) So long story short I’m doing retro reviews.

Plot Summary - Thomas Crown (Steve Mcqueen) is a millionaire who’s bored with his lifestyle and so he’s orchestrates a robbery at a nearby bank of over 2.5 Million. However, the bank’s insurance company sends over an Investigator (Faye Dunaway) to try and locate their missing funds.

Pros - The film is well shot and suspenseful, and everyone involved is doing their best acting wise. It’s well written and even the way the pull off the robbery is interesting.

Cons - There’s some weird framing for some scenes that seem unnecessary, but my biggest complaint is this song they play in the film twice. Once when it was beginning and once when Steve McQueen was flying a glider. It’s called the windmill’s of the mind and it’s the dumbest fucking song I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s pretty much like a dagger being stabbed in my ears. The lyrics are so bad and sung so clumsily it makes me think that they added them onto an instrumental song after the fact.

Final Score - 9/10

That song almost bumped it down to an eight, but I can’t deny how entertaining the film was regardless of it. Definitely recommend it.

So Spy comes out Friday, I might go see it, it’s getting good reviews(although so far I honestly can’t tell you why.) So I’ll probably do that and throw in some retro’s in between.

Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.