OmwhReviews

Ha! You're late!

2011-01-20T16:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've even managed to log onto this blog. But there are some changes happening to OmwhReviews here in a little while. And because of this, I've decided to retire this blog. But do not fret! This doesn't mean the end.

Be sure to go to my YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/omwhreviews for updates. And yes, I realize that there hasn't been any activity on the youtube channel either for quite some time. I've been busy with other creative ventures, and one of those ventures just might mean the reboot of the video reviews.

So with this, I say goodbye to this blog, but not goodbye to you. Check out the YouTube Channel for updates as to where you can find new movie reviews from OmwhReviews coming soon.

Peace, and I'll see you soon.

Iron Man 2 movie review

2010-05-08T09:54:00.001-07:00

Iron Man 2 movie review

2010-05-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

How To Train Your Dragon movie review

2010-04-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

How To Train Your Dragon is the kind of movie that I typically enjoy seeing but can never find anyone to go see it with me since most of my friends won't see an animated movie unless it has something to with Pixar. In lieu of just skipping over writing this review since I didn't get a chance to see it until several weeks after it has come out I feel quite obligated to review this movie... because it was freakin' awesome!

An isolated island village occupied by vikings is described by the main character as being "seven generations old but with all new buildings." All the buildings are new on account of being destroyed by dragons on a regular basis. Being a fierce dragon slayer is a necessity in the village of Berk, except for Hiccup. Hiccup is the runt blacksmith son of the best dragon slayer the village has, Stoick. Eager to make his father proud, Hiccup plans to kill a Night Fury, a dragon so scary that no one has ever killed one, or even seen one for that matter. Just from talking to the vikings, you'd think a Night Fury presumably looks like a distant cousin to that thing in Cloverfield.

Not the Night Fury, but badass none the less.

To his own surprise, Hiccup's plan actually works. He shoots down the Night Fury only to realize that nobody was around to witness his accomplishment. He goes down into the valley the next day to kill the dragon to finally prove his manliness to his father and the other vikings who look down on him only to find that the Night Fury, who he names Toothless, has been injured and can no longer fly. To fix the helpless dragon, Hiccup creates a contraption to help the dragon get off the ground once again, and in the process he realizes that dragons may not be the vicious killers him and his people have been raised to believe they are.

I'm going to keep this one simple. I'm not going to overly complicate this review with technical jargon that you're going to have to look up in a dictionary or Wikipedia. So here it is: How To Train Your Dragon is probably the best movie I've seen in a long time. I'm not even kidding. It's got an amazing story with well rounded characters, stunning graphics, and flying sequences that put Avatar to shame. It's one of the only movies that makes 3D seem necessary. It doesn't have any of those "objects flying at you" moments, but rather uses the 3D technology to make the flying sequences seem more like a roller coaster ride.

Character development and design are unbelievable in HTTYD. It's got the kind writing that makes hack writers wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night screaming, "Why not me?!?!?" Even the side characters who only have a handful of lines are developed just as much as the main ones. It terms of their design, the dragons take the gold. Each of the various breeds of dragons have their own distinctive traits all from spikes, having two heads, all the way to resembling a morbidly obese alligator. But none match the design of Toothless, who looks adorable enough for me to want to keep as a pet and feed him Lucky Charms all day but with the flip of a facial expression make me piss my pants in fear.

Seriously, this guy kicks ass!

How To Train Your Dragon, again, is easily the best movie I've seen in a long time. It is a smart, heartfelt movie with the awesome action you'd find in a decent summer blockbuster all in one. People my age (especially my friends who didn't want to go see it) should not discriminate against this movie because it is a "family movie." It's only a family movie if you treat it like one. I went into the the theater, put on my 3D glasses and within the films opening sequence I almost instantly forgot that I was slightly pissed off that I spent thirteen bucks on a movie that might be good.

5 GOLD stars out of 5

Date Night movie review

2010-04-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've found myself getting lazier and lazier as I've gone from movie to movie. Last week, I found Clash of the Titans to be such a disappointment that I didn't even want to do a video for it. Hell, I had to trick myself into just writing a review for it, and I'm not even going to tell you how I did that. This week however, I did manage to convince myself that interviewing people on ChatRoulette would be a good idea... What the fuck was I thinking?

Date Night is the new comedy staring Steve Carell and Tina Fey. On their way to becoming the boring cliched married couple of their worse nightmares, Phil Foster decided that instead of just taking his wife Claire out to dinner for their date night that he'll take her out to dinner in the city. They hit up the hottest new restaurant only to find that they were late making their reservation just by a couple of months. While waiting at the bar for a table to open, in the spur of the moment Phil decides to take a no-shows reservation instead. That's when all Hell breaks loose. They are mistake for the people who made the reservation in the first place... yada yada yada, you've seen the trailers.

First off, I'm going to say this. While I did like Date Night as a movie, I did not like it as a comedy. While Steve Carell is probably one of the funniest guys in the biz at the moment, the worse thing the filmmakers creatively could do is put him next to Tina Fey. And don't get me wrong, I think Tina Fey has her place in the comedy realm, and it takes place somewhere on 30 Rockefeller Plaza (a TV show I could care less about). She can be funny, but putting her next to Steve Carell is like putting me in a guitar duel with John Mayer. Sure I'm a good guitar player, but in the end I'll just end up embarrassing myself trying to keep up. My favorite SNL funny lady Kristen Wiig does happen to have a very small part at the beginning of the film and I can't help but think how much better the movie would've been if she were placed in the lead.

And she's so much prettier!

Pretty much most of the second act takes place on the streets of New York City, which if you don't know anything about how films are made these days means that most of the second act takes place in a green screen studio. It would be virtually impossible to film a couple talking in the middle if Time Square at midnight what I would assume be obvious reasons. To the untrained eye, with the help of a a couple million dollars and some VFX experts, you could hardly tell but I couldn't help but disconnect from the movie for most of these scenes. But once they get into the cars, the movie plays out like a cheesy SNL sketch. It appears as though they were too lazy to even use a green screen (which I can empathize) and just projected an image of an NYC street onto a screen behind the car. It looks so crappily done that I can't help that it was part of the joke... If it was, I don't get it.

Remember Toonces? It looked like that.

Comedies are always the hardest movies to review. I can't really talk about them without spoiling anything. Luckily for me, that gives me an excuse to write a half-assed review. (happy face)

For what it's worth, Date Night is a decent enough movie to check out. If you're expecting a new bar of comedy (previously set by the embarrassingly brilliant The Hangover) you will be disappointed. You get small roles, if not cameos, by at least a dozen other familiar faces in an attempt to make this movie more memorable than it probably should be. You get Steve Carell pretty much being awesome acting like Michael Scott and Tina Fey standing next to him trying her best to keep up. While she missed the comedy train on this movie, in one particular scene, and probably the funniest scene of the movie, she did manage to prove that she can be quite the hottie if she wants to be, which surprised the hell out of me.

3 out of 5 stars

Clash Of The Titans movie review

2010-04-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't like a good Greek Mythology story? Seriously, who doesn't? They've got women so beautiful that they are punished for being compared to the gods, women so ugly that they turn you into stone when you look them directly in the eyes, and mermaids that sing you into a trance and they rip your f'n guts out. Okay, there's no argue that the women of Greek Mythology are pretty freakin' awesome, but it's also got pretty much everything else going for it. It's got three-headed dogs, one-eyed monsters, and behemoths that put that thing from Cloverfield to shame. The point is that you'd think that someone wouldn't have to try to awfully hard to make a decent Greek Mythology movie with all the awesomeness oozing out of it's every orifice. It's apparently a lot harder than it looks.

Clash Of The Titans is a remake of the 1981 film of the same name. After raging war with the gods, the King and Queen of Argos foolishly state that their daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than any of the gods (although since Andromeda is portrayed by actress Alexa Davalos, it may not have been a foolish statement at all).

Alexa Davalos. Mmm.

Hades is sent by Zeus to deliver a message to the King and Queen: you have ten days to sacrifice your daughter or I will send the Kraken to fuck your shit up. Enter Perseus, the half-man-half-god son of Zeus. Him and a band of misfit soldiers part on a journey to find a way to stop the Kraken before it can destroy the city of Argos.

But was it good?... Not really. In fact, I'll venture to say that Clash Of The Titans was a complete sack of crap. I could list all the reasons that it sucked... and since I've nothing else particularly better to do at the moment, I will.

First off, the story. Sure it's got the basic same story. Zeus mad, Perseus mad, scorpions, witches, Medusa, Kraken, fin. But the movie completely lacks in pace. I'll give you a little lesson in film. You've got to have a beat every ten pages of the script. What does that mean? It means that something important or exciting is supposed to happen every ten minutes. You want to stuff your movie with boring moments. As idiotic as that sounds, you really do. Because they make the exciting moments more exciting. Keeping the movie above the "mild" line and throwing in a couple of "blurry, incoherent action sequences" that only last a couple of eye blinks is not the way to make a Greek Mythology epic. Or any movie.

Second, the graphics. If you must see this movie, save yourself a couple of bucks and see the movie in regular old 2D, the way movies were meant to be seen. Hell, even this movie was intended to be seen in standard 2D. It was shot in 2D! Shooting a movie in 3D requires a completely different camera system. Two cameras put right next to each other actually, with two lenses that mimic the human eye. In fact, if you have been keeping up with COTT's marketing campaign, you'd realize that they've only been promoting the film in 3D for the past couple of months. That's because they got jealous of Avatar showing off it's "look at all the money we've made!" slogan and decided to compete. You'd also remember that the release date was delayed almost two months (yes, Clash of the Titans was originally supposed to be released in February). They processed the film to give it a cheap "faux-3D" look in hopes that it would boost box office numbers. It may be getting a big sack of money it's opening weekend, but after that people will probably forget the film ever even existed.

(just a side note: Why is it called "Clash of the Titans?" Not one titan in the entire movie. Just thought I'd point that out.)

Third, Medusa. All of the creatures actually, but Medusa more specifically. I'll get this one out of the way, but the Kraken was a total disappointment. The zenith of the film is when Zeus gets Hades to FINALLY summon the Kraken, in which it takes the damn thing ten minutes to climb itself out of the water. When it finally get's its gigantic ass to the surface, it's reeks destruction to approximately two small buildings and has about three minutes of screen time before it's turned to stone (I'm sorry if I spoiled it for you, but you should've seen the original). But Medusa... Don't get me wrong, the scene in Medusa's lair was by far the best scene in the film (which isn't saying much). Here's the thing: Medusa is a gorgon. She's a snake lady so ugly that direct eye contact will turn you to stone. Only in this movie... how do I say this tactfully... Medusa was kinda hot. Does that make me weird? I can't be the only one who thought so. How can I be expected to take Medusa seriously if I'm too busy thinking of all the different ways I could violate her?

Seriously! This is the chick they got to portray Medusa.
They couldn't of gotten somebody less gorgeous?

All in all, Clash Of The Titans was a complete and utter mess. If you are a fan of the original, stick with it. In fact, it seems like they made this movie with the pretense that everyone has seen the original (even Bubo, the freakin' annoying owl, makes a cameo). They spent little time developing the story, no time developing the characters, paced itself like a fat kid running a marathon, and completely changed the structure of Greek Mythology itself. There was one easy way they could have made this movie awesome: completely rip off God Of War. But there were tons of ways they could have screwed it up... and they picked every last one.

1 1/2 out of 5

Hot Tub Time Machine movie review

2010-03-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

Repo Men movie review

2010-03-21T13:27:00.001-07:00

Brooklyn's Finest

2010-03-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

I do realize that I'm about a week late with this review. Most of you who happen to read this review (or this entire blog for that matter) will probably dismiss this post because you either saw this movie last weekend instead of Alice In Wonderland (which I wish I had done) or you couldn't be more apathetic about a review for a movie that most people have already forgotten about despite it's release date only a week ago. Whichever demographic you find yourself in, I find myself void of interesting new releases this weekend and with nothing particularly better to do at the moment.

Brooklyn's Finest is the newest cop-drama film by director Antoine Fuqua, best known for giving us what probably is the greatest modern crime drama that is Training Day. It presents itself with three parallel stories involving three cops on the NYPD. Tango (Don Cheadle) is an undercover cop who is tasked with his last assignment to set up the crime leader Caz (Wesley Snipes) before he gets his promotion to Detective first grade. Eddie (Richard Gere) is an alcoholic senior officer one week away from his retirement who is tasked to train a junior officer his last moments on the job. And Sal (Ethan Hawke) is a cop, father of five with twins on the way, who resorts crime to compensate for his low officer salary.

Just to let you know ahead of time, I did like Brooklyn's Finest. Like, more than I expected to. I'm telling you this because what I'm about to say about it may seem like just the opposite. While I thought Brooklyn's Finest was a damn fine movie, it didn't come without it's flaws.

First off, it's a parallel story film. You know what that means? It's a film that decides to focus on three stories of the same theme rather than just one story with side-plots. Now, it takes some talent to pull off writing a script like this. The only films I know of that have pulled this tact off with stunning grace were "21 Grams", "Babel", and the under-appreciated masterpiece "Go". It takes what could potentially be three completely different movies and consolidates them into one. However, Brooklyn's Finest does not quite pull it off. It makes the mistake of focusing on the two least interesting characters while leaving the most intriguing character with the most character development without the screen time to show for it.

Don Cheadle gives an excellent performance as the undercover cop facing the dilemma of turning in a criminal he has befriended. But what they tried to pull of as character development just comes across as being indecisive, and turns into a wannabe B-plot from The Departed. It basically plays out like this, "No, I will not turn on my friend! He saved my life!... Oh, I'll get a promotion if I do it? Sure, why not?" Richard Gere gives a great performance as well, it's just too bad that his character had to be the most one-dimensional in the history of cop dramas. Hell, it takes two acts before they give him something interesting to do. It's no surprise that Ethan Hawke helms the character that shows the most depth, but also happens to be the least featured story.

Ethan Hawke absolutely steals the show as the crooked cop who resorts to murdering drug dealers and stealing their money to support his family. Yeah, take a second to think about that last sentence. He's a crooked cop with a conscience. He's not like the crooked cops you see in practically every other cop movie ever. This new spin on the classic, but stereotypical, shallow greedy cop easily makes Ethan Hawke the star of the show. You actually care about him. It almost makes his evil doings justified. And if they don't, you still want him to succeed.

All in all, Brooklyn's Finest is one of the best cop dramas I've seen in a while. It's too bad that it made some poor creative decisions. It gives us one amazing story mixed in with two mediocre stories. If Ethan Hawke's character had gotten his own film it would've proven to be the anti-Serpico, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

3 1/2 out of 5

Alice In Wonderland movie review

2010-03-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

The Crazies movie review

2010-02-27T14:17:00.000-08:00

I continue to baffle myself. Why do I still go see movies like this? I know when all the scary things are going to jump out at me to the insanely loud sound of a truck slamming into a brick wall or something. I know how the stories are going to end. Everything about this movie (and most movies from the genre) have been trickled down to mere cliche. And yet I still pay full price to see them opening day. Why do I do that?... Maybe it's because I hope for cool death scenes. That's not weird, is it?

"The Crazies" is a remake of an old George A. Romero film of the same name. Right there, you already know too much. Romero is pretty much responsible for creating the pop culture icons known as "zombies." He made Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, etc. I think that at one point he got tired of being the "zombie guy," but was determined to bank in on as much cash as he could for his one great idea. I believe that his thoughts leading up to writing this movie back in the day probably went a little like, "I'm going to write a zombie movie, but I don't want to call them zombies... I'll call them crazies! But they'll pretty much be the same thing."

Point is: "The Crazies" is a pretty much a zombie movie. A piss pore zombie movie mind you.

In a small town with a population of only about 1300, a government plane containing a deadly virus crashes in their water reservoir. And for some reason, only one person that heard the crash and splash of the plane is the one dude in the town who everyone thinks is "full of shit." The next thing you know, you got one guy with a shotgun walking in on a high school baseball game, then you got a guy trying to kill his family, and then the Army jumps in to quarantine the entire town. That's when the testicles really hit the ceiling.

Why is it that in movies like this the Army is always portrayed to be a conglomerate incompetent thick-headed douche bag? They somehow manage to fail at quarantining the town after a bunch of citizens escape so then they are ordered to kill anyone who is trying to leave. Tell me how that is a plausible solution? I'll tell you how: because it's been done in almost every movie of the genre. "The Crazies" was determined not to be original so they stuck with what they knew.

And wait till you hear about the tag team of characters that we follow. Go ahead, take a guess. Think any zombie movie you've seen... The four main characters we see are as follows: the sheriff, his pregnant wife who's a doctor, his deputy, and a random high school girl. Not only are they the kind of characters you'd expect, they are also as generic as they come all the way down to the high school girl risking the life of the group to try to save her boyfriend. Not to be they guy to spoil anything for you, but notice how I said "TRY to save her boyfriend." Any original writer would throw in an entourage of characters you'd never expect. If I were hired to remake The Crazies, I'd make it follow a third grader, his imaginary friend, the girl he picks on but secretly has a crush on, and a substitute teacher. That would be way more entertaining.

The saddest thing about this movie is seeing a bunch of talented actors trying their best to make due with a shitty script. Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker! Those names might not mean anything to you, but this is an all-star cast of lesser known actors in my book! I could give you a brief history on each one... so I will.

Joe Anderson got his first big break as one of the leads in the musical "Across The Universe" a few years back. Danielle Panabaker was on her way to be a respected young actress with rolls in films such as "Mr. Brooks" and the HBO mini-series "Empire Falls" but now looks like she's fallen into typecast rolls of crappy horror remakes (i.e. "Friday the 13th" and "The Crazies"). Just look up Radha Mitchell on IMDB.com. She's one of my favorite actresses and has probably been in more movies than you've realized, but she got her first international recognition in "Pitch Black" along side Vin Diesel (she's Australian). And Timothy Olyphant... well, if you don't know who he is then I can't help you.

Point to point, "The Crazies" is just as generic as they come. It's predictable even when it tries to surprise you with loud noise or two. Even when I went to see it just for cool death scenes, I came out disappointed. Don't let the title of the film deceive you. Push comes to shove, "The Crazies" is a zombie movie that is most closely related to a campaign from "Left 4 Dead." But not in a good way.

2 out of 5

Cop Out movie review

2010-02-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

Shutter Island movie review

2010-02-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

From Paris With Love review

2010-02-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

Finally, I got to see "From Paris With Love" after Kristen somehow psyched me out to see Dear John instead (I'm still now sure how that happened).

"From Paris With Love" stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as James Reese who is a US Ambassador's but is applying to be special ops. He is given an opportunity to prove himself worthy and is offered a job to partner up with Charlie Wax, played by John Travolta. Wax is the kind of guy you want to be invited to all your parties just as long as they don't take place in your house with fear of shit getting blown up. Wax and Reese set off on a mission that involves a vase filled with cocaine, terrorists, and a Royale with Cheese (yes, they made THAT Pulp Fiction reference).

"From Paris With Love" had the great luck of me seeing it when I was in a bad mood. Not to say anything bad about it, but it just made me able to enjoy it a little bit more. It's an action flick that has an interesting enough plot that piqued my interest the entire time. However, people make the mistake of trying to take this movie too seriously. That's probably because the cinematic superstar tag-team that is Pierre Morel and Luc Besson's previous collaboration was the serious (and seriously awesome!) "Taken".

But if anything, this movie is actually pretty humorous. It's far from a comedy, but it has it's fair share of action flick laughs (seriously, Travolta) the "royale with cheese" reference!). Had I have been in a better mood, I'd probably have tried to take the movie more seriously. But since I wasn't, I was able to do something in a movie that I've almost forgotten how to do: have fun. Especially this time of year with all the Oscar pseudo-dramas lurking about I've almost forgotten what a decent action flick looks like. Not to say that these dramas don't have their own special place in my heart, but it is nice to come out of the movie theater entertained and not morbidly depressed every once in a while.

Over all, "From Paris With Love" is a fun, action-packed flick that doesn't take itself too seriously (again, "royale with cheese") so why should you? It's always a breath of fresh air to see Travolta shoot guns, kill people, and blow shit up. And that's pretty much all the movie's about.

4 out of 5

Kinetic Typography

2010-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you've been watching OmwhReviews for a while (or if you're probably one of the six or so people who will be fortunate enough to read these words of wisdom) you will notice that my reviews have made a few updates these past couple of videos: new intro, random images, and most notably the types. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. Those cheap looking words that pop up onto the screen while I'm talking.

Well, those are about to change. I've recently got myself After Effects (for the small price of a couple of Bens and small piece of my soul), so now my editing capabilities have been pushed to the next level. So now, those cheesy Photoshop created sentences that pop up onto the screen for a few seconds are long gone. They will proudly be replaced with kinetic typography.

And there's the grand question: What is kinetic typography? Well, check out this video I've spent the past couple of days creating with an audio clip from an old episode of Buffy.

Dear John movie review

2010-02-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

Edge Of Darkness reviews

2010-02-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to seeing Edge of Darkness this weekend with a group of friends because I spent my time last weekend doing nothing productive including going to see When In Rome (which I will spare you the review for... just don't see it).

Edge of Darkness is the new heart-felt family comedy starring Mel Gibson as he goes around avenging the murder of his daughter. Right there! Hold the press. First off, that's all you really need to know. It's a vengeance movie starring Mel Gibson. You can say what you want about the guy but there is no denying that Gibson was born for vengeance movies. Should they ever decide to reboot the Death Wish franchise, he should be first in line to pick up where Charlie Bronson left off.

But that's not all there is to it. The movie starts you off with the reunion Mel Gibson and his daughter, portrayed by Serbian actress Bojana Novakovic, but is quick to tell you that something is definitely shady. Five minutes into the movie while vomiting her guts out she confesses that she has to tell her dad something but never really gets the chance to speak on a count of a giant hole that gets blown into her chest. Needless to say, Mel Gibson is a bit confused and maybe a little pissed off. It starts the spiral known as "Mel Gibson being a badass curbstomping some conspiracy" that we've all come to know and love.

Edge of Darkness is based on an old BBC miniseries of the same name which was even directed by the same director, Martin Campbell who is probably best known for giving us Casino Royale. It does the great job of being intense and so-called "action packed" without giving you the feeling that the action is overwhelming. Mel Gibson is not Jason Bourne in this movie and it lets you know. It never gives you and over-elaborate fight scene or car chase that seems only conceivable through the work of movie making magic (not to say anything bad about Bourne, he kicks ass!) and that's a good thing. Mel Gibson plays a Boston cop and it lets you know that in a fight he's struggling to keep up just as much as the next guy.

Other than the twenty minutes of nothing that takes place directly after his daughter that gets murdered, the movie was well-paced and exciting. But I can forgive the twenty minute mourning period Mel Gibson takes to setup the rest of the movie since the movie wastes no time killing his daughter (seriously, five minutes in, Bang! dead). Even though she is dead, they did have to throw Bojana into the movie during random dream sequences Mel Gibson was having. Again, understandable (she's just so damn pretty). The only really unforgivable criticism I can give the movie is that the ending scene leaves you with a sense, which my friend Marcos pointed out to me, that you just watched Conspiracy Theory and Ghost at the same time.

But over all, Edge of Darkness brought to the table everything I expected it to. It was a great suspenseful conspiracy plot with Mel Gibson doing what he does best: Kicking ass with a vengeance!

4 out of 5

Legion movie reviews

2010-01-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

The Lovely Bones

2010-01-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

The Book Of Eli

2010-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

2009 Movie Awards (plus a speeding ticket)

2010-01-07T14:15:00.001-08:00

I need a new, less expensive hobby

2010-01-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

Up In The Air movie review

2009-12-29T11:06:00.001-08:00

The Hurt Locker

2009-12-21T00:36:00.000-08:00

All I can say is that there are several dozen writers with movies released this year crying themselves to sleep right now.

With Golden Globe nominations out, I noticed that "The Hurt Locker" was nominated in several categories, including best writing and direction for a drama. This was a movie I had an opportunity to see several months ago, but decided to pass over it since I didn't seem that interesting. I was recently re-released at a theater near me so I figured, "Nominated for writing and directing? How bad can it be?" If only I knew.

Here's "The Hurt Locker's" plot: It's about a bomb disposal expert in Iraq. I'm sure you could spice that up into a few more words such as, "a highly trained bomb disposal team amidst violent conflict," but that's just cheating. Here's the kicker. The movie's story is:_____. No, you're not reading this wrong. There was no story.

That's all it was. Two hours of this guy and his two partners disarming bombs on the sides of the road, trunks of cars, etc. It's easy to fill a plot. Hell, you can fit the plot of any movie on the back of a matchbook, but the essence of any movie comes from the story and the characters and what you decide to do with the plot. I really fell like the writer said, "I've got the plot. Let's just stick with that and call it a day." There is no development in the story throughout the three acts, if you could even say that the movie actually had three acts. If anything, the first act ended about four minutes into the movie, the second act lasted almost two hours, and the third act decided to take the day off.

The only positive thing I could say about this movie is that Jeremy Renner's performance was pretty good. Not spectacular, amazing, riveting, or any other critique-like word you could come up with. It was just pretty good. His character was the only interesting thing about "The Hurt Locker" since he was the only one that the writer decided to develop. You sort of know what kind of person he is. You know a little about his background. You know he's an adrenaline junkie. All of the other character's might as well have been cardboard cutouts because they weren't necesary and were redundant to the story (or lack thereof).

I realize that this movie is getting a lot of attention because it is honest to what is going on in Iraq and you get to see how if psychologically affects the troops over there. I'm sorry, but I could just turn on the news any given morning or night and see something more interesting than "The Hurt Locker." When I rate the movies I review, I use a formula based on direction, acting, entertainment, anything that makes a movie good or bad. But the final category, which usually results in the loss or gain of a whole star, is if I would enjoy watching the movie again. I have not problem watching movies twice, or even three times, in theaters. I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing someone mention "The Hurt Locker." And if I weren't so pissed off that it was nominated for the Best Screenplay - Drama Golden Globe, I would probably forget all about this movie in a few months.

Push comes to shove, "The Hurt Locker" is a typical, generic, middle-east war movie. It attempts to explore the psych of the soldiers over there, but it makes the mistake of doing so with two-dimensional characters who are unlikeable and unrelatable. While it has a decent performance from it's lead actor, it provides no story what-so-ever. How it got nominated for directing and writing Golden Globes goes completely over my head. It was filmed hand-held with super 16mm and digital video to make it look almost like a documentary. They did pull that off, but the only problem is that even documentaries have stories.

2 out of 5

Avatar movie review

2009-12-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

"Invictus" movie review

2009-12-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

"Armored" review

2009-12-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

"The epitome of bad writing lies in poorly executed action movies." -Andrew Greco
(you know you want that tattooed on your arm)

I was a little skeptical going into "Armored" for two reasons. The first reason is because they started marketing this movie months ago, like back in August, and I haven't heard anything about in since. I kind of figured it was going to make it's way straight to the DVD rack at my local electronics depot like most of it's brothers and sisters in the action genre. The second reason is because it just looked plain ridiculous.

I hate the action movies that can't let the audience decide who they want to root for. The movie makes no mistake that you are suppose to root for the "good guy," but the so-called protagonist is so thick headed, indecisive, and overall idiotic that you kind of want the "bad guys" to win just to see him get his head blown away.

"Armored" does pack an impressive roster of familiar faces, most of which are actors you probably recognize but don't exactly know their names. You might find yourself saying that the movie stars that guy from that one TV show about guys breaking out of prison, the guy who saved the cheerleader and saved the world, Johnny Drama's brother in real life, Morpheus, and Jean Reno. While the movie packs a cast of actors who are actually pretty good but we don't see much of, it seems like their performances were dialed down when they read the script and said something along the lines of, "Somebody actually invested millions of dollars to make this piece of crap?" Or at least that's what I imagine what they would say.

The characters really just needed to ask themselves this question: At what point during the plan do we just throw in the towel and say we can't cover this back up? Was it after we shot the bum, after half the money blew up, or after we wrecked one of the armored cars, or after the cop caught us, or after Ty locked himself in the truck with the cop, or after... It just goes on and these guys fail to realize that there is no way out of the situation. Their plan just went to hell! Deal with it! If a criminal with half a brain replaced the big bad in this movie, the movie would only be twenty minutes long.

I realize that this review is kind of scattered and ambiguous, but I'm trying not to spoil the plot for you. But then again, it wouldn't really matter because I don't imagine any scenario where I would recommend this movie to anyone. Maybe if a friend came up to me and asked, "Hey Andrew, you stud, do you know of an implausible, cliched action flick for me to watch this Thursday night now that the first season of Glee is over?"

1 1/2 stars out of 5

Brothers

2009-12-06T13:10:00.001-08:00

The Road

2009-11-30T19:45:00.001-08:00

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

2009-11-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

New special guest, Kristen McMeen, joins me on my journey through the highly anticipated movie because no man in their right mind should go see this movie by themselves. People will snicker at you. This proved to be an interesting video review because our opinions are polar opposites.

The Blind Side

2009-11-21T18:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of a video review. I was a little burnt out from editing the Boondock Saints II video that I decided not to do one for "The Blind Side". So I'll just write one for those of you who still remember how to read. Besides, I need to brush up on my writing skills.

"The Blind Side" is the story of overcoming the odds, rising up through the ranks, sticking it to the man, and blah blah blah-- I'm sure you've heard this story many times over. But the thing is: I've seen more inspirational sports movies than I care to remember, but I think this is the best one. I'll tell you why:

The film takes hold of the entire "inspirational sports movie based on a true story" genre (i.e. Invincible, Miracle, Glory Road, etc) and gives it an entirely different perspective. If you go into this movie expecting to see a movie about football, this movie will deceive you. While hailing from the aforementioned genre of movies, "The Blind Side" takes a left turn at the "generic" intersection and does something that disappointingly is not seen in movies like this. It really wasn't about football. While being based on the true story of football player Michael Oher, the actually presence of football in the film only takes up about twenty minutes of screen time. The film decides to base itself more on the story and how the characters came to be rather than medium shots and quick cuts of football plays. That decision alone gave "The Blind Side" a first class ticket out of Stereotypical-sports-movie-ville.

That being said, they did muster up as much football jargon as they could in those twenty minutes of screen time they so aptly decided to throw in there. You can't complain much though. It is the story of a football player. But does there have to be a montage backed by an inspirational 80's rock song in every sports movie? It's almost like there is some sort of rulebook enforced by an unseen union of exatheletes, coaches, and filmmakers that enforce at least one cheesy montage in a sports movie or else they will cut the film's budget in half or something.

I try not to read or listen to other critics reviews before I see a movie in fear that it may somehow manage to taint my perspective of the movie in question. But I couldn't happen to overhear a review on TV stating that Sandra Bullock's performance is Oscar worthy. Here is my opinion on her just in case you don't know: Sandra Bullock is an amazing actress. People don't realize it because she always plays the lead role in crappy romantic comedies (they're not all bad). But if you haven't noticed, a lot of these romantic comedies she's been in have also been produced by her too. Also if you haven't noticed, they tend to make a lot of money more often than not. It is no question that romantic comedies is Sandra Bullock's forte, but her abilities as an actress reach so much further than that. She has the ability to let the character she's playing completely take control of her the second the director shouts "action!" Whether she's playing the annoyingly clingy crossword creator in the not-so-good-movie "All About Steve," or the bigget wife of a district attorney in "Crash," Bullock always plays her characters with drive and motivation which all actors should take note of. Bullock's performance as Leigh Anne Touhy is questionably the best performance of her career and indubitably deserves an Oscar nomination.

"The Blind Side" proves that it can be an inspirational sports movie without having the actually sports drown on the potential for a story and decent character development. It was a bit of setback to itself by having the musing montage in the middle of the film like a storyteller stopping mid sentence to take a twenty minute cigarette break. But the bound to throw it in there somewhere. A sports movie isn't one without it. Just like it isn't a Jason Statham movie without a car chase sequence or it isn't a a Michael Bay movie without at least five frivolous explosions.

4 out of 5 stars.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

2009-11-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

This week's video review is on the much anticipated sequel to Boondocks Saints, so my dad and I took out all the stops to make it a great video. The review includes new Tshirts, several Entourage references, and some of the best singing you've ever heard and probably ever will hear. Check it out.

2012 movie review

2009-11-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

"The Fourth Kind" movie review

2009-11-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

"The Box" movie review

2009-11-06T12:06:00.001-08:00

You know how they give you those 3d glasses before you go see a 3d movie? Well, be sure to ask for the blue pill and hit of acid before you go to see this movie. You'll need them.

5 Great movies you've probably never seen

2009-11-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

"The Boys Are Back" movie review

2009-10-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

First solo OmwhReview on account of everyone I know having better things to do.

"Saw VI" movie review

2009-10-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-10-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

This movie gave me a lot to think about. So much so that I'm typing this at 4:25 in the morning. The video review was my first speculation after leaving the movie theater, but after thinking about it for a few hours, I've thought of so much more I think I need to say in order to properly review it.

Please note that in the video review, I only reviewed the movie on it's entertainment value. While looking visually amazing, it was a bit on the boring side and never really eased into a third act. The movie was, however, incredible because the story goes much deeper than that and I felt like I owed it enough to dissect it a little more. I always hate trying to review movies like this because so much of it seems to be left to interpretation because there is so much symbolism in it. I feel like I could be saying the wrong thing about it. But I'll give it a shot.

A lot of people will say that this movie is too complex for children to understand, but these people are fools not to realize that this is the entire point that the movie is trying to make. Because of young children's large imaginations, they actually have an easier time understanding abstract dreams than adults do. They aren't going to worry about the symbolism that is so obvious there to adults. They will be able to see the movie for what it was intended to be for them: A movie about a kid who becomes friends with a bunch of monsters.

But us adults see straight through that and worry that a movie like this is too scary for children. We only think that because the story deals with very serious issues that any normal child would easily overlook. If anything, the main conflict in this movie is time. One of the most important, if not the most important, scene in the movie is a brief scene where Max learns in school that the sun is eventually going to die. This along with his mother not being able to pay as much attention to him because of work and a new boyfriend, also his sister growing up, makes Max realize that childhood, like everything, will not last forever. So, to me, it seems like his trip to the island of the Wild Things is nothing more than a desperate attempt to hold onto the childhood he feels slipping away from him.

Everything about this movie was carefully thought out and Spike Jonze did an amazing job directing it. You can look at this movie from two different points of view: from a child's point of view and an adults point of view, where the child's perspective covers the films entertainment value and the adult's perspective shows how the main character's deal with their trials and tribulations. The entertainment value of the movie for me wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. But looking at it from an adult's perspective, it truly was a work of art.

Thoughts on Remakes

2009-10-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make an effort to post these little articles/rants when I'm not spending my time making a video review. Just FYI.

Remakes have been plaguing the theaters for about the last decade if you haven't noticed. And I'm not talking about the movies that have been remade from a book or anything like that. I'm talking about the ones that were remade from another form of a visual medium. Remade from older movies, TV shows, cartoons, plays, etc. You know? The ones your parents refuse to see because they claim that they saw the exact same movie thirty years ago. Those ones. And chances are, your parents are probably right.

It seems like Hollywood's biggest production companies have been running pawn shops lately. They've been taking movies that we've all already seen, polishing them up with a semi-new script, young actors, and new technology, just to sell them for a profit. Are they really that short on talented writers with original ideas that they have to dish out $50 mil to make a movie they made decades ago? I find that hard to believe.

How did we dig ourselves into this ditch. Getting Rob Zombie (the Devil's Rejects guy) to remake Halloween was nothing more than a publicity stunt. They could've gotten any decent director to do an even better job at directing the redundant slasher flick, but they decided to go with Zombie because people would flock to the box office thinking, "It's directed by the House of a 1000 Corpses guy. It's going to be awesome!" But when they walked out of the theater, they had just experienced the same thing they could've seen back in the original Halloween but with less lighting. I realize that this particular movie is a bad example, but please! That remake was so unoriginal even all of the guys died the same way they did in the original Halloween. It's like they weren't even trying. And I'm sorry, but Halloween 2 by Rob Zombie was just embarrassing. Wait, no I'm not sorry. I take that back.

It's like they've been sending old horror movies through an assembly line to get new brake pads just to sell them off as brand new for a quick buck. In there defense, it is a profitable marketing scheme. With the recent release of Stepfather and the upcoming release of the new take on Nightmare on Elm Street, a lot of money is going to be heading west in their direction.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not against remakes. I'm all for them. But only the ones that are necessary. Such as King Kong. Sure, it was a spectacle when it first came out. But given the new technological advances, Peter Jackson was able to remake it into something modern and magnificent. Even remakes such as The Departed (yes, The Departed is a remake), making the same movie but with a different story and different characters allows the filmmakers to be original and still make a masterpiece based off of another movie. In cases like these, where the filmmakers actually make an attempt to push out something different, it makes remakes appropriate. But remaking every other 80's horror movie they can think of for the sake of a buck is unacceptable. There are dozens of screenwriters with original screenplays sitting with their hands on their asses screaming "Why?!?!?!" while Hollywood is going through the discount bin that is horror remakes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're going to remake an old movie, at least have the decency to make it original. I find myself going through movies like 3:10 to Yuma and Disturbia (yes, Disturbia is actually a carbon copy of Hitchcock's "Rear Window" with a modern twist) and Phantom of The Opera and tell myself that remakes are worth defending. Even after watching the Phantom of The Opera for what may be the fiftieth time, I still enjoy it, rather than praying for The Fog to end before the first act is even over.

Countdown to New Moon

2009-10-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

In case you've been in a cave or a coma for the past few years, you've probably heard of the overly-hyped and nubile panty-dropping phenomenon known as the Twilight Saga. As you most likely know by now, all of the opening night tickets to New Moon, the second film of the franchise, are sold out despite the movie's release date being over a month away. I cannot stress to you how much I want one of those tickets. This movie is going to be so epic words can't even fathom how I feel about it.

DISCLAIMER: What I am about to say only reflects on how I feel about the Twilight movie franchise. It has nothing to do with the books. I have not, and will not read them, therefore I will not say anything bad about them. If your death threats include anything about how awesome you thought the books were, they will not be taken seriously.

If you do not have a General Lee in your pants, chances are you saw Twilight. If you do sport a Johny Rocket and also accompany a girlfriend, chances are she made you pay to go see it with her. In that case, I truly feel sorry for your permanent loss of manhood because seeing Twilight is something that you can't just take back. I was oblivious enough to pay for a Twilight ticket last year for the simple fact that I was curious. "Hey, it's got Kristen Stewart in it. Vampires, they kill people. How bad can it be?" I thought to myself. Gee, I could not have been anymore wrong.

If I ran the Razzies, Twilight would've swept in every category. Worse Screenplay, Worse Acting (male and female leads), Worse Directing, Worse Special Effects, etc. Kristen Stewart was so high on my list of bangable Hollywood stars, and she fell off faster than a fat kid climbing a tree after I watched her painfully dull and embarrassing portrayal of the already unlikable character that is Bella Swan. She plays a teenage girl who falls in love. Haven't we heard this story a thousand times before? Making her fall in love with a vampires just makes it harder for us, as an audience member, to connect with that character emotionally. I realize that they were trying to emphasize the "forbidden love" aspect of the human/vampire relationship, but having the two of them stare at each other awkwardly the entire movie is not the way to do it. And Robert Pattinson plays puffy haired vampire named Edward Cullen. The way he stared at Bella the first time they were in class together like... what was that suppose to mean? Was it suppose to symbolize his attraction to her? Because to me it just seemed like he was trying to ask," Who beefed? I'll be it was the new girl. Seriously that fart was foul." Is it just me or did he look like he was constipated for the entire hour and half flicker show I could only describe as cruel and unusual punishment. I wanted to scream, "pinch it off and start acting!" Though I knew he could not hear me.

The only thing more unbelievable than their on screen romance is that of mythical creatures such as unicorns or cthulhu. The chemistry of their socalled portrayal that is suppose to be called love is about as predictable and chemical as mixing vinegar and baking soda. Or ice with water. There was no chemistry. It felt like I was forced to sit though a power point presentation about why vampires sparkle like diamonds when they go out in the sun instead of burst into flames like they do in any logical vampire verse. I understand that they are trying to do something original with the shining skin (and kudos to that), but it was so ridiculous that they might as well have said that vampires fingers fall off when they try to eat a grilled cheese sandwich.

And while we are on the subject of romance. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton have a way more believable romance than that of Bella and Edward. But BTW, the original human/vampire romance that takes the cake was Buffy and Angel. You may call me a geek for saying that, but tell that to the people out there lynching and acting out other hate crimes on people for choosing Team Jacob.

I could go on about Twilight's 'impressive' (embarrassing) special effects... so I will. They were so impressive, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to pull them off on my MacBook. But that's because I don't have After Effects of Motion. The special effects from Twilight pull off such a spectacle they could rival the effects a five year old could do on Wimdows MovieMaker. Come to think of it, I do have Final Cut Pro. Maybe I'll dab around with the motion blur filter later. You'd think that with the lack of a decent story or acting that they'd want to waste as much cash as they could on the SFX (i.e. GI Joe, Transformers, any other Michael Bay movie). They must've spent so much money on butter and olive oil to keep Robert Pattinson constipated all three months of filming they couldn't afford to hire a professional.

Here's the recapitulation: I did not like the movie Twilight. It had all of its orifices oozing out with bad everything: directing, acting, sfx, etc. I do wish I had come up with OmwhReviews a year ago just so I could review it. But looks like I came up with it just in time for New Moon. And please don't say, "You be hating Twilight just because it's Twilight and everyone loves it." Believe me, if I had seen any other movie that horrible, I would not hesitate to dissect it's every flaw like a kid tearing the legs and wings off of a dragonfly to watch it squirm and beg for mercy. Like I said in my first OmwhReviews video, "As a movie critic, I promise to be fair." And I will be fair.

But I am looking forward to New Moon. In its defense, it doesn't look half as bad as Twilight and I shouldn't discriminate against it because its older sister was a bitch. They obviously spent some extra coin on the SFX this time around judging from the trailer, but who knows. Right now I have very low expectations for it so it's not going to have to try very hard to exceed them. But none the less, I am hopeful and would love nothing more than New Moon to prove me wrong and turn out to be a decent movie. But I'm also hopeful that I'll meet Natalie Portman one day and adopt seven beautiful African babies together. I don't know which of the two is more likely.

Law Abiding Citizen

2009-10-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

After reaching the movie theater, Me and Marcos were quickly greeted with an extremely long line. Figuring that this was the first weekend that Paranormal Activity got nationwide distribution, that's what we though people were there to see. But no. Hundreds and hundreds of people were lined up to see Where the Wild Things Are???? I never would've guessed. I'll see that one later. This time, we were there to see Gerard Butler kick some ass!

Paranormal Activity

2009-10-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

Me and Marcos were going to go see Couples Retreat at midnight, but found out that Paranormal Activity was playing. We couldn't pass up seeing that instead. If Paranormal Activity isn't playing anywhere near you, go to http://eventful.com and demand it in a city near you. It's a must see!

Reviewing "Whip It"

2009-10-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

While reviewing Whip It with my good friend Marcos Gallegos, we both realized that Daniel Stern needs to be in more movies. Agreed?

The Introduction

2009-10-09T09:53:00.001-07:00

I had some trouble embedding the intro video on the last post, so I just deleted it. There's the introduction: