Into the Woods

I think I waited too long for this movie to come out which resulted in an enormous amount of expectations built up. With Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp ,  Emily Blunt, playing the red riding hood, jack and the beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel , all these does sound really exciting, well ...

To begin with this movie is a musical with amazing songs and singing from professionals and amazing scenes , but it is a very long movie, too long maybe. It could end three times and still we knew the story.

The little red riding hood, jack and the beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel all cross paths into the woods and the want to teach us to be loyal, compassionate, wise, decisive and all those good things,

But who knew the little red riding hood was such a brat who got raped by the wolf, Cinderella had no idea what she wants from life and only wanted the prince charming to chase her, prince charming was ladies' man making out with everyone and Rapunzel was simply an imbecile.  Well thank you whoever made this movie, now I know it all,

If you are really bored and are obsessed with fairy tales maybe you should go watch this movie,
just be careful, the theme song is SUPER catchy , 5/10

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

hallelujah, I still get goosebumps thinking about the movie. HOW are they so good at making movies?!?

During the whole 2.5 hours of watching movie, I was just asking HOW? this is too good.
This was the last part of hobbits and I am so sad about it. I hope with all the skills and technology they got during past years they start making LOTR again or something similar, because this is too good to end.

The only thing that happens in this movie is the battle of the five armies and that is it, but who cares. All the scenes, sounds, special effects, 3D effects , all are so good that no one needs a story to follow.

I would definitely recommend EVERYONE to go and watch this, Please, tonight, 9/10

Hunger games, Mockingjay part 1

There is a point when you feel that you are done with a movie and I feel I am at that point with Hunger games. After the second movie I was very excited to watch the rest and I tried to keep the excitement alive but When I watched it I was sure I am done.
There is only so much you can keep making new parts and keep people excited , but you got to stop somewhere.

President at district 13 is trying to get everyone to help fight against the capital (who I still don't know if is a good guy or a bad guy, well girl) and they have Katniss to be their voice and their mockingjay.
By going to different districts and showing how miserable everyone is and then hacking to the capital system and broadcast these videos for them they are building their army.

It kind of is very obvious what is going to happen but I don't care anymore.

I would recommend this only to the very enthusiastic fans and give 5/10 to it.

This is where I leave you

Two months ago my mom was visiting me and since she arrived she was bugging me to go watch movies (I should mention my movie watching habits directly comes from her). Her obsession with family drama was the reason I picked this movie to watch with her.

The father of a family dies and all the kids gather at their childhood house for the funeral. The sister with her super busy husband, the brother who is trying but can't have a baby, the brother who has recently been cheated on and the smallest son who still needs to grow up. All of them bring their own problems and drama and on top of that , their dad's last wish was for them to stay for a week at the house. 

Many dramatic events and encounter happens and of course at the end they realize how much they love each other. Family drama in general can be a very cliche subject, I seen some good movies with this genre, my favorite is "Parenthood" tv series. In general this movie was a good one because of the cast and all the funny things that happens in it, but is not a very deep movie. There is specifically one thing I did not like was how cheating is pictured so ordinary and an every day habit, which pissed me off.

At the end, I would recommend this for a feeling good movie to watch maybe with family, or when alone and with low expectations , giving it a 5/10.

The book of life

Animations have always been my safe , to go choice when I want to watch a movie in the theatre. To my surprise, this year we have a good number of animations (good animations) out which I only got to watch this one so far.

Though this movie is about Mexican myths and legends, It is produced so amazingly that would keep everyone interested. I only chose to watch it by checking the poster, and for the first 5 minutes I was very doubtful, but soon It got a very smooth tone to it.

The story is about two young boys in love with the same girl with their own struggles.
Everything about this movie, from the pictures, to the music, the voices , they are all perfectly beautiful and heart stealing. It is obvious that a good amount of skills, thought and time have been spent on making this animation. I can even go further and say this animation was an absolute piece of art for anyone to enjoy.

I do certainly recommend this animation to everyone and would give a 8.5/10 to it.

Fury

It's been such a long time since my last blog and I know you all have been counting days for a new post. your WELCOME ;P

Honestly it was a pretty disappointing summer and only recently they realized if they wanna keep the theatres open they need to start showing good movies.I still watched a lot and I do have a couple of them that worth sharing.

The most recent movie I watched is Fury. A WWII Brad Pitt movie which I liked very much.They did a pretty good job in keeping the movie almost race neutral, even at some point (which I didn't catch and my friend reminded me :P) Brad Pitt says this is not about being good or bad , this is about killing or getting killed (I should add a disclaimer that I am VERY much against any form of violence and at some point thought maybe you didn't need to cross an ocean to make this choice, BUT, at least they didn't try to portrait a heroic American action to save the world)

The movie is about an innocent young type writer who is sent to the front in Germany as a replacement in Brad Pitts tank. He tried to keep away from the whole killing thing but of course it is inevitable in a war. from the very beginning Brad Pitt likes him and becomes some sort of a mentor to him and they bond very well. They also have 4 other people in the tank and their interactions is what a big part of this movie is about.

This movie has a lot of very violent scenes when I had to barricade myself behind my coat for a good chunks of time and I (very embarrassingly) had some tear shedding. To my defence where were lots of very strongly emotional scenes where you see how this innocent young boy changes into a killing machine or when you see Brad Pitt's role has softer sides to it also.

I do recommend this movie to watch to anyone who is even remotely feels interested and I guarantee they won't be disappointed. 7.5 is a very fair point to Fury.

The way back

I am sure I said it enough and you guys are probably tired of reading this, but I love WWII movies, from any perspective.Putting aside the ugly face of war, there is always that elements that makes you restore your faith in humanity. But what makes this specific movie very special is that it is not dissing any of the sides to make the movie commercial or political.

This movie is simply the story of 6 people, trying to run away from a camp in Siberia and go to India. Among them are an American, a Polish guy who knows the wilderness and survival, a Russian thug, a priest ,a guy who draws and another guy who has night blindness. Along the way a younger girl also joins them. They pass through cold snow packed Siberia, the deserts with no water, Himalaya and any hard wild natural condition you might imagine.

What I loved about this movie is the interaction between people, how they trust each other, help each other and try to survive which made me wonder If I ever again have the rights to nag about my life.

This movie is based on a true story, in which these people walk about a year and around 4000 miles and at the end only three of them survive.

I for sure recommend watching this movie and give a 7/10 to it.

Transformers: age of extinction

Muhahaha, I finally watched the new transformers' movie and my mind was blown away.Whether it was the good theater, IMAX screen and Dolby digital sound, OR the movie was really that good (which it was, seriously!) , the 3 hour felt more like an hour and I really wanted to see more.

There is just something about robots, and nice cars with new technologies , smart hot Asian  police girls and aliens with huge spaceships that makes me excited so very much. Especially when you see nice shiny  or carbonized race cars turning into giant robots and they fight and fly and kill, it is just amazing.

Well enough about that, this movies is about when human authorities decoded the transformers brains and they are mass producing them to kill the aliens, but the real transformers rise and try to stop it from happening because of a ... (well I guess I need to stop it otherwise this is gonna be a spoiler).

BUT, then there is the side story of the muscular poor heroic dad trying to save his even hott daughter and of course there is boyfriend who tries hard to be hot but fails. And what really annoyed me was the girl, with those gorgeous 2 meter of legs she could stop whining and actually be someone in the movie, and I waited and waited and waited for her to do something other than asking her dad and her boyfriend alternatively to protect her. The movie was extremely sexist because other than the Chinese lady doing some karate chopping and the geologist who was supposed to be the brain of the story but she did nothing, not even ended up falling in love with someone!!! the guys were doing all the work Good thing there was enough story with robots that they simply could remove all the humans and the movie would stay as interesting.


Go watch the movie already, 7.5/10 !!! XO

Nigh train to Lisbon

People would be amazed by knowing how many good movies are out there and they never heard about them.Every time I watch one of them, I am both excited because of the promise of good movies out there, and stressed out of what If I never find them.


The movie is about a professor from Swiss who accidentally helps a young girl while committing suicide and this gets him involved in an old story happening  I believe in 30s or 40s, when Portugal is dealing with their dictator of the time.The main character is a young doctor who joins the resistance group against the regime and falls in love with a girl in that group.A love triangle, the doctor helping an injured person from the regime, running away with the girl and all these make this movie something worthy of being watched.European themes movies are most of the time exciting, specially when they have a political element.

I believe when a movie doesn't need 3D effects, hit and run scenes, robots and strippers to keep the audience, It is indeed a must see, and this movie was one of them.There is not a lot of dialogue happening, but both the background music and the dark environment and the fear  are among the strong points of the movie.


I would definitely recommend watching this and give 6.5/10 to this movie.

Non stop

I think we , in Irvine, are among the luckiest people in the world because we have a dollar theater in our city (well every movie is $4, but comparing to regular $18 it is almost %400 saving ). That is why I get to see most of the movies in the theater which is more than %400 more fun comparing to watch them at home, well most of the movies if not watched in the theater are useless to watch.

Non-stop is a very exciting movie, well almost your typical on-the-plane accidents but I think I made 100 wrong guesses before I realized who the bad guy is.So not your very typical on-the-plane movie.

A former depressed alcoholic air marshal is getting threatening txts of people being killed if they don't transfer some million $$ to a bank account. Through the course of the movie,he becomes the suspect himself!!!

The intouchables

This weekend in debate between watching labor day and the untouchables, this movie won (though I watched labor day also today (post coming). Sometimes you watch an older movie and ask yourself how on earth I missed watching this movie? and since this is happening to many times to me, I am realizing that maybe I donno what type of movie I like , lol well.

The movie is the story of an African American guy who just got out of prison and has no job. 

His family are very poor. To get unemployment money he needs to go to some interviews and in one of them he goes to a rich guy who is paralyzed from neck down. The job is as the caretaker for the guy, and because of his wit, the guy accept him. His funniness, and high spirit brings life back to the mansion, everyone is happy, he even helps the rich guy's troubled teenage girl.

This movie is based on a true story which help me restore my faith in humanity. The interactions and relationship between the two guys are so beautiful and heart touching ad the movie is full of events and very interesting that I didn't even realized it is a weirdly long movie.

I give 7/10 to this movie and recommend everyone to watch it cause you'll get something out of it. 

Divergent

Hunger game meets harry potter meets world war Z , is how my friend described this movie we I can not disagree.
By no means I am saying divergent is a bad movie, I loved it and I am looking forward to watch the other parts of it.

The story is about world, probably post apocalypse in Chicago, where they divided the society into 6 groups of people, thinkers, workers, helpers (also rulers), fighters and the judges ( those who can't lie) also there are fraction less people who don't do anything .
There are also few people who are called divergent and they don't fit into any of those because they have all the qualities. Those are the thread to the system because they can't stay in one fraction an be happy and do their jobs.
At one point one person from the group of thinkers (Erudite) wants to take the power, and to do so, is trying to control people's minds.


Anyways, I can go on and on and tell the rest of the story here, but I am gonna advise you to go watch this movie for yourself ! 8/10 is a pretty biased score but hey, I am feeling generous tonight...

The grand hotel Budapest

When I first saw the name of the movie, It reminded me of a friend of mine who spent a good length of his life in Budapest, So I got curious to check the trailer, cause I don't normally go and check every movie's trailer to see if I like it, Well most of the time I do, but not a movie called The grand hotel Budapest.
Anyways, The trailer did a good job and I found the movie weird enough to go and watch it.

I am not sure how to describe the movie, but Imagine something like Harold and Kumar going to white castle, but much more mellow. The story is simple, a drama that a famous hotel concierge falls into told by his favorite minion, the lobby boy, who himself is a refuge. People, cities and events are imaginary, but can be easily related to their real counterparts.

The film is very interestingly made, you don't need to remember people's names, or even the story. every scene is by itself entertaining enough. Characters are well exaggerated and well played by a group of stars, including Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Broady , Jude Law, Tilda Swinton ,etc.

I guarantee you will be entertained for the whole duration of the movie and will come out with no recollection of what happened in the movie. I would give 6/10 to it.

Nebraska

With only a couple of days to academy award 2014, I had enough motivations to go for a movie which didn't sound or look as appealing to me at the beginning, but as my special talent is to prove myself wrong I very much liked the movie.
My first impression was that I will not make a good connection with the movie because it happens in a very much American part of the US where I am not very familiar with the culture, but once I got to see past through that face I could feel the connections and conversations.

The movie is about a very old almost schizophrenic simple man in a city in Montana who gets an ad in the mail saying you are the lucky winner of a million $ and to get your money come to this address in Nebraska and the old man is very determined to go and get his money.Finally his younger son decided that he is going to drive his dad to Montana although he knew the ad is a scam.On their way they stop in the old man's childhood town where his family reside.

The interaction between the son and the dad, and how patient the son is, also the interactions between the dad and his family and other people from the town, they are all very beautifully written.The movie is very monotonic but will not make you bored at all, don't be fooled by it being black and white or not having violent or sexual scenes. You might not even connect with the film if you are not from a very small very "red neck" town, but again if you look at the bigger picture, you will feel a lot of the relationships and connections.

Her

Well, I survived watching this movie,even though it was long, and I hate the main ( and almost the only) character, and the story was such a cliche ...
I am still wondering what was the message they tried to deliver, do they want to show we are doomed and this fast paced technology obsessed world is going to nowhere ? If yes, I can say thank you, we already knew that,right?

Please ignore my frustration, I didn't have a very fun day today,But back to "Her" , the movie is about a relationship between a recently divorced man with his new generation OS which can grow her mind on her own by learning, I personally could enjoy the movie much more if the OSes would get super smart and attack humans physically in a world wide war over making them fall in love and break their hearts. I can see our everyday lives going through the same path, our unhealthy dependency on technology and how it is affecting all our relationships and we are losing human contacts, every once in a while we hear about virtual girlfriends and boyfriends, In my opinion even online ones are somehow virtual since you have no idea who is sitting on the other side besides the image they are presenting from themselves.

The movie is very believable since it is already happening in our lives but if they just could use a better actor, or a more lively environment or I don't know adding some flavor to the movie, I could enjoy it much more.The only exciting part of the movie was Scarlet Johnson sexy voice.

I am not recommending watching this movie to anyone and wonder how on earth it got nominated for academy awards,a 4/10 !

Saving Mr. Banks

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine.. go down.. the medicine go down...the medicine go down!!!
Mary Poppins is perhaps one of the Disney movies which is dear and near to my heart, I used to watch it over and over as a kid, sing the songs and to this day I still use her quotes when I talk, the movie has just the right amount of imagination and craziness in it and the characters are so believable...
So when I hear a movie is about making Mary Poppins, I would run to watch it and it didn't disappoint me.
Saving Mr. Banks is an amazing refreshing movie specially in this time and age where movies are killing themselves with special effect and sex, horror or violent scenes. It baffled me how it is well made, well played, simple and beautiful, not too long, not boring or whimsical, not too exciting, and at the end of the movie I told myself, Wow, so it is possible to make good movies, why don't they just do it more often?!?

The story about the woman who wrote Mary Poppins book based on her own childhood and her relationship with her dad, well now those who watched Mary Poppins would certainly realize how it works, but for other people, I simply recommend GO, WATCH Mary Poppins and you'll thank me for it.And It happens when Mr. Disney reaches to her to make the movie, how he tried for 20 years and finally she agrees but with a millon condition and her strict supervision, conditions and rules.

I am obviously in love with this movie and I believe among all the other movies this year, this one is extremely underrated,I advise people to go watch it and give a 8/10 to it.

The wolf of Wall street

Watch this movie with no expectations, open mind and open time, Other wise you are gonna be very disappointed.
Leo is amazing, sex scenes are very illustrative, the character is a genius, BUT, everything is too much in this movie. They could give you the summary in 30 minutes and you'll be good to go.

Someone told me I need to do some research about the main character , " Jordan Belfort" , and watch his interviews to understand him and then the movie will make sense,well I didn't and though I am extremely attracted to genius people, It failed to satisfy me.

On top of all of that, the movie was extremely sexist, Which I know it was only telling the story, but I strongly believe how it can affect people's perspectives.

At the end of the day with the names like Leo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese , it is is inevitable not to watch this movie, I give 4/10 and sorry Not sorry

American hustle

Living in the US for almost 5 years, never noticed English can be challenging some times, but this movie was a little bit an eye opener, almost half way through the movie I had no idea the word they are non stop using is "Sheik" which after finding out the movie made a whole lot more sense , LOL

A very much entertaining movie , with perfect acts , interesting story line, surprising moments but not a lot to say other than anyone is hustling to get something in life ;)

The story is about a bunch of con artists( very good ones) who are tricking other people who join them in their journey with the promise of getting what they want.

The strongest part of the movie in my opinion is the characters, each one of the is perfectly shaped and defined and played but amazing actors and actresses. you can easily relate to them and understand them and I believe their personalities and reactions are what is movie is made of more than the actual story.

I think everyone will like this movie in a way or other, I give 5/10 to this

The book thief

Hey all,
I postponed updating my blog cause so much has been happening in my life ( to the positive direction) which also made me not have enough time to watch as much as i want. But last night I realized I am forgetting about some of the movies I watched recently, So I decided it is the time.

The most recent movie I watched was "The book thief" and I am gonna start with that and go back in the upcoming posts.

For those of you who know me well, it is obvious that reading is one of my obsessions and nothing is more appealing to me than a movie that has to do with it. and this movie also didn't let me down.

A movie with a strong female in lead , about books and with the WWII environment, couldn't be more complete for me.
Movie happens in around 1940, in Stuttgart, Germany. A young girl is adopted by a German couple, after she lost her little brother. she immediately starts bonding with the new dad and a little boy in their neighborhood, the girl can not read but holds this passion for books and stories in her heart. With the help of the dad she starts reading, In the meanwhile she makes a very strong relationship with a Jewish young guy they are hiding in their basement. I am gonna stop here and ask you to go watch the movie, because it is nice, and refreshing and very emotional.

I love the acts, specially the young girl is doing a great job, the story is very nice but the movie jumps forward too many times which might be annoying for some.

I recommend this movie to anyone slightly interested in history and give 7/10 to it !!!