Monday, December 30, 2013

Movies I'm Looking Forward to in 2014

While I put together my list of favorites from 2013 here is a list of movies I'm looking forward to in 2014. Some technically came out in 2013 but I don't live in LA or NY.

Her
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Labor Day
The Lego Movie
Monuments Men
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Muppets Most Wanted
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Dom Hemingway
Transcendence
Amazing Spider-Man 2
Godzilla
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Edge of Tomorrow
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Jupiter Ascending
Hercules (the Dwayne Johnson movie)
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar

Friday, December 27, 2013

Short Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Grade: A

The rise and fall of a corrupt stock broker on wall street.

Very funny movie. Well made. Well written. Amazing cast. DiCaprio's best and most physical performance. Hill transforms in his role.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and many many many more.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Short Review: Dallas Buyers Club

Grade: A

A Texas man with AIDS takes on the FDA so he can treat himself and others with better medication.

Fascinating story. Very well made. McConaughey is great and scary skinny. Leto completely disappears into his role.

Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner and more.

Short Review: American Hustle

Grade: A-

A conman and his mistress must work with the FBI to bring down some corrupt politicians.

Amazing cast who all give great performances. Jennifer Lawrence steals the movie. Interesting story.

Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and more.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Short Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Grade: A+

The (Disney approved version of the) true story of Walt Disney and PL Travers and the making of Mary Poppins.

Very charming. Pretty funny. Great movie all around. Perfectly cast. Giamatti steals it though in his small scenes.

Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Paul Giamatti, Colin Farrell and more.

Short Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Grade: C

The short kids book continues in this second of three very long movies.

Some very exciting and fun action set pieces. Smaug is awesome.

Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and many more

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Short Review: Anchorman 2

Grade: A-

Ron Burgundy is back and taking on 24 hour news.

Very funny. Very entertaining. Great commentary on the news and media. Great follow up to the original.

Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Steve Carell and many many more.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Short Review: Frozen

Grade: A-

Princess Anna must find her sister, Elsa, who is the new queen, but in order to do so she must trek through the frozen landscape.

Great story. Love the ending. Very funny. Good songs. Great kids movie.

Voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff and more.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Short Review: Philomena

Grade: A

A journalist meets a woman who was forced to live in a convent and give up her child 50 years earlier then helps her find him.

Fascinating story. Amazing performances. Interesting turns. Definitely worth watching.

Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, more. 

Short Review: About Time

Grade: A

A man learns he can travel through time and uses it to better his life through love.

Surprisingly great story. Very funny throughout with some more serious moments thrown in. Great cast. Very uplifting.

Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy and many more.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Short Review: Catching Fire

Grade: A

Katniss has to convince the president of her love then is sent back to the hunger games.

Such an improvement over its predecessor. Really focuses on the characters and how horrible the games are. They nailed it.

Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland, Jenna Malone,  Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright and more.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Short Review: Free Birds

Grade: B-

Two turkeys travel back in time to get turkey off the Thanksgiving menu.

Fun concept. Some good genuine laughs. Story is good. Kids will enjoy it more.

Voices of Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Amy Poehler, others.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Short Review: Thor: The Dark World

Grade: A+

Thor must face an ancient evil across several realms and reunites with Jane.

Great movie that is loads of fun to watch. Plenty of humor perfectly injected throughout the movie. Amazing action set pieces. Just as good if not better than the first.

Chris Harmsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Idris Elba, Jaime Alexander and more.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Short Review: Ender's Game

Grade: A-

The International Military seek a new commander to fight an alien threat in the form of a young boy.

Fun movie with a great story. Presents interesting morality questions. Great sci-fi.

Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley and more.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Short Review: Escape Plan

Grade: B

A man whose job is to break out of prisons in placed in a secret inescapable prison.

A lot more fun than I expected. Some of that enjoyment comes from watching Stallone and Schwarzenegger work together. Cheesy plot and characters but that's half the fun. 

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel and many more.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Short Review: Machete Kills

Grade: A

Machete is back and is hired by the president to stop a madman trying to destroy the world.

Insane amounts of fun to watch. Ridiculous and entertaining. Can't wait for Machete Kills Again.

Starring: Danny Trejo, Michele Rodriguez, Amber Heard, Mel Gibson, Carlos Estevez and so very many more.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Short Review: Gravity

Grade: A

Two astronauts become stranded in space after their shuttle gets struck by debris.

Amazing and extremely tense movie. The first movie ever I would actually recommend seeing in 3D. Absolutely worth watching.

Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Short Review: Don Jon

Grade: A

New Jersey guy, Jon, tries to deal with his unrealistic expectations of women, brought on by his fixation with porn, when he meets the potential girl of his dreams.

Writer, director and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt knocks it out of the park in all aspects. Very funny and entertaining movie with an interesting view on internet porn. Worth checking out.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Brie Larson, Rob Brown, Jeremy Luke and more.

Short Review: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2

Grade: A-

Flint Lockwood and crew return to Swallow Falls only to discover his machine has created food/animal hybrids and an ecosystem for them to thrive in.

Very funny and entertaining movie. On par with the first one for entertainment value. Many of the foodanimals are very cute. Non-stop jokes. If you like the first, see this one.

Bill Hader, Anna Farris, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, James Caan, Neil Patrick Harris, Benjamin Bratt, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal and more.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Short Review: In A World...

Grade: A+

A young woman attempts to break into the world of trailer voiceover work.

Very charming, slightly quirky and very funny movie. Extremely well written and directed by the movie's star, Lake Bell. Outstanding supporting cast. The kind of movie that has you leaving the theater in a great mood.

Starring: Lake Bell, Fred Melamed, Rob Corddry, Ken Marino, Demetri Martin and many more.

Friday, September 20, 2013

All New Cucu for Movies!

Hello, everybody!

I know it has been a while since I last posted but things have been pretty crazy for me and I'v e been pretty busy. Also, I've been thinking about a lot of things to do with this blog, my passion for movies and my life in general. After much thinking I have decided for the time being that I am going to keep up with my movie reviews and everything simply because I love it and want to share my passion with the world! But there will be some changes as well as some new things coming!

First of all, I am going to keep up this little movie review blog of mine. I am going to try to write more full reviews not just for movies hitting theaters but maybe some classics that I love along the way. However, I am going to go against the internet grain here. The internet thrives on negativity and usually in terms of stuff like movie reviews, the more someone thrashes a movie the more popular the site and reviewer. Well I've decided to go a separate direction. I will still be providing grades for the movie as this is simply a way to get across my thoughts on how much I personally enjoyed the movie. However, as for the review itself, I am going to do my best to stay positive and only focus on the parts of the movie that worked for me or that, from an outside perspective, I could see being reasons that other people would enjoy the movie. I don't like negativity and this is a bold move this day in age but I hope you all enjoy it.

Also, I plan on trying to get the Shut Up, The Movie's Starting podcast back up and running but no guarantees there. I do want to start a new podcast that will probably just be me talking and reviewing movies and discussing other movie related news and items. I will probably have guests on this podcast when I can get them, probably just my friends most of the time but here's hoping that maybe I can get interviews with people involved with making movies. Fingers crossed. I also am considering starting to make video reviews of movies as well, on top of everything else.

So this is going to be a big investment for me and I hope that you all enjoy what is about to come and help support this little passion of mine and even decide to share with your friends.

Coming soon: Reviews for In A World, The Way Way Back and other movies. Full and short reviews. Stay tuned!