Black Death

Released: 2010
Drama, action
Director: Christopher Smith
Starring: Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne
Running Time: 102 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown:  During the time of the bubonic plague in England, a monk sets out with a group of hardened soldiers to find out if reports are true about a small village bringing people back to life after death.

So, I kinda' just recorded this as a semi joke for my husband, who loves stories about the Black Plague, but I thought it was going to be about zombies.
Turns out there are no zombies involved, but necromancing and witchcraft instead.
A young monk is in love with a girl when the first casualties of the plague hit in England.  He tells her to leave and go to a safe place and wait for him for a week.
Luckily for him, a group of soldiers come through looking for a monk that they can take with them to guide them to a small village where reports of the dead being brought back to life must be investigated.
The young monk sees his opportunity and takes it.
He travels with this band for the duration of their needs and eventually find the girl, but it's not the way he planned.
Won't say anymore since the rest is better left to you to see for yourself.

It was a pretty good movie with some surprises in store.

3 1/2 out of 5 for something different and original, although it could've moved a bit faster at points for me.
SEE IT!

Red Eye

Released: 2005
Thriller
Director: Wes Craven
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rachel McAdams, Brian Cox
Running Time: 85 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown: A woman's father is threatened with death if she doesn't help a crazy man sitting next to her on the flight home to assassinate a politician.

McAdams is a hotel manager on a flight home when a strange man (Murphy) sitting next to her threatens to kill her father if she doesn't help him with an assassination attempt on a politician staying in her hotel.  Sounds far fetched, but it was directed by Wes Craven so that explains a lot.  Murphy's performance is flawless as usual, but the movie was just okay for me.

Murphy "accidentally" keeps running into McAdams at the airport before the flight, and then they end up being seat mates on the flight from Dallas to Miami on the over night flight.  At first he seems to just be friendly, but soon after they are in the air, he makes it apparent that he's been following her for weeks and needs her help in moving the politician from one room to another for an assassination attempt on his life.

The action scenes were good, the acting was good, just for some reason this movie turned out just good instead of great.

2 1/2 out of 5 for an excellent bad guy in Cillian Murphy.

The Descendants

Released: 2011
Drama
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley
Running Time: 115 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown: A family that lives in Hawaii suffers some major life traumas.  Based on the book by the same name.

So, Clooney plays a married man whose family owns a very large and very desirable piece of land in Hawaii.  While he and his family, like, 50 cousins, try to decide who to sell to, he also has to deal with his wife who is in a coma after a boating accident.
Turns out, the doctors did everything they could, but she's got a living will, and they will have to disconnect her from the machines soon.  He has the task of trying to re-connect with his two daughters and learn how to deal with information that came to light about his marriage only after she went into a coma.

This was a good solid movie, but it was incredibly depressing.  So much so, that it makes me wonder why someone would write a story like this, unless it was their own life story, or why they'd make a movie out of it.  There is no levity.

2 out of 5 for being good, but so depressing!  And it leaves you feeling a bit empty too.

Rear Window

Released: 1954
Mystery
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelley
Running Time: 112 minutes
Rated: PG

The breakdown: Based on a short story, a photographer with a broken leg is bound to his apartment with nothing else to do but stare out his window and sees a murder.

So I finally sat down and watched the classic that I'd heard so much about.  After viewing it, I can easily say it's the first true and only mystery movie I think I've ever seen.  It's well written, very interesting, and keeps you wondering what's happening until the very end.

So Stewart plays a professional photographer who's wheelchair bound in his New York apartment waiting for a cast to be removed from his leg.  He has nothing else to do but look out his rear window to watch his neighbors.  Eventually he stumbles upon what he thinks might be a murder, but he sees no actual crime and no body.  He soon ropes in his girlfriend and his nurse to help him investigate.

Filled with mystery and a big build up, the ending is satisfying.  I now understand why it's a classic and why it's received so much attention, not to mention the excellent ratings.

SEE IT if you haven't.  It's a treat.

5 out of 5 for being a fantastic story.  I'd watch it all over again too.

The Ring Two

Released: 2005
Horror
Director: Hideo Nakata
Starring: Naomi Watts, Simon Baker
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown:  After the events and success of the first film, despite it not being any good, there's a sequel to try to make Hollywood even more money on crappy films.

Oh yes, so the first one was not scary, so they make a sequel that's also not scary.
After the end of the first one, the mom and kid relocate to a different city, but the same stupid little dead/undead girl is following them.
She's now trying to possess the young son, and kills a few people along the way.

It's not even worth talking about at length.  The movie got really stupid when the mom and kid get attacked by killer deer on the road.

1 out of 5 for having Simon Baker in it.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Released: 2012
Revisionist Historic Horror
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: Bejamin Walker, Dominic Cooper
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown: In this fantasy tale, our 16th president was also a big time Vampire hunter and killer after his mother was killed by one when he was a child.

Based on a book by the same name, this ridiculous movie starts when Abe's just a boy and his mom gets killed by a vampire.  The rest of the movie works bits of truth in about Abe's accomplishments while he tracks down the one vampire that killed his mom.  This is just such a terribly un-entertaining movie, I'm not going to waste your time with a review.  There's really nothing beyond what I just said for the plot anyways.

1/2 out of 5 for sets and wardrobe.

Seeking A Friend for the End of the World

Released: 2012
Drama, Comedy
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley
Running Time: 101 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown: When an asteroid is due to hit Earth in 3 weeks, Steve Carell's wife leaves him and he takes a neighbor on a road trip to find his lost love.

I didn't know what to expect of this film.  I thought it might be stupid, not funny, and certainly not romantic.  It ended up being not funny, but very sweet and romantic.

After Steve Carell's wife leaves him, the world finds out that they only have 3 weeks left to live as a huge asteroid is about to hit and there's been a failed attempt to stop it.

Of course we see humanity at their worst with looting, people stop going to work, everyone's sleeping with everyone and getting drunk, but Carell's character wants none of the bad stuff.  He wants to go across a few states to reconnect with an old high school love.
By accident, a neighbor takes the ride along with him and find the lost love.
It's not the ending I expected, but I liked it a lot.

SEE IT!
4 out of 5 for being something new and thought-provoking as well as very sweet.

Red

Released: 2010
Action
Director: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown:  Some retired government CIA and spies get together to take out a mutual threat concerning all of them.

I had heard good things about this one from my family so I got a chance to watch it while I was sick with food poisoning.
Old spies and former government CIA types get the group back together to take out a threat to all of their safety.
Body count is high, but so is the laughs.
I thought it was funny and cute and don't have any problem recommending it.

3 out of 5 for being smart and entertaining.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Released: 2012
Author: E L James
Pages: 528 pages
IF there was a rating system for books this would be: X

Rundown: Ana is a virgin and about to graduate college.  Christian is a role playing Dominate who is also a young CEO of his own company, but he likes sex a lot and he likes to beat women to really get turned on.  Oh and he's so controlling, and creepy.

Well, I had heard a lot of things about this book: that it was for adults only, that it was like Twilight for adults, that it had a lot of sex, NY Times Best Seller, women were going crazy over it.  Well, I suppose if you've never had sex you'd go crazy over it, and if you didn't know what a good book or a good romance novel was supposed to be like, you might go crazy over it as well.

This was the first novel for the author so I will cut her some slack, but the copy editor should have helped her with some grammar problems, and her editor should have helped with some other plot issues, and continuity issues, and lack of character development issues, and issues of repetition, and taken out some of the sex because it's really there a lot of times just for sex's sake.

I'm writing my own romance novel right now so I'm really in tune with what should be working and what isn't.
Unfortunately, this book is full of repetition from how the male lead is described over and over again as hot, sexy, beautiful, etc, to how often the characters have sex for no other reason then to write another sex scene into the book and hope the audience is distracted from the book's other problems.

Yes, the book gets ridiculous from time to time, and the male lead seems to be physically perfect, but is an arrogant controlling, obsessive, aggressive, and dangerous asshole, but since he's beautiful, it's ok with the female lead that he scares her.
This book had actually made me stop reading at one point because I got physically ill with some of the control issues with bondage and such.

I usually enjoy when the main characters have sex, but halfway through, there was so much of it, I started just glossing over those scenes looking for character development.

Trust me, you're not missing anything by skipping this one.  In fact, I'm not even going to bother reading the next two, even though #1 left me on a cliffhanger.  I really don't care what happens next.  So glad I didn't pay full price for this book!

1 out of 5 for some laughs, intentional and otherwise, and a couple good sex scenes.
SKIP IT!

Magic Mike

Released: 2012
Drama (trying to be anyway)
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum, Olivia Munn
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown:  A veteran male stripper takes a new guy under his wing to teach him the ropes and how to seduce women.

I can easily say that this movie wasn't Magic at all and neither was Mike.
If you want to see a few scenes of your favorite male actor dancing around almost naked, this movie's for you.  If you want to see a good entertaining movie with some sort of story that's worth a damn, skip this movie.
I watched it for some research for a book I'm writing and it was a complete waste of time.  The story's very recycled.  Good guy ropes in a newbie for training.  They pal around, seduce women together, then the newbie gets involved with drugs and messes up big time, blah, blah, blah.

So stupid and boring I'm surprised I made it through the entire movie.

1 out of 5 for some hot naked male bodies gyrating around.