The Pelican’s Perch

Shutter Island

This was one of those movies where reading the book first actually ruined the movie experience a bit for me in the end.  Scorcese does such a good job retelling the book both visually and in casting the parts, that the obvious feeling of knowing everything that’s to come creeps up and you almost have no desire to finish the movie.  That being said, I can only fault the movie on my very biased situation.  For the rest of you, there’s no reason not to see Shutter Island.  It captures the mood of the book very well, and DeCaprio did a fairly decent job as the main character, who, in the book is a gravely voiced, grade-A bad ass war vet who is now a U.S. Marshall trying to crack a missing patient case.  I had more of a Mickey Rourke image in my head for the main character, but Leo pulled it off well enough.  For what it is, the cinematography was excellent, the story was retold to a T, and I’d have to still give the edge to the book, and a big recommendation still to see the movie.  Oscar contender?  I’m not sure, but I still enjoyed seeing the book finally come to life.

She’s Out of My League

Some movies you just watch because you’re not in the mood to see anything that’s too serious.  I laughed a lot more than I thought I would, and if you go into it expecting the comedy of the year, well, obviously you’re going to be disappointed.  Otherwise, it was better than I expected and unless you’re a “hard 10″ perfect person, and are more of a 6 or 7, then this should be a pretty decent feel good comedy for you.  You can’t hate a movie too much that makes you laugh and has the nerdy guy winning in the end right?  Uh oh, did I ruin the movie for you with that spoiler?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  Go see it on a date and don’t take it too seriously.

Un Prophete (A Prophet)

Now this is a great movie.  I randomly saw it about a month ago and it’s still lingering in the back of my mind.  It basically tells the story of a kid accused of a crime, falsely or otherwise, they never say, and he gets stuck in a Corsican prison to fend for himself.  Godfather comparisons have been aplenty, and I have to say I almost enjoyed this take on organized crime than The Godfather.  I’m not saying it’s better by any means, just the way they present it is excellent.  Amazing acting, great story, and it just felt very real to me.  It’s kind of hard to explain the story, and I’ll most likely give too much away in trying to do so, so I’ll just give it my highest recommendation and let you guys decide.  I was honestly pretty bummed when this didn’t win best foreign film at the Oscars, but it’s one you definitely shouldn’t miss.  One of the year’s best.

Up in the Air

Another one of my favorite movies of last year, this one tells the story of a man whose job is solely to travel around the country and strategically fire people for companies that are downsizing.  When his job is threatened by a new tech idea that has them fire people over the internet instead of in person, he takes the girl whose technology was her brainchild around the country so she can see that doing it in person is really that much more important.  Clooney really won me over playing the main character, and my description is just the main plot, with all the stuff that happens to him along the way, and his unique relationship with the people in his life who barely get to see him, really driving the movie.  If you’re looking for the next movie to really be worth your money, I can’t recommend this one enough.  It’s that good.

Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie is known for his British crime action films, which I love to death, but if he’s going to be making more big budget flicks in the future, I sure hope they’re all on par with this one.  Robert Downey Jr. does his usual great acting job, and his quasi-intelligent mumbling a hundred miles an hour style really works well as Sherlock Holmes.  I wasn’t expecting much out of this one, and maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.  From the very well done action scenes, to the final moment when all is revealed by one Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have to admit I left this one with a huge grin on my face.  I don’t want Ritchie to give up the Lock, Stock/Snatch formula any time soon, but if he must dabble in the big budget summer flicks, I can feel a lot more confident that the next one will be just as good as his underground stuff.

Youth in Revolt

If you think from reading these reviews that I enjoy every movie I see, well, you’d pretty much be right.  I grew up watching a movie a week for years on end with my dad, and bad movies were just as fun for us as the really great ones.  But alas, Youth in Revolt was just not that good.  Ignore the fact that everyone’s getting sick of seeing Michael Cera’s face and focus on the actual movie for a second.  Did you see the preview and notice how they all talked in this weird, sort of high class monotone that you’d expect to see in a Victorian era film or in your local country club?  Well, I prayed they didn’t pull a Juno or Napoleon Dynamite and have every character talking the exact annoying way as each other the whole film, but Youth in Revolt does this in spades and it annoyed the hell out of me.  Almost to the point that I just turned it off halfway, but I give every movie a chance and stuck it out.  Cera’s character is a wimpy kid (big surprise) who goes on a trip with his mom and her new boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis, who is hilarious in his brief time in the movie), and finds the love of his life while there.  One thing leads to another and eventually he has to leave.  In order to get back there, he has to get kicked out of his mom’s house so he can live with his dad, which is where his “true love” lives.  Enter the mustachio’d Cera, the evil alter ego he creates so he can do all the evil things it takes to get kicked out.  And that’s basically it.  The evil Cera actually cracked me up quite a bit, and I was disappointed he wasn’t in the movie nearly as much as the trailer would lead you to believe.  But besides that, the rest of the movie fell flat for me.  I got annoyed, the dual Cera parts didn’t carry the movie whatsoever, and the story was just blah to me.  I imagine the book is pretty funny, but the movie just didn’t do it for me.  My rec?  Pass on it and wait for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

I watch a ton of movies, so I’ll try to make this a more regular section on the site to catch you up on all the movies I watch.  Hope these helped sway your decision either way of whether you should watch that movie you’d been longing to see for a while, and check out the new trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World before you leave.  It looks pretty sweet.