The Monuments Men (2014)

Original Theatrical Release Date: February 7, 2014
Director: George Clooney

Frank Stokes (George Clooney) is tasked by FDR to assemble a team of art experts – The Monuments Men – to retrieve stolen artwork from the Nazis during World War II and return the masterpieces to their respective owners. Once behind enemy lines, Stokes and his crew come to realize what they are truly fighting for – the history and culture of all mankind.

To be honest, I’d never even heard of this film. My girlfriend and I decided to rent it on a whim while we were browsing the RedBox outside our local convenience store. We were sort of on a Bill Murray kick (he plays Richard Campbell in The Monuments Men) and that was what prompted us to try it out.

First off, this is based on a true story. I’m not exactly sure how faithful the movie was in terms of historical accuracy but judging by the photos of the real operation they show during the end credits, it seems to be pretty legit.

The cast choices were all pretty solid – George Clooney, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bob Balaban – can’t really go wrong with any of those people. Clooney is the only one who just seems to constantly play the same character in different movies and this one is no exception.

Though the story was interesting enough from a historical point of view, the excitement didn’t really build a lot in movie form, meaning that while I enjoyed very much learning about this facet of World War II that I had never heard of, I think I would be more interested in reading about it and getting every single detail, historically accurate, than watching this film. There was no real drive that I could feel within the narrative. The film is mostly propelled by the star power of the actors, which can sometimes be okay – but not here. The characters were never really fleshed out. Not even the main character, played by Clooney himself. We get the idea that it’s a bunch of dudes who aren’t really meant to succeed as soldiers and that they risked a lot by going out into a warzone, but there is no real urgency.

As it is, the film is a sort of impressionistic account of a very intriguing story that could have been fleshed out into something even more amazing. Don’t expect to be blown away by this one, people.

JOE Rating: ★★★

Movie Trailer For The Monuments Men

 

Epic Rap Battles Of History: Season One (2010)

Epic Rap Battles of History is a web series in which pop culture icons and celebrities and politicians are pitted against one another in a universe where everyone is fair game and everyone raps against one another – live or dead.

Season One (You can watch the entire season HERE) is the beginning effort of Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd, who portray most of the characters (including themselves in the season finale). The battles portrayed in Season One are as follows:

– John Lennon VS Bill O’Reilly
– Darth Vader VS Hitler
– Abe Lincoln VS Chuck Norris
– Sarah Palin VS Lady Gaga
– Hulk Hogan VS Kim Jong Il
– Justin Bieber VS Beethoven
– Einstein VS Stephen Hawking
– Genghis Khan VS The Easter Bunny
– Napoleon Dynamite VS Napoleon Bonaparte
– Billy Mays VS Ben Franklin
– Gandalf VS Dumbledore
– Dr Seuss VS Shakespeare
– Mr T VS Mr Rogers
– Christopher Columbus VS Captain Kirk
– Nice Peter VS EpicLLOYD

Most of the battles in Season One are sort of silly, without many guest stars. My favorite from the season was definitely Albert Einstein (MC Mr Napkins (aka Zach Sherwin) VS Stephen Hawking (Nice Peter) while some of them like Captain Kirk VS Christopher Columbus were good conceptually but didn’t hold water once performed.

Musically, the Epic Rap Battles have come a long way since this first batch, but there are some noteworthy beats and rhymes, for sure. Check it out. These guys and gals are sure to entertain.

JOE Rating: ★★★★

Escape From L.A. (1996)

Original Theatrical Release Date: August 9, 1996
Director: John Carpenter

It’s 2013 and Los Angeles is now an island for undesirables, deported from America by the U.S. Government. Once you go there, you can never get back. The President’s daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), steals a doomsday device and heads for the island in order to help free the prisoners there and daddy isn’t happy. He gets Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to go after her by having him injected with a disease that will end his life in hours and promising him the cure if he’s successful. However, a revolutionary named Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface) and L.A.’s many dangerous denizens stand in the way.

Sequels are rarely ever able to outshine the originals, and this film is no exception.

The entire movie is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the entire culture of Los Angeles, and that it probably the most entertaining aspect of the film. It’s an action film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that is fun for the most part but makes for a movie that’s hard to become attached to, unlike the first film Escape From New York.

Kurt Russell really channels his inner Clint Eastwood for this installment, and other actors such as Steve Buscemi and Peter Fonda fall into their roles with seemingly great joy. Who doesn’t want to see Bruce Campbell as the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills?

The movie plays out like an Extreme Sports story, with Kurt Russell taking on extreme forms of basketball, hang gliding and surfing, which is really strange in the context of this film, but made for some entertaining scenes.

The special effects have not held up well over time and some of them, while laughably funny, tend to take you right out of the movie. However, at this point in his career it seemed like John Carpenter was just having some fun, and the fun did shine through and it’s sort of infectious.

Still, for those who weren’t introduced to this series of films back when they originally came out, it might be hard to fully appreciate this sequel by today’s standards, though the original still holds up.

JOE Rating: ★★★

Movie Trailer For Escape From L.A.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Original Theatrical Release: May 3, 2013
Director: Shane Black

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), aka Iron Man, hasn’t been the same since the events in The Avengers. After somehow surviving the wormhole and helping to mop up the invading aliens, he has developed post traumatic stress disorder, unable to sleep and letting his tinkering get in the way of his relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). When a terrorist calling himself the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) starts to attack America with a series of explosive attacks and inadvertantly puts Pepper’s bodyguard Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) into a coma, Stark issues a challenge to the terrorist, resulting in a chain of events that will force Tony to confront his issues with himself and with his creation Iron Man, as well.

While not my favorite of the three Iron Man movies, this one was decent and I don’t really have much in the way of complaints, aside from a few sequences that could have been more exciting and the ending being wrapped up too neatly.

The film is much darker in tone than the previous movies, and it also deals much more with Tony Stark than it does with Iron Man. He must decide if it’s Tony that’s in control or if it’s  the armor that dictates who he is. It’s a journey of self-discovery for Stark, and Shane Black seemed to be able to capture the inner struggles that Tony is facing since the insane events taking place in The Avengers.

Robert Downey Jr. was amazing, as always, and likewise for the rest of the cast. We got to see more of Don Cheadle as Rhodes, and his character was developed a bit more in this film than in previous entries into the franchise. Likewise for Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. She wasn’t just cast to banter back and forth with Tony like in the first and second films. Here we got to see her as more of an independent character with her own motivations and goals.

It was neat to see all the different armors, and the special effects were pretty great as usual.

Don’t go into this film expecting straight-on Marvel canon. The storyline for this film, at least part of it, was taken from the Extremis storyline by Warren Ellis….but it has its own spin, as is usually the case with film versions of comic book properties.

Like The Dark Knight Rises, this film was more about the man than the superhero. Keep that in mind, because some people are bound to be disappointed with the lack of actual Iron Man screen time as compared to Tony Stark screen time. However, the journey is worth it. Go see it. It’s a nice cap to the trilogy and should make things more interesting once Avengers 2 rolls around.

JOE Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Movie Trailer For Iron Man 3