_**Amusing flick about magicians with Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and Olivia Wilde**_
Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) achieves his dream of being a successful magician, performing before sold-out crowds in Las Vegas with his partner (Steve Buscemi). But fame & fortune has blinded him and he’s lost the love of the art, even his love for best friends. When a new edgy magician enters the scene (Jim Carrey), it gives Burt a wake-up call and forces him to reexamine his life & career and rediscover his love for magic. Olivia Wilde is on hand as a magician’s assistant while Alan Arkin plays an older magician.
“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” (2013) didn’t do well at the box office, maybe because of the lousy title. Yet it’s a solid comedy/drama about magicians, traditional ones and edgier modern ones (which some argue don’t perform “true magic”). Olivia looks great and I wish her role was bigger. Gillian Jacobs (Miranda) and Tate Hanyok (Nicole) are also featured on the feminine front. Even David Copperfield shows up.
The biggest laugh is wisely saved for last.
The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
GRADE: B

My ten word review:
_It's like Blades of Glory but with magicians. Fun stuff!_
Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/47JOCvTVnc4

Actually not terrible though some of the editing and directorial choices, especially in the finale, were questionable. I did like Josh Brolin in the lead even if his prosthetics weren't always the best but the action and pyrotechnics were decent enough and John Malkovich as usual makes for a vicious bad guy while Megan Fox was... Megan Fox, at least looked great. I did wish it leaned more into the weird elements as we only get a few moments. IDK, while not great it's nowhere near the bottom of the heap of comic book movies. **3.0/5**

_**Comic book Western with an excellent metal score**_
I was never a big Jonah Hex fan, but I have a handful of the comics from the 70s and was therefore mildly interested in this cinematic adaption from 2010, especially since Megan Fox looked so good in the promo pics, lol.
"Jonah Hex" reminds me of those gazillions of spaghetti Westerns from the 60s and 70s, like "Django" and Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy except that it's more modern and entertaining.
To be expected, the atmosphere is very comic booky and the filmmakers do an outstanding job with the title character's hideously scarred face. It's like the comic come to life. Josh Brolin is fine in the eponymous role. On top of this, Megan Fox proves in her peripheral part that she was the foxiest woman in Hollywood at the time.
At only 82 minutes, the story is simple and the pace is fast, which I don't mind since too many films overstay their welcome. But the writers did strive for some depth and that's commendable. If there was more depth and epic-ness I wouldn't hesitate to raise my rating. As it is, "Jonah Hex" plays like a spaghetti Western that's actually decent. Imagine the style and pizazz of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" updated to 2010, but half as long, no tedious stretches and less one-dimensional characters and you'd have a pretty good approximation of "Jonah Hex."
One of the film's highlights is the incredible metalized score by Marco Beltrami and none other than Mastodon. The movie's worth seeing for the music alone, no kidding.
The film was shot in Louisiana with some re-shoots in California.
GRADE: B

I have to admit that, apart from a couple of episodes, I never really read Jonah Hex when I was a kid. I did not like Western comics very much. Thus, I have no point of reference as to whether the movie is true to the original comic series. Maybe that is an advantage when seeing this movie in that I cannot get upset by the movie not being true to the original. Actually I am reasonably sure that this movie with it supernatural and steampunk influences are not entirely true to the original comic series.
Despite what seems to be the general opinion I quite liked this movie. The story is mostly comic book material but then this is a comic book character after all. I thought the story was good enough. There is plenty of quite enjoyable action in it. Josh Brolin is doing a good job of portraying the bad-ass Jonah Hex and John Malkowich is perhaps not managing to project the diabolical übervillain image that the Turnbull character is supposed to have but he is still not doing a bad job. Megan Fox is, well…Megan Fox. She is fitting the character and the movie fairly well though.
It is my understanding that the supernatural element of the movie is not something that can be found in the original comic series. It did not really disturb me. I am not sure that it added very much but it was okay.
I understand that people having read and being fans of the original comic series would be upset if the movie did not follow the original but I have to say that I do not understand why everyone else seems to bash it as well. It was an enjoyable hour and a half of fun action. Jonah Hex was the bad-ass that you hoped for. This movie was a much better “interpretation” of a comic series than the abysmal Green Hornet for instance where the hero was turned into a fumbling idiot.
For me personally, this movie was definitely on the upper half of the enjoyment-factor scale.

I was surprised when I saw this, how late it was set - 19th Century - as I'd always imagined it to be of a more historical nature. That doesn't remotely detract from the story though - as again Kurosawa casts Yoshirô Mifune ("Sanjûrô") in the leading role. Here he is a wandering samurai who arrives in a village torn by strife. His skills are sought by the two opposing headmen and he quite successfully manages to play them off against each other - and keep the peace - until one the their sons arrives, armed with a pistol, and completely alters the balance of power. Mifune is superb as the maverick, thoroughly honourable and at times quite amusing ronin - I was reminded a little of the characterisation by Clint Eastwood in the Sergio Leone films - with a ruthless, violent streak: but somehow only towards those meritorious of their fate. It takes it's time, this - there is a fair degree of character development and as such, I felt quite invested in both Mifune and in his friend the innkeeper (Eijirô Tôno) as their peril gradually increases. The remainder of the cast adds to the tension well as does the frequent use of the weather in helping create the gripping atmosphere making this a corker of a film, very much worth watching.

Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film YOJIMBO is a Japanese period drama where wily strategy is worth just as much as prowess with a sword. In the late Edo era (some decades before its end in 1868) a community is plagued by two opposing gangs who have built up a criminal empire of prostitution and gambling. Even the local officials are on the take. Into this town steps a nameless samurai (Toshiro Mifune). Once they get a taste of his swordsmanship, both sides want to hire him, but he decides to play them off against each other and free the innocent citizens from this evil.
In past films Kurosawa had taken advantage of Mifune's ability to produce exaggerated facial expressions of laughter and fear. Here, however, the nameless samurai is completely unflappable, while it is the criminal bosses and corrupt officials who play the clowns. Ikio Sawamura is a town constable constantly toadying to the gangsters, for example, while Isuzu Yamada gives a memorably sassy performance as the madame of a brothel. In what would become a convention of the Japanese period drama, the numerous henchmen in the gangs were apparently chosen from the most grotesque men that Kurosawa could find (each furthermore has distinctively ratty attire), and one thug is played by an actor suffering from gigantism.
That darkly comedic drama between the characters coexists with brutal violence. Yet, while audiences may have been shocked in 1961 by the samurai dispatching his opponents with realistic slashing sound effects and a hacked off limb, there are only a handful of fights here, and they are all over in a flash. (Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of Mifune's acting is his speed in executing the sword moves.) While Kurosawa delights in gangsters getting their comeuppance, he doesn't revel in gore.
Much has been said about how this Japanese film would inspire Westerns made in America and Europe (Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was a straight-up remake). However, the film is also interesting for how it draws so much on influences from the West. Kurosawa's inspiration was an American crime caper by Dashiell Hammett, the samurai’s walk down the main street is drawn from the Westerns of John Ford and others, the soundtrack mixes Japanese music with Western instruments such as harpsichord, and Tatsuya Nakadai's pretty-boy looks are clearly modeled on Hollywood.
All in all, I was very impressed by this film. Everything here – from the script and aspect to little things like the wind and dust and the little decorations on the set – seems the result of great effort and talent, all coming together to impress the viewer. And like Kurosawa's RASHOMON, it stays fresh even as its elements have been repeatedly reused by other film and television productions for half a century now.

Great movie!
Akira Kurosawa is just a master movie maker.

Great watch, would watch again, and do recommend.
I'll be honest, I thought this was a 2020 movie when I watched it because HOW HAD I NOT HEARD ABOUT THE ONE WHERE KEVIN JAMES DOES MMA? This is basically a homage to the Jon Favreau joke from "Friends" where he's rich so he tries to do MMA.
This has ridiculously good production value for its time, is funny, and has probably one of the deepest and good characters that Kevin James has ever played. Granted, it might be because he starts as a dirtbag and grows into a good person.
It's honestly good enough, that I don't want to talk about his transformation here, other than it's clear in the story concept that he has one (for the story to progress).
Wow, I honestly don't know if I've had a Kevin James movie to heartedly recommend since "Hitch", but even if you don't like him, then he gets his the stuffing beat out of him, so at least you'll enjoy that.

It wasn't a bad movie, but it doesn't really go with the other 4. It went to like a completely different type of movie. Until the end where it looked like the ending was forced to interact with the others.

It’s a step-up over the fourth, but it’s still a far cry from the first. “The Marked Ones” succeeds, I believe because it is content with being a straightforward horror film with no pretences beyond that of frightening its audience. Nevertheless, even if it aspires to be nothing more than a simple horror flick, it falls short in providing consistently thrilling moments to warrant a fifth instalment in the franchise. Fans of the “Paranormal Activity” series will be the target audience for this film, and if you fall into that category, you’ll enjoy it because not only does it follow the same exact formula as the previous films in the franchise but also expands on the world they’ve already established and includes a satisfying twist at the end.
___
Rating: **5.2/10** *(Nothing Remarkable)*

Really good watch, would watch again, and can recommend.
For a movie that is basically "What if you dumped a hormonal Superwoman" there is a lot to this movie, most of all the humor as this doesn't take anything seriously.
This has a wonderful cast that works together beautifully, and I wouldn't have guessed Luke Wilson and Anna Faris would have on-screen chemistry.
The production value is everything the movie needs and it uses it well: everything from flying to boiling a fish in its tank to a very angry CG shark.
The movie is more fun than it is good, but it has plenty of twists and turns and keeps you interested.

I wanted to watch this movie because I like stories about time travel. It turns out it isn’t really a time travel movie, though one character says he has done it and plans to do it again, and there is a lot of talking about traveling into the past.
But that is not the point. It is a an entertaining movie for the patient viewer who doesn’t mind an oddball comedy. There is witty dialogue, especially observations drily delivered by lead character Darius. There are a couple of ordinary and almost cliched subplots involving the two men accompanying her on the investigative assignment to talk to the alleged time traveler, so don’t go to the fridge for a snack when she is onscreen. Fortunately that is for most of the scenes.
I don’t know that I will ever watch it again, because I am not young and there are a lot of movies I still need to watch. But neither do I regret the 90 minutes I spent with it. As a final side note, the movie ends where many time travel films begin, but I will say no more than that.

Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend.
I love the philosophical discussions that happen in this movie, both explicitly and as part of the situations. I love the story within a story within a story aspect of the script structure, with multi-threading as well.
While the roles are a little (by design) stock characters, their personalities grown and change and stay interesting while keeping their core tenants.
The investigative style to the main story line intuitively delivers as a mystery, with proper drip-fed information and misleads. It all properly builds to a significant moment in the story where you begin to question things.
I highly recommend this for fans of conspiracy, time-travel, mysteries, or just weirdos with wishful thinking.

Quirky little comedy that asks you to believe in the impossible. Some good chuckles and some sweet scenes between Plaza and Duplass, but nothing really of substance. But it's easy to sit through.

Sadly, this is just a really poor rip-off of the first film, and a sloppy exploitation of it's 2006 remake. This time our nocturnal nuclear survivors manage to - quite successfully - prey on a platoon of trainee National Guard. It would appear that their finely hones military skills are no match of the their hungry opponents as they are gradually whittled down - even their own guns are turned against them as someone manages to somehow crawl out of a portable toilet! The dialogue is banal and the director Martin Weisz has managed to assemble quite possibly the least capable cast of acting talent I have seen since "Mesa of Lost Women" (1953). The photography is good; we do get up close and personal with the frequently quite brutal action, but it appears that another side effect of surviving a mushroom cloud is a seeming invincibility when shot in the head at 5 paces - which after a while becomes really quite dull to watch. Wes Craven still had a hand in this, but I'm sure even he would look at it now and wonder what was he thinking!

Better than the other _Hills Have Eyes 2_ but not as good as the second _Hills Have Eyes_... Man, movie title marketing is confusing... My roommate loves this one a lot because she has a hard on for military horror, and while I don't love it, I'm still happy to give it a regular re-watch.
_Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go._

Om Puri and his family are forced from their home in India by violence and briefly come to London before moving to a rural French community where he discovers a derelict old building situated opposite a Michelin-starred restaurant. Their first visit to the ruin is not auspicious. Their new neighbour "Mme. Mallory" (Dame Helen Mirren) is profoundly disapproving of what she clearly thinks will lower the tone, but he couldn't care less, buys the place and after a refurbishment is ready for opening night. Meantime, his talented and rather dashing son "Hassan" (Manish Dayal) plays a much more diplomatic game and befriends her employee "Marguerite" (Charlotte Le Bon). She lends him a few books on French cuisine and he starts to experiment. The remainder of the story is entirely predictable, but the writers have invested some time in building some likeable characters whilst incorporating some bloody-mindedness, gentle stereotyping and some sentimentality as we see it's not just the cuisines that can fuse effectively. Dame Helen looks like she's having some fun here and has a genuinely engaging rapport with an on-form Puri - their battle of the curmudgeons is quite entertaining and I did pity the poor old mayor (Michel Blanc), even if he did seem to get a great deal of delicious free food. Dayal also brings a bit of charm to his role and the whole film has exactly the same feel-good factor to it as you'd feel after a fine meal with a decent claret.

Apparently Sean Connery was paid Elizabeth Taylor money to return as "007" but I doubt he was overly proud of the end product. This is a pretty straightforward rehash of "Thunderball" (1965) only it's Klaus Maria Brandauer who takes one the role of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E agent "Largo". He masterminds a plan to steal two nuclear missiles from the RAF then hold the world to ransom. The old "00" programme had been disbanded, but "M" (Edward Fox) realises the danger so he puts his best man on the job. His investigations introduce him to "Domino" (Kim Basinger) and soon he is slumming it in the Bahamas trying to track down the bombs, get the gal and maybe even avenge himself on his arch nemesis "Blofeld" (Max von Sydow). Braundauer was usually quite good as the megalomaniac - his Nero in "Quo Vadis" (1985) being a good example, and von Sydow never lets down as a baddie, but the rest of this is as clunky as it is cheesy and the efforts from Basinger and the even more wooden Barbara Carrera ("Fatima Blush") do nothing at all to lift this above the level of torrid and innuendo-strewn drivel. It also takes for ever to get going, and at just shy of 2¼ hours it struggles to sustain much interest as the dialogue lumbers along and the action remains thin on the ground and on the water. It's worth watching only to remind us all of just how good some of the there "Bond" films were, but otherwise it's a real disappointment.

What were they thinking?
This stood for a while as the worst of the 007 series, although it's been outdone since then.
It's just too boring to be as Hollywood depressing as it tries to be.
Plot? You'll lose interest in the attempt to show a plot. It's a grand scheme to threaten the world, and Bond is there to save the day.
There's nothing wrong with Connery. It's the script. It's the direction. It's the monotony. It's the totally predictable Hollywood ideology.
It's a more "Hollywood" rendering of Thunderball. Here, we have it made for women. This is a chick flick 007 movie, with the heroine being the pale "plain Jane" that all women identify with.
There is nothing memorable about this movie. You'll see that for yourself, if you watch it.
What were they thinking?

_**Connery “gets the band back together” after a dozen years absence**_
As James Bond (Sean Connery) returns to field action with MI6, SPECTRE steals two warheads and 007 traces them to wealthy SPECTRE agent Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), but he has to deal with femme fatale Fatima (Barbara Carrera) to accomplish his mission as he globetrots from the London area to the Bahamas to the French Riviera to North Africa to an underground facility on the Ethiopian coast. Kim Basinger plays Largo’s girlfriend while Bernie Casey is a highlight as Agent Leiter.
Despite the return of Connery, "Never Say Never Again" (1983) is an ‘unofficial’ James Bond film in that it wasn’t produced by Eon. As such, the recognizable Bond theme is missing, as is the opening gun barrel sequence and the familiar MI6 office cast. Other than these factors, it’s a 007 film through and through. While it made a respectable profit at the box office, it didn’t do as well as “Octopussy” with Roger Moore, released four months earlier.
It’s a competent enough James Bond film it just pales in comparison to the dynamic “Octopussy,” which is arguably the most adventuresome, action-packed 007 flick. While Connery was three years younger than Moore, he looked older. It's also not as good as the movie it remakes, "Thunderball" (1965). Speaking of which, why try to remake such a great Bond flick anyway? Connery already did this story 18 years earlier and very effectively; producers should've given him an entirely new tale for his final stab at 007.
Some of the highlights include a knock-down-drag-out scrap between Bond and a big lug at the clinic; a clash with a couple of sharks in the waters of the Bahamas; a wild motorcycle/car chase in Nice, France; an escape from an old fortress in North Africa; and an exciting shootout at an archeological site.
Super-sharp Barbara Carrera stands out on the feminine front while Basinger is winsome enough, but she never interested me. Prunella Gee is striking as Patricia, a professional at the English clinic. Saskia Cohen Tanugi plays an MI6 agent, Nicole, while Lucy Hornak has a small role as a cute nurse.
The film runs 2 hours, 14 minutes, and was shot in England; Nassau, Bahamas; the French Riviera; Almería, Andalucía, Spain; Malta; and Silver Springs, Florida.
GRADE: B-

I thought this was going to be a full movie, but it is just a short story. Then it has several other short stories of popular Disney characters after it. Which I did not care for or to see. Was very disappointed in this purchase. The Olaf short was really funny though, but would have been better as a full film.

A crowd of boisterous rugby players get a bit of a shock when the plane they are travelling on has an argument with a mountain top in the Andes, and next thing they know they are sheltering in what is left of their aircraft high in the snow-capped terrain with many dead around them and with very little food. Survival is the first order of the day, before rescuers surely come, but does anyone have the faintest idea where they actually are? With the low cloud cover would the wreckage be spotted anyway? What now ensues is a better than average survival movie, with Ethan Hawke (Parrado) and Vincent Spano (Balbi) on quite good form trying to motivate the assembled survivors. Their attempts to ration wine and chocolate soon prove fruitless, and morals and ethics are challenged across this largely god-fearing group as they begin to realise that deliverance from the middle of this avalanche prone country is unlikely, and they must turn to the more urgent needs of finding food... Will they resort to cannibalism? It's based on a true story, which though adding legitimacy, does rob the film of any real sense of jeopardy as clearly someone had to survive to tell us this story, but the route of their eventual salvation demonstrates well the difficulties they faced and the tests to their humanity and faith that they must address. It's not without the odd bit of dark humour and the snowscape cinematography contrasts well with the claustrophobic imagery as the sixteen survivors huddle together in the shell of their aeroplane for warmth and shelter. It is too long with some of the scenarios recycling themselves once or twice, but there is a genuine sense of peril from Frank Marshall that makes you realise just how pointless those pre-take off safety briefings are on an aircraft.

Really good watch, could watch again, and can recommend.
I'll easily watch anything with Jaime Lee Pressly in it, but Marlon Wayans is kind of the big treat in this. One of the reasons I liked the first movie is that they got back to the spirit of the original "Scary Movie" franchise before they took it from the Wayans.
There are a few jokes that just run too long, but over all the jokes are pretty funny and consistent, even doing call backs.
The movie rolls together several different paranormal tropes very well, and given some very short re-writes could have been a rather complex legitimate horror movie.

**An adventure to unleash the secret.**
After an average reception for the first two films, I did not expect one more in the series. They should have been dropped it, yet the film was not that bad. It was simple and cute, somewhat better than the previous ones. Basically, there's no story, everything was an adventure and the story came out of it. The adventure of four Smurfs to outdo their arch-rival, Gargamel. They were racing to find the secret village, but with different agendas. They had to face many hurdles before getting close to their destination. After that what came was a surprise. Not for us, but the Smurfs, and following, the story ended with the result of the battle that fought.
From the director of 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarrom' with prominent actors behind the voice-over. Not one of the most expected animation of the year, but some people were, like the kids. The children won't go alone to the theatres, it always has to be with parents/elders/guardians. That is a complicated combination, and the filmmakers has to work on that. Which means making a film that can be enjoyed by them both. So this film is more a children's, but surely some grown ups too can enjoy it. Otherwise, it is a decent film, that's not deserved the poor box office respond it's got. That means, show it to your kids, even if you are not interested in it. That's how it should be!
_6/10_

I did really quite enjoy this film, but I'll be honest - half the time I had no idea what was going on! From the start I expected Steven Sondheim's "Mrs. Lovett" to be working on her pies downstairs, beneath the shop of "Clapet" (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). They all live in a France where food is very scarce and people have an habit of disappearing without trace! He also owns a rather dilapidated block of flats next door and he needs a janitor. Enter the poor, unsuspecting, "Louison" (Dominique Pinon) who needs a place to stay. He used to be a clown, but now the joke is very much on him as he meets the intimidating "Mlle. Plusse" (Karin Viard) and the escapades begin in earnest. To the chagrin of her father, he quickly falls in love with the daughter of the house "Julie" (Marie-Laure Dougnac) and in order to save their burgeoning romance, she has to seek the assistance of a subterranean section of society called the "Troglodytes" but more resembling a society of oilskin-clad moles. These folks live a scavengers life, ferreting around for grain and corn where they can find it. As "Louison" closes in on the secret of his employer, and his relationship with "Julie" becomes more serious, they must take to the bathroom and hope rescue comes before the hatchet falls a bit too close to home! I don't usually do surreal so well, but this is really quite an enjoyable farce of a film to watch. The characters - well, most of them, have just enough of an anchor in reality to keep it in this dimension; Dreyfus and his sidekick bring quite an entertaining hint of menace and there's a great scenes with Pinon and a knife through his head on a plate! Oddly enough, it does make more sense as it proceeds - it's just not always that obvious! Quirky and entertaining. Give it a go.

**French-style grotesque surrealism, in a film with style but no content.**
I think I got to know Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the same way as almost everyone who doesn't follow French cinema at the same time: through the film “Amelie”. The film brought the director international and is unanimously considered his greatest and most relevant work. Given how much I liked this movie, I decided to see this one, but my experience was different. If “Amelie” was magical and beautiful, this film is much more uninteresting. It was treated like a surreal nightmare: it's a story about a butcher who occasionally sells human flesh in a dystopian future.
Regardless of how much I felt disgusted by the aesthetics adopted in the film and by its bizarre theme, there is no doubt that it was a work with notes of quality: the degradation of buildings and the environment symbolizes or synthesizes the degradation of morals and values. The cacophony of sounds and images, between the dreamlike and the grotesque, is purposeful and intense (for example, that moment when the sound of bed springs where a couple makes love mixes with the sounds of a girl practicing the cello or from another neighbor who paints the ceiling of his apartment). The director's marks of talent, the quality we saw in “Amelie” is here, but distorted and adapted to a much less sympathetic film project.
The film has good actors and the performance of each of them helps the film to become a little more palatable. Dominique Pinon stood out the most: he knows how to balance between seriousness and hilarity, and has a body and facial expressiveness that is remarkable. Jean Claude Dreyfus also deserves a positive note, while Marie-Laure Dougnac doesn't seem to me to have anything relevant to do other than appear ethereal, diaphanous as a mirage.
Being a film that cares more about style than content, it also presents us with a very sharp and stylized cinematography: I must say that I admired the camera angles and the filming work, quite original, but that I don't particularly like the color, where an ocher tone made the film excessively brown. And despite the efforts, the soundtrack is one of those innocuous elements, which neither enhances nor harms the film because it does not deserve our attention in a relevant way.

I like the storyline better in part one. The only reason I rated part two better is only because there's fight scenes throughout the entire movie.

This movie has three major problems... Music is played almost all the time, which is unnecessary & even distracting. Another problem is camera which is shaking so badly you might feel nauseous. Third problem is cheap effects. Besides those problems acting is average, plot is meh. First one was really good, but this one is disappointing.

> ma gandeam ca e la fel de interesant ca primul....dar m-am inselat, efecte CGI slabe, actori la fel de slabi (astia pe cat imbatranesc pe atat mai :thumbsdown: sunt), povestea lipsita de sens, sonorizare ieftina, actiune ..(cred ca am auzit de cateva zeci de ori "detinutii sa se prezinte la lupta" sau "zoo"...complet plictisit. Nu il recomand ,e o pierdere de timp! Intru si pe IMDB sa le dau o nota caci chiar m-am eneravat! :'-(