R.I.P. G.D. Spradlin

A Great actor, best performance was playing the senator The Godfather pt. 2.  Also good small roles in Apocalypse Now and Ed Wood.  You will be missed.

The Best Movie Casts

10. L.A. Confidential (1997)
Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, David Straithairn and Danny Devito

9. Heat (1995)
Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Danny Trejo, Mykelti Williamson, Diane Venora, Ashley Judd, and Natalie Portman

8. Alien (1979)
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, and Yaphet Kotto

7. The Dark Knight (2008)
Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eric Roberts, Chin Han, and Morgan Freeman

6. Spartacus (1960)
Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, John Gavin, and Tony Curtis

5. Inception (2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphey, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine

4. The Godfather (1972)
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Sterling Hayden, and John Cazale

3. Apocalypse Now (1979)
Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Fredric Forrest, Sam Bottoms, Albert Hall, GD Spradlin and Harrison Ford

2. Network (1976)
Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight

1. The Thin Red Line (1998)
Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Ben Chaplin, Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Miranda Otto

Honorable Mentions
Casablanca (1942)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
The Godfather PT. 2 (1974)
Platoon (1986)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-03)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
The Departed (2006)

Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger is good edition to the marvel universe. Now I'm not that patriotic when comes to my country. However this film will make you want to sing that America Fuck Yeah song from Team America. Captain America is a good action/adventure film with a great cast too.


The plot is about Steve Rogers(Chris Evans) a small weakling who wants to go fight the Nazis, but to many health problems will not get him in. However when a scientists spots him and finds out Steve's true heart of gold, he gets him into super soldier experiment. Which works and turns him into the Captain America we've come to learn and love today. Captain has to go up against Red Skull(Hugo Weaving) and his minions called Hydra (A group of Nazis who haven broken away from Hitler). Red Skull has a plot to of course destroy the world (how original).


Joe Johnston might have few problems with some of the broad strokes of the film, but gives us so many interesting small details of his vision of this fantasized WWII period piece. The 3-D is great and the make-up effects for red skull are cool. Plus the visual effects to make the scrawny Steve Rogers was also impressive. Also a great emotional climax to the film makes this film worth watching.


Rating = 81%

The Thin Red Line

A few people have criticize my Tree of Life review, saying I do not understand Malick and what he trying to do with his films.  Let me respond and say his film are a meditation on natural beauty.  It has characters with an internal conflict, generally the loss of the innocence of youth.  I love Malick's ambition, and some of  his films, like The Thin Red Line.  The Thin Red Line is one of the reason why I think Malick is one of the greatest directors who has ever lived.
The Thin Red Line is about an Army Battalion in the Battle of Guadalcanal in WWII.  The leader is a stern overly ambitious Colonel is too tough for Captain Staros (Elias Koteas), head of charlie company, the two debate the idea of how many soldier is it worth to win this battle.  Also the plot centers around on a Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) who has fallen in love with the natives.  It has open him up to some kind of peace and to a beautiful light.  However his Sargent (Sean Penn) a person despaired by war often tries to bring him to what he thinks is reality. The film also explores a few other characters.  Ben Chaplin is thinking of his wife, John Cusack trying to work his way through ranks, and Adrien Brody looking scared all the time.
The film is beautiful; if its performances, its cinematography, and the music.  It also has an intensity like no other of Malick's work.  The battles scenes are masterfully structured.  The film sets a record for the amount of explosions in a film.  It is one of the greatest war films I have ever seen, a definite must see.

Rating = 98%

The Tree of Life

Oh The Tree of Life, you are the most beautiful but yet one of the most pretentious things I have ever seen.  Terrence Malick has really taken his style to the extreme here.  Along for the ride are great actors Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.  Also a beautiful upcoming actress Jessica Chastain who shows a lot of promise here.

What plot to this film is about a family in Texas in the 50s or 60s, never really specifies on the time.  Who experience the death one of their three sons early on.  Then it shows how the parents are grieving and how on the one of the sons grown up (Penn) now, also grieving still.  Then it shows the beginning of the universe and the earth.   After that, back to how this family was before the tragedy.  The mother (Chastain) is a graceful woman who wants her kids to be graceful. The father (Pitt) stern and pushes his sons too much.

There are a lot praises for this film and a lot of complaints.  The films cinematography is beautiful, some of the best I have ever seen.  The moments when Malick takes the film back into time showing us dinosaurs, and the formation of the Earth is incredible too.  Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are both great in this,  especially Brad Pitt here.  Pitt generally plays likeable characters, but here he does a great job in wanting us to truly be angry at him. 

With all of that being said, the film needs a stronger narrative.  Some critics defending this film, calling it an masterpiece, said how can you love 2001: A Space Odyssey and not think this film is on the same level.  2001 was doing new things with special effects, production design, it was one of the first films to treat sci-fi seriously, and it influenced countless number of directors, like Lucas, Cameron, Spielberg, Nolan, and Scott.
This film is not doing anything new in my opinion. With the exception of a fifteen - twenty minute sequence on the creation the Earth and Universe.  There are shots here that are meaningless.  Every shot in 2001 had a meaning behind it.

Speaking of Kubrick, at the premier of his films he would count every person who would walk out.  I also do that too when I watch an artistic film in theaters, and I counted 23 walk outs at this showing.  I do not hate or like this film, but I do admire its beauty and its few bold moments.  If you are into Malick's films yeah go see it in theaters.  If not, then its best to stay home.

rating = 64%

Horrible Bosses

Let me ask you guys a question, is it sexual harassment if Jennifer Aniston is trying to rape you. I mean I have a hard time figuring out how that is a crime. Every guy is going to have had hard time controlling themselves just watching how sexy crazy she is in this movie. I mean wow!!!
Horrible bosses is the best rated-r raunchy comedy in recent history. Its about three guys who try to kill their evil bosses. It has a three stooges, meets the hangover, meets office space type feeling.
The three main actors Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudekis, have a good comradery between them. Also there are good small roles from Jamie Foxx, who plays a criminal called Motherfucker Jones. Two cops are played by Wendell Pierce and Ron White, they are pretty good too.
The bosses all three of them are great, Kevin Spacey who is paranoid prick. Colin Farrell who is coke-head womanizing douche-bag. Then there is Jennifer Aniston, who plays a crazy sexy horny slut who uses her sex appeal to get power over men. Now not every joke exactly lands way it should, but I pretty much laughed the whole way through. I definitely recommend this movie.

Rating = 84%

Best of the first half of the year

2011 is halfway over with, and we have had a pretty good first half of films this year.  However, looking forward to second half of the year I only see about a few films to look forward to.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy looks awesome; David Fincher's The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo looks pretty interesting, and A Dangerous Method looks like a must see, but not really anything else is catching my attention. So this might be one of the few years where the first half is better then the second.

(I still have not seen Tree of Life, so don't yell at me for not having it on here.)

Best Actor
5. Tom Hiddleston - Thor and Midnight in Paris (showing good range in both films)
4. James McAvoy - X-Men: First Class (first film I liked him in since The Last King of Scotland)
3. Jake Gyllenhaal - The Source Code (his best performance since Donnie Darko, has to show such of an arrange of emotion here,)
2. Owen Wilson - Midnight in Paris (Owen Wilson first good performance outside of an Wes Anderson film, does good job being like Woody Allen.)
1. Michael Fassbender - X-Men: First Class and Jan Eyre (He posses everything a star needs, having one of the biggest breakout year I've seen from an actor in awhile.)

Best  Actress
5. Michelle Monaghan - The Source Code  (always good and reliable, great chemistry with Gyllenhaal)
4. Emly Blunt - The Adjustment Bureau (she is so lovely in this film, got to love her)
3. Elle Fanning -Super 8 (much better then her sister, so many moments when she owns the screen)
2. Mia Wasikowski - Jan Eyre (another rising star, in her best performance so far)
1. Saoirse Ronan - Hanna (She continues to impress, its a performance like no other, and its my favorite performance of the year so far.)

Best Film
5. The Source Code (Flawed in production and execution at times but well acted and a great idea.)
4. Midnight in Paris (A good small and sweet comedy by Woody)
3. Hanna (A great performance plus Joe Wright takes this all to familiar story to new heights)
2. Rango (Its weird that the best western I've seen in five years is about a talking lizard.)
1. X-Men: First Class (Marvel's most ambitious film to date, and the best superhero film since The Dark Knight)

Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris is one of Woody Allen's best and is definitely one of the highlights of of his latter part of his career. It is funny, smart, and sweet like most of Allen's work. The film stars Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, and Rachel McAdams. (I'm always impressed by how many beautiful women always want to work with Woody. What can I say, other the fact I am a little jealous of him.)
The film is comedic fantasy about a writer, played by Owen Wilson, who is visiting Paris and is captured by his nostalgia of the place, and easily falls for the city. While his fiancee played by Mcadams is not impressed and has a typical American view of the French. While walking the streets of Paris at night our protagonist some how travels back in time to Paris in the 1920s where he meets so many of his idols like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many more. He now has a hard time wanting witch era to pick to live in.
The casting to the film is perfect. All of these legendary artist are casted perfectly and are constantly making you laugh. Owen Wilson fits perfectly as Woody Allen protagonist. He has great job at being constant state of awe. Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard are beautiful and good as always.
The film has a good message in my opinion on looking at the past and thinking that is better then the time we live in now. We tend think of the good things in the past and think of the bad things in the present even though we are attached to so many things we do not think about. I strongly recommend this film to anyone, except if you are someone who hates Paris, and if you are probably a conservative and probably do not like Woody Allen's films.

Rating = 89%