2012 was a really busy year for Joseph Gordon Levitt! Four big movies in a row,Premium Rush being the starring action movie for him. Levitt plays Wilee, a bike messenger in Manhattan. He loves his job (he’s not the office type) and on an ordinary day until he picks up a delivery that puts a bullseye on his back from a crooked cop. The chase through the city streets is on!

It’s a cat and mouse movie with a twist that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. JGL is great as usual, the setting is great, the chase scenes (which almost the entire movie is) are super exciting. It’s got a good set up that’s told well through a few flashbacks as the chase unfolds and it’s really well directed. Good use of POV shots, clear and smooth camera work, excellent editing. I tip my hat for the lack of shaky cam and ADD editing. I really don’t have any complaints, it’s a fun movie!

I wasn’t expecting much thinking it looked too goofy from the trailer, but I was wrong. A pleasent surprise for me, I give it a heartly recommendation.

Two romantic comedies in a row, I may beed to shuffle my Netflix queue up a bit. I put Celeste and Jesse Forever on my list because Rashida Jones is in it. I’ve liked her since her time on The Office, followed her to Parks and Rec and hearing that she co-wrote the movie made me curious to see what she devoted another part of her life too.

The writing is really, really strong. I really liked the set up, a slightly different angle to approach the relationship genre. Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are a married couple who are seperating. But they get along like best friends which as one of their friends at dinner bluntly puts it, “is really weird.” They’ve agreed that their marriage isn’t working, but they want to remain friends and this odd holding pattern is stretching into months. The confrontation at dinner is the catalyst for the couple to move on while remaining friends. When Jesse’s life gets a sudden jump start, it sends Celeste into a sudden tail spin.

The acting and dialog really stand out well to me. It always felt like a honest story with realistic characters and situations. Dialog sounds and flows naturally through the good times and the bad. While there is some parts that feel overly convienant, it’s nothing that felt out of place or too out there to believe. Stat to finish it’s a great story that I put over Friends With Benefits in all regards. ‘Forever’ is a less cheeky take on relationships than ‘Benefits’ is, less of a rom com if that makes sense to you. I recommend it.

I’ve been on a bit of a Mila Kunis movie run lately with Ted, Oz and this little diddy. The title, Friends With Benefits says it all. Jamie (Mila Kunis) and Dylan (Justin Timberlake) are twenty something professionals who have better careers than relationships. The two meet through work, Jamie is a recruiter and gets Dylan to come cross country for a job in NYC. The quickly become friends and after lamenting about their love lives and how sex throws useless complications in, they decide to hook up with no strings attached.

There is a scene near the beginning where the two are watching a fictional Hollywood rom com and Dylan bitches about all the cliches. So of course, this rom com can’t avoid many of those cliches in its run. It’s a pretty predictable movie right down to the timing. The friendship turns into something else, they have a lot of fun together and the personal baggage each brings eventually pushes them apart. Cue regret, a dance number and a happy ending. Now there is some funny stuff in there, as I said before I love Mila Kunis and she does her part well and Justin Timberlake is…Justin Timberlake. He’s not a bad actor, he’s just JT all the time.

While Friends with Benefits does nothing new, it’s a good rom com.

This Oz film is a prequel to the original Wizard of Oz. Being made today, it’s packed with cutting edge CG effects that create the world of Oz and lead the audience through the tale of how Oz became The Wizard of Oz.

It’s a pretty good story with some outstanding visual effects! I can’t shake the view that it’s uneven film from start to finish though. For every good piece, there’s a bad or at the very least a misaligned one. The cast is good, (Michelle Williams doing the best work I think) but the performances suffer from some really awkward dialog and delivery. I blame the writing more as the actor(s) are really just working with what they are given. It takes place in 1905, but there is a lot of weird, contemporary, aggressive/edgy lines that just sound forced and don’t fit (Knuck is the biggest offender, I’m not sure what the writers were going for).

The story fits well, but the movie is a bit long in the tooth. Two hours and fifteen minutes is a long time for this kind of tale. I felt like the end was far and away the most cohesive and best paced (it had the best ideas and follow through with some amazing special effects). The beginning is good as we watch as Oz gets to the land of Oz the same way Dorothy does and understand what kind of man he is. He’s a bit of a cheat, but he is a good person at the core. He meets all sorts of colorful characters (really great work on Finley and China Girl, fantastic animation and detail) and Oz really pops as a fantasy place. The middle is very rocky. The set up for The Wicked Witch to become Wicked is my biggest complaint. It’s stupid and isn’t good enough to have a character become a heel. Yes she’s tricked, but the trick was so vapid and simple that it’s too unbelievable to take seriously. There’s a better way to do it; some restructuring could have gone long way and it isn’t like they were pressed for runtime at over two hours. She looks fantastic though (the costumes are fantastic and the sound design is outstanding as well)!

It’s a striking move visually, there is a lot of camera movement. There are a lot of Raimi tells (especially during action scenes that involve witches). No complaints on the production front from me.

The Great and Powerful is a fun movie, it is PG and there are some visuals that I think could freak out a younger (less than 6) child. I wasn’t too sure what to expected but I came away with mostly positive vibes from it. I think it’s a better movie than Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.