I was not a fan of the last Hunger Games movie as you can see right there. Thankfully, Mockingjay – Part 1 turned out much better. It’s quite a bit different, but everything still rides on Jennifer Lawrence’s very capable shoulders.

At the end of Catching Fire, Katniss pretty much put an end to The Hunger Games with one final act of defiance. She gets rescued, but Peeta does not. Everyone thinks he’s dead until he appears on Capital television as a tool for propaganda to try and quell the dissent for the government that is spreading.

Mockingjay, the first half at least, is much more of a political movie than an action one. There’s a lot of push and pull as Katniss is again thrust into the spot light as the mascot for the resistance. The Capital pushes back hard at every step for freedom and the weight of the slaughter of innocent lives weighs greatly on her. Jennifer Lawrence is easily the best part of the movie, she’s able to control the emotional pitches and rolls with great skill. Good to see some characters returning (Elizabeth Banks as Effie in particular, she adds some much needed levity to things). The movie is pretty narrow, there are very few locations, and it mainly sets up the finale (which should be huge). Was it necessary to split the last book into two movies? Probably not, but the box office numbers show that the studio has been greatly rewarded for doing so.

Catching Fire really turned me cold to the franchise, but this entry has brought me back. Looking forward to them bringing this one to a conclusion later this year.

Following 2011’s release of Rise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes continues the upward mobility on the refreshed Planet of the Apes franchise. A smart script with stunning visual effects pushes this film to the top of the best of 2014 list.

Set in 2026, roughly 10 years after Rise, the human population has been decimated by the man made “simian flu”.  A large group of people have holed up in what’s left of San Francisco, but when fuel reserves run low, they are forced out to try and get a hydro-electric dam to work. It is in the woods where human and ape, both survivors, clash.

Dawn is a shockingly good movie. So impressive. It shows the hubris of man and the power that fear and anger has over everyone. The apes are far more than animals, led by Caesar, they are a full, complex and working society. They can communicate in English, which is a shocking revelation for the humans. Being so different, the humans don’t trust the apes. With the abuse animal testing, many of the apes don’t trust the humans. Circumstances shove these two groups together, a tenuous relationship between Caesar and Malcolm (played by Jason Clarke) attempts to get them to work peacefully together. There’s a real edge of uncertainty through most of the movie. The build up is done really well up to the fantastic climax and satisfying end. Dawn is a sequel and it sets up another movie, but it’s its own stand alone story.

Andy Serkis did the voice and motion capture work for Caesar and he’s fantastic. There’s a soul and a heartbeat in Caesar, he’s easy to relate to and understand. He’s a force of good. All the apes are CG creations and it’s some mind blowing work from WETA Digital. The whole movie depends on making the apes believable and they are mostly photo realistic creations. The look like living, breathing beings that interact in a real world with real people. The facial animation alone is amazing stuff. All the motion capture work is fantastic and it’s helped by the human cast led by Jason Clarke (like Caesar, he’s a force of good). Gary Oldman is awesome in everything he does and here he makes for a sympathetic “bad guy”.

There’s so much to love in this movie, I can’ think of a thing that bothered me. Careful and well delivered dialog, social commentary that doesn’t come off as condescending, pitch perfect drama and awesome action scenes. There’s a lot of elements here that few movies can match. It really feels like Dawn is something that could really happen. If you haven’t seen Rise, see it so Dawn will make more sense right from the start. Highly recommended, I can’t wait for the next one.

The Skeleton Twins is about Milo (Bill Hader) and Maggie (Kristen Wiig), twins who have been estranged for the better part of a decade. After Milo attempts suicide (coincidentally at the same time Maggie is considering doing the same), his sister goes to Los Angeles and brings him back home to New York so he can recuperate. The Skeleton Twins is a fantastic movie that rides high on its sharp writing and succeeds because of the fantastic acting by its two leads.

Milo and Maggie had a trying adolescence after their father committed suicide when they were 14. Their mother, far from perfect, high school a rough time…both brother and sister were heavily traumatized and went separated ways to try to escape their past. Milo’s tragic event forces them back together. While Milo shows his pain closer to the surface, Maggie has learned to hide it much better…until she lashes out in anger when she can’t hold it in anymore. She can put up a mean front, but her words often expose her as a hypocrite.

This movie works so well because of Hader and Wiig. They worked together on SNL for seven years and are real life friends, so there is an established and sincere chemistry between them. I found their relationship as brother and sister to be completely believable. They both show range they’ve never shown before. They make Milo and Maggie three dimensional characters, we see them go though everything. They’re fights are great and meaningful. When they are alone and we see them re-establish the bond they had as children, it’s some of the best stuff captured on film. While they are two different people, deep down they are so alike. They share hardships that no one else can understand, which is what pushed them apart and is the only thing that can bring them back together. They need each other.

I really like the way the movie was shot. The production is very clear and realistic, there was never a time when I was taken out of this experience by poor production decisions. I’m a big admirer of the writing as well as the dialog rings true, relationships feel real and nothing happens just to happen. There was some considerable improv in scenes, but it all fits together (and adds a great amount of humor). Figuring out how to keep Rich (a great performance by Ty Burrell) a sympathetic character and not an all out villain (which would be super easy) is really impressive work.

For my final movie experience of 2014, I’m pretty stoked that it was a film as good as The Skeleton Twins. Great way to head into a near year. If this movie is any indication, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig have a long and fantastic movie career ahead of them. I also look forward to director/writer Craig Johnson and co-writer Mark Haymen’s (he co-wrote Black Swan!) future work (looks like I need to check out True Adolescents soon).

I’ve been a TMNT fan for awhile. I was at the perfect age when the 90’s cartoon hit, it was aimed right at me. The first movie was (and for the most part still is) awesome. Then I grew out of it and mostly forgot it existed (the further movies and cartoons were not good). Then Nickelodeon brings out a new computer generated animated show in 2012 and it’s hit all the checkmarks. Probably the best looking CG animated show ever made and they change just enough to make it new while still respecting the origins. Now, Hollywood gets a wack at it. How’d it turn out? Well…

First, this is a kids movie, so it’s not exactly aiming for the Oscars to begin with. There’s a lot of dumb stuff here and it’s a very simple movie. On to the things they got right. The spirit of the show is there. They got the Turtles attitudes right and despite the big redesign with the Shrek faces (which I got used to), they look incredible. I even like how Splinter looks. The special effects as a whole are really great. It’s a fun and funny (Mikey!) movie.

There’s a lot of bewildering script decisions going on here though. The one that bothered me the most is their poor excuse of a origin change. They wanted to tie April O’Neal’s past into theirs, but the logic and reasoning of what happened doesn’t work nearly as well as the original/ All of Splinters history is taken away which means his ties with his nemesis, Shredder, are gone. They come up with a half baked idea for Splinter to know who Shredder is, but..what the hell!? It’s stupid and makes no sense. Splinter becomes a martial arts master by reading books he finds in the sewer? What? Am I saying that I can believe that a Japanese martial artist (and all around good guy) can be mutated into a giant rat and can teach mutated giant turtles his skills, but I can’t believe that a lab rat can be mutated into a giant rat, learn martial arts and teach mutated turtles those same skills  in 15 years? Yes, I am.

There is so much bad logic in this movie it’s hard to know what I should talk about. The bad guys threat to the city is incredibly stupid. They want to make a “cure everything” mutagen, but they have to poison the whole city to sell it? What? There’s plenty of illnesses available right now for your product to work on now! Name your price! Why do you need to take all the Turtle’s blood to make it? You can’t synthesize as much as you want from just a bit of it from the miracle machine you whipped up in matter of days after thinking all traces of the mutagen were gone for 15 years? What the hell happened to Shredder’s suit? He really needed to look like a Transformer (real talk: It was cool how he could magnetically retrieve his blades)?  How could anyone move in that thing without toppling over every 6 steps? Why did he stop beating Raphael’s ass when he had him alone? How the hell did they live through that fall in the antenna? How did they get any mutagen to bring back to Splinter? How freaking big was that mountain they were sliding down in that action scene? Is it right next to the airplane runway in Fast and Furious 6? Finally, the movie is produced by Michael Bay, not directed by him. If he isn’t behind the camera, his moves should not be mimicked all over the damn place. The amount of times the camera spins around characters is absurd. It’s so needless and off putting.

So yeah, it’s a decent kids movie. I really think the potential is there for a way better sequel (which is coming, it made a fortune). Some common sense will go a long way. Be sure to watch the Nickelodeon show though, it’s brilliant stuff.

Due to recent events, it’s important for me to inform you all that Team America: World Police is on Netflix Instant (region pending).

Neighbors– Fun movie! Seth Rogan plays…Seth Rogan married to Rose Byrne. They have an adorable little girl and recently moved into their first home. Then a fraternity moves in next door. The couple plays it cool at first, making friends with the frat and even goes to a party and end up having a great time. But when the all night parties keep happening, they call the cops with a noise complaint. That starts the ever escalating war between the neighbors. Really funny movie, I liked it a lot. Zac Efron and Dave Franco often steal the show. The cast is really good, full of cursing and all the drug and sex jokes one could ask for.

A Million Ways to Die in the West– Like most thing Seth MacFarlane does, this is a hot and cold movie. Seth plays Albert, a cowardly farmer. His girl leaves him for being a punk and then a mysterious woman (Charlize Theron!) comes to town and he falls in love with her. Unfortunately she is the wife of a notorious gunslinger. Albert has a problem on his hands. The cast is really great, the cameos are perfect and there is some really funny stuff in here. The other stuff hits the dirt like a big mouth bass. For every joke that made me laugh, there’s four that are so bad it’s hard to even consider them jokes. They tread on racial jokes that don’t work at all, the “gross out” material is totally unnecessary (I’m looking at you sheep urine)  and the tripping scene (how much did that cost?) is weird just to be weird. Couldn’t think of anything better than that tired nonsense? It’s a really bi-polar movie. Good times at one moment and then get me out of here bombs the next.

22 Jump Street– I had a good time with 21 Jump Street and they really stepped it up for 22. They knew hot ridiculous doing a sequel is and they acknowledge that and work with it. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are a great comedy team as Schmidt and Jenko. The obvious step of going from undercover cops in high school to undercover cops in college is put through the ringer here. The make fun of themselves, send up the genre, but make it their own as well. They did everything they needed to in this movie, I hope they stick to their guns and leave the franchise as it is. Go out on top, no need to come back to this world.

Found footage style movie making is a high wire balancing act. It’s hard to do, a lot can go wrong, but if you pull it off, it’s some impressive stuff. Afflicted gets a lot right making for a fun and engaging horror movie.

Derek and Clif have been best friends since childhood. Clif got the movie making bug at a young age and got Derek to co-star in all of them. They grow up and Derek gets into the IT industry, which he soon realizes was a big mistake. When he’s diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, AVM, he asks his best friend to travel the world with him for a year while he’s still healthy enough to do it. Clif decides it’ll be a great adventure and they make a web site and bring cameras along (Clif followed his passion and is a documentarian) to catalog and share their experiences with everyone.

They leave home for Europe and the trip starts off great. A week in, Derek meets a young woman at a bar and they take off to go back to Derek and Clif’s hotel room. When Clif goes to the room a little later, he finds Derek alone, knocked out and bleeding in bed from a blow to the head and a deep wound on his arm. As the days pass after the attack, Derek starts showing really weird symptoms. They document Derek’s crazy changes and try to figure out what to do. They both come to the realization that no hospital can help him and Derek gets into serious trouble when he starts attacking people. With each passing day, things spiral further and further out of control.

The whole movie is shown through Clif’s cameras. We’re set up with how much equipment Clif brings, but it’s never revealed how/who found the footage and edited it together. I don’t have a problem with that as I think it all works, the set up is all we really need. There’s a lot of really impressive stuff in this movie. It looks, really, really good. Very well shot, the visual effects are fantastic and I love the end. You get to know the two guys, understand what they’re doing and they quickly get to the point of the movie. The build up is great and the execution is often masterful. Derek and Clif (those are their real names) are still beginners in the film industry, but they show a lot of understanding and expertise in Afflicted. A few things caught my eye here and there. Sometimes the dialog is a little clunky, they stay in one town when they should have took off right after shit went down (it would have been pretty easy for the authorities to find them) and the French actress is just not good. It’s tough to watch her deliver lines which is terrible because her scenes are very important and bring down the quality of the movie.

I like being surprised by movies like Afflicted that seem to come out of nowhere by great up and coming filmmakers. I look forward to see what these two tackle next.

The original How to Train Your Dragon in 2010 was a great surprise and Dreamworks Animation continues to put out better and better movies. Part 2 picks up five years from the original. Viking Hiccup and his dragon pal Toothless changed the village island of Berk for the better. Man and dragon now living in harmony, life is pretty great. With the gift of dragon flight giving the Vikings a much broader reach of the world, Hiccup enjoys going out and mapping the world with Toothless over the chieftain responsibilities that his father wants him to take over. On one of his expeditions with his girlfriend Astrid, they come across a group of dragon trappers who work for a man named Drago. It becomes clear that this man is a threat to the peace they enjoy and something must be done to stop him.

The most obvious improvement in this sequel is the animation. The first is no slouch but this movie is down right gorgeous. The lighting in particular is a huge improvement and everything animates much better. Dragons are cool to begin with and the new designs they came up with are fantastic.

The new characters are really great with Valka being a real stand out. This is a huge story of growth for the hero Hiccup, I really liked his story arc. A young man who is struggling to define himself discovers a lot about his past, deals with life changing tragedy and comes out on top not on his own, but with the help of those he loves. He figures out what he’s really good and uses it to try and better himself and those around him. Hiccup is a character that’s easy to admire.

Dragon 2 shows the importance of friends and family, no matter what they look like, where they are from or how many legs (and wings) they have. This is rated PG for good reason, there’s some heavy stuff real young children could get upset by. Life can be difficult and scary, but having the support of others and conviction to stay strong and persevere is an important message for everyone. I look forward to the series conclusion, I can’t wait to see what happens with Toothless and Hiccup next.

It has been almost 10 years since the release of the first Sin City, which was on the forefront of digital film making. Director Robert Rodriguez fully embraced the film to digital transition early on jumped at the chance to use HD digital cameras and green screens to make the world of the graphic novel Sin City come to life on screen. Equal parts eye popping and absurd, Sin City made a big splash when it was released in 2005.

So here we are 9 years later with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. It took Rodriguez and company a long time to get the sequel into production and finished. The movies are very similar. They both adhere to the black and white artwork with pops of color of the graphic novels. They both contain and shuffle around the plots of three Sin City stories (“Just Another  Saturday Night”, “A Dame To Kill For” and “The Long, Bad Night”. “Bad” was never published and is far and away my favorite piece of this collection). There are a few returning characters (some of whom have been recast) and a fair portion of these stories take place before the first movie, so it can get a little confusing if you haven’t seen it in some time.

Now visually, this movie is often a technical marvel (just like the first). There is are some crazy looking scenes and transitions here. It’s often times a gorgeous piece of work. The characters are heavy, the violence almost poetic. I dig noir material, so I just smile at the super corny lines.

Now content wise, if you didn’t like the first movie, this won’t change your mind. It’s more brutal stories. Sin City is filthy. It’s full of horrible people. There’s no way around it and that’s the point of this world. Some of them get off being so awful, others are awful because that’s how they have to survive. Men and women are both the villains, the victims and the heroes. Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) is the definition of a scumbag politician. Ava (Eva Green) is a scheming, conniving, stone cold, manipulative, black widow. Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is completely bad ass and awesome.

I had a good time watching this, although I think that Johnny’s story blows away the other two by a mile. I always wanted to see what was happening to him and the conclusion of his story is super gnarly. The population of Sin City is a memorable one and is a trip to see. It was nice to return to a place that I’m really glad doesn’t actually exist (at least I hope it doesn’t).

I came into Hercules not expecting much. One of those movies you consider watching when it hits home and you forget about it until one day it’s knocking on your door. I typically like this genre of movie and I gotta say I liked this the more it went on.

Hercules is a man of legend. He’s essentially a mercenary who travels about looking to help people out, saving his coin to eventually retire somewhere quiet. Through his adventures he’s made a few friends that fight by his side. We are introduced to them in the first scene where they are finishing up a job. In their downtime, they are approached by the daughter of the King of Thrace, who is looking for help to fend off a warlord from taking over their kingdom. But all is not what it seems!

So what did I like? First and for most, Dwayne Johnson. The guy just has screen presence. He’s just fun to watch and he plays Hercules well. He’s got the size for it and he’s got the look and chops to be able to oscillate between being a likable hero to a ferocious hero that crushes skulls. The supporting cast is very good too, Hercules is surrounded by some cool characters. It’s a well produced movie as well. Big battle scenes, cool interiors and exteriors, good fight choreography. I watched the unrated version which was rather odd as this is a pretty bloodless movie. Any real carnage isn’t shown on camera. There’s some great CG work as well, there’s a lot of stuff that integrates so well you’d never know it wasn’t real without watching the special features (I’m really impressed by the wolves). I didn’t know Brett Ratner directed this until the credits. It’s competent direction, nothing special or terrible.

I also liked their take on Hercules. His legend is really in his stories. They grounded everything in reality where his tales of killing giant town leveling beasts and a 5 headed hydra are actually exaggerations of what he did. What people thought was a monster, was just men wearing elaborate armor for example. Hercules is still an accomplished hero with amazing strength, but the lore surrounding him just adds to his name (and he doesn’t let it go to his head).

I think the movie starts off a bit to typically, but as it goes on it just gets better. You get to know the characters well, the scenes build well and the end is really satisfying. Feels like you’re watching an adventure unfold right in front of you. I can’t ask for anything more from a movie!

I Saw the Devil is a brilliant Korean crime/drama movie that mixes in horror elements to up the intensity to fantastic heights. The cop/criminal relationship gets a new twist here which makes this story one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

A serial killer, Kyung-chul, is on the loose and when he attacks police officer Kim Soo-hyeon’s pregnant fiance, the hunt for this man becomes personal.  While the typical plot line for this type of movie means we watch the cop chase the killer for the entire movie, in I Saw the Devil, the killer is found in the beginning. Kim is on an obsessive mission, going rogue and uses his own channels to quickly find Kyung . He stops him in a green house as he is preparing his next kill. Kim saves the woman and beats the stuffing out of Kyung, then surprisingly let’s him go. Kim wants to the predator, to draw out Kyung’s punishment. That proves to be a very bad idea.

Flipping the script on this genre with such a fresh idea makes for one hell of a ride. Kyung is an absolute psychopath and each encounter he has with Kim gets more and more brutal. The cat and mouse chase these two have is just an escalation in chaos. By putting Kying on his back foot, Kim ends up making the monster worse. This movie is not for those with constitutions, there is a ton of blood and violence. As gruesome as it can be,  ISTD is just as beautiful. Kim Jee-woon is a fantastic director. The framing, the lighting and the grimy-ness of this cinematic world is expertly crafted.

I keep wanting to compare this to Silence of the Lambs in terms of tone. Mad men sweeping others into their darkness, leaving bodies in their wake. Such a great movie, I highly recommend it (warning: subtitles).

After making a few movies with budgets in the 9 figure range, writer/director/producer extraordinaire Jon Favreau scales things down to his indie film making roots. Chef is a fun little movie about man who puts his life back together one sandwich at a time.

Favreau plays Carl Casper, a well known chef who’s been headlining a popular restaurant for the better part of a decade. When he gets called out by a food critic for becoming a burned out star, Carl publicly confronts him and the meltdown goes viral on the internet. Spun further into a loop, he retreats and struggles with where his life is going.

Chef is an easy movie to digest and enjoy. It’s a cute personal growth and redemption story shown in a unique environment. Favreau went to great lengths to show the love and craftsmanship for the culinary arts. There are many food montages sprinkled throughout the movie, usually shown as Carl’s safe retreat from life. By figuring out food, he figures out himself and the people he loves.

Beyond the work that consumes him, is his family. Ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and his 10 year old son, Percy (Emjay Anthony, who is quite good). He often puts his fatherhood aside in favor for work and as a result, doesn’t really know his son. Carl losing his job and looking for a new one turns out to be the best thing to happen to him as it gives him a change to get connect and teach Percy for the first time.

Chef is a nice return to simple, straight forward movie making for Jon Favreau. He knows how to tell a good story, cast it with great people and make it look really good regardless with how much money he has to work with. Fair warning though: have a good meal before you watch Chef. Getting hungry while watching is a serious issue otherwise!