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.

Great documentary recently hit Netflix Instant. Side by Side did its rounds on the film fest circuit, got a great response and is now easy to see for everyone.

It’s a discussion on the warp speed that digital film making is over taking traditional celluloid film and techniques (many Cinematographers feel threatened). Film stock has been in use for more than 100 years and it’s only been about 13 years since digital has hit the professional scene to slowly claw it’s way into favor. In fact. traditional film cameras stopped being manufactured in 2011.

This is really a story of the inevitable. Digital was vastly inferior to film, but that is quickly changing. Equipment and workflow is changing to almost all digital, with many cost, speed and versatility for production benefits. There’s a few steadfast film makers who are holding on to film and Side by Side gets their side as well as the more forward thinkers. It’s an even movie where the pros and cons of each side are given equal time and consideration. While the conclusion seems pretty clear to anyone right at the start, this docu is a great history lesson with some fantastic interviews from some of the biggest names in cinema. A must watch for movie buffs.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a cop movie, so it was nice to visit the genre again. End of Watch is the story of two young Los Angles cops on the beat. Following them for about a year, Brian and Mike are not only partners on the force, but really good friends. Through their everyday job the stumble upon a very deep rooted and dangerous criminal organization that does not want anyone disturbing their business.

End of Watch is shot documentary style and that’s my biggest problem with it. There’s no need for it as the filmmakers didn’t stick with the idea. It’s set up so that Brian is going to school on the side and one of his electives is a film class, so he has a hand held camera and two cameras that he has pinned to the chest of himself and Mike. So that’s where most of the footage you see “comes” from. Sometimes other people have cameras too, like a gang banger sitting in the back of a car on their way to a drive by. But throughout the movie, you see camera angles that don’t fit this set up. Cameras disappear and come back, traditional steady cam shots are used in chases…it doesn’t make much sense to me. A few lines of dialog are said to explain the video camera footage, but what for? It wasn’t used and there was no benefit to it. I might be over reacting, but it stuck out to me for the entire film.

Aside from that, I thought it was a great movie. I’ve heard a lot of grandiose praise for this flick which I think is a bit much, but it’s defiantly worth a watch. I like Jake Gyllenhaal a lot and he’s got great chemistry with Michael Pena. It’s well made all around, the banter between the two leads is fun even if there are a few dips into douchey bro cop territory.

Good times, I recommend it.

Part 2 was just released and looking back, I don’t think I talked about the first one!

Put simply, TDKR is one of the cornerstones of Batman lore. Written by Mark Miller and released in 1985 , Returns takes place 10 years after Bruce Wayne has hung up the cowl. Gotham is over run by gangs, the worst of humanity is eating the city from the inside. A weathered Bruce Wayne decides he can’t sit by any longer. Old foes re-emerge along with The Bat and the authorities are none to happy about any of it.

Returns has everything that makes Batman a fan favorite. Intensity, brains, brawn and honor. Even long past his physical prime, Bruce Wayne is a force of nature than no one can match. Having just watched Part 2, it’s the freshest in my mind. It is the strongest of the two with the stakes at the highest. Joker comes out of retirement and the carnage is legendary. The fight he and Batman have is the stuff of legend, and the dialog! Just dripping with brilliance (fantastic voice acting from everyone). The set up and follow through for every piece of this tale are just some of the best story telling around. The battle with Superman? Get outta here! Just tantalizing and euphoric action. Batman is the definition of bad ass.

Warner Brothers takes a lot of pride in their properties and they let this production team go to make the best Batman they could. The animation is fantastic (I can think of only one quick action that was really awful) and the soundtrack is simply epic in scope and scale.

The Chris Nolan pulled a lot of things from this source (and Year One for Batman Begins) and while there is a lot of questionable decisions in those movies for fans, Returns can be called the uncut Batman. The power and awe of one of America’s favorite heroes. Let me be clear; this is a story that is for adults. There’s a lot of grown up stuff in here in theme and violence. I’ve glossed over a lot of the details, if you’ve never read the book it’ll be a whole new world and fans can be assured that it does the source material justice.

Arguably perfect.