Green is Gold (2016)

Directed by: Ryon Baxter
Starring: Derek W. Adam, Jimmy Baxter, Ryon Baxter


From the outside looking in Mason (Jimmy Baxter) may appear to be ordinary teenager, living an average lifestyle. What you may not know about him however, is what his family background is like. After his drug dealing father is sent to prison, he is forced to go to live with his older brother, Cameron, who is a career supplier of marijuana. Everything seems alright from the start, Cameron (Ryon Baxter) figures it'll be simple enough to take care of his younger brother and even teach him some tricks of the trade.

If you're like me, you've probably never heard of this film until now. I just happened to come across it at Redbox whilst looking for something lesser known to check out with a free credit I had. Reading the synopsis and watching the trailer, I could immediately tell this wasn't going to be an Oscar, but I was fine with that as I've been pleasantly surprised with movies like these in the past, The Brass Teapot (2012) comes to mind, so I gave it a shot. Upon starting it I could tell I was in for a rude awakening, for starters there were no premise to what happened to Mason's parents, we can only assume from the later phone calls that he was arrested for drug dealing. I could live with that missing minor detail, however I almost gave up after twenty minutes of shaky-camera-vision and obvious cue card acting from our main characters. Really, this is 2016, and this film seemed to be shot using a early millennium Motorola cell phone. Not being fully aware of the film crew I won't be too quick to judge their acting abilities, after all I'm sure big time directors like Spielberg and Scorsese weresn't perfect their first time out. One important thing I watch movies for is the story, this one had the potential to be big, but fell way short. The plot was choppy, the ending was pointless and generally the whole screenplay seemed like it was written by a ten year old writing a school play.

Rating: 1/5
Overall: I'd steer far away from this one unless you truly want to watch crap. My recommendation if you're really interested in this, just watch the less than two minute trailer below, it basically covers the entire film. The fact that this gets a 7/10 rating on IMDb really makes me wonder what kind of audience is on that site.

A Year in Cinema: 2016

So here we are, at the end of another year. A rather sad year for movies in my opinion, then again any year I watch less than 400 movies is a bad year in my book. Nonetheless, despite work and family obligations I did venture out to the theater 21 times this year and watched over 217 movies combined, with 62 of them being first time viewings.

The BFG (2016)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall, Bill Hader


A Big Freaking Guy, yep.

Little orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is an insomniac, never having the opportunity to dream and as an orphan always looking for an adventure. One night unlike the rest, she was up roaming around the orphanage, staring out the window when she spots something unusual, the Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance). While initially she's scared of the Giant, she quickly learns there's more to him than just being monstrous and talking funny; he's actually quite sweet and just wants her to feel comfortable being around him. After all, the Big Friendly Giant feels as if he can’t let her go back to the real world, where she’ll most definitely be going on and on about the Giant, making everyone suspicious and worried about its actual whereabouts. For a short while, Sophie and the BFG seem to get along just fine, that is until word gets out in Giant country and his fellow, meaner giants like Bloodbottler, Fleshlumpeater and others, start sniffing around for something new to eat, giving Sophie and the BFG a challenge on how to stop these meaner giants once and for all.

This feature was brought to us by, in the humble opinion of this editor, the best filmmaker ever-Steven Spielberg. Spielberg's at the point of his career where he really doesn't have to try to please anyone, he's pretty much done a bit of anything and everything. He's done it all, and for now it seems Spielberg is oging to do what he wants, when he wants to, and how he wants to do it. With Disney picking up the tab, it should be an interesting result, right?

Well, yes it does, interesting being the key word. After watching The BFG, I'm reminded just what Spielberg is capable of doing: Taking any story, no matter how weird or realistic, compelling to watch.

The first act of The BFG is rather exciting because it's different then what we're used to seeing from a kid-approved Disney movie, where rather than concentrate on the visual effects and the like, Spielberg decides to take it slow so that we can connect with the chemistry between our characters a bit. It all works out too, because Rylance and Barnhill are both perfect for their respective roles.

Of course, the BFG isn't a perfect movie, as we can expect from the latter of Spielberg's work. He spends more time getting us to connect with the characters that I feel he neglects the actual story line, until, well it's too late. With a running length of just under two hours, it's a bit long for a children's movie but as I've said in the past, most any movie is worth sticking out to the end regardless (just good luck convincing that to a kid, who would have likely gave up on this one after the first 30 minutes).


RATING: 7/10; It's a good movie, although leaves a lot to be granted in the story department. A kid, whom I would think would look forward to this movie the most, would likely not make it past the thirty minute mark.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Directed by: John Hughes
Starring: John Candy, Steve Martin


So here we are, Thanksgiving Day in America, and what better way to celebrate than with a traditional viewing of one of John Hughes' best! Planes, Trains & Automobiles is about a man, Neil Page (Steve Martin) who is trying to make it to his suburbia home in Chicago. Along the way he meets this obnoxious salesman, Dell Griffith played by none other than the comic genius John Candy.

You never know what the holidays may bring, for Neil all he wanted to do was make it home for Thanksgiving dinner. Dell, however had no body to spend the holidays with, after losing his late wife and taking to the road.

For many years I avoided this film because I thought it was going to be just another road trip flick. I was pleasantly surprised, yes they're on a road trip, but also includes so much dramatic, emotional and truthful subtext. This has since turned into one of my favorite holiday comedies.


RATING: 9/10

Goodfellas (1990)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci


Whether you want to accept it or not, organized crime actually exists, in many parts of the world. Goodfellas is based on a true story, explores the lives of gangsters in Brooklyn, chonicling the events of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta).

As he gets older, he marries and has children, but still continues his long-term relationship with the organized crime family run under mob boss Paulie (Paul Sorvino), and befriends a calm, steady gangster named Jimmy (Robert De Niro) and wild man Tommy (Joe Pesci).

This is surely one of the great films from the gangster film genre. Director Martin Scorsese fully shows this unromantic view on the gangsters lifestyle. He shows that the gangsters do is steal, kill, and don’t associate with many others outside of their family, which in all shows how these character interact with one-another. What Scorsese is mostly showing and telling that these people are scum, and this is so crushing in a beautiful and artful way.

So, which is better: Goodfellas or The Godfather? Of course they're both amazing films in their own right, and both are focused on organized crime, yet each of them give a totally different approach. I feel that The Godfather is focused more on the family-side of things while Goodfellas spends more time with its characters.


RATING: 10/10

Unfinished Business (2015)

Directed by: Ken Scott
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, Tom Wilkinson


The Movie: 
Upon feeling unappreciated at a big corporation, a hardworking salesman decides to break off and form his own business. After a slow year on the business front, he and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. What began as a routine trip, ends up being a battle against finding out what is truly important.

Review:
After watching this, I decided to double take what appropriate rating this deserved.  I opted to go with a solid 7 out of 10, why? Well, despite it's attempt at humor weren't much more than crude sexual jokes, I did find myself laughing throughout this movie. It's not Academy Award quality, but come on, ask yourself when the last time Vince Vaughn or Dave Franco was in a Oscar winning film...right, never.

Bullying seems to be a hot topic these days, not just in schools but in life. It is because of this that the writers intuitively included a back story involving an bullying issue with Vaughn's two kids, in an attempt to grab some emotion from the viewer. Not only the kids, but we saw how bullying is involved in the real world as well. Dan Trunkman and his two colleagues were counting on this important deal to keep their business, the company they were meeting with knew this and in the words of Tom Wilkinson, used them as to fluffers. They knew they were going to hire the bigger and more experienced company way before meeting with Trunkman's company, but insisted on wanting them to travel half way across the world anyway.

Upon first arriving in Europe, the three unlikely businessmen find themselves already off to a bad start, there were no hotel vacancies. Good news for Franco, there was a youth hostel with a vacancy and although Wilkinson may be youthful at heart, but let's face it he hasn't been a youth in many decades, but the owner of the hostel showed him some pity and allowed him to stay in the hostel's business center. Trunkman lucked out and scored a suite at a museum, or did he? Little did he realize that suite was actually an exhibit, an American Businessman exhibit, so he was being watched by the public all day long. To make matters worse, he had a routine running schedule and allowed his daughter to pack his running clothes...which she did, by the way, his wife's workout clothes. Still a routine is a routine, he put on the jogging bra and short shorts and hit the road.

Once realizing they were what they were afraid of, they could've left Europe and moved on with their lives, but they didn't. They had unfinished business to attend to, and although Trunkman had possibly a bigger problem at home they stuck around to get what they traveled thousands of miles for.


RATING: 7/10 (Worth a rent.)

Hardball (2001)

Directed by: Brian Robbins
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Diane Lane, John Hawkes


The Movie:
Conor O'Neill (Reeves) is a down-on-his-luck gambler in debt to dangerous loan sharks. Desperate for cash, Conor reluctantly takes a job coaching a youth baseball team. The "team" turns out to be a ragtag group of tough-talking kids from Chicago's inner city. Secretly, Conor plans to desert the team after he wins a big bet. But the stakes are higher than Conor imagined: The kids need someone to believe in. As Conor wrestles with his past, the kids start to teach him some lessons that will forever change his future -- that responsibility and trust must be earned and hope can appear in the most unlikely places.

Review:
It's unfortunate a movie with a little emotion would get so much negative criticism. After watching this movie I was extremely delighted with the entire experience. Anyone who ever doubted Keanu's acting abilities should only watch this movie, especially the eulogy scene to see that critics have been wrong. Strong, emotional, sympathetic, and completely believable. I originally believed this was going to be another story about a typical loser who takes over a group of unfortunates only to find a purpose for themselves, and I expected this to be only mildly entertaining. However I was wrong, this film truly moved me. I'm a middle aged male who doesn't care for too many sappy, emotional films, but I loved every second of this one. I'm especially glad the producers decided not to make it a last minute, win at the last possible second.

With the symbolism between one man's gambling addiction and the street gangs, we learn just how much "showing up" (taken from the film's official tagline) was the best way to overcome our problems, be it in life or on the field. This story is suitable for audiences of all ages, despite some choice words used. Honestly, I would not hesitate to allow my now eleven year old daughter watch this movie and talk about it. Recommended for everyone, sports fans or not.

RATING: 8/10