Hello World, Marc Here: From my family to yours I’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all you G-S-T fans!! And for those of you keeping up with our “12 Days of Kurosawa” I’ll say メリークリスマス!! It’s been a wonderful 12 days and I have to say that I now understand the wild popularity behind legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. A master of visual storytelling, what really stands out in each film is the subtlety to cinematography, specifically the way each scene is set up. So, as I now have newly minted respect and admiration for his work, here is a very brief review of the films in my series…
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G-S-T Review…127 Hours
Danny Boyle is known for fantastic and visually stimulating films. James Franco is an extremely versatile and dynamic actor. Amazing entertainers in their own right, together the two paired up for one of the years most intense and highly praised films. Telling the incredible true story of Aron Ralston was one that was handled with grace and respect…but still very much in your face. Boyle and Franco knocked this out of the park in a way that perfectly complimented Aron Ralston’s all-out and adrenaline-fueled lifestyle. For those of you still unfamiliar with Aron Ralston, the outdoor extraordinaire survived one hell of an ordeal while hiking Blue John Canyon (near Moab, Utah). By a…
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G-S-T Review…Unstoppable
Half of the iconic Scott Free Productions, Tony Scott, in this run away train movie, provides plenty of action and fast paced tension. Really, for a movie about a train, it’s a lot better than you’d expect. Unstoppable makes for an enjoyable time even if it confines itself to the trappings of most actioners: 2 men, 1 task, a race around the clock, yadda yadda yadda. Yes it’s an old formula but it still works. It still it feels like Tony is always making films that try to be like his big brother Ridley’s but he always seems to fall short in terms of graneur and scale. As Ridley goes the more…
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G-S-T Review…Due Date
Being ever so much funnier and engaging than the trailers implied, Due Date, Todd Phillips‘s second road trip movie, proves that he has more up his sleeve than Frank the Tank and a “one man wolf pack“. Personally speaking I really didn’t know what I was in store for aside from his hilarious but brief resume which goes back to 2000’s Road Trip. Call me a less than sophisticated film enthusiast but I’ll take a good laugh riot over a perfect story most days of the week. That said, going into Due Date, did anyone expect the latter from a film that is supposed to the the former? A road trip is a road…
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G-S-T Review…The Town
A let down to say the least, The Town was full of stereotypes, an unlikely and forced-fed love story and finally a pretty slow “I don’t care how we get there just get there” pace. I may be selling this short and not recognizing the film’s so-called brilliance, but this just wasn’t a story worth telling. Maybe it was me but the trailer gave the feeling that this would be a high-octane bank robbing film (don’t trailers always do that?). But seriously, for a film about bank robbers who were the very best, there was surprisingly little robbery and even less proof that these guys were pros. PLOT: If you start…
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G-S-T Review…DEVIL
OK, let’s get past the fact that this film hasn’t been eagerly anticipated due to M. Night’s association. There now we can evaluate this an appreciate this for what it is; a surprisingly good and pretty cool supernatural “who dun it?“. For those of you remaining rightfully skeptical, in this film Night is really just providing the outline for the story and letting someone else do all the work. Taking him away from the helm seems like the right idea. The good news is that is just what the film needed and really works despite some minor flaws. Right off the bat, this film faces a challenge by setting it in such a contained environment.…
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G-S-T Review…The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Kidnapping movies have more or less the same outcome; the kidnappers get what they want or they don’t. It’s one of the most basic sub-genre of movies which, at the same time, makes it tough to be original. That said Alice Creed does give us a ransom film that’s not entirely predictable. High points for the film abound but one thing to take close note of is writer/director J Blakeson has fully proven that the “less is more” formula still does and will always work. The Disappearance of Alice Creed is like a perfect, no nonsense “how to kidnap someone” movie…only thing they don’t tell us is how to get guts…
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G-S-T Review…Piranha 3D
Well consider me sufficiently spoiled and even more desensitized as the “horror” bar, the “skin content” bar, and the “creature feature” bar have all been raised and reset by Alexandre Aja. In his latest film, Piranha 3D has reassessed what it means to go overboard (no boat pun intended) and over the top…and I loved every minute of it. While I have been pretty firm in my stance that 3D is yet another passing fad, this movie is proof positive that it’s probably not going away anytime soon. Piranha 3D carves out a comfortable niche in film where this revived technology can showcase a perfect middle ground between the gimmick 3D films of old…
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G-S-T Review…The Expendables
Wow, this was the movie I was waiting to see for the past 18 months!! No let me replace that exclamation point with two question marks. I have to say I enjoyed myself but this was not what I was expecting it to be. With a passable story, The Expendables was action porn that effectively delivers the “mangasam” that adrenaline junkies have been waiting for. To me though, this lacks the sophistication Stallone has been working towards with each succeeding film. In short, you’ve seen this movie before; it’s a tapestry of every 80’s action movie but the difference is that this actually stars all those 80s action heroes. While I think calling…
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G-S-T Review…Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
As this is pretty much the trend with all upcoming comic book films that aren’t Marvel or DC properties, I have not read the source material for Scott Pilgrim. Basically I just didn’t know about it. Did I miss the boat? No. These days, when filmmakers shoot these adaptations they (thankfully) take the mentality of moviegoers like myself into account. So with that said, I didn’t know squat about Scott Pilgrim but Edgar Wright (read Genius) made me feel like I’d been a fan of the comic all along. PLOT: Now I know this isn’t justifiable since I haven’t seen Inception yet, but my current opinion is that Scott Pilgrim vs.…