Leon: The Professional

At #27 on IMDb’s is Leon: The Professional

Quick Synopsis: A young 12 year-old, Mathilda (Natalie Portman), is tragically orphaned after a drug deal gone wrong. Mathilda is taken in by Leon(Jean Reno), an assassin, and seeks revenge against Stansfield (Gary Oldman).

This movie was very good. I want to say it was cute because of the relationship that is created between Leon and Mathilda. But at the same time, this movie is dark. Mathilda’s family was murdered after a drug deal gone wrong… she was lucky to not in the house. Also with Leon being an assassin, he is an isolated and dark character. Stansfield, being a psychotic dirty DEA agent, has no morals on what is right and wrong when it comes to the drug business.

The Goods: I really like the development of the characters throughout the entire movie. You really start to feel for each character, and connect with them, especially Leon and Mathilda. With the characters you hate… you really hate them! Also the acting that the actors brought to make this connection happen with the audience is perfect. I would say that Natalie Portman’s performance, in her debut film, was marvelous! You could tell that this little girl is going to go far in her career, and she did. Portman later went on to win an Oscar for her spectacular performance in Black Swan.

Also the scrip and directing was amazing. I say the thing that makes a great film are 3 components: acting, script, and directing; everything else is just the icing on the cake. The movie preformed and exceeded in all three areas!

The Bads: This movie does not have very many “bads” per say. But I was not a fan of the soundtrack, it gave a very slow feeling for the movie. This is not a fast pace movie, Besson really liked to milk every scene. But I think the soundtrack of the movie really made it seem even slower. I was kind of board in different parts of the movie.

Overall I give this movie a 8.5/10. It was really good! But some potential to be even better. Highly recommend it to other movie enthusiast!

Sunset Blvd

Fame, fortune, passion, love, heart-break, and murder…. This is all Sunset Blvd. is all about.

At #49 on the IMDb top 100, Sunset Blvd takes place in the 1940’s. A young writer by the name of Joe Gillis (William Holden) hopes to make it big in Hollywood. After several dead-ends, he comes into financial trouble. He finds his way to the home of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a very famous silent film actress. Because she is older and has not been in films since the silent film era, she has been forgotten and “washed up”. With a desire to make a come-back, Norma Desmond hires Joe to look over her screen write, and to make “a few” edits. because of her pride, Joe is unable to do the job he is hired to do. Also Norma does not want to let Joe go, so she keeps him at her mansion by buying all of his things, and keep him close. in the end, because of Norma’s pride and selfishness, everyone becomes hurt, and reputations are ruined.

Sunset Blvd is an incredible, heartbreaking film. It shows what happens when fame becomes the center of once life. Also how lonely and messed up Hollywood can be. I wonder what this film would be like if it was remade for our time? But this it will not be a classic Film Noir.

Film Noir is black and white, Hollywood stylized, crime drama. These are some of my favorite movies. I love  the crime aspects and all of the tension that comes become that characters.

Because of the script, direction, and the acting, I am giving Sunset Blvd a 5/5. This deserves to be in the top 100 movies to watch before you die.

Taxi Driver

#80 on IMDb’s top 250 is a little movie called Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese.

Taxi Driver surrounds that thoughts and actions of Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), a Vietnam Veteran. He takes the job of a Taxi Driver during the night shift, and see the destructiveness and harshness that city has to offer. Because of this, it feeds his need for violence and saves a prostitute (Jodi Foster) in the end.

I have never seen this movie until last night. It is one that my friends say that I should watch, but never gotten around to it. Now that I have seen it, I am very happy I saw the movie. Martin Scorsese is a great director and knows how to bring out characters. Also Rober DeNiro did an amazing job bring out Travis Bickle. His character is a complicated and did a lot of over voicing.

Here is a few facts about this movie:

• Robert DeNiro worked 12 hour days as a taxi driver for a month. He also studied mental health.
• Jodi Foster was 12 years old when she played the role in Taxi Driver. Her Character was also 12 years old. In the more explicit scenes were done by Jodie Foster’s sister who was 19 at the time.
• The line “You talking to me?” was voted as the #10 movie quote by the American Film Institute, and has the #8 of “The 100 Greatest Movie Lines” by Premiere in 2007. Also DeNiro claimed that the line was inspired by Bruce Springsteen.

I will give this movie a 5/5. This is one of the best films I have seen an a long time. This film is highly recommended by me! If you like mind bending/metal movies… Watch it! If you like Scorsese films.. Watch it! It you want to watch an amazing movie all around…. Watch it!

How did you like Taxi Driver? Let me know in the comments below!

Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The first movie I am going to talk about is #43 on IMDb’s top 100, and that is Terminator 2: Judgement day. But because I have not seen this movie since I was 9 or 10, I also watched the first Terminator.

As a kid, I remember not liking them as much. Maybe because my brother liked them, and I was determined not to like anything my brother likes. It is kind of funny now when I think about it… ^_^ Now that I am older, I think both movies are great! James Cameron is one of my favorite directors, so I don’t know why I have not seen them recently.

In The Terminator, a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was send to the future from 2029 to May 12, 1984 to destroy Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The reason the Terminator is to destroy Sarah Connor so that she does not have John Connor, who in the future is fighting against the Cyborgs in the future. John, in the future, hears about what the cyborgs have done, and sends Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to the past to protect Sarah Connor. Over several action pack scenes, Kyle and Sarah destroy the Terminator. But it cost Kyle’s life.

In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, a Cyborg identical to the terminator in the first film (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was sent to the future by John Connor to protect his younger self (Edward Furlong) in 1995 from the T-1000 Cyborg (Robert Patrick). Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) joins T-101 Cyborg to protect John and to also keep Judgment day from happening.

Both of these films are action pack, engaging, original films. Both films have the best one liners that can repeated for every occasion. I give each of them 4/5 stars. Now I can’t wait for Terminator Genisys coming out in July!

I know that there are 2 other Terminator films, and I saw both of them when they first came out. Both are not good, rotten!. They did not make sense, bad scripts, and not directed well. I do not recommend either Terminator 3 or Terminator Salvation. Well, there is the first review!

As Arnold will say “I’ll be back”… For another review that is!

100 Movies to Watch Before You Die

For my first project of movies to review,  I could not decide on what to watch. There are so many good movies to watch. I mean, my “top 10 list” has over 100 titles! So that got me to thinking that I should find the list of 100 movies to watch before you die.

I had two list to chose from IMDb’s top 250 or Listal’s list. Both are voted by the website’s members. But I have a problem with IMDb because of the influence that a group of people had to make The Dark Knight number one. A couple years ago, there was a movement for everyone to give The Godfather 1 star and The Dark Knight 10 stars to make it #1. IMDb’s list on the other hand is up to date. Listal’s list was created January of 2014, but there is no way to manipulate thr list after it has been published. Also it is only a select few people chose, rather than the critics.

So… what list to do? I have decided to go with IMDb. But instead of going through the list in order from 100 – 1 or vise versa, I am using a random number generator to make my decision on what to watch. When looking at the list I have already watch about 60% of them. But since I have seen the movie, my perspective might have changed, something new sticks out to me, or I was super young when I watched the movie and not remember the plot, etc… This is very exciting because this is going to be an entire summer of movies!

Go to IMDb, take a look at the list, and watch for the reviews!