Raising Arizona (1987)

Date watched: May 29

Review: Hilarious movie. Perfect casting. Not the best that the Coen brothers have to offer though.

Rating: 8.3/10.0

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

Date watched: May 29

Review: It's just another war movie. It was interesting seeing it from the Japanese point of view. Other then that, it was boring.

Rating: 7.8/10.0

Man on Fire (2005)

Date watched: May 28

Review: Good acting and some interesting scenes. The flashy filming was garbage.

Rating: 7.9/10.0

Léon (1994)

Date watched: May 27-28

Review: Fun action-packed ride. Gary Oldman was brilliant. It was weird seeing Natalie Portman at such a young age.

Rating: 8.5/10.0

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Date watched: May 23

Review: Scorsese's romance piece. High society, great acting, superb film making, and extremely boring. Robert Sean Leonard's short appearance almost saved the film from complete disaster.

Rating: 6.7/10.0

Family Plot (1976)

Date watched: May 22

Review: Alfred Hitchcock is unstoppable. He always has the ability to make enjoyable characters. This one is full of them. The four main characters have some very fun scenes together. This is another fast paced ride from the master of suspense. Though he does save the suspense for the last twenty minutes of the movie, which is usual.

Rating: 9.4/10.0

Deliverance (1972)

Date watched: May 21

Review: Supreme acting. A must see movie for all movie people, even if just for the Dueling Banjos scene. Though there isn't much to the story, it has got a lot of thought in it. Jon Voight was young and his talent was with him this early in his career. Burt Reynolds proved so as well. In simplicity shines its brilliance.

Rating: 9.3/10.0

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Date watched: May 21

Review: Excellent acting by Albert Finney. For a lot of the movie I was disappointed. I kept thinking there are too many coincidences for me to actually like this. Even Charles Dickens isn't that bad. It all gets cleared up nicely though. The ending basically saved the movie, though it was weird. It was hard to understand some of the accents. Other then that, no complaints.

Rating: 8.1/10.0

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Date watched: May 15

Review: A beautiful movie. The actors seemed good enough. It is harder to tell when the movie is in a completely different language though(Spanish). What really made the movie was the fantasy elements. The other part of the story was important, and good, but it is something that has been done before. The fantasy added a whole new view. A movie really shines when the viewer pulls for a certain character to survive, and there are plenty of times when cringing and tensing of the muscles occur because of the fate of the characters. Only seeing two foreign films unofficially, this one is the best of the two. Film making that is actually worthy of the name "art."

Rating: 8.7/10.0

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Date watched: May 12

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning." -Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore

Review: Finally, a movie worthy of the praise that Francis Ford Coppola garners. Perhaps the longest movie I've ever seen, at about twenty minutes over three hours. Robert Duvall is my favorite in the movie, with the famous quote. Martin Sheen's performance was amazing, and he looks so young, you could mistake him for Charlie Sheen, and his voice sounds like Emilio Estevez's. He fathered them, so it makes sense. The story drags a bit, and the anti-war sentiments do get overplayed. It was strange seeing Laurence(Larry) Fishburne at such an early age.

Rating: 8.4/10.0

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Date watched: May 12

Review: My second Stanley Kubrick movie, and easily my favorite. Though Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is still a masterpiece. Kubrick is said to be a perfectionist, and it bleeds through the screen in this movie. The first hour of the movie was pure entertainment. After this, there were some boring parts, but still enough comic relief to keep it interesting. The low expectations for this movie made it an epic experience. Mickey Mouse.

Rating: 9.2/10.0

Smokin' Aces (2007)

Date watched: May 10

Review: Ryan Reynolds wasn't annoying. The action scenes were decent. The blood and gore went overboard. The characters were interesting. The overall plot wasn't good. The fun outweighed the annoyances. Not a bad movie.

Rating: 8.1/10.0

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Date watched: May 4

Review: Not being a fan of superhero/comic movies makes the movie automatically a non-favorite. That's why reviewing them I try my best not to take into account other great movies comparatively. The actors were good for their parts. The Sandman shouldn't have been in the movie. Venom could have had more screen time. The symbiote spidey was fun, except for the look they gave Parker. The movie was very enjoyable despite all of it's flaws. The fight scenes were too plenty. The movie tried to be too fancy with the choreographed fights. Even though while I was growing up, Spider-Man was my least favorite superhero, these movies have been the best movies of all the comic movies, barring X-Men.

Rating: 8.0/10.0