Sunday, February 09, 2014

Movie reviews

I saw "American Hustle" this weekend and it was great.  I have to say that even though the dialogue was a little uneven (it was often ad-libbed), it was amazing to watch five actors of such talent.  In case you didn't know, American Hustle captured Best Acting nominations in every category for the Academy Awards.  The only person who didn't get a nomination was the excellent Jeremy Renner (who won it I couple years ago for "The Hurt Locker".)

Christian Bale continues to demonstrate an unhealthy commitment to his art.  He gained 40 pounds for this role and, according to IMDB, Robert DeNiro didn't recognize him when he arrived on set.

On the other end of the spectrum is the execrable Elysium.  There are the "Haves" up in space and the "Have Nots" down on Earth, who keep trying to get to Elysium for the sole purpose of using these health-generative machines that cure everything.  Why wouldn't the Richie Riches share this technology?  We never know.  But somebody writes some software and - voila - hospital ships, all ready to go, are dispatched to Earth to cure all maladies.  They should have put the script in this thing.

This silliness aside, approximately 95% of the movie is either gun play, exoskeleton fisticuffs, or futuristic explosions.  Even Bruce Willis said "This is too much for me."

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