I watched "To Kill a Mockingbird" last night.
8/10 Pretty well done. Gregory Peck did a great job in his role, obviously, he won Best Actor that year for it.
The Plan at the moment:
Draft: Trade a 3rd and 6th this year to a team to move up and get a 2nd next year (this will happen).
Players I want:
Jake Ferguson (Jake Butt) or Jelani Woods or Jeremy Ruckert or Cade Otten (owen daniels) at TE- All 4th rd or later.
Troy Anderson LB 3rd/4th rd (yay Timmy!)
Neil Farrell, JR DL- run stuffer- bye purcell
Chappie: 7.5/10
"He's just a child!"
In the near future crime rates in South Africa have ushered in a new era of robotic police scouts. While the program is successful, the creator of the robots wants to introduce an A.I. into them to give them more empathy instead of just being killing machines. Shortly after a test subject is secretly given the new artificial intelligence, he is stolen by a local gang who needs him to help perform a heist which sets forth an allegory that deals with nurture versus nature and other aspects of what it means to be human.
I wanted to give this movie a much higher grade but I will admit I am very biased towards director Neil Blomkamp. District 9 was one of the freshest true science fiction films of the last decade and Elysium was a beautiful mess of a movie. Chappie falls somewhere in between but I loved way too much about it too be completely objective. Once again the special effects are not simply cutting edge but bleeding edge, seamlessly creating a character you never once think is not in the same space as the actors.
When Chappie first becomes self aware he is very much like a highly functioning newborn, and his "acting" really sets the tone for the rest of the films message. How do we become who we are? What makes our personality? What is consciousness? This is mostly explored through newcomers to the acting scene and South African music duo Die Antwoord (whose names are Ninja and Yolandi apparently) who play the main members of the gang who kidnap Chappie to help them raise money to end a threat on their lives. There is an especially fun scene where Chappie steals cars, but also some darker moments that show how easily manipulated he is.
I won't give too much of the plot away, but I will say that if you are a fan of Science Fiction like District 9 than this movie is worth a look. It might not be for everybody but I thought it was above average despite stumbling at times.
Last edited by MasterShake; 03-07-2015 at 10:36 AM.
Whiplash - 9/10
Outside of cheap tropes like an animal dying or something like that, I very rarely feel emotional when watching a movie. That changed when I went to see Whiplash last night. The whole movie is much like the drumming it portrays - it starts out slow, reaches violent heights and crescendos, and continues to escalate and fill in the quiet moments until you are left exhausted as a viewer.
JK Simmons proves to you very early why his best supporting actor was very well deserved. He plays a band conductor named Fletcher at a very prestigious music conservatory. When his gaze turns to Andrew (played wonderfully by actor Miles Teller) to compete for the core group of musicians at the school, we see first hand how far he is willing to push those he sees talent in to go past where they are expected to be. The whole crux of the movie deals with art, passion, and performance and what the truly great among us must do to stand out. Fletcher believes that towing a merciless line with his students will either break them or allow them to break through. He does this with an intimidating mix of emotional and sometimes even physical abuse that leaves even the best wondering why they continue to show up to class. It is a fascinating study of how far someone is willing to push the line and even step over it to make someone more than they ever thought they could be. The conflict and drama in the story comes from the idea that even with this type of methodology, the human psyche and body can only take so much. But sometimes only when we are fully broken can we truly transcend those barriers and rise to something truly special.
This movie is intense, relentless, and ultimately remarkable. I feel bad that something this good flew under my radar for so long.
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