Gangster Squad (2013)

Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, Robert Patrick

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Rating: C+

I'm going to predicate this by saying that while I'm not exactly giving this a good review, I did enjoy it.  Gangster Squad was definitely over hyped and possibly even wrongly promoted, and as such going into it I was expecting one type of movie and got something a bit different.  This is a movie created by the guy who did Zombieland, and as such it's a movie like Zombieland kind of trying to be a movie like Godfather or something similar.  As such, it kind of ends up in between the two, to the detriment of the film, although throughout it it still manages to be entertaining and fun.

Gangster Squad is the kind of true, but not really, story of Mickey Cohen (Penn) and the police officers who formed a squad, the Gangster Squad, to stop him.  The head of this squad is Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin), a decorated war hero who doesn't fit into the L.A. police scene simply because he won't take bribes and wants to persecute Cohen and his thugs.  O'Mara is joined by detective Coleman Harris (Mackie), wire-tapper Conway Keeler (Ribisi), gunslinger Max Kennard (Patrick), and his partner Navidad Ramirez (Peña).  His friend, Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who has rejected an offer to join the squad, meanwhile is carrying on an affair with Cohen's lover, Grace Faraday (Stone).

Okay, so let's see.  The action was fun, I enjoyed it.  With the exception of the Chinatown incident it all really flowed well and was, while not exactly believable, definitely entertaining.  There were a few moments that were a bit hockey, and a few add ins that made me feel like the film was trying to be the 1960s Batman - more than once I almost expected a "POW" to be displayed across the screen - but for the most part it was fun.  The humour was good too and really on key.  It wasn't an overly funny movie, but there were definitely a number of points when someone would say something that made me smile or chuckle a little.

I really liked the relationship between O'Mara and his wife, played by Mireille Enos, and really wanted more of it.  From the get go I felt the love and chemistry between the two of them and I worried about what was going to happen to each of them, and between each of them, more than any other character.  Actually, with all honesty, the only other characters that I really cared about here were the ones played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone - although more because I like the actors themselves than because of any development of their relationship.  I do think that Gosling's Jerry was developed, and I really enjoyed the character, but Stone's Grace was less developed, and their relationship... somehow, despite the fact that I already know the two as a couple from Crazy, Stupid, Love and know that they can have amazing chemistry, the two don't really have chemistry here.  It's lacking, which sucks.  I want to see more from the two of them as a couple in this film so that I could really love them as a couple.  And now I just want to go watch Crazy, Stupid, Love again.  I will stick this out there, though, if you're filming a movie with Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn in it one of them should appear shirtless and the other should not.  I'm sorry, Gangster Squad, but you made the wrong decision there.

Jack Reacher (2012)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelow, Robert Duvall

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Rating: B+

I am not a Jack Reacher fan.  I've never read the books, had never even heard of them before the movie caught my interest.  As such, I have no clue just how wrong for this role Tom Cruise is or just how much they messed up the book.  And, in all honesty, I don't really care - while I am all for trying to be true to the books as much as possible, not knowing the books I can say that this was a good movie and Tom Cruise was great in this role.

In Pittsburgh a man goes to a parking garage, pulls out a sniper rifle, and kills five people.  The case, headed by Detective Emerson (Oyelow), appears to be quickly solved, with all the evidence being linked to former U.S. Army sniper James Barr (Joseph Sikora).  When interrogated by the Detective and the District Attorney Alex Rodin (Jenkins), Barr is given a choice between confessing and facing the death penalty - and instead instructs them to find Jack Reacher (Cruise).  Reacher is a former U.S. Army Military Police Corps Officer who now exists as a drifter and has a history with Barr.  The question is, can Reacher prove Barr's innocence - and does Reacher even want to do so?  Rounding out the case is Barr's defence attorney, and the D.A.'s daughter, Helen Rodin (Pike), who believes that if the case goes to court Barr will not get a fair trial, owing to her father's tactics.  Oh, and then Barr is brutally attacked by fellow inmates and put into a coma, the question now being whether or not he'll be considered fit for trial at all.

I really liked this movie.  The action is great - I particularly loved the car chases which did away with a lot of the jumpy confusion typical of the genre - the humour is snappy, the suspense is sound.  I like how you know whether or not Barr's innocent from the get go, but you still get to watch Reacher and Helen put things together - and see as their opponents try to prevent them from being able to do so.  Pieces start to be put together, but it isn't until closer to the end of the movie that you have it all, and you're liable to be surprised by the picture that you end up seeing - it's not necessarily the one on the box.

I'm not going to comment too much on the book-to-movie transition, because as I've already mentioned, I haven't read the books.  I will say, for those who are unsure of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher because of the books, the casting came with the support of the author.  In the books, Reacher is a giant of a man and Tom Cruise... well, Tom Cruise is not (although, credit goes to the way they chose to film this, which kind of hides how short he really is... granted, that's a common theme in Tom Cruise movies).   Lee Child has said "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way" and that "With another actor you might get 100% of the height but only 90% of Reacher. With Tom, you'll get 100% of Reacher with 90% of the height."  Yes, Tom Cruise is short, but there was never a moment in this movie when I thought that he was really anything less than intimidating and a very viable threat.  He definitely portrays an unstoppable force, regardless of how tall he is (or is not).

My final note here is regarding the potential sequel.  There are something like 17 stories written about Jack Reacher, the bulk of which are novels.  It's being reported that a sequel is unlikely due to the film's box-office performance (while it's done well and made more than double what it cost to make, it's about $100 million short of what they wanted if they were to do a sequel), I do hope that they go for it.  This seems like it could be a fun franchise; it's up Tom Cruise's alley, and really I don't need to see another Mission Impossible.  It'd be nice to see Tom Cruise embark on a new franchise.  That being said, I'm also still hoping that Christopher Nolan decides to do another Batman movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Nightwing.  I can't be the only one.

Sherlock (Seasons 1 and 2)

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman

Creator: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss

Genre: Crime, Drama

Rating: A+

Doctor John Watson (Freeman) is an ex-army doctor who was injured in Afghanistan.  Through a mutual friend he meets  the eccentric Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch), whose home at 221B Baker Street he moves into.  Holmes is a much disliked freelance investigator for the police - many of whom see him as a psychopath who will one day snap.  This view is actually really easy to see, but over the course of the first season Sherlock and Watson really begin to develop a friendship, of sorts, as Watson begins to help Sherlock with his cases - or at least go along with them.

Possibly my favourite part about the show, however, is the fact that Sherlock very clearly sets out to be more than simply a buddy cop type show or just another procedural.  Each of the three episodes in the first season take elements of inspiration from the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, although only the plot of the first episode, "A Study in Pink" is an adaptation of a Conan Doyle story, in this case A Study in Scarlet - this is different in the second season, when all three episodes are based on the original Sherlock Holmes novels, in order A Scandal in Bohemia, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Final Problem.  I really like that they've done this; there's no dicking around with elements from the novels that people know and love, there's no hinting at them, there's no allusions.  Well, there are allusions but not in a way that leaves you hanging and wanting more.

The thing that really makes this show absolutely amazing, however, is the cast.  The supporting characters are great - from the cops like Sally Donovan (Vinette Robinson) who think that Sherlock is psychotic to Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Gatiss), to Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs) who is just pure awesome - but the two leads are even better.  I'm really not sure which I like more, the cold, Aspergerish Sherlock or his much more down to Earth and reasonable friend, Watson.  The dynamic between the two of them is superb and the fact that you really see the influence that Watson has on Sherlock - and that Sherlock has on Watson - is awesome.  I think the idea of a procedural where the main character is someone who doesn't fit into conventional society is my favourite form of the procedural, but when taken with Sherlock it becomes even better.  You can see Sherlock just as easily being the bad guy as he is the good guy, and it's only through his relationship with people like Watson and Mrs. Hudson that keeps him from going over that edge.  In a way, he's kind of like Sheldon Cooper meets Temperance Booth with a British accent and amazing cheek bones, but neither of them really has the balance that Watson provides.  It's great.  I can't wait for season three, even if it isn't coming out until 2014.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 3)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Have I mentioned yet how much I love the music in Sons of Anarchy?  I don’t think that I have.  A lot of the series’ music is stuff from lesser known, newer artists with a traditional rock and roll tone to it, although a few artists who are more established are also briefly used.  There’s also a lot from series composer Bob Thiele’s band The Forest Rangers, often featuring a vocal accompaniment by another artist.  There are also frequent covers, done in a way that feels different but at the same time totally fits with the tone of the show.  If you haven’t already, you should definitely check out the soundtracks.

I think the third season of Sons of Anarchy managed to both improve on the previous seasons and lose some of the charm.  The plot continues to grow in direction and become less overly complicated, but I think some of the elements of it were a bit rushed and I found at some points I really needed to suspend my disbelief.  I really liked the note that the season ended on and the implications that it had for the next season, but some of the journey was a bit bumpy.

Season three picks up a bit after where season two left off: Gemma (Sagal) has fled from Charming and is in hiding with Tig (Coates) and SOA members from another charter guarding her while the other Sons are searching for Cameron (Jamie McShane) and Abel.  The search is not going well, however, as Cameron flees to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he seeks help from his cousins Maureen Ashby (Paula Malcomson) and Father Kellan Ashby (James Cosmo), the latter whom acts as an intermediary between Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) and the Real IRA.  Rather than simply hand Abel over to the Sons, Father Ashby and the IRA begin to weave their own intricate plot in which the Sons of Anarchy are just pawns.  Meanwhile in town all the violence is beginning to catch up to the Sons and following a drive-by shooting at Half-Sack’s wake the townsfolk begin to turn against the club and those associated with it.  In order to maintain their standing the club has to restore order, but they’re being opposed by Jacob Hale, Jr (Jeff Kober), who is now running for mayor and is even more determined to remove SAMCRO from Charming.  Gemma, meanwhile, is longing for her family and, unable to return to Charming, goes to visit her newly widowed father, Nate (Hal Holbrook), who suffers from dementia.  I kind of love how I just wrote a summary of the season’s events while only mentioning two of the series’ stars by name.  The creepiest moment by far, however, is the guest appearance of Stephen King, who plays a man named Bachman.  That man is just… yeah.

So, I'm going to look at this season in two different lights; on the one hand you have the plot with Gemma in the US, and on the other hand you have the plot with the search for Abel in Ireland.  I loved the plot with Gemma and the way that we got to see her relationship with people beyond the Sons.  We got to see a bit of who she was before she became an Old Lady.  I also really love the development of her relationship with the Sons who aren't Jax (Hunnam) and Clay (Perlman).  We really get to see that she is as much a part of the club as the members; we see that she is as loved as any of the men in it, possibly more so.  I really get the feeling that if Clay wasn't around, any one of the older men in the club would make a try for her, even Tig who's sexuality is a reoccurring joke on the show.  I also love that the issues that Gemma is trying to overcome here bring up cause to develop the relationship between her and Tara (Siff).  That's a really great relationship, and I like seeing where it goes.

So, yeah.  While I loved the plot with Gemma, I kind of question the Abel plot.  There were great elements of it, but in the end it was a bit much.  I can really see how this whole thing is going to end up completely screwing the Sons over, especially Jax.  Sometimes, I think the show is being set up for a massive kill-them-all ending - a thought that is only reinforced by the Shakespearean themes to it - and the whole thing with the Irish was one of those moments.  Can't you see the show ending like that, with everyone dead?  I do.

Man on a Ledge (2012)

Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Génesis Rodríguez, Ed Harris

Director: Asger Leth

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Crime, Action

Rating: C+

I suspect I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I should have.  By which I mean, I enjoyed this movie when I realize that it wasn't really all that good.  It's fun and the action is good and the tension is definitely there - although, I'm absolutely terrified of heights, which I suspect played a lot into that.  This movie really freaked me out, but I'm like that.

Man on a Ledge follows Nick Cassidy (Worthington), a former cop and an escaped convict.  He was imprisoned for stealing a $40 million diamond from David Englander (Harris), which he swears he did not do.  At the start of Ledge Nick checks into the Roosevelt Hotel under a false name, goes to his room on the 21st floor, and steps out onto the ledge.  When negotiators arrive, he insists that he will only talk to negotiator Lydia Mercer (Banks), a negotiator who is on leave of absence following a failed negotiation leading to the suicide of a policeman a month earlier.  Unbeknownst to the police, while Nick is distracting them his brother Joey (Bell) and Joey's girlriend Angie (Rodríguez) are on the building across the street, planning on breaking into Englander's vault to prove Nick's innocence.

So... yeah.  The plot is a bit much, and at no point does it enter into believe-ability.  From how he escapes from prison to the whole heist, and the general plan to clear his name, is just all over the top.  It's just... yeah.  It's kind of all over the place.  I think the idea in general was an interesting one, but the way they did it was a bit preposterous and just too much.  You have to suspend your disbelief a lot in order to follow it, although I will grant that it does play in rather nicely to the theme of "corrupt cop" that movies tend to like.

I think the thing that makes this movie really work for me, however, is the dramatic tension between Banks and Worthington.  Regardless of how believable the rest of the film is, I really believed her character.  Her motivations were real, her struggles were real.  She really wanted to help him, whoever he might have been.  I believed that, although I think it went too extreme at the en.  The whole "corrupt cop" plot didn't work well and kind of jeopardized the loveability of Banks' character.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 5)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Holy shit.  That's all I can say after having watched this season of Sons of Anarchy. Holy shit.  Season five shows us what happens to the MC following Jax's rise to power.  Jax's sovereignty is shaky from the start; Tig (Coates)'s actions in season four have pitted SAMCRO against the crew of Damon Pope (Harold Perrineau), a man who has a lot more power and in many ways is a lot scarier than Jax.   A series of home invasions have begun to rock Charming, with the police looking to blame SAMCRO at least in part for them.  Jax must also find a way to get rid of Clay (Perlman) once and for all, while Clay is trying to figure out how to regain his power.  Gemma (Sagal), meanwhile, is on a path to hitting rock bottom as she begins drinking and smoking heavier than before, and ends up in the bed of a pimp, Nero (Jimmy Smits), who uses his relationship with Gemma to forge a relationship with Jax and the club.  Tara (Siff) closes herself off to Gemma once again, and is still looking to get her and her family away from the club, while also using her doctoring services in an attempt to get closer to Otto (Sutter).  Oh, and Opie (Hurst) is beginning to question the club even more, and his future within it.

Every episode this season had me starring at the screen going "what the fuck".  I was never really sure just what was about to happen, and every twist that came shocked me.  I laughed, I cried, I got angry, I cried some more.  Even though it's only just ended, I'm already eager for the next season to start up so that I can find out what happens next.  I think I am now more convinced than ever that by series end everyone will be dead - I also think that by the end of it all, Otto will have no more body parts, at least on his face.

This season was a bit jumpy at points, and at times the direction was a bit confusing.  Things seemed to happen not necessarily because they made sense but because they had to happen and it's TV.  I also spent a lot of time watching what was happening with Jax and really questioning the decisions that he was making.  This season is about the descent of Jax and his transition into the kind of man that Clay is.  There's also a lot of fighting between Gemma and Tara, and I can't help but feel that the show is setting things up for one of their departures from things as well, if not both of them.  Once again, everyone's going to die, that's my prediction.

If you've seen this series, or at least the first few episodes, I really recommend watching this video released by EW - clicking it has some very strongly implied spoilers, though, so don't do so unless you already know what happens or don't mind figuring it out.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 2)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, Johnny Lewis
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A

The second season of Sons of Anarchy nicely takes the set up that was the first season and expands on it.  This season is far better than the first, with a more concise and clearer plot and a higher degree of threat to the club.  The issues surrounding the first season are still at force here, especially the threat of ATF and the way that Tara (Siff) fits into Jax (Hunnam)’s world, but there are also whole new threats to the world of Sam Crow and the issues between Clay (Perlman) and Jax begin to really come into the light.  Jax, meanwhile, learns that Donna’s death was at the hands of a club member on the order of Clay and begins to use this as a means of challenging Clay, although never so severely so as to outright challenge Clay’s continued leadership.  Rounding things out is the club’s involvement in the pornography studio run by Big Otto (Sutter)’s wife, Luanne (Dendrie Taylor), who is being threatened by another studio run by Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold), and the reparation of the relationship between SAMCRO and the Real IRA when its head Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) comes stateside.

The big threat of the season is the new-to-Charming white separatists group, the League of American Nationalists (LOAN), who quickly begin to try to drive the Sons out of Charming – early on in the series, this results in the kidnapping and gang rape of Gemma Morrow (Sagal).  Gemma hides the rape from Clay, Jax, and other SAMCRO members, telling only Unster (Callie) and Tara, who try to help her deal with the attack throughout the season.  Tara, meanwhile is trying to figure out just what her role is as Jax’s Old Lady, and how to reconcile it with her role as a doctor at the hospital. 

I think, so far, my favourite moment of this series has to be when Gemma and Tara finally bonded. Over guns. In the parking lot behind a porn film studio run in part by the club. The whole idea of Gemma being this over protective bitchy mother who spends a lot of time trying to control how her son lives his life got old really fast. Really, really fast. I love how this season Gemma seems to have decided to accept Tara and the role that she now plays in Jax’s life and has set out to help Tara adjust to life as an “old lady.” There are a lot of moments that really showed this transition, but my favourite was definitely when Gemma re-armed Tara and taught her how to shoot – and provided her with a way to take out some of her stress and assert her dominance. It was an interesting development and I think really showed just how Gemma went from being a girl not unlike Tara to the matriarch that she is now, as well as suggesting that with time Tara will fill in the role of matriarch herself.

 I also really like the journey that you can see each of the characters embarking on.  This season is a lot easier to follow than the first one, with things seeming to make a lot more sense and being a lot more cohesive.  I also really, really like the whole idea of Tara and Jax being together and dealing with that, instead of not being together and wanting to but pretending to not want to... yeah, that part got annoying really fast last season.  I know things aren't going to be all hunky dory for the lovers and their MC in the future, but somehow the fact that they at least have each other gives me hope.  That is, until you consider the fact that this is supposed to be inspired by Hamlet, where everyone dies horribly.

Seven Psycopaths (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko

Director: Martin McDonagh

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Rating: A-

This movie is nothing like what you expect it to be.  That's the warning; the trailers and even the poster for this movie make it seem like it's about seven people, each one of them a psychopath, as they get up to shenanigans following a dognapping.  It is about that... but it's also about a lot more, and people who are implied to be a psychopath in the promotion for this (and even are implied to have a major role) aren't.  Not really, or at least not in the manner that you expect.

Marty (Farrell) is a screenwriter, currently working on a film titled Seven Psychopaths.  He has a few problems, however; one he's an alcoholic, two he's suffering from a bit of a writer's block, and three his screwball best friend, Billy (Rockwell) keeps on offering to help.  In addition to wanting to help Marty out, Billy is also a professional dognapper.  He and his partner, Hans (Walken), kidnap dogs then after a few days return them to their owners for a reward.  This is all going great, until they kidnap Bonny, the dog of a gangster, Charlie (Harrelson).  Charlie is willing to go to great lengths to get his dog back, killing and destroying anything that is related to this dognapping.  Through this all, Marty begins to find his inspiration for his film - although whether he or any of his friends will survive long enough to finish the script is debatable.

I did have a problem with how this film was advertised.  The trailer presents each of the stars as one of the psychopaths, and while this isn't entirely false, some of them are psychopaths, the reasons for which aren't what happens in the movie.  Furthermore, three of the stars aren't really stars and have very minor roles in the film - I loved Tom Waits' role, but it's not really an important one overall to the film, and neither of the women really have anything to do in this movie.  It's just very misleading to have them in presented as being so important and then barely have them present.

That having been said, I loved this film.  I love the way in which they tie in Marty's script and the overall plot of the film, and the struggle between the belief systems of the core characters - with Marty and Hans being pacifists, Billy being all gungho for the action sequences, and Charlie being hell bent on revenge and getting his dog back.  There are as many sequences of long talking as the characters articulate and argue about their beliefs as there are fight sequences, if not actually more.  A lot of this is a talk about what's going on with Marty's script, but everything that they say about the script relates to what's actually happening in the film's plot. It all really ties in nicely, which I loved.  The one thing that did worry me for a bit was that things wouldn't be resolved, or that the ending would be anticlimatical.  Having seen Martin McDonagh's films before, I should have known better than to worry.

The acting was also really great.  I thought the actors were really well cast.  Sam Rockwell plays the perfect weird, creepy guy, as does Christopher Walken, and to have them together is just awesome.  I thought Colin Farrell did a really good job of providing the straight man to them, particularly Rockwell, while also embracing his character's issues - somehow, Colin Farrell does drunk Irishman with a lot of life problems in general.  It was really good and made me want to watch it again and, even better, made me want to watch more of McDonagh's films.  The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was put on In Brughes.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 1)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, Johnny Lewis
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: B

I have to say I was almost instantly hooked on this show.  I was a bit overwhelmed by the many differentdirections that the plot took throughout the course of the season – there are alot of characters and a lot of stuff happens – but I was always able tofollow.  The show could have been simplified, but I think then it would have been something less.  One early criticism of the show says that the early episodes lacked direction, and I can totally see this.  The early episodes are in need of direction,but they figure things out pretty quickly.

The first season of Sons ofAnarchy takes us to Charming, California which is essentially ruled by the motorcycle club Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original, or SAMCRO,and its members and affiliates – notably club president Clay Morrow (Perlman), vice-president Jackson “Jax” Teller (Hunnam), Opie Winston (Hurst), Clay’s wife and Jax’s mother Gemma Teller Morrow (Sagal), Jax’s high school sweetheart Tara Knowles (Siff), and Charming Police Chief Wayne Unser (Callie).  The series begins with the torching of SAMCRO’s gun assembling warehouse by a rival club, the Mayans, and the premature birth of Jax’s son, Abel, by his estranged, meth-addicted wife, Wendy (Drea de Matteo).  With the warehouse gone Clay must find a way to restore the club’s activities – made harder by the fact that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is in Charming with the purpose of investigating and eradicating SAMCRO.  Jax, meanwhile, is forced to juggle the club life and a new family life, made somewhat more difficult by the re-emergence of his high school girlfriend and the love of his life, Tara, a doctor working at the local hospital.  Tara has returned to Charming because she was being stalked by ATF agent and ex-boyfriend, Josh Kohn (Jay Karnes), while living in Chicago.  Opie, meanwhile, is struggling with living a straight life.  His father, Piney (Lucking), is a co-founder of the club, and it’s really the only life Opie knows, but his wife Donna (Sprague Grayden) wants a better future for her family. Rounding out the plot is Jax’s discovery of a book written by his father and club co-founder, John Teller (voiced by Nicholas Guest), shortly before his death, lamenting the way that SAMCRO has strayed from its roots and causing Jax to question the leadership and future of the club.  The whole thing has a nice little Shakespearian theme to it, while being about a motorcycle gang there is a Hamlet undertone to it that becomes more obvious as the series progresses.

 While I do think Sons took a bit to take off it managed to capture me almost instantly. There's no dilly dawling or dicking around; it plunges you into things instantly and you just have to go with it.  I had a moment of "what the hell is going on" at first, then let myself be emerged.  The world is so immense in this show and there's so much detail to it.  I spent half the season just wondering what all the different patches on the crews cuts represented, before googling it  because I couldn't figure it out myself.

The aspect of the show that really saves it from being too complicated in this first season is the amazing abilities of the cast.  There wasn't a single performance here that I didn't fully believe - although I also don't think I understood at least half of what Chibs (Flanagan) was saying.  The performances in general are superb, with no one shining more than the rest and no one bringing the overall cast down.  I have to give credit to Sutter and whoever else did the casting; it's really rare that you find a show that's so nicely balanced.  Usually there's at least that one performance that isn't really as good as the rest or the performance that seems to be carrying the rest.  My favourite performance would be Katey Sagal's Gemma Teller-Morrow, but that's mostly just because over the years she's really perfected the role of white trash bitch.  I'm definitely looking forward to watching more of this show.

The Green Mile (1999)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morris, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell
Director: Frank Darabont
Genre: Crime, Drama, Fantasy
Rating: B

Even after having seen this a couple times I’m still not exactly sure what my opinion of The Green Mile is.  In some ways it’s rather extraordinary and well done; it has an amazing cast, an interesting premise, a good script, and that interesting mix of blatant fiction and real believability that can only be achieved by really good fantasy and science fiction.  On the other hand, however, the characters themselves are a bit flat and stereotypical and the story itself rather simplistic.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the story itself is clichéd, but the characters are definitely ones that we already know, with each kind of filling some type of archetype.

Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) is the corrections officer in charge of death row inmates at Cold Mountain Penitentiary, also known as “the Green Mile.”  Near the start of the film John Coffey (Duncan) arrives on the Mile, having been convicted of raping and killing two young girls.  With him on death row are Eduard “Del” Delacroix (Michael Jeter) and “Wild Bill” Wharton (Sam Rockwell); both John and Del come across as being good guys with some sort of cognitive or learning disability while Wild Bill is just your typical criminal asshole.  Acting as an antagonist to both the inmates and his fellow corrections officers is Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), the nephew of the governor’s wife and a sadistic asshole. The Mile is also graced by the presence of the tame mouse, Mr. Jingles, who eventually becomes the pet of Del.  Oh, and John reveals that he has the power to heal people with his touch.  That’s kind of important to the plot.

The best place to start with praising this movie is the casting.  Everyone in The Green Mile does pretty much exactly what they’re needed to do, be it making you feel sad or scared or what not.  While some of the films that the actors have done may not be exactly good, in The Green Mile they each appear to bring out their best.  I really liked how they all had accents that (to a non-southerner at least) really seemed to fit with the general setting and time of the film.  My biggest praise, however, has to go to Duncan himself whose portrayal of John Coffey is absolutely amazing.  He’s more than just this gentle giant, although the subtly with which that more is portrayed is hard to describe.  This role is something that amazed me about Duncan, and the way that he presented himself is one that I’ve never really seen him recreate.  While I’ve loved watching Duncan in other roles, I wish he had done more movies like this.

That having been said, though, John Coffey himself is a huge stereotype.  I mean, seriously, gentle giant? Black guy who’s not really all that bright?  Black guy with magical powers?  His isn’t the only stereotype either; there really isn’t a lot done to develop any of the characters beyond the archetypes that they fit in.  The good guys are good simply because they’re good, the bad guys are assholes because they’re assholes.  There’s no real reason as to why they are the way that they are. You can just get this sense throughout the film that the plot is a simplified version of something else – either some greater plot that was the book version or else a greater idea that the original writer never put to pen (and knowing that the book was written by Stephen King, I strongly suspect that the err was the result of the former).  There’s magic in the movie, but not really behind the story.

Lawless (2012)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce

Director: John Hillcoat

Genre: Crime, Drama, Western

Rating: C

I was really disappointed by this movie.  There was a lot about it that should have been good - that could have been good - but ended up sadly failing.  I don't think I've ever actually watched a Gary Oldman movie that I didn't like before, and perhaps that's where this could have gone right.  Movie makers of the world, take note: more Gary Oldman is always a good thing.

Based on the book The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant (grandson and great-nephew of the Bondurant brothers featured in both book and film) Lawless takes us to Franklin County, Virginia during the Prohibition.  The film follows three brothers, Forrest (Hardy), Howard (Clarke), and Jack (LaBeouf) as they come up against the law, primarily in the form of Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Pearce).  The Bondurants are moonshine bootleggers who refuse to give a cut of their profits to the law, causing the law to begin to try to find ways to get rid of them - typical violent ways - pushing them towards a relationship with mobster Floyd Banner (Oldman).  Along the way both Forrest and Jack find love; Forrest in former Chicago dancer Maggie Beauford (Chastain) and Jack in the form of Bertha Minnix (Wasikowska), the daughter of a preacher (who I think might've been Amish or some similar religion).

To start, Lawless has an amazing cast.  With the exception of LaBeouf, who's movies tend to get mixed reviews, and Clarke, who I really don't know from anything else, there is an amazing cast here.  I mean, Jessica Chastain alone has won or been nominated in awards for almost every movie she's been in so far - and not awards like MTV Movie Awards, I mean BAFTAs and Oscars.  And that's without taking into consideration the fact that Gary Oldman is in this movie - Gary Oldman, who was described as "one of the best actors on the planet" by film critic Peter Travers.  When you see a cast like this, you should be able to expect greatness from a movie.  Something more than just the typical shoot 'em up type film.

In many ways, this is where Lawless fails.  It's trying to be more than your typical shoot 'em up type film but fails because it doesn't properly utilize its cast.  The best parts of the movie were the scenes with Chastain and Hardy or anything with Oldman, but Lawless wanted to focus more on LaBeouf and his adventures.  I haven't read the book, so I can't say what the source material does, but the story of the quiet and rough Forrest and his relationship with the far more sophisticated Maggie is a lot more interesting than anything Jack does.

What Lawless does with Jack is nothing short of predictable.  It's not really a shoot 'em up type film, but it's stereotyped of a lot of western and crime type movies.  Watching it you know what's going to happen long before it happens - at least when it comes to Jack.  There's a bit of unpredictability with Forrester, and a lot with Howard (who really, should be described as a drunk lunatic and thus by nature of his character is unpredictable), but the other stories... I know what's going to happen. It's obvious.  I usually try to avoid going into spoilers and talking about the endings (or at least not being graphic when I do so), but I feel like with Lawless I could detail the entire movie, right down to the end, and no one would be surprised about it - well, no one who watches movies at least.  Oh, and Oldman?  Completely under utilized.  He only had a handful of scenes, maybe two of which were actual speaking parts.  I loved his performance, but there definitely wasn't enough of it.  Once again: movie makers of the world please remember you can always use more Gary Oldman.

One good thing did potentially come out of my seeing this movie.  I now have a desire to read the book that it's based on.  If it's anything like your typical book-to-movie conversion - in which a great book becomes a rather shittastic movie - I think The Wettest County in the World could be a really interesting read.  It at least appears to have gotten better reviews on Goodreads than Lawless has anywhere.

Domino (2005)

Starring: Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Édgar Ramírez, Jacqueline Bisset, Delroy Lindo, Mo'Nique, Mena Suvari, Dabney Coleman, Lucy Liu, Christopher Walken

Director: Tony Scott

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama,

Rating: C

This might be the worst movie I've ever seen Kiera Knightley in - which says a lot, because she's been in movies like Phantom Menace, Bend it Like Beckham, and King Arthur.  Actually, I'll take that back; this isn't the worst Knightley movie I've seen, but it might be the worst Tony Scott one - I've seen fewer Tony Scott movies.

Domino claims that it's the true story, mostly, of real life actress turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey (played by Knightley), although having watched it I suspect that's as legit as saying that Pearl Harbor is based on the true story of the attack of Pearl Harbor.  It tells the story of an angry girl who never really fit in until she became a badass bounty hunter.  The film alternates between being flashbacks, telling her journey into being a bounty hunter and the incident that got her arrested, and her interrogation by FBI agent Taryn Mills (Liu), to which she is all too willing to tell her story.  Not that you really believe her story.  The whole thing comes across as this ridiculous concoction, which is made worse by the fact that the movie pretends like it's based on a true story.  I think had it dropped that premise - had it simply said that the character of Domino was base on the person of Domino but that the story was a complete fabrication, it would have been better.  The entire film is really rather ridiculous, requiring viewers to suspend their disbelief - which is hard to do when it's pretending to be based on truth.

That's the biggest problem with this movie.  It's not the acting or the script or the shooting choices - all of which vary between good and not so good, but none of which alone make the movie a bad one.  It's the fact that it asks the viewer to suspend too much of their disbelief.  It's important to not ask too much of your viewers.  I can suspend a lot of disbelief in a science fiction or fantasy movie - I love being sucked into some sort of alternate reality, a world which is the result of the imagination of its creators.  At the same time, however, I hate it when someone pretends that something is set within the real world, pretends that this is even a real story.

Despite that, however, I don't really dislike Domino.  It's not a good movie, but it's kind of fun.  There's action and there's some funny bits - thanks largely to the likes of people like Mo'Nique.  The plot could have been hugely simplified, the story cleaned up a lot, and the script tightened.  But the biggest problem is definitely going to remain the fact that this film pretends like it's real when anyone can see that it isn't.

Savages (2012)

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, Demián Bichir

Director: Oliver Stone

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Rating: B-

While watching Savages I found that if you suspend your disbelief surrounding the plot and characters it’s actually a pretty good movie.  Definitely not Oliver Stone’s best, but far from being his worst either.  There were a lot of elements about the plot that kind of confused me a bit, mostly in regards to character motivations, but once I let the journey take me on its course it was a fun little trip.  Weird and rather unexpected, but definitely fun.

Savages tells the story of Ben (Taylor-Johnson) and Chon (Kitsch), best friends and marijuana growers, and their girlfriend O (Lively).  While Chon was in the armed forces he smuggled marijuana seeds into the US from Afghanistan and since then he and Ben have grown a particularly potent strain that is in high demand.  It is this strain that brings them to the attention of cartel leader Elena (Hayek) and her thugs, Alex (Bichir) and Lado (del Toro).  Elena tries to buy out their business, but after Ben and Chon insult her and make plans to flee the country she has O kidnapped in order to make them toe the line.  From there things all go to shit as Ben and Chon attempt to find a way to get O back.

For starters, I really enjoyed the way that Stone shot this movie. He kind of balances the tone between being some Hollywood flick to being an artsy film with a point – I’m not certain if Savages really has a deeper message, but it presents itself as if it does. I enjoyed the narrative that Blake Lively’s character provides, especially given as it’s preceded by the note that even though she’s telling us the story it doesn’t mean that she’s alive in the end. We kind of lose the narration in the middle, which is probably for the best, but it comes back in the end and I think provides a good wrap to the story. It’s weird… this is not a really deep movie, but between the way it was shot, with the variety of angles and the different angles, and the tone that the narration takes it really feels like it’s making some profound statement. I was almost left with the feeling at the end that I needed to rewatch the movie just to figure out what that statement was, but at the same time felt as though I didn’t really miss anything by not having grasped that statement.

Actually, that's somewhat of a lie.  I did get an idea as to what the some of the statements that Stone was attempting to make, although I'm not really sure of them.  There was a lot, obviously, on drugs, but I wasn't exactly sure if Savages was supposed to be anti-drugs or not.  Likewise, I wasn't sure if he was trying to be anti-violence or not - there are some characters in the cartel that you like and others that you don't, while Chon is very much in favour of violence and yet it's Ben, the pacifist, that you spend the entire time wanting to die.  Or that's how I felt about him, but regardless it's his pacifist actions that cause many of the problems.  In the end, though, I think it's the statement that acts as the problem of the movie.  Stone is trying to say something in Savages but the way he presents his message is rather convoluted and confusing, so at the end you're not really sure what it is that he's trying to say.  While there are some great works out there that do such a thing magnificently - Shakespeare comes to mind - there isn't much magnificence to Savages.  The message is lost simply because of a poor direction, or script, or something.  I'm not really sure where, I just know that the film probably would have been better without it.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action, Comic, Drama, Thriller
Rating: A+

"Gotham, take control... take control of your city. Behold, the instrument of your liberation! Identify yourself to the world!"

I’m going to stick this out there right at the start – my biggest problem with The Dark Knight Rises is Bane’s voice.  While I actually liked the accent overall, as well as the sheer amount of thought that Hardy appeared to put into it, there were points when it was rather screechy and as a result what Bane was saying became a bit incomprehensible.  I always got the general gist of what he was saying, but I often lost the actual words, which was a bit disappointing because in this movie Bane is more than just a brute, he’s almost Shakespearian in his way of speaking and thinking.  On the plus side of the accent, however, there were also points when he sounded like Sean Connery.  I’m just going to throw this one out there: sounding like Sean Connery is never a bad thing.  Never.

The Dark Knight Rises picks up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Bale) is living as a hermit, basically, in Wayne Manor, allowing Alfred (Cain) and Fox (Freeman) to basically run his operations. Bruce is still haunted by the death of Rachel and suffering from the injuries that he sustained as Batman, notably a pronounced limp. The streets of Gotham, however, have been cleaned up because of his sacrifice, and the city has gone on to worship the fallen hero, Harvey Dent – although Commissioner James Gordon (Oldman) clearly regrets his part in the cover up of Dent’s crimes and desires to come clean about them, when the time is right. The time is taken from him rather suddenly; following a series of events initiated by cat burglar Selina Kyle (Hathaway), Bruce loses his fortune and control of his company after Bane attacks Gotham’s stock exchange. Bruce decides to bring Batman out of the closet, while also moving to relinquish control of the company to Miranda Tate (Cotillard), instead of his business rival John Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn), who’s been working with Bane. Batman is unsuccessful in defeating Bane, however, who seizes control of Wayne Enterprises, turns a fusion core that they’d created into a nuclear bomb, and uses it to take over the city – unleashing chaos and entrapping the majority of the city’s police force underground. Not underground is Gordon and newly promoted special duty police officer John Blake (Gordon-Levitt), who conspire to disable the bomb and take back their city.

To be honest, going into this movie I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  I tried to keep my expectations down; I didn't want my love for The Dark Knight to spoil this movie.  That happens so often with sequels in general.  They might be good movies on their own, but because of the build up as the result of their predecessor(s) they fall short.  I was expecting Dark Knight Rises to fall short - especially once I heard that the villains were going to be Bane and Catwoman.  Between Batman & Robin and Catwoman Bane and Catwoman were both big parts of two of the worst movies ever.  It's hard to follow up Heath Ledger's Joker with villains associated with the worst Batman movies ever.

Dark Knight Rises takes all of your fears and throws them away.  It makes you forget that the horrors of previous Batman movies never happened.  Despite Bane's occasional vocal problems he still has a flowey, poetic way about him that makes him more than just a brute.   While it takes a bit for the movie to develop, with Nolan falling back into the use of flashbacks and reused footage from Dark Knight, once it does develop you're almost completely sucked into it - asides from the occasional jarring moments when Bane becomes incomprehensible.  The thing that I really liked about this movie was that it isn't all about the action.  It's making a social commentary about anarchy, the one percent, and standing up against evil.  It was about the people of Gotham growing up and taking back their city.  Some of my favourite parts of this movie weren't the fight sequences but rather the slower and quieter montages of the characters as they come to terms with what they face.

There are problems with The Dark Knight Rises beyond just Bane's voice.  I really didn't like what they did with Alfred in this movie, it almost felt like Michael Caine was phoning in his performance here.  It seemed very un-Alfred like.  A lot of people seemed to intuitively know things in this movie, or else I just missed the explanation on how some of them knew things that they knew.  The movie was a lot slower than Dark Knight and took a bit more to get into, although as I've already mentioned this wasn't all bad.  I really enjoyed the twists that the movie brings.  I saw some of them coming from the onset, saw others just before it happened, and was caught completely unaware by others.  All in all, it was a good journey.