Trouble with the Curve

I watched this other day, because I thought it might be pretty good having Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams in it.  It was worth watching once as a filler movie, but was definitely not at the top of Eastwood's work.


Trouble with the Curve is a 2012 sports drama film.  The film revolves around an aging baseball scout (Eastwood) whose deteriorating health leads his daughter (Amy Adams) to accompany him on one last scouting trip.  This is the first movie that Eastwood has acted in since 2008's Gran Torino, and his first acting role that he didn't also direct since his cameo in 1995's Casper.







The cast includes:
Clint Eastwood as Gus (Bridges of Madison County, Unforgiven, Good the Bad and the Ugly)
Chelcie Ross as Smitty (Mad Men, Drag Me to Hell, Basic Instinct, Major League, Hoosiers)
Amy Adams as Mickey (Enchanted, American Hustle, Her, Man of Steel, The Fighter, Leap Year)
Matthew Lillard as Phillip (Scoppy Doo, The Bridge, Without a Paddle, Thir13en Ghosts)
John Goodman as Pete (Monster's, Inc, Argo, Alpha House, Roseanne, Community, Evan Almighty)
Justin Timberlake as Johnny (SNL, In Time, Friends with Benefits, Bad Teacher, Alpha Dog)

A year after Trouble with the Curve was released it became the subject of a plagiarism lawsuit by a producer alleging that his former partner had taken an unfinished script after a dispute.  The results of the lawsusit were that the original was draftds as early as 1996.  A judge found that the similarities were over-stated and that the film was not a plagiarism.   Overall criticism to the film marked it at around 50%.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.  It was not a spectacular film, but it wasn't horrible.  Kind of a boring movie, a lot of potential, but kind of a snoozer in terms of action.  Interesting look into sports scouting. 

You can visit the official website at: Trouble with the Curve

Finding Nemo

Liam is branching out in his movie watching and I got him to watch Finding Nemo for the second time tonight in the past year and I always love watching this movie.  I loved this one before Liam was born and I love being able to share it with him.  This is one of those timeless classics that you can watch over and over again.

 In case you have been missing out and don't know anything about Finding Nemo, let me fill you in on the background of it.  Finding Nemo is a Pixar film that was realeased in 2003.  It was the 5th film released by Pixar.  Nemo is about a clown fish that is captured by a scuba diver and taken fromt he great barrier reef to Sydney, Australia.  His father (Marlin) an overprotective clown fish then goes in search of him and comes across an unlikely partner Dory who is a tang (bright orange fish) with short-term memory loss.  Together they must cross the ocean to try to find and rescue Nemo.

Finding Nemo is a comedy-drama adventure film that is computer animated.  It was the first Pixar film to be released in the Northern Hemisphere during the Summer.  It won the Academy Award and Saturn Award for Best Animated Film and was the second highest grossing film of 2003 with a total of $936 million worldwide.  It is the best selling DVD of all time and sold over 40 million copies in 2006.  It was the highest grossing G rated film of all time until took over.  And it is the 23rd highest grossing film of all time.  In 2008, the American Film Institute named it the 10th greatest animated film ever made. 

Voice talents of Andrew Gould who plays Marlin.  Ellen Degeneres who plays Dory, Alexander Gould who plays Nemo, and also features Willem Dafoe who plays Gill and Geoffrey Rush who plays Nigel.  The director Andrew Stanton voiced Crush himself. 

The inspiration came from childhood memories and intrigues of Andrew Stanton and actually began turning into a move in 1997.  Ellen was brilliantly cast thanks to the Stanton's wife watching the show and he watched her change subjects 5 times in a single sentence.  (Sounds like Ellen would fight in perfectly in my family haha).  In order to get the brilliant animation of the ocean the directors took oceanography classes and went on many of their own scuba diving trips. 

An unforeseen negative drawback of the film: The reaction to the film by the general public has led to environmental devastation for the clownfish, and has provoked an outcry from several environmental protection agencies, including the Marine Aquarium Council, Australia. The demand for tropical fish skyrocketed after the film's release, causing reef species decimation in Vanuatu and many other reef areas. After seeing the film, although some aquarium owners released their pets into the ocean, they released them into the wrong ocean, which introduced species which were harmful to the indigenous environment and is harming reefs worldwide.

The excitement of a sequel in the making:   In April 2013, Disney announced the sequel, Finding Dory, confirming that Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks would be reprising their roles as Dory and Marlin, respectively. It was scheduled to be released on November 25, 2015, but the film's ending was revised after Pixar executives viewed the film Blackfish. On September 18, 2013, it was announced that the film would be pushed back to a June 17, 2016, release.  It is interesting to me how far the reaches of Blackfish have been to even change things in a huge Pixar movie.  

You can find the movie at the official Pixar website: Finding Nemo
And also at Disney's websites once they partnered with Pixar: Disney Finding Nemo

Seven Psychopaths

The previews of this movie definitely intrigued me, and then I heard good things about it.  It has an all-star cast bringing in names like Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrel, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Walken, and Woody Harrelson.
Seven Psychopaths is about a movie script with the same movie being written by Colin Farrel's character who happens to be a dog thief, while also living in the real world and a psycho mob boss coming after them for stealing his dog.  
 I guess I should have known with the movie being British and having Woody Harrelson that this was going to be a weird ass movie haha.  I wouldn't say that it was a BAD movie per se, but it was definitely very strange and jumped around a lot.  As far as weird Colin Farrel movies go, I have to say that I prefer In Bruges to this one, and that movie was really weird, but the story line was really great.  The storyline in this isn't horrible, but it does seem shaky and is missing much flow.  Setting the movie up took about half of the movie.  Towards the end it takes on a different tone and you actually get the culmination of the movie script being written and real life going on.
Although the first half seemed to jump around like an episode of Lost, I got why people ended up with a good review of the movie.  If you can remember all of the jumping around it all gets tied back together and the holes are filled in.  The last half of the movie definitely redeems it and makes me give it a good 3 and a half stars.  If the first half would have been better it would have earned at least 4.  Definitely worth watching, but expect a weird jumpy beginning.  Enjoy!

You can go tot he official site at: Seven Psychopaths

Unconditional Movie Review

I want to review a movie that I have now seen three times, that most people I encounter have never heard of: Unconditional

I first came across this movie thanks to an enormous crush on Michael Ealy and a netflix search for available movies.  I originally got it through the mail on DVD but it is currently on Netflix's instant watch.  Initially I was hesitant to watch this movie as I am not big on religious types of movies.  I wrestled with whether or not I should even watch it because I do NOT like religion pushing movies.  Let me just say that although there IS a God presence within this movie that it is NOT like any other religious movie I have ever seen.  The main message and focus within this movie is the faith in LOVE not the faith in any one type of religious belief.  No one ever attends any church let alone a church of any kind, so I think that was great in making this a more open movie to all audiences.

This movie is based on a true story and is about a boy named Joe and a girl named Sam who are childhood friends.  Joe is played by Michael Ealy and Sam is played by Lynn Collins.  Sam's husband is murdered in a bad part of town in Tennessee, and she is in a deep depression, having lost all faith in life and the will to live.  She returns to the spot of her husband's murder and before taking matters into her own hands, two children run into the road and a little girl is hit by a car.  Sam puts herself on the back burner and takes the children to the hospital, where she randomly runs into Joe after not seeing him for many years.

Joe has taken it upon himself to become a haven and a source of positity and inspiration to encourage learning in school age children in the neighborhood.  His drive is able to help Sam find new purpose in her own life and bring her back to her true love, which is writing and illustrating children's books. 

I know that my words do the message of love in this story no justice, as the movie itself needs to be watched to truly understand.  Let me just say that this is one to take a chance on and not to pass up.  The love that you feel from the message is real and brought tears to my eyes.  I hope to be able to share this wonderful movie with you and have you not pass over it for assuming it is anything more than a story about the many forms of unconditional love.  

Here is a trailer for the film: