Parks and Recreation

Plot:

Parks and Reaction is about a women named Leslie Knope, Head of the Parks and Recreation Department in a small town called Pawnee.  

Leslie faces many problems in her job.  She runs into difficult people in her town and sometimes she even faces problems with co-workers and friends.  

But Leslie Knope never backs down.  

 

My Thoughts: 

Parks and Rec. is one of my favorite shows ever!  Everything about this show makes it the kind of show anyone can get into!

This is one of the funniest most entertaining shows I have ever watched.  Every episode is something different, and the comedy always gets better and better.  The writers are always so creative with their ideas.  This is the kind of show that can cheer you up, and always leaves you wanting more.

 

Amy Poehler does an amazing job being Leslie Knope.  She does probably the best acting I have ever seen somebody in television do.  She has been nominated for 2 golden globes for this role, and I honestly think she is going to win one if she keeps doing this amazing job!  Everyone else in this amazing ensemble cast is perfect for their roles , which is just another reason this show is so great!

This show is great for everyone!  This show will not fail to make you laugh in any episode.  

 

All in all I give Parks and Recreation, a perfect, 4 out of 4 stars!

 

 

New Years Eve

Plot: 

New Years Eve follows the lives of different couples and individuals and how they all intertwine on the evening of New Years eve.  From family drama, to personal drama, to individual drama, this new years eve will change the lives of every character.  

 

My Thoughts:

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie.  When I chose to watch it, I was looking for a stupid rom-com, but found myself crying because this movie got so emotional and intense!

 

The fun thing about this movie was the twists and turns throughout.  I never really knew exactly what was going to happen.  There were so many unpredictable twists and turns so you never really knows whose stories are intertwined. 

 

There were also really good acting in this movie.  My favorites were Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, and Michelle Pfeirr.  The two of them did the best job getting into character and I felt the most emotion towards them.  Everyone else did a great job as well.  

All in all this was a great romantic comedy, good to add to your holiday movie list.  

I give New Years Eve 2 1/2 out of 4 Stars! 

 

The Bling Ring

Plot:

The Bling Ring follows the lives of 5 troubled teenagers.  These teens have bad lives at home and find closure in steeling things.  

What starts as robbing wallets from open cars, turns into going into fancy residential houses.  Eventually when this gets boring, they start to rob celebrity houses.  They go into houses of such people as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.  

These teens are also thirsty for fame.  And what is their way of “having fun” may give them exactly what they want.  

 

My Thoughts:

I thought this was a very interesting movie.  I liked how when you start to think about it, there is more to the movie than just watching teens do stupid things.  

When you think about it, the actors all do a good job showing that they are doing this robbing as a sort of cry for help.  You can see that none of them are happy with their everyday lives, so they use this robbing as a source of happiness and source of getting attention.  

 

The other good thing about this movie was the acting.  The people who played the teens in this movie did a good job making their characters interesting.  They could of very easily made these characters very boring to watch but they managed to make the movie fun to watch.  I enjoyed watching Emma Watson in this movie.  Its cool to see her breaking away from her Hermine Granger Character, and moving into more sophisticated roles.  

 

The last great thing about this movie was how director, Sophia Coppola, made it very artsy.  There wasn’t very much talking in this movie, more montages of things the teens were doing.  This made it more interesting to watch, and made it less sort of crappy rom-com type of thing.  There were also some great cinematography in this movie.  

 

All in all this was an enjoyable movie.  Dont go into it thinking you are going to see a comedy, its more a psychological drama, with comedy in it,  in my opinion.  

 

All in all I give The Bling Ring 3 out of 4 stars!

What to expect when your expecting

Plot:

What to expect follows the life of couples who are all taking the huge step of becoming parents.

There is Jules, a famous personal trainer, and Evan who met on dancing with the stars. The fell for each other and eventually Jules is pregnant.

There is Holly and Alex, a married couple who are struggling with finances. The two look into adoption because Holly can’t have children.

There is Wendy and Gary, another married couple. Wendy is a children’s book author who is thrilled when she finds out she is pregnant.

There is also Rosie and Marco, two young fast food truck owners. The two went to high school together and had crushes on each other. What is only supposed I be a one night stand turns into more when Rosie finds out she is pregnant.

And finally there is Ramsey and Skylar. Ramsey is a former race car driver and Skylar is his young wife. Ramsey I the father of Gary, an both couples report their news of pregnancy at a lunch get together.

All these couples are connected in some way. Throughout this movie these couples learn about life and their relationships. But most importantly they learn what it means to be parents and a family, which isn’t what they expected it to be.

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this movie! It’s one of those romantic comedies that are just fun to watch. Is it the best movie ever created? No, but that doesn’t mean you should skip it.

The acting is what you would expect for this kind of movie, nothing amazing, but nothing terrible. The actors do their job and make the movie enjoyable and fun to watch. I felt like they were all able to make their character their own.

The storyline is yes predictable but still fun to watch. It did have a couple points where I was surprised though. Some scenes were heartbreaking some scenes were funny and some scenes were even stupid but when it was put all together it was entertaining.

This is the perfect movie to go to with your friends, a good movie party movie or just even a movie to make you laugh.

All in all I give What to Expect When Your Expecting 2 1/2 out of 4 stars!

Anna Karenina

Plot:

Anna Karenina is the story of upper class women Anna, who is married to Alexei Karenin.  Anna also has a son.

Anna meets a man named Vronsky, a young, attractive rich man who is thought to marry a girl named Kitty.  However, when the two first meet eyes, they cannot hide their attraction for each other.

Anna and Vronsky get peoples attention when the two dance at a party and everyone starts talking.  Anna tries to avoid Vronsky after this event and denies her attraction to him.  However, when Vronsky announces he might take a promotion to a different city, Anna tells him to stay.

The two then begin to start a relationship together.  Anna can’t let anyone find out about her affair because it would be bad for her reputation.  However, rumors begin to start going around and Anna’s affair changes her life forever.

My Thoughts:

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie.  I found it very interesting, entertaining and visually it was stunning.

This is an adaptation of the novel by the same name.  I have never read the book, but after seeing this movie it is on my list of books I want to read.  Usually after I see a movie based on a book, I usually don’t end up wanting to read the book.  I know Anna Karenina is a good movie because I want to read the book even after seeing the movie.

Mos of this movie takes place in a theater, which took a little getting used to.  I wasn’t sure what I thought about it at the start of the film, but by the end, I thought it was such a creative idea.  The way the scenes were switched in this theater was very cool to watch!  The costumes were also amazing!  All of the dresses, suits, hat and even fur coats were so amazing crafted and really helped me feel like I was in the time period that Anna Karenina took place in.

The acting was also really great in this movie!  Kiera Knightly, who plays Anna, was amazing!  I have never really been a fan of Knightly, but in this movie I thought she was fantastic.  She really got herself into character and you really felt all the pain she showed.  Other good performances were Jude Law as Alexei Karenin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky.

With Oscar nominations announced in 5 days I’m hoping to see Anna Karenina get some of the bigger nominations.  I would love to see it get a Best Picture nomination as well as an Adapted screenplay nomination.  The Best Actress category is pretty packed this year, but I am really hoping to see Kiera Knightly get a nomination.  This is one of my favorite movies I saw this year, so I hope it gets more nominations then just the art direction categories, because this film deserves them!

All in all I give Anna Karenina 4 out of 4 stars!

Salt

Plot:

Evelyn Salt is a very respected CIA agent.  She has done many great things for her country and she is trusted by her co-workers.  Outside her job, Evelyn lives a happy life with her husband.

One day a Russian spy comes in with information about how the  President of Russia will be assassinated.  He claims to have the name of the assassin.

It is a shock to everyone when he reports the name of the assassin is Evelyn Salt.  Evelyn claims to not have any knowledge about what this man is talking about.  However when Evelyn runs away from the office when she is wanted to be kept for questioning, she raises some suspicion   She increases this when she continues to avoid the CIA and her co-workers.

This leaves the viewer with the question of who really is Evelyn Salt, and what is she trying to do.

My Thoughts:

I loved this movie! I actually saw it twice in theaters and rented it twice because I enjoyed it so much!

Salt is the definition of the action movie everyone loves and wants to see. Its non stop action and suspense.  It doesn’t have to much explaining like at the beginning of most action movies.  It goes straight into the action.  The action sequences are really intense and I remember jumping a few times seeing it the first time.

The story line has very many twists and turns to it.  I never quite knew what Evelyn Salt was going to do next.  I also never quite knew if I should root for Salt, or think she was a bad guy.  It was fun predicting what was going to happen.

Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, and I think she does a great job!  Its rare that action movies get such a strong hero, let alone having the hero be played by a woman.  Jolie really manages to make her character a really powerful person who sticks out in my mind as one of my favorite movie heroines.  She attacks the action sequences with perfection and captures your attention throughout the whole film.

All in all I give Salt 4 out of 4 stars!

Jaws

Plot:

It started off as a fun skinny dip in the Atlantic Ocean on a small island beach at night.  Chrissie thinks she will be just fine, and she is.  That is until she swims out to a buoy and is suddenly being pulled under the water by something swimming below her.  She thrashes around for awhile until she is pulled under and doesn’t come back up.

Chrissie remains are  found by chief police Martin Brody.  Brody is told by marine biologist, Matt Hooper that she was killed by a shark.

Nobody on the island thinks to much about this event because its the time of year lots of tourists start to come to the island, and the island can’t afford to close the beach.  However, when more cases of people being killed by a shark are reported and seen, something must be done.

Brody, Hopper and local shark-hunter Quint go on a terrifying adventure to find the shark and kill it.

My Thoughts:

This is probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.  This movie is filled with gut tightening suspense, amazing acting and most of all a interesting story line.

This is one of those suspense/horror films that could go terribly wrong and just be flat out bad and not fun to watch, but Jaws is just the opposite.  The director, Steven Spielberg, did an amazing job creating this state of horror and suspense that continues to increase throughout the whole movie.  I don’t think I have ever been so stressed out watching any other movie.  My shoulders were really tight the day after I saw this movie because I was so tense throughout watching the whole movie.

Even though this movie was made in 1975 the special effects were quite impressive.  I was expecting to shark to look really fake and not scary.  I was pleasantly surprised though.  Yes the shark didn’t look very real, but it certainty was frightening.  I jumped almost every time I saw it in the movie.  The Jaws shark is for sure on my top five most scary movie villains list.

The story line was also very clever.  It wasn’t all just scenes of the shark killing people and people running away, it actually had some interesting things happening in it.  The film, I thought, was a good depiction of how a situation like this would be handled in real life.  And that’s what made the movie so much more interesting and frightening to watch.

The acting in this movie is also another to thing to commend.  Roy Scheider (Brody), Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper) and Robert Shaw(Quint) all did a really good job getting into character and making them believable and relatable.  The three also had really good chemistry on screen so I didn’t feel like I was watching a movie the whole time, I kind of felt like I was part of the movie.

All in all Jaws did its job of being a suspenseful, fun, scary and likable movie.  I will admit, I definitely didn’t want to go swimming or want to take a bath for a couple days after the movie.  It definitely deserved its Best Picture nomination that year at the Oscars.

All in all I give Jaws 4 out of 4 stars!

Hitchcock

Plot:
Hitchcock is a bio pic on Alfred Hitchcock and his journey making his hit film Psycho.

The film shows Hitchcock’s struggles getting the rights o make the movie and his his filming of the movie.

The film also goes into detail on Hitchcock’s relationship with his wife Alma, and her influence on Hitchcock’s movies and Hitchcock himself.

My Thoughts:

This film I thought was very clever in many different ways. This could have been a boring movie, but with its intelligent script an good acting this movie was very enjoyable.

The storyline did a good job getting right into the story line and not spending too much time at the beginning explaining the background of the characters. The script was also good at keeping the audience interested. Just when you think the movie might be getting a little boring, something interesting and unexpected happens.

The acting was the best part o the movie. Anthony Hopkins played Alfred Hitchcock and he did a great job! He really was able to transform himself into his character and he made it very believable. He made his character interesting and I felt like I was watching the actual Alfred Hitchcock. Helen Mirren played Alma and she also did a great job. Alma’s character could have been portrayed really badly, but Mirren managed to make alma really likable and somebody many people could relate to. She had some intense and emotional scenes and she managed to make them really realistic. Another performance I want to commend was Scarlett Johansson. She played Janet Leigh who was the main character in Psycho. This part was a small roll that could have been done poorly but Scarlett managed to really get into character and the few scenes she was in, made them memorable. She held her own in the movie, and really was one of my favorite performances.

Before you see Hitchcock I would recommend seeing psycho first. There are many references to the actual movie that I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t of seen it first.

With the awards season beginning I think this film could get some Oscar nominations. I think Hopkins, Mirren and Johansson are all contenders.

All in all Hitchcock was a cute enjoyable movie. I give it 3 out of 4 stars!

Psycho

Plot:
Psycho follows the story of a young woman named Marion. Marion wants to help out her boyfriend who needs some money, so when her work give her money to turn into the bank, she decides to run off with it.

While driving in a rain storm Marion drives up to a secluded motel called The Bates Motel.

Marion thinks everything will be ok, the motel seems comfy enough and the the owner of the motel, Norman is very nice.

However things don’t turn out as planned for Marion because Norman has is keeping some secrets from Marion about the motel and about himself.

My Thoughts:

I think this movie is really good. The acting was really good and Alfred Hitchcock did an amazing job creating suspense.

The plot of this movie was very clever. I was never quite sure what was going to happen. There are many twists that happen and it’s it was one of the most suspenseful movies I have ever seen. The cinematography was very creative as well. The way the famous shower scene was shot was very creative. Instead of just shooting the scene using one shot, he used many different shots that he put all together making it a very terrifying.

The acting was also very good in this movie. Janet Leigh did a very goo job getting into the character of Marion. She was able to show so much a lot of emotion with just her facials expressions. There were a couple scenes where where it was shots of her driving her car with the voices of people in her head and she did a good job showing many different emotions. She also did an amazing job looking scared in the famous shower scene. Anthony Perkins who played Norman Bates was very frightening. He did a great job looking the nice guy but then turning out to be a really creepy person at the same time. He will always stand out as one of the scariest villains IV seen in a movie.

The fact that this movie was made such a long time ago and was in black and white and it was still able to be that suspenseful and scary, shows how good of a film it is.

All in all I give Psycho 4 out of 4 stars!

Alien

Plot:
When members of a space shift get what they think is an SOS, they land on the planet where they think its coming from.

Once landed, half of the crew go exploring and half stay on the space ship. They crew also realizes there is some damage to the ship from the landing which will take awhile to repair.

The group exploring stumble upon a patch of strange looking eggs. One member touches an egg and it hatches, releasing a bizarre extra terrestrial parasite.

While all this is happening the group still on the ship realize the signal they thought was an SOS seems to actually be a warning.

With a broken ship, and an alien loose, and stuck on a uncharted planet the crew seem to be in big trouble. As the movies tag line says, in space no one can hear you scream.

My thoughts:
This is a really great movie on many levels. From the action, to the suspense, to the acting, to the effects, everything about this movie was really well done.

The first thing I want to compliment is the story line. The story took many different twists and turns, making hard to predict what was going to happen and which crew member would be the next target.

The acting in this movie really help make the movie as amazing as it was. The performance by Sigourney Weaver is the one that sticks out to the most to me. Weaver played the main character Ripley who was the most cautious crew member about stopping on the planet and even letting her other crew members go exploring. She literally watched as everything went down hill and chaos broke out. She did a great job looking scared and horrified, but also managing to make her character seem like a strong woman who could fight this alien. The other cast members were also great, but Weavers performance sticks out to me the most.

Finally I want to talk about the effects. For 1979, the effects were very impressive. The outer space, planet and ship effects really got me involved in the movie and made the setting very realistic. The most impressive effects were the alien effects. The effects treat did an amazing job creating a monster that was a true villain. For me, my heart started racing every time I saw it and was even a little scared it would pop out at me at night. They did a very effective job making a classic movie monster that sticks out to me as strongly as the sharks from Jaws does.

I wish more suspense sci-fi movie were like alien. Not to much explaining that needs to be done and is straight to the point with the suspense and mystery.

All in all I give Alien 4 out of 4 stars!