Guy Ritchie is back to his roots with a fresh Cockney gangster film. The Gentleman focuses on an American weed tycoon in England looking to get out of the game, cash out and retire. The film centers around this transaction with a host of outside players weaving their way into this tale. The movie is narrated internally by Hugh Grant's character as he attempt to blackmail himself a piece of the pie. That's all the detail I'll go into about the plot as we keep it spoiler free around here.
So the question is, was this a return to form? Is Guy Ritchie back in a big way? The short answer is maybe. Its complicated. The Gentlemen has some glaring flaws at the start but then suddenly it hits a classic Guy Ritchie pace in the middle and blazes to the finish line in style. The slow burn of the first nearly, half, of this film make it tough to take but once he kicks into gear the amazing banter between characters, the bullets start flying and the twists and turns of the plot unravel, its a beautiful thing to behold.
The bad has to really begin with Charlie Hunnam. To be blunt, I hate him as an actor. I don't believe he's salvageable when it comes to performance. He's only and always Jax Teller. He can't be anyone else apparently not even when he uses his native accent. The accent makes it so much worse because his accent seems fake because it not pronounced so his dialogue comes off so trash. He is horrible at hitting comedic notes and timing and if he never acted again it would be too soon. Funny enough, even though he's a central character in the film, thankfully his presence doesn't hurt the overall main action since its mostly just him in a narrative conversation with Hugh Grant's character.
Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Matthew McConaughey, and Michelle Dickerson are absolute gems in this movie and they take on the mantle set by the previous iconic characters of Lock Stock and Snatch and Rock and Rolla. They all hit the notes beautifully and produce some fun quotable scenes, some hilarious situations and some damn cool action that are staples of a Guy Ritchie gangster movie. Guy isn't known for his female characters at all, in fact they are notably scarce in most of his movies of this ilk which shines a bright light on how fantastic a job Michelle Dockery does as the boss bitch wife of Michael (McConaughey). She has a couple of the best scenes in the whole movie and slays them. Colin Farrell as The Coach is my favorite character for sure. He's funny and unfuckwithable as the wildcard along with his young gang of rapping fighters (yes you read that right and it works so well).
All in all I won't say this is a must see, but it DOES end up good if you stick out the slog of the beginning. I'm thankful it didn't disappoint me and you can confidently put this one right in with the rest of Ritchies awesome Cockney gangster catalog.
BAD BOYS!!!! What you gon, what you gon, what you gonna do?
Ok readers I'm way hyped for this movie. The 3rd installment of the Bad Boys franchise was teetering on the edge of a thin blade simply by being announced. Martin Lawrence retired from making movies and has been digging back into his stand up comedy roots as well as dedicating his time to helping new comics come up and gain a following with his tours. Will Smith has had so many flops and bad role choices that even when he has done a good one it gets no love or attention. Those things don't add up to a winning combination but there's this thing called chemistry that gave this project hope.
Great news! That chemistry didn't skip a single beat. Martin and Will/ Marcus and Mike are back and tighter than ever. They are older and funnier which will be a great fill in for the action that the 2nd movie brought us, but don't worry, the action is still here, just scaled down to fit their ages which I found particularly a fantastic choice. Give me the laughs. I'll oo and ah over the action you can give me but bust my gut with this talent writing and chemistry and delivery first. Mission accomplished.
Bad Boys for Life is a beautiful blend of the fantastic writing from movie 1 with the extreme funny and adrenaline that 2 brought. Martin Lawrence may be at the apex of his funny in this and is definitely at the apex of his emotional delivery. Will Smith's Mike Lowry character arc is fleshed out and morphs as the movie goes on. We get a deeper look in on what is happening in Marcus' family life as well as a new and improved love interest for Mike. This movie brings out some solid bad guys as well including a mother son drug cartel boss combo that are ruthless and pull no punches at all.
This movie is on another level of funny and the writers infused just the right blend of old man jokes, young whipper snapper jokes, previous film references and of course there was no choice but to bust out Martin's puke face which still slays on an all time level. This review is going to be shorter and sweeter than most simply because without spoilers, it boils down to the fact that this movie is entertaining from start to finish, gut busting hilarious and beautifully shot to keep your eyes eating it all up. The supporting cast, all of the new people fit beautifully and played their roles so well most especially all 3 of the AMMO young members. They will be an asset in future installments so I'm hoping they are kept for the next go around.
Bottom line, see this movie. It deserves your money and you deserve this good time escaping reality for a couple of hours. If you don't go see this movie and treat yourself...well...in the words of Mike Lowry, "That's that shit."
I'm breaking down the new Eminem Album, Music to be Murdered By, in track list order; every single song. First bit of critique, the album title, an homage to Hitchcock. That's an amazing start, to me he's saying this album is a masterpiece from the master. Here we go.
1. Premonition (Intro) - If you look up, how to make an intro track to a rap album, this song will be the picture next to the how to guide. Pure fire.
2. Unaccommodating - Even though her bars were solid, this was a bit of a wasted Young M.A. feature especially since Em erased all memory of her because he rode the beat better and his bars scorched the earth! Massive word play as usual in this.
3. You Gon' Learn - So this one is one of those classic Em tracks where the hook is boring by White Gold and the beat is a bit slow though it does thump if you got a good sound system. He drops the bars like crazy again, Royce drops bars too but he's never been my cup of tea when it comes to delivery mostly cadence issues but still can't be denied. 4. Hitchcock Interlude
5. Those Kinda Nights - Another Ed Sheeran song LOL crazy but this one makes more sense, its Eminem in his bag of silly funny shit. Not my favorite but still a fun listen.
6. In Too Deep - This feels SO much like an ode to his OG LL Cool J. Em dips into that Ladies Love type of early 90s late 80s rap love track flow from the vet. I really dug this.
7. Godzilla - Crazy what's coming down the pipeline versus what happens before it can. JuiceWrld is dead and not far after a FIRE lyrical spaz track with Em drops to cap off his legacy. He does a fire job on the hook while Em blazes the verses around it. I'm talking absolute blue flames! The fucking SPEED!!!!
8. Darkness - I see how people think this is a fucked up song and video but to me, this was a complete work of art. This song was crafted with the utmost care. The beat settles the mood of the subject matter right onto your shoulders. The lyrics and message and impact are on the level of Stan and Cleaning out my Closet. His word play was as slick as ever but nothing in this was delivered in a way that makes light, in fact it lays it down very heavy. It is a gun control message especially heavily in the final verse and the final scenes of the video. Whether you agree with his stance on that part or not, this was an amazing song that will get the brain engaged. The Hello Darkness rip is extremely haunting. Wow.
9. Leaving Heaven - So at this point on every Eminem album, this song is always coming in some form or another, Skylar Grey has been his latest hook girl he uses. This one is another look into his past, its story time. This one is definitely one of the better outings from this staple of ethereal white girl features he puts in.
10. YAH YAH - I'm so glad this lived up to my expectations. Black Thought is one of only a handful of people living that can go toe to toe and not be erased on a track with Em. QTips Hook is fire, his voice is the stuff of legends and it is the peanut butter to this track, delicious sandwich glue lol. Beat is spazzing and so are the MCs I love this track. An updated throwback vibe. Only thing that could have made this better was if Busta himself had a verse but i'll take that perfect Woo hah sample
11/12. Stepdad - So this one is a classic Em trope. He tells a story of a fucked up family member. Its ok, not great. He does capture the feeling that many people have about bad step parents but not his best foray into this subject matter.
13. Marsh - just bars. Just Em spitting bars. Perfect. Entendres aplenty, you count them.
14. Never Love Again - Ok, so I'm so surprised by this track, not the bars, that was always gonna be there. Eminem has a habit of making really off putting hooks on his "love" tracks. This one is fire and really rides with the rest of the track so you stay in the bag the whole time.
15. Little Engine - more bars and another surprising good hook by Em. He's figuring it out lol. Yeah he's just spazzing with this look into his mind. A great end to his 3 track solo run no features. This is an amazing section of this album.
16. Lock It Up - So this is my least favorite song on the album the lyrics are cool as always but its just clunky all around. Andersen Paak sounds cool but nothing fits for me on this.
17. Farewell - Well, here we go, Em with one of his not so great singing hooks but fantastic content and a great beat inside the verses. He rides this clean, just a jarring hook lol but its not too bad.
18. No Regrets - so if mellow groove had sex with god tier lyricism, this song is the baby. Man Em is just grooving. If you listen to this and aren't bobbing your head and catching bars and feeling so relaxed yet hype as fuck you may not love music lol. Don Toliver is AMAZING on this his voice breaks up and crowns the vibe king.
19. I Will - This is Em as usual putting a track on for his lyrical friends to just blast on. I'd have liked to swap this for he previous track and ended on that amazing groove but if you appreciate MCs dropping bars and entendres this is a ripping end to what ended up as an amazing album. 20. Hitchcock Outro
FINAL THOUGHTS: Short and sweet, this album is absolute fire and personally, it parks itself in his top 3 albums of his entire catalog, possibly at the #2 spot. I'll have to give his other great albums another listen through to be sure but first reaction, this is my favorite outing by Eminem just behind Marshal Mathers LP. Its really that great. And he's a better lyricist now then he was 19 years ago so this album has potential to vault to 1 for me but MMLP may just be too iconic. Out of 17 tracks of music in a 20 track album, there is only 1 song I don't really feel, but its not bad, just not for me. The other 16 are flames in one way or another with most of them being of the blue variety. This album gets a 9.9 out of 10 for me.
Vinland Saga was the breakout star of the fall anime season. It's not hyperbole to say this is one of the most complete anime seasons to come out in a long time. By complete, I mean fantastic characters, fantastic storyline, fantastic animation and even throw in some incredible sound mixing and score. Seinen is far and away my favorite genre of anime and this one hits all the notes in perfect harmony.
The story is one of Viking conquest, the infusion of Christianity into Norse culture all centering around the conquest of England. If you have seen the live action television series Vikings or The Last Kingdom, you'll have a good grasp of the setting. (side note, those are both great series) We follow the story of Thorfinn, the child of the greatest Viking warrior ever by most accounts named Thors. Thors fled from his battle unit after finding the meaning of life in his own mind and decided to raise his family as modest farmers away from the tradition of living war. Of course, he's found and drawn back into the fray but things go wrong as Askeladd, a pirate type Viking and his followers ambush them and end up killing Thors. This is where the journey begins for Thorfinn who witnessed it all and is follows Askeladd for years trying to kill him in a fair duel anytime he can.
The action and intrigue is immense for this series. Season 1 is chock full of breathtaking duels, some intelligent battle strategy, and intense tragedy. It can be described as a political thriller surrounded by blood and fire. They delve into the realities of Viking raids and presents a wealth of depth to the main and supporting characters that, with each revelation, makes you crave more! There is comedy, action, emotion, heartbreak, life and death aplenty.
This is my top recommendation from the fall season of anime drops and I encourage any anime fans to look forward to the coming seasons. This is one worth committing to for the whole run.
Let me start off by saying, I don't like top 10, 5, or otherwise types of lists and I definitely don't much like putting an order value on things unless its to the negative...I'll gladly tell you what order shit stacks in, but when it comes to things like greatness or anticipation even if I have a number value I more so like to just put it all out there without that so it doesn't intend to sway the mind toward one thing or another. I'm about that all encompassing life. So this is not a top numbered list, this is just a list with no order whatsoever other than I'm listing them by their release date.
The following are the movies that are coming out this year that have a trailer and which I have seen said trailer. No movies without a trailer or me not having seen the trailer will be on this list. I'll be dropping all the trailers in with the corresponding movies. Here we go, sorry for the diatribe.
BAD BOYS FOR LIFE
I am an extreme mega fan of the first two films and have waited 17 long years for this. It may be a few years late but I can't wait. From the first look, it feels like a Bad Boys movie that will take pieces from both previous iterations to hopefully form a perfect amalgamation of what made both so good yet so different. I have hope that the 3rd one will be charmed. RELEASE DATE JANUARY 17th.
THE GENTLEMEN
I had a chance to see this film over a month ago at a private screening and couldn't make it work. Guy Ritchie is back in his element as the brilliant British gangster film king. At a glance it seems he's picked up where he left off and will hopefully deliver another classic full quick wit and fucked up situations. RELEASE DATE JANUARY 24th.
THE WHISTLERS
You know there has to be an exciting foreign film coming out right? Well this is the one that's been lighting up the film festival circuit and the trailer has me all in! I'm a sucker for cool crime films especially ones as fresh as this. Unfortunately as with most this will only have a limited release most likely in bigger cities tucked away in an art house theater. RELEASE DATE FEBRUARY 28th.
MULAN
There were questions about Aladdin and ultimately that ended up as the current best Disney live action remake. The second I saw this trailer, I believe that THIS will unseat it less than a year later. Mulan looks to be a beautiful mix of the heart of the animated version with some classic and new age Chinese Wushu martial arts and visually stunning cinematics, set design and a powerhouse cast. RELEASE DATE MARCH 27th.
NO TIME TO DIE
Daniel Craig's farewell to the 007 franchise looks like he's going out with the biggest of bangs and I'm ready to take the ride. RELEASE DATE APRIL 8th.
SOUL
Just as with the foreign film, it was inevitable that there would be an amazing looking animated feature dropping this year, at least 1 great one drops every year and Soul looks to be the one to watch this year. It looks gorgeous, the music is going to be amazing and the story seems right on par with the classics, funny and heartfelt. RELEASE DATE JUNE 19th.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
Possibly the most hyped I've been by a trailer in a long time. We knew this was in the works for a long time, it's honestly about 10 years late but just like Bad Boys, I'm in for this better late than never experience. It looks to be visually impressive as hell and a bit cut and paste from the first film, lots of similar looking things happening but I'm hoping it takes off in a direction that's a big unexpected. RELEASE DATE JUNE 26th.
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE
I had no real care that this was being made until the trailer dropped. This is not some trash remake, it looks to be a legitimate continuation of the original 2 films but looks to stand on its own the way that any good sequel should. Connectivity is nice but when you can stand out in your own way, that makes a better film. RELEASE DATE JULY 10th.
TENET
OK Christopher Nolan. We see you. Nolan is back with another foray into the mind bending. It looks like he might have taken a slice off of the Inception cake here but it looks interesting, intense, and has a gorgeous look. RELEASE DATE JULY 17th.
ARTEMIS FOWL
Full disclosure. I've never read the books, never knew what this was but the first trailer dropped an entire year ago and the follow up almost half a year ago and STILL we have over half a year to go until it actually comes out. That doesn't stop it from looking like a visual spectacle with plenty of plot to sink our teeth into. RELEASE DATE AUGUST 9th.
So as you can see, nothing releasing beyond the summer, that has an accompanying trailer, has caught my eye. There are plenty of titles that I am going to see but not that I'm anticipating or chomping at the bit for. Here's a list of those releases this year that I will plan on seeing but just didn't get me to that level yet I still hope they will be good.
Like a Boss, Dolittle, The Photograph, Sonic The Hedgehog, Buffaloed, Emma, Black Widow, Legally Blonde 3, Fast & Furious 9, Wonder Woman 1984, Jungle Cruise, Morbius, Bill and Ted Face The Music, The King's Man, The Eternals, Coming 2 America, Dune.
Thanks for taking the time to check this out. Enjoy what looks to be another solid year at the cinema.
The Safdie Brothers have never done work outside of shorts and documentaries and yet they put out the most raw, real film of the year and the theme of gambling is everywhere. Some producers gambled on them and put up the money for their first feature film, they took a gamble on Adam Sandler, yes, a small gamble, but still a risk. Adam Sandler himself took a gamble taking this role from first time directors but it was clear as crystal that all three parties saw the same thing, a chance to achieve a what so few can these days, a unique film, a fresh concept, and making them work toward a great finished product, a good damn movie.
Adam Sandler delivers a performance so far and above any of his previous work, you have to double take to make certain it was him. What we got from him was a full commit. He walked the tightrope between skyscrapers with no harness, no net, and no pole for balance. This movie is a sprint from start to finish. As I told my closest friends after finishing my first viewing, Uncut Gems is an extremely engaging anxiety attack and you feel it from the onset and the grip tightens more and more as the minutes fade away. Once it was over I felt grimy. I needed to shower to shake off the dirt and the dismay and just needed to run some water over my head to cool off and calm down. The world building from the Safdie brothers was a thing of beauty so understated you didn't even realize it was happening. Everything was so natural, the characters so rich and raw they felt real (mostly because they were real, they used real NYC diamond distract workers throughout). This movie was so grounded to reality because of the familiar. We know who Kevin Garnett is, we know that gambling is nail biting nerve wracking and soul scourging. Its bliss when you hit and utter sickness and depression when you bust. This film brought you all of it.
Uncut Gems is my 2nd favorite movie of the year and the 2nd best movie of the year (the 1st being Downton Abbey and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood... respectively). That said, Sandler gets my nod for top performance. He was incredible and the Safdie brothers deserve all accolades for direction, writing and cinematography for this brilliant film as well. I can't recommend this film enough. It has everything you could want. There's heartbreak, laughter, well paced thriller style cinematography, amazing atmosphere, fresh material to digest and a world to immerse yourself in and soak in the detail and gravity of what is laid before you. The entire run time is a delight to the senses even when its uncomfortable its amazing. Watch this movie ASAP. This is the kind of cinema that needs the support of the people so we can keep getting more of its like.
