Last night was a just a night of movies and discovery. Searching through various lists to see what we could find. It was a hit and miss... as expected.

The best out of the bunch was...

The Entitled

Not bad, but not great. It does keep the action going and mystery continually twists. But by the third act, the cat is out of the bag and you can see things coming. I was surprised this did not have a Hollywood ending. Nice surprise.

I could maybe recommend it for something to fill the time.



We also watched....

Suspect Zero

Aaron Eckhart has a knack for finding those movies that are different. Suspect Zero is about a using a serial killer to find a more dangerous serial killer. It's not really complicated, but how it's directed tends to muddy up the plot. I got lost a couple of times trying to figure out what we being shown. It does come together all at the end, but I was pretty much uninterested by then. If you can stick with it, you might enjoy it.

Finally, the movie we started out with but was the least interesting was...
Medium Raw

It's a standard Insane Asylum movie with a specific character known as The Wolf. I will admit the costume for The Wolf was pretty cool. Very intimidating. The stars of the movie were the director, writer and production partners, which tells you the acting was pretty bad. But on a good note, the women are beautiful. Brigitte Kingsley and Mercedes McNab could just stand there for awhile and I'd be happy.





It didn't suck, but it's not really worth seeking out either. If you happen upon, check it out.

That would be my guess. I think medium Raw is from the Indie circuit.

Machine Gun Preacher

I knew zero about this film going in. In fact I didn't read the box synopses until about 10 minutes into the movie. My wife was really hesitant on the title alone. She thought it might be some *Troma film macho shoot'em up (Note: my wife knows nothing about Troma, but she has seen enough to imagine).

Based on a the true story of Sam Childers transformation from a low life thug into a man with a mission. This is not a feel good movie, at least in the Hollywood world. There is hope that eeks out from this film. It's hard to find, but peel away the inhumanity that is witnessed and there is something there. By and far this film brings into light a part of the world and cultural society we turn our heads too and don't want to hear about. Sam Childers becomes committed to the cause. KONY and his insane terror army are systematically invading villages, killing unmerciful anything that moves and taking the children, yes, children to bring into the army. I think you're jaw will drop when you watch a ragtag group of children caring and using machine guns.

Gerard Butler grabs onto this character and runs with it. It's a long film and it's a rollercoaster ride of locations and emotions. If you don't feel anything after this film, you've missed it completely.

I thought my wife would be turned off by the religion and finding Jesus perspective, but she didn't, because, well they don't blast it you. It exists and part of his change, which by the way takes a good amount of time to happen. The movie just takes liberties and fast forwards through time to get to the point.

I highly recommend Machine Gun Preacher. It is a sad movie in parts and rather hard to watch. But I think it is an important one. Yes, I said important.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48oq-WlIGc

Bodyguards & Assassins

I picked this up based on a trailer I saw earlier. I didn't know it had one of my fav Asian martial arts legend, Donnie Yen (IP Man). People, maybe the marketing folks, are calling this EPIC. I kind of see very much like Once Upon A Time In America. Grand scale of location and the intense family struggles within and politics.

I found it very slow. The 3rd act does amp up the action. All in all, this is a fantastic film with great acting and characters. Good fighting, but, I wish they would have kept out the minimal wire work. It's not much, but it does stand out and looks out of place. The sets are pretty cool.

Not sure I'd watch it again due to the slow story telling. But I do highly recommend it if your interested in this time period (1900) of Asian culture.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjCYc_Rm3EY