Ten Year Anniversary: Snow White and the Huntsman

 

                               Thank God we're near the end of the 2022 year because I'll admit when I say that yes 2012 was a better year for movies and not all just superhero films but then once I've re-watched some of these films, I had this utter feeling that this wasn't going to be as good as I remembered. Now granted Snow White and the Huntsman is one of my personal guilty pleasures, but in all honest what really saves the movie itself was merely the supporting cast of Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron and for her over the top acting and Hemsworth character arc in the story, which I find interesting. I think the way that this movie came into development was that shows like Once Upon a Time became popular on ABC aka Absolute Bull Crap, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was a massive hit that they decided to turn this into a Ridley Scott style epic but with a fairy tale twist, but deep down what makes this movie fantastic is Charlize Theron's over the top acting for which is the reason why she's awesome when it comes to dumb action movies let’s be honest.

                              Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who seized control of her kingdom by marrying its rightful ruler, needs the life force of young maidens to maintain her beauty. However, to become truly immortal, Ravenna must consume the heart of her stepdaughter Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Snow escapes, and Ravenna dispatches a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to capture her. But Snow, the huntsman and a rebel army join forces to destroy Ravenna and restore balance of life and death.

                              Now keep this in mind I'm not recommending this film because now having not seen it for quite a long time I don't know whether to recommend this movie for giggles or just avoid this all together. The fact that this movie was developed with the success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is just beyond my understanding of why, but in all fairness, I don't think I would ever get the enjoyment out of watching Charlize Theron over acting in every scene. Speaking of Charlize Theron, this was her second film that came out in the year 2012 along with Prometheus and in all honesty I don't know which was her best performance between both films, though I would have to go with this movie for many reasons in Prometheus she was playing a typical cooperate b***h with no emotions which explains so much about her, but with this movie it's obviously fantasy but she's doing in over the top acting that's just so funny to watch especially when she's trying to play this scary villain but the way she was just trying to be scary is just hilarious to me, moreover I'm just curious if she ever went to the movie premiere because she's afraid to see how bad her performance was, though I kind of doubt it because she also returned for the sequel. The main reason in why this film is so special is that this was the very movie that ended the Twilight couple of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson because Ms. Stewart was having in affair with the director of the film for which sort of ended her career and pretty much destroyed his because he obviously was thinking with his private parts and they were defiantly dirty because I did some calculations and director Rupert Sanders was forty-one years old when he plowed Kristen Stewart who was twenty-two years old during that time of filming, but I'm sorry but any language in any southern part of the United States or any country that's just wrong, hell even I feel dirty just calculating on how old those two were. I honestly am not going to say much about Kristen Stewart mainly because she honesty wasn't all that great in this movie so we're all just going to leave it at that despite one compliment is saying that she does overdo it when it comes to rallying the troops, although it's kind of interesting that they make Snow White to be this Joan of Arc type of a character. Anyway, back to real talk the other thing I find fascinating fact about the casting for Chris Hemsworth's part was that there were five actors ahead of him that were considered for the role actors like Tom Hardy, and Michael Fassbender I can see but deep down I don't believe Hardy would consider this movie, but the three I couldn't believe were offered were Viggo Mortenson, Johnny Depp and Hugh Jackman. Mortenson, I believe wouldn't take the role, but Johnny Depp and Hugh Jackman I would never in a million years watch because this was after Pirates 4 and in all honesty, what is he going to do? Be goofy and just a complete ass, in order to get a joke out of the audience? And even if Hugh was cast, I would look at it as the worst because there was only one movie out of his career other than the Wolverine films that was good and that was the Prestige. So deep down I think Thor was the better choice. A lot of the action sequences and some of the Evil Queen’s kingdom almost felt like it was shot as a Ridley Scott film with some of the Medieval looking landscapes and feel that we just stepped into the rough part of England or France, like I can tell a huge difference between this movie and the sequel and that's the movie feels like it was directed by Ridley Scott and the sequel feels like a fairytale/adventure movie. With this movie you can see all of the flaws and say to yourself what I can do better if you change this or recreate one character's backstory, like all of these things are in this movie and that's why I consider this a guilty pleasure because I can look at this movie and see what I can do better or make it better, unfortunately this movie has already been made so there really no point in losing your mind over it. I'd honesty say don't buy this movie or rent it if it's free and Netflix or HBO Max I would then recommend but deep down I wouldn't waste your time in renting this movie. 

               

                                      

November Recommendation: Crank

 

                                          There are numerous times I don't know in terms of movie wise I would be thankful for seeing in the month of November, or I'm not really in the perfect place to express my gratitude towards movies that nobody remembers. And for the last two years I was never quite sure on what would be the perfect genre to be thankful for in the month of November, that is until I started watching some great full throttle action movies that our in the range of ninety-minutes to two hours. But I never thought the day would come when I would watch one of the English great's Jason Statham's amazing film Crank. Now granted I've been familiar with the movie, but I was one of those guys that judges a movie and questions why the hell would you kill Statham he's un-killable, and that was until I had a different point of view about the movie.

                                          Chev Chelios (Jason Statham), a hit man wanting to go straight, lets the largest target slip away, then he awakes the next morning to a phone call that informs him he has been poisoned and has only an hour to live unless he keeps adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote.

                                           I think the first scene of this entire movie where I was sold right on the spot was when Statham drove his car into a shopping mall without a care in the world even though he's talking to his doctor, and to be honest I was on my exercise bike because I thought that this was just some typical ninety-minute action movie but once he drove through a shopping mall I was like "oh shit, I need to stop what I'm doing" because in fairness I've never seen anything like this before mainly because I refused to watch this movie, so deep down what I'm trying to explain is that I've failed miserably at life which is the honest truth. Now as I've said many times before the things that make any type of bad movie genre funny is that there unintentionally funny, well this movie take the unintentionally funny, up to like maybe twenty to fifty notches and the fact that we have ridicule's scenes like Statham driving his car into the mall but also scenes where he's snorting cocaine in the shittiest bathroom at a biker bar on the ground, THEN proceeds to say "I'm going to kick some black ass" (for which I was shocked and thought DUDE, if this was made now it would of been canceled, despite Statham being British and his ancestors invented racism) in order to keep his adrenaline going, then in a later scenes robs a convenient store of its energy drinks and pills but most importantly shoves his taxi driver out of his cab and yells Al-Qaeda and two maybe three elderly women assault the guy MAYBE breaking his legs and it's like this was amazing. There is a lot of cringe scenes happening to the movie too like using a whole bottle of adrenaline, but that's all I'm going to say. Point being that this was one of the craziest movies I've ever seen to the point where I don't believe the writers and filmmakers, we're even going anything serious I truly believe they were so inspired by the Jackass franchise that they decided to make a movie out of this only to think of what crazy shit to do. Personally, I doubt this movie hasn't seen any cable networks as of now due to the world being stupid, but I would most certainly recommend watching this film if you have a sense of humor like me, furthermore this is hands down the best Jason Statham movie ever. 

                                            

10 Year Anniversary: Haywire

 

                                   Now this classic Steven Soderbergh movie is somewhat a 2011 film, but I'm in charge here furthermore I saw this film in January of 2012, so I declare it as a ten-year anniversary of Gina Carano's first movie Haywire. Throughout my teenage years I've there's always been action movies where the woman finally break the sexist barrier, granted they did that during Lynda Carter's time as Wonder Woman, actually they've been doing it for quite some time with women in action films wearing skimpy outfits looking bad ass great examples Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld films Mila Jovovich in the Resident Evil sequels and let's not forget the most famous one Hallie Berry in Catwoman and Jennifer Garner in Elektra, for which yeah I'm all for women kicking ass and looking good but mentioning these examples I can honestly say that those films alone weren't as good as I remembered them or majority of the fights in those films where all choreographed along with a lot of wired work. But when this movie came along, along with Gina Carano it was a different type of female action movies that I've never seen.

                                   Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is a highly trained operative for a government security contractor. Her missions take her to the world’s most dangerous areas. After Mallory successfully frees a hostage journalist, she's betrayed and left for dead by someone in her own agency. Knowing her survival depends on learning the truth behind the double cross, Mallory uses Black Ops training to set a trap. But when things go awry, Mallory knows she'll die unless she can turn the tables on her adversary.

                                    Sure, Charlize Theron does it awesome with her work in Atomic Blonde moreover did her own stunts and showed that woman can punch hard with the boys. But I personally believe it was Gina Carano that started off with realistic town of fighting moreover showing that women can be both beautiful and fierce when it comes to fighting and this was 2012 this was long before Ronda Rousey and Charlize Theron, but when I was first introduced with this movie moreover heard that Gina Carano is a UFC fighter I was defiantly intrigued mainly because I can believe that she can handle herself in fight sequences furthermore she can do her own stunts and doesn't need any stunt doubles when it comes to the action sequences. A lot of the supporting cast are even good as well such as Ewan McGregor as the quote unquote villain and the Late Bill Paxton playing Gina's dad which I thought was awesome seeing his face in the film, though I had to raise a glass and salute to the great man, Channing Tatum was okay as always playing the quote unquote love interest? Towards Gina Carano and I liked Michael Douglas's character as he plays an unexpected ally towards Carano's character. I believe the more fascinating story, in how this idea for the movie came into blown was director Steven Soderbergh was simply just channel surfing on TV and stumbled upon a UFC Fight Night where Gina Carano was fighting in and just demolishes her opponent for which blossomed into his idea of wanting to make a spy movie and the rest was written. The other surprising thing I've learned while researching the movie was Lem Dobbs who written the screenplay was also the co-writer behind another great science fiction flick Dark City, for which I have known idea at that time, so there's another reason why this movie is awesome. If I had to pick one thing I wasn't particularly fond of was choice of music to go with a spy movie, and Soderbergh's frequent music collaborator David Holmes who did Out of Sight and all three Ocean's movies came in to compose the score, although I'm not sure a jazz themed spy music would of worked well with this, I mean sure you can use jazz music when you’re doing a heist movie like Ocean's Eleven but when you have a woman who can do her own fighting should at least amp up the music with some rock and roll themes I mean for God's sake she an MMA fighter let's bring in some hard rock or punk rock in the mix. For a hidden treasure, I still love the movie for what it is, and will always appreciate a woman like Gina Carano doing her own action and so, I'd still recommend watching this hidden gem if your big into female action films and appreciate them for what they are. 

           

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind

 

                                 As I've said a million times, yes, I'm a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat video game franchise and its films and of course with a latest ninety-minute animated movie already out on streaming and Blu-Ray I had to check it out. Moreover, with the way live action movies aren't respecting sources and doubly believing I'll ever witness a great Mortal Kombat film in my lifetime. Also, with these animated films I figured there at least a fun thing to watch where I don't expect a whole lot, furthermore, not looking for perfection but also have a good time watching this as well. Though when the trailer first popped up on the web, I was a bit on the unsure side of what the direction was going, in terms of seeing a blend of both Kung Fu style of storytelling with a mix of Mad Max. For which I have no argument, so I guess will just have to find out.

                                 Set in a Mad Max environment for which I'm thinking is still in Asia. The vicious, Kano is determined to take over Earthrealm, one soul at a time. Kenshi who was once an overconfident warrior now blinded by pride, is helped by Kuai Liang aka Sub-Zero into becoming a better warrior. Kuai Liang who has also lost his ways decided to help his new protégé into ridding Kano once and for all even if it means breaking an oath.

                                  I will admit I'm always intrigued in creating new storylines because like Star Wars, Mortal Kombat has a vast links of stories where you can come up with and still make it interesting another great example is of Batman, in somehow Mortal Kombat has always contracted some good writers into developing more and unique storylines to play with, in the world of Mortal Kombat and Warner Bros. Animation has done a great job at that. I do like that we have a new Earthrealm hero in the mix of a new storyline moreover love the bond between the teacher and student that is both Sub-Zero and Kenshi, speaking of Kenshi I was well aware of the blind swordsman ever since his debut in in the PlayStation 2/X-Box era and to be honest I've never thought his popularity would ever be as big as it is now and granted I've always played him in Mortal Kombat just because he had a sword and whenever you're getting beat you can always use the sword to hack and slash, so now that he becomes the sole hero to this latest movie I think it's awesome even when you’re creating a new storyline. In all honesty everything in this movie works although the problem I have with the movie, is that yes by the end of the second movie it felt that all the evil was defeated, so in all fairness what happened to everyone after that? I mean we have a glimpse of what happened to Sub-Zero before it becomes a Mad Max world, but I don't know what happens to Liu Kang, Kitana, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage and Jax, for which are the most important characters and Snow Blind is supposed to be the third installment, so I think it's fair we at least get to know what happened to those characters at least. Deep down the movie itself is fun to watch especially ninety minutes of showtime, though it's not as great as the first two. But as a movie all by itself and not a sequel to the first two MK Legends movies I'd still recommend watching this movie even if you’re not a Mortal Kombat fan. And really, I would even have my own nephew watching this and I'd believe he would have a great time watching these films from start to finish.

   

                                    

Pony Excess

 

                  I'm trying to review some Football documentaries since there's not a whole lot of great once a side from Rudy, but since Disney + is bringing along some of 30 for 30 films I though this one about the SMU football program who was the first ever to be given the death penalty was an interesting story to talk about especially since Running back legend Eric Dickerson went to school at SMU, moreover this was the first time ever that I've heard about Universities or sports programs actually paying high school prospects to come play for their schools even paying for their own families to come to whatever state near the school.

                  If you ever want a great example of the story behind the 1980's SMU Mustangs football team, think of it like There will be Blood of greed only it's trying to buy wins by any means necessary, moreover if you've ever heard the say that football in Texas is religion, well even in Texans can take the craziness of football to the next level, I mean first it was the Dallas Carter High school football team robbing people after winning state title and hearing about this story I'm just curious what other skeletons Texas can carry even when it comes to football. The fact that SMU is such a small school compared to other powerhouse schools in Texas and the people of Dallas does have its Dallas Cowboys to cheer for but for some odd reason it's just not enough in terms of winning a simple game of football, so the boosters of SMU decide to pay the players to come play for their school is just beyond my understanding of reasoning. Now that they have moved on from their death penalty sentence, I still consider this a fascinating story of so much greed leading to a down fall where no one is innocent and yet the kids during the year of 87 were thrown under the bus. So, listen if you’re feeling bored and don't want to watch Star Wars or not in the mood and don't really want to watch anything Marvel nor watch Disney cartoons then I would highly recommend watching the Pony Excess.