Reviews

"And nothing was ever the same..."

The Raid 2 defines this phrase triumphantly. After this film, the action genre will be shaking for years and I am not even interested in this specific class of films.

The first Raid came out 3 years ago and was based on a bloodbath in one building. I know, on paper it sounded like Die Hard. But it was far from it. It was more brutal, more honest, more exhilarating and so comically cool that it was impossible to deny. No catchphrases here, just an awesome action scene that lasted about 2 hours. So naturally the sequel might have run out of energy, boy was I wrong.

This is WITHOUT A DOUBT the best action film of all time. Every fight scene was brilliantly created. The mud fight will be copied for years to come, the toilet scene will haunt Michael Bay for years and Watchofsky siblings will be amazed at the car chase cinematography, Tarantino will use the baseball gimmick for his next film and the club fight will be the shortest cool fight scene ever choreographed. And all of this for only 4.5 million dollars? While Bay spends 210 million on metal hitting metal and Aronfsky gets 140 million dollars for a stupid ark? Honestly, don't let Hollywood fool you and limit your ambitions. Die Hard was good and the first two Terminators were great but this, this is magic!

Also, check out the first film if you somehow missed it when it first came out.

Darren Aronfsky is a weird man. His first film was Pi, a good and weird beginning, then he went ahead and made a great film titled Requiem For a Dream. Then he wasted about five years to make Fountain, one of the most boring films ever created without any particular reason. Of course then it was The Wrestler, once again a great experience and then it was Black Swan, again good and weird and now Noah.

Simply put, Noah is not good. It's boring. It's also making the viewer hate the titular character, which would be okay if it wasn't a prophet! And I myself am not the least bit religious but still.

The problem is it tries to be about everything, why show the flashes of Noah's vision? If they are not clear to Noah, how are they supposed to mean anything to me? If they are clear, why don't I get it?

The whole script is moronic. Rock giant is supposedly a word in English language now and something everyone devours when offered. God feels the need to make his own mission more dramatic by making these giants vulnerable in -get this- their hearts. Some species were apparently chopped off and destroyed in the arc and so forth.

Actors... Emma Watson tries to be serious by moving her eye brows once every 5 seconds, Jennifer Connelly never looked this sick and skinny in her life and the boy who played Shem looked like he was always wearing makeup and lipstick.

And Aronfsky... disappoints. I had read Noah would be about Noah's loneliness. That sounded cool. They forgot to mention it was actually about Noah being a real d**k towards his family and then choosing to be alone. There really was no reason to make this film, Darren. Sorry.

I gave this title 3 out of 10, because of some creative editing and one really cool scene showing the evolution of life and man; you could probably get that on youtube for free these days. It's less than 3 minutes.

On the plus side, if you want to watch something actually interesting about Noah's story, I recommend watching Ricky Gervais' Out of England 2. He speaks about 10 minutes about the subject and makes more sense than the 120 minutes and 110 million dollars these guys wasted on this film.

I don't know, maybe I've just seen too many movies and shows that deal with the idea of time travel, but this film is cliché down to the roots.

So what angered me off the most? The whole idea of time travel. If time travel is possible, then you wouldn't be living in the world you're living in right now because you would have sent someone in the past to change things forever.

Again, if time travel is possible and someone's trying to change the past right now, why would I care what might happen to the people who live in the present? The person in the past has all the time to change their fates! There is no tension in what might happen to these guys. And of course, this is a superhero film so everything's going to work out just fine so really again there is no real tension in the scenes. Altogether, the film felt like a bizarre mix of three films:

1. The Matrix: in that film there were machines that connected humans to a program. Here we have Ellen Paige who sends people's conscience back in time. You decide which is more convincing! Also so much acting, Ellen: Just put your hands around Hugh's head and moan and groan a little. Just top notch. 2. Inception: the original film had three different levels of dream, pretty good idea. X-Men however decided that what happens in present time matters as much as what happens in the past and so lost my any kind of attention to one of the time lines or a quarter of the film. 3. Back to the Future: Not as much as the humor but actually the idea of time travel which doesn't make any more sense here than it made in that film. At least that one was funny.

Now I have criticized the film pretty harshly but there are some good moments here just as well.

The CGI is pretty cool, the 3D effect alright and the acting is quite acceptable, at least they shut Halle Berry up for most of the time and kept Ellen Paige to a minimum and painted Jennifer Lawrence in blue which actually made her more tolerable than her Oscar worthy performances!

Again if you have watched a total of 5 episodes of Family Guy, Rick and Morty or Community about time travel, there's really nothing you haven't seen before. If you're a fan, eating up a popcorn and enjoying the glasses, this might be just the film you've been waiting for.

PS: Don't waste your money on the 4D versions if they're around. The whole shooting scenes and kicks and rainy weathers just feel uncomfortable when they're turned into kicks in the back, hisses of water and actual sprinkles. Stick to the 3D version for Christs sake.

Final Rating: 5/10. Cliché but actually OK and at times enjoyable. Recommended for non-fans? Not really. Pretty basic time travel stuff.

I love movies about music, just thought you should know this at first.

But this movie stands out both on its music and also its storytelling. Nobody Knows tells the story of a group of teenagers who play in an underground rock band in Iran and want to either get to perform a concert or leave the country.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Persian music whether it's rock, rap or pop, I find it too simple to listen to. So, it was a great feeling when I heard the songs of this movie, my favorites being the Hichkas rap and the acoustic guitar scene and I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to hear some good music just as well.

The actings are all really above good the best clearly delivered by Hamed Behdad who stole the court scene and made one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.

All in all, this is a must-see for anyone who wants to both have a good time and hear a nice bitter story.

Once is the movie it most represents, but like I said it's far more bitter than the former.

Rating 10/10

A cheap show, a crazy gang, a lot of guts to say whatever they want, what more can I ask for? I came across sunny the first time on IMDb and was really surprised with the rating it had. beforehand the title seemed a little too lame for me to care for, but man, if I'd known what I was missing out on...

Sunny is interesting in a many ways, the production doesn't stand out as perfect especially for the first couple of episodes and it's almost like a bunch of good friends just talking nonsense for quite a long time, but then the comedy kicks in, the racial jokes, the waitress, Charlie's illiteracy, Mac's karate moves, Dennis' pride and Dee being ignored over and over again, they all seem to make sense after a while and God, are they funny! The beginnings have always been a favorite point for me when the gang starts talking about nothing and they start screaming and everything.

And also let's not forget about Danny Devito and his sick twisted way of treatment of others.

So don't miss out on this great little show!

Asghar Farhadi amazes me. When I first heard about "About Elly" I wasn't sure what it was going to be like but when I sat down to watch the movie I was literally blown away by the writing, acting and the direction of course. Still, I wasn't sure if he could repeat the same success with "Nader and Simin" and yet again I was blown away.

"Nader and Simin" is more than anything an experience, pretty much like 10 by Abbas Kiarostami was but with acting taking the place of realism and striking even more powerful. The plot for me didn't matter, what did, was the settings, the court scenes and how fluent and realistic every character's actions or dialogs were.

You feel for every character, you laugh and cry with all of them and still you may just as well hate them for no reason at all.

There's also the often presented questions with no answers: Who's the girl going to choose? Who took the money? Who's to blame? and ... and the answer is clear as hell, who cares? As long as there's a great story to tell and an amazing two hours to spend on a splendid product, who really cares?

All in all, I have to admit that this is cinema at its best and this movie isn't at least nominated for an Oscar for foreign language film then I'm definitely losing my whole faith in the Academy Awards for ignoring such a wonderful installment only because of political beliefs.