Thirteen Lives Review
By Paul Anthony
Ron Howard movies are some of the best movies I have ever seen, I knew once I saw that this film was directed by him that I just had to watch it and review it. Honestly, I am glad I did. Now Sadly I don’t remember much about this real-life situation that did happen in Thailand in the summer of 2018. The budget for the film was 55 million and the length of film was 2 hours and 23 minutes. The film starred Viggo Mortensen as Richard Stanton, Colin Farrell as John Volanthen, Joel Edgerton as Richard Harris and Tom Bateman as Chris Jewell. The film was filmed on location in Thailand which had to be cool for the actors to visit the country.
The film starts with the boys practicing football (Soccer in the United States) and everyone is reminded of a birthday that is set at 7 pm because it is one of the player’s birthday, which one player goes straight to the house to help set up everything up. The rest of the team, with the young assistant coach who agrees to take the remaining 12 kids to the Tham Luang Cave to go explore for a little fun. Things go as plan at first but then it begins to rain which through channels at the top of the cave it begins to flood the cave trapping the kids and the coach deep inside the cave. When the team don’t show up for the birthday party that is when the parents alert the police and soon realize they have a bad situation on their hands. As the Royal Thai Navy Seals arrive to dive in the cave to search for the boys, they realize they aren’t able to do it because though they are trained divers for the open sea, they aren’t trained to swim through caves and therefore unable to rescue the team. At this point the governor due to a tip calls upon John Volanthen who also calls his friend Richard Stanton which both are experts in cave diving and recue. They quickly arrive in Thailand and at first no one really wants them there. Nevertheless, they go in and after hours finds the boys who are all alive, they report back and show the proof that everyone is alive, but Richard realizes getting them out is near impossible, Thats when they bring in Richard Harris a doctor both Stanton and Harris know there is only one option to get them out and Harris doesn’t want to do it at first but then finally agrees, the plan is to treat the boys like a package basically tying them up and sedating them, which works but requires three days each day saving four at a time and not one life was lost and the divers and the volunteers who helped divert the rain water from the cave to prevent the cave from getting worse are hailed as heroes.
If you did follow this event on the news than of course you knew the ending but what you didn’t know is what the people had to go through to get them out and that is what kept, you hooked on this film and made you watch every minute of it. Howard did an amazing job at telling their stories and keeping you engaged in the film. This film didn’t have any big action scenes or monsters because it didn’t need to, the writing was on the wall. The actors did a good job at making you feel their pain and frustrations that they had to go through. You didn’t need a lot of character development because the story was the rescue itself. I believe this is another hit for Howard and I love it to be honest and, in the end, I am giving it an S for a grade this was the perfect film in my eyes
Jack Reacher Movie Review
By Paul Anthony
Last week, on our podcast we decided to review the first season of Reacher which was on Amazon Prime and we gave it raving reviews and in fact Justin can’t watching it to this day. Now because of that, I thought it was time to take a look at first Jack Reacher film that stars Tom Cruise which came out in 2012. Now I have seen this film before but it has been a long while and I am talking about years here, so in order to do this blog, I know I needed to rewatch the film , so I did! Now prior to this film there was no attempts at making a film based on the novel series, since after all the novel series just started in 1997 and seemed like no studio really wanted to buy the film rights until 2005 when the book One Shot was released and by 2010, the ball started to roll and by 2012 the film was released based on One Shot, but the film was simply called Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise was cast as Reacher, but the fan base didn’t enjoy this casting, mostly because of the height difference, in the books Reacher is 6’4 and Tom Cruise is 5’8. Now he was surrounded by a star studded cast which included Richard Jenkins, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, and Robert Duvall. Now let’s start with the plot!
We first seen the crime take place though we don’t know who it is, and we don’t know why but we do see a person killing 5 people, the police investigate and soon we meet a former sniper James Mark Barr and he is taken into custody, is offered a choice of life in prison or death but all he writes down is Get Jack Reacher. Here we learn Reacher is a drifter but was a major in the Military Police and makes it, Hes not interested in clearing Barr’s name because of their past and what Barr has done before just interested in the truth. So with Barr’s lawyer they begin to start this wild goose chase and break down all the information and deal with the true people involved which is gang led by Zec who was a political prisoner. In the end Reacher gets to the truth but not without taking a few bodies down with him and the film ends with Barr waking up from his coma and admitting to the shootings that he did but is still clear of the charges meanwhile Reach gets on a bus and sets his sights on the road again and the film ends.
Now let me start with Tom Cruise because he seems to be the biggest problem of the film. I do agree that he should never have been cast as Reacher because of his height. Reacher’s height is also one of his best physical defense because no one wants go up against someone with that muscle and height. Now also Reacher doesn’t show much emotions and Tom as big name actor has to act more than the character because he is a big name actor. Going away from the roots did hurt the film. The action and story wasn’t on track with each other just seemed off. Now I am not saying it was a boring film or even a bad film but it wasn’t something that to me was going to stick out and because of that in the end I am giving this film a C for grade or 75 percent!
My Spy Review
By Paul Anthony
Here we are about to talk about a movie that just couldn’t get released. The Movie kept getting pushed back and back. This film was suppose to come out in August of 2019 but then got pushed to January of 2020 then to March then to April but then this virus happened and it seemed like this film was doomed but then Amazon bought the rights to the film so the move goers could see this film and the film got a home release. The question I always have is if this film was released how much would it make? Truth is the budget was a low 18 million for this comedy and it did gross when it could overseas a nice 5.5 million. Comparing this film with Dave Bautista other film Stuber I would ball park around 30 million. Now Stuber was considered a failure with being an summer time film, which could have been the reason why this film was moved out of the summer. So how good was this film? Well the truth be told this film was on par with Stuber, except this was more aimed at families rather than just adults, so if you liked that film than you will like this film as well.
The film revolves around JJ who was a former Special Forces soldier who became a spy for the CIA. It is clear that though he was a great soldier, he not a good spy. We seen this in the opening scenes when he blurs out information that he didn’t receive unless he was a spy. The one thing he can do is fight and blow stuff up which is how he makes it out a live. After returning to the headquarters and it seems like he did a good thing he is told by his boss that though he did good with fighting , he didn’t get any information that was truly needed and is told that maybe being an spy just not for him but is given a easy mission in Chicago with his new partner. His Mission is to watch a family of a criminal they have their eye on, simple enough right? Soon as they get to Chicago he comes across the niece of the Criminal and his cover is blown but she manages to blackmail him as long as he serves a father figure and teach her how to become a spy. The adventures that he does with the girl brings the laughs of course and they even save the day together and when the mission is over, he decides to return to Chicago to live with her and her mother who he began to have feelings for towards the end of the film.
This film had some cheap laughs but you couldn’t figure out who the audience should be because it wasn’t meant for kids but wasn’t meant for adults either. Some things wee just too out of place for me to really like but enjoyed Bautista and glad to see he is growing as an actor. In the end I am giving this film an C for a grade. It felt average to me and honestly can’t say more about it.
Friday Roundabout!
By Paul Anthony
You often hear jokes about the different voices for Siri and Google and Amazon Alexa which are jokes but now that is changing and I am not Joking .Now Amazon announced that for just 99 cents Alexa will now sound like Samuel L. Jackson will be her voice and I am sure he will say his famous word Mother F***** but that will be $4.99 though, the 99 cents option would be the basic and the other is with him swearing, How funny will that be? I almost think $4.99 would be worth it. Now there hasn’t been any announced date for this package but stay tune!
Now we got to switch to something more serious because we lost a horror legend last Saturday and that person was Sid Haig, who died from complications from the Lung Infection which happened when he vomit in his sleep. Sid’s career started way back in 60’s and for the most part until the 90’s he was busy mad but slowed his pace in the 90’s, However His career picked up again by 2003 when he starred in House of 1000 corpses as Captain Spaulding, a role that would make him famous in the younger generation eyes. It’s sad to say that he is gone, he will be missed by millions.
When you are good at your job, it’s only a matter of time before your company realizes it to and when they do they start to worry about losing you and now we could be facing that issue with Marvel Studios. It is being reported Marvel Studios Big Man Kevin Feige will now work with LucasFlim on a Star Wars project. We all know they are own by Disney owns them both, but they still operate as different companies. Now Kevin has always wanted to work on a Star Wars film and now the question is will he get a full time job there and move on from Marvel. Now I don’t know if we should go that far but right now you just don’t know.
This news really has me pumped for the film more then ever. Fans are already pumped for Jurassic World 3 and it seems like the film can’t come fast enough, sadly it still a year and half away. The biggest thing we kept asking ourselves is where was Alan grant and Ellie Sattler at? which were played Sam Neill and Laura Dern. We saw BD Wong return and Jeff Goldblum return, Jeff’s role as Ian was small in The Fallen Kingdom. But Now His Role as well as Sam and Laura’s will be much bigger. This film will be such a great film and it only made sense for all the cast to return since as of right now this film is set to be the last film and with the Dinosaurs on the run, Grant and Sattler needs to lead the pack to put this dinosaurs back where they belong for good. We will have to wait until June 2021 to see what will happen!
Rise of the Streaming Service!
By Paul Anthony
Netflix is the currently king in the streaming field of movies and T.V. but the question for how long? Since basically 2010 Netflix has been pumping millions into their streaming service but now just ten years later it might be a different story. We know Netflix always had competition but it more then ever. We Know their is Amazon prime and Hulu but even they are gaining more steam. We now are going to have Apple plus and Disney plus and HBO Max but another one is entering the game and that is NBC’s very own Peacock streaming app.
Okay Okay, judging from the name you think a Peacock wouldn’t be much of a threat but think about what NBC has to offer. I am going guess you will have current NBC shows on their not to mention they will have their original content including the reboot of Save by The Bell. The verdict will be out on their shows of course but the names should strike a little scare in Netflix. We have Apple now entering the business and right now there is no fear yet because once again they are making their own content so it is hard to say if it blow up so the verdict is out but Apple users will flock to get this service and oh yeah the price is only 5 dollars a month.
Disney plus when it was announced was already called the Netflix killer and that was because of all the content they will be pulling from Netflix and that is scary, if you choose the option of 12.99 per month you get Disney, Hulu and Espn plus, which is crazy amount of material and let’s not forget about HBO Max. No offical price has been given just yet but it has to be safe to assume that it will be around 12 or 13 dollars.
Now I know we are talking about the streaming service and we have yet to touch upon cable companies and satellite companies and how they are going to be getting affected as well. It has been getting annoying seeing prices go up and up and with the working class we don’t really watch cable much. However I do believe they won’t be hurt that much, so there is no need to focus on them as much as we want to. The point here is Netflix and how will they do.
Netflix may be losing a lot of content but they do have their own produced content that is actually good and get great reviews. Last few years they have been making both good shows and now Movies as well with some big stars including Adam Sandler, Ben Affleck and Will Smith. For them to stay on top, they need to keep producing their own good content and remain user friendly. I don’t see them changing their prices because in the end, they are already low 6 to 12 dollars a month is very cheap. In the end all these streaming services will be equaled in the end it will just depend on what you like and no one said that you can’t have all of them at once.
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