Week of August 5th Note!

Because I am out of town I realized I won't have enough time for blogging daily. I will continue with this week's theme of summer blockbuster on Saturday.

Movie Review: The Conjuring

This week's theme is summer blockbuster as the summer come to an end and schools start to go in session. This summer was another good summer for blockbusters. I was lucky enough to go to the theater over eight times to see these awesome flicks. Today I am reviewing the only movie that I saw on opening night this summer, the horror flick The Conjuring. Beware spoilers!

 (source)

SUMMARY The beginning of The Conjuring tells the audience what the basic premisses of the film are in a few simple shots of texts. It says something along the lines of: Ed and Lorraine Warren have solved many cases, but one case was so terrifying that they have yet to tell anyone about it... up until now. The storyline is typical, a family moves into a creepy old house looking for a new beginning when spooky happenings begin to occur. Basic poltergeist stuff goes on, doors open on their own, lights flash on and off, etc. Eventually the family decides to contact the Warrens to help them when they discover the gruesome history of their new (old) home. I won't go into too much detail but basically a lady who was accused of being a witch killed her child and then hung herself. Her spirit stayed behind to posses mothers that have moved into her house and force them to kill her children. It ends with Ed Warren being forced to do the exorcism on the mother himself even though he had never preformed one before. In an adrenalin filled final scene, the exorcism is a success even though the mother almost kills her daughter. The film ends with the actual pictures of the family, the Warrens, and the house.

RATING I am going to be completely honest. I loved this film. I will easily give it 5/5 stars just for the sheer volume of terror I felt sitting in the theater watching it. This movie relies mostly on jump-scares but every one of them I was not expecting and caught me off guard, nearly causing me to scream right in the theater. The beginning tells the audience that this was based on a true story, which caused me to think that even after I left the theater I still wouldn't be safe. Being a huge horror genre fan, I know that most scary movies take a while to build up before the spooky-fun begins. This film broke this rule and the first scene shows a terrifying "possessed" doll that I only thought could exist in nightmares. The movie ends with showing pictures of the actual family and house, which was one of the scariest parts making the movie seem much more real. Even the costumes of the late '60's era were great, and the acting was excellent too, something that I have not found in many scary films. In my opinion, this movie even puts The Exorcist to shame when it comes to a scare factor. Through out the movie, my stomach started to hurt because I was scared so constantly, with my only protection from the giant terrifying screen being my hands covering my eyes. I left the theater knowing that out of all of the scary movies I have seen (and trust me, I have seen very many), that this would easily take the number one slot of the scariest movie of all time in my opinion. 

SHOULD YOU SEE IT? Yes! Well actually no, DO NOT see this movie if you don't like to be scared, especially when you leave the theater and are still scared. If you do enjoy a good, no, great scare, go out to the theater right now and see it! If it's out of theaters by the time you're reading this, then wait for the DVD (Blu-Ray) and go get it at the store! 

Sunday Overview: Week of August 4th, 2013

Summer is coming to an end and school is back in session very soon. To celebrate a good summer, this week my theme will be summer block busters.

Monday I will do a movie review of The Conjuring

Tuesday will be a random fun fact 

Wednesday will be a review of this summer's The Great Gatsby

Thursday will be a random trivia question

Friday will be a review of Monsters University

Saturday I will not be having a top list because I am traveling next week. It may be on Sunday instead

Top 5 Best Movie Endings of All Time (with video clips!)

In my opinion, a bad movie can be made good by a great ending and a good movie can be made bad by a terrible ending. I am a firm believer that the final scene of a movie can definitely make or break it. Whenever I see a movie for the first time I always look foreword to how the director chose to end it because the last scene of a movie is generally the one that you walk out of the theater thinking about. If it is a good ending, then you know because you keep on thinking about it even weeks after seeing the movie. So here is my list of my five favorite movie endings of all time. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, also be warned because this does contain spoilers!

#5: The Departed

As I said in my review of Contraband, I am a big Mark Wahlberg fan. The reason of my fandom is because of this movie, not the whole movie itself, but the final scene. So much so that it deserves a place on my all time favorite movie endings. Before this scene, Matt Damon's character received  awards that he did not deserve and people died for the wrong reasons because of him. The scene is silent with no music as Damon enters his apartment where he is greeted by Wahlberg pointing his gun at him with a look of pure hatred on his face. Damon utters the word "ok" before Wahlberg shoots him in the head, finally bringing justice to him. Wahlberg then silently puts on a hat and quietly exits the apartment. The camera then focuses on a rat  on the balcony of the apartment once music starts to play. The overall silence of this ending  is really unique, and for a movie with so much violence and misunderstanding, this was a great choice to end it ever so calmly. Watch the scene.

#4: Citizen Kane

As a huge film fan it would be a shame to not include this ending in my list, especially when it is so well deserved. The ending scene of Citizen Kane is the single most important scene in the movie where the viewer discovers what Charles Foster Kane's last word "Rosebud" actually means. The whole movie is a journey through Kane's life to discover what Rosebud means, but the ending shows that the people who are trying ever so hard to find out, never actually find out and it's all just part of a "jigsaw puzzle" that was Kane's life. However, the viewer is luckier than the characters in the movie when the camera pans over all of Kane's accumulated meaningless junk. Eventually we see some people throwing junk into a fire pit, a man throws a sled into the fire, the camera zooms in on the word on the sled, "Rosebud". Kane owned the sled as a child, it represents his last happy moment of his life, but is burning in the fire, to remain the missing piece of the puzzle forever. 

#3: Inception

Inception is one of those movies that became and instant classic because of it's unique storyline and well pulled off twist ending that no one could have predicted. I'm very glad that I got to see this movie in the theaters when in came out. The ending scene shows that once Leonardo Dicaprio's character finally gets to be with his children, he spins his top to see if he is dreaming, or if he's in reality. The camera zooms on the spinning top, the top starts to wobble a bit, but before the audience sees if it falls over or not, the screen cuts to black, the peaceful music stops, and the title of the movie pops up, forever disguising the secret. Seeing the ending in the theater was hilarious by the reaction of the crowd, and I must admit I was one of the many people who loudly said "aw!" once I knew that I wouldn't see what really happened. This was a very clever and somewhat comical way to end such and intense and long film. Best of all, it left the conclusion up to the audience so everyone has a different opinion of it once they left the theater, and I certainly thought about this ending for weeks to come after I saw it and had many discussions about what the ending meant. What do you think?

#2: The Great Gatsby

This is the most recent movie on my list that just came out this past May. This movie got very mixed reviews because of it's controversial soundtrack and over-the-top glamour. I did read the book and thought that the movie made me appreciate it even more. However the best part of the movie, which made me leave the theater thinking I had a new favorite movie, was the ending, or the endings I should say. The movie had two endings, the first being the end of Gatsby's life when he is shot while hearing the phone ring, believing it is his lover Daisy calling him to tell him what she had decided. He dies while reaching for the main symbol of the story, the green light, symbolizing what he had been wanting for the entire film, but never quite being able to grasp it. He died with the thought that Daisy was calling and he would never know what she would say, however we later find out it was Nick who was calling when he was killed, just to check on him. The other ending is when Nick Carraway, who is writing Gatsby's story finishes. As in the beginning of the film when Nick is narrating while showing the green light over the water, a similar scene is shown while Nick speaks the last line of the actual book. We hear a typewriter then he finishes, and he neatly stacks the pages titled "Gatsby". He takes a pen and writes "The Great" before finishing and ending the movie. The ending of this flashy, yet sad tale was perfect to say the least. It was a solemn finish, but it fit the mood perfectly and left me thinking "what a beautifully tragic tale". Since this is a new movie, I don't have a clip of the ending, so here is a preview instead. 

And finally #1 is.... The Life of Pi

The ending of this movie is a lot like Inception in that it leaves the audience to choose what they think the true story is. I read this book years before the movie came out and I loved it, when I heard they were going to make a movie I was just as much worried as I was excited. I didn't know how anyone could possibly pull off a story let alone the major twist at the end. I was wrong to be worried, Ang Lee the director, did a wonderful job of this and ended it exactly like the book. The story is of a kid, Pi, who is stranded at see with an adult bengal tiger, he tells this story to a writer, but at the end when he finally reaches Mexico, he tells that story and a different one to two men trying to find out how the boat sank. The different story involves people instead of animals, but I won't go into either story because I could write pages about both, so I'll just assume you have seen or read it so you know what I'm talking about. What makes the ending great, and what makes it deserve the #1 spot is that it really doesn't give you a correct answer of what happened. It gives two stories that both seem possible, one is more miraculous, and the other realistic. This type of ending some may not like, and others do, but they pick one of the two stories. After reading and seeing the movie I couldn't stop thinking about the ending and came up with my own theory, that Pi invented the tiger story because he had to do things that he didn't want to admit to, as in killing the chef and eating meat. But that's just a very brief summary of what I think, I could write pages trying to explain what really wasn't meant to be explained. Here is a trailer of the film.

So there is my list of my top five favorite movie endings of all time. Agree with me or disagree with me, let me know what you think! Also don't forget to follow if you want to read more lists like this. Thanks!

Schedule!

This is an (updated) schedule to keep me on track. I will try to do some sort of post everyday but as school is starting soon I might not have enough time. Anyway here is my planned schedule for this blog.

Mon., Wed., Fri., I will do a review of a movie I have seen, I might do theme weeks.

Sat., I will do a top list where I will list my favorite movies or aspects of movies

Sun., a brief over-view of the week

Tues., Thurs., A random fun fact or trivia question to test your own knowledge of films or the knowledge of your friends!

Let me know what you think of this schedule, and don't forget to follow or share this blog if you like it!

Movie Review: Contraband

My first movie review is one that I saw in the theaters when it first came out. I forgot about it until I watched it again last night. The movie is Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg.  

SUMMARY Basically the movie is about a former legendary drug smuggler who quit his life of smuggling in order to live a criminal-free life with his wife and two kids. However his wife's brother messes up a run at the beginning of the movie forcing him to do one more run to protect his family.

RATING I will rate this movie 3/5 stars. I am a big Wahlberg fan, but the fact that I had completely forgotten about this movie shows just how much of a mundane action/thriller movie it is. It had an interesting story line and the acting was good but not great. It just didn't have anything to make it stand out from other action movies. Despite this, a few scenes were executed very well. It explained all questions that were brought to attention in the beginning, namely the mysterious 'tarp' that turned out to be a priceless (well actually an easy 100 million dollar) painting. It ended happily as most action movies do with the bad guy behind bars and the good guy happy with his wife and children. However once the credits rolled, it didn't leave me wanting more. 

SHOULD YOU SEE IT? If you see this movie at the store, I don't recommend buying it, like I said it didn't leave me wanting more, therefore I don't really care to see it again (and I swear I am a big Wahlberg fan!). Don't buy it but it is worth seeing once, so rent it if you can!

Film Blog

Hello this is my first post. This blog will pretty much have anything and everything to do with movies, from old classics to summer blockbusters. I will have ratings, trivia, fun facts, top ten lists and more about all of your favorite films! I'm really excited to start this, as this is my first blog I've ever done. Just a little bit about my self, I'm currently in college and am just about to start my second year. My major is business administration with a minor in creative writing, although originally I was going to major in Cinema studies. I love movies as most people do, but I see them more as an art than anything else. I hope you will enjoy my blogs! :) Warning, this whole blog will have spoilers! If you see a post about a movie you have not seen yet, don't read it!