Blast from the Past: The Boondock Saints

How this movie has eluded me for ten years is beyond me. I'm gonna be honest here, contrary to popular belief amongst my friends, I haven't seen every movie ever made. Until recently The Boondock Saints was in that category, and might have stayed there had I not seen a trailer for the upcoming sequel. I thought the trailer was badass and figured the first one had to be pretty good as well. Pretty good was wrong, f**cking amazing is what it turned out to be. So the story goes one night on St. Patrick's Day some guys are in a bar having a good time minding there business, and these Russian mobsters come in messing things up. So through a chain of events we find out these two brothers, just average guys who were involved in the bar fight had to end up defending themselves and kill the Russian mobsters. This leads to a chain of events where the two brothers, who are truly righteous guys, decide to take out every despicable low life in south Boston on the wrong side of the law. What happens next is what turn out to be one of the coolest vigilante bloodbath movies I've ever seen. It has a really cool formula where first we see the crime scene and after the cops speculate about what happened the movie goes back and shows us what actually happened. Its just cool, and the brothers are so likable that even though they brutally murdering people, they're really only murdering bad people so its no big deal. I can't believe I just typed that and meant it, but that's really how the movie makes you feel about the whole thing. I found out that this is a cult classic and I completely understand every reason why. If you've seen The Boondock Saints then you might be thinking "Whatever dude, you're late." And you'd be right, but if you haven't this is a must see.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this movie.

one luv, Toinne

Blast from the Past: Titan A.E.

In the year 3028 A.D., Earth is being attacked by the Drej, which are aliens made of pure energy! The Drej mothership destroys Earth with an energy beam just as hundreds of space vehicles manage to escape with the last of mankind aboard! One of the escapees is Sam's young son Cale, who carries with him a ring given to him by his father. Fifteen years later, Cale works on a salvage station, eking out a rough life and hating his father for having disappeared aboard the Titan so long ago. Without a home planet, surviving humans have been reduced to outer space drifters and are constantly bullied and looked down on by other space-faring races. A human captain named Joseph Korso and his pilot Akima seek out Cale and explain that he must help them find the Titan which contains a mechanism that will create a new Earth and therefore unite all of humanity. Meanwhile, the Drej wants to find the Titan so that they can destroy it. It's never really clear why the Drej hat humans so much, but it doesnt really matter. The first thing I notice about Titan while watching it was that even though it was animated it was a serious sci-fi movie. The story was great, the action was intense, and the movie itself was overall epic. Speaking of this film being animated, the style of animation is incredible, it is a 2D style with a 3D animation backdrop. The result is eye-popping. The way this story plays out is almost as if this was supposed to be a live action film and then they decided to go with animation. Its just a great ride, and I'm pretty sure that if this was a live action film, 13 would have followed the PG in the rating. If you like sci-fi movies than I think that you would b pleasently surprised by Titan A.E. as I was.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this movie.

one luv, Toinne

Blast from the Past: Oldboy

Olboy tells the story of a man who in the beginning of the film is kidnapped for seemingly no apparent reason and held captive in a room that looks like a small (very small) apartment for fifteen years, and then suddenly he is released back into the world also seemingly for no reason. Those years trapped in a room has changed him from a lovable (even though always drunk) guy to a man who is hell bent on revenge for whoever has done this to him. He meets a woman who works in a sushi bar who ends up helping him find the person responsible for his capture. Unlike most revenge movies it doesn't take him very long to find out who did this to him, but when he finds the guy responsible just before killing him the guy gives him an ultimatum. He tells him that if you kill me now you will never find you WHY I did this to you, suddenly Oldboy realizes (as well as myself) that knowing the reason is more important then killing him. He tells Oldboy that if he can figure it out in five days than he would kill himself and save Oldboy the trouble. This is where the movie gets very interesting. One clue leads to another which leads to another, so forth and so on, which leads to the most shocking twist ending I've ever seen. Unlike Kill Bill where the lead is fueled simply by revenge, Oldboy really wants answers. This is one of the most disturbing yet poetic revenge tales I have ever seen, and it still remains brutal. This movie keeps you hanging by a thread until the credits roll, and begs to be watched again almost immediately, and watching it again knowing the twist makes it that much more disturbing to watch. Winner of the Grand Prix award (best film) at the Cannes film festival in 2004, Oldboy is an epic tale of revenge with a twist ending that will leave you almost breathless. Everything that you thought to be meaningless turns out to have meaning that you will NEVER see coming. This is an amazing film.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of this movie.

one luv, Toinne

Blast from the Past: August Rush

Released in 2007 August Rush is a remarkable film. If there ever was a movie that could truly show the power and magic of music this is it. The story goes as such, a young orphan named Evan Taylor believes in music the way most people believe in God. Music is his religion. He can hear music in everything, and there is an incredible scene when he first steps foot in Times Square that demonstrates this. His journey throughout the film is to find his parents, and he believes that if he can just get a chance to play his music they would hear it and know that is was him. Through incredible circumstances, either by chance or the power of music, this does happen. I have never seen a film that was so musically driven, not even musicals. It really makes you believe that music is a force of nature and not just something that entertains us on the way to work or in our spare time. On his journey to find his parents he meets a different array of people as he "follows the music". The kid is a music prodigy, never having been able to play an instrument in the orphanage the music could never go any further than his head. Yet once he gets into the big city meets a few musicians, and all he has to do is see someone play an instrument once and he knows how to play that instrument. The first time we get a chance to see him play a guitar and hear the music that had been in his head is outstanding. You might be wondering about the score given the subject matter of the film; well I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that it's the best score I've ever heard (Titanic still holds that) but it is quite remarkable. The score created by Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer does however capture the emotion of a moment in such a way that I have never seen in a film. The music of the film embodies the ideas and philosophies of the film, which are, music is something that moves, inspires, and connects us all, and if we believed hard enough it can make the impossible happen. If you've not yet seen this gem of a film, then I highly recommend that you hop on netfilx and put this one on your queue. It will make you remember why you love music in the first place.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this movie.

one luv, Toinne

Blast from the Past: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Since the remake of this classic sci-fi film comes out this weekend I decided to check out the original before I went to see the remake. I had never seen it before, and now was as good a time as any, and there is no wonder this movie is a classic. The characters are very engaging, the story is quite original, and the overall message of the film was very profound. It starts out one day a spaceship lands on earth, a man (or what looks like a man) exits the spaceship named Klatu along with his robot Gort. This thing should have landed anywhere but America because the first thing we wanted to do was kill the guy, before he could hand one of the generals a peace offering he was shot. As soon as he was shot Gort responded promptly and this thing was DEADLY, Klatu got Gort under control and was taken to a hospital. From there he says he has a message for the people of Earth and would not tell just one person, because it was too important. He wanted to address every leader of every nation, which was a huge problem seeing as The Cold War was happening at the time. The Day the Earth Stood Still was a very well done film and far surpassed my expectations, the performances, the writing, even the special effects although outdated didn't get in the way of me enjoying the film like most older films tend to do. If you plan to see or have already seen the newer version of this film. I recommend you check this one out as well because you wont be disappointed. If a movie that is more than 60 years old can still feel as fresh as it did then that's saying something for how well it was made. If you have netflix it's available on the instant viewing feature, that's how I saw it, otherwise I'm sure you can find it in a bargain bin. There is a reason why they call this film a classic.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this movie?

one luv, Toinne

Blast from the Past: Radio Flyer

Radio Flyer is one of my favorite movies ever. Until last night its been a long time since I'd last seen it. If you haven't seen it, Radio Flyer is about a mother and her two sons who move to California in the late 60's. When they get there she meets a guy and falls in love they move in together yadda yadda yadda. Once he gets comfortable he unfortunately starts abusing the young brother. You might be asking yourself why a movie about child abuse is one of my favorite movies ever? It's not the child abuse, it's the love that the two brothers have for each other. When the older brother finds out whats going on the younger brother asks him, no he makes him promise not to tell their mother, "Because she's happy now Mike, you gotta promise." The older brother does promise, but he also tries to come up with ways to protect his brother. He eventually comes up with a plan to send his brother away, and there is a scene just before the younger brother is getting ready to leave, they hug say their goodbyes and the younger brother tells the older to take care of mom, *sniff sniff* it gets me every time. This is the only movie ever that actually makes me cry, and I've seen some tearjerkers that just couldn't do it. I just cant help myself, the love the brothers have for each other, and all the emotion in the film leading up to that moment makes me shed a few tears. I'm not going to score Radio Flyer simply because I just wanted to blog about one of my favorite movies, but if you haven't seen it I strongly recommend that you put it on your netflix, or go the your local video store, or even check the bargain bin at best buy, whatever the case may be see this movie. You will not be disappointed, you may even shed a tear or two.

Agree or Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this movie.

one luv, Toinne