The Dark Knight Rises review

Plot: Set eight years after The Dark Knight, Rises follows Batman's return to Gotham as he faces off against Bane, a physically powerful and intelligent mercenary, who holds Gotham hostage with his own private army.

Review: This movie has been so hyped and my expectations for it were so high, that I knew that if this movie was anything less than perfect, I would be disappointed. So I tried my best not to compare it to The Dark Knight. Ultimately, I fucking loved this movie. But was it perfect? Nope, far from it.

My biggest criticism of The Dark Knight Rises was that it was over-saturated with too many characters and plot points. It could have been tighter and more cohesive. It was still a really well structured film, but at times it moved too fast for people to take in certain key plot points. This will be remedied of course after multiple viewings.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Tom Hardy as Bane was fucking scary as hell. He had such a physical presence that any time he was in the room, you could feel how tense all the other characters got. Hardy did a great job acting with his eyes and body movements. He wasn't as great or memorable as Heath Ledger's Joker, but he was definitely a top notch villain for Batman.

Anne Hathaway was amazing and sexy as hell as Selina Kyle. I like the fact that they never refer to her as Catwoman in the movie, cause everyone knows it's her anyway. She was the perfect mix of femme fatale and ally. I liked how you couldn't really tell which direction her character would ultimately take.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt had a bigger part in this movie than I imagined. Although I didn't like the final reveal of his real name. It was kind of lame in my opinion and felt too much like pandering to the fans. Overall he was solid in this.

Spoilers Below
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Marion Cotillard, who was being set up as the love interest for Bruce turned out to be the daughter of Liam Neesons Rha's Al Ghul, Talia. It was speculated but I truly didn't see that twist coming. I think it worked well and her entire backstory with Bane was well done and emotional. Seeing Bane tearing up at the end was  jarring, especially when you spend the entire movie picturing him as this unstoppable killing machine.

The first fight scene gave me goosebumps. It was truly intense and Bane's monologue was chilling. When he broke Batman's back, the entire theater cheered (because it was an iconic scene, not because they were rooting for Bane).

John Blake (Levitt) was revealed to be Robin, or his real name was Robin (instead of using Robin's real names they just called him Robin). I thought this was lame and they should have just had him be Batman's successor, without referring to the lore, which felt like it was put in at the last second. But I knew Blake was being set up to take over the mantle. I had a weird suspicion that Wayne would be killed in the first fight with Bane and Blake would take over as Batman in the second half. But this was a better choice in my opinion. It would be interesting to see a continuation of the story with Blake as Batman/Robin/whoever the fuck.

And the finale with Wayne/Batman faking his death was perfect in my opinion. As alluded earlier in the film by Alfred (Michael Caine), this was really his only chance to have a happy life. And him going off into the sunset with Selina was about as perfect an ending as I could imagine (even though it's something you would never see in the comics).
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End Spoilers

Overall, Christopher Nolan ended his Batman trilogy perfectly. There was real closure and hope at the end. I was not disappointed and if you loved Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, you shouldn't be.

A-

Movies that take place (or where filmed) in South Brooklyn

South Brooklyn has a reputation among people as the home of the Russian mafia. Many movies and TV shows have been filmed in the South Brooklyn area (Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island, and Brighton Beach). I'm going to take a look at a few of the more famous ones.

Little Odessa (1994)

Starring: Tim Roth and Edward Furlong
Director: James Gray
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110365/

In this bleak crime thriller, Joshua (Tim Roth) is a ruthless Russian hitman who returns to his old neighborhood of Brighton Beach. His return sets in motion a depressing tale of family and honor. Terminator 2's Edward Furlong plays his younger brother, Reuben, who looks up to Joshua.

James Gray,a New York native, has filmed many of his movies in the South Brooklyn area. Little Odessa was his first movie. It was filmed mainly in Brighton Beach and there are many scenes where you can see familiar sights of Brighton Beach avenue and the side streets, as well as the boardwalk near Nathan's in Coney Island.

Little Odessa is a great film, but it is depressing. I highly recommend picking it up.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Connelly.
Director: Darren Aronofsky
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/

This is the movie they should show in health class in high schools to scare kids out of doing drugs. It shows the dark side of drug abuse and how it affects four people. As the movie progresses, things get darker and darker for the characters. What is it about the South Brooklyn environment and these bleak movies?

There were many familiar places in the movie. The boardwalk pier was used for one of the more beautiful and famous shots of the film. The apartment building that Sara Goldfarb lives in is located on Brighton 4th Avenue. The scene in the beginning of the film where Harry and Marion break into the roof of the apartment building takes place in the Luna Park buildings between West 8th and West 12th street.

Requiem for a Dream is one of those movies that, while great, one time is enough to watch it. It's chilling and the images stay with you.

Lord of War (2005)

Starring: Nicolas Cage and Jared Leto
Director: Andrew Niccol
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/

Jared Leto in another movie that takes place in Brighton Beach? He must like the place. Lord of War is the story of Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a young Russian living in Brighton Beach in the eighties who wants the good life. So he gets into gun running. He becomes very rich, but at a heavy price.

There were scenes filmed all over Brighton for this movie. Brighton Beach avenue was prominent and Oceanview cafe was used as the sight of the fictional restaurant where Yuri and his family worked. There were also some scenes on the boardwalk as well as in front of the Jewish Center of Brighton beach, located on Neptune and Ocean Parkway.

Lord of War was a fun and clever movie about the rise and fall (?) of a morally ambiguous protagonist. The credit sequence following the life of a bullet is one of the most powerful things you will ever see.

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There are certainly many more movies that have taken place or where filmed in the South Brooklyn area and I will write about more of them later. Stay tuned for part 2!

Top 10 Upcoming Movies

Here are the Top 10 upcoming movies in 2012. I won't be including The Dark Knight Rises on this list because it goes without saying. Enjoy the list.

1. Total Recall (August 3)

The original was an insanely fun sci-fi flick with some of the best Arnold-isms (considadatadivoss). While the Schwarzenegger/Verhoeven classic hasn't aged well (it's pure 80's Arnold on display), it did present some interesting sci-fi ideas. The short story it's based on, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick, was a very trippy tale for it's time and the original did a good job of adapting it to the screen. This version is said to be a more faithful adaptation of the book, not just a remake of the Arnold movie. Plus Colin Farrell is a great actor, I don't care what anybody else says (watch In Bruges if you doubt me). And it's always cool to see a futuristic sci-fi action movie. Let's just hope the director, Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) doesn't favor style over substance.

2.The Bourne Legacy (August 10)

A new Bourne movie without Matt Damon? Weird right? Apparently this movie will follow Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) as another agent similar to Jason Bourne. What has me excited about this movie is the fact that it's a pretty interesting concept (the movie takes place at the same time as 2007's Bourne Ultimatum) and features Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz in supporting roles. Jeremy Renner isn't a bad actor himself, but can he hold a big action franchise on his own? We'll see.

3.Lawless (August 29)

This one has me excited purely due to the cast. Tom Hardy (Bronson, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises), Gary Oldman (The Professional, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and Guy Pearce (LA Confidential, Memento), in a period gangster flick? What's not to like about that. The director and screenwriter were responsible for one of the cooler and more intense westerns of the last few years (The Proposition), so here's hoping lightning strikes twice.

4.Gangster Squad (September 7)

An all-star cast (Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone) in a 1940's set cops vs. gangster flick set in Los Angeles. This has an LA Confidential vibe to it. From the director of Zombieland, this should be a cool crime flick. And Sean Penn seems to be hamming it up as notorious LA mob boss Mickey Cohen.

5.Dredd (September 21)

Dredd is such a badass character. The 90's Stallone movie completely missed the point (he's never supposed to take his helmet off). And this one doesn't have Rob Schneider as the comedy sidekick. With all that said, this seems to be a more grittier, violent reboot. From the footage seen so far, it looks nuts. The story follows Dredd as he is trying to take down a violent drug gang in a futuristic city. And Karl Urban, who plays Dredd, doesn't take his helmet off in this one, so it's already better than the other movie.

6.Looper (September 28)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play the same character separated by thirty years in this time-travel/noir film from Rian Johnson (Brick). The premise is definitely cool and Gordon-Levitt is on a roll. The movie takes place in a world where time travel is illegal and the only people who use it are gangsters who use it to send bodies back thirty years in time for disposal. Gordon-Levitt plays a looper, whose job it is to eliminate these future targets, until his future self (Willis) is sent back and all sorts of craziness follows.

7.The Master (October 12)

Paul Thomas Anderson's last film was "There Will Be Blood" and everybody's been buzzing about his follow up "The Master", starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. The film will certainly be controversial as it's about a leader of a Scientology-like cult in the 1950's. Tom Cruise saw a screening and supposedly didn't like the thinly veiled attack on his religion. Either way, Paul Thomas Anderson has yet to make a bad film and the trailer looked intense as hell.

8.Skyfall (November 9)

Bond is back! And this time he's bringing an Academy Award winning director with him (Sam Mendes). This seems like a grittier, darker version of Bond. Quantum of Solace was decent, but it kind of threw off the momentum that Casino Royale created. Here's hoping that Skyfall brings back Craig's Bond in a bad ass way.

9.The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (December 14)

Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth for more high fantasy adventure. This is a prequel to Lord of the Rings and follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) on his journey outside of the Shire. Ian McKellan returns as Gandalf (the man does not age). Peter Jackson is shooting this in 3D, with new state of the art 3D camera technology. So visually we should be in for a treat. This will be the first part (with the second part being released December 2013, and a rumored third part to follow). Let's hope it lives up to the very high expectations.

10. Django Unchained (December 25)

Quentin Tarantino's new film follows Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz in a bloody western (Or should I say Southern, as this takes place in the Antebellum South). Expect copious violence, cool dialogue, and great music. I've read the screenplay and it's pure Tarantino through and through. And Leonardo DiCaprio is the villain in this! Look out for this this Christmas.

2012 isn't over yet, as far as good movies are concerned. Let's hope these 10 live up to the hype.

Amazing Spiderman review

Plot: Peter Parker is a teenage outcast who lives with his aunt and uncle after the tragic death of his parents. While trying to uncover the mystery of his parents death he goes to the Oscorp building where he is bitten by a genetically modified spider, giving him super strength, speed, and perception. Spurred by the murder of his Uncle Ben, Peter becomes Spiderman.Along the way he starts dating Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), whose father, played by Denis Leary, is a police chief on the hunt for Spiderman.

A reboot only five years after the original trilogy ended?

Review: When the first Spiderman movie came out in 2002, it was the dawn of a new era in superhero movies. In the years to follow, dozens of comic book properties (superhero or not) made it to the big screen. Spiderman was followed by two sequels, the first of which is one of those rare sequels that's better than the original. The third, however, was a whole different story. An emo Peter Parker, the wierd dance number, too many villains, not to mention that they totally fucked up Venom, one of the coolest comic book villains ever.

Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy ended horribly. But it did make money. And Hollywood wasn't ready to pack up the Spiderman franchise for twenty years. When I heard they were doing a reboot of Spiderman, my initial thought (and that of many film/comic geeks) was "Why"? What fresh concept can they possibly bring to the Spiderman mythos within only a few years of the trilogy ending?

So I approached this new incarnation of Spiderman with cautious optimism. On the one hand Spiderman is one of my favorite superheroes. On the other, this was being directed by Marc Webb of "500 Days of Summer" fame (I hated that movie with a passion).

500 Days of Gwen Stacy? Thankfully not.

Overall I thought the movie was pointless. There was no need for it. It wasn't a bad movie though. Far from it. It was a very competent telling of Spiderman's origin. But was it really necessary?

The whole Peter Parker's parents angle was interesting, but they were using it as a jumping off point for further sequels, and they tried to cram in to much for one movie (the origin, Uncle Ben's death, the romance, the villain, etc). It's ambitious, I'll give them that, but they were setting up this whole overarching conspiracy which ate up a huge amount of the screen time. They should have focused more on Peter Parker becoming Spiderman, since they were rebooting the story from scratch.Throwing in all the other stuff just made the movie feel cluttered.

The effects were good, but nothing too special. I remember being wowed by some sequences in Spiderman 2. In this movie, there was nothing memorable. Plus the villain's CGI looked like something from the mid-00's, but more on that later.

The performaces were good, and I honestly liked Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker more than Tobey Maguire's. Emma Stone, the new cute it-girl, was good as Gwen Stacy, but her part wasn't really that fleshed out. If they do the sequels and follow comic lore, than she will have more on her plate, but in this movie I felt she was just the typical "love interest" for Peter. Rhys Ifans did a good job as Dr. Kurt Connors/The Lizard, but the CGI work for the Lizard was kind of jarring. I expected better for 2012, but it is what it is.

Overall, if I had never seen the original Spiderman trilogy, I would've viewed this movie in a better light. But a reboot so soon after the original trilogy was totally pointless and an obvious cash grab. It was a well made movie, but brought nothing new to the table. Here's hoping the sequels to this movie carve out a niche for themselves separate from the original films.

C+

Welcome to Brooklyn South

Welcome to the Brooklyn South Film Blog. With this blog, I will be reviewing the latest movie releases, as well as in depth reviews of classic movies. I will also provide the latest movie/TV news, and hopefully some TV reviews as well. My name is Igor and I'm a life long resident of Brooklyn. I love movies and other cool stuff. Hope you enjoy this blog and remember these reviews are only my opinion.