Movie Review-The Intern

The Intern is the new movie starring Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. De Niro won his Oscar for "Raging Bull" in 1980 (Best Actor) and Hathaway won her Oscar for Les Miserables in 2012 (Best Supporting Actress). The generational gap between the two actors is the main emphasis of the movie's story. De Niro plays Ben, a 70 year old widower who discovers his retirement isn't all that he had hopped it'd be. He takes advantage of a "Senior Intern Program" to get back into the work force and quickly has to adjust to the new technology and social order of the new millennium.

Hathaway plays Jules, the founder of an online fashion site that is growing by leaps and bounds. However the success of her business comes at the expense of the personal life of the company's CEO and founder. Enter Ben (De Niro) whose old school ways of chivalry and nose to the grindstone work ethic changes the entire company's attitude and it's corporate culture.

The Intern is a movie with a great trailer. As a matter of fact my fear was that the movie used all of it's good bits for the trailer, but the movie's preview doesn't even scratch the surface of the good stuff in this movie. The movie is really sweet, with out being schmaltzy. It's "Ooo and Aaa cute", not "kittens in a box cute". It's a movie that deals with life and love in a very funny and sincere way. De Niro carries the movie with his old school charm. He's like a grandfather to everyone in the movie and teaches his young male colleagues about old fashioned chivalry and manners; something sorely missing in most young men today (just my opinion).

The Intern is rated PG-13 and it has a run time of 121 minutes. On my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" I rate The Intern a JUMBO.
Hollywood Hernandez

Movie Review-Black Mass

Black Mass is the new gangster film based on the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. The movie stars an unrecognizable Johnny Depp as one of the most notorious criminals in American history, James "Whitey" Bulger. The movie is based on actual events that took place during the 1970's through the 1990's in South Boston. Events which landed Bulger on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. Which was ironic because during that period of time Bulger was an actual informant for the FBI.

The story centers on three friends who grew up playing cops and robbers in the Irish neighborhood of South Boston. Two were brothers; "Whitey" and his brother Billy, who grew up to be a corrupt state senator (Benedict Cumberpatch) and John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), a friend from the neighborhood who grew up to be an FBI agent. Connolly recruits "Whitey" as an FBI informant, but the head of the Irish mob instead uses the FBI to do his dirty work in bringing down the Italian mob in South Boston.

Depp is pure evil in his portrayal as the gangster "Whitey" Bulger. At first I thought the movie needed more of Depp's character, because he is so good in the movie, but after chewing on it I realized the parallel stories about the FBI and agent his brother, the corrupt government official were also needed to tell the whole story of the events which occurred during that time. Still, it's Johnny Depp's performance in this movie that send chills down your spine. 

Black Mass is full of graphic violence and it contains strong language. It's rated "R" and has a run time of 122 minutes, but I swear if felt longer. It's a compelling story, but the movie just seems to jump off the track at times. Overall though I enjoyed Black Mass and on my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" I rate it a LARGE.

Hollywood Hernandez

      

Movie Review-American Ultra

American Ultra is a very odd, but entertaining movie. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mike. He’s the town stoner, who also works at the local convenience store, and his creative outlet is drawing a cartoon series about a superhero monkey.  Mike seems like a real loser who lives in a real dump with his girlfriend but, in this movie, things are not always as they seem.  Kristen Stewart plays his girlfriend Phoebe, but is she really his girlfriend?

It turns out that Mike is a “sleeper agent” who’s had his memory erased and was placed in this small, backwoods town. So when one of the C.I.A.’s top agents decides to “terminate” all evidence of the project Mike is attached to, “the stoner” wakes up from his deep sleep and suddenly starts realizing he has unexplained abilities to survive and killing skills that would rival the top ninja or Navy Seal.

The killing spree he goes on, almost apologetically is crazy. He uses frying pans, spoons, shovels and, of course standard weapons like guns and knives to kill anything the C.I.A throws at him. This is one bloody and violent movie, but it has a real sense of humor. For example when he explains to his girlfriend, after he kills his first two men, “but they were real d****”.  Thankfully the movie only has a run time of 96 minutes because I was growing numb from all the graphic violence.

American Ultra is not for the squeamish but, if you can handle the blood and gore, it is a really smart comedy that I really enjoyed. I groaned as much as I laughed.

The movie is rated “R” for strong, bloody violence, drug use and sexual situations. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I rate American Ultra a LARGE.

Hollywood Hernandez

 

Movie Review-Straight Outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton, for me, plays more like a documentary than just a movie. I lived this era in music. The movie depicts events in time that changed the entire landscape of music. In 1986 urban radio was playing funk, R&B and ballads. Artists like Cameo, Janet Jackson, Morris Day, Levert and Michael Jackson ruled the airways with a mixture of dance, pop and some hard driving funk. That all changed when NWA hit the scene. It was literally a “fork in the road” for urban music. An entire genre of “Reality Rap” followed. NWA was the first to “report” on the situation of the inner city. Their music reflected their environment.

Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, as executive producers of the film, got it all down on film with Straight Outta Compton. I’ve never seen a more accurate depiction of what really occurred during the late 80’s in Hip Hop. The movie starts with NWA and goes into the evolution of the L.A. hip hop “gangster rap” scene from The D.O.C. to Snoop Dogg and further. But this movie begins and ends with Easy E. It shows how Easy bankrolled the group, with his stash of money as a drug dealer, to the tragic end to his life of excess with his death in 1991 at the age of 31 from AIDS.

The cast, including Ice Cube’s son playing his dad, is right on point. You feel the emotions of the rappers from Straight Outta Compton. You see the genuine love they had for each other before contracts and money issues tore them apart. And then of course there’s the music. That old school gangsta hip hop still rocks the house.

The movie is rated “R” for strong language, nudity, sexual situations, violence and drug use. (This movie is hard core!) And it runs a little long at 2 hours and 27 minutes. This will be a huge movie and I am already predicting an Oscar nomination (it’s that good). Straight Outta Compton gets my highest rating on my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale”. I rate it a JUMBO (with extra butter). Go see it!

Hollywood Hernandez   

Movie Review-Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four takes the Marvel super heroes back to the drawing board and re-boots the series with a younger and hipper cast of characters. Miles Teller (Whiplash) plays Reed Richards. The movie shows him as a young boy in elementary school who, along with his best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), is already working on his invention for time teleportation. Rounding out the cast’s lead characters are Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station), who plays Johnny Storm, and his adopted sister, Susan Storm, is played by Kate Mara (American Horror Story).

The new cast seems more age appropriate to play a group of wide-eyed, young scientists who work together to build a full scale time teleportation machine. The team’s goal is to travel to a different dimension and bring back the mysteries of the universe. Enter Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) who’s original design for a time teleportation machine failed. He joins the team and immediately becomes rivals with Reed Richards, who not only figures out the mystery of time teleportation, he also becomes his rival for the affections of the lovely Susan Storm.

 

To prevent the government from using their completed machine Richards, Von Doom and Johnny Storm devise a plan to use the machine to become the first humans to travel to an alternate dimension. Richards invites his best friend, Ben Grimm, to tag along to watch his back. Instead the four travelers have a horrible accident and they are transformed into humans with super human powers. Susan, who helps the boys make the trip back safely, is also affected by the energy from the dimension traveling ship. Von Doom doesn’t make it back with the group of dimension travelers. However; he does show up again at the end of the movie to play the villain that every super hero teams need to create some type of conflict in a movie.

 

The contrived situation for the villain was one of the issues I had with the movie. I would have liked to have seen more of the “bad guy” in the movie. However; because the movie has so much more to like than not, I’ll recommend it. Fantastic Four runs for 100 minutes and is rated “PG-13” for sci-fi action and violence. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I rate this movie a LARGE.

Hollywood Hernandez

Movie Review: Mission Impossible-Rouge Nation

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back with another super spy thriller in the latest installment of the Mission Impossible series called, “Rouge Nation”. And the latest installment is the best one yet. In “Rouge Nation” IMF is shut down by the C.I.A. because they are implicated in a terrorist plot and Ethan is classified as a rouge agent. However; Ethan has discovered a shadow agency, made up of former agents from all over the world, who are plotting a terrorist attack. He’s a one man wrecking machine as he travels the world to find out who is leading this rouge agency against the IMF.

“Rouge Nation” has more of a “buddy movie” feel to it with Simon Pegg as Ethan’s sidekick Benji. Ving Rhames and Jeremy Renner are also back as members of the Mission Impossible team but most of the camera time, and action, is focused on Cruise and Pegg. They’re a buddy team in the tradition of Murphy and Nolte and Gibson and Glover. There’s also a very hot, and deadly, female lead played by Rebecca Ferguson (Hercules). She's deadly with all kinds of weapons and kicks butt right alongside the boys in this action-adventure flick.

Cruise on the Red Carpet at New York premiere

The bad guys are all sinister and clad in black leather (which as we all know is the chosen attire of gangsters worldwide) and the action in this movie is non-stop. The special effects are all dazzling and most of them were actually done by Criuse himself. The opening scene of the movie has Cruise hanging onto an airplane door, while the plane is in take off mode, and the action continues to build from there.

I loved Mission Impossible-Rouge Nation. It’s the kind of movie that is destined to become a summer block buster. It’s a fun adventure, with a runtime of 131 minutes, to be enjoyed in a cool theater with a Jumbo tub of popcorn. The movie is rated PG-13 for violence and some partial nudity. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I give Rouge Nation my highest rating…a JUMBO (with extra butter).

Hollywood Hernandez

 

Movie Review-Pixels

In Pixels Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Josh Gad are three nerd buddies who spent their formative years in the arcade playing video games and saving the world from aliens. However; after a video of kids playing video games in the 80’s is sent into space as part of a time capsule, they end up defending the world for real from aliens who take the video games as a serious challenge to war. In their current lives Sandler (Brenner) works as a home audio/video installer, Josh Gad (Ludlow) is a paranoid introvert who still lives with his grandma and Kevin James (Cooper) is the president of the United States. So when space aliens, in the form of 1980’s video games, attack the earth President Cooper calls on his childhood friends to help him safe the world.  

Pixels is light on story line but it’s heavy on special effects and action. The 1980’s video games come to life on the big screen and it’s enough to keep you engaged as if your were at an old school arcade feeding quarters into the machines. The movie will definitely bring back fond memories for “Gamers” who spend Saturday afternoons in the 80’s feeding the machines quarter after quarter from your mom’s laundry mat money stash. 

Peter Dinklage played my favorite part in the movie. He’s plays a diminutive gamer with a huge ego. He was Sandler’s rival in the old days, beating him at Donkey Kong at the first ever World Video Game Championships. He’s since fallen on hard times and his criminal ways have landed him in prison. So President Cooper (Kevin James) gets him out of jail to join his team of world defenders. His outrageous demands to join up are part of what gets the movie a PG-13 rating. (Look for a few major cameo appearances in the movie as well).

Pixels is a fun summertime move. It has a run time of 105 minutes and most of that time you’ll find yourself laughing. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I rate it a LARGE.