11.22.63 Episode 1 Review

Story

The episode starts off with an ederely man telling his tale on Halloween on how his family was murdered by his father with a hammer and the camera slowly panning out. This really sets the tone for the rest of the episode, with the bone chilling ephaasis on the story. The ederely man is taking (at what i can only guess) is an adult class. James Franco, one of the main Reasons why the show will be popular. He's the teacher of the class. everyday James (Jack), he goes to a 50's style diner and has a hamburger everyday. he's served by a friendly guy in his late 50's, early 60's. They have a strong relationship. Jack's wife comes into the diner and signs the divorce papers and after his wife leaves, the waiter of the diner comes back from in a blind panic, shortness of breath and falls straight on the floor. This is when the plot thickens. Jack and the waiter tells him to grow the closet door to explain why he's in teh particlar condition That he is. Jack goes through the door and gets Transported to the 1960's. Jack does not know what's going on, then he goes back to present day and it turns out the waiter was trying to figure and stop the JFK Assassination. he's been gathering the evidence and go back in time on the track who and who to kill.

It's really nice to see all the things we say in today's age and all of our nouns and verbs That in use in our day to day life are an extreme oddity back in the 1960's. This is also Including technlogies. Jack takes his iPhone with him and it drops out of his pocket and he actually uses the phone to distract someone.

If you're wondering, how would he be able to fit himself with the scene, well the waiter took down sports scores and he also has a drivers license, social security number.

The closet transports you to the 1960's. it's not a simple time machine, all it does and transport you to a single point in time always. does not matter how long you're spending in the present, when you go through That closet, that date of transportation will never change. so if you wanted to visit the 1970's, you'd have to wait the respective amount of time.

It was noted That if you go back to the 1960's and then change anything in the past, it would change the future dry as as the butterfly effect but if you changed anything you'd see the changes but if you Decided to go back into the closet, it would literally be like wiping the slate clean.

Conclusion

I found the show very engaging for every minute of it and i'm not sure if it's going to wear off over time but i'm really looking forward to the next episode. Hopefully That the episode are not always an hour and 20 minutes. It felt a little bit too long for my liking but rest asured the episode was entertaining throughout.

Chef 2014 Review

Chef

Story

What i’ll do, i’ll start you off with the story and then i’ll tell you my opinions.

The story starts with a chef who’s got a history with a certain critic and the chef is currently working for a restaurant that has been doing the same food for the past ten years. During this time, the critic is going to pay a visit to the restaurant. The Chef being played Jon favaru, who’s directed IronMan 1 & 2. he’s appeared in Youtube celebrity Freddie wong’s video and one of his most notable and probably one of his best known acting roles would be playing the millionaire and Monica’s Boyfriend for a short while in Friends. Anyway. THe chef finds out the critic is visiting his restaurant soon so he’s trying to change to menu to something for delicate and something more unique. Dustin Hoffman (The manager of the restaurant) doesn’t want him to change the menu in the restaurant because the chef previously changed the menu to his liking and it didn’t sell very well. so the manager and the chef get into a little argument about how the restaurent runs. The chef decides to leave and sees how the restaurant survives without him. The critic comes, reviews the food and as he’s leaving the chef comes back and starts ranting and raging about his previous bad reviews. The chef decides to start up his own business starting from a foodtruck by selling sandwiches with gourmet style dishes and entries. by none of the stretch of the imagination, this is not a spoiler, they become very successful.

During this entire time, Jon is finding it hard to spend time with his son as he’s struggling to manage his social life, his work and his son. Whilst Jon is building his sandwich van, he asks his son to help out and the son is getting better and better and more and more confident as the film goes on.

The film has a very old style theme with the style of shooting and the way things are phrased but by also bringing it in for the new generation by bringing in new technology and buzz words that the younger generation can relate to. Twitter, Vine and One Sec videos play a massive role and they aren’t a ploy or a sponsor by any stretch. they fit twitter and vine organically into the script and the screenplay.

Performance

The acting is tremendous, The cast is only helped with the introduction to the characters and that helps you bring in an understanding of these characters. For a small film that i know didn’t get a massive reception when it was first released has really got a huge cast of upper hollywood stars. Jon Favreau which is the Writer/Director and he’s the lead role. as a said before Dustin Hoffman. Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson. Yes you’ve got Iron man and Black widow and this could have been caused because all these three people have worked together in previous films and they are also fantastic friends that always compliment each other and you can see that chemistry between them on screen.

Conclusion

The only problem i have with the film i that the movie starts with off with the chef wanting to make tasty meals but also presented really well. Something that you’d see in a five star restaurant and he corrects his menu to suit his needs, the chef disappears and puts together his own food truck selling sandwiches. Excuse me, i thought he wanted to have a restaurant selling gourmet food not sandwiches. but as me of writing this review, it’s not about the chef's journey through his food career, i’ve realised that it’s him building a relationship with his son and always being right by him and always being there for him.

The film was fantastic, I’d highly recommend watching it, it’s got one of the best uplifting stories with a great cast of people and it suit all generations.

Ant Man Review

Ant Man

Visuals

THe visuals were fantastic, special effects are getting better everyday and with every improvement of the marvel franchise, they are never slowing down. The visuals for Ant Man were on a much smaller scale, THis is the most realistic marvel film that they’ve made. All of the other marvel films have been set in over the top action scene with aliens/robots/systems fighting against each other. The repercussions of say Avengers Age of Ultron where a portion of a town hurdling towards earth and an alarming rate that it lead to extinction of the entire planet. With Ant man, The repercussions aren’t so drastic because they’ve been scaled down. Obviously the characters could die but us as a species isn’t threatened by this down-scaled marvel super hero adventure.

One of the fight scenes were set around the thomas the tank engine playset and they were fantastic, i’ve never actually laughed at a fight scene. Up close, Ant Man is dodging everything that’s thrown at him and especially the thomas the tank engine train coming steaming towards him, resulting in death. THe camera quickly zooms out and shows that the train just falling off the track.

Story

The Story of Ant Man was a natural hero's tale, The hero in question doesn’t know/incapable of being a superhero and then somewhere out of the blue obtains these abilities from a suit or an injection. On this occasion he obtains these abilities from a suit. Paul Rudd plays Paul Rudd and you may be saying that sounds stupid but if you’ve ever seen two films with Paul Rudd in them, you’ll know what i’m talking about. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has been in and out of prisons for most of his life, for Armed robberies, Breaking and entering etc and during the start of the film, he’s just being released from prison. he gets fired from baskin robbins for being an Ex-Con. he gets back to his apartment where his roommate and his friends are there and they speak of a score that’s locked away in a highly protected safe. Scott then becomes an engineer, a crafty and scientist and there’s no explanation of where he gets these skills from...Anyway. he breaks open this safe and there’s nothing in the safe...except this suit so instead of leaving with nothing, he decides to make the good out of a bad situation and take the suit. He puts on the suit and there’s no buttons on the suit right near where his thumbs lie. he presses both of these buttons and he shrinks down to...you guessed it, the size of an ant. This is where Michael Douglas comes into play. Michael Douglas now uses Scott Lang for his breaking in skills, throw some baddies in there and you’ve got the rest of the plot of the movie.

Performance

The more you think about the film, the more you think that Paul Rudd playing Ant Man is just basically playing the same character like he does in every film he’s been in. Which isn’t a bad thing, Paul Rudd Playing as Ant Man, was kind of the sarcastic wit and the comedic role that it close to Ryan Reynolds playing as Deadpool. Obviously nothing can beat deadpool in his wit but no other marvel superhero other than deadpool and Ant Man has that banter.

Conclusion

Ant Man was a thrilling film and i’d happily watch it again and not to see what easter eggs are in there but also pick up on story arcs that i might not has seen before. Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd work well together as a team. you’ve even got the weird advert that was used to promote ant man.

Here’s a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpPx7E27Bc8

Saving Mr Banks Review

Saving Mr Banks

Sound Design

When i was watching Saving Mr Banks, most of/all of it was sound cues or sound bits taken from the Mary Poppins Movie. it was elegant and it made you remember of a time gone by.

Story

As for me, i didn’t watch the trailer and i didn’t read anything about the film before actually watching it. so i didn’t see any promotional material before i watched the film. I was surprised by what i was greeted with. it was a thrilling experience to watch, to be honest, i started watching the film, just to kill some time and i was playing a game on my phone whilst i was watching it but i had to go out somewhere so i paused the film and when i came back, i left my phone alone but not on purpose because i was so excited and eager to see where the story could go that i didn’t even think of going on my phone. This makes me sound like a typical teenager but i’ve watched films in the past and i’ve looked round and there’s other people on their phones and i think it’s a disgrace. I was watching the revenant with my mum and my other half and they were both on their phones and i was completely engrossed by the atmosphere of that movie but that’s details for another review.

sorry for rambling on. Basically the story starts off with Mrs Travers in her house with a load of disney merchandise and that has been collected over the years by her but these are not things that she has bought, these are gifts sent personally by walt disney and the reason for this is, Mary Poppins, the beloved children’s book and fantastic cult classic was actually written by Mrs Travers and the reason why Walt Disney is sending all these gifts is to persuade in selling the rights of mary poppins to the Disney Corporation. she’s repeatedly said no so eventually she’s got sick of the gifts/offers so she decides to go to disney and confront Walt Disney himself to decline him in person.As Mrs Travers is leaving the disney, she hears a song coming from the building so she decides to go back in and it’s actually the songwriters of mary poppins and she says, if you’re going to do the movie, at least give it justice. so most of the film is her turning down and destroying the ideas of the creators. One moment is when she put off by the colour red so she decides that she doesn’t want the colour red to be in the movie. As the film is set in london, there’s Phone booths, Post boxes that are coloured red.

The performance is backed up tremendously by a great cast. Tom Hanks for starters plays Walt Disney and he plays him very well. Whilst being a businessman but you can also see that he is still a little child at heart and he’s never lost that touch. Mrs Travers was played by Emma Thompson and she was such a brilliant actor that i didn’t even realise that it was infact her. She played the role very well.

Conclusion

The film was heart warming and throughout the film, you were either loving and loathing all the characters. You wanted Walt Disney to win but then you wanted Mrs Travers to win and once they came to an equal ground, it was only then when you felt so proud and so gracious of the entire situation.

The only thing and it’s a minor thing about the film would be, it took you out of the action at some places to have a juxtaposition segment and as i said before this is review that i was on my phone. When i looked up on my computer screen, i thought NetFlix had changed the film but it turns out, that it was the scenario but presented through Mrs Travers Memory.

For a film i had no expectations for, i’d happily give it a 7/10. One of the reasons for it’s minor success was the actors and their pull alone persuaded me to play the movie.