JHalimii

Is the academy serious? Best picture? Is Ashton here? -- These were the questions running through everyones minds at the Oscars. The Hurt Locker is a good film, but not the winner.

Was it action? Was it drama? Jeez I have just got way too many questions for this film. The story follows the experience of Sargent James (Jeremy Renner), a rebel without a bomb who defuses by his own rules. With his integration into the squad after a terrible death of a previous defuser at the beginning of the film, he meets Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James' new teammate who hates his guts. The story from there blossoms into pretty much an empty wasteland of "what is going on." The story is drifty and bleak without a sense of any real connection or lead besides some character progression by our beloved soldiers.

I must say, the film had its moments that captivated me. Such as Anthony Mackie's wonderful performance in general, as well as the suicide bomber scene at the end of the film. The action sequences felt so vivid and real and the wonderfully done shaky hand held camera work simply made me believe I was stumbling around and scared along with the soldiers. However, I never got any sense of story until the very end, where even then I was not super interested. I give it a 6 for the great work done technically on the film. The remaining points I cant give to The Hurt Locker simply for issues in the story.

Shes Out of My League is a comedy film that had me laughing.....sometimes. It's a mediocre date movie that brings along Kirk, a quirky character who scores a chick much hotter than him. Overall, the movie was pretty funny and it had me laughing a lot at moments (especially Devon's character who pretty much made every scene with his Disney references), BUT the movie was quite dry. I wanted a juicy movie, and didn't get it at all.

The story goes very fast and throughout the movie, even until the end, you get the feeling that this romantic couple really doesn't know each other well at all. This created a story that was not believable, and throughout the movie you just sit there and say "Wow this is so fake."

Also, we get another character, Stainer (who is pretty much a carbon copy of Stiffler), his jokes are not too funny, but the way he says them makes you laugh, which is where story lacks and acting shines a bit. At the end, we get a super cheesy, cliché, and unemotional ending message to the story that was totally forced and obvious.

Please don't get me wrong, this movie is good, and it made me laugh, but it had a lot of flaws that could have been fixed. Comedy movies are my favorite films, but this one really was quite cheesy, like seriously some swiss and cheddar up in here.

Aliens. Eviction notices. Transformations. Romance. Cat food. These things, plus much more, made the Sci-Fi action film District 9 one of the best films I have seen. Definitely Oscar worthy, and in my opinion the true winner, this film took the audience on a journey into a parallel universe.

This film was done extremely well, sound, directing, acting and all. There was none of that mainstream acting either, all of the people were relatively or completely unknown individuals who did an amazing job capturing the story. The main character, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is in strife between his personal life and the government. His performance not only makes the story believable, but he forms a hero that you want to succeed. You are happy when he is, sad when he is, and scared when he is. His character progression in the story is some of the best I have ever seen in any movie. His transformation into a pompous nerdy jerk into a true hero and protagonist is extremely well done. Slowly you begin to like this character more and more as time goes on.

Aside from the acting, the directing and camera work was incredible, this new director definitely got it right in his vision and created a riveting story that my eyes were super-glued to. Even though the electric ray gun was, in my opinion, very fake looking, that didn't matter. The collective pieces of the film itself were so captivating I barely even noticed it. The progression from documentary to film was something great that I had never seen before. It gave the story believability that the life they lived was true and actually real. Every shot made the story more interesting, and amazingly, it never dragged for a moment.

The story was something of its own. I thought it was based on the WWII Asian-American camps, where the United states held these people and often relocated them out of their already terrible and crappy tents. Not only is there Sharlto whom we want to succeed, but there is also the alien father as well. The story allows for two protagonists, one of whom is human and one of which is prawn, but there is never a confusing or conflicting moment. And, when they get together to defeat the bad guys, its all the more satisfying. *SPOILER* At the end of the film, when all the action is done and sadly our hero does not make it. We still get the sense of his care and love for his wife when he makes the flower out of metal for her. This was the most beautiful moment in the film for me and left me with an unremarkable feeling. The last shot is him as a Prawn (which even though I knew it was coming, still was very emotional) and even though he is in that state, he still shows the love for his wife. Action packed, beautiful, out of this world. District 9 is one of the best films I have seen in a long time.