The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 9 "After" Review

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THIS EPISODE

            After the big, epic mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, we get the mid-season premiere. After an episode like the mid-season finale, there needs to be a slower, quieter episode, and that is exactly what this episode is. Though, many things happened in this episode. Still, it was able to be a character–driven episode. And this episode is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. I detected no flaws with this episode. I loved all of it. This is a fantastic, amazing episode.

            The main reason this episode is so great is because of the script. This is a perfect script right here, and I am going to get into why. One fantastic thing about the script is that we learned more about Michonne, but in a very unconventional way. It is a dream sequence, but it is not a memory from the past. Dialogue is spoken from Michonne’s husband and brother (I’m guessing) that seems like it would be from some other people that she had been around lately. Then, the two guys are both shown with no arms, letting us know that those were her two walkers she started out with on the chains. It is very smart to just let us figure it out ourselves what is happening and not spoon-feed the information into our mouths. And during this episode Michonne’s plan is a really smart plan which takes us a while to figure out.

            We have a new, different Rick in this episode. He is torn down because of what The Governor did to him and he is now at odds with Carl. He is different and he thinks that he still needs to be the adult, even though Carl can almost function like one himself. For a while I was debating with myself whether or not he was right. It is excellent when a screenplay can make the viewer think about something that small.

           

            The way Carl learns a new lesson is also excellent. In the past few seasons, he will think that he can do everything, then go out, almost get bitten, and that is where he learns his lesson. Here, learning his lesson is approached differently. At one point he is in the middle of three walkers, but survives it. He then thinks, “Does it matter? I got out and I survived.” Another time, he gets attacked by another, very strong walker. Though, he survives it and thinks the same thing. Although he is getting trapped in these situations, he is able to get out. Then, he thinks that he could live without Rick. He learns his lesson in the scene of which he thinks that Rick is a walker, and is about to shoot him. Though, he is not able to do it. That is when he realizes that he needs Rick alive, because he could not even handle Rick’s death.

           

            The most perfect and most excellent thing about this episode is Rick and Carl’s chemistry. They are at odds and constantly arguing, but it was hard for me to take a side. Yes, Carl is just a kid, but yes, Rick is barely able to move. I believe that when a screenplay really makes you think of which side of an argument to on, it is excellent. And this chemistry drives this episode. The dialogue between them was so good that I could not wait for them to start speaking and arguing again. I was anticipating dialogue to start happening throughout the episode.

            When I think about it, not one line of dialogue in this episode is bad. Every line helps further the plot and characters and every line seems real. Not one time in this episode did I think that this was a script. All the dialogue seemed like real, human conversations that humans were saying in this zombie world.

            This is a perfect follow-up to the mid-season finale. The only characters we follow the plot of are our main characters and the character that highly impacts our main characters’ storyline. It did not get lost in other characters’ storylines that took place fifty miles away. It was only inside these two storylines that eventually meet. We also see the obvious impact the battle had on our main characters. We see the mood they are in following the battle.

            This episode featured masterful acting. Dania Gurira is now really grasping the character of Michonne. She has made that character hers. Andrew Lincoln gives an excellent performance as a changed Rick and his American accent seems to be only getting better and better. Chandler Ridges is improving by the second as Carl. He is becoming an excellent actor. The performances in this episode are top-notch.

            The directing and cinematography in this episode are amazing. The look of this episode is flawless. It looks like the real world, but it does not look like the world today. It looks like the world after the apocalypse. The lighting makes the scenes look so real that it is almost perfect. And the framing in this episode is fantastic. All of these shots mean something and they are all perfectly on-center with everything.

            This episode has some intensity, although not that much happens. For about half of the episode, Rick is unconscious, and we are unsure of what might happen to him. Carl also has his run-ins with the walkers that are pretty intense. I just wanted to say that while this is a quiet episode, it also has intense parts.

            The ending to this episode is perfect. Michonne comes to the door, and Rick tells Carl, “It’s for you.” There is none of that “We’re saved! We’re free!” nonsense. We can save that for another episode. For this episode, all that needed to happen at the end is that Michonne’s and Rick and Carl’s storylines cross to show that Michonne is a key part of their storyline.

            There is a lot of controversy over Rick’s teased death and many people are saying that it was really dumb, but I think otherwise. Rick’s teased death was used to let Carl know that he cannot live without Rick, let alone see him die. This fake death was used for a reason. And when Rick is crawling toward Carl looking like a walker, some people might think, “Why doesn’t he just whisper Carl’s name so that Carl doesn’t think that he’s walker.” Well for one, I don’t think that Rick was thinking straight. And Rick thought that he was dying, so he wanted to be with his son in his final moments and he tells his son to go outside. The reason the made the death seem like Rick’s real death was so that the viewers could not have guessed that it was not Rick’s death. This is one of the best deaths they could have possibly thought of for Rick, and I thought he was dead. Another thing people will not like it that it just randomly cuts to Rick and Carl talking, but I am just glad that it did cut to Carl yelling “Yay!” as he found out Rick was not dead. It was good that the tone was kept consistent throughout the entire episode.

            This was an excellent episode that I personally loved. This is my favorite episode of the season so far. It is my 3^rd favorite episode of all of The Walking Dead so far. I cannot wait to see what happens next and I really getting into this show.

"Robocop (1987)" (Older Movie) Movie Review

             Robocop (2014), the remake of Robocop (1987), hits theaters this week, so I guessed it is time to review the original Robocop that was so popular that it was able to warrant a remake, because every popular ‘80s movie is now being remade. I do not believe it is the big classics, which are still great, that should be remade. I believe the films to be remade are films that had a great premise, but were bad. An example of this is the horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). This film was not exactly bad, but its budget was only $375,000. Therefore, the quality of the outcome of the film was very bad. The remake, Evil Dead (2013), had a studio fund it. Therefore, it was able to have an outcome quality that was very good. And that is one of the good horror remakes. It is fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Anyway, it is time to get back on course. Is Robocop (1987) a film that could be remade? I think so.

            

            Many people refer to this film as a classic. Though, there are also many people who say that it is “just good”. I would be part of the people that say Robocop (1987) is just good. This film is directed by Paul Verhoeven and stars Peter Weller. I should not have to explain this plot because it is a classic, but I will anyway. When a Detroit cop is injured to very near death, he is able to join the force by being made into a cyborg as a robot cop, but not all goes to plan.

            

            I had fun with many elements of the film. It is a moderately and mostly enjoyable film. It also had some fun and cool action sequences. There were some good thrills from the movie. Though, it suffers from pacing issues. I am not saying that it was too slow; I am saying that it is not pacing linearly. There will be two back-to-back action sequences, then a while without anything. If the action sequences would have been placed evenly apart, then the film would not have these pacing issues. It is important for a film to be paced linearly, because with the uneven and choppy way this film was paced, it had many dull moments and there were times where I was bored with the film.

            

            Robocop (1987) is a very original film. At its time, there was really no film like it. It was different and today there are films that try to mimic it. It is also very inventive. It goes on an unconventional route and explores new things that films at the time did not go into. Its originality and inventiveness help carry the film.

            

            The plot for this film takes several turns in a different direction. Some of the turns were ones that helped keep my interest, but several of them made the film seem unfocused. This flaw lies in the script. There was no way the director (Verhoeven) could have explored the plot in a different way, unless there was a new script. It is the story that makes the film unfocused. The many, many turns the film take almost forget the initial premise the film already had. It is like the screenwriter thought that the primary story was not good enough and needed to be changed.

            

            

            There are also other flaws with the script. For one, Robocop (Officer Alex J. Murphy) is an underdeveloped character. I did not know much about him; therefore, in a scene specifically for this character, I did not care. I also did not care about him in the action sequences, so it was nearly impossible for the film to have intensity. Another flaw is the dialogue. Sometimes this film relies on the cheesiness and over-the-top elements of the film to keep viewers entertained. Though, the cheesiness here adds nothing to the film. As it would in a film today, it takes away from the film. And the over-the-top violence also takes away from the film. I knew the filmmakers were trying to make these elements work, but they came off silly and unnecessary for me.

            

            With all of these flaws with the script, there are good things, but mainly with the directing style of how these things were done. One thing I liked is that this film illustrated how some corporations may be to help other people, but they could be very bad inside. This is one of the first films to do this. This is part of how inventive the film is. Another thing I noticed that is great is the writing for the news. From the headlines to the commercials, it is a fantastic satire of American culture. The commercials depict how dumb some things in our culture are, and the reports depict how violent we can be. The writing and directing behind these two things are very good. And the overall directing of the film was very good. Everything is framed and shot very well, and the scenes look good.

            

            Robocop (1987) is a good movie. It has flaws with the script and some of the execution, but it is still, for the most part, a very well done movie and most of that credit goes to the director. It is original, unconventional, and inventive. Do I think this is a classic? No. This is a film that could be remade, and not just because of the dated CGI. The script could be better and the film could be less cheesy and over-the-top. 

Super Bowl Trailer Reviews - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Transformers: Age of Extinction

        

           

            During the Super Bowl, there were several trailers for upcoming movies. The ones listed above were some of them, but not the only ones. Though, they are the only ones that I really care about; therefore, I am only reviewing those.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

            The first trailer for this film really surprised me in that it had a political statement and took things more seriously, while having a cool villain and some cool action. It was a really good trailer. This trailer is great. There are three versions of it: the fifteen-second teaser for the thirty second T.V. spot, the thirty second T.V. spot, and the full two minute, thirty second trailer. The full trailer is the one that I am talking about. I will start out with its small flaws. The villain in this trailer seems to not have a very good motive. It looks like he just wants to do but and that is it. I think there should have been something more about the villain in the trailer that is not people just talking about him. My other flaw is that this trailer is looking like the film could have a thin script. It may be able to back up every encounter with a reason. The action may seem meaningless.

            Now that I have gotten all of my flaws with this trailer out of the way, I can talk about its good stuff. It again has a very seriously and spy movie-like feel to it in that it is not just a fun, action-filled trailer. Although I just mentioned that the trailer makes the film look like there may be many meaningless aspects, there are aspects that look like they have a meaning. This trailer also has great shots and it looks like the cinematographer really needs the shots to be good, which is a good thing for the film. I am feeling that Captain America will get more character development in this film, because the trailer almost makes the film look like it is going to go into his past. We also might get some character progression with Captain America and see him change. Though, I think others, like Nick Fury, could change, too. This trailer also has some amazingly directed, awesome, exhilarating, and extremely well-executed action that I am really looking forward to seeing on the big screen. This villain in this film seems very imposing to Shield (and out heroes), so I think Shield will really have to work to defeat him, and I would like to see Shield face a big challenge.

            That is what I think of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier Super Bowl trailer. It is a great trailer that really got me excited for the film.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

            This is the second trailer for this film. The first trailer was not that good. It made the film seem like a convoluted mess with three thin-to-point-where-they are-nearly-empty villains. I am glad that I can say that this trailer is a big improvement. There are also three versions of this trailer: the teaser for the T.V. spot, the T.V. spot, and the full trailer. Again, I am talking about the full trailer. First, I will mention some cons. The three villains are still a problem, whatsoever. It will be hard for three villains to work, and this trailer still makes the film seem like the villain aspect of it could be a bit convoluted. Also, the villains do not seem like they would work together. They seem like they would all want to be on their own, from what we see in this trailer. My last flaw is that Electro’s motive for not being a hero like Spider-Man and wanting to kill him is that, although Spider-Man remembers him even though he is some sparkly thing now, he does not remember Electro’s name within ten seconds of seeing him.

            Now I can tell why this is a big improvement over the first trailer. It looks like we will learn more of why Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and generally more about his character through his conversations with Gwen Stacy. We also learned in this trailer why Max Dillon wanted to become Electro in the first place. It is also a good motive for Max to want to be a hero. We also see cool action in this trailer that would definitely look cool on the big screen, because of the fact that it is well directed and very good-looking. Also, the people at Ozcorp have a good motive to why they want Spider-Man off the streets. Think about it, he stopped one bad thing from happening, so he is a threat to Ozcorp, because they are evil. This is told through a hero message that it is very hard to be a hero and you will always have big enemies.

            Those are my thoughts on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Super Bowl trailer. Despite its flaws, it is a very good trailer that has sparked my interest in the film.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

                This is the first trailer of any kind that we are getting for this film and it only has one version: the thirty second T.V. spot. As I expected, this film does not look good at all. When Michael Bay is the director of a film, most likely it will be bad. Here, I will start off with the good things. I am glad Mark Wahlberg is involved, because he can give good performances. And frankly, just about anyone would be better than Shia LaBeouf. The next thing is that the film has potential to have cool action, despite the style. It looks like some of the bigger action between the transformers could be fun to watch.

            It is now time for me to tell you why I am not looking forward to this film. The action in this trailer goes too far. At one point, we have a robot falling backwards in slow-motion, shooting two machine guns. We have seen people do that before. That is on the line of too far. But a robot doing it at skyscraper height is definitely too far. This trailer is edited stupidly. It has the conventional quick-cut style with cool sound effects to keep audiences still interested. This trailer also has silly and bad-looking CGI. None of the robots look like they are actually there. And the lighting does not work. If it is at night, make the CGI lighting for the robots dimmer. Lastly, and of course, we have our Michael Bay stamps. There is constant slow-motion use. There is a lot of people running in slow-motion, most of the time from an explosion. There are overly processed colors that almost blinded my eyes. And, of course, we have what Michael Bay is famous for, a lot of explosions. Firework-like, random explosions are in these thirty seconds, a lot. These Michael Bay stamps are always bad. I am pretty sure this film will not be good.

            That is why I think that this is really not a good trailer at all and why I am not looking forward to this film.

Why Forrest Gump is Overrated

 

WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THIS FILM

Forrest Gump is a film that is loved by many people and is known as a modern classic that is constantly referenced and made fun of. There are many people who love the film, some who say it’s one of their all-time favorites. Some of the people think it’s a great movie, and there are others that just like it. I know that there are people who don’t like it, too, but I am focusing on the fact that it has an 8.8 on IMDb and is #15 on IMDb’s Top 250. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture over The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction, which I think are both better than this. It also won five other Academy Awards including: Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published), Best Film Editing, and Best Effects (Visual Effects). I believe it only deserved one of those (Best Film Editing). Anyway, now it’s time to talk about what I think about the film and why this is titled “Why Forrest Gump is Overrated”. I really like the film, but I do not love it. In this I will be covering why I do not love it.

This is a 143 minute (2 hours, 23 minutes) film, so there has to be many plot turns to keep the audience’s attention throughout the entire running time. It does exactly that, but it does it too much. This brings me to my first flaw, the twists and turns.

The script makes Forrest Gump a big figure in history, but it goes too far. By the time Forrest ran all over the country, I got tired of the film. Though, I really think it went too far when he started to gets the business that makes him so wealthy. The film asked us to believe something that would never happen. This took me out of the film and when Forrest ran across the country, I was completely taken out of the film. That is one of the reasons the twists and turns did not work for me. I have another, though.
            When the film turns, it gets a whole new tone and type of dialogue with it, and it does this several times. Not only is the film tonally inconsistent, it starts to seem like these are different stories. In the beginning, Forrest is a little kid, then a teenager, then a young adult, then he’s in the military, then he’s meeting the President, then he’s a professional ping-pong player, etc. Every separate story seems to forget what the film had before.

Because this film jumps randomly to many storylines, it will always have a different tone, and sometimes, pacing. This brings me to next flaw, which is the pacing.

It would be hard to keep this film paced evenly, but this is still a flaw. If it would have been too hard for the filmmakers to do, then they didn’t have to try it. Anyway, what is wrong with the pacing is that it is all over the place. Sometimes the film is incredibly slow and sometimes it is incredibly fast. The film needed to make up its mind of how it needed to be paced instead of constantly switching between being fast-moving and slow-moving.

Because the studios think that we, the viewers, are extremely dumb, they feel the need to add more things than just the 15,000 different stories to keep us entertained. They also need to make the movie the type of movie where the main storyline is our main character talking to someone else, telling them everything that happened, while we see it. This is my third flaw.

For most of the film, this style works, although it is just for our entertainment. But it is hard to believe that these people are listening for about an hour while Forrest goes over random stuff. My real flaw is that about with about 20 to 30 minutes left in the film, we catch up to him. After that, we are no longer in the style of him talking to somebody about what happened in the past, while we see it. This plot turn does not work at all, because the past two hours we had narration to us and we knew we were not caught up. This was yet another thing that took me out of the film in the second half.

The film tries to have real drama and comedy, but they do not mix well. The comedy works, but in what are supposed to be more meaningful parts in the film, it just comes off silly. This brings me to my fourth, and final, flaw: the drama did not work.

This script is not that good. Most of the dialogue does not seem that good and just comes off cheesy. That’s probably why the drama doesn’t work. This is an incredibly cheesy film that does not know how to have good drama. It takes itself too seriously. It is good at being goofy entertainment, but it is not able to be something more, as it is trying to do.

Those are my four biggest flaws with Forrest Gump that I feel weighs the film down and keeps me from loving it. I have other flaws with the film, such as how war was depicted in a comedic way, but those were not very big, so I decided not to include them. The whole film suffers from a few flaws with the script, but what brings the film down the most is the second half. That is when the film goes too far and loses a lot of steam. Though, this is still a really good movie that is very original and mostly very entertaining. I do not hate the film, or even dislike it, at all. I very much like the film. I just do not think it is worthy of Best Picture and its 8.8 on IMDb and its spot at #15 in IMDb’s Top 250. Though, there are ratings I do agree with, and those are the ratings given by critics. I give this film an 8.1/10. Its Metascore is 82/100 and it has 72% Tomato Meter on Rotten Tomatoes. Those are numbers I agree with more.

Her - Analyzed (*SPOILERS*)

WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FILM

            After having a lot of time to think about Spike Jonze’s Her, I have points straight and can make an analyzed review of the film. Here, I will go in-depth into what I took from the film and how I looked at it. I will go over different themes the film introduces and what it has to say. If you have not seen the film, even if you do not care about spoilers, reading this would be useless because you will have no idea what I am talking about for most of it. And you might think I am crazy for thinking the film has many things to say, or you might think I am crazy for the things I believe the film says to us, but everyone will view this film differently. I viewed it in a metaphorical way, and I believe that is how it is supposed to be viewed.

            I’ll start with the first shot. We see that our main character is talking (to someone it looks like), while leaning back in a chair. Though, it appears as if he is lying down in a bed. He then says “…50^th anniversary…” and we the audience figure out that he is not talking to anyone. We then see a shot of the computer and realize that his job is writing letters for other people. The theme was immediately introduced through the first two shots. It is the theme of fake and real feelings. We see in this shot that he thinks that he is feeling real feelings and that he is unaware that these feelings are not real at all.

            Over the next few scenes, we see that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is sad and confused and he has no idea what to do. Then, a few nights later, when he calls into that service of single women that cannot sleep, and it escalates into something very uncomfortable, and he is asked to choke her with a dead cat, we see that he is taken out of it. Before, he thought the feelings were real. Now, he realizes the feelings are fake, so the scene continuously gets weirder and weirder, which it is supposed to do. It is supposed to be uncomfortable. It uses these factors to show us, the audience, that the feelings are definitely fake, and if you think they are real, you will have no idea if they really are real.

            Later, he downloads the operating system and starts to teach Samantha things for a while, but that part is not that important. The next important part is when he goes on a date with Olivia Wilde’s character. The date was very odd and strange, as it was supposed to be. It shows that he is stuck in his fake world again. He thinks that fake feelings are real, so he has no idea what real feelings are. He thinks that they are fake. Therefore, it is very awkward and he has no idea what to do. So after the date, he goes back to Samantha, and we really see that he is feeling fake feelings with her, and thinks they are real.

            A bit later, Theodore meats up with his ex-wife to finally sign the divorce papers. In that scene, they get in a fight and she says that Samantha is perfect for him because he did not have to deal with feeling real feelings for a woman, and that gets under his skin. Later, as he is walking out of his job, talking to someone, he says that they are just letters. That is important because his job is linked parallel to his relationship with Samantha. When he knows that they are job letters at the job, he realizes the feelings with Samantha are fake, and vise versa. Because of that, people might say that the fight Theodore has with Samantha later is unnecessary. I argue that it is necessary, because I do not think many people noticed that she did mimic breathing. I did not notice it. It is Jonze illustrating to us that we did not know either, and we were just taken out of the fakeness.

            Somewhere in this section of the film, Samantha suggests that they do this thing in which a real person acts like Samantha in a body and says nothing. That scene in which they try it, it is very awkward. Again, I believe that it is supposed to be awkward. Though, I really do not know if those would have been real feelings if Theodore knew the feelings with Samantha were fake, and I do not know if he had already realized they were fake by then. At that moment, I was having trouble differentiating between if they were real and if they fake, and what state of mind Theodore was in at that moment.

            Anyway, after several scenes, they get back together (Theodore and Samantha) and Theodore is immediately taken back into the state of mind in which he believes the fake feelings are real feelings. Though, at that moment, I felt that the film asked us, the viewers, a question. Theodore was feeling fake feelings with Samantha, but it was affecting his personality. He was much happier. The question I believe it asked us was: Does it matter if the feelings are fake or real?

            Though, later Samantha starts evolving past him, and when he figures out that Samantha is talking to many other people and operating systems and is in love with about six hundred of them, I felt the film asked us another question. Samantha is a machine and she is “in love” with many, many other people and OS systems. The film asks us: Is there really any way to tell if the feelings are fake or real? With Samantha, there is really no way to tell.

            After a while, Samantha leaves Theodore with the other OS systems (my theory is that they will come back in ten or twenty years as Skynet) and he is, of course, incredibly sad. Then, throughout the final scenes, it presents to us a message that could help answer our questions: Move on, and you could realize if the feelings are real or fake. I have evidence. The reason Theodore and his wife split apart is because he changed (or evolved) way past her. The same thing happened to him with Samantha. She literally evolved past him and was way ahead of him. I believe the film was telling us that this was the point of which you could be able to tell if the feelings are fake or real. With Theodore’s ex-wife telling him that a woman he did not to feel real feelings for is perfect for him, that is the film’s way of telling us that she believed the feelings between her and Theodore were real. After Samantha leaves Theodore, he writes an apology letter to his ex-wife, and I believe that is him realizing that the feelings between them were real and the feelings between Samantha and him were fake. I believe that is one of the reasons he got with his friend Amy at the end.

            That is what I think the film has say about things. There were several pieces of dialogue that I got these themes from that I did not use, but I do not have the lines memorized and I do think putting “He said something like ‘blah blah blah fake then real more stuff’ and that is how I picked up on this theme” would cut it. I have not seen the film multiple times yet, although I eventually intend to. If you have not read my initial, non-spoiler review of Her, then you do not know that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It is right below a group of movies that I call my favorite movies. If you are interested in reading my review of Her, then click the link right here.

Prometheus - Blu-Ray Collection Movie Review

            

           It is time for my Blu-Ray collection film review that I do once a month. In this video, I go over why I have the film on Blu-Ray and I discuss my thoughts on the Blu-Ray. This month, I am doing Prometheus, a film that not a lot of people will have on Blu-Ray.

The Film

            Prometheus is a very engaging and inventive film. It also has great cinematography. It almost took me to the place that they were in and it helped me adapt to that environment. It made the film as engaging as it was. The cinematography is helped by the direction of the film, which is great. This is one of Ridley Scott’s good films. I think it is a great film. In the midst of great execution, the central ideas and crafting behind the plot and screenplay of the film have greatness. For example, there are great themes and there is great dialogue. The themes really make us think and question everything about the creation of life, and our lives as humans. It makes us think. These themes are primarily told through the great dialogue the film has. With the character of David, we get to see what a robot that thinks on its own could be like. And there is just great dialogue in general. This is also a very original plot. One last thing is that this film is an excellent combination of three films: a science fiction film that makes us question life, an Alien prequel that shows us how several things came to play, and a science fiction horror movie. It melds these three genres into just about every scene, instead of separating them. There is also intensity with the horror/action parts of this film.

Picture Quality

            This film has nearly top-notch picture quality. With the cinematography being so good, the Blu-Ray conversation has to be great for it to hold up to the cinematography and it does. The conversion uses the pixels to their full potential and the Blu-Ray looks great all-in-all. Though, sometimes people looked like they did have a bit too much lighting, and I know that it was meant to be that way, but I think that there could have been a better job done by the converters. Also, some scenes do not look as good as others.

Audio Quality

            The audio quality is also great here. It captures the essence of the score and fantastic sound effects. I really got the home experience watching this film on Blu-Ray. But although it mostly does not overpower the speakers, but sometimes it does.

           

"Her" Movie Review

            

           

            

            Her is a new film that was released initially in December of 2013, but it was limited. Now we are getting a nationwide release so that, among all of garbage in January, we get to have something good. The studio did the same thing with Lone Survivor. This film is written and directed by Spike Jonze and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and very briefly, Olivia Wilde. It takes place in the near future and is about a sad, lonely man who downloads and operating system for his computer that comes with artificial intelligence and stars to build a relationship with this machine, which takes him on a ride through an interesting story.

If I saw this film last year, it would have been number one on my top ten best movies of 2013 list. As you see from my rating, I loved this movie. It is an amazing film. It is one of the best films I have ever seen and it may be in my list of my all-time favorite movies. It is a brilliant film that is meant to be looked at metaphorically, and that is the way I looked at it. It has other underlying themes throughout the film, but the main one is the difference between real and fake feelings. It is about knowing if feelings are fake and real and many other messages like that, which I will not spoil. From the first shot of the film, this theme is intact.

 I loved every second of this film. It is a ride into what relationships are like and what they could be like. And several things in this film are perfect. The direction is amazing and one of the perfect things. Every shot means something and Jonze really uses the camera to flesh out the feelings of a character. But he also reaches to us, the audience, and making us feel what the main character is feeling. He is also about to make us feel emotions that follow what route the themes are on. When something is supposed to feel off and strange, I felt off and strange. And when there is any form of anything that could be remotely intense, my heart was pounding. I got so in to this movie with every single plot point.

The writing is also a perfect element of it. Every line means something and ever line seems real. The characters also seem real. In fact, about an hour into this film, I started finding myself forgetting I was watching a movie and thinking that these are real people. And I kept on doing it for the rest of the film. The story is so unconventional and is told unconventionally. Every plot point is so unpredictable that I stopped trying to predict what was going to happen. And the ending is the perfect ending to the film that does exactly what it needs to do literally and metaphorically. Another brilliant and amazing thing about the writing is the chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. It is spectacular. And there is chemistry between Phoenix and every other person in the film. This is a brilliant movie.

Yet another perfect thing about the movie is the editing. Everything is edited into the film so well and at such the right timing to make the film keep on its themes and make the audience feel like they should along the themes and with the main character. It is amazing and brilliant. It works so well to put you in this mood and make you feel a certain way that rides along with the themes. The score is put into the film at such the right times to make the film better and to make the audience feel certain emotions. The score is also excellent itself. Everything comes to play at exactly the right time and are used in exactly the right way.

I have even another perfect thing about the movie: the themes. The themes are incredibly powerful, incredibly brilliant, and executed in a perfect way. This is the best execution of putting themes into a film that I have ever seen. They are constantly explored in an unconventional and realistic way. Little hints are given that force the audience to pay attention to the film to get the full story. The themes are constantly used, and that is not bad at all. They are brilliant themes put into the film perfectly.

            One final perfect thing about the film is the cinematography. Everything looks a bit futuristic, but not too much. The film is shot so well to the point of which it looked like the real world. Not once did the film look like a film. It all looked real. Every shot of this film looked like a real person in a real room with real objects. This is one of the best jobs I have ever seen done by a cinematographer.

            The performances are excellent. Joaquin Phoenix is nearly perfect in his role and Scarlett Johansson is probably perfect in hers. Amy Adams is excellent in her role, and so are Olivia Wilde and Rooney Mara. Every actor also plays a part in helping the audience feel like Joaquin Phoenix and still ride along with the tones. Certain scenes would be incredibly hard to pull off by an actor, but the scenes were pulled off extremely well.

            This film kept my heart pounding and I was riveted in many scenes. Throughout the second and third act, with everything that was not how the audience was supposed to want it to be, I felt off. I could not wait to hear the next line of dialogue in a huge amount of scenes, and I wanted things to be how Joaquin Phoenix wanted them to be. The film is incredibly powerful and I felt a lot of intensity over semi-small plot points.

Her is an amazing movie, and saying it is excellent is an understatement.

            I loved every second of Her. Through themes perfectly illustrated in it, the film tells a brilliant story and being itself, it is almost perfect.