Author Archives: LukeMiller

If they were in television… Christopher Nolan

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Notable films: Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight

Famous for: Stories grounded in realism, alterations to linear narrative structure, psychological themes, usage of symbolism, old school special effects with minimal CGI, excellent casting of prominent actors and dressing pretty classy, even on set.

Hypothetical title: Nostalgia

Hypothetical premise: Two young brothers are the only children of their parents. One is a charming, fair haired child and often the favorite of the parents because of his cleverness and personality. The other, a dark haired deviant child who often loses the affection of his parents due to his shortcomings when compared to his brother. The parents die when the boys are in their early adulthood, forcing the favorite and older to take over the family estate and the other treated as a child. Although the story does not mainly take place in this past, the flashbacks do.

In modern times, the dark haired brother is an unaccomplished writer and the blonde is a well-noted novelist, mostly for poaching the ideas of his brother while they were young. Following their career successes, failures and rivalries, the show digs into where the stories come from during their childhood, the death of their parents and how they can learn to travel back into those memories with their writing, meaning memories may not exist at all. Continue reading →

Our 100th Post!

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Hello friends,

A few days shy of our 5 month anniversary, CyniCritics celebrates our 100th post on WordPress! We are proud to say that month by month our viewership keeps steadily increasing and the past few weeks have been record breakers, putting us on track to have one huge July. Thank you to everybody who has stopped by, read our stuff, engaged in the discussions and taken part in the fun. We would especially like to thank our other movie friends and the folks at L.A.M.B. for helping us out and providing a great blogging community to be a part of. We are happy for your support and friendship.

Looking forward to the future,

Luke and Matt

REVIEW: Despicable Me

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Despicable Me
Directed by: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Written by: Ken Daurio, Sergio Pablos, Cinco Paul
Starring: Steve Carrel, Russel Brand, Jason Segel, Will Arnett, Kristen Wigg

Maybe our generation is spoiled. Given Pixar just eleven-peated at the box office and in reviews with the latest Toy Story installment, it seems like audiences can’t stomach any other brand of animation. It’s nearly impossible to read a review of an animated movie (Pixar or not) that doesn’t bring up the success the company has with blending sentiment, humor and cinematic beauty into its layers of computer generated imagination. So when any other work outside of Pixar comes out with one-note characters, cheesy karaoke or dance scenes, celebrity voice actors and the promise of a heightened 3D experience, it’s hard not to find it… despicable.

With Despicable Me, it seems no different. There’s the corny villain, the cute non-talking sidekick character(s) and the ‘everybody dances’ scene in the end because filmmakers couldn’t think any other clever, satisfying or touching way to end the story they just told for two hours. But luckily it is mildly saved in mild sentiment, mild story and mild humor of Steve Carrel. Continue reading →

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Superbad

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Superbad
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Evan Goldberg
Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen

For the sake of our generation and the half-baked high school sex comedies that work (or won’t) to define it, there is an artist who is making sure that our comedies won’t be remembered by sex with pie, hangovers, ogres or those Sex and the City girls.

In Superbad he is only credited as a producer, but the film is loaded with a posse of writing partners, actors and talent who’ve all hitched their wagons to his success. It also resonates the style of the writer/director/producer in terms of narrative aesthetics, vulgar content, sentiment, male ego and penis jokes which he has vowed in every one his projects.

Judd Apatow, soon after finding endless success as a producer for Will Ferrell filth and once-roommate Adam Sandler, began rewriting Hollywood’s biggest scripts and becoming a critically adored creator of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, started a brand for himself in comedy which now rivals John Hughes or Ben Stiller. Up until Superbad it’s all been for grown-ups (thankfully not with that latest Sandler hit, Grown Ups).

With Superbad, the Apatow market finally starting serving minors. Continue reading →

Inception’s Early Reviews: It’s Just the Beginning

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Among the endless and plaguing remakes, reboots and sequels which Hollywood has been chastised for earlier in our State of the Box Office, comes a willing, bold beacon of hope to rise up against the order of Hollywood and save the summer from a single state of mind, a breath of fresh air, a sneaking guardian, a… dark knight perhaps?

Maybe. At least that is the word so far.

Early reviews for Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-bender are calling the Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight creator’s newest film “easily the most original movie idea in ages.” Peter Travers from Rolling Stone rated the film three and a half out of four stars, complimenting Nolan’s audacity in storytelling, visuals and ambitions. The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and a handful of other notable publications have all joined the bandwagon, commending the film for skipping CGI for in-camera photo-realistic imagery, its grand multi-reality setting and complex narrative. Continue reading →

Five Movies to Celebrate The Fourth of July

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1. The Patriot– A South Carolina farmer and French-Indian war vet haunted by his past wants no part of the Revolutionary War, at least until one of his sons is taken by the a British colonel. Based very loosely on history and tightly on American ideals of simple people fighting for their family, Roland Emmerich directs one film that actually works to build American landmarks instead of destroying them. Patriotic spirit, Mel Gibson, history, farming, a father’s love and a very sharp Heath Ledger make this actioner about as American as it gets.

Continue reading →

If they were in television… M. Night Shyamalan

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Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Notable Films: The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, The Happening

Famous for: Films with ridiculously unprecedented twists endings, supernatural science fiction, making cameos in his movies and crediting himself as an actor, films that lose money, The Sixth Sense

Hypothetical premise: A selfless, middle-aged heart surgeon is traumatized by the loss of his bride and mother of his children in her suicide attempt that he could not prevent or save her from after he spent a the night drinking. Now sworn sober and a dedicated father, he deals with painful flashbacks and alienation from people in his life who are much more perfect than he is. Almost too perfect. As he begins searching for cause of his wife’s suicide, he realizes it may not have been a suicide at all, instead it was a highly plotted murder carried out by the town’s council who wants to seduce the male lead and pull the memories of his wife away and replace them with memories of her. Of course, only something so mischievous and supernatural could be done by the queen of a water nymph town where no humans were allowed to leave. Escape is a world away. Each episode ends with him finding out he is in a different time period, on a different planet, as a different character. Enter aliens. Apocalypse. Continue reading →

State of the Summer Box Office: The Worst Summer in Years

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The Situation

Just one year ago Hollywood was partying like it was 2009. For second or third straight summer in a row, studios were rolling out films that pleased audiences, critics and their pocketbook alike, which is an extremely rare feat for the industry to do these days. In 2008, Wall-E, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight topped the box office (with The Dark Knight tumbling new records) and were garnering staggering reviews, then received a slew of Oscar nominations down the road. All were happy.

The year 2009 followed suit. Transformers 2 opened to be the largest grossing movie of the summer, crossing the $400 million mark even if it did get annihilated by critics. Up, Star Trek, The Hangover, The Proposal and more had taken box office expectations and blew them away into becoming monster blockbusters. All were reviewed above fair, many dominated come awards season. Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker had just been released. The State of the Box Office was in the best shape ever, and 2009 would go on to gross over $10 billion, a new record.

Continue reading →

The Versatile Blogger Award: 7 Movie Facts about Matt and Luke

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Both Matt and I (Luke) here at CyniCritics would like to thank Marc at Go, See, Talk! for bestowing us this award, we truly feel honored and appreciate being included in such a fine blogging community. Go, See, Talk! is one of our favorite blogs to visit when we are looking for some mid-day humor, an off the self review or just a quick five something or another that always seems to hit the nail.  Truly a fantastic site and thank you for all the kind words. Now down to business!

To make this “meme” a little different than the one we have done in the past, Matt and I thought we would share seven movie related things about ourselves that we share or have experienced together.

  1. My first time watching a Quentin Tarantino was when Matt forced me to watch Reservoir Dogs. I fell asleep during the first 20 or 30 minutes. Thanks a lot ACT week. But when Matt tried again to introduce me to Tarantino, it was with Pulp Fiction. I fell asleep through all 3 attempts. Finally, Kill Bill did the trick, although I have yet to stay awake for the entire Pulp Fiction movie.
  2. Matt has seen The Dark Knight 8 times in theaters and I have 6 times, 4 of those times were together. These figures to not include DVD viewing statistics.
  3. Last summer Matt and I did a double feature. We saw Moon around noon and (500) Days of Summer in the evening. Chinese at the mall fell somewhere in between. Yes, that rhymed without intention.
  4. When seeing a movie together in theaters, usually the only way to wind down from the experience is watch a movie back at each other’s house.
  5. The first movie we watched together was Eurotrip. Please don’t judge we were in high school and had not yet outgrown our stupid gene. We feel we’ve made up for it since.
  6. Probably 70% of the movies that Matt and I see are seen together.
  7. From reading 1-6 it is very apparent that Matt and I are quite good friends. It didn’t always used to be this way. In fact Matt and I used to hate each other very much. Movies changed that and that’s partially why I remain so passionate about them today.

We want to thank everybody who has made this the greatest blogging experience we have had! Looking forward to many more reviews, debates and friendships.

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Gangs of New York

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Gangs of New York
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Jay Cocks
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, John C. Reilly

In its early ages, New York City was a dirty, filthy, muddled mess, sprawling over an untamable piece of land, controlled nothing more than the violent, greedy people who were trying to civilize it. With immigration and war on the rise, it was growing faster than ever, more torn that ever and more important than ever. Despite the bloodshed, it bloomed with the nation, undertaking a rapid transformation that would summarize America’s birth and stay in the world. In more ways than one, Gangs of New York is just like the city.

The film is often one that is most hacked by critics and Scorsese fans, mostly for its historical inaccuracy, length and muddled narrative. But just like the violent mess the city was, the movie follows suit, becoming a grand, grotesque but truthful epic tale of how a city and a nation were born.

Scorsese incorporates similar themes to his other famous works. There are the power struggles with men and women, violence as a substitution for sex, violence within class, nationality and religion. This movie hits them all, and it hits them with brute force. Continue reading →