Category Archives: Features

Origins: CyniCritics

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Marshall and the Movies, in a super ambitious and clever series called Origins, has done a fantastic write up and interview for us here and CyniCritics about our beginnings in the movie blogging world. Be sure to check out Marshall and the Movies for more great Origins entries and movie articles. Enjoy!

It’s another two-for-one special today for “The Origins Project” with Matt and Luke for “CyniCritics.” I’m only just discovering their site, but I sure do love their honest and often brutal takes on movies.  The two writers are good friends, and their two takes coexist beautifully.  They have a very versatile site that sports much more than just reviews.  They give especially great answers, and it’s fun to read them play off each other. Continue reading →

SPOTLIGHT: Jack Nicholson

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For our new Spotlight series, I decided to kick things off with one of the greats.  While this segment of the site may not always focus on big names, they don’t get much bigger than Jack Nicholson.  Exploring a career as acclaimed and a man as legendary as this is no easy task.  What these pieces will consist of are commonalities in the career of the subject, as well as five key films to see their work in.  As always, give us feedback about what you think!

Career: As previously mentioned, Nicholson’s career has been legendary for decades.  One of the greats of both the old and especially the new American cinema, he has forged an identity on the screen that is both iconic and consistently shifting.  A lot can be done with those eyebrows, and he finds something new every time.  Whether he raises them in madness (The Shining) or in smug victory (As Good as It Gets), they are part of what defines him as an actor.  Of course the other thing is that talent.  He has given us some of the most legendary movie characters of all time and also influenced many other fine actors.  His off-screen life is kept largely private, though he makes notorious awards show appearances and is a legendary playboy.  It would be ignorant to keep him out of those shows, since he alone has won three Oscars and been nominated for 12.  At the forefront of American screen legends, Jack is not afraid to take risks, and has made it a point to work with every director he’s wanted to work with and only rarely cashing in on his image (The Bucket List).  Though there are far more than five great performances from him, here are the highlights that showcase a different side to Hollywood’s definitive wily renegade.

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Summer Movies ’10: Ranked and Reviewed

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It is certainly not the most memorable summer for well received movies, as we have all come to know, grumble about and lose sleep over. Maybe we were spoiled with 2008’s dark knights, robots and iron clad heroes and 2009’s alien invasion and balloon flying escapades.  So far there have been a few highlights, even if there have been even more dim ones plaguing our expectations and hopes for the summer movie culture. Check out how CyniCritics rated and reviewed some of the top movies released this summer and how our score compares with the consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.

Toy Story 3: A-

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

Inception: B

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85% Continue reading →

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

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.

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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.

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Our (Belated) Best Female Performances of the Decade

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1. Bjork- Dancer in the Dark– It was already a complicated role to step into; a lower class immigrant who must work in a factory to support her son and save up for his surgery to save him from the same blindness that was dooming her.  She then runs into serious threats when capitalist America comes into the picture. Add in musical fantasies, tension from the sadist Lars Von Trier and impossible songs written by Bjork herself, and the role of Selma is just as doomed as the character.  But Bjork takes this tragic story, gives it the proper life, glimmer for hope and our sympathy to prolong the inevitable as long as possible, making it even that much more difficult to take. It’s a pure work of devastation to watch Bjork melt right down into the role, with her far-off eyes, that reckoning, hopeless smile and perfectly broken down English that match every last theme in the movie. Key Scene- Selma is in a jail cell broken down and alone and once again turns to music to take her away. Moving to the ventilator, she begins singing Julie Andrews’ “Favorite Things” to calm herself from one of the lowest points in her life. It’s a sad setting but a bright song, and then it gets even more disturbing when Bjork throws in the deep lumps in the back of her throat and tears matched with her revealing smile and dancing around. It’s heartbreaking to watch.

2. Ellen Burstyn- Requiem for a Dream- Her role as an aging widow hooked on caffeine pills in an attempt to get on her favorite television show is also one of the most heart-wrenching performances you’re ever likely to see.  Burstyn may have lost the Oscar, but her performance will live on longer than any of the nominees from that year.  Key Scene– Her monologue to her son Harry.  It’s here that her character’s drug use is humanized, tragically.  Burstyn doesn’t go full-on with her grief, she restrains herself to devastating effect.  The close-up shot catches every nuance of a performance with many dazzling ones.

3. Naomi Watts- Mulholland Drive– Watts’ performance(s) in David Lynch’s mind-boggling neo-noir catapulted her to the ranks of Hollywood’s finest young actresses.  Without her perky smile and willingness to bear her body and soul, Lynch’s vision would’ve been less convincing.  Key Scene– As Betty auditions for a part in a movie, Watts makes the audition seem like reality thanks to a close-up of the two actors and her smoldering intensity and eroticism.  It’s unlike anything you’ll see in any other movie. 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.