"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." "No, it doesn't. There'll be one guy left with one eye. How's the last blind guy gonna take out the eye of the last guy left?"

Actually I've now added "Crime" into my genres, I mean I didn't use that before, because I thought it's useless and "Crime" movies usually go to other genres. Well, they don't always do that. I don't know if I'll start editing old posts and adding crime to them, because that would take me a lot of time and effort. I'll just start using it from now on, though I won't be using it on every movie that goes into crime genre, because sometimes it's useless.

Year: 2012

Director & Writer: Martin McDonagh

I don't know why I used that poster with Colin Farrell on it. It just seemed like he was the main character, and well "the seemingly normal one", so.

A screenplay writer is struggling with a story about seven psychopaths. He gets inspiration from the situation he's dragged in, when his friend kidnaps a dangerous gangster's Shih Tzu.

The story was interesting and well-written. It's kind of a mixture of action and dialogue, like the characters tell stories a lot to the screenwriter Marty, who is writing the story. The screenplay mixes quite a lot with the "real life", like the Vietnamese guy. Also it was funny how much the screenplay in the movie affected the events in the movie. Like several things said about the screenplay did happen. Marty wanted less violence in his movie, well, there wasn't any violence for a while, etcetera.

The dialogue had some kind of Tarantino-like style in it. Especially the first scene, in dialogue and in every way, it was like it could be straight from Tarantino's movies. Also the dialogue was somehow realistic at certain times. Characters were talking about stuff and not the actual issues they had faced. Of course this didn't happen all the time, I mean they had to address the elephant in the room sometime. One thing that was really cool in a weird way, was how when someone didn't hear him, Billy (especially, someone else did this too) repeated the exact same line. Not making it simpler, not changing anything about it. I tried to find and example for this, but the script I found doesn't have that line in it, I don't know why.

The cinematography was, shall we say, decent. It wasn't special in any way, it was pretty ordinary. It had some nice effects though, especially when some stories were told. 

I always love it, when the name of the movie or book is featured in the movie or book. Like in A Clockwork Orange, the writer is writing a book called A Clockwork Orange. And in this case, Marty was working on Seven Psychopaths. Though in this movie the script wasn't there just for a short time, it was kind of what was happening in the movie, apart from the whole Shih Tzu incident. It's kind of amazing, you have to really think that this probably didn't really happen. Marty almost sharing name with the writer / director really affects this too.

I really liked the characters and actors. In the characters, there were clichés, but nicely put clichés. They were mixed with some originality. The actors were all cast well, and especially the chemistry between Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell truly worked. They were almost believable trio, like they didn't really belong together, but they still did as much as needed.

I really liked this movie. It might not be for everyone, but it was really, really well done and written. Really fun and interesting to watch.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9 / 10

"Bite my shiny metal hat!"

Year: 2009

Director: Peter Avanzino

Writers: Matt Groening and David X. Cohen (Created by), Ken Keeler, David X. Cohen, 

While Leo Wong is planning to destroy a purple dwarf star for miniature golf course, Leela joins the eco-feminists and Bender falls in love with the wife of the Donbot of the Robot Mafia. Meanwhile Fry notices he can read others thoughts. After he loses at poker, he finds out it's (again) he's destiny to save endangered animals from powerful telepathic beings, the dark ones.

I've been watching Futurama with my sis for the past six months and I can't get enough of it. Soon we'll run out of episodes, but luckily we have these feature-length Futurama movies.

First I was kind of nervous that the movie would be ruined by the length. I mean usually when a TV show is developed into a movie, it seems like the makers had hard time coming up with a plot that's long enough. I was afraid that Into The Wild Green Yonder would be unnecessarily lengthened, but it wasn't. Actually it felt weirdly short, even though it was long compared to the 20 minute episodes, but still, it went pretty fast. 

What's most importantly, the movie was just as funny as the TV show. And Futurama offers all kinds of humour, I mean there's parodic and saritic humour, really absurd humour, stupid sex jokes, and just really weird humour, situation comedy and all kinds of humour, really. Actually that seems to be true on everything Groening has created and developed and written himself. At least Futurama proves that. I haven't watched Simpsons that much, but Groening's comics are also hilarious in many different ways, it's amazing. I really like and admire Matt Groening, I've  read Life In Hell since I was little. Maybe not the best comic for a 12-year-old, but I loved it. It's always a pleasure to see his head in a jar in episodes of Futurama.

The plot of this movie was interesting. It developed the same way episodes developed in the earlier seasons - it started with something not so important and just went on before you realise what the point was. And well the plot of Into The Wild Green Yonder was sort of complex, with so many  different side plots.

There's actually one thing this movie did that no episode did. I actually felt excited and thrilled during the end. I mean of course you know how these things usually end, but still it was thrilling, the whole situation seemed almost hopeless. I'm actually really amazed now.

And like any Futurama episode, 33 % of all the characters were voiced by Billy West. Okay, maybe not that much, but when you open the iMDB page, Billie West's roles just go on and on. Oh my god.

So yeah, this movie was good. I can't say if it was better or worse than the TV show, and why should I say either. I mean, they are part of the same story-arc, more or less. Would I recommend this movie to anyone? Well, yeah, but first you need to see first four seasons, and preferably the fifth season after this movie. But do as you please, I mean there's really not some kind of big plot that would join the plots of all movies and episodes. And of course this movie may not be cinematic masterpiece, but I don't think it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be fun, and it totally is.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

7 / 10

"When we were kids, all we ever talked about was being cops."

Year: 2008

Director: Gavin O'Connor

Writers: Joe Carnahan & Gavin O'Connor (Screenplay), Gavin O'Connor, Greg O'Connor & Robert Hopes (Story)

A family's moral codes are tested when Ray Tierney investigates a case that reveals an incendiary police corruption scandal involving his own brother-in-law. For Ray, the truth is revelatory, a Pandora's Box that threatens to upend not only the Tierney legacy but the entire NYPD.

- New Line Cinema

My friend from Boston warned me that Pride And Glory was bad. There are lots of people who would disagree with her, but I am not one of those people.

Someone on iMDB wrote how unusual Pride And Glory was for a cop movie. I don't know about unusual, but there were many details that were so typical for a crime thriller that they made me want to vomit. There were so many useless little things that were typical and clichéd and everything. The story? Well, I don't think it would be extremely unusual or original, I mean most movies of this kind use the same kind of pattern. Maybe some things were original and new, but they didn't really hit me that much. Mostly Pride And Glory felt like just a typical cop movie with the classical arrangement - good cops and bad cops, etcetera.

The plot also felt unclear and scrappy, at least in the beginning. You don't know anything, you just get thrown in the mix, and you need to figure out stuff yourself. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. But there were moments where I had to wonder who was on whose side and what were they doing and why. I don't know, there also could've been some kind of mistake in the subtitles, or I understood one line wrong, because that kind of made the whole thing feel weird compared to the rest of the plot. I don't really know.

If there was anything true to this movie, well, it showed what kind of pricks cops can be to people of colour, in this case Hispanic Latinos. Though usually cops don't even have to be criminals to be pricks, usually it's just because white cops can be racist, so I don't think Pride And Glory was trying to make some kind of political statement here. And oh, some of the criminals, usually Latinos, said the N-word a lot. It also made no sense, because usually the people around weren't actually black, or maybe I missed something. I don't know what kind of  point they were trying to make with using that word, it was just weird and of course kind of obnoxious.

How hard is it to edit a movie? I mean there was a lot useless stuff there that could've been cut without losing much. They had nothing to do with plot, some of them were just there to give character(s) some kind of  background story, I mean showing the viewer that they had life before this. Well it's something a viewer probably assumes even though if it wouldn't been said. This movie was about two hours, and they could've easily made it like one hour, 45 minutes. 

In short, Pride and Glory was sort of  boring. And now that I finished it, what do I have? Nothing. I mean the movie has its exciting parts, but they didn't really have that effect the scenes of a well made thriller movie usually give you. I don't really feel like much now that it's over. It doesn't really stand out, it just is another movie among others. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't worth of seeing.

☆☆☆☆

4 / 10

Also now I'm 86 % through my challenge.

"I just want to see... a little sunshine." "But you're nocturnal, Phil. Your eyes barely open on a good day."

Year: 2009

Director: Wes Anderson

Writers: Roald Dahl, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach

Mr. Fox returns to his old habits by stealing food from three farmers. After the farmers retaliate, he needs to help his community with his plan.

I've meant to see this movie for a while, but only now really made it. I had two reasons to watch this movie. First, I love Wes Anderson, and his movies always cheer me up. Like even if the movies would be kind of tragic (The Grand Budapest Hotel is partly very very sad), they are still always so... happy and aesthetically pleasing. Second reason is that I used to read this book a lot when I was little. Though it's been a very, very long time since I read that book, so I don't remember very well what in this movie was made up by Anderson and Baumbach, and what really was in the book.

First of all, the casting was interesting. Anderson's movies are always filled with really amazing actors and actresses, even in surprisingly small roles. That's what got me interested in The Grand Budapest Hotel in the first place, that and the cinematography. Anyway, I watched this movie for like five or ten minutes before I gave up and went to see who was playing who, and I was surprised to see that George Clooney was Mr. Fox, and Meryl Streep Mrs. Fox. Jason Schwartzman's voice I recognised immediately. Some of the actors weren't even that surprising, like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Schwartzman. Most of these have been in every Wes Anderson movie I've seen. 

Of course at this point I could say that I'm kind of annoyed how often Hollywood actors doing voices get paid more than actual voice actors. And they don't usually even have the talent voice actors do. I think Billy West talked about this once. And I totally support this, because Billy West is one of the most amazing voice actors there is. I mean come on, he voiced so many characters on Futurama alone, and I didn't even realise it, because he can truly change his voice. These regular actors don't do that. But then again, I don't know, Wes Anderson is probably the kind of director who wants to use "real" actors, even if he's doing animation. And I don't know, it suits him, but it still bothers me.

I said before that Wes Anderson movies always cheer me up. Well this is true with Fantastic Mr. Fox also. It was a really cheerful movie, even though it had its really hopeless moments where it felt like the animals couldn't survive the events, but still, one of the happiest movies I've seen in a while, and it was fun in an animation kind of way. 

And the animation, oh, it was so amazing. Beautiful, and so detailed. I haven't read about it properly anywhere, but I'm certain the animation was made with stop motion technique, same used in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, etcetera. That technique takes a lot of effort and time, but the result is always worth it, because it is very pleasing to the eye, because it's so detailed. And stop motion technique really suits with Wes Anderson symmetric style.

I warmly recommend this movie to anyone who likes cheerful movies and isn't afraid of watching animations. And of course to everyone who loves Wes Anderson and hasn't yet seen Fantastic Mr. Fox. It might not be his best work, I mean compared to The Grand Budapest Hotel or Moonrise Kingdom, but it's worth watching. 

☆☆☆☆☆☆

6 / 10

"Why do we die?" "To make life important."

Year: 2009

Director: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo

Writers: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, Paul Vosloo, Jakub Korolczuk

Anna gets into a car accident. When she wakes up, a funeral director  is preparing her body for the funeral. He claims he has a gift to hear the dead, but Anna can't believe that she would be dead. Is he telling the truth, or is he just planning to bury her alive?

I've been interested in this movie for quite a while, but I'm watching it only now for some reason. I got interested, because of the story, and because of the good actors - especially Christina Ricci, but of course also Liam Neeson. And of course it's always interesting to watch movies with not so well-known director, in this case Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo. 

First thing I noticed was the colours. There was a lot of red and white in this movie, and they left a nice contrast. This movie was visually extremely interesting. There was a lot of beautifully coloured scenes, but of course very many horror elements. 

This movie did combine elements from horror and drama very well. There was so many typical horror movie details - like the lamps going out, the music that makes you think something horrifying is about to happen. Also there was a lot of drama elements, like the relationship between Anna and Paul, and many other things. In horror films they rarely focus on characters, but in this movie they really did. We get to know quite a lot about almost everyone, Anna, Jake, the funeral director Eliot Deacon and the little boy Jack from Anna's class. We learnt a lot but then again not much. The audience learns little things that don't seem so important taken apart from the context, but together they make a wonderful entirety, for the story and for the individual characters.

There's been a lot of talk about the ending of this movie. Well, not the ending that much, but the whole story. There's been some confusion on what really happened. There are theories, but people say that all of them have their flaws. The director said that there's only one truth to a movie, but many interpretations. I, of course, have my own view on the movie and what really happened. I won't write about it, though. That's mostly because I would have to spoil the plot and I really don't want to do that.

Now here's a movie I really want to recommend to basically everybody. Even though it has horror elements, it's not really scary, it's pressing, agonizing. You won't stay the night awake fearing for, I don't know, death, unless of course even the smallest horror details scare you. But I really recommend this movie to anyone, mostly because the story is interesting, and because even though it could be simple, it isn't when you start to think about it.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

"It was silly of us to look for qualities in each other that we never had."

Kitty Fane is a frivolous young English woman who longs for romance and excitement, trapped in a loveless marriage to a staid Shanghai researcher. When her husband learns she has had an affair, he volunteers to fight a cholera epidemic in China's war-torn interior. Dr. Fane forces his wife to accompany him on the difficult and hazardous journey, endangering her life in the process.

- Joni Holderman 

First of all I have to say that the characters are extremely well written. They were two-dimensional, if not three. Especially Walter Fane. He was clumsy and good-hearted man, but also very ruthless and cold when he wanted to. Then again I think his character wasn't very well explored, he showed his very abusive side but it was for like few minutes, and then nothing - except that he didn't really give a shit if Kitty would die or not, in fact that seemed almost like a good opportunity for him. But then he developed again, I don't know it was weird. Kitty was also interesting - she didn't want to marry, but she did anyway, because she overheard her mom saying that she's lost her hope for Kitty anyway. Even though the characters were well written, not many of them were likeable. I never like Dr. Fane, I liked Kitty only because I could indentify, in a way, with her. I'm not saying I've been through that stuff, but I can see how painful her life must've been. But I don't think I liked her. I don't think I liked anyone, but is that important?

Cinematography in this movie is great. It was visually very pleasing, and then again unpleasant, when it needed to be. I mean you can't show cholera patients and make it visually pleasing to the eye. 

One problem was the dialogue, though. Painted Veil takes place in 1920s, but still I think they tried way too hard to make the dialogue sound real. Now here's a good tip for writing dialogue: even if it takes place in some era in history, where they have certain speech patterns, don't write it like that. If you read dialogue like that it feels so unreal and forced, and so it does in movies. I understand that if the book was written like that, since it was published in 1925, but that dialogue and writing was for the audience of that time. This movie was made in 2006 for the modern audience. There is a way to make the dialogue timeless, and not make it sound daft. Why is this so hard for some  screenwriters to understand? 

The beginning of the movie was quite long, but also weirdly fast. Especially I think it was a mistake to show the Fanes travelling to the town with the cholera epidemic. We don't know yet where they are going, nothing is explain. Then whoops, we skip few years back and see how they met, and then we see them travelling again, and then we skip back again. It was really useless, but then we didn't get to know, how the affair between Kitty and Charlie started, suddenly they just were... doing it. And no explanation, like what happened between them? Preferable way to do this would be to show little bits, when needed, in flashbacks. Like maybe start with how they met and how Dr Fane proposed and everything. Then skip to the actual starting point and then show little bit. 

Then again this brings up the problem, that how long would've the audience waited for an explanation to Dr Fane's hatred towards his wife. I guess the structure in the story just couldn't be made into a film so that it would be completely perfect. I don't know.

I really like Naomi Watts and Edward Norton's chemistry. It's a weird kind of chemistry, I don't know, they are perfect for portraying couples who aren't completely happy. They worked together in Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) as a couple, who broke up during the story, because Norton's character, who had been apparently suffering from sexual impotence, suddenly tried to fuck her on stage. So yeah, there's that and then theres the Fanes from The Painted Veil. Somehow I just really like their chemistry in these kind of things. 

But why did Kitty's hair stay so perfect in a small, hot village in the middle of China? Like who did her hair, because in her situation, I wouldn't be bothered.

The story of The Painted Veil was good, though I kept losing interest to it towards the end. It didn't turn out what I expected it to be. It could've been easily edited a bit more, because honestly, two hours was way too long. It's worth seeing once, though, it's a very well made movie, even if you wouldn't like it.

☆☆☆☆

4 / 10

"Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth."

The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. (written by Anonymous on iMDB)

Last night I asked my friends if this movie was any good. They thought so. Then I asked if I would like it. And they said two things. One, the humour in this movie is very sick, meaning I would like it. Two, the humour in this movie is cheap. Meaning I wouldn't like it.

I've never liked too much Sacha Baron Cohen's comedies, they just seem, well, cheap would be the right word, and in anyway just easy laughs. Sure those are good from time to time, but it doesn't make them good even if you could once a year a comedy like that. Sure, I got a laugh out of this movie every once in a while. Mostly the humour in this movie is the kind of humour that makes you laugh, and then think if it actually was something so horrible it shouldn't be funny. And of course there are jokes so horrible they aren't funny at all and you sit there uncomfortable. I appreciate everything that's provocative, but maybe the writers of The Dictator tried too much to be provocative than actually funny

The plot was actually really boring. There wasn't anything interesting happening there at all, and the really clichéd change of heart was so forced. I don't know, the only things that didn't seem forced were some people's acting. Sacha Baron Cohen was surprisingly good, I expected something much worse. And of course some of the finest jokes, for example the helicopter scene and the little Chinese man and his celebrity fetish. (To be honest, the reason why I watched this movie was that one of my favourite actors made a cameo, and to be honest it was part of that Chinese man's fetish.)

The music was fun though. Especially when they used popular song but changed their lyrics in... I don't know what language would they speak in Wadiya. There was a few songs that didn't fit that scene at all, but most movies that use popular songs do that.

What actually is the official language of Wadiya? Because they spoke English most of the time, except for when the joke demanded it...

The Dictator wasn't good, but it's worth a while, if you are into this kind of humour. It was funny at times, sure, but not every joke was tastefully offensive, just really really bad in offensive way, or really offensive in a bad way.

☆☆☆
3 / 10

Now I've gone through 79 % of my challenge.

"No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you dumb fuck!"

A convicted drug dealer has 24 hours before facing 7 years in jail. 

I mostly watched this movie because it was on my list, and it was easy for me to find. I didn't actually hear anyone praise it on any of my networks, which is kind of weird. Most of those people praise Edward Norton's performance in American History X, but nobody mentions 25th Hour. I'm not saying people praising AHX are wrong, I mean I haven't seen American History X yet, I'm going to, one day. I'm just saying that Norton's performance in this movie was excruciating. 

I haven't read the book the movie is based on, but I think I can get a good idea of the structure of the book. Anyway, the story was very well written. Some of the dialogue had that thing Tarantino does - you know, characters talking about something completely irrelevant to the plot. Then again the characters do talk about important things in a very well written way. It's not completely realistic, but in this movie it doesn't need to be. I think the most important thing about this movie is to realise what the main character Monty feels, and how everyone else feels about what's going to happen to Monty, and how they feel about how Monty feels about it. 

If there's anything that really made an impression on me, it was the monologue Monty had in the bathroom. It was of course gruesome, but it was also very awesome, very ingenious, it was very real. If you want to, you can read that monologue here, it's the first one, yeah, the really long one. It's very real in the way that many people would try to find something else to blame for their misery. Even though Monty isn't really blaming everyone, that's kind of what the monologue is like. "Fuck everyone else, fuck everything, because of what's happening to me." Well, Monty knows that's he's in the shit because of himself. But of course he wants a moment where he can say fuck you to the whole world that's sort of let him down now.

Of course the ending, the last monologue, made an impression on me, but I don't know how much I can talk about it without giving anything away. I'll just say that it made me very emotional. If that was not unconditional love, then I don't know what is. And the monologue made everything worse, because you knew what could be, but you knew it wouldn't. I hope that was so vague that no one can blame me for ruining the ending.

It was also amazing to see quite a bit of the other characters as well. Of course we learnt a lot about Monty, and that last night of his was meant to be about him. But others have life besides him, and we can see a glimpse of that. Except for Naturelle, though, seriously, did we learn anything about her besides that she has Puerto Rican heritage and that  she loves Monty. That was kind of typical, we had a female character solely to be there for the male character. 

For me 25th hour was a very emotional experience. Of course it had it dull moments and bad moments, but still it was almost from the beginning to the very end very well done and very emotive movie. 

Btw now I'm 75 % through my list / my challenge, whatever.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9 / 10

"Just because he's talking to the man in the sky doesn't mean he's good enough to be your friend."

The Invention Of Lying takes place in an alternative world, where everybody always tells the truth, until one total loser, Mark, suddenly learns to lie.

I think the first time I hear about this movie it was recommended to me by my dad. I don't even remember what exactly he said. I don't know, I mostly watched this movie because it's on My List. 

Of course the alternative world of this movie is extremely interesting. I don't know, most people think truth is always better than a lie, but that's... not always true. In some cases of course it's best to say your honest opinion, but, you know, it's also important to be considerate. I mean nobody really likes those people who say whatever is in their mind, never mind that it's hurtful to someone. Well, in this world, before Mark learnt to lie, that was really frustrating. People were sincere jerks to each other, but that was completely okay, because what was the alternative? There was none. So I'm not surprised by how many people seemed kinda depressed in this movie. 

But when Mark learnt how to lie, things got pretty frustrating after a while. It was kind of the same feeling as in Bruce Almighty, when things just start to go to hell. I'd want to say more, but then some people might be angry about me spoiling the movie.

I don't know which part of the movie was more interesting: everything telling the truth or everyone believing a lie. Because if in society nobody lies, then there's no reason to not believe something. And, well, since I'm living in a world where people lie and people are usually kind of suspicious about unbelievable tales, everyone in the universe of the movie seemed so naive. Like "oh you said you want 800 dollars, but the computer says you only have 300 dollars? Probably a computer error, here you go." It's like... What? What the fuck? It's hard getting used to the way of the movie because of that. 

I don't know if it was what Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson had in mind, but did people also take everything quite literally? Like the man in the sky. I don't know, it was never said straight, but was there also no metaphors in this world? Of course the fact that there was no fiction was kind of weird. 

Even though the idea was interesting, I don't think it lived up to that. Like the idea was so brilliant, but I was expecting a bit more from the story. It was really generic, although I wasn't expecting anything ground-breaking. So the movie was decent, but could've been a lot better.

☆☆☆☆

4 / 10