"3 out of 4 stars"

Aaah men! These ego-maniac, car loving creatures. Good Will Hunting ended by saying "it was all about a girl", this one started by being all about a car...and a cute little puppy to be fair. I think Jerry Seinfeld's notion of men not having any thoughts might be relevant in this case! "We like women, we want women but that's pretty much as far as we've thought!"

"John Wick" makes "Taken" look like a sad excuse for an action movie. Yup. Ol' Neo has still got some tricks left up his sleeve. Gotta love seeing Keanu Reeves kill people. I think movies should be judged in the context of their genre. Me and my friend were pretty pumped to see this movie after hearing the raves about it and an 8.3 score on iMDB. I love seeing movies with my friend "P", 'cause her insights affirm mine. Of course, this movie was very smart and down right entertaining but frankly, we both thought no matter how good this kind of a movie is, you'd never give it 4 stars (of course there are the likes of Roger Ebert who give movies like Spiderman 2, 4 stars but that's Ebert. His words are holy). Actually, I am feeling pretty generous right now with my 3 star ranking of this movie. I considered 3.5 for a brief moment (just because I was biased by hearing all these good reviews) but then I remembered Eastern Promises. Boy, would that have been a mistreatment of one of Cronenberg's masterpieces!

If you want to see a jazzed up version of Eastern Promises, go see this one. I highly recommend it (guys with Mustang obsession more than the others would relate to it) BUT if you are more interested in seeing an A-class movie with A-class acting, then go see the real "Viggo"! But John Wick is not about A's. It's about forgetting the world for 2 hours and watching Keanu get the revenge you want from the world and freeing your anger and saying bye bye to $11! But seriously, again, in its genre, THIS is considered a masterpiece. For now, though. It can definitely be outranked by other action movies (and newer technology!) and it will definitely won't prompt you to watch it again. But if you want to be able to watch an action movie more than twice, this might be it. This doesn't go out to the die hard fans of Die Hard. Be faithful. There's a reason it's a classic.

Gone Girl

"3.5 stars out of 4"

The thrilling thing about Gone Girl is how realistic it is. I have met pathological liars. Heck, I have been friends with them. Have been robbed of my trust and naivety. But the scary part is that they are among us, and not only they are not going away but they are sticking to their guns and standing their ground. I day dream myself. But there is a very fine line between daydreaming and taking personal action in directing that dream in real life, no matter how scary that might be. There must've been a comprehensive psychological analysis behind this book/screenplay for bringing this specific character into life (I am not mentioning which, just so I don't spoil it for people who haven't seen it yet). But all I want to say that the people who cannot distinguish between reality and thoughts are usually the ones who are excellent writers or are very intellectually advanced in the literature field.

Another brilliant move about making this movie was getting the writer of the book herself to write the screenplay for this movie and what an excellent job has she done. You might have noticed by now  from my previous reviews is that my favorite type of screenplay is a "witty" one and this one is very high class in that regard.

Career-wise and personal-life-wise, Ben Affleck has come a very long long way throughout the years but unfortunately he's still what I consider to be a mediocre actor at most. A very good director is what he has become and what he should stick to.

However, his counterpart in this movie is who takes this movie far ahead of its genre. Rosamund Pike is not the fleeting "Jane Bennett" that we remember anymore. She has stepped out of the shadow of the likes of Keira Knightly and stepped into the heart of the spotlight. Her portrayal of Amy Dunne will make your hair stand on end. I am not sure if her gaze at the beginning of the movie was different than the one at the end or not but what I saw (or what I was under the illusion of) went from helpless and insecure to "having someone whipped"! Like I said, I am not sure if the two scenes were actually different or it was something weird that my mind was trying to pull off on me, but either way it was a brilliant move...whether Fincher had intentionally made two very identical scenes slightly different or that his storytelling had made my mind make up stories of its own.

And my final word...twists, twists, twists. Gotta love them. I'm guessing even bad twists, can make a movie memorable. I recently saw Good Will Hunting (I know...waaay overdue!) and I couldn't love the ending any better. I will leave that for another post but what a bad timing on my part in giving an example. It shouldn't have followed the sentence about the "bad twist" because Good Will Hunting is an exceptional movie. I just couldn't help mentioning it. And its twist!

Enjoy this movie. It was about time we got a good one after a dead year for cinema.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

"2.75 stars out of 4"!

I went to see this movie because of being a fan of James McAvoy’s work and I wasn’t disappointed to find that he was as charismatic as ever. But at the same time I found this movie to be an independent gem in a year that is dead, cinema-wise, and unsurprisingly, it has had the worst ticket sale in 13 years.

To give a very brief storyline, the story revolves around the lives of a couple and their break up. The director very wisely keeps you asking what has happened to them for a very long time and engages you in every second of the movie. It is about relationships and the hardships of life. Although I liked the chemistry between McAvoy and Chastain, their performances were not convincing at times. Actually, that is not true. Erase that. What I mean is, sometimes it seemed like the actors themselves did not believe the words they were saying. The dramatic dialogue was good; I had the most trouble finding the romantic part to be acted out well. Don’t get me wrong, the dialogue in this movie was the best part, I had problems with the acting. But back to dialogue…I don’t know if it is part of growing up or just getting older and being more cognizant of what really life is like, but if you listen carefully, you will find the dialogue to be very relatable. To give an example, I liked the part where one of the parents was talking about how their kid (now grown-up) comes up to them and tells them that the parent has done something wrong so many years ago and accusing the parent of having a bad effect on the child. But the parent couldn’t remember what it was. That is so true. I sometimes tell my parents like “remember the time when you said this or did that and blah blah blah”. Oh, grow up! So they did or said something that wasn’t that horrible to begin with but probably triggered by a crappy behavior on your side. Imagine being handed a child at 25 and being told to raise that kid. Of course, there are going to be screw-up moments. Doesn’t mean they didn’t do a top-notch job!

Anyway, in this drought of good movies, this one was touching and smart. As I have mentioned many many times before, I think the most important part about a movie for me is the ending. A movie can be good throughout but it’s the final act that makes it either memorable or discard-able (yeah I just made up a word). This movie, as you can obviously see based on my ramble, had a very good ending. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’m not saying story-wise how it ended, but just technical-wise, it was smart. The director hollows your heart out one last time before he throws you a rope in a hollowed darkness.

Just one criticism: the movie ran a little longer than it needed to.

P.S. A quick tip. DO NOT see this movie with a friend who has just been through a break up. Bad baaad idea!