MYST #6 Dallas Buyers Club

This movie was great! I really enjoyed watching this movie and I truly appreciated the effort coming from Matthew Mcconaughey.  He dropped 40 pounds for this movie and it was definitely worth it!  The character he played would not have worked if he had not dropped the weight.  One thing that I wish he had done was change up his voice a little but.  He still went with the classic charming voice he does in all his movies.  He plays a very sick character and so I was hoping he would make his voice a little bit breathier and a little bit weaker.  Unfortunately that was not the case but overall he was awesome!

Jennifer Garner also makes an appearance in this movie but the role was a tad smaller than I am used to seeing her in.  She was a tool for Mcconaughey's character in that he needed her to change his unaccepting ways.  He is a man of many prejudices and that starts to change when he meets her, among other reasons.  I also feel that the hate he felt from his peers, the people he has always worked with and known, changed his views on people who are different.  It gave him some perspective on how other people must feel when they are shunned and heckled the way he was.  This hate that he felt turned out to be the result of the ultimate empathy he showed with a gay man, whom he would work with selling drugs to people with AIDs.

This movie was really raunchy in it's writing and its ideas and its events.  The cinematography toned it down to a point that made it comfortable for us to watch it, but also still kept it real.  In risque sex scenes, they kept crystal clear sound, which balanced out the darkness and other censorship details.

There were a few signature moments in this movie where Mcconaughey's character's life is spiraling out of control.  They cut off all sound, aside from a ringing I thought it brought the scene to a whole new level.  It allowed us to feel the emotion through sight of the character's anguish, while taking out the moaning and whimpering that can sometimes make me cringe.  The camera work in these moments were very slow, which contrasted the very restless and mobile emotion that Mcconaughey was feeling.  perfect.

The sense of realism that I got from this movie was great.  The men in the town used prejudice language and it was definitely necessary to capture a realistic atmosphere.  Props to the writers on this one for being bold for the sake of making it real.  I put a lot of weight on that.  They told a story that was worth being told.  The adventure we take to drug dealers across the border are thrilling, law breakingly serious and surprising humorous at times.

Garner's character was not anything extraordinary and that's exactly what she was meant to be.  She was meant to be a simple, nice, and kind woman who was still tough enough to stand up for herself and make others listen (mainly Matthew Mcconaughey).  This is again, partially what changed him and seeing her not do too much with it was the sign of a great actress.

The lighting overall was well done.  The lighting match the mood of every scene.  The more serious one's were darker, and the ones filled with life were lit up.  When Matt and his gay business partner (who also has AIDs) set up shop in a motel, there is just enough darkness in the room to make it feel like eventually people from the government are going to come and check things out, but just enough light to make it feel like what they are doing is okay, allowing people from the outside to come in because they aren't doing anything wrong.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention the weight change not only for the movie, but also during the movie that Matthew Macconaughey did.  He started out thin, then got sick and went super thin, and then by the end of the movie it seemed to me that he was gaining a little bit of weight which fits because the meds he was on were supposed to be helping him.  Love it when they pay attention to detail.  

I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Check out the Trailer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fvMPU0WaPcc

MYST #5 Larry Crowne

I really enjoyed watching Larry Crowne, not only because it was co-written and directed by Tom Hanks (also starring Julia Roberts) but also because of the fun surprises in Pam Grier and Wilmer Valderrama.  These two were a great pair, playing both comedic and forceful characters.

Tom Hanks play a character that is forced to change once he (Larry Crowne) is fired from his job at U-mart (like Walmart) and he must go back to college as a middle aged divorced man who joined the navy right out of High School.  He would stay in the the Navy for 20 years after that, and eventually come back to a low paying job, and an overwhelming mortgage.  This makes me think of a very valid topic in today's news that Americans do not take care of their veterans.  Although the subject if subtly touched upon, I thought it was an important character point. 

The audience was given a few cool shots to admire, one being when the bike gang is all together riding through town.  They had to do a high-long shot to get all of the people on mo-peds together in one shot.  They also did a couple of shots at the beginning of scenes where they would just show the door before showing anyone and it would give the audience a sense of their surroundings.  Overall, there was nothing terribly special about the film work in this movie.  

There also wasn't too much to the sound of this movie.  It was mostly just dialogue but they made it work.  The style of this movie did not call for lots of sound effects and music, so I am glad they left all of that at the way side.  The moods of each scene were heavily reliant on the actors vocal inflection, facial expressions and body language.  

The dynamics between the characters were okay, but how they met I did not like.  Larry Crowne ends up getting into a 'gang' when he meets this girl in the school parking lot.  It was not creative at all.  She instigates a conversation by commenting on his mo-ped, and although it was plausible, it was not very exciting to watch.  Now all the sudden they are best friends.  Kind of random, but it was fine.  How they go from place to place with each other is extremely ordinary as well.  She says that she is hungry and he tells her they know a place. They go.  Whoop-te-doo.  What happens within the relationships are worthy of the screen, but the way they meet is far to plain.  

Another criticism I have for this movie is the beginning scene when he gets fired from his job at U-mart.  They were trying to make it humorous, but they came up short.  So it was awkward when Larry lost what he worked so hard to maintain and these people were joking around with him, making fun.  

I think it it very impressive to multi-task as a director and actor on set, and Tom Hanks did a good job leading the pack.  I have to give him respect for what he did.  This movie kind of felt like a one man show though.  Nothing behind the camera really stood out to me, whether it be the lighting or cinematography.  This was an average movie that is worth watching if you have nothing else to do.

I give it 3 stars out of 5.  Not bad.