25. Eagle Eye-(2008) A fast paced action thriller about the information age and a information gathering supercomputer owned by the government that decides that they are a threat to themselves and need to be wiped out. The computer (voiced by an uncredited Julianne Moore) is always one step ahead of everyone since she can hack into to any phone, security camera, basically anything electronic. She forces two civilians to help her in her plan. I really enjoyed the fast pace and the story to this. It stars Michelle Monaghan and Shia Lebeouf, (who isn't one of my favorite actors, but I have liked him in a few select things) as the two innocent civilians who are forced to help the computer carry through with her plan. Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson play the FBI agents pursuing them, trying to figure out how these two seemingly ordinary people who have become criminals keep escaping capture. Very well done, good script and action scenes.
24. Death Sentence-(2007) Kevin Bacon stars in this dark psychological thriller from the director of the original SAW. Kevin Bacon and his son stop at a gas station in a bad part of town after his son's hockey game. While his son is inside the store, he is killed as part of a gang member's initiation. Kevin Bacon tries to stop the killer, but he breaks free, although Kevin sees his face. As the killer runs away, he is left behind by his gang and is hit by another car while standing in the street. The killer is hospitalized and arrested.
When the case goes to trial, Bacon's character learns the killer is going to only get 3-5 years, which is unacceptable to him, so he decides that he's not going to identify him as the killer and let him walk, so he can get his own revenge. Bacon plans to kill his son's murderer and get some justice.
Unfortunately through a turn of events, he causes a chain reaction, making it worse and worse with disastrous results until it makes its way to its Taxi Driver-ish ending. I really liked this movie, I loved the haunting soundtrack, which was one of the things I noticed right away while watching it. A lot of times soundtracks are just kind of there for me, unless they're actual songs, of course. But I really thought this was a very haunting and well done soundtrack for the material. This is not an easy movie to watch, it's violent, dark, and nearly caused my brother to get divorced when I recommended it to him and his wife. LOL. It really was an emotional, gripping movie. Regardless, one of my favorite Kevin Bacon performances. Garrett Hedlund is also great as the crazed gang leader. Very well directed by James Wan. Great tracking shot through a parking garage as Kevin Bacon is trying to get away from gang members trying to kill him.
23. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-(2005) Unfortunately I can probably count on one hand the people I know who have seen this movie. Robert Downey Jr. is everywhere nowadays after his stints in the Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes films, but this movie was the beginning of his comeback.
Hilarious movie that is a riff on the film-noir/hard boiled pulp novels of old, complete with noir narration. Written and directed by probably my favorite screenwriter Shane Black(Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and others), it is a darkly funny, brilliantly written movie with great performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. Short synopsis as to not ruin anything: Downey, as a small time criminal in New York who, during a botched robbery, in which his partner is killed, runs inside a building to get away from the cops. He stumbles upon a casting call for some crime film being made in Hollywood and acts as if he's auditioning. He gets emotional thinking about his partner, goes off script, the agents think he's acting and is brilliant so they immediately send him to Hollywood, to follow Kilmer's gay private eye character around to prepare for the role. I will not say any more, but I will say this movie has one of the most clever, darkly humorous scripts with twists and turns galore. Highly recommended.
22. Four Brothers-(2005) A modern day urban homage to the John Wayne film, The Sons of Katie Elder. This film details the story of four adopted brothers, who were unable to find a foster family when they were kids because of their troubled pasts. They were raised by the woman who originally took them in until they were adopted and instead raised them on her own. She is murdered at the beginning of the film and the title characters come for the funeral. They begin to realize something isn't right about the convenience store robbery that their mother was killed during, supposedly as collateral damage. Beautifully shot by John Singleton in Detroit and Ontario, one sequence featuring a car chase during a blizzard on snowy/icy roads, I especially enjoyed. I also did really enjoy the camaraderie between the 4 actors playing the brothers, however a scene with one actor on the toilet while another is in the shower, is maybe a little too much brotherly closeness for my taste. lol I really enjoyed Mark Wahlberg in this and the supreme asshole bad guy played by Chiwetel Ejiofor was great too.
21. Cloverfield-(2008) A found footage film that is basically JJ Abrams' take on Godzilla. I know that this movie was not everyone's cup of tea, including some of my friends. As is the case with most found footage movies, you either love them or hate them it seems, but this one grabbed me and didn't let go.
The movie tells the story about a guy getting ready to leave for Japan for a new job, mainly to get away from a girl he's in love with and somehow ruined their relationship. Told from the viewpoint of a guy talked into filming during the going away party, the main character's ex shows up with a guy, he pisses her off and she goes home. While out on the fire escape talking about it with his friends there's an explosion and the building shakes like there's an earthquake. They run down to the street and explosions are being heard all over the place, when suddenly, the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty comes flying down the street. The rest of the movie is the main character trying to get to his ex girlfriend's apartment to rescue her because he hears her in trouble on the phone. The likeable schlub filming supposedly keeps shooting because "people are going to want to see what happened when it all went down" I thought the movie was pretty intense showing the chaos going throughout the city, with snippets of the monster here and there, and very creepy scenes in the dark when the characters decide to take a shortcut through the subway tunnel.
Yes, I realize that the camera would have probably quit functioning after the few times it was dropped, the battery would have most definitely died (which I wish, they'd just thrown a line in there about having extra batteries.) and that I'm not sure how realistic it is, if you were running for your life how long you would keep filming. But hey, it's a movie, get over it. I was on the edge of my seat through the entire thing. Which is what these kind of movies are supposed to do. The movie, despite being shot on a handheld HD camera, looks great and the special effects are amazing for a movie that "only" cost $25 million dollars to make. It grossed $170 million, so I'm not sure how that long rumored sequel never got made, but in a way, I'm glad it didn't.
p.s. The first time you get a good shot of the monster(which only lasts a few seconds) when they are running down to the subway entrance, gives me chills even to this day.
OK, that's my next 5, tune in tomorrow to see what gems I have in store for #20-16.
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