Magic Beyond Words, The J.K. Rowling Story

I finished this movie and turned to my spouse and said, “You should watch this movie!” I really enjoy the Harry Potter books and films and it does my heart good to see someone who had a rough go early on succeed. J.K. Rowling has gone beyond succeeding…you might even say her carreer has been magical. I wish I could thank her for the many pleasant hours spent with her works.

I don’t really know what J. K. Rowling’s life was like apart from what has been written and in video I have seen. If her life was like depicted in this film she is beyond extraordinary. This film is well done and though there are sad parts you can count on a happy ending.

Cast includes: Poppy Montgomery, Emily Holmes, Janet Kidder, Paul McGillion, Antonio Cupo

Available on: Netflix, Amazon

Blue Exorcist – Movie

Rin and the gang are preparing for a festival that is celebrated every 11 years. Rin and Yukio are sent to assist in an exorcism. Things go bad and the two meet a mysterious young boy. The young boy turns out to be the demon from the stories, and Rin fights to keep the exorcist from killing the demon.

I wasn’t as thrilled about the movie as the series, it wasn’t as great in my opinion. Though the animation was insanely amazing, but the plot wasn’t as appealing as the series or the manga.

Available on: Yidio, Amazon

Kamikaze Girls

The story starts off with Momoko, having a flashback to when her parents met, her father was a gang member and her mother who divorced her father to marry a doctor after she was born. Her father after getting in trouble after selling fake brand clothing – she decides to pawn off some of the clothes to buy her Lolita clothing. Momoko becomes friends with Ichigo, a gang member who buys clothes from Momoko. Ichigo basically tells Momoko her life story.

This movie is very Japanese. It perpetuates almost every Japanese stereotype in the book, but that’s what made it so entertaining. Bringing together the stereotypes and the well developed plot. I love this movie, I would put this as my top five favorite Japanese movies of all time.

You can watch this movie on YouTube.

Cast: Kyoko Fukada, Anna Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Sadao Abe, and Eiko Koike. 

The Host

Alien body snatchers called Souls invade Earth possessing nearly all humans. A few humans are able to resist and even fight back. One Soul possesses a young woman named Melanie Stryder and meets strong resistance. Over time the relationship between Melanie and the Soul, that calls itself Wanderer, possessing her becomes cooperative and even friendly. As Wanderer learns more about humanity it’s attitude changes.

This movie is based on a book by Stephanie Meyer who also wrote the Twilight series. The movie is done really well. I have not yet read the book so I cannot say how well the movie follows it. I suspect not everyone will be happy with the alien body snatchers being referred to as Souls. The vehicles with chrome-like exteriors were kinda cool. There are some great sports cars in the movie especially the Lotus. I also like the Unimogs. I enjoyed this movie.

Cast includes: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Frances Fisher, Chandler Canterbury, Diane Kruger. William Hurt, Boyd Holbrook, Scott Lawrence, Shawn Carter Peterson, Lee Hardee, Phil Austin, Raeden Greer, J.D. Evermore, Emily Browning, Mustafa Harris, Bokeem Woodbine, Alex Russell, David Lichtenstein

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, YouTube

Automata

It is the year 2044. The Earth’s pollution damaged atmosphere has allowed solar flares to cause the progressive desertification and irradiation of the world killing over 99% of the population. Robots called Pilgrims were created to stop the desertification and rebuild but when they failed were made manual labor.

The robots are controlled by two unalterable protocols first they cannot harm any form of life, and second they cannot modify themselves or other robots. The reason for the first protocol is clear but the second protocol was so that robots couldn’t evolve.

The main character is Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) an insurance investigator for the robotics company. A robot is shot when it appears to be self-repairing and Jacq is sent to investigate…

This movie was done very well. All the actors did a really good job, except for Antonio Banderas who did great! The effects were nearly undetectable from live action. The story is classic science fiction done very well. All in all I am surprised this movie wasn’t a bigger hit. Enjoy it!

Cast includes: Antonio Banderas, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Tim McInnerny, Melanie Griffith

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, Netflix

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Jack Ryan is a former Marine who was wounded in Afghanistan, After a long recovery he hooks up with the medical student who helped him in physical therapy. He is recruited by the CIA and winds up working in a major Wall Street brokerage firm as a compliance officer. His CIA mission is to watch for transactions that might indicate terrorist activity. What do you suppose happens then? Hello! Action movie!

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is based on characters created by Tom Clancy. This is an action movie done right, great actors, plausible story, great directing, right score(sound track album is available) and everything else that goes into a great movie…all great. If you are looking for an action movie I’d consider this one.

Cast includes; Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Keira Knightley

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, VUDU, Netflix

Robot and Frank

This science fiction movie is set a short time in the future. Frank is an aging expert burglar and ex-con. He is cantankerous and moody and is having some difficulties taking care of himself due to the onset of mental deterioration and dementia. Since his kids can’t adequately take care of him his son gives him a state of the art robotic companion to help him. The robot is programmed to among other things to provide theraputic care, help set a daily routine, and provide cogitative enhancing activities such as gardening and games. Frank rejects his robotic friend to begin with but soon warms up to it. Frank even finds new cognitive enhancing abilities he and his robot friend can perpetrate.

World War Z

A disease causing people to turn into zombies breaks out in several cities around the world.  Gerry Lane(Brad Pit) plays a former U. N. investigator who is trying to stop the global zombie pandemic. He then travels around the world looking for patient zero, the first case, since it is believed the first case is the key to stopping the infection. (spoilers limited)

I, Frankenstein

Frankenstein’s monster has been on the run fending off attacks by demons for 200 years. A policeman is killed trying to intervene in an attack in an American city and this causes the guardians of the human race, gargoyles, to intervene. They discover that the demons want Dr. Frankenstein’s ability to reanimate corpses to create hosts for more demons. Since the gargoyles and the demons are adversaries keeping the reanimation technology away from the demons is vital to them too because of what a demon army would do to the human race.

This movie is well done. This movie has some negative reviews out there and for the most part I can’t get through their jargon to figure out why. Don’t listen to the negative people out there. Judge for yourself but I enjoyed it. If you did not, why not? The effects were good, the lore was well thought out, There certainly was nothing wrong with the acting.

Happy New Year! Best of luck to everyone!

Cast includes: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Socratis Otto, Jai Courtney, Kevin Grevioux

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, VUDU, Netflix

The Family

An Italian-American mobster in witness protection is relocated to Normandy, France with his wife daughter and son.  As they attempt to assimilate each family member finds challenges. Prejudice against them as Americans, School difficulties, and romantic difficulties are some of their problems. Being a mob family they take care of themselves old school. They have determined enemies though and…no more spoilers. Have fun!

The pros in any field can show you how to do a job right. That is what this movie is pros with some talented support doin’ it right. Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones show that experience is king. Dianna Agron and John D’Leo were really good too along with everyone else in the cast. I really like this movie.

Directed by Luc Besson

Cast includes: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo

Available on: Netflix, Google Play, VUDU