Thursday, November 13, 2014

Walt Disney Animation Hits a Solid Double with Baymax and Co.: Our Review of "Big Hero 6" (2014)

Directed By: Don Hall & Chris Williams (Winnie the Pooh and Bolt, respectively) 

Starring: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Damon Wayans, Jr., T.J. Miller, Genesis Rodriguez, Jamie Chung

Rating: PG for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements

Run Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

Synopsis: Hiro (Potter) is a 13-year-old genius who spends his time hustling people in back-alley robot battles until his older brother Tadashi convinces him to attend the same university that he does. After inventing "microbots" to impress the school's admissions office, Hiro faces a personal tragedy plus the theft of his microbots by the hands of a masked villain. With the help of a medical robot assistant named Baymax (Adsit) that his brother invented for him, Hiro joins up with some of Tadashi's classmates to create a superhero group with the purpose of stopping the masked villain.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello dear readers! Last night Sarah and I went to our local multiplex to catch this past weekend's big animated film release, Walt Disney Animation's and Marvel's Big Hero 6. Disney's latest is based on the Marvel comic of the same name, but only in sort of the loosest sense in that it took the comic's title and the characters' names. In all other aspects it is nothing like the actual comic, from my understanding. In a sense it's a wholly original Disney animated film. 

Now Sarah, I think there were some relatively high expectations for Big Hero 6 because Walt Disney Animation has been on quite the roll the past few years. Frozen was their most recent film and we all know how big of a phenomenon that became, and before that was Wreck-It Ralph which was very popular and a financial success in its own right. 

So with this being the first Disney animated film using a Marvel property, and the trailers where everyone was already falling in love with Baymax, this one had some high expectations. Now that we've seen Big Hero 6, Sarah, do you think it lived up to those expectations?

Sarah: I don't think it quite lived up to my expectations, but it did have some really good aspects to it. At its heart it definitely kept to the fact that it's a children's movie, but it's a children's movie that has the aspects of a Marvel superhero movie, which I enjoyed. I thought it was well-done and touching at the same time. It had Disney's mark all of over it, which was nice. It was just kinda fun.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Gyllenhaal Gives His Career-Best Performance In This L.A. Thriller: Our Review of "Nightcrawler" (2014)

Directed By: Dan Gilroy 

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed

Rating: R for violence including graphic images, and for language

Run Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

Synopsis: An eccentric but driven young man named Louis (Gyllenhaal) catches the bug for the freelance life of being a "nightcrawler": videotaping crime scenes and notable accidents around Los Angeles to sell to the local news. After Lou creates a working relationship with a local news director (Russo) and starts his own company, he goes down the rabbit hole - and to some extreme lengths - in an effort to beat his competition (Paxton) and drive his own career as high as it can go.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello dear readers! This Sunday Sarah and I were able to FINALLY catch a movie at our local AMC Theatre that FINALLY reopened after a couple of months of renovations, and we took the opportunity to see this weekend's big new release, Nightcrawler, starring Jake Gyllenhaal (End of Watch).

Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a gaunt coyote of a man who we're introduced to as he's stealing a chain-link fence to sell for scrap metal and beating the crap out of a security guard who tries to stop him. Bloom is an eccentric dude who's obsessed with self-betterment and becoming successful at something as he struggles to find what that is.

That is until Lou comes across a fiery car crash one night and watches with curiosity as a freelance cameraman named Joe (Bill Paxton) jumps out of his van and starts filming the action. Lou discovers that Joe is a "nightcrawler" - a freelance videographer who films news-worthy accidents and crime-related incidents and then sells the footage to the local news stations. Lou falls in love with the idea and jumps right in, starting his own company and going to whatever lengths necessary to become a success at it.

Sarah, this was a film that I'd been hearing great things about for a while now, particularly how great Gyllenhaal was in it. Now that we've seen Nightcrawler, what did you think of the film and particularly Gyllenhaal?