Marvel's Gamble is Their Funniest, Most Enjoyable Film Since The Avengers: Our Review of "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014)

Directed By: James Gunn (Slither) 

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace

Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language

Run Time: 2 hours, 1 minute

Synopsis: A treasure hunter (Pratt), an assassin (Saldana), a muscle-headed alien with a quick temper (Bautista), a walking/talking raccoon (Cooper) and his living tree sidekick (Diesel) band together first to escape prison to sell a priceless and dangerous artifact, then to ultimately save their galaxy from a crazed zealot named Ronan the Accuser (Pace).

REVIEW

Sarah: Hello readers! We have been a little quiet lately but we are back with one of our most anticipated reviews of the year, Marvel's Guardiansof the Galaxy! We were SO excited for this movie. There's nothing like a Marvel movie to round out the summer and this one did not disappoint. If you have no idea what this movie is about, we'll try to set it up as best we can. 

It stars Chris Pratt (Moneyball) as Peter Quill, an Earthling who was abducted as a child and has grown up with intergalactic thieves. After searching for an orb-like object for a buyer, he's hunted down by a pair of bounty hunters - an anthropomorphic raccoon named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a living tree-like alien named Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) - as well as an alien assassin named Gamora (Zoe Saldana). 

Andrew: Gamora is the adoptive daughter of Thanos (Josh Brolin), the big purple bad guy we saw at the end of The Avengers, and she's helping retrieve the orb for a baddie called Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), who said he'll obtain the orb for Thanos in return for his help in destroying the planet Xander.

S: When Quill, Rocket, Groot and Gamora are all arrested and detained at the same prison, they join together - along with another alien named Drax the Destroyer (WWE's Dave Bautista) who wants to come along so he can kill Ronan as revenge for killing his wife and daughter - to escape. Adventure ensues and produces one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time!

86th Academy Awards Analysis and Predictions: Supporting Actor & Actress

Andrew: Hello dear readers! Sorry that we have yet to get our review of The Lego Movie posted yet, been a little busy moving into our new apartment and getting it all set up. But while we've been a little busy to post that, we wanted to make sure we took the time this week for our annual analysis and predictions for the Academy Awards! 

The 86th Academy Awards are this upcoming Sunday, March 2nd, and we're a little behind on our prognosticating. Because of that we're going to shake up the order that we discuss/predict the categories. So we're taking a page straight from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences and kicking things off with the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories!

Not unlike last year, one of these categories seems like more of a sure thing than the other. Let's get to it.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees for Best Supporting Actor are:

- Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

- Bradley Cooper, American Hustle

- Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

- Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street 

- Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Okay Sarah, on its face this seems like it should be a very competitive category, but it doesn't seem like it's actually going to be does it?

Two Tickets For... Our Oscars Analysis & Predictions: Best Actor & Best Actress

Andrew: Hello readers! We're back with day four of our analysis and predictions for this Sunday's 85th Academy Awards! Yesterday we discussed the supporting half of the actingcategories, and today we're going to tackle the lead acting categories. Just like yesterday, Sarah, one of these categories is far more of a certainty than the other one is, so let's get that one out of the way first. 

BEST ACTOR

The nominees for Best Actor are:

- Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

- Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables

- Denzel Washington, Flight

- Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

- Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

A: Okay, Sarah, it's pretty obvious to people who have been following award season that there's only one nominee here who should be expecting hear his name be read from a card on Sunday. And that is...?

David O. Russell Makes the Right Call With a Phenomenal Cast: Our Review of "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012)

Directed By: David O. Russell (The Fighter) 

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver

Rating: R for language and some sexuality/nudity

Run Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes

Synopsis: Pat (Cooper) is released from his psychiatric hospital into the care of his parents (De Niro & Weaver), 8 months after beating up his wife's lover. In an attempt to get back together with his wife, Pat tries to become a better person by reading classic books, working out and agreeing to help a new friend, the recently widowed Tiffany (Lawrence), compete in a dance contest.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Earlier this week Sarah and I took a day trip down to New York City to take in some delicious food from some of our favorite food trucks (shout out to Wafles & Dinges [@waffletruck] and Trusty Truck [@trustytruck]!) and to catch a showing of David O. Russell’s latest directorial effort, Silver Linings Playbook! Starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro, it’s based on the Matthew Quick’s 2008 novel “The Silver Linings Playbook”.

Cooper (The Hangover) plays Pat, a Philadelphia schoolteacher who is brought home by his parents from the psychiatric hospital 8 months after he found his wife cheating on him and had a psychotic breakdown, which included him beating the crap out of his wife’s lover. De Niro (Meet the Parents) plays Pat’s dad, Pat, Sr., who suffers from OCD and who, after having recently retired, has become a bookie to raise money so he can open his own restaurant. And Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) plays Tiffany, sister-in-law to Pat’s best friend and a recent widow, who is also a little crazy and takes a shine to Pat. Basically everyone in this film is just a little bit crazy.

Sarah: Yeah…and there are a lot of other recognizable faces in the movie, like Julia Stiles (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Chris Tucker (Rush Hour).

A: This is a movie that we've wanted to see for quite some time. We've been hearing a lot of great things about the performances from Cooper, Lawrence and De Niro, but because it’s only in limited release so far we had to go to Manhattan to see it. Now that we HAVE seen Silver Linings Playbook, what did you think of it?

S: I liked it, but I believe that the strength of the movie lies solely in its cast.

Jennifer Lawrence (left) and Bradley Cooper headline a fantastic cast in
David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook Expect Oscar love for them.

For a Movie About Books, The Storytelling is Quite Weak: Our Review of "The Words" (2012)

Directed By: Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde

Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language and smoking

Run Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Synopsis: Clay Hammond is a celebrated author and has a new book called "The Words" about a struggling writer named Rory (Cooper) who finds an old manuscript, publishes it as his own and is then confronted by the true author of the story (Irons). During a public reading of his novel, Hammond catches the attention of a student (Wilde) who wants to know more about the book.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Sarah and I caught a late afternoon showing of The Words yesterday afternoon. Starring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), Zoe Saldana (Star Trek), Jeremy Irons (Die Hard: With a Vengeance), Dennis Quaid (The Parent Trap) and Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy), this is a movie whose trailer we have seen a million times…

Sarah: Both in actual trailer form and with those AMC “First Look” things they play before movies. So we’ve been seeing about this movie forever.

A: And it didn’t come out wide until just recently (or at least didn’t hit our neck of the woods until recently) and is one that had our interest. Now that we’ve seen it I have to say…I’m having trouble deciding how I feel about this movie. Because there are parts of it that I really liked and then there’s one large thing about it that total irks me and it’s throwing things up in the air for me.

S: I definitely have mixed feelings on it, too.

A: The primary reason for those mixed feelings, for me, is that in all the trailers and everything else we’re lead to believe that the movie is about Bradley Cooper’s Rory, who’s an aspiring novelist that has been rejected a few times and finds a manuscript in an old briefcase while in Paris, he decides to publish the manuscript as his own and is eventually confronted by an old man, played by Jeremy Irons, who actually wrote the manuscript. We’re lead to believe that’s what the main story is about and we never really know from the trailers how Dennis  Quaid and Olivia Wilde play in to the plot.

Well the hook that’s throwing me for a loop is that  Quaid plays a famous novelist named Clay Hammond who has written a book called “The Words” and it turns out that Rory, his wife Dora (Saldana) and Iron’s Old Man (he’s never given a name) are characters in Hammond’s book. So it’s a storytelling device and it’s completely thrown me.