The Review: The Equalizer 2

The Equalizer 2 DNF/10

Normally when I start a movie and then stop it I do not write reviews. DNF means Did Not Finish. I tried and failed to watch movies like Shimmer Lake, Suburbicon, as well as Cargo and after maybe 10-20 minutes I tapped out. But since I watched one hour of Equalizer 2 starring Denzel Washington I felt that I was punished enough and could write at least why I did not finish it. After one hour that felt like two already and knowing I had one more to go I had to give up on this. The story was not interesting at all and when there were threats of a good time being had by me it would slam on its brakes for some boring story development that I just did not give a damn about. I did not care about anyone in this movie! I don't care about the guy painting the building. The old man. I didn't even care about the old teammate that was attacked in her place! Who are you people?!

Theater Whore: Fences

Fences 10/10

Yesterday after watching two shitty films in a row I was talking to Camille and told her that I needed to cleanse myself cinematically. Later, even though she is not feeling well, she asked if I wanted to go see Fences at The Arclight. The answer or course is hell's yes. I am glad that I knew nothing about this movie other than the two main stars and that there was a play about it. Other than that I had no attachments or anything to base it off of. I like that. Its hard to describe this movie without spoiling a bunch of it or even making it sound super interesting based on the premise because there ain't no explosions of nothing. Its just an incredibly well acted movie with a small cast.

Theater Whore: The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven 9/10

Some spoilers. This movie had no right to be as good as it was. I'm not saying I expected it to be bad because I am a fan of Antoine Fuqua and have seen Training Day over 50 times but damn this was a really entertaining movie. With such a large cast everyone got the right amount of time to get their personal stories across and even the ones that didn't get a super deep one were still great. This takes place in the 1870's where Bartholomew Bogue played by Peter Sarsgaard is mining and just running people out of the town of Rose Creek. He is a total dick. I mean, there is nothing good about this guy. From attacking people in a church to burning it to the ground and then shooting people dead in the street...within five minutes. This isn't some shit he did over a week long period. He wastes no time establishing himself as a terrible human being.

The Review: Book Of Eli (old review)

Sometimes you see a movie that makes you feel religious. Sometimes you see a movie and it makes you want to whoop some ass. How often do you get both at the same time? Allow me to introduce you to The Book Of Eli starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, and Mila Kunis and directed by The Hughes Brothers of Menace 2 Society and Dead Presidents fame.

The Book Of Eli is a story set in a future where something terrible happened leaving the entire planet scorched. The exact year is never stated but when a certain disco song is played and listened to like its an oldie (I’m talking old oldie) you figure it has to be quite a ways away from now.

We follow Eli as he heads “west”. That’s all he will say. He comes across crazed bikers, cannibals, and a crooked man, Gary Oldman as Carnegie, that runs a small town with weapons, fear, and the knowledge that he’s the only person that can read. After Eli wanders into his town where he invited to stay the night he meets Solara played by a filthy yet very hot Mila Kunas who we know from That 70’s Show and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Theater Whore: The Equalizer

The Equalizer 8/10

This movie is a hard rated R! Just gotta put that out there. Oh, and some spoilers. I wasn't exactly dying to see this movie. I knew that the old series was called The Equalizer and my Grandmama watched it along with a bunch of other shows about old people killing murderers or looking to solve them. So going in all I knew was that Denzel Washington was in it and it was directed by the guy that did Training Day which is one of my favorite movies. So fuck it. I wanted to see what would happen.

This is a damned good movie. It helped fill that straight up action movie void that has been missing this summer. There has been a lot of action movies the last few months that had lots of explosions but didn't quite deliver. This movie did. Denzel plays Robert “Bob” McCall who is a retired guy from black ops. This story takes place in Boston where his life is very plain. He works at a huge hardware store and goes home and to a nearby diner where he keeps things simple to the point of being OCD.

Theater Whore: 2 Guns

So I decided to see 2 Guns which turned out to be a major mistake. I didn't think it would be possible to make a film starring Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Edward James Olmos, and Bill Paxton not interesting. At the very least you'd think it would very difficult. Turns out that I was wrong. If I had known that this was based off a graphic novel I would have lowered my expectations for it since those are notoriously hard to adapt for film. But I'm stupid and always do my research after the fact. 

"You read the script? Yeah. Me neither."

This movie is about two people double crossing each other at the same time while also being double crossed by the agencies they work for (DEA and the military) who are in turn being double crossed by a federal agent who is also being double crossed by a Mexican drug lord. See what I mean? It got to a point where I wasn't sure what the hell was going on but I knew no matter what that these two would be friends till the end!

Theater Whore: Flight

Denzel Washington is a national treasure. Seriously, this guy is just a ridiculously amazing actor. In his latest movie Flight the trailer made it look like this crazy action flick about a plane that is gonna crash and has to flip upside down to survive. That was pretty much all I knew about it and it wasn't enough to seriously make me wanna see it. I did want to but I wasn't dying to. Then Cam called and said “Is it too early to see a movie?” and I said it was not. So we headed to The Grove for a 10:30am showing.

Denzel stars as William “Whip” Whitaker who is a pilot. But before all that the movie starts off with a shot of a nipple. Not his thankfully. He wakes up and starts fighting with his ex wife over paying for their son's private school. He then finishes off his beer and does a line of coke. Next shot is this son of a bitch walking to the plane to pilot it. Oh, and the chick he was banging is a stewardess named Katerina. She is hot.

Theater Whore: Safe House

If you love seeing Ryan Reynolds winking at the camera and strutting around with his shirt off…this is not the movie for you. He gets fucked up in this movie. A lot. 70% of this film is watching him, as Matt Weston, looking like he’s ready to drop dead any second. Denzel Washington as Tobin Frost on the other hand actually finds the time to clean up and get a haircut.

Just chillin'.

In South Africa Weston works alone at a safe house. It’s a place to hold dangerous people until the government comes and gets them. One day Frost is brought in because he has a file that has some information about every agency and the dirty shit they’ve done. He gets tortured but doesn’t break. Next thing you know…chaos!

DVDiculous: Taking of Pelham 123

So for whatever reason I decided to watch Taking Of Pelham 123. Maybe I’m on some whole kick of watching just how damned dangerous the state of New York is or something seeing as how I just viewed The Brave One. So I sat down to see what would happen when Denzel Washington and John Travolta felt like playing tag.

All hands, report to bridge!

Denzel is working at a train station making sure shit goes smoothly. Travolta is running a group of psychos hellbent on taking a subway car hostage and getting a cool $10,000,000 in the process. Travolta calls Denzel and is like “Yo. Got a train full of hostages. Get me cash in an hour or I kill one for every minute you’re late.” Denzel is like “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

"Bad Ass Mofo": Denzel Washington

“I watched that cocksucker operate with impunity for over 10 years, and now I got him. The shit's chess, it ain't checkers.” Alonzo Harris Training Day

This weeks Bad Ass Mofo is Denzel Washington. This man can not make a bad film. Ever see Virtuosity? It’s a terrible film with Denzel and Russell Crowe where some computer guy made of every serial killer becomes real. Denzel beats his punk ass and made the movie watchable. And he loves shooting at shit. In so many films he packs heat. Training Day, Man On Fire, Book of Eli, and Inside Man to name a few. He don’t even need sight to scare the shit out of you.