Film: Unstoppable

GENRE: Action
RATING: PG-13 for action and language
RUNTIME: 1hours and 38 minutes
STARRING: Denzel Washington (Book of Eli) Chris Pine (Star Trek), Rosario Dawson (Sin City)
DIRECTOR: Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Top Gun)
WRITER: Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard)
PLOT: A unmanned freight train is barreling toward a city, Denzel and Chris Pine have to stop it somehow.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 This is the perfect vehicle for Tony Scott. His hyper-kinetic film style works well with this action packed story. It’s light on story, heavy on suspenseful action.
2 While Washington’s Frank and Pine’s Will get all the credit for saving the train, it’s more Ned (Lew Temple) who should get most of the kudos for his awesome driving skills.
3 I don’t know if they actually shot this in Stanton, PA but which crappy city planner decided to put a fuel oil tank farm right by the curve of train track where there is a potential for disaster.
4 It must have been easy for Washington and Pine for filming, they have almost all of their scenes in the cab of the locomotive which was probably shot on some sound stage.
5 I kept thinking of the SNL sketch I saw a couple of weeks ago where Jay Pharoah does a killer Denzel impression in a hilarious Unstoppable parody.

RECOMMENDATION: DVD should be good enough
UPCOMING REVIEWS: Voyage of Dawn Treader

Film Club: Road Trip Films

Here’s something a little different for the blog. A fellow school teacher and I have started up a film club at our school. We have done this before where we watched two films from the same director or talked about similar themes. This year we thought it would be fun to discuss specific genres, watch a film showing the elements of said genre and come up with a top ten list for those who want to see more. First up, in recognition of Due Date, we thought we should tackle the road trip film. Here is our top ten list along with a fun montage of some of those films. Enjoy.

TOP TEN ROAD TRIP FILMS

1 Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2 Tommy Boy

3 The Muppet Movie

4 National Lampoon’s Vacation

5 Easy Rider

6 Little Miss Sunshine

7 It Happened One Night

8 Road Trip

9 Thelma & Louise

10 Rain Man

Film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I

GENRE: Action/Fantasy

RATING: PG-13 for action violence and brief sensuality

RUNTIME: 2 hours and 26 minutes

STARRING: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson

Rupert Grint (Harry Potter 1 - 6)

DIRECTOR: David Yates (Harry Potter 5 & 6)

WRITER: Steve Kloves (Harry Potter 1 -4, 6)

PLOT: Harry and his friends race against time and evil to destroy the remaining Horcruxes.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:

1 Among the pensive thinking, some great emotional moments and special effect wizardry.

2 You could tell that this film was slated for 3D, especially with all the snake attacking scenes. It would have been effective if they could have finished the conversion on time but I still hate 3D.

3 I hated Dobby in the Chamber of Secrets but I thoroughly enjoyed his work in this film. Maybe it was because he wasn’t so self-abusive this time around.

4 They sure spent a long time destroying one Horcrux. Don’t they got a bunch more of them to go? I guess it’s going to be an action-packed second part. (I admit that I haven’t read the books.)

5 I missed Hogwarts. Lots of cool outdoor stuff but I wish they could have stayed at the school.

RECOMMENDATION: See it in theatres

UPCOMING REVIEWS: Unstoppable