annieandjakemovies

[annieandjakemovies]

As promised, we will share daily best sites to watch movies at for free. This is first one on the list and possible the best one we stumbled upon.

Large database, good loading speed as well as general design.

We give it 9/10 start.

Cheers.

[annieandjakemovies]

Stoker

Filter Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt through Korean director Park Chan-wook's off-kilter sensibilities, and the result is Stoker, Chan-wook's English language debut feature. It's a nicely shot thriller that's very well-acted, but methodical pacing, a nontraditional story, and some intense violence could easily alienate audiences unfamiliar with the director's prior filmography.

Stoker Director: Park Chan-wook Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman

India (Mia Wasikowska) is an overly serious high school girl whose father dies in a car crash on her 18th birthday. As friends and neighbors gather at her mother's (Nicole Kidman) gothic mansion to mourn the family's loss, India is surprised to meet an uncle she never knew existed, the perfectly-groomed and handsome Charlie (Matthew Goode). He's mysterious, well-traveled, and India's mother seems to be taking an inappropriate interest in him while he stays in their home. Charlie, however, is more concerned with India; he shows up at her school, follows her around, and fixes his steely gaze on her at every opportunity. She avoids him at first, but over the course of the movie she finds herself drawn closer to him as secrets are revealed: Charlie is a killer, and India kinda digs it. Wentworth Miller, star of the former FOX series "Prison Break," makes his screenwriting debut here, and I must admit, the film is a lot more layered and sophisticated than I gave Miller credit for on first glance. He peppers in references to works of classic directors like Hitchcock - the film could almost be considered a remake of 1943's Shadow of a Doubt - and Fritz Lang - Uncle Charlie whistles throughout the movie, a motif that was used to signal guilt in Lang's 1931 serial killer murder mystery M - while also crafting a compelling (if extremely strange) character study of India. Chan-wook's stamp is all over the movie, from the amazingly detailed transitions (Kidman's hair fades into a shot of a meadow, a door opens in one sequence but someone entirely different walks through, etc) to tension-filled quiet moments around the dinner table. The sound effects are ramped up to mirror India's seemingly superheroic hearing abilities, and when death could be around any corner, even the sound of a light switch turning on can cause a jump scare. While the film features plenty of blood and some gruesome murders, it is more of a coming-of-age tale than anything - albeit a bizarrely sexual and incestuous one. India's growth into adulthood and her kaleidoscopic relationship with her mother becomes the focal point as the movie comes to its unexpected climax, but some of the character motivations lost me as the suspense came to a head. Having only a few hours to reflect on Stoker, I can't quite pinpoint the film's overall message; once the wave of blood ebbs, I'm not sure if there actually is one. That'll be fine for some, but for a film that so clearly has a lot to say (and definitely has interesting ways to say them), I just wish the final piece came together a bit more clearly in the end. Until next time...

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[annieandjakemovies]

Parker

Parker is the latest film to feature author Richard Stark's literary character on the big screen, though it's surprisingly the first to actually refer to him as "Parker." Mel Gibson played the same dude in Payback but he went by "Porter," Lee Marvin's character was called "Walker" in Point Blank, and now it's Jason Statham's turn to play the career criminal with a chip on his shoulder. But regardless of the name, this movie couldn't make the lead character interesting or memorable, leaving Statham and the rest of the cast trudging through an anemic script under a director with no sense of style.

Parker movie information's  Director: Taylor Hackford Starring: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce

Parker (Statham) is your standard thief who lives by a code - don't steal from those who can't afford it, and don't hurt innocent people - and he's been living like this for a long time. He loves his wife (or girlfriend, not sure if that was ever made explicitly clear) but her father (Nick Nolte) has no problem hooking him up with potentially easy scores around the country. The film opens with one of these, a convoluted heist at a state fair in Ohio from which the team (including Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins, Jr. and one other not-so-famous guy) barely escapes with their loot. But when Parker doesn't agree to donate his share of the spoils toward a bigger gig the gang has coming up, they shoot him and leave him for dead on the side of the road. Big mistake.

But after a halfway decent set-up, the movie begins to drag and never picks back up. Parker begins to initiate a series of moves that make little to no sense for someone of his supposed intellect, the worst of which includes him wearing a cowboy hat, speaking with one of the worst Texas accents I've ever heard and creating an elaborate backstory for this Texan character in order to discover where his former teammates purchased a house in West Palm Beach, Florida, so he can exact his revenge. Of course, the annoying real estate agent (Jennifer Lopez) gets caught in the mix, and while these sorts of intricate plot details might work in the pages of a crime novel, the story beats translate horribly to the pace of an action film.

The thing about most movies is that we've likely seen the basic plot in another film somewhere else, and that might be doubly true for action movies. So when another familiar story comes into theaters, one of the surefire ways to get movie lovers to check it out is to shake things up a bit with the presentation. There was a time when you used to be able to cast a superstar and that would be enough to bring people in. But even though The Last Stand (another action film currently in theaters) featured the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the studio still hired Korean director Kim Jee-woon because his kinetic visual style would spice up the screenplay a little. Hiring Jason Statham indicates the studio wanted a certain type of movie, but bringing on director Taylor Hackford (Ray, The Devil's Advocate) was not the person to actualize that vision.

Discounting 2010's Love Ranch - because, really, who's ever heard of that movie? - Hackford hasn't made a feature film since 2004's Ray, and it seems that he's lost whatever touch he may have once had. Parker is completely passionless, and even the sequences that should be exciting (the occasional heist and action climax) are devoid of anything compelling. Hackford is the current president of the Director's Guild of America and has eighteen credits to his name, so it's clear he knows the technical aspects of putting a film together; that being said, you can practically feel his apathy oozing through the screen, seemingly infecting every performance and filmmaking decision along the way. Even the moments in which the film desperately tries to try to comment on something vaguely engaging - a hamfisted Robin Hood metaphor here, a critique about the decadence of the rich there - all fall flat.

Chief among this film's many faults, though, was casting Jennifer Lopez in a lead role. Her character is a walking disaster, but you can't blame that on Jenny from the block. (The blame for that, and the rest of this godawful script, falls on writer John J. McLaughlin.) Lopez is simply miscast, never imbuing her character with a personality or the emotional heft needed for us to care about what happens to her. Maybe hiring her was political, or maybe the studio thought her presence would ensure a specific audience quadrant, but her work here feels about as cold as the decision to bring her on board. The audience is supposed to be invested in whether or not she ends up with Statham's character, but the movie's dull narrative and cliched plot points stacked the deck against her; any actress would have had to have possessed an incredible amount of charm and screen presence to breathe life into that character, and Lopez has nothing of the sort.

The supporting cast is rounded out by people whose work I respect and admire in other things, but they're all totally wasted here. Michael Chiklis, who was a force to be reckoned with as the morally complex Vic Mackey on FX's "The Shield," is reduced to a second-rate bruiser without a brain. Wendell Pierce, who played the terrific Bunk Moreland on HBO's "The Wire," is relegated to a leering idiot who speaks maybe ten lines in the whole film. Clifton Collins, Jr.'s character has even less personality and even less to say and do. It's like the casting director thought the same thing we did - "hey, these guys are good, let's get them!" - but they all forgot to read the script before signing on. Or again, perhaps they felt pressured to work with Hackford because of his position in the DGA. Either way, the fact that I'm talking about this and can't tell you one interesting thing that any of these people did in the whole film tells you all you need to know about how effective they are as characters.

I'd like to respond in advance to any criticisms in the vein of "what did you expect? It's a Jason Statham movie?" by pointing out that just because Statham leads a film doesn't mean it has to be bereft of value. The Bank Job isn't great, but it's not a total slog to sit through like Parker, and last year's Safe was actually one of the better movies he's toplined even though its premise was far dumber than this film's. Parker should have been an enjoyable heist flick, but thanks to some miserable decision-making on nearly every conceivable level (even the score, production design, and costumes are subpar), it's instead the sort of pathetic attempt that just makes you feel sorry for those involved. Until next time...

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[annieandjakemovies]

The Last Stand

Watching The Last Stand is like pouring a shot glass full of a classic western, dropping it into a full glass of Red Bull, and chugging the whole concoction. Korean director Kim Jee-woon makes his English language debut here, and his first Hollywood effort is brimming with frenetic pacing and a plot that's so brilliantly simplistic, it's sort of shocking it hasn't been done before. Sure, we've seen "stand off" movies in the past, but few have the kind of furious energy, lighthearted humor, and focused vision that Jee-woon brings to the table. In short, The Last Stand is fast-paced, action-packed, and a total blast.

The Last Stand Director: Kim Jee-woon Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johnny Knoxville, Forest Whitaker, Luis Guzman, Jaimie Alexander

Barring a couple small appearances in the Expendables movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been out of the acting game for nearly ten years; color me surprised, then, that Arnold doesn't miss a step when returning to the genre that he so dominated in the 80s and 90s. His advanced age serves as the fodder for some occasional jokes in this film, but the guy is still incredibly capable for a 65-year-old. Everything you liked about him back then, he still has: the charming lughead persona, the inability to pronounce a few English words correctly, and, of course, the larger-than-life screen presence. Most of his huge action moments come around the third act, but they're worth the wait. Where the script lacks in iconic one-liners, it makes up for with creative and crowd-pleasingly ridiculous kills as we watch Arnie and Co. send the bad guys to meet their makers. Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, a sheriff in a small, sleepy American town that borders Mexico. He used to work narcotics in the L.A.P.D., but sh*t hit the fan and he headed for a more quiet life elsewhere. Surrounded by well-meaning (but mostly untrained) fellow officers played by Luis Guzman, Jaimie Alexander, and Zach Gilford, as well as a local gun lover played by Johnny Knoxville, Owens and his unlikely crew become the last line of defense when a notorious cartel leader (Eduardo Noriega) escapes the clutches of the FBI (led by Forest Whitaker) and tries to race a souped-up sports car from Vegas down across the border. It's a modern western - High Noon by way of Neveldine/Taylor - but in lesser hands, it would have felt tired and played out. Thankfully, it's in the hands of the man who made the terrific Korean western The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

Jee-woon isn't afraid to go overboard with violence, and in fact the movie gets relentless during some of the firefights between evil henchman and unprepared lawmen and in its cartridge-filled climax. But after seeing Tarantino's latest opus Django Unchained and that film's usage of practical effects and squibs, situations in The Last Stand are almost cartoonish in comparison because it uses mostly digital blood added in post-production, removing some of the realism from the story.

To be fair, realism doesn't seem like it was high on anyone's list of priorities for this film...and that totally works. After all, this is a movie in which a bad guy sneaks up on two speeding FBI SUVs in a sports car, does a 180 in front of one of them, slams on the brakes, and ramps one of them off the front of his own car for the other to crash into. There are a few "holy sh*t" moments like that, and most induce laughter at how outrageous they are. It reminds me a lot of some of Arnie's big 90s action movies: bombastic and preposterous, yes, but also sort of endearing how hard the filmmakers tried to give us moments we haven't seen before. There's also a decent amount of humor, led mostly by Schwarzenegger's deadpan reactions to things and the amusing supporting cast, which serves to balance the tone when things occasionally get dark. Many of the townsfolk conveniently leave to follow the local high school football team to an away game during the weekend of this big showdown, but the people who stay behind (including a particularly no-nonsense granny) also provide some of the movie's biggest laughs. Perhaps there's something to be said about the homegrown justice being doled out by gun-toting locals in this movie in the wake of the mass gun murders that have happened in America over the past few months, but I'll side with Schwarzenegger's feelings on the matter: guns in entertainment are separate from tragedies of real events, and films shouldn't be blamed for the actions of people who are mentally unstable.

Frankly, I had my doubts going into this film about whether or not Schwarzenegger could successfully come back after being away from acting for so long. But if he continues to team with visionary directors who consistently elevate material and writers who can craft stories that play to his strengths, then it's possible audiences will return to see a former relic of the action genre come back to shake things up a bit. Everyone loves an underdog story, and while in some respects his character's story in The Last Stand is a good metaphor for Arnold's own career trajectory, I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of The Governator. Until next time...

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[annieandjakemovies]

Gangster Squad

Great production design, props, and locations can only get you so far in a period piece, and even with a stellar group of talent in front of the camera, Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad is a empty and tonally inconsistent film that may be the most dumbed-down gangster movie ever made. The film loves its R-rating, showcasing ridiculous violence every chance it gets, but it's a shame that the only audience that would likely fall for the movie's gags - 15-year-old boys - are too young to legally see this in theaters.

Gangster Squad Director: Ruben Fleischer Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie

It's the late 1940s, and transplanted gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is slowly taking over Los Angeles. World War II may be over, but the war against organized crime in L.A. is just getting started, and the city's crusty police chief (Nick Nolte) essentially gives bruiser cop John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) carte blanche to get Cohen and his drug-running thugs out of town. Despite initial protestations from his wife, O'Mara rounds up a motley crew of cops who speak his language, including the slick-talking charmer Wooters (Ryan Gosling), technical guru Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi), gruff sharpshooter Kennard (Robert Patrick) and his sidekick Ramirez (Michael Pena), and the rough and tumble Washington (Anthony Mackie), to bring Cohen to justice using their very particular set of skills. It's a solid premise, and one that's been mined in dozens of gangster movies before this one. (Most recently, though, this territory has been covered in the video game L.A. Noire, which hits on all the story beats that appear in this film in a much more satisfying way. Since directly comparing a video game to a film isn't quite fair, I'll leave it at that.) Just because the topic has been covered before doesn't automatically mean this film couldn't stand among the classics in the genre, but from the opening moments, it became clear that Will Beall's infantile screenplay wasn't going to allow that to happen. This is Beall's first produced feature screenplay, and as a former LAPD cop, you'd think there would be a hint of intelligence under the surface of his swagger-filled, guns-blazing detective story. Sadly, that's not the case. The dialogue tries so hard to be smooth and cool, especially from Gosling's womanizer character ("Who's the tomato?" he asks in regard to his redheaded co-star Emma Stone), but even though the leads look dashing in their tailored suits and fedoras, they can't make this nonsense sound good. There is no subtlety here. Penn's evil gangster delivers insanely cheesy one-liners with all the personality of a brick wall, and savage violence flies in and out of the movie like a haphazard tornado lost in the multiplex, occasionally wandering into your theater every few minutes before abruptly leaving. (Don't you hate those?) "You know the drill," Penn says to his henchman, immediately before said henchman drills a man to death. It's that kind of surface level stuff that I would have absolutely loved when I was 15, and if I hadn't seen The Untouchables, L.A. Confidential, or any other respectable gangster noir film, my fifteen-year-old self might have proclaimed it one of my favorites of the year. (Although to be fair I must give props to the best line of the movie: "The whole town's underwater, and you're grabbing a bucket instead of a bathing suit.")

As with many stories set in this time period, the shadow of the war looms large over the male psyches here. But though the end of the war is directly addressed multiple times - the chief asks O'Mara to fight in "occupied territory" yet again, O'Mara's wife continually has to remind him that the war is over, and O'Mara even uses it as an inspirational point in a speech to his men - the movie never actually takes the time to dig in and explore what that means in the context of these different characters. All of them essentially act the same, busting into every situation ill-prepared and with guns at the ready, but when Gosling asks Brolin if he "wants to win or die trying," it isn't a meaningful character moment. It's just another thing that sort of sounds cool. There's no emotion behind the delivery or the response; despite the surface differences between characters (the smart guy, the sharpshooter, etc.), these men are all soldiers that are constantly pulling triggers even when they don't have guns in their hands.

Along with a lack of satisfying character development, grown men often behave like children here, refusing to learn from their mistakes even after they admit to making them. The gangster squad bursts into place after place, roughing up Cohen's thugs and getting into close calls without ever having a solid plan, and at one point I started hoping that one of them would die quickly just so it would give the rest of them their cliched newfound resolve to finish the case and avenge their fallen brother. There's a simplified wire tapping story shoehorned in, but after watching HBO's "The Wire," it makes these supposedly professional characters look like total morons. At times the movie is a live action cartoon (complete with a comical jailbreak straight out of a Looney Tunes episode), but then it becomes gravely serious, and then switches again to a sort of pop-infused fun, soaking up the glitz and glamour of the era. It never finds its footing, and as a result the whole film feels like it's treading water for the whole of its runtime.

Ruben Fleischer, who earned some geek cred with his work on Zombieland, makes some pretty baffling choices when it comes to the action sequences. A night car chase midway through the film was especially disappointing, with poorly established spacial relationships rendering it almost completely unintelligible. Speed ramping (ala Zack Snyder) is employed often, and whether it's Mickey Cohen's bulging vein swinging at a punching bag or a series of Christmas decorations systematically destroyed in a hotel shootout, there is nothing interesting about the effect on display here. Whatever novelty it once had has long worn off, and it's going to take some sort of monumental shift in usage to convince me that it should ever be used again by anyone.

As for the cast, Brolin is stoic and hard-jawed enough to pull off the one-dimensional lead character. Gosling is good (even with a strange affectation), but his schtick gets old by the halfway point. Emma Stone is fine as a piece of eye candy, but third act attempts to turn her into something more than that are laughable. Ribisi is the movie's moral center, a nice change of pace from weasels and weirdos he's been portraying over the past few years, and Mackie's talents are totally wasted here. (He randomly throws knives at people. That's about it.) Penn clearly put some effort into his portrayal of Cohen (complete with what appeared to be flesh-colored Play-Doh attached to his face, his visage channeling the villains of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy), but again, he can only do so much with comically bad dialogue.

So I'll leave you with this awesome joke I just came up with: Gangster Squad? More like Gangster Squandering A Great Premise, am I right? But seriously folks...for a film with so much talent on the screen, it's a shame that this script was so abysmal. And with writer Will Beall having already taken a crack at the screenplay for Warner Bros. upcoming superhero teamup Justice League, something tells me that Marvel is going to continue its cinematic dominance for years to come. Until next time...

[annieandjakemovies]

Iron Man 3

When Jon Favreau kicked off Marvel's amazing string of interconnected superhero films with the first Iron Man back in 2008, I doubt if he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. The second film (which Favreau also directed) was saddled with the unenviable task of fitting in tons of references to S.H.I.E.L.D., resulting in a disaster that felt more like a calculated piece of franchise set-up than a real movie. But now Favreau has wisely handed off directing duties to Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black, and he has reinvigorated the Iron Man series with its best entry yet. Iron Man 3 is smart, clever, fun, full of surprises, overflowing with action, and loaded with terrific moments. It's the perfect way to kick off Phase Two of Marvel's Cinematic Universe.

Iron Man 3 Co-writer/Director: Shane Black Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall

The events of The Avengers have rattled Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). He can't sleep, spending nights in his lab tinkering with new models of Iron Man suits and worrying about protecting his girlfriend and Stark Industries CEO Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). A terrorist called The Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley) has become increasingly brash with his attacks against the United States, threatening the life of the President and setting off mysterious bombs around the country. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) has been re-branded from War Machine to the red, white, and blue Iron Patriot and tasked with putting an end to the Mandarin's reign. Meanwhile, scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) - a socially awkward Jim-Carrey-as-Edward-Nygma-in-Batman-Forever-type who Tony ignores in an opening flashback sequence - has created a new healing technology called Extremis and is trying to speed along the next step in human evolution.

It's no accident that the film's first images are of Stark's Iron Man suits being destroyed in an explosion. This movie is all about stripping Tony of everything he loves and having him start from scratch, so much so that at one point he actually builds a makeshift new suit for himself out of parts from a hardware store. It's a much more personal, character-centric story than the previous film, and though flying through that wormhole haunts Tony's dreams, that's about the extent of references to other movies in the Marvel universe. The story, written by Shane Black and Drew Pearce, puts Stark's insecurities on display and makes him question not only his superhero identity, but how much that identity defines him. It's not so much Iron Man 3 as it is Tony Stark 3, if that makes sense.

Black popularized the modern buddy cop dynamic when he was only 23 years old with Lethal Weapon, and in the ensuing years he's carved out a specific and recognizable writing style. He's only directed one other movie thus far - 2005's underseen but brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also starring Downey - but Iron Man 3 doesn't feel like a sophomore effort in the slightest. Black has been around this business long enough to know exactly what he's doing, and he made the jump to a project of this budget and scale with ease. It's surprising how much it truly feels like a Shane Black film, too; I don't know if it's because this is the first movie in Marvel's Phase Two, making it unburdened with having to weave all of the studio's moving parts together, or that they just allowed Black the creative freedom to do what he wanted, but fans of his previous work are really going to be happy with what he does here.

The story beats all work wonderfully within the themes and parameters of the series so far. In the second movie, scenes seemed to be thrown together with very little sense paid to character motivation; in this one, everything from the "creation" of Killian as a villain (you'll see what I mean in the film) to the way Tony is forced to deal with himself as a man instead of as a hero feels totally organic to this specific story being told. Even the action sequences - of which there are a ton, and almost all of them are jaw-droppingly excellent - feel natural and not boxes on a checklist being ticked by blank suits behind the scenes. The destruction of Tony's Malibu mansion is absolutely beautiful to behold, and the sky diving sequence seen in many of the trailers instantly ranks as one of the best sky-diving action scenes ever committed to film. Iron Man 3 is fast-paced and often genuinely thrilling, and though those should be given qualities for a summer blockbuster, it doesn't always shake out that way.

Ben Kingsley's performance as The Mandarin is one of the film's highlights. He's a terrorist who uses the media as his main weapon, inciting fear and inspiring anti-American sentiment in cells around the world. His iconic line - "You'll never see me coming" - takes on a different meaning in the wake of the recent Boston bombings, but as unfortunately represented in real life events, that randomness is utterly terrifying. Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian seems like he should have been in an X-Men movie with all his talk of recoding DNA and creating the next step in human evolution, but Pearce is consistently mesmerizing playing villainous roles, so even though his character is probably the most tonally inconsistent with the rest of the characters in the movie, he still excels. Rebecca Hall also does fine work in a small role as one of his employees, but having seen her shine in other movies, it's tough not to think she's too good for what she's given here.

As usual, Downey is perfect as Tony Stark, bringing a humanity and conflicted struggle to the character that we haven't seen before. Gwyneth Paltrow finally gets a handful of moments to shine this time, and Don Cheadle seems a lot more comfortable as Rhodey here. He and Tony have some great moments together, their banter is always a highlight, and Cheadle also gets to take part in a lot more action outside of the confines of his suit as well, so it's fun to physically see these guys actually working together instead of just hearing their voices while a whirl of CGI flies around on screen.

After a disappointing second movie and in the wake of the massive box office success that is The Avengers, the folks at Marvel seem to have righted the ship for this particular franchise. Iron Man 3 is witty, surprising, and spectacular all the way through to its fantastic end credits sequence. It's sad to think that Downey can't play this character forever, but it's also intensely satisfying to know that we'll always be able to cherish this movie, which is as close to perfect as an Iron Man film can get. Until next time...