Face/Off - Review

Look at me! Finally writing a review and not being lazy about it with facebook statuses.

Anyways.
Face/Off is a cop/badguy movie made in 1997 where the cop and the badguy's personas get switched or their faces if you didn't already figure that out. It stars John Travolta and Nicholas Cage and is directed by the ever-dramatic John Woo.It starts with a big chase scene between Shawn (The cop,Travolta) and Caster (Bad guy, Cage) and it ends with Caster getting apprehended in a coma. As a John Woo movie accordingly everything has it's own bit of flare. It makes the movie equal part annoying and entertaining. Anyways after getting caught Caster and his brother Pollux (Allessandro Nivolva) are suspected of planting a bomb somewhere in the city. So Shawn undergoes desperate measures to interogate Pollux about where the bomb is. He gets Caster face replaced with his own against Casters will (Because he is in a coma). And before Shawn can figure out where the bomb is Caster awakens and destroys the evidence the switch happens and steals Shawn's face. You can imagine the chaos that ensues. Caster abbuses his government job and bones somebody elses wife while Shawn is stuck in a maximum security prison for the rest of his life.
I was thoroughly intrigued with the premise of the movie and it kept me satisfied and entertained for the most part. John Woo's style is always a treat because he treats everything like he is in a museum. No hit is to hard to feel the impact and no gun is fired without the delicacy of a shell falling to the ground. No sex scene is too aggressive and no explosion is too violent. This makes for a very light action movie. And i think without the amazing talent of the cast which is so wonderfully casted the whole thing would have been a big mess. The acting carries the whole movie. The way John Travolta acts as both the good guy and the bad guy and determines 2 completely different identies with both is a sight to behold. The same goes for Nicholas Cage. Despite John Woo's cowardly style it really brings out the emotions of this movie. I think if it were impactful and heavy you would lose what the 2 starring roles have to offer.
Although the end battle made me gag a little bit due to how long it when on for it retained it's status as entertaining and utelized everything we've seen in the movie previously to it giving one of the most satisfying displays of foreshadowing known to mankind. Another thing John does well is not telling you who to root for which is what most modern cinamatography lacks these days.

I think if you like either of these actors you will enjoy this movie. My advice is that you check it out. It's a great movie to watch with friends and family.

John's loftyness and Travolta's/Cage's acting give this a solid 8.4/10
Fantastic and Entertaining.

The Force of A Bat - Review

Congratulations to Josh Cousins for putting in the time and effort to put together a stop animation film. Something i never in my life would have the patience to do. The Force of a Bat is a homemade, uneducated, local stop animation film. I will be reviewing it based on these circumstances. The Force of a Bat starts out with a prison escape with famous batman villians such as Two-Face and The Joker. Jesse Tulmans laugh as The Joker was excellent and i quite enjoyed it. The Batman Villians then release Darth Vader. They all conspire a master plan and quickly make allies with Jabba the Hut (who immediately takes status as leader). It cuts to Batman who comes to save the day and the story begins. There is a rancor battle, an army of droids and an ingenious chase scene.

The Force of a Bat was fast paced and used comedic devices. The lighting was too bright but it didn't take away from the experience. The frames were choppy but i cant complain. There was 1 hour and 12 minutes worth of individually photographed frames. That adds up to about 26,000 frames. It can be as choppy as it wants. The transitions were nice. It had good use of angles although i noticed a lack of master shots. The voice acting was very well done with Josh doing most of the voices himself. It did get a bit lathargic at times but that was compesated for with a well chosen and recognisable score using music from Pirates of The Carribean, The Dark Knight and Transformers as well as well timed sound effects. The enviroments were well constructed and gave a nice lego feel. I am not entirely sure though what prompted Josh to use pencil crayon instead of marker for his back drops. Hopefully, it was just a lack of resources. The Batcave felt natural and i loved the Star Wars themed desert enviroment. The plot of the movie had good consistency and the character arches were recylcled well. The rendidtions of the characters we are all familiar with were great. Especially Patrick.

I recommend this film if you want to follow a very promising director in his first homeade films. His concept and ideas have plenty of potential and it is definitely worth checking out.

All in all as your first film i give you a 7.3/10

I look forward to your next title

~Tin27

Introduction

Hi my name is Tiny27. I have created this blog for your enjoyment.

My blog is simply here to express what i think of a piece of art. I will be talking a lot about music, movies, poetry and the occasional book or two. Hell you might even see some of my music movies or poetry pop up in one these blogs.

My goal is to inspire one of you to appreciate something you haven't appreciated before. There are lots of amazing things out there. All you have to do is give them a shot.

~Tiny27