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“The Accountant” is directed by Gavin O’Conner (Miracle) and stars Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman), Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect), JK Simmons (Whiplash), and John Bernthal (Grudge Match). The movie is about a guy with high function autism who makes a living as an accountant (in case the title wasn’t obvious), while using a CPA office in a rather unknown town as a cover. He takes on a robotics company as a client, and JK Simmons is keeping an eye out towards Ben Affleck’s character. As Affleck gets closer to a discrepancy having to do with a lot of money, the body count increases.

Now I’m gonna get personal with you just for a moment. I, like Christian Wolff played by Ben Affleck himself, have high function autism. This means I have trouble socializing, I am sensitive to certain things like loud noises (even though I go to the movie theater whenever I can), although some people are sensitive to flashing lights. When I was a kid, I had sometimes lacked eye contact with people I talked to. Does this make me stupid? Not at all, I’m actually pretty freaking smart, not to show off or anything. This movie’s portrayal of autism, for the most part, is accurate. There is one big thing that is going through my mind and it’s more of a nitpick if anything and I’ll come back to it later.

Ben Affleck in this movie plays the autistic protagonist Christian Wolff. I really enjoyed seeing this character, and the way they used flashbacks on this character from when he was a kid was a smart move and it made the movie better in some ways. I may be somewhat biased, but I want to see Affleck nominated for some awards for this performance because when it comes to portraying a guy with autism, he does it well without overacting or overemphasizing in any sort of way. His chemistry with characters like Dana Cummings was also pleasing to see to me.

On that subject, Dana Cummings was played by Anna Kendrick and I think she nailed her performance in this film. I would even go as far to say she should be nominated for best supporting actress in the Oscars. Just like Affleck I saw no sign whatsoever of overacting, and she seemed to maintain the same emotions throughout the film.

JK Simmons is also in this movie as Ray King, a Treasury agent. When I first saw the original trailer for the film I was excited to see JK Simmons was in it. In case you weren’t aware, JK Simmons is one of my all time favorite actors. He was phenomenal in “Whiplash”, I loved him as J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, and whenever I hear him yell, it’s gold. Did he do that in this movie? No, based on how his character was written that would have been out of place and would have interfered with the movie’s overall structure. JK Simmons’ character overall wasn’t my favorite character in the movie. Does that mean his character sucks? No. I just think other characters stood out compared to him. One of the problems I have with JK’s character is that there is a long segment of background information and it seems to drag on quite a bit. It could be worse, but that’s one con I have with the movie.

Speaking of problems, I have a couple more. Christian Wolff, the hero meant to be portrayed in such light, is also kind of villainous, I won’t go into detail to avoid some spoilery things so I’ll let you see for yourself. Next, I felt like throughout the movie I had to watch it more than once. NOTE: I didn’t say I want to, I said I had to. What do I mean? I mean that there are some tidbits that may have been important to the story that may have flown over my head. Sure, sometimes in a movie you don’t get everything the first time around, but I figured I’d point it out. For the record, I wasn’t falling asleep, I had a soda with me so that was decreasing my chances of doing so. Although I was watching this movie in a reclining seat so maybe that had something to do with this. The last problem I will mention is that nitpick I steered away from earlier, and also before I get into this, I could be wrong here. In the movie there were several scenes where Ben Affleck was firing all sorts of weapons. I can’t remember if they stated how sensitive his ears were, but if they were sensitive, the movie probably should have verified that Affleck had earplugs in his ears, otherwise he’d probably startle after firing his own weapon. There were actually points where “I” startled when several shots were firing. Granted I do have sensitive ears, and it is a movie theater where things sound louder than they do at home, but I can’t help but point this out. There were some points where he had headphones on but other times there was nothing on his ears. He was carrying smaller weapons so maybe if he is sensitive it doesn’t go that far.

The Accountant overall is a great movie. It has a stellar portrayal of autism, a lot of the backstories made this movie excellent, Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick have both given stunning performances, but it doesn’t mean the movie lacks problems. Despite said problems, I really enjoyed this movie, which leads me to saying for now I’m gonna give The Accountant an 8/10. I’m still skeptical on whether or not I’m gonna keep this rating, but for now I’d say the positives in the movie outweighed the negatives. I may also be biased on my rating since I have autism so therefore I can relate to the main character of this movie but even if I didn’t have autism there’s lots to enjoy about the movie. Next weekend I am planning to see “Keeping Up With the Joneses” so stay tuned for that review, along with other reviews I’ll have up on here at some point. Scene Before is your click, to the flicks!

Before we get into this review, I just want to say something. This movie is basically a debate that was very controversial not so long ago. It’s almost like it’s an appetizer for the 2016 US Presidential Election. Anyway, onto the review.

“Denial” is a film directed by Mick Jackson, and stars Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, and Timothy Spall. The film is based on true events revolving around acclaimed historian and writer Deborah E. Lipstadt. She’s talking at an event having to do with the holocaust when she finds a holocaust denier in the audience. The two begin arguing, and suddenly David Irving, the holocaust denier sues Deborah for libel, therefore setting the stage for the film’s upcoming events, including determining the answer to this question: “Did the holocaust really happen?”

I would like to say right now that I do believe the holocaust happened, you can say what you want about it, but this is my thought. However I am going to leave my thoughts on it out of the review keeping them as a separate topic. Just thought I’d get that out there.

Deborah E. Lipstadt is played by Rachel Weisz and I have to say she did a fine job in the movie. Now, it’s October, and all of the movies going for awards are starting to come out, with that in mind, I do think Rachel did well, but I don’t think it was enough to win awards, but we’ll have to see what the rest of the year brings. If there aren’t too many great actress performances for the rest of year, Weisz in my mind will probably have a chance to at least get a lot of nominations.

Tom Wilkinson is also in this movie and I barely remember his character. Although for what I do remember it was interesting to see what he did during the movie. The final product does a good job at displaying chemistry between him and Weisz’s character. However the movie does already lose points for me not remembering his character much.

You also have Timothy Spall as David Irving. I was really intrigued with his character throughout the movie and seeing him in the courtroom against Deborah was overall one of the most interesting parts of the film. It was much like the beginning of the movie, which did an excellent job at displaying the rivalry between the Deborah and David. There’s only one thing I don’t like about his character, and that has to do with how the character is treated. At the end of the movie, he tries to say to his opponents that they fought well in court, but they don’t say anything back. I get David is villainized in the flick, but it just doesn’t feel right. If that actually happened in real life I wouldn’t know, but if it didn’t, this wouldn’t be something I would have thought of. It took this movie from having a ending that was going to be solid, then it went a bit downhill.

If I had any other flaws for the movie, it would be the pacing. I felt like there was a lot of time spent in the court room, and too little time investigating evidence outside the court. Granted the movie is basically a court case movie, but I would have liked it better if they fleshed out a bit more on scenes outside the court. If the events of the actual story affect what I said then forget about it, but if there was anything missing, I would have liked to see it outside the court.

In the end, I wanted to like the movie, but I also wanted to leave. Did I think this movie was an absolute abomination against humanity? Nope. Although it had the pacing of “Hail, Caesar!” another movie I saw this year. Based the content of both films and pacing, if I choose one movie to watch again between this and “Hail, Caesar!” I’d choose “Hail, Caesar!”. With that in mind, I’m giving “Denial” a 5/10. This movie had potential, but I left feeling unsatisfied. If this movie were maybe a little shorter and some of the court scenes were trimmed more, I may have ended up giving this movie a higher rating. Also on the note of things I consider broken, I don’t like the final ending shot. I don’t know it’s just not something I would prefer having in this movie. Stay tuned for more upcoming reviews and check out my latest reviews! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

“Deepwater Horizon” is the new movie based on true events having to do with the worst oil rig explosion in US history. This movie was directed by Peter Berg, who also directed “The Lone Survivor”, “Hancock”, and “Patriots Day”, the upcoming film based on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing which will be in a theater near you on December 21.

This movie stars Mark Wahlberg as ironically, Mark Williams. I say ironically because I never see anyone play a character, especially a main character, with the same name as them. I have not seen The Lone Survivor, heard good things though, but one thing I noticed is that Mark Wahlberg is in both this movie and that movie as well. After looking on his IMDb, I noticed Wahlberg was involved in not only involved with the acting, but he also was involved in producing both films. It said that for The Lone Survivor, he was a producer, and he executive produced this film. I have no idea how well his performance was in The Lone Survivor, but he aces his performance in Deepwater Horizon. There’s one moment towards the end of the movie where I’m like, “Wow! That’s Oscar material!” I’m not surprised considering he was an executive producer, so maybe that added a little bit to having an idea of how he could execute his performance, but it’s still awesome.

Mark’s wife, it’s funny, I don’t know whether I should say Mark’s wife, Mark Wahlberg’s wife, or Mark Williams’s wife, nevertheless his wife is played by Kate Hudson. That brings me to my next topic. There was another movie that came this year that also featured a disaster based on true events, it’s called “The Finest Hours.” In that movie there was a subplot where Chris Pine, the star of the movie has a love interest, and Mark Wahlberg in this movie is also in love with a woman, and comparing the two, this one is something that can add something to the movie whereas with the other one, it felt either too forced, or perhaps fake. Why does this love interest subplot work? First of all it feels real. There was one point where Kate Hudson receives a call where she’s given the information having to do with the incident the movie is focusing on, she’s crying, her daughter is watching her, she’s asking a realistic question, followed by Kate Hudson giving a realistic answer. So I would give props to the writers and actors for the successfully delivering the drama factor.

This movie is based on a true story so spoiling the movie isn’t really something that should drag it down for the most part so I’ll say this: the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had a BP Safety award streak. In the movie they show that they won it again around the time of the rig explosion, which does add to the story because for a company that won quite a few BP Safety awards, an event like the one mainly depicted in this movie is a bit of a downfall. The movie did a good job of showing positives about the subject that may make the upcoming negative a little more interesting.

Unlike the middle and end of the movie, the beginning of the movie, wasn’t the best example of quality. Sure, it was effective, but it could have been more. I wouldn’t take too many points off though because I will say it did a nice job at establishing the characters and situations in a proper manner. Speaking of characters and things that appear to be lamer than other things, Mark Wahlberg’s co-workers for the most part didn’t do it for me at the beginning. Their characterization definitely improved throughout the film though so that makes up for it. There were a few characters that were fine at the beginning, but let’s just say there’s room for improvement.

I may be cheating here because when I saw this movie, I actually saw this in IMAX, but this movie is one of the most intense things I’ve seen all year. Throughout the entire disaster I was beginning to lose my breath, feel bad for everyone on the ship, especially considering this was real, and sweat. OK, the last one may have been because I had a sweatshirt on but I don’t care. If I were there at Deepwater, I’d probably run around screaming until I die, or run around screaming until I jump off and die, or run around screaming until I jump off and I have assistance getting to a lifeboat therefore I survive. It’s probably worse for me because I have sensitive ears, which means if the average person hears an explosion, it’s probably already loud enough, whereas I hear it and I just want to cover my ears, making them warm and red.

Deepwater Horizon was one of the better movies of the year and contains some of the best performances I’ve seen this year. I’m not surprised if Mark Wahlberg gets nominated for a ton of awards including Oscars, because of this movie. I have not seen The Lone Survivor, but Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg make a great team and I cannot wait to see what the two can do with the upcoming film Patriots Day, which comes out this December. I’m gonna give Deepwater Horizon a 9/10. Also coming up, I’m gonna review another movie pretty soon, that review will be out in just a few days. I just need to see that movie before I review it. I’m either going to review Sully, The Girl on the Train, or Denial. Which one will I review? Find out in just a few days! Until then, stay tuned. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Before we begin, if you keep up with this blog and enjoy reading it, you might just be asking yourself right now, where have I been? Well school just started a month ago so I couldn’t see too many movies recently. Luckily I’m back now for another post so let’s talk about Thinkgeek.

Just recently I was at the Northshore Mall, which if you’re not in the Massachusetts area, it is a mall located in the town of Peabody (P-bedy), and I went there last Sunday to look at the new ThinkGeek store that opened the Friday beforehand. What is Thinkgeek? Here’s some background.

Thinkgeek started out as a website selling nerdy goodies, collectibles, etc. It has become rather popular within the community and while I don’t usually buy anything on their site, I do enjoy window shopping there from time to time. Since then they have expanded to the physical store realm and I was excited when I heard three of them were going to be near me, and as soon as I heard about the first, not to mention closest store that was going to open, I was pumped. I longed to go throughout most of Saturday and when I got to go Sunday, it was a blast.

Based on research and reviews I came across online, when I walked into the store I was expecting a medium sized store with a bunch of collectibles all over the place almost as if I were in the comic book store (the old one) from Big Bang Theory. Did I get that? Yes I did. However, this was just the start.

When I walked in, it was black all over, The floor tiles are very dark, the walls were black, and considering the storefront was covered in black as well, the atmosphere worked.

I’m not usually one for Pop figures, but I think the more I come to this store, the more I’ll want to start collecting them. The front of the store is flooded with Pop figures, and the more I think about it, it’s like walking down a supermarket aisle as several Pop dolls are on one side and more are on the other.

I don’t browse the Thinkgeek site often, however when I walked around the store feeling like I entered Heaven, I noticed something that kind of ticked me off. They’ve got some pricey items on their hands. I saw a Captain America shield for $399.99 for example. Granted it’s a nice product from my perspective and it looks sleek, but $399.99 was also the launch price for the PS4. Do a lot of the expensive items deserve this high of a price tag? Sure, but since they are so high, I’m in no rush to get them. Also now that I think about it, considering I live in Massachusetts, if I were to get one of these items, I would go to New Hampshire in order to avoid taxes. Also I want to state for the record, the TV that’s currently in my room was something I ended up paying $349.99 for. That’s $50 less than the Captain America shield. On that note, the TV had a built in Roku Smart platform, 43″, and 4K compatibility. So maybe the shield is overpriced, who knows?

There was also a decent t-shirt selection as well. The prices were fairly reasonable for t-shirts (around $15), and I might come back to get some t-shirts here in the future.

My absolute favorite part about this store is the music they play inside. I was expecting something that I could call great, but this pushes the meter from great, to amazing. For the first time ever, I found a store that plays music from soundtracks of movies or games! There was one point where I heard part of the soundtrack from The Dark Knight and I stomped around the store to it, along with making movements to it.

This place has some cool stuff, what did I get? Nothing. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? I love the store, but due to how I couldn’t decide what to get, also because I wanted to save some money for another store I went to, I decided to lack purchases from this store.

I mentioned already that this store has some pretty cool goods, and if you know any nerds, geeks, or hardcore fans of something, you might want to check this place out if you want to give a gift to someone. The place has something for just about every age such as action figures, Hot Wheels toys, pillows, clothing, backpacks, posters, blankets, and more!

One more thing about Thinkgeek, in case you weren’t aware, they are linked with GameStop, so if you have a GameStop PowerUp Rewards card, you can use it here and save some moolah! I don’t buy anything from GameStop as much as I used to, I’m more of a movie guy, but I definitely will take any chance I get to use the company card in this store.

Overall, Thinkgeek is an awesome experience, and if you are a hardcore nerd like me, going here is something you have to do before you die. Doesn’t matter if you purchase anything, or just skidaddle around the store for a period of time. Heck, I might even go as far to say you can just go somewhere that has the store and just walk by it while you look at it from the outside. If you hate going outside, or if you have none of these stores in your area, or you just do everything on your computer, visit Thinkgeek.com. I personally prefer visiting the store as you get to touch everything and walk around to music of movies and video games, but you do you. To me, it’s an awesome experience in a nutshell and I probably will be back soon making purchases.

On another note, I am trying to get more reviews of movies up. Yes I haven’t done one in over a month but I would like you all to be patient. Why? It takes some time to actually watch new movies. Also in case you are unaware, I am going to be doing something Star Wars related before the upcoming movie “Rogue One: a Star Wars Story” comes out. Just thought I’d let you know in case you didn’t, and speaking of upcoming events I’m probably going to watch a new movie over this Columbus Day weekend. I’m not sure what it’ll be, I’m willing to bet either Sully or The Girl on the Train, maybe even two movies, we’ll have to see what the future holds. Whatever reviews I post soon, make sure you stay tuned for those. Scene Before is your click, to the flicks!

First off, before I review this, my review is dedicated to Gene Wilder, the man who took on the role of Willy Wonka in this movie. He passed away yesterday and his passing inspired me to review this movie. RIP, and onto the review.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory came out in 1971, and to this day it is still one of the most talked about family films known to man. It is based off the book of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” which was one of those books I always remembered from my childhood, and I can also say the same for this movie. I also saw the 2005 movie adaptation directed by Tim Burton, which I’ll be honest, I actually loved as much as you might hate me for saying it, although that’s another story.

The premise of this movie is that there is a chocolate company called Wonka, it is known for making the world’s best choclate and candy related products. One day, at the time in which this movie is set, the doors to the factory are locked to let nobody in the factory. Every human employee that once worked there, doesn’t work there anymore, and one day Wonka decides that they are going to let people in the factory for a tour. The idea was that five golden tickets would be inside five ordinary Wonka bars. Whoever finds one said golden ticket will be able to embark on a tour of the factory along with someone they know from their kin. Speaking of the story, the buildup on the story itself to the point where we get to the chocolate factory, is SURPRISINGLY interesting, even by today’s standards. Like seriously, ALMOST half the movie is buildup and it’s entertaining. There are a few cool musical numbers, one was hit or miss but I don’t really care, we got introduced to all of the winners of the golden tickets and each one was intriguing and it did a good job at highlighting their individual personalities. There’s also a cool little subplot introduced along the way.

The character that the movie focuses mostly on is Charlie Bucket. He is in a poor family who doesn’t really get much to satisfy themselves. Charlie lives with his grandparents (not sure if any of them are great or which side they’re on, but it doesn’t really matter) and his parents. They all live in a small home, the grandparents all sleep in the same bed, and Charlie wants more than what he’s getting. I don’t blame him because he barely has enough to support himself along with his family. Peter Ostrum plays Charlie in this movie and MAN, whoever did casting for this movie deserves a medal because for a child actor, this guy can blow many others out of the gate. The same goes for basically all the child actors present in this film.

The next character I’ll touch upon is Augustus Gloop. He is essentially this obese kid who never stops eating chocolate. You can tell he has such a fascination with chocolate just by his size. The point where he won his ticket is where we are introduced to somebody who plays a big role in the film, but I won’t talk much about him during the review because some things are better left mysterious. This character along with a few others in the movie are characters I can relate to. I’m not fat, but I find movie theater popcorn and Lays Wavy potato chips insatiable. Right now I don’t really have to worry about it because my metabolism is off the charts, we’ll just have to see what comes up. Granted I don’t have abs but I’m definitely not clogging up space.

Up next is Veruca Salt. Her character is basically a spoiled brat whose dad is in the nut business. Throughout the movie she keeps bragging about things she wants. One of her recurring lines is “I want it now!” and it really added a lot of personality to her character. Her dad was happy to tend to this girl which if I was a father and my daughter or son was like this, I’d be irritated. There are some connections I can make with Veruca. I want a lot of cool stuff as well. However unlike Veruca I know when to save my money. Also I just tell my mother to never give me an allowance, essentially because I want her to keep her money the way she sees necessary. That one wasn’t a connection, but it’s something I think about.

Violet Bereguarde is next on the list and she is a world record gum chewer. When it was announced she won her golden ticket on the news she talked about laying off gum and directing full attention to candy bars since they have the “ticket things.” You can tell that this character is a winner based on her attitude and unlike the character the Tim Burton movie, she is very energetic and doesn’t put other people down, which made me like her as a character.

Last of the ticket winners is Mike Teavee. This guy would be me if I were ignoring society altogether. Do I have a TV problem? Not really. I make an effort to livetweet certain shows on Twitter and I watch TV in my room on my 4K TV past 2 in the morning on some nights but that’s about it. When his character was introduced they NAILED his personality. He eats TV dinners all the time, he’s never eaten at the table, and as everyone is interviewing him, he’s watching TV and ignoring them! The representation of this character is spot on!

Let’s not forget Gene Wilder’s interpretation as Willy Wonka. This was one of the movie’s highlights. His character flew off the pages of Rohld Dahl’s book and whoever designed his suit can live life on a peaceful island with no intruders because it looks great. One thing I noticed more and more for his character is that he was funny, which was something I never put in my mind when watching this movie as a young child. There was this one line when one child got into a disasterous situation and their parent told everyone (mainly Willy Wonka) to help them out of the situation and Wonka just says “Help, police, murder.” Not to mention, it’s a dark joke in a family film! A joke of that tone worked a light film such as this!

Inside Wonka’s factory, there were tons of areas to explore. One in particular being the chocolate room. To this day, that set still dazzles me. It’s large, feels like a real place despite how glossy it is, and it just sucks you in and makes you become Veruca Salt and say something like “I want a choclate room! I want a chocolate waterfall! I want eatable grass! I want it now!” Although I can imagine you wouldn’t be saying that out loud. This is also where Willy Wonka sings “Pure Imagination,” one of the other highlights of the film for me.

Another thing a lot of people still think about when this film is mentioned today are the Oompa-Loompas. In the movie they do these musical numbers and they are all very similar. Does it matter? No. Because it is all very catchy that you don’t care in the end. Fun fact for those who never read the book, this was actually never in the book, this was an original thought by everyone involved in the movie’s production. I don’t really care because it was still all very well done.

However this film does have flaws. They are those sort of flaws that maybe you don’t notice at first but you may grow to notice them in the meantime if you look hard enough. Two of them have to do with vehicles. A boat comes along the choclate river. There are eight people left, not including Mr. Wonka, and if the two people who haven’t left before the boat arrived were still here, they would have to stand on the boat. However the boat had JUST enough seats for everyone onboard. So that’s one flaw, and the other is the scene where everyone is about to go into the Wonkavision room, they take a vehicle that seems to run on and spray cola related materials. The problem I found with this vehicle is the same problem I found with the other vehicle. The seating capacity is just enough for everyone. Also, just a thought, why did you need to take that vehicle to the TV room when you could have easily walked through the path to it. For the scenes in place, it seemed that the door at the end path of the second vehicle could have possibly lead into the Wonkavision room. If not, maybe everyone didn’t want to waste time walking to the room, which I get, you don’t want to waste tape, and it may feel unneeded in the very end.

Willy Wonka and the Choclate Factory may be one of the best movies of the 70’s, and I hope years from now it is still talked about so future generations can see it for themselves. Gene Wilder, if you were still alive today I wish you could have seen this, because I’m going to give Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory a 10/10. They call this a family movie, but honestly, almost every time I watched this movie, I watched it by myself, and I don’t regret any of the times I watched it. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Ride Along 2 is the sequel to the 2014 comedy starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube as two members of same police department. Kevin Hart is a recently graduated rookie and Ice Cube is a detective. Ben, played by Kevin Hart is aspiring to become a detective like James, played by Ice Cube. Despite his aspirations James doesn’t think Ben has what it takes to become a detective, but after incessant begging to make something of himself on the force, Ben is taken alongside James to Miami to follow up on a lead. The situation that starts out rather simple eventually expands into an epidemic. Meanwhile, back at home, Ben is getting married in a few days to James’ sister played by Tika Sumpter and Ben has to make sure he’s home on time for their wedding.

Kevin Hart is probably one of the best comedians in our day and age. He is hilarious, he has a good stage presence when presenting his material, and he is excellent in movies. At this point, there is no wonder how this guy is in a substansial number of movies nowadays and this movie supports that.

I don’t really like Ice Cube as much as I like Kevin Hart, but I find the guy to be a great actor and I liked him in the first Ride Along. He displayed the serious type of personality and when you place him and Kevin Hart together and put them in a movie such as this, it can make for a good movie. Everytime I saw the two on screen it made me laugh and I couldn’t help but think of this as if it were real.

As I mentioned before, Tika Sumpter returned to reprise the role of James’ love interest, Angela. Her side of the story didn’t really add too much to the plot, I still enjoyed her character and what she had going on during her screentime. However if you see her side of the story with Sherri Shepherd’s character in the movie, along with some of Kevin Hart’s side as well, it’s almost like it’s only in there to have humor. I have no problem with that, after all when you’re watching a comedy, humor is a key piece to finishing the puzzle but in the end the movie kind of could have done without it, or at least most of it, because there were some points I found to be necessary. Granted the wedding side of the story was necessary, and if the movie focused more on Ben trying to make it back for the wedding, it probably would have ended with a better result. It’s not a big issue for me but it’s on my mind.

Did Ride Along 2 make me laugh? Yes. Did it make me laugh more than the first one? Based on my memory, no. It was almost as much as the first one. The humor had a lot of the same elements as the original in play but came out differently. The humor presented in the movie works for the cast working on it and the overall concept. So good job Ride Along 2!

If I had any other problems with the movie it would be some points with Sherri Shepard’s character, her attitude at times was a hit or miss point for me. The other problem I had with the movie was the antagonist. He somewhat reminded me of Jason Statham in Furious 7 too much and he didn’t seem to stand out as much as some of the other key characters.

Speaking of key characters, the movie featured a guy played by Ken Jeong. He brought a bit of a charm to the beginning of the film and he had some important elements to the story that made the movie slightly more interesting. When I was 30 minutes into the film, Ken’s character seemed to add some suspense in one way or another and it made the movie boost itself in likability.

Ride Along 2 is a pretty good action comedy, and also a good sequel. I laughed at a lot of points during the film, Kevin Hart and Ice Cube have great chemistry together, and it is one of the funnier films I’ve seen this year. I’m going to give Ride Along 2 a 6/10. Just to let you all know, I actually have school starting up in about a week, so it may impact how often I post here. I still hope to see some movies throughout that time so I can talk about them with you all. Or at least to myself, because I am able to have a good time here that way too. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

10 Cloverfield Lane is not a sequel, not a spinoff, but appears to exist in the same universe as the 2008 found footage film “Cloverfield.” The movie was directed by Dan Tractenburg, who directed a short called Portal: No Escape, which is based on the hit series of games created by Valve. The movie stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (A Good Day to Die Hard), John Goodman (Argo), and John Gallagher Jr (Oliver Kitterridge).

We are first introduced to Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character during the intro, which was a pretty cool opening by the way, and all of sudden, shabam! She gets into a car accident, next thing we know she’s trapped in a room located in an underground bunker, John Goodman comes in and claims he’s trying to keep her alive and she must stay where she is if she wants to live. Although in the meantime he starts to make Mary’s character have suspicions of what she’s gotten herself into so she wants to leave. Overall I will say that this character’s performance feels real and happened to be one of the movie’s best qualities.

As I mentioned recently, John Goodman is playing a survivalist in an underground bunker in this movie. When I first saw him, I thought of him as an a$$hole and it worked for his character. Then all of sudden he calmed down during the movie but it doesn’t last because later on he goes back into a$$hole mode again and I no complaints about it, the moods matched with the character although at times him being an a$$hole may have been overexaggerated.

The best thing about this movie to me was John Gallagher Jr’s character. He too was trapped inside the underground bunker and at one point the three main characters are having dinner and John Gallagher Jr. is talking and the topic at hand has to do with wondering what you wanted to accomplish before you die that you haven’t done. John Gallagher Jr. says he wanted to get tattoos at some point, however he hasn’t done that in his life and it made me think of things I want to do before I die. If it were me thinking about this topic, I would say the following: Go to San Diego Comic-Con, make a Hollywood movie, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever do this but win the lottery.

One thing that makes my head spin about this movie is there are like just a few correlations to Cloverfield. However despite the correlations, those are either unnoticable unless you are a true fan, or something along the lines you having your eyes glued to every pixel on the screen, and it makes you question whether this really should be deserving of the Cloverfield name. I am not a true fan, and I actually had to Google search possible correlations between the two movies. The ending makes me wonder even more, like, literally, it made me think more than I had to, and this all drags the movie’s score.

10 Cloverfield Lane actually looked extremely thrilling from the TV spots I saw around the time of this movie’s release. Did I get those thrills? Yes. Although you know what I also got? Mind-boggled. It’s a movie that says Cloverfield on the title, but there’s not much to do with Cloverfield other than being scary, and perhaps some easter eggs. I’m going to give 10 Cloverfield Lane a 6/10. I really enjoyed the movie when I first saw it, but the more I think about it, the worse it gets, and I’ll be honest, finding a score for this movie was rather hard. It could change soon, you never know. Other than Equity, I have no planned movie reviews at the moment, we’ll have to see what happens. Stay tuned for more reviews and Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

The Fifth Wave is a teen angst sci-fi film based on a popular young adult book series. It was directed a guy named J Blakeson, and stars Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan, a teen girl trying to survive throughout several disasters, or waves.

My first encounter having to do with this movie occurred on December 19th 2015, the first time I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. One of the trailers that played before the movie began was the trailer for this movie and when watching I thought too much of the story was revealed ahead of time. I was right. When I watched the trailer, it revealed the first four waves, which makes sense because this movie is called The Fifth Wave. However it felt like the move made the first four waves a little longer than necessary. I’m done with the story for now and my head is just spinning just talking about it.

Cassie Sullivan is a dull character. Sure, Chloe Grace Moretz did a good job with the material given to her, but that doesn’t mean the writers for this movie get a free pass. They managed to make her have lots of fear inside her and it worked for her character, but if there were a world where I could actually run into or meet fictional characters, whether it be from a movie, a book, a play, whatever, I wouldn’t hang out with this one. By the way, a world like that already exists, it’s called Comic-Con. I’d choose not to hang out with her because while she seems to have the qualities of a good hero, she doesn’t seem to unleash those qualities much. Sure, she cares a lot about finding those close to her, but I’m talking about some of the things she does with other characters in the movie.

Nick Robinson (Melissa & Joey, Jurassic World) is also in this movie, he plays this teenage boy and he adds a bit to the story considering he is in an army attempting to fight back against the movie’s invading antagonist. That’s all I’m gonna say about him. Keep it in mind.

Alex Roe plays a guy named Evan Walker in the movie, and this character is one of the worst characters I’ve ever seen in a movie. This guy is a straight up a-hole, and yet the movie tries to make him look like he’s an important hero. The one thing that I imagine people raving about when it comes to this character is his physique, but since I’m a straight male who just likes good movies, I can’t grab onto that. At one point this character is reading the protagonist’s diary when she’s not alert. It’s revealed later in the movie, and whenever they talk about it in the future, it makes me think of this guy as a creepy stalker more and more. He’s a love interest for the main character which is baffling because to her, there is absolutely nothing she likes about this guy except for his body based on what I can tell from visual storytelling. Based on everything I’m seeing, Nick Robinson is a more likely love interest than this guy! Is this written because of the stereotype that girls like bad boys? If so, I detest it. Great job writers! You’ve made a success in failure! Then again, I’m a boy, these guys are probably trying to appeal to girls, which grows in obviousness considering the main character’s a girl. Like that hasn’t happened in a teen angst film before, especially ones that were originally books.

Oh, right.

You know I’m OK with these movies having lots of female leads, it works for them, it’s just something I noticed.

Before my head blows up–err I mean before I give my score, lets get into something. For like a fifth of the movie, I was able to hear everything clearly, but visually I had no idea was going on. I watched the movie on a 4K TV that I bought months ago, and it was first introduced to Best Buy shoppers in January, it’s not the most expensive model on the market, but it’s great nevertheless. On my 4K TV, everything looked terrible when I was watching stuff happen at night. I almost couldn’t tell who anybody was, what they were doing, etc. Granted I was watching in full HD and not 4K but still it’s unpleasant. I’m guessing the director had an idea to make the scene match with the movie’s tone (dark), and he wanted to make every frame look black, and I have something to say. GIVE THIS GUY A FEW LIGHTING TIPS! Maybe I’m overreacting, I didn’t have my TV at the brightest settings, but it was certainly brighter than standard so it’s an issue in my book. If there’s anything else wrong with this movie, I found a physics problem, some of the score is odd, pacing felt quirky, and I don’t have enough evidence based on script observations but I believe there’s a logical error on a phone screen randomly shutting off.

The Fifth Wave is in a genre I never really got myself into, but when it comes to criticism, genre doesn’t always matter. The movie itself matters, and the matter is that The Fifth Wave was a waste of an hour and fifty-two minutes of my life. I’m going to give The Fifth Wave a 2/10. I never read the book so I can’t judge that, but as far as the movie goes, this honestly doesn’t surprise me. This movie had horrible marketing to begin with, and the movie was released in January, one of cinema’s monthly death traps. I’m going to see Equity at some point soon, and I don’t have too much else planned. Stay tuned for more reviews and Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Suicide Squad is the latest film in the DC cinematic universe. It has main roles played by Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Karen Fukuhara, and Adewale Akkinuoye Agbaje. I could have said starred but I wouldn’t say some of these people “starred” in the movie, mainly because some of the big names I saw on the poster for this movie, were not in it as much as other characters or they didn’t have as much of an effect on the story.

The plot of the movie is essentially several baddies are trapped in prison, and all of a sudden Viola Davis gets an idea of turning said baddies into superheroes. As I watched the movie, I realized this came about based on what happened at the end of Batman v. Superman, which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it. When I saw that, it made me think a couple of things: I’d recommend watching Batman v. Superman before seeing this movie if the chance comes around, and that despite how I knew this was technically a part of the DC cinematic universe, I had no idea how much Batman v. Superman would play into this movie. Overall, pretty cool concept.

Let’s talk about these “bad guys.” I’m not gonna get to all of them but I’ll provide some detail about some. Starting off with the movie’s main character, Deadshot, played by Will Smith. I thought this guy had some pretty cool lines in the movie, and the relationship between him and his daughter was interesting to see throughout the film and it felt real. We’ll get back to that at the end.

Margot Robbie plays Harley Quinn in this movie, and she was by far my favorite character in the entire film. I loved how throughout the flick, it really displayed her insanity and her personality was dazzling. She had some of the best lines in the movie, and it almost seemed like I was watching a “lovable idiot” type of character. Also, do you remember Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin?” If you haven’t seen it, don’t. Although if you have, you may remember Poison Ivy, and she basically looked, acted, and sounded like a seductive porn star. Granted she tried to use dust to get people to fall in love with her as a power, but even if she wasn’t using it, my opinion wouldn’t change on that scenario. That was very out of place for a movie such as that and felt kind of awkward at times. In this movie, you kind of get the same vibe from Harley Quinn, mainly because of her backstory, but it works here because it’s a darker story and it seems to be more serious than Batman & Robin. I also heard some people say Harley Quinn is basically a sexual object in this movie. I can see where people are coming from, but as of right now, here’s how I stand on that. If the sexuality aspect adds something to one’s character, or if there’s a valid reason that I for one can stand by for it to exist in the movie, I can approve of people putting it in the movie. That applies to Harley Quinn. Before I move on, I find Margot Robbie playing a character that is sexualized in this movie rather interesting, because I once read her quotes on IMDb and from those quotes, it made this girl playing Harley Quinn become surprising. I say that because when I heard about the sexual objectification thing, it didn’t match with the real Margot Robbie’s personality. There was no full frontal nudity or anything in the movie, just some scenes where she wore sexy clothes and there was a pan up her body as she was in her underwear putting some clothes on. Also as I first saw her character, it’s basically like looking at a sex slave. Then again I’m talking about the girl who had sex with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street so whaddya know?

Now that the rant’s over, I’ll move onto Killer Croc, I liked him in this movie. After doing some research, Killer Croc in this movie looked a lot like the interpretation in the comic books, so I give props to everyone behind this movie for that, and think fans of the source material will be pleased.

Let’s move onto The Joker. First of all, this personally wasn’t a huge letdown to me, but I imagine it would be to some, he’s barely in the movie. Although for the scenes that he’s in, Jared Leto had a good interpretation of The Joker and it looked like he had lots of fun in his role, and that’s something I can appreciate from him as an actor. Then again, who DOESN’T want to play The Joker? I would kill for that!

Something I loved about this movie was the soundtrack. It had songs that basically encompassed of a mix of pop, rock, and metal. They all made me feel like I was watching the right movie for it. However one thing I wonder about it is if “Guardians of the Galaxy” wasn’t released before this movie came out, this movie wouldn’t have gone down this route. This is because both movies have similar concepts. One thing Suicide Squad’s soundtrack reminds me of is when I heard “Hooked on a Feeling” play during Guardians of the Galaxy. This especially came into play during this movie when I heard songs like “Spirit in the Sky,” “Paranoid,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

One thing that stood out to me in the movie are the cameos. This isn’t exactly a spoiler because it was revealed before the movie came out, but if you get mad, I’m sorry. Batman was in the movie, and seeing him was a blast. There was one scene at the beginning of the movie where Batman was on the top of the Jokermobile, the Joker was inside with Harley Quinn and she says that Batman was “ruining date night.” It’s a funny line along with a cool 30 second chase. The Flash also had a cameo in the movie, and that was basically a flashback, and that reminds me of one thing. This movie has tons of flashbacks.

I heard some people complain about the flashbacks, but to me, I thought they were fine and had some good visual storytelling. They moved the story along quite well and they made some of the characters more interesting. If this movie had an alternate title, it could be called Flashbacks: The Movie.

Suicide Squad is redeeming quality in a summer of disappointing blockbusters. Is it the best DC movie ever? No. That personally belongs to “The Dark Knight.” Is it an entertaining film? Of course. Would I see it again? I’d say so. I’m going to give Suicide Squad a 7/10. Also I would like to remind everyone reading this that there is one thing I haven’t talked about that I’m going to talk about below, that’s because it is kind of a spoiler for the movie.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

I mentioned before that Deadshot has a relationship with his daughter in the movie that played into quite a bit of the story. That’s fine and all, and I actually thought it made Deadshot a likable character. However I noticed a story problem. At one point it is revealed that his daughter sent him some letters when he was in prison. It turns out that these letters were in the hands of El Diablo, another character in the movie. Seeing all of these letters, Deadshot gets emotional and it is a motivator to get him to join the others in the climax of the movie, but there is no evidence on how exactly these messages got in El Diablo’s hands. I mentioned in the last paragraph I gave the movie a 7/10, and in all honesty, I still would have given the movie the same score even if the hole was nonexistent because while it did kind of irk me, it was forgivable because segments that came later in the movie made up for it in my opinion. I’m not sure what my next review will be, my weekend is mostly busy, but if I can go at some point, I’m going to see Equity. Also just a random update I actually never touched upon, I mentioned posts back that I’m planning to review the Star Wars saga before Rogue One comes out in December. I’m probably not actually going to do that, but I might do something else Star Wars related before the movie comes out. Stay tuned for more reviews. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!