New Feature! Trevin's What I've Been Watching Segment!

Hey guys! I'm starting this new feature that will appear sometime between Sunday and Tuesday each week, and that's the "what I've been watching" segment. In this feature, I will break down the movies I watched the previous week, give a short paragraph review of them, and give them a rating between 1 and 10. This allows me to talk about movies that came out many years ago that I normally wouldn't have a reason to mention, but are worth discussing. A few words about how I rate; while many critics are conservative with their 10 out of 10 ratings, I am not. Since I assume we are all human and nothing's perfect, I don't feel as if a 10 out of 10 rating represents perfection necessarily, I just feel as if it represents the highest level of success. So, if you see many movies with that rating, that is why. So, without further ado, here's what I've been watching this week, starting with my pick of the week.

Man on the Moon (1999) - I thought this film was fantastic. If you are unfamiliar with this one, it stars Jim Carrey as the late comedian Andy Kaufman in the story of his career. This film was exceptional in the way it portrayed the career and the personality of Kaufman, especially with the tone and feel of the film. Director Milos Forman has been very selective in his projects as of late (he has only made 8 films since his 1975 hit, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and I'm glad he chose to do this project. This film also shows Jim Carrey does have talent when he's not doing his slapstick roles. I felt as if this was by far his best performance, because he nearly perfectly portrayed Kaufman unlike anybody else would have been able to. I did feel like this film had a few flaws, mainly the casting of Courtney Love to portray Kaufman's wife. While I didn't think her performance was terrible, neccessarily, I felt as if she didn't do a good enough job to justify casting someone with her personality. Nevertheless, I felt as if this movie served as an important message to other artists; don't necessarily be who you feel like the general public thinks you should be, if you want to be an artist, you shouldn't be afraid to create art you feel is important just because the general public may not like it. In conclusion, I cannot reccomend this movie highly enough.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Kick-Ass (2010) - Overall, I felt as if this film didn't succeed beyond the point of entertainment. I read the graphic novel, and while I wasn't too impressed by it, I found it more successful than the movie. The biggest twist in the novel, and one of the strongest points, was revealed in the first five minutes of the movie, which I felt was a poor decision. Nevertheless, this film was entertaining, and there were many scenes that were just plain cool.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The Other Guys (2010) - This new film starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg was surprisingly entertaining. I originally thought this movie was going to be terrible when I saw the trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't. I thought this was Ferrell's best comedy since Anchorman, even though I don't feel like that's saying much. In short, go see this one, you will probably enjoy it.

Rating: 7 out of 10

The Book of Eli (2010) - For a film based on religious themes, this one was of very high quality, but that's more of a statement on the lack of quality in religious cinema and less of a comment on the success of the film. I found this one to have many holes throughout. While I liked the art direction at times, it seemed a bit forced and unoriginal at times. As far as casting goes, this was a normal performance for Denzel Washington, not anything terrible, but nothing very exciting or mind-blowing. While I thought Mila Kunis did her best, I felt like she was a victim of bad casting, which isn't neccessarily her fault. The best part of the film is the performance of Gary Oldman, who portrayed the villian perfectly and gave me a reason to keep watching. Also, I watched this movie with the knowledge of the final reveal at the end (someone spoiled it for me), and I found it to be implausible and inconsistent throughout the film.

Rating: 3 out of 10

So what did you think of these movies? Which ones do you want to see now?