The Simplistic Reviews Podcast: February 2014 Edition

In a desperate attempt to gain some respectability, The Simplistic Reviews Podcast has on special guest from Insession Film, JD Duran.  But in only twenty minutes, the boys corrupt this once reputable man to the point where he is setting fire to the Academy Awards, partially stalking Jennifer Lawrence, and verbally berating Will Smith.  All in a days work for Matt, Justin, and DJ.  Enjoy this corrupting episode of The Simplistic Reviews Podcast....oh...and the boys conjure the ghosts of Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock...yeah...that happened.

 Show Notes:
Unicron
Winter's Tale
Mission Impossible III
Almost Famous
True Detective Tracking Shot
Key & Peele Liam Neeson Commercial

Music Notes:
Birds & Brass By Sort Of Soul
The Great Escape Theme By Elmer Bernstein
Lawyers, Guns, And Money By Warren Zevon
The Best By Tina Turner

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.

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Happy Holidays: Love Actually

WARM

Full disclosure.  I'm not the biggest fan of the holiday season.  I pretty much peter out after Thanksgiving and pray for New Years to start.  Pretty sure me and the Grinch are cousins.  Full disclosure.  I'm not the biggest fan of romantic films.  They are generally very color by numbers predictable or tragic for tragedy's sake.  So, imagine my surprise when a film came along that combined both of my dislikes and still managed to knock my socks off.  Love Actually is that film.  For years I've held it up as my favorite, most watchable chic flick and my second favorite Christmas movie.  I'll get to the first later.  No matter how many times I watch it, I'm left with a WARM feeling that actually gets me in the holiday spirit...if only for a little while.

Love Actually comes to us from writer and, then, first time director Richard Curtis of Bridget Jones's Diary and Four Weddings and a Funeral fame.  The film is a collection of interwoven stories that explores the different aspects of love during the Christmas Season.  The stories range from slapstick comedy to heartfelt drama.  Some are hit and some are miss.  As a whole, however, they all compliment each other perfectly.

Love Actually set the ensamble films bar too high for puke inducing copycats like He's Just Not That Into You, Valentine's Day and New Years Eve to come close to reaching.  Ggack!  Just reading the titles of those films almost made me throw up a little.  You might think Love Actually out does those films because the quality of actors in it are amazing.  Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightly, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson and many more.  However, I think its because Curtis just knows how to use his talent in the proper way.  Each actor is the right fit for their roles.  They aren't haphazardly thrown in to parts that we're forced to accept because they're Zach Efron or Taylor Swift.  If each side story were a full length film, the actor in place would still be properly cast.  The film, as a result, thrives because of these performances.  Especially those by Neeson, Rickman and Thompson.

Neeson's story about a suddenly widowed husband and his stepson is the most dramatic driving force in the film.  It is an almost frightening coincidence that this scenario would actually happen to Neeson later in life.  The story is extremely well done and has a rare great child actor performance in Thomas Sangster.  Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson's tale about a waning marriage and infidelity always evokes a different feeling in me every time I watch it.  You should really hate Rickman for straying from his wife.   However, Curtis presents the circumstances in such understandable way that you'll find yourself sympathizing.  Though, the tale that is sure to put a smile on your face has to be the one about Bill Nighy's aging rock star Billy Mack.  Of all the stories that I wished had a full length film or sequel, it would be Mack's.  Nighy's obvious nods to Mick Jagger and his brazen attitude toward those around him are easily the comedy high points of the film.

Love Actually is a great film to see if you want to feel good about Christmas but avoid the overly cliched shlock we're usually bombarded with.  I've made a habit of watching it every year.  I, then, immediately plop on Die Hard right after in order to keep my man card.  What?  Its my favorite Christmas film.  Don't judge me.  Watch it...watch your heart grow three sizes that day...plop on Die Hard after just to be safe...then tell me I'm wrong.

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Schindler's List

Schindler's List - Remember

With the Jewish High Holy Days under way, I felt it only appropriate to include a movie that I not only find amazing, but in a way, a birth rite of sorts for the Jewish religion.  Move over "Hebrew Hammer," step aside "Fiddler on the Roof," that film would be "Schindler's List."

Let me start with this; I'm in no way a religious person, you might even call be a very poor example of what a Jew should be. I eat cheeseburgers, I enjoy baby back ribs, and I do not actively attend temple on either Friday, Saturday, or any day for that matter. However, I respect a religion that doesn't push it's ideology all the way down your throat, maybe just the tip (as long as it's circumcised).

Just in case you haven't seen, or heard of "Schindler's List" I'll give you the rundown; Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson, or the bad-ass in "Taken 1 and 2") is a factory owner, and Nazi Party member, who hobnobs with the Reich in the evening to keep up good relations in the lead up to Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution."  As the German war effort ramps up, and the Krakow ghetto is liquidated, Schindler begins to see his Jewish workers as more then just workers, but victims in a senseless crime committed by the party he is affiliated with, and he tries to save as many of his "workers" as he can with his "list."

Along with Neeson, the cast is aces, with Ralph Fiennes starring as SS guard Amon Goeth and Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, but it would be nothing without the direction of Steven Spielberg.  Spielberg captures Poland in the late 1930's and 40's perfectly, and shooting the film in black and white adds to the stark backdrop of the era.  The film only features two scenes with color as Schindler sees a young girl in a red coat being lead away from the ghetto, and later that same girl, in her red coat, seen by Schindler again as just another dead body.  The color usage is supposed to be the point where Schindler starts to see the Jewish people as not only his workers, and/or property, but as human beings, and we begin to see his transformation from factory owner to savior.

Some people might see "Schindler's List" as exploitative, or narrow-minded in its view of World War II, but it's a film that shows people the horrors of the Holocaust (sure, it's a movie made in America, by the man behind "Indiana Jones" and "Jaws") and you have to merit a film that just about anyone can relate to.  There are themes of redemption, perseverance, faith, sacrifice, and love, and seeing where Oskar Schindler started, a well-to-do Nazi Party member, to where he ends up, on his knees wondering why he couldn't save more people, is as beautiful as it is tragic.

Fun Fact:  "Schindler's List" was based on "Schindler's Ark" the 1982 novel by Thomas Keneally.

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