Month: June 2015

There Will Be Blood Review

Posted on by John Hayeck

Preface

  • If you guys haven’t noticed, over the past few months I’ve tried to refrain from doing a ton of non-recent movie reviews for one of two reasons:
    • The first is that sometimes I’ll see an old movie, or at least somewhat older movie and feel a little embarrassed for having not seen it before because it’s hailed as this masterful classic and I’m not allowed to discuss movies if I haven’t seen it.
    • The second is that it’s considered SO great and so masterful that should I have anything to say about it besides, “it’s one of the greatest movies ever made,” then I could get completely berated by the entire comment section.
  • Those both apply in this case, so it should be a fun review!

Premise

  • There Will Be Blood is this very artistic, very allegorical tale about an American oil tycoon named Daniel Plainview portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis.
  • This guy is all about business, he’s all about expanding his business, and he’s all about general expansion outward.
  • And the bulk of the movie is him facing these different conflicts that arise over the course of 30 years in this oil industry, including adoption of a son, conflicts with a local religious group, and what makes this guy tick.
  • And like I said: this movie is a COMPLETE allegory, it is a very film school-ish movie that allows a lot of interpretation and it’s a very complex movie that I may have different opinions on after this review, but let’s go with it anyway!

 

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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 1 Review

Posted on by John Hayeck

Preface

  • Ironically the entire first season of this show was available on the same day in March.
  • Completely contrary to that, here’s my review of it three months late!
  • But nevertheless, Kimmy Schmidt is a super quirky, likable, and FUNNY show that dropped its first season on Netflix a few months ago.
    • Yeah I’ll have that Daredevil Review to you guys three months late too…

Premise

  • So Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is, as I said, a Netflix show originally ordered by NBC (more on that later) which seems kind of strange that a network would order a show of this premise.
  • The show is about a young woman, Kimmy Schmidt, who has been in underground captivity with fellow members of a cult for the past 15 years or so.
  • Then she’s rescued and decides to head to New York, because since she doesn’t really fit into modern society she might as well go to the place where no one really fits in.
  • Then from there we go into her different escapades in the city including romances, school, jobs, and more.
  • And it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a long while.

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One Year of My Movie Thoughts and New Rating System!!

Posted on by John Hayeck

Preface

  • Well, the title kinda sums up it!

One Year of My Movie Thoughts

  • Hello, hello everybody!
  • That’s right, today is the one year anniversary of the founding of My Movie Thoughts.
  • This year has flown by and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all, the fans, for coming to this site and supporting it and just engaging with anything I have to say.
  • This site isn’t my job, I don’t get paid for it, it’s just me talking about what I love and I’m unbelievably appreciative to all of you guys who read through all my posts, comment, tell your friends, and just have a good time along with me.
  • Here’s to another year with even more content and all the better of it to come!

New Rating System

  • The other announcement other than the thanking part is a new rating system I’ve developed.
  • Originally, over the first couple of reviews I didn’t even do ratings on this site. I’d just give my review and get out with a little bit of conclusion.
  • Then I decided to do a scale of 1 to 5, which worked pretty well but not perfectly.
  • The 1-5 scale was something (from the beginning) I found to be very vague and if I gave something a 3.3/5 that would seem like just some random number. You all might not know how I arrived there.
    • There were exceptions of course, like a 5/5 is something I considered to be a great film and 4/5 is almost there but still some issues here and there.
  • And very recently there have been movies that I’ve given super high scores but might not deserve THE highest ranking I have.
    • Or the other way, where it was a phenomenal movie that I gave a super high score despite its issues but did deserve a high ranking.
  • So if that didn’t make sense, the summary is: I developed a new style of movie rankings because having no system would drive ME crazy (not to mention you guys) but also to be a bit more clear on how much I liked the movie and how much I think you guys would like this movie/if you should even see it.
  • And yeah I will bold each one at the end of the review just to make it clear what I’m rating the movie officially.
  • SOOOO, the new highest rating instead of ‘5/5’ is “Five Stars.”
    • I originally was going to do YouTube video reviews which I might transition into in a couple years when I have better equipment, but anyway Five Stars was going to be my original highest ranking. It’s something smooth to say, it’s something professional, and it’s also just a great summary of how awesome something is. It’s not five actual stars (like the symbol) though, because it isn’t THAT profession.
    • Five Stars will basically take over for 5/5.
  • Then, the next highest rating will be, “It’s Awesome and Worth Seeing Multiple Times.”
    • Not just worth seeing multiple times, but it’s also awesome.
    • Replay value isn’t everything in a movie, but I always say that a movie is good if I want to go back and see it again.
    • So in this case, the movie is so awesome it’s worth seeing multiple times.
    • This will take the place of 4/5 and essentially anything between 4 – 4.9/5.
  • Then we have, “It’s a Good Time and Totally Worth Checking Out.”
    • One of the main reasons I’m doing this rating change is because sometimes I’d give a movie a 3/5 and my friends would think it’s a bad movie.
    • But 3/5 is good, it’s fresh, and in place of 3/5 and 3.5/5 is this rating.
    • It is a solid time, it’s a good movie, it’s worth checking out. Maybe not more than once, but if you see it, you wouldn’t regret it.
    • The last of the positive ratings!!
  • Then movie from the fresh side to the rotten side, we have the antithesis of the last rating which is, “ehh it’s okay, but you can probably skip this one.”
    • Because I think of myself as just a fan of movies, here it is just spelled out to you: it’s okay but probably not worth checking out.
    • Maybe on cable, but not worth your time and money in the theater.
    • Essentially taking the place of 2.5/5 and just the bad movies that aren’t horrible.
  • Then we have the penultimate one, “yeah it’s pretty lousy and DEFINITELY not worth your time.”
    • Essentially all the 2/5s and anything that (as you can tell) isn’t worth checking out.
    • This one goes out to all the Jupiter Ascendings in the audience…
  • Then we arrive at the final one, the Transformers 4 of all movie ratings… It is… UNWATCHABLE.
    • All caps!
    • Yeah these are the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst, the ones that I couldn’t stand and neither should you.
    • And yes, you can read that in the Kimmy Schmidt theme song voice if you want.

In Conclusion

  • Well I hate to end on that bad note, but thank you guys again so much for getting My Movie Thoughts to one year, and I can’t wait to do even more with it!
  • Let me know if you like this new style of ratings and whether or not there are certain ones that are confusing.
    • I’m still toying with a couple of em myself…
  • And as always, thanks for reading guys.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Movie Review

Posted on by John Hayeck

Preface

  • This movie is going to be compared A LOT to The Fault in Our Stars.
  • I actually don’t see it that way.
  • I see it more as The Spectacular Now meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and seeing as those are two of my all-time favorite films this movie was pretty good I’d say!

Premise

  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a film that premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival and is one that I actually got to catch a week or two early (depending on when it’s released in your area).
  • The film is about high school senior Greg who’s trying to navigate around high school and understand each of the social groups, but in the meantime his kinda acquaintance Rachel is diagnosed with leukemia. He also makes film parodies with his friend Earl (hey, they’re all in the title!) about the classics.
  • But there’s really so much happening in this movie that’s ultimately so much grander than I described that it’s hard to summarize in just a couple of bullet points.

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