Mr. Brown Versus

Sorry about the lack of movie reviews over two weeks, but as promised, i'm talking nothing but good movies all this week. Up next is writer/director P.T. Anderson's The Master , and then the black comedy Seven Psychopaths . Today, we start off with Ben Affleck's Argo . On November 4, 1979, 52 members of the American Embassy were taken hostage by Iranian militants and students of the Iranian Revolution, where the dictatorial Shah of Iran, Mohammad. Reza Pahavi was forced out by the new ruler Ruholla Khomeini and was given refuge on American shores. The demands were to hand over the despot ruler so that he may face Iranian justice for the numerous crimes he committed against the Iranian people The hostage situation; the anger and frustration both sides felt and experienced - Iranians feeling that the United States was covering for a heinous criminal; the United States angry at then-President Jimmy Carter's ineffectiveness to bring home U.S. citizens ...

Eventually, I am going to get to reviewing a movie that I actually liked, because I don't just want to be be bitching about terrible movies from the past and from the present In fact, there are two really great movies i'll be reviewing within the next week ( The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Master ) that I think rank among the year's best; add to that the release of Ben Affleck's international thriller Argo , and you'll be seeing a weekend's worth of praise of movies from me, including my picks for the best movies i've seen thusfar. Now, before I tear into the latest review on the sci-fi action picture, Battleship , I need to give this movie some background; not as much on the board game that inspired this bloated and boring piece of crap, mind you, but rather, the director who's trademarks are all over this mess of a film: Michael Bay. See, back in 1998, Bay released a little movie that joined together an unholy union of the Dirty Dozen, the...

A great movie has many, if not all, of the following elements: A great screenplay that engages the audience and makes us feel something about the characters on the page; actors who can bring their characters to life from said page; a fine attention to production design that makes us believe in the world that the characters inhabit (and many a time, the surroundings become a character in of itself), crisp, clear editing, gorgeous cinematography, a score that can stir a triumphant victory for our protagonist, or a string section piece that's meant to pull at our heartstrings in a mournful way; and most importantly: a director who's vision is unclouded, challenging, breathtaking, and uncompromising, or even all of the things mentioned. Songs are an interesting lot for me. While I do enjoy listening to my favorite band or artist's track on the big screen, for me, it really doesn't add much to the movie except to fill the void when the actors are engaged in an action,...

Aria Prescott, one of my friends via Facebook and one of many people who've influenced me to star up this movie blog site, told me that what sets me apart when I write reviews was the fact that i'm usually fair in my reviews, even to movies that were just terrible. I have to agree with her: Even in what I think are bad films, I can find something decent to give the movie credit for. Maybe it was a scene that really stood out, or a performance by an actor, or maybe it was a message or a concept the filmmaker and/or screenwriter was trying to get across that I thought was interesting, but simply failed to expand upon its premise. But every once in a while, there are movies that are so aggressively bad, so unlikable and so god damn disrespectful to it's audience that there just isn't a single scene, performance or trait of which a movie can hang it's hat on, and there's no genre in film that is more prone to this than the gross-out/sex comedy. These kinds of movies...

For the longest time, freinds of mine have told me that I should do movie reviews, since I pratically go to the movies every week and write reviews via, Banned and Dangerous, on Facebook, mini reviews/rants on Twitter, and on my personal blog.  Hell, back in high school when I was a staff writer and later the Opinion Editor for the school newspaper in high school, I was either writing reviews on movies i'd jusdt seen or writing political stuff on the sorry state of the Bush Jr. presidency. Well, since I already write political stuff for BAD and personal stuff on The Way I See It, why not add one more thing to my list of thing s to write about as a blogger on the Interwebs? My name is Mr. Brown (aka Jonathan Holmes), and if you'll indulge me.....I would love to talk movies with you. This will be my new home for all things movies: from diving into nostalgic fare to the latest reviews. From the Summer Movie Season to the Oscar race. From the best of the best to the worst of the ...