Valentine’s Marathon: Dear John (2010)

If I had to choose my top novels of Nicholas Sparks that I enjoyed, I’d have to say that Dear John is one of them.  The story is really good and there’s so much awesomeness in just love, war, family, long distance relationship and all that stuff.  It was nothing like a tearjerker like A Walk to Remember but it was one that I really enjoyed.  That novel came to my attention because it was adapted into a movie and I read it and then waited to watch the movie.  This is my second viewing of it.

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Richard Jenkins, Henry Thomas

John (Channing Tatum) is  home on leave from the military and after one of his surfs and walking on the pier, he notices a girl that accidentally drops her purse into the water. Without hesitation, he jumps in to retrieve it for her.  This girl, Savannah (Amanda Seyfriend), is there for the summer with her parents.  Savannah turns out to be a conservative good girl who seems to have no flaws and they start dating.  When his leave ends, it is also time for Savannah to go back to school but they decide to keep their relationship for the following year as John will be home for good then.  They decide to keep in contact through mail to sustain their relationship. When a year comes up and John decides to re-sign for longer due to the 9/11 attacks back home, can their love endure it?

Back when this movie first came out, the only reason I wanted to see it was because I like Amanda Seyfried.  I still do, not so much of a girl crush anymore than before but why not Channing Tatum? Well, he was always pegged for roles like this.  Not a lot of emotions and reserved in his feelings and always some form of military or whatnot.  I think watching this changed my mind a little because at least it was better than GI Joe and I didn’t fall asleep.  Plus, I already told you that I loved the story.  That was my thing back then, liking the intensity of long distance relationship.  As I write this, I really am thinking of rereading this one.  I forgot how awesome it was and the ending is just so…bittersweet in a way.  The choices, the timing, the waiting and the giving up…but then there’s so much more because the girl in Nicholas Sparks novels always helps enlighten the guy in some way and with this one is one bringing back the life to John’s relationship with his dad.

That scene up there is my favorite part of the novel that they somewhat toned down a little for the movie.  Still, I love it quite a bit.  Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried has some pretty good chemistry and there are some pretty sweet moments. Of course it uses the same formula as always but the story is one I like and honestly, I felt like Channing Tatum fell perfectly into this role and he gave this movie life.  It may not be his character John’s relationship with Savannah that made this movie memorable but rather, I was truly moved by his relationship with his father, portrayed by Richard Jenkins.  The father and son story here shines through so much. After so many of these, I’m starting to think that maybe Nicholas Sparks should change his romance career and just go for family drama.  Could work, no? 😉 Back on track, Richard Jenkins is amazing.  I haven’t seen him do a lot of main leads but he is a kickass supporting role all the time and he just always acts out everything so well.

Dear John has its flaws and it follows the same little bits of Nicholas Sparks novels but its all in whether you buy the premise.  For me, my love for the novel actually made me like this a bit more than the majority of people.  Plus, this was the role that made me feel like Channing Tatum was doing great for the first time,but that was until I saw Magic Mike which broke him out of his same roles and he started having a variety of them.   Its a bittersweet ending and I love reading about being put in situations to make choices because thats what life is about, right? You make choices and you have to take on the challenges and consequences that come with them. I’ll end it here before I get all philosophical. If you don’t see the movie, read the book. I’ll work on rereading that this year 🙂 Still, I don’t really think it was all that bad, just depends if you like this sort of premise.

These reviews are turning more into write-ups about a ramble of thoughts combined together…don’t you think?

Have you seen Dear John? What are your thoughts on Channing Tatum and/or Amanda Seyfried?

By the way, I’m really trying to finish up Nicholas Sparks by Valentine’s Day so I’ve been on overtime watching these, hopefully with maybe one day of double reviews, I’ll manage to sneak them all in 🙂

Halloween Marathon: Let Me In (2010)

I forgot to do that Halloween Marathon title for the previous movie…but I guess, I could go back and fix it.

Moving on, next up, I’ve been thinking of giving Let Me In a viewing for a really long time.  For those who don’t know, I’m a huge fan of Chloe Grace Moretz. Why? Because she does that good girl thing well and then she can do badass really well also and when she does badass, she can pull this batshit crazy thing in an awesome way.  So yeah, she’s creepy and seeing as Carrie is coming out right around the corner, why not visit this?

Director: Matt Reeves

Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas, Dylan Minnette, Cara Buono

12 year old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) lives with his mom(Cara Buono) in an apartment complex.  At school, he is always bullied at school.  One night, a mysterious girl, Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz) moves in next door with his father (Richard Jenkins).  She starts hanging out with him in the playground and as he starts to like her more as she teaches him how to fight back to his bullies, he starts realizing that she is awkward at times.  Until her father dies in an accident,  people are murdered around and the police (Elias Koteas) get involved, he starts thinking that maybe there’s something more to Abby.

I was so tempted to write “The Right Way to start a Halloween marathon” in the title.  I have no idea why Let Me In is rated R but they did have some creepy segments. Still, I loved it! It was totally awesome! It accentuates the garbage level of Area 407 (which I have come to terms with). Let Me In is a mystery horror drama flick.  Its not as much mystery as it is a very good balance of horror and drama mixed  together. For the record, I’ve never seen the original Let the Right One In but I have been wanting to, so I can’t compare at all.

One of the main reasons that I love this flick was that on one hand it had this very innocent vibe between Abby and Owen.  There’s a bit of mystery but the relationship is quite pure as they are kids even if Abby is more than that.  Plus, the second reason is of course Chloe Grace Moretz as Abby.  She does a really outstanding job at grasping her role.  She may have been obscure about what she was but she was always honest.  The character itself was a mix of a lot of stuff and it felt like at the same time, there was a lot of things she couldn’t control and it made her helpless in a way. Aside from her, there was a pretty decent supporting cast that helped deliver convincing roles that shaped the movie to what it became.

I don’t think I need to be all secretive but you all know that its a vampire movie, right?  I love vampire movies..so that makes it the third reason.I watch a lot of vampire related movies and TV.  Far from everything, but I’ve seen a fair share and consider me impressed.  That was the scary parts of this one.  The visuals of how Abby looked in vampire looked and moved was super scary in an awesome way. That was probably what earned the R-rating because it was out of the world creepy.  I had a moment of checking behind me just to make sure nothing was there. Plus, it had this creepy silent music to match with it.

Point is, I loved Let Me In. It had a very awesome Chloe Grace Moretz who I see as a potentially great actress.  She was matched with a great supporting cast, especially her vibe with Kodi Smit-McPhee.  The young romance matched with a creepy vampire story really has a great vibe going.  Plus, the vampire is designed is a scary way that makes this fit right into the horror genre well. I’m building up the horror without even knowing it 🙂 I recommend this movie for sure!

Did you see Let the Right One In before? Is this a good remake? What do you think of Chloe Grace Moretz?

Jack Reacher (2012)

For me, Tom Cruise went back on my radar after I saw M:I: Ghost Protocol.  I don’t think I reviewed that here yet but that movie was my turning point into believing that Tom Cruise still had it in him.  My tablet has this movie streaming app and they’ve been dishing out free rental vouchers so thats why you’ll see me posting ridiculous amount of movie reviews, because I can get it for free 🙂 I still have 2 more to go as I write this! The first one I chose was a newer selection, Jack Reacher!

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Jai Courtney, Joseph Sikora, Robert Duvall

On a normal morning, five strangers are shot dead with six shots by a sniper in the opposite parking lot.  The police come in and with all the forensics and evidence, they pinpoint James Barr (Joseph Sikora) to be the obvious suspect.  Only Barr says he’s innocent and asks to Get Jack Reacher.  Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an ex-military investigator who has become a long-time drifter that has fell off the map.  Before they knew it, Jack Reacher comes to the police department to find them and he sees all the mistakes that the crime scene consists of.  He digs with the help of the District Attorney’s (Richard Jenkins) daughter, Helen (Rosamund Pike) who is a young defense attorney appointed to help Barr.  As more leads are found, the situation becomes more dangerous and he knows that there is more people involved and someone deadly at the end pulling the strings.

Jack Reacher is a pretty decent crime thriller.  For the most part, I was really intrigued by the story.  It was a bit predictable even without having read the source material.  In fact, I’ve never read any of Lee Child’s novels before but I saw a part of the “twist” long before it happened.  Even with that, the whole analysis and setup of the elaborate crime under investigation was quite detailed and intriguing and kept me wondering or even doubting my initial suspicions throughout the movie.

Tom Cruise does a pretty awesome job as Jack Reacher.  He’s a drifter who really has nothing to lose.  He’s agile when he fist fights and he will do whatever it takes to get himself the information he needs. This gives him the advantage over those in the system.  We see that he is very skilled at what he does and that even though his purpose of going there was as agreed with Barr to get rid of him, he still was able to be objective. The character design of Jack Reacher is definitely an impressive one.

The main female lead is played by Rosamund Pike as an attorney defending Barr. I loved Rosamund Pike in Pride and Prejudice. She’s so elegant and strong all in one person and she always plays roles that has that style. At least this role was similar also in its own way.  In Jack Reacher, she’s asks for a lot of reasoning especially regarding what Jack Reacher does and whenever he asks her to find certain information.  Their chemistry was good in the way that they worked together but at the same time there were trust issues and some challenging each other as they were trying to figure out the investigation.

The only problem with this movie was the ending and the villain: the guy that whipped up this whole thing.  It felt like its like it got tired and went “Okay, its too long. Let’s stop it right here and leave the rest for the audience to fill in the blanks”.  Till that very end, the reasoning behind why the villain did all this left me all full of question marks floating around my head.  Maybe I missed something during the movie since I did watch it bit by bit throughout 24 hours. I just wasn’t satisfied with the ending in general.  To me, it just felt a bit incomplete.

Other than a poorly constructed villain and ending, this is a pretty decent thriller.  The whole setup of the plot leading up to the ending and its outstanding cast led by Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike was great.  Regardless, it is worth a watch, at the very least, you shouldn’t feel like it wasted your time.

Maybe its time to check out Lee Child’s novel and maybe it’ll give me some closure 😉

 What do you think about Tom Cruise? Do you have a favorite role that he’s done? Did you see Jack Reacher? What did you think about it? Did you read the book this was based on?