Review: The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie

Sometimes you hear about a movie and you think “how are they going to do that?” because the concept is so weirdly specific or, as is the case with Lego, so enormously broad. I’m of the opinion that you can make a good movie out of anything though because, as it turns out, you totally can.

The Lego Movie is one of the best movies you are going to see this year. Bold words for the first week of February I grant you but it’s true. Run, don’t walk, to your nearest theatre with your best friends and watch as all the freedom of imagination you had as a kid is projected on screen. It’s seriously amazing.

I’m going to talk a little bit about why I loved this movie now but that’s going to entail some slight spoilers so my recommendation is that you stop reading and go watch. Ok? Ok.

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Awesome: Chris Pratt Cast as Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy

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Holy crap Chris Pratt has been cast as Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy. From [Deadline](http://m.deadline.com/2013/02/chris-pratt-getting-guardians-of-the-galaxy-lead/):

> After a long search, Marvel Studios has found its lead for its next big superhero franchise, the James Gunn-directed Guardians Of The Galaxy. I hear the role will go to Chris Pratt, the Moneyball star who bulked up and played one of the hero Navy SEALs in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. The role is Star-Lord, the Guardians leader who is the offspring of a human mother and an alien father. A puffier Pratt plays Andy Dwyer on the NBC series Parks And Recreation. He certainly has the charisma to hold the screen.

This is most definitely good news. Chris Pratt is one of the best parts of Parks and Rec, and he has been a great supporting player in Moneyball, Zero Dark Thirty and everything else I’ve seen him in. He’s got the bulk and badassery cred from ZDT as well as the comic timing so I think this is going to work out well. In fact he might be a perfect fit for James Gunn’s style.

Plus the big rumour is that Iron Man will head into space at some point during Iron Man 3 and potentially meet the guardians, so maybe we’ll get to see him this summer instead of waiting for next.

Sweet.

[via: [badass digest](http://badassdigest.com/2013/02/05/chris-pratt-is-the-lead-in-guardians-of-the-galaxy)]

Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty

A few years ago, Kathryn Bigelow was developing a movie about the search for Osama bin Laden. To that point, he had eluded all efforts to find him. The film was meant to end at the Battle of Tora Bora where they had thought he was hiding, but ultimately, they failed to find him.

The film was meant to end on an ambiguous note, sort of a “what do we do now?”, but then on May 6th 2011 the world found out that US Special Forces had found and killed him. The film was reworked, but rather than becoming a propaganda film, it became about the work the intelligence community did to find him.

The result is pretty spectacular.

Zero Dark Thirty is a spy film but not what you’d normally expect from a spy film because the main character, Maya, isn’t jumping from rooftop to rooftop or saving the world from a madman or ferreting out a mole; she’s diligently and tirelessly searching for a single man, using all the resources available to her.

As if we needed reminding of the situation, the film starts with a black screen with radio communications playing from 11th September 2001, something I found particularly effective. I’m not American, but I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when it all went down, as I expect most people do.

The film then plays out the entire ten-year search in its gritty, gruelling and bureaucratic detail, spearheaded by Maya.

To say it’s an effective movie would be the understatement of the year. What they had to do –including torture, groundwork, and long sleepless nights– shows the toll on us all through Maya and Jessica Chastain weathers it like a champ. She’s already won a Golden Globe for the role, and she deserves her Oscar nod more than anyone else I’ve seen so far for the upcoming ceremony. But, make no mistake; the Oscar is hers to lose.

Everything in this film is utterly compelling. When we finally get to the final act of the raid on bin Laden’s compound by Navy Seals, the idea that realistic military tactics and execution thereof aren’t filmable in a meaningful way is shown to be false. In fact, any time anyone says this to you from now on, tell them to watch Zero Dark Thirty.

This film deserves to win all the awards it’s nominated for. It probably won’t win them all, but it should, and in addition to everything above, because it tells us what happened but doesn’t tell us how we should feel about it. The torture and humiliation are on screen, but there’s no heavy-handed speech about how it’s terrible but necessary or how it is destroying the country’s soul or any of that. Just, here it is, feel how you feel.

That, in and of itself, with such a talked about yet delicate subject matter, is a major achievement.