The FIghter

Directed By: David O. Russell

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bell, and Amy Adams

Running Time: 115

This movie is about the famous boxer Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg, in his early years of professional boxing. Micky’s brother Dicky Eklund trains him and tries to take all the credit for himself. Dicky is always acting like he is so much better and that one day he will come back. Dicky is also always bragging about how HBO is making a comeback film for him when in reality HBO is making a video on crack addictions for young kids to see.

Micky has to deal with Dicky and his mother who don’t care about his fights as long as they cash a check. They make bad calls on fights such as putting him up against a middle weight when he a weight class bellow. Dicky often doesn’t make it to the gym to train with Micky because he is high and drunk.

Micky meets a girl who wants him to have a better shot at making it in boxing. He starts dating her and his family hates her. They have a lot of arguments. When Micky and Charlene, his girlfriend, and Micky’s family were at dinner Dicky was out impersonating a police officer he got beat by the police when Micky tries to save his low life brother. As a result the police beat Micky’s hand with a knight stick.

I thought this movie was interesting. I liked it a lot because I really liked Micky Ward, I was surprised to learn about what a crappy beginning his career had to suffer. I think this movie should have gone into the Fights with Arturo Gatti, but it ended there. It was a great movie any way and I do recommend it. The Figher is rated R for violence, language, drug content, and sexuality. It might not be the best movie for kids.

Gran Torino

Directed By: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley

Running Time: 116 minutes

Clint Eastwood stars as Walt Kowalski who was a veteran of the Korean War. Walt is a grumpy old man and he is quite racist to Asians he calls them things such as gukes and zipper heads. He notices that there are many Asians that have been moving into the houses that surround his.

A Hmong teenage boy, Bee Vang, is always being bothered by a local street gang. The leader of this Asian street gang is Bee’s cousin. The Gang convinced Bee to steel Walt’s prized possession which is a 1972 Gran Torino. Walt catches Bee and brings him to his parent’s house. Bee’s parents want to make Bee work off the trouble he caused Walt. Walt doesn’t want anything to do with the offer. Against Walt’s wishes Bee shows up at his house to work.

Walt begins to like the Asians in the end. He also takes care of the street gang that bothers all of the Asians on his street. This gang has been frightened by Walt so he plans to go have a “shoot out” with them. Bee wants to come with but Walt locks him in his house and goes alone. He gets their attention and then points his finger as if it were a gun and pretends to shoot them all. He then goes like he is reaching in his jacket and the Asian gang tears him up with fully automatic weapons. The gang now goes to jail, and the old man has saved everyone. Walt leaves his Gran Torino to Bee in his will.

I liked this movie a lot. I would recommend it to anyone who is not easily offended. It is probably not the best choice of movie for young children. I didn’t like the ending of this movie at all. I thought he should have killed all of the Gang.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Directed By: Chris Columbus

Starring: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, and Alexandra Daddario

Running Time: 118 minutes

This movie is about a dyslexic teenage boy who finds out that he is the son of a Greek god named Poseidon. Percy Jackson is played by Logan Lerman. Percy goes through the movie with Brandon Jackson who plays as Grover Underwood and Alexandra Daddario who plays as Annabeth Chase. Grover is Percy’s protector, and Annabeth is the daughter of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war craft.

The three teens are on a quest to the underworld to save Percy’s mother from Hades and explain that Percy is not the lightening thief. In order to escape the underworld they need to follow a map provided to them by Luke to find 3 perils that will allow them to escape the underworld.

On the quest to find the perils they are met with several obstacles. The first one is a garden where Medusa tricks people and turns them to stone. The teens manage to behead Medusa and steal the peril from her bracelet. They take her head with them in case they need to turn someone into stone.

The next obstacle is a hydras which is a 5 headed dragon that grows 2 heads for each 1 that gets cut off. The beast ends up as a ten headed creature. They did manage to stop it by using Medusa’s head and turning it into stone.

The third peril was located in the Lotus hotel and casino in Las Vegas. This was an odd place because they had a signature dish called the lotus flower. This flower made people forget why they are there and some people were confused enough to be there for years because of the lotus flowers. This last peril delayed the kids 5 days but they eventually got out. The last step on the map was Hades.

I liked this movie a lot. I went to it in theaters and watched it on DVD just recently. It is a very good movie and I would recommend it to anyone.