January Movies - Part 2

Okay, so just to state again I have decided to blog on my 50/50 challenge to myself, to watch 50 movies and read 50 books in 2012. Here are the rest of the movies I watched in January along with my brief reviews of each one:

4. China Moon: This was a random movie that I watched with my boyfriend Bradley when we first moved into our new apartment early this month. So we are putting together our Ikea furniture and the only channel we can get on our TV is this channel playing really ridiculous movies and re-runs of old people tv shows (like Matlock). So yeah, this movie was pretty glorious. It starred a really young Ed Harris (with hair on his head, so that takes him back a few years), a young Benicio Del Toro, and Madeline Stowe. The movie has deception, love, betrayal, abusive husbands and crazy plot twists. I found myself actually really enjoying it while laughing and making fun of it at the same time. I mean, of course the by-the-book cop who notices every detail would fall in love with the domestically abused wife, sleep with her, and then assist in a cover up to make the perfect crime. And that is only one piece of this tale of love and betrayal.

5.  Larry Crowne: Honestly, I kinda expected more out of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. The movie was okay. There were some funny parts, some ridiculous parts (like really? Larry Crowne gets picked to be in the Scooter gang? Which of course is led by non-other than Wilmer Valderrama...seriously who believes Fez in this kind of role? Not this guy...) Larry Crowne was cute but overall the movie left me wanting more. Julia Roberts as the teacher that had given up on her students and her career of making a difference in their lives, she was just so bitter and mean that I couldn't really sympathize with her character. It was a cutesy romantic comedy, but all in all I was expecting a different kind of movie.

6. Contraband: The plot was centered around the main character (played by Mark Wahlberg) trying to get his wife's younger brother out of a sticky situation he got himself into, not delivering on some drug smuggling deal he was involved with Giovanni Ribisi (put in name of creepy looking drug dealer and you got him). Of course, Mark Wahlberg's character is a retired smuggler trying to stay in the straight life. Does this not almost seem the exact same plot as Gone in 60 Seconds? Except in the drug world and not car thefts? The movie was entertaining but I sat there just thinking, I am pretty sure I watched this before...

7. Ides of March: This movie was entertaining, but I thought the hype for it was past what the movie delivered. Ryan Gosling was oozing his usual charisma and Marissa Tomei I thought played the strong reporter out for the story very well. The corruption of people in the political world is always a riveting movie, especially when you see characters who really thought they knew the world they were in, only to get it completely wrong and twisted. And how that lifestyle can ultimately corrupt you...

Alright from now on I will be posting just one movie/book per post. I had to play catch up so I did my brief re-caps here.