Morning Reel

"Good Will Hunting" is a 1998 Oscar Award-winning drama film written by Ben Affleck & Matt Damon and directed by visionary Gus Van Sant. It stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Minnie Driver, and many more in this film about a guy who is a genius in academics but has little direction in life due to the trauma he went through when he was a foster kid growing up. He meets someone who m...

"Scream 7" is a film where it takes Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z to kill the overpowered killers that are out to get them. A fun film to watch overall. You get to see OG cast members of the original franchise reprise themselves in creative ways. Seeing Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox play their iconic roles are still spot on. The screenplay is wack and some of the dialog is just so silly to take s...

"When Harry Met Sally..." is one of the best rom-coms ever made written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner. This type of film did set the standard for other filmmakers to take note and make their versions of two people falling for each other such as the works of Éric Rohmer and Richard Linklater just to name a few. It's a very quotable film from beginning to end that highlights the crazy an...

Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" is a wild and wacky film. PTA wrote and directed the film and much like his other films, it's a smash hit that mixes action, neo-noir and even black comedy. It's about life or death, saving the future by saving the daughter of a famous revolutionary leader of the French 75. It's literally the military vs the main behind the underground revolutionar...

I am joined by E-Zone, XG, and Chiclets on this review of "Casino" directed by Martin Scorsese. This film is great and will stand the test of time. I like that the film sheds light on how casinos operate and get its' fill. We put man there and see what can come of it. I describe that Las Vegas itself is a character and it's inherently evil, I'd say. The major characters, besides the mobsters, CAN...

Gregory Nava's "Selena" is a good biography-genre film about the life of Tejana musician/songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez famously played by Jennifer Lopez. This film showcases the chase of the American Dream that we all strive for. Selena's life was practically a movie in itself - there highs and lows of her personal life and the life of a singer touring across America, trying to make it with...

B-Real TV alumni, has photographed bands such as Korn and Slipknot, and loves pro wrestling -  Shaun Vizzy and I discuss his favorite film "Friday" directed by F Gary Gray who stars Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. It's a slice-of-life style of a film that's set in south central Los Angeles where two homies hang out and smoke weed but they get into a sort of laid back but messy situation with the neighb...

XG and I review "Fat Girl" (À ma sœur!) written and directed by Catherine Breillat that was released in 2001. It's a coming-of-age film from France. The French do coming-of-age films very differently from the USA. This is a film that's meant to break the human spirit and eliminates hope. It's a film about two sisters who sort of compete and talk about "girl stuff" to keep it PG. Their family are i...

"Opening Night" is a film about acting and a film about aging. Trying to make sense of a role is hard when you are drowning yourself in alcohol. It's hard to cope with loss when your career is on the line. Gena Rowlands, who plays the lead character, Myrtle, is pure tour de force acting. This film is a masterclass of not only acting but cinema overall. John Cassavetes directed this film and he bro...

"Flow" is an Academy Award-winning animated film directed by Gints Zilbalodis. He earned it, plain and simple. Shout out to him and the country of Latvia. It's Latvia's first Academy Award, respectfully. This is a film created with the application called Blender. Imagine that? A film created by Blender, beat Disney AND DreamWorks at their own game. Millions upon millions of dollars, and "Flow" too...

I'm joined here with fabb_999 on this episode reviewing "American Me" directed and produced by Edward James Olmos who shows us a life of a man who's spent half his life in the prison system, trying to reclaim himnself in society after he gets out. It's a very masculine but truly humbling film. Olmos did a great job showing us that he can not only act, but direct as well. I was impressed with the s...

"Cameraperson" is a documentary directed by Kirsten Johnson that treats the film as a memoir of her life. In this day and age with ties to social media, almost no moment is lost. We share everything and not all of it is worth sharing. Let's just be for real. This film shows us who Kirsten Johnson is through not only her work but her personal life. She shares us crime, loss, and murder. We also see...

Tim Burton directed "Batman Returns", the sequel to the first Batman film of the iconic franchise that came out of a comic book created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. This sequel had an all-star cast that included Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer who played a great Catwoman. I think "Batman Returns" is an okay film by critical point of view but I sure enjoyed the hell of the it. It...

Martin Scorsese directed a brilliant film that will stand the test of time. It's film that we all love and enjoy and we don't care that the characters are bad guys, like, really BAD guys. Scorsese has that visual power where we get to see, envy, the glorification of "GoodFellas" featuring my good friends of the We Don't Smoke the Same podcast - E-Zone and XG. We dissect the film by pointing out fa...

"My Dinner With Andre" is beautiful simple film directed by Louis Malle. A legendary filmmaker decided to film two theater guys talk about life while they eat in what looks like to be a fancy restaurant in New York. This film is unqiue due to the fact that it's simply two people who meet up and dine. And they talk for 111 minutes. For us nowadays, one will say "oh, well that's just a typical podca...

Danny Boyle directed a good film that was written by Aaron Sorkin called "Steve Jobs". It's a biographical film depicting Apple Computers Co-Founder and Visionary Tech Giant, Steve Jobs. The film centers around three key moments in Jobs' life and in each of the periods shows us who this guy Steve Jobs is and we should care about him and the people who surround him. The scenes really give out a cle...

"Mona Lisa Smile" is a universal film that aimed towards people who thnk they have their futures written in stone. A film directed by Mike Newell, stars Julia Roberts as this free-spirited teacher who travels over to the east coast to teach at an institution where women are guided to be submissive wives/partners. This was set in the mid-'50s. I never really focused on Roberts in films but this one...

"Paddington 2" is the most positive reviewed film in the history of cinema and it came out in 2017, beating "Citizen Kane" directed by Orson Welles. Imagine that? Anyways, I love this film. I didn't mention it in the review but this a "perfect" family film. It has everything - comedy, action, moments of wonder & curiosity, drama, but most of all, this film has heart and that heart is the chara...

"As Tears Go By" is the debut of filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. It's his love letter to the film "Mean Streets". He shares a tragedy where love is lost, both of the romantic and of the brotherly. I was amazed to see a style of filmmaking and it came out in 1988. It's very stylistic and isn't afraid to push narrative boundaries. My favorite scene of the film is honestly, the ending. I wont say why but it'...

Terrence Malick gives us "The New World", a visual epic of the story of America, but in a romance between John Smith and Pocahontas. It's a really good film depicting the settlement of Jamestown in what is know as Virgina at the time. We see how it goes down, how love can be new and destructive to someone and how it navigates they way order and growth goes. I enjoy this film for its simple but poe...

Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo" is a colorful sight of a film to see with a beautiful way to tell a story of how the test of friendship can LITERALLY disbalance the earth. What a way to tell a film without having a bad guy, it's all about something for the good of all kinds, not just man. Miyazaki likes to put the awareness and importance of maintaining the sustainability of our earth, our environment. I...

Lars von Trier is a controversial filmmaker with his work and as a person himself. Due to his depression that, he creates films with dark characters with, sometimes, dark storylines. But his films are great. Some are beautifully shot with referneces to classical art. This film "Melancholia" is one of those. It's about the last days of the world due to a planet that is literally going to crash into...

Éric Rohmer ends his famous "Tales of the Four Seasons" with "Autumn Tale". It's a French romance comedy about a woman who operates a vineyard, thinks about the idea of dating again and it focuses on the middle age folks, which is a bit different from the other season films. Magali's friends decide to take matters into their own hands and get matches for her. At this wedding party, it all goes dow...

David Lynch's "Inland EMpire" is a crazy psychological thriller that I had the pleasure of watching. I three hour film shot on a sony digital camcorder and it makes perfect sense as to why he choose to shoot a film like this. A film that barely has a script but as holoow as it many seem, it film goes into alternate realities where we question our own reality. It's a film about a "woman in toruble"...

The Coen Brothers are incredible filmmakers. They are known for their screenwriting and direction. From wacky comedies to serious dramas, they always go for the heart and it gets us to wonder about life and the meaning of it. "A Serious Man" is a 2009 comedy drama that's dark about Larry who is about to get divorced and doesn't know why but we see why. But not only that, he has other struggles tha...