ErwinReviews

A concoction of Movies, Food and Randomness

[erwin1611]

#Oscar 2017: Who will win which Academy Award tonight ...

#Oscar2017: Who will win which Academy Award tonight ... and now I am off to the couch - see you on Twitter #fb

And here is my third and final post about the remaining nominations and the respective winners of 89th Academy Awards with the knowledge I have gathered over the past few months and 17 movies in the race I have watched. Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Here are the nominees… Mahershala Ali – Moonlight Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea Dev…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

And the Oscar for Best Motion Picture goes to....

And the #Oscar for Best Motion Picture goes to....#LaLaLand but it should really go to #Moonlight #fb

So here we are – the big night is upon us – the 89th Academy Awards will be honoring Hollywood’s greatest cinematic moments of 2016. As usual, I had set myself the ambitious goal to watch all the contenders in the major categories before the big night – and as usual it was quite the challenge but I am closer than I ever was before. Thus, I believe that I can objectively judge who should take home…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Acting in a Leading Role: And the Oscar goes to ...

Here it comes my first #Oscar post for the day: Acting in a Leading Role: And the Oscar goes to ... #fb

It is Sunday afternoon, 1 PM – and I have one last movie (Moonlight) to watch tonight to complete my prediction for all the major categories. At this point, my data points only allow me to dive into certain categories – one of them being Acting in a Leading Role. Quite frankly, I find it often very hard to slice off the acting as its own layer and forget about the rest of the movie i.e. if I…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Toni Erdmann

@ToniErdmannFilm-eine wahrhaftig "andere" Familienkomödie über eine Vater-Tochter-Beziehung - zuweilen etwas schräg und leider zu lang #fb

Heute ist es an der Zeit, meinen ersten deutschen Blogpost auf erwinreviews zu schreiben – und ich dachte mir: deutscher Film, deutscher Post. Im Vorfeld wurde viel geschrieben über den deutschen Beitrag zu den Oscars – daher war ich natürlich sehr neugierig und konnte mir Toni Erdman nicht entgehen lassen; ein kömodiantisches Familiendrama über eine Vater-Tochter Geschichte der etwas anderen…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Sully

@SullyMovie - a good #TomHanks show with one of the finest plane crash sequences ever seen but ultimately just a boring movie. SAD! #fb

With heading into December, now the 2016 movie fall (or more winter) is in full swing – next up was Sully which we could (in hindsight luckily) snag up on iTunes. And it comes with the usual problem of how to judge real-life stories or biopics; do we judge on how well they tell the real story (which we only partly know) or do we judge on how “entertaining” the movie is for me as the audience? It…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Hidden Figures

@HiddenFigures-Important story to be told in a (sometimes too) uplifting setting.Call it the Disney version of segregation in America #fb

Off we go to our next Academy Award contender – tonight Hidden Figures was on the agenda. Without really having planned for it, I basically watched two films back-to-back portraying a similar subject matter – Thursday night, we watched The 13th (review pending) and tonight Hidden Figures. And that experience did have a significant impact on my feelings about the latter. Without having researched…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Hell or High Waters

@HoHWmovie was a solid western drama hitting the Zeitgeist of today's America - but doesn't hit the mark to be a cinematic masterpiece #fb

Checked off another one – and maybe I should stop checking the RT score too much before watching the movie – aside from a certain level of quality control, it sets expectations. With a whopping 98% and the subsequent four Oscar nominations (including best movie), I was expecting nothing short of new age masterpiece. And to be fair, it most certainly was an extremely good movie and hit the…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

La La Land

#LaLaLand is an absolute fun ride with no boring second. Screen chemistry of @RyanGosling and #EmmaStone is beyond amazing. Must See ! #fb

I will be honest – when hearing that the top Oscar contender of this year is a Musical and thus I would have to go to the theater to watch a movie with non-stop singing, I was not super psyched. But then there were two elements which made me reconsider and think that it may actually be more enjoyable than I think: Damian Chapelle – after Whiplash I am certain that this director is capable of…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Rogue One

@RogueOneMovie was not the homerun #TFA was but it was a masterpiece in #SW battle sequences with highest entertainment value #fb

So presumably this was supposed to be the biggest movie night of 2016 – well after the November 8 election (only that it became a reality horror movie which hasn’t stopped since) – so here we are to see the first Star Wars “spinoff” story under the helm of its new owner Disney. Lots of stuff had been written about it e.g. the controversial reshooting but here we are – moment of truth. Was it…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Arrival

@arrivalmovie is the best of 2016 so far - thoughtful, intelligent and beautiful. I call #AmyAdams for #OscarNoms2017 #fb

So I’m gonna just come right out and say it, this was the best film of 2016 so far – I have been out of the theater for about 45 minutes and I am still thinking about it. Last time, I felt similarly about a movie was after watching Inception. Arrival starts us up with a heavy hitter right within the very first minutes – setting the tone more on the dark end right away (but I guess by now, one…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Eye in the Sky

@eyeintheskyfilm - one of the best war thrillers: an intelligent & critical at the morality of drone warfare with superb cast #fb #spoilers

A good offer on Amazon prime, 95% RT rating and Aaron Paul were enough reason for me to watch Eye in the Sky – and it was an amazing and intelligent film really worth watching. The story is rather straightforward: “Col. Katherine Powell, a military officer in command of an operation to capture terrorists in Kenya, sees her mission escalate when a girl enters the kill zone triggering an…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Dr. Strange

@DrStrange was yet another decent but (as usual) predictable #Marvel film with a fun cast and pretty awesome CGI-just not my cup of tea #fb

So here are – Donald J. Trump is the President-elect of the US – a sad moment in history but life has to move on. And there are still good things to look forward to – like the movie fall/winter which is upon us. And to get myself slowly into Oscar mood – as I had already posted/announced on facebook – I just decided to go and see Dr.Strange. This was probably the very first (and maybe the last)…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Winter is Coming Pt II

More great films coming down the pipe - here is part II of my Winter is Coming List. Enjoy and meet me a theater near you soon #fb

Patriots Day It was a matter of time until a big studio / director / boston homeboy actor picks this story up to morph it into a big Hollywood production. At first glance, I was almost surprised that these horrific events in my old hood are over three years old – what a crazy and sad week this was. Now, looking at the first teaser, it appears that the duo Berg/Wahlberg may have created a film…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Trumbo

@TrumboMovieUK was a solid movie with great cast and a fantastic @BryanCranston but still not worthy a #OscarNom2016

On my journey to the perfect pre-Oscar score (i.e. intending to watch every darn nominated movie in the race), I came across this hidden little Bryan Cranston show. Generally speaking, I did truly enjoy this film – as it really resonates with movie geeks like myself. All along the movie, I kept researching the different scripts, movies, characters on screen and that was quite fun. The story of…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Feeling like in jail - back to week 0 ?

Today is Sunday, November 6 - I have been battling with sickness (cold, stomach flu, virus infection etc) for almost 4 weeks now. What started off in August as my personal transformation to become a better version of myself has come to grinding halt. My last workout was a short 5k run on October, 25 (2 weeks ago) and my last serious Freeletics workout was October 10 (almost 4 weeks ago). As I am still recovering, I can see all the efforts I have put in to get into the great shape I was 4 weeks dwindling away. Being sick is absolutely terrible and it is amplified by the non-ability to do any physical activity. While my initial plan for my 15 week transformation was #SixPackBefore35 it has now turned into be healthy when you are 35. I will be back and continuing my journey - I just don't know when. But by the time I return, the 15 week schedule will probably have to be prolonged. So long, fellas...

[erwin1611]

Brooklyn

Erwin is back ... #Brooklyn is a cute & likable movie about the young girl making her way to NYC in 50s but 3 #OscarNoms were too much #fb

NOTE: This review was in my draft folder for quite some time… After all “stress” from trying to finish all the nominated films just in time for the Oscar ceremony 2016 has settled, I now had the time to also take a stab at the “low-riders” of this years’ Academy Awards which are still on my Oscar Watch list (which just in case you care) – looks like this Now let’s get to today’s review of…

View On WordPress

[erwin1611]

Winter is coming and here is what to look out for...

My first post in a long time - Winter is coming and with it lots and lots of great films - check out my most expected list of 2016 pt1 #fb

So people, I’m back….As the short summer of 2016 finally came to an end, there were a lot of sad faces to be dealt with including mine. But the beginning of the fall and segway into the winter also have its upsides and that is – Oscar season is upon us which basically all these awesome movies, we either did not know about or did not read about or a friend told us and we didn’t listen – all that…

View On WordPress