MOVIE REVIEW: Jersey Boys

I haven't seen the musical in which Jersey Boys was based on but I know most of the songs that Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons sang and I admire Clint Eastwood as a director so I came in the theater with some excitement. I came out humming but wanting more.

Jersey Boys is the story of how iconic singer Frankie Valli and his group The Four Seasons came to be: from their beginnings on the wrong side of the tracks in New Jersey, their mob connections, rise of the Four Seasons and their disbandment. This is like Eastwood paying homage to his fellow Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese.

Unlike Scorsese's frenetic fast-paced signature style of film making, Jersey Boys is pure Eastwood, slow with a bit of gloom in it's colors. The vibrancy of John Lloyd Young's singing (reprising his Tony Award winning role as Valli) as well as the group's choreography is lost in the atmosphere and feel. It's the complete opposite of the bright colors of the poster of the Broadway musical.

Acting legend Christopher Walken gives ample support as their father figure and it was nice on Eastwood's part to cast the other actors in the original musical to reprise their roles on the big screen.

If you have seen the Broadway Musical and expecting the same, you will be disappointed. If you're a fan of The Sopranos and other New Jersey based mob films and shows, you'll enjoy it. Either way, Clint Eastwood, despite his age, continues to evolve as a filmmaker.

MOVIE REVIEW: Edge of Tomorrow

I had low expectations coming inside the theater for Edge of Tomorrow since from what the trailer has shown is kinda like Tom Cruise's last film, the bland Oblivion. When the film started, with scenes echoing similarities to the beginning of Brad Pitt's World War Z last year about a force that's threatening mankind, Edge of Tomorrow is one entertaining, comic, action-packed movie. 

Outside of  the Mission Impossible franchise, this is Tom Cruise's best film in recent memory. As inexperienced military officer William Cage, the Hollywood superstar gave a performance that's part comic and believable in scenes that puts his life in death's door. It's always tricky when acting with visual effects but he pulled it off. He is ably assisted by Emily Blunt, if I'm not mistaken, her first action movie, who plays the poster girl for the Allies as the world tries to defeat a powerful alien force that came to invade earth.

The movie with it's concept gets repetitive but with the direction of Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity and Mr.& Mrs. Smith) with The Usual Suspect's Christopher McQuarrie as one of the writers, Edge of Tomorrow, based on the short Japanese light novel All You Need is Kill, is totally unpredictable. You will be at the edge of your seat not knowing what happens next even though some of the earlier scenes gets played over and over again.

Part Groundhog Day mixed with Starship Troopers, Saving Private Ryan and The Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow, despite borrowing some concepts from the above mentioned films, works and well worth your time and hard earned money at the movies.