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Lone Survivor Review By Nicolas Souza When you ask the average person to associate one word to the military, you get answers like courage, duty, honor, and bravery. When I reflect on the time I spent serving my country the one word that stands out most is brotherhood. The men and women I served with became an extended family to me. I still stay in touch with some, and remain very close to a few. Brotherhood is the underlying theme that has been behind the intense action of military films in recent years. Lone Survivor is no different. As a disclaimer I must say, this movie is extremely intense. I honestly cannot recall the last time I felt so transported to where the characters on the screen were. Be warned before going to experience this movie, it is not for the faint of heart. Beyond the story of military brotherhood, Lone Survivor is the telling of the failed Operation Ring Wings, where a squad of Navy SEALs is sent to scout a remote village and confirm the location of a Tal

Lone Survivor Review  By: MattInRC Director Peter Berg brings the horrors and grittiness of the War in Afghanistan into powerful focus with his film Lone Survivor . For many of us, The War in Afghanistan - in direct response to the events of 9/11 - seemed so distant and unfathomable that its reasons for existing in the first place seemed without logic. Yet, it was a war with a deeply personal tone for those who waged it, as I suppose most wars are. Peter Berg's Lone Survivor doesn't exist merely as patriotic testosterone-fueled rage, instead serving as a forceful and gritty reminder that wars are neither glorious nor ever 'successful.' Based on the doomed 2005 mission expressed in Marcus Luttrell's 2009 non-fiction book of the same name, Survivor tells the story of 4 real-life Navy SEALs that are sent to eliminate Tablian leader Ahmad Shah. The Texas-born Luttrell ( Mark Wahlberg ) loves his team - including his commander Lt. Michael Murphy (

Our Most Anticipated Movies Of 2014 Get Us Excited...No Not In That Way! By: MattInRC Read on to learn about our most anticipated movies of 2014. Despite a rather thin offering, 2013's box did manage to beat 2012's record-setting numbers, a startling fact that we covered here. Big-budget franchise sequels dominated the landscape like Iron Man 3 , The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Despicable Me 2 , while Star Trek: Into Darkness and Fast and Furious 6 turned in strong but not overwhelming numbers. But that was 2013, and so it's time to get excited for the newest movies that will grace our screens in 2014. The trend seems to point to more sequels, but there's a decent amount of new entries that desperately want to occupy a place in your heart. As always, our list runs the gamut, from risky comic book projects to interesting adaptions and reboots. Your friends at SJF have compiled our top 20 most anticipated, which means we're not looking at Oscar

HER Review By: MattInRC The beautiful but creepy Her doesn't fill us with joy, and that's probably the point. I'm sure you've heard this one before: poor dude loses his marriage, falls in love with the perfect woman, but ultimately loses her. Now, add the fact that the 'perfect woman' isn't one at all, but a computer OS: that's the twist in the science-fiction oddity Her, a film that's uncomfortable to watch and leaves us no better than we were at the beginning. Set in a undetermined future, professional letter writer Theodore ( Joaquin Phoenix ) is recently divorced and a loner. His world soon changes when he falls for the new operating system of his computer (voiced by Scarlett Johansson ), whose quirky laugh and sultrily pleasant voice is the perfect medicine for Theodore's aching heart. Soon, Theodore and Samantha (she's named herself by the way) are taking long walks on the beach and sharing intimacy in a way that's both fu

The Final Word: Top Domestic Movies of 2013 By: MattInRC It's time to ruminate on the year that was, and seek some insight from the Movie Gods about 2014. In a year that saw Hollywood act more like a rollercoaster than a business, we're frankly surprised to find ourselves saying the following: Hollywood broke box office records once again, taking in a staggering $10.92 billion in sales. But that success wasn't guaranteed entering the Summer season. Take a look at the top list from the end of Q2: Oz The Great and Powerful $186,672,400 Identity Thief $128,817,890 Silver Linings Playbook $99,352,650 Zero Dark Thirty $94,172,217 Django Unchained $93,537,202 Les Miserables (2012) $75,753,685 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey $74,210,420 Mama $71,514,415 Safe Haven $69,423,682 A Good Day to Die Hard $66,393,000 And then, Summer arrived: Iron Man 3 $405,435,000 Man of Steel $248,660,000 Oz The Great and Powerful $234,668,782 Fast Six $233,313,000 Star

Our Worst Movies Of 2013  By: MattInRC For every parade of elephants and giraffes that are 2013's top films, there's the janitors who cleanup behind them. Yes, the worst films of the year have brought up the rear, filling our lives with their uselessness and begging the question of why we bothered with them in the first place. These projects might have seemed like good ideas in their infancy but got horribly lost in production, and some of them were probably spoiled from the start, doomed to walk the Earth until the Ghost of Roger Ebert exorcised them to the next realm. To be fair, our index of infamy is based on our own personal standards for taste or interest. We also looked at major Hollywood releases, not those which were shot by independent companies. If A-listers made and distributed it, we considered it. Click on the movie title above each synopsis to read our full review. Films that just missed the cut due to scheduling conflicts (thank you Hollywood for s

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES Review By: MattInRC The first film of 2014 - Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones - doesn't possess us in the least. Back in 2007, the Paranormal Activity franchise was riding high. Cashing in on the formula that made The Blair Witch Project such a stunning success, Paramount showed bold flexibility in turning a small production into box office gold. The idea of hand-cam movies in horror is a brilliant concept, with many films failing desperately to mimic them. But since 2007, this franchise has looked like a shadow of its former self, and three films later, Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones utterly fails to possess us or even keep our attention. This spin-off shares the story of a recent high school Latino graduate Jesse ( Andrew Jacobs ) and his best friend Hector ( Jorge Diaz ) as they play around with Hector's new video camera, documenting their lives in the barrio. They get chased by local thugs, ride down the

Top 10 Movies of 2013 By: MattInRC Maybe it's just us, but 2013 was a bit of a letdown for films - perhaps 2012 was so boss that almost any year would be considered dull ( The Avengers, Lincoln, Ted, Argo, and Skyfall just to name a few). But, there were several that graced our local rat-infested screens that did keep us awake through other duds like Grudge Match , Identity Thief , and Admission . As always, our list is generated on factors such as memorability, quality, and a completely selfish desire of whether we would pay to buy it or care to watch it again. Many Oscar films might win awards for their technical mastery, but how many of them would you actually watch more than once? Therefore, allow the chastising to commence! 10. Gangster Squad (Dir.Ruben Fleishcer) Plot: Los Angeles, 1949: A secret crew of police officers led by two determined sergeants work together in an effort to take down the ruthless mob king Mickey Cohen who runs the city.(via IMDB)