Contents

ARTICLES

• REVIEW: Dances with Wolves
• DANCES WITH WOLVES by the consensus
• Fruitvale Station by the consensus
• Ivan's Favourite movies
• CHOOSE OUR LOGO!
• Toby's Top Ten Favourite Films
• Daniel's Top Ten
• Tom's Top Ten
• Shutter Island
• The Intouchables (2011)
• Review: The Silver Linings Playbook
• Gravity by the concensus
• Hunger Games 2
• Shot Down in Flames
• REVIEW: Young Adult

REVIEW: Young Adult

YOUNG ADULT

I first came across the story of Mavis Gray during year twelve as we were studying Hamlet, which if you study Hamlet is a character study of Hamlet and his world, which was interesting because what I saw straight away was that Young Adult is also a pure character study of Mavis Gray and a world, a past, she cannot move away from: her highs school years and blunders, when was famous. The main thing reviewers and other analysts will tell you about Young Adult is “they had to be brave” because this is not an easy movie to pull off. In music there are albums called “Concept Albums” when artists tell you this it generally means this is something “We don’t if anyone would like yet”, that they’re trying to experiment with new things so that they could possibly take the genre to a higher plane than it is in currently; in a way Young Adult is a “Concept Movie” as it tries to experiment with its script and overall production to express itself in a unique. And what Young Adult expresses is a character study that if you look closely enough asks you about change and how we really deal with it.

Young Adult is the second collaboration between Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Thank you for smoking) and Diablo Cody (United State of Tara) since the critically-acclaimed-smash-hit Juno (2007), which earned Cody the Oscar for best original screenplay. The story focuses on Mavis Gray, an interesting thing about her is that she expands an interesting concept that Juno played around with the character of Mark of the “forever child” a concept that very simply put defines a character/person inextricably stuck in the past and unable to move on in their life. That’s what Mavis is she’s on the wrong side of thirty, divorced and living out a mediocre career; Mavis live her best years in high-school and thus she is quite inextricably stuck in this high school world unable to move on in her life. The story follow Mavis as she confronts her life as it has been going and as it is and through her interactions with her old High School peers (Buddy Slade, Matt Freehauf) we learn about the flaws: that her alcoholism is crippling her, that she treats people terrible, we learn how terrible of a person she has become and eventually we feel that she does too.  And when we almost thought everything is going to work out for Mavis and she’s going to change, the movie does its most important move, in a very thought provoking “kitchen scene” a conversation with a Matt Freehauf’s sister, a woman that has idealized her since high school idealized her for five minutes and undoes the progress that had taken the entire movie. In an outstanding and brave move Young Adult undoes the journey that we have become so invested to perhaps comment on how Holly Wood has made us expect in real life of how everything changes in real life and life gets better but in reality we watch a documentary on animal cruelty and be vegan for a week then quit.

The  main character, Mavis Gray, is masterfully acted by Charlize Theron (Chocolat, Monster) and Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt) provides the perfect comedy relief. This is a movie that will give you a master class exhibition in acting and teach you something about change, making you laugh then make uncomfortable and think at the same time.  

5 out of 5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes 80%

Metacritic 71%

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-- Ivan

Shot Down in Flames

2 Guns (2013)

Yet another story of 2 undercover cops trying to bring down a powerful drug-lord. If you one to focus solely on an action packed movie without a care for the actual story line, this is a movie for you. If however you enjoy something a bit more mind grabbing and mentally adequate this is probably not the movie you wish to be seen viewing.

Starring:

• Mark Wahlberg (Stig)
• Denzel Washington (Robert 'Bobby' Trench)
• Paula Patton (Deb)

Director: Baltasar Kormakur

Writers

• Blake Masters
• Steven Grant

--Tom


Video Sourced From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wJ7rGiT0BU

Hunger Games 2

There was nothing quite like The Hunger Games....

--Tom

Video sourced from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keT5CRhhy84

Gravity by the concensus

GRAVITY (2013)

• Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
• Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonàs Cuaron
• Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
• Run time: 90 mins
• Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

COLLATED RATINGS AND BY THE NUMBERS

•  Rotten Tomatoes 97%
• Meta Critic 96%
• Budget $80'000'000
• Gross(so far) $96'862'000

COMMENTS
"Gravity, a weightless ballet and a cold-sweat nightmare, intimates mystery and profundity, with that mixture of beauty and terror that the Romantics called the sublime." - Liam Lacey 4/4, Globe and Mail,

"This is one of the most stunning visual treats of the year and one of the most unforgettable thrill rides in recent memory." Richard Roeper 3.5/4, Chicago Sun-Times,

"Gravity is not a film of ideas, like Kubrick's techno-mystical 2001, but it's an overwhelming physical experience -- a challenge to the senses that engages every kind of dread." David Denby, New Yorker

"If the film past is dead, Gravity shows us the glory of cinema's future. It thrills on so many levels. And because Cuar‪ón is a movie visionary of the highest order, you truly can't beat the view." Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

"In a little more than 90 minutes [it] rewrites the rules of cinema as we have known them." A.O Scott 5/5, New York Times

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REVIEW


-Ivan

Review: The Silver Linings Playbook

THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
I'm not usually a sucker for a romcom but when something as cheesey as a romcom is written, edited and acted to perfection  as writer/director, David O. Russel, and, cast, Bradley Cooper(The Hangover, Limitless), Jennifer Lawrence(The Hunger Games, Winters Bone) and Robert De Niro(The Godfather II, Raging Bull, Meet the parents) provided then there is just no argument to it. From the perfect pitch perfect editing, to the pitch perfect writing and pitch perfect performances from the cast's three main stars there is no denying that this little gem of a summer-2012-blockbuster is very much deserving of its high critical acclaim, garnering an Oscar for best actress for Lawrence with 5  more nominations, four golden globe nominations, three BAFTAS nominations (Russell winning best adapted screen play).

Adapted from Mathew Quick's novel of the same name David O. Russel illuminates the screen with a well written dialogue-driven script that captures the adventures Pat Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper) dealing with his long suffering bipolar disorder that has been aggravated by the decay of his marriage. You would think losing his job, his marriage and being sent to a mental hospital would bring any man to his breaking point, no this is not true, not for Pat that is; Pat is determined for his search for his ultimate goal of a silver lining which he believes he can find if he could just get fit and get his ex-wife back or at least talk to him and with the help of the dysfunctional support network of his family which includes his obsessive compulsive sports fanatic father, Pat Solitano Senior (De Niro) and his closests friends which eventually includes the equally crazy, nymphomaniac, young widow Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence) he might just as well succeed.

Again, Silver Linings Play books is beautifully written and acted. Lawrence captures the comedic character of Tiffany to perfection and often steels the show, you will have never seen De Niro play a character in such a way before and he does it to perfection and Bradley Cooper's Pat Solitano Junior will charm your socks off. This movie is a non-stop-barrel-of-laughs, that reaches that sweet spot between comedy and dysfunctional  that bounds the aches of beauty. This is the perfect movie for a movie date, a family get together, lonely night alone and even the most extreme of romcom deviants.

5 stars out of 5
-Ivan

By the numbers
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 81%
Budget: $21'000'000
Gross: $236'412'453 --> more than 11 times its budget

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VIDEO REVIEW

The Intouchables (2011)

The Story follows the daily struggle of a French millionaire, Phillippe, who is paralysed from the neck down. Looking for a change Philippe hires a Senegalese man, Driss, from the rough areas of Paris who is out on parole as his carer. As the movie progresses the no-nonsense, no pity Driss sparks excitement back into Philippe’s life.

Although one of its main characters is a paraplegic the movie is filled with edge of your seat scenes starting dramatically with a car chase through the streets of Paris, and filled entirely throughout with clever wit and humour. The storyline is intriguing as it shows the deep relationship of a classy, ‘proper’ yet laid back millionaire with a straightforward criminal from the streets, as they are brought together over common issues such as relationships and love.

The film is created spectacularly with acting to match, the fact it is subtitle was an annoyance at first but slowly adds to French setting.

Rating: 8.5/10

--Tom

Video sourced from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g745j9fZEAY

Shutter Island

Hey guys, Dan again, recently my friend got me to watch Shutter Island.  So not really knowing what to expect cause I haven't read any descriptions of the movie or seen any trailers of it I didn't know what I was in for.
What I was expecting turned out to be a lot different. I was expecting a horror and instead what I got was a psychological thriller. Leonardo Decaprio plays an amazing role in the movie has detective Teddy Daniels. He is joined by his partner Chuck Aule plaeyed by Mark Ruffalo and they are trying to solve the mystery of a escaped mental prisoner Rachel Solondo.
Shutter Island is a asylum for the criminally insane, it houses some of the most dangerous patients in the USA because it is unsafe to have them on the mainland.

Throughout the movie we see clues towards the ending like the 'Rule of Four' and '67'. These are vital clues to the ending and the director depicts this perfectly in my opinion.

I would usually write what happens in the end but this movie is designed really well that I don't want to spoil it for anyone.
I would give this movie a rating of 9/10.

Metacritic- 63%
Rottentomatoes- 68%

Tom's Top Ten

A film is used to take the viewer on a journey, a journey through to the unknown, the impossible and sometimes the downright scary. Transporting you to a new world of mystery and intrigue. 

Thus here are the top ten journeys’ I have been on

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. Troy (2004)
3. James Bond: Skyfall (2012)
4. The Intouchables (2011)
5. Into The Wild (2007)
6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
7. Forrest Gump (1994)
8. Spirited Away (2001)
9. Warrior (2011)
10. The Great Escape (1963)

Image Source: http://sodancapassion.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/godfather-in-3d.html

Daniel's Top Ten

I'm Daniel and this is my Top Ten List of my favorite movies:

1. Lord of The Rings the Two Towers
2. The Avengers
3. Fast Furious
4. Shutter Island
5. Inception
6. The Matrix
7. Bend it Like Beckham
8. Avatar
9. X Men
10.Project X

Toby's Top Ten Favourite Films

It is something truly special when a film tantalises one's movie taste buds and takes your pallet on a journey you'll never forget or regret. Here are my top ten films that have never failed to entertain me to this day.

1. Pulp Fiction

2. Pirates of the Caribbean 

3. Casino Royale

4. The Dark Knight

5. Anchorman

6. Seven Psychopaths

7. The Lion King

8. Toy Story

9. The Exorcist

10. Team America: World Police

Image source: http://gimmemorebananas.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/pulp-fiction.html

CHOOSE OUR LOGO!

We came up with two logos and can't seem to figure out which we like best so we decided to put it up to you guys the most commented and Favorited logo wins!

Logo 1 - https://twitter.com/isysmovieteam/status/382890950718017537/photo/1

Logo 2 - https://twitter.com/isysmovieteam/status

/382891039968600064/photo/1


-- Ivan

Ivan's Favourite movies

MY FAVORITE MOVIES
I love style, when something has that flavor and i happen to like it i just never get tired of it or completely get it off my mind. Next is re-playability, most or all of these movies i can just re-watch (and have) over and over again.

1. Pulp Fiction
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Juno (Jason)
5. Inception
6. Spirited Away
7. Synecdoche, New York 
8. Almost Famous (feel good movie)
9. Thank you for for smoking (Reitman)
10. Up in the Air (Is the )
11. Good will hunting
12.  Young Adult ( best)
13. Being John Malkovic
14. Sin City
15. Scary Movie 2 and 3
16. Anchor Man
17. There's something about Mary
18. The Godfather 1 and 2
19. No Country for old men
20. Mulholland Drive
21. Little Nicky
22. Water Boy
23. The Wrestler
24. Howl's moving castle
25. Ghost World

-- Ivan

Fruitvale Station by the consensus

Fruitvale Station
"A movie making all the right noise" - IMT

RATINGS AND COMMENTS
"I am speechless in a way that no film has made me. Please please please go see Fruitvale Station @fruitvalemovie #FruitvaleStation" - @EllenPage, Twitter, https://twitter.com/EllenPage/status/355837089666973696

"assionate and powerfully acted, Fruitvale Station serves as a celebration of life, a condemnation of death, and a triumph for star Michael B. Jordan." 94% - Rotten Tomato General Consensus

"Fruitvale Station sums up Oscar's life, but the act of summing up can tell us only so much, since a young life is still a maze of promise and indecision." Fresh Tomato - David Denby, New Yorker,

"In naturalistic and unforced strokes, he allows Grant to exist as a complex, even contradictory human, inviting the audience simply to sit with his life, his loss and what they both meant." Fresh Tomato  - Anna Horanaday, Washington Post

"Fruitvale Station is a gut punch of a movie. By standing in solidarity with Oscar, it becomes an unstoppable cinematic force." Fresh Tomato, 3.5/4 - Peter Traverse, Rolling Stone

"A sad, touching and subtle film." Fresh Tomato, 4/5, 80META - A.O Scott,  New York Times,

"Made with assurance and deep emotion, "Fruitvale Station" is more than a remarkable directing debut for 26-year-old Ryan Coogler. It's an outstanding film by any standard." Fresh Tomato, 5/5 - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"The movie is the model of decency and respect, and does honor to a life unjustly ended; it offers few surprises but is nonetheless shocking." Fresh Tomato - Richard Brody, New Yorker

Meta Critic

• 100, Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern
•  100, Philadelphia Inquirer, Steven Rea - "t shows us the everyday pressures and problems, the joys and pleasures, experienced by someone moving through life. And then that BART train pulls into Fruitvale, and the rest is history."
• 100, Roger Ebert website, Steven Boon 4/4

INFORMATION

• Directed by Ryan Coogler
• Opened at the prestigious Sundance Film Festivale January 19, 2013 where it garnered critical acclaimed claiming the coveted Grand Jury Price and the Audience Award for U.S dramatic film
• Wait there's more, it was screened out of the equally prestigious Cannes Film Festival and won Best First Film
• Opened to US theaters domestically July 12, 2013 
• Produced by Forest Whitaker
• Stars: Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Chronicle),  Octavia Spencer (Oscar winner from The Help)
• Based on the story of the 2008 shooting of an unnamed youth
• 90mins run time
• Urban drama genre

COLLATED RATINGS

• Rotten Tomatoes 94%
• Meta critic 85%

 BY THE NUMBERS

• Currently made $15,987,338 domestically low-average (decent for an independent film)

 LINKS
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/fruitvale-station
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fruitvale_station/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2334649/
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fruitvale.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitvale_Station#cite_note-BOM-1

Key reviews
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fruitvale-station-2013, 4/4 Steven Boon,

TRAILER


MOVIE REVIEWS
Fruitvale Station TWITTER REVIEW TV SpoT
Fruitvale Station (2013) Movie Review

- - Ivan

DANCES WITH WOLVES by the cosensus

Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves was critically acclaimed and garnered a revitalization of the western genre. It won:

• 7 Academy awards (best: picture, director, adapted screenplay, film editing, cinematography, sound score) nominated for 12
• #75 and then #59 of two different AFI's top 100 list
• 3 Golden Globes (best: motion picture drama, screenplay, director)

INFORMATION

•  Based on Dances with Wolves (1988) Michael Blake
• Distributed at 1990
• Directed by Kevin Costner
• Adapted to screen by Michael Blake
• Cinematography by Dean Semler 
• Music by John Barry
• Distributed by Orion Pictures
• Starring: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant

COLLATED RATINGS
Rotten Tomatoes 80%
Metacritic 72%


FEATURED CRITICS
Roger Ebert 4/4 Stars, Sun Times - "A simple story magnificently told."
George Andrew , Time out  - "Once you're sucked into the leisurely narrative, it's hard to resist."
Richard Schickel Time Magazine - "As a director, Costner is alive to the sweep of the country and the expansive spirit of the western-movie tradition."
Peter Traverse, Rolling Stone - "Costner tells a personal story that never loses touch with the vast Western spaces encompassing and defining it. Dances With Wolves is an epic that breathes. And it's a beauty."
Sheila Benson 4/5 Stars, LA Times - "Dances With Wolves is a clear-eyed vision. Authentic as an Edward Curtis photograph, lyrical as a George Catlin oil or a Karl Bodmer landscape, this is a film with a pure ring to it."

BY THE NUMBERS

Budget = $22'000'000

Box Office = $424,208,848

Profit: Made 19.28 times its budget or 1928%, it was very succesful

SISKEL AND EBERT REVIEW

-- Ivan

REVIEW: Dances with Wolves

DANCES WITH WOLVES 
I have never always been  too fond of western movies because the vast majority of the popular western movies for me are either  old, really old or it's so buried in American culture in a way that you'd really have to be in on the joke in order to understand it. In short i just couldn't understand western movies at all (except maybe the odd one or two that i couldn't name without looking it up). Dances with wolves on the other hand is the movie that made me learn how to love western movies and see what all the fuss was all about.  Being released in 1990 at a time when the western genre had long declined, Dances with Wolves in its manifestations of the western genre's best qualities made it critically acclaimed as an innovator, winning  seven academy awards (including best picture, screenplay, cinematography) re-vitalizing the western genre again for contemporary cinema.

 Directed by and starring Kevin Costner, the adaptation of Michael Blake's same (published 1988) was an epic-western film released in  1990. The story is simple enough think of Pocahontas meets the Civil War, chronicling the story of a ridiculously lucky solider stationed in isolation in the middle of nowhere with only the vast plains to keep him company. The lucky soldier, John J. Dunbar, must confront his values as a soldier, a confederate American and a "civilized human being" as he befriends the local Sioux tribe struggling with the absence of their most vital resources: the "buffalo".

Looking back this is a very simple story that i very easily summarized in a couple of sentences and at the 236 minute (3.93 hours) directors cut that i watched it very well took its time. This is what forced me to realize  what western movies are all about because i didn't feel like the movie was too long at all it was a lot like chocolate in a way and like eating chocolate which is very sweet Dances With Wolves in the way it goes about things is very charming. It forced me to see that western movies try its best to characterize the land with it's extremely wide establishment shots, it's use of distinct locations to really capture that beauty by engaging with the viewer with these vast expanses. Furthermore, westerns characterize the land with mystery and with mystic, Dances with Wolves did this perfectly with its impeccable use of pacing and timing at times even just flat out silence at times. Then there are the charming yet mystical characters like the Dunbar's noble steed or his loyal companion a Wolf which he spends a majority of the film  with and of course the whimsical yet still mystical members of the Sioux clan that Dunbar befriended specifically the witch doctor Kicking Bird (Played by Graham Greene).

Lastly what to me was one of the most important aspects of the western genre are  the legend-like-adventures and Dances with Wolves (the film and the character himself, Dunbar) had plenty of compellingly legend like adventures by that i mean that if i were to hear about these adventures as stories  happened in real life i would had assumed they were actual legends. These adventures are what the western genre does time and time again or at least aim to do, when they succeed like in Dances with Wolves it achieves pitch-perfect, nail-biting, jaw dropping-Ly thrilling, textbook  pacing. It told me to notice the beauty of the dessert, the mystery of the mystical vast expanse, the joy of the charming characters and the jaw dropping satisfaction of the adventures this is what made Dances with Wolves so utterly satisfying like chocolate in film form and worthy of the more or less 4 hours epic that i sat through.

TRAILER

I give it 5 Stars out of 5.

-- Ivan

Welcome from the ISYS Movie Team

We are ISYS Movie Team and our mission is to provide an up to date burst of inform about everything to do with movies currently and retrospectively.

Our Team consists of

• Ivan Reyes 43307787
• Daniel Piestrzynski 42737044
• Toby Mcdowell-Jones 43306721
• Tom Meggitt 42457807

 Our general format is we provide posts that summarize multiple sources of key news in the movie world and rationalize this information and sieve out the cesspool of inadequate information that plaques  entertainment media, so that you are exposed to quick and easy information that the movie going public will want and not have to deal with those that you do not.

From this we will also provide current and retrospective reviews that take into the general consensus of the film, providing information about what the writer (one of our team members) felt about the film and tying this up with the general consensus gathered from known reviews and rating engines like rotten tomatoes and meta critic. We aim to power this concept up by also posting quick top ten lists.

We hope that we could also fill this blog about articles that reflect our individuals passions through articles on cinema and express our own interest. Watch out for theme weeks as we post about specific movie genres.

STORY BOARD

-- Ivan