Adventures in Netflix: Skyline, The Fighter, Winter's Bone

Two of these deserve their own reviews, but I've been way too off of my game to follow through. Besides, I did watch them on Netflix so it's only fitting to give them Netflix reviews.

Something intrigues me about Skyline. It was a horrible movie. There was no development. The characters were uninspired, the plot was close to nonexistent (and even where it showed glimmers it was still just awful), and in general it was just outright mediocre. It was your typical aliens invade earth/syfy channel idea while also trying to be Cloverfield and failing miserably. I only found two things this movie had going for it (and they were far from redeeming). Visually it was impressive. It wasn't anything groundbreaking but it was well done. And, the last 10 minutes of the movie. The idea of more of a pure action movie set in this particular Earth with one alien/hybrid thing fighting off the bulk of the invading aliens appeals to me way more than this movie did. In conclusion, 2/5 Stars.

The Fighter was phenomenal. It was both an exceptional drama as well as a pretty great sports film. I felt this could largely be credited to a spectacular cast. The acting in this film was just fantastic, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo were particularly great. The story was frustrating and inspiring and funny and dramatic and so many things that a good movie should be. I cheered during Micky's fights, I laughed and sighed at Dicky's stupid antics, I growled when the family clashed. Stylistically it was also a great success. All around this was an exceptional film. 5/5.

Another Best Picture nominee that I finally had the chance to see thanks to Netflix was Winter's Bone. It was an interesting concept to make a backwoods Neo-noir kind of film and in that respect it was interesting to watch. However, this movie did feel very slow at times and it definitely relied a lot on the performance of the actors which, while good, could be very frustrating. The lead, Jennifer Lawrence, was great in her role and my connection to her character and her resolve and courage is what really made this movie for me. The movie looked fantastic, so much so that I feel like it was one of it's greatest strengths and I loved the dramatic country/bluegrass portions of the soundtrack. It was hard to get past the pacing of the story, but it was also a well done movie. 3/5 Stars.