JP's Movie Review Blog

What are your Top 5 Favorite Movies? Please post in the comment section below. Mine are: 5. Taxi Driver (1976) Director: Martin Scorsese Stars: Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepard, Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster Why it's a favorite: Taxi Driver forged the best director-actor duo ever with Scorsese and De Niro. It's dark, hard-hitting, and always compelling. It's also very funny, iconic, and has many great musical moments (courtesy of the late Bernard Herrmann). Never has there been a better independent film. De Niro gives one of the best screen performances of all time as the disturbed taxi driver. "You talkin' to me?" 4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)   Director: Sergio Leone Stars: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach   Why it's a favorite: This movie is the godfather of westerns. It's old and long but don't let that turn you off. It's extremely entertaining, and epic. It has one of the best

Neil Armstrong finally gets a biopic in Damien Chazelle's epic "First Man." Chazelle does justice with a practical, honorable, and accurate account of the Apollo 11 space mission to the Moon. However, the movie did not entertain with its thin characterizations, emotional detachment, suspenseless climax, and very boring family narrative. "First Man" features some thrilling space scenes which utilizes film stock and IMAX 70mm. If Chazelle decided to use digital and CGI all the special effects, then he would have been left with a POS movie. The space scenes employ shaky cam, and pitch perfect sound design. During the launches, it sounded like the space craft would break apart, adding to the intensity of the scene. The score by "La La Land" composer Justin Hurwitz was jazzy, musical-like and at times searingly epic. I couldn't help but compare the score to another epic space movie "Interstellar." Justin Hurwitz's music was good but no whe