Black Mass (2015) Review & Recommendation.

Black Mass is another attempt to glorify mafia life and create nostalgia about the "good ol' days."

Let's be honest, if you have seen one mafia movie, then you have seen them all.  Johnny Depp plays the role of a lunatic mob boss, Whitey Bulger, in Boston; specifically South Boston (or to the natives Southie).

The story chronicles Bulger's trials and tribulations as a Boston mafia kingpin.  Now I know technically the term "mafia" is reserved for the Italians; however, I will use mafia, here, to apply to Black Mass because aside from the ethnic differences, there are not many other differences between what Bulger does in this move compared to what the Italians do in every other mafioso film.  The reason I bring this up at all is because in the movie the Irish are at war with the Italians, and I don't want to give off the impression that Bulger is associated with the Italians by labeling him as a member of the 'mafia.'  However, with this distinction noted, Bulger could be said to be a member of the Irish mafia; so, I will stick with this terminology for the remainder of the review.

Speaking of wars between the Irish and Italians, Bulger allies with an FBI agent in order to help defeat an Italian crime family, which poses a threat to criminal activity that Bulger is conducting.  The FBI agent is an old friend of Bulger's and so the movie leads us to believe that because these two have a history that the FBI agent is more likely to side with Bulger rather than the FBI.  Indeed, this is what ends up happening.  The FBI agent gets in "too deep" with Bulger and becomes implicated in Bulger's criminal activity.  You should see where this is going because it's the typical premise of every other mafia movie made; it's all about territory and respect.  However, in this film, the respect factor is mitigated by the fact that Bulger is a sociopath and enjoys being involved with criminal activity for its own sake.

For those who enjoy mafia style movies, then this will definitely scratch that itch.  The story is interesting and engaging.  Depp does a real nice job of portraying a sociopath just like he did in Secret Window (which is a phenomenal movie you should see, if you haven't).  The overall acting is on point for this style of movie and the character develop is decent as well.  Also, there will be some folks out there who remember hearing about Bulger because this movie is based off of "real events" and took place in the late 70's and early 80's.  So, like I said at the beginning, there is going to be a bit of nostalgia to be had from watching this movie.

On the flip side, if you don't like mafia movies or have no interest in watching a movie that walks you through the life of crime boss, then you probably are going to want to stay away from this movie.  I would even venture to say that while there is some okay character development, the characters are not themselves very deep.  There is a bit of shallowness to the characters, but then again we're talking about the career criminals how deep can they get?

 If you do end up deciding to watch this movie, then just realize that it's not going to blow you away or have any fancy twists.  It is what it is.

"The Forest" (2016) Movie Review

This movie didn't get great reviews but I think its still a decent movie to watch. In a previous review, I talked about how you can get the full effect of watching a horror movie, and for this one you need to do that. Whether it be in theaters or at home, you need to watch this movie in the dark. Aside from that the jump scenes are excellent, the story is kind of slow, and the acting is meh. To tell you the truth, I was more interested in the story about the forest that they gave in the movie than the actual plot itself.

The main characters Sara and Jess are twin sisters that are complete opposites. Sara is a well grounded person with a good head on her shoulders and Jess is the artsy, try anything once type of person. Jess teaches English in Japan and has been missing for a couple of days. Sara, who is in America, gets a call from Japanese authorities notifying her sister went into the famous Aokigahara Forest and had been missing for days her missing in the  sister.  After some back and forth with her fiance, she heads off to Japan to find Jess. Throughout her travels from the states to Japan Sara talks about her "magical" twin link with Jess. She gave the example of when Jess had a drug overdose and her heart stopped, they were states apart when this happened but she said she couldn't "feel" her anymore. She uses this logic to justify the search and why she thinks her sister is alive.
She found more evidence of the forest while going through Jess' apartment and where she work. There's a really good scene where Sara goes to Jess' class that she taught and all the students scream and freak out  because they thought she was a ghost.

I'll jump forward a little bit to what I think the most interesting part of the movie is; the story about the forest. The Aokigahara Forest is an actual forest that is at the base of Mt. Fuji. Hundreds of years ago families would take their sick or dying family members there to die. Presently people who are contemplating suicide go to the forest to either go through with it or realize that they don't want to die.

Due to all the deaths that have happened in the forest, they believe that it is haunted. They advise visitors to stay on the path and to focus on what they were there to do. There are so many deaths there that annually the police go through the forest and remove as many bodies as they can find.  There are a couple documentaries out there on YouTube that are really interesting to watch.  These documentaries are arguably better stories than the film portrays.

Ill leave the rest for you to see, there is a really weird twist at the end that I either didn't understand or it was just done poorly.