The Usual Suspects (1995)

I want to start the article by saying that I do not condone the actions of one of the actors in the film and the reason for choosing the film had nothing to do with that said actor. The director Bryan Singer (X-Men) and the writer Christopher McQuarrie's (Edge Of Tomorrow) and the rest of the actors in the film's art should not suffer because of one man's actions. With that being said, the film I chose for today is 1995's The Usual Suspects which was Singer's second film and it tells the tale of one lone survivor's recounting of the chaos that ensued from New York to Los Angeles that ended with one major gunfight and destruction on some boats and all thanks to one random police lineup where they met. The film stars Stephen Baldwin (The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas) as McManus, Gabriel Byrne (Vampire Academy) as Keaton, Benicio Del Toro (The Hunted) as Fenster, Kevin Pollak (Buffalo '66) as Hockney, Chazz Palminteri (Vault) as Dave Kujan, Pete Postlethwaite (Inception) as Kobayashi, Suzy Amis (The Ballad Of Little Jo) as Edie Finneran, Giancarlo Esposito (Okja) as Jack Baer, Dan Hedaya (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as Jeff Rabin, and Paul Bartel (Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills) as smuggler.

This was an interesting movie to say the least that took a different direction that most crime films. One thing that kind of bothered me is that if all of these guys did not know each other at all before the police lineup then why would you join up to do jobs in the first place? It's just such a random thing for me to believe that they would be as good as they were together if they didn't know each other before hand or maybe they are just that lucky. This ended up being one of those films where you were trying to figure out just who was Keyser Söze as they kept building up this character for the whole entire film as this mysterious enigma that apparently everyone was terrified of, but he was the link to all of them being there. As much as many of you may hate the man, he did a terrific job as he told the story and he kind of steals the show as the cripple who pretty much manipulates everyone and when you see the twist at the end, you're like I should have seen that coming. Chazz Palminteri also did an amazing job int he film and it was crazy to see him play a character that wasn't a mobster. I don't know what Benicio Del Toro's character was, but it was almost like he was the Boomhauer of New York. You could barely understand anything he was saying during the film which was kind of funny, but other than that it was an OK film. There wasn't anything revolutionary about it, but the caliber of actors was there and that was kind of what it had going for it. That is why I am going to give the film an B- for a final grade.

Vampire Academy (2014)

Back in the last decade, The Twilight Movies sort of ruined what it meant to be a vampire by making it too romantic. Unfortunately, if it wasn't for the fact that today's film starred my celebrity crush in Zoey Deutch (Set It Up), I probably wouldn't have chosen to watch Vampire Academy for today. The film was released in 2014 and it was directed by Mark Waters (Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past) and it stars Zoey as Rose Hathaway, a Dhampir who is a half human, half vampire who is sworn to protect the Moroi, a race of vampires who learn to live very discreetly in our world. Unfortunately, there is the race of vampires that Rose is sworn to protect against and that is the bloodthirsty vampires called Strigoi and she will be put to the test when someone tries to sabotage her Moroi's place in the kingdom. The film also stars Lucy Fry (Bright) as Lissa Dragomir, Danila Kozlovsky (Hardcore Henry) as Dimitri Belikov, Gabriel Byrne (End Of Days) as Victor Dashkov, Olga Kurylenko (Quantum Of Solace) as Headmistress Kirova, Sarah Hyland (Modern Family) as Natalie, Cameron Monaghan (Gotham) as Mason, Ashley Charles (Jimi: All Is by My Side) as Jesse, Claire Foy (The Girl In The Spider's Web) as Ms. Karp, Dominic Sherwood (Don't Sleep) as Christian Ozera, and Joely Richardson (Color Out of Space) as Queen Tatiana.

So, I am going to say right now that this is probably the worst Zoey Deutch film I have ever watched and probably one of the worst Vampire films I have ever seen. Let's just put it this way, the film was way too much Mean Girls and not enough Heathers as the poster suggested that it was written by. The worst thing about it or I should say one of the worst things about it is the fact that it tried to be as cool as the Twilight films and that in of itself is a bad idea to begin with. I think the only good thing about the film itself was Zoey Deutch, but even that was a tiny bit of a stretch. one minute , the main princess is all innocent and then she becomes the bad bitch on campus, but as soon as he friends ankle breaks she becomes the goodie two shoes all over again, but with a little more guts. I don't even want to talk about the action sequences in this film, but even that is as awful as the idea of Vampires trying to be Harry Potter. This film was just all over the place and the creepy dynamic of Zoey's character with her instructor was just a little weird as it should have been handled as just a school girl crush. The only redeeming factor was the explanation of how one becomes a Strigoi which honestly sounds like a faction in the Russian Mob. I honestly could not wait for this film to come to an end when it was all said and done because my patience with the writing and the action was at it's wits end. That is why this film is getting a D for a final grade as I am filing it in the burn at once category.