Sometimes you have to go big! And thats just what we’ve done! Not our normal one, two or three reviews but eight!!! I’ll tell you if the fall and winter seasons keep delivering movies like these the year might just be saved! So grab your ear buds and listen in as we review the Christopher Nolan Sci-Fi adventure Interstellar starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. The potential launch of a new franchise in Disneys Big Hero 6. What I think may be one of the best pure action movies I’ve seen in years John Wick starring Keanu Reeves. The ultra creepy Nightcrawler starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo and Bill Paxton. Usually we’re done by now but we’ve packed even more into this Mega Mini Review! We review the excellent WWII tank battle movie Fury starring Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman and John Bernthal. Rounding things out we have the family/courtroom drama The Judge starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall and our last two reviews to finally finish things off we review St. Vincent starring Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthey. And Dracula Untold starring  Luke Evans

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Fury is a foul smelling, diesel guzzling, steel death trap. It’s also a new movie written and directed by David Ayer and starring Brad Pitt. The film is a rolling snapshot of the European theater in World War II and the men that fought there. What it is not is a war picture with a lofty purpose, like Saving Private Ryan, or one with a political motive, like The Hurt Locker. Fury is a gritty, gory story of five guys in a Sherman tank trying to survive the Great War. It’s simple.

Brad Pitt is Top Sergeant Don “War Daddy” Collier, a hard driving taskmaster who’s managed to keep his tank crew alive for years.  His crew: Boyd “Bible” Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady “Coon-Ass”Travis (Jon Bernthal) and Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia (Michael Peña) are trapped with him in a WWII hell not of their own making. They are crawling through Germany in a tank that’s nearly helpless against the much more powerful German Tigers. They are crawling because Germany, at the order of Adolph Hitler, is fighting the allies for every foot of ground.  Enter Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), a fumbling stenographer and typist, to fill out their tank crew. He is just as green as you might expect.

These characters are what makes Fury so special. There is very little character development, instead Ayer depends on archetypes. Look at nearly any WWII movie with Alan Ladd, John Wayne or Audie Murphy and you’ll see the same. My father was so good he could tell you in five minutes which character would be the hero, which the coward and which one would die. He was never wrong.

Yep, I could have told you what would happen with each member of the tank crew after I met them. Fury is so uncompromising in telling a good story that the background of the characters became secondary. This film is a journey from beginning to end, does it really matter what happened before? If you think so, demand a prequel!

Fury gave me the feeling I was an intimate…a member of the tank crew family, joining in as the group played, fought and even got drunk and obnoxious. That’s the importance of archetypal characters: it’s easy to match them to ones you’ve seen before and match them up.

This is not a movie about “guts and glory,” as some may suggest, but a movie about getting the hell back home in one piece. There is one exceptional moment when Don Collier sees a woman looking at the troops letting off steam in the town square. He takes the green tank driver, Norman, up to a pleasant apartment where they are greeted, not too pleasantly, by a woman and her cousin. Instead of what they expected, the Sargeant is just looking for a little hint of home. He finds it-an island of peace in an ocean of war.

The mistake is in making Fury more (or less) than it is. It’s a really good film, but it’s not about some grandiose scheme to win a war or destroy some foreign ideology. Fury is about squeezing as much out of life in a war and not getting dead. It’s also about killing so many Nazis that there are none left to kill you. George S. Patton once said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” I never got a sense in the movie that anyone gloried in taking life. It was only expedient to kill the “other bastard.”

Ayer’s direction and Brad Pitt’s acting certainly headlined the piece, but everything in the film was top notch. Even the now familiar, “This is the best job I’ve ever had,” from the tank crew, fits. I would strongly suggest seeing Fury in the theater. The action and explosions are just too good to miss on the big screen.

Rating 4 Stars out of 5!

Divergent and Noah both have a lot more in common then you think! Both the critics and audience disagree on each film! So who do you turn to that will give you a no agenda honest review? The Movie Maniac Craig that’s who! Listen in as Craig reviews Divergent starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Kate Winslet. Is Divergent the next Hunger Games? You gotta listen to find out! Next up Craig reviews the polarizing Noah starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Ray Winston. We can’t leave out the great Anthony Hopkins and rising stars Emma Watson and Logan Lerman! What makes Noah so polarizing? Yep you guessed it! Listen in and find out!. We want to know how your reviews for Divergent and Noah. Is Noah worth all the fuss? email us your thoughts moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com or call us 260-573-0015 you can even post them on our Facebook Page or Twitter

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We are back with more Mini Reviews! In this episode we review Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters starring Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario and Brandon T. Jackson. We also review The Worlds End starring our favorite modern day duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost! How does Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters stack up to Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief? Does The Worlds End match Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz? Listen in and find out what Craig has to say then let us know what you thought of these two movies by emailing us moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com or by calling the voice mail number 260-573-0015. We want your movie reviews!

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I don’t think you could get much more different than these two movies! And lucky for us we have Tom to review these two. If your into martial arts then The Man With The Iron Fists starring Russell Crowe, Cung Lee and Lucy Liu might be for you or if your into teen angst then Perks of Being a Wallflower starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller might be right up your alley. So listen in and find out if Tom thinks there worth seeing or skipping. Let us know your thoughts on The man With The Iron Fists and Perks of Being A Wallflower. Send your movie reviews and feedback or show suggestions or anything movie related to moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com or even better call the voice mail # 260-573-0015 

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