Syan Vs Movies: San Andreas

San Andreas is the most recent disaster movie that Hollywood has churned out. Dwayne Johnson (we don’t still need to call him the Rock, do we?) stars as Ray Gaines, a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter rescue pilot.  Ray is celebrated as being one of the most outstanding rescue operators with over 200 successful operations. We find out that Ray is in the process of divorcing his wife Emma (Carla Gugino) who has begun a new relationship with a wealthy architect named Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd).  Ray and Emma remain in Los Angeles while their daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), goes to San Francisco with Daniel.  Blake meets a pair of kind brothers named Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and Ollie (Art Parkinson) while in Daniel’s San Francisco office.

The effects used for this movie are gorgeous.
Who knew destruction could be beautiful?
Deidara?

While they all go about their lives, a seismologist professor named Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) discovers a trend of magnetic spikes before earthquakes which allows him to predict the occurrences, but not before the Hoover Dam collapses in a huge earthquake. Lawrence then warns that California will be hit by huge earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault.  And so the stage is set for the action of San Andreas.

Syan Vs Movies: Ex Machina

As this is my first movie review here in the No Kayfabe Zone, I want to preface that, unless I note otherwise within a review, I never give out any real spoilers for a film, just set up and character moments that are interesting. I also do not like to give score ratings for movies, a la 3/5 stars or B+, because I would rather describe how I feel about the movie at the end and note if I would rewatch it.

Caleb, Ava, and Nathan
Who do you trust?

Any movie that has a principle cast of only three characters has a huge hurdle to jump as far as keeping the audience entertained. All of the actors need to captivate and own their screen time. Some of the best performances people have given are under these circumstances, such as Sandra Bullock in Gravity, Ryan Reynolds in Buried, and James Franco in 127 Hours.  There are also some of the most boring films if the actors aren’t given much to do, such as the terrible Open Water. Luckily, Ex Machina is amazingly well-acted.