War is hell: Time to get ready for Oscar season with American Sniper

American Sniper is the latest movie with Clint Eastwood in the directors chair. It stars Bradley Cooper as Chis Kyle, the legendary "most deadly sniper" in American history. The film follows Kyle from his child hood through his young days in the rodeo and moves to him joining the Navy Seals and his four tours in Iraq, all while building a family. Since this movie is so highly anticipated I will try to keep this brief and spoiler free.

Chris Kyle is born a young country boy who was raised with a very strict religious background and a father who instills in his sons a strong need to protect those around them. This leads him to enlist in the military when he becomes a young adult and makes it into the prestigious ranks of the Navy Seals. Having a family history of hunting in him, he naturally moves into an over watch sniper position and builds a strong reputation for always watching the backs of the Marines below him. At the same time he has married a woman back home who he only gets to see for short periods at time in between his leave and time between tours. Although that doesn't stop them from having two kids and adding more pressure on their already strained marriage due to the fact that he is always away and has trouble adjusting when he is back.  Driven by his need to protect his fellow men Kyle puts himself in more and more dangerous situations rather than remain in over watch to ensure himself that things go well. This becomes amplified by the arrival of "The Butcher", an immensely talented sniper working with the Iraqis insurgence and starts accumulating a long list of kills.  The majority of the film centers around Kyle trying to balance his need to protect his friends while still maintaining a normal life, all the while being chased by the reputation that he has built as being the deadliest sniper and his ability to reconcile the lives that he has taken with himself.

The shining star in the movie is clearly Cooper. He blew audiences away with his on screen energy in the Silver Linings Playbook, but here it is is subtlety and silent intensity that steals the show.  When he makes his first kill in combat you see every emotion that he goes through quietly through his eyes alone.  In fact several scenes in the movie show him going through a wide range of emotions while he stares through his scope. Then Cooper uses an almost new found talent of body language to express the stress that he is experiencing, which is a huge turn around from his trademark facial acting which have been his bread and butter so far.  I'm not saying I am surprised by is performance as much as i am impressed with the speed in which he seems to be improving between roles.

The rest of the movie does tend to become a little bland at times, almost a little repetitive. There isn't much to say for a score and Eastwood's tempo for the film seems to want to crawl at the same pace that the stress is building for Kyle.  That being said the last 30 minutes or so build up a very good amount of tension that give the film a really good finish. If you don't know Kyle's story then by all means avoid it at all costs prior to seeing the movie....just trust me on this. I didn't know anything about him and it made the ending so much better. I definitely recommend the movie, over all it gives a unique look into the life of soldiers that we normally tend to take for granted.

The inevitable return of the Black Sheep

So this blog has been dead for a while now, mostly due to me being incredibly busy at work and dealing with last years New Years resolution to get back in shape.  Well I am proud to say that that resolution was accomplished as now i have lost a total of 50 pounds and counting.  I've also moved some of the things around in my life so that I can devote a lot more time to my writing, which brings me to this years New Years resolution.

Since last year I devoted my time to my body, this year I will devote more time to my mind.  My goal is to write 24 blogs this year. That may now sound like to much since it only averages two blogs per month but considering that I only managed to produce 7 blogs last year it does sound like a pretty lofty goal.   I plan on keeping the blog fresh by branching out to more mediums including book reviews as well as making some themed blogs. For instance I plan on doing Freaky February and do only horror reviews since that is what I have been watching the most of lately. As always i will welcome feedback and suggestions in the comments.

Adding on to that lofty goal I will also be breaking ground on my first novel as well. It will be a non fictional account of the time i spent in Tent City. It will mostly be about how I was struggling with substance abuse, unemployment and incarceration all while in the most renowned jail in the country.  It was a very big turning point in my life and I've found that most people become very engaged on the story whenever it comes up so i figured i would just get it off my chest once and for all.

So those are the goals for the year, obviously if I can go harder and produce more then i will.  So far I have almost 40 likes on face book (almost half of which are people not on my friends list! thanks to everyone that has liked and shared!) and I was thinking of doing some cheesy giveaways for when I hit 50 75 and 100 so keep a look out for those as well and as always please remember to like and share!