TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Before this review begins, I have to preface it with an embarrassing confession:  Steven Spielberg's last epic, "War Horse," which came out in Christmas time and was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award...drove me to sleep.  Well...kind of.  It might have been the result of the cool theater, or a long day's exhaustion, but I could be caught struggling to keep consciousness as the main character and the titular war horse were shown literally just plowing a field.  I won the battle of sleep and resumed watching the movie, to be pleasantly surprised by the ending and gradual appreciation of "War Horse."  I've yet to re-watch it, but I might after viewing this historical masterpiece by one of cinema's greatest actors and cinema's greatest directors about the nation's greatest president. Daniel Day-Lewis in the film...I think But praising a film with Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis is a given, these are masters at their craft after al...

Critics reviewing "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," the teenage high school film have a distinct disadvantage by just writing it: they're not teenagers.  To fully relate to this film it helps to be currently enrolled in high school, and see some of the challenges that you face presented on the screen.  I have beef with what's presented in the film, but the good exceedingly outweighs the bad in this thoughtful, challenging movie, something the great John Hughes would have devised back in the day. The douche tearing Charlie's book The movie opens in with the not too familiar sounds of a typewriter click-clacking away, and from that beginning you realize this is going to be no ordinary film.  2012 films nowadays wouldn't dare throw in a typewriter, unless it was ironically vintage and you had a hipster with a cup of coffee in his hands and a Smart Phone in his pocket.  Though not explicitly stated, the film takes place around the early 90's, and don...

The glorious leaves splattered around the ground aren't the only reason I love the fall-into-winter season: award's season starts soon!  The Golden Globes will be announced in less than a month, and I'm ready to try my luck at guessing at the major categories, comedy, drama, and animated movie naturally.  This will all unfold soon, but I love taking a crack at what will be a really heated race, though the only definite is Daniel Day-Lewis taking home his third Oscar for portraying Abraham Lincoln!  Let's see! BEST DRAMA: This category will be much easier to predict.  Last year there were six, with "The Ides of March" being the only one that didn't pick up a Best Picture nomination in this category: DiCaprio in "Django Unchained" Argo (This one's for certain, and really does deserve all the praise it gets) Lincoln (Really strong lauding for the film, and not just Day-Lewis) Life of Pi (The buzz on this is massive enough to get a...

While the wise thing to do to generate traffic is to talk about Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm, I don't have the desire to talk on something that's three years from now, there'll be plenty of time to discuss it (and three years for me to watch the other five "Star Wars" movies people have been badgering me to see). I just want to take a minute, (or a post) to reflect on the crazy roller coaster ride writing in this blog has been.  Initially though, it wasn't just a full-time thing like it is now. My first post can actually be found here , where I literally wrote two sentences on it being my first blog post.  The following posts are ramblings, not reviews, just me unfiltered talking about "Avatar" and being snowed in.  I had been reviewing movies on the now graveyard MySpace since 2008, the first film I reviewed I believe was Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino."  If any of you can remember the embarrassment of having a MySpace, you'...