TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

I remember so clearly seeing the brief, hyperventilating trailer in the summer movie season of "Gravity," thinking very polarizing thoughts. Then I saw the full-length trailer, I warmed up a little to the idea of Bullock and Clooney in space. By the time this film came out, the buzz around it was deafening, not only from the critics singing it the best technical achievement since "Avatar," saying they should go ahead and just give it the Oscar come February, but from my peers, where the FAQ was "Have you seen 'Gravity' yet?" Let's start this out by saying "Gravity" is worth the hype, in some ways more than others. Will it get nominated for Best Picture? 100%. Will it win? Probably, though "12 Years a Slave" is eyeing the prize as well. "Gravity" is one of the more technically perfect movies I've seen in a very long time. The only movie to come out in recent years to match the accomplishments with 3D would hav...

So probably only the top two of these movies are really hated by people, but all of these movies were fairly bashed by critics and have an increasingly worse reputation through the years despite decent reviews at the time of release! I've slapped on an explanation for all five, and I'm probably forgetting some, but these are the ones I hear my friends and pro critics alike bash frequently. 5. SHREK THE THIRD (ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 40%) The least critically thrashed entry on this list, but many people still believed that the third entry in the "Shrek" series jumped the shark when Shrek, Donkey and co. go to install the future King Arthur (Artie) as the king of Far, Far Away. I saw this in theaters back in 2007, and what can I say, I got a kick out of it. A couple years later when I watched it in my 8th grade drama class I still found it hilarious, of course no where near the level of ingenuity of the first two, but being Far, Far Superior than the fourth installmen...

Oscar season has kicked off with the arrival of "Gravity," so what better time to reflect on the buzzed around movies that have already been released this year? "Lee Daniels' The Butler" (directed by Lee Daniels, who would've known) and Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" both saw a lot of potential, while being vastly different in subject matter. I give my abbreviated reviews of both in this double Oscar bait movie review! LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER: Carey in the mute performance of a lifetime "The Butler" features a "Where's Waldo?" cast of celebrity cameos that range from John Cusack (Nixon) to Alan Rickman (as Reagan no less) that greatly distract from the emotional impact Lee Daniels' "Lee Daniels' The Butler" attempts to portray. The first mistake "The Butler" makes is having Mariah Carey as our protagonist's slave mother in the opening sequence. I think Daniels has a suppressed cra...

Kicking off the feel-good movie of the year that is Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" is a scene where your typical blue-collar family (Hugh Jackman, with a perfect American accent and Maria Bello with their son and young daughter) visits another typical blue collar family (with Viola Davis and Terrence Howard as the parents) for Thanksgiving. After a walk where the two girls pick off icicles on a large white van, they excuse themselves from listening to Terrence Howard's horrendous trumpet playing to pick up a red whistle they left at Jackman's daughter's house. When the parents go back outside, poof, the children have disappeared. This remarkably grim, depressing and involving film is a surefire for the upcoming Oscars, and is one of the year's best thrillers by a landslide. With it's lengthy two and a half hour running time, one would expect there to be a significant amount of character study, and the actors, along with a labyrinthine script from Aar...