Mad Max: Fury Road An engaging story, top-notch acting, original dialogue, fleshed out characters, suitable soundtrack and excellent CGI are part of what makes a great film, great. MM:FR has none of these.
Danny Collins Al Pacino has been accused of hamming up recent roles with caricatured performances, and is at risk of being typecast as Al Pacino, by always playing parts as though they’re being played by Al Pacino squared. If you like them, Danny Collins is Al Pacino, gently cubed.
While We’re Young Satirical, honest, sharply written and played by actors who bring together a story that appears to total more than the sum of its parts.
First, Shaun the Sheep. From Aardman studios. Fairly “meh”. Not as good as the Wallace and Gromit stuff. Some of the animation was nice, especially water splashing around.
The other is the Norwegian film Blind. Definitely the opposite of a G rating. Brief shots of someone watching adult material on a computer screen plus the usual stuff you’d expect in a Scandinavian film.
A woman who has lost her sight creates a fantasy world that blends with her real world. Very involved. I found it best to just give up trying to figure out what is real and what is fantasy. It’s the blend that’s important. Surprisingly satisfying for such a dark (?) film.
“Terminal Invasion” - sort of a “Who Goes There” story, with a bunch of random people stuck at a remote private airport in a blizzard. Some of them are aliens, but who? Bruce Campbell is a convicted felon, and Chase Masterson is the pilot/owner, and everyone else is a minor character. The plot proceeds according to time-honored traditions, and eventually we learn who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Certainly a B-movie, but Bruce and Chase make it a lot of fun.
“Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead” – Mad Max meets Night of the Living Dead. The zombie apocalypse hits the Australian outback, and a man who was forced to kill his wife and daughter must rescue his sister from a mad scientist, with the help of an aborigine and other rag-tag survivors. Using zombie breath as fuel for their truck! Fast paced, bloody, violent, and full of black humor. I loved it.
I recently watched Due Date (2010) for the third time.
Many of you would classify this as a “silly comedy” and it would be hard to argue with that.
But from the moment it began until the end, it held my attention and there were some wonderfully funny moments.
I would recommend this film to anyone and everyone (not for children however).
It was rated at 6.6 on IMDB which I consider to be a most grievous mistake. I would have rated it around 7.5.
The story is about an expectant father (Robert Downey Jr) who meets a kind of weird-o (Zach Galifianakis) who decides to befriend Downey and follows him and makes his life fairly miserable.
But that is not really a good description of this film. You really should give it a try for yourselves. At least try the first 15 or 20 minutes. I think you will then have a hard time leaving this film.
There are some wonderful contributions by some supporting actors (Julliette Lewis & Danny McBride). McBride especially is great in his portrayal as a paraplegic war time vet.
I didn’t get anything out of it more so when I watched it for the 2nd or 3rd time. I just enjoyed watching it all 3 times because it is just such a fine comedy.
The only other thing I can say is, “If you are in the mood for a comedy, Try it. You’ll like it”.
Big second on “Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.” The camera barely stands still. Well acted all around. Funny as all get out. Working hard to be a cult classic. Half a step below “Shaun of the Dead.”
It got me to remembering another film about a wedding. Muriel’s Wedding (1994).
This is an Australian film and it would seem that most of the actors (and maybe even people behind the camera) were novices.
But this is one of the most enjoyable comedies I’ve ever seen and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
IMDB rates this film at 7.2 which I think is a real travesty. IMHO, it deserves at least 7.8.
Some of the aspects of “novice actors” and “novice film makers” would seem to be rather apparent. But that is just my guess. It still is a film to be treasured by anyone who loves good films.
I treasure this film and I hope some of you will give it a try. It is a real treasure.
It was the first movie (I think) for Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths. Both of them went on to many other fine films and TV shows. They have always turned in wonderful performances and fully deserve (IMO) all the good things that have happened to them.
This film is were that all began. I love this film.
P.S. I just want to take this opportunity to say Hello to my old friend Burpo. It is so nice to see you again. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that you have been absent for a while. Perhaps I’m mistaken about that. If so, please excuse me. But I’ll never forget how you helped me find some movies that no one else ever could (It Came from Beneath the Sea, for example) and I’ve been in awe of you ever since. Burpo, you should consider me to be a fan.
I saw that several years ago and really enjoyed it, mostly for…
Love both those actresses. Collette shone in this movie. Griffiths was in an earlier movie as a mentally handicapped girl and was so believable, I wondered if they might have hired an actual mentally handicapped girl for the part. She was also in the terrific series Six Feet Under with not a hint of accent. She’s a great, versatile actress.
We saw End of the Tour Saturday night. Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace, and Jesse Eisenberg as the reporter interviewing him.
Segel gives a great performance, far from his usual Sarah Marshall/HIMYM kind of role. Jesse Eisenberg gives his usual weaselly-little-creep performance.
I’m not sure if I liked it or not. Wallace spends so much time in his own head, wrapped around his axle, it’s a bit frustrating. I want to know more about him, and more about Infinite Jest (surprisingly, they don’t talk at all about what the novel is about)…but maybe not so much as to invest in 1000 pages.
I just saw Mr. Holmes. There are a lot of pastiches about the ages Holmes in his retired, bee-keeping days. This is the first movie I’ve seen of it. It was well-made, but I found it to sentimental – I hate it when people set out to “humanize” Holmes, and this film definitely does so. I was middlin’ pleased with it, and was surprised to find that the book it’s based on is highly praised.
They definitely did do their homework, though . The story is (as a Holmes fanatic friend of mine would have put it) “completely canonical”. It’s knowledgeable about the Canon and doesn’t contradict it. I was happy to instantly identify an in-joke – the “Lady in Gray” stops and waits for Holmes at a Taxidermist shop labelked “Ambrose Chapell”. If you don’t get the reference, re-watch the second Hitchcock version of The Man who Knew Too Much (the Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day version).
Another little in-joke I did NOT catch – in the Sherlock Holmes film-within-the-film, Holmes is played by Nicholas Rowe, who had played the part in Young Sherlock Holmes thirty years ago. He looks perfect to play SH in his prime now.
Saw Minions, too, and liked it, but didn’t love it. Fun film.
I saw Due Date when it came out and thought it was just OK. Not enough laughs for its running time IMHO. Several times I just wanted to throttle the Zach G. character.
Recently seen:
Leon: The Professional
At Malthus’s urging, I saw the international version. It was pretty good - a hitman shoot-'em-up with a heart. Both Jean Reno and a young Natalie Portman are excellent in their roles; Gary Oldman was a bit too over-the-top as the villainous DEA agent, though.
Timecop
Saw this Jean-Claude Van Damme time-travel action/adventure again after many years. Lots of plot holes, but a good B-movie.
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World
A recent documentary about the late sf/horror visionary Swiss artist. Filmed mostly in his last years, when he was overweight and quite slow (both mentallyand physically), with interviews of many people who knew and worked with him. Giger was a pack-rat and his house was stuffed with all kinds of cool stuff from his long career. I would like to have seen more about his production design for the Alien movies.
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Sellers is as hilarious as ever. Several times I started laughing during the setup to the gags - didn’t even need to see them before being amused. Favorite bit: “Does your dog bite…?”
The Music Man
I had seen bits and pieces of this big-time 1962 musical but never the whole movie in one go. Overlong but a lot of fun, with great songs. Robert Preston absolutely dominates the screen as “Prof.” Harold Hill, and Shirley Jones is pretty good as Marian the librarian.
I just watched the first 30 minutes of Southpaw (2015) starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachael McAdams. It was only rated 7.7 on IMDB which I consider to be too low - even though I’ve only watched the first half-hour. I think it’s OK to post about a movie given that I’ve only watched the first 30 minutes (Its runtime is 124 min) when there is something extraordinary about the film.
I’ve always liked movies in which Jake Gyllenhaal appears. Nightcrawler (2014) was wonderful and if you’re looking for an exciting film, you might want to give this one a try. Prisoners (2013) was an amazing Crime Mystery. Too many more fine films to list.
But this film opens with a boxing fight scene that just seems far more realistic than any other fight scenes I’ve seen. I know that is something extreme to say because there have been so many superb fight scenes from so many boxing movies recently. But give this film a chance and see if you don’t agree.
Please excuse me for offering an opinion about Leon: The Professional that is a little different than yours.
I think it was a much better film than just “pretty good”. My opinion may not be extremely different than yours. But I really liked this film because it pulled me in and would not let me go until the film was over.
There were many human traits that were revealed in a silent kind of way.
Most of my opinion stems from the fact this was Natalie Portman’s first full-length motion picture. She first captured my attention in the film “Beautiful Girls” (1996) in which I thought she did an amazing job. She was supposedly 14 years old in that film (I think, although she was really 15). She portrayed a young woman who was very hot and desirable - even though she was only 14. But I’m not a pedophile and so I had to keep my desire in my pants.
In Leon: The Professional, she was portrayed as being a little older and so I figured it was acceptable to make my feelings of desire more evident.
In short, I think she can project a highly desirable young woman and the attraction or lack of attraction was not presented in an overt fashion. But Leon clearly had to pay attention to her.
But besides that, there were many other facts in the plot of this film that were done really well by the film makers.
This film was rated 8.6 by IMDB. For those of you who know how IMDB gives out those ratings to movies and the range these ratings usually take, that is an astounding rating. It’s in the same league as films like “The Godfather” and “Shawshank Redemption” and other films you might know.
In summary, Leon: the Professional, is an excellent film with a jaw-dropping rating. If you try it out, my guess is that you would not be disappointed.
Not to make you uncomfortable, but Portman was 13 on the year of the release of this, so was probably 12 when filming. I always viewed her as being that age, so young that there’s no ambiguity.
It was to me, always about a very young girl pretending to be older. And having a crush for an adult while young enough for desire, but too young to know what reality is like.
In the movie, she claims to Leon that she is 18, but it is pretty clear he doesn’t actually believe her (though he tries to pass her off as 18 to his “surrogate father” Tony - and it is very clear Tony doesn’t believe it - his response was something like "oh, really? :dubious: ". At the end of the movie, Tony expressly refers to her as being 12, as in “I don’t have a job for a 12 year old”).
The heart of the movie, in my opinion at least, is the odd-couple relationships between Leon and Mathilda on the one hand, and Leon and Tony on the other. These are steeped in ambiguity, I think deliberately designed to make the audience uneasy - it drives both the drama and a lot of the black comedy. People have spent a lot of time arguing over their relations.
My own opinion is that Leon/Mathilda is, basically, a platonic romance. Leon has no sexual interest whatsoever in Mathilda; she claims to have such an interest in Leon - but her interest is simply gleaned from the media portrayals of such relations (specifically, her sister’s magazines): she has no real idea about the difference between love and sex, being so young and so mentally scarred. In fact, one of the subtexts througout the movie is that these characters form their opinions and actions based on the media and grim surroundings.
From Leon’s POV, he starts by simply wanting her gone, but gradually comes to realize that she provides the centre his life lacked. He’s not exactly a father-figure, because mentally he’s a kid himself - witness his relationship with Tony, who is like an (exploitive) father to Leon.
I watched “John Wicke.” I was intrigued by the promos that seemed to promote Wicke as some sort of mythological figure, kind of like Kayser Soze in “The Usual Suspects.” I thought Keanu Reaves could do a pretty good job of portraying someone like that. But I was disappointed. The story was a run of the mill violent revenge flick. Reaves’ character never obtains mythic stature, he’s just a pissed off assassin. Instead of using Reaves’ ability to project uber-cool, he was asked to EMOTE. So stupid. Not worth my time, or anyone else’s.
Wick, not Wicke. We enjoyed it, it had the appropriate mix of action and cartoonish violence, plus Theon Greyjoy being metaphorically emasculated. 60% on our personal Metacritic score.