Into the Night
So-so 1985 crime comedy with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jeff Goldblum. The best thing about the movie is the featured B.B. King song of the same name.
Room Service
Marx Brothers comedy about a theatrical troupe overstaying its welcome at a swanky hotel. Pretty funny. Look for a very young Lucille Ball in an early role.
Interstellar
Rewatched this Christopher Nolan sf epic and enjoyed it all over again. Great cast, interesting story, mind-binding science, very impressive sfx and an uplifting message.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai
Heavily-fictionalized WWII drama about the building of a Japanese military bridge by British POWs. Alec Guinness definitely earned his Oscar as the stubborn, principled British commander who tragically loses sight of his true duty.
Terminator Genisys
The latest installment in the franchise; a virtual reboot via alternate timeline. Worth a look despite mixed reviews, I’d say. Ahnuld is Ahnuld, of course, a little long in the tooth but still game, and Emilia Clarke (best known as the Khaleesi in Game of Thrones) does pretty well as a feisty Sarah Connor. Didn’t care much for a major plot element,* but there are some impressive action sequences and good character moments.
John Connor is turned into a villainous robot by Skynet using nanotechnology.
The Lost City of Z, based on the book of the same name. It is pretty much faithful to the real life story of Percy Fawcett, except for some silly native nonsense at the end.
I’m looking forward to that one. I picked up the book on a lark a few years back. In fact, I fully admit I thought it was a fiction and that zombies would show up sooner or later. I mean, I was two chapters in before I realized I was reading a biography. But it hooked me. It was a great read. Like an old time adventure story.
The Hunted (1948) – Obscure, b-movie with little to recommend it. I only watched for Belita, my obscure b-movie ice skating dreamgirl.
Jeff (1969) – French gangster flick with Alain Delon in typical unemotive form. Neither memorable nor particularly good.
Le Marginal (1983) – Cop Jean-Paul Belmondo breaks rules to kick ass on criminal scum. Underwhelming.
Black Lightning (2009) – Russian attempt at a Marvel movie has teen acquiring a flying (Volga) car, then turning to crime-fighting/do-gooding after failing to prevent his father’s murder. The unfamiliar setting aside, this was derivative pablum.
Rapt (1934) – Russian-French co-production set in two villages on opposite sides of a mountain. A dog’s murder leads to a revenge kidnapping and senseless tragedy. Outstanding cinematography in spots, but story and character logic left much to be desired.
I took some long plane flights recently, and so I saw a lot of movies that I probably wouldn’t have, normally.
Their Finest: dramedy set in London during The Blitz, about a film company making patriotic movies. So-so; Bill Nighy is great, as usual. Would make a great double-feature with Dunkirk. (The original title was “Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half” which is a clever mash-up of Churchill’s comment and the runtime of their movies. Cutting the title made it totally un-clever.)
Eye in the Sky: riveting drama about drone warfare.
Boss Baby: animated. kinda cute, some laughs.
Life: if you take Alien and remove the horror, the imaginative alien design, and most of the suspense, you’d get Life. I was surprised by the ending, though.
Finally got around to seeing Valerian before our localplex retired it. Interesting. Not as bad as I was expecting, especially from the two leads. lots of eye candy.
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring My 13 year old nephew wanted to see this again after having read the books. Happy to accommodate! This is probably my favorite of the trilogy.
Pretty in Pink I was talking to my college-age nieces about 1980s John Hughes movies and they had never seen this one. It was fun because going into the final scene, one of them was rooting for her to choose rich popular kid Blaine and the other was hoping she’d choose friend-zoned Duckie. Next week we’ll watch Some Kind of Wonderful where Eric Stoltz makes the opposite choice.
Dunkirk - Great film. Looking forward to seeing this again at some point.
The Big Sick - Utterly charming.
Spider-man: Homecoming - Not the best Marvel flick of the last few years, but the best Spiderman movie and one of the best Marvel villains ever.
I saw Shin Godzilla last weekend–Toho’s 2016 reboot of the original. It is a talky movie, a lot of it deals with the authorities debating on what to do. There are some really great Godzilla SMASH! scenes that make up for all the dialog. I liked it much better than the 2014 version.
There’s Something About Mary
Saw this grossout romantic comedy again for the first time since it came out. Weird, raunchy and very funny, just as I remembered.
Blade Runner
Rewatched this sf detective-noir classic so it’d be fresh on my mind when I see the sequel this fall. A flawed cop (Harrison Ford at his best), a beautiful woman with a tragic secret (Sean Young, lovely), and a dark, dangerous city stretching out to the horizon. Still holds up very well.
Tomorrowland
Didn’t do well at the box office, but I enjoyed it. George Clooney is quite good in a clever, big-hearted sf adventure that dares us to dream again.
La La Land
Now I understand what all the fuss was about! I’m not much into musicals, but thought this exuberant love letter to L.A. was a lot of fun. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are great as the romantic leads, and J.K. Simmons steals every scene he’s in as a grumpy restaurateur. Highly recommended.
The Martian
Rewatched this sf adventure of an American astronaut (Matt Damon) stranded on Mars. Man against nature at its purest, with knockout cinematography and some good laughs along the way.
Went to Dunkirk two nights ago. Had my usual problem with Brit accents (coupled with some hearing loss), so a good portion of the dialog was lost to me. It wasn’t a bad movie, but I’m not sure I agree with the 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Atomic Blonde - If you’d ever hoped that Marvel would make a Black Widow movie, this might be the closest you’d ever get to one. It’s not an action film with some spy stuff in it, it’s a spy film with some action in it. Also, an awesome '80’s music soundtrack.
Wind River - Good suspense thriller with two “Avengers” Jeremy Renner & Elizabeth Olson looking to solve a murder mystery. I like that it takes place in an area, Wyoming Indian Reservation, where most people have never been to and it’s always good to see Graham Greene.
Ingrid Goes West - A Dark Comedy that covers the over uses and obsessions some have with social media. This may be the best work by Aubrey Plaza showing that she’s not a one note actress. Also, it’s Elizabeth Olson again playing a character totally opposite than the one she plays in Wind River.
As I noted upthread, I was underwhelmed. And I rolled my eyes at the scene where the gallant RAF pilot actually shot down a German plane while making a lonnnnnnnnnnng deadstick landing.
Batman vs. Superman - After seeing Wonder Woman, which contained Batman vs. Superman spoilers, I knew I needed to see what led up to those spoilers. Based on reviews I went in with low expectations, but I enjoyed BvS a lot more than I expected. The first 2/3 especially were good, although I didn’t buy their justification for fighting. I liked Ben Affleck as Batman better than I thought I would, but his Batman just seems like an alternate reality from the Christian Bale Batman. The ending was fairly satisfying.
There was a lot more to the actual Dunkirk situation that this movie didn’t address, which was a bit annoying. I guess they were going for a different angle, rather than the usual sort of war movie, but I thought it failed to make clear just how dire the circumstances were and how intense the fighting was.
I went to see Valerian this week. Not a horrible movie but it had its flaws. I think its problem was its source material. People who grew up reading the comic book probably went into the movie with positive feelings towards it. But it’s pretty much unread outside of France and everyone else is going to go to this with no background. And this movie was not good enough to sell itself.
Saw All Saints in the theaters - A nice little movie that avoids preachiness or proselytizing, and doesn’t portray skeptics as evil or potential converts. Actually I don’t think it portrays them at all - it’s just about a dwindling church about to be closed that suddenly has a big influx of Burmese refugees on its doorstep, and how the two groups help each other.