Haven’t heard of that one. I’ll add it to the list.
Stick with it to the end. I was not sure about it, but…just stick with it to the end.
Memories (1995)
Streams on Amazon Prime.
This is an anthology of three anime shorts. I will tell you which one to watch.
Magnetic Rose - A must watch and it was written by Satoshi Kon, the writer-director of Paprika, Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. It’s terrific and the only thing worth it. 45 minutes long and a great thing to go look at. Go watch it. It’s great.
Stink Bomb - just kind of funny and like a Twilight Zone episode. Not bad, but hardly essential.
Cannon Fodder - just kind of lies there, not worth it.
Avatar - The Way of Water
Yeah, that was certainly a movie. A pretty good movie, but nothing all that special or amazing. I thought the first one was quite a bit better. I can’t believe it really did just turn into Stephen Lang vs. Sam Worthington again.
The humans are back to get the unobtanium, I assume. So why is Stephen Lang getting revenge on Sam Worthington so important? Like, I get that the villain wants revenge, but why would the rest of the humans allow him to go so far?
Anyway, neat enough movie. I’ll check out the third one on streaming or Blu-ray.
I had wanted to see this for decades before finding an English-subbed version on YT last night without even looking for it. Sure, it was shit-resolution, but where else am I gonna find it in English? I adjusted my expectations appropriately downward; generally, the longer I’ve waited to see a movie, the more disappointing it usually ended up being. This wasn’t too bad.
In the title role, Conrad Veidt is excellent as usual, though I found his fake beard distracting given its unnatural stiffness and that it sticks out at an odd angle. He drinks in just about every scene he’s in while leering at most of the female cast in the course of much drunken revelry. The film accurately presents him as predicting the Czar’s warmongering would lead to disaster. If only he was around in Russia today to deliver the same message….
Veidt gives the “mad monk” more depth of characterization and sympathy than Lionel Barrymore’s malevolent portrayal (and relentless hamming) in Rasputin and the Empress (1932) or Christopher Lee’s one-note performance in Rasputin (1966), while looking more the part than Gert (Goldfinger) Fröbe in I Killed Rasputin (1967). Nevertheless, the infamous demise, while intense, did not imo reach the dramatic heights of the Barrymore version, offering instead a historically inaccurate, incomplete and stale denouement.
Godfather Part III - CODA version(The Death of Michael Corleone)
This movie is better than I remember, but is also a massive step down from the original two, which were really all we needed. Coppola re-edited this movie a few years ago to try again and while I can not tell the differences right away, the movie overall is not that bad. I guess that is damning it with faint praise, but it really is a pretty good epilogue, which is how Coppola intended it to be seen.
Andy Garcia is great in this movie and I would have watched the fourth Godfather movie with him as the head of the family.
The ending has been changed quite a bit in this movie if you are curious. A quick shot of him dancing with his daughter and it cuts to very old Michael, but he does not collapse and die. He just looks through the camera and the movie ends. It’s pretty effective.
Yeah, so kind of a weird story in this one, but I think the movie works fairly well. Not amazing, but it doesn’t destroy the series that bad.
The Guyver
Terrible movie. Screaming Mad George directed this and it shows none of his great effects and creature design.
A truly terrible and unfun movie. Nothing redeeming here.
It’s “That other Mark Hamill movie.” He’s been in about three dozen films, but aside from Star Wars movies this seems like the only one anyone knows.
He contributes nothing, nor was he really directed to. He’s in it so people can say, “Hey, it’s him!” and he delivers all his lines very simply.
He isn’t terrible, but the movie is.
Really? I list Mark Hamills top three roles as:
Joker in Batman animated and games
Cockknocker in Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back
And Luke Skywalker
What, no love for Corvette Summer ?!?
Instructions Not Included (2013)
Sweet little comedy about a playboy who had to raise a baby after the mother abandoned her. If you have seen 3 Men and a Baby, or even Baby Boom, this one is very familiar.
Revenge (1990)
Largely forgettable Kevin Costner movie (directed by Tony Scott) about a guy so stupid he deserves the ass-kicking he gets halfway through. I don’t know about you, but if I’m in a situation where I am getting horned up over my drug-lord‐best-friend’s wife while at the drug lord’s estate in Mexico, I’m keeping my hands to myself. Costner didn’t, to Madeline Stowe’s forever regret.
I loved Corvette Summer! I think I saw it two or three times during its run (in those days, a movie like that was never going to be accessible again after its run in the theaters). Loved Annie Potts and her smokey voice.
I got a free Screambox trial so I could watch The Outwaters, the latest indie found-footage horror thing to generate buzz among those of us who like such things. I really wanted to like it! I didn’t think it lived up to the hype, though.
Without spoiling too much, the second half of the movie gets extremely abstract and surreal, almost Lynch-ian. The unique thing is that because this is a found footage movie all the bizarre images and events must be understood to have actually happened in some genuine, concrete sense. We can’t apply the usual excuses like “it was a dream” or “they were dead the whole time” or “it’s a metaphor, stupid” because the conceit is that this is actual footage from an actual camera.
I don’t think it was quite as impossible to wrap your head around as some folks seem to; I believe I have a reasonable handle on what was “really going on” in the film. But the movie was so disinterested in communicating its ideas, and applied them so inconsistently that it diluted its own impact. Making a film and releasing it commercially is a communicative artistic endeavor, and if you don’t communicate your ideas well, then you haven’t succeeded.
I’ll stick to acting appearances in live action, not voice. If you include voice, Mark Hamill is a legend and has tons of big parts. I think of the following for him as a live action actor:
- Star Wars <–He’s really good in this part. Underrated, to be honest.
- Corvette Summer <–Never seen it, but that is the “other movie Hamill was in” to me growing up
- Wing Commander <–video game, but all live action and he’s great in it
If you include voice, Luke will always be his top job/role, but I think of:
- The Joker
- Fire Lord Ozai
- Luke Skywalker
I believe Mark Hamill was the big brother in the pilot episode of Eight is Enough. This was a show I watched regularly but don’t remember the pilot much at all. (For the subsequent series another actor played the role.)
Yeah, but I’m usually breaking one of the nerd/boomer taboos (*) and winding someone up with the lack of respect for Star Wars…
- Nerd/Boomer taboos: You thou not say anything bad about The Beatles, Star Wars (first three), The Shining, Godfather, Indiana Jones (first two), Ghostbusters.
Soap re-runs were on Comedy Central a lot 25 or so years ago and I thought Mark Hamill was on that show.
I’m well aware this isn’t him, but I thought he was this guy:
Ah, Jay Johnson. One of two famous ventriloquists to attend Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas.
“Aren’t you a little short for a big brother?”