Jurassic Park
Hadn’t seen it since it first came out. Still an exciting action film with impressive dinosaur sfx and a beautiful jungle-island setting. Jeff Goldblum, as a sardonic celebrity scientist, steals every scene he’s in.
Somm
Engaging, clever, beautifully-shot documentary about several young men preparing for the extremely difficult Master Sommelier exam. A must-see for anyone who likes wine.
Somm: Into the Bottle
The sequel documentary, not quite as good as the original. More like ten very short films on wine’s origins, lore and appreciation than a single movie.
Johnny Dangerously
Michael Keaton, Marilu Henner and Joe Piscopo costar in an uneven but mostly-funny parody of Thirties gangster movies.
Inside Llewyn Davis
Oscar Issac is very good as a struggling folk singer in early Sixties New York. Terrific score and a fascinating Coen Bros. look at a lost American subculture.
I watched Inherent Vice on HBO last night. A Paul Thomas Anderson film, it stars Joaquin Phoenix as a pot smoking PI tracking down a mystery in 70’s LA.
I can’t decide if I liked it better when it was Jackie Brown or* The Big Lebowski.*
I think I glossed over your original review, but rereading it … yep, you nailed it. I was prepared to give up entirely after about 45 minutes, but I decided to stick it out until the end. I couldn’t really tell you many details of the plot. Something about he smokes pot, his girlfriend is missing, he knows someone at the FBI, and then his girlfriend shows up with a sob story and he nails her in a somewhat disturbing sex scene (my theory is that when Phoenix made it to that page in the script, he said, “I’m in!”). I’m sure there was some other important stuff that happened, but I don’t know what it is.
I truly did zone out for much of the flick. Not funny enough to hold one’s interest for the plodding nature of pretty much every character. Not enough action to keep watching in case something happens. And a plot so convoluted that I never cared enough to try to get it.
I re-watched Fair Game on Netflix today. It was a good reminder about what a bunch of unscrupulous thugs inhabited the White House in the first eight years of this century.
Just returned from vacation, and saw 2 flix on the plane:
Death of Stalin: I’m a bit conflicted. The tone varies wildly between black comedy/farce and brutal violence; but I think that was done on purpose, so I’ll go with a solid recommendation. The decision to have Soviet politburo members talking with working-class English accents was brilliant. With Steve Buscemi as Krushchev, Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov, and an unrecognizable Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) as Molotov. He has a scene where he explains his rationale for a critical vote he’s about to give, where he comes down firmly on both sides of the issue simultaneously, that was genius.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. God, what a mess. The characters are cardboard cutouts, just there as dino bait. The plot makes no sense. They re-use tropes from previous and much better Jurassic movies (like climactic face-off with bad dino resolved when a good dino bursts into the frame to save the day). Jeff Goldblum phones in a cameo to pick up a quick paycheck.
We saw the latest iteration of A Star is Born tonight. Well acted, and Cooper will likely be nominated for a couple of Oscars. Gaga did goodgood. The story was predictable, and I’ve never seen the previous three versions of the film.
Last night we watched Juliet, Naked with Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd and Ethan Hawke. More like a Rom-Dram than a Rom-Com but it has a few amusing bits. Yet another movie based on a Nick Hornby book.
O’Dowd is an nut job obsessed with an obscure, reclusive, ex-musician played by Hawke. Byrne is the star of the show, the girlfriend of the first, who gets into the middle of things.
The first part, establishing characters and their interactions, etc. is the usual, okay stuff. The second part where things actually happen is quite good. Very enjoyable. The problem is that the first part is 2/3 of the movie. Ugh.
Lots of background music. Much performed by Hawke who is okay enough. Some recognizable tunes, some not so recognizable.
Hawke’s character has a kid (one of several, actually) who tags along. Another surprisingly good kid actor.
In terms of Hornby-land, nowhere as good as An Education or High Fidelity. Not even in About a Boy territory.
If the 2nd, good, part made up a lot more of the movie, it could have been really nice. I’ve never been much of a fan of O’Dowd. This movie doesn’t help.
Two movies based on true stories. Both notable for interesting artistic choices in how the story is told.
American Animals - four average, well-off college students plot the theft of priceless books from their university’s library. The film includes occasional cuts to interviews with the actual criminals. This permits some clever little tricks and a neat counterpoint between the criminal’s attitudes then and now. Luckily I knew nothing about the crime when I sat down to watch it and found it compellingly gripping.
A Prayer Before Dawn is the story of Englishman Billy Moore, who temporarily escapes a life of crime by moving to Thailand. Reverting to his familiar ways he ends up getting arrested and sent to Chiang Mai Prison. Life there is a living hell, a constant struggle to survive until he starts fighting in Muay Tai boxing tournaments. Joe Cole plays Billy, most of the rest of the cast are former Thai prisoners. Very few subtitles are provided so for most of the movie, like Billy, you have no idea what is being said. It is confronting stuff. Even the fight scenes seem to feature a lot of real fighting. A really nice score enhances the atmosphere.
I saw American Animals immediately after seeing Ocean’s 8. They’re an interesting contrast. Ocean’s 8 is the Hollywood version of a caper movie. The criminals are clever people who get away scot-free and spend the rest of their lives relatively rich. American Animals is the realistic version. The criminals aren’t as smart as they think they are. The crime is a mess and they are caught, destroying their lives. The best they will be able to say of themselves for the rest of their lives is that they once committed a crime that was so stupid that a movie was made from it.
Date with Death (1959) is a very rare film I had wanted to see for decades. As expected, it sucked; however, it is notable for a couple reasons. One of those reasons is not that it stars Gerald Mohr, who, like always, was awful (his pipe gave a better performance than he did). He plays a hobo who stumbles upon a dead cop, switches identity’s with him and soon finds himself the new police chief in a small town. When the body is found, he is placed in charge of his own “murder” investigation and there are complications with a local gangster.
The film co-stars Liz Renay, then an aspiring actress who served 27 months for perjury after refusing to rat out her boyfriend, mobster Mickey Cohen in 1959. Her later career was very interesting.
Date with Death was filmed on location in Roswell, NM and in “Psychorama.” What is Psychorama? Take it away Gerald Mohr!
(Did you notice how the mannequin head on the table gave a better performance than Mr. Mohr?)
I have no idea if the (crappy) print I saw had subliminal images; I just wanted it to be over so I would not have to endure more of Mr. Mohr anymore.
Mrs. FtG is friends with a woman of the German persuasion. The friend loves the book The Book Thief. While a post-war person, she knows enough about what happened then to understand a lot of the civilian side of WWII in Germany.
So Mrs. FtG read the book this past week and I decided to have the movie as our MotW as a favor to her.
Ugh.
It was so formulaic in it’s story telling. Like a 1930s B-movie. Like a production of a second-rate YA novel. That drags on for over 2 hours. Blyeah.
Good acting. Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson* play the title characters foster parents. Barbara Auer as the bürgermeister’s wife was especially good in a small role. Wish the whole movie had been from her point of view.
Give it 1.5 soccer balls.
They later played the Albert and Elsa Einstein pair on Genius.
Leave No Trace, Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie. Roughly based on the true story of a veteran and his daughter who were discovered living in a public forest park in Portland. Excellent movie.
A Quiet Place - the horror movie directed by John Krasinski and starring Krasinski and his wife, Emily Blunt.
I enjoyed it, but I’m a sucker for monster movies like this. The premise is a bit weak, but if you get past that then the action and story are pretty compelling. The creatures were scary, the child actors were good, and the direction by Krasinski was solid. I was glad that, at a couple of key moments–the story didn’t pull it’s punches.
Foster is very good actor, and the young woman did a stellar job in her role. The movie strayed quickly from what actually happened into fiction and supposition, but still a good yarn and pointed out the plight of some vets and homeless folks very well.