BlackkKlansman. Spike Lee hit it out of the park with this one. The true story of a black police officer’s undercover work. I’d look for an Oscar for direction on this one. Available for rent on Amazon.
Birdbox - the first third or so was good, but it went downhill from there and the ending was awful.
Red Sparrow - I liked this better than I thought I would. I was expecting it to be more of an action movie with Jennifer Lawrence kicking ass left and right, like Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde or Angelina Jolie in Salt. But it’s not an action movie, more of a suspense/thriller with J-Law as a reluctant and conflicted spy.
Hereditary - Wow. Very creepy horror movie. Toni Colette is very good, and I imagine it was a tough role as her character gets more and more manic as the story progresses. This movie is not for everyone, but I liked it.
Jumanji (the new one) - Very silly but fun. Hard to go wrong with The Rock, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan, and I even liked Kevin Hart in this though I’m not generally a fan. (coincidentally, the actor who plays the ‘real’ version of the main character in this was also in Hereditary).
I agree with Bird Box. I read the book first, and it was the same sort of ending.
Watched Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Interesting biopic of a complicated person. Available on Netflix.
The Green Book. Loved, loved loved it. It’s predictable and manipulative, but I didn’t care.
The Old Man & The Gun. Possibly Robert Redford’s last movie.
Come for the acting (Redford and Sissy Spacek) stay for … the acting?
The storyline gets jumbled up at times. In particular “chunks” are delberately left out. So we see people planning to do X, then it jumps to immediately after X and we are left to infer what actually happened during X. And what happened seems far too important to leave to inference.
Danny Glover and Tom Waits play Redford’s criminal buddies. Waits in particular is a genius* at this.
Casey Affleck plays the Representative Cop who is “chasing” Redford but is actually just a soundboard for people to explain Redford’s past. He really doesn’t do much in terms of propelling the action forward. (And in one case literally does nothing when he should.) An oddly included character. What’s the opposite of a Dr. Exposition? I.e., a person who listens to others explaining?
There are a ton of “homages” to other films, including Redford’s and Spacek’s. There’s even a clip of a young Redford from The Chase. And some Two-Lane Blacktop/Warren Oates stuff.
Credit oddity: Keith Carradine gets a much higher billing than Elisabeth Moss despite the former barely being seen at all and the latter having a good length scene. Blame the cutting room floor.
Give it 3 “hearing aids” thanks to mostly Sissy Spacek.
- “That’s what is says on the card.”
Waits is also in the Coen Brothers’ new movie, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (mentioned above), as a feisty old prospector.
Waits’ acting career is off and on. Hadn’t been in a feature film since 2012’s Seven Psychopaths and now in two films of note. It was mentioned here that he has a problem memorizing lines.
In TOM&TG there’s a long monologue that is reported he made up on his own. It works.
My latest five:
Absolute Power
So-so Clint Eastwood movie about a cat burglar who, while robbing a mansion, sees a woman killed in the President’s presence by his Secret Service agents. The burglar decides to expose the crime while dodging assassins.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Hadn’t seen this sf epic in awhile. Still pretty slow-paced, but an interesting story, beautiful score, and it’s good to see the crew reunited on a spiffy, rebuilt starship.
3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Dark comedy set in rural America, as a redneck mom tries to shame local cops into finding her daughter’s killer and rapist. Excellent cast and funny dialogue, with a definite Coen-esque air. Recommended.
Six Shooter
Oscar-winning Irish short film, with the always-great Brendan Gleeson as a grieving husband who takes a train ride he’ll never forget.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Another fun MCU superhero movie, and more light-hearted than most. Paul Rudd is again terrific as the everyman guy in the suit. Some fantastic chase sequences in San Francisco. Two thumbs up.
Watched the latest Mission Impossible movie on demand. I can see why Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 97% rating, as it’s pure entertainment from start to finish.
“Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse” was stunningly good - easily the best animated feature of 2018, and by far the best superhero movie in years. Marvelously original.
Watched the remake of “Papillon.” The 1973 film starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, which are mighty big shoes to fill. The two lead actors do a credible job, the film is well-mounted and is hardly a shot-for-shot remake. However, during the end credits, it is revealed that the script for this film is based solely on the 1973 screenplay. In other words, there’s no new take on the book, nothing new added. It kept me entertained, but I just kept thinking, why bother doing a remake if you’re not going to give it a fresh take.
Just saw " Annhilation" a few days ago. It reminded me an awful lot of the movie “Arrival.”
It felt like a mess. They could not figure out which movie to make. I must admit that a few of the visual elements are deeply evocative. There was such an emotional disconnect between the lead woman and the lead man at the end of the film was completely flat and unbelievable to me.
The overall conceit was really really interesting; the IMDb page for this movie lists a rigorously vetted scientific paper that dives into DNA Mix-Ups and combinations.
The single most haunting moments were the ones that showed the small trees growing in the shapes of human beings. It told the entire story of what had happened and what likely would happen in a single shot. Quite powerful to me.
The photographic style editing and lighting choices reminded me a lot of Arrival as I set up at the top. Arrival did a better job stylistically and the end of it worked for me a lot better.
I will not be watching this again.
MotW: First Man.
Yeah, it’s pretty good. Very emotionally tense. And too long … except that they left out so much so … too short??
While focusing on the family side of things quite a bit is a good idea, Gosling’s terseness fails at many points. Esp. in his test flights and such.
After all this family-focus stuff, during the Apollo 11 landing we don’t see Janet. It’s like he’s on another world! Fodder for crappy essays and masters theses for years to come. Oh, well.
Still, the man remains an enigma. That’s unfortunate.
Last movie I saw in the theater was Aquaman. It was a fun movie, worth the ticket.
The Favourite. I thought it was brilliantly acted, an unusual story (has Queen Anne ever been the subject of a film before? I knew zippo about her and immediately went to Wikipedia) and great script. My wife, on the other hand, couldn’t enjoy because Anne was such a pitiable character, she could only feel sorry for her.
There was a 1969 British miniseries about the Churchills in which Queen Anne is a major character. Haven’t seen it but it got good reviews at the time: The First Churchills - Wikipedia
My latest five:
Seven Samurai
Saw this Kurosawa classic for the first time, a B&W action movie about seven warriors defending a poor village from bandits. Overlong but worth a look.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Terrific animated superhero movie, as Spider-folk from different universes team up to fight Kingpin and fix an interdimensional rift. Funny and exciting, with a beautiful mix of CGI and old-school animation. Really enjoyed it.
Misery
A famous writer, injured in a car crash on a lonely Colorado road, is held prisoner by his “Number One fan” and forced to write a novel bringing back the bodice-ripper heroine he has just recently, with great relief, killed off. Kathy Bates earned her Oscar as the mad, scary, controlling captor; James Caan is pretty good as the writer.
Juno
Offbeat comedy about a spunky pregnant teen who decides to give her unwanted baby to a young couple. Not as good as the reviews, I thought, although Ellen Page is adorkable in the lead role.
The World Before Your Feet
Very enjoyable documentary about a man who has the goal of walking all eight thousand miles of NYC’s streets, boulevards and alleys. The movie takes you to parts of the city that you might never see otherwise, including a surprising number of green and unspoiled places.
I remember The First Churchills, although I’ve never seen it. Makes sense; it’s basically the same timeframe and same characters as The Favourite. Sarah Churchill (Duchess of Marlborough), played by Rachel Weisz, is one-third of the love/hate triangle.
My latest watch was Apostle, a Netflix original. Basic plot: a man infiltrates a bizarre island cult in order to rescue his sister, who is being held for ransom. I liked it until it turned supernatural; I felt it was stronger when everything was in the realm of the possible. Some seriously gory scenes. Even horror fans, though, can probably skip it.
I finally saw Avengers: Infinity War, and was as impressed as impressed could be, I must say.
I finally saw Solo: A Star Wars Story, and I feel the same way that the Professor felt about The Avengers. I have no idea why it tanked so hard. I thought it was the best Star Wars movie I’ve seen since the first trilogy. Eh … maybe I’m just sick of the mysticism of the Star Wars universe and I was cranked up for some good old fashion space piracy.