I recommended this back in January and the fun part of that quote for me was that it was ad-libbed after the weapon kept jamming. They didn’t have a lot of time for shooting and the director instructed the two actors to stay in character no matter what.
To Live and Die in LA.
Bill Petersen is a tightly-wound Treasury agent and Willem Dafoe is an evil artist and counterfeiter who killed Petersen’s partner. The movie is very 80s, so 80s in fact that Wang Chung did the music for it, and it feels every bit the 80s. There are some neat chase scenes and good staging including a foot chase that ends up on a walkway high above an industrial area and a car chase that goes through a rail yard and the LA River. Petersen’s Richard Chance is not a good guy, he gets more corrupt as the movie progresses, and he ultimately pays the price for it. Petersen must have been in the shape of his life for this role and it shows with all the running he does; he also seems to be evoking Michael Keaton for some reason. Some of the movie is rather ridiculous but I recommend it for the energetic chase scenes and the 80s superficial flamboyance.
Limitless
A friend of mine recommended this a few times and I missed it the first time around so I finally watched it. Good movie and the one thing that really grabbed me was when Eddie says “Against aggressive overexpansion? There aren’t because there are no safeguards in human nature. We’re wired to overreach.” That’s that the whole movie is about. The ending is fine, not great imo, but it’s a good story.
I can’t help but think of this as a Michael Mann film made by William Friedkin. Every bit of the aesthetic, down to the wardrobes and music, feels like Mann.
I had the same problem with this movie that I have with the recent movies of Marvel or DC comics. You’re expected to have seen all the previous movies, television shows, comics, or whatever. This makes them difficult for me to understand.
The “sequel” TV show was decent as well, and Bradley Cooper continues as Eddie Morra in a recurring role, although not one that got to live up to its potential as the show got canned after one season. I rather liked Jake McDorman but the TV show did tend to stray into goofiness. Still, if you liked the film you might enjoy what there was of the series.
We watched Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) on Disney+, which is the middle movie in the Spider-Verse trilogy. The animation is great, portraying action and mood through palette choices and artistic styles. The soundtrack matches well. The story is rather scattered and hard to follow at times, but it hits the right notes.
My main disappointment is the cliff-hanger ending. And of course the conclusion of the trilogy is not available for streaming.
Eddington (2025). First the good news. Once it gets going this is a very effective thriller, albeit somewhat convoluted, with a fine performance by Joaquin Phoenix, and also starring Emma Stone and Pedro Pascal. The bad news is that the film is something of a mess of too many themes and subplots all thrown together and for quite some time it’s hard to make sense of it.
It takes place at the peak of COVID, with a sheriff (Phoenix) who is opposed to the mask mandate both on principle and because his asthma makes it impossible for him to breathe with a mask. When he decides to run for mayor against the incumbent (Pascal) I thought the film would be a social commentary, but it’s not that at all, and proceeds to go off in all directions before turning into a pretty solid thriller, though good luck figuring out all the plot points.
Recommended because it’s a pretty tense thriller and because of Phoenix’s excellent dramatic performance, but be prepared for many moments of “WTF is this scene about?”.
I watched this recently on the basis that it had good ratings on IMDB, but was left very underwhelmed. The whole thing was very cheesy in that superficial, OTT 80s way.
Ordinary Angels (2024). Based on true events, tells the story of a troubled alcoholic woman who sees an article about a five-year-old girl who’s just lost her mother to illness, and is now herself struggling to survive due to serious health issues. The woman, Sharon (Hilary Swank), resolves to help by starting a small community fundraiser. As the family’s medical and financial problems rapidly worsen, Sharon somehow rises to each new challenge while struggling with her own demons and the growing resentment of the father.
Something of a melodramatic tear-jerker, but hey, I’m a sucker for those things. As with many such movies depicting real events, the end credits run with captioned photos of the real people involved.
Recommended at least for those who’d find this sort of story appealing, because it’s nicely put together, and I never cease to be amazed at how well some little kids can act. The five-year-old and the older girl playing her sister are both perfectly natural and believable. Being something of a cynic, what I find a little less believable is the degree of perfect altruism demonstrated by absolutely everybody in this movie once Sharon gets hold of them, but I’m willing to grant some artistic license for the sake of a good story.
I went into the theater not knowing it was a “to be continued” film, and that was pretty annoying. But now that the conclusion isn’t coming for two years, if at all…fuck those guys.
Speak No Evil (2024). A young couple who live in London meet another English couple while on holiday in Italy, who invite them to stay at their remote house in the country. Reluctant at first to accept the invitation because they don’t know them very well, they decide to go after all, along with their young daughter. As the visit unfolds, they have a growing sense of unease that all is not right with their hosts, or with their disabled son who cannot speak.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about it. Do yourself a favour and don’t read any reviews or plot summaries that might contain spoilers. Very highly recommended. Whether it’s horror or thriller or both is a matter of opinion, but it blew me away. I would stress that I’m referring to the 2024 version, not to be confused with the 2022 version which has roughly the same story line, which I haven’t seen.
Life (2017). Is there life on Mars? You bet! A returned sample is captured by the International Space Station, and the apparently dormant cell of a living organism is discovered. Given the right atmosphere and temperature, it revives and begins to rapidly grow into something predictably horrific.
I was impressed by the set of the interior of the ISS and by the effective zero-gravity special effects, but otherwise it was kind of a run-of-the-mill space monster movie, like a cheap knock-off of Alien. It also raised questions about why sophisticated analysis of alien life was being done on the ISS and not in well-equipped labs on earth. Overall I’d say, meh, watch it if you want. I think it does deserve kudos for set design and the zero-g effects.
I agree, although I’ll add that the creature itself was cleverly designed and they had good effects.
My complaint is that the filmmakers always gave the creature every advantage in any case where the outcome was in doubt. And the thing was unbelievably resilient (surviving long in vacuum) and strong.
