Last night I watched Pale Rider (1985). First of all, this is one of those films that I thought was part of Clint’s 70’s western oeuvre, but this came out in 1985, only seven years before Unforgiven (and nine years after Josey Wales). I quite liked it, though it wasn’t as gritty as Eastwood’s other westerns.
My one question is this: does this mean Dalton in Road House was a ghost the whole time too?
A movie called The Zero Theorem turned up on Amazon Prime recently. I’d never heard of it. Turns out it was from 2013. It sounded like it might be interesting.
It wasn’t. Though visually stunning, it was dull dull dull. I couldn’t make it through the halfway point. I kept thinking that if more time had been given to a coherent script with more interesting characters and less time to the meticulously-crafted visuals, this might have been interesting.
Upon looking it up, I discovered it was directed by Terry Gilliam. Aha! That explains it. He’s made some great films…and a lot of dull but great-looking stinkers. This was one of them.
Of course, this is just my opinion. Yours may vary.
I liked it at the time, but it wasn’t hugely impactful.
Terry Gilliam, despite some great stuff like 12 Monkeys and so forth, is very hit or miss.
I think of him as similar to Tim Burton, though not many people seem to realise that Burtons recent stuff has been at best mediocre and lives off a reputation from the 90s.
Looking at Gilliam’s imdb listing, I think he must be retired, I missed his last film from 7 years ago, Who Killed Don Quioxte, missed Tideland, dodged Brothers Grim, but caught the stinkers The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Zero Theorem.
Looking closer, I see his last good film was in 1998 with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but in reality if he’d only ever done Twelve Monkeys, Brazil and Time Bandits, he’d have been forever one of my favourite directors.
Controversially, I think Spielberg is off nowadays too, has been for years, nobody has told him to lose an hour off every film he makes, and he needed that for most of his films since god knows when. Saying that his autobiographical one was ok at the length it was for once.
Same here. Leslie Nielsen had a natural dumb father quality about him that made the lame jokes work. Steve Martin has some of this. Liam Neeson not at all.
I mean, Neeson was an odd casting choice but it’s the writers I primarily blame. They could have stripped every joke down by two-thirds and it would have improved the film immensely.
Also - and I apologize if this was addressed in the latter part of the film that I didn’t see - but lifting the entire villainous plot from the first Kingsmen film seems like a dubious choice.
I like The Fisher King a lot.
THAT’S IT. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and it reminds me exactly of what they did with the Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy where they stripped all the jokes of their punchlines.
Watching the latest version of Frankenstein on NFLX. I’m halfway through and it’s a well-done take on the genre.
I had no idea Guillermo Del Toro’s version of that had moved so quickly out of the theaters. Let us know how you like it, I’m curious how true it is to the novel.
PS. I also had no idea Mia Goth was in this, I will definitely be watching it.
Dunkirk 2017
I found the director’s approach very irritating. There are long periods of silence while a character wanders around towards the beach. There is no central character or protagonist. Extremely sparse dialog.
The entire movie comes across as cold and soul less. The strongest theme that connects the stories is the determination to survive.
There are some good scenes and the cinematography is excellent.
I don’t understand why they choose to make such a depressing movie. Dunkirk was an extordinary effort by the English that rescued 338,226 (Wikipedia). I can’t recall another event in history when civilians took enormous risks to save their army.
C+ for cinematography and scenes with the civilian boat captain.
Mark Rylance does tend to improve the quality of whatever production he’s appearing in.
I will look up more movies with Mark Rylance. He did a lot with a small role in Dunkirk.
The fighter pilot that appears throughout the film is also good. I don’t think his character has a name.
I’ve wondered how effective the rescued troops were after returning to combat. Many must have been demoralized after the first defeat and encirclement at Dunkirk.
Good Fortune
Recommended.
Aziz Ansari directed this movie, as well as writing it and starring in it. Keanu Reeves plays an angel that swaps Ansari with Seth Rogen’s character’s life. It’s pretty amusing and Keanu is one of the more funny things in it.
A nice, light comedy, does not overstay its welcome. My wife and I enjoyed it.
It’s still in theaters in Los Angeles. I would definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen.
Frankenstein is showing at seven movie theaters within a half-hour drive for me. It’s now streaming on Netflix. It may be that the movie theaters in some areas quit showing any film when it starts streaming.
Just watched Fantastic Four First Steps, as it finally came out on Disney+ this week. It was fine, I guess. I am really getting bored with superhero stuff as the predictable formulaic plots are very repetitive. The stakes are too unrealistically high, the solutions are too unrealistically ordinary, and they all end with people punching each other in the sky. Blah.
Planning on watching this weekend. Let us know what you think.
Bonus! I didn’t know she was in it, either, as she wasn’t listed in the short IMDb summary. She was fantastic in Pearl!
I haven’t seen her in anything other than the Pearl trilogy (but agree she was fantastic in it), so this will be interesting.
I’ve never read the novel, so I can’t help you there. The monster is a more sympathetic character than I’ve seen in other productions, and the cast is excellent.