Leap Year - Totally predictable, seen it all before, by the books rom-com with Amy Adams . Skip it.
Neighbors- Damn funny Seth Rogan comedy. See it.
Tansformers 4- As horrible and overly long as everyone said. I couldn’t finish it. You should skip it.
Winter Soldier- Another worthy entry in the Marvel Universe. Watched back-to-back with The First Avenger. Good stuff.
Edge of Tomorrow- Excellent sci-fi based groundhogs day. Really good.
and finally
The entire Harry Potter series. We’re going to Universal in December and wanted to get my 8y.o. son familiar with it. Still amazed at the consitancy of quality through all 8 films. Had to explain a lot of stuff as it went along since it gets pretty complicated. Horcruxes, hallows, Snape not really a bad guy, Mad Eye Moody was someone else for the entire movie, etc.
To warn off:
“Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” Terrible - no where near as good as the first “Sin City”. The one story taken from the comics, is okay. But the other stories added “around” that story, suck.
“Calvary”. Read great reviews about Gleeson’s performance. But left the movie feeling totally “whooshed” - far more questions than understanding (maybe that was the intent ?)
“Lucy” 2/3 of a decent action movie, but then they wrote themselves into a corner, and came up with a lame/“Altered States”-like conclusion.
Second recommendations:
“Edge of Tomorrow” Very enjoyable on more than just a sci-fi level. Not a huge Cruise fan, but he did well in this role (as with “Oblivion” - maybe sci-fi is his genre).
“Grand Hotel Budapest”. But you have to like Wes Anderson’s style. I really enjoyed this.
Happy Christmas with Anna Kendrick, some people you probably haven’t heard of, and Lena Dunham in a minor role.
Very low budget. Not edited down well so the scenes drag on. Not really much of a story. We don’t really get to understand the characters. Cute 2 year old kid who did an amazing job when he was “on” and not so much when he wasn’t.
Kendrick’s character’s “boyfriend” in particular was a blob. Just a male-shaped human to fill up a chunk of the screen. I think that was more due to the script than the acting.
We were quite disappointed with the ending since:
It just … ended. One minute there’s a movie and the next there are credits. It’s like they ran out of money and just stopped or something.
Kendrick should do better movies than this. Not only does she have that gawd-awful Pitch Perfect on her resume, there’s a sequel in the works. And I won’t get into the Twilight thing …
Writing a movie review blog, I see at least one movie a week; usually an old one. This week I saw Cat People from 1942, which I hadn’t seen before. Pretty darn good. One of the better horror films from the 40s.
As it happens I saw The Mazerunner in the theater last night. It’s a nice bit of mindless fun. Nice cinematography, but there were a few plot issues. As you might expect, it’s best if you don’t leave your brain fully engaged if you see it.
Oh Boy! I love Robert Duvall. I can’t remember one film he was in that I didn’t enjoy - all the way back to To Kill a Mockingbird, then Bullit, MASH, The Godfather 1 & 2, The Outfit (didn’t like that one too much), if you like that kind of movie, you should see Charley Varrick (starring Walter Matthau instead), The Eagle has Landed, etc.
You should definitely see The Eagle has Landed and To Kill a Mockingbird. Both were excellent and Duvall appeared in both.
Our MotW was Begin Again. No, not that one. This one.
Knightley is a song writer going nowhere. Ruffalo is a washed up music exec. Movie happens.
The Good: Good performance by Ruffalo. Hailee Steinfeld does a nice job as his kid. Mos Def does his best Mod Def. The “original” songs are mostly okay.
The Semi-bad: Wasted Catherine Keener. Adam Levine isn’t the best actor. CeeLo Green was in it for no good reason.
The Real Bad: I expected such a movie to have several songs. But this one had way too many songs crammed in, plus several of them dragged on and on and on. The movie would have been 1/3rd the length if some songs had been cut out or edited down.
Which sums up the movie. A fine 30-40 minute short film heavily padded out.
Gone Girl the other night. I’d rank it as mediocre, with some good performances.
Saw Lady Be Good: Instrumental Women in Jazz at a local film festival. It’s an indy film about women musicians (not so much singers) who toiled in obscurity, with a brief heyday during WWII when a lot of the male musicians were in the Army. They had a lot of prejudices to overcome in order to be heard. I recommend it, particularly if you like jazz and swing.
Saw The Skeleton Twins last night and totally loved it. Basically just four characters in the whole thing, and Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are effin’ amazing.
Another huge thumbs-up for Big Ass Spider. A couple of good shocks, some nifty gross-outs, rather funny in places. Good supporting cast. Like an updated American International flick.
Saw Gone Girl and, having loved the book, really liked the movie too. A pretty faithful retelling, with some other good stuff too.
Finally saw Gone with the Wind from start to finish, having only seen clips here and there before now. A little too melodramatic, and a little too besotted with Lost Cause mythology, but still a pretty good piece of moviemaking.
It’s an indie film where four couples are having a Sunday couples’ brunch. The characters each bring their quirky issues to the table; however, as they slowly become aware that a dirty bomb was set off in the downtown area - they realize they must band together to survive.
It’s played very much as a dark comedy - David Cross, America Ferrera and Julie Stiles were the only actors I recognized; but they all were quite enjoyable. The humour may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it.