Bernie, with Jack Black as a mortician's assistant who makes the dead look their best for their funerals, and Shirley MacLaine as the nasty old woman he befriends. . .and who then disappears. This is a weird shaggy-dog tale that's true in an only-in-Texas kind of way, and it's also a lot of fun. The movie also has what is probably Black's best performance: he subsumes his usual mannerisms and creates a real character. Recommended!
After The Sunset
Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayak are former diamond thieves who have never been caught and are now retired in the Bahamas. Woody Harrelson is the disgraced former FBI agent who let them get away and has now tracked them down, because he believes Brosnan will try one more heist -- a huge diamond on display on a cruise ship that is in Nassau for a few days.
What a mess this film is. The plot is so choppy and predictible, it plays out as if it were cobbled together from the failed scraps of several first-time screenwriters. The performances are either mailed in (Brosnan, playing a seedy version of Thomas Crown) or plain stupid (Harrelson at his most idiotic). The whole thing is derivative -- there's even a second-rate junkanoo scene that rips off Thunderball.
Aside from the Caribbean vistas and Salma Hayak's magnificent body, there is nothing remotely attractive or interesting on display. Total garbage.
Yeah, that was an odd film. It seemed to be trying to be a Roger Moore-style Bond film at times, like when he goes around a museum I think, like in MR.
Oddly, the original script was much praised on the websites, so something went wrong along the line...
This is the first action movie by Steven Soderbergh. It has a stirling cast: Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas. Michael Fassbender plays a British agent and again shows us he has a very good James Bond in him. But the star of the film is Gina Carano. Carano is not really an actress, but a martial artist. She isn`t given very difficult acting scenes and hence she handles the role well. Her strenghts is in fighting and action and she is given many chances to shine. Contrary to modern fashion the action scenes are shot with a almost static camera, wide shots and very few cuts. The fight scenes are also shown without any musical score, relying on ambient sounds only. In the other scenes Soderbergh plays with colour, cutting and framing. The score is jazzy with a lot of brass and drums, very typical Soderbergh. It`s fun to imagine Soderbergh making a James Bond movie, but that will never happen. But they should take note of fight scenes that show off the action instead of confusing them (yes, I`m looking a you QoS!) and the interesting and vital score. Well worth watching.
Andrew Garfield inherits the red and blue spandex in Marc Webb's (an ironically appropriate name) reboot, necessitated after Sam Raimi systematically killed off most of Webhead's rogues gallery in the prior films.
Giving us a slightly different take on Spiderman's origins and first adventures, Amazing pits our hero against Dr. Curt Connors, a/k/a The Lizard while clumsily trying to woo his dream girl Gwen Stacy and steer clear of her disapproving father, who also happens to be a captain for the New York Police.
Its hard to talk about this new Spiderman without comparing it to its predecessors but suffice it to say that I enjoyed Marc Webb's rendition far more than anything I ever got from Raimi. The earlier films really piled on the angst, suffering and humiliation to often absurd levels, continuously putting the characters through the emotional wringer again and again and again to a degree that I never recalled from the comics I used to read. Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker always struck me as an impotent, whiney character; its one thing to pretend to be a milquetoast so people won't catch on of his secret identity but that doesn't mean that the character must be played as a human dishrag. Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson often came across as a petulant, helpless damsel in distress who, when she wasn't trying to advance her broadway career, served little purpose other than to be kidnapped by the current villain and wait around until Spiderman rescued her. The remaining characters like Harry Osborn or Aunt Mae were either so damaged or so needy that I kept waiting for Jerry Springer to pop up.
The new cast is very good and contrasts nicely with what came before; Andrew Garfield nicely balances Peter's social awkwardness and intelligence, gradually growing into his new role as New York's protector. Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy as a strong, intelligent and empathic person, very much Peter's intellectual equal. Rhys Ifans makes for a tragic villain who goes down his dark path due to largely noble intentions. Martin Sheen and Sally Field make for likeable and supporting surrogate parents as Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae. Dennis Leary rounds out the cast as Captain Stacy, a cop who doesn't care for Spiderman's vigilante antics.
It is a little strange to see a Spiderman movie with no sign of JJ Jameson or the Daily Bugle, though in all honesty I never understood why Peter kept working for a man who's sole purpose seemed to be to destroy Spiderman - there are other newspapers in New York. Also the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" moment and Uncle Ben's subsequent death are handled a little clumsily (one of the few instances where the movie "stacks the deck" against Peter). But overall it was refreshing to see a Spiderman movie where Peter actually gets to move past being bullied and feeling guilty and tries to have a life.
In terms of 3D, I found the movie to have a fairly understated, natural sense of depth that cranked up and became more defined during key scenes and action sequences. There isn't much in the way of pop out of the screen and gimmicks are present but kept to a minimum. Naturalistic and unintrusive is how I would call it.
So overall I liked The Amazing Spiderman and it looks like I'll finally have a Spiderman movie to add to my collection.
Couldn't sleep the other night, so I stumbled onto this on TCM and ended up watching the whole thing. It's a 1959 film set amidst the Hungarian uprising of 1956. A dozen or so foreigners are waiting at the Budapest airport for flights home when all air service is suspended by the Soviets, and the group is told they need to take a bus to Vienna. The travelers include a British journalist (Robert Morley) who is the de facto spokesman for the group, a wealthy British woman (Deborah Kerr) traveling with a mysterious companion (Jason Robards in his first film role), an American family (including a toddler-aged Ron Howard), a French couple and others from Germany, Israel and Italy.
They have a short, easy bus trip until they get to the last town before the border into Austria, when they are stopped and herded off the bus into the office of the local Soviet commander, played by Yul Brynner. He informs them that they will need to stay in town until he can verify all their passport information with his chain of command, as he is looking for Hungarian nationals. However, when the group walks across the street to a local inn, he puts their passports in his desk drawer, clearly intending to do nothing with them. It turns out that while he is indeed looking for Hungarians, what he's really looking for is some human interaction that goes beyond the hatred and sniper fire he and his Russian soldiers receive from the Hungarians in town, who include some aggressive freedom fighters.
The bulk of the movie plays out in a straightforward way. Brynner eats dinner with his "guests" but becomes frustrated when they won't engage him in meaningful conversation, instead acting like the passive semi-hostages they are. He stalls every time he is asked when they can be on their way, instead getting drunk and insisting they all dance to gypsy music. Robards (traveling on forged British papers) is soon found to be a wounded Hungarian rebel, but Brynner seems unsure what to do until he is finally provoked into angry action. Having been posted in this remote village for two years, he laments to Deborah Kerr that he has been married to the Army and is only too happy to "cheat on the b-tch". He is a bit smitten with her, although this is not very convincing. Those two had way more heat going on in The King And I a few years earlier.
My overarching thought as I watched this was, they do not make films like this anymore. The whole thing plays out like a stage play, and although it is shot in color, it's Cold War scenario reminded me by turns of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Fail-Safe. It's not as good as either of those, but it still held my attention. I can't say I would recommend anyone go out of their way to see it, but it certainly was an interesting reminder of how the Cold War provided such a ready-made formula for conflict and drama.
Hilly...you old devil!
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,771Chief of Staff
Green Lantern.....well...it's okay...I've no idea if it's true to the comic book or not but, for me, it doesn't quite work...they have tried to cram too much in and so nothing kinda works...but it's not terrible...the CGI is fairly well done but not up the grade that this years blockbusters have had...I doubt they will make a sequel....
Tis is a survival movie staring Liam Neeson. He plays Ottaway, a man who works with a oil company in Alaska to keep the workers safe from the harsh envirorment. He is a man with little desire to live. When he plane taking him south crashes with only seven survivors he finds new purpose in keeping everyone alive. This turns out to be difficult when a pack of wolves picking them off one by one. In many ways Ottoway is a lone wolf - the alpha male of his smal pack against the four legged pack of wolves. The wolves are only howls and shadows most of the movie, and it works fine as a lurking threath. I think this is a good movie with a good story ad good acting. But I doubt it was wise to leave the wreckage of the plane and walk south. Alaska is very big, but they probably had a better chance being found if they stayed by the wreck and the black box. I also doubt a pack of wolves would attack seven grown men. Last of all I don`t think wolves can be that hard to kill. My great great grandmother killed a wolf with a wooden club when she was just a teenager. She was all alone at night guarding the livestock, but she did what a 6`4``man and his six companions couldn`t do in this movie. Still, good movie.
Here's a pic of the wolf Number 24's great grandmother beat to death:
Great great grandmother. She was a milkmaid on our mountain barn where she had the responsibility for our sheep and cows. The wolf started killing them off at night so she made a club and killed the wolf. Farm girls back in the day were hard as nails. Harder than Liam Neeson it seems )
Thisis one of the most entertaining movies I have seen for ages! Houn of Baskervilles-type aliens start raining over a poor ghetto in east London. Who will save us - the police or army? No. Crimminal imigrant teen gangs! Very unlikely heroes, but who is better fit to wage urban guerilla warfare in London? This movie is scary, funny and full of action. Definately reccomended.
Last night I finally found the time and energy to see The Amazing Spider-Man--ironically, as lines were already forming for the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises. Maybe I'll catch that one in two weeks as well. Anyway. . .I came out of this new Spidey with very mixed feelings. I liked the cast very much, and I especially enjoyed Andrew Garfield's take on Peter as not just a nerdy outcast but as a loner with a chip on his shoulder. The scenes where he learns his powers and develops the Spider-Man persona are real highlights--I got a kick out of the first time he appears in the full costume, copping a Hip-Hop attitude. I also enjoyed the overall New York-y look of the movie and there are some magnificent set-pieces, such as all the Lizard battles and a great scene where Spidey weaves a web in the sewer to track the Lizard's movements.
What didn't work for me is that I felt I'd been through all this before. Maybe because the first movie was made just ten years ago, so much of the story seemed like a rehash: bullied teen--confrontation with Flash--bitten by genetically mutated spider (one of thousands--so much for Peter's getting his powers being a one-in-a-million chance)--awkward attempts to win the girl--uncle killed--brilliant scientist injects himself with formula and becomes a green villain. . . OK, the tone is different, but I didn't feel like the take on the characters, their origins, and their relations to each other was much different from Sam Raimi's. And then there's the mopey father-issue stuff. Cripes: Tim Burton as his most father-obsessed in his Batman movies didn't go this far. We've got fathers and father-figures who run away, who get killed, and who turn into giant mutant lizards whose son-figures break off their long, giant tails which they can grow back and be even bigger threats to the sons (Sigmund Freud--analyze this!), and a lot of carping and whining about it. All in all, I found myself missing the lighter tone of the Raimi films--and wishing the old team had been allowed to make one more film to close everything out before Columbia embarked on a complete reboot.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Mr MartiniThat nice house in the sky.Posts: 2,707MI6 Agent
Last night I finally found the time and energy to see The Amazing Spider-Man--ironically, as lines were already forming for the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises. Maybe I'll catch that one in two weeks as well. Anyway. . .I came out of this new Spidey with very mixed feelings. I liked the cast very much, and I especially enjoyed Andrew Garfield's take on Peter as not just a nerdy outcast but as a loner with a chip on his shoulder. The scenes where he learns his powers and develops the Spider-Man persona are real highlights--I got a kick out of the first time he appears in the full costume, copping a Hip-Hop attitude. I also enjoyed the overall New York-y look of the movie and there are some magnificent set-pieces, such as all the Lizard battles and a great scene where Spidey weaves a web in the sewer to track the Lizard's movements.
What didn't work for me is that I felt I'd been through all this before. Maybe because the first movie was made just ten years ago, so much of the story seemed like a rehash: bullied teen--confrontation with Flash--bitten by genetically mutated spider (one of thousands--so much for Peter's getting his powers being a one-in-a-million chance)--awkward attempts to win the girl--uncle killed--brilliant scientist injects himself with formula and becomes a green villain. . . OK, the tone is different, but I didn't feel like the take on the characters, their origins, and their relations to each other was much different from Sam Raimi's. And then there's the mopey father-issue stuff. Cripes: Tim Burton as his most father-obsessed in his Batman movies didn't go this far. We've got fathers and father-figures who run away, who get killed, and who turn into giant mutant lizards whose son-figures break off their long, giant tails which they can grow back and be even bigger threats to the sons (Sigmund Freud--analyze this!), and a lot of carping and whining about it. All in all, I found myself missing the lighter tone of the Raimi films--and wishing the old team had been allowed to make one more film to close everything out before Columbia embarked on a complete reboot.
So I guess you didn't see the sequence during the credits?
Some people would complain even if you hang them with a new rope
Not sure where to start and not sure what to say because I don't want to give anything away, but I can say it was brilliant.
The entire cast is excellent, but a special nod to Michael Caine for his work as Alfred in all three films, he performed well in the previous two, but really shined in several scenes in this film. I also want to say that when I heard Anne Hathaway was going to be Catwoman I was disappointed, but she was up to the task, she is excellent and completely believable in every scene.
The film has some plot twists that I won't even hint at, but I will say one twist I never saw coming.
Christopher Nolan has completed his trilogy and the third installment is spectacular.
My only gripe and it is a common one is that at times I had a hard time understanding what Bane said. However it never affected my enjoyment of the movie.
I have more to discuss but I will wait for more people to see the film. Like Thunder experienced, the film received applause at the end, but in my case I also heard applause at The Avengers and at Brave.
Last night I joined the Dark Knight Rises Club. At first I wasn't sure I'd like it--the first half-hour or so seemed kind of disjointed and all over the place; but once the main plot kicked in, I found it an excellent film--suspenseful, tense, exciting, even kind of thoughtful. Just as TDK seemed a meditation on terrorism, this one seems a meditation on our fascination with anarchy and bringing down capitalism (think the "Occupy" movement), and the message seems to be--careful what you wish for. Two things I'll highlight for praise:
* Anne Hathaway's Catwoman (actually, that name is never used--except in a headline). She truly nailed it: a tough jewel thief who uses her sexuality as a weapon. . .and who turns out to be a good bad girl.
* Tom Hardy (no relation)'s Bane. The lower part of his face is entirely covered except in one blink-and-you'll-miss it scene, meaning he had to act with his eyes. He conveys menace and genuine evil. I like the way he swaggered through chaos with his thumbs in his jacket--a la Churchill--and I enjoyed his coldly logical dialogue. The fact that his voice--which I didn't have a hard time with--sounds a bit like Sean Connery's is another plus.
Now that I think of it, Christopher Nolan deserves a shout-out for taking two characters that Tim Burton did well--The Joker and Catwoman--and doing them better; and for taking two characters Joel Schumacher travestied--Two-Face and Bane--and making them great. Nolan actually left the door open a crack for a sequel, but I kind of hope he and Bale make good on their promise to do no more--this trilogy is a classic.
Now that I think of it, Christopher Nolan deserves a shout-out for taking two characters that Tim Burton did well--The Joker and Catwoman--and doing them better;
Nolan did them roughly as well but with his own twist on them, but Ithink Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman edges out Anne Hathway's Catwoman by a small margin, by being more entertainingly unhinged.
The Odessa Files - Starring a young John Voight and the late Mary Tamm as his stripper wife (don’t ask) it’s an oddly light hearted thriller set in early 1960s West Germany, where Vought’s journalist character runs into trouble with sinister groups of ex-SS officers and Mossad operatives. Featuring retired Nazis and John F. Kennedy in the background, it overall has a similar feel to X-Men First Class and the light tone owes a lot to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s soundtrack and also a festive, prosperous West Germany used as an interesting backdrop. However the feeling of threat and hopelessness is provided by Maximillian Schell as a former fanatical SS officer turned respectable industrialist. Also be on the lookout for a fresh faced Derek Jacobi as a twitchy printing press owner. 7/10
The Illusionist - This felt like a competent but slightly watered down imitation of the vastly more chilling, tense The Prestige. This is also reflected in the cinematography (compare The Illusionists’ golds and browns with The Prestige’s dark blues and greys). Edward Norton projects mystery and authority but the movie is stolen by Paul Giamatti as an obsessive, pugnacious, workaholic Austrian police officer. Rufus Sewell makes a good Teutonic aristocratic asshole. Jessica Biel was first rate eye candy and competent but seemed too modern and too North American for the period European setting. The major plot twist is a good one but not to give too much away it kinda depicts the protagonists in a bad light, making them complicit in a objectively horrible crime. 7/10
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Now that I think of it, Christopher Nolan deserves a shout-out for taking two characters that Tim Burton did well--The Joker and Catwoman--and doing them better;
Nolan did them roughly as well but with his own twist on them, but Ithink Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman edges out Anne Hathway's Catwoman by a small margin, by being mmore entertainingly unhinged.
7/10
I would agree with Hardy, in my opinion Catwoman has never been done better than Anne Hathaway's take on the character.
I saw a bit of Oscar, starring Stephen Fry as the great Irish poet and a handsome, will-he-be-Bond Jude Law as his love, Bosey.
Fry is very good, and the supporting cast is strong, such as Michael 'Blair' Sheen as one of Bosey's love rivals, that said his voice is very similar to Law's so there's a sort of lack of variety. Unfortunately Law's role is on repeat, a sulky, petulant strop like Kevin the Teenager off the Harry Enfield comedy show. "Oh, I just hate you I do, you're so smug, you're so bourgeois..." A pain in the butt, you might say, but you find yourself saying, 'C'mon Oscar, ditch the brat...' as we get this scene after scene.
I would agree with Hardy, in my opinion Catwoman has never been done better than Anne Hathaway's take on the character.
I think Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is more faithful to the comic book character but is edged out by Michelle Pfeiffer in the same way that the still decent Jack Nicholson Joker was edged out by Heath Ledger's Joker (Pfieffer's Catwoman and Ledger's Joker have a visual look to them that is ingrained in popular culture).
Blade II - A competent sequel by the famed Spanish director Guillermo del Toro, mixing extremely violent gore with stylish fight scenes (a winning combination for mindless blockbuster hits). A fairly big budget action vehicle for Wesley Snipes back when he still had a career, it follows the exploits of vampire-human hybrid Blade (Snipes) as he wages a secret war against the global vampire conspiracy with his small band of merry men, the grisly old vampire hunter Whistler (Kris Kritofferson) and seedy techno/weapons whiz Scud (Norman Reedus; a poor man’s Eddie Furlong). In the bad guy’s camp we have the then newcomer Luke Goss as the bitter leader of a strange subspecies of “super” vampires, rent-a-Teutonic-bad-guy Thomas Kretschmann strongly resembling Count Orlok with cuddly tough guy Ron Pearlman and a snide Karel Roden as his main henchmen (also watch out for Tony Curran in his pre-Vincent days). While it is pulp action schlock that’s not going to change the world in the slightest, at least it‘s a damn sight better than the utterly risible Blade: Trinity and didn‘t demolish vampires as a credible supernatural threat (unlike a certain later movie franchise based on romance vampire novels). 7/10
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Felt in the mood for big explosions and popcorn fun with nostalgic value. The bravaura opening had me thinking about how if only Sean Connery, rather than licking his wounds after NSNA, had been persuaded to do one more big shot feelgood action film, but done good, with a gang of mates like Michael Caine and maybe Jack Lord. The opening has a whiff of the opening of NSNA, only it's teamwork and they go in with a massive armoured car to retrieve a hostage. If you feel you've been lacking the big stuntwork (admittedly amidst some CGI landscapes it seems) in recent Bonds, this one will really do the trick and there's a touch of The Wild Geese about, big aeroplanes flying in and out with mercenaries on board.
I'm not sure when this film went from being the sh!t to just being sh!t. Early-ish; Sly now resembles his mom Jackie, the banter between him and Jason Stratham is downright clunky, the jokes are non-jokes really, only funny to those actors who have had flunkies laughing at everything they say for the last few decades. One exchange goes like this: "I have an idea that will appeal to your ego." "My ego? What about the size of your ego?" "My ego isn't as big as yours. Yours is the size of a dinoasaur." That's about as witty as it gets throughout, and it's delivered very poorly. Guys, jokes are put in films to give the witty writers a job, to keep them employed, not so you can think you have a sense of humour. It's so dumb people don't feel they have to stop chewing popcorn when listening to dialogue. Some of the serious dialogue isn't actually that bad, but then you have this young soldier who has 'dead meat' written all over him, talking of how it's his last job and he had a gal waiting for him; the actor fluffs his rotton monologue about his time in Afghanistan.
When Arnie turns up, looking all in make-up like some ageing lesbian, seriously, his lines are like your grandma in a nursing home, what happened? Oh, this film is crap, 80s stars just show up and do their turn for a few minutes. The whole thing has the air of a pro-celebrity golf tournament. That said, Van Damme makes a decent, hissable villain.
Mmmm, not sure really what to say about this film. It was okay... the cimetography was really spot on, and some great effects were used. The story was odd, and the script - well just lacking. Shame, as I thought Daniel's performance was solid... but the dialogue was just flat... and missed a great opportunity to be so much more.
Shame.
She's worth whatever chaos she brings to the table and you know it. ~ Mark Anthony
The Pirates!- A much needed antidote to the wave of purely CGI’d animated movies that have been all the rage in Hollywood for many years now. Loosely based on a series of Gideon Defoe’s comedy novels, it follows the misadventures of Captain, eh, Pirate (Hugh Grant), the most chronically underachieving robber of the high seas who by happenstance sails into the path of a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant). This triggers a ridiculous adventure to early 19th century London ruled over by Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) a demonic monarch with a pathological hatred for pirates and a curious interest in Pirate Captain‘s dumpy, grey pet bird. The animation (directed by Peter Lord, who also directed the solid Chicken Run) does not disappoint and incorporates countless very funny sight gags that matches up with the dryly funny dialogue. It seems to be mainly stop motion models but no doubt it was enhanced in places by CGI (to cut a few corners and flesh out the background). Other fairly big names in entertainment lend their voices in supporting roles (Brian Blessed, Salma Hayek, and Jeremy Piven). The Pirates solidly entertaining like Chicken Run but not a patch on Aardman’s animated shorts featuring the far more iconic Wallace & Gromit (a classic case of less being more). It also got “localised” for North American audiences (with some main roles replaced and the title changed). 7/10
The Hunger Games - Another possible movie saga based on popular sci-fi novels of dubious originality. Part The Running Man and part Battle Royale you get the overriding feeling of seeing it all before, Woody Harrelson’s retired alcoholic veteran is a walking cliché, even the backdrop seems oddly similar to Firefly (ie rustic early industrial frontier with far future technology mixed in). The future setting seemed to strain suspension of disbelief a bit with the outer districts trapped in the Victorian era as well as crushing poverty, while the exploitative city state of Panem is playing around with Star Trek level technology (there must be a trickle down effect, even in the most repressive and corrupt of societies). The dystopian future in The Running Man seemed more convincing and interesting on hindsight. Also the villains played by the cold Wes Bentley and a sleazy Stanley Tucci could’ve been combined into a single antagonist, with the violence increased a bit. I did enjoy Elizabeth Banks waddling about like a giant over decorated wedding cake and Jennifer Lawrence was solid as a action heroine. Well made but kind of weak. 6/10
Total Recall - By being super violent, funny, having Arnold Schwarzenegger as the good guy, having Sharon Stone as a femme fatale, the EMH as a taxi cabbie, in addition to Michael Ironside chewing the scenery with both his acting and submachine gun, this movie has unsurprisingly developed a huge and loyal cult following in the past two decades. The relatively simple but involving plot follows a construction site labourer (with an obsession with Mars) finding out that he is connected to the evil corporate regime on Mars and may have had his memory rewritten by the same brain bending technology used at Rekall (the company that gives out fake memories of exotic holidays in the solar system). Cue lots of endless foot chases and faceless mooks getting violently gunned down. There is a lot of pre-CGI effects involving stop motion and puppets that look a bit creaky now, however the model effects and matte paintings depicting the Federal Martian Colony still heavily convinces. The bulky looking 70s/80s era telephones, tabletop computers, and TV monitors really leap out as being extremely dated in these heady post-Apple iPad days though, but these interesting background details add to the charm of this cyberpunk movie. This is the second best movie in Paul Vehoeven de facto sci-fi trilogy (the others being RoboCop and Starship Troopers). I’m giving the unnecessary remake starring Colin Farrell a wide berth. 9/10
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I didn't care for Guy Ritchie's first go-round with Holmes, so I wasn't in a hurry to see the second. Didn't catch it in the theaters, either first-run or second; and when it came out on DVD I put it in my Netflix queue but made no effort to move it to the top. In fact, I think I moved a couple of movies ahead of this one. But now I've seen it.
Sigh.
I'll admit it: I do not in any way, shape, or form understand Ritchie's take on the Holmes character. I'm not a purist: I love how Jeremy Brett played up Holmes's eccentricities and addictions; and I enjoy how Sherlock plays with the idea of how a Holmes can still be brilliant in an era of computers and scientific investigations. I suppose what Ritchie wants to do is emphasize Holmes's physical side, which is OK--Conan Doyle made him an expert practitioner of martial arts--and so he gives us those (tiresome) moments of first playing an action sequence in slo-mo while Holmes in voiceover describes the theory and methodology of his techniques, and then re-running the sequence at top speed. Fine; but the scruffy, wisecrack-spewing Holmes is less Conan Doyle than Bruce Willis's John McClane ("Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, old chaps!")--and what's with the passive-aggressive Watson constantly bickering with and even fighting Holmes? This stuff doesn't make me see the classic characters in a new way or reveal something about them that has been unexplored by other filmmakers; it just makes Holmes and Watson standard action heroes in Victorian garb.
That said, I was amazed how dull and lifeless the movie is. It just moves from one action scene to the next with only the scantiest of motivations (a charge that was made against many a Bond film), and a lot of it flat-out does not make sense. I guess when the third movie comes out--and the ending makes it pretty clear a third one will be out--I should just avoid it altogether.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,771Chief of Staff
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I didn't care for Guy Ritchie's first go-round with Holmes, so I wasn't in a hurry to see the second. Didn't catch it in the theaters, either first-run or second; and when it came out on DVD I put it in my Netflix queue but made no effort to move it to the top. In fact, I think I moved a couple of movies ahead of this one. But now I've seen it.
Sigh.
I'll admit it: I do not in any way, shape, or form understand Ritchie's take on the Holmes character. I'm not a purist: I love how Jeremy Brett played up Holmes's eccentricities and addictions; and I enjoy how Sherlock plays with the idea of how a Holmes can still be brilliant in an era of computers and scientific investigations. I suppose what Ritchie wants to do is emphasize Holmes's physical side, which is OK--Conan Doyle made him an expert practitioner of martial arts--and so he gives us those (tiresome) moments of first playing an action sequence in slo-mo while Holmes in voiceover describes the theory and methodology of his techniques, and then re-running the sequence at top speed. Fine; but the scruffy, wisecrack-spewing Holmes is less Conan Doyle than Bruce Willis's John McClane ("Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, old chaps!")--and what's with the passive-aggressive Watson constantly bickering with and even fighting Holmes? This stuff doesn't make me see the classic characters in a new way or reveal something about them that has been unexplored by other filmmakers; it just makes Holmes and Watson standard action heroes in Victorian garb.
That said, I was amazed how dull and lifeless the movie is. It just moves from one action scene to the next with only the scantiest of motivations (a charge that was made against many a Bond film), and a lot of it flat-out does not make sense. I guess when the third movie comes out--and the ending makes it pretty clear a third one will be out--I should just avoid it altogether.
Wow, HB...slightly surprised you didn't like these films...I thought both were great...ah well....
Just watched Senna...absolutely blown away by it...it's compelling film-making at it's finest...a truly remarkable film.
Comments
Although you must admit, there is a girly crap in it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayak are former diamond thieves who have never been caught and are now retired in the Bahamas. Woody Harrelson is the disgraced former FBI agent who let them get away and has now tracked them down, because he believes Brosnan will try one more heist -- a huge diamond on display on a cruise ship that is in Nassau for a few days.
What a mess this film is. The plot is so choppy and predictible, it plays out as if it were cobbled together from the failed scraps of several first-time screenwriters. The performances are either mailed in (Brosnan, playing a seedy version of Thomas Crown) or plain stupid (Harrelson at his most idiotic). The whole thing is derivative -- there's even a second-rate junkanoo scene that rips off Thunderball.
Aside from the Caribbean vistas and Salma Hayak's magnificent body, there is nothing remotely attractive or interesting on display. Total garbage.
Oddly, the original script was much praised on the websites, so something went wrong along the line...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This is the first action movie by Steven Soderbergh. It has a stirling cast: Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas. Michael Fassbender plays a British agent and again shows us he has a very good James Bond in him. But the star of the film is Gina Carano. Carano is not really an actress, but a martial artist. She isn`t given very difficult acting scenes and hence she handles the role well. Her strenghts is in fighting and action and she is given many chances to shine. Contrary to modern fashion the action scenes are shot with a almost static camera, wide shots and very few cuts. The fight scenes are also shown without any musical score, relying on ambient sounds only. In the other scenes Soderbergh plays with colour, cutting and framing. The score is jazzy with a lot of brass and drums, very typical Soderbergh. It`s fun to imagine Soderbergh making a James Bond movie, but that will never happen. But they should take note of fight scenes that show off the action instead of confusing them (yes, I`m looking a you QoS!) and the interesting and vital score. Well worth watching.
Andrew Garfield inherits the red and blue spandex in Marc Webb's (an ironically appropriate name) reboot, necessitated after Sam Raimi systematically killed off most of Webhead's rogues gallery in the prior films.
Giving us a slightly different take on Spiderman's origins and first adventures, Amazing pits our hero against Dr. Curt Connors, a/k/a The Lizard while clumsily trying to woo his dream girl Gwen Stacy and steer clear of her disapproving father, who also happens to be a captain for the New York Police.
Its hard to talk about this new Spiderman without comparing it to its predecessors but suffice it to say that I enjoyed Marc Webb's rendition far more than anything I ever got from Raimi. The earlier films really piled on the angst, suffering and humiliation to often absurd levels, continuously putting the characters through the emotional wringer again and again and again to a degree that I never recalled from the comics I used to read. Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker always struck me as an impotent, whiney character; its one thing to pretend to be a milquetoast so people won't catch on of his secret identity but that doesn't mean that the character must be played as a human dishrag. Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson often came across as a petulant, helpless damsel in distress who, when she wasn't trying to advance her broadway career, served little purpose other than to be kidnapped by the current villain and wait around until Spiderman rescued her. The remaining characters like Harry Osborn or Aunt Mae were either so damaged or so needy that I kept waiting for Jerry Springer to pop up.
The new cast is very good and contrasts nicely with what came before; Andrew Garfield nicely balances Peter's social awkwardness and intelligence, gradually growing into his new role as New York's protector. Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy as a strong, intelligent and empathic person, very much Peter's intellectual equal. Rhys Ifans makes for a tragic villain who goes down his dark path due to largely noble intentions. Martin Sheen and Sally Field make for likeable and supporting surrogate parents as Uncle Ben and Aunt Mae. Dennis Leary rounds out the cast as Captain Stacy, a cop who doesn't care for Spiderman's vigilante antics.
It is a little strange to see a Spiderman movie with no sign of JJ Jameson or the Daily Bugle, though in all honesty I never understood why Peter kept working for a man who's sole purpose seemed to be to destroy Spiderman - there are other newspapers in New York. Also the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" moment and Uncle Ben's subsequent death are handled a little clumsily (one of the few instances where the movie "stacks the deck" against Peter). But overall it was refreshing to see a Spiderman movie where Peter actually gets to move past being bullied and feeling guilty and tries to have a life.
In terms of 3D, I found the movie to have a fairly understated, natural sense of depth that cranked up and became more defined during key scenes and action sequences. There isn't much in the way of pop out of the screen and gimmicks are present but kept to a minimum. Naturalistic and unintrusive is how I would call it.
So overall I liked The Amazing Spiderman and it looks like I'll finally have a Spiderman movie to add to my collection.
Couldn't sleep the other night, so I stumbled onto this on TCM and ended up watching the whole thing. It's a 1959 film set amidst the Hungarian uprising of 1956. A dozen or so foreigners are waiting at the Budapest airport for flights home when all air service is suspended by the Soviets, and the group is told they need to take a bus to Vienna. The travelers include a British journalist (Robert Morley) who is the de facto spokesman for the group, a wealthy British woman (Deborah Kerr) traveling with a mysterious companion (Jason Robards in his first film role), an American family (including a toddler-aged Ron Howard), a French couple and others from Germany, Israel and Italy.
They have a short, easy bus trip until they get to the last town before the border into Austria, when they are stopped and herded off the bus into the office of the local Soviet commander, played by Yul Brynner. He informs them that they will need to stay in town until he can verify all their passport information with his chain of command, as he is looking for Hungarian nationals. However, when the group walks across the street to a local inn, he puts their passports in his desk drawer, clearly intending to do nothing with them. It turns out that while he is indeed looking for Hungarians, what he's really looking for is some human interaction that goes beyond the hatred and sniper fire he and his Russian soldiers receive from the Hungarians in town, who include some aggressive freedom fighters.
The bulk of the movie plays out in a straightforward way. Brynner eats dinner with his "guests" but becomes frustrated when they won't engage him in meaningful conversation, instead acting like the passive semi-hostages they are. He stalls every time he is asked when they can be on their way, instead getting drunk and insisting they all dance to gypsy music. Robards (traveling on forged British papers) is soon found to be a wounded Hungarian rebel, but Brynner seems unsure what to do until he is finally provoked into angry action. Having been posted in this remote village for two years, he laments to Deborah Kerr that he has been married to the Army and is only too happy to "cheat on the b-tch". He is a bit smitten with her, although this is not very convincing. Those two had way more heat going on in The King And I a few years earlier.
My overarching thought as I watched this was, they do not make films like this anymore. The whole thing plays out like a stage play, and although it is shot in color, it's Cold War scenario reminded me by turns of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Fail-Safe. It's not as good as either of those, but it still held my attention. I can't say I would recommend anyone go out of their way to see it, but it certainly was an interesting reminder of how the Cold War provided such a ready-made formula for conflict and drama.
Tis is a survival movie staring Liam Neeson. He plays Ottaway, a man who works with a oil company in Alaska to keep the workers safe from the harsh envirorment. He is a man with little desire to live. When he plane taking him south crashes with only seven survivors he finds new purpose in keeping everyone alive. This turns out to be difficult when a pack of wolves picking them off one by one. In many ways Ottoway is a lone wolf - the alpha male of his smal pack against the four legged pack of wolves. The wolves are only howls and shadows most of the movie, and it works fine as a lurking threath. I think this is a good movie with a good story ad good acting. But I doubt it was wise to leave the wreckage of the plane and walk south. Alaska is very big, but they probably had a better chance being found if they stayed by the wreck and the black box. I also doubt a pack of wolves would attack seven grown men. Last of all I don`t think wolves can be that hard to kill. My great great grandmother killed a wolf with a wooden club when she was just a teenager. She was all alone at night guarding the livestock, but she did what a 6`4``man and his six companions couldn`t do in this movie. Still, good movie.
Why don't they show this stuff on telly anymore?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Matter of Cat and Death
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Great movie.
xxx
Great great grandmother. She was a milkmaid on our mountain barn where she had the responsibility for our sheep and cows. The wolf started killing them off at night so she made a club and killed the wolf. Farm girls back in the day were hard as nails. Harder than Liam Neeson it seems
Thisis one of the most entertaining movies I have seen for ages! Houn of Baskervilles-type aliens start raining over a poor ghetto in east London. Who will save us - the police or army? No. Crimminal imigrant teen gangs! Very unlikely heroes, but who is better fit to wage urban guerilla warfare in London? This movie is scary, funny and full of action. Definately reccomended.
What didn't work for me is that I felt I'd been through all this before. Maybe because the first movie was made just ten years ago, so much of the story seemed like a rehash: bullied teen--confrontation with Flash--bitten by genetically mutated spider (one of thousands--so much for Peter's getting his powers being a one-in-a-million chance)--awkward attempts to win the girl--uncle killed--brilliant scientist injects himself with formula and becomes a green villain. . . OK, the tone is different, but I didn't feel like the take on the characters, their origins, and their relations to each other was much different from Sam Raimi's. And then there's the mopey father-issue stuff. Cripes: Tim Burton as his most father-obsessed in his Batman movies didn't go this far. We've got fathers and father-figures who run away, who get killed, and who turn into giant mutant lizards whose son-figures break off their long, giant tails which they can grow back and be even bigger threats to the sons (Sigmund Freud--analyze this!), and a lot of carping and whining about it. All in all, I found myself missing the lighter tone of the Raimi films--and wishing the old team had been allowed to make one more film to close everything out before Columbia embarked on a complete reboot.
So I guess you didn't see the sequence during the credits?
I did. It revealed the "truth" about Peter's parents has not been revealed, setting up a sequel. And. . .?
applaud a movie at the end credits. B-)
Not sure where to start and not sure what to say because I don't want to give anything away, but I can say it was brilliant.
The entire cast is excellent, but a special nod to Michael Caine for his work as Alfred in all three films, he performed well in the previous two, but really shined in several scenes in this film. I also want to say that when I heard Anne Hathaway was going to be Catwoman I was disappointed, but she was up to the task, she is excellent and completely believable in every scene.
The film has some plot twists that I won't even hint at, but I will say one twist I never saw coming.
Christopher Nolan has completed his trilogy and the third installment is spectacular.
My only gripe and it is a common one is that at times I had a hard time understanding what Bane said. However it never affected my enjoyment of the movie.
I have more to discuss but I will wait for more people to see the film. Like Thunder experienced, the film received applause at the end, but in my case I also heard applause at The Avengers and at Brave.
* Anne Hathaway's Catwoman (actually, that name is never used--except in a headline). She truly nailed it: a tough jewel thief who uses her sexuality as a weapon. . .and who turns out to be a good bad girl.
* Tom Hardy (no relation)'s Bane. The lower part of his face is entirely covered except in one blink-and-you'll-miss it scene, meaning he had to act with his eyes. He conveys menace and genuine evil. I like the way he swaggered through chaos with his thumbs in his jacket--a la Churchill--and I enjoyed his coldly logical dialogue. The fact that his voice--which I didn't have a hard time with--sounds a bit like Sean Connery's is another plus.
Now that I think of it, Christopher Nolan deserves a shout-out for taking two characters that Tim Burton did well--The Joker and Catwoman--and doing them better; and for taking two characters Joel Schumacher travestied--Two-Face and Bane--and making them great. Nolan actually left the door open a crack for a sequel, but I kind of hope he and Bale make good on their promise to do no more--this trilogy is a classic.
Nolan did them roughly as well but with his own twist on them, but Ithink Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman edges out Anne Hathway's Catwoman by a small margin, by being more entertainingly unhinged.
The Odessa Files - Starring a young John Voight and the late Mary Tamm as his stripper wife (don’t ask) it’s an oddly light hearted thriller set in early 1960s West Germany, where Vought’s journalist character runs into trouble with sinister groups of ex-SS officers and Mossad operatives. Featuring retired Nazis and John F. Kennedy in the background, it overall has a similar feel to X-Men First Class and the light tone owes a lot to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s soundtrack and also a festive, prosperous West Germany used as an interesting backdrop. However the feeling of threat and hopelessness is provided by Maximillian Schell as a former fanatical SS officer turned respectable industrialist. Also be on the lookout for a fresh faced Derek Jacobi as a twitchy printing press owner. 7/10
The Illusionist - This felt like a competent but slightly watered down imitation of the vastly more chilling, tense The Prestige. This is also reflected in the cinematography (compare The Illusionists’ golds and browns with The Prestige’s dark blues and greys). Edward Norton projects mystery and authority but the movie is stolen by Paul Giamatti as an obsessive, pugnacious, workaholic Austrian police officer. Rufus Sewell makes a good Teutonic aristocratic asshole. Jessica Biel was first rate eye candy and competent but seemed too modern and too North American for the period European setting. The major plot twist is a good one but not to give too much away it kinda depicts the protagonists in a bad light, making them complicit in a objectively horrible crime. 7/10
I would agree with Hardy, in my opinion Catwoman has never been done better than Anne Hathaway's take on the character.
Fry is very good, and the supporting cast is strong, such as Michael 'Blair' Sheen as one of Bosey's love rivals, that said his voice is very similar to Law's so there's a sort of lack of variety. Unfortunately Law's role is on repeat, a sulky, petulant strop like Kevin the Teenager off the Harry Enfield comedy show. "Oh, I just hate you I do, you're so smug, you're so bourgeois..." A pain in the butt, you might say, but you find yourself saying, 'C'mon Oscar, ditch the brat...' as we get this scene after scene.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I think Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is more faithful to the comic book character but is edged out by Michelle Pfeiffer in the same way that the still decent Jack Nicholson Joker was edged out by Heath Ledger's Joker (Pfieffer's Catwoman and Ledger's Joker have a visual look to them that is ingrained in popular culture).
Blade II - A competent sequel by the famed Spanish director Guillermo del Toro, mixing extremely violent gore with stylish fight scenes (a winning combination for mindless blockbuster hits). A fairly big budget action vehicle for Wesley Snipes back when he still had a career, it follows the exploits of vampire-human hybrid Blade (Snipes) as he wages a secret war against the global vampire conspiracy with his small band of merry men, the grisly old vampire hunter Whistler (Kris Kritofferson) and seedy techno/weapons whiz Scud (Norman Reedus; a poor man’s Eddie Furlong). In the bad guy’s camp we have the then newcomer Luke Goss as the bitter leader of a strange subspecies of “super” vampires, rent-a-Teutonic-bad-guy Thomas Kretschmann strongly resembling Count Orlok with cuddly tough guy Ron Pearlman and a snide Karel Roden as his main henchmen (also watch out for Tony Curran in his pre-Vincent days). While it is pulp action schlock that’s not going to change the world in the slightest, at least it‘s a damn sight better than the utterly risible Blade: Trinity and didn‘t demolish vampires as a credible supernatural threat (unlike a certain later movie franchise based on romance vampire novels). 7/10
Felt in the mood for big explosions and popcorn fun with nostalgic value. The bravaura opening had me thinking about how if only Sean Connery, rather than licking his wounds after NSNA, had been persuaded to do one more big shot feelgood action film, but done good, with a gang of mates like Michael Caine and maybe Jack Lord. The opening has a whiff of the opening of NSNA, only it's teamwork and they go in with a massive armoured car to retrieve a hostage. If you feel you've been lacking the big stuntwork (admittedly amidst some CGI landscapes it seems) in recent Bonds, this one will really do the trick and there's a touch of The Wild Geese about, big aeroplanes flying in and out with mercenaries on board.
I'm not sure when this film went from being the sh!t to just being sh!t.
When Arnie turns up, looking all in make-up like some ageing lesbian, seriously, his lines are like your grandma in a nursing home, what happened? Oh, this film is crap, 80s stars just show up and do their turn for a few minutes. The whole thing has the air of a pro-celebrity golf tournament. That said, Van Damme makes a decent, hissable villain.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Mmmm, not sure really what to say about this film. It was okay... the cimetography was really spot on, and some great effects were used. The story was odd, and the script - well just lacking. Shame, as I thought Daniel's performance was solid... but the dialogue was just flat... and missed a great opportunity to be so much more.
Shame.
The Hunger Games - Another possible movie saga based on popular sci-fi novels of dubious originality. Part The Running Man and part Battle Royale you get the overriding feeling of seeing it all before, Woody Harrelson’s retired alcoholic veteran is a walking cliché, even the backdrop seems oddly similar to Firefly (ie rustic early industrial frontier with far future technology mixed in). The future setting seemed to strain suspension of disbelief a bit with the outer districts trapped in the Victorian era as well as crushing poverty, while the exploitative city state of Panem is playing around with Star Trek level technology (there must be a trickle down effect, even in the most repressive and corrupt of societies). The dystopian future in The Running Man seemed more convincing and interesting on hindsight. Also the villains played by the cold Wes Bentley and a sleazy Stanley Tucci could’ve been combined into a single antagonist, with the violence increased a bit. I did enjoy Elizabeth Banks waddling about like a giant over decorated wedding cake and Jennifer Lawrence was solid as a action heroine. Well made but kind of weak. 6/10
Total Recall - By being super violent, funny, having Arnold Schwarzenegger as the good guy, having Sharon Stone as a femme fatale, the EMH as a taxi cabbie, in addition to Michael Ironside chewing the scenery with both his acting and submachine gun, this movie has unsurprisingly developed a huge and loyal cult following in the past two decades. The relatively simple but involving plot follows a construction site labourer (with an obsession with Mars) finding out that he is connected to the evil corporate regime on Mars and may have had his memory rewritten by the same brain bending technology used at Rekall (the company that gives out fake memories of exotic holidays in the solar system). Cue lots of endless foot chases and faceless mooks getting violently gunned down. There is a lot of pre-CGI effects involving stop motion and puppets that look a bit creaky now, however the model effects and matte paintings depicting the Federal Martian Colony still heavily convinces. The bulky looking 70s/80s era telephones, tabletop computers, and TV monitors really leap out as being extremely dated in these heady post-Apple iPad days though, but these interesting background details add to the charm of this cyberpunk movie. This is the second best movie in Paul Vehoeven de facto sci-fi trilogy (the others being RoboCop and Starship Troopers). I’m giving the unnecessary remake starring Colin Farrell a wide berth. 9/10
Sigh.
I'll admit it: I do not in any way, shape, or form understand Ritchie's take on the Holmes character. I'm not a purist: I love how Jeremy Brett played up Holmes's eccentricities and addictions; and I enjoy how Sherlock plays with the idea of how a Holmes can still be brilliant in an era of computers and scientific investigations. I suppose what Ritchie wants to do is emphasize Holmes's physical side, which is OK--Conan Doyle made him an expert practitioner of martial arts--and so he gives us those (tiresome) moments of first playing an action sequence in slo-mo while Holmes in voiceover describes the theory and methodology of his techniques, and then re-running the sequence at top speed. Fine; but the scruffy, wisecrack-spewing Holmes is less Conan Doyle than Bruce Willis's John McClane ("Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, old chaps!")--and what's with the passive-aggressive Watson constantly bickering with and even fighting Holmes? This stuff doesn't make me see the classic characters in a new way or reveal something about them that has been unexplored by other filmmakers; it just makes Holmes and Watson standard action heroes in Victorian garb.
That said, I was amazed how dull and lifeless the movie is. It just moves from one action scene to the next with only the scantiest of motivations (a charge that was made against many a Bond film), and a lot of it flat-out does not make sense. I guess when the third movie comes out--and the ending makes it pretty clear a third one will be out--I should just avoid it altogether.
Wow, HB...slightly surprised you didn't like these films...I thought both were great...ah well....
Just watched Senna...absolutely blown away by it...it's compelling film-making at it's finest...a truly remarkable film.