Bernie--Jack Black plays a funeral director's assistant in this black comedy taking place in Texas. If you've seen the movie Waiting for Guffman or any of those Christopher Guess films, it sort of had that tone. I could relate to all the redneck, small town people living just down the road from Carthage. Interesting film.
The Hunger Games--I enjoyed it more than Battle Royale as it seemed like it was more world building or immersion, but also enjoyed the costumes, props, etc. I dug it.
Saw Elysium yesterday at the theater. I would give it 3 stars. It is Pretty much your typical futuristic Sci-Fi flick with clichéd characters who are either extremely wealthy people, who are all evil elitist snobs, or poor people, who are all virtuous hard working folks just down on their luck. From the masses an anti-hero arises to eventually bring equality and justice to all. Ok, maybe there is a bit more to the plot than that, but you have seen it all before. The effects and action are all top notch, but not that much different from other recent films of its ilk this summer. The acting is pretty typical Matt Damon stuff and probably one of Jody Foster’s more mundane roles. Still it was entertaining enough and kept my interest, so I would say it is a good, but not great summer action sci fi flick.
Steve Sly
Caught “The Life Of Pi” on HBO over the weekend. It was not what I thought it was going to be and I turned out to really enjoy it. How they filmed the stuff with the Tiger on the raft was amazing to me considering most of it was CGI. After seeing the ending I actually want to go back and watch it again. I can certainly understand why it was nominated for so many awards. I wish I had gone to see it in 3D in the theater.
Steve Sly
I saw The Heat this weekend. Paul Fieg is fine directing a comedy but he's way over his head in terms of action movies. This movie is a hybrid of both so I found it lacking. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are fine. The way their friendship develops naturally throughout the movie is its strongest point. But the whole plot that drives the movie is incredulous and lame. Every time it went back to them trying to catch the bad guy the movie fell apart.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Just watched "Stand Up Guys" recently. A fun little comedy which I didn't expect much from, with Pacino and Walken both hamming it up the whole time. Worth it if you like those guys in a less serious setting.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
liked this one too. first saw it on a show called The Movie Loft on WSBK in Boston. had a hell of a time getting the DVD though. IIRC i ended up using the 'buy now' option on eBay cos that was the only place i could find it. it was an English language version released in Greece (the writing on the insert was all Greek) which was interesting. like it better than the remake where Caine now played the Olivier part and Jude Law played the Caine part. to me Law was too scrawny to be convincing as a ladies man. over acted a bit too.
other good ones i've seen lately..
Olympus has Fallen - basically Die Hard in the white house and kind of preposterous but a good vapid action flik.
Argo - took a while to gain my interest but once it got going, it was a great thriller.
Side Effects
Red
"She said you are the air I breathe
The life I love, the dream I weave."
Unevensong - Camel
I can't watch a Sandra Bullock film with any expectations, any more. But, I actually enjoyed this one despite all its problems.
McCarthy single-handedly held the film together, though, in my opinion. If anyone else had co-starred this fil, I think it would have been a complete failure.
I've got a strange "fetish" for Walken, and I like Pacino and Arkin a lot, as well. I was disappointed that Arkin had such a small role in the film.
Definitely a cheesey flick, but I enjoyed it a lot.
The Seasoning House: It's a rather artsy and disturbing revenge horror about child prostitution set in the Balkans toward the end of the civil war.
The main character, Angel, is a young mute girl taken into a seedy brothel, turned into the assistant of the owner, Viktor who has her keep the other girls drugged.
The first half of the film is a moody and depressing dream-like walk through Angel's existence in the brothel, with flashbacks that show how she'd gotten there.
The second half deteriorates a little into a military spec-ops hunt for a prepubescent assassin, but I still enjoyed it.
---------
Least Among Saints: A story about a divorced Marine, haunted by a mistake made while on tour in Afghanistan, and his fight to overcome his demons, and to win custody of a neighbour's child after she dies from a drug overdose.
It's written and directed by the lead actor, Martin Papazian.
---------
[B]R.I.P.D.[B]: This film desperately wants to be Men In Black with evil dead people, but it never actually makes it there.
The acting was not that bad, and Bridges and Reynolds deliver about on par with what Jones and Smith gave us in MIB, but the script and plot are simply disastrous.
---------
The Frozen Ground: Nick Cage, John Cusack, and (of all people) Vanessa Hudgens star in the true life story of serial killer Robert Hansen who abducted, tortured, and *hunted*, Anchorage-area prostitutes in the early 1980's.
Actually a decent watch despite the Disney-teen-disaster who seems to portray herself quite a bit in the role.
Oh, and Star Trek: Into Darkness was an over-the-top mess of rather confusing changes to everything I seem to remember about Star Trek. I thought the first "Star Trek", with Chris Pine as Kirk, was far better.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
add Unstoppable to my list
"She said you are the air I breathe
The life I love, the dream I weave."
Unevensong - Camel
I bought Funeral In Berlin, with Michael Caine.Pretty good but not as good as The Ipcress File.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
It was pretty good.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
Just watched Lords of Salem. I had reasonably high hopes for this Rob Zombie film, but it turned out to be a complete waste of time. I expect not to understand Zombie's thought process throughout his films, but this was just stupid-squared. None of moments you'd want to jump at were at all effective. The gore was amateurish and silly. The plot was typical "what the fuck?" Zombie shit, which didn't surprise me. And there were simply too many crappy-looking mannequins standing in corners trying look "scary".
In all, I think 90 of the film's 101 minutes were utter garbage.
Sure there's tons of action movie cliches and one blatant rip-off (or nod) to Die-Hard, but I had a great time watching Olympus Has Fallen.
7 out of 10 lightning fast stab wounds to the heart.
"Who would have thought a whale would be so heavy?" - Moe Sizlak
Watched Blade II last night. I saw it when it was released but haven't seen it since. Guillermo del Toro's eye and sense of style give it a little more pizzaz than the original. The character Nyssa was obviously an inspiration for Selene in the tepid Underworld films (although Kate Beckinsale wears the leather better). Something clicked between Ron Perlman and del Toro given their significant history after this movie. The whole king father/rogue son/rebel daughter thing from Blade II was done much better when del Toro did Hellboy II.
Or maybe I'm just over thinking this way too much.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Finally watched Bourne Legacy on HBO. Not as bad as I expected and they did manage to weave a little of the cast from the old movies into it. 7 out of 10 rogue CIA agents. Mind you, the second and third movies in the series were as good as it gets. My only quibble were the jerky fight scenes but plot-wise, those two films were a seamless weave.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Psycho--TCM is showing some Hitchcock films this month, today they showed around five of them: Rope, The Birds, etc. They'll be showing some other once throughout the month, so check their schedule if interested.
The 39 Steps--was a PBS remake of the Hitchcock film, and done really well.
Evangelion 2.22--not much into anime, but I enjoyed this for what it was, SF world building and giant robots.
Also watching The Game of Thrones second season & on TV the last season to Breaking Bad.
^watching Psycho right now. funny, never saw the film all the way through until tonight so never realized Janet Leigh was on the run after stealing 40 grand. also didn't realize the shower scene was less than an hour in.
"She said you are the air I breathe
The life I love, the dream I weave."
Unevensong - Camel
Psycho--yeah, it's a good movie, I catch it ever so often. They showed The Lodger too late last night. It's a silent film, I think Hitchcock's third film. It takes me a bit of adjustment to watch a silent film, but it's worthwhile. All the Hitchcock trademarks are there: suspense & red herrings.
Bookmarks