I've missed the boat on the comic book films. I just never found a way to get into them. Maybe I would rather buy the comic book itself and be happy with that but I know I have missed a lot. The only two I liked was the first Batman and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
The older I get, the better I was.
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 ***
Watched 2019s The Long Shot. Political comedy , not so political, with Seth Rogan and the always stunning Charlize Theron. The 2 hook up during Therons characters run for president. Not terrible, 7 of 10.
I saw “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” yesterday. I kind of walked away from it the same way I walked away from “The Hateful Eight” a few years ago, not really being able to make up my mind if it was a masterpiece or failure. I certainly understand the mixed reviews the film has gotten on Rotten tomatoes and can understand both sides of the positive and negative critics consensus.
The acting in the film is incredible. Everyone in the is top notch, with great dialog, and I am sure there will be some Oscar nominations coming out of this one. The casting is also perfect as everyone fit’s their roles to a T. The cinematography is incredible as the film re-creates late 60’s Hollywood with such incredible attention to detail that you really feel that you are there. The story, in the end, is an alternate history tale that may or may not work depending on one’s perspective. The movie is almost 3 hours long and there were times where I thought it dragged a bit. 4 of us attended the film and all our reactions were about the same, that it certainly kept our interest all the way through, and it was certainly different, but none of us really could tell how much we actually “liked” it. I have had reactions like this to Quinten films before, and they have grown on me over time, so it might be the same with this one. I would recommend people see it and make up their own minds. I will watch it again, once it is available on TV.
I learned after Pulp Fiction to never see a Tarantino movie in a theater ever again. One of the wisest decisions I've made because some of his films I've found hard to sit through... even in my living room (e.g. Jackie Brown, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained). Thank God for the pause button. OTOH, I wish I had seen Kill Bill: Vol 1 on the big screen.
And just to be clear, my biggest problem with QT is the length of his movies. KB:V1 and The Hateful Eight are the exceptions. In fact, Netflix has an extended version of TH8 that is broken up into four parts totaling 3½ hours (the original movie was either 2:48 or 3:07, depending on when and where you saw it) and I'll probably watch it.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
The Great Hack. I encourage everyone with Netflix to watch this movie. It explains the connections between Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, the 2016 election, and Brexit.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Wasn't Hateful EIght the one where they destroyed that priceless Martin guitar?
Alita - Battle Angel.
This all feels liked it's already dated, like it should have been made 10 or 15 years ago. I felt the same way about Ghost In The Shell.
Technically its impressive, and the world building is incredible. It's great to look at, but there is little else that appealed to me apart from that.
And the motor ball concept owes a huge debt to Rollerball , which they did not even acknowledge in the making of stuff in the blu ray.
Rosie Salazar does well in the title role, though I didnt think enough of her performance came through in what was largely a CGI character.
And Christoph Waltz just seems to play the same character yet again.
Watchable, but that's about it. That said I didnt have high expectations going in.
Outbreak - 1999, virus related drama/action movie.
Good cast...Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding Jr, Donald Sutherland, Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman.
Story revolves around an outbreak of a deadly virus that originates in Africa and threatens to decimate the US...
It's a bit of an odd one this. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen so the emphasis is more on spectacle and hardware than the realities of containing a deadly virus. Hoffman seems somewhat uncomfortable in what seems to be an attempt to force him into an action hero role. And I had forgotten that Kevin Spacey is in the movie...and he appears to be saddled with what appears to be a comedy relief role here.
There are some silly moments and a lot of things that just don;t make sense...but taken on its own terms its a decent and entertaining movie for its time.
Magnificent Seven, 2016.
I really liked this. I liked that they used the basic framework of the original and didnt try to copy the characters from the original.
Ok, maybe they tried to inject some diversity by having Mexican, Korean and Native American characters, but that's ok.
I loved Vincent D'Onofrio's mountain man...Ethan Hawkes wonderfully named Goodnight Robicheaux, and Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt were very engaging.
And the icing on the cake was Alexander Skarsgard, chewing the scenery as the villain of the piece...the wonderfully named Bartholemew Bogue.
There were some excellent gun fights too, the first standoff in the town, and the epic one at the end.
Shazam - took me a little while to warm to this, but in the end I enjoyed it.
I guess it comes across as a minor comic book movie in the wake of the bigger movies like Avengers Endgame and Spider Man.
Its well made, reasonably amusing rather than laugh out loud funny but Zachary Levi is quite engaging as Shazam. And its fairly well acted by a youthful and largely unknown cast.
Mark Strong has fun chewing up the scenery as the baddie, but the CGI effects and creatures seem a bit generic, seen it all before etc.
Star 80 - powerful drama about tragic playboy model Dorothy Stratten. The film focuses on her relationship with her sleazy boyfriend Paul Snider, who sees her as a meal ticket to fame, and encourages her to Hollywood and become a model, eventually becoming one of the playboy bunnies.
But Snider's jealous and obsessive nature rears his ugly head, and he does not like her mixing with other men such as Hugh Hefner and a movie director (who in real life was Peter Bogdanovich).
The main reason to watch this movie is Eric Roberts as Paul Snider. This was one of those early breakout roles for him, and he is extraordinarily compelling in the role...sleazy and yet also vulnerable at times. Mariel Hemingway is OK as Stratten, though she is not really called upon to do much apart from looking the part.
High Life - Claire Denis' latest.
Not really sci fi, more a study of a disparate group of people trying to survive.
The basic plot is a group of convicts given a choice between dying on earth, or taking part in an experiment in space to repopulate the species, but of course things dont go to plan, and a black hole starts to have en effect on the ship.
It's deliberately slow paced...it concentrates on the routine and the monotony of space, and its depiction of the mechanics of reproduction are a bit of an eye opener, especially the sight of Juliette Binoche astride an artificial penis in a specially designed 'sex chamber'.
Robert Pattinson does OK as the more level-headed and sane member of the crew, who ends up looking after the first baby born on the ship.
Its also very low-fi sci-fi...the spaceship itself reminded me of a cigarette packet, and the design inside the ship was like something from a cheap 70's low budget movie. At times it puts you in mind of movies like Silent Running, Solaris, Interstellar and 2001. and dont expect scientific accuracy or realism here either.
Its a difficult watch, one of those films you need to know what to expect going in. Star Wars it is not.
For All Mankind - excellent documentary from 1989 about the Apollo moon missions.
Its primarily told using footage of all of the main missions, from 8 up to 17 and narrated by the various astronauts and some of the mission control people involved. At the time it contained some of the best footage available of the missions, though recently it has been somewhat surpassed by the recent Apollo 11 from a technical standpoint.
But I still found it engaging and fascinating to watch, even though I have seen most of the footage before.
And Brian Eno's evocative score is the icing on the cake.
I only clicked on it because I thought it was going to be something more interesting...
The ending of Alita - Battle Angel was awful, forsaking an ending to set up a sequel that may never happen, felt like it was just hanging there, otherwise a fairly enjoyable popcorn movie.
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.
My brother saw, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and he's a hugh QT fan. But this one he says he's on the fence about and probably wouldn't watch it again.
Last edited by Staun; 08-05-2019 at 11:15 AM.
The older I get, the better I was.
Been catching old TV series lately. Watched the Kung Fu pilot with Barry Sullivan and it was very good.
The older I get, the better I was.
I'm hoping to like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. QT has suffered noticeably from the loss of his long time film editor Sally Menke IMO. After she died, his movies haven't been nearly of the same quality to me. I watched Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight only once each. I found them plodding and nonsensical.
I practically couldn't stop watching Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, etc. when they came out.
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 ***
His movies are getting longer and more rambling. Pulp Fiction's plot was not exactly linear but it still had a tight focus and even when you didn't know where it was going, you damn sure were in for the ride. Hateful Eight takes forever to get to the fucking point.
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
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