Amph What was the last movie you saw?

The Lego Batman Movie.

A splendid full length animated commercial posing as a film! Humbly surprised. It made Batman go into a truly unique direction. Family man! Saw it in dolby cinema. Very sharp. Better than Imax? Possibly.

 

I watched it recently too. It is a very fun movie. The time capsule factor added a lot of enjoyment too. That movie is so late 80's/early 90's.

 

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974) - So, I attempted to watch another movie with David Chiang last night (Red Phoenix which spent too little time with Chiang and too much with an uninteresting scholar who is lying about his lack of kung fu knowledge) - about 30 minutes into that I thew in the towel and tossed this defrightful chestnut in.

Shaw Brothers Kung Fu + Hammer Horror should have been something great but the script, execution and choreography definitely were not on the same page. That said, for utterly campy Hammer horror set in 1904 China (and perhaps 30-40 years earlier in the flashback) with on point crappy vampire designs and David Chiang being forced to fight barehanded (which he wasn't ready for then), it's great fun.

Basically, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing is in China because after thinking he defeated Dracula he heard myths about the title blood suckers and wanted to up his knowledge on Eastern vampires. Lecturing at a university, his stories fall on deaf ears as the most of the Chinese refuse to believe their country has such creatures. Except one. Ultimately, Van Helsing joins this young fellow (David Chiang) and travels to the remote village where the 7 (now 6) Golden Vampires rule the roost. They are accompanied by Chiang's siblings all of whom are very proficient in Kung Fu including the lovely Shih Szu and some blonde Hammer starlet. Oh and Dracula? He's not dead, he simply possessed the evil Taoist priest who controlled the title brood. Sometimes, the English director remember he had some kung fu to slip in and you'd get a fight or two displaying the great prowess of the stunt people and Chiang who was trying to make his barehanded kung fu look good here (that would take another 3 years to do).

Laughed a lot, booed when Chiang fell for the Hammer glamour lass and decided I absolutely must follow this up with the even worse Shaws + Hammer trainwreck that is Shatter tonight. This could have been a royal gem in Hammer's twilight but it's a so-bad-it-is-good escapist movie.

 

Lion (2016) – Garth Davis

I haven’t read the book this movie is based on, but it’s a compelling story as the movie represents it. The movie manages to take a story that could easily cross over into schmaltz and make it feel very human and relatable. This story, of a young child separated from his family who eventually finds his way back home (spoilers lol) as a young man, smacks of Oscar bait and Lifetime level movie making. But the cast really elevates things. Sunny Pawar is wonderful in the opening, often really frightening section as the young Saroo, separated from his family, in one of the most bizarre ways possible, by being trapped on an abandoned train and transported across the country. Dev Patel gives another great performance as the young man version of Saroo. Patel is, let’s be frank, a great actor constrained by his ethnicity. In the last couple of years, he’s given two really great performances in this movie and in The Man Who Knew Infinity and they couldn’t be more different in terms of character journeys, base temperament, even physical type, but Patel knocks them both out of the park. It’s the honesty of his performance that really helps us accept Saroo as a real person. Nicole Kidman is wonderful and Rooney Mara gives life to a character that is kind of underwritten. David Wenham has a thankless part but he, along with Kidman, exudes such warmth and positivity that he really registers. There’s an incredibly creepy section of the film in which Pawar encounters Tannishtha Chatterjee & Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a man & woman who initially seem friendly, but turn out to have a strange, and not entirely explicated, agenda of their own; Chatterjee & Siddiqui are both brilliant. Siddiqui has only one scene in the film, but it’s one of the most memorable and frightening. The film mostly avoids feeling forced or manipulative in the emotions it evokes. The climactic scene is, unfortunately, the main scene where things do feel forced and false; Patel himself fumbles pretty badly in that scene and I wasn’t surprised at all when I looked online after seeing the film and saw that it was the first scene filmed. It’s clear that Patel’s connection to the character isn’t fully in place and it’s too bad that the emotional impact of the film is marred by a failed climax. But, in spite of that, I’m not going to be able to ding this one too much. The performances are too good and the emotional impact of the majority of the film is too genuine for me to feel cheated when the film missteps, even if that misstep is at the most crucial moment of the film. It’s a film that could very easily have failed completely and landed in the arena of cheesy, feel-good slop. But the emotions are genuine and the connection is on a human level for most of the film and I was very pleasantly surprised by that. Is it flawed? Yes. Is it still good enough to get a recommendation? Absolutely. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – Lion avoids feeling cheesy or manipulative for most of its running time by virtue of a wonderful, fully committed cast; a few missteps near the end aside, it’s a wonderful, evocative film. 3 ½ stars.

More Movie Reviews!

 

X-Men: Origins: Wolverine. C+ - kinda falls off a cliff near the end but I dig the first hour and Jackman and Schriber are fantastic, elevating the roles. Has more of a scholocky B-movie revenge epic vibe which sort of works. Interestingly, on this viewing, I found myself thinking about director Gavin Hood's output from his last few movies, this one, Ender's Game and Eye in the Sky (also just looked up he did Rendition which not sure I've seen, maybe). He actually has a distinct through-line, yes even in a freakin' Wolverine movie, of how people are ground up and used by the military industrial complex. That is certainly a theme in all of those movies. So if this one ever stands out as an odd one on his resume, no, it actually kind of fits.

 

Hidden Figures (2016) I laughed, I cried -- well, at least I got a good-sized lump in my throat -- and I loved those women. Now I need to do some research and find out how much was true and how much was Hollywood dramatization of actual events.

 

Deepwater Horizon. Really good blue collar disaster drama. If you liked The Perfect Storm or The Finest Hours, you'll probably like this.

 

John Wick. Quite a good revenge action movie, Keanu is back in form and I liked the gun-fu/fighting choreographing. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

 

Shatter (1974) Okay, so upon second viewing this Shaws/Hammer mash up isn't as much of a train wreck as I first surmised. Although Stuart Whitlock is the one lame element (and he plays the title character in a semi-sober I am only here for my paycheck kind of way). Basically, Shatter's hitman performs a hit on a violent African dictator and has to go to Hong Kong to collect his payment; but none of his true handlers ordered the hit and now everyone (the U.S. government, his handlers and the British government led by a rather nasty Peter Cushing) want him dead. It's a fun little conspiracy / thriller that mixes the kung fu and spy jinks rather well, except for the fact that you don't give a flying fig newton about Whitman, who obviously did not want to be in Hong Kong.

But let's forget about the lead shall we?

Peter Cushing's role is a cameo here and he's great fun (as kindly as he was in 7 Golden Vampires, here Peter turned on the menace we all know and love, even when recounting just why everyone wants Shatter's head on a platter).

My reason for digging this, is thanks to Shaws mega-star Ti Lung. Here, Ti plays kung fu master Tai Pah. Tai gets mixed up in Shatter's predicament early in and ultimately becomes a paid bodyguard. Ti speaks near perfect English (unlike David Chiang who had to learn his lines phonetically in 7GV), and gets to perform two very awesome displays of kung fu (as the master to students at his Hung Gar school and in an exhibition match), his fiery enthusiasm, charisma and unfortunate Bruce Lee mimicry (as was most likely Hammer and Shaws mandate) help make this movie very watchable when he's on screen. It's too bad Hammer didn't risk and say, "Okay son, You're Shatter." He would have been perfect without even trying.

My second fave Shaws lady, Lily Li-Li is Mai Mee, the quasi-love interest for Shatter (ewww, she was such a trooper) and handles her useless role as best she can. Her English is pretty good, but I don't quite understand her relationship with Tai Pah. Naturally, my questions about this and enjoying Ti Lung to the max will mean a revisit soon.

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I followed this up with Sun Chung's most violent mainstream film, the sometimes hilariously funny crime drama, Big Bad Sis (1975). The always awesome Chen Ping handles the fights and exploitation scenes equally well. And when it came time to exposure her torrid past as a triad gambling hustler to her new found blood sisters, well she handled it like a pro, revealing her rose tattooed bosom as if it was nothing. Sister Ying as she is known left the racket for a normal life thanks to an intervention by Brother Shing (Chen Kuan Tai). Working at a factory she befriends two young ladies who also come from hardship and ultimately Ying's past comes back to haunt her in spades as her former boss wants to close the factory where these ladies and many others work. The soap opera aspects are great fun and often unintentionally funny, the exploitation is played for laughs and squirms and the fights are unbelievably brutal and realistic. I won't be surprised if 88 Films in the UK eventually releases this as part of their Asian line as it checks off all the benchmarks of their current releases (though I'd like CP and Sun Chung's two other films released too (Sexy Killer and Lady Executioner). This is very hard R and doesn't pull any punches. Great film and an inspired choice to pair with Shatter.

 

Doctor Strange. Good Marvel movie. Kind of felt like House with Sherlock and superpowers.

 

Avengers, again. Puny god never gets old.

 

Lego Batman. Surprisingly solid film.

 

Leon: The Professional. I thought it was a very good film. Not as much action as I was expecting, but the relationship between the Jean Reno and Natalie Portman character made up for it.

 

'Trumbo'

I reviewed it before. It is a standard biopic that follows the thematic beats of bio pics. I just really like it though. It is colorful and fun and Cranston is outstanding in the title role. I guess I also kind of like bio pics as a guilty pleasure sometimes. I love to see the melodrama in them.

 

Logan. I'm not really a fan of the X-Men movies (Deadpool aside), I've probably seen less than half of them and wasn't impressed by the ones I did see but the trailer for this got me interested - the Johnny Cash probably helped. This is a superhero/comicbook film apart, it felt incredibly grounded in real life, and was surprisingly emotional (thanks to a brilliant performance by Patrick Stewart), and benefitted from the 15 certificate which helped to add realism rather than being bloody & sweary for the sake of it. Also a surprise to see Stephen Merchant in it! Excellent. 8.5/10

 

You know who likes that movie?














Seriously though, the Leon/Matilda relationship is awesome, but Gary Oldman just puts it on yet another level.

 

spoilers aside. is it like a full western or how would you describe the atmosphere of it?

 

hmm ok thanks. now is there a credit scene?

 

Logan,

Hard to say exactly how I felt but it is very good. It features brilliant performances from Jackman and Stewart that take the characters to new places. I'll agree with cubman987, it isn't a fun movie in the Marvel sense. Wolverine is not cracking wise at all.

I don't know if I'm putting too much on my personal expectations in against the film but I wanted more of the sociological commentary and satire that the X-Men universe delivers at it's best. We get some interesting seeds of it but they aren't sufficiently fleshed out. It is in essence a chase film and it can't really stop for too long, which is a shame. I really like the subplot of Xavier suffering from dementia and the dangerous implications it has. The villain's motivation is delivered briefly and the way mutants became extinct is actually really clever. I guess I'd like to see an X-Men movie within this sort of bleak framework.

The R rating is deserved but the film is guilty of going for gratuitous R rated material. Logan is hiding out as a limo driver and a drunken Prom Queen flashes him. Isn't that just going for R material because you can?

 

Cap 2: The Winter Soldier. Definitely top-tier Marvel, and strong contender for best Marvel. I like that Cap's idealism gets hit hard and he goes darker than he has before, but he still holds onto his best self. And Black Widow finally gets some well-deserved development. She's long overdue for her own film.

But Falcon is my favorite character in the Avengers. Anthony Mackie does a great job at playing a modern-day veteran; I've been there and he was totally believable as well as likeable as a burned-out soldier. Plus, I love the way he flies. He doesn't just magically jump around like Thor or rely on raw thrust like Iron Man; he soars with wings. Big kudos to the SFX people who make that look real. I wonder if they watched footage of "Jetman" Yves Rossy.

 

Hitchcock's Rope, which is way more than just a piece of stunt filmmaking. It's one of his best examples of sustained suspense, and a masterful display of blocking, camera movement and editing.