Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Kong Skull Island in the theater and Fences on DVD

Mace Windu got to use his famous catchphrase in skull island.

 

Beauty and the Beast. Fell asleep. Not my cup of tea.

 

What would Chip and Mrs. Potts say?

 

Deadpool. Felt a little over hyped, IMHO, but it did have some funny moments.

 

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron - Looks really good on my new tv

 

Doctor Strange

 

Loving A low-key drama about one of the last major African-American civil rights victories in the U.S. I thought it was pretty good, but I guess the lack of thrills or Big Speeches explains the lack of award attention? It's the only thing I can come up with, anyway. Both the actors portrayed the Lovings quite believably. My only real complaint is that the time jumps are unclear and a bit confusing.

The Edge of Seventeen Another teen movie where the protagonist is charismatic, intelligent, witty, attractive, fashionable, can get a guy she knows from class to go out with her at a moment's notice, etc. yet claims to be some sort of social outcast because she's a slightly awkward introvert. The wildly inappropriate relationship between her and her history teacher is also another well-used annoying trope. However, the movie does at least appear very aware that Nadine is wrong about herself. And the movie does take other tropes, like "douchey jock brother" and discards them. Overall a pleasant film that Hailee Steinfeld ably carries on her shoulders. (Why was this rated "R" anyway?)

 

No, just a title card.

 

Suddenly. The president is unexpectedly going to pass through the tiny town of Suddenly on his way to some ranch, and as the Secret Service descends to secure the town, so do Frank Sinatra and a pair of goons, who plan to assassinate the president. There's some setup as the sheriff, Sterling Hayden, gets ready, but most of the fairly short movie takes place in a home overlooking the train station, where Sinatra holds hostage the sheriff and the family who live there. That family consists of the widow Hayden's trying to court, her son, and her father-in-law. The father-in-law is an ex-Secret Service agent for no particular reason, while the widow hates guns and violence because her husband died in the war, leading all three other males to pester her to let the boy do boy things; this of course plays into the hostage situation. The whole setup is very staged, but once you've got Sinatra in the house terrorizing a group of people who are trying to figure out how to save the president, you've got the makings of a pretty decent, very old-fashioned thriller.

 

I rewatched Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise / Sunset / Midnight over the weekend. All three films are just sublimely written and performed. Easily one of the top five film trilogies of all time.

 

Ben-Hur (2016) - Plot; A young Jewish prince seeks revenge against his adopted Roman brother after the latter betrays him and leaves him for dead.

I've only ever seen the original once, and that was a bleary-eyed and impromptu Easter Sunday viewing many years ago. My recollections are vague other than the glorious chariot race scene, but I recall it being more impressive than compelling. This 21st century remake cuts the runtime of the original nearly in half, and while its relative brevity won the favor of my backside, it does leave little dramatic meat on its bones. Oh sure, the beats are all there, but this is more of a Cliff Notes version of the story.

The film often looks and feels like a mid-tier mini-series or made-for-tv movie, thanks mostly to its often uninspired direction. It's a shame, too, because the production values are otherwise pretty impressive. The cast really do nothing to fatten up the thinned out material they're given, and the first hour or so plods along listlessly as if waiting for a spark. That spark arrives in the second half as title character sets out to get his revenge. The stage for this vengeance is the chariot race, and while this version is really no match for the original, it is an intense and white knuckle action sequence that scratches a particular itch.

As in the original, this story of Judah Ben-Hur runs parallel with that of Jesus, and while I can see how the two are meant to mesh together (Judah's lust for vengeance turning into forgiveness), it doesn't always mesh as organically as you'd hope.

This is no classic, but for the Twitter generation it may serve as a more palatable vessel for this story of faith and forgiveness. - 6/10

 

Arrival. Great movie. Kind of felt like a grown-up version of Close Encounters. Arrival and Contact would make an excellent double feature.

 

Thelma & Louise. The film looks fantastic. Ridley Scott does a great job. The cast is outstanding -- it's even got Stephen Tobolowsky being weird, which is always a plus. But I had a hard time getting on the same wavelength as the film. Sometimes it seems like it wants to be this Coenesque southern/western neo-noir about people screwing up and digging themselves into trouble, sometimes it seems like it wants to be a slightly goofy road movie about two friends learning to live or whatever. Sometimes it's trying to sell a crime spree leading to suicide as somehow life-affirming. It basically functions on the characters assuming they're doomed from the very beginning, but also has a whole plotline of Harvey Keitel insisting the film doesn't have to be a tragedy, yet the film completely ignores him. It was just hard to connect with the characters and the tone of the film. It did a lot of interesting things, had a great cast, looked tremendous. I enjoyed it. But I never quite fully connected with it, and felt it had more potential than it lived up to.

 

Schindler's List. An excellent film that shows both the good and the evil human beings are capable of.

 

Rumble in the Bronx. The storyline is very basic and the fight scenes are less impressive than Jackie Chan's earlier Hong Kong films, but it's still very entertaining.

 

did an end of the world double feature with Bokeh and The Girl with all the Gifts. Neither is great, but they're passable mood pieces. It's not that hard to generate moodiness for an end of the world movie, but getting the moodiness right takes some talent. Bokeh feels like a promotional video for Iceland tourism. The intern film crew for the Iceland tourism board decided to make an edgy 90 minute infomercial about visiting Iceland disguised as a depressing and fanciful meditation on the nature of loneliness, but showpiece Iceland so expertly that the only thing you would remember afterwards about the movie is how much you want to go see all the sights of Iceland. It works. It's brilliant. The only thing I can remember about the movie is how much I want to go to Iceland. Like right now. I'm buying the tickets now.

 

Tales From Earthsea (English Dub): Starts out interesting but after awhile loses it's momentum with an ending that's ultimately disappointing. There's an interesting mythology here though and the animation and voice work is still good particularly from Timothy Dalton and while Willem Dafoe starts out kinda creepy he does sort of turn into Green Goblin at the end which provides some unintentional humour at least for me because I get that kind of humour of that performance. Maybe it's because it was based on a book or something but there's alot here that feels kind or rushed and the end result is not the best it could have been. Only see it if you're curious or are a fan of Ghibli's work. Probably the weakest for me personally so far after Howl's Moving Castle.

 

xXx (2002) That was pretty dumb. Not one of Vin Diesel's best. Some of the action scenes were mildly interesting, and the stunt work wasn't bad, but it was still dumb.

 

It's a debut for the writer/director and I'm interested in what she does next. This movie is far from perfect, but I liked it quite a bit and it's definitely got enough strengths that I think the writer/director has the potential to get better. I think the main strength is that the movie definitely realizes, as you say, that Nadine is not particularly clear-eyed about herself and her life (the scene where she starts ranting about being an "old soul" is hilarious; not a word she says is true and the movie knows it) and Steinfeld isn't interested in making Nadine likable really. What did you think about the actor who played the guy who had the crush on her? I thought he was absolutely hilarious. One of his first movies too. And as tropey as it is, Harrelson slays that part. That bit when he just turns and looks at the calendar when Nadine tries to get sympathy by saying her dad died . . . that is acting.

It's been a long time since I saw this one, but as I recall you're right about the weird tone shifts. I think the performances get it over the hump for me on a lot of the inconsistencies, but I definitely felt like the Keitel character was the most interesting and, as you say, out of place in the film. It wasn't a character I expected in the movie, Kietel is really good and his journey is actually really sad. I vividly remember the last shot of him.

I really like this movie a lot. Sinatra is super-good in it and I like the way the film is really a study of his character as much as it is anything. That speech he makes to the little boy about the power of having a gun is a great moment.

 

Rumble in the Bronx was my (and no doubt many people here in the U.S.) first exposure to Jackie Chan. Saw it on its opening night in a near-full theater and had an absolute blast. Don't think I've seen a movie before or since that got the audience rockin' and rollin' quite like RITB did. It was just 90 minutes of "Ooh!" "Ahh!" and "Lol!". After that there was a deluge of Jackie's movies repackaged by New Line and released here, and I believe my friends and I saw all of them. They were probably an affront to a Chan purist, but I found the bulk of them quite entertaining.

I remember back when it was first released there was a big push by the studio, Diesel and director Rob Cohen to position it as the next generation Bond, or X-Games Bond. At that time the Brosnan era was in its last throes and they were happily positing that Bond was dead and we were now in the Xander Zone. As you said, it's dumb and has aged about as well as an open can of Red Bull, and while Craig and company reinvented Bond for the 21st century, Xander sorta went the way of dial-up internet. Never did see the sequel starring Ice Cube (though a friend whose taste I trust says it's actually dumb fun instead of simply dumb, like the original). I'm actually curious to watch the recent Diesel headlined sequel, which looks blissfully stuck in the 00's. It flat-out tanked here in the States, grossing $44 mil, but eclipsed $300 mill worldwide.

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Loved this movie, the Niffler is my favourite creature, can't wait for the second one

 

The Secret World of Arriety (UK Dub): A decent short fantasy film. I'm not familiar with the book so I don't know how accurate it is to that. Which is why maybe the simplicity might have thrown me off in the end to where maybe more happens with the Borrowers finding more of their kind then what happens here. This is the only Ghibli film to have a dub done exclusively by the UK probably because it was based on an English book and it does throw me off a little. The actors chosen are fine I'm just not used to UK voices being the only voices in a Ghibli dub. I haven't seen the other version so I can't compare to see if they are any different. Animation is still good though. If you're a fan of the book and want to compare the two or are curious to see a short simplistic fantasy adventure I'd recommend it.

 

T
It's . . . dreadful. I watched it and then listened to the episode of How Did This Get Made? about it. It's a great podcast if you're not into it, by the way. If you end up watching the movie, definitely listen to that episode afterwards. It's a lot of fun. There are definitely pleasures in the film. Nina Dobrev and Toni Collette are both brilliant. But it's more dumb than dumb fun.

 

just saw Fantastic Beasts , hmm ... gotta say I find Eddie Redmayne's shuffling/mumbling routine rather tiresome .
It looked real nice , loved NY in the 20's , but for some reason every time the FX started I got bored , they were high quality but it all just seemed like a lot of whizzy-flash-bang stuff .
I really liked the fat guy and the 'flapper' girl

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