Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Yeah, it's funny about Dobrev. I wasn't familiar with her at all prior to seeing XXX, but upon looking her up online, I see she's kind of got this super-hot, smoldering sexpot persona going on which makes it even more interesting that she was able to really sell the nerdy klutz role. And, if I can be transparent, the nerdy klutz is way sexier than the smoldering bikini babe, but that's just me. Anyway, I see she's in the new Flatliners movie. So I may be interested in the new Flatliners movie after all. But I hope she gets to do more comedy because she's really good at it.

 

She was on CW's The Vampire Diaries.

 

She was on CW's The Vampire Diaries.

 

Yeah, I'd have preferred that original approach over porting over the Fast and the Furious concept lock, stock and four barrel carburetor. xXx3 isn't really a spy movie at all. Like you said, w/the first one they were trying to put a new spin on an old formula, but it's got all of the classic spy movie tropes. They just traded out martinis for Red Bulls. Here they were simply aping the star's most successful gig.

Yeah, totally playing against type as I too found out ex post facto. And you're not alone in preferring the quirky klutz over the Maxim centerfold. Not even a contest.

Lol! Aptly titled by the looks of it. It's a concept w/potential, but not seeing a fresh spin on the original here. Just a fresh coat of paint.

 

Outland (1981) I haven't seen this film for a very long time, easily over 20 years and I always remember it as something of a slow burning decent thriller.

Sean Connery stars as a marshall on a mining operation on one of Jupiters moons in charge of a small police force. Hes brand new to the job and from early on they establish how isolated he is from everyone else, his wife leaves him to return to Earth with their son, he carrys no weight when hes introduced to the mining operations staff and hes basically told in no uncertain terms by the director running the operation to let things be to ensure they keep their good output.

Being new hes keen and decides to investigate some strange instances of some of the miners doing something completely out of character where they go mad and either kill themselves or harm others. These are being swept under the carpet and just classed as the workers getting to the end of their tether after nearly a year on the moon. The marshall finds theres a synthetic drug thats to blame for these incidents and that its being supplied to the workers to ensure they can work longer, but the side effects can be murderous or suicidal. We begin to find that some of his police officers are in on it, the workers aren't going to help him and that the whole drug conspiracy is being run by the overall boss of the mining outpost. The marshall realises he is truly alone now but continues to press on against the odds.

This leads to the director of the mine to organise a team of mercenaries to come to the moon to kill the marshall, we are then in High Noon territory as the countdown to the shuttles arrival is displayed everywhere and the marshall knows whats coming. He tries to get help, no one is interested, not even his officers, so he prepares for their arrival in the hopes of killing them before they get him. Help does eventually come in the form of the outposts stern. outspoken and equally isolated doctor (the excellent Frances Sternhagen).

This is still a film I enjoy even now. Its a very typcial sci-fi movie of its time, yet that element doesn't over load the film and its not the focus and its not over the top at all. This is about a realistic, gritty, dirty and claustrophobic environment, reminiscent of Alien in that respect. Where everything about the setting is like its the bottom of the barrel, and the people sent here to work are failures. Connery doesn't want to believe that of himself and is stubborn in his pursuit. I think hes very good in this as a man who knows hes on his own from the get go, but is so stubborn to get the results to prove himself. There are quit a few familiar British actors in this and also Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen and John Ratzenburger.

Overall I think its well worth a look with some good performances and setting.

 

The Lost City of Z (2016) – James Gray

A man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for?

I’m pretty mixed on James Gray; I thought The Immigrant, his last film, was absolutely dreadful, a quite good central performance by Marion Cotillard notwithstanding. But he’s more than redeemed himself with this wonderful adventure drama about British explorer Percy Fawcett and his obsession with finding a lost city, and by extension evidence of a lost civilization, in the Amazon jungle. The movie, though the trailers didn’t exactly make this clear, spends a lot of time outside of the jungle, so be warned, just in case you’re expecting a full movies worth of jungle trekking. But the drama outside the jungle is, in my opinion, just as compelling as the expeditions themselves and the movie takes its time with everything – this isn’t a heartpounding thrill a minute film, but it’s a compelling human drama from start to finish. Charlie Hunnam is brilliant as Fawcett; I’ve been waiting for another performance of this caliber since Nicholas Nickleby way back in the day and he’s finally delivered. Sienna Miller is career best, in my opinion, as Fawcett’s longsuffering wife. A virtually unrecognizable Robert Pattinson continues to prove himself a versatile and valuable character actor in a supporting role as a bearded, bespectacled, backwards fellow explorer. Angus Macfadyen is as good as he’s ever been in a supporting role as a famous explorer that takes Fawcett under his wing, but then reveals some initially hidden flaws. The movie is disturbing at times in its violence and graphic imagery; it’s one of the harder PG-13s I’ve seen, I think. The film is ultimately gripping and, by its conclusion, quite haunting. It stayed in my head in a really strong way for a few days after seeing it and it’s really just a kind of classically styled masterpiece. About the only thing wrong with it is Tom Holland as Fawcett’s son; there’s nothing really wrong with his performance, but, oof, that dreadful mustache. Hopefully, Spider-Man stays clean-shaven or the Marvel Cinematic Universe may lose me. Regardless, The Lost City of Z is a must-see. 4 stars.

tl;dr – story of explorer Percy Fawcett is compelling human drama & adventure story in a classical style of filmmaking one rarely sees; great performances elevate this haunting masterpiece. 4 stars.

More Movie Reviews!

 

The Rain People (1969)

Such a tragic story, great performance of Shirley Knight. I couldn't believe she also played that Nazi officer so well a decade later.

 

THE RED TURTLE: Really enjoyed it. Easy watch. Beautiful to look at. Enjoyable story.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT: I have memories of watching the TV show with my parents. Boring stuff for a 5 year old. Movie was great though. Poitier and Steiger were great, and are every bit the reason the movie is as great as it is.

 

*Snip*

Whoops.

 

Wonder Woman

Oh boy...You see, I loved both MOS and BVS. I thought they were amazing movies that had an in-depth story(with some psychological breakdowns here and there) that both kept the integrity of the filmmaker and the Hollywood-esque structure. The music was expressed grandiose emotions, the cinematographic artistry was unique and the characters, albeit I admit I had issues with some like with Lois not being spunky/given enough screen time compared to her perfect Smallville version, Clarks mom being used as a plot device for him to get angry(should have been used only in BVS imo), that dumb scene with the emails etc. It's not terrible but there are flaws that are apparent to me.

Anyways...This movie felt like it was made by your typical corporate filmmaker guy..Seriously, almost everything about it is generic and overused. I loved Patty Jenkin's MONSTER film. Incredibly moving..But this...This was more mediocre than Green Lantern. Yeah we finally get a female superhero on film(which for some reason was acted like it was a masterpiece) but that doesn't excuse a movie from utterly lacking in uniqueness. The music was also...Very generic. Even WW theme became overused, not to mention that very little of the tracts represented the time that it was in... And the film lacked a lot of tension until right at the end...Because WW is portrayed basically as a "do gooder" and "near-perfect" she has very little flaws. She can't be damaged so...There really isn't anything there in the first place. They needed to start her off as a flawed individual who lacked both strength and psychological depths. Just did not expand on that..

The plot? Seen it except executed better in the first C.America.

Characters? You mean 1-dimensional concepts besides WW and her friend Steve Rogers?

I'll say that they are the best and memorable characters within the film.

And don't get me started on the morality and ending..

This was some backwards logic right here to just drop everything in the final act for no reason.

And last but not least;

"Men are good for procreating but not very good for pleasure"

Really bad use of a stereotype(ironically).

Although Patty, I'll let that slide because I did have a chuckle...Slight chuckle due to it coming out of nowhere. Clever...

Oh right...Amazons and their world..How could you make them so lame. They had more lore and character to them both in comics and the actual mythos....

Eh..I have no idea if this was her full vision or not. I do know she had a lot of control but Synder was a writer with her..

All I can say is that this film was in all honest opinion, worse than a modern marvel movie. Yep...It was that generic.

 

Forgot to Edit the last part

ROUGH NIGHT

Hmm..Well I expected a half hearted trashy movie displaying sex, sex jokes and more sex..Which is what I somewhat got..

Though to be honest, this movie did feel more clever than the usual comedies that do it in this manner. Had a fun time and the characters were pretty damn fun to watch.

 

If I'm not mistaken, that's the film where George Lucas cut his teeth shooting a making of or behind the scenes doc.

Yeah, the show was a favorite of my Mom's, so I absorbed quite a bit even if I didn't watch the show directly. But despite an exceptional bit of casting with Carroll O'Conner taking the Rod Steiger role and Howard Rollins taking over for Sidney Poitier, it was just impossible to recapture the dynamic of this story that takes place in the deep South at the absolute height of the Civil Rights movement. I recall the show touching on racial politics (and other social issues), but it was the beating heart of the movie.

 

Yes, that's the one.

 

Toni Erdmann (2016)

It's about a practical jokester who tries to reconnect with his workaholic daughter. It's not very funny at all though. In fact, it's quite irritating. The dad is an arse throughout, and the second half of the film just meanders and goes nowhere. They're actually remaking this with Jack Nicholson in the lead role and Kristin Wiig as the daughter, and I expect it to be 100 times worse.

 

Space Truckers (1996) a silly and overall simple SF-action-comedy movie about John Canyon, one of the last independent space transport entrepreneurs. Bad times have forced him to carry suspicious cargo to Earth without asking questions. During the flight the cargo turns out to be a multitude of virtually unstoppable killer robots.

I actually liked it, it had no real depth but it was overall funny and had much interesting design.

 

Transformers: The Last Knight


In a word: Nonsense

Transformers: The Last Knight is a bunch of action sequences pieced together in hopes of making a film out of it. It doesn't work.

The characters are horrible, as well as their interactions and dialogue. It's like Michael Bay made this movie like he was playing with the Transformers toys in his living room and made the source material for the film. The direction for the film is horrendous,scene/set transitions as well as wardrobe transitions are awful as characters suddenly run from an abandon small Cowboy/Old West town into a large abandon city like Chicago. During some pieces the character are wearing different clothes from one scene to the next.

This movie would have been better served if it was cut down to 30 minutes, as it would eliminate most of the nonsense and create a stronger narrative.

Waste of money.

 

It sucks that it goes against the pattern of odd numbered TF movies being decent while even numbered ones are turds.

Or is that Trek?

 

I've watched two Transformers movies and utterly hated them both.

 

Did Unicron show up?

 

I suggest reading Transformers vs. G.I.Joe

 

I loved that movie. That party scene at the end . . . I haven't laughed that long and hard at a movie in . . . God, probably back when I first watched some of the Marx Brothers movies and that was a decade ago. I do think it was a mistake for the movie to be sold as a comedy; it's really more of a character study with some comedic moments. While watching it, I felt like it was dragging a bit, but in retrospect, I think there's not a second I would cut. We can agree on the remake though. Here's hoping that never actually happens.

 

I'm sorry to tell you this but...

Spoiler

Unicron is hibernating in the Earth's core.

Quintessa wants to destroy him so that they can use his spark to bring life back to Cybertron. If Unicron dies, the Earth dies.

 

Double-post. Oopsies.

 

I Are The Internets

 

John Wick 2 - even dumber than the first one, but without the focused narrative and slightly more interesting Russian mob characters and eccentric assassins of the original. I fell asleep several times but am fairly confident I didn't miss anything that would have changed my mind.

 

Midnight Special (2016) - Plot; A father goes on the run with his 8 year old son whose mysterious powers have made him a savior to some, a person of interest to others.

Often playing like a modern riff on John Carpenter's Starman, Midnight Special quickly pulled me in and had me eagerly following its bread crumb trail waiting for the next clue. But like writer/director Jeff Nichols earlier film Take Shelter, it eventually fizzled out and ultimately delivered an ending that was annoyingly vague and less than the sum of its parts. Still worth checking out, if only for the performances of its exceptional cast (Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Sam Shepard and newcomer Jaeden Lieberher). - 6/10