Amph What was the last movie you saw?

The Shining?

 

Keoma (1976) This was one of the very last spaghetti westerns ever made and my favorite featuring Franco Nero. Nero plays the title character ( half Native American - half White) who returns to his downtrodden hometown after fighting for the Union in the Civil War. A plague has swept through the community and the corrupt gang running the town gathers all the sick folks and dumps them into an old mine, rather than ponying up for medicine.

Keoma saves a pregnant widow whose plague stricken husband died by attempting to flee. Naturally, the expecting mother and unwanted gunslinger from two worlds are not welcome. Keoma finds few old friends (save for Woody Strode and Keoma's adopted father), and so the weary gunfighter has to fight once again as he strives to free the town from the bad guys' clutches.

Enzo Castelari has long been my fave Italian actor director, and here, he borrows from Bergman as well as Biblical epics (Nero looks more like a hippy-like Jesus than a man of mixed heritage and they play up the religious imagery big time late in the film.)
The use of slow motion, incentive camera shots and expertly staged action and fight sequences enforce Keoma's dilemma.

The only element that stops this movie from being perfect is the awful score. It sounds like a dying and drunk old couple playing a Greek chorus and just destroys the mood and story. I actually asked Enzo if he would consider changing the soundtrack and he said if given the opportunity he would as he realizes it eclipsed all the great imagery, characters and such he worked so hard to create.

I watch this silently now and it is brilliant. Enzo is such a visual filmmaker I have always been able to follow most of his movies when no English subs or dub is present.

 

The Uninvited. With Arielle Kebbel and Emily Browning.

Many valuable life lessons.

 

The Uninvited. With Arielle Kebbel and Emily Browning.

Many valuable life lessons.

 

Emily Browning is in American Gods. I'm sure you'd find that honorable as well.

 

The NeverEnding Story (1984)



10/10

 

Free Fire. I really enjoyed this! First of all, I love Sharlto Copley, and I've enjoyed every role I've seen him in, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to see this film. As usual, he was great. For such a small scale film, you'd wonder how they'd keep it interesting for the whole duration. Well they did. It was non-stop from start to finish. There were laughs here and there. There were some unexpected moments, and it kept you wondering what was going to happen next. The characters and music were good as well. It was just a really fun film. 7.5/10.

 

Double post.

 

Blade Runner (1982) - Plot; A man is tasked with tracking down and eliminating a small group of androids who have dared to ask why they must "die" after only four years.

A box office and critical disappointment upon its release, today Blade Runner is considered by most to be a groundbreaking classic and continues to influence writers and filmmakers. With scant action and an almost detached emotional sensibility, this is not a popcorn movie by any stretch. The visuals and score work perfectly to create the mood for what is essentially a 2 hr. (often subtle and unspoken) reflection on a wide array of subjects; from globalization, the environment, religion and what it means to be human. You're not pounded over the head with it, nor is it spoon fed to you. Instead it causes you to consider these topics, with the conclusions ultimately being yours and yours alone.

All of its many accolades aside, I don't think Blade Runner is everyone's cup of tea. It's a film many may appreciate more than purely enjoy, but the first job of a film isn't always to strictly entertain. - 8/10

 

Truly, Darth Guy? I have been searching for someone of the new generation to be a moral exemplar in media. After her excellent first entry in Uninvited, I had dared to hope. How may I watch? What channel?

 

Speaking of Sharlto Copley and unexpected moments,

Spoiler

my biggest laugh in the movie was the moment when he is just suddenly engulfed in flames. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that kind of thing being a punch line, but I laughed really hard

 

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract


In a word: Entertaining

The DC animated films have been better than their live action DCEU in terms of story telling and character development, and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract continues that trend as the characters more humanized than their live action counter parts as they have identifiable personal problems.

 

Yeah, I've see that one which was good and Batman: Assault on Arkham, which was ****ing awesome. Whoever is making the animated DC films is who should be making the live action DCCU movies.

 

Absolutely agree. The DC direct to video animated films have, by and large, been of higher and more consistent quality than their live action counterparts in the DCEU. Assault on Arkham is hands down a better film than Suicide Squad.

 

Billy Madison (1995)
This is one of Adam Sandler’s better movies. While not insanely funny, it’s still entertaining and has some good laughs. I’d have liked to see more of him stumbling through the grades. We really only see 1st, 3rd, and some of 9th.

4/5

Captain America: The Winter Soilder (2014)
My second viewing. Of the solo movies featuring the original 4 Avengers, this one’s definitely at the top. Really enjoyed seeing Captain America struggle with the HYDRA-controlled SHIELD and double-agents. He and Iron Man have had solo films with Black Widow, now Thor and Hulk need to have one with her too. The humor was good. Falcon was good. Nick Fury was badass. I liked the realisim and intrigue. Very different from your usual superhero-type movie. I liked Zola’s involvement -> the sci-fi element of that didn’t detract from the rest of the movie at all.

Of course, the best part was the Winter Soilder, but that’s also one of the main flaws: We didn’t get enough of him. It probably didn’t help he wasn’t developed enough in the first Captain America movie either. A criticism I had when I first saw the movie was that they really should’ve kept Nick Fury dead. Would’ve been a bold move. But upon rewatch, I think they made the right decision with not killing him yet. Same with Steve Rogers and Bucky taking over as Captain America, but I guess we have to wait for that!


5/5 (watching the MCU movies in order now, and only one other has gotten this rating)

Cheyanne Takes Over (1947)


4/5

 

To the Ends of the Earth - A BBC miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a young English lord taking passage on a ship to Australia in 1815. It's more about the social interactions among the varied passengers and crew than about the seafaring, and I could have done with less lewd and crude material especially in the first episode, but these very flawed and very human characters are well-drawn. Eventually they grow into a kind of dysfunctional family that I'm glad I knew.

 

Saw Dunkirk on the last day of its run here yesterday.

It still held up after the 5th viewing.

 

'It'

It's a mixed bag but I did end up liking it. The story is King's eccentricities and tropes on steroids and so if they annoy you in the slightest you won't find much enjoyment here. The one thing I really appreciated about the movie is that it updates the story and brings the action to the 80's which alleviates the baby boomer nostalgia that is one of the things that annoyed me about the original story.

Essentially all the 'scares' are jump scares and so I really think the movie probably would have worked better had it gone for a PG-13. The movie is kind of thematically schizophrenic in that the strength of the film is the camaraderie of the kids and the excellent performances from the child actors. We get just enough gore and disturbing imagery to sort of take us out of the adolescent sense of adventure.

 

Keeping up with the Joneses Fluffy spy comedy starring The Hangovers Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher as athe Gafneys, a couple in boring jobs with run of the mill lives, that is until the Joneses (Jon Hammand Gal Gadot) move in to suburbia as their new neighbours. They immediately become friends with the new 'too good to be true' neighbours, but Fisher suspects all is not as it seems and that they could be spies and as it turns out they are investigating espionage at Gafneys company where somone has been using his computer to broker deals with the mysteriuos 'Scorpion'. In the main its a family friendly comedy, don't expect anything deep at all, but there are some laughs and its an easy way to pass the time. I enjoyed the 4 leads performances and I think Jon Hamm has the looks to go on to bigger things maybe, at times his performance reminded me of Kevin Klines turn in A Fish Called Wanda. Theres a lot less of Galifianakis these days and he's the axis of the films comedy. Fisher is Fisher, I think shes the same in all these type of films and is perfect for these kind of roles. But I have to say this film is dominated by Gal Gadot in every way, she convinced on the action side of the film and the whole manipulative spy thing, and she commands attention when she is on screen because she is so stunning.

 

The Mummy I didn't really believe a Tom Cruise vehicle could be as incompetent a sci fi/fantasy/supernatural thriller as everyone was saying. Oblivion was a fairly well-executed flick despite its near-total lack of originality. Edge of Tomorrow is a borderline sci fi classic that only crumbles in its final act, though that's probably the worst place for a movie to fall apart. But The Mummy is a cliche-riddled disaster from its opening sequence to its dumbdumb denouement. It has one magnificent action set-piece, but the general level of storytelling stupidity overwhelms everything else that might otherwise qualify as popcorn entertainment. If Scientology didn't already make me want to punch Tom Cruise in the face, this movie would have totally done it for me.

 

Dracula (1931)
Universal Pictures 1931 version of Dracula is a classic movie that has inspired countless homages and parodies and even today when people think of Dracula they think of Bela Loguscy and his performance (or more likely somebody else basing his look and performance on Bela’s). With that said, I have to say that this is not a good movie but that don’t mean that it has not some good stuff in it: the performance and precens of Bela Loguscy, Dwight Frye (Renfield) and Edward Van Sloan (van Helsing) are excellent and much of the scenography and the camerawork is good. Sadly it is not enough to save the movie from being destroyed by the bad editing, choppy storytelling, and some just strange decisions (f.ex. showing Bela’s face when he is the coash driver, the armadillos).

I cannot really recommend watching this movie beside as an historical document as the first Universal Horror movie and the springboard for the modern Dracula.

 

Baby Driver (2017) - Plot; A young getaway driver eager to leave the game finds another compelling reason in the form of a young waitress. His boss, however, has other ideas.

Starts off like that first fizzy sip of a freshly opened can of soda, then transitions into a sweet tea before becoming a black coffee--albeit with a hint of sugar--in its third act. Featuring an exceptional cast, a jaunty pace and a road trip ready soundtrack, Edgar Wright's Baby Driver may be style over substance, but what style. - 7.5/10