Amph What was the last movie you saw?

My problem with Ex2 is that it felt more like a parody than an homage. I do agree that JCVD was good. Where Arnold, Bruce and Chuck look like guys who are there as a favor to a friend--like they're moving a couch into a third floor apartment on a Saturday while their favorite football team is on TV--JCVD appears to be having fun, and though his villain is underdeveloped, he does a good job.

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I think the biggest problem with the entire franchise is that Sly seems afraid or unwilling to fully embrace a full-on retro 80s/90s action motif. He seems to hedge his bets, trying to mix old and new school as if he's afraid he'll lose the under 30 crowd if he doesn't. The result is that instead of being infused with the spirit of the 80s/90s, its inclusion feels like awkward and too obvious fan service. Like Arnold's "Get to da choppa!" in Ex3. They're gags and winks and I don't think that's what people want. Well, at least that's not what I want.

That's how I felt about Ex2. I thought Ex3 was pretty simple and straightforward, but it was a little too long.

Personal behavior aside, the guy is just a phenomenal actor and this (along with recentish movies like Get the Gringo) reminded me how much I miss his presence.

 

It seems not that many people did. Mixed reviews made me decide to see it when it hits Redbox or Netflix. Speaking of...

The Wolf of Wall Street, or Martin Scorsese's "Stockbrokers" Behaving Very, Very Badly. So I heard the other day this just hit Netflix and decided to finally check it out. It's a polarizing film, filled with very powerful performances and instances of dark humour from characters you can't help but hate. Really, DiCaprio and crew are nothing but an assembly of pond-scum schmucks and I couldn't wait to see them fall. And unfortunately, you have to wait a bit, since this movie is perhaps an hour too long. For example, while LOL hysterical at times, the super 'lude high sequence could've been trimmed down a bit. And it always makes me cringe when a bit when I see a supercar like that Lambo be unnecessarily thrashed.

As a dark comedy, I guess this movie works and Jonah Hill and DiCaprio had great chemistry and timing in their scenes. And McConaughey's cameo as DiCaprio' "mentor" is priceless. But it's kind of a hard film to recommend since in a way it glorifies a bit the excesses and ruthlessness of the kind of scumbags that have repeatedly taken the economy to the brink on account of their personal greed. I guess that ultimately it should be seen at least once, followed immediate by a mouthwash or cleansing shower. 3/5 ***

 

The more I really think about 'Dallas Buyers Club' the less I like it really. McConaughey is so good in it however that it really makes you look past it's contrivances. I think it looks at AIDS in a simplistic manner that feels a lot like a melodramatic made for TV sap piece. I too was impressed with Jared Leto at first but the more I've read about how troubled the transgender community was by the character I feel guilty. They say they hope that in 50 years or so that he and his character will be viewed like Hattie McDaniel. I sort of see the comparison. Rayon has no character other than being ultra feminized.

 

Halloween II

 

Guardian's of the Galaxy

 

Alfie (1966)

Really relentlessly bleak actually. I was not expecting that at all.

 

Scarface. I bought it because it was dirt cheap and I hadn't watched it in years. I put the disc in to inspect the picture quality. Three hours later I had watched the whole thing.

 

Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock



This one has rescreened as part of various classics series at local theaters a few times, but I’ve always missed it. Well, this time I finally caught it and I have to say that it holds up as well as you’d hope. It’s never been my favorite Hitchcock or even in my top five (maybe not even in my top ten? That’s just a reflection of how many amazing Hitchcocks there are out there). But it’s still just a real masterpiece; Perkins, Leigh, Miles and Balsam are all absolutely perfect in their roles and there are scenes here that just play as totally fresh and arresting no matter how many times you’ve seen them; the dinner conversation is probably the most obvious of the non-murder/shock scenes. It’s just writing on a character/metaphorical level that one rarely sees. Seeing it on the big screen for the first time was genuinely revelatory a few times. I saw details that I’d never seen before; a drop of blood runs into the victim’s eye during the murder scene on the stairs, but most shocking of all was the fact that for the first time I realized that you can actually see the murderer’s eyes in that one shot in the shower scene when we see the close-up of the shadowed face with the knife raised. On the small screen, I always just saw the face as completely in shadow, and it is, but those eyes really burn out at you in a terrifying way on the big screen. And, oh, yes, if I haven’t convinced you yet, let me just tell you what was maybe the best part of the entire experience: hearing that astonishing Hermann score over the BIG speakers. God, that was genuinely breathtaking. When the main theme started at the beginning, I literally caught my breath. Anyway, this is a film that you really have to see, of course; and if you ever get the chance to see it on the big screen, that’s an absolute must as well. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

tl;dr – shocking and arresting horror classic holds up; performances and score remain astonishing and the script is smart and twisted. A big screen viewing is genuinely revelatory if you’re lucky enough to get the chance. 4 stars.

More Movie Reviews!

 

You watched Psycho in a theater? Wow.

There is a local theater that screens classics from time to time. Now if they would do that here locally with Vertigo or North By Northwest….

 

Currently watching 'Pacific Rim',

I know people who swear by this film but I found it goofy and cliched in a lot of ways. I think a poster here called it the best Michael Bay film ever made and I'll agree with that assessment. At the very least it's one of the few movies I've seen where the exposition is the most interesting and creative thing about it

 

I just thought it would've been more interesting to focus on the girl as the main character.

 

It feels very Roland Emmerich to me. In fact if I didn't know better I'd have sworn he directed it. The Charlie Day and Burn Gorman scientist characters in particular act like they think they're in ID4: 2. It's definitely the least del Toro of del Toro's movies IMO. That said, I do like it.

 

She's definitely more compelling than Hunnam's character. I think Hunnam's character might actually be the least interesting in the movie. That said, I think it does a good job at juggling a fairly large ensemble. I thought even the father and son with the dog were great characters that actually had some depth.

Oh, and by the way, the theater where I saw Psycho also screened Vertigo a couple of years ago. It was great too. North by Northwest would be a good one. Oh, I also saw Rear Window at that theater. That one was awesome too because so much of the film takes place far away from the camera, so on a small screen you do miss some details in the other apartments.

 

Rear Window is another great one. That one, Vertigo and North By Northwest are some of my favorite films, not just from Hitchcock, but of all-time.

I like The Man Who Knew Too Much and To Catch A Thief also but not as much.

 

I didn't like the Mako Mori character all that much to be honest. It just feels as like she's a representative of Asian characters written by people whose only knowledge of Asian culture comes from Science Fiction films.

But Rogue's right it does have a pretty good ensemble of side characters aside from the three cliched leads.

You can't call this movie smart or clever at all really. It's a good stupid movie but seeing as how Del Torro is involved I don't think anyone will acknowledge that it's stupidity is actually an asset.

 

I guess I agree with A.O Scott that Boyhood is the best movie of 2014. At least, I haven't seen anything better.

 

Is that the film shot over a span of years?

 

Decades.

 

See 'Birdman' yet?

 

Universal Soldier (1992) - Having decided to--for reasons I can no longer recall--make my way through the Universal Soldier franchise, I start at the start, with a movie I haven't watched in over a decade.

This was really the first time that JCVD graduated beyond low budget karate movies and into the realm of popcorn entertainment. Unlike fellow early 90s karate man Steve Segal, who would more or less make the same film over and over for his entire career, Van Damme flirted for a while with becoming the next Arnold, and perhaps no film in JCVD's filmography is more Schawzeneggerian than Universal Soldier. Directed by the man who would go on to become the king of the disaster movie, Roland Emmerich, it's heavy on gory violence, but paradoxically light on action. The result is a surprisingly dull film carried mostly by a strong turn from villain Dolph Lundgren, who steals the movie right out from under JCVD.

Like it's lead actor, this one hasn't aged very well. - 5/10

 

I fell asleep on Sharknado 2 and my curiosity has me starting it again. The title of this movie is enough of a brilliant joke, and obviously everyone making cameos from Downtown Julie Brown to Matt Lauer gets it and doesn't mind participating. Tara Reid's lines are just funny. People calling it a dumb movie are just embarrassing themselves.

 

Great movie. It makes my top 10 list - but Boyhood is better. Going to win best picture Oscar. Or best director or both. I'd give him the director Oscar just for the logistics of it, although the end product is artistic and unique.

 

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

 

I'll be doing my top ten lists shortly. I saw a lot of classics that made my top ten list skew away from 2014, but there's at least a couple of movies I think were better than Boyhood. Though Boyhood's definitely a masterpiece. I gave it four stars, I remember.

 

Dances with Wolves

I enjoy movies about the west and the people who lived there. I've been watching more westerns lately and my favorite westerns so far are The Searchers, Silverado, True Grit (both new and old), The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Rio Bravo and finally of course Dances with Wolves. Lonesome Dove is the western I want to see the most right now as I read the book and quite enjoyed it.