Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Prometheus (2012).

Full disclosure: you know those reviews of the Alien movies I've been posting? Those were because I hadn't seen any of them, and decided to settle the matter as definitively as possible by watching every film in the series. As I've now corrected that oversight I don't feel ashamed to admit it. It is, on the whole, a series I enjoy, and I'm glad I got into it. Not even Alien: Resurrection can make me change my mind on that, but it sure tried its damnedest.

Prometheus is kind of a weird place to end that viewing run on because it's... well, not fantastic, which it maybe ought to have been if it wanted to live up to its goals, but it's not terrible. It's okay. There's a lot of dumb half-baked philosophizing and that obnoxious tendency for science fiction films of late to be obsessed with birth and its connection to robotics and what the **** ever seriously stop with the birth thing it was never a good angle you bastards.

Anyway, I was able to get past those flawed elements, and it's a good looking movie with a lot of fun set pieces. Weirdly, it'd benefit from being more ambiguous, but I'd happily watch it again with the expectation that I'm going to have to chew on some tedious gristle. I rented a copy from the library and I'll probably buy a Blu-ray just to say I actually own every Alien mo-

Oh, wait, they announced another one. ... Should've held out for the hexology box set.

 

I don't think I have ever encountered another person who's seen this. Renee Zellwegger, right? And a small role for a pre-fame Bradley Cooper. Such a silly movie. That one death scene . . . with the wasps, was it? So, so silly.


The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) – Guy Ritchie



For a special agent, you’re not having a very special day, are you?

I wasn’t expecting much from this franchise reboot from Ritchie, but reviews and responses convinced me to go; I was right at the beginning. This lackluster spy caper does several things right; it has the slick look of the sixties down to perfection and the cast is . . . well, all incredibly good looking. Cavill especially just wears the suits, vests, ties, etc. to absolute perfection. In other words, this movie looks fantastic. Unfortunately, it seems to have little in the way of a coherent script. There’s potential in the set-up of an American agent and a Soviet agent forced to cooperate during the sixties, in order to stop an even greater threat than either of their countries. But the film doesn’t do much with it; and for as good as they look, Cavill & Hammer simply don’t have any chemistry. The film seems like it’s going to do something interesting by setting Hammer up as a character on the edge of psychotic rage, but this never pays off in the slightest, which just seems stupid. Even Alicia Vikander, one of the two or three best actresses under thirty today, can’t do anything to make her character resonate; there’s simply nothing on the page for her to work with. Kudos, I will say, to Elizabeth Debicki who just sinks her teeth into her villainous role and gives it everything she’s got; she’s far and away the best thing in the movie and when she was on screen, the film occasionally actually came to life. Ritchie has a few interesting directorial ideas; the best executed is a sequence where a rampaging boat chase is turned into a beautiful ballet in the background as we watch a character coolly eating lunch as if nothing was happening. But on the whole, the film just isn’t anything really; the leads are pretty but vacuous – the story is incoherent – the dialogue is silly – the action is by the numbers. Far as I’m concerned, this guy can go right back to U.N.C.L.E. And, yes, that ending is a clear set-up for a franchise; here’s hoping it doesn’t happen. 2 stars.

tl;dr – vacuous espionage thriller is beautifully shot and often atmospheric, but the story is incoherent and dull and the performers have no charisma or chemistry. 2 stars.

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Taxi Driver (1976)

Got to see this tonight at my campus' student theater, it was great to watch it on movie screen with a responsive audience. De Niro's performance is one of the all-time greats.

 

The audience all yelling "you talkin' to me?" in unison wasn't too annoying?

 

Pro Wrestlers Vs Zombies.

Not as good as you'd imagine.

The **** who wrote, produced and directed it has obviously never met an actual woman and legitimately thinks that all women are slutty sex fiends who will betray blameless men.

Worth watching the fight scenes for zombie Kurt Angle, worth avoiding completely for soft porn scenes starring Matt Hardy, the least sexy Hardy brother even before he got fat and wonky. Roddy Piper nearly saves a few scenes, but he's guilty of inappropriate touching (children and women on screen) and all sorts of other cinematic crimes too. But he's the only actor in this whole production and it shows. The star of the film is some has-been/never-was called Shane Douglas. Nope, me neither. But he's the star and it's important that you realise he's a very big deal 30 years ago, and a massive, massive ****.

MINUS FIVE STARS.

 

Olympus Has Fallen: Of the two "terrorists take over the White House," it's the bloodier and better of the two, even if both are knock-offs of Die Hard and Air Force One. The villains are nastier and more menacing, whereas the villains in White House Down, you can't take quite as seriously (except for Jason Clarke).

 

Several years ago I had a (now defunct) blog where I did something I dubbed "Project rewind", going back and watching movies from my youth that I'd somehow managed to miss over the years. Monster Squad was the first movie I reviewed. About five minutes in I had to look at the box (VHS, as it had yet to be released on DVD at the time) to check the rating - PG-13 - Whoa. It's certainly edgier than, say, Goonies, but it's not the scares (because there really aren't any) it's the humor and the attitude. Last I heard, Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes was trying to remake it.

Yeah, I was surprised by how violent it was. It certainly lacks originality, but the fact that it doesn't tone down the violence and sorta/kinda approaches things a bit more seriously help to lift it over Whitehouse Down. A low bar to be sure, but still.

Young Guns II (1990) - This was the movie I remembered the first YG to be. More energetic, focused. Tighter direction (Geoff Murphy replacing Christopher Cain) and a much better score, this time by Alan Silvestri. New cast members fill in more than adequately, particularly Christian Slater as "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh and William Peterson (replacing Patrick Wayne) as Pat Garrett. The most fascinating aspect is integrating the tale of Brushy Bill Roberts, who came forward in the 1940s claiming to be the real Billy the Kid. A claim never fully disputed, and with its share of evidence and supporters to this day. That said, the "history" here is dubious, with Pat Garrett being reimagined as Billy's former friend and cohort so as to make it all more personal. Still, it's a moderately entertaining Western-lite and a definite improvement over the original. - 6.5/10

- Bon Jovi! Certainly a bit cheesy now, but "Blaze of Glory" is a perfect fit and capper for the movie here.

 

Woman In Gold- The movie is OK. The story behind the movie is pretty interesting.

 

Fortunately enough, that didn't happen. They did seem to enjoy Bickle's sleeve gun, though.

 

The Wedding Ringer

 

I can't stand Renee Zellwegger at all, so I'm not sure why I watched it. Oh yeah, Ian McShane! Easily the best thing about the whole movie. It's not as terrible as Godsend, another demon child movie.

 

The Bad Sister (1931) – Hobart Henley

Decided to do a fun little project and start watching through the filmography of Bette Davis. This drama from 1931 was her debut and she’s got a good part. The story is of a family somewhere in middle America. Sidney Fox is the older sister; she’s the bad one. Bette Davis is the younger; she’s the good one. So, it’s interesting to see Davis in a kind of atypical role – just a few years down the line and she would almost certainly be playing the bad sister.

Anyway, there’s a ton of drama around the bad sister; she’s keeping two beaus dangling and then suddenly, there’s a third when a rakish, and freakishly young, Humphrey Bogart blows into town. It’s a pretty typical plot, but the performances are good. Sidney Fox is actually really good, nice and despicable. Davis nurses a broken heart through a lot of the film and does so really, really well. There’s a wonderful scene between her and her younger brother, also played really well by David Durand. It’s a really serious and genuinely effecting scene, but the younger brother is typically used for comic relief and, somewhat surprisingly, he’s actually very funny rather than annoying. Charles Winninger is also really good as the long-suffering patriarch, trying to hold together a fracturing family and a business on the down-swing. Anyway, you never know with these super old movies; sometimes when you watch an obscure one you discover that it’s obscure for a reason and a lot of early Davis films are very obscure. But this one is really, really good actually; the ending is . . . a little pat, but I’ll take it. Very good. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – early family drama features surprisingly natural performances and quite a few genuinely effecting moments. 3 ½ stars.

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Little Foxes is better, but yes, Bad Sister is very very good. It's weird and fun to see Bette playing the goodie-two shoes.

Little-known fact: when she (Davis) has to change the baby, the child was a boy and it was (reportedly) the first time she had ever seen male, heh, anatomy. You can actually see her blushing on-screen (in glorious B&W, even!) as that was the take they kept.

 

The Martian

 

Bad Boys

One of the earliest uses of the word "bad" in an ironic or slang context was back in the 1960s when Jimi Hendrix had described Paul McCartney as "the big bad Beatle" not only for his role in The Beatles but also for helping Hendrix' three piece band (The Experience) earn them a spot at The Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix used the word "bad" as a term of endearment, a salute of sorts. What does this have to do with Michael Bay's 1995, Bad Boys? Absolutely nothing (excuse the pun). Any use of the word "bad" in the title of Michael Bay's film is not worthy of its intended use because the only thing truly bad about Bad Boys is that it reduces the concept of "cool" or "bad" to 1990s urban American cliches and punchlines.

Smith and Lawrence spend more time bickering about cleanliness, hygiene, their love lives and socio-economic privilege than they do showing the audience why it earns its title. Bad Boys spends more time implying or gesturing coolness than it does actually playing the part. The film very thinly and poorly borrows from the likes of Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Tango & Cash, and 48 Hours in the hope it will bring something new to the formula. But, it does not and instead goes through the motions. This is a shame because Smith and Lawrence are well cast in their ability to play off one another in terms of their timing and delivery.

Bad Boys also features a very good supporting cast, including two actors who would go on to have notable roles in The Sopranos. Meanwhile, the action is by the numbers because the films that Bad Boys borrowed its inspiration from used fight choreography while Bad Boys itself is just generic run and gun schlock with some explosions and some painful one liners. Perhaps back in the 1990s this would have been a great popcorn film. But, in the 2010s, the Bad Boys are showing their age.

2 out of 5

 

Rio Lobo (1970)
Dir. Howard Hawks

Not quite the remake of Rio Bravo that it's dismissed as, and not quite Rio Bravo in general. Continues the trend of an older Duke having stewardship, I guess, over a relationship between younger characters, plenty of Hawksian women and Hawksian moments (let's get pissed and there'll be no Fordian tomfoolery thank you we're just awesome), but it's all a bit flat and bereft of anything interesting to say. It's an easy watch but as a swansong for one of the most robust directors of all time it's a touch feeble.

 

This reminds me of how a local university showed Taxi Driver several years ago. The people putting it on, projected from a DVD, actually showed the trailer before showing the movie. That's just not right.

 

Oh, nice, figured no one else around here had seen it. Have you seen a lot of early Bette Davis? It would be a blast to actually have someone to talk to about them all.

 

Sicario

Dear god, this movie is beautifully shot. It's just...ugh. It's so nice. It is like Kurosawa-level nice. There's care and attention, but it's never overbearing. It's just, visually, a really welcome change from...everything else.

The story? Not much of one, but it is engaging, and manages to make its point without being too on-the-nose. Some of the lines fall flat because of a strange poeticism to them, but for the most part this is a straightforward plot. Hunt the bad guys! Oh wait, are we the bad guys? Hm. Thankfully there's no deep introspection. Things happen. The world turns.

The cast is excellent. Daniel Kaluuya is great. I had no idea who he was or that he's English, but he was great. Emily Blunt does quite well, but this is really not the action-thriller role people made it out to be. Benicio del Toro is in full Benicio del Toro mode. He's all mysterious and aloof and cool, but also terrifying. I am also convinced Josh Brolin was not really acting in this because he's too good at being a d-bag. Also that dude from Burn Notice is in it and has a dumb moustache and gets all dudebro-y about the cartels.

Go watch this, but maybe have a sitcom lined up at home to sort of just decompress from it after the fact.

 

I saw Bad Boys about a month after my stepdad died--nudged by my Mom to get out of the house and do something fun--and it was just what the doctor ordered. I went to see it a few more times that Spring, bought the soundtrack and eventually the movie. Then it just sort of fell off my radar and I still haven't seen Bad Boys 2. The first one definitely reinvigorated the buddy cop genre, bringing it fully into the 90s. It looked slick, similar to the way Tony Scott shot Beverly Hills Cop 2 (with Miami perpetually bathed under a saffron colored sky), and the score by Mark Mancina complimented it perfectly. But I revisited it 4-5 years ago and today it just plays like a lesser version of the movies that inspired it.

Interesting timing, as I saw several headlines yesterday that said Smith hinted in an interview that BB3 is on its way, and a Google search turns up hits as recently as August with the studio claiming BB3 will be out February '17 and BB4 July '19. That's a pretty long gap between sequel and original. I'm curious if there's still an audience out there for these.

 

My mother is currently taking me through a lot of classic Hollywood films, several of which have been Bette. Looking at her complete filmography -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bette_Davis_filmography -- the early (1930s) films of Bette's I've seen are The Bad Sister, Of Human Bondage, and The Petrified Forest (the last two both with Leslie "Oh, Ashley!" Howard). I've also seen three from her early-middle (40s) period: Little Foxes, The Man Who Came to Dinner (in a wheelchair and never left!) and Now Voyager. So far I think my favorite has been Little Foxes for the unexpected turn the daughter takes.

 

Oh, All About Eve is fantastic. Those three from the forties are super-good as well, even though her role in Man Who Came to Dinner is pretty average. Her performance in Now Voyager is just sublime, so perfectly layered. And don't miss Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte; she gives a real performance in it and elevates it from a piece of schlock to a great movie. From the thirties, I'd also catch up with Jezebel and Dark Victory (though this one does feature Humphrey Bogart doing an execrable Irish accent).

 

The Wedding Singer (1998)

One of the better Adam Sandler vehicles that sports great cameos from Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz (whatever happened to him?), and Billy Idol. The freaky thing about this film is that Drew Barrymore was only 23 when she made this. Same age as me now. She's irresistible, as always, and she is easily the best thing about the film. No wonder she and Sandler did two other films together.

Jaws 2 (1978)

Utterly lackluster in every regard possible. Roy Scheider is easily the best thing about it, but he looks like he doesn't want to be there anymore. Thankfully, All That Jazz, his best performance ever, would come out a year later.

Jaws 3 (1983)

So hilariously stupid that it almost works despite it probably destroying Louis Gossett Jr.'s career.

Water For Elephants (2011)

Pretty decent circus drama mainly because of Christoph Waltz who's so deliciously evil and crazy. Robert Pattinson is wooden as always, and Reese Witherspoon is too good for this kind of material.

 

Now Voyager is magnificent for the cast alone! Paul "Laszlo from Casablanca" Henreid! Claude "Invisible Man/Beautiful Friensdhip" Raines! Gladys "Mrs. Higgins" Cooper! And watching Bette transform from spinster to adventuress to content (if defiant) caretaker is a joy.

I've seen some of her later pictures, too, including Charlotte, which is so over-the-top it's sublime. I'll keep an eye out for Jezebel and Dark Victory; I'm sure my mom will be glad to add those to our programme.