Still waiting for Public Enemies and Transformers. Haven’t gotten to the theater yet, but please forgive since I’ve been busy tending to my scholastic career. Hopefully by the time I make it some of our faithful readers still have some interest in a review.
Anyway, the last five:
The Horse Soldiers: Cavalry yarn with the Duke and William Holden, which is the real draw – Holden vs. Wayne. We almost get it, until a battle interrupts a personal fist fight in the woods. By the book, especially John Ford’s book, but the little moments count. Wayne demolishing the railroad, then mentioning he was a railroad architect before the Civil War. He follows that up with a bottle of booze, one you wish he would share. Not one of Ford’s finest, but fine enough, especially with Holden and Wayne’s battle of personalities and the subsequent trademark Ford cavalry action.
Seven Pounds: Crap.
Yes Man: Jim Carrey and a likable cast with a by-the-book script. More Carrey every-man comedy shenanigans, with a premise that sounded much better than it ended up on screen.
Semi-Pro: A comedy that wasn’t funny enough, a sports movie that wasn’t sporty enough. Still, likable, especially the redemptive Woody Harrelson character and Andre 3000 as the charismatic up and comer. Will give a warm friendly feeling to anyone familiar with minor league hockey, ABA basketball or winter nights at the fairgrounds coliseum watching the locals do something. The slapped together feel permeates throughout – lets take the 70s (Anchorman) and mix them with sports (Ricky Bobby/Blades of Glory) and add Will Ferrell, then repeat.
City Lights: Shoot me, it was my first viewing of Chaplin’s silent masterpiece. Resoundlingly funny, infinitely touching and says more with no words than most studios and stars do in a career.
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Toy Story
Twilight — I actually like vampire movies… liked this better than I thought I would. Carter Burwell’s score is great too.
Wanted — crap
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Zulu… “fire at will!”
Was curious about Wanted. Love action, generally like Jolie, but I’m getting sick of CGI for CGI’s sake. Would much rather watch an assassin movie with actual realistic assassins, not CGI figures having shootouts on tumbling sports cars.
Wanted is loosely based on the supervillian comic Wanted, so it’s effectively toned-downed (and radically altered) content (the comic is very dark) and superpowers (which explains the CGI). The main character in the comic finds out his dad was a super-assassin and that his colleagues are part of five crime syndicates that secretly rule the world, after the supervillians eliminated all superheroes and took over (they some how suppressed knowledge of this from leaking out). To give you an idea of how toned-down the movie is, in the comic, the main character gets bored and decides to gun down a bunch of cops in a precinct, Columbine style. The end of the comic was an infamous short-change and middle-finger to comic readers. Needless to say, the majority of opinion tends toward viewing as a self-indulgent piece of crap. The movie is is likely an improvement.
If it were up to me, I would’ve written the protagonist as the son of the fallen superhero, who didn’t know his past, after the villains had taken over. Maybe he’s going through stuff in the attic, finds some papers in a box in the garage, or something along those lines, finding out his true parentage of the reality of the world (his father having sent him off to be raised by a friend). His abilities awaken and the story progresses on his journey to becoming the world’s only superhero in a world of supervillians. Maybe he finds he was an illegitimate son (explaining why no one knew about him) and his older half-brother find out about the affair that would lead to his birth. In bitterness, this brother went over to the enemy.
^ Carter Burwell has a unique musical voice in the movies. I admire his stuff: Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, Twilight, the Mancini-esque Conspiracy Theory among many others.
1. the Boy in the Striped Pajamas….I am kinda tired of depressing WW2 dramas, but this had a nice irony to it.
2. KNOW1NG — Nicholas Cage end of the world movie. Alex Proyas directed it…if you liked Dark City, you might like this. I thought it was pretty interesting. some nifty visual effects, too.
3. Tribute to a Bad Man — James Cagney western. It was okay. I find anymore I watch a lot of old westerns for the music and the stunning scenery. Another typically excellent Miklos Rozsa score. I didn’t think the story was terribly engaging, but then again, it was interesting to see who the law had to be 200 miles from nowhere.
4. Public Enemies — Michael Mann movie. I thought this one about John Dillinger….was, again, not very engaging, since it says “here is John Dillinger and here is the FBI. watch what happened.” The actors do fine, but it was shot awkwardly in digital and is hard to look at on top of a few weird angles… Elliot Goldenthal makes his cinematic return as composer and doesn’t do much.
5. Up — utterly charming movie. The bad guy looks like an animated Kirk Douglas.
Seven Pounds: Crap.
Out of curiosity, why did you think it crap?
1. Red Dawn – an Independence Day tradition that really felt more poignant this year. God help us all.
2. The Gathering Storm – also extremely timely. How in God’s name can Modern Liberals and Democrats be so dense about appeasing dictators? Considering they control the education/indoctrination camp(u)s(es), a rhetorical question.
3. Choke – not as promising as the trailer indicated (shocker these days), but Sam Rockwell is fun to watch in damn near anything.
4. The Hangover – sides actually did hurt afterward and really need to see this again, soon.
5. L.A. Confidential – almost as big a highway robbery as GoodFellas losing Best Picture to Dances with Wolves. At least Titanic had Kate Winslet’s real and fabulous breasticles. OK, Confidential shouldn’t have lost either, but still not as egregious as the GoodFellas BS.
1. Miranda – awful piece of crap directed by Tinto Brass, but plenty of nude Serena Grandi makes up for all of it. The only reason to watch this movie.
2. Strange Cargo – this is a great movie with Gable and Crawford about faith.
3. Captain Horatio Hornblower – not as good as the British TV movies with Ioan Gruffudd, but very enjoyable.
2. Other Men’s Women – a very young Mary Astor … this was okay but it was remade as a much better movie called Man Power with Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich and George Raft.
1. Manhattan Melodrama – Gable, Powell and Loy. This was the movie that Dillinger watched before being gunned down on his way out of the theater. I was on a Gable kick and coincidentally watched this just before the Depp movie came out.
1. Tinto Brass! I can’t believe someone else owns up to liking his movies. Awesome!
2. Haven’t seen this one yet. Everyone here @ justjack’s justpad likes Gable, but my wife always gets hung up on the “mommy dearest” myth of Crawford, so I have to kind of push her to get geared up for a flick with Crawford in it.
3. You mean with Gregory Peck? “A-HEM!!” Your assessment is correct IMO. Plus, how funny is it to have a bad guy everybody is required to call (phonetically) “El Heff-Ay”!?
4. I’ve never been a huge fan of Mary Astor; her hair style was too severe for me, with way too much forehead. But I not too long ago saw her in Across The Pacific, the “lets get everyone back together and recapture lightning in a bottle” followup to Maltese Falcon, and while it wasn’t nearly as good, it did have one thing in it that MF didn’t have. Mary Astor’s got some seriously sweet gams, dewd.
5. Gable, Powell, and Loy. Nuff said.
1. Clue – An excellent cast that wasn’t given enough to work with. “Murder by Death” it ain’t. Was this the first movie based on a board game?
2. Complete Little Rascals, Vol. 1 – The first “talkies” in the series. Before Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla and Buckwheat there was Wheezer, Mary, Farina and Joe. Chubby’s my favorite. There wasn’t much there plotwise, compared to the later ones, but the kids are charming.
3. The Madness of King George – Always meant to see this, and with my discovery of what an excellent show “Yes, Minister” was I had to see Nigel Hawthorne in a starring role. He was magnificient.
4. Night of the Living Dead – Rifftrax version (although I watched much of it without the commentary) – Not nearly as frightening as I remembered it being. Slow slow slow. Some decent performances, but the movie peaked in the graveyard: “He’s coming to get you, Barbara.”
5. The Sandlot – Watched this based upon Eric’s recommendation, and he’s batting 1.000 with me so far. If Jean Shepherd had grown up in 1960′s southern California, he’d have written a movie like this.
I appreciate the nod, Mike, but considering I’ve never seen this one, can’t be me…
Oops. It was JohnFN, which makes it more impressive as he’s still batting 1.000 with more plate appearances than you have.
Picked up The Sandlot at Target today for a whopping $5, so I’ll finally be in the club. Wife mocking me mercilessly she’s seen it and I haven’t yet. 5495 more for her to catch up in ones I’ve seen and she hasn’t…
I knocked out Road to Bali last night.
Is that the one with a hyp-mo-tized Dotty Lamour reciting “I hate you. I loathe you. I despise you.” just before she hauls off and smacks Bob? That’s become a favorite family trope.
Interesting (or not) bit of trivia: Nigel Hawthorne was the original actor to play C. S. Lewis in the stage version of “Shadowlands.”
I assume he wore a fat suit.
On one of the “Yes, Minister” DVDs there was a biography of Hawthorne. He was crushed when he wasn’t cast as Lewis in the film.
1: Valkyrie
2: Bottle Shock
3: Taken
4: Grand Torino
The rest of the new ones sucked. He’s Just Not that Into You had potential…and then turned crappy. Bride Wars SUCKAGE!
I know, I’m listing six, but I watched three of them all in one night (me and old number 7 got very cozy), so I’m giving myself permission:
Vera Cruz (1954): Dir. Robert Aldrich (in color), and stars Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. Watched it last night with my 14-year-old son, who ate it up. Allmovie.com’s review refers to “gleeful venality,” and that hits it right on the head. I was surprised by its strong handling of themes more usually associated with the later The Wild Bunch and the Sergio Leone movies. Beautiful camera work, plenty of humor, loads and loads of action, and a fast running time that never bores you.
The Runaway Bus (1954): A throwaway trifle of a British comedy about a doofus bus driver trying to drive a group of BOAC passengers through the pea-soup fog from one airport to another. Tivo’d it on the strength of Margaret Rutherford and Petula Clark’s names on the cast list. Mags delivered as usual, and Pet was hot hot hot in her nip-wasted veddy proper English stewardess uniform. Thoroughly British, and very enjoyable.
Harry In Your Pocket (1973): Remembered seeing this when I was a kid, and sort of liking it, but not quite getting it. So I watched it again as a grown-up. Pee-yew. So early 70′s, in all the bad ways; nihilistic, unresolved ending, with unappealing characters that you can’t root for doing things for reasons you can’t understand. Starred Michael Sarrazin (with a face like a living Jack-Davis-caricature, how was he ever a movie star?), Trish Van Devere (forced to wear some of the worst early 70′s fashions; hey Mike! remember the “Hot Pants Brigade” at Vet Stadium?), James Coburn (in a nothing-to-do part), and Walter Pidgeon (who looks 95 here; ick, those old-man wet lips).
G-Men (1935): Directed by William Keighley, whose name shows up on an awful lot of great Warner Brothers pictures. Stars James Cagney, Robert Armstrong, Barton MacLane, Ann Dvorak, Margaret Lindsay, and Lloyd Nolan. Outstanding gangster flick, as good as they get. Shootouts galore, guys gettin’ it in the gut, see?, cars careening through city streets with tommy guns being fired out the window, and Cagney bouncing around on the balls of his feet throughout. My boy and I hooted and hollered with joy during the entire flick.
Murder She Said (1962): Stars the mighty Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, and features the most awesome swingin’ 60′s baroque-meets-rock-&-roll soundtrack. Thrills, chills, laughs, and pleasure for the entire family, from justjack down to the 7-year-old justdaughter.
Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (1955): Having seen Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro, my son made me promise to get more samurai movies. We haven’t had the time yet for the epic-length Seven Samurai, but then I saw at my local library that they have the Hiroshi Ingaki-directed Samurai trilogy, which I hadn’t yet seen myself, but its reputation was very strong, plus it starred Toshiro Mifune, plus it’s in color, plus the first movie is only 92 minutes. This one lives up to its reputation. Mifune is terrific, taking on entire armies by himself with just a wooden sword. Great cinematography. My favorite scenes were with Mifune, captured by the Buddhist priest who would eventually become his mentor, hung dangling in a tree thirty feet from the ground.
“Miller’s Crossing”..the Coen’s best film by a 100 miles.Albert Finney…lord,you talk about an actor!
It’s not a movie, but a box set of a 60s TV show, that I’ve currently been addicted to. Honey West was a TV show in 1965 that starred the hot Anne Francis. The show plays up to that Rat Pack-like cocktail culture, and Honey is the first female P.I. in television history. She had James Bond-like gadgets and the show had a sexy, jazz score. The plots weren’t brilliant, but somehow, the show was. Netflix has them.
I forgot to mention that, The Horse Soldiers, reminds me of my grandfather. He looked like a cross between John Wayne and William Holden.