Finding Dory - 8/10 - good stuff from Pixar as always.
Bolt - 9 / 10 - a Pixar-quality animation from Disney, thanks to John Lassiter making them do it right. Fun movie about a dog raised by a little girl actress on a movie lot, and made to think he is a hero dog like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie. It's 7? years old now but my brother recommended it to me recently so I got the disc from Netflix.
Follows Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage), who has just arrived at the CIA foreign station in Berlin, Germany. Miller has a clandestine mission: to uncover the source of a leak who has supplied information to a now-famous whistleblower named Thomas Shaw. Guided by veteran Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans), Daniel learns to contend with the rough-and-tumble world of the field agent: agent-running, deception, and the dangers and moral compromises.
8/10
---------------
I liked it, well acted, slow in parts but some nice gunwork, up-to-date tradecraft, and topical. You may recall a few days ago that German counterintelligence rolled up a radicalizing imam and his assorted maniacs for running a pipeline of innocents into Syria for emotional tenderizing. The same scenario plays an element in this plot.
Their brief says:
"The early reign of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is portrayed."
Begins with her ascension, due to her uncle's refusal to serve as King, the job going to her sick father. The story continues in the first series to the late 1930's, a masterpiece on the early life of this princess/queen. It is also, IMHO, typical of the high quality programming not seen these days on the usual networks,reducing their audiences and fostering more TV productions from Amazon, Netflix, etc. This is why cord cutting happens , more like a ten hour feature film than a series. (A Netflix production).
It has intelligence, warmth,emotional honesty and intellectual challenge. Winston Churchill in particular stands out in his role in educating the new queen on parliamentary protocol and politics . Great, great programming.
(Yeah I'm Canadian but that don't mean you ex rebs can't enjoy it too).
I tried watching the new Blair Witch Project last night but passed out after 10 minutes...the screams in the movie woke me up and I turned off my monitor.
Last full movie was Pete's Dragon ...the child actor was pretty good and the movie over all was good. I liked the dragon a lot.
im not a harry potter fan but I thought this was a pretty good movie.
the ending was kinda stupid tho in the way the bad guy decided to show his true colors in front of everyone.
edit:
the shy prudish female co-star was also full nude in Inherent Vice.
What a hard body!
really?
didn't get past the part where he's lying to his GF about entering the weapons trade since she's a pacifist.
I imagine all the forced drama that's about to ensue when she finds out.
also, it's seems kinda like Lord of War with Nicolas Cage?
The alien 3 assembly cut is *nearly* a pirate copy; they are released only on fanedit and only to people who own the dvd of the original material (this procedure seems to be widely tolerated by the industry).
Fanedit is a great community and they have managed to substantially improve some massive turds .. like Godzilla, for example.
really?
didn't get past the part where he's lying to his GF about entering the weapons trade since she's a pacifist.
I imagine all the forced drama that's about to ensue when she finds out.
also, it's seems kinda like Lord of War with Nicolas Cage?
I thought it was well-paced with enough humor in it as well. Watched it with a couple friends and we all laughed out loud more than a few times. They didn't really drag out the girlfriend stuff too much at all so it didn't take over the movie in the slightest.
I did read up on the story afterwards and the true story is actually kinda similar to the movie on some main points. The girlfriend was totally made up though.
The alien 3 assembly cut is *nearly* a pirate copy; they are released only on fanedit and only to people who own the dvd of the original material (this procedure seems to be widely tolerated by the industry).
Fanedit is a great community and they have managed to substantially improve some massive turds .. like Godzilla, for example.
I thought it was well-paced with enough humor in it as well. Watched it with a couple friends and we all laughed out loud more than a few times. They didn't really drag out the girlfriend stuff too much at all so it didn't take over the movie in the slightest.
I did read up on the story afterwards and the true story is actually kinda similar to the movie on some main points. The girlfriend was totally made up though.
So I hope this is what VR headsets can do by next Christmas, with their own screens, all self contained w/o needing a computer, and at half the cost of current high end VR gear.
It was nice to see a scifi movie built around the character makeup rather than all special effects and weird frog faced creatures.
Reminded me of the original days of star trek where character makeup came first.
And this is one film that I recommend doing the 3D.
The plot alone held its own, minus the scifi backdrop.
See Hollywood, you can still make good entertaining movies if you really set your mind to it.
The alien 3 assembly cut is *nearly* a pirate copy; they are released only on fanedit and only to people who own the dvd of the original material (this procedure seems to be widely tolerated by the industry).
Fanedit is a great community and they have managed to substantially improve some massive turds .. like Godzilla, for example.
I should consider checking this out. I actually didn't hate Alien 3. I liked that it went back to a singular alien terrorizing them and the prison in space was kind of a cool angle. Where they really effed up was completely abandoning Newt and the robot in a dumb way and the questionable dialogue.
Watched the first episode of Berlin Station. Sign, another dud it seems like. Also catching up on the latest season of Archer and it's not that great either. I guess it's time to watch Rectify
Very nice filmography, but the acting reminds me of 1960s film student work. I haven't read the book in 30 years, so I'm not sure how true it was to the source. Worth a watch for the on location shots of India.
Totally unrelated, but just about every time I see/hear the word "insurrection" I think of my friend Heather's definition for it: "an erection that was punched back into the body." Yeah, she's one-of-a-kind.
I watched the Christmas/first episode of season 2 of Sense8 on Netflix. I'd give it a 6 and maybe the series 7 (although I think I reviewed the series earlier and maybe scored it higher).
I think my biggest criticism was that I thought the episode was overdone with slow, overly dramatic scenes. There's a lot of them in the series, and maybe I forgot just how much, but man I started paying more attention to Civilization Revolution (jeez, it's almost like the full Civ game! impressive) on my phone than the show, towards the end. The series is certainly steeped in liberalism but whatever, though it ain't subtle. It's definitely an interesting idea/story and features a great cast and that's basically why I continue to watch it. It can't help that Riley (Tuppence Middleton) is one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen. Holy cow, srsly. Srsly. I need to check out other movies she's done too, haha.
Rogue One. First 90 minutes, solid 0/10. Last 45, 9.5/10. I'm docking the last half point because I think it made no sense for a certain character to be at the end even though the next one starts that way. They just didn't explain it well.
First 90 were such garbage though. Holy hell what a stupid way to set up a plot.
So, i wanted to see this film for a while; there's a few things me and the main character have in common, and it piqued my interest.
A young boy grows up with aspergers, and due to *circumstances* becomes a kind of superhero; accountant by day, vigilante by night. Or something of the sort.
When the bad guys mess with the wrong people, he goes all Mission Impossible on they ass.
Then he finds the bad guy is his old brother and they walk out together in the sunset, no homo.
There's Anna Kendrick in here somewhere, but she is so irrelevant that i am befuddled as to WHY they needed to cast her; the role does not fit her and she is more distracting than anything. Personally, i would have cut off her ending scenes entirely.
Matt Damon .. no wait .. Ben Affleck puts in a decent performance as "character without human emotions", and the many fight scenes are pulled right out of John Wick, so there might yet be something to see in this film; But the direction is bad, with the climax of the film being particularly badly shot and edited, and really .. boring.
The supporting actors try their best but again editing and direction don't make much of the resources. Pretty solid JK Simmons, as always.
I can see that this could have been a much better film, with another 30 minutes of new material and a better director (who is apparently on his first non-TV project), perhaps a slight rewrite focusing more on King's moral dilemma in the pursuit of Wolff, and using Cummings as a tragic character to highlight Wolff's inability of have normal human relationships.
So, not a bad film, but in the same ballpark as Collateral Damage, Tom Cruise's "most forgettable film", or Denzel Washington's The Equalizer.
So, i wanted to see this film for a while; there's a few things me and the main character have in common, and it piqued my interest.
A young boy grows up with aspergers, and due to *circumstances* becomes a kind of superhero; accountant by day, vigilante by night. Or something of the sort.
When the bad guys mess with the wrong people, he goes all Mission Impossible on they ass.
Then he finds the bad guy is his old brother and they walk out together in the sunset, no homo.
There's Anna Kendrick in here somewhere, but she is so irrelevant that i am befuddled as to WHY they needed to cast her; the role does not fit her and she is more distracting than anything. Personally, i would have cut off her ending scenes entirely.
Matt Damon .. no wait .. Ben Affleck puts in a decent performance as "character without human emotions", and the many fight scenes are pulled right out of John Wick, so there might yet be something to see in this film; But the direction is bad, with the climax of the film being particularly badly shot and edited, and really .. boring.
The supporting actors try their best but again editing and direction don't make much of the resources. Pretty solid JK Simmons, as always.
I can see that this could have been a much better film, with another 30 minutes of new material and a better director (who is apparently on his first non-TV project), perhaps a slight rewrite focusing more on King's moral dilemma in the pursuit of Wolff, and using Cummings as a tragic character to highlight Wolff's inability of have normal human relationships.
So, not a bad film, but in the same ballpark as Collateral Damage, Tom Cruise's "most forgettable film", or Denzel Washington's The Equalizer.
Watched this last weekend and I was far more impressed than you were. I agree that Anna Kendrick's character could have been used more. I kind of wonder if they kept it simple so they could explore it more in a sequel. I also would have liked to have seen more back story about his relationship with his brother. Without giving away too much, it seemed like they sure skipped out on a lot of that story after Ben Affleck was about 13.
Certainly much better than The Equalizer and better than the last two Bourne films. I am guessing you meant Collateral, not Collateral Damage (early 2000's Arnold Schwatzenegger action flick). That's where I am starting to think this kind of film just might not be your cup of tea since many people consider Collateral to be one of the better movies of Cruise's career.
I haven't seen many good movies this year and this and Zootopia are probably the two best I saw from 2016.
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