Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham. A bit of an uncomfortable mash-up of Batman and Lovecraft, it’s messy but okay. Still love the setting and the style of the animation. Watched this more for some possible Call of Cthulhu inspiration (of which there was little).
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Another enthusiastic vote for NbNW here.
Rear Window is fun, and the set design is impressive throughout. I particularly enjoy efficient, clever backstory exposition. Rear Window starts with a simple pan through Stewart’s apartment past his camera gear and photos with enough emphasis on the image of a crash he captured at a race just before a tire hits him. In seconds, Hitchcock establishes Stewart’’s injury, his thrill-seeking persona, and the setting of the film in one shot.
4 Likes
Sisu, purchased for $19.99 on iTunes.
John Wick, if John Wick were Finnish and in WWII.
And also fighting Nazis.
I feel like I need to say no more, but in case I do, Fantastic with a capital F.
3 Likes
Too many moments where he just gets away because otherwise the film would end, and you could definitely see some of the joins where the budget wouldn’t quite stretch, but this tale of a Finnish commando going up against the Nazis is solidly entertaining and inventive. No plot to speak of.
No One Will Save You. Well, on the one hand it’s an interesting film with essentially no dialogue. On the other hand, the ending just isn’t good, and there are one or two shots that border on the farcical. Kaitlyn Dever is great, doing an enormous amount of work, often against CGI.
2 Likes
The Covenant, watched on Amazon Prime.
Jake Gyllenhall is a US soldier (special forces of some sort I’m sure cause isn’t everyone?) who gets himself in a Bad Spot and is very predictably saved by his Afghan interpreter who is of course on par with special forces despite “being through basic.” Afghan saves soldier, is abandoned by US government, soldier saves interpreter.
Blah blah blah. Highly predictable. Rote. Poorly acted in parts. Taliban shoots worse than Empire stormtroopers unless it suits the story ofc. Anticlimactic and predictable ending.
Anyway, it was ok in the background if you’ve nothing else to spend two hours on.
3 Likes
“This film is dedicated to the brave fighters of the Afghan National Army…”
I’m watching a gritty -ish New York double bill that I’m hoping to make a triple bill. Any ideas on what I could watch as a third movie? I’ve watched a Bronx tale, now it’s last exit to Brooklyn, then…?
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that’s the Evil Dead III: Army of darkness to the other films Evil dead 1 and 2
2 Likes
A Most Violent Year.
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So the best?
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One of my favorite NYC movies is Marathon Man, but I’m not sure it’s quite as gritty as the other two. Perhaps The French Connection? Both are excellent.
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Brooklyn 45. There is something to be said for this film in terms of acting, given that it’s a small cast of relative unknowns in one room. The film could die right there, but it doesn’t, because all the actors are actually quite good. Unfortunately, it involves the military and the people who wrote the film don’t know anything about the military, or WWII, which is quite, quite unfortunate. Overall a bad miss, because insisting on a background of Allied war crimes committed by officers (?) and the torture of Nazis is fundamentally fucked in the head.
My recently downloaded Netflix disc history shows that I really liked Brooklyn (2015, with Saoirse Ronan) and The Walk (2015, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt) among films that take place in NYC.
Also, Reign Over Me might be Adam Sandler’s best work.
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I will always be more partial to Punch Drunk Love. But they are certainly his best 2.
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Watched The French Connection for the first time the other night, and was a little disappointed. Hackman and Scheider were great and the suspense was thick throughout. It was definitely as gritty as advertised. The things that took me out of the movie were: the too-obvious porkpie hat (yep, there’s that hat again, he’s tailing me alright); reconstructing the torn apart Lincoln without any scratches or mechanical issues in mere hours; I thought Charnier was supposed to be a criminal mastermind?; and wow, Nicoli was a really terrible assassin at any distance greater than 2 feet.
2 Likes
Several of your criticisms are so on-point they made me laugh out loud : ) Nicoli is ruthless! But perhaps has bad eyesight : ) And the car reconstruction was never very believable, but I think I don’t know enough about cars to have had it jar me too much. The hat was goofy even at the time–I’m not sure if that was Hackman’s idea or the director’s. I’ve heard that Hackman had a way of convincing directors to just let him do whatever he wanted.
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Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. It’s following a solid formula, and the past M:Is have been safe bets for entertainment, but the techspeak in this one takes a nosedive as they are talking about computer programs. To be fair, it’s probably what one of those meetings sounds like, with various people talking about AI, The Cloud, botnets, etc without knowing what any of those things actually are, but it’s just a little painful to see them labour mightily over a MacGuffin no-one gives a fuck about, at this point it could be Putin’s merkin, it doesn’t matter. You know you’re getting some good chases, some good fights, a surprising number of excellent practical stunts, and some decent one liners. The back-and-forth between Cruise and Atwell as the new female lead is just okay, we’ve seen this plenty of times before and it needs a new element to it. Rebecca Ferguson is still here and dutifully doing her excellent best, but she’s been sidelined for no real reason. I do note that the series cycles women with depressing regularity, but Rhames and Pegg are still plugging away quite happily. Not enough Vanessa Kirby as an icy arms dealer. Pom Klementieff as an essentially mute killer is another disappointing dropped ball. A slimy Cary Elwes is enjoyable to see. Esai Morales is no more menacing than I am when I am hurrying for a shit.
When Evil Lurks. An effective horror film about possession, but which has some confused ideas about its world and ‘rules’. Some great scenes, with rock-solid tension and atmosphere, well-paced build-up, and just the right amount of chaos. Good acting throughout.
5 Likes
Also just seen Barbie.
That is one deeply weird movie, something that none of the reviews or comments had led me to expect. Like you said, wild tonal shifts that somehow work.
My suspicion is that the entire film is 2 hours of solid sarcasm. Outstanding.
5 Likes
Barbie. This is a surprise. A much smarter film than I was expecting, and one that manages to do something intelligent with the IP, which is a challenge here, because, well, it’s a doll. From the first scene onwards, it sucked me in. Clever writing and directing, all the more so for getting it past what must have been a wall of suits from Mattel. Margot Robbie is very good, Ryan Gosling does the best he can with his one expression, Simu Liu is wonderful as another Ken. Great fun for Michael Cera.
4 Likes