If last time I was saying there's not much choiche for the movies in the following three months, this time I could directly make a link to the summer preview post, because next spring is filled mostly with re-schedulings already checked then.
What I found new for the month of March is again in the indies realm. Maybe I'm a bit subjective here, as somebody who doesn't sleep at normal hours, but definitely "Come True" looked more interesting than a couple other more mainstream alternatives.
When the second trailer for "No Time to Die" was announced, the release was planned for November. Meanwhile it was again postponed for April. And since besides this and "A Quiet Place Part II" there's not much to choose from for that month, I stuck to the option with a trailer I didn't already post this summer.
Considering the current titles planned for May, even though it might seem something else, we'll stick to the same SciFi genre with "F9". The main differences from Bond are the smaller number of iterations and the more intense soap opera feeling.
I'm closing now the 2020 entries. I'll take a longer break from blogging this year. I'm not in the best mood for writing, I don't have subjects either, but more important not enough time. Maybe next year.. Until then, what I can wish is peaceful holidays ;)
I'll keep "the tradition" on that when the winter begins to throw out a preview entry, despite the fact there's not much to choose from for this. Besides, I don't have another subject to write about :-) Besides, this time we can be a bit more optimistic about the release in the next time period... especially considering that some distributors got tired of reprograming the dates and started accepting also the online option.
The majority of the movies set for December are low budget indies. Out of the titles I found about, the most interesting option seemed to be "Archenemy", despite some ratings after a festival pre-release that aren't so encouraging. The subject though is part of an alternative niche to the classic superhero, a niche where I had multiple fine experiences ("Defendor", "Jeeg Robot", "Colossal" or even "Kick-Ass"). However, I don't have much hope for this one, but we'll see...
"Chaos Walking", set for January, seems to be somewhere between SciFi and western, a combination that unlike the previous, with slight exceptions ("Prospect"), never was very fortunate. The director though, Doug Liman, has some good movies, among which one of the best SciFi movies in the last decade - "Edge of Tomorrow". But again, we'll see...
It might look like bad taste to release a movie about a pandemic in the middle of a pandemic, even though the disease is quite a different one, but out of all what February promises "Little Fish" is by far the most interesting title.
Next time we'll try to find something for the spring too. Let's hope we find some..
Without further ado, I'll continue the anniversary "best of" started last time. There are 49 movies left on it in the chronological order of their appearance on this blog + 1. As it follows...
51. Fright Night (2011)
52. John Carter (2012)
53. Get the Gringo (2012)
54. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
55. Looper (2012)
56. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
57. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
58. Life of Pi (2012)
59. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
60.Trance (2013)
61. Rush (2013)
62. Prisoners (2013)
63. Ravenous (1999)
64. The Lone Ranger (2013)
65. Odd Thomas (2013)
66. The Best Offer (2013)
67. Philomena (2013)
68. Kelly's Heroes (1970)
69. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
70. Fish Story (2009)
71. Dead Snow 2 (2014)
72. Lucy (2014)
73. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
74. Contraband (2012)
75. Interstellar (2014)
76. Relatos Salvajes (2014)
77. Maleficent (2014)
78. Incendies (2010)
79. Slow West (2015)
80. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
81. The Revenant (2015)
82. Zootopia (2016)
83. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
84. Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot (2015)
85. A Hard Day (2014)
86. The Shallows (2016)
87. The Accountant (2016)
88. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
89. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
90. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
91. Molly's Game (2017)
92. Colossal (2016)
93. A Simple Favor (2018)
94. Triangle (2009)
95. Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
96. First Love (2019)
97. 1917 (2019)
98. Jojo Rabbit (2019)
99. Archive (2020)
.. and we got to the +1. Why did I leave something separate for the end? Simple: because it's not a movie. It's a series. Since I also had such stuff from time to time on my blog, I said it's worth choosing one. Actually, if for the rest I'm not totally sure I left something better out, here I'm 100% positive. I stick to my opinion that "Farscape" is the best ever series made for TV - and after all is the only one where I'm aware of an extra closure shot following pressure of fans who were unhappy with the ending. Not even GoT got that ;) ...
My blog just got to the age of 13. Since this year was pretty dry in new movie and I don't have a subject worthy enough of the above number I decided for a "best of". Complicated stuff...
First of all, what would be a "best of" here. I doubt there's anybody in the mood to read my old blog entries. So, I decided to stick to a jubilee selection out of all the movies mentioned around here since all this thing started.
After many twists and turns of what should get into the intended selection I concluded that all the movies I rated max are too few (+ I don't know what I was thinking when I did that for some of these), and all the movies I rated close to max are too many. So after more twists and turns I got stuck to a top 99 (+1).
Long story short: if you like trailers, you're gonna love this - because that's next. Today just the first 50 - otherwise this page will crash. Even so, it probably won't live for playing all in the same session. I don't know if these are the best movies I've seen in the last 13 years, and the order definitely doesn't have any top meaning. It's strictly chronological in respect to their mention in this blog. All I can say is that the selection is probably subjective, but it's a selection that kept me sane (sort of...) in the last 13 years in a world that's not always completely sane. But enough talk. Let's roll...
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Again, I don't have the mood and neither the time for writing. But "fortunately" also no sleep. "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", or briefly "WTF" in NATO phonetic alphabet in case it wasn't clear, is a sort of satire and the only movie fresh enough in my head to use as subject in today's posting.
We don't have a very well defined narrative here. The movie is based on a book of memoirs gathered by a female journalist, war correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan. So, as the intro on the credits says, it's based on real facts. It starts as a light comedy where the main character is trying to leave the boring office life for a more adventurous position. Starting from this part, the development of the story might seem disturbingly derogatory at times, reflecting a lighter Western position over a real situation in a conflict area that comes packed with all sort of problems, from social issues to tragedies on the battlefield. So, a context that in practice doesn't offer much material for a comedy. Slowly, the movie migrates though, in a relatively predictable fashion towards a more dramatic nuance = it also adds an unlikely romance episode, a kidnapping that brings some real tension and a more serious approach to a case of bad injury on the front. So, as I was saying we end up with a sort of satire that somehow looks decent enough in the end.
I'm still not sleepy enough, but also still not in the mood for writing, so adding that half of the movie's watching value comes from Tina Fey's acting, I'll end this here.
"Kajillionaire" is the American version of a theme recently used in a couple other movies too, less candid than a Japanese version we have in "Shoplifters", but also less cynical than the Korean "Parasite".
As in the above references, here the subject is revolving around a dysfunctional family of crooks, a bit smaller though, formed only of the parents and a daughter being raised deprived of feelings, specially trained for a career in this "line of work". She's actually the main character of the movie, getting through a conversion towards humanity after the three intersect with a future fourth group member, a seller in an lenses shop, bored of her usual daily life.
As well as the two above, "Kajillionaire" sits somewhere between a drama and a dark comedy (not so dark though). It's the perfect example of a movie built out of moments - lots of short sequences that can be drawn out of context - from an owner with a mental condition that doesn't allow him to kick out his late paying tenants, to a simple chat with a clerk at a lost luggage desk for who a 6 weeks period for insurance collection seems quick. I can't say there's any such moment that's truly memorable. However, it's the type of a movie that leaves you a warm feeling after end credits, definitely closer to "Shoplifters" in respect to that ;)
Even though "Volition" starts with a handicap due to a low indie movie budget, which is noticeable in pretty much everything, from production design to casting, it manages to stay at a decent level, enough to give it a chance.
The story is somehow close to the probably more known "Next", inspired itself from a short story by P. K. Dick. James is a guy who experiences flashes of what the future brings. If in "Next" this was for the "next 2 minutes", in "Volition" the gift is more generous, but also not that well defined - the visions don't have a specific time setting and are also intertwined. It's the type of movie that constructs itself as a puzzle, returning often into its own previous development. The plot starts with a vision showing James his own death, after he gets hired by some shady character to find a buyer for a pouch of stolen diamonds. After we advance a bit, we're presented with a first twist, but such a bad one in respect to credibility that I'm gonna spoil it - James also gets "time travel" powers - physically speaking, not only in his mind. After you manage to get over the way this happens (let's not spoil everything), the script slowly redeems itself by tying together quite well all sorts of events in the story, which suddenly looks more complex than it initially seemed to be.
Unfortunately... when you're comfortable with the low-budget feeling, also accepted the dumb way to time-travel, when the actors don't look anymore like amateurs, and when you could actually say that the movie has some deeper meaning carefully put together... the last 30 seconds destroy the entire script. All I can say is that if you're looking for a happy-end, it delivers. But it could have done it differently. Well, one more spoiler, can't help it...
A while ago I've seen "Good Time", written and directed by the same Safdie brothers as "Uncut Gems" is. It seemed terribly overrated and so fit to a narrow niche, that I was convinced another movie by the same guys can't be much different.
I wasn't wrong. "Uncut Gems" is likewise annoyingly hysterical from beginning to its end, featuring the same type of a main character - an unscrupulous guy struggling to solve a problem by creating another one. The character in "Uncut Gems" is a loud jeweler from New York, addicted to gambling, probably the role of a lifetime made by Adam Sandler, way above any acting he did in the usual light comedies he played in. The movie is tracking some days of his unhappy life, being constantly chased by loan sharks, and trying to get back on his feet by auctioning an uncut gemstone, all these while he can't withold from placing more bets. The action is quite dense, catching also a glimpse of his family issues, the unorthodox collaboration with a forger, and other stuff. Unfortunately the movie is also too dense in screaming, almost any dialog ending in some conflict. At some point, as I was saying, it gets annoying and also tiring at the same time.
It's not a spoiler to say that the story doesn't end well. It becomes so obvious that the guy gets from worse to much worse that the only unknown is how much worse it will get. And here, the ending is clearly better than "Good Time". In all this descending spiral, you feel at some time that there are exits, but each one is missed. The final one is the cherry on top. I think I had like three possible versions, none good, which crossed my mind during the last 15 minutes, which again try to deceive you with some glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel. But I had the surprise of a different closure. I guess the only possible one able to save the movie, which I can't say I liked. However, the ending is forcing me to be objective and I also can't say it's a bad film. Now... I really shouldn't spoil more of this part. It's just something like probably would be the feeling when a neighbor drilled holes in the walls for an entire day and he gets a power cut. It's a sudden "silence", a short lived one that doesn't give much time to reflect on it. But you get a "L'Amour Toujours" on the end credits to complete it in case you need anything else. It never crossed my mind to listen carefully to the lyrics of this song until watching "Uncut Gems".
What made me watch "True History of the Kelly Gang" were some positive reviews and that I wanted to move out a bit from the old movies zone where it seems I'm more or less stuck in this period. I should have known better...
Short background info: Ned Kelly was an Australian bushranger at the end of the 19th century. The movie is not a true history as the title says, but some sort of minimalist approach that gives a flavor of low budget (despite the cast), aiming probably for being considered some artistic innovation. Actually, it's a failed copy of Terrence Malick, or... well, maybe it's a successful copy depending on which Malick movie you pick to compare with. We have the same painfully slow development that contrasts heavily with chaotic sequences full of "hidden meanings", which should make you wonder of the "director's genius" (doesn't matter that the meanings stay hidden - as long as the director will be labeled as genius by the critics we're fine). The first part of it, somehow more coherent, looked a bit like "Plunkett & Macleane", especially given that the topic is on the same page, but comparing these doesn't make justice in the end. It's been ages since I watched "Plunkett & Macleane", but I still remember that the chaos has some limits, and besides that the soundtrack of Craig Armstrong made history there. Here, the only part that deserves some praise is the camera work, but that too becomes repetitive + it also breaks any safety norm for epilepsy by torturing you with a continuous flashing scene that's probably longer than 2 minutes.
The coincidence makes that "True History of the Kelly Gang" to star as first name of the cast the same actor as "1917", the latest movie that seemed to me to worth a 5 out 5. That's the only common point between the two.
After I watched "The Verdict" about three weeks ago, I remembered that I still have something on my list of classics, "The Sting", of which I've seen bits and pieces on TV a couple times, but never the whole thing.
Honestly, it's quite hard to write a review for "The Sting". The subject revolves around the planning and execution of an an elaborate extortion scheme against a ruthless banker with connections in the underworld of the '30s Chicago. Everything starts with smaller scheme targeting a money courier working for the guy, a payback paid in blood, followed by the revenge that brings us into the main subject. The movie develops bit by bit in a puzzle that slowly puts itself together towards the end, and revealing more of it would spoil all the charm it has.
If I should compare "The Sting" with something else, as I often do, to see where we stand, it would be a Guy Ritchie with an episodic structure a la Tarantino but released in 1973, meaning much more calm and peaceful. Besides the stellar cast on the poster, what was the real positive surprise about this is the camera work. Even though it mostly runs as an "old movie", maybe even closer to a '50-'60s feeling than of the '70s, this line is sometimes abruptly cut by some scene that looks revolutionary compared to the rest. It's either a zoom in, or a kinetic camera coming from nowhere, or just the way a scene is organized like a chase where two people run in opposite directions one on a platform above the other. It's not something extraordinary if we check out the best stuff these days, but for '73 I found it remarkable. To conclude: a solid cast and subject + an excellent technique = a movie that for an age of almost '50, it still definitely deserves watching.
"The Two Faces of January" felt like a deja vu from the first 10 minutes, and it didn't take long to figure out the reason behind that is "The Talented Mr. Ripley". After all, both movies are based on novels written by the same Patricia Highsmith. I didn't read any of the two, but the character construction seemed similar, as well as the type of action, the time setting, even the chosen locations although in one we're set in Greece and in the other in Italy - both cases are of sunny areas on the Mediterranean shore.
Since "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is not exactly among my favorite movies, neither "The Two Faces of January" felt much better. All the action revolves around a couple visiting Greece, Chester and Colette, where he's an ex broker from New York who fled with his investors money. Found by a private investigator, who dies following a short quarrel, Chester is forced to find an escape route and employs a young American guide to help him with that, Rydal, who's nothing but a small crook. So, we have sort of love triangle forming, where you know from start that the story won't end very well.
I have to admit that I don't remember very well "The Talented Mr. Ripley", but as I said the deja-vu feeling was there. Still, at the moment I watched that, it felt more credible than what we have here, which looks more like a B version of the same genre. The only part that I remember quite clearly in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" was the sudden unexpected stop after the final scene. For this I have to give credit to the current movie which has a decent closure. That's pretty much all about it.
I'll stick this week too to an old movie, same age as the one of last time. There's nothing else I've had time to watch since then. "The Verdict" is part of a narrow niche, somehow close to John Grisham's "legal thrillers", but more of a "legal drama" and less thriller.
Frank Galvin (in an exceptional performance of Paul Newman) is a lawyer, who after a case suspected of jury tampering, is almost expelled from the bar, his wife leaves him, and he becomes an alcoholic, not able to get more than four cases in three years, all lost. A chance to change things appears with a medical malpractice case, where the victim is in a vegetative state for some years, and her sister and brother-in-law want to get a financial compensation to continue paying for the treatment and also to move out of town. The diocese that owns the hospital agrees to settle for some amount to avoid the trial. The solution seems convenient for everybody, and would also save Galvin's bankruptcy, but the guy is suddenly struck by his moral values... which say that there's no justice for the victim if the doctors are still allowed to practice.
So, against all advice, Galvin decides alone that he has enough advantage to start a trial. What follows is a tough legal war with the law firm hired by the other side, experienced enough to remove all that seemed to be in favor of winning the case. Let's not spoil more of it.
The movie runs almost like a theatrical representation (it might be actually possible to stage it as such). After all, David Mamet, who signed the script is also known as playwright. Despite my generic hostility of transposing a play into a movie - in the sense of feeling that the final output is stripped of certain cinematic elements - what we have here is actually a really good play. Obviously it doesn't excel technically, and you can feel the age, but it compensates enough through acting and the action that ends with some twists that make it worth your time.
There aren't many titles I didn't see that would fit in the "epic movie" category, which were released in the sound era of the the cinema. It's not such a large set anyway. "Spartacus" might be an exception that I missed, although I might have seen it when I was too young to remember it. "Kundun" and "Gandhi" were two others. I always had my doubts about the first, which got more doubtful after "Silence" directed by the same Scorsese. For the second one, the three hours it spans made just too complicated to grant it the needed time. This week I finally decided to break it in pieces and remove it from my "to watch" list.
I'll try to discuss "Gandhi" in brief, and mainly from the cinematic perspective. Any movie has a story and a story has a morale, but especially when the story is a real one the comments made on the morale slip to easily beyond the border of the social, political, etc, and often forget about evaluating the movie as a movie. And this is a movie blog and I'll try to keep it that way. Even though in this case is quite hard because "Gandhi" is mainly a movie with a political message. But it's late anyway, and I'm not really in the mood for writing :) ...
Obviously "Gandhi" is a biography of Mahatma Gandhi, starting with the end, returning to the activity towards gaining rights for the Hindu minority in South Africa, passing over to the period of peaceful fight for the Indian independence and finishing again with the end. Which was a senseless assassination of an old man already on the dusk of his life, coming as a bitter irony after a series of almost suicidal fasts, a main weapon Gandhi used during his life to solve various conflicts.
I didn't watch all movies directed by Richard Attenborough, but out of what I watched I think "Gandhi" shows the most powerful influence of David Lean. If you wouldn't know the director, you probably could align the movie with "The Bridge on the River Kwai" or with "Lawrence of Arabia". That's both good and bad.
On the positive side we have the attention to the details, the importance given to the actors (practically "Gandhi" made Ben Kingsley a star), the way to build a key scene, and an almost documentary-like flow that doesn't seem to lose anything. On the negative side we have the "lengths". Even if you see the movie in three parts as I did, and you'll notice these less, they are present. As in Lean's case there are moments where it just drags. Also on the negative, the sound is fine, but definitely not the best part of the movie, but this is somehow specific to the pre '90s period when the sound was much more discreet than now. However, this is a contributing factor to an aging feeling about the movie, aging that's not so obvious in other titles of the '80s such as Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" (true, that's 5 years younger than "Gandhi").
"Gandhi" is still a movie to watch, even only for your general knowledge or for the pacifist message which would summarize to something like "there's no good & evil, just two sides that should come together", but I said I won't delve into comments, although this seems still valid at a global level during current times, unfortunately a bit hard to grasp both for the "good" side, as well as for the "evil" side, whichever these might be.
Set in the Victorian London of the 19th century, "The Limehouse Golem" fits in the crime mystery genre, somewhere between Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, maybe more close to the latter and his Sherlock Holmes.
The movie follows the investigation conducted by inspector Kildare of Scotland Yard concerning a series of murders in Limehouse, one of London's bad neighborhoods in the 1800s. The subject, adaptation of a book, has similarities with the case of Jack the Ripper, which is an obvious inspiration - from the setting up to the investigator and suspects, some picked out from the real figures of the time. The action thread intersects with a parallel case of poisoning a writer, and of his accused wife, this becoming basically the main lead in the investigation, both cases revolving around the same people.
I can't say that I liked the movie, but I have to give it credit for some aspects. The subject is convoluted enough to keep the mystery alive until the end, although you can reduce the number of suspects relatively fast. The director's approach is interesting and seems to put more weight on the artistic side (visuals, set decoration, etc) than on the concrete story. Sometimes, however, it feels rushed, and you lose track of what's going on. And if I got to the negative parts, there's a bit too much red paint in it. The grim scenes bring a strong contrast to the rest, but it doesn't feel really useful in the sense it's probably intended = to strengthen the same contrast between the personality of the murderer and the real image of the character ( no more spoilers :) ). As last remark for this entry, Bill Nighy seemed rather tired for the lead role, although again, maybe that's what was intended for the character to look like. Bottom line...
I'll stick to "based on a true story" setting for this week too. "The Infiltrator" is yet another movie set in the context of the high cocaine traffic period of the '80s dominated by Pablo Escobar and the Colombian cartel.
The story here, as the title says, is an infiltration action within the criminal organization led by a US customs agent under cover. The movie is dense, mixing the two parallel lives of the protagonist. The first, a quiet existence with his family, besides the second, under constant threat posing as a business man offering his services for laundering millions of dollars coming out from the drug sales. In brief, we have all the ingredients of the genre, interceptions, informers, assassinations, etc., the final hystorical significant consequence being the fall of BCCI, the seventh commercial bank in the world at the time, and apparently one of the main financial institutions involved in the transfers of funds to the Colombian organization.
The movie has all the required elements for a top title, with the exception of somebody to know how to combine these properly = the direction fails, or at least that's what I felt. It gives the impression of an unfinished product. Although the subject offers a lot, the narrative is not properly balanced, sometimes seeming either exaggerated or superficial. The actors cast are doing their job well, with Bryan Cranston visibly trained for the role here by the part he played in "Breaking Bad". However, at some times you feel a bit of overacting, and again it's rather more the fault of the direction where it looks like saving on the number of takes shot for a scene.
To wrap up, I can't end this without making a quick reference to a long series in the same line with what we have here. We can start with "Donnie Brasco" from '97, where Johnny Depp acts as an undercover FBI agent infiltrated in the New York mafia, and we can continue with "Blow" from 2001, with the same Johnny Depp as a smuggler working for the Colombian cartel. In "Kill the Messenger" from 2014, Jeremy Renner plays a journalist who investigates the CIA involvement in the drug traffic of the time, and in "American Made" from 2017, Tom Cruise is Barry Seal, another smuggler working for the same group turned informer, a character who we briefly meet here too. The list can be much longer, but I reduced to titles directly linked with the subject in "The Infiltrator". Where's my point, is that neither of the above is a bad movie, but out of all I think only "Kill the Messenger" would rank below "The Infiltrator". To conclude: if you like this one, you should better check the other three ;)
I'm not in the best writing mood, and as in the last few weeks I only have one option that I watched recently to make it even more complicated. "The Railway Man" is another adaptation of a true story. Eric Lomax, a veteran of WW2 seems to find his peace 30 years after, when he marries Patricia. It just seems, because the post-traumatic stress is still there. So, we find out about the horror that Lomax + all his regiment experienced, being sent to forced labor for the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway. That's the first part of the movie.
In the second half of the movie Lomax and also we find out that a former translator of the Kenpeitai (the secret Japanese police), member of the interrogation teams (and implicitly torture) is still alive and works as guide in the '80s in a war museum. In search for his peace, Lomax decides to pay him a visit, departing with revenge thoughts, but what he finds is apparently a guy transformed by his own trauma. The meeting, therefore, concludes with a reconciliation beneficial for both men.
The whole story, with minor differences, is indeed real, Lomax also publishing a book about it. I'd risk saying that the book is better than the movie, although I didn't read it. About the movie... you shouldn't expect much unfortunately. The first part is ok, although it tends to get a bit melodramatic for a real situation. The transition to the second half, is however sudden, forced and the way it's staged loses even more of its credibility. That's pretty much all I have to say about it... If I'd have to draw an average between the two parts...
"The Old Man & the Gun" is a slow and sad, short but long version of "Catch Me If You Can". Short summary: both are biopics centered on an atypical villain - in this one, a bank thief in his 70's, in the other a crook and check forger before turning 20. In a sense, I guess the impression the movie leaves you with after the end is somehow proportional with the depth of the character. But I won't lengthen this entry by also adding a summary for "Catch Me If You Can" (just google for Frank Abagnale).
In "The Old Man & the Gun" we have Robert Redford as Forrest Tucker, a guy who spent his entire life behind bars, between escapes (counting more than 16) perfecting a technique of robbing a bank in the most polite manner. The legend (and the movie) says that he done that without firing a single shot. What we have in this film is a brief look over the last few freedom windows the guy enjoyed in his life.
What transpires from the main character demeanor, but mostly from the acting for the cop who follows him (Casey Affleck) is a state of chronic boredom that reflects in the whole movie. The more-or-less 90 minutes it has seem like two hours and a half. Even if the '80s feeling is quite authentic, the cast is full of known names, and here and there we have something that catches our attention, there's a debilitating slowness consistent throughout the the movie length, and the permanent sense of something missing + also knowing that we won't have a happy end here, but neither an unhappy one...
If I think better on it now, I guess "Catch Me If You Can" is not the best reference to compare with. More appropriate would be "The Mule", which I had on my blog a couple months ago. We find there pretty much all the context elements we have here: a nice old guy who's a criminal mastermind, an almost frustrated cop who gets obsessed with the case, a romance episode at the dusk of someone's life. The difference is in the way all these are connected. Even though we also have a slow development there too, and the ending is pretty much the same in terms of "happiness", you want to keep watching to see what happens, unlike here where you'd rather not.
I missed the classic novel by H.G. Wells, having the same title as the current movie, "The Invisible Man", from my teenage readings. However, after seeing "Hollow Man" 20 years ago, I found out that the book is a gritty horror. Not that it has much in common with any of the two movies, although both are placed in the same genre by IMDb.
The subject, both in the movies, and from what I heard also in the book, has one common element = obviously, the invisible man, a researcher who manages following an experiment to reach that particular state of being. Unfortunately, he doesn't take advantage of the situation in a positive way, in all cases being corrupted by mental issues. In "Hollow Man", and again from what I heard in the book, the reason is not being able to reverse the experiment. I don't remember much more of the movie besides the fact that it had cool effects for that time and that I liked it, and about the book, as I said, I didn't read it. In the latest version of "Invisible Man" the story runs somehow different. The experiment is actually a suit created by a genius in the optical field, Adrian Griffin, suit that's obviously removable = the effect can be reversed. The optical genius however has another issue, more likely an obsession of total control over his wife, Cecilia. Obsession that manifests among others by installing cameras and security systems transforming the family residence into a jail. The result is that the desperate wife decides to escape one night, taking temporary shelter in cop's house, a friend of her sister. The trauma is deep enough though to keep her confined inside, frightened to make a step out until she finds out that her, now ex-husband, killed himself...
The trailer tells us how things evolve further. The movie has, if I counted well, something like three wannabe twists, out of which well... to be fair, one is not that predictable. Besides that, pretty much everything is predictable. Maybe except a couple actions that don't really connect. Fortunately, the movie is dynamic enough to not get you bored, but what saves it is especially the way it's made. Indeed, it builds a tense feeling that drives it towards horror, although I'd classify it more as a thriller - this effect is, however, rare enough to appreciate it (yes, I know that not longer than a month ago I had "The Guest" on my blog, exceptions happen). I'd also add a plus for avoiding excess violence. Pretty much all of it is what you see in the trailer, except one scene that's more bloody. One more thing to mention is the art direction/set decoration/location setting for the choice made regarding the Griffin residence. The large estate, placed somewhere on the sea shore, the interiors, even the fence, all together seem to get an actor's role at some point. I wouldn't go up to comparing with the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining", but it's still somewhere in top 10 estates to be noticed in movies.
Out of "Hollow Man" version 2000 and "The Invisible Man" version 2020, I finally think I'd go for "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" version 1992. Which is based on another book that mixes SciFi, action and comedy that doesn't have any connection with Wells' novel or the horror genre. Funny enough, it's directed by John Carpenter ("Halloween", "The Fog", "The Thing", etc.). But again, I don't remember much of it, besides the good impression it made to me when I've seen it. Maybe I'm nostalgic for more peaceful times... Although, if I look at the trailers, ignoring the aging effect. Well, judge for yourself...
Again, due to lack of time, I chose the shortest option available = "The Guilty", for this week. It's a Danish production that got enough awards around two years ago to make me notice it and check it as "must watch". It's a good movie, but as usual, when the expectancy is high, the final impression is not that good (valid for the opposite too - check my previous blog entry).
The subject in "The Guilty" fits well for a theatrical representation. Asger Holm e is an impulsive police officer, under investigation for killing a suspect during an intervention, and temporarily sent to a desk job as an operator for emergency calls. The entire development of the movie is basically built on that: phone calls. The first couple have a role to define an initial profile of the character we have in front of us, in brief: a guy who seems well-intended but a bit too much self-confident. Afterwards, we're getting into the main story - Iben, mother of two children, claims to be abducted, apparently by her ex-husband after a violent conflict in front of their kids. It's the first call that seems important enough to Asger to catch his full attention.
The whole impact of "The Guilty" is based on the case evolving with each call that brings new elements in the story. I already advanced a bit too much with the info there, to even give some hint that twists are present. I'd just say more that in the end it's easy to draw some conclusion on the main subject of the movie, which is actually on the other side of the phone compared to what you might think it the beginning. Precisely, the movie is less about Iben, and more about Asger, ending as a characterization that evolves from the start profile to a morale saying that following your first impulse is not the best option. Well, that's debatable... or at least to me the movie seemed a bit one-sided on this, which can be discussed if you remove the context (despite the fact that in general I'd agree with the idea).
Anyway, to slowly move towards conclusion, there are a couple more things to mention. For a movie that lasts below 90 minutes, out of which most are audio phone calls, we have something that's a bit weird... it's both impressive how much it can get from the sound effects, but I can't get over some parts where the sound editing gets sloppy. That's valid also for the realism of the script, which in might make it hard to watch as drama intensity, but at a certain point it's getting a bit exaggerated in regard to what you could do undisturbed in an emergency calls office, where you're not the only operator. So, I'll stick to the opinion that the movie is ok, but it could've been better.
When "Ex Machina" (2014) was announced, it looked to me like a copy of "The Machine" (2013). Finally, it proved to have a different story, although both featured an AI named Ava. Another common part was that neither of the two movies impressed me enough to allocate time for a blog entry. That's why I wasn't expecting much from "Archive" either, which again, at a first sight seemed to be an "Ex Machina" v2.0. Only at the first sight...
There are two things in common: we have again a female AI and a robotics engineer somewhere in a secluded lab. That's where the resemblance ends. The story in "Archive" goes like this: year 2048 - George Almore is sent alone to a ultra-secured facility in Japan's forest by his company, in order to conduct some ultra-secret research in the area of robotics. This comes after escaping a car accident. Unfortunately not also the case of his wife, Jules, but fortunately in this future we have Archive. Archive is another company dealing with immediately saving the conscience of those close to clinical death, keeping up some limited means of communicating with them. The problem is that it's not a definitive save, each call getting it closer to the moment when Jules will be lost forever. Reason why, instead of dealing with what the company wants from him, George starts his own private project: the android model J-01, followed by model J-02, and the movie finds us at model J-03. Guess what's J for in these? ;)
"Archive" is slow-paced, and some might find it boring. For me it gave a sort of.. "serenity" feeling I'd say. I found the rhythm perfect - helped a lot by the technical part, which is flawless: both the sound, but mostly the visuals, meaning everything that gets into set decoration + VFX + cinematography + editing, where we have a frequent change between the lab setting and the natural environment. I've seen "Moon" more than 10 years ago, but I still remember enough to spot some similarity. Gavin Rothery - director and writer here was part of the art department ad "head of graphic design" there. And the visuals aren't the only resemblance, if we look at the whole idea of a SciFi movie with slow pacing, one actor, talking AI, and a final twist.
More than what's in common with "Moon", a core element from "Archive" comes clearly from some other place. The idea of "archive" as presented here is not new. I don't know for sure where this originates, but what we see in the movie is terribly close to the concept of "moratorium" in "Ubik". "Ubik" is a novel written by Philip K. Dick that appeared in 1969 - IMHO, or at least for my taste, the best SciFi novel ever written. The real significance of the word which is suspending something until a deadline was translated there pretty much as we have it here - a "moratorium" was a sort of a private bank keeping the conscience of the dead in cold-storage, available for communication until becoming exhausted with time. We don't have more from "Ubik" here ( although... but better no spoilers ;) ). The context is completely different, but since other movies (best example "Inception") took some stuff from there, it was hard to move over without noticing it. And it's not something bad, but I still hope to see an actual "Ubik" movie sometime :) Until then, small pieces are fine too...
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (maybe I'm a bit subjective, but I find the movie underrated - it's definitely better than "Ex Machina" at least)
For the first 20-30 minutes "The Guest" looks like an average thriller. David Collins, just left home by the US Army after being sent to Afghanistan, pays a visit to the family of a former friend, Caleb Peterson, killed in action. It's more than obvious from scene 1 that the guy doesn't have the best intentions, and the first night he spends at the Petersons turns into a longer stay. David has a particular talent in getting close to each of the family members, either taking the role of the lost son, or resolving the issues the little brother has at school. Everything seems to be a cheap clone of many other movies (the one that pops into my mind now is "The Gift") where you can see a grim end coming where the very friendly stranger turns into a very dangerous villain. Well... the ending is indeed predictable. How we get there though...
After a first part that doesn't announce anything unusual in the expected line of above, besides maybe the fact that it sets a slightly retro feeling via its soundtrack (lots of synth there), there comes the moment when what we have here gets a different color. And the moment is a phone call to the military base took by Caleb's sister, who's the only one not to trust David completely. The phone call transfers us to an instant start of an armed operation meant to neutralize the danger, and we realize that David is not exactly the average character with mental issues. Actually David is not David, but let's not spoil the entire story.
And like that, from the start feeling of a low-budget "The Gift", at the end I was left between "Firestarter" and "Halloween" (the originals). It doesn't really have the supernatural element of the first, and also it's not really crossing the horror line of the latter, but it definitely has the feeling of a '70s-'80s thriller (a good one), and it's not only the retro score. I've seen Dan Stevens (the main role) before, but since I don't remember where, he probably seemed to me as just an extra cast member type-of-actor, while here he's probably comparable with Rutger Hauer in "The Hitcher" for the villain-esque value he brings to the character (just to put another '80s reference on the list). We also have a bit of dark dry humor, hardly noticeable, in just a couple scenes - but which you find very seldom these days in the recent productions of the genre, which either don't have any or they choose a much more open comic stance as tension relief element. Overall, the movie was a nice surprise, although I was disappointed by the ending = obviously it would've worked with less violence + I was expecting a twist that didn't come up, but there's room for a sequel ;)
I finally watched "The Gentlemen" or otherwise said, the return of Guy Ritchie to his main genre, probably something that could be called "British gangster action/comedy/thriller". Even though we had some bits and pieces of that also in "Sherlock Holmes" or in "The Man from UNCLE", the series that practically defined the genre started in '98 with "Lock, Stock..." and took a break in 2008 with "RocknRolla", hitting a peak with "Snatch", which stays as definitive reference.
"The Gentlemen" starts slowly, with a story told one evening by a private investigator who bring together the tangled pieces connecting a pot grower who wants to sell his business with his potential clients - actually only one. The purpose of the whole story is a simple blackmail for start, undoubtedly getting more complicated as we get through it. But to stick to my spoilers free rule, let's let the movie do his job for the rest of the story. In summary, we have the typical entanglement present also in the above titles, which is part of their charm after all, adding new threads to the subject as it evolves and more and more colorful characters.
All the build-up part in "The Gentlemen" up to the first scene, so to the present day, goes on for as much as three quarters of the movie, and the action really pushes the acceleration pedal only in its last quarter, which might make the rhythm to seem a bit aged compared to its younger predecessors. That was the reason of complaint for some early reviews as far as I remember. But if we check the composing pieces, some artificially introduced - fake story in the story, these maintain a certain dynamic which I find to be more than decent. Add to that the editing style which makes up for half of the movie - besides James Herbert, the editor who's working with Ritchie since long ago (you can notice similarities with "The Man form UNCLE", "Sherlock Holmes", etc), we also have Paul Machliss on the credits ("Baby Driver", "Scott Pilgrim"), so you can imagine the result. Top that with the brilliant ensemble cast, where again I'd rather let the movie tell what's to be told. Even though the story is rather predictable and clearly not as consistent as "Snatch", everything besides it dresses is extremely well. To conclude, we have a revival of the genre + in general an example of how a movie targeting pure entertainment should look like.
My first impression after a couple minutes of "Ready or Not" was that we're getting towards something like "Knives Out", probably the best dark comedy I've watched in the last several years. It's not the same thing though. Here we have some horror accents, the subject is much simpler and there's no ending twist. Nevertheless, it was fun.
In the center of the story we have (as in "Knives Out", therefore the comparison) an aristocratic dysfunctional family, the Le Domas, who made their fortune in a board games industry, started like three generations behind, following a mysterious meeting of the great-grandfather, somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a guy named Le Bail (light spoiler: easy anagram). So the guy proposed a pact - luck and fortune for all the family members, but on one condition - during each new wedding night the new Le Domas is obligated to play a game with the rest of the family, the game being randomly decided by a box that draws a card for the player. The options seem harmless, chess, checkers, etc, with one single exception: hide and seek. The difference here are the rules saying that the new family member should also be the new loss of the family = must be found by the rest and sacrificed during a macabre ritual, otherwise no more luck, fortune and add the life on top of that.
We move back to the present, when Alex, apparently the most sane of all the Le Domas clan, is about to marry Grace. Obviously without notifying the poor woman of what follows, hoping that everything will just be a simple chess game. Again obviously, it's not a simple chess game, and what's next is something like "Hard Target", but without Van Damme and packing much more comedy within ( yeah I know the reference is old, but I'm too ;) ). So, I already spoiled probably the most non-linear part of the movie, therefore, I'll skip the rest of the details. Even though I'm not really into excess red paint scenes, I could say that the movie is impeccably put together, with a special mention on the audio part - the score (Brian Tyler) and the sound editing. I've seen Samara Weaving who's leading the cast here, in a somehow similar role in "Mayhem" (another dark comedy with lots of red paint). I don't know if a couple of years between the movies are enough for a consistent growth in the acting experience, but if there I barely noticed her, here I'll definitely remember her. These being said...
Yet again... zero subject. And it's not the lack of new movies. More like the lack of inspiration in choosing something, or time for a backup option. It's been a while since I've watched an animation and "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" had a time-travel factor somewhere in its synopsis. I wasn't expecting much from an animation, but still convinced me to watch it. And up to some point it actually seemed promising...
We have a situation of a wonder dog (obviously fluid in English) = Mr. Peabody, with a level of intelligence that's higher than the average of the human race, who after graduating countless PhDs, becoming a successful entrepreneur, proving its talent in culinary arts, and many other accomplishments, decided to adopt a baby. Young Sherman, who completes the title. Well, young Sherman, in his first day of school had a conflict with Penny Peterson, an obnoxious class mate. Well, for cooling down the conflict we're moving to a peace dinner organized by Peabody for the two families, and from there it's just a step to the children running away using - "the WABAC" - a time machine, obviously part of the garage inventions belonging to Mr. Peabody.
Sorry, but I'm really in zero mood to move forward with the story. Up to half of its duration, the action is relatively decent and seemingly educational for children = it takes you the ancient Egipt, the the French revolution, to the Italian Renaissance, to the Trojan war, and also packs in some historical characters. From half on it's getting totally cringe though, throwing everything into a chaos of temporal distortions without any logic reasoning behind and making a real salad mixing all history references together (which actually you can see coming, but you hope it won't get there). It's obvious that the movie doesn't target quantum physics graduates in its public, and neither people with a PhD in history, but 1) for kids some ideas are pushed a bit too much towards absurdity losing any initial intention of educational value and 2) for adults the funny moments are simply weak and stupid. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right mood when I watched it. But I don't have a WABAC machine to return there and check it out.
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