Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)

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.

Rating: 2 out of 5

La French (2014)

I think that I've watched "The French Connection" (and its sequel) like 3-4 times until I was 14-15 years old. I remember nothing. Just that at that time I liked it, and for a while was my first reference for Gene Hackman. When I heard for the first time about "The French" I didn't get that's set in the same context. I only understood that when I've seen the English title: "The Connection".

A bit of trivia. The period: '60s-'80s; the path: Turkey - South of France - New York; the context: one of the best organized networks specialized in heroin traffic. In brief, opium growing was still legal in Turkey at the time, the raw product was shipped to Corsica and Marseilles, and then refined as final drug and exported in the USA. The history of "the connection" goes back in time before WW2, involving a bunch of interconnected clans. All the story has obviously many episodes that fit to a movie, and "La French" just picks one of these, toward the end of the period, when after years the DEA in the US and the French police were slowly getting close to an end with disbanding the network. And like that we get to know Pierre Michel, a judge in Marseilles specialized on juvenile matters. One day he gets a promotion to organized crime, and obviously the first case he gets is the "La French" problem. Not for long though. After some success in his investigation leading up to the mayor's office he's quickly taken off the case. That's the extremely brief summary for the first part of the movie. For the second, I wouldn't give any spoilers...

...But unfortunately the beginning of the movie it's telling you almost too clearly where all this is going. Anyway, the build-up of the action is relatively slow, surprisingly calm and realistic for the subject it has. Especially since the production design helps a lot = everything looks really authentic for the time it's set in (the cars, the music, the locations, etc.). The script drives you from work matters to their effects in the personal life, so we have also quite some drama packed in, which sort of saves the movie of extra senseless action scenes (it doesn't mean we don't have action). On the other hand, the characters, who are real persons - Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin) and Tany Zampa (Gilles Lellouche), the local drug lord - are taken to the level of some sort of sort of extremely gritty cold war, stuff that somehow seems a bit artificial. But well... it's a movie, it's not meant to put you to sleep :) Finally, I could say it's a solid movie, but I can't say it left me such an impression to motivate re-watching it 3-4 times as with "The French Connection". However, I'm not 15 years old anymore, and I neither have the time I had back then ;).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Jersey Boys (2014)

I never thought I'll see the day when I'll write a review for a musical on my own will (= not being forced by some very important nomination), but.. here we are. How did that happen? Well: 1. I was looking for a "sleeping pill" a couple days ago, 2. I remembered that somebody told me once that the movie is good, 3. since a couple days ago, I didn't manage to watch anything else, and I doubt I'll have the time this weekend, therefore, this is the only option. Sorry, but I never liked the genre, so it's gonna be a brief entry, although I have to admit that "Jersey Boys" is decent in respect to the ratio of singing time/dramatic script.

In my ignorance I didn't hear until watching this movie of "The Four Seasons" or of Frankie Valli - who are the main theme here, because what we have is actually more of a biopic than a musical. Even though I heard before "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", I never knew exactly who sings it (in my defense, at how many covers it has...). Well, I found out now who wrote it and performed it for the first time. So, what we have in the movie is the period of assembling the band and getting their name known, a name that gives you more results on Vivaldi if you YouTube search it. We also have a short bio of the band members, who, as the title says, started their rise in New Jersey.

The movie is fine as a mixture - it brings together a bit of comedy, a bit of action, a bit of drama - Clint Eastwood (directing here) actually does a pretty good job I'd say for what he's supposed to put on screen. The script has some nice touches, such as getting you out for a bit from the standard model and giving you from time to time a first person interaction with the band members who are giving you some personal feedback on their life story. Unfortunately, besides finding here the familiar tune above, there's nothing that impressed me much in the bunch of '60s pop-rock songs that brought fame to the band during those years. And again, unfortunately, even in a musical biopic there's quite a bit of singing. So.. after all it's just a matter of taste ;)

Rating: 3 out of 5

Summer-Fall 2020 Movie Preview - Part 2

As usual, I'm writing this entry "live" = when I'll be done with this sentence I'll still don't know if I manage to find three movies to be released this Fall + coming packed with a trailer. And since it will probably take me quite a bit to find them, I won't spend more with the intro, even though I foresee a very brief entry...

Well, September went easy. We have "A Quiet Place Part II", which hopefully won't be postponed again. For who didn't see Part I, it wasn't exactly a masterpiece, but it was still something original in the horror/dystopia genre. Let's see if the sequel stays as fresh.

In October we have a relatively generous list of titles announced: "BIOS" - a post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi drama starring Tom Hanks and directed by Miguel Sapochnik ("GoT", "Repo Men"), "Death on the Nile" - yet another adaptation of Agatha Christie's work made by Kenneth Branagh, "The Witches" - o re-boot Roald Dahl's booke, directed by Robert Zemeckis, 30 years after the original with Angelica Huston, sequels for "Halloween" and "G.I. Joe", but none of these with a released trailer, and probably neither very certain of sticking to the planned date. Which brings us to...

November - when again we're fortunate to have a re-scheduling for "No Time to Die". Honestly... I'm not sure I need all fingers on one hand to count the James Bond movies that I found to be ok, but it's better than nothing...

I said that this is gonna be a brief entry. Well, I'm keeping my word. Let's see if I find something more interesting for next week...