Well the Nice Guys looks a bit silly, but I guess once it comes out on dvd, then ill watch it. Just seems like another 1 of those "1 time watch" movies like pretty much everything else on the market. What doesnt help it is the fact that it has the whole 70's vibe going on it & ive never really heard of a 70's movie that really kept my attention to where ive wanted to watch it more than once.
Article ITT I attempt to review every movie I've seen.
- Thread starter Sexy Beast
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Well the main reason that I want to see The Nice Guys is that it's written and directed by Shane Black, who pretty much perfected the buddy comedy. This is the guy who wrote the first two Lethal Weapon movies and both wrote and directed the under appreciated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. So a buddy comedy coming out of him, regardless of the era, is worth checking out. Like if it wasn't for the whole DC vacation thing, I'd have seen it and reviewed it by now.
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Title: Midway
Year: 1976
Country of Origin: US
Director: Jack Smight
Plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway
Review: Midway is an odd film, it feels like a 'B' movie with way too much talent and way too large of a budget...both of which it squanders. First thing that really catches the eye is just how cheap the film looks, like this does not look like a film that was shot in 1976. Compounding this is the fact that most of the film's battle sequences are composed of stock footage and...oh boy, is it noticeable. Sure they throw in miniatures and some actual sound stage material into the mix, but by in large the film relies heavily on stock footage to do most of its heavy lifting. In the end, it just comes off as lazy and cheap looking. Though the real mind-boggling bit is the cast that they managed to secure for the film. Seriously, here are some of the bigger names:
Charlton Heston
Henry Fonda
James Coburn
Glenn Ford
Hal Holbrook
Toshiro Mifune
Robert Mitchum
Robert Wagner
These are some of the best actor of Hollywood's golden age and for most of the film all they do is stand around with concerned looks on their faces mouthing stilted dialog. Like no one is really acting in this film, they're all collecting pay checks and it's not their fault. The material doesn't ask anything from them. The biggest offense though is casting Toshiro Mifune and then dubbing over him. It's such a bizarre choice to make as if the studios only interest was collecting as much talent as they could if only to fill the film's poster.
In all honesty though, Midway isn't a bad film...just lazy, really really lazy. It's confusing because the the studio had the set up for a classic WWII epic, but were unwilling to go through with actually shooting one.
[5/10]
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Title: Coherence
Year: 2013
Country of Origin: US
Director: James Ward Byrkit
Plot: A passing comet throws a dinner party into a quantum conundrum.
Review: Coherence is a fun little sci-fi thriller that shoves a group of normal people into a maddening situation. It actually reminds me a little of Timecrimes, in the way that our cast of characters has to navigate something that is way out of their realm of understanding. The plot itself is a lot of fun and never gets too overwhelming, which given the films plot is an impressive feat. Speaking of the film's plot, don't read up on it any further. Coherence is one of those film that benefits from you knowing next to nothing about it going in.
What's most impressive about this film is what it does with it's budget. This thing was shot with only a $50,000 budget and it takes place almost entirely in one house. The film's location works though as it remains an anchor point to which we the audience can keep track of the action. In fact, I honestly don't know if the film would work as well if it was given a larger budget. Even the film's 'B' grade cast knocks their performances out of the park.
As debut films go, Coherence is fantastic and I'm excited to see what James Ward Byrkit does next. It's a surprisingly fun sci-fi thriller and one you should check out if you get the chance. You can stream it now on Amazon Prime.
[8.5/10]
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Wow, long time no post. So here is what's going on: I kind of lost interest in reviewing things for a little while...which makes sense considering the lack of reviews. Hopefully this malaise or whatever will clear up, or it wont. Who knows.
In the mean time, I was forced to watch an episode of The Neighbors last night...it was not good.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEV1H0_jmwk[/ame]
So, I guess I'll watch the rest of it and let you all know what kind of painful experience it was.
In the mean time, I was forced to watch an episode of The Neighbors last night...it was not good.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEV1H0_jmwk[/ame]
So, I guess I'll watch the rest of it and let you all know what kind of painful experience it was.
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Title: The Neighbors (Season 1)
Year: 2015
Country of Origin: US
Director: Tommy Wiseau
Plot: The show revolves around an apartment building and the interaction between various characters who live there.
Review: Tommy Wiseau is a perplexing sort of individual; a man who has been showered with praise for creating one of the worst films of all time. So it is not much of a surprise that his latest project is a garbled train wreck. See, Wiseau has picked up that the main reason why people like The Room so much is because it is about as incompetent as it is terrible. For The Neighbors, Wiseau doubles down on the incompetents in a way that I still find myself struggling with.
See, Wiseau in an attempt to create something 'hilariously' bad has instead birthed a something far worse...an unfunny comedy with zero craft or talent involved. Wiseau, learning from the success of The Room, has gone overboard on the level of incompetence. The cast is mostly populated by what I can only assume to be porn actors and actresses, the sets...probably also from a porn shoot. The plot is almost always incoherent and takes any opportunity to veer off into dead end side stories. The worst offender is the sound, my friends and I have theorized that the crew (?) just let the mic rest on the floor while recording most scenes. Everything about the show is wrong and wrong in glaring way. Of course, the biggest issue is that the incompetence is done on purpose. You can almost feel that Wiseau is winking at us the whole time, letting us know that he is in on the joke that is Tommy Wiseau. The Neighbors is what a self aware Tommy Wiseau looks like and holy crap, it's not pretty.
[0/10]
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Yeah, go for it man
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Title: Green Room
Year: 2015
Country of Origin: US
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Plot: A struggling punk band plays a neo-nazi venue and witnesses a murder. Things go pretty bad for them from there.
Review: Green Room is Jeremy Saulnier's follow up to his excellent revenge thriller, Blue Ruin. With this film Saulnier shows that Blue Ruin was not a fluke and delivers a gritty visceral tale of a band under siege by a group of neo-nazis. Like Blue Ruin, both Green Room's budget and scope are restrained allowing the film to entirely focus on the plot at hand. There is nary an ounce of fat in this film and the plot flows incredibly well because of this.
Saulnier's direction is solid and he gives the film an appropriately claustrophobic feeling. The acting is similarly on point, with a fantastic performance coming out of Anton Yelchin, who unfortunately passed away last month because Jeep makes really S***ty cars. The rest of the cast does a solid job as well. What makes Green Room such a pleasure though is that it tells its story without beating around the bush. It's lean and effective story telling in the way that more filmmakers should strive to adopt. All in all Green Room is an effective little thriller and one that you should definitely check out.
[8.5/10]
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Title: The Candidate
Year: 1972
Country of Origin: US
Director: Michael Ritchie
Plot: A young and idealistic lawyer is coaxed into running for senate against a conservative incumbent by a seasoned political operator.
Review: I honestly do not care where your political allegiances fall in this current election, i think we can all admit that this election is freaking bananas. It's an election that has hit an almost unfathomable point of absurdity, so much so that it defies satire. This is the problem with The Candidate, it's supposedly a political satire...but with the way that US politics is today, it doesn't come off as satirical. Seriously, the film is so tame by today's standards that I had difficulty registering it as a satire. As a result, the film is in essence a historic artifact of a, and I loath to say it, simpler time. Of course, this renders the film a somewhat dull experience. Sure, the acting is decent and the direction is on point, but the film's central conceit is completely inert. I am certain that at some point this film had bite to it, but it's completely toothless today. So, skip this one, that is, unless you're interested in it for its historic aspects.
[6/10]
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Title: Ruthless People
Year: 1986
Country of Origin: US
Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Plot: [From IMDB] A couple, cheated by a vile businessman, kidnap his wife in retaliation, without knowing that their enemy is delighted they did.
Review: I am learning more and more that comedy has a shelf life. Where something that might have been hilarious at one point can turn into eyerollingly cringy. Ruthless People is a prime example of this phenomenon; it is a bawdy comedy that received some pretty solid reviews upon release. Today though, it just comes off as dumb and painfully obvious. Actually, the word 'dumb' can be used for a lot of this production. Most of the characters are written as utterly inept, to the point where it's hard to see them as actually functioning adults. Now, there is nothing wrong with writing dumb characters in comedies, but here it's just obnoxious. Everything about this film is obnoxious, avoid it, it's bad.
[4/10]
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Title: Don't Breathe
Year: 2016
Country of Origin: US
Director: Fede Alvarez
Plot: A group of young thieves attempt to rob a blind old army vet who they suspect is sitting on a couple hundred thousand dollars. Things do not go well.
Review: This film is pretty solid for, I would say the first half hour or so, and then completely falls apart. Up until this point we understand everyone's motivations and everyone, for the most part, feels like real people. We are give the rational behind the thieves' actions and while they are breaking the law, they seem to be doing it for good reasons. On the other side of the coin, the blind old man is simply defending himself and his property from a group home invaders. This is a fantastic setup for a taut thriller and for the first half hour, Fede Alvarez mines all the tension he can from the premise, but then we hit the point where everything falls apart. At this point the film decides to switch gears and flip everything on its head, but in doing so the filmmakers turn the blind old army vet character from a sympathetic character into a monster. It's at this point where the film lost me and it ceased to be even the slightest bit scary or tense. This moment where the film loses me seems to be where a lot of people diverge on this film. The friend I saw the movie with was actually fine with the 'twist' and enjoyed the film. I had another friend who saw it earlier and disliked the film for the same reasons.
Outside of the troublesome characterization, the film is technically solid and visually reminiscent to David Fincher's Panic Room. The camera has a floaty intangible quality to it as it swoops through floor boards and vent gratings keeping up with prey and predator. Pacing is solid as well and the runtime is short enough that it wouldn't have overstayed its welcome even if it hadn't gone off the rails. Don't Breathe is a film with a clever premise, that is undone by its own attempt to usurp the audiences expectations. You might get more mileage out of this one, but I honestly cannot recommend it.
[6/10]
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Title: The Naked Prey
Year: 1965
Country of Origin: Rhodesia/US
Director: Cornel Wilde
Plot: Taking place in the 19th century, a safari runs afoul of a particularly violent African tribe. One by one, each member of the safari is killed in a ritualistic manner except for one; who is stripped down to his underwear, given a head start and then hunted by the tribes best warriors.
Review: The Naked Prey is a lean, mean, and surprisingly violent adventure film that is in essence one long chase sequence. For the most part, the film follows Cornel Wilde's character as he not only tries to out think the men who are hunting him, but also try to survive the harsh African landscape. The film features minimal dialog, with most lines being delivered in unsubtitled banter between the African tribe members. The result is a film whose focus is narrowed down to just the bare essentials of story telling and the result is quite striking and engaging.
Of course, it being 2016 and all, it might be necessary to discuss the social politics of the film. I normally wouldn't delve into this, but the film manages to find a compelling way to sidestep the issue of casting the African tribesmen as remorseless savages chasing down a seemingly innocent white man. It does so by casting the conflict as just another incident in a seemingly endless exchanges between prey and predator. This aspect is reinforced by Wilde who constantly cuts to stock footage to animals attacking animals. To even further mitigate the potential social issue, the tribe's motivation isn't simply that of senseless violence. The Safari is warned well in advanced not to tread on the tribe's land and even representatives of the tribe attempt to elicit tribute from the Safari in order to hunt on their land...who the head of the Safari blew off because he was both too dumb to see the danger and too stingy for a pay off. See, The Naked Prey doesn't portray any party unjustly, it simply lets events play out while reminding us that this is how it is. Still, people will probably find some aspects of the film problematic, and that is fine. There are certainly parts of the film that are hard to justify today, but everyone will have a different reaction to the film.
Moving on to the film's technical aspects, it is gloriously shot and one of the more visually striking films that I have seen come out of the 60s. The whole film was shot on location in what is modern day Zimbabwe. Its pacing is quick and the action remains engaging throughout. The acting is solid as well. Cornel Wilde does an amazing job playing a man who feels like he is just one step ahead of complete exhaustion. From what I read Wilde was sick for most of the shoot and while that must have sucked, it lends a lot to the his performance. The supporting cast also does an admirable job...especially since we have to infer what they are saying through their actions because the dialog is not in English and not subtitled.
All in all, The Naked Prey is a film that is well worth checking out. The film is currently on Netflix and if you have an account and a free hour and a half you wont regret it.
[8.5/10]
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I still haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Though, I have heard so many differing opinions about the film that I am keen to see why it's so divisive.
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Wow, I've kind of abandoned this thread. Let's change this and review some horror movies for October...starting with some of the Universal monster movies.
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Title: Frankenstein
Year: 1931
Country of Origin: US
Director: James Whale
Plot: Henry Frankenstein, a wealthy aristocrat and mad scientists, attempts to bring a dead man back to life.
Review: It's kind of embarrassing that it has taken so long for me to see this film. Like this is possibly the most iconic horror film of all time and it still surprisingly holds up. I'm not saying that it's scary, but it remains an entertaining and at times a genuinely creepy film. The real reason to watch this though is to see Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster, he's fantastic. If you have any interest in film history or classic cinema, this one is only 71 minutes long and worth your attention.
[9/10]
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Well since I keep hearing people to go watch Westworld... How about the original movie? Never seen it myself, hell I have not heard many people mention it besides the new show now.
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I've always meant to watch that one and since I've fallen for the new show I'm probably putting it next on my queue. It'll have to wait till this damn hurricane passes though
