The Wild Life. 4/10 I remember when I got the Blu-ray, I wondered why on earth I upgraded. I mean there's plenty of worse movies but this is just overall pretty bad IMO. Chris Penn's character is stupid and annoying, and I hate his damn catchphrase ("it's casual" - ucch!) The subplot with the guy Jim and the girl he likes is okay, as well as Dennis Quaid as a Vietnam Vet - and I like Eddie Van Halen's score. The thing is, when the score is what you like the most about a movie, then the movie has serious problems for you. I'm sorry that Cameron Crowe got even a bit richer with this movie. This AIN'T Fast Times...
oh GOD... please, no spoilers... not everybody has seen the END of the movie you're liking - let alone the movie..... DAMMIT!!!!!
Cocaine Bear - 5/10 I was hoping for something like Cabin in the Woods but got nothing close to it. There are a lot of talented actors in the movie but the script is a disappointment,
Marathon Man (1976) - 4K UHD 7.5/10 Mid 70s thriller film starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Kind of a messy plot but still has some great parts including the famous "Is It Safe?" scene. Laurence Olivier played an effective ex-Nazi villain and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Riceboy Sleeps (2022) I have to give this a 7 or 8 out of 10. The pace is slow at times, but this IMO is a touching portrayal of how tough life can be even as a legal immigrant, with a modicum of opportunity, especially as a single mother. I'm somewhat familiar with Korean society (and as an American I could identify with the Canadian side), so this had me interested.
Last night a local theater was showing a Marx Brothers double feature of Horse Feathers and Duck Soup, which I attended even though I do have them on DVD. I was sort of curious of what kind of audience they would attract and how they would look on the big screen. There were a fair number of people in attendance, mostly skewing older. Both movies were great. It was great to hear the audience laugh at the Marx Brothers' antics and I was more entertained by these pair of 90+ year old movies than much of what Hollywood churns out today.
I often think about this very topic. I'm 49 years old and I laugh at much of the jokes from the 1930s-1950s. But a good joke is a good joke, right? It doesn't matter what era it's from. On the flip, I reckon that those of us who "get it," had to have been exposed to that type of humor at a young age and/or knew people from that time. Yeah, I've tried to impart Groucho Marx to my children. It didn't stick. But hey, at least my 20 year old son can appreciate George Carlin.
Brute Force (1947) 7/10 I like Hume Cronyn well enough, but this performance kind of shook me to see him in this type of role, and do well at it. I found other great performances by Burt Lancaster (or course) and Art Smith. The entire cast is pretty good, though, in a two-fisted prison flick, with a lot of hard eggs on the boil. It's crime noir and we root for the prisoners, though we know it won't end well. In this case, it sucks for just about everyone. The film has a very interesting structure, too, interweaving the past with the present. The transitions to the past are sometimes clunky, yet still effective. Rewatchable? Yes. _____________________________ Carnival of Souls (1962) 6/10 George Romero must have been highly influenced by this film. It's not a zombie film, or maybe it kind of is. It's strange and hallucinatory, not the best directed, but photographed exquisitely; it's B&W imagery is practically perfect. It needed to be, because the acting stinks, too (for the most part), yet its atmosphere makes up for its shortcomings. There are shades of this film in 1990's Jacob's Ladder, as well, which is seen in the storyline. A bad accident happens. One survivor. Life gets creepy and then a twisted ending. A psychological horror movie for sure. Rewatchable? Yes.
Yeah, for the visually impaired. Just kidding, of course. Since I've been on the road, and just got to Rochester yesterday for the nitrate film festival, I've been watching movies on my phone screen. Not optimal, but hey stuff in 480i doesn't look too bad on a screen the size of a bible tract. The above two films were watched on my OLED before I left. You suggested Brute Force and it was pretty good. Thank you.
Dune part 1 (2021) Another damn blu ray movie with no stereo audio. What are these people doing? I could barely hear the dialogue over the sound effects when I first started watching, That was with the atmos option (which my player ought to just flat out ignore), once I switched to the 5.1 I got a clearer sound balance - not perfect but I could hear. Visually this is great, Timothy Chalamet was better than I expected among a very strong supporting cast. I'm not sure people could really follow this without knowledge of the book. But I'm happy with this adaptation, and looking forward to part 2 this autumn. 7/10
Inside Man Inside Man (2006) - IMDb 6/10 It wants to be a lot of things and doesn't do them well. It is a bad thing to say the movie needed less Jodie Foster, nothing should need less Jodie Foster.
Terrifier 2 (2022): Overlong by a good 20-30 minutes, with a largely incomprehensible plot and some effects that are a bit too fake for my liking, but it's incredibly well done for its microbudget and goes through its paces well enough overall. And there's no denying Art the Clown is an effective horror character. Not long afterwards I had a nightmare where I was being chased through an inescapable parking lot by a half dozen Arts. 6/10.
The Most Dangerous Game (1932) 5.2/10 This movie has some thrills. Nothing that keeps it from a solid middle-of-the-road feature, but it's dope in that 1930s action/adventure way, where everything is implausible, yet still captivating. None of the actors are necessarily on top of their game. Joel McCrea wouldn't come into his own until the '40s. Fay Wray has her moments, but mostly she oggles Joel, and Leslie Banks is over the top. However, the story is a classic and this was its first film adaption. Also, if some of the sets are familiar, it's because this movie was filmed in the evenings, using King Kong's (1933) sets, yet this film came out first.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Laserblast- 10/10 Some laugh-out-loud moments and some oddly not-so-funny stretches, but overall fun as hell. The host segments weren't all that good. Servo was at the top of his game. The frequent Hank Williams Jr. ("are you ready for some football?") and Jim Carrey ("somebody stop me!") jokes were a nice touch. This lousy nonsensical low budget sci-fi thing features some unintentionally hilarious aliens who looked like turtles out of their shells and atrocious acting by some gal who apparently was in the band The Runaways.
Oh yeah. Oops. Stupid me. I knew that didn't seem right. Fixed it just in the nick of time. Thanks man.
I watched a Korean crime comedy called Ultimate Job on Netflix and it was the funniest movie I have seen in years. 8/10. Cops bought a fried chicken restaurant to stake out a criminal gang and started selling chicken to maintain cover. The plot is similar to a Woody Allen movie and it’s just as funny.
