Tag: movies

The Great Wall is junk. It is Hong Kong action masquerading as Hollywood action. Lots of it doesn’t make sense as a Hollywood movie. It makes complete sense as a Hong Kong movie. How did we get this in the West?

Matt Damon is in pursuit of the fabled ‘black powder,’ and he stumbles upon the Great Wall. It is meant to keep an alien horde out of China and it protects the world. The Chinese have been training for years in color coded teams to defeat these aliens. Matt Damon has gotten himself into the war of the worlds. Can he get himself out?

It’s like Matt Damon was slumming. Did he need the money? I know that the director, Yimou Zhang, did a few well received movies, like House of the Flying Daggers and Hero, from the silver age of Hong Kong movies in Hollywood in the early 2000s. This one feels like he didn’t need the artiness of those previous ones and he’ll make a film with dragons.

It was alright. I think I want to see those classic supernatural kung fu Hong Kong films from the late 80s and early 90s.

3 of 5 stars.

John Wick Chapter 2 begins where the first one ends. John Wick getting his car from the Russian mob boss that had it. And like the first installment, it’s a lot of dead people flying.

John Wick is definitely back in the sequel. It continues because the story has to. The implications of his retiring from his retirement come back to haunt him. A marker which allowed him to retire was called in and he must do a job to cash in the marker. Reluctantly he does it and thus begins the big gang war in the the John Wick world.

This installment expands on the previous by fleshing out the rest of the world. From the Continental, the hotel for hitmen, to the gangs of the world who are try to rule the underground. It adds in a female hitman who doesn’t say a word. It puts in Common who was a John Wick friend but is now an adversary. It opens the world up to being a self-contained universe. Now there will be other parts of the story — the comic book, the novelization, the prequel, the direct-to-streaming animated web series. There will be lots of Wick to consume later.

That’s why I didn’t like it in the end as I knew that we are in another ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ situation. There will be more and more interconnected stories that will dilute the power of the first film. It will not stop until John Wick puts a bullet in its head.

3 of 5 stars.

Man, I feel for Britt Robertson. She’s played in lots of poorly received films and The Space Between Us is another one. This one is a stinker of a film trying to make a sentimental galaxy spanning love story. It’s pretty saccharine and it doesn’t really come off well. I think the biggest misstep was how the story and the kid was conceived. Totally terrible which shaded the rest of the film if you didn’t know it from the start.

The kid is Asa Butterfield’s kid who was born on Mars. His story was hidden from the entire planet because it would’ve been a scandal. Except that it wasn’t told and the director of the space company, Gary Oldman, treated it like a scandal and resigned soon after leaving the kid to grow up in Mars without his mom and being a hidden figure. He is determined to come back to Earth even though it would kill him. He is determined to meet Tulsa (Robertson) because he fell in love with her from afar.

There’s an escape. He makes it to Earth. He treats it like an alien place. Except Butterfield acts weird. Geeky but smart.

I would love to have liked this movie. It tries, but the last third of the movie, when the big reveal, comes destroys any promise in liking the film. It is hard to sympathize with the people involved – the actors, director, writers. They made the ending and they gambled to throw out the good will of the first 2/3 of the films.

2 of 5 stars.

Hidden Figures highlights the contribution of three African Americans women to the US space race. The film also highlights the roadblocks and prejudice confronting the women. Sometimes it was as straight forward as the suspicion of trouble making as by a police man. Sometimes it was as subtle as assuming they’re not hard workers. Other times it was institutional because they keep the only available bathroom far, far away. The women did overcome this to contribute very much to making NASA meet it goals and explore space.

It’s an uplifting story. Not sure that it was a great film because it seemed to stick too much to the ‘triumph and tragedy’ formula of many biopics. It felt rote in the way that the story checks off plot points for any biography.

3 of 5 stars.

Martin Scorsese’s Silence is about religion in Japan and also about faith in God. How far will one go to preach the Gospel? Are you still holy if you don’t follow the faith faithfully every day of your life?

I’ve been silent on this film for several weeks now since I saw it at the theatre back in January. It is a difficult film to understand. At first, it is a straight story about missionary priests in Japan fighting to bring the Church to a country which is actively hostile to their teachings. Then you wonder why the country is so antithetical to the religion. Is it because of how it brings hope to the lowest in society? Or is it because the Japanese at the time where prejudiced against the West?

It is a film that asks us about our faith but also about our own prejudice. Should we all be so humble in life? And so strong in our faith.

There was a character who kept failing to not renounce Christ — the Japanese doubting Thomas. To avoid persecution, he would deny that he was a believer. Yet, he kept coming back to the faith. Was he faithful or faithless?

The priests who renounced Christ, the ending revealed that maybe he was still a man of Christ. Was he faithful or faithless?

In the end, it is redemption that is available to all of Christ’s children.

3 of 5 stars.

Last week, I downloaded the soundtrack to 20th Century Women. It is a mix of big band, punk, New Wave, and a film score. The punk/New Wave stuff occurred in the late 70s/early 80s just as I was a kid. The film’s sound track made me remember my youth.

20th Century Woman is about a young precocious kid who lives with his carefree mom and her tenants in Santa Barbara of the late 70s. The kid lives his life amongst three women: his mom, a slightly older neighbor girl, and one the punky tenants who has survived ovarian cancer. His mom is in her forties but grew up during the war period. His neighbor is a flibbertigibbet, sleeps around, but always ends up sleeping in the kids bed. The punky tenant is living a life she wants to live. That’s how he becomes such a punk himself. The film is autobiographical take on the director’s life.

I really liked this film. I would’ve given this 5 stars, but I can’t because that rating is for films that are truly awesome. This one isn’t that awesome, but I do think it is one of the best films I’ve seen in several years. Assume that it has a 3/4 stars extra.

4 of 5 stars.

Natalie Portman portrays the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie. It was a film about the first lady in the months after the assassination of the President, her husband, in Dallas. It is an account of the widow making her husband’s legacy mythic. It is a story too sad a tragedy.

As I watched it, I felt for America. Not because of the Kennedy assassination, but because of Trump. The film portrays the institution of the White House and the Presidency with reverence. It builds it up as an American myth. It is ours as Americans because we can be so much better than our selves can be. That’s what she said they strived for. Now we’ve got Trump and a First Lady that can not barely match the majesty of the past First Ladies. We are ridiculous for electing them.

3 of 5 stars.

Manchester by the Sea is like many indie films. It deals with death, going back home, reconciling relationships, and morose characters.

In this one, it follows Casey Affleck’s character who comes back to Manchester by the Sea to bury his brother. He had left the town because he found that it reminded him of his dead children. He left his wife there. He comes home to help his nephew become the man of the house. Affleck’s character doesn’t like dealing with these things, but he grows a bit to handle the pressure. He must become a better person for his nephew, and he must become human again.

Like many indie films, this one flits from one vignette to another to highlight Affleck’s character. It also uses flash backs to show us that he wasn’t always so remorse. It was the town that made him such, and returning to it will help him heal. The town is a third character. Each scene makes us follow Affleck’s character. He is who he is because of the town.

I’m sure I’ve seen many films like this one before. It had all the hallmarks of indie-ness. You’ve seen one then you’ve seen them all.

3 of 5 stars.

In this day and golden age of television, it takes a film like Damien Chazelle’s La La Land to help define today’s cinema. Television can’t pull off a story like this because of its serial nature. Cinema does because it compacts a terrific story into a shorter run time. Let’s forget about the super hero and connected universe movies, a one shot, self-contained movie is great to have once in a while.

I had to give into the movie in order to love it. It starts with traffic wherein the stranded motorists break into dance. Neither one of the protagonists do; they are busy honking and minding their own business. Then the film follows each protagonist to their destiny as a couple. The female lead is an actress working at the studio backlot coffee shop serving the movie stars. The male is a jazz pianist chasing his dream of pure musicianship and a club to express it. They meet because of a few bars he plays during a Christmas show. We have to follow these fools in love as they balance their artistic ambition with their love for the other.

This is a musical. There is singing and dancing. There is wonderful scenery. There is also wistfulness for Los Angeles of old as captured in film: Singing in the Rain, A Rebel Without A Cause, etc. Any film that loved or showcased LA is here as well.

I really liked this film. It was probably the best movie I saw this year. It was refreshing to see something like this in the theaters. Films need to be accessible, fresh, and fun to make people want to see them. This one is.

4 of 5 stars.