Things we watch in the cinema or on tape, DVD, and streaming
MRrrrreorrrng-mrrrowrrr.
[i am iron man]
da. da. da da-DAA.
Seriously though, this looks awesome.
Hopefully, Favreau picks up the pace and makes it a tight movie. I know next to nothing about Iron Man. So I don’t know how neat this is going to be. Perhaps that’ll make it less sucky-disappointing when I do watch it.
Better than expected considering that it is currently at 31% approval at RottenTomatoes.com. Look I don’t think it was the greatest movie this summer or this year, but it was serviceable. I liked the story even if it was predictable. I didn’t think that Scarlett Johansson sucked. She was okay. I liked the flourishes the directors did.
But I didn’t read the book. But who cares?
I certainly don’t define my movie viewing habits by who gives what to which movie.
I liked it.
3 of 5 stars.
Maybe I’m too old, but it was raunchy.
McLovin was the best. His screen time always had me laughing.
Keeping along the lines of my criticism of Judd Apatow related flicks: this was 10 minutes too long.
It may also be this generation’s Dazed and Confused or American Grafitti. One night looking for love. More likely this generation’s Can’t Hardly Wait!
3 of 5 stars.
In story telling there is a classic theory that every story has three parts, a beginning, a middle and an end. The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum constitute the trilogy about Jason Bourne. Yet, it seems after watching the final installment to be better off as a two-parter.
In the finale, Jason Bourne’s story picks up soon after the second. He hurriedly flees Moscow. While evading the Russian police, he fixes his wounds which leads him to recover even more memories from Treadstone. These memories makes him ultimately want to end it all, so he plans to find out why he is who he is to restore himself once again. The trail starts in London where he meets up with a journalist who just unraveled the secret CIA program that Treadstone is a part of. Of course, the journalist is a goner. Then the trail leads to Madrid to a former director who has intimate knowledge of the who and the why of Jason Bourne and Treadstone. He’s a goner, too. Bourne meets up with Nicki who should’ve asked for a desk job in Langley and they jaunt to Tangiers. In a thrilling scene, Bourne chases another CIA op from the rooftops of the city to save Nicki. This is why it’s so good. Eventually, we end up in NYC to the final scene of the second movie, and continue again for another final chase.
And that’s my problem with this installment. The first two had tied together into a neat little ending. This one feels as if it as after the denouement of the films and tacked on. At the end of Supremacy, he had finally found out who he is. But in this film, not really, and he seeks out the truth. He learns that sometimes you may not like who is staring at you from the mirror. This film felt like those twenty minutes in which you want to leave the theater after the end of a story except it’s two hours long.
Still, the action was great. Greengrass seems more confident and assured. He chose a more stylistic visual approach separate from his first Bourne movie and from following in Doug Liman’s footsteps. He uses this style to make the movie seems faster and frenetic. In the fight scenes, we are up close and in the room with the fighters, but we never lose track of what’s happening. In the car chases, the action is majestic.
Overall, it was a disappointment, but much, much better than the other trilogy enders this summer.
3 of 5 stars.
In the pantheon of American directors, Samuel Fuller seems to not get the recognition he deserves. I think his “Forty Guns” is one of Barbara Stanwyck’s best pictures. Growing up, Capitol Swell loved his “The Big Red One.” He pops up in cinema as an influence on the French Nouvelle Vague.
In a Fuller movie, you have either a gruff, but lovable sergeant or tough woman. The Naked Kiss is not a war film. In it, the main character played by Constance Towers is a former prostitute and of course with heart of gold. She gives up the street walking life running from her pimp whom she beats up in the pre-title sequence, and she finds a new life in small town America. All isn’t as it seems. She falls in with the town’s chief of police (Griff, you find one in every Fuller movie) for one last trick before going legit. She gets a job at the hospital helping disabled children. She falls in love with the town’s pretty boy who has a sordid secret. Things in small town America ain’t what they seem.
The movie is dramatic with a hint of noir. It’s shot in crisp black and white. In 1964. It’s another story written and directed by Fuller. And it’s surprisingly frank in depiction of things. Prostitution and abortion. Love and lust. The naked kiss signifies her senses for the dark. And there is a twist in the movie that makes it even darker. Yet, she wins the town over. And becomes a new woman.
I liked this a lot. Coming from only knowing Fuller as hard boiled, it is an interesting flick. The woman is both hard but sympathetic, loving but bad.
There is a touching scene with the disabled kids singing a song and she with her pretty voice joins in. It’s part of the ending twist, but it makes it all the more touching.
Fuller’s opening is a can’t miss. You’ll love it. And then the hair comes off and you love it even more. The end is satisfying enough, because our heroine becomes a winner. So is Sam Fuller.
4 of 5 stars.
While I am not so psyched to see old Indiana Jones huffing and puffing
through the jungle or to see the young Shia LeBouf pretending he's cool,
at least this bit of news sounds kind of cool.http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/07/karen_allen_in.php
Now this post isn’t about one movie per se. It’s about two movies that I had put in my queue a while back expecting them to get to me during the fourth of July week, but I lost one of them in the mail and the other was stuck in the short wait queue.
Both deal with the US armed services in the Philippines in 1942 as they made their gallant stand on the Bataan peninsula. One is about the army nurses who served close to the front and helped put the soldiers together to keep fighting. The other is about the navy in particular the PT boat captains that tried to keep the Japanese from closing the supply lines. I had wanted to see these films just for the patriotic feelings it would give me. One did the other not so much.
So Proudly We Hail! was stuck in mail hell. I had to wait that extra week before getting this disc because it was lost in the mail. It would’ve been a great flick to have seen on the fourth, but you can’t have it all.
So Proudly We Hail! was about a set of green army nurses shipping off to Hawaii in December, but routed to the Philippines once Pearl Harbor happened. The unit is lead by Claudette Colbert and they pick up Veronica Lake from a torpedoed ship. Paulette Goddard falls is the third star of the film. She falls in with a hick from the sticks whom she names Kansas. Colbert falls for a corpsman played by Superman, George Reeves. Lake has a dead fiancee who perished at Pearl Harbor, a wicked hatred for the Japanese and a death wish. These nurses care for the wounded throughout those desperate days until they are ordered to the Rock, Corregidor, and finally, flown out to safety in Australia. The film is about the ladies with love in their hearts and a soft gentle hand to ease the pain of the soldiers.
What a movie! It is best to watch and remember that the movie was released in 1943 so the memories were very recent to the audience. And it ends with hope. Will the lovers re-unite? You have to remember Gen. MacArthur’s return in 1944 had not happened yet so the women were separated from the men the loved without knowing if they went on the Death March.
I’ll admit to tearing up at the finale, because I expected a happy ending. Seems I forgot that the ending wasn’t written yet. They’ll keep hope alive was the most I can feel.
4 of 5 stars.
They Were Expendable is a John Ford movie with John Wayne. I expected action. With a title like that I expected some final defensive stand on the Bataan peninsula. Sadly, no.
They Were Expendable was about the PT boat captains who harassed the Japanese. It was also about PT 41 who’s commander won a CMH for helping to transport Gen MacArthur from the Philippines. This was more of a conventional story. Too trite, because I needed John Wayne to start kicking ass onscreen. The only neat part was the PT boat attacks. That’s what I wanted to see, but there was not enough of it.
Again, this film had an army nurse played by Donna Reed (sigh). She falls for John Wayne. Unlike So Proudly We Hail. It is the nurse that we don’t know what happened to her. Is she one of the few that made it off Corregidor? Or did she get caught in the retreat from Bataan? Since I saw this movie after the other, I expected them to meet in Australia (Wayne was sent there to help get the plan set up for more PT boat usage), but they didn’t. Sad.
2 of 5 stars.
As I read the series, this book was my favorite until the latest. It gets away from the schooling and more into the fighting. The film version does the same.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the series’s Empire Strikes Back. While sitting through it you are somewhat shocked at all that is going on. Maybe too much story is being told. The book was around 900 pages so the job by Michael Goldenberg condensing it was amazing. It’s dark, fitting in with the mood of Harry Potter who knows what death is and who will taste its bitterness yet again. Faced to face with Voldemort and with the wizarding community not believing it, a challenge is put upon the boy who lived to unmask Voldemort’s lies and show wizarding world that he really is back.
Like The Empire Strikes Back, this story is at the middle of the tale. In a normal action movie, this is about where the action team kicks start their program to getting ready to kick ass. Bad to the Bone should’ve been playing as Dumbledore’s Army assembles and practices their charms, hexes and spells. Expelliarmus!
And like Empire it was moody. Too much so that it was hard to believe the audience enjoyed it. They left in silence. Yet, as the book finishes and the films are done, we’ll look back at this film and see how good a movie it was. We’ll appreciate it much more in the context of the whole. It brings us to the beginning of the end. The stakes are raised and witches and muggles will die, but Harry Potter will stand tall with his friends. They’re what helps him in the end.
4 of 5 stars.
PS. Saw this at the out of the way place of Towson Commons 12. More adults than kids in the audience. Or rather the adults were just as awed as if they were 12 years old again.
If you haven’t seen any of Miss Stanwyck’s films, I again ask you to check out TCM who are celebrating her birthday today with 24 hours of her films. But if you’re like me stuck at work, here’s my list of 5 favorite Barbara Stanwyck films. I liked these the most.
The Lady Eve. I find this to be her best. She’s alluring and conniving, sexy and devious, witty and charming. She received an Academy nomination the same year for Ball of Fire, but it should’ve been for this role.
Meet John Doe. A lesser Frank Capra film, but still it had Miss Stanwyck. Even with the corn that Capra dishes, Stanwyck brings the joy out. This film was released in the same year as The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire (1941). It may not be as superb as those two, it sure has a moving performance from her.
Forty Guns. Miss Stanwyck in Samuel Fuller film. ‘Nuff said. The song written about her character nails it, “She’s a high riding woman with a whip.”
Sorry, Wrong Number. Barbara as a helpless victim? She’s not convincing, but she did garner her last Academy nomination for this role. Charged with playing a dubious hypochondriac she does show in the flashbacks why she’s such a dangerous woman.
Walk on the Wildside. One of her last roles on the big screen. She’s a New Orleans madam with a wicked crush on one of her girls. She’s villainous reminding us of her femme fatale role as Phyllis Diethrichson, and also reminding us why she’s wickedly bad.
Honorable mentions: Ball of Fire. Double Indemnity. Stella Dallas. Baby Face.
