Tom Cruise's latest Impossible Mission flick is a blast. The action scenes are incredible! I'm sure there is some kind of story attached to the action scenes but it didn't matter. Phenomenal shut your brain off action movie. In TC I trust, that little fruitcake almost always delivers the goods.
- Hey, guys. I cant take a movie of my head. It's a movie that John Candy is a cop. And theres a monster truck. Can you guys help-me? I'm dreaming or does that movie actually existis?
Horror is my least favourite genre. Well maybe musicals. Anyways, even with that bias Misery is ine of my all time favourites. Kathy Bates is terrifying and the scene with the poison wine is a masterclass in tension. Great flick!
- Hey, guys. I cant take a movie of my head. It's a movie that John Candy is a cop. And theres a monster truck. Can you guys help-me? I'm dreaming or does that movie actually existis?
It's kind of like if someone made a more highbrow version of Hollywood Shuffle from the 80s with Robert Townsend, and mixed it with a bit of Wag the Dog and a bit of Adaptation. Definitely a good movie...has a few really funny moments. Jeffrey Wright has really put together quite a career over the years, kind of stealthily, and he's getting some serious recognition now. Here he plays a writer who gets tired of not selling any books, and a combination of annoyance and necessity induce him to write a piece of "African American literature" to pander to white liberals...and he immediately becomes a best seller and has to play the role of the urban author to keep the sham going and the money coming in.
I think there was room to run a little further with the comedy and farcical situations and still keep the story restrained and realistic enough. Whenever the movie wanted to be funny it succeeded.
Leslie Uggams looks pretty good for 80...glad she is still getting meaningful roles and it's been 50 years or so since Roots.
It was a bit better than I remember it being. Jack Black and Mos Def are easy enough to root for and work well together. Danny Glover brings in the veteran actor foundation that helps balance things out.
this time watching I noticed the influence or at least similarities to Brigsby Bear, a movie I think is great and needs more attention. And although I still consider Brigsby bear the better film and funnier overall, I have to give credit to BKRW for doing certain aspects first.
I guess Lars and The Real Girl would be another one I'd compare with BKRW and Brigsby Bear. Less with the "making your own movie" aspect but more along the lines of the "community coming together" part.
it isn't the funniest movie or the most clever at times. But overall it's a sweet little movie about community. I think I would've liked more of Jack Black and Mos Defs homemade movie remakes tbh. You don't get as much of that as I remember beside Ghostbusters and Rush Hour which were hilarious.
It's kind of like if someone made a more highbrow version of Hollywood Shuffle from the 80s with Robert Townsend, and mixed it with a bit of Wag the Dog and a bit of Adaptation. Definitely a good movie...has a few really funny moments. Jeffrey Wright has really put together quite a career over the years, kind of stealthily, and he's getting some serious recognition now. Here he plays a writer who gets tired of not selling any books, and a combination of annoyance and necessity induce him to write a piece of "African American literature" to pander to white liberals...and he immediately becomes a best seller and has to play the role of the urban author to keep the sham going and the money coming in.
I think there was room to run a little further with the comedy and farcical situations and still keep the story restrained and realistic enough. Whenever the movie wanted to be funny it succeeded.
Leslie Uggams looks pretty good for 80...glad she is still getting meaningful roles and it's been 50 years or so since Roots.
It really seems like one I would like based on your review and the trailer I saw for it. I'll get to it soon when I start my annual Oscar best picture watch and rankings.
I don't want to offend the Marvel fanboys, but this movie is terrible. Some SFX are awesome and others are just plain awful. Same thing with the acting. I don't understand the people who were mad Bassett didn't get an Oscar.
Boseman, one of the nicest, kindest men/actors to grace our screens, deserved better.
Yeah, this was boring and I hoped for more with Namor. Nobody was ever going to get Namor right just as I think they'll never get Doom right.
I didn't actually like Black Panther, either. I'm glad it was made as it made a lot of people very happy but for me it had all the problems mediocre superhero films have. The action was garbage, two guys in almost identical suits having fights where you can't see anything.
Yeah, this was boring and I hoped for more with Namor. Nobody was ever going to get Namor right just as I think they'll never get Doom right.
I didn't actually like Black Panther, either. I'm glad it was made as it made a lot of people very happy but for me it had all the problems mediocre superhero films have. The action was garbage, two guys in almost identical suits having fights where you can't see anything.
It was a bit better than I remember it being. Jack Black and Mos Def are easy enough to root for and work well together. Danny Glover brings in the veteran actor foundation that helps balance things out.
this time watching I noticed the influence or at least similarities to Brigsby Bear, a movie I think is great and needs more attention. And although I still consider Brigsby bear the better film and funnier overall, I have to give credit to BKRW for doing certain aspects first.
I guess Lars and The Real Girl would be another one I'd compare with BKRW and Brigsby Bear. Less with the "making your own movie" aspect but more along the lines of the "community coming together" part.
it isn't the funniest movie or the most clever at times. But overall it's a sweet little movie about community. I think I would've liked more of Jack Black and Mos Defs homemade movie remakes tbh. You don't get as much of that as I remember beside Ghostbusters and Rush Hour which were hilarious.
Yeah, this was boring and I hoped for more with Namor. Nobody was ever going to get Namor right just as I think they'll never get Doom right.
I didn't actually like Black Panther, either. I'm glad it was made as it made a lot of people very happy but for me it had all the problems mediocre superhero films have. The action was garbage, two guys in almost identical suits having fights where you can't see anything.
I have to agree. For all the praise, I felt both were lackluster. Boring hero in the first, no hero in the second. The best part of the series was Serkis who was killed off too early.
It's kind of like if someone made a more highbrow version of Hollywood Shuffle from the 80s with Robert Townsend, and mixed it with a bit of Wag the Dog and a bit of Adaptation. Definitely a good movie...has a few really funny moments. Jeffrey Wright has really put together quite a career over the years, kind of stealthily, and he's getting some serious recognition now. Here he plays a writer who gets tired of not selling any books, and a combination of annoyance and necessity induce him to write a piece of "African American literature" to pander to white liberals...and he immediately becomes a best seller and has to play the role of the urban author to keep the sham going and the money coming in.
I think there was room to run a little further with the comedy and farcical situations and still keep the story restrained and realistic enough. Whenever the movie wanted to be funny it succeeded.
Leslie Uggams looks pretty good for 80...glad she is still getting meaningful roles and it's been 50 years or so since Roots.
One of the few best picture nominees I’m really looking forward to watching. Wright is pretty much great every time out. Oliver Stone’s W. is not a great movie- but I’ve come to like it more over the years. Wright plays Powell in that and he is the best part of the most effective scene in the film in my opinion.
Factor in Sterling K. Brown, Uggams, Ortiz, Ross, Alexander, Rae and it seems like it’s got a stacked cast.
One of the few best picture nominees I’m really looking forward to watching. Wright is pretty much great every time out. Oliver Stone’s W. is not a great movie- but I’ve come to like it more over the years. Wright plays Powell in that and he is the best part of the most effective scene in the film in my opinion.
Factor in Sterling K. Brown, Uggams, Ortiz, Ross, Alexander, Rae and it seems like it’s got a stacked cast.
Yeah I recently singled out John Ortiz on here as stealthily the MVP of the Miami Vice movie. Mann did a Kurtwood Smith / Paul McCrane in Robocop and put him against type as a criminal with a gun and some authority. I wish he had landed a few more roles like that. He really sold the threat and menace of the bad guys in that movie pretty well but he's back to his bookish self here in American Fiction and I don't know if he can pull off the look he had in Miami Vice anymore.
I've been thinking of rewatching Basquiat from the 90s with Jeffrey Wright. Haven't seen that in a long time.
Mario is a Frenchman stuck in a ramshackle town somewhere in South America. He is a petty thief and hustler who hangs around with a group of other European layabouts. The challenge for the men is that the only way out of the town is by airplane (there are no road or rail links) and the cost of an airplane ticket is beyond their means. The town operates as a type of black hole; it is easy to get there but difficult to leave. Linda, a beautiful local girl, is in love with Mario despite, or perhaps because of, the way he treats her with disdain and cruelty.
An aging French gangster named Jo arrives and establishes himself as the leader of the group but he is just as stuck as the rest of them.
Potential salvation for the man comes by way of a fire at a nearby oilfield owned by an American company called SOC. Local SOC officials offer $2000 per man to drive a shipment of nitroglycerin 500km across treacherous mountain roads. The catch is that the nitroglycerin is volatile and could explode, which is why SOC does not send their own employees. The $2000 is a ticket home for the Europeans so Mario, Jo, and 2 other men volunteer.
What follows is a white knuckle trip as the 4 men in 2 different trucks attempt to make the trip without blowing themselves up.
The film is 2.5 hours and is split into 2 very different halves. The first hour is like a prison drama. The town is like a prison to the foreigners and the arrival of Jo creates drama as he disrupts the local hierarchy. The second half is pure thriller as the men traverse dangerous roads knowing that one mistake, or just bad luck, means death.
Clouzot clearly has a political point to make against the callousness and brutality of American oil companies operating in the developing world and he indulges himself in the first half of the film. "SOC" is an obvious stand in for Standard Oil. SOC acts like a local government, exploits the locals, and uses its own security forces to enforce its dictates. When the fire breaks out, SOC is ready to sacrifice "worthless locals" rather than wait to import proper safety equipment. Apparently the US version of the film initially cut out much of the first hour of the film, either to make it more theatrical or as form of censorship, depending on who you ask. Personally I did not find the political component particularly scathing and
the film is not completely "anti-American". The local US official insists that the volunteers will get paid well for risking their lives. Mario is treated like a hero when he arrives at the fire and he is paid out twice what he is owed.
I found the first half of the film too long but it does establish that the Europeans are a callous lot. If they were good men, they would not find themselves trapped in this forsaken town. Mario's treatment of Linda is still confusing. Mario has nothing positive in his life except for this beautiful woman who dotes on him. I would think he would seize the opportunity. Instead he treats her very presence as an annoyance except when she is helping him steal from the bar where she works. There appear to be hints of a homosexual component to Mario and Jo's relationship. Jo forces Mario to choose him over spending time with Linda and exclaims that "women are a waste of time". Ultimately, I think Clouzot used Linda (his wife in real life) to establish 3 things. 1. Mario is a selfish and all around lousy guy. 2. Jo is a master manipulator who isolates Mario from his friends as a form of dominance,
that is reversed to great effect in the second half
. 3. Mario's only happiness is dreaming of escaping the town. His life in France could not have been very good or he would not have ending up trapped in some backwater town. A different man might seek to live the life that he has and marry a beautiful woman. Mario is only capable of hating what is around him and therefore is willing to do anything to escape.
The brilliance of this film is in the suspense it creates in the second half. I was on the edge of my seat. Clouzot does not use a musical score and somehow this makes the film even more suspenseful. It is brilliant film making which still thrills 70 years after it was made.
Clouzot tops it off with an unforgettable ending.
The meaning of the ending is open to many interpretations. It could be that Mario feels like he has defeated certain death and is therefore reckless. It turns out that he was lucky, not special. It could be that Mario is cursed to never leave this town. It is like a purgatory. Or Clouzot could simply be saying that life and death is fickle and absurd.
Mario is a Frenchman stuck in a ramshackle town somewhere in South America. He is a petty thief and hustler who hangs around with a group of other European layabouts. The challenge for the men is that the only way out of the town is by airplane (there are no road or rail links) and the cost of an airplane ticket is beyond their means. The town operates as a type of black hole; it is easy to get there but difficult to leave. Linda, a beautiful local girl is in love with Mario despite, or perhaps because of, the way he treats her with disdain and cruelty.
An aging French gangster named Jo arrives and establishes himself as the leader of the group but he is just as stuck as the rest of them.
Potential salvation for the man comes by way of a fire at a nearby oilfield owned by an American company called SOC. Local SOC officials offer $2000 per man to drive a shipment of nitroglycerin 500km across treacherous mountain roads. The catch is that the nitroglycerin is volatile and could explode, which is why SOC does not send their own employees. The $2000 is a ticket home for the Europeans so Mario, Jo, and 2 other men volunteer.
What follows is a white knuckle trip as the 4 men in 2 different trucks attempt to make the trip without blowing themselves up.
The film is 2.5 hours and is split into 2 very different halves. The first hour is like a prison drama. The town is like a prison to the foreigners and the arrival of Jo creates drama as he disrupts the local hierarchy. The second half is pure thriller as the men traverse dangerous roads knowing that one mistake, or just bad luck, means death.
Clouzot clearly has a political point to make against the callousness and brutality of American oil companies operating in the developing world and he indulges himself in the first half of the film. "SOC" is an obvious stand in for Standard Oil. SOC acts like a local government, exploits the locals, and uses its own security forces to enforce its dictates. When the fire breaks out, SOC is ready to sacrifice "worthless locals" rather than wait to import proper safety equipment. Apparently the US version of the film initially cut out much of the first hour of the film, either to make it more theatrical or as form of censorship, depending on who you ask. Personally I did not find the political component particularly scathing and
the film is not completely "anti-American". The local US official insists that the volunteers will get paid well for risking their lives. Mario is treated like a hero when he arrives at the fire and he is paid out twice what he is owed.
I found the first half of the film too long but it does establish that the Europeans are a callous lot. If they were good men, they would not find themselves trapped in this forsaken town. Mario's treatment of Linda is still confusing. Mario has nothing positive in his life except for this beautiful woman who dotes on him. I would think he would seize the opportunity. Instead he treats her very presence as an annoyance except when she is helping him steal from the bar where she works. There appear to be hints of a homosexual component to Mario and Jo's relationship. Jo forces Mario to choose him over spending time with Linda and exclaims that "women are a waste of time". Ultimately, I think Clouzot used Linda (his wife in real life) to establish 3 things. 1. Mario is a selfish and all around lousy guy. 2. Jo is a master manipulator who isolates Mario from his friends as a form of dominance,
that is reversed to great effect in the second half
. 3. Mario's only happiness is dreaming of escaping the town. His life in France could not have been very good or he would not have ending up trapped in some backwater town. A different man might seek to live the life that he has and marry a beautiful woman. Mario is only capable of hating what is around him and therefore is willing to do anything to escape.
The brilliance of this film is in the suspense it creates in the second half. I was on the edge of my seat. Clouzot does not use a musical score and somehow this makes the film even more suspenseful. It is brilliant film making which still thrills 70 years after it was made.
Clouzot tops it off with an unforgettable ending.
The meaning of the ending is open to many interpretations. It could be that Mario feels like he has defeated certain death and is therefore reckless. It turns out that he was lucky, not special. It could be that Mario is cursed to never leave this town. It is like a purgatory. Or Clouzot could simply be saying that life and death is fickle and absurd.
If American Fiction was a highbrow version of Hollywood Shuffle, then The Holdovers is sort of like a highbrow version of The Man With No Face with Mel Gibson from the early 90s. The Man With No Face was intended as Oscar bait and it was fairly good, but it was a little less restrained than The Holdovers.
Paul Giamatti has a very distinct style and persona when he is acting...at least he did on his way up...and to be honest I don't like it all that much when he commits hard to it. But when he really scales things back, like Jack Nicholson scales things back in About Schmidt or The Pledge, then I like Paul Giamatti quite a bit on screen. In this and in stuff like Sideways. Never cared for him that much when he goes "full Giamatti" but here he is not undeserving of the praise he is getting from the critics.
Nice solid movie. Not like Rocky in many other ways but like Rocky in the sense that it is the story of a handful of broken characters. Rocky, Mickey, Paulie and Adrian were all broken human beings...pretty much everyone but Apollo and he wasn't from their world. Here the handful of main characters are doing the same thing...filling gaps to get through a holiday season in one piece.
Like American Fiction it is a good movie. Also like American Fiction it is not one that I think will be rewatched many times by people. But once gets the point across quite well.
Been on my list for a while. I know someone did it recently so it reminded me to check it out.
I had a lot of fun with it. A genuinely funny film that is able to ride the wave of cleverness and silliness extremely well. It really makes the most out of it's PG rating.
Caine and Martin are probably Co MVP's here. Both really bring the funny and balance each other out. Their competition to con Glenne Headly (who is also fantastic) is really a lot of fun.
The pacing is really good, especially since it is 20 minutes or so longer than I'd expect a film like this to be. Doesnt feel like a film that's almost 2 hours.
I did see the ending coming from a mile away, but it didnt really affect the journey for me. Overall it a solid, fun comedy with a great match between Caine and Martin. Also has a good amount of heart considering it's about conmen.
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