Some people are stuck on the International Space Station while a nuclear war happens on earth and face competing loyalties as their governments go to war. Could have been a very interesting sort of situation but descends into a whole bunch of "who's the bad guy on board" shenanigans. It looked like it was going to be the most average movie ever made and that's about what it was.
Run Rabbit Run (2023)
I've been liking indie Aussie movies a lot of late, this was billed as a horror but it wasn't really. More like a psychological drama. The setting is nicely bleak and lowkey but it's incredibly generic - troubled single mother with troubled solo daughter, dead/dying parents, returning to childhood home and facing dark, buried truths from the past. The mother and the daughter were incredibly unlikeable. 99% of the movie was just those two engaging in increasingly loud exchanges. Poor. 4/10
Some people are stuck on the International Space Station while a nuclear war happens on earth and face competing loyalties as their governments go to war. Could have been a very interesting sort of situation but descends into a whole bunch of "who's the bad guy on board" shenanigans. It looked like it was going to be the most average movie ever made and that's about what it was.
Premise seems to be slightly a bit of a ripoff of 2010: The Year We Make Contact where the expedition was a joint operation between the USA and USSR and during the course of the movie Cold War tensions were getting really high, and it looked like nuclear war was imminent.
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.
I often have stated in the past critics don't know jack, this is one of those movies for me. I liked it better than the critics did. The driving force for the mixed reviews was the lack of character depth, which I believe maybe could have been better. I still like the movie, it's fun and THAT ENDING!!..
In early October you and I did discuss Sabotage. The big guy-Arnold giving it his all! It's one of my favorite movies of his, period. I even prefer it over Eraser.
I often have stated in the past critics don't know jack, this is one of those movies for me. I liked it better than the critics did. The driving force for the mixed reviews was the lack of character depth, which I believe maybe could have been better. I still like the movie, it's fun and THAT ENDING!!..
In early October you and I did discuss Sabotage. The big guy-Arnold giving it his all! It's one of my favorite movies of his, period. I even prefer it over Eraser.
at times maybe I've been dismissive of this film because the cultural significance of it was pretty exhausting. I like most people have seen it whether in theaters or through the rental store and so on. But I havent seen it in quite a long time. And I havent seen it all the way through in even longer.
And...I think it still really holds up. The film looks like it could've been shot today, for the most part. Cameron really sells the ship as a galaxy for the planets of set pieces. The part where he shows all the levels of the ship from the luxurious upperclassmen ballroom down to the gritty stokers is just great.
I think you could attach "Adventure" to this films label. Yeah it is more clearly an epic and romance and disaster film....but there is a sense of adventure to it all. It's one of those films that has a bit of almost everything.
it wouldn't be enough to just have an impressive visual experience and grand feel, but it also has a great cast of characters from Bill Paxton to Kathy Bates.
Leo and Winslet are really great together, and both are great in it. When I went back to watch this movie, for whatever reason I was expecting to hate their characters. But just like the last time I remember watching it I end up invested in them and rooting for them.
Winslet as Rose in particular I think develops the best. Jack is likeable pretty much all the way through, Winslet actually isnt very much at first. But as the film goes on her character really grows and becomes more and more of a character you enjoy being around and watching.
Mvp... I could just give it to Leo and Winslet. But I feel that's too obvious. Billy Zane has a case especially considering how great he was at being a really hateable and slimy villain. I also noticed Victor Garber and Bernard hill more this time around. They arent the biggest roles (or smallest) but they both have some of the most powerful but subtle moments in the film.
But maybe Billy Zane gets it overall. The reason is that Cameron, in the script and directing sense, teases a redemption for him a few times but never really gives it to him. But Zane does little things in the performance that make you think he might have a glimpse of a better person deep down.
After watching Spout of Africa I was a little hesitant to watch another long ass movie. But the pacing of Titanic is pretty impressive. I can't really pinpoint a time where I think it lags.
It does have some blockbuster cheese to it. But I admittedly like that sort of thing. Overall, I think this is Cameron's greatest achievement. Not saying it his his best film or pure creative venture.
it really puts Avatar 1 and 2 in a confusing perspective for me. Meaning I cant figure out how those films overtook titanic in gross...because I dont think either are as good or as memorable or had as much of a cultural impact.
Also Celine Dion and the song got me again. That's an earworm of a song that gets slowly built up through the main theme score by James Horner.
at times maybe I've been dismissive of this film because the cultural significance of it was pretty exhausting. I like most people have seen it whether in theaters or through the rental store and so on. But I havent seen it in quite a long time. And I havent seen it all the way through in even longer.
And...I think it still really holds up. The film looks like it could've been shot today, for the most part. Cameron really sells the ship as a galaxy for the planets of set pieces. The part where he shows all the levels of the ship from the luxurious upperclassmen ballroom down to the gritty stokers is just great.
I think you could attach "Adventure" to this films label. Yeah it is more clearly an epic and romance and disaster film....but there is a sense of adventure to it all. It's one of those films that has a bit of almost everything.
it wouldn't be enough to just have an impressive visual experience and grand feel, but it also has a great cast of characters from Bill Paxton to Kathy Bates.
Leo and Winslett are really great together, and both are great in it. When I went back to watch this movie, for whatever reason I was expecting to hate their characters. But just like the last time I remember watching it I end up invested in them and rooting for them.
Winslett as Rose in particular I think develops the best. Jack is likeable pretty much all the way through, Winslett actually isnt very much at first. But as the film goes on her character really grows and becomes more and more of a character you enjoy being around and watching.
Mvp... I could just give it to Leo and Winslett. But I feel that's too obvious. Billy Zane has a case especially considering how great he was at being a really hateable and slimy villain. I also noticed Victor Garber and Bernard hill more this time around. They arent the biggest roles (or smallest) but they both have some of the most powerful but subtle moments in the film.
But maybe Billy Zane gets it overall. The reason is that Cameron, in the script and directing sense, teases a redemption for him a few times but never really gives it to him. But Zane does little things in the performance that make you think he might have a glimpse of a better person deep down.
After watching Spout of Africa I was a little hesitant to watch another long ass movie. But the pacing of Titanic is pretty impressive. I can't really pinpoint a time where I think it lags.
It does have some blockbuster cheese to it. But I admittedly like that sort of thing. Overall, I think this is Cameron's greatest achievement. Not saying it his his best film or pure creative venture.
it really puts Avatar 1 and 2 in a confusing perspective for me. Meaning I cant figure out how those films overtook titanic in gross...because I dont think either are as good or as memorable or had as much of a cultural impact.
Also Celine Dion and the song got me again. That's an earworm of a song that gets slowly built up through the main theme score by James Horner.
lol you even describing the epic cultural impact takes me right back to seeing the movie in theaters. That truly strikes me as one of the last movies where it felt like you had to see it because everybody else had seen it.
It was sort of hard to extricate the actual movie from the phenomenon. It’s been too long since I’ve seen it so I can’t really comment. But the visual effects, Cameron’s and his team’s work, and the cast all struck me as very impressive .
Another one of those straightforward stories done well type of things. Paxton was great too. I liked his segments with Gloria Stuart.
Dion song was probably overplayed at the time but I like it. Has a power to it. Really fits the film which I think is all you can ask.
I also enjoyed the many debates at the time of whether Stuart passed at the end or not and people using the song to try to refute it “She died- she reunited with Jack.”
Nope “every night in my dreams..” she’s dreaming.
If she did go to heaven to reunite with Dicaps, sort of an awkward scenario for the guy she married, spent most of her life and had children with…
lol you even describing the epic cultural impact takes me right back to seeing the movie in theaters. That truly strikes me as one of the last movies where it felt like you had to see it because everybody else had seen it.
It was sort of hard to extricate the actual movie from the phenomenon. It’s been too long since I’ve seen it so I can’t really comment. But the visual effects, Cameron’s and his team’s work, and the cast all struck me as very impressive .
Another one of those straightforward stories done well type of things. Paxton was great too. I liked his segments with Gloria Stuart.
Dion song was probably overplayed at the time but I like it. Has a power to it. Really fits the film which I think is all you can ask.
I also enjoyed the many debates at the time of whether Stuart passed at the end or not and people using the song to try to refute it “She died- she reunited with Jack.”
Nope “every night in my dreams..” she’s dreaming.
If she did go to heaven to reunite with Dicaps, sort of an awkward scenario for the guy she married, spent most of her life and had children with…
Yeah....I think the whole Jack as her true love thing with the ending dream sequence is one of those things that works better if you accept it for what it is and don't think about it. Like it works to create a feel good ending but if you think more about it you're wondering how a few days on a ship compares to decades of marriage and kids. Kinda have to put the "but whatever" stamp on it and move on.
Yeah....I think the whole Jack as her true love thing with the ending dream sequence is one of those things that works better if you accept or for it is and don't think about it. Like it works to create a feel good ending but if you think more about it you're wondering how a few days on a ship compares to decades of marriage and kids. Kinda have to put the "but whatever" stamp on it and move on.
I would trade Avatar 3 through 5 for a movie about this poor cuck sitting in heaven and raising the kids in perpetuity while old Rose gets banged by young Leo forever.
I would trade Avatar 3 through 5 for a movie about this poor cuck sitting in heaven and raising the kids in perpetuity while old Rose gets banged by young Leo forever.
But tbh thats probably the biggest flaw of the movie. I think it would've just been enough to have Jack as a great, but maybe not the biggest, love of Rose's life who was a memorable person that saved her and helped her grow. It wouldve helped if her husband got any kind of role and place in the film to make sense of it either way.
But instead Cameron is like no, Jack all day 24/7.
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.
Yeah I've suggested Sorcerer on here once or twice in the past I think. The bridge scene in Sorcerer is great. Also shows that a movie can get screwed over by the corporate hacks even back in the 70s...trying to somehow tie the movie to The Exorcist and hoodwink people for a few extra bucks at the box office.
This movie almost aggressively makes no attempt to entertain or build drama in any traditional sense through score or artful cinematography. In years past this sort of courtroom / how did he die kind of drama would have looked like Jagged Edge or Black Widow or even Basic Instinct. This one is presented in the most matter of fact way possible...visually and otherwise. Next to no musical score. Very little personality in the way it is shot, save for one zoom in on a judge that could have been straight from the intro to Streets of San Francisco.
Not sure what to say about this one. The acting is good for sure but at two and a half hours and intentional avoidance of traditional ways of building drama or emotion...the point seems to be in part how mundane and banal even murder trials can be, with the outcomes hinging on things that aren't the highest of drama. It was more like watching the OJ trial on CNN than like any of the more salacious movies I mentioned earlier. It succeeds at making that point but it condemns itself to be kind of boring in doing so.
Reminded me of the Kingsmen movies, only not quite as good. I liked Sam Rockwell in this, he was basically playing the same roll as he did in Mr Right. It was a little slow to get going, but once it did it was decent. I don't see it getting a sequel, but they have set it up so it could happen.
I'd actually never seen this one before but had heard good things. It definitely lived up to the hype. Similar to the other Zucker/Abrams films, it's a gag-a-second type of scenario. The plot, like many of these parody films, is pretty flimsy, but it doesn't have to be anything more than that. In some ways, I thought the premise was actually even more rife for hilarity than Airplane or The Naked Gun. The weird but very funny amalgamation of spy/WWII film tropes with Elvis Presley movies just felt uniquely inspired to me. While I think the film ultimately does not hit quite the heights of Airplane or The Naked Gun, it definitely delivers a lot of funny, memorable moments and scenes.
What can you really say about Kilmer in this movie, other than that it's a hell of a film debut. This is the type of movie that you wouldn't necessarily picture being a star-making vehicle, but Kilmer absolutely made the most of this role. As zany and silly as the film is (which is a compliment), KIlmer especially stands out and elicits many of the biggest laughs. His Elvis schtick throughout the film is a riot. It's probably the best aspect of the film and it achieves that weird sort of fusion where the humor blends with a legitimately impressive level of performance to make something that is very funny in its context but also can stand on its own merits as quite good.
Great seeing typically dramatic actors like Michael Gough, Omar Sharif, and Peter Cushing in there, even if only briefly.
Like Popstar and like The Naked Gun, this film had far more jokes that landed than ones that did not. Some of the stuff, though, did outright make me wonder where, when, and how the Zuckers and Abrahams came up with it.
I'd actually never seen this one before but had heard good things. It definitely lived up to the hype. Similar to the other Zucker/Abrams films, it's a gag-a-second type of scenario. The plot, like many of these parody films, is pretty flimsy, but it doesn't have to be anything more than that. In some ways, I thought the premise was actually even more rife for hilarity than Airplane or The Naked Gun. The weird but very funny amalgamation of spy/WWII film tropes with Elvis Presley movies just felt uniquely inspired to me. While I think the film ultimately does not hit quire the heights of Airplane or The Naked Gun, it definitely delivers a lot of funny, memorable moments and scenes.
What can you really say about Kilmer in this movie, other than that it's a hell of a film debut. This is the type of movie that you wouldn't necessarily picture being a star-making vehicle, but Kilmer absolutely made the most of this role. As zany and silly as the film is (which is a compliment), KIlmer especially stands out and elicits many of the biggest laughs. His Elvis schtick throughout the film is a riot. It's probably the best aspect of the film and it achieves that weird sort of fusion where the humor blends with a legitimately impressive level of performance to make something that is very funny in its context but also can stand on its own merits as quite good.
Great seeing typically dramatic actors like Michael Gough, Omar Sharif, and Peter Cushing in there, even if only briefly.
Like Popstar and like The Naked Gun, this film had far more jokes that landed than ones that did not. Some of the stuff, though, did outright make me wonder where, when, and how the Zuckers and Abrahams came up with it.
Glad you liked it. Johnny Dangerously with Michael Keaton from around the same time is the even more forgotten version for gangster movies. And I guess The Man With One Red Shoe with Tom Hanks might be the...I don't know...Hitchcockian suspense parody or maybe just more of a straight comedy.
Mediocre dialogue delivered by way of questionable acting? Check. Boobs, check. Talk about who is or might be a slut, check. Teenagers getting killed off like Star Trek red shirts, check.
But this actually turns out to be a reasonably legit movie. It looks really good. They put way more effort into filming this properly than they probably had to. Nice shots with use of silhouettes and shadows or people backlit by fires or stained glass. Two Jaws style dolly zooms. One pretty cool shot where everyone is seen reflected in glass shards on the floor which was way more creativity than the minimum standard required here.
A respectable 6.0 / 10.
@HUGHPHUG Baby come back, you can blame it all on me...
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