Basically Phonebooth in a really fancy car, but Anthony Hopkins absolutely hams it up here and it's great. Bill Skarsgard looks like Pete Davidson in this, but he's good as well. Paper thin plot, but enjoy the interactions between the leads
Night Always Comes - 8/10
Vanessa Kirby absolutely kills it in this and she's got a great supporting cast as well. It's a bit heartbreaking, but worth the watch on Netflix.
So I Married an Axe Murderer (USA, 1993)
Rating: 5/10
A quirky title and slightly offbeat premise lead to a fairly pedestrian rom-com. Mike Myers is stuck playing the straight man — a waste, since he’s always funniest in absurdist roles. Ben Stiller feels like the actor invented to play neurotic men in offbeat comedies, which is exactly what this role needed.
The humor is inconsistent. A few solid moments, like Phil Hartman absolutely killing it as an Alcatraz tour guide, are marooned in a sea of mediocrity.
The oddest thing about a film set in 1993 San Francisco? The absence of boorish tech bros to make fun of. A modern remake would be unthinkable without one.
Ultimately, So I Married an Axe Murderer is mostly fine. It never bites, it never dazzles, and it mostly drifts in that quiet space between “forgettable” and “mildly amusing.”
I've seen this several times and its always a great satisfying watch. One of the best US westerns of all time, maybe top 5 for me. Its a slow burn but the 2nd half/ending is a huge payoff.
Rio Bravo
My Rating: 7/10
Another US western I've seen several times but I dont like this anywhere close to McCabe. Im not the biggest John Wayne fan and I know Tarantino swears by this movie being one of his favourites, it does nothing for me. It is a really good movie/western but that's really it. I do think Angie Dickinson is one of the most beautiful women to ever be in a western. I would say its between her and Claudia Cardinale.
Basically Phonebooth in a really fancy car, but Anthony Hopkins absolutely hams it up here and it's great. Bill Skarsgard looks like Pete Davidson in this, but he's good as well. Paper thin plot, but enjoy the interactions between the leads
Night Always Comes - 8/10
Vanessa Kirby absolutely kills it in this and she's got a great supporting cast as well. It's a bit heartbreaking, but worth the watch on Netflix.
There were a few like Locked it’s not an original idea but it’s bigger budget with Hopkins in it there’s one I like better it’s Captured 1998 a bit more realistic , more story where more then 2 people are interacting and more torture from what I remember.
You have to suspend a lot of logic for this one to work. How people go from thinking he's crazy to just nonchalantly accepting that ghosts are playing baseball in his field, the entire first interaction between Terence and Ray, them never explaining how he got back from the 70's, and as someone who grew up in rural southern Wisconsin, the most egregious one is the idea that a baseball field sized piece of land would be the make it or break it difference to a commercial corn farm.
That being said there is something really enjoyable about this movie. It feels familiar even though I think this was my first time watching it beginning to end. The kind of movie I could easily watch again if it was on TV next week. Great cast too. Would recommend.
Side note: my 12 year old nephew played in a baseball tournament last year where the final game was played in this field. I was going to go, but they lost before the finals.
I've seen this several times and its always a great satisfying watch. One of the best US westerns of all time, maybe top 5 for me. Its a slow burn but the 2nd half/ending is a huge payoff.
Rio Bravo
My Rating: 7/10
Another US western I've seen several times but I dont like this anywhere close to McCabe. Im not the biggest John Wayne fan and I know Tarantino swears by this movie being one of his favourites, it does nothing for me. It is a really good movie/western but that's really it. I do think Angie Dickinson is one of the most beautiful women to ever be in a western. I would say its between her and Claudia Cardinale.
Probably the best horror movie in the low budget "found footage / amateur video / web cam" genre. Only an hr long, doesn't fuck around and plenty of neat jump scares
My favorite comedy of all time and it gets funnier everytime I watch it. We've all seen it. I just came to post that I never knew that Cam Neely played Seabass. As a huge hockey fan in the 90's I'm kind of blown away that I never knew this.
You have to suspend a lot of logic for this one to work. How people go from thinking he's crazy to just nonchalantly accepting that ghosts are playing baseball in his field, the entire first interaction between Terence and Ray, them never explaining how he got back from the 70's, and as someone who grew up in rural southern Wisconsin, the most egregious one is the idea that a baseball field sized piece of land would be the make it or break it difference to a commercial corn farm.
Nah you don't because all that works just fine in the magical fairy tale world of the movie. In that type of movie those things don't need to be explained. You are just knit picking. One of my favourite movies, just magical. The Natural is another magical Baseball movie where you can just run with whatever it serves up, and it just works.
Conclave 2025
Brilliant simmering tension for 3/4 until the goofy contrived ending. Such a pity. It did not need that twist at all.
Slick, entertaining drama/thriller from Soderbergh. I feel like this is the type of premise Hitchcock would have had a fun time with. As is the case in some of his films, the protagonist in this movie is a good guy who is drawn into an extraordinary circumstance. And as the walls start to close in on him and the very foundation of his life and career is in jeopardy, he must extricate himself before it's too late. Jude Law is terrific (as he often is) as a NYC psychiatrist who becomes the clinician for a depressed young Connecticut woman who is dealing with the fallout of her husband having served a four-year prison sentence for insider trading.
Rooney Mara plays the woman who, overwhelmed and uncertain of her future, attempts to take her life. She frames this attempt as merely a momentary lapse and agrees to see Law regularly to avoid any type of psychiatric hospitalization. He prescribes medication to help her cope with the depression and anxiety but the side effects for this intervention include episodes of sleep walking which rattle her recently-released husband.
Ultimately Law's career, professional ethics, and competence all come under scrutiny after Mara's altered consciousness leads to violence. Initially, sympathetic to his client's plight, he comes to be increasingly skeptical of her motives and behaviors. As his life starts to crumble at its foundation, he works to find out whether his client is one the level or whether she has made him an unwitting pawn in a dangerous game.
The film is sharply written with a compelling narrative. While there are twists and turns for sure, the film is not convoluted and is, ultimately rather straightforward. Soderbergh and his crew are very effective. Though the film mostly plays as a drama with a mystery at the center of it, there is one sequence that definitely has a very effectively chilling element to it. The cast is uniformly good. Law absolutely commands the screen and plays a likable, well-meaning guy in a terrible situation. He walks a fine line here because if he was not a relatable character, the entire film would go off the rails pretty quickly. That said, in his quest to try to redeem himself, he has to do some pretty morally dubious just to level the playing field. That said, he never comes across as going too far and, therefore, continues to maintain audience sympathy throughout.
I really like Rooney Mara. I think she is underappreciated in terms of her range. I thought she was phenomenal in Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake and yet I've never seen her in a role remotely like that since or before. Whether as Zuck's ex in The Social Network or here as a woman whose vulnerability and pain are palpable, she's consistently good. I haven't seen much of her recent work- 2020 onward but I know she's been in some well-received films and I plan to check them out. I think the great thing about her performance in this film is that she portrays emotional intensity and struggle in an authentic manner. Catherine Zeta Jones and Channing Tatum round out the primary cast and both of them are quite good as Mara's previous therapist and her husband, respectively.
Definitely a fun film that strikes me as similar to a movie like Fracture- solid premise in and of itself but elevated by performances from really good actors.
While you can see similarities to subsequent Alexander Payne work, a la the deft writing and nuanced character arcs, this film strikes me as more cynical and dark than a lot of his work. Even if you argue against the cynicism by pointing out that there are some hopeful notes toward the end, this film definitely goes to some rough places before it gets there. Matthew Broderick stars as a high school teacher who is also the student government moderator. When he learns that a highly motivated, overachieving student named Tracy, played by Reese Witherspoon, is running unopposed for president, he convinces a football star sidelined with an injury, played by Chris Kelin, to throw his hat in the ring as the opposition candidate. His reason for doing this goes well beyond wanting to enhance the democratic process. He has some very particular resentments and concerns when it comes to Tacy. She, in turn, is furious that her path to the presidency has been made more difficult.
There are interesting and amusing plot complications. For instance, the football player's adopted sister Tammy's girlfriend, Lisa, leaves her to be with Klein himself. This inspires the sister to run for president as well, presumably as a way to get back at her ex-lover and her brother (as she knows the former is heavily involved in Klein's campaign). Her platform, however, is completely designed to subvert the race by pointing out how ridiculous and purposeless the student government is.
Overall, this was a well-written, well-acted film. The dark comedy can be offputting at times but the overall effect is entertaining.
There are some really funny moments interspersed in the narrative, though the film itself is not a laugh-out-loud comedy. One of my favorites was when Klein's girlfriend, his sister's ex, expresses her frustration over the sister announcing her candidacy to the oblivious Klein. "She's just doing this to get back at me!" Klein: "For what?" (Altering her comment since Klein did not know they were together) I meant she's just doing this to get back at you. Klein: "For what?"
Also,
The fact that Tammy handily would have beaten both Tracy and her brother had she not been forced to withdraw from the election- based on discarded votes that don't count since she's no longer a candidate) was pretty hilarious in and of itself.
Witherspoon gives a really good performance here. Her work in that era (and onward) was typically very impressive. In the late 90s, she could generally deliver great performances even if the film itself was not anything to write home about. Her character in this film is very irritating at times but she does add some nuance to her as well. Broderick is good, playing the type of role that easily fit his 90s and onward persona. Solid role for him. Klein is a lot of fun giving his character the sort of "nice-guy jock" charm that he used again shortly thereafter in American Pie.
Well-written, with some effective satirical elements, this is a good movie, though I like some of Payne's subsequent work better.
Papillon - 1973
-
Watched Papillon years ago when I was a kid, forgot about most of it so I decided to rewatch it yesterday.
I feel like this is a movie of two halves, the first half being one of the best I've seen from the 70's, beautiful to look at, great acting, each scene injecting something new and fresh, but then it just kind of slows down around the halfway point and starts to drag on a little too long IMO. Still a very good film overall, but I just struggled in that final hour or so. That being said, the final scene/scenes did hit me harder than I remembered.
Laughably bad mixed with a few bright spots, specifically in the first half or so. Exploring the werewolf as a bigfoot like creature, and an obsession of Christopher Abbot's outdoorsman father, was interesting.
It builds some nice psychological tension, which continues as we delve further into the tense relationship between Abbot and his wife, played by Julia Garner.
The film is able to ride this wave for a bit longer. But at some point, it gets pretty dumb. Shady CGI, ludicrous progression of the story, and a ridiculous trippy POV attempt that is creative, for lack of a better word, such as 'stupid.'
It feels like two completely different artistic visions mashed together. One is a moody thriller and a metaphor for cycle of violence, the other is a reminder that wait...are they still doing this Monsterverse thing? Because the latter half of the film feels like it could reasonably take place in Cruise's abysmal (forgive me Tom) 'The Mummy' universe. However, I thought they gave up on that after "The Invisible Man" was surprisingly good and not compatible with the formers "vibe".
Also, for some reason, he turns into Kevin Nealon instead of a werewolf.
5/10 range for making me laugh a few times. Maybe 7/10 as an unintentional comedy.
Watched the Guard and Calvary over the weekend, both stellar films. The Guard is one of the best comedies of the last 25 years, probably longer, it's able to avoid any kind of slapstick while having plenty of laughs out loud moments. I think those are the best comedies, the ones that rely great writing and great actors, not purely people with funny faces and vulgarity. It also has a number emotional moments which are handled better than must drama movie.
Calvary is a stunning film, gets better with every watch. Any film that begins with the line 'i was seven years old when I first tasted semen' is going to have a lot to live up to, and it does. It's a funny, poignant, emotional rollercoaster, great performances throughout, all of whom play it straight despite the amount of comedic relief. Beautiful scenery as well, true stand out
Thought this was pretty meh. I definitely laughed a few times, but overall it was nowhere near as witty or funny as the original trilogy. Too much stupid-stupid and not enough funny-stupid. Liam was good, but I'm not sure he was best for the role. He just doesn't give off that bumbling idiot vibe that Nielsen had mastered. (I know it's technically a different character). I also felt like they were half-assing a lot of the gags. I gave it an extra half point for all the MMA cameos.
Been watching that Smoke TV show, it's a bit shit. The main protagonist is really good, the black dude, but Taron is pretty awful in this. Can't work out if he's playing it as a psycho or a retard, or a retard that thinks he's a psycho
Script is dumb, they had a pointless scene where the female visits her brother in a cock fighting arena to show how ghetto she is. John Legs is good, Greg Kinnear too. Mostly it's shit
I really wish I would have saw Fury Road in imax or dolby. Im hoping they re-release it soon. Always liked Road warrior but Fury Road is for sure the best mad max movie. Never realized Hout & Zoe were in it.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
