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A system of cells interlinked
Flight 93

Markle, 2006




Low-rent knock off of the Paul Greengrass flick United 93. Basically the same film with less directorial skill and more melodrama.


Zero Dark Thirty

Bigelow, 2011




Perhaps Bigelow's most well-directed film. Interesting and engaging, but still comes off as a bit of a CIA puff piece.


13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Bay, 2016




Easily Bay's most watchable film for me, but I tend to dislike Bay, so that's not saying a lot. Still...Bay exercises quite a bit more restraint here than he normally does, going over the top less and managing to not completely go off the rails into sensory overload nonsense. Then again, this isn't a Transformers film or whatever other nonsense he usually makes. I dunno, I liked this one more than I thought I would.


The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Jones, 2005




How had I not heard of this film? Luckily, I recently spotted this flick at the very top of a "best of the 2000s" list curated by none other than Holden Pike. Glad I took a shot, because it was excellent. Thinking back, I can't really find fault with this one. Will go ahead and give it a perfect rating for now.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



I think 13 Hours benefits a lot from Bay giving you a sense of the compound's layout, which makes the action a lot easier to follow.



A system of cells interlinked
I think 13 Hours benefits a lot from Bay giving you a sense of the compound's layout, which makes the action a lot easier to follow.
I forgot to mention that it is paced really, really well, never dragging and never accelerating into craziness, as he is known to do.



September seen list:

Missing posters are:
Boy With A Flute (top row)
A Man Returned (middle row)
The Heart Of The World (bottom row)




Lamb (Johansson, 2021)

I can't say I'm very impressed with this movie regardless of the lense I take. Whether I view it as a horror or try to interpret the film as a metaphorical art house film to dissect, there's just not much there. Johansson gives the audience very little, and expects them to do a lot. Lamb gives you a decent, but not overly intense landscape. Three extremely one-dimensional characters, with immediately clear vices. & a kinda funny looking chimeras. After that you're on your own, and I couldn't muster the interest.

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Other Viewings:
{REWATCH} We Need to Talk About Kevin (Ramsay, 2011) -

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (Berlinger, 2019) -
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Freaky (Landon, 2020)-

Assasins Run (Cromby/Skya, 2013)-
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A Fall From Grace (Perry, 2020)-


Nothing to exciting in the film world for me, did just get into The Sopranos however, and I'm loving it
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Yeah, there's no body mutilation in it



Mad Max Ultimate review
Multiple views.


Weird, fast, furious, cheap and awesome!



Action masterclass! Madness in the desert of the future real. The world of thus who survived the end of civilization.



Sadness and darkness disguised with innocence. The world of those born after the end. Nothing but sand and dreams - Haunting. Great ending for Mel's trilogy. Goodbye, soldier.



Good action, weak characters. Fast, furious and boring.
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"Some people just doesn't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance."



October seen list (newly rated only):

Missing posters are:
Black Memory (top row)
Anapeson (2nd row)
King Of The Underworld & The Fall Of The House Of Usher (3rd row)



The Wild Hunt (2009) -

Folks get carried away at a Medieval fantasy cosplay retreat. Good job of making characters seem normal and silly before pulling you into the darker tone. It’d be so easy to write this into a ridiculous, over the top corner, but by the time it blows its top, the scenario actually started feeling emotional. Not quite the horror it seems to be marketed as.

Nobody (2021)

I don’t have much to say. Pretty entertaining. Aptly marketed.

The Accountant (2016) -

The awkward autistic relationship is the most interesting part of the movie, but plays second fiddle to magnetic limb fight scenes and a dull thriller plot.

Halloween Kills (2021)

Good ending & music from my man JC, but silly writing throughout (namely the gang chasing a mental Danny DeVito lookalike around an emergency room, thinking the short fat skullet guy is somehow MM). Somewhat entertaining but dumb and passable.

The Deep House (2021)
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Folks explore an underwater haunted house. The horror and mystery throughout most of it, trite as it is, is pretty entertaining. The writing is unoriginal despite a cool premise, and the revelatory ending feels so tacked on I couldn’t help but laugh. It can’t be easy filming a mostly underwater movie wherein set design, sound, camerawork, and lighting play such a big part, so props for not painting the lens with too many bubbles.


Mystery Street (1950)

Detective investigating a murder. A cool noir; dark for its time.


Dagon (2021)

Technically a video game, but pretty much a short, slightly interactive movie. Nice brief visual accompaniment to HP Lovecraft’s story, but the most control you have is half-rotating the POV. I think legs would’ve given it the extra bit of immersion it needed, but it’s free, so go for it.



The Deep House (2021) -

Folks explore an underwater haunted house. The horror and mystery throughout most of it, trite as it is, is pretty entertaining. The writing is unoriginal despite a cool premise, and the revelatory ending feels so tacked on I couldn’t help but laugh. It can’t be easy filming a mostly underwater movie wherein set design, sound, camerawork, and lighting play such a big part, so props for not painting the lens with too many bubbles.
Well, at least you got a good laugh out of it.



November, 2021 movies watched-

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
- First movie in over 2 months and I struggled for the first third or so.

Gone with the Pope (1976)
+ Moderately entertaining but not what I was hoping for.

November viewings-2
2021 viewings-105



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)




I watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford thrice, each time with a different set of people. Most of them liked it well-enough, and my brother was probably the most impressed with it. However, every single person needed me to explain to them, at various points, who some of the supporting characters were and where they were supposed to be at. When my scriptwriter brother needs me to explain to him who is staying with whose relations and why, I think that there are definitely flaws in the storytelling, especially when you have a 160 minute movie where you have plenty of time to make plot points clear.

Now, I understand that some people find "plot" to be a dirty word. In the case of this film, I'll admit that writer/director Dominik was looking for atmosphere and tone, and I believe he produced his desired effect. I just don't understand why someone would make essentially an arthouse western, with what I consider stilted performances and dialogue, make it go on for far too long, and then try to pass it off as a psychologically-deep, naturalistic film. Well, maybe I do; Michael Cimino did it with Heaven's Gate, but I find Heaven's Gate to be the better of the two films.

Before I go on sounding like the curmudgeon I am, I will say that I was impressed with the visuals. Overall, I prefer Deakins' work in No Country For Old Men, but the shot of the train holdup at night, with Jesse James standing in front of it, and the exterior light casting enormous shadows from the train onto the forest is as impressive an individual visual scene as I've seen. The score is good, and parts of the narration are interesting, although the dryness makes me find it less special than it was probably intended to be. There are enough good things here for me to give it a qualified recommendation. I don't feel that I wasted eight hours watching it three times. I admire it more than I did the first time, but I don't like it any more. My rating:
.

As far as the actors and characters go, I'd say that over the course of three viewings, I've warmed to Affleck's performance, but his character still comes across as an underdeveloped cipher who I know little more about at the end of the film than I do when he first opened his mouth. On the other hand, I enjoyed Brad Pitt as a psycho, and I did feel the intelligence behind his character. He seemed all too real to me. I just would have thought that he'd squash Bob Ford like a bug. I even thought Sam Shepard's Frank James should have trusted his judgment and wasted Robert Ford in their introductory scene. Oh yeah, what the heck happened to Frank James? He's certainly a significant character, and then he just disappears. Oh well, I guess Jesse wasn't as smart as he seemed without his big brother. Even though Sam Rockwell also seems a bit affected as Charlie Ford, he is at least recognizable as a real character, but that's because he's actually given lines which someone might actually say in real life.

The film was open to being so ironic about how the characters were in real life compared to how they are depicted in folklore. To me, that would be the reason to make another Jesse James film, but I don't feel the irony here. I just feel a director unintentionally draining the life out of his material with method acting and what seems to be method directing. That is my main critique of this film. For all the artistry, skill, beauty and originality on display, it feels to me like looking at a butterfly collection. It's all very lifeless. Oops, the curmudgeon has resurfaced.

It's tough for me to say that Andrew Dominik is "method directing" since this is only his second film. It may have made more sense if I waited for his next film to see if I could determine a pattern. To tell you the truth, I've never said or written that phrase before in my life, but as I thought that some of the performances seemed to use the Method, I started trying to find a way to describe his way of telling this story.

Method Acting involves the actors using personal experiences in (sometimes) similar situations to draw out the emotions of the character they are playing. It also sometimes includes things which seem so personal that the actor/character occasionally seems to become disconnected from the other actors/characters around them. Brando was probably the best Method Actor I know of, but needless to say, he is infamous for some eccentric performances.

Watching The Ass of JJ, I was struck by how original the direction was. I can accept that this will appeal to many who see the film. I was trying to get inside Dominik's head to determine why he made all the choices he did, in both script and direction. I could see a touchstone in the works of Terrence Malick, but since I'm more used to Malick, I find his work, rightly or wrongly, to be be more true to himself. So then, I decided that Dominik made this film for a very deep-rooted personal reason which I'm not sure that I could fully grasp. Was he trying to place himself in the actual times of Jesse James and thus transport viewers to a more-relaxed, simpler world where things would "just seem slower"? It certainly seemed a possibility and a worthy endeavor.

Or was Dominik just trying to create a revisionist western along the lines of Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller? I wasn't sure if he was making an homage or a personal statement. However, as the film progressed, I started to find the presentation more eccentric rather than less so. This made me understand that he believed in the courage of his convictions, but perhaps his Method in depicting them was to go so far within himself that when they're projected onto the screen, he may have disconnected himself from at least this viewer. Utter BS, I admit, but it's a decent rationalization for inventing a phrase to support one's opinion. Now that I've used it, I can think of some more possible Method directors, both good and not-so-good. But I think that's going even more off-topic, or does that really mean eccentric, on my part? Have I become a Method reviewer? The horror...
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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page



December seen list (newly rated only):

Missing posters are:
Jungle (top row)
Passport To Treason (middle row)



December, 2021 movies watched-

Brother's Keeper (1992)
One of my new favorite documentaries.

Dheepan (2015)
This was great until it went off Taxi Driver style.

JFK (1991)
Stone throws a lot at the viewer and plenty of it sticks.

December viewings-3
2021 viewings-108
8 year total since keeping track-2407



Trying to fall in love with the movies again...
Yojimbo

Sanjuro

Papillon

Bullitt

The Producers

Lawrence of Arabia

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Sweet Smell of Success











The Matrix 4 (2021)

Everyone gets their magnetic forearms, gust of wind attacks, and ability to destroy at least 3 walls at once by looking at them funny. Maybe a higher score than it deserves because of cool dark cinematography, cyber body mods, and nostalgia.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)




Basically, I think the film's message is along the lines that you may find your better half (Remy is obviously Linguini's better half) in the strangest places. I love and laugh out loud, repeatedly, at the way that Remy controls Linguini by pulling his hair. It's physical slapstick as good as it gets and just about as good as anything the great silent clowns ever did. Another message is that humans and non-humans can relate equally as long as they respect each other, although I'm not sure how much Remy actually respects Linguini up front, after all there's not much there.

In general, I just love the storytelling ability of Brad Bird. He may have used the TV more effectively in The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, but it goes without saying that Bird likes to communicate info through TVs, especially primitive ones. His use of the floating TV here is a classic movie motif - it's Remy's mind remembering what he's already seen. The thing which appeals to me about Ratatouille is that there is so much going on that I cannot complain about most of it because I'm too busy enjoying it. Yes, Act III is the best. Does everyone notice that Ego looks like a character out of a Tim Burton flick, that his typewriter has a skull on it and that his "gothic room" is in the shape of a coffin? You can see that all in the scene where Ego learns that Gusteau's is now popular again.

As far as the romance is concerned, maybe it is underdeveloped, but it's certainly believable. Linguini seems to have almost no social skills, but you don't need social skills to be attracted to women in the workplace. It's just normal. Linguini has very little past and very little depth (except for what Remy gives him), so it's not surprising that he doesn't especially grow after he learns he's the offspring of Gusteau. However, he does use what he can do quite well in Act III. Linguini uses his skating prowess to serve everyone quite handsomely when Ego shows up. He also seems less-tongue-tied than normal. The last 25 minutes are the best. However, among my earlier, fave lines are "Let's toast to your non-idiocy!" and " I don't LIKE food. I LOVE it. If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW".



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)




I felt that the Joker was actually one of the more honest characters in the movie. Even if he changed the story of his origin depending exactly on who he was talking to, and he does deliver one baldfaced lie, it appears to all be within the realm of his believing in having fun by playing games. Batman seems to force himself to have to believe in what he stands for, but the Joker has no problem whatsoever in letting you know that he believes in Anarchy and the vileness of human nature, but it still has to be demonstrated with a maximum amount of "fun". This Joker is definitely one of the scarier characters I've ever seen. I don't know if you think that escalating one-note symphony which played during the tenser moments of the film was a cheat or super-effective, but I always took it to be what the Joker hears inside his mind when things are going his way.

Many of the characters in the film are duplicitous, but the Joker seems to stay true to his beliefs. He's obviously very smart and possesses some form of mind control to be able to pull off all the things he does with no visible means of support. I mean, he must have some financial backing, but it isn't anything comparable to Bruce Wayne's. Plus, the Joker commits a heinous crime in the film: he burns money! (I'm only discussing what's seen in this film, not the comic books.)

In some ways the Joker and Harvey Dent both seem interested in playing games of chance, whether involving playing cards or coin flips. The Joker probably enjoys doing magic tricks more than Harvey, but he certainly did a good one when he spoke to Harvey Dent (offscreen) in the hospital room.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
No Country For Old Men (Coen Bros., 2007)




This is a terrific film, but the Coens just love to throw curves towards the end at the audience. They did it in Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn't There, and I believe they do it here too. This flick grabs you from the beginning and is so unusual and suspenseful that it slowly wraps its fingers around your throat and tightens. The scene where the dog chases Llewelyn in the river almost had me giddy; I couldn't believe I was watching something that I should have seen long ago. The shootout in the deserted smalltown streets between Llewelyn and Anton was even better. I never once cared that nobody reared their head. There are several other classic suspense scenes in the film, especially involving cheap motels and a botched drug transaction. Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff is a terrific character, but somehow, the three strong characters seem to be hung out to dry during the last 20 minutes.

NOTE - This was all resolved by me almost immediately, but I include it here anyway.

These unanswered questions are what I find lessens the impact of the film. My fave character is Llewelyn. We never see what happens to him. We can imply it, but I don't think it's fair that such a cool character "just disappears". What happened to the money? Where did Anton's character go when the Sheriff was outside the motel crime scene? We saw him. We saw the opened vent, but that was too small for him to get away through. Is Anton actually a "part-time ghost" as the Sheriff hypothesizes? Who is the family member in the wheelchair that the Sheriff talks to? (Again, I can imply who it is, and if you read the story, maybe you know, but that's not fair. Movies aren't novels and they often change things.) Does Anton kill Llewelyn's wife? The Carson Wells character implies that Anton lives by a code (even if it's a psychotic's code). Did Anton spare the wife and violate his own code, thus causing the "accident" at the end of the film? Was that crackup at the end even an "accident"? What happens to Anton? How do the Sheriff's two dreams tie the entire story together?



Every film I've watched in the past three months, all of which selected by my girlfriend

Dune (Villeneuve , 2021) -
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The Unforgivable (Fingscheidt , 2021) -

Sightless (Karl, 2020) -

Red Notice (Thurber, 2021) -
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