Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

On the Town is great. Among the best MGM musicals.


Also one of the first MGM musicals I saw.

Shane is okay.

I have never watched anything involving the Nostalgia Critic, though I am marginally aware of his existence and should theoretically find him entertaining. May or may not give it a shot.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#219 - A Good Day to Die Hard
John Moore, 2013



John McClane travels to Russia in order to find out why his son has been arrested but is soon dragged into the midst of a terrorist plot.

I used to think Live Free or Die Hard was a major disgrace to one of the best action film franchises ever - enough so to rank it as one of my ten worst movies ever a few years ago - but in recent years I've more or less mellowed out over it, though I did still consider it the weakest in the series. The extremely implausible hacking premise, the weak humour generated by the odd-couple pairing of Bruce Willis's hard-bitten protagonist and Justin Long's nerdy sidekick, the computer-generated stunts that managed to wipe out suspension of disbelief by showing all sorts of carnage that McClane shouldn't be able to survive even by the improbable standards established by the original film...it managed to engender more ironic amusement than genuine thrills, and even then that wasn't enough to make it truly enjoyable. A Good Day to Die Hard seems to promise more of the same kind of content, but whether or not it provides any more of the same entertainment value (or even any entertainment value) remained to be seen.

It's tough to get the balance right when it comes to making a sequel, especially when it's been almost thirty years since the original installment. Knowing that A Good Day to Die Hard was a deliberate attempt to write a sequel to Die Hard (as opposed to the other sequels, which started off as different stories before being adapted to include McClane), it only serves to highlight just how different to its predecessors it is while also drawing attention to the moments that it shamelessly mimics. This film once again introduces an estranged family member to add character-based tension to the already-high stakes - this time it's McClane's adult son (Jai Courtney), who also fills the role of the sidekick that has frequently snarky banter with McClane (a role taken by Samuel L. Jackson in the third film and Long in the fourth film). Unfortunately, Courtney's turn as a no-nonsense CIA agent whose main personality trait consists of resenting McClane is a major drop in quality from Jackson's belligerence or even Long's nervous irritation. There's nobody else of note here - not even Sebastian Koch from The Lives of Others gets much in the way of worthwhile material as the man that the McClanes must protect at all costs.

Action-wise, this film manages to be as physically impossible as its most immediate predecessor without even any of the entertainment. There are various death-defying stunts that frequently take one out of the movie - one especially egregious example involves the McClanes jumping through a glass window and falling through several stories worth of scaffolding with only a handful of bloody scratches between them. It is frequently matched and one-upped during its rather baffling climax and not in a good way. A Good Day to Die Hard consistently fails to provide anything approaching worthwhile entertainment - despite being the shortest Die Hard film by a considerable margin, it still feels extremely sluggish and drawn-out compared to the others. Willis manages the impressive feat of seeming to sleep-walk through his most iconic role even as he survives the unlikeliest of scenarios. The connections to the previous films seem especially insulting because of their attachment to what would otherwise be a very forgettable blockbuster. Then again, there's a chance this will look a lot better once a sixth film gets made. Until then, it seems like a good day for the franchise to die hard.

I didn't think there was an ordinary everyday reason to watch the 4th one and I'm certain there isn't one to watch the 5th.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

In my defence, the first time I watched the fourth one was on an airplane. Otherwise, it's just been on free-to-air TV (as was the fifth one when I watched it. Like a good many of the films I've given negative reviews to in this thread, it's either out of being a completionist or out of morbid curiosity or of both. The fifth film was definitely a case of both.

#220 - Bad Day at Black Rock
John Sturges, 1955



In the aftermath of World War II, an old soldier travels to a small town looking for some but soon learns that everyone in town is hiding a dark secret.

I'm quite fond of the "town with a dark secret" trope and the various details that it encompasses. The uncanny sense that something about the place just isn't right, the investigating character becoming more and more frustrated by the difficulty of their search for answers, the town's population ranging from the good-hearted but useless to the villains closest to the secret, the growing sense of dread as the secret is slowly revealed...even if it's not executed properly, at least it's a good exercise in mystery. Bad Day at Black Rock is a good execution of this particular trope that feels very much like something out of the Wild West despite its relatively modern setting (you could quite possibly swap out World War II for the Civil War and it wouldn't be much different aside from the period-appropriate details).

Spencer Tracy leads the cast as a disabled veteran searching for one of the town's residents. He gives a strong performance where he starts out at a friendly old man but that exterior soon gives way to a multitude of raw emotions that he expresses in numerous ways against the inhabitants of the town. He's backed up by some good actors - Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin show up as some of the more obviously antagonistic characters that Tracy encounters, while Anne Francis and Dean Jagger make for much more ambiguous foils for Tracy. The film is generally pretty lean and knows that there isn't enough of a mystery to sustain the film's length. Fortunately it makes up for it with some reasonably well-developed characters, a cursory exploration of moral relativity, and some solid Western-style filmmaking.

I love Bad Day at Black Rock! Your review is pretty good, too.

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I don't think it'll be a surprise to anyone that I didn't care much for Bad Day At Black Rock.

#221 - Out of Africa
Sydney Pollack, 1985



In the early years of the 20th century, a Danish baroness travels to Africa with her philandering husband and finds herself enamoured with a local game hunter.

My first impression of this lengthy Oscar-winning period romantic drama was not the most favourable one. It looked like the kind of Best Picture winner that is bound to supplement its win with a bevy of technical Oscars and maybe even a Best Director win, but that probably wouldn't stop me ignoring the fact that underneath the fancy technical side and cast of respectable actors lay an extremely dry excuse for a drama. During the first few minutes, I thought to myself, "This is going to be just like The English Patient, isn't it?" Fortunately, it's a testament to the talent on board that Out of Africa manages to overcome that particular first impression.

Meryl Streep naturally brings a lot to this particular table as Baroness Karen Blixen, the source's author who ends up going to Africa with her new husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer, who makes for a surprisingly decent "antagonist" without descending into smarmy villainy). Though she naturally goes through a period of adjustment, she eventually becomes so invested in the progress of their farm (unlike her constantly absent husband, whose absence provides a catalyst for caring so much about the farm) and the well-being of the native population that it becomes the focal point of the film's conflict. The film also gives equal time to her budding romantic relationship with a game hunter (Robert Redford, dependable as always) who proves a much more constant and empathetic presence in her life than her husband does. Various complications great and small ensue over the course of the film's three-hour running time

The technical side is definitely solid - the various landscapes and wildlife of Kenya are captured with some strong cinematography and the score is complementary and unobtrusive. The story is predictably a little familiar in its protracted treatment of an epic romance that does veer too close to white saviour territory with Streep's benevolent defence of the locals against much more amoral and imperialistic characters. Fortunately, it's carried reasonably well by Streep and Redford, who do have some decent chemistry - Streep in particular does well with her character's Danish accent, while Redford gets by on the basis of his usual charisma. While it's thankfully not the dreary slog that its running time and subject matter might success, it's still merely an alright example of a particular type of film without being genuinely spectacular (aside from its cinematography, of course). With this in mind, I might even try giving The English Patient a second chance.

Not seen either for decades, but I remember liking The English Patient, while finding Out Of Africa very dull.

#222 - Housos vs. Authority
Paul Fenech, 2012



Focuses on the unruly inhabitants of a housing estate in the worst suburb in Australia as they get into all sorts of misadventures, mainly involving their attempts to get from Sydney to Uluru.

I am really not a fan of Paul Fenech's comedy. Fat Pizza (the big-screen version of his work-com Pizza) cracked the top half of my worst movies ever list due to its obnoxiously unfunny and immature humour. Fenech's follow-up to Pizza was Housos (named after the Australian slang for the people who live in housing estates), a show that pretty much as I described in the logline. I watched the first episode (possibly the second) before giving up on it because it was just as irritating as Pizza had been but the edginess of the humour had escalated without improvement. So, with all this in mind, why would I ever want to watch a feature-length version of a show that I couldn't stand? Well, honestly, it's because Netflix's rating prediction system told me that my probable rating for this movie would be four-and-a-half out of five. I admit that I was intrigued how Netflix would come to that conclusion, and I figured that at the very least it would make for tolerable background noise, so I proceeded to load up the movie.

Well, you know what they say. "Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me." Housos vs. Authority is everything that I feared (and, to be quite honest, expected) it would be. To call this satirical would be generous and not exactly accurate - while the film does (presumably) exaggerate many stereotypes of not just the lower-class Housos themselves but also the police and politicians who stand in opposition to them, it's about as basic as satire can get. From the snobby fashion designers trying to stage a photoshoot in the neighbourhood at the start of the film to the politicians that try to have the main Housos arrested for defacing Uluru (and even a brief, out-of-focus appearance by a Julia Gillard impersonator), the satire is extremely entry-level and, in the latter case, actually makes the supposedly villainous suit-and-tie bureaucrats more sympathetic and understandable than the extremely petty and foolish criminals who are the closest things we have to protagonists in this movie. Of course, I don't require protagonists to be sympathetic to be likeable or even engaging (especially when it comes to comedies), but the Housos are easily some of the most irritating characters ever committed to film and the fact that there are no serious consequences for any of their actions sucks the weight out of the movie's already underweight narrative. Just because these characters are deliberately exaggerated for comic effect doesn't mean they have that comic effect - instead, a lot of them come as shrill-voiced, witless, oversexed and, worst of all, unfunny. Not even the fact that the plot is driven by one of them trying to get to Alice Springs in order to say goodbye to her dying mother is enough to endear me to either her or the others. The gimmick of having the whole thing be narrated through the fourth wall by a minor character who has no actual impact on the plot is also worthless - I got enough of that garbage with Two Hands.

The direction matches the lack of quality behind the writing. The whole thing is sloppily shot and edited in such a way that matches the incoherence and incompetence of the plot and gags. The soundtrack is made up of terrible Australian rap songs, which is only made worse by the fact that several songs get repeatedly frequently - a movie that relies this much of repeating the same awful jokes over and over should not mirror that through the use of leitmotifs. It's also 100 minutes long, which is way too long for such a thin and superficial movie - at least Disaster Movie was short. Housos vs. Authority manages to outdo Fat Pizza in being one of the most downright contemptible excuses for a comedy I've ever seen. It's pretty telling that I saw this a couple of days after the notoriously execrable parody that is Disaster Movie and I'm actually starting to consider this the worse movie. They are both lazily written satires full of unlikeable characters and terrible gross-out humour, but the kicker is that everyone knows Disaster Movie is terrible. Housos has enough fans to guarantee not just multiple seasons (and it's still running) but also this movie and another upcoming movie that crosses over with Fat Pizza. That's the biggest joke of all, but that doesn't make it the funniest.

#223 - The Spectacular Now
James Ponsoldt, 2013



Focuses on the relationship between a pair of high school students - one a sarcastic slacker with a drinking problem, the other an optimistic introvert.

At first glance, The Spectacular Now looks like yet another one of those quasi-independent dramedies that trades on a down-to-earth, bittersweet sensibility as it builds off a rather familiar low-key premise and fills out its supporting cast with recognisable character actors. It definitely fills those criteria, but underneath it's still a fairly solid little coming-of-age story that provides enough variation to be decent, if not necessarily amazing. Between this and Whiplash, Miles Teller is shaping up to be a rather promising young actor - his character isn't supposed to be all that sympathetic due to him being a budding alcoholic who's not doing too well at school or work and whose response to being dumped by his girlfriend (Brie Larson) involves trying to play Pygmalion with the sweet and innocent classmate (Shailene Woodley) he meets up with by chance in the wake of one especially heavy session of drinking. Of course, things start getting serious and drama ensues, especially when Teller's character ends up confronting some of the issues involving his broken home.

The Spectacular Now may not reinvent the wheel or anything, but it's a charming little film that has good performances and fleshes out its framework with some nicely-handled scenes. It feels realistic and believable, almost to a fault - Teller and Woodley have strong enough chemistry and sell their relationship rather well (both the highs and lows) but it feels like something that belongs in a film with more of a plot than this rather meandering affair (which only seems to get serious about its developments in its second half). The veteran performers (such as Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bob Odenkirk, and Kyle Chandler) don't get all that much material to work with - sure, it might be justified by the film being mainly filtered through Teller's character's perspective and so any number of authority figures come across as one-dimensional, but that doesn't feel like much of an excuse. It's a pleasant and intriguing enough film, but doesn't have all that much steak to back up its considerable sizzle.

Housos is very bad indeed, I was more amused with The Swift and Shift series.

I never watched Swift and Shift, so I can't speak to its quality but I can't imagine it being that much better than Pizza or Housos.

#224 - Hannibal
Ridley Scott, 2001



Ten years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter is hiding out in Italy but his safety is threatened by one of his former victims, a deranged millionaire who will stop at nothing to find him.

I managed to read three novels that featured the infamously cultured and violent Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter - this includes Hannibal, the sequel that sees Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) free from prison and hiding out in Florence. The book hasn't got a particularly good reputation and reading it didn't do all that much to make me think otherwise, though I considered the possibility that Ridley Scott might be able to make something worthwhile out of it. Unfortunately for Hannibal, it still can't escape its reputation for being a poor imitation of its predecessor - when it's not cutting out the sort of thing that made said predecessor worthwhile in the first place. A large chunk of what made The Silence of the Lambs work was the twisted symbiotic relationship that emerged between Lecter and FBI agent Clarice Starling (originally played by Jodie Foster but replaced with Julianne Moore in this sequel), however the bulk of this film involves them being separated and out of contact with one another.

Instead, what drives the film is Mason Verger (a near-unrecognisable Gary Oldman), a sadistic millionaire who has been left disfigured and paralysed by Lecter and is now trying to exact bloody vengeance upon him. To this extent, much of the story involves an Italian detective (Giancarlo Giannini) searching for Lecter in Florence, which results in the second act of the film becoming a tiresome cat-and-mouse game between the two that barely involves Starling or much in the way of thrills. Starling's side of the story doesn't involve much - though Moore does make a decent enough substitute for Foster, she's ultimately kind of wasted as her familiar level of determination doesn't have that much of an effect on the plot until the third act, though she does get a handful of decent scenes through they are spread rather thin across the film. Hopkins, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be putting much effort into the role and seems willing to play more towards caricature than towards a genuine performance. At least Oldman manages to do well at acting through a face full of makeup.

I have mixed feelings about Ridley Scott as a director - he's made some great films, some alright films, and others I don't care for. Regardless of how I felt about his films, I always respected his craftsmanship no matter what - even the worst of his films at least looked good. Hannibal is definitely on the bad end of Scott's filmography, but it still manages to showcase Scott's capacity for solid visuals above all else. Though the violence in this film tends to be sensationalised in a way that seems to undercut the psychological elements and make the film itself come across as excessively gory, that doesn't mean they aren't occasionally effective; those final scenes are genuinely unsettling in a way (especially since they differ from the novel in a good way - as bad as this film can be, it could have been a lot worse if it'd gone with the novel's original ending). There's also the extremely effective makeup job that's applied to Oldman to make him look like a man who's cut his own face off. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Scott's more obvious visual flaws, like some shoddily-handled slow-motion and Bay-like fast-cutting in certain scenes. It's definitely a weak attempt at continuing a story that really didn't need to be continued, but it has its moments that make the whole two-hour running time pass by a little better than it would have otherwise.

#225 - Red Dragon
Brett Ratner, 2002



Taking place prior to the events of The Silences of the Lambs, this film sees Hannibal Lecter once again being consulted on how to catch a serial killer, this time by working with Will Graham, the man who originally put him away.

As of writing, I'm inclined to choose Manhunter over The Silence of the Lambs as my favourite Hannibal Lecter film (though I am due for re-watches of both), so I was naturally less than enthusiastic at the idea of watching Red Dragon, which is adapted from the same novel as Manhunter only with the inclusion of Anthony Hopkins instead of Brian Cox. Given its proximity in release to Hannibal, it's hard not to see this as a soulless cash-grab that exists for the sake of having Hopkins appear in one more adaptation featuring the notorious cannibal. Having Brett Ratner behind the camera probably doesn't do much to make one enthusiastic, nor does the addition of star power and The Silence of the Lambs' Oscar-winning screenwriter doesn't seem especially promising either.

If Hannibal's biggest flaw was the result of trying to distance itself from The Silence of the Lambs, then Red Dragon's biggest flaw is perhaps trying too hard to mimic it. The basic plot is virtually the same with a few variations, namely that the protagonist this time is Will Graham (Edward Norton), a retired investigator with an almost supernatural gift for mentally retracing a murderer's actions, which results in him being brought out of retirement in order to try to catch a serial killer. Unlike naive FBI rookie Clarice Starling, Graham is a worn-out and troubled veteran who is given the appropriate level of weariness by Norton. The killer, meanwhile, is played reasonably well by the effortlessly creepy Ralph Fiennes while other actors - such as Philip Seymour Hoffman as a sleazy tabloid journalist or Harvey Keitel as Graham's firm yet sensitive boss - do reasonably well given the material. Hopkins still does Lecter reasonable justice. Unfortunately, this somewhat engaging procedural builds to a very trite third act and resolution - granted, that's how it played out in the book, but Manhunter definitely changed it for the better. On that note, Red Dragon may have a slight edge over Hannibal due to its keeping things within the realm of a straightforward police procedural instead of a loosely plotted manhunt, but it still comes across as a fairly uninspired thriller even for its time. The actors are good enough to make up for it somewhat, but not even the presence of Hopkins is enough to give this the edge over Manhunter.

#226 - The Kid
Charlie Chaplin, 1921



A tramp discovers an orphaned infant and proceeds to take care of him.

Silent films always feel like a bit of a gamble to me because, sure, if they're still being talked about almost a century after their creation, then there's got to be something worthwhile about them, but then again their reputations are no guarantee that I'll necessarily like them. The only other Chaplin film I've seen is 1931's City Lights, which is often considered his best but didn't do much for me. The Kid is older, shorter, and much simpler, with enough complications to fill out an hour. Despite his reputation as a comedy icon, I didn't actually find Chaplin or this film especially funny. It's got its moments, sure, but it does feel a little underwhelming. Fortunately, it's backed up by a solid emotional core as the plights of the various characters are communicated reasonably well through some rather expressive acting.

Though the comedy doesn't always result in genuine laughter, I can't help but admire some of the effort that's gone into constructing certain scenes, such as one where Chaplin's tramp gets into a fistfight with a brutish man. It also segues into a heavenly dream sequence during what I suppose could be considering its climax (because how else are the makers of silent films going to show off their special effects in otherwise realistic films?) but it's got a good heart without descending into unearned sentimentality (though the basic nature of said sentimentality is a bit of a strike against it). There's an interesting social consciousness to it as well - the kid's mother is unwed and impoverished so she tries to give the kid away to a rich man, but circumstances lead to it ending up with the tramp, who still manages to do an alright job of raising the kid, petty crime notwithstanding. The resolution is easy, but not unwarranted. Worth watching at least once, though it's anyone's guess as to whether or not you'll like it or dislike it.

That "solid emotional core" is definitely the thing that, for me, makes The Kid stand out. I've never understood Chaplin's popularity. He simply isn't funny. But there was just the right amount of heart in this one for me to enjoy it. I'd give it about the same rating you do.

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I originally had it at , but typing out how I felt about it was enough to make me bump it up a bit.