Movies
Really good crime film from South Korea, where the protagonist, a loyal hitman, becomes a target of his crime boss after his conscience leads him to disobey his commands.
It has a pretty neat setup, and a structure that combines asian noir crime drama with Hong Kong-esque heroic bloodshed moments. The action is good, and the presentation is raw and gritty.
If you liked films like The Man from Nowhere or The Raid 2, this is an easy recommendation.
Apparently Luc Besson didn’t feel fulfilled with Lucy, the movie where his waifu character played by Scarlet Johansson transforms into a supercomputer because of drugs. He now regales us with the tale of what’s perhaps his most cringe-inducing Mary Sue character to date.
All the recent Besson elements are still here. The torture porn, the faux grrl empowerment scenes, the superhero-like attainment of superhuman powers —technically, Anna, the protagonist, is trained by the KGB for one year, but this is only mentioned in passing before we immediately cut to her first mission, so it might as well be an instant transformation.
Fair enough. Poetic license perhaps. Economy of narrative. What doesn’t make any sense is that the KGB or, more specifically, Anna’s KGB handler and would-be love interest goes through all this trouble to recruit her, and get her accepted, only for his boss, a veteran KGB lady, to decide that her graduation mission should, for some reason, also be a suicide mission.
Anna, being of course a Besson character, completes the mission effortlessly clearing out an entire restaurant full of seasoned bodyguards, cementing her as the valuable asset she is.
And so, we get the story of a girl who goes from a miserable life surrounded by crime to being a KGB super-spy and a popular fashion supermodel at the same time, all while she juggles a love triangle with both her KGB trainer, and a CIA agent when she’s framed into becoming a double agent.
While Lucy went all-out and embraced its absurdism, Anna pretends to take itself seriously enough that it detracts considerably from one’s suspension of disbelief.
I’ve seen worse, but I don’t exactly recommend this either. Easy pass.
Movie based on the semi-fictionalized exploits of a group of card counters from MIT who took millions from Las Vegas casinos by running a card-counting method for blackjack games.
It’s a fairly formulaic thriller for most of its running time. With all the required safe-for-tv provisos in place, such as the main character not being motivated by greed, but to be able to afford medical school at Harvard. It’s nothing unwholesome, you see.
When it came out, I remember some controversy around its casting, since most of the characters from the MIT group are played by white actors, while the characters of the (considerably fictionalized) book its based on were mostly Asian. This doesn’t seem to be the case for the real-life MIT Vegas team. Whether it is more racist to cast White actors to portray possibly non-white characters, or to fall into the stereotype that Asians are really good with numbers, is left as an exercise for the reader.
I don’t particularly recommend it. It’s entertaining but pretty bland and formulaic, and the sanitized plot points just make it run of the mill Hollywood filler.
Amazing movie by the legend of Korean cinema, Park Chan-wook.
Great and creative cinematography in service of a tense and poetic story. The artistry on display makes it one of the best films I’ve seen this year.
There’s a lot under the surface in this film. So much that I think I need to rewatch it to catch all the subtleties of the presentation and story.
I recommend going blind into this one, although be warned that the pacing is fairly slow.
One of those self-aggrandizing movies written/starring/directed by the same guy. This time it is martial arts instructor Shuny Bee, on his quest to stop an organized human trafficking ring.
Unintentionally hilarious, poorly written, low budget trash, but not so bad that’s unwatchable. Pretty OK, to laugh at. It was featured in Best of the Worst, if I remember correctly, so you know what kind of movie to expect.
I think I came across this movie while looking at a list of Nicolas Cage films. At first blush, it looked like Top Gun with helicopters and, sure enough, it feels like it piggybacks on the success of that movie to sell tickets.
What I wasn’t expecting was the blatantly propagandistic focus of the entire story. The movie is essentially a commercial about how cool it is to be an Apache pilot and kill all the bad guys, and how awesome it is to become proficient at flying expensive combat helicopters for your country.
Not to say that Top Gun wasn’t propagandistic, but it at least offered an entertaining plot as an extra, making it valuable to watch as a film. Fire Birds doesn’t. Clearly a career vessel/alimentary movie for Cage. No big deal if you skip this one.
Where to start with this one? Lots to unpack here.
Let’s start with their decision to make another Power Rangers movie, but unlike the previous feature films, avoid following any of the cast of the series. It isn’t tied to the continuity in any way. Doesn’t even feature any fanservice cameos, as far as I know.
It’s a complete reboot that exchanges the original Mighty Morphin’ cast with alternate characters, set in a gloomy, depressing Angel Grove that replaces the sun, palm trees and colorful décor for a mining town with drab buildings and overcast skies.
The rangers-to-be are still Jason, Billy, Zack, etc, but they are now stereotypical “troubled teens”. Nearly all characters have been race-swapped (I believe Jason is the only one whose ethnicity matches the character he’s based on), and they even make an intentional call out to Mighty Morphin’s er… straightforward color coordination. Billy, the blue ranger is now a Black guy, you see, while the black ranger is now east Asian.
The movie feels like it’s at constant tension with itself. On one hand you get the feeling that half the people involved in making this didn’t give a shit about Power Rangers, yet at the same time they are putting some impressive effort in making the movie itself. Early on you get a car chase scene with cinematography way more inspired than a production such as this warrants. Later on, during the Ranger’s extended training, there is an out of nowhere homage to kung-fu movies set in a diner. Details here and there that feel surprising, in a good way.
Speaking of extended training: Perhaps you’ve seen in other reviews that the teens take forever to actually become Rangers, and that’s correct. It takes a full 90 minutes of runtime until they morph for the first time. The first sighting of a transformation to the ranger form is 1 hour into the movie.
A consequence of aiming the script to themes like “my family believes in labels, but I’m a unique teenager! boo”, while social discourse has moved on so fast away from that is that the movie feels dated already. It’s painfully 2017 although that’s only partially the movie’s fault.
What is not are all the other bizarre details that made it into the movie. Angel Grove being a drab rainy mining town, the fight in a literal quarry (that one is kind of funny), how weird it feels like the zords have actual mounted machine guns and other ballistic armaments, a freaking cover of Stand By Me, and the awful product placement of Krispy Kreme during the climactic final battle.
One of the weirdest casting choices is Rita Repulsa. She just looks like somebody’s mom. Her motivations and actions are cartoonish but don’t make a lot of sense, nor they align with her character in the original series.
A fascinating watch. Not good, but really vibrant and entertaining.
Yes, the Fast & Furious guy has made a Nu-Trek movie. And of course it features a choreographed scene with many motorcycles.
Not sure what to think of Star Trek being used to make high-action movies with a varnish of space science-fiction. I don’t have a lot of investment in the franchise, and the movies are adequate. Nothing memorable, but nothing terribly bad either.
A fairly mediocre popcorn movie. Although it has some interesting characters and settings, it’s probably the weakest entry in the Nu-Trek saga so far.
This is only the second film directed by Takeshi Kitano that I’ve watched (the first one was 2003’s Zatoichi).
Sort of an outlier in his filmography at the time, this story doesn’t feature yakuza like his other movies. It’s about a deaf-mute garbage collector who gets into surfing after finding a discarded surfboard on the street while working.
The whole film has quiet, wholesome vibes, and the amazing soundtrack contributes a lot of the oxygen to its atmosphere. I managed to identify Joe Hisaishi as the author of the OST, without checking beforehand. I can now tell that his reputation is well deserved.
This is a film you watch for its atmosphere more than its plot or narrative, and I recommend going blind into it.
Another cool detail is the literal translation of its original title: Ano natsu, ichiban shizukana umi, “That summer, the calmest sea”. Even more poetic than the official translated title.
I haven’t been paying much attention to Antoine Fuqua’s work lately, so I was surprised to see that his name was part of this.
Feels like one of those Netflix money-laundering dumps where they make a bland, uninspired mid-to-high budget movie with one or two big names, a la Red Notice, and call it a day.
The premise outline is like it was written by a high schooler. That can be fun at times, but here it’s played so humourlessly that it gets boring.
The plot is about the existence of some people called “infinites”, who can reincarnate and remember everything they learned in their past lives. These people are inevitably highly influential and powerful, but they operate in the shadows. Mark Wahlberg, being one of these infinites, but with amnesia, has to save the world.
Not even the over the top stakes and plotline make this one particularly entertaining.
I was worried that the lore and stakes inflation of the John Wick series would be reaching critical mass after the third installment, but I’m pleased to report that this is not the case.
Chapter 4 is in some ways a course correction and refinement, focusing on what made the second movie great. While it’s impossible for the series to go back to the more compact and small scale atmosphere of the first film, it can at least focus on its strengths, which are spectacular action setpieces, great shootout and chase choreographies, and aspirational backdrops and settings.
The general vibe of the plot is more or less the same as movies 2 and 3, but the plot is not what matters in these films. It’s the moment-to-moment action on screen, and in this case it’s delivered very elegantly.
This one is about a kid competing in a downhill skateboarding race, while avoiding the ire of the local “evil” skateboarder gang, having a romance, and all that teen stuff.
Pretty by-the-numbers teen movie. The distinct feature of Thrashin’ is that it’s dripping with authentic 80s sauce.
Young Josh Brolin on the role of protagonist Corey Webster (isn’t that the most 80s American name you’ve heard in a while?), while some banging 80s tunes enhance the soundtrack. And the subject matter itself, skateboarding in California, is quintessentially representative of the aesthetic we’ve come to associate with this decade.
Certainly a 2023 commercial adaptation. No, Chris Pratt doesn’t sound like Mario. No, it doesn’t really matter much. It’s like many of us expected from the trailers, an inoffensive 3D cartoon movie in the Super Mario Bros. universe
It has some “clap if you get the reference” moments, and some strange choices. Especially the picks for the soundtrack, which feel bizarre and out of place.
Some of its visual gags are fine. It certainly fares better than Shrek in the humour department. However, the movie is weirdly violent at times, which is an odd choice for a Nintendo property aimed at kids, and in the Mario setting.
There are some French names in the credits, and the name Illumination Studios Paris. Turns out they are the “minions” people. That would explain the violence and flat humour.
Maybe worth a watch if you like Mario, but it’s nothing special.
British remake of 1952’s Ikiru, by Akira Kurosawa and Kazuo Ishiguro.
I haven’t seen Kurosawa’s original yet, so I can’t comment on similarities and differences, but I enjoyed this movie for what it is.
A council bureaucrat from 1950s London tries to find meaning in his life when he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The film hits some nice melodrama notes, and the 50s London setting is an appropriate match for the story.
I also watched this one on a plane, so I will definitely plan a rewatch. Other than that it is a straightforward but well made and enjoyable film.
A pretty boring Guy Ritchie “Bond clone” joint. Orson Fortune is the name of the character this time around, performed by Jason Statham.
He’s a loose cannon but the British need them for his skills, yadda, yadda. He’s supposedly brilliant but also performatively stupid-irreverent to be cool and anti-authority, even though he’s literally a paid goon for the authorities?
It’s quite bad. The only good part is Cary Elwes, who has a charming role. There’s even a The Princess Bride joke in there that elicited half the chuckles I had watching this movie.
The other chuckle was with the choice of Aubrey Plaza as the female spy/femme fatale. At first, I thought they cast Plaza because they wanted a more quirky take on the female spy stereotype, but as the movie went on it felt more and more obvious that, no, they cast her because they must have not been able to find an actress more suited to these kinds of roles, since she has scenes that are played straight and seem written for en entirely different actor.
Anyway, I watched this on a plane, which was suitable and the perfect situation for this type of movie.
Went to this movie thinking it would be good, since the first Spider-verse movie was unexpectedly great.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I misremembered the tone of the original movie. It came out 5 years ago, after all. No, this one feels off. Worse in pretty much every aspect. The writing is terrible sub-Whedonesque quippy stuff, the characters have no development. We don’t get to care about them before they’re boasting about how awesome they are.
The prologue is cloying Mary Sue garbage. The animation effects, which were diverse and creative in the previous film, are repetitive and uninspired here. The plot hits some good moments, but it’s mostly a pretty boring setup with questionable themes.
I could go on. It’s not a complete bust, and I guess if you’re a Marvel nut you might enjoy it for the fanservice alone (but if you’re a Marvel nut, what are you doing reading cinema criticism?). The first movie is much better.
I heard that the staff who worked on this movie is different from the original team, and that in addition to that it was produced in pretty bad working conditions, so that definitely could be an explanation about what happened here.
What a sad time. Harrison Ford dragged out of retirement to film yet another unnecessary entry in the Indiana Jones series.
I wish they just pulled a James Bond and recast Indy if they want to keep making these. Also, they should hire better writers.
While not as bad as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the McGuffin in this one is the most absurd, ridiculous one to date. Gone is the subtlety and low-magic mystery flavor of the originals, this is just blatant supernaturalship.
It cost a pretty penny, too. Visually the movie looks pretty good but the awful writing and unlikable main characters make this one hard to digest.
It also suffers from the recent hyper-corporatization of film franchises in that it simultaneously veers wildly off the tone of the original trilogy, and relies on cheap nostalgia cameos for effect, making it the worst of both words.
I guess the title is technically correct. There are Knights of the Zodiac in this movie. Not a lot, mind you, but more than one. Enough to use the plural form. You wouldn’t know for most of the movie, though.
It’s one of those cheap manga adaptations featuring a handful of known actors. Perhaps not as egregious as Dragon Ball Evolution, but veering off the original source material in many ways. Without being a huge Saint Seiya nut, I can still tell that the aesthetics and tone are way off.
The way they chose to adapt some plot beats of the manga/anime is interesting, but it falls by the wayside halfway through.
Marc Dacascos and Sean Bean are fine. Doing what they can with the role they’re given. The movie is like a sketch of a good adventure movie and, I’d wager, would look better without being associated with the Saint Seiya name
The first entry in Branagh’s Poirot adaptations.
It’s, like the others, a closed-room murder mystery whodunit where Poirot gets to flex his brilliant crime-solving skills.
Like other entries, has a cast of well-known actors and a glossy, Hollywoodian finish to its production values.
It’s an entertaining watch, but there isn’t nothing particularly remarkable to comment on them, at least from someone like me who has no frame of reference from the novels it’s adapting.
It’s prefectly OK.
The Dungeonmaster (Ragewar)
John Carl Buechler, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou, David Allen, Charles Band, Rosemarie Turko, 1984
Absurd 80s fantasy flick where a computer nerd named Paul starts getting targeted harassment from the evil wizard Mestema, and is forced to complete crazy ordeals as a sort of abstract “duel” between them. If you thought cancel culture was bad, that’s nothing compared to Mestema.
The film is structured like an anthology of short stories, that exist within the framing device of Mestema’s illusions. That’s why it has six director credits. Each one was responsible for one of the segments. The connecting characters between them are Mestema himself, Paul’s girlfriend kidnapped by the former, and of course Paul, who uses his supercomputer transformed as a wristband gadget as a multitool and weapon to thwart Mestema’s plans.
It’s all nonsense but at least it’s entertaining nonsense if you enjoy watchable 80s trash. This movie is also notorious for Paul’s quote “I reject your reality and substitute my own”, popularized by Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame. So there’s that.
Adaptation of a 2001 young adult novel. The screenplay was penned by the Lord of the Rings writers, and features visual effects by Weta workshop as well, but the proven record of the people involved doesn’t necessarily translate into a good movie.
I’m unaware of the details in the book series. This seems to be an adaptation of the first novel out of four, but the events feel rushed with barely any room to breathe. They definitely tried to pack too much plot into the meagre 2 hour runtime.
That said, the movie itself is pretty entertaining. I can easily see this becoming a childhood favorite of a kid or imaginative teen. The visuals are quite good. Hugo Weaving portrays a cool character. The protagonists are a bit more bland, but no worse than other YA properties. A solid 2 stars.
My first Yorgos Lanthimos film. An amazing watch.
I’m told his films don’t necessarily resemble each other, so I can’t take this as an indication that I will like his other work but at a minimum, this one is fantastic.
Period piece in eighteenth century England, during Queen Anne’s reign. Abigail, the destitute cousin of the Queen’s confidante, Sarah Churchill, arrives at the royal palace seeking asylum.
What unfolds is a rivalry between Abigail and Sarah for the favours of the Queen. Highlighting shifting moralities, and taking the audience with them as the landscape of court backstabbing develops.
Not since Tarantino’s Death Proof have we seen such a complete inversion of audience support! (just joking. (OK, half-joking))
One of those films that makes you think. And I mean truly, not by means of some contrived pseudo-profound message.
Netflix adaptation of the manga of the same name.
The zombies here are really just an analogy for societ- wait, that’s all zombie movies, isn’t it?
Well, this one is about Japanese salaryman Akira Tendo whose enthusiasm for life is rapidly worn out by the modern corporate lifestyle. When a zombie outbreak hits the country, however, it’s the perfect cue for Akira to feel alive gain.
While the movie itself is nothing to write home about, the real meat and potatoes is the reflection of our current soul-crushing city lifestyle. Productivity is higher than at any time in history. Millennials, the most prepared generation the world has ever known and will probably know for a long time, are the primary demographic in the workforce, and yet, depression, malaise and a general crisis of meaning deeply pervade our society.
This is the main thrust of the film, and its carpe diem reivindication is its value. I imagine the manga is better at this, though.
Latest of the Branagh Hercule Poirot films. This one might be the weakest one so far, but not too far away from the first in the series.
Far from the aspirational vistas of the second film we tackle the trope of the “retired detective”. Somewhat subverted in that it’s the employer the one who suggests that Poirot’s “genius mind” is being wasted on idleness. The setting is Venice, which is beautiful in itself, but most of the movie takes place in a gloomy palazzo at night, where a séance for a dead relative takes place.
The premise exploits jump scares more, given the subject matter. The mystery is somewhat interesting and tense, but ultimately pretty unfulfilling. Not my favorite.
This is for me a rewatch of the Hong Kong classic.
Still holds up pretty well even today. It’s interesting to contrast the cinema styling of the Hong Kong production with Scorsese’s remake in The Departed. The former is a bit goofier. More pulpy, if you will. More unabashedly a genre movie.
Anyway, for those unfamiliar, this is the story of a secret Hong Kong police officer working undercover in a criminal cartel, at the same time the criminal cartel has planted a mole in the HK police department.
The movie —and, by extension the series’— title is translated as Infernal Affairs not only for the direct pun with “internal affairs”, but because it incorporates the theme of the Buddhist concept of the Avīci, the deepest naraka (hell) where there is the most suffering. The lives of those involved in undercover espionage are depicted as being in constant suffering in life, as they see their moral values challenged, their friends dying and their own identity breaking down day after day.
A pretty heavy varnish for a cop thriller. But it somehow elevates the entire series with its unique flavour. A must-see.
While I had watched the first movie in the Mou gaan dou trilogy years ago, this is the first time I’ve watched the rest of the trilogy.
This entry is a prequel that deals with the situation that eventually lead to the events in the first movie. The plot follows the young versions of the main characters Ming and Yen from the previous film.
By focusing on the “scaffolding” of the plot that leads to the first movie, while at the same time presenting a compelling thriller on its own, it dramatically increases the richness of the storyline.
The historical period is fascinating too, as it takes place in the 90s, when Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony and was handed over to become a special administrative region of China. While it’s a background detail, its inclusion adds a welcome historical flavor to the story.
Giving an initial impression, I think this may be the weaker entry in the trilogy, but that’s by no means saying that it’s a bad movie. Far from it, it’s some of the finest genre cinema you can throw at your face, these days.
Infernal Affairs III (Mou gaan dou III: Jung gik mou gaan / 無間道III: 終極無間)
Andrew Lau Wai-Keung, Alan Mak, 2003
Another first watch for me. If the second movie in the trilogy was a prequel, the last one is a sequel following directly after the ending of the first movie. And it is a weird one.
Mostly centering on Inspector Lau Kin Ming, living his life after what happened at the end of Mou gaan dou 1, we take a closer look at the police department side, even though the triads are still operating.
The levels of subterfuge of this entry in the series reach some incredible heights. And, while you could argue some of it can feel a bit over the top and soap-opera-esque, I’d offer you the counterpoint that it is a Hong Kong police drama, after all. And things like these are par for the course.
I’m not sure where public opinion stands with this one, but enjoyed this one a sliver more than Mou gaan dou II. I wholeheartedly recommend the entire trilogy.
Biopic of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer focusing on his key role in the development of the atomic bomb.
As biopics go, it’s fine. Above average for the genre, and with a more interesting subject matter, at least to folks like myself.
Good craftsmanship all around, and a very compelling historical peek at the life and involvement of Oppenheimer in the geopolitical and scientific affairs of the time.
Other than that, I can’t really praise anything particularly novel or exciting over, say, Tenet or Inception. Just a solid movie that most film buffs will enjoy.
Edgy Sci-fi horror from the late aughts taking place in a derelict generation ship sent to deal with overpopulation problems on Earth.
The movie’s atmosphere reminds me a bit of Dead Space. Edgy, gritty, kinda cringey sci-fi horror survival. The visuals are interesting, and there is a bit of tension at the beginning of the movie that morphs into a survival race across the ship after the protagonist meets one of the survivors. I don’t mind that.
It’s a fairly entertaining watch, if you can get past the 2000-era edgelord cringe seeping through, and enjoy it for what it is.
I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to. When I first saw the trailer, I considered it a joke for how focused it seemed on car chases and dealings with scary Russian officials, rather than on the making of the Tetris phenomenon. And, to a large extent, it is that. It’s more spectacle and entertainment than it is a studied look at the creation of Tetris, but it works.
Yes, the anachronisms and cheap nostalgia bits replacing actual historical rigor are mildly annoying. The focus on Henk Rogers’ quest to pull Tetris outside the USSR can feel rather disappointing, as Pajitnov is relegated to a secondary role, with barely more weight than Rogers’ wife or even Rogers’ translator.
However, the tale is compelling. It is always nice to see videogame history get some filmic treatment. Even if it’s not high art, it is competently crafted. And being completely honest, this is probably one of the best ways to make a straightforward Tetris movie there is.
American remake of Hong Kong cult classic Infernal Affairs by Martin Scorsese.
Before watching this, my impression was that this would be an American remake of the first movie, but it turns out it takes plot elements from all three movies, and compresses them into a singular, self-contained story.
It swaps the Hong Kong triads for Irish-American gangsters. Shocking to see in a Scorsese flick, I know. However, pretty much all of the story beats of the originals are here, virtually unaltered. There is a bit more emphasis on the romantic triangle subplot with the therapist, which was essentially nonexistent in the first Infernal Affairs, and only developed a bit more on the third film, but other than that, it’s uncanny how similar the films are.
A very solid cop thriller, with the edges appropriately sanded down for a western audience, and the unquestionable craftsmanship of Scorsese. Highly recommended.
I wasn’t aware that Michael Mann did horror films, but here we are!
This is a pretty cool movie. A couple of platoons of Nazis arrive at a small Romanian village to secure the pass going through. The village holds an ancient keep, maintained by a family of locals for generations. The keep is mystically protected by 108 crosses of nickel along the whole structure, and Captain Woermann soon realizes the keep was meant to hold something inside, and not intruders out.
The beginning of the movie, especially, is pretty strong. The setting, the place-horror focus on the keep itself being a construct of madness, sort of like some conceptions of Castlevania in the videogame series of the same name.
Unfortunately, the plot drifts quickly away from that atmosphere into a more traditional “good guy/bad guy” dynamic. Especially when the true form of what lies in the keep is revealed, barely halfway into the movie.
Still, it’s pretty entertaining. The concept and visuals are cool in the first half, and the story, even if you’ve heard it before, is compelling enough. The horror elements aren’t even that strong by today’s standards. A more than decent watch.
Time travel stories are one of the best ways to make low-budget SF that’s still impactful and interesting.
This story is presented as an afternoon telefilm, and the cast, filmography, and budget level all reinforce this perception. But after the somewhat generic intro and setup, things become weirder as the story unfolds.
A widower dad opens an inn in his old home town. As they work on the renovations, a mysterious group of tourists insist on staying, avoiding the central hotel in town instead.
Pretty cool concept but the bland presentation really drags it down. It’s better than what one might expect but you’re still left with the sensation that this story could have been told better if only it had a bit more of cinematic flair.
So, we are reaching the part where even the Mission: Impossible movies have to be split into two parts. It’s getting ridiculous.
This kind of thing makes sense if you are adapting a massive novel like The Lord of the Rings. I could even buy the more cynical, profit-driven argument that you can stretch the runtime of a book adaptation that’s currently popular if you have the budget. But if you can’t wrap up a by-the-numbers spy thriller in almost 3 hours, you have bigger problems.
As a consequence, the movie feels dilated, stretched out. The setpieces don’t justify their length. The exposition could be optimized. Even Christopher Nolan, who often gets criticised for “unnecessary” exposition, manages to keep his movies to 150 min.
To be fair, it doesn’t get too fatiguing. It’s still entertaining but there is no payoff because the story simply isn’t concluded in this movie.
Fun late 70s movie focusing on the Californian roller boogie scene of the era, featuring Linda Blair of The Exorcist fame playing Terry, the rebel kid with rich parents who only wants to roller-skate, while her parents try to push her to be admitted into Juilliard to get an elite education as a flute player.
The male protagonist, Bobby, is a skating wizard who works at a local boogie skating rink disco. One of the best skaters there, praised by all his friends and set to enter the Olympics, no less. He becomes the love interest of Terry, the one character who drives the whole plot forward for the first half of the movie.
At one point, a bunch of real state speculators lead by the evil Thatcher, are threatening Jammer, the affable owner of the skating rink, and strong-arming him into selling the land for redevelopment. However, his conversation is caught on tape by the kids. “You can’t stop progress!”, Thatcher yells, backing Jammer into a seemingly hopeless situation.
But our plucky group of teens don’t want to stop progress, only delay it for a little bit until the Roller Boogie contest takes place at Jammer’s rink. And so, they take it upon themselves to correct this injustice.
Roller Boogie is a lesser known, B-movie about a very specific time and place in history. It is a pretty interesting historical artifact. I’m sure critical-minded viewers will find a lot of amusing idiosyncrasies in the storytelling trends of the time.
This is an episodic fairytale-horror fantasy production from Italy. Quite a combination.
The plot follows three different monarchs of three fantasy kingdoms. Each one is a self-contained tale but we switch between story arcs during the runtime of the movie.
It features some high-profile actors, including Toby Jones, Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel. The production values and art direction are alright, if a little cheap-feeling.
Personally, I didn’t enjoy it. The premise is interesting but the way the story is told devolves in gruesome and unpleasant situations and imagery that end up feeling more edgy than insightful. This may be someone else’s cup of tea, but certainly not mine at the moment I watched it.
Bob Saint-Clare is a super-spy. An over-the-top hyper-competent, masculine-bordering-on-macho ladies man that always wins against the bad guys. He is also a fiction created by writer François Merlin. Both played by French star Jean-Paul Belmondo.
I’m not very familiar with Belmondo’s films, so I’m not sure how this one fits in his oeuvre. From what I can gather, he was a Sean Connery-esque star in the French film industry, and this self-deprecating parody is an attempt to portray a more comedic role than a purely “macho movie star” one.
The film intertwines Merlin’s real life with the imagined scenes of the novel. In one we see how he struggles to write the latest in a long line of Bob Saint-Clare novels for his editor. In the other, he inserts the people in his life as characters of his fiction. His editor is the evil Karpof, the beautiful new neighbour is Tatiana, the love interest. And he inserts himself as Saint-Clare, of course.
It’s interesting that the framing device for what’s essentially a escapist fantasy turns out to be another kind of fantasy (The beautiful young student, played by Jacqueline Bisset, inexplicably falls in love with the struggling pulp novelist) but it was the 70s, after all.
I’m not sure if I’m taking credit away from the movie, but I don’t think they examined the implications that the obvious, parody fantasy is also wrapped in an impossible fantasy as well. I think one of the insinuations the audience is asked to accept is that, despite Merlin being a prolific and successful writer, his editor Charron is the one absorbing most of the profit, and that’s why Merlin is forced to live in a run-down old apartment, for example.
Apparently, there were disputes with the first draft of the script, where the character of Christine/Tatiana was less fleshed out. Perhaps letting her appear as an unreachable figure in the background would have bestowed the movie with more gravitas. We will never know.
As it stands, it’s a pretty fun movie. The visuals are vibrant and imaginative. While the budget is clearly not the same as a “real” Bond-esque spy movie, it is well utilized. The message is though-provoking and the humour isn’t terrible.
Anime entry in the Highlander series, directed by none other than Yoshiaki Kawajiri (famous for cult classics like Ninja Scroll).
The plot on this one is a bit weird. Colin McLeod is an immortal from Roman Britain whose lover is killed in an attack by the Roman army led by fellow immortal Marcus Octavius. Filled with grief, Colin then dedicates his life to chase and kill Octavius, failing at it for thousands of years, until he finds him again in a half-destroyed New York.
The main draw of the movie is essentially the Kawajiri-directed visuals, with crisp 2000 era feature animation, and the evocative setting mixing scenes in a post-apocalyptic America (the film’s present tense) with flashbacks of historical locales in the past. The script and story aren’t much to write home about, bordering on downright bad.
Other than Octavius being depicted as the villain, and stating his compulsion to create an utopian Empire growing from his Roman ideals, we aren’t given any clear motivation as to why he is supposed to be the bad guy.
In a move that I’m not sure whether it’s on the script or is artistic license from Kawajiri, Octavius is routinely represented enjoying and mastering painting, sculpture and music, while Colin keeps acting like an angry teen and assaulting Octavius across the world and time, only to get owned time and time again, his own head saved by sheer luck every time (or plot armor, one may say).
Add to this the fact that Octavius meets another immortal girl in a battlefield in Japan, and they become partners, coexisting in direct defiance of the motto “there can be only one”, while Colin is so blinded by rage that he literally misses his repeated fortuitous reunions with the reincarnations of his beloved. It just makes Colin look like a clown.
The movie introduces some new elements into the lore which are, as far as I know, new to the series. There’s the idea of a character reincarnating across history, as well as Colin’s spirit sidekick, who just appears one day after one of Colin’s non-deaths. He seems to be the spirit of a druid who can manifest and speak to Colin, but it’s never elaborated where he comes from or why he’s following that dude. In practice he probably exists just as a plot contrivance to have a “mentor” character for Colin that isn’t also an immortal too (and therefore ultimately a rival)
In the end, though, the canons of anime storytelling must prevail, and it is revealed that Octavius, out of nowhere and with no clear motive, is behind the epidemic of sickness razing New York, and is preparing an even worse, deadlier virus to release on the population.
I haven’t seen a villain-must-lose plot flag so blatant since Mission Impossible III, but hey, it’s still an entertaining movie and worth a watch.