Welcome back gang. This entry you are about to read through is the week of my vacation from work, and it is suitably massive thanks to all the free time I had. It’s a good week too. I don’t reach the highs of last week, but there’s nothing bad at all. Everything here has some stuff to recommend. Sadly though, the dream has to come to an end and work has to start up again. So enjoy this post and enjoy your Sunday.
The Beguiled (August 2nd, 2015)
Director: Don Siegel
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman, and Jo Ann Harris
This is such a weird god damn movie, especially in Clint’s filmography. Clint is playing a guy that’s kind of a shit, but not in the way Blondie or Dirty Harry are. This is set during the Civil War and he plays a Union soldier who is wounded in the South and is taken in by Southern citizens. But these citizens are the females in an all female boarding school. And being a man, he wants to sleep with all of them and boy golly does he fucking try. The first thing we see him do is get rescued by a 12 year old girl and when she tells him how old she is, he goes “old enough” and kisses her. So right off the bat, this movie is bizarre. Then we spend a good chunk of the movie watching him heal and try to sweet talk any female that comes his way. Three of them are particularly taken by him and this, not surprisingly, comes back to bite him in the ass because they all get jealous and shit goes insanely wrong for him. All the scenes of him flirting with these girls is not too enticing, which sucks because that’s a good deal of the run time. But then we learns some shit about the headmistress that is very Game of Thrones, and things get horrific. It’s the third act where things get really interesting. The movie becomes what you’d expect the movie to be if Eli Roth made it. It really makes you question who is right in all of this and how grey a situation it was. It’s pretty good and saves the movie. Also, there’s a scene where Clint gets drunk and throws a turtle to death that had me cackle like a retard, so the movie has that going for it at least. For Clint aficionados, there is worse to watch. But this is really only for his fans. Luckily I’m one of them.
Rating: 7/10
The Last Picture Show (August 3rd, 2015)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Starring: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and Ben Johnson
It’ll never not be odd to me to see Jeff Bridges young. And here, he’s super young. Uncomfortably young for someone who’s grown up with him looking like The Dude for the most part. But moving past that little bit of oddness, what we got here is a coming of age story. It’s very much like a country song version of American Graffiti in a way. This one though is much more explicit in the ways it shows that the past is the past and things will keep on changing. The movie is set in this little western shanty town essentially, always covered in dirt and that has roughly 5 buildings in it. But the town is doing well enough. But as we go through a year in the lives of the main three kids, the town starts to fall apart when the figurehead of the town passes. We also see the three, in their own ways, realize that being an adult isn’t always about what you want. Friendships fall apart, new relationships are made, and hardships are near and constant. It’s a good little version of the flick, but it lacks a certain spark for me to really reach the heights that even Graffiti did, let alone Dazed and Confused. Maybe it’s that Bottoms isn’t that great an actor and pales next to Bridges. Maybe it’s cause it’s got a loose, shambling feel to it which makes it a bit difficult to keep up with. There’s just a certain spark missing. I may come to like this more down the road though, but for now this is my feeling on the movie.
Rating: 7/10
Time Bandits (August 3rd, 2015)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Starring: Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, and Malcolm Dixon
Terry Gilliam is a hell of a director. He has a definite visual style that stands out amongst most directors working, then and 30 years on. You can say he’s the smart mans, talented version of Tim Burton. But I think it’s safe to say that sometimes he doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to scripts. I get the sense that maybe he doesn’t always know when a good script comes across his desk or that he just doesn’t know exactly how to get his ideas out in a streamlined way. That’s fine, cause even the worst movie of his I’ve seen (The Brothers Grimm) is entertaining enough. And I don’t think that the script he got for this one is spectacular. The strengths of this movie fall completely on Gilliams visual style and sense of humor. Because there’s really nothing going on to the movie. A bunch of time traveling, thieving midgets come upon a young British boy and accidentally whisk him away throughout time to rob some shit. That’s pretty much it. An inkling of some sort of drama eeks its way into the movie about halfway through and we get the climax thanks to it. But its not very satisfying on that level, feeling rushed at times. Hell, maybe the studio chopped the shit out of the movie as is Gilliams luck would indicate. But it’s the moments of fun outside of the this plot with Evil incarnate that makes the movie work. The little guys are funny and feel like real characters. The little looks at different periods of time have that Gilliam humor, especially John Cleese showing up as Robin Hood. And it’s got a strong visual palette, being Gilliam and all. It’s really just a kinda rushed plot with a Gilliam goofy villain and an out of nowhere nihilistic final scene that drops the movie a bit. But it’s a good sign of what Gilliam would go on to do and it’s fun enough for a kids movie.
Rating: 8/10
Barry Lyndon (August 4th, 2015)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, and Hardy Kruger
I have a very weird relationship with Kubrick. I know he’s a master technical director, crafting movies that if they didn’t further the craft of cinema would just be a masterful piece of craftsmanship for the time that became timeless. But there’s always a sense of emptiness when I watch his movie, like it’s a movie being helmed by an alien being that is trying to mimic human emotions but doesn’t get it exactly right. Very rarely does he get great performances out of his leads, feeling stuffy and mannered. That’s why the movies of his I actually love are early works of his, Paths of Glory and Dr. Strangelove. There’s a sense of him toeing the line between studio work and auteurism, pushing things forward but connecting to the audience. And really, he tends to go for thematic heft, forgetting to make his characters human or interesting. So I go into a movie of his I haven’t seen with an open mind, but with a sense of wariness too. So watching this, his 3 hour historical epic about an Irish con man making his way through the ranks of high society, I didn’t know what to expect. And well, what I got was a Kubrick movie that was impeccably made but really stuffy and paced like molasses. It’s not that nothing happens in the movie, but it’s done with such a slow crawl pace that it gets a bit tiresome. With some editing or a quicker pace in the filmmaking, this could have been great. But even with that, there’s a problem in the casting. Ryan O’Neal is not very great in the role. He isn’t awful like Shelley Duvall in The Shining, but he is miscast. I never believed him as the shifty, cockroach like survivor of a con man. And it’s really the editing and O”Neal that keep me from loving this unabashedly, because I like the story being told and the themes it’s working with about having to cast aside your humanity to rise in the world, but that going too far will eventually destroy you. That’s cool, but it’s got too much Kubrick coldness and lack of actorly direction that keeps me away. I’m glad I’ve seen it though and I hope to rewatch it when I’m older, maybe getting some more insight in my life to appreciate it.
Rating: 8/10
The Salvation (August 4th, 2015)
Director: Kristian Levring
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Jonathan Pryce
Gotta love westerns if you’re a movie fan. If you actively dislike westerns, me and you will have some words. One of the best ones is High Plains Drifter, yet another classic with Clint Eastwood. And as we all know, the western genre has taken a big hit in recent memory. Recent memory being the last few decades, but every now and then a good/great western will show up. Usually an indie, although Quentin Tarantino seems to be the only guy who can make a big budget one that makes any money. But right now, the best western of 2015 is this movie here. And I mentioned High Plains Drifter because I felt some of that movie in here, with this movie sort of inverting the structure. Whereas that movie was all about the guy slowly getting his revenge on the people who wronged him with the backstory being doled out at the end, this one is all about the set up and the whys before letting Mads rain hellfire upon the thugs who wronged him. The story is a simple revenge fantasy, with some nice little touches that single it out. For one, Mads and his family are playing Dutch immigrants, so Mads isn’t a sore thumb trying to be a western icon. And by being about immigrants, there’s a bit of thematic weight in a man trying his hardest to provide for his family to join him in this country loses them all because some money men just do what they want as they try to rip off some poor folks. The movie is also very morally gray, with Mads and his brother being the only ones in the right at all. Everyone else is forced into being absolutely selfish shits or are purely evil. The cast is great, Mads doing good work as usual. Eva Green manages to make a mute character real, conveying everything with body language and her eyes. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a great villain, a man who just figures everything is supposed to go his way. The visuals are great, but there are some moments with obvious CGI work on the backgrounds. The movie is short and moves like a bullet, but it feels complete. Nothing feels like it’s missing and it’s an enjoyable package. And the violence is well done and is brutal and hurts. There’s some great work here and it was a nice surprise for the year. I’d totally recommend it.
Rating: 9/10
Ministry of Fear (August 6th, 2015)
Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, and Dan Duryea
Fritz Lang could have rested on his laurels when he crafted the everlasting masterpiece M. But he didn’t stop there, and even came over to the US of A when the Nazi thing got irritating over in his motherland of Germany. One of the movies he made upon his time in the US was this noir. And while it isn’t as massive an achievement that M was, it’s still a good little movie if a bit rough. The movie follows Milland as a man just released from a mental institution who is caught up in some secret plot involving a package he wasn’t supposed to get involving shady people. Or is he? That’s a nice, subtle little thing that the movie doesn’t overplay is that this is a guy who was in a psych ward and may not be in the right mind. The plot as it is revealed is really good and intriguing, a nice little WWII era plot with some intrigue. But where this movie stands in stark contrast to M is that doesn’t feel as full. I’ve seen some rumors about that claims this was tampered with a good deal by the studio. While I can’t say exactly that’s true, it feels right in how short and kinda rushed the movie is. Luckily it doesn’t fall apart and is still watchable, but the only egregious moment is the final scene of the flick that just ends. It’s kinda staggeringly abrupt. Another contrasting element is that, while still stylish, it doesn’t hit the highpoints of some of his prior work. For noir fans it’ll be good and a fun little look at the past.
Rating: 8/10
Top Movies
1. Innerspace2. The Salvation
3. Time Bandits
4. Ministry of Fear
5. The Eiger Sanction
6. Barry Lyndon
7. The Last Picture Show
8. The Beguiled
The Eiger Sanction (August 6th, 2015)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, and Thayer David
I simultaneously like this movie and realize it actually isn’t very good. The narrative of the thing builds to where you think it’s gonna be interesting but it just falls apart. Clint plays an ex assassin for the government tasked with getting revenge for the death of a fellow assassin. To do so, he has to go undercover as a mountain climber on an expedition. The catch? They know the killer will be there, but they don’t know who. That sounds really fucking cool for a movie. And there’s a cool twist towards the end that really sells some cynicism you wouldn’t expect to find in a spy pic of the time. But structurally the movie is just wrong. The entire middle of the movie is Clint training for this climb. That’s it and it’s hella misguided. They coulda cut to the chase and got to the climb, spending more time there and building the suspense up. But here the mountain stuff is way too short and feels underutilized. And narratively, the movie ends in way too cheap a fashion that just undercuts anything the narrative built up the last 2 hours. But yet, I enjoyed seeing Clint play an assassin that just throws shade at everyones way. I also loved the really offensive humor in there, the kind of shit that would be labeled problematic and launch 1000 think pieces today. If you like Clint, you can go much worse. But otherwise, stay away.
Rating: 8/10
Innerspace (August 8th, 2015)
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Martin Short, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy
Joe Dante is amazing. It’s a god damn shame he has such a rough go of it, rougher than most from the 80s heyday. George Miller may have had to fight for 15 years to get Fury Road made, but in the end he got 6 figures to make it. The only one with it harder than Dante is Landis, and that at least makes some kind of sense with the whole Twilight Zone movie accident. Nowadays if you wanna watch a Dante movie, the options really only lean towards 80s stuff, since post 80s hasn’t been so kind. And Innerspace is a great flick from his 80s run, only bettered by his iconic Gremlins movies. This is classic Dante, unmistakably his and it’s a hell of a watch. Filled with crazy science, zany actions and a cartoonish anarchy, this is just an awesome flick. Quaid plays a pilot who is enlisted for an experimental process designed to shrink someone down to microscopic size. When the experiment is screwed up by some vicious corporate espionage, Quaid is accidentally injected into Martin Short, a civilian not tied to the experiment at all. Working together, they have to figure out who did this dirt to get Quaid out before his oxygen runs out. And the ensuing shenanigans are great. I love Dantes Looney Tunes inspired gags, perfectly pulled off with his fantastic eye. This tone he aims for is hard to nail and he nails it perfectly, usually. He gets great work from his cast, especially Short. Quaid may be the “star”, but this is Shorts movie and he nails it. The story is cool and while not something completely original, it’s quick enough with just enough flashes of heart to make the movie worthwhile. And oh man the comic set pieces slayed me. Holy shit the comic ingenuity on display by Dante and co is just genius. The special effects work is fantastic, some real boundary pushing work in the 80s. This is a great god damn movie, one that should have been one in a long string of Dante movies that come out yearly. But that didn’t happen, so it is one of a precious few that we Dante fans can cherish.
Rating: 9/10
Top Movies
1. Innerspace2. The Salvation
3. Time Bandits
4. Ministry of Fear
5. The Eiger Sanction
6. Barry Lyndon
7. The Last Picture Show
8. The Beguiled
- Tom Lorenzo
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