I'll make this short and sweet. I did various things today (some of which were unexpected) and right now I am watching a livestream so there was no time to watch films and with my schedule, I'll wait until Friday night to return and by then, I should have seen some sort of motion picture.
As for my Top 10 list, it may be another month or so until I post it. I may see some more films that I think have a chance to qualify for the list. I'll give more details when the time arises.
For now, I'll hope that everyone had a nice year of movie-watching and next year I hope it'll be even better for me.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Friday, December 27, 2013
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
77% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 147 reviews)
Runtime: 180 minutes (no, I did not mistype that)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner
From: Paramount/Red Granite Pictures
Here's a movie that I saw last night and I finally have a quality candidate for my Top 10 of the year list. Not to spoil it but it'll be in the top 3 at worst, it's looking like. I saw it with a bigger crowd than I expected and thankfully I had little problems with them. They laughed at the right times and they gasped at the most shocking moments. I'll note that I know little about the true life story this was based upon and I haven't read the book that the protagonist wrote about his life story and how he did all these crazy things.
To steal the plot from the IMDb: “Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stockbroker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.” I know, not really a sentence. You start off with Belfort starting off his career in Wall Street. He's young and innocent but he quickly gets told by Matthew McConaughey how it really is and you have to get a drug-using madman to succeed as a stockbroker. He gets laid off after Black Monday happens in late 1987. He has to work in a penny stock operation and it's a low-quality operation, to say the least. However, with his charisma and powerful persuasion, he makes the outfit a success and he starts up his own company, Stratton Oakmont. It's a wild out of control horny crazy company that at best was incredibly shady. He and his employees make an incredible amount of money. Belfort becomes crazy due to abusing an incredible amount of drugs; so does his right hand man Donnie (Hill; for some reason, most of the real-life names were changed for the movie), which leads to some amazing adventures with the two. Jordan dumps his cute brunette wife for a hot blonde (Robbie; yeah, she is hot) and eventually things turn real bad.
Not to spoil things, but Belfort did end up serving jail time in Nevada and Tommy Chong (yes, THAT Tommy Chong) convinced him to write a book about his story, which became this movie. What a loud and profane movie it is.
I know film fans will HATE this but I think this is the perfect double bill with Pain & Gain. I say that as both are loud bombastic over the top tales of excesses and bizarre things that happen which are purported to be true. Of course I've only seen the two movies one time each and if you actually try it, it may be a crap idea. But it's just a thought. Of course, this movie should be watched second as needless to say, even when it comes to wild out of control stories, Scorsese can do it better than Michael F'ing Bay. Pain & Gain can be like a warmup to the main event.
I understand why some would be turned off by such a profane film where the F bomb is dropped over 500 times, you have copious amounts of garishness, drug use and full frontal nudity... and oh yeah the movie is a few seconds short of 3 full hours. Yet with me, I dug it all and I was fascinated by the crazy story and all the odd things that happened.
With the director everything is top notch, from how it's filmed to the pacing, the performances (Leo was awesome; so was Jonah Hill and the several incredible things his character did) and there's several classic soliloquies. There's also some things that only Scorsese could pull off, from fourth wall breaking to internal monologues and it all works. The soundtrack is also cool. There's no Rolling Stones songs (believe it or not) and there's everything from blues to jazz to odd poppy songs to the Plastic Bertrand song you heard in National Lampoon's European Vacation.
It may not be for all tastes but if you enjoyed something ostentatious like Pain & Gain then you should see this too. I am glad I saw it on the big screen. I am sure that people will idolize Belfort and the awful things he did which ruined people's lives, just because he lived to excess. However, you should more note his downfall and how bad his life turned out. Right now I understand he's doing alright out of jail but it was still a downfall.
I'll be back Monday night.
77% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 147 reviews)
Runtime: 180 minutes (no, I did not mistype that)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner
From: Paramount/Red Granite Pictures
Here's a movie that I saw last night and I finally have a quality candidate for my Top 10 of the year list. Not to spoil it but it'll be in the top 3 at worst, it's looking like. I saw it with a bigger crowd than I expected and thankfully I had little problems with them. They laughed at the right times and they gasped at the most shocking moments. I'll note that I know little about the true life story this was based upon and I haven't read the book that the protagonist wrote about his life story and how he did all these crazy things.
To steal the plot from the IMDb: “Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stockbroker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.” I know, not really a sentence. You start off with Belfort starting off his career in Wall Street. He's young and innocent but he quickly gets told by Matthew McConaughey how it really is and you have to get a drug-using madman to succeed as a stockbroker. He gets laid off after Black Monday happens in late 1987. He has to work in a penny stock operation and it's a low-quality operation, to say the least. However, with his charisma and powerful persuasion, he makes the outfit a success and he starts up his own company, Stratton Oakmont. It's a wild out of control horny crazy company that at best was incredibly shady. He and his employees make an incredible amount of money. Belfort becomes crazy due to abusing an incredible amount of drugs; so does his right hand man Donnie (Hill; for some reason, most of the real-life names were changed for the movie), which leads to some amazing adventures with the two. Jordan dumps his cute brunette wife for a hot blonde (Robbie; yeah, she is hot) and eventually things turn real bad.
Not to spoil things, but Belfort did end up serving jail time in Nevada and Tommy Chong (yes, THAT Tommy Chong) convinced him to write a book about his story, which became this movie. What a loud and profane movie it is.
I know film fans will HATE this but I think this is the perfect double bill with Pain & Gain. I say that as both are loud bombastic over the top tales of excesses and bizarre things that happen which are purported to be true. Of course I've only seen the two movies one time each and if you actually try it, it may be a crap idea. But it's just a thought. Of course, this movie should be watched second as needless to say, even when it comes to wild out of control stories, Scorsese can do it better than Michael F'ing Bay. Pain & Gain can be like a warmup to the main event.
I understand why some would be turned off by such a profane film where the F bomb is dropped over 500 times, you have copious amounts of garishness, drug use and full frontal nudity... and oh yeah the movie is a few seconds short of 3 full hours. Yet with me, I dug it all and I was fascinated by the crazy story and all the odd things that happened.
With the director everything is top notch, from how it's filmed to the pacing, the performances (Leo was awesome; so was Jonah Hill and the several incredible things his character did) and there's several classic soliloquies. There's also some things that only Scorsese could pull off, from fourth wall breaking to internal monologues and it all works. The soundtrack is also cool. There's no Rolling Stones songs (believe it or not) and there's everything from blues to jazz to odd poppy songs to the Plastic Bertrand song you heard in National Lampoon's European Vacation.
It may not be for all tastes but if you enjoyed something ostentatious like Pain & Gain then you should see this too. I am glad I saw it on the big screen. I am sure that people will idolize Belfort and the awful things he did which ruined people's lives, just because he lived to excess. However, you should more note his downfall and how bad his life turned out. Right now I understand he's doing alright out of jail but it was still a downfall.
I'll be back Monday night.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Happy Holidays
Well, no matter what holiday you celebrate around this time of year, I hope it was good for you. The trip to Kansas and back went well and it was nice hanging out with family and meeting a pair of twin nephews for the very first time. The only movie-watching was seeing parts of Rambo & The Rundown; the latter I'll have to review here one of these days years.
I will be back Friday night as I plan on watching something tomorrow night; it'll likely be something theatrical.
I will be back Friday night as I plan on watching something tomorrow night; it'll likely be something theatrical.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Runtime: 129 minutes
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Vince Vaughn
From: Universal
Before I get to talking about this movie (which I saw last night), I have to mention that today was a sad day in the acting world as three deaths were announced of actors who had passed away in the past few days:
Peter O'Toole (I haven't seen enough of his movies but he was awesome in Lawrence of Arabia)
Tom Laughlin (I haven't seen any of the Billy Jack films but I've wanted to for years now; he was really the Seagal of his time in terms of being a martial artist who had lofty ideals and enjoyed such things as nature and not wanting to be violent but wanting to be... and also being weird; it turns out that my parents apparently have seen all those movies way back when)
Joan Fontaine (She was 96 and one of the last of “Old Hollywood” to still be alive; my mom has seen some of her movies way back when)
But now onto this review; I saw this movie in the cinema summer of '97, as I had seen the first one the summer of '93. I am pretty sure that was the only time I had seen The Lost World in full until last night. I did not remember too much from it, to be honest. I did remember it was clearly not as good as the first one.
The plot, taken from the IMDb: “Four years after the failure of Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar, John Hammond reveals to Ian Malcolm that there was another island ("Site B") on which dinosaurs were bred before being transported to Isla Nublar. Left alone since the disaster, the dinosaurs have flourished, and Hammond is anxious that the world see them in their "natural" environment before they are exploited.” There are also other people involved, including a rival company, a big game hunter... and Goldblum's character's daughter, who looks nothing like him. I suppose she was added because the first movie had kid characters, but wow was that a badly done character and I am not even talking about the now-infamous “gymnastics scene”, which is at least unintentionally hilarious.
I can't say I hated this movie or that it was bad. There still are effective scenes and there are some nicely-filmed sequences. However, that story... it's just no good and it sinks things. It has characters (especially the one played by Moore) doing the stupidest things just to advance the plot and that kind of stuff can be pretty irritating. Most of the characters aren't that interesting and they seem one-note and not fleshed out; you don't always care when they bicker and yell at each other. As I already said, the movie would have been better off without the really annoying Ian Malcolm's daughter character. It's also a mess, storytelling-wise. As for the “T-Rex rampaging through San Diego” part, it was shorter than I had remembered. At least that was cool.
It's not awful; it's just disappointing considering the original movie, the talent involved and the legendary director who you just expect more from. At least I finally got to see it after all of those years. Like I said last night, I won't be back until Christmas as I'll be out of state and I have to prepare for it before I leave.
Runtime: 129 minutes
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Vince Vaughn
From: Universal
Before I get to talking about this movie (which I saw last night), I have to mention that today was a sad day in the acting world as three deaths were announced of actors who had passed away in the past few days:
Peter O'Toole (I haven't seen enough of his movies but he was awesome in Lawrence of Arabia)
Tom Laughlin (I haven't seen any of the Billy Jack films but I've wanted to for years now; he was really the Seagal of his time in terms of being a martial artist who had lofty ideals and enjoyed such things as nature and not wanting to be violent but wanting to be... and also being weird; it turns out that my parents apparently have seen all those movies way back when)
Joan Fontaine (She was 96 and one of the last of “Old Hollywood” to still be alive; my mom has seen some of her movies way back when)
But now onto this review; I saw this movie in the cinema summer of '97, as I had seen the first one the summer of '93. I am pretty sure that was the only time I had seen The Lost World in full until last night. I did not remember too much from it, to be honest. I did remember it was clearly not as good as the first one.
The plot, taken from the IMDb: “Four years after the failure of Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar, John Hammond reveals to Ian Malcolm that there was another island ("Site B") on which dinosaurs were bred before being transported to Isla Nublar. Left alone since the disaster, the dinosaurs have flourished, and Hammond is anxious that the world see them in their "natural" environment before they are exploited.” There are also other people involved, including a rival company, a big game hunter... and Goldblum's character's daughter, who looks nothing like him. I suppose she was added because the first movie had kid characters, but wow was that a badly done character and I am not even talking about the now-infamous “gymnastics scene”, which is at least unintentionally hilarious.
I can't say I hated this movie or that it was bad. There still are effective scenes and there are some nicely-filmed sequences. However, that story... it's just no good and it sinks things. It has characters (especially the one played by Moore) doing the stupidest things just to advance the plot and that kind of stuff can be pretty irritating. Most of the characters aren't that interesting and they seem one-note and not fleshed out; you don't always care when they bicker and yell at each other. As I already said, the movie would have been better off without the really annoying Ian Malcolm's daughter character. It's also a mess, storytelling-wise. As for the “T-Rex rampaging through San Diego” part, it was shorter than I had remembered. At least that was cool.
It's not awful; it's just disappointing considering the original movie, the talent involved and the legendary director who you just expect more from. At least I finally got to see it after all of those years. Like I said last night, I won't be back until Christmas as I'll be out of state and I have to prepare for it before I leave.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
An Updated Schedule Until Christmas
Basically, I figured out last night that I would be watching a movie on cable tonight I hadn't seen in over 15 years. I'll be posting that review tomorrow night. After that, I have to prepare for the roadtrip I am going on and I'll be back before Christmas but I'll wait until Christmas Day to do a post here, where I'll likely say I am back then I'll update people on when my next review will be; for all I know while I am on vacation I could be seeing a movie on the big screen or with the family.
Like I said I'll be back tomorrow night.
Like I said I'll be back tomorrow night.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
The Three Musketeers (Unfortunately, the one they did in 3D)
The Three Musketeers (2011)
24% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 90 reviews)
Runtime: 110 minutes
Directed by: Paul Writes Shitty Anderson... excuse me for the joke I stole... it's actually Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Matthew McFayden, Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich, Christoph Waltz
From: Summit Entertainment
Yep, this is one of those times when I watch a movie I expect to be pretty crappy but I do so anyway, whether to laugh at it, to appreciate the actual good films, or other reasons. This was on a Showtime HD channel last night so I figured I should check it out even though I hate the director and just about all the movies he's involved with as they tend to be pretty awful; one of these days I should rewatch Alien vs. Predator to talk about the travesty that was.
I imagine that many of you know the basics of the Alexandre Dumas story whether it be watching one of the other film adaptations or just reading the original story. It doesn't really matter here as this movie pretty much wipes its ass with the original story. To copy the plot description from the IMDb: “The hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.” Somehow, such things as Da Vinci's crypt (to steal airship blueprints!) and devices in the early 17th century that can shoot out huge swaths of fire and flame are involved.
Really, to steal an opinion, it seems like the director was more focused on his wife Jovovich than developing the title characters and making them heroes you want to root for. What you get is a pretty crappy movie where you don't care about the totally nonsensical insulting to your intelligence plot (the airship that the bad guys end up building has a heavy anchor; I wish I was joking), stuff happens for no reason at all and it seems to get stupider as it goes along. I don't know why there's a fat guy that tags along with the Musketeers but he does.
Now, I don't always hate really stupid movies; however, it really depends on what kind of movie it is and how the dumbness relates to the plot. Here, I found it unbearable and when there's also humor that rarely is funny and the action scenes are nothing to write home about... you should really stick to the other adaptations of Dumas' classic novel; there's plenty to choose from. There's even the goofy but fun '93 movie starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O'Donnell. I haven't seen that in years but I much rather would have seen that again than watch this and engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I do admit that the scenery was nice (it was filmed in Germany and there are some ornate sets), Waltz had a great head of hair and I have to laugh that one of the minor characters (his name really isn't important) was dressed and looked like what I'll describe as “a gay cowboy pimp from the 1970's (I don't mean to be offensive; that really is the best way to describe the appearance) but this ended up being a waste of an estimated 75 million dollar budget. I know that there are more egregious wastes of money when it comes to worthless movies and people should never have any expectations for a movie where Orlando Bloom is the main villain, but still... I hope that the established actors in this got paid pretty well.
I'll be back Saturday night.
24% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 90 reviews)
Runtime: 110 minutes
Directed by: Paul Writes Shitty Anderson... excuse me for the joke I stole... it's actually Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Matthew McFayden, Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich, Christoph Waltz
From: Summit Entertainment
Yep, this is one of those times when I watch a movie I expect to be pretty crappy but I do so anyway, whether to laugh at it, to appreciate the actual good films, or other reasons. This was on a Showtime HD channel last night so I figured I should check it out even though I hate the director and just about all the movies he's involved with as they tend to be pretty awful; one of these days I should rewatch Alien vs. Predator to talk about the travesty that was.
I imagine that many of you know the basics of the Alexandre Dumas story whether it be watching one of the other film adaptations or just reading the original story. It doesn't really matter here as this movie pretty much wipes its ass with the original story. To copy the plot description from the IMDb: “The hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.” Somehow, such things as Da Vinci's crypt (to steal airship blueprints!) and devices in the early 17th century that can shoot out huge swaths of fire and flame are involved.
Really, to steal an opinion, it seems like the director was more focused on his wife Jovovich than developing the title characters and making them heroes you want to root for. What you get is a pretty crappy movie where you don't care about the totally nonsensical insulting to your intelligence plot (the airship that the bad guys end up building has a heavy anchor; I wish I was joking), stuff happens for no reason at all and it seems to get stupider as it goes along. I don't know why there's a fat guy that tags along with the Musketeers but he does.
Now, I don't always hate really stupid movies; however, it really depends on what kind of movie it is and how the dumbness relates to the plot. Here, I found it unbearable and when there's also humor that rarely is funny and the action scenes are nothing to write home about... you should really stick to the other adaptations of Dumas' classic novel; there's plenty to choose from. There's even the goofy but fun '93 movie starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O'Donnell. I haven't seen that in years but I much rather would have seen that again than watch this and engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I do admit that the scenery was nice (it was filmed in Germany and there are some ornate sets), Waltz had a great head of hair and I have to laugh that one of the minor characters (his name really isn't important) was dressed and looked like what I'll describe as “a gay cowboy pimp from the 1970's (I don't mean to be offensive; that really is the best way to describe the appearance) but this ended up being a waste of an estimated 75 million dollar budget. I know that there are more egregious wastes of money when it comes to worthless movies and people should never have any expectations for a movie where Orlando Bloom is the main villain, but still... I hope that the established actors in this got paid pretty well.
I'll be back Saturday night.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Tonight I Talk About Dean Reed
This review will be a little different. I'll talk about a documentary I watched on YouTube today. It's about the late singer Dean Reed, someone you probably haven't heard of but he had quite the life.
You can read about him in his Wikipedia article here, but in short, he was born in 1938 in Colorado and after high school he went to Hollywood to try and be a teen idol, which didn't quite work out... but one of his songs was highly popular in Argentina so he went to South America for a time and he fell into a love of leftist governments and he was wildly popular down there; he then moved to Eastern Germany and he became a huge star in Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union, where he was known as The Red Elvis as he stood out for being a rock star and sticking out amongst what the music is like in those other countries, where Communism prevented people from listening to popular Western acts like the real Elvis or The Beatles.
He was a substitute and while music-wise he wasn't as great as them, at least he was more than competent in what he did (a lot of cover songs) and he was a showman. That was enough to make him a huge deal in Communist countries despite being an American. He did an interview for 60 Minutes in 1986 which ruffled some American's feathers due to a few controversial comments he made. Despite his politics he still loved the United States and paid the IRS each year. Not long after that he was found dead in a lake near his home and it appeared as if he drowned. Of course some people speculated otherwise due to how things were back then. After Communism fell, it was made public that he left a suicide note; basically, he was upset that things with his third wife were at a real bad point.
Even today he is hardly known; I first heard about him a few years ago while reading a book with a lot of trivia facts. Earlier in the year in a bookstore I found a book called Comrade Rockstar, which I haven't gotten into as I hear it's as much about the author researching about Reed as it is about Reed himself, which is... interesting. I figured before I start reading the book I should look for other sources to learn about his unique life story. I know there have been a few documentaries about him, but most were from foreign countries and I haven't found dubbed or subtitled versions of those yet; I just discovered a few days ago that someone uploaded 1985's American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story to YouTube and I had to check it out as hey, it was made in America and in English.
Overall, it was a very interesting documentary about his life, from his childhood to the then-present time and after the fact, it proved to have covered most of his life. You see him act (he appeared in a variety of films, including spaghetti westerns and something known as ROBIN HOOD, ARROWS, BEANS AND KARATE which is something I must watch if I can ever find it), hear his thoughts in interviews, have his family & friends give their opinions, and you see various performances and hear various songs. His old man was very entertaining to listen to as he's the old farmer conservative type. In the future I hope to learn even more about this performer and his fascinating life.
Here's the YouTube video, while it's still up. I'll be back Thursday night.
You can read about him in his Wikipedia article here, but in short, he was born in 1938 in Colorado and after high school he went to Hollywood to try and be a teen idol, which didn't quite work out... but one of his songs was highly popular in Argentina so he went to South America for a time and he fell into a love of leftist governments and he was wildly popular down there; he then moved to Eastern Germany and he became a huge star in Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union, where he was known as The Red Elvis as he stood out for being a rock star and sticking out amongst what the music is like in those other countries, where Communism prevented people from listening to popular Western acts like the real Elvis or The Beatles.
He was a substitute and while music-wise he wasn't as great as them, at least he was more than competent in what he did (a lot of cover songs) and he was a showman. That was enough to make him a huge deal in Communist countries despite being an American. He did an interview for 60 Minutes in 1986 which ruffled some American's feathers due to a few controversial comments he made. Despite his politics he still loved the United States and paid the IRS each year. Not long after that he was found dead in a lake near his home and it appeared as if he drowned. Of course some people speculated otherwise due to how things were back then. After Communism fell, it was made public that he left a suicide note; basically, he was upset that things with his third wife were at a real bad point.
Even today he is hardly known; I first heard about him a few years ago while reading a book with a lot of trivia facts. Earlier in the year in a bookstore I found a book called Comrade Rockstar, which I haven't gotten into as I hear it's as much about the author researching about Reed as it is about Reed himself, which is... interesting. I figured before I start reading the book I should look for other sources to learn about his unique life story. I know there have been a few documentaries about him, but most were from foreign countries and I haven't found dubbed or subtitled versions of those yet; I just discovered a few days ago that someone uploaded 1985's American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story to YouTube and I had to check it out as hey, it was made in America and in English.
Overall, it was a very interesting documentary about his life, from his childhood to the then-present time and after the fact, it proved to have covered most of his life. You see him act (he appeared in a variety of films, including spaghetti westerns and something known as ROBIN HOOD, ARROWS, BEANS AND KARATE which is something I must watch if I can ever find it), hear his thoughts in interviews, have his family & friends give their opinions, and you see various performances and hear various songs. His old man was very entertaining to listen to as he's the old farmer conservative type. In the future I hope to learn even more about this performer and his fascinating life.
Here's the YouTube video, while it's still up. I'll be back Thursday night.
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