DailyView: Day 152, Movie 233

This documentary was surprisingly difficult to watch.

I had an ache in the pit of my stomach during nearly the entire run time of the film. It felt like a terrible tragedy for so many involved.

This doc looked at the capture and use of killer whales at certain water parks, including SeaWorld. It followed the story of one particular orca, Tilicum, an aggressive whale that had been credited with the killing of three people over the years.

The doc also aggressively went after the idea of keeping these animals in the structures at these water parks and how it is not an environment to maintain a healthy life.

Some of the stories told during the film was heart breaking, both of the attacks of the orcas on the human handlers and the manner in which these creatures were being harvested for the industry.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles a compelling case against the capture of these whales and it is hard not to see the point with the devastating visual evidence shown in the movie. It may feel one sided, but it was stated that SeaWorld was contacted to be interviewed for the documentary multiple times but refused to comment. It is not hard to wonder why.

This is a powerful documentary that really drives home the message right into the heart of the viewers. While it casts Tilicum in the role of a villain, it does not ignore the reasons for the orca to have been the way he was and why SeaWorld may have been willing to turn the other cheek. The doc feels more like a thriller.

Tilicum died four years after the release of the documentary.

DailyView: Day 151, Movie 232

As I was going through the movies available on my streaming services, I came across a movie that I had not heard of before, despite it starring Kurt Russell. It was called Breakdown and it sounded like a typical action/adventure movie, which appealed to me this lazy Sunday afternoon.

It turned out to be quite a thrilling ride.

Kurt Russell played Jeff Taylor, who, along with his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan), were traveling across country, preparing to move. When they encounter some car trouble, Amy accepts a ride with a trucker (J.T. Walsh) to go and call for a tow. However, Jeff is able to get the car running and goes to where the trucker said he would drop off Amy. She was nowhere to be found. Jeff becomes desperate and, after finding the trucker again, he is shocked when he denies ever stopping to help them.

Where is Amy and what has happened to her? Who is involved in her disappearance?

I really enjoyed this movie a lot. Yes, it has the typical action/adventure logic stretches, but there is nothing in the film that takes me out of the film, and it is certainly carried by the frenetic performance of Kurt Russell. You completely buy the desperation of his character as everything he tries seems to turn up nothing. Finally, when the answer is presented, the film bumps up into an even more thrilling spectacle.

The antagonists of the film do a great job of creating slimeballs that you can really hate, even though we see a second side of J.T. Walsh’s character in the third act that humanizes him a touch. The standout of the lowlifes is LOST’s own Mr. Friendly, M.C. Gainey as Earl. This guy is the first face of the problems that Jeff and Amy have to face and Gainey just thrives in the movie.

The tension amps up through the movie and the pay off in the third act is tremendous. The concluding scene on a bridge is dramatic as could be, even if it is hard to believe. By this point, you are happy to accept what happens because you are so into the action.

A lot of fun and filled with excitement.

DailyView: Day 151, Movie 231

The fifth film in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes movies popped up on my list in YouTube after I finished watching And Then There Was None, and I decided that I would watch this film. I have always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes in many of his iterations, but I have not seen any of the Basil Rathbone films making this a perfect film for the DailyView.

In Sherlock Holmes in Washington, the iconic detective travels to Washington, D.C. in pursuit of a document that would cause major disruption if it fell into the wrong hands. The British agent who was transporting the film in Washington aboard a train passed it off to Nancy Partridge (Marjorie Lord), an unwitting American woman, just prior to his own abduction by German spies.

Sherlock Holmes was recruited by the British government to find the document and see what had happened to the agent.

Basil Rathbone made a very solid Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce performed a role as the comedic relief as Dr. Watson. They were excellent together and you could tell that they were very comfortable in their roles by this point in the series. The rest of the cast are basically there to play off of our two main leads and to fill the time until Sherlock’s deductive reasoning wins the day. I do wish Rathbone would have worn the classic Holmes deerstalker cap during the movie, but that is a minor complaint.

The story was simple and fairly straight forward. We knew where the document was from the beginning and it was more of a interest to see if anyone would realize where it was as it made its way around to plenty of the extras during the film. Our villain, Richard Stanley (aka Heinrich Hinkel), played by George Zucco, was not the brightest bulb around and did not really pose much of a threat to Sherlock or Watson.

The film is short and well paced. Rathbone and Bruce are naturals by this point and their performances were dependable. Holmes is our hero again and spends time gazing at the American monuments and quoting Winston Churchill. This is an entertaining way to spend an hour and change.

DailyView: Day 151, Movie 230

I was on YouTube this morning and I came across a free film based on an Agatha Christie novel. And Then There Were None is a 1945 black and white film which lays out one of the classic mystery tropes of a group of people staying together in an isolated mansion and having them being bumped off one at a time.

Ten strangers are invited to an isolated island by a mysterious couple named Owens. Turns out that each person has some hidden secret that has led to someone in their lives dying. As the guests begin dying, they realize that they are being targeted by Mr. U.N. Owen in retribution of their crimes. The killer was following the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians.”

The cast included Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, Jane Duprez, Mischa Auer, Judith Anderson, C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn and Queenie Leonard.

It was a fascinating mystery. It was determined early on that the ten characters were alone on the island and that it meant that one of them was the murderer. As the characters slowly bit the dust, the list of possible suspects dwindled. I must say that I had no idea where the film was heading as each victim turned up. I kept thinking that there would be a twist and we would find out that they were not alone on the island after all. There as a twist, but that was not the one that would come.

I kept waiting for the guests to analyze that nursey rhyme and discover what the next victim’s fate would be, but, despite referencing the poem, they never did that.

In the end, the killer’s motive was thin, but the mystery was compelling and kept me in suspense, wondering where it was going next. I had a decent time with it and I would say that any fan of Agatha Christie or this type of whodunnit would find this a good watch.

DailyView: Day 150, Movie 229

Whoa.

I have heard about The Raid: Redemption for years as being one of the greatest action films in recent memory, but I had not watched it before. Once again, the subtitles and reading the movie is something that I have to be in the proper mood to do. I have rarely been disappointed when I have done it though. It always feels like as the film is underway, you do not even realize that you are reading it anymore. You kind of lose yourself into the story. That happened again with The Raid: Redemption, but the story was not the main standout of this film.

Rama (Iko Uwais) was a rookie on an elite team of commandos that are launching an assault on an apartment building controlled by the brutal crime lord called Tama (Ray Sahetapy). Organized by Lieutenant Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), this S.W.A.T. team headed into the building only to find that the place was filled with killers and thugs loyal to Tama, and that Wahyu had an ulterior motive than law and order.

The team had to do whatever they could to survive the trap and to attempt to escape with their lives.

The film started off with more gunfight than I thought there would be. At first, I was a little disappointed because there is less originality or impressiveness involved with guns, and I had heard the action was exceptional. I had anticipated it being more of a hand-to-hand/martial arts movie and that is not how it started. However, it absolutely became that as the film progressed.

Once it got into the martial arts of the film and started to use the guns in a more minimal manner, this absolutely took off, action-wise. Iko Uwais was utterly amazing in his stunt work, as was several of his opponents. In particular, the battle with Rama, Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), and Andi (Donny Alamsyah) was brutal and breathtaking. The beauty of this fighting is an art form and the film does an amazing job of following the action, allowing the audience to see what is happening. So many martial arts films use the shaky cam or film in ways that make it difficult to see, but The Raid: Redemption does not shy from that. The violence is right in your face and it is a spectacle to see.

They did not avoid the blood or the gruesome results of the brutality either, although I do have to wonder how these men continued on after so many destructive encounters. Rama, especially, has some kind of unbelievable endurance to keep going despite what had to be multiple concussions.

Rama had something to focus on though as the film gave him a wife with a baby on the way and he used that as an inspiration to keep going. Still, I wonder how he could possibly be walking still, but that is real life intruding upon the fantasy, and the fantasy is incredible.

The story is simple, but this is the type of movie that you are not watching for a deep, in-depth plot. There was enough plot to keep things moving and it did have a twist or two, but it knew what kind of movie it was and what the major selling point was going to be. You’ve got to appreciate that.

The Raid: Redemption is an artistic masterpiece of martial arts violence and a brutal look at the violence surrounding it. You are sucked into the action, especially when the major amount of gunfire in the first act or so is reduced into more of a one-on-one (or one-on-many) struggle. It has some of the best action you are going to see anywhere and the story is just enough to keep you invested. This is a great film.

DailyView: Day 150, Movie 228

On the 150th day of the DailyView, we travel back to the mid-`950s for a noir/thriller starring Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward.

Manipulative and ambitious, University student Bud Corliss (Robert Wagner) was dating fellow student Dorothy Kingship (Joanne Woodward) in order to get closer to her wealthy father, Leo Kingship (George Macready) and his mining business. However, when Dorothy announced to him that she was pregnant out of wedlock, Corliss was afraid that she would be disinherited and he would miss out on the opportunity to get what he wanted.

He planned to murder Dorothy and make it look like a suicide. When his first attempt failed, he manipulated her to the roof of a building and shoved her off.

Though the police were convinced of her suicide (thanks to a note that Corliss had sent to her sister), Dorothy’s sister Ellen (Virginia Leith) was not convinced. She began to investigate the supposed suicide on her own and she believed she had found a potential suspect. Corliss followed her and arranged things to make it look like the suspects she had found was, in fact, the killer, who he shot and made look as if the man had killed himself.

Soon afterwards, Corliss ingrained himself into Ellen’s life, still looking to get involved in her father’s mining business.

This was a solid thriller with a lead villain that was seemed to be several steps ahead of everybody else. Robert Wagner played the slimy creep to perfection. Every move he made was designed to show what a letch this character was.

The third act reveal was excellent, with Ellen taking a step to become more of a character than she had been before. She was not just another fool to buy into his BS. Virginia Leith is strong in these moments when she was finding out the truth, harkening back to the strong woman she was prior to meeting Corliss.

Well written and acted, A Kiss Before Dying works on all levels and provides us with a protagonist that is not someone to root for.

DailyView: Day 149, Movie 227

I came across this film on Amazon Prime, The Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and it sounded interesting. Then I started it and I saw Jodie Foster listed which surprised me, followed by Martin Sheen. I had never heard of this movie so I was shocked to see such big names attached to it.

There was some real creepiness in this movie, coming in several different areas. Not only is Martin Sheen’s character Frank just about as horrendous of a human being as you are going to find, Jodie Foster’s 13-year old Rynn Jacobs is calculatingly cold.

Rynn lived alone in a high class Quebec city, pretending that her father was living with her. The local residents were interested in the little girl and her mysteriously absent father. Predator Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen) was an adult who started to clearly approach Rynn with inappropriate thoughts in mind. Frank’s mother Cora (Alexis Smith) seemed to target Rynn in an effort to find out the truth of the little girl.

What they discover was not what they expected.

The film is totally uneasy. Not one of the characters feel like a good person. Rynn is a liar and has a darkness about her, but she was the best of the characters. Frank is such a monumental a-hole that you absolutely hope he will wind up getting his. The finale of the movie was satisfying.

The performances are all fantastic. These actors bring their best work to make you feel downright icky about them.

This won several Saturn Awards and is considered one of the best horror films. However, it feels more like a thriller than a horror movie. It was a controversial film, but I enjoyed it a lot.

DailyView: Day 148, Movie 226

I watched the first season of HBO’s Westworld just like most everyone else did. It was a great TV series that I lost interest in after that opening season. At the time, I was unaware that there was a movie that the show was originally based on. As it is leaving HBO Max this month, I figured this was as good as any time to watch the 1973 sci-fi thriller that lead to the series.

Westworld is one of three vacation locations (along with Medieval World and Roman World) in the high tech amusement park known as Delos. Visitors get an opportunity to live out their fantasies in one of the settings while knowing that they are totally safe. Remarkably realistic robots played the parts of everything else in the world and were programmed to never hurt the guests. However, malfunctions began to ravage the park, allowing the robots to run wild.

I was surprised to see Yul Brynner as one of the gunslinger robots who continued to be involved in the lives of the protagonists, Martin (Richard Benjamin) and Blane (James Brolin). When the Gunslinger becomes the hunter, Westworld really takes off.

While there is not a lot of characterization with the characters, the uncertainty of the story carried the film to a satisfying conclusion.

Directed by Michael Crichton, the premise of Westworld is awesome and the themes of voyeurism and privilege really pop in the film, setting up an even more investigation into them during the series.

This is a nicely paced film that feels like both a Western and a Sci-fi mash-up. It is an engaging movie and it is entertaining to watch.

DailyView: Day 147, Movie 225

The ninth sequel to Friday the 13th takes the indestructible kill machine, Jason Voorhees, into the future, to the year 2455 giving him an all new crew of idiots to slaughter.

Cryogenically frozen, along with scientist Rowan (Lexa Doig), a group in the future discovered them and brought them back. not knowing what they were unleashing. Jason romped through most of the crew on this spaceship as he finds ways to upgrade from the old school slasher.

This is such a dumb movie.

I suppose you could say… “what do you expect?”… but I am not confident that the question allows this type of terrible to be made. The crew is absolute zero in characters. I can hardly remember any of them outside of Rowan and Sgt. Brodski (Peter Mensah). The rest of the characters are faceless or total copies of other, better characters.

Oh there was the female robot who had sex with one of the crew to become a kick ass murder bot. She wound up a head in one of the silliest sexual innuendo.

This is one of the stupidest movies I have seen in awhile, but I can’t deny that it held my attention. It was stupid entertainment and I did not hate myself for watching it. It is leaving HBO Max this month and I am happy I saw this slasher/sci-fi mash-up. It is not doubt a terrible movie, but I can see its appeal in brainless cinema. But do not misunderstand me… this is a bad, bad movie.

DailyView: Day 146, Movie 224

I was listening to this week’s Top 10 Show with John Rocha and Matt Knost and their topic was Top 10 films with robots. On Matt’s list at #10 was an animated movie called Robots. I had heard of the film before but I had not seen it, and Matt talked about it with such positivity as well as mentioning that Robin Williams, one of my all-time favorite people, voiced one of the characters. I decided this would be the choice for the DailyView today.

In a world of all robots, young Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) is hoping to become a great inventor, just like his idol, the beloved robot Bigwell (Mel Brooks). However, Bigwell has disappeared and his company was being taken over by Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), whose plan was to force everyone to buy upgrades instead of spare parts. Rodney, after meeting a friend Fender (Robin Williams) and his family, started searching for the missing genius.

While the story of this movie is a bit lackluster, there is no denying that the voice cast is superb and the animation is beautiful. I found myself laughing quite a lot, especially hearing the fantastic work of Robin Williams once again.

Beside Williams, McGregor, Brooks and Kinnear, the voice cast is packed. There is Halle Berry, Drew Carey, Paula Abdul, Jim Broadbent, Terry Bradshaw, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Coolidge, Will Denton, Paul Giamatti, Lucille Bliss, James Earl Jones, Jay Leno, Al Roker, Stanley Tucci, and Dianne Wiest,

This was a fun film. There is enough here for both kids and their parents, and with Robin Williams providing a voice, what more could you ask for?

DailyView: Day 145, Movie 223

The Limey falls into a typical revenge genre. A vengeful father coming after those people he blames for the death of his daughter. We’ve seen that many times. Still, it is something that we can all relate to and understand. When it is done well, it can be very entertaining. The Limey is very entertaining.

The strongest part of the film is easily the two main leads. Terence Stamp with his steely and cold career criminal life and the slimy record producer played by Peter Fonda. These two bring such a strength to their characters that you are fully engaged in their story.

The action is solid too and not over used. The violence is well used and fits in what they are trying to do. The third act confrontation is well planned out as all of the pieces that have been floating around the film cross into a satisfying conclusion.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, The Limey is a straightforward film with some well timed shots and some cool visuals. Terence Stamp is awesome, but not superhuman, which some times the protagonists in these types of movies become. I liked how he showed his humanity and his weaknesses without sacrificing his bad ass statis.

The Limey was quick and smart. It did not waste time and worked extremely well.