Author Archives: Doc

Minority Report (2002)

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I had not seen this film in a long time so I wanted to make sure it was included in the Great Easter Binge-a-Thon.

This past Friday, I saw the most recent Steven Spielberg film, Ready Player One, in the theaters and I found it missing something that made it feel off.  I could not put my finger on it, but it just lacked something.  Minority Report is 100% wonderful and is a compelling and considerably better futuristic movie directed by Spielberg than Ready Player One.

John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is the Chief of a bureau of the police called Pre-Crime.  This bureau used three orphaned people called the precogs to see murders before they take place and arrest the perpetrators prior to the crime.  The process seemed to be working well.  So well that the program was going to be expanding nationwide.

However, things get strange when Anderton himself is shown to be committing a murder in one of the precogs’ vision, leading to him trying to avoid capture while investigating what is going on.

This movie is based on a short story from EYG Hall of Famer Phillip K. Dick and Spielberg takes the imaginative story and creates a brilliant world.  But there is more here than just the futuristic technological advances.  There is a mystery behind the story that sends the characters on a journey as interesting as any technology or precog.

Max von Sydow gives an excellent performance that keeps you guessing up until the very last moment.  Colin Farrell is one of the detectives trying to track down Anderton.

Minority Report is one of the top science fiction movies of the past 20 years and features a top notch performance from Tom Cruise.  Cruise believed in the pre-crime technology for years until it became something that he was forced to look at closer.

This was another film talked about by the Top 10 Show and I am so glad that I added it to the binge-watch.  It was a great reminder of what a fantastic director Spielberg can be.

vintage

The Wrestler (2008)

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A powerhouse performance highlights the next film in the Easter Binge-a-Thon as Mickey Rourke resurrects his career with his role as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.

This is a tough watch, one that really rips at the emotional heart of the viewer.  Randy Robinson is a broken-down, aging professional wrestler who is no longer the headliner of the major promotions.  Going form small arena to small arena on the weekends, riding on his reputation, Randy struggles trying to balance his real life with the life in the ring.

Honestly, this film is only somewhat about professional wrestling, although the parts about wrestling is the most realistic parts of any wrestling film.  The movie focuses on Randy “The Ram” as a character study.  Randy tries to make money with a job at the supermarket, tries to make up with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and tries to start a relationship with a strip club dancer (the effervescent Marisa Tomei).

The way Aronofsky filmed The Wrestler showed how sad and alone Randy was and how he used the ring as an escape.  Even when he was faced with the dangers of his heart trouble, he found the ring to be an easier place to exist than the real world.

Some of the scenes with Randy and his daughter were just heart- breaking and so very real.  It played like some of the scenes from the documentary Behind the Mat.  There was not that many scenes with his daughter, but they were sincerely impactful to the story and to the character.

Then, after seeing the hardcore wrestling scene, it was one of the hardest scenes to watch as a wrestling fan.  Just watching the backstage doctors trying to remove the pieces of glass and staples from these men was difficult to watch.

And the final match with the Ayatollah (Ernest Miller) was really tough to watch as well as Randy faced his reality that inside the ring was more to him than outside.  The way the end of the film is left up to interpretation is a brilliant (although frustrating) way to end the film.

Mickey Rourke was absolutely robbed of an Academy Award as he should have won for this rile.  It is one of the most personal, most raw, most devastating and real performances you will ever see.  Whether you love professional wrestling or not, The Wrestler is a masterpiece in cinema.

paragon

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A Few Good Men (1992)

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Next film in the Easter Binge-a-Thon is the Rob Reiner classic, A Few Good Men.  It features a strong movie with perhaps one of the best third act scenes in the history of movies.

The whole “You can’t handle the truth” scene is one of the most iconic scenes shot and show off the amazing performances and antagonistic chemistry between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

This is one of the first times where you really see Tom Cruise as the charismatic, charming lead character he will become.  He nails all of the smart-ass lines that he was given and he also had to handle complex emotional scenes.  He showed that he belonged on the screen at the same time as a heavyweight like Nicholson.

Demi Moore does a solid job here, but Cruise is clearly the star of this movie.  One thing I did like was that the film did not try to force a romantic entanglement into the story between Moore and Cruise.  Both Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon bring strong performances to the film and Kevin Pollack provides a nice counter-balance to Cruise’s Kaffee.

James Marshall from Twin Peaks does a great job as the more naive and childlike Marine Downey.  Another great performance came from improv stud Christopher Guest, who appears as the doctor from Guantanamo.

Most of the courtroom drama is well done and is really carried by the likability of Tom Cruise.  If you have never seen the film before, you have the real feeling that there is no way that Cruise could win this case and that is a great success for Rob Reiner.

A Few Good Men is a top of the line thriller with great performances.  I loved this one.

vintage

 

 

Ocean Eleven (2001)

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It is time to begin the first Awesome Easter Movie Binge-a-Thon!.  Now, I plan on doing a bunch of movies (older ones) that I will include in the Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed section of the web site.

We started off on Netflix with a movie that I had actually never seen, Oceans Eleven.

I did not love it.  Honestly, I thought much of the beginning of the film was fairly dull.  We moved around to all of the different characters but a lot of them receive little to zero development.  The heist itself picked up considerably, saving the movie for me.

Now, there was a lot of suspension of disbelief here as this group of thieves seemed to have everything perfectly planned out and there were no hiccups in the plan.  Every time it looked like there might be some unforeseen aspect that might cause them some problems, it turned out to be part of the plan.  That kind of foresight is hard to believe and does make the situation a little more boring than it should be .

There is no denying that there is a great cast of charismatic actors involved in this movie.  George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Elliott Gould, Casey Affleck, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, and Julia Roberts.  Add to that list the villain, Terry Benedict played by Andy Garcia, who is a solid character, you can tell what a lineup was here.

Everything just went so smoothly, I wish there would have been a couple of bumps in the road just to keep the doubt alive.

On the whole, Ocean Eleven was okay, and got better as it moved along, but it just did not hit for me.

overrated

Best F[r]iends

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Building on the cult classic status of The Room and the recent success of James Franco’s film based on the making of that film, The Disaster Artist, stars and creators of The Room are back together for the first time since.

Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, who were Johnny and Mark respectfully in The Room, bring their “acting” chops to Best F[r]iends, a weird and eccentric movie that goes all over the place incoherently while displaying the idiosyncrasies of the one and only Tommy Wiseau.

Oh, and it is Part 1.  Part 2 comes out in June.

Greg Sestaro plays Jon, a drifter who shows up with blood on his shirt (never explained, by the way) and a lemon in his pocket.  He winds up crossing paths with an eccentric mortician who makes masks for corpses that have been scarred in their deaths.  He also apparently pulls out their gold teeth to store in his back room.  Jon realizes that he could make some money selling those gold teeth as dental scrap and steals some from his new best friend.

Okay, that’s as much of the plot that I am going to explain (mainly because I am not sure what else happened).  This is nowhere as bad as The Room, however, it is nowhere as fun as The Room was either.  Sure, this new movie has moments of Tommy Wiseau that are vintage Tommy Wiseau, but there seems to be more of an attempt to string together something of a story here. Perhaps the fact that Tommy Wiseau was not directing this helped (directorial duties fell to Justin MacGregor).

These characters changed motivations and personalities from scene to scene…sometimes within a scene even.  In particular, Wiseau’s Harvey was wildly inconsistent in his character choices and thoughts.  The film starts many different potential storylines but drop them just as quickly.

It really made little sense and unfortunately was just not as humor-inducingly bad as The Room.

However, Tommy Wiseau does say, “Oh, hi Jon.”

What more could you want?

1 star

The Death of Stalin

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Not quite a biopic here.

More of a farce than a history lesson, The Death of Stalin is uproarious and consistently funny as you see a great comedic cast bring humor to the last days of the violent Soviet leader and the ensuing struggle for power that followed.

The great cast here included an exceptional turn from Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev.  Buscemi plays Khrushchev as a manipulator and an opportunist, taking the events surrounding the death of Stalin and morphing them into ones that would benefit him.  Jeffrey Tambor is wonderful as the wishy-washy Georgy Malenkov.  Simon Russell Beale appears as Lavrenti Beria, another member of the Council of Ministers and head of the secret police.  Khrushchev and Beria clash with one another because they both have their eyes on the head of the Soviet Union in a post-Stalin world.

It is a very dark comedy, however, as many scenes were very brutal, despite being played for comedic effect.

Clearly, the farce is not specifically concerned with details.  For example, there isn’t any Russian spoke in the film.  They all just talked in English, as if they were all just naturally English speakers.  It was kind of funny at times, and I would be lying to say that it did not disrupt my viewing at least a few times.

The film did not fail to play up the seriousness of the times in the USSR, as people were being killed for reasons only familiar to Stalin and many of the normal Soviets were frightened of their leader.  The scenes where the theater owner makes the orchestra stay and re-play their concert a second time because Stalin wanted a copy was a great example of the fear the Soviet people had to endure.

Oh, and Adrian McLoughlin as Josef Stalin is a thing of beauty.  The tyrannical dictator was played much like an unruly youngster with too much time on his hands. And yet, they never backed away from showing how evil Stalin was.  It was a very nice juxtaposition of the character.

The Death of Stalin was a good time involving some of the darkest times of the world.

3.65 stars

Ready Player One

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Based on the best selling book of the same title, Steven Spielberg’s new directorial effort is the CGI heavy Ready Player One, which if nothing else, shows how amazing Spielberg is at compiling character’s rights for a movie.

Not sure how he was able to navigate the rights issue, but there seemed to be no lack of nostalgic characters in the world of the Oasis, the futuristic virtual reality that most of the human race escapes into to avoid how terrible their lives are in the real world.

Steve Jobs-like creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has died and he pulled a Willy Wonka on the world.  He hid three keys in his VR World and said that anyone who could find them would be given all of his money and the rights to control the Oasis however they choose.  Problem?  No one can solve the riddles.

Enter our hero- Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who, as his avatar Parzival, enters the game with his own desire to find the keys.  While inside the VR, Parzival meets Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) and he immediately falls for the hot gamer chick.  However, he has no time for romance because the evil corporation IOI, led by evil CEO Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) is also hot on the trail of the keys for their own nefarious purposes (mainly dealing with advertisements a la Net Neutrality).

I have mixed feelings about this movie.  There was just something about the film that I did not enjoy.  It was extremely long, and felt it too.  The first half of the movie felt like an exposition-heavy, info dump that I found very dull.  I understand that it is challenging for a movie with this much of a mythology to introduce said mythology to the audience without it feeling like an exposition dump, but I feel that someone the caliber of Spielberg could have found a more successful way to do it.

The villain of the story came off to me as unbelievably one note.  I thought Sorrento was nothing more than an evil corporate figure.  They tried to connect him to Halliday in flashbacks, but none of those were very effective.

I was not a fan of the dialogue used by the characters, particularly in the Oasis.  The different avatars were clunky and undeveloped and most of the humor hit the skids.

I also found much of the film predictable and lacking the adventurous spirit that I had hoped it would have.

There were some things that I did enjoy.  There were a couple of the big set action pieces that were effective.  I did not hate the race for the first key.  I loved the trip to the Outlook Hotel for the second key and the third act super slugfest was fun.

The biggest reason these were fun was the nostalgic factor.  It was fun seeing these different characters and objects appearing here.  The film had everything from the Deloreon to the iron Giant to Batgirl, TMNT, King Kong etc.  It was a feast for the eyes trying to spot all the different characters that were seen on screen. I did love the use of a certain character by the villain in the third act, even though his use of that character did not really fir with the villain’s character.

I really did like Olivia Cooke in this role as well.  She was so sweet and lovely that I was charmed by here the entire time.  I preferred her real world persona to the avatar in the game.  Tye Sheridan was fine as Wade, which is about the best thing I can say. I liked his avatar much more.  The rest of the group of kids and gamers were pretty underwhelming, if not basic stereotypes.

If you think too much about ready Player One, the story and the common sense falls apart.  It works much better if you just do not think about it and allow yourself to fall into the days of your youth.

This felt like one of those 1980s movies that I would have loved when I was younger, but not like near as much when I looked back upon it as an adult.  Something bugged me about the film through much of the run time and I could not put my finger on it.  There were definitely sections that I liked about the movie, but that nagging feeling just never fully went away.

2.75 stars

Moon (2009)

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Thank you, Matt Knost.

During the discussion this past week on the Top 10 Show, Matt Knost placed a movie on his list of “Technological Dystopian Future Movies” was a film that I had no idea about.  I had never heard of this movie before, so I checked on Netflix and, sure enough, there it was.  And it had Sam Rockwell starring as well, and I like him as an actor.  So I planned on watching this one, and I am really glad I did.

Sam Rockwell plats Sam Bell, a man alone on a station on the moon, monitoring the outposts that are mining gases from the moon that could allow the earth to reverse the energy crisis.  Sam had a three year contract but it was coming to an end and he was looking forward to seeing his wife and daughter when he returned home.

Of course, there is more than meets the eye here.  Sam has a robot at the station named Gerty (Kevin Spacey) who does all kinds of stuff for Sam.  They have an interesting and strange relationship.  There are several little things hinted at as the film progresses that show you that something weird is going on.

Sam Rockwell is tremendous in this role.  It is one of his best performances that I have seen.  He goes through a plethora of emotions as the situation is revealed to him.  Rockwell was certainly overlooked for Academy Award consideration for this performance.

This is a great science fiction film.  It may be a little slow at times, but I honestly enjoyed that part of the movie.  I think sci-fi has fallen into a trend of being too action oriented, where this embraces the old style of sci-fi.  It is more psychological and thought provoking.  I find these movies every bit as thrilling as the action/adventure films.

I do not want to spoil the main part of the film, which actually does make it hard to discuss Moon, since that spoiler would be a major talking point.  I will say that the relationship between Sam and his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott) is fascinating and heart breaking.

The film looks great as well.  The director, Duncan Jones, certainly has a winner in this film.  If you have not seen Moon, it is on Netflix and it is a great film.  It is a compact film just under 100 minutes and it is worth the time to watch.

Once again, thanks Matt Knost.  Great choice.

vintage

EYG Top 10 Technological Dystopian Future Movies

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EYG23

Happy Top 10 day y’all.

This week’s list from the Top 10 Show features the top 10 technological Dystopian Future movies.  This is an intriguing category, but it took some specifics because there have been a lot of dystopian future movies.

First, I eliminated any film that was in space or with aliens.  So films like The Fifth Element, Serenity and District 9 are out.  Then I wanted to eliminate films that have time travel and the characters spend most of their time in the past trying to prevent the dangerous future which takes out the Terminator movies, 12 Monkeys, Looper (plus, we just did time travel movies last week).

And, of course, there has to be some remaining technology in the future, taking out films like I Am Legend and the Mad Max films.

So that leaves these ten movies (and a few honorary mentions).

Top 10 Technological Dystopian Future movies

#10.  Minority Report.  Can I be honest.  I remember watching this film and really liking it, but I have not seen it in years and I cannot recall much of anything about it.  I know that Tom Cruise is in this movie, but I am not sure about much else.  This is one that I need to re-watch because,as I said, i do remember liking the film.

 

#9.  The Running Man.  Arnold Schwarzenegger stars, but, of course, I am much more of a fan of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, who is in this film.  I also would say that I am a big fan of Richard Dawson and I was surprised how much of a great villain Dawson makes.  The dangerous game show idea was way before its time.

 

#8.  The Lobster.  This one made Matt’s list and he reminded me about this film.  I saw it in the theater and it was really a creative and clever film.  Colin Farrell is great here as the man who is off to the place where he will either fall in love or be turned into an animal. An unexpectedly weird and enjoyable film.

 

#7.  Demolition Man.  One of the better of the Stallone films of the time and the great performance of the villain Wesley Snipes.  Stallone is thawed out of prison cold storage (literally) to try and match up with Snipes’s crazy and violent villain.  Yes, this is seriously cheesy, but it was a lot of fun as well.  Jesse Ventura is here a well.

 

#6.  Snowpiercer.  Chris Evans has a great performance here in this dystopian future inside a train that never stops.  The entire world’s ecosystem is found on the train and the movie is another example of class in movies.  The poor people live in the back of the train.  The wealthy near the front.  Chris Evans leads the revolt and finds some surprises along the way.

 

#5.  Dredd.  After the failure of Judge Dredd, I had little expectations for this new version, starring Karl Urban.  It turned out to be so much better than I ever thought it would be.  The story took place isolated inside this futuristic apartment building and made me care about this character that I had no connection to ever before.

 

#4.  Blade Runner 2049.  The sequel to Blade Runner was a truly beautiful film. It featured some strong performances, including a great return from Harrison Ford.  I was never a huge fan the original, but I did not hate it so I was looking forward to 2049.  The cinematography was magnificent.   Ryan Gosling has a great role as the new lead of the film.  Dave Bautista has a small but very strong role in the film as well.

 

#3.  The Matrix.  Keanu Reeves is The One.  The Matrix features great action, a remarkable villain in Agent Smith, great secondary characters, an extremely creative storyline, and ABSOLUTELY NO SEQUELS (wink…wink…).  The film has so many iconic moments, such as “there is no spoon”, the helicopter on the roof, and that remarkable fight at the end of the film.

 

#2.  Edge of Tomorrow.  This might be a cheat on the list, because of the aliens thing, but this is so good that I will make the exception.  Tom Cruise does so much more in this movie than just be the science fiction version of Groundhog Day.  Emily Blunt was such a kick ass character that you really believe is the hero of this world.

 

#1.  V for Vendetta.  Verily.  Victorious.  V for Vendetta is based on a classic comic book by Alan Moore (though he did not love this film version).  V for Vendetta has a dystopian future of England and V returns with the Guy Fawkes mask to shake up the empire.  The story is great and this is probably my favorite performance from Natalie Portman.  Hugo Weaving beneath the mask of V is near perfect.  I loved the finish of the movie as well.  V for Vendetta is a classic.

 

Honorable mentions:  Blade Runner, Robocop, I, Robot, The Giver

The TV Week That Was

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spoilers

Welcome back to the TV Week That Was.

Just got done watching the 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who claimed to have had sex with Donald Trump in 2006.  I am sure that everyone was watching it, as Trump seems to equal ratings.  She came off as intelligent and well spoken, but she had made several comments over the years denying the potential affair.  That is problematic for her credibility.  To be fair, she seemed to have an answer for all of the times she lied and the explanation of how a man approached her and made barely veiled threats to her in a parking ramp sounded very creepy.  I thought 60 Minutes/CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was very fair with his questioning and he laid out the story well.  Who knows if this becomes one of the biggest stories of 2018 or if it just slips into the forget it file.

Drew Barrymore in Santa Clarita Diet (2017)It was a busy weekend so I did not get to binge the whole season, but I watched the premiere of the second season of Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix and absolutely loved it.  I was laughing the entire time, unless of course when I was covering my mouth.  The blood continued to fly freely and when Shelia came out of the basement and attacked the Serbian guy who had vomited for Abby (yes, that is what I said) and started eating him, it was laugh out loud funny.  I am excited to see the remaining nine episodes.

Image result for x files season 11 conclusionThe X-Files season 11 came to an end this week with an awesome episode that I really hope is the series’s final episode.  Gillian Anderson has stated that this was her last time playing Dana Scully and, if that is the case, then this is a beautiful send off.  The story centered around the contagion conspiracy and Mulder and Scully’s son William.  Of course, we learned earlier this year that William was not Mulder’s son, but was an experiment produced by the Smoking Man.  There was an emotional end as we saw William shot and killed (though not for good) by Smoking Man (who thought he was shooting Mulder), Mulder found out the truth from Scully about William, Fox shot and HOPEFULLY killed Smoking Man and Scully told Mulder that she was pregnant.  Oh, and Skinner got run over by a car.  In the end, this was an exceptional end for the series.

Image result for flaming lucille walking deadOn the Walking Dead, we saw a great conflict between a grieving Rick and Negan.  Rick was able to get his hands on Lucille and he used Glenn’s lighter to set the barbed wire bat on fire and used it on some Walkers.  He was unable to actually use it on Negan, but he drove Negan away in such a state that he wound up unconscious and in a car with a potentially vengeful Janis.  There was also the arrival of a new survivor named Georgie who offered the Hilltop food in exchange for records.  She also provided information to Maggie that may help them rebuild their community.  I liked this character quite a bit since this was quite the departure from other characters on the show.

Image result for ash vs evil dead season 3 episode 5Ash vs. the Evil Dead is tremendous.  Ash’s battle with the little child who has a small chainsaw on his hand just like Ash was all kinds of amazing.  Who this kid really is has yet to be revealed but he has some connection to Ruby and seems to be some kind of demon.  His use of the headless dead body to hid inside while crawling and sticking his head from out of the top and “bottom” of the body was something I never thought I would ever see,  Legitimately the most original disturbing thing I have seen.  And then, Ash with the bowling balls… I may never look at bowling balls the same way again.

fitzAgents of SHIELD pulled off what was an absolutely BRILLIANT twist during the Friday’s episode.  The breach between dimensions has been around in the lighthouse for several episodes and we know that the breach had been allowing our agents’ worst fears into our dimension.  They had been setting this up with flashes to past villains of the series for weeks.  So when we see Fitz from the Framework knockout Deke, we knew that it was just another fear.  We even saw two Fitzes.  Only… it was not a fear, it was the real Fitz having some sort of break.  Although even after he realized he was the problem, Fitz realized that he was doing what had to be done.  And before we knew it, he had operated on Daisy and removed her inhibitor.  I had never once considered that this was anything but a fear and the writers of Agents of SHIELD should be commended for setting up this brilliant twist so perfectly.

Related imageGotham had a big week as well as we saw Lee shoot Sofia in the head to save Jim, who had already been shot several times by the crimelord.  Or maybe she was just doing it as revenge for the hand from last week.  Penguin and The Riddler seem to be past their previous issues and are back to buddies.  Grundy remembers he is Butch and promises that he will find his way back.  Bruce and Selina had a nice little interaction.  Bullock is on the road to forgiving Jim, but slowly.  Riddler rescued Penguin’s kid friend.

That’s it this week.  Looking forward to The Terror preview tonight after The Walking Dead.  Happy viewing!

Pacific Rim: Uprising

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Big, loud, dumb and cheesy.

About what you would expect from a movie featuring giant robots fighting giant monsters.

I was not a fan of the first Pacific Rim film.  I found it to be dull and lacking any real story, which I think most people would agree with.  So I was not really looking forward to the sequel to the film, and, while I was not that bored during the film, there is no doubt that the non-robot/monsters part of the story left a ton to be desired.

The film tried to make up for that lack of script by casting John Boyega as the lead role of Jake Pentacost, the son of Idris Elba’s character in the original movie.  Boyega, much like Elba, is a strong actor with a ton of charisma that can help overcome a script that may not have what it needs.  A lesser actor would have failed miserably.  Boyega carried much of the story, at least what there was.

The action of the film was pretty solid, definitely better than the Transformers movies.  You could see what was happening most of the times here.  However, there was a significant lack of Kaiju presence in most of this film and if you were anticipating a lot of Jaeger vs. Kaiju action throughout the film, you may be disappointed.  There is several Jaeger on Jaeger action though.

Jake had left the Jaeger program because of troubles and he comes across a Jaeger thief/inventor in 15-year old Amara (Cailee Spaeny) who was ripping off Jaeger junkyards for spare parts. Then, they are both captured by the Jaeger people and forced to join the Jaeger training program.   Jake returns to his old stomping grounds with the same swagger as before.

Then, rogue robots.

That’s basically it.  There is a sub plot with drone robots looking to replace the two-man tandems that run the Jaegers, and that leads to the worst plot twist of the film featuring Charlie Day’s character of Newt from the first film.

Of course, everything that you thought might happen in the film happens just as you think it would.

Having said that, the third act fight sequence with the actual Kaiju was decent and the special effects are fine.

The group of young pilots that Amara joins at first are the least developed, singularly unimpressive group brought together in a long time.  There was the blonde Russian (I think) who was supposed to be the mean one toward Amara. There was the guy who had his shirt off showing off abs and a waistline that had to be CGI because no human being could look like that.  There was the other guy… um… who SPOILERS is there to die.  I think there were more, but they were less memorable that this crew.

Steven DeKnight directed this sequel, and he does a decent job.  As I said, the action looked pretty good and was the best part of the film.  It just needs more of a script.  I did not hate this movie, but there are so many things that could make it better.

2.6 stars

 

The Fugitive (1993)

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The final of the Snowy Saturday movie binge is one of my favorite movies of all time and probably my favorite Harrison Ford movie where he is not named Han or Indy.

The Fugitive was based on a old television program where the character Dr. Richard Kimble was arrested, charged and convicted for his wife’s murder despite his consistent claim that she had been murdered by a one armed man.  In our movie, Kimble (Harrison Ford) was able to escape after the bus he was on wrecked.  Instead of heading for the hills, Kimble remained in Chicago and began his own investigation.  All the while, enigmatic U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) arrived on the scene and was on Kimble’s heels the entire time.

The best part of this is that Kimble wasn’t a huge action guy.  He was a doctor.  A man who was really smart and who showed off his intelligence by being able to avoid arrest while still finding his way through Cook County Hospital among other locations in Chi-Town despite being pursued and watched for.  I love a protagonist who uses his brains to get through life.

Another great trait of Dr. Kimble was how much he was sworn to protect human life.  Even after he became the fugitive and was concerned with keeping himself free, any time he needed to, he paused to help someone in need.  The guard on the bus, the boy in the hospital, even the police officer who gets shot, Richard stops to check on or go out of his way to help these people.  That is a heroic trait that I admire from this character.

Both Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones are at the top of their games in this movie.  Jones won an Oscar for this role that was also spun off into his own (much less interesting) film called US Marshals.

I remember seeing this movie the first time in the theaters and being totally on the edge of my seat.  I wanted Kimble to succeed but there were so many times that it seemed as if he had no chance of getting away.  The suspense created by this script and the wonderfully played characters really provided great tension.

The Fugitive is a fun, exciting, suspenseful movie that moves quickly and boasts two of the powerhouses of movies.  It is one of the best straight action movies you are going to see because it is more than just action.  It is action with intelligence.

paragon

 

Moulin Rouge (2001)

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Next up… something to cry over.  My favorite musical of all time…Moulin Rogue.

When this was first out, I had no interest in seeing it.  It was up for Academy Awards and people were raving about it, but it just did not interest me.

How wrong I was.

Moulin Rouge is a beautiful story of love and loss that is mixed with some of the best acting and some of the best music you are ever going to get.

The music was special here.  Being a “jukebox” musical, Moulin Rouge features a compilation of music besides just original songs.  And the music is incorporated in this film so perfectly.  Songs such as Elton John’s Your Song, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend and the Police’s Roxanne are woven into the tapestry of the story.  The Elephant Medley included such a variety of artists as The Beatles, Kiss, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warrens.  The music was intricate and vital to the story.  There were also original songs for the movie as well, including the “lover’s secret song” Come What May.

Christian (Ewan McGregor)is a penniless writer who falls for the beautiful courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) at the French night club/bordello the Moulin Rouge.  Unfortunately, Satine is supposed to be seducing a wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh) looking for backing for the ultimate Bohemian play.  When Christian is mistaken for the Duke, he and Satine fall magically in love, putting the entire production in jeopardy.

McGregor and Kidman are brilliant in this movie.  They have chemistry dripping off of them in every scene they share.  You buy them together and you invest in their love.  The challenges they face only serve to make the audience all the more invested.  And they both showed that they could sing.

The color of the movie was wonderful to watch and created an environment that fit the time of the Bohemian revolution in Paris.

The final act of Moulin Rouge is as strong and as emotional of an ending as you are going to get.  It truly is a special film that will not fail to rip your heart out  while reinforcing your belief in an all-encompassing love.

Moulin Rouge, as it says, is a story of love.

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The Monster Squad (1987)

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Guilty pleasure time.

The next film in the snowy Saturday binge watch is a silly, downright dumb, film from 1987 that, for whatever reason, I enjoy.  The Monster Squad is a group of children facing off against the iconic monsters of all-time in Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, the Creature and the Mummy.

The Monster Squad is pure 1980s goodness.  It is like the Goonies blended with Ghostbusters in a B-movie extravaganza.  Is is stupid?  Sure.  Does it have major holes? Yep.  Does it work in today’s world?  Not so much.  Still, I cannot say that I don’t enjoy watching it every time it is on.

As I am watching the film, I am amazed at the small moments of depth that the film tries to sneak into the film.  Scary German Guy has a tattoo from a concentration camp on his forearm that we see after one of the kids say that he really knows about monsters.  When Rudy shoots the Wolfman, you can see the conflict within the boy’s face.  Whether intended or not, you can see he was shaken by his killing of the Wolfman.  The realization by Frankenstein’s Monster that he was an ugly creature and how that bothered him was surprisingly effective.  Sean later insists that they do not call Frankenstein’s Monster a monster, referring to him as Frank instead.

All of these moments were enjoyable and brought more to the story than just the silliness of the plot.

Now, there were a lot of things that would be frowned upon today.  Like, for example, how Rudy blackmails Patrick’s sister into helping them by taking pictures of her partially naked and threatening to post them at school.  Not cool, Rudy.  And… why did this group of boys desperately need to find a virgin to perform the ritual so badly?  I mean, they are in a monster club.  All of these boys were all certainly virgins.  Pretty sexist when you indicate that your virgin has to be the girl.

Shane Black, yes that one, wrote the script for The Monster Squad along with director Fred Dekker.  They weaved several hints and homages to the original Universal monsters of the old days of film in their script.  There is little wasted time here as the film moves quickly from intro of the monsters to the final struggle with the kids.  The kids do a good job of getting you invested in them and being cute.

And of course, it has one of the classic lines of all time with “Wolfman’s got nards.”

This film is absolutely not very good, but it certainly could be a nice introduction for families looking for monster/horror movies to watch with their kids.  The rating should not be a surprise since I use a picture of the Monster Squad on the graphic.  The Monster Squad is…

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

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The snow movie binge continues with a 2005 reboot film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp in the iconic role of the eccentric chocolate factory owner.

This 2005 version was a reboot of the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that starred Gene Wilder.

Someone thought that this reboot was a good idea.  Spoiler alert…it wasn’t.

Among many things that this new version was lacking was one important detail.

Magic.

Watching these scenes of this reboot, it was clear that the magical moments that were throughout the original version felt dark and pedestrian here.  The color was muted.  The music was completely different.  The ambiance was just wrong.  The “Pure Imagination” scene in the original is beautiful, dream-like, stunning.  The same scene, sans the iconic song, was nothing more than one more poorly lit, nasty, unlikable moment.

Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka with a sense of sarcastic wonder, a hidden dark side breaking through.  Johnny Depp replaced that sense of wonder with a feeling of being broken.  We see completely unnecessary flashbacks to the character’s childhood, including his dentist father (Christopher Lee).  Willy Wonka does not need an origin story.  The mystery of why he does what he does should suffice.  This is a major flaw of this film.  And with all due respect to Johnny Depp, there are so many choices in his portrayal that simply do not help this character.

I did enjoy the performance of young Freddie Highmore as Charlie.  Highmore would go on to star in Bates Motel as the iconic Norman Bates and then on to The Good Doctor.  Highmore has shown his acting chops in these versions and he has a charming visage throughout the film.  You could see that the young man had a bright future here.

I also must say that I enjoyed some of the quips between Willy Wonka and Mike Teevee (Jordan Fry).  Seemed as if Mike kept noticing when Wonka was spinning his lies and then called him on it.  Of course, we also were meant not to like this kid either.

Perhaps this film would not be as bad as I think had it been an original film instead of remaking an indelible classic of all time (a member of the EYG Hall of Fame), but it did so every scene from the new film is being peppered by the memory of a completely better version.  If there was nothing to compare this too, maybe we would not realize how much it was missing.

How much magic.

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