rcmoorejr-543-459992

I find I compare movies if the flick reminds me of others. In this case it was coal smoke billowing out of what was supposed to be a version of an Imperial walker, and I dubbed this the child of Star Wars and Wild Wild West. In a scene on the main ship we have coal fires and tenders. The first half is dogged with backstory that had me looking up from my iPad periodically. The dialogue is such that your chances of predicting lines is up there. The battles all slow down so you can see the choreography. I assume most of the budget went for cgi as the best known actor is Djimon Hounsou, who isn't bad with the little he gets to do. Watch Revenge of the Jedi again, and if you can live without Ewoks, you're fine.

It's an ambitious movie, and early on the scenes underscore that the scenes will emphasize the unspoken, with long, uncomfortable pauses. Shot mostly at night, and in a nonlinear method, it's very confusing at first, and the ending doesn't provide the payoff you're hoping for. Some reviews here try to fill in the gaps the filmmaker left, and it's unfortunate that that's needed. There's talent on the screen, and it's been wasted. Near the end there's an attempt to explain the murky as Satanism, with the local priest doing an exorcism, which isn't the norm, but it's like so many films that sculpt a dark mystery without a clear path out. A bit dismaying in the end. The British call this Too Clever by Half, ie, failure.

Yes, this film seeks to satirize the spy genre with twist after twist after... so, if anyone dies, they don't really die. And no one is who they say they are. After you realize that none of the many plot twists are to be trusted you start looking at your watch because a storyline with zero credibility is a dull way to spend over two hours. There are a couple of genuine laughs, some smiles, but scenery alone does not save a movie. Dua Lipa is gone after five minutes, John Cena is also brief, and to be brutally honest, it's been three weeks since I saw the film and almost nothing about it remains in my memory.

First, it's watchable. The cast is good, a film with A list actors in cameo roles, and they're not afraid to sacrifice actors. The cgi is good, but as one watches this one recognizes "oh, here's the cantina scene", and Charlie Hunnam is almost Han Solo but they kill him near the end. The Star Wars comparisons keep popping up, but there's a hint of Dune, and a sense of Fellowship of the Ring as a farming community goes around the galaxy recruiting fighters to save them from the, in so many words, evil empire. Zach Snyder is good at keeping the movie watchable, but he's hard put to do anything truly original. You will find you finish sentences for the actors, so the script isn't crackling. And my wife and I disagree over a hint of German accent from the Admiral. I say it's mid Atlantic neutral. The next installment is in April.

It's a William Fichtner exercise, written by and directed and starring with Kim Coates, shot around western New York, most recognizably in East Aurora. The cast is good, the buddy part a little overplayed, as though he wanted a buddy flick,then threw in the ghost. Robin Weigert is under utilized, and Harold Perrineau is okay as the ghost slave looking for his home, though why a New Orleans slaver owned land in wny is a minor puzzle. A fun and charming piece, locals will enjoy local touches. Not all it could have been, but watchable. When the ghost puts a stolen deed back in the locked display, it is a reminder that this is a ghost story that will never scare you. The ending seems like an afterthought, with Fichtner and Weigert renewing their vows, though it would be a better written script to have tossed an upcoming anniversary in.... Roger Ebert called it under imagined, which seems apt.

But charming and watchable.

There are so few quality ghost stories out there you sample the low budget efforts with no recognizable talent just in case. They actually filmed this at Margat Castle,that's why it gets a point. Acting was barely watchable, the effects were predictable. Oddly they decided the castle had been built in the mid 1850's (castle building was out of style then). They did just enough to keep me watching, though my wife settled for closing her eyes and listening (and later asking, when she didn't understand a scene, "what happened?")... The ending is telegraphed when the groundskeeper arrives at dawn but ignores their questions... then most inexplicably, the movie closes to the sound of an American slave spiritual? The best scene? A waitress explains Welsh Rarebit.

There's much that's praiseworthy of this movie. Illuminating a key, forgotten figure whose brilliance helped end WWII, exploring his very human side, and reminding us of the damage wrought by the McCarthy hearings, all good. The fears the physicists had, that the atom bomb would ignite the atmosphere and burn the world, and then their very real horror of what they'd wrought, also good. The context, established so well in Matt Damon's general, that the American people (as well as the other allies) were desperate to end the war, is made clear. The effects are all that you expect from modern moviemaking.

So, the downside. The storyline is the investigation over whether or not to renew Oppenheimer's security clearance in the fifties, which is biased by competing scientists egos, by Oppenheimer's interest in Communism, in the Spanish Civil War, begets repetition. The last twenty or so minutes could be edited to five. So many well known actors pop up in bit parts it's hard to know who to keep track of. Cillian Murphy well portrays Oppenheimer, a deeply conflicted man who built the bomb, and actively planned where best to drop it, then was tortured by his choices until he was stripped of his clearance, effectively retiring him. Robert Downey Jr might have a best support nom, if the tedious hearing scenes don't under cut him.

The soundtrack is godawful loud and sometimes obliterates the dialogue. There are clever art house bits here and there, and they detonate the test well, but avoid the bombing of Japan. Interesting choices. If this movie were cut down by thirty minutes, it might be great.

It's 1955 (or so), and Ricci is a mother with son, fleeing her husband. She settles in an old house well out of town, with a pond, from which emerges a digitized monster. There are some clever touches - the continuous commercial with Harriet Nelson and the Hotpoint washing machine - so you know something's off. The boy embraces the monster in the pond, and you know something's gotta give. The twist is executed well, but when you throw in a plot twist, you have to commit to it. We understand what's happened to the child, but the mother is allowed to flee reality again, somewhat incredibly, with a car from the fifties, aged appropriately, but somehow still starts and she drives back to her fantasy. Watchable, mildly scary - we perhaps see too much of the monster.

Run time is a merciful 90 minutes. Driver and Greenblatt have crashed on a primeval planet in an opening that closely echoes Pitch Black, ship hit by asteroids and passengers jettisoned. Soon we determine that our survivors are facing dinosaurs and collision with (wait for it) an asteroid that will end the dinosaurs. In the interim they struggle with a language barrier, nasty surprises from the world of bugs, and so much is predictable. My wife predicted most of the scenes as they were unfolding. You know they're escaping Earth just before the extinction event, and they do. There's some pathos with the daughter Driver left, and some gratuitous bug scenes. I'm just grateful we waited for this on Redbox and didn't pay theater prices.

The first edit I watched was unwatchable. Too much Bill Moseley and the other children of Rotti. Moseley can't sing, a serious handicap in a rock opera. In a new edit, which includes new characters like Blind Meg, and features Anthony Head, who can sing, and more Paul Sorvino, (surprisingly they got him in this) it's a different production. Still with graphic footage of organ repos, which seems unavoidable, but consistent with the story, it's a touch of Rocky Horror without the comic relief. It's watchable and interesting and an interesting exercise in film editing. If you want something more complicated than Rocky Horror, and much funkier, try it.

I was attracted by the leads and the mob hit, a promising comedy. So we get Freeman as the president of a retirement village in the desert, enjoying senior flirtation and being the king of the village. Jones shows up and quickly infringes, beating Freeman at his own game. Russo is the regional manager come to fire him. A competition naturally erupts over who is top dog. It's two thirds of the movie before the mob hit comes, and it's as lame as most of the humor. Does it score on charm? Eh. The crackling humor between Freeman and Jones? It does keep you watching but you realize this is mediocre at its best, kind of a shame for a good cast. It's watchable but not much more.

Depp does good work in a tired script. There are a lot of movies set in the rarified world of liberal arts education and when Depp is told that he has cancer my wife immediately assumed it was a plot device. His wife hates him, his daughter is alienated.... He immediately rebels against the norms of college,which is where The movie threatens to drown in cliche. He keeps the scenes moving, thanks as well to Danny Huston, and the morbid humor works. I was thinking of Dead Poets Society, and Wonder Boys, and this film won't be considered as memorable, as it's a character study of a cliche, it's nice to see Depp doing good work without Pirates surrounding him.

But who would have seen it? Granted, Tom Hanks steals the show with arguably the sleaziest character he's ever played. And since Elvis has been done to death (my personal fave was Kurt Russell's version), Luhrmann focused on the only untold part of the white boy who played black music so well. I don't think this film will be long remembered because the topic and tone is dark, and it's not Hanks best work, and it could probably have been more tightly edited. What Luhrmann tried in Moulin Rouge doesn't quite work here as he's taken on an American icon, which means we paid attention to the details.

It's 2022 and I am watching it for the third or fourth time. It's silly, and not everything works, but it's entertaining and that's what I want in a movie. Will Smith before he was a blockbuster mainstay, Kevin Kline not so much. It was over publicized and that's a marketing error. There's enough here that I turned it on years later.

First watched this in a theatre in Port Jefferson in 1980. I own the dvd and watch it periodically, like other superb films. It's pretty much flawless and underscores the wrongs of war as set in the Boer War. A pity it didn't get more Oscar love.

There's a comet heading for Earth. Everything that follows is an attempt to make fun of social media and politics, and that is shooting fish in a barrel. The result is dull, unfunny and you'll be wanting two hours of your like back. It tries to be Network, or Dr Strangelove. I was hoping for a little more science (or maybe just a plot) and a lot less social commentary, which is done better elsewhere.

With Robin Williams and Candace Bergen, I had hopes for a funny romp. This effort is dull, and maybe the script read funny, but we watched to the end, so it got two stars. Oliver Pratt's brief appearance as a drunk Santa is almost startling. There's an attempt at reconciliation between the estranged father and son that...fizzles. And there aren't any real laughs, though they really try...

As horror goes, this one is better than many. Ambar is undocumented and struggling to live in Cleveland and moved to a boarding house in rough shape. The ghosts-all women- appear quickly and we get a grinding plot with hints of the ending. The conclusion seems to be that she's dead, but the director doesn't want to come out and admit it. The demon in the basement looks like an old Mayan entity, which makes sense for Ambar but not for the Romanian girls just killed.... I liked the attempt at character development, more than most horror flicks. I hate murky endings.

My wife and I both lost parents who ended up in nursing homes, so that was the hook. I also like Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage and Diane Wiest. Diane was wasted, and the story seemed to dwell on the lead characters lesbian relationship. The plot had holes one could drive a truck through, from a man deprived of seeing his mother at all, to one spunky gal surviving a rather detailed murder attempt. Some interesting twists that went nowhere. Good talent wasted on a bad script.

The first two episodes are gripping and the circular story line works well. Reminiscent of the beginning of Walking Dead, with the living struggling to make it minute by minute. Trying not to binge.

It's 1812 and American soldiers want to get to Fort George? Fort George was the British defense against Fort Niagara, which was their other choice. The Mohawks were in eastern NYS. Where the hell is this happening? The young Mohawk screams during torture. As a rule they valued a brave silence. Some outlandish eye gear and dialogue a bit contemporary... I've written historical fiction set in this era and it would have been easy to fix this.