The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)- Tommy Lee Jones and Barry Pepper star in this modern Western. Sort of comic. Decent use of a couple hours.
A Nice Girl like You (2020) Dir. Chris Riedell & Nick Riedell Lucy gets dumped by her boyfriend following his complaints about their boring sex life and the fact he considers her rather asexual and prudish. Shocked by the separation but especially by the reasons why her ex-boyfriend dumped her, Lucy decides to go on a journey of self-discovery, giving herself twelve tasks which are meant to broaden her sexual horizons. Her little Odyssey is complicated when during its course, she meets a cute groomsman at a wedding where she performs as a member of the string quartet and feels a strong and immediate attraction to him. But is she ready to jump back into romance before she has finished her sexual quest? Ultimately an underwhelming rom-com, mostly due to the weakness of the writing. I mostly liked the cast, especially the excellent rom-com lead Lucy Hale, but here is only so much this ensemble can do with the material.
The Lighthouse (2019)-Not the type of movie I usually watch. Willem Dafoe (who is brilliant) and Robert Pattinson star. Dark film. Critically acclaimed. Not my cup of tea.
Brothers by Blood (2020) Dir. Jérémy Guez Peter and Michael are two cousins and both members of an Irish-American crime family in Philadelphia. Michael is the leader of their crew, whilst Peter is his de facto second in command. Whilst Peter is an even-keeled and emotionally stable individual, his cousin is far more volatile. Thing escalate when Michael orders a hit on a guy connected to the Italian mob after one of their guys is taken out and he assumes the Italians were to blame. This puts Michael on a direct path to all-out war with the Italian mob, a prospect Peter does not exactly relish. Interwoven with their story are Peter's recollections of a similar conflict his father had with his brother - Michael's father - decades earlier. A crime drama that was unfortunately cliché-riddled and forgettable. Not a very memorable Matthias Schoenaerts performance either. He is still waiting for his true break-out performance in an English-language film. None of his English-spoken roles have matched the quality of the work he has done in both Flemish and French. In that regard, "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "The Mustang" are his two best performances, both solid but not reaching the heights of his non-English speaking work.
I first noticed Schoenaerts in the hit/miss Denzel/Reynolds film The Safe House. He was only there for a few minutes but he certainly drew the eye. After that we watched him in the detective series The Killing, where he was very good, I thought.
I think you might be confusing him with Joel Kinnaman? Schoenaerts wasn't in The Killing or in Safe House. His breakthrough English-language performance was probably in "Far from the Madding Crowd". Before that, he had a supporting role in "The Drop" (one of the final films of James Gandolfini's career). Hist most high-profile recent English-speaking role was in the Charlize Theron action thriller The Old Guard.
Holy shit, I totally am! I almost added that I liked him in The Drop, too. Testimony to the difference between casual and serious interest in film. I've basically assumed that it was all one guy in all of those (tossing in Altered Carbon, and that DC comics movie I can't quite remember and am too lazy to pause and look up right now, too). edit: and the first season of the series Hannah. With your permission I'm just going to keep thinking "oh, I like that guy" whenever I see either one of them. Although they don't really look that much alike.
Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989) Dir. Anthony Hickox Purgatory is a small town in the middle of nowhere that does not like strangers. The reason for that is its collective secret: the residents are all vampires. Under the leadership of Duke Mardulak, they have sworn off hunting humans to sustain themselves and instead now live from a blood substitute that is being produced at a plant on the edge of town. When production at the plant encounters several hick-ups as they try to raise the yield, they are forced to invite the man who original designed the plant to solve the problem for them. Thus they are hosting humans for the first time in a long while after the engineer and his family arrive. Around the same time, a mysterious stranger also arrives in town, but his intentions are less clear. All the while, a mini-civil war is brewing underneath the surface, between the vampires who want to return to their old way of life, hunting humans, and those who see their simple life in Purgatory as preferable. Considering I'm a fan of westerns, vampire movies and Bruce Campbell and this is a neo-western vampire flick starring Bruce Campbell, I can't quite figure out how I had never seen this before. Very much enjoyed this, it's the best kind of dumb fun. Bruce Campbell is his usual brilliant self (the man once aptly described as the Buster Keaton of late 20th century horror-comedies). In fact, if this movie has a flaw it's that Campbell only really becomes a factor in the story after the half hour mark and is still a bit underused after that.
The Little Things (2021)-Paint-by-numbers detective/serial killer film with an ambiguous ending. Denzel Washington and Rami Malek. Decent use of a couple hours.
Jayhawkers (2015)-Black-and-White low-budget sports film about the 1956 Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. Good to see Wilt Chamberlain's college career.
Dracula has Risen from the Grave (1968) Dir. Freddie Francis Monsignor Ernest Muller visits a parish which has dealt with the terror of a vampire presence a year prior. It is assumed that the vampire is dead, but the townfolks still live in dread of the evil they feel emanating from the creature's former lair, his castle on the hill. Together with the very reluctant town priest.Ernest makes it his mission to exorcise the castle from any lingering evil. Unfortunately in the process of this endeavor, the town priest accidentally revives Dracula. Upon finding his castle blessed and being unable to enter it, the Vampire Lord wants revenge on Ernest. When he finds out that the priest is also the guardian to a young woman, his niece, he makes her the focus of his revenge. A fairly entertaining Hammer Horror Christopher Lee Dracula film. Does what it says on the tin. Lee is as reliably good as always in the role. Rupert Davies is an okay foil. The director here was the cinematographer on "The Innocents", which explains some visual similarities.
Watched this with the whole family last night Has a lot of genuine laughs, but of course with my professional eye, I was mainly drinking in the set design, colour grades, framing, tracking. Amazing how Anderson can make the characters walking from A to B into a total visual fap fest
The Dig (2021) Dir. Simon Stone In 1939, the wealthy widow Edith Pretty tasks an excavator/amateur archeologist with excavating several mounds of earth on her land which have long been suspected to contain some form of ancient burial chambers. The man in question, Basil Brown, does in fact uncover a find of great historical importance in the form of a buried ship, which he soon believes to predate the Vikings. It makes more renowned archeologists descend upon the site, all of which want a piece of the glory in claiming the find. A very conventional drama set on the eve of WWII. One of the major themes is the class tension between the salt of the earth Basil Brown and the posh, arrogant and educated men who perceive him as nothing more than an laborer and do not value his insights nor his expertise. Two good lead performances by Mulligan and Fiennes. The various subplots fell a bit flat for me, including Lily James' character's romance.
Not a movie, but I have been watching a Peacock OG series, Save Me, starring Lennie James, late of Fear the Walking Dead, TWD, and other productions. The story line is very convoluted and there are moments when I was wondering what the heck is going on. Still, it's fairly well-acted and, I think, worth a peek. The lead character, Nelson Rowe (Nelly to his chums) is a very raw and impetuous guy who doesn't seem to have a job or a residence. And despite the fact that he isn't either charismatic or particularly attractive, IMO, he does pretty well with the ladies. View at your own risk.
We watched the very pleasant "Always Be My Maybe" this evening. Great leads, okay plot, and a terrific bit of stunt casting.
The Wind and The Lion (1975)-Good movie about a widow (Candice Bergen) who is kidnapped with her children in 1904 Morocco by the Resuli (Sean Connery) in a film written and directed by John Milius. Good movie for Theodore Roosevelt fans. Milius also directed Farewell to the King, a good WWII film set in Borneo.
Verboten! (1959) Dir. Samuel Fuller Sgt. David Brent is a G.I. on the European theater, a member of a scout unit sent ahead to deal with any snipers that might be hiding in a German town. The war is nearing its end, yet during the cat and mouse game with the sniper, his squad is decimated and he himself gets injured. After encountering a German woman right before passing out due to his wound, he wakes up in her home, where she has tended to his injuries. After a German counter-attack briefly manages to retake control of the village, the woman in question, Helga, hides David to protect him from the SS unit who would almost certainly shoot him on sight. Once the Americans retake the town and thus free David from his ordeal, he realizes he has grown fond of Helga. After he musters out of the army, he doesn't return to the U.S. but instead gets a civilian job with the American Military Government in Germany, working out of a post in Helga's home town. Now free of the anti-fraternization rules he was under as a G.I., he proposes marriage and Helga accepts, largely because she and her brother and mother are near starvation and she is desperate for help. On the same day that she gets engaged, an old friend of hers, Bruno, returns home, a disillusioned German soldier who sees an opportunity in Helga's marriage to the well-connected American. A Samuel Fuller war drama I hadn't yet seen before. Enjoyable but somewhat different from other Fuller war movies. Though you are still aware you are watching a Fuller war movie whenever the soldiers talk among one another. Also stands out for its extensive use of archival footage, of WWII era combat, but also of the Nuremberg trials, among other things. Much of the focus is on the creation of a Werwolf unit, though the real theme is about the impossibility of true reconciliation without first facing the truth of what had happened.
To Be or Not To Be (1942) Dir. Ernst Lubitsch 1939 Warsaw, on the eve of the war. A theater company is about to premiere a satirical play at the expense of Adolf Hitler. Just when the Polish government bans the production as not to insult the German leader, news arrives that the German army has invaded Poland. A few months later, Warsaw finds itself under German occupation and the actors are essentially unemployed. In London, a group of Polish airmen who are fighting in the Battle of Britain spend a night with a countryman who works for British intelligence, a Professor Silestky. Siletsky mentions to the airmen he is to return to Poland on a mission. When one of the airmen asks the professor to relay a message to the actress he is carrying a torch for back in Warsaw, he is surprised when Siletsky admits not knowing her, in spite of the woman's substantial fame in Warsaw and beyond. This makes him doubt the truthfulness of the professor's claim to have been a long-time resident of Warsaw. When the pilot informs British intelligence of this, he is sent on a mission of his own: to fly to Warsaw and intercept Siletsky, so he cannot compromise the Polish resistance in case he is indeed a double agent instead of merely a dubious British asset. Upon his arrival in Poland, the airman recruits members of the theater company to assist him in his mission. Among them the woman he covets, as well as her jealous husband. A little gem of a war dramedy/comedy by Ernst Lubitsch. Clever, charming and with lots of heart. Also somewhat about the meaning of art in times of war. Remade in the eighties starring Mel Brooks (and you can see why the material would have appealed to him). Warmly recommended, especially if you like Lubitsch in general. Sadly this was also Carole Lombard's final movie before her early death.
Erin Brockovich (2000)-Surprisingly, I've never seen this before. Academy Award-winning title role for Julia Roberts. A woman works at a law firm and uncovers a case of pollution in Hinkley, California. Albert Finney also stars.
Michael Collins (1996)-A biography of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins. Liam Neeson plays the title role. Good film, though I guess it deviated from historical events. Filled me on some details of Irish history.
Not really though there was controversy the portrayal of Dev as setting up the assassination which didn't actually happen.
Space Sweepers (2021) Dir. Sung-hee Jo Captain Jang, pilot Tae-ho, mechanic Tiger Park and the robotic Bubs are the unlikely and ragtag crew of The Victory, a space sweepers vessel which salvages space debris in Earth's orbit. They are always just one misfortune away from having their ship confiscated by one of their many creditors. Their luck appears to change when during a salvage, they find a little girl within the cargo hold of the wreck they are hauling back. They quickly identify the child as Dorothy, an escaped child-like android who is supposedly meant to be a weapon disguised as a little girl, with a powerful bomb hidden inside her robotic body. Desperate for cash and willing to cross moral boundaries they might otherwise not breach, they decide to sell Dorothy to the terrorist group which was after her prior to The Victory's crewmembers discovering her by accident. Also looking for her are the Space Guard, the military arm of UTS Corporation, a powerful company that has terraformed Mars as humanity's new habitat, with Earth having become a largely uninhabitable and polluted hellscape. Yet not everything is as it first appears, and soon the crewmembers of The Victory find themselves neck deep into big trouble. Delightful Korean space opera that I enjoyed from start to finish. I was reminded of many films, including but not limited to The Fifth Element, Guardians of the Galaxy and Firefly (specifically Serenity). There are obvious influences galore but the director does his own thing with it. I also enjoyed the cosmopolitan feel of the movie universe. Whilst primarily in Korean, a wide variety of languages are on display to portray the eclectic nature of the space sweeper culture, including English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. If you enjoy the genre, definitely check this out.
The Kid (2019)-Revisionist Western about a teen who meets up with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Ethan Hawke stars. Vincent D' Onofrio directs. Decent use of a couple hours.
In typical Hollywood fashion, the actual role of the women was badly misrepresented. The real-life character Lily James was portraying was actually an experienced and accomplished archaeologist. And the love interest character didn't exist - the important photography work was done by two women. https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a35379175/the-dig-true-story/
Heaven's Gate (1980)-221 minute Western starring Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert. It features Harvard-educated lawmen, rollerskating and hordes of armed Eastern European immigrants in Johnson County, Wyoming! The film that ruined director Michael Cimino's career. So bad, it's good.