M3gan (2022) Dir. Gerard Johnstone Gemma is a work-alcoholic engineer at a toy company. She and her team are part of the department that designs interactive dolls. They are currently struggling to create a cheaper model of popular line of A.I. pets. But Gemma believes they should go another way: create a doll that has a higher degree of artificial intelligence, but is also much more expensive to build. A concept that her boss hates. Her life changes drastically when her sister and brother-in-law have a car accident that leaves Gemma's niece Katie orphaned. Gemma becomes Katie's guardian even though she has few natural parental instincts and even less time to spend with the heartbroken child. The solution to the problem is for her to continue her advanced companionship toy project outside of office hours: she builds a working prototype, called M3gan, as a friend and companion for her bereaved niece. Katie and M3gan bond in record time, so much so that Gemma's boss is so impressed with the prototype's abilities he changes his mind about convincing the board of Gemma's vision for the future of their A.I. toy line. M3gan itself is a marvel of technology, with a self-learning algorithm that puts no limits on how much and what she can absorb in terms of knowledge and behavior. But left unchecked, this ability leads to some very unwanted consequences... Not a bad little horror thriller. Somewhat reminiscent of Child's Play, though with more of a techno-horror slant. Allison Williams is good as Gemma - she seems pretty decent in any role that requires her to play a somewhat unsympathetic young woman, for whatever reason. And the child actress that did the physical performance of the M3gan doll also impresses (several of the creepy M3gan movements in the forest scene were apparently improvised by her).
So the Disney reboot of Willow is utter garbage. Like a bad CW show - full of the same sort of characters as The 100 for the most part. The movie was at least pleasant even if it was just sort of there. The new show I actively loathe - and I really wanted to like it.
I kind of grew to like it a bit, but not as a Willow follow-up. The tone is too different. If it was a generic quirky fantasy show, it would be fine.
Jennifer Lopez really is a fantastic romantic comedy leading lady. Paired with pretty much any male partner for that matter. This is simultaneously a little to violent for the humor and a little off humor-wise for the violence, but Lopez and some great supporters make it enjoyable. "Shotgun Wedding" in case the image doesn't come through. Just right on a rough night for Mrs. Ismitje.
The Lair (2022) Dir. Neil Marshall R.A.F. pilot Captain Kate Sinclair is shot down during a flight in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of her crash, she and her co-pilot ejected and are subsequently tracked down and besieged by Taliban warriors. Kate escapes and tries to find refuge in an old Soviet structure she stumbles upon. The bunker has seemingly been deserted since the 1980s but whilst she is using it to hide from her pursuers, she and the Taliban warriors who follow her in there wake up something formerly dormant and very dangerous. After Kate escapes both her would-be capturers and the unseen thing that has killed several of their number, she is found by a U.S. army patrol which takes the wounded Kate back to their small forward base. There the C.O. gives little credence to Kate's 'monster' story, until he kicks it up the chain of command and learns that higher ups in the Pentagon are very interested in the hidden Soviet base in question. At the same time, it is revealed that the danger from the bunker might have followed Kate to the U.S. base... This is Neil Marshall, retreading familiar ground. Parts of this are reminiscent of both his Dog Soldiers and to a slightly lesser extent also The Descent. At the same time, I would say it most feels like a low-budget Aliens. It's not terrible entertainment, but also far from his best work - to put it lightly. In this stage of his career, he seems to primarily focus on starring vehicles for his real-life girlfriend Charlotte Kirk and whilst writer/director & actress pairings like this do not have to be a bad thing (e.g. Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel have done very good work together), Kirk isn't the kind of performer that is very adept at carrying an entire movie.
I should add that one thing I found somewhat amusing is that the plot of the movie is used as an alternate motive for the now (in)famous deployment of the so-called MOAB by the Trump administration.
Á coup sûr (2014) Dir. Delphine de Vigan Emma is a life-long overachiever, back when she was still a student and in her subsequent professional career as a reporter. Things either come easy to her or she wills & works her way towards first competence and then excellence for any skill that initially eludes her. Now in her early thirties, she has two sexual encounters in quick succession after which her partners admit to her that she is very bad in bed. This shocks her deeply. Beyond obviously not wanting the label of being a bad lay, she is also totally unaccustomed to being bad at anything. So she decides to use her usual can-do attitude for self-improvement to become a better lover, only to find out that when it comes to sex, it isn't quite that easy... Only moderately funny French comedy. Laurence Arné is good in the lead role - with a surprising knack for physical comedy - but the film has nothing resembling a functional third act, so basically almost all of the (still too few) laughs are in the first hour. She also has next to no chemistry with the other lead (Eric Elmosnino), which makes all of the rom-com scenes duds as well.
Right before I left to help out dad... 2019 A movie in two parts - first the brother, second the sister. Great the vibrant movie, as good visually as any Miami-based movie will be. The first half is the downward spiral in the family and the resulting consequences. The second half is how the family deals with those consequences. Taylor Russell is brilliant, and the way she quietly falls apart is heartbreaking. I expected it to be heartbreaking, so I had it queued up a few times before I actually watched it.
Close Range [2015] Scott Adkins is an AWOL soldier, taking up violent criminal activity for money because he's too good to be a lowly store clerk watching Scott Adkins movies in his spare time. But then his brother's widow's daughter is kidnapped by a surprisingly small Mexican cartel because her distributing step-dad held back some of the shipment one time. Once Scott rescues her and leaves everyone there dead, they come to get revenge. As simple and one-dimensional as a movie can be. I suspect executive producer Scott Adkins told the writers they had 5 minutes to come up with a script that showcased his still awesome fight movies and damn the rest. All the spoken lines could by typed on a 3x5 index card, and all the original and clever lines could fit on a 0x0 index card. The only truly interesting part of the movie is the end where they set up a deadly dilemma and try to liken it to the one in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. including just-different-enough-not-to-be-copyright-violating music. But it's only interesting in how badly they mess it up.
Speaking of Taylor Russell... A bit of a spin off/mix of a zombie+vampire movie. But it really is a teen-come-of-age. Basically, Maren (Russell) is a cannibal living with her dad. He tries to protect her, but she a teenager. Subsequently, he leaves her because he can't protect her anymore. So she has to figure out what to do, and how to manage her live and where to do. The only hint is to go try and find her mom. And along the way, she finds other cannibals. It is an interesting spin on the teen-come-of-age genre. I'm not a fan of gore/horror, which as a cannibal movie, this has. But it is not overwhelming and her searching for her truth (lowercase "t") is leads somewhat expected directions, but is not straightforward. And there is a wonderfully tender scene where she is with Lee (Chalamet) in a field trying to figure everything out.
We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) last night, One problem the movie has IMO is that it starts with a joyful, clever, delightfully animated opening scene with Mr. and Mrs. Fox raiding a farm. And there's no way to keep that up the rest of the way, even if the rest is perfectly fine. But what a cool scene. The other one that sticks with me is the explanation of the "real simple" game of Whack Bat.
The Lost City (2022) Dir. Aaron Nee & Adam Nee Loretta Sage is an author of a popular series of romance-adventure novels featuring Dr. Angela Lovemore and her love interest, Dash McMahon. She is forced to go on a publicity tour for her latest book alongside Alan Caprison, who is the cover model for the Dash McMahon character. Her fan's obsession with Dash, which they project onto Alan, makes the book tour less than pleasant for the increasingly exasperated Loretta. Things take an even worse turn when she finds herself kidnapped by a billionaire by the name of Abigail Fairfax who is convinced the plot of her latest book is based on real archeological research she conducted with her late husband. Fairfax has found the location of a lost city in which he believes he can find a precious artifact called the Crown of Fire. He wants Loretta's assistance in finding it. Alan witnesses the kidnapping, but having none of the skills his literary counterpart Dash McMahon has in spades, he instead hires a former Navy SEAL to help him rescue Loretta. Only things don't quite go as planned... They are aiming for something like a slightly goofier version of Romancing the Stone here. Bullock and Tatum have enough innate charm to keep this watchable and Brad Pitt gets to mine some of his goofiness for another one of his comedic roles. But I wouldn't say it's nearly as good as the Zemeckis film. I did enjoy Daniel Radcliffe's villain turn. He is doing his post-Potter acting career right.
A third movie or a third hour? And you should type out the names of the movies, because links to images disappear frequently.
Ok, so I really didn't like this movie. Basset, Nyong'o, and Huerta were good. Letitia Wright is not a good actress, and the morality of the story was incoherent. And it never ended. My only hope is that I missed that the entire point of the movie was that Wakanda is just as bad as - if not worse than - other countries.
At the end of the first one when they announced to the world they who and what they really were, I thought, oh my, how angry will pretty much every other country be? Either they spent a lot of money trying to help them develop, or they could have bene helped by Wakanda and were left in poverty and despair.
Southern Comfort (1981) Dir. Walter Hill 1973, Louisiana. A Louisiana National Guard squad partakes in maneuvers that will take the men on a long trek through the bayou. The unit's members have varying levels of enthusiasm for the undertaking. Most skeptical is Hardin, formerly from Texas and newly assigned to the squad. After finding a section of their route suddenly flooded, the men use some canoes they find near what appears to be a Cajun trapper encampment to get across. When the owners of the canoes show up, a moment of indiscipline from one of the Guardsmen leads to an exchange of fire with the Cajun hunters. Following this incident, the Cajun residents of the bayou are openly hostile to the unit, who now find themselves increasingly more lost in the bayou, and the small annoyances among the squad members slowly turn into real friction. An action thriller by Walter Hill. As a Walter Hill fan, I hadn't yet seen this one, so was eager to check it out. The cast is great, a veritable murderers row of 1980s character actors: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Pete Coyote, ... I mostly enjoyed the film, though I found the middle section to be a bit too long. The set-up for the subsequent tension is greatly executed over the course of the first act. As is the final fifteen minutes in the Cajun settlement. What comes in beween was a little too drawn out for my liking. But still definitely worth seeing. A random side-note, was surprised to see Venetia Stevenson (1950s/1960s pin-up/actress who was married to Russ Tamblyn and had a relationship with Audie Murphy) credited as the production manager.
Shotgun Wedding (2022) Dir. Jason Moore Darcy and Tom are a middle-aged couple on the night before their wedding in the Philippines. Both of them are feeling tension, between the awkwardness and demands their family foist upon them and Tom's desire to have the wedding ceremony itself be perfect. On the morning of the nuptials, Darcy has cold feet and whilst Tom and her are trying to hash this out, a far more tangible threat to their marital bliss arrives in the form of a band of pirates there to extract ransom from Darcy's well-off father. They take the wedding guests hostage, though the bride and groom manage to escape their captors and thus become their family and friend's best chance at survival. Only the pair has to work through their own relationship issues whilst also dispatching with the criminals. Action comedy largely carried by the decent chemistry and interplay between Lopez and Duhamel. The male lead in this film was originally going to go to Armie Hammer, before the revelations about his predatory behavior torpedoed his career. This is essentially one half screwball comedy, one half Die Hard and it works better than you might think. An eclectic bunch among the supporting players, including Cheech Marin, Sonia Braga, Jennifer Coolidge, D'Arcy Carden, Lenny Kravitz and Desmin Borges (this might be the first thing I have seen him in since You're the Worst)
The Silent Partner (1978) Dir. Daryl Duke & Curtis Hanson (uncredited) Miles Cullen is a middle-aged bank teller living a quiet, rather unsatisfying life in which the only thing he has waiting for him after he clocks out is an empty apartment and his beloved fish tank. He unsuccessfully tries to get the attention of a work colleague who instead is having an affair with the bank manager. As Christmas is nearing, Miles starts noticing a man in a Santa suit who seems to be closely observing the bank. He becomes convinced the man in question is a bank robber staking out his target before he robs it. A few days later, Miles is proven right when the man indeed robs him at his station. Having anticipated this, Miles uses the robbery to steal a much greater sum of money himself. Thus hiding this second unseen crime in the actual bank robbers original robbery. As the press reports on the size of the theft, the bank robber realizes that he has only a fraction of the money that is being reported as stolen in his possession. He quickly deduces that the quick-thinking teller must have the rest and becomes intent on getting back what he is owed... 1970s crime thriller with a very good Elliott Gould performance anchoring the entire film. Christopher Plummer's villain turn is genuinely terrifying. Curtis Hanson wrote the screenplay and apparently also finished directing the film after the original director walked when he refused to add a few shots of gratuitous violence to his original cut. The film also features a young John Candy in a small supporting role. Enjoyable - and tonally still very 1970s - entertainment.
rewatched Miss Sloane (2017) I'm both a Jessica Chastain and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (though she underwhelms more than I like). The premise for the movie is far too much Hollywood - that being anti-gun. Using that as the premise to launch the plot, and the ultimate motivation behind what Miss Sloane (Chastain) does felt forced and stereotyped. That said, the plot was what she did with the issue, not the issue itself. It does a good job having her deal with the morality of her character, and lack thereof. And it is as much a comeuppance movie as much as anything else. A couple of quibbles I have with it, which are probably more related to my evolution and understandings the complexities and nuances of the gun control issue. There are a couple of scene, bits, and deal with those complexities and nuances, and I don't think they were written by somebody who understands the nuances. There is also a technical, IT-related bit at the end which really bothers me. I think most people would not understand, but it bothered me (I won't give it away as it deals with a major revelation). Mark Strong plays Rodolfo Schmidt, the person who hires Miss Sloane. I think his performance is underrated. He certainly seemed to have fun with it. Still, I liked the movie.
Legion of Super-Heroes (2023) Dir. Jeff Wamester Kara Zor-El/Supergirl finds it hard to adjust to life on earth, having not grown up on the planet like her cousin. Superman thinks he has found a way to fix her maladjustment, using technology to travel with Kara to Earth in the 31st century, which is an easier fit in terms of technology for the Kryptonian Kara. In the 31st century, Kara joins the academy which trains wannabe members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, sort of a future version of the Justice League. Over the course of her training, she develops a fierce rivalry with Brainiac 5, a twelfth level intellect and an academy prospect shunned by his peers for coming from a long line of Brainiacs who were super-villains. It is revealed that the real threat to the academy as well as to the legion might be a group calling themselves the Dark Circle... Decent entry in the long-running DC/WB animated movie series. One which I hope the reshuffle at DC Studios doesn't terminate, since I have enjoyed many of its features over the years. I liked the animation style in this one and Meg Donnelly did a good job as Supergirl. Also ends on a rather big cliffhanger in the post-credits scene.
The Villainess (2017) - Korean This is a revenge/action movie. As those who participate in this thread won't be shocked to learn, I like female leads, particularly in action movies/shows. I also like revenge movies, and have been getting into Korean movies lately. I have particularly liked "My Name," the series, and "Night in Paradise" for Korean movies/shows, and elsewhere I like movies like "Atomic Blonde," "Revenge" (2017), and even "Colombiana." But, the thing with Korean movies is that some of the really interesting action-y movies have a terrible 1980s rock soundtrack - it's really off putting. This movie has that. Very unfortunately. So much that I couldn't get more than hour into the movie despite some great (and Kill Bill-ish bloody) scenes. The motorcycle fight scene with swords was really cool as well. But, alas, that sound track.