The only horror movies that I saw on the big screen were Halloween and Dawn of the Dead. And I saw them with a gang of guys and we cutting up so much that they just weren't scary. All the rest of the horrors I've seen were on TV. So just not as scary. The only movie that made me turn off the TV was The Exorcist. And I'd read the book so I had some idea. It was the voice coming out of that possessed face that really got me. It took me three times to get through Exorcist. Although come to think of it, the only book that ever scared me was The Exorcist. The last sentence of every chapter? Fvcking terrifying.
The Bookshop (2017)- A widow runs a bookshop in rural England in the 1950s. Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy and Patricia Clarkson star. Good flick.
Psych: The Movie (2017) The TV series ended with Shawn, Gus, and Juliet moving to San Francisco, and the movie starts with them there three years later. Shawn is still mooching money off of Gus to fund his even less successful investigation business and getting into more trouble because San Francisco's underworld is a step up from Santa Barbara's. He has to step up his game when dealing with a fence that might have his engagement ring and murderous criminals that have it in for his fiancée. The magic of Psych was always from the interaction between Shawn and Gus, in my estimation the best friendship in television history, and there's plenty of fine dialog and humor here. Some parts did feel slow and forced, but maybe I was just distracted by how horribly they tried to fake being in San Francisco. Psych 2: Lassie Come Home (2020) Santa Barbara police chief Lassiter was gunned down and on the operating table suffered a stroke. He was offered free recovery care at a facility usually reserved for the very wealthy. But he's been seeing some supernatural things as his dream world blurs into his real one. Shawn and Gus are investigating these visions, although they have to hide that fact from Juliet. Juliet is also spending free and not-so-free time investigating Lassiter's shooting, hiding that fact from Shawn and her boss, Chief Vic. This movie crackled with energy and the 90 minutes just flew by. We see all the characters this time, including Timothy Omundson (Lassiter) who is recovering from a stroke in real life but still put on a true-to-the-show performance in a leading role. Sarah Chalke (Elliot from Scrubs) was fantastically charismatic as the nurse in the care home. The only thing missing is any psych-ing - we don't really get that clever Holmsian clue interpreting that was so entertaining in the show.
Buffalo '66 (1998)-Disturbing movie about a criminal who kidnaps a girl. Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci star.
Wait... someone else likes Psych?! I loved this show!! Wasn't as big a fan of the movies. They weren't bad. I just hoped for something a little better. My favorite episode is the arsonist because Sean tries to come up a name for the killer. "Guys, please. Can we come up a term that covers both a killer AND an arsonist? How about "Arssasin"?" "I want our killer..." "Arsassin! Or karsonist?" "Arsassin." "This could be our killer." "Furderer." "Excuse me?" "Fire murderer. Furderer." "We have found our arsonurderer!" "What?" "Fire-ars-man?" "Uh-huh." "Senor pantalones de fuego?" Also, Sean's nicknames for Gus are always hilarious. MC Clap yo Handz... with a Z!
Monsters of Man (2020) Dir. Mark Toia A small group of engineers arrive somewhere in the Golden triangle. They are there to field test a four unit cluster of combat robots, in what is supposed to be a simple simulation. At the same time, a group of doctors without borders physicians get lost in the jungle and wander into a village, which belongs to members of a drug operation. They are allowed to stay until the next morning after a few of the more compassionate members of the community argue in favor of their safety. Eventually everyone is endangered when the four soldier robots arrive and it is revealed that the mission parameters were to search and destroy the drug-manufacturing operation. But both the tech company and the CIA weren't counting on American civilians being there to witness the carnage... An action film that also tries (and fails) to be a contemplation on the moral realities of combat drones and AI/robotics used in warfare. It lacks the depth to do that aspect justice. Some of its creative choices are also suspect (all but two of the Asian characters are nameless/faceless cannon fodder just there to be chewed up by the robots whilst the westerners are treated as real characters). Also self-indulgent in its run-time, there is no reason for a movie like this to be over 130 minutes long.
Mank (2020) Dir. David Fincher 1940, Hollywood. The young Orson Welles is given carte blanche by RKO pictures to make a movie for them. Welles assigns the task of writing a screenplay to Herman J. Mankiewicz, by that point already somewhat of a Hollywood pariah in spite of his obvious talent. As he recovers from a broken leg, he starts work on the script that will eventually become Citizen Kane, with only his secretary and nurse as company. Through a series of flashbacks, Mank's Hollywood career is recounted, including his various dealings with William Randolph Hearst, the supposed inspiration for Charles Foster Kane. Enjoyed this more than I thought it would. Though it still occasionally winks at the camera, the story is told more straightly than I thought it would be based on the far more ironic trailer. Fincher makes many obvious visual allusions to Welles' seminal work. Unfortunately that also reveals that the writing here isn't up to par with Mankiewicz' 80 years ago. The performances are good across the board. I'm not the biggest fan of Gary Oldman more recent movies, but his performance here is very well done. Arliss Howard is fantastic as Louis B. Mayer. Charles Dance is very good as Williamn Randolph Hearst, though we have seen him do this kind of character before. Amanda Seyfried is her charming self as Marion Davies. Over two hours long, but I cannot say it ever drags, even though some scenes are far less interesting than others.
Wander (2020) Dir. April Mullen Arthur is a disgraced former cop turned paranoid conspiracy theorist. Through the co-host of the conspiracy theory podcast they host together, he is put in touch with a woman who wants him to find out what really happened to her daughter, a young woman who died in an apparent car accident in the town of Wander. The unstable Arthur takes the private investigator gig because he needs the money. As his investigation in the strange town progresses, he becomes increasingly convinced that whatever is happening there is also connected to the death of his own daughter, though it is unclear if those ideas are merely fed by his paranoid delusions. I kind of see what they were going for here, the kind of weird little neo-noir that can be very good and entertaining when done well. Unfortunately the writing isn't up to snuff and the good cast (Tommy Lee Jones, Heather Graham, Katheryn Winnick and Raymond Cruz do not make for a bad supporting cast) cannot save it. I also have the feeling that Jones figured out he was in a crap movie halfway through the shoot and just stopped trying. Very nicely shot little movie though.
A Call to Spy (2019) Dir. Lydia Dean Pilcher 1940, Britain. The SOE decides to recruit female agents to be posted in France, both to organize the local resistance and to coordinate and help those spies who have already parachuted into the country. Vera Atkins is in charge of selecting the candidates and she gathers a group that initially earns skepticism from her superiors. Among them an American with a prosthetic leg, Virginia Hall, and a pacifist young woman of Indian heritage, Noor Inayat Khan. After their arrival in Lyon and Paris, the both of them have to adapt quickly to avoid capture at the hands of the Gestapo or the collaborating French police. Always short on resources and one bad decision away from catastrophe, Virginia thrives and quickly builds a network of locals, whilst Noor too manages to avoid detection. But betrayal is always just around the corner. This is a fairly basic spy thriller, with the usual tropes. Safe houses, double agents, evil Gestapo officers, sympathetic resistance members, torture... So if you are looking for anything original, this is not your film. I was mostly disappointed that of the three leads, they gave Stana Katic the least interesting role, one which kept her side-lined for most of the film. I also thought its budget was not proportional to its ambitions, which is apparent in some scenes (the train sabotage to name just one). Actually shot in Hungary and Pennsylvania, though the former makes a passable stand-in for 1940s Paris.
Kid Detective (2020) Dir. Evan Morgan As a twelve year old, Abe Applebaum was something of a celebrity in his town. Displaying a knack for observation and deductive reasoning, he manages to solve several minor crimes as a 'kid detective'. His streak ends when he is confronted with the most serious crime of all: the disappearance and supposed abduction of his friend Gracie. Feeling a responsibility to solve the crime, Abe has no luck doing so - and no one expects a mere kid to do so anyway. The cops themselves never solve the crime either and Gracie is eventually presumed dead. We fast-forward to 20+ years later and Abe is now actually a professional detective, albeit one who isn't taken seriously and is more of a laughing stock. One day a serious case walks into his office in the form of a high schooler who asks him to investigate the murder of her boyfriend. Being more used to lost cats and the like, he hesitates, but then takes the case as a way to prove he is in fact a real detective and not the joke his community perceives him as. As Abe starts his investigation, he soon finds out that the victim in question seemed to have some dark secrets hiding under a quiet, straight A student facade. This was fairly enjoyable. Adam Brody does a good job playing the deceptively perceptive man-child of a protagonist. The tone is darkly comedic for most of the film, though it gets quite a bit darker than I had anticipated by the end. Some of it reminded me of "Under the Crystal Lake" (though less quirky and weird) and "Brick" (less noirish).
Army of One (2020) Dir. Stephen Durham Brenner and her cop husband take a camping trip after he gets injured in the line of duty, so he can recuperate mentally as well as physically. They have a little incident with some locals at the diner they eat lunch at but otherwise start off their little vacation without much of a hitch. That changes when they stumble upon a weapons and drugs cache inside of a seemingly empty cabin in the woods. A bit later, the same men from the diner show up and take them hostage. After they are shot and left for dead, Brenner wakes up with a thirst for revenge and the skills to act it out, as she is a former Army Ranger who has only recently mustered out of the service. This was fairly entertaining dumb fun. Reminded me a tiny bit of "The Hunt", with the difference that the Blumhouse flick is more of a straight-up dark comedy (and had more money to spend). This is an action film with some dark comedy sprinkled on top. Ellen Hollman is a good enough lead to keep this entertaining.
Breach (2020) Dir. John Suits On a plague-infested, dying Earth, desperate people are trying to get on board of the last arc, a large space-ship which can carry up to 300K people to New Earth, an Earth like planet in a distant system which is meant to become humanity's new home. Most of the passengers will end up making the trip in a sort of cry-sleep, whilst only a skeleton crew will remain awake for the 180+ days the journey will take. Apart from solitude and boredom, those crewmembers don't truly face any challenges in the first half of that journey. Then one crewmember dies under very strange circumstances and another disappears. They soon realize they are not alone on the ship and whatever is harming them is not quite human. They also have over eighty days left of their journey and no safe port to call to until they reach their destination. This is an Alien clone, with some the Thing sprinkled on top, done on a budget. So the quality is about what you'd expect of it. The strange thing is that the cast isn't half bad. Bruce Willis, Thomas Jane and Rachel Nichols (who plays the sympathetic doc) are pretty good considering that this looks and feels like a B-movie. Willis is even half-trying, certainly I have seen him mail it in far more than he does here.
The French Connection (1971) - A cop tries to track down a French heroin smuggler in New York. Based on a true story, Gene Hackman plays Popeye Doyle, a complicated narcotics cop who is always looking for the big bust. His partner is Russo, played by Roy Scheider who goes along with his partner on his many hunches, but doesn't seem to hold the same complicated fervor his partner does. One night after his partner is slashed, Doyle suggests he and Russo go out for a drink. While at the club, Doyle tries to make out a man he's never seen before, but seems to be throwing the cash around, and some of the people he seems to be glad-handing have local drug connections. Doyle decides to play a hunch and follows this man and his wife. Even though the man appears to be doing nothing illegal, Doyle just gets a feeling that something big is about to go down, and he's got it centered on this man. It turns out Doyle's hunch is right, and the man is setting something up with a couple of guys from France. Problem is that although they've connected these dots, there isn't anything to stick to these guys, but Doyle continues to follow his hunch, and the chase is on. There are a few brilliant scenes in this movie, but the most famous is the chase scene where Hackman is nearly gunned down, and he chases after his shooter with a car he commandeers from a regular motorist. One of my favorite scenes outside of the chase scene is where the two French men are eating a restaurant, and Doyle is waiting and watching outside. It is clearly freezing cold. The men inside are eating lovely, expensive meals, and drinking fine wine, and enjoying coffee and desserts. Meanwhile, Doyle stands outside for hours. His hands and feet freezing cold. He gets a slice of pizza as his big meal, and gets a hot cup of coffee, but it quickly goes cold and tastes awful. You can see the look of anger on his face. You can tell he wants to take these guys down just for the sake of making him stand outside in the harsh cold, but he knows he needs to bide his time. It was a great scene. This won Best Picture of 1971, and won 4 other Oscars including Hackman for Best Actor and William Friedkin for Best Director. They were deserved awards. This is a fantastic movie. Hard to believe it'll celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
They were going for a pretty straight-up genre exercise. I honestly thought there'd be more comedic moments than there ultimate were.
Pour Elle (2008) Dir. Fred Cavayé Julien is a middle-aged school teacher who has started a family with his younger wife Lisa. Together they are raising their son Oscar and Julien's life appears idyllic. His domestic ideal is ruined when cops descend upon their apartment one morning and arrest Lisa for murder. She stands accused of having killed her boss and the evidence against her is substantial: material evidence in the form of the murder weapon containing her fingerprints and her clothes having traces of the victim's blood, as well as a witness placing her at the scene around the time of the murder. Julien cannot believe his wife is capable of murder, but the deck is stacked against her and three years later, her final appeal also leads to nothing, meaning she will spend twenty years in jail for the crime. Julien cannot accept this outcome and he starts to fantasize about breaking his wife out of prison and fleeing the country with her and their son. Then, when he reaches the point of actually believing his fantasy plan might be feasible, desperation pushes him to attempt the escape for real. Enjoyed this a lot. One half drama, one half action thriller. Vincent Linden anchors his performance by centering his character around his grief and pain, whilst Diane Kruger (an excellent French-language performer it turns out) makes for a good foil. Maintains a dose of realism until the third act, where the suspension of disbelief required heightens considerably.
Mrs. Ismitje us a big fan of Rachel McAdams and so we watched the Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga movie on Netflix. Spotlight is probably the only film I remember seeing her in, and she was excellent in that, so I allowed my Will Ferrell warning light to pass by. Her sincerity and lightly silly performance really carried the show, which otherwise was an odd combination of funny and mean-spirited. The songs were largely good and the acts were reminiscent of the times I saw the competition. I expect my wife will watch it again so perhaps I will be too.
Oh man, if you haven't seen Mean Girls, do yourself a favor and watch it. Still the best Rachel McAdams' performance imho. It's just sad she has gotten so few great roles since then.
To piggyback off of Belgian guy's post, I first her in Red Eye, which I really enjoyed, but Mean Girls is a good movie, and she's really good in it. She's a fine actress, and I'm also surprised she hasn't been cast in more roles.
20th Century Women (2016) - A single mother tries to raise her teenage son amidst a changing landscape, and asks for help from two younger women in his life to help raise him. Annette Benning plays Dorothea who had her son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) at the age of 40, and she was divorced shortly thereafter. In the year 1979, times are changing, and Dorothea feels she can no longer connect with her son, so she enlists the help of Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a 20-something female boarder at their house who is a free-spirited artist into punk music, and Jamie's best friend Julie, a cigarette-smoking, provocative teenager who like Jamie only as a friend, but likes the feeling of sleeping his bed. Dorothea believes that these two ladies can help Jamie navigate a changing world. As the world is changing, so is Jamie. He still has plenty of disconnect with his mother, but he learns a lot from Abbie and Jamie. The things he starts to read and listen to appear to make him different in his mother's eyes, but it's all part of growing up. The writing in this movie is simply brilliant. These characters have depth and purpose. They're all flawed, but no flawed as to be unbelievable. As a parent, I could sympathize with Dorothea's position. She wants to have that level of contact with her son, but feels he is slipping away, but he's not. He's just growing into himself, and what he was a small child isn't what he'll be as an adult. As someone who worked with teenagers for several years, I can also understand Jamie's side, especially as the world around you is changing. This was a beautiful movie. It was funny without being hilarious, and never sad at the changes happening. These characters felt real. I felt like I knew them. It left me thinking about how I will be as a parent when my kids turn 15, and how they'll feel when they enter their teens. I cannot recommend this movie enough.
Any fan of Rachel McAdams needs to watch the first season of Slings and Arrows (six one hour episodes, plus she's on the first episode of season two for awhile). It's her first big gig, and she's terrific. And once you watch the first season, you'll watch seasons two and three. 18 episodes in all, and they're terrific.
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) Dir. Terence Fisher Late 19th century, the Carpathian mountains. Four English tourists are touring the area when they meet a monk who warns them against visiting the castle just outside of Carlsbad. As they get near that location, they realize that many of the locals seem to have a deep fear for the castle and its surrounding area. After their driver leaves them stranded nearby the structure, they end up spending the night their, due to a lack of good alternatives and what appears like good fortune. Helen, the wife of one of the two couples feels uneasy from the first moment she enters the castle, but her fellow travelers do not heed her warnings, with disastrous results. Excellent Hammer horror flick. The first hour especially is a great example of the kind of atmospheric story telling which is the production company at its best. Lee is reliably good as Dracula, as is Andrew Keir as his nemesis Father Sandor. Also stars frequent hammer scream queen Barbara Shelley (who I especially love in what might be my favorite Hammer film, "Quatermass and the Pit").
Pillow of Death (1945) Dir. Wallace Fox Donna Kincaid works as a secretary for attorney Wayne Fletcher. On the night that Fletcher intends to confess to his wife that he is in love with his secretary and wants a divorce, she is found dead in her bed. Wayne becomes one of the prime suspects in the case, though the detective in charge also turns his attention to the psychic who had Wayne's wife wrapped around his fingers in the final months of her life. To Donna's wealthy aunt Belle, this is more proof that the married Wayne was a scandalously unsuited match for her niece. As more bodies turn up within Donna's social circle, the mystery as to who might be the murderer becomes ever more complicated. One half horror film, one half parlor mystery. Decent entertainment, certainly with a climax that side-steps the obvious solution. The female lead is Brenda Joyce, most famous for being the second Jane (after Maureen O'Sullivan no longer appeared in the franchise) to star opposite Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan.
The Strange Door (1951) Dir. Joseph Pevney Alain de Maletroit has been carrying a bitter hatred for two decades, after the woman he loved chose to marry his brother instead and ultimately died in childbirth. Unbeknownst to the outside world, Alain had subsequently kidnapped his brother and has kept him a prisoner in his castle dungeons as part of his revenge. His vendetta extends to his niece Blanche, who has become his ward in the absence of both of her parents. He intends to marry her off to the most ill-suited match he can find, in the hope that the unhappy marriage will destroy her life and happiness. To that end, he forces perennial cad Denis de Beaulieu into a trap, at which point he dangles the offer of the nuptials in front of the man as his only way out. What ultimately ruins his plans is the fact that the two youngsters fall in love and that Denis was hiding a noble spirit underneath his scoundrelish exterior. But can they escape the power and reach of Blanche's uncle? Based on a Robert Louis Stevenson short story, this was good old-fashioned entertainment. Charles Laughton is predictably good. Boris Karloff's role is fairly limited, as a strange but sympathetic servant in the de Maletroit household.
WW84: some fun action scenes, too long, kind of incoherent, Pedro Pascal good comic book villain, something about truth and particles. Soul: fairly profound and controversial claim about essence and purpose, with beautiful music and animation and voice work.