Missing (2016) Dir. Eon-hie Lee Ji-sung is a young single mother who is struggling to keep sole custody of her child. The father is a fairly disinterested doctor whose own mother insists on fighting for co-parenting rights. Ji-sung's busy work schedule means she depends heavily on Han-mae, her Chinese nanny. After Ji-sung returns home from work rather late one night, she finds both her daughter and Han-mae missing. After she realizes the nanny hasn't just gone out for a walk, she initially tries to file a police report, until she realizes that doing so might harm her chances at keeping sole custody, if her child is indeed lost on her watch. Instead she tries to find Han-mae on her own. She quickly discovers the woman lied about her real identity and through a series of flashbacks we learn the tragic circumstances that led to Han-mae's actions. Enjoyable drama/thriller centered around the lives of two women, one a workaholic who feels guilty about being too absent as a mother, the other a young woman with a tragic back story, and the love they share for a child.
Greenland (2020) Dir. Ric Roman Waugh John Garrity finds himself in a marriage crisis following his infidelity. On the day he is allowed back into the family home by his wife, a large comet is meant to make a close pass by Earth. Citizens are reassured that nothing dangerous can happen. That belief persists until a fragment of material crashes into Tampa and destroys the entire city. It is revealed that the authorities either misled the public or grossly miscalculated what would or could happen. A larger chunk of material will crash into earth in just two days, essentially signifying an extinction level event. John is determined to overcome the odds and find a way to save his family. A Deep Impact clone that largely focuses on just the one family. Fairly mediocre stuff, though it's always nice to see a former Firefly cast member in anything. Not really something I'd recommend unless you are a huge fan of the genre.
The Hustle (2019) Dir. Chris Addison Penny is a young Australian hustler who has various basic schemes she uses to scam men out of relatively small amounts of money. On a train on her way to the French Riviera, she meets Josephine, a more sophisticated hustler who specializes in the long con and who perceives the kind of cons that Penny runs as small potatoes. Once Penny figures out that Josephine is a fellow hustler, she demands that she receives training in exchange for protecting Josephine's secret. Penny's training takes and Josephine even uses her in some of her own cons. Then the two women make a wager to determine which of them has to leave the French Riviera after Penny's training concludes. Whichever of the two can finagle 500K USD out of their new mark, a young tech millionaire, wins. Once Penny gets closer to the man, she figures out he is unlike the sleazy, rich older men they usually go for and is instead a nice, generous and compassionate person, making her feel guilty about their desire to steal his money. To the more experience Josephine, letting feelings get involved in the con game is not-done. This is a female remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was itself a remake of Bedtime story. Which means the story beats are fairly familiar. The primary appeal thus has to come from the performances. From my perspective, Rebel Wilson's shtick has become pretty stale at this point. I always enjoy seeing Anne Hathaway in anything, but she is hampered by a totally unnecessary English accent here that is more distracting than anything else. I'd suggest watching either of the earlier films instead of this one.
Decided to set up a Letterboxd account: https://letterboxd.com/BelgianGuy/ Mostly just going to copy the stuff I post in here on there, but thought it was more convenient for having a simpler overview of what I've watched. So far I only went back as far as the start of 2020 but I'm crazy enough to keep on working my way back through this topic. As for my 2020 stats: Not surprised by the director but taken aback by Claflin being my most watched actor.
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021) Dir. Sam Liu Richard Dragon uncovers some information whilst on mission in France which reveals a cultish organization is after an enchanted door he is acquainted with from his time studying martial arts under his sensei, the opening of which back then almost unleashed a calamity onto the world. He approaches three former fellow students to help face the threat of the door potentially being opened by this cult: Bruce Wayne, who has since become the vigilante Batman, Lady Shiva, the former star pupil turned crime boss and Bronze Tiger, a retired vigilante who now has his own dojo. Together they have to face off with Jeffrey Burr and his disciples. Interspersed with all this are flashbacks to their time training together under their sensei. Another entry into the DC/WB animated movie universe. A rather good one at that. This is basically a 1970s style martial arts movie, with some blacksploitation and Bondian elements sprinkled on top. It shouldn't work as well as it does. I felt a bit lukewarm about David Giuntoli voicing Batman. On the other hand, Kelly Hu is a very good Lady Shiva. Certainly one of the better DC animated features of the last few years.
News of the World (2020) Dir. Paul Greengrass Captain Kidd is a former confederate soldier who now earns his living traveling from town to town throughout Texas and conducting public reading from various newspapers (American and foreign alike), his readings being the only glimpse into the outside world for many of the people in his audiences. Whilst traveling, he discovers a broken down wagon, a lynched black man and nearby, an abandoned and frightened young girl. The girl turns out to have been found living with Indians, who had snatched her from her family six years earlier. The murdered man was tasked with bringing her home to her surviving kin, an aunt and uncle, German immigrants like the girl. The girl seems to have forgotten most of her life prior to being raised by the Indians and finds it hard to adapt to her new reality. When he cannot find anyone else to take her to her family, Kidd tackles the task himself, even though it means many weeks of traveling over occasionally dangerous roads. Decently entertaining western. The writing doesn't exactly side-step western clichés (sinister confederates-turned-bandits, a blood-thirsty buffalo baron who makes people worship him like a king, kindly and generous Indians). The cinematography tries to capture the grandeur of the genre, with some rather impressive shots of the frontier landscape (and the obligatory reference to the Searchers doorframe shot included). This movie largely rests upon the quality of its two leads. Tom Hanks is his reliable old self. The true revelation is German child actress Helena Zengel, who imbues her rather tragic character with much lived in emotion.
The Marksman (2021)-Liam Neeson stars as a Arizona rancher who finds illegal immigrants. Typical Neeson flick with a strong pro-immigrant message. Good use of $8.
Been a rough couple of weeks, so here's what I've watched most recently. *WARNING* There's quite a bit of David Mamet in here, so hide your children, and change your political views if necessary. A Single Man (2009) - After losing his lover of 16 years, a man in 1960s Los Angeles finds it increasingly difficult to move on, so he decides to take his own life. Colin Firth was really good in this movie as the man who lost his gay lover, but has a difficult time coming to grips with the death, as well how his lover's family didn't even let him know he was dead. Everyone around him sees changes, but he always hides his feelings from them. He has a few encounters from people who thinks may also be gay, but as much as he wants that passion, his broken heart keeps holding him back. I'm not 100% sure I liked this movie, even though Firth was really good in it. It was an odd film, and although I liked how it ended, I'm not quite sure I liked how it got there. It's tough. One of those movies where you're not quite sure if you liked it or not. Cop Car (2015) - Two pre-teen boys take a police car that they believe to be abandoned for a joyride, but find themselves in more trouble than they expect when the officer it belongs to attempts to track them down. This movie was a thriller/dark comedy, and I thought it worked best as a dark comedy, but I wasn't completely into the thriller part of it. These two kids are running away from home, and they find an abandoned police car. They sit inside it, just fooling around, when they realize that the keys are still in the ignition, so the decide to take it for a little joy ride. They really get into trouble when they open the trunk to discover a bleeding man, and that's when the movie sorta goes off the rails. I really enjoyed the story of the two kids in the movie (James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford), even if I didn't buy them actually driving a car. There's one scene where you're kinda on edge because they're playing with the guns, but that's where the black comedy is at its best. I'm not sure what would've made it better. It's not a terrible picture, but some of the action parts were quite boring, and the picture was better when the focus was just on the boys. House of Games (1987) - A psychiatrist who attempts to make good on a patient's debt dives into a con man's world before becoming entangled in a web she may not be able to remove herself from. This is David Mamet's first motion picture, and I can't say enough how much I love this movie. Every character is so well done, and every actor playing them is so engrossing, that you stop noticing after a while how stilted and wooden Lindsay Crouse is. Crouse plays Dr. Margaret Ford who becomes intrigued with the art of the con after she's nearly conned by a group of hustlers at a poker game. From there, she becomes more deeply invested, and gets into trouble after a police officer chasing them is shot. It's hard to discuss further without getting into too much. This movie has quintessential Mamet dialogue being used by gifted actors. I've loved Joe Mantegna ever since I saw him in this, and everything he's done since has been outstanding. This is probably my favorite scene in the movie, which features one of my favorite lines of any movie: "Where am I from? I'm from the United States of kiss my ass! My marker's good." State and Main (2000) - A Hollywood production moves into a small town from another one after being run out of town. This is an ensemble picture, and there is so much going on that it's really hard to describe. There are 5 different stories happening at once, but they all eventually intersect. There are no good guys or bad guys, just characters. It has sharp wit and good dialogue, but it never fully becomes a great movie, like so many other Mamet films. It has some great one liners, and little bits of dialogue, but it's also mostly forgettable. I watched this movie Saturday night, and I already forgot most of the dialogue. Did I like it? Kinda. I didn't dislike it. Isn't that the thing? Only second chance I know is the chance to make the same mistake twice. Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.
After Hours (1985) Dir. Martin Scorsese Bored wage slave Paul leaves his apartment one night to go pass the time in a nearby diner. He strikes up a conversation with an attractive young woman who leaves him with the number of the place she is staying at. On a whim he calls her and gets invited over to a Soho apartment. He finds her eccentric roommate waiting for him instead and from then on, the night only gets progressively weirder... Hadn't watched this underrated Scorsese semi-classic in a long while, so I decided to revisit it. Still holds up quite well. Made at a rather interesting time in Marty's career - following three movies that did not do very well at the box office in "New York, New York", "Raging Bull" and "The King of Comedy") and a very changed landscape in Hollywood following the auteurish cinema of the 1970s. On this re-watch, I was strangely reminded of "Bob Le Flambeur", a very different film but with which is shares a fascination with the night-life of a big city. Paris in the case of the Melville flick, New York City here. The central theme of the film is uttered by Dick Miller's character rather early on, 'Different rules apply when it gets this late, know what I mean? It's like after hours'. Which is a prelude to the increasing amount of strangeness (including a host of psychotic blonde women) Paul is confronted with as the night progresses, as he visits a series of bars, diners and night clubs. Even in a relatively low-budget feature by Martin Scorsese standards, there are still fantastic shots in there. The close-up of Rosanna Arquette's sardonic little smile before she leaves the bedroom. The POV shot from the keys' perspective as they are thrown down several stories to Paul. I think this film can be perceived as the hinge in Scorsese's career, stylistically already a harbinger of what is to come (Goodfellas) whilst still having some of the qualities of his prior films. This is a very nice ensemble cast, from the everyman quality of the lead Griffin Dunne, to young femme fatale Rosanna Arquette, to the intimidating Linda Fiorentino and the gleeful way in which Catherine O'Hara plays a maniacal ice cream truck driver. The soundtrack is predictably great for a Scorsese film, culminating in the climactic moment set to Peggy Lee's 'Is that all there is'.
Acute boredom had set in, so I recorded and watched this old corker. All I'm gonna say is that Marisa Tomei is incredibly sexy in this film. Hard to see what the attraction with Pesci might be, since pesci is the plural of fish.
There is a nasty rumor that she mistakenly got her Oscar for this film, which is stupid to anyone familiar with her work in it. She is terrific.
There's not a time when talking to a female friend who wanted kids that I haven't stomped on the floor and shouted "And my biological clock is TICKING LIKE THIS!!" It's such a hilarious movie.
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) Dir. Carl Franklin In 1948 Los Angeles, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins is an out of work former soldier who is desperate for a job just so he can keep on making the mortgage payments on his house. Through Joppy, a friend of his who runs a bar, he meets a white man named Albright who offers him 100 dollars to track down a woman named Daphne Monet. Daphne is the former girlfriend to an L.A. mayoral candidate and a woman who has a reputation for liking black men. Albright assumes she is gallivanting around in some black night club or another and tasks Easy with finding out where she is shacked up and then sharing this information with him. With few other options for employment Easy tries to find Daphne, eventually meeting a woman at a club who seems to know her. The next day, said woman turns up dead and Easy is implicated in the murder investigation. At the same time, Albright tightens the screws to get quicker results. A 1990s neo-noir I hadn't yet seen. The writing is not very original. Denzel Washington's lead performance is good. Also features a young Don Cheadle as a friend of the main character. An okay genre exercise but nothing more than that. I generally like Jennifer Beals too but I felt like she was slightly miscast here.
Extract (2009) - A man who owns a small business making extracts feels his life come apart after one of his employees is injured on the job. Mike Judge wrote and directed this tale of Jason Bateman's idiocy and misfortune all in one. Normally, I like Mike Judge's work, but this move was in the OK category. When I laughed, I laughed my ass off, but when I didn't, I found the movie to be dull and uninteresting. I didn't care about any of the characters, and I didn't find Bateman to be convincing in his role. He was the main character, and he still felt like he wasn't part of the movie. I didn't care for the story of Mila Kunis playing the thief. It seemed just out of place. The best parts of the movie involved Dustin Milligan as Brad the incompetent gigolo (If you know anybody else who might need, y'know, what I do - like, lonely housewives and shit - you think you could tell them about me? 'cause, I figure if I can get enough of 'em, then maybe I can quit my landscaping job. That would be awesome! "cause I hate landscaping, and I like getting laid a lot better.), and Ben Affleck as Dean the bartender. (You need to take some Xanax, man. It's good for all psychological problems in the DSM-IV. Xanax basically just makes you feel good. That's why it works for everything. I take it for the common head cold.) This movie was just OK, but it would've been much worse if it didn't have Brad and Dean. I would've watched a whole movie about Brad. He was freaking hilarious.
Riders of the Purple Sage (1996)-TV movie about one of my favorite books. Pretty good, the villains are still religious, but not Mormon. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan star. Good Western.
Tombstone (1993) Never seen this before. On a Western kick. A good Western movie with an All-Star Cast. Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer star as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, respectively. R-Rated so not one for the kids.
As soon as I saw Stilton's name and the image of the poster, I knew his comment was going to be an objectification of Tomei coupled with a comment about her being too good for Pesci. I shit you not.
That movie had no business being any good considering its troubled production history. So the fact that it has deservedly achieved cult classic status is amazing. And yes, the Oscars are stupid and get things wrong all the time but Val Kilmer not getting a 1994 Oscar nomination for his work in that movie is insane.
First director (also the screenwriter) was quickly fired, most of the cast did not like the guy they replaced him with, with a few cast members considering walking themselves. Much of the script had to be quickly rewritten and reedited to make up for the lost time. And then there is the story that Russell actually replaced the first director himself and that the other guy was just a studio front to hide the fact that Russell had in fact taken over. So not exactly a smooth operation, to say the least.
Tension (1949) Dir. John Berry Warren Quimby is night manager at a 24 hour drug store. He is working the night shift to make more money, so he can buy a house to please his wife Claire, who finds their current life - living in a small apartment above the drug store - shabby and beneath her. After Claire dismisses the suburban house he wants to buy as their new home, she decides that Quimby will never get her to the kind of wealth she aspires to. She instead runs out with another man, Barney Deager, older and far wealthier than Warren is. For his part, Warren cannot accept his wife's infidelity, especially not after Barney humiliates him in a physical confrontation. Warren's employee Freddie puts ideas of revenge in his mind. Enough to have Warren actually start planning the perfect murder. But when he meets an alluring, friendly woman who appears attracted to him during the preparations of this crime, it complicates things... Lovely little noir with a good lead performance by Richard Basehart. Largely told from the perspective of a homicide detective played by Barry Sullivan. I suppose this is the entire point of the writing as well as the casting, but you do wonder why the protagonist does not abandon the entire plot after meeting Cyd Charisse's character.
A Night in Old Mexico (2013)-A cantankerous old man (Robert Duvall) meets his grandson (Jeremy Irvine) while about to lose his ranch and takes a trip to Mexico. Angie Cepeda also stars. Hijinks ensue as well as some improbable sequences. Decent use of a couple of hours.
Promising Young Woman (2020) Dir. Emerald Fennell Cassandra is a young woman with a rather strange habit: she pretends to be super-drunk at various bars and night clubs in the hope to attract predatory men, whom she then confronts by revealing she is stone-cold sober after they have taken her back to their place to take advantage of her 'vulnerable' state. It is revealed that Cassie is doing this as a way to cope with the fact that she dropped out of medical school after a friend of hers was raped by several guys in a dorm room but wasn't believed because she was inebriated at the time. Coincidentally, a former fellow classmate walks into the coffee shop she works at one day, a man who asks her out on a date but also reveals he is still in touch with one of the rapists and the ring leader at that. This puts Cassandra on a path to get revenge on the rapist, but also on everyone she feels wronged her friend at the time. Slightly overrated dramedy, though still interesting enough to see. Meant to examine toxic male behavior and rape culture specifically through a female lens. It's entertaining but ultimately I think its (mostly light) tone hampers a more in-depth examination. This is also reflected by the fact that I would call it a fairy-tale revenge film, in so far that much of Cassie's behavior is insulated from real-life consequences (e.g. her routine of confronting men with their predatory behavior would certainly end far worse for her on occasion than it is depicted here). A strong lead performance by Carey Mulligan in the kind of role I've rarely seen her in. As well as fun supporting performances by Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alison Brie and Clancy Brown. Bo Burnham by contrast was slightly miscast in his role.