- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 129
Fine, a bit long, great casting, loved the scene where Brad Pitt drives into the ranch and is assaulted by the longing glances of pubescent teenage girls. And a fine bit of meta-violence when the Mansons come to visit.
Amusing, Tarantino did well. But - no epiphanies or revelations here, merely Hollywood promoting Hollywood, and in that sense a bit self-indulgent and reminding me of Babylon...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 169
How this ended up on my list I'll never know. Probably it was the starring presence of Nicholas Cage, Ed Harris and Sean Connery, certainly it wasn't the directorial skills of Michael Bay.
Basically an over-the-top action-thriller, filled with preposterous San Fransisco car chases and obligatory jumps, the same as every other movie in the 70’s and 80’s only done bigger and louder, the high-speed comedy of little-old-ladies and paralympians crossing, the estranged father-daughter, the newly pregnant wife, video-game inspired obstacles, macho-pissing-matches, dead in the water dialogue, the obvious cues - “Shakespeare” and “Sun Tzu” on the bedside shelf of Mason (so that you know he's smart AND dangerous), a political prisoner released to help Dr. Goodspeed disarm deadly strings of green-gas-bath beads in VX rockets, "The Rock" refers to Alcatraz, the film takes some liberties with the labyrinthine nonsense mines, tunnels and ore-carts/railways under Alcatraz. To quickly sum it up I'd have to call it "The Sum of All Cliches" and "entirely preposterous".
I think I would have liked it when I was 12. But nobody should have to see it after that.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 149
This was - well, as in his previous film "Sorry to Bother You", a bit of insane, madcap commentary on current events as viewed through the microcosm of high fashion. With a little tilt of the hat to Carpenter's "They Live". The insane claymation sequences are - well, insane. For the most part the message is metaphor-made flesh, it's an interesting take on the skewed perceptions of the wealthy and the necessity of economic reform.
While not particularly my cup of tea (in this realization), it's still probably better than 95% of what else is out there.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 174
About North and South Korean spies investigating a Russian Human Trafficking ring. Action, Big Bad Russian Boss, in the Film the North Koreans are the bad guys and think that "Cross" makes a fine pen (I'd vilify them to), the Russians are the worst (the predictable "Boss" fight at the end) and - while by-and-largely completely mindless, the Americans wouldn't have done it better and would probably have put it up for an Academy Award were it made by them.
S0 - not the worst, not the best, been craving some South Korean film/culture/pov but this wasn't it. Still, if your just killing time on Netflix you could do worse.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 145
About a criminally insane genius who plots the overthrow of civilization and runs a vast criminal enterprise from beyond the grave.
Everyone smokes everywhere they please, the yo-yo is a favourite a pastime of the police, and for a film made in 1933 it's almost entirely modern in it's sets and furniture. There's the deranged patient and psychiatrist - his office filled with for art - masks of different tribes, various deformed human skulls (a-la Mutter Museum), the paintings of patients or other lunatics, Dr. Mabuse is - in a sense - the original "Joker", set out to upend the world for it’s own sake, the pleasure of it, and there are surprisingly innovative techniques - for example the cut from mugshot to the scene.
Still, almost a hundred years later a great film, only we've forgotten who the villains are; Dr. Mabuse's manifesto was not intended to become the roadmap for 20th century capitalism...