Movie week in review 2/12 - 2/18
With the demise of the IMDb message board format, the long running "What movies did you watch last week?" thread is coming to an end. I don't think I can sustain one for my own blog, but for a while, in the memory of the death of the thread, I will do this.
Not a great deal of horror this week. Went and seen the underwhelming Rings (2017) in the theater. Much like Blair Witch (2016), I had a nagging feeling Rings would further evidence the decline of theater horror. The genre just isn't in a good place right now. Matilda Lutz nabbed the lead as this rather pretty but vanilla lead, while her boyfriend is played by Alex Roe as the [insert dull dreamboat here]. And to include a couple name performers in the cast, Johnny Galecky and Vincent D'Onofrio are a professor and blind priest respectively. Galecky introduces the Samara videotape to students, studying the effect out of afterlife curiosity while D'Onofrio is connected to Samara and the mother who gave birth to her. D'Onofrio immediately screams "LOOK OUT!", and you just know he's dangerous. Lutz follows after Roe who goes silent, the university produces Galecky and the Samara videotape spreading it's danger to her. Details of a hidden room, burning bones, a bird, and so forth soon emerge within the old videotape recording introducing us to new images. These images lead Lutz to a "rebirth" that is silly not scary. And the damn commercials give it away! Galecky has as bland a character as could be forced upon him. I think he'll be happy to let this fade into the dark of his career. D'Onofrio has a flashy part as is the most watchable, a real creep with some likeability at first, a former priest whose church is now a building occupied by AAA meetings. You get Samara emerging from her well and out of the Telly (again shown explicitly in commercials) for some effect. D'Onofrio rampaging after Lutz, and bodies collapsing at Samara's power into drained corpses, withered and hideous.
In the Heart of the Sea (2015) was a film I never felt a direct interest in upon its release but I had time and it was on so I watched it. Hemsworth assistant to Benjamin Walker, commissioning Essex to hunt for whales due their oil. PETA would be better suited not to watch this when they the crew do catch a whale, and a glimpse into the process of attaining their oil is provided. A big whale, the king of the open waters the Essex soon finds itself, rises to claim superiority. Melville wants to write a big fiction story and hopes Brendan Gleeson, who was a young man when a member of the Essex, will shed light on it all, including cannibalism that demanded a starving small crewmen to commit the abominable in order to survive. This isn't a Moby Dick or Mutiny on the Bounty story. This is about losing everything, a ship, crew, and almost humanity. It is survival and then hunters become hunted. The whale essentially represents the hunted creatures for their natural resources. The seamen are the hunters who eventually face retaliation. Man, always conquering and killing, is met with opposition. This has the ship wreck, deserted island, ship management through a storm, and big whale attacks and hunting. Money burned on this production. It didn't really hit epic grandeur with me. I thought Gleeson was really good as the tormented soul reliving a wretched experience. Hemsworth is a star, no doubt. He carries this well. It wasn't something that will remain with me, though.
The Astronaut's Wife (1999) is a movie I hadn't seen since it made its rounds on cable in the early 2000s. Probably about 2001. Didn't remember much about it. Theron was gorgeous. Photogenic, every bit a glamor model. Depp is her astronaut husband who went on a mission to the NASA orbiter, encountering *something* (just guess!). Nick Cassavetes, cool to see him even if ever so briefly, was the other astronaut who doesn't last long...His body doesn't quite take. Joe Morton is the NASA insider who cried foul when Depp is called into question, losing his job, and getting in touch with Theron to warn her of how her hubby isn't that man who left. Depp will be the sinister presence throughout, making sure his wife has her twin babies and that no one releases his secret. Clea DuVall is the sister who is unsure of Theron's mental state, but happens across Depp during the handling of a particular suitcase. Tom Noonan shows up as McClaren, head of a big contract using special planes in war. Danger awaits Theron when she investigates Depp. Depp is good at this suspect character, yo-yoing Theron who doesn't know whether or not he's evil.
The Legend of Tarzan (2016) is a film I missed at the theaters. Alexander Skarsgard as Tarzan, Margot Robbie as Jane, Samuel L winds up tagging along to help Tarzan out because he believes slavery is happening in Africa, and Christoph Waltz is the antagonist after diamonds for King Leopold. Djimon Housou is a tribal leader who wants Tarzan out of a vengeance due to the death of his son. The effects are plentiful with Africa's wild brought to life on screen with Tarzan and Jane is a fun opposition to the scummy Waltz who has an epic fate involving crocodiles. Tarzan, as you might have guessed, swings from vines, battles a Mangani, goes right at it with Housou, beats up Belgian officers on a train, and leads a massive animal assault again Waltz and an army. It has plenty of guns firing, animals stampeding, explosions, and noise. Another big budget movie Saturday.
Speaking of big budgets, I followed up Tarzan with Vertical Limit (2000), a premium channel favorite I used to watch in the 2000s every two years or so. Paxton is a big Texas tycoon who has commissioned an K2 expedition, throwing around money to hire all kinds of experts, with Robin Tunney and Nicholas Lea as climbing specialists to lead him up the mountain. Chris O'Donnell, who I thought was more than adequate here, is the brother of Tunney, blamed by her for the death of their father when he had no choice but to or else they'd all three die in a climbing accident. He's a National Geographic photographer passing through, eventually moving to rescue sis when Paxton coerces the team, despite Lea's objections as a storm was developing, to go ahead regardless. Scott Glenn is a master climber with a rep for saving folks, and knew Tunney and O'Donnell's dad. He has a reason for wanting Paxton dead. Paxton is a piece of work, and he might have been responsible for Glenn's missing love (when found it is genuinely heartbreaking). Izabella Scorupco is a nurse on call who joins a special team assembled to find the missing climbers, as Glenn is convinced to lead when money is offered as a reward. Nitroglycerin and Pakistani chopper pilots assist in the rescue mission. Some goofy brothers and Alexander Siddig from Deep Space Nine also join up. Tricky weather, accidental nitro explosions, avalanches, dangling climbers off cliffs using pickaxes, pulmonary edema sickness causing worsening health the longer folks stay at high altitude, and chopper peril all combine to make the film anything but boring. Heroism porn, this is. I have to say this is a load of hooey, not much is realistic, but Glenn is awesome casting and O'Donnell gets the opportunity to save the day. If you don't want Paxton dead by the end of the movie, you're Ted Bundy.
54 (1998) & EdTv (1998) are two movies I missed for whatever reason back when I was 20 (sigh) but had a late Saturday night, into early Sunday morning so both of them were on while channel surfing. 54 just seemed too sanitized for the place and time it exists. If you seriously made a legit film about a disco, drug, and sex club based within a former CBS studio infamous for its cocaine moon, IRS dodging club owners, bevy of hot celebs, and dodgy code of selection regarding who could or couldn't get in, this film would be NC-17. Sex and snorting, dancing and boozing, money-skimming and cock-sucking, selling bodies for favors, and every sort of reputed scandalous or depraved act concealed in Rubell's privacy rooms that might beg for a HBO miniseries is simply muted in 54. Phillippe, Hayak, Meyer, and Campbell were hot, rising stars in the late 90s, but none of them have compelling characters, and I'm thinking those interested in Studio 54 are looking for all the explicit, outrageous, and salacious along with celeb activity whose surface is barely scratched. Phillippe narrates and is rather a dull blockhead. Michael Meyers comes off best as a dazed and dopey Rubell, a caricature who loved the high life and all its benefits.
EdTv was a absolute hoot. McConaughey is all charisma and charm. It is all just so damned effortless. He's a video store clerk snookered into allowing video cameras to follow him around for a month. DeGeneres steals her scenes as the mastermind of the reality show idea although Rob Reiner's chief executive at the station takes all the credit. Harrelson as the self-indulgent brother looking to propose a gym during the show and instead looks like a pig for cheating on girlfriend, Jenna Elfman, with Sally Kirkland and a wonderful Martin Landau as the parents make up a solid cast. McConaughey and Elfman have delightful chemistry as a couple formed right before an addicted, compelled viewing public who can't get enough of Ed. Hurley is smokin as a model offered to Ed to further her career and Hopper emerges as Ed's dad hoping a job opportunity can come of it, suffering a heart attack while fucking exwife Kirkland! McConaughey is infinitely watchable as an average guy exuding enormous appeal. Ron Howard directed, with his brother popping up as the technical expert in the traveling van in control of content on-screen.
John Wick 2 (2017) just had Keanu Reeves killing a lot of people. I plan on writing a review for this one for the blog.
Not a great deal of horror this week. Went and seen the underwhelming Rings (2017) in the theater. Much like Blair Witch (2016), I had a nagging feeling Rings would further evidence the decline of theater horror. The genre just isn't in a good place right now. Matilda Lutz nabbed the lead as this rather pretty but vanilla lead, while her boyfriend is played by Alex Roe as the [insert dull dreamboat here]. And to include a couple name performers in the cast, Johnny Galecky and Vincent D'Onofrio are a professor and blind priest respectively. Galecky introduces the Samara videotape to students, studying the effect out of afterlife curiosity while D'Onofrio is connected to Samara and the mother who gave birth to her. D'Onofrio immediately screams "LOOK OUT!", and you just know he's dangerous. Lutz follows after Roe who goes silent, the university produces Galecky and the Samara videotape spreading it's danger to her. Details of a hidden room, burning bones, a bird, and so forth soon emerge within the old videotape recording introducing us to new images. These images lead Lutz to a "rebirth" that is silly not scary. And the damn commercials give it away! Galecky has as bland a character as could be forced upon him. I think he'll be happy to let this fade into the dark of his career. D'Onofrio has a flashy part as is the most watchable, a real creep with some likeability at first, a former priest whose church is now a building occupied by AAA meetings. You get Samara emerging from her well and out of the Telly (again shown explicitly in commercials) for some effect. D'Onofrio rampaging after Lutz, and bodies collapsing at Samara's power into drained corpses, withered and hideous.
In the Heart of the Sea (2015) was a film I never felt a direct interest in upon its release but I had time and it was on so I watched it. Hemsworth assistant to Benjamin Walker, commissioning Essex to hunt for whales due their oil. PETA would be better suited not to watch this when they the crew do catch a whale, and a glimpse into the process of attaining their oil is provided. A big whale, the king of the open waters the Essex soon finds itself, rises to claim superiority. Melville wants to write a big fiction story and hopes Brendan Gleeson, who was a young man when a member of the Essex, will shed light on it all, including cannibalism that demanded a starving small crewmen to commit the abominable in order to survive. This isn't a Moby Dick or Mutiny on the Bounty story. This is about losing everything, a ship, crew, and almost humanity. It is survival and then hunters become hunted. The whale essentially represents the hunted creatures for their natural resources. The seamen are the hunters who eventually face retaliation. Man, always conquering and killing, is met with opposition. This has the ship wreck, deserted island, ship management through a storm, and big whale attacks and hunting. Money burned on this production. It didn't really hit epic grandeur with me. I thought Gleeson was really good as the tormented soul reliving a wretched experience. Hemsworth is a star, no doubt. He carries this well. It wasn't something that will remain with me, though.
The Astronaut's Wife (1999) is a movie I hadn't seen since it made its rounds on cable in the early 2000s. Probably about 2001. Didn't remember much about it. Theron was gorgeous. Photogenic, every bit a glamor model. Depp is her astronaut husband who went on a mission to the NASA orbiter, encountering *something* (just guess!). Nick Cassavetes, cool to see him even if ever so briefly, was the other astronaut who doesn't last long...His body doesn't quite take. Joe Morton is the NASA insider who cried foul when Depp is called into question, losing his job, and getting in touch with Theron to warn her of how her hubby isn't that man who left. Depp will be the sinister presence throughout, making sure his wife has her twin babies and that no one releases his secret. Clea DuVall is the sister who is unsure of Theron's mental state, but happens across Depp during the handling of a particular suitcase. Tom Noonan shows up as McClaren, head of a big contract using special planes in war. Danger awaits Theron when she investigates Depp. Depp is good at this suspect character, yo-yoing Theron who doesn't know whether or not he's evil.
The Legend of Tarzan (2016) is a film I missed at the theaters. Alexander Skarsgard as Tarzan, Margot Robbie as Jane, Samuel L winds up tagging along to help Tarzan out because he believes slavery is happening in Africa, and Christoph Waltz is the antagonist after diamonds for King Leopold. Djimon Housou is a tribal leader who wants Tarzan out of a vengeance due to the death of his son. The effects are plentiful with Africa's wild brought to life on screen with Tarzan and Jane is a fun opposition to the scummy Waltz who has an epic fate involving crocodiles. Tarzan, as you might have guessed, swings from vines, battles a Mangani, goes right at it with Housou, beats up Belgian officers on a train, and leads a massive animal assault again Waltz and an army. It has plenty of guns firing, animals stampeding, explosions, and noise. Another big budget movie Saturday.
Speaking of big budgets, I followed up Tarzan with Vertical Limit (2000), a premium channel favorite I used to watch in the 2000s every two years or so. Paxton is a big Texas tycoon who has commissioned an K2 expedition, throwing around money to hire all kinds of experts, with Robin Tunney and Nicholas Lea as climbing specialists to lead him up the mountain. Chris O'Donnell, who I thought was more than adequate here, is the brother of Tunney, blamed by her for the death of their father when he had no choice but to or else they'd all three die in a climbing accident. He's a National Geographic photographer passing through, eventually moving to rescue sis when Paxton coerces the team, despite Lea's objections as a storm was developing, to go ahead regardless. Scott Glenn is a master climber with a rep for saving folks, and knew Tunney and O'Donnell's dad. He has a reason for wanting Paxton dead. Paxton is a piece of work, and he might have been responsible for Glenn's missing love (when found it is genuinely heartbreaking). Izabella Scorupco is a nurse on call who joins a special team assembled to find the missing climbers, as Glenn is convinced to lead when money is offered as a reward. Nitroglycerin and Pakistani chopper pilots assist in the rescue mission. Some goofy brothers and Alexander Siddig from Deep Space Nine also join up. Tricky weather, accidental nitro explosions, avalanches, dangling climbers off cliffs using pickaxes, pulmonary edema sickness causing worsening health the longer folks stay at high altitude, and chopper peril all combine to make the film anything but boring. Heroism porn, this is. I have to say this is a load of hooey, not much is realistic, but Glenn is awesome casting and O'Donnell gets the opportunity to save the day. If you don't want Paxton dead by the end of the movie, you're Ted Bundy.
54 (1998) & EdTv (1998) are two movies I missed for whatever reason back when I was 20 (sigh) but had a late Saturday night, into early Sunday morning so both of them were on while channel surfing. 54 just seemed too sanitized for the place and time it exists. If you seriously made a legit film about a disco, drug, and sex club based within a former CBS studio infamous for its cocaine moon, IRS dodging club owners, bevy of hot celebs, and dodgy code of selection regarding who could or couldn't get in, this film would be NC-17. Sex and snorting, dancing and boozing, money-skimming and cock-sucking, selling bodies for favors, and every sort of reputed scandalous or depraved act concealed in Rubell's privacy rooms that might beg for a HBO miniseries is simply muted in 54. Phillippe, Hayak, Meyer, and Campbell were hot, rising stars in the late 90s, but none of them have compelling characters, and I'm thinking those interested in Studio 54 are looking for all the explicit, outrageous, and salacious along with celeb activity whose surface is barely scratched. Phillippe narrates and is rather a dull blockhead. Michael Meyers comes off best as a dazed and dopey Rubell, a caricature who loved the high life and all its benefits.
EdTv was a absolute hoot. McConaughey is all charisma and charm. It is all just so damned effortless. He's a video store clerk snookered into allowing video cameras to follow him around for a month. DeGeneres steals her scenes as the mastermind of the reality show idea although Rob Reiner's chief executive at the station takes all the credit. Harrelson as the self-indulgent brother looking to propose a gym during the show and instead looks like a pig for cheating on girlfriend, Jenna Elfman, with Sally Kirkland and a wonderful Martin Landau as the parents make up a solid cast. McConaughey and Elfman have delightful chemistry as a couple formed right before an addicted, compelled viewing public who can't get enough of Ed. Hurley is smokin as a model offered to Ed to further her career and Hopper emerges as Ed's dad hoping a job opportunity can come of it, suffering a heart attack while fucking exwife Kirkland! McConaughey is infinitely watchable as an average guy exuding enormous appeal. Ron Howard directed, with his brother popping up as the technical expert in the traveling van in control of content on-screen.
John Wick 2 (2017) just had Keanu Reeves killing a lot of people. I plan on writing a review for this one for the blog.
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