What was the last movie you saw...? Part IV

[Charger]

STOP! Or My Mom Will Shoot!



A tough LA cop's well meaning but rather pushy elderly mother comes to town and witnesses a murder. She wants to help her son catch the killers who turn out to be a bunch of rather dangerous arms dealers.

Sylvester Stallone in a rather rare near crazy comedy role and Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls star in this easy going action comedy that has been considered Stallone's worst movie by many...even the man himself.

And I guess he isn't wrong. However there are a few solid funny moments. But frankly it needed more action and maybe bit more banter between Sly and Estelle. The late 80s early 90s were the golden era of these kinds of soft borderline crazy comedies, most of them weren't very good...

JoBeth Williams is one of the more positive attributes of the film...she was quite stunning back in the day.

Maybe not quite as bad as some people make it out to be but certainly not a Stallone classic.


*  *

[Typhon]

^^^^^^
I sent you a number of movies better than that.   

[Typhon]

Like Minds (2006)

Set in England, a forensic psychologist (Toni Collette) must determine if a minor (Eddie Redmayne) should be charged with murder.  A lurid, but interesting, story.  8/10

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Last two films seen last year were:

Zootropolis 2 (Zootopia 2 in the USA)

Disney animation. We head back to the animal metropolis seen in Zootropolis / Zootopia where bunny law enforcer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and buddy fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) must discover the secrets as to why snakes are barred from the city. Additional voices from Idris Elba, Ke Huy Quan, David Strathairn, Danny Trejo, Shakira and Andy Samberg.

I think the story is more complex than in the first film with more peril and interesting locations outside the city. As with all animation from the major studios, this looks stunning. 9/10

--------------

Marty Supreme

Tipped for awards glory this sports / crime / dramady from Josh Safdie stars Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion, Abel Ferrera and Milton Rockwell.

Marty Mouser (Chalamet) is a table tennis player on the rise, but in the US the sport is virtually unknown and he has to seeks sponsors and undertake hustles to make enough money to travel to tournaments. He crosses the people and is pretty much on the run for much of the film. Paltrow plays the wife of a wealthy sponsor (Rockwell), A'zion is a girl he gets pregnant and who helps him in his schemes to get money. Ferrera is a minor gangster who he crosses by blackmailing him.

It's ok, I really don't understand the hype behind it, yes Chalamet is very good but the story is fairly generic. 7/10

[Charger]

SICARIO (courtesy of Typhon)


A young and naive FBI agents gets recruited into a covert team to bring down a drug cartel boss. She soon discovers that lines get blurred in a fight against true evil and that the age old saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend still holds true.

Denis Villeneuve's first big hit movie. His artsy fartsy style worked well for a sci-fi epic like the Dune but in a small action thriller some of it goes bit over the top...same can be said about the music, which for the most part feels it's completely in a wrong movie.

The beginning shows great promise for good and somewhat brutal action, but as the movie starts the action just dies out. The suspense thankfully remains high.

The cast is great although Emily Blunt isn't at her best, but Josh Brolin, Jeffery Donavan and especially Benicio Del Toro do chillingly good job.

Taylor Sheridan was just starting out with this one and it shows, the script could have been better and his trademark brutality into comedy was still completely missing.

This was something of a hit back in the day and frankly not sure why. It's a good movie but most certainly nothing special and part of the artsy fartsy styling not that unique either.


*  *  *  ½

[Typhon]

Bandit (2022)

The true story of Gilbert Galvan, known in Canada as The Flying Bandit.  After he escaped from a Michigan prison, then assumed a new identity in Canada, he went on to rob a record 59 banks and jewellery stores while being hunted by a special task force.  8/10

[Charger]

SICARIO 2: Day of The Soldado

A brutal terrorst attack occurs on american soil, it's soon found out that Mexican drug cartels are getting paid smuggling terrorists into the country. Agent Matt Graver is called in to put a stop to it by any means necessary. So he recruits his old Sicario friend Alejandro to help create a war amongs the cartels by kidnapping one of the bosses daughter. Needless to say things don't work out quite as planned.

The first half of the movie is quite good. Great suspense and the story is great, but then something odd happens about half way through and it's like a complete different movie afterwards. It's almost like Taylor Sheridan forgot what he was writing about and started a new story. Very odd and the movie falls completely flat on it's behind.

Here's a prime example of a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be.

Again the cast does a good job, especially Josh Brolin, Jeffery Donovan and Benicio Del Toro and the young Isabela Merced is very good as the kidnapped daughter.

But the movie is a bit of a jumble...Bad script is what destroys this one.


*  *

[Typhon]

The Father (2020)

An aging man (Anthony Hopkins) refuses all assistance from his daughter, as he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances and a deteriorating mind.  A brilliant performance by Hopkins.  9/10

[Typhon]

Shock (1946)

A psychiatrist (Vincent Price) kills his wife and figures to get away with it, until he discovers that a young woman in a neighboring apartment may have seen the treacherous act.  Nice little-known thriller.  8/10

[Charger]

BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY

Marty McFly and his friend Doctor Emmett Brown get into a bunch of adventures in a DeLorean Doc converted into a time machine.
In the first part Marty accidentally finds himself in the year 1955 and screws up his parents getting together thus changing the future, so he has to find a way to bring them together and find a way to get back to 1985.

In the second part Doc comes to take Marty and his girlfriend into the future 2015 to be exact to help save their son's life. But things go horribly wrong and their Nemesis Biff Tannen finds out about the time machine and travels back to change history. Marty and Doc have to also go back to prevent it from happening.

In the third part Doc gets accidentally thrown into 1885 and Marty goes back to save his life, but finds himself also stranded in the wild west and being hunted by an ancestor of Biff.

Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd form probably one of the BEST comedy duos in the history of cinema. Both acting on top of their game and you can sense their chemistry is off the charts. Thomas F Wilson as Biff Tannen is also unforgettable.

Director genius Robert Zemeckis creates a world full of intrique and action and writer Bob Gale's script is pure perfection from the first moments of part one to the very ending of part 3.

This has to be one of the best trilogies ever made. Period. A Pure and utter MASTERPIECE! No matter how many times I've seen it, it still manages to hit every note!


*  *  *  *  *

[Typhon]

Anthropoid (2016)

Based on real events, in December 1941, Czech soldiers parachute into their German occupied homeland to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich.  I found this to be a very realistic presentation.  8/10

[Typhon]

Rogue (2020)

In the wilds of Africa, the leader (Megan Fox) of a mercenary team of soldiers attempts to rescue hostages from their captors.  But as the mission goes awry and the team is stranded, the group must face a bloody and brutal encounter with a gang of rebels, as well as a rogue man-eating lion.  Decent entertainment with a ridiculous ending.  6/10

I must mention that there is a sub-story within the movie about the existence of "lion farms", which I had never heard of.  Even today there are lion farms in South Africa operating.  Lions reproduce easily while in captivity, but are never released into the wild.  A few are sold to zoos, but the rest are slaughtered once they are adults.  The lion hides are sold for profit, and their bones are ground into a powder to be sold for some nonsense medicine.  Apparently this is all legal.  Pretty disgusting!   

[Typhon]

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Desperate for income, Emily (Aubrey Plaza) takes a shady gig buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a charismatic middleman. Seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills, they hatch a plan to take their business to the next level.  Good realistic story and fine acting.  9/10

[Zzzptm]

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

I was always fascinated by this movie when I saw it as a kid. Decades later, ooooooooooooooh there are some holes in that there script. And yet, I enjoy it in a sort of dreamlike way. Never mind that a California shoreline is presented to us as Long Island... or that somehow New York City is underground and one can walk unimpeded from Queens to Midtown Manhattan via the somehow unburied streets. Or a number of other things. There's stuff in here that's in the "so bad it's good" category, like a Plan Nine from Outer Space with a fair-sized budget and cast. I'm in it mostly for the finale, where the apes go ape and Heston gets to

: show

blow up the whole dang planet!

Spoiler tags added for those not familiar with the picture.

This one and the fourth one are the ones I enjoy most as the sequels to Planet of the Apes (1968). I might give the fourth one a run-through in the days ahead, as I haven't seen that in forever.

[Charger]

I don't think I've ever seen that one...but then again I never really liked Planet Of The Apes either...always found it rather silly.