[size=12pt]I walk the line - 1970 - John Frakenheimer[/size]
Not the usual Frakenheimer film, but better than I expected, actually I really enjoyed this low key drama about a middle age small town sheriff going throw the usual middle life crisis, falling in love for a much younger girl, with tragic results.
Never was too found of Gregory Peck rigid performance type of acting, sometimes it works but most of the times not that much. Strangely it works, most of the times at least, it’s easy to fall for someone so lovely as Tuesday Weld was back in the day, but then the guy was so love blind that not easy for any actor to show that despair in the screen. And what could be the weakest point of the film, to understand Peck’s character behavior, it’s explained by the type of person the sheriff was, no middle ground for him, becoming a strong moral fiber type of man to a despaired one.
Much of the film is explain by the images in the initial intro and the final credits, with the director showing us the hard working faces from people of deep rural America with a Johnny Cash theme, not for anthropologic reasons, but to show us what really the sheriff wanted to escape from.
The ending is sad, and the soundtrack by Johnny Cash is the obvious choice but it’s really brilliant, with Cash themes being a part of the film or the history.
A good film easy to watch, not a very complicated, clearly an inspiration for films like Indian Runner in aesthetic terms at least, as the Lolita/femme fatale theme is often taken to screen.
Anyway really liked the mood of the film.
[size=12pt]Lone survivor -2013 - Peter Berg[/size]
IMO we are in the presence of a film that really tries tries to good but really doesn’t make it.
The events are apparently based in a real history, some special op mission codenamed Red Wings that went wrong as the soldiers were compromised while in the terrain. Things happen in a similar way to Black Hawk Down, as four Navy Seals are hunted down by a small Taliban army.
But Lone Survivor goes forward in showing the viewer the life and how these special ops guys live and also their culture.
That’s OK, but my personal view is that some things are meant to be secret, saying this, the film tries too hard to show the four men to almost super hero, status. The director tries to follow the artistic way to avoid the documentary feeling, but the fighting sequences and most important the death of the soldier’s scenes in slow motion fell like they belong to another world or film in this case.
The story is based in the book written by the only survivor of the four man group, not very much stuff to write a decent script and visuals are not enough to save the film, and after the fighting scenes following the capture or rescue of the only survivor the film becomes boring and predictable, with the main events already taking place. The level of propaganda in the film is shown mostly in the intro credits and mainly in the final ones, also is strange that the good guys resist an incredible beating, they are shoot several times, free fall from a cliff in a impressive way , and kept fighting but ok.
But want really makes me wonder about the reality of the “real events” in the film, was how wrong the several military decisions in the film were… so wrong. I really doubt of the sequence of decisions of the Red Wings operation shown in the film. In Black Hawk Down the flow of events just happened in Murphy’s Law style, no one to blame, but here, for any anyone with a few military knowledge, will understand what I’m saying, maybe they didn’t notice while making the film but the all operation looked negligent from a pure military perspective.
In the end not a good film, there’s not enough history, the director tries to pull out the Platoon card, while trying too hard to escape the documentary trap, and the final part of the film doesn’t work. I also felt some voyeurism in it showing stuff that really should be kept if not in secret at least not so divulgated, for some reason you never seen nothing like this about the SAS or the Spetsnaz.
Not a pair to Black Hawk Down or The Hurt Locker
Planned to watch this movie last weekend, but it just didn’t happen. There were elections in this country and there also was a (possible) terrorist attack in Brussels (you might have heard of it) and I was asked by a couple of internet sites and a local new paper to write about those things. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to watch this movie next weekend … but your comments aren’t really encouraging … I had high hopes, was looking forward to watching the movie …
Stars Richard Harrison this one who shows off his bald patch in fine style. About a cop who is investigating a drug operation. Not that you really notice any sort of plot in this, which is described as a comedy by some. Not funny in any shape or form for me. The soundtrack was a nice listen though.
Watched The Lego Movie (Lord/Miller, 2014) yesterday. For a movie as in-your-face, primary-coloured and 900-miles-per-hour as films aimed specifically at children tend to be, this was actually a pretty good movie with a surprising amount of heart. And it plays fair by its source, too: this isn’t just some generic tale that they decided to animate in Lego blocks, thus making it a “Lego” movie. No, this is a tale about Lego. It’s worth a look.
Third film starring the character played by Vin Diesel, in which we find our man on a planet with every creature after him. This first section of the film is so simple but so effective, and wish the film had stayed that way. When Riddick plots his way to leave the planet, the film introduces human characters which at times reminds me of other films like Alien 3 as at times it creates the same kind of stillness of that film.
Third film starring the character played by Vin Diesel, in which we find our man on a planet with every creature after him. This first section of the film is so simple but so effective, and wish the film had stayed that way. When Riddick plots his way to leave the planet, the film introduces human characters which at times reminds me of other films like Alien 3 as at times it creates the same kind of stillness of that film.[/quote]
How is it, compared to the other two movies?
Can’t say I’m a fan of the series, but the movies did have some good ideas, especially the first one.
As far as Diesel is concerned: not a real fan of the man, but he’s okay in this role (can’t think of an actor beating him as Riddick)
Its ok to put it simple. Enjoyed the first half better than the second half. No not really a fan of the series myself, in fact cannot remember much of the second film. Diesel’s character in the first film was the best thing about the film for me. Really need to watch the second one again, as I usually remember something about a film, but in this case nothing. Be interesting how you rank this one compared to the other two films, as their are ideas in the film like you mentioned re the other films.
Tower Heist - A group of people along with a petty thief decide to rob a multi millionaire who has kept all the money they gave for their pensions. Easy, enjoyable enough viewing but I felt there could have been more to it.
The Wolf Of Wall Street - Purely enjoyable, the three hour running time flew by. Great performances all round, Di Caprio has matured into one of the best modern actors, I was also impressed with Jonah Hill, never seen him in a straight role before, only comedies.
Invisible Target - Three cops take down a violent team of armed robbers, the deeper they get into the investigation they find some of their superiors are involved. Above average H.K. action thriller, some really good stunts.
Based on a true story, about the first Major League Baseball players from India. Of course, the premise is fairly predictable, but I really enjoyed this. I can’t name the actors offhand, but the movie and the acting are very good, IMO. I’m not particularly a big baseball fan, but would recommend this movie without hesitation.
I’ve watched De Palma’s latest, Passion (2012), the other night, which is remake of a French movie I haven’t seen. It was weird (weirder than usual), it felt kind of like combination of De Palma and German TV movie. This “TV movie” side was more present in the first half of the movie, which was weaker. It got better in the second half once we moved into carnal nightmare territory, where De Palma started to pull out his old tricks. Which means there is a lot of giallo style (with and without capital “S”), including red herrings, unbelievable actions by characters, no character development and bad dialogue. One reviewer on the imdb got it just right: this is a De Palma movie made for De Palma fans.
I found Obsession and especially Sisters as kind of rehearsals for later string of movies in the 80s which are De Palmas best work. In these two movies there is still kind of amateurish, film-student feel, which ads to their charm (and Hitchcock referencing is strongest here).
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:11594, topic:1923”]Nice to see that you’re studying De Palma, Mickey.
Try Sisters and Obsession (my two favorite movies of the man)[/quote]
Thanks for the recommendations, scherp. I particularly enjoyed Dressed to Kill which turned out to be a genuinely gratifying portion of sleaziness I’d been dying to view.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:11594, topic:1923”]@ Ace in a Hole
An old favorite of mine, great movie.[/quote]
Well, it’s Billy Wilder at his wittiest - it was impossible for me not to like it.
Just seen the trailer for this - it looks like it has an intriguing, old-fashioned science fiction novel premise; yet there seems to be also the requisite numbers of action scenes. What did you like/dislike about it?
I’d describe the film as ‘exceedingly weird.’ The parabolic premise exposing miscellaneous social classes struggling with one another on the train and the enthralling visual aspect frequently contradict the quasi-Hollywoodian directional manoeuvres and as a corollary, the motion picture becomes at a loss for some thematic direction, veering between its Kafkaesque ambience and its crowd-pleasing execution akin to some second-drawer actioner (a man gets stabbed in stomach, but he bestirs towards the end and he is still nimble and strong etc.). The conceit of juxtaposing the contemporary civilisation with one big train hurtling towards nowhere is uncannily engaging, yet the tale is cut out for art-house cinema. Hence, neither is it a very successful actioner, nor an immaculate parable. All in all, the outcome appears somewhat schizophrenic in my view. I value Snowpiercer for its ambition (I yearn for more films like that), but I cannot state it is a flawless effort.
I view Snowpiercer very similar to Mickey. The allegoric stuff does not allow the characters to breathe and the ideas don’t build up to a satisfying whole. 6/10
Yeah, the characters are either caricatural (Swinton) or underdeveloped (Evans). Likewise, a film like this needs to ‘formulate’ some sort of ‘statement’, to convey some message, whilst Snowpiercer’s denouement seems immensely tenuous and unamplified. Perhaps I missed the point, I didn’t grasp the uiltimate meaning of all this, but the conclusion ought to have been more accessible in that case.
