Thursday, March 07, 2024
The Rangers
The Rangers
A WW#2 movie set in a German POW camp but shot in Italy.
What the archival footage of fighters attacking Lancasters and Kamikaze planes dive bombing battleships has to do with the plot I'm uncertain. The acting is plodding, amateurish. The costumes of the officers look fresh from the dry cleaners, never worn. The scene around the table with the generals looks like a rehearsal read through. Call it an OK time-waster.
The explosion, when it comes is rather unspectacular.
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
Man Down
Man Down
Shia LaBeouf
A movie from Amazon. The more companies behind a movie the longer the opening credits and the more logos you have to sit through.
This is a flavour of the week kind of movie and not a feel good flick. America pays an awful price for sending its young men to war. One is only young and imbued with immortality once in life and tours of duty in places life Afghanistan disabuse one of that feeling rather quickly.
Gabriel's best friend is killed in an ambush and in dealing with his effects learns that while on injury leave his friend had an adulterous relationship with his wife.
Placed on leave Gabe deals with that betrayal, the loss of his friend in more senses than one, and PTSD. There are no happy endings here.
Monday, January 29, 2024
Masters of the Air
Masters of the Air
Unlike the senior citizens who appeared in many WW#2 era movies and the creaky old men who would never have survived in Submarines the actors in this series are in their late 20ies to early 30ies. Still older than most of the boys they portray but youthful enough to look the part.
As with Band of Brothers and The Pacific this is a Tom Hanks production and can expected to be high class. It is being streamed on Apple TV.
To illustrate the quality of this production it commissioned the building of 3 Lancs to be used as authentic models for filming.
Just how realistic the show is we see flight crews getting air sick and hear the quip: these powdered eggs were hatched before your balls dropped.
Up to you whether or not you want to spend another $12.99 a month to subscribe to Apple TV.
The Wall
The Wall
Snipers are loners lying in wait for hours for the perfect shot; looked
at with suspicion even by their own troops. This movie is a
psychological thriller being a contest between an Arab sniper, JUBA and
an American sniper and his spotter. Expect no HEA here.
--
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Snipers are loners lying in wait for hours for the perfect shot; looked
at with suspicion even by their own troops. This movie is a
psychological thriller being a contest between an Arab sniper, JUBA and
an American sniper and his spotter. Expect no HEA here.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com
The Healer
The Healer
This is what is termed a high concept movie. A ne'er do well possesses
the uncanny ability to heal. The movie even comes with an HEA. Of
special interest is the fact that it was shot in Lunenburg and I may
even have been camped there while I was being shot.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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This is what is termed a high concept movie. A ne'er do well possesses
the uncanny ability to heal. The movie even comes with an HEA. Of
special interest is the fact that it was shot in Lunenburg and I may
even have been camped there while I was being shot.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com
Thursday, August 08, 2019
The Sandlot
The SandlotThis first outing had something magical about it. In his thirteenth year Scotty Smalls moves with his mother and step-father to a new town and is given his mother's permission to go out and make friends, enjoy himself and even get in a little trouble. He joins eight others at a local sandlot where they play an eternal game of ball without keeping score just for the glorious fun of it. There is something magical about the bonds that develop between this ensemble and the hi-jinks they get involved in.
In typical Hollywood style the producers couldn't leave well enough alone and made a pale sequel that copied many of the riffs involved in the first outing with lackluster effect. You be the judge of the inclusion of three girls in the nine. The simplicity of the sandlot is compromised by a great deal of prettying up and additions plus very little ball actually gets played.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Paterson
Another Amazon production and yet another film about ordinary people. Adam Driver plays Paterson a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. Much of the action takes place as he is driving his bus and the actor actually got certified as a bus driver. The actor is not a Hollywood Matineé idol. A creature of habit his one avocation is writing poetry which he keeps in a secret notebook. We hear the conversations that go on in the bus he drives as he watches the road and maneuvers the bus along its route. In the morning he grabs his watch, hugs his wife and sits to have a bowl of Cheerios. Walks to work with a lunch box in hand then mounts his bus. In this city drivers are not encased in a security wall. At the end of the day he takes the reverse route home lunch box in hand checking the mailbox which he then straightens and enters his small saltbox home. Marvin his English Bulldog gives a grunting growl in welcome. After dinner he clips the lease on the dog and they take a familiar stroll that includes sit-stay with leash pushed over a pipe while he enters a local bar for a pint served by an aging man of colour who greets him by name. Next morning he again picks up the watch, checks the time and the mundane quotidian repeats itself.
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
Manchester By the Sea
Casey Affleck was and is Ben’s little brother who played the younger sibling in the back seat of Ben’s car in Good Will Hunting who couldn't afford his hamburger. Twenty years later he can trade Oscars with his Brother who has at least two but none for acting. Keeping it all in the family so to speak Matt Damon produced this opus. The director also wrote the screen play for which he too got an Oscar. Produced by Amazon.
What makes this film special is the fact that the characters are ordinary down on their luck working people. Lee Chandler is the caretaker/handyman for a group of Brownstones in the Boston area.
Unlike the Mr. America wannabes on Riverdale Casey does not affect a six-pack though he shovels snow with alacrity. The sound quality on this disk is somewhat lacking making the dialogue often hard to follow. The language used is working class, the behaviour rough and tumble, bar room brawls and on ice fights. The classical often sacred music in the score often seems off-kilter with the action onscreen.
Lee and his 16-year-old nephew Patrick love one another but their relationship is not touch feely. Through flash backs we learn of the tragedies that have caused Lee to shut down emotionally and why coming back home is the last thing he wants to do. Both Lee and his brother Joe are divorced.
From IMDB one learns the production team shot in Manchester by the Sea and its police chief, fire, and EMT Staff participated in the filming, ironic because on camera the paramedics have trouble getting the gurney into the truck.
A great deal of repressed emotion makes this a difficult film to watch at times. Lee expresses his in anger which comes out when he is drinking though in bar room brawls, not at home. This film makes the audience feel uncomfortable Casey’s performance obviously the kind that members of the Academy admire.
Upon second watching I found more depth in the inter-relationships as I was less shocked though the fist through the window still startled me as unexpected.
Upon second watching I found more depth in the inter-relationships as I was less shocked though the fist through the window still startled me as unexpected.
Monday, December 04, 2017
Star Trek Beyond
The original Star Trek was a 3-year TV Series. These big budget extravaganzas cost hundreds of millions as evidenced by the 5 movie studio’s logos we have to sit through before the actual movie starts. Most of the action does not take place on the Enterprise the crew’s penchant for destroying trillion dollar vessels seeming to continue as does Scotty’s ability to get ancient relics back into space. Simon Pegg who plays Montgomery Scott had a hand in writing this one. Kirk, Bones and Spock are the essential trio and we learn of the death of Nimoy both in the script and in a memorial in the credits which also mention Anton on a first name basis only. The ability to survive space exploration does not extend to surviving old age or wonky earth technology.
As the saying goes it blows up real good and in the movies sound still manages to travel through space.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Riverdale
Last night I binge-watched the final episodes of the TV Series Riverdale.
Hollywood has long looked to comic books for inspiration witness the iterations of Batman and Superman over the years. Riverdale is a darker adaptation of the comic Archie from the funny papers. When the first photos of Keneti James (K.J.) Apa and Cole Spruce appeared online my immediate reaction was that I'd never conceived on Archie Andrews as a Hunk. With his Samoan/Kiwi Ancestry this carrot-topped Archie looks like a Sumo Wrestler in training. He makes Luke Perry, of 90210 fame, who plays his father Fred, look tiny by comparison. Indeed in opening scenes of episode one Kevin, Sheriff Keller's gay son lies on Betty's bed looking at the boy next door across the way observing that he has a six-pack. Yes, Riverdale has a gay charcter and Greg Araki directs an episode in season two. The only comic book character I'm missing is Flute Snoot, a characterization seemingly too politically incorrect for modern audiences. Principal Weatherbee may be bald but he lacks the rolly-polly look and is black. The other teachers on staff appear as cut-outs in classroom scenes.
Cole Spruce gets top billing as Jughead the narrator and moral conscience of the series. The son of a biker-The Serpents-father FP Jones from the wrong side of town. I had to look it up to discover that Jughead's birth name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, Scottish for "man of peace".
There may not have been a casting couch but the guys definitely posed topless for their casting reels. Archie may be ruggedly hunky but the rest of the football line-up look like cover models for a fitness mag and are given ample opportunity to show off their ripped abs. Kevin may be gay but no one is going to mess with him, least of all because of his father. Even Jughead knows how to throw a punch.
Whereas Archie was written for laughs Riverdale has an underlying feeling of menace and intrigue. It begins with the discovery of the body of red-headed albino-looking Jason Blossom who it turns out was murdered, his frozen body showing up in Sweetwater Creek with a bullet hole in its forehead. Veronica Lodge shows up looking like a member of the Adams Family with her mother and their butler Smithers running from the ignominy of father Hiram being jailed for swindling his clients.
The love triangle between Betty, Veronica and Archie is retained though complicated by Archie's affair with his nerdy Femme Fatale looking music teacher Miss Grundy. Most of the characters here have long since lost their innocence and their virginity. Riverdale has their own version of the Montagues and the Capulets or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Betty's older sister Polly Cooper violated that code by getting pregnant with Jason Blossom's baby.
Adults do not come off well here. Dysfunctional single-parent families appear to be the norm. Is Vermont the home of Riverdale? Maple syrup would appear to be the homegrown source of wealth and snowy Vancouver is filming location.
Teen love affairs are fleeting and keeping track of who's with whom is a full time job. Watching Fred take Miss Grundy and Archie out to dinner stretches credulity to the max. Since the restrictions on using children on movie sets put severe restraints on shooting schedules all the teens in this show are adults, indeed KJ, only 20, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from one overlong shoot. He obviously isn't famous enough to date to rate his own chauffeur.
Whereas Archie and the crew by convention have remained eternally teens for 3/4 of a century their TV counterparts will graduate and move off to university breaking up their old gang and thus giving teenage high school dramas a limited shelf life. Even were this not so the adults who play these characters can only pretend to be teens for so long.
Hollywood has long looked to comic books for inspiration witness the iterations of Batman and Superman over the years. Riverdale is a darker adaptation of the comic Archie from the funny papers. When the first photos of Keneti James (K.J.) Apa and Cole Spruce appeared online my immediate reaction was that I'd never conceived on Archie Andrews as a Hunk. With his Samoan/Kiwi Ancestry this carrot-topped Archie looks like a Sumo Wrestler in training. He makes Luke Perry, of 90210 fame, who plays his father Fred, look tiny by comparison. Indeed in opening scenes of episode one Kevin, Sheriff Keller's gay son lies on Betty's bed looking at the boy next door across the way observing that he has a six-pack. Yes, Riverdale has a gay charcter and Greg Araki directs an episode in season two. The only comic book character I'm missing is Flute Snoot, a characterization seemingly too politically incorrect for modern audiences. Principal Weatherbee may be bald but he lacks the rolly-polly look and is black. The other teachers on staff appear as cut-outs in classroom scenes.
Cole Spruce gets top billing as Jughead the narrator and moral conscience of the series. The son of a biker-The Serpents-father FP Jones from the wrong side of town. I had to look it up to discover that Jughead's birth name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, Scottish for "man of peace".
There may not have been a casting couch but the guys definitely posed topless for their casting reels. Archie may be ruggedly hunky but the rest of the football line-up look like cover models for a fitness mag and are given ample opportunity to show off their ripped abs. Kevin may be gay but no one is going to mess with him, least of all because of his father. Even Jughead knows how to throw a punch.
Whereas Archie was written for laughs Riverdale has an underlying feeling of menace and intrigue. It begins with the discovery of the body of red-headed albino-looking Jason Blossom who it turns out was murdered, his frozen body showing up in Sweetwater Creek with a bullet hole in its forehead. Veronica Lodge shows up looking like a member of the Adams Family with her mother and their butler Smithers running from the ignominy of father Hiram being jailed for swindling his clients.
The love triangle between Betty, Veronica and Archie is retained though complicated by Archie's affair with his nerdy Femme Fatale looking music teacher Miss Grundy. Most of the characters here have long since lost their innocence and their virginity. Riverdale has their own version of the Montagues and the Capulets or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Betty's older sister Polly Cooper violated that code by getting pregnant with Jason Blossom's baby.
Adults do not come off well here. Dysfunctional single-parent families appear to be the norm. Is Vermont the home of Riverdale? Maple syrup would appear to be the homegrown source of wealth and snowy Vancouver is filming location.
Teen love affairs are fleeting and keeping track of who's with whom is a full time job. Watching Fred take Miss Grundy and Archie out to dinner stretches credulity to the max. Since the restrictions on using children on movie sets put severe restraints on shooting schedules all the teens in this show are adults, indeed KJ, only 20, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from one overlong shoot. He obviously isn't famous enough to date to rate his own chauffeur.
Whereas Archie and the crew by convention have remained eternally teens for 3/4 of a century their TV counterparts will graduate and move off to university breaking up their old gang and thus giving teenage high school dramas a limited shelf life. Even were this not so the adults who play these characters can only pretend to be teens for so long.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
NCIS: Season 13
It's a good thing the American Navy is the largest such service in the world. Now in its 14th year the original NCIS alone has killed off a ship load of 300 and arrested an equal number. Unlike the show JAG we rarely get to see these cases come to trial. Mark Harmon who helms the crew is no longer a matinee idol but he has finally shed the mousy hairdo. In his late eighties David McCallum as Duckie refuses to retire though he has acquired a side-kick in the person of Brian Dietzen dubbed the basement gnome by Tony who is probablly jealous after the one episode Jimmy took his shirt off. I've never liked DiNozzo who comes off as a condescending strutting peacock. He departed next season. As the Jewish Daughter of the head of Massod Ziva David was an interesting diversion. In her basement lab Abby provides comic relief as a caffeine main-lining mad scientist who performs forensic and electronic computer miracles that enable the brass to overlook her many eccentricities.
Other members of the team come and go as well as Directors and Secnavs--their political boss. Acronyms are popular here, POTUS anyone, for The Prez himself, Obama when these episodes were shot. Although the Navy obviously exists within the political arena the leanings of our cast do not come up. Shows that run to 300 episodes over multiple years in the cut-throat world of movie studios, TV Networks, and Online Streaming owe a great deal to their production team: the writers, location scouts, costume and make-up. The line-up of guest stars is tribute to the vibe on set that makes regulars want to stay and drop-ins want to visit. Ralph Waite, the former John Walton Sr as Jethro Gibbs' father was a welcome diversion, both the actor and pops have died.
A cross promotion with the less popular NCIS: New Orleans demonstrates Southern Drawls so thick they seem almost laughable. Also we get to meet Abby's brother, a chef so niave he borders on being an idiot savant.
The season ends with a rather dramatic twist but without the typical cliffhanger though in supplements we learn it got a two-year renewal.
Other members of the team come and go as well as Directors and Secnavs--their political boss. Acronyms are popular here, POTUS anyone, for The Prez himself, Obama when these episodes were shot. Although the Navy obviously exists within the political arena the leanings of our cast do not come up. Shows that run to 300 episodes over multiple years in the cut-throat world of movie studios, TV Networks, and Online Streaming owe a great deal to their production team: the writers, location scouts, costume and make-up. The line-up of guest stars is tribute to the vibe on set that makes regulars want to stay and drop-ins want to visit. Ralph Waite, the former John Walton Sr as Jethro Gibbs' father was a welcome diversion, both the actor and pops have died.
A cross promotion with the less popular NCIS: New Orleans demonstrates Southern Drawls so thick they seem almost laughable. Also we get to meet Abby's brother, a chef so niave he borders on being an idiot savant.
The season ends with a rather dramatic twist but without the typical cliffhanger though in supplements we learn it got a two-year renewal.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Supernatural Season 11
The script writers managed to work the legend of Lizzie Borden into the storyline.
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Is prayer a supernatural shopping list and do we expect God to use divine drones to deliver? Just how actively involved is god in the day to day operation of his universe or did he set the principles in motion and then sit back to let nature take its course. Is God removed from his creation or does he inhabit every part of it. Did he in fact have a hand in the big bang?
Is man god's greatest creation of his worst mistake? If Putin and Trump push their respective buttons releasing global Armageddon would God intervene? Given a crucifixion how effective has God's interference in human affairs been in the past?
Some might call it blasphemy but the TV Series Supernatural assumes that god abandoned Heaven and chaos ensued. Of course the show has angels, demons, the king of hell, and Lucifer in a cage. God is above concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. He does not have a soul. He puts in an appearance as Chuck who inhabits a night club while he writes his autobiography. His scribe criticizes his writing style but offends God when he calls him a coward. How an omnipotent being could experience cowardice begs the question.
The show does not have a monopoly on anthropomorphizing God, George Burns anyone? Man has long created god in his own imaged. Nor is evil personified a new concept. I may not believe in angels, ghosts, haunted houses, demon possession, but it fun to suspend disbelief and sit back and watch how the show confronts its issues. That the two main characters dress like hicks, guzzle beer, eat junk food, listen to crappy music while tooling around in a muscle car loaded with an arsenal is all part of the fun. How they avoid speeding tickets, get away with the arsenal, dig up graves, engage in brawls that rival ultimate battle royals, impersonate the FBI....
In the end the show is grounded by the love that exists between these two brothers. Amusing that Dean's little baby brother towers over him, and that Sammy is the nerd who specializes in high tech but we've seen hi with his shirt off though the show doesn't specialize in beefcake. And after 11 seasons Dean got to tease Sam about losing his virginity.
Spoiler Alert
In the end love conquers all though the idea that God could die.... The season ends with a cliff-hanger involving the brothers though I feel confident that the producers are not going to kill off either of their leads. But it does set us up for the plotlines for next season
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
Teen Wolf Season 5
This may be Scott's starring role but it is the friendship shared between Styles and Scott and the love between Styles and his father that grounds the show. Like so many relationships involving single parents the line between adult and child is often blurred here, the same goes for Scott and his mother. And although he is definitely part of the pack Styles is not a werewolf.
The show has gone through a considerable amount of eye-candy. The bodybuilding Carver twins who morphed into an incredible hulk have departed as has much of the old lacross team. The solid and dependable gay Danny no longer flexes in the change room and the dimpled chinned Colton Haynes whom Scott described as a pretty boy is gone.
As Deputy Parish Ryan Kelley spends more screen time flexing his naked chest than he does stretching his tightly taylored uniform. By contrast save for lifting his shirt to show off his latest wounds Tyler Perry has been keeping his clothes on.
The Cabin in the Woods
No name a5ctors, save for Hemsworth, here but two solid football jocks and their girlfriends are inexplicably joined by a roach-rolling nerd for a motorhome journey to a remote cabin in the woods. Again, no idea why the RV for a trip to a cabin. We are privy to the fact that an extensive collection of middle-aged suits run a suite of controls that activate a bevy of nightmare creatures that will haunt the vacationers. Joins an extensive catalogue of teenage horror/slasher films distinguished only by the addition of the voyeurs/horror effects co-ordinators who appear onscreen.
Endgame
He has a metaphysical discussion with his female rescuer about his inability to feel loved by another for who he is rather than the service he provides, though she dies for him. In the final scene we see that he has returned to pattern living with a sugar-daddy. It's the only thing he knows. Having been shunted from place to place as an orphan has left him with no feeling of self-worth, as he declares, his case worker paid him 50 P at 10 to service her. Being a cute boy is not necessarily an asset.
