So from what I've heard, the last movie takes what's basically the final few chapters of a children's book, bloats it into two-and-a-half hours of fighting and cheesy one-liners? This is going to be interesting!
I've just watched The Last King of Scotland. What a fantastic film! It's seriously good, I recommend it to anyone. Especially those interested in modern African history.
Recently read The Hobbit to see how it compared. The beginning of the first movie is fairly accurate. Just about all the scenes from the book are in the movies, except they change so much about every part, for their own nefarious money making reasons, ugh. It would have been such a good single film. All if it packed into one movie would have been easier, more satisfactory, closer to the artist vision, and packed literally the most interesting parts of all three movies into one.
I put a library request in for it. Idi Amin is quite the character study. It sounds interesting. Interstellar: Average. Worth watching, but don't expect to be wowed. Imitation Game: Excellent! Wild: I got a tad bored with it. It's one of those movies that probably appeals to a certain audience niche. Spoiler: Wild I found parts of it less than credible. Reese runs into dangerous men while hiking the wilderness alone. I can't see continuing alone on your trip after the first time that happened. And her toenails come off because her shoes are too tight. I've never once heard of that happening and I've been backpacking for decades. Blisters, sure. Mandatory to carry toenail clippers, yep. But toenails coming off? Weird. At the beginning her pack is so heavy she can barely lift it. That's realistic you always take too much stuff until you get more experience. But she wouldn't have made it five miles with a pack that heavy. Then as she flashes back over her life, she'd been a junkie. That wasn't very credible given how healthy she was when this trip started. She'd have had to have been years past her drug days and that didn't fit the timeline. I think they tried too hard to make the trip meaningful.
I love The Last King of Scotland. It's absolutely terrific! We have a copy here and we've seen it a lot. Forest Whitaker deserved his Oscar and the other awards he received for his performance. I kinda hate Interstellar. Bland, boring, too long, sterile, etc. The score is good, though. The Imitation Game is excellent, but it plays a bit fast and loose with the facts. The acting is great, but the script is needlessly complicated, with its flashbacks, flashforwards, flashsidewayses, etc. But story of Alan Turing is fascinating.
I loved it! Cried all the way through! I actually kinda hate McConaughey but he was soooo good in this role! Hat's off. Ann Hathaway was a bit bland though.
It made me want to go sit through Solar (1973), but then I didn't. All that time shifting didn't add up, nor the bookcase in space, nor Michael Caine as the daddy. Surfing was good, and so was the drone - with the little rat pilot from India.
The first Superman vs. Batman teaser trailer just came out, but seems a little too much CGI to me. But anyway, Avengers next month! Looking forward to it.
I have a 4-year lag (approximately) when it comes to movies. Just watched Bridesmaids yesterday, and it wasn't half-bad. The amount of passive aggression among the characters actually made me queasy, but I did laugh pretty hard a few times. I don't know if overweight actors and actresses are nowadays used as the comedic relief like blacks in the '80s or thereabouts... The jokes are funny, can't deny that, but I felt like the heavier actors were somewhat typecast. I was also a bit thrown that there was an Irish cop in Wisconsin, but, why not, I guess.
Watched the update to Flowers in the Attic. Though they tried to juice it up by including the incest it was a bore and miscast. And even the incest was mishandled. Heather Graham as the mother was all stepford wife smiles, or blurry tears but just too real to be the calculating witch I remember from the book. It's as if they wanted to humanize her. She didn't need to be human she was greedy, selfish, and manipulative. Some of those things do suck the humanity out of a person. *spoiler * when Heather Graham shows up to tell the children that so-and-so has died her eyes are blobbing with tears as though she is genuinely unhappy and horror stricken. It doesn't work. When Catherine Hicks delivered the same information ( in the 80's version ) she is quiet, almost muted, numb and aloof. It works. That's the character - affected but not really. Also the update took itself so seriously ( as if they're recalling the nowadays events of real people being locked in homes for years ) they're forgetting the gothic overtones and the cheese of the initial story. The 80's version understood this. They included the adult voice over, the slow motion fall of Cathy's music box, the over-the-top scream when she learns of her fathers death, the uncoiling of a whip, and the black swish of the grandmother's skirt when she leaves the room. The update focused on being faithful to details not tone.
Every time army attempts a coup like in Burundi I wonder are we seeing a rise of a new Idi Amin. I saw Killing Fields couple days ago. Not as good (music was really not fitting) but important movie. If somebody makes a movie about Boko Haram in the future it might have some similarities.
I tend to gravitate towards older films, 80s & 90s, although some recent works have kept me engrossed. A few of my favorite films are indeed "Stand By Me" & "White Squall." "Vanilla Sky", the 2001 adaption by Cameron Crowe starring Tom Cruise is also one of my favorites. Then there's "Prisoners" starring Hugh Jackman & Jake Gyllenaal which came out back in 2013 and was one of the most gripping thrillers I have ever seen. Here's a story for ya... Guzikowski began writing the script for Prisoners in 2007, and completed the final draft in 2009.[1] Before the film entered production, Guzikowski's script won several screenwriting competitions and was listed on The Black List, a survey of the most popular unproduced screenplays in circulation in Hollywood. After he sold the script to Alcon Entertainment, the project became stuck in development hell for a number of years as various directors and cast members including Bryan Singer, Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio, signed on only to drop out later. The final film, directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, was released in 2013, almost six years after Guzikowski had completed the script.[2] I breezed through the script for "Prisoners" in 40 minutes, literally. It was that good. Other favorites of mine would be "Point Break," "The Lost Boys," "The Crow," "Legends of the Fall," and of course... "The Shawshank Redemption."
Recently watched "Midnight in Paris" and "The Judge." The former was an uplifting film (although I don't condone infidelity) and the later was a tearjerker but ultimately satisfying. Two great movies.
I just saw Selma on DVD. I was expecting a high school textbook version, but it was actually good. David Oyelowo was great as MLK.
