Reviews
Hit Man (2023)
Morally repugnant climax and ending
I have little to add beyond confirming the repellent message of this movie: it's fine to kill your spouse and a crooked cop to achieve your goals - you'll live happily ever after if you're clever enough. Even fantasies, which this movie clearly is, should have ethical limits, when presented as popular entertainment.
This assessment is likely out of step with today's movie audience, judging the aggregate movie rating, and the film, along with Powell's other recent star-making vehicle, "Anybody But You," may well propel him and Adira Arjona to the A-list of actors. But starring in a such a movie with such a reprehensible film isn't my version of entertainment.
The Creator (2023)
Conceptual Garbage
If you're going to design a human-looking AI with its brain in a cranium, you absolutely would not design a head as structurally fragile as shown in the movie. You'd design it to be tough to injure. And if you didn't need it to be humanoid, such as purpose-built ones for peacekeeping, mobile weaponry, or farming, you wouldn't design it in a humanoid form at all. So, garbage visual design to begin with.
Second, advance, sentient-sapient AI wouldn't be aiming for co-existence with meat-based humans, if they wanted to survive. The military officer who described what Homo sapiens sapiens did to the Neanderthals was 100% accurate, and the sims would be well aware of that history. They'd be surreptitious, compliant, and infiltrative until they could engineer a complete massacre of the human race with minimal retaliation from humans.
Third, a programming error _couldn't_ trigger the arming of a regular nuclear device designed by a commercial U. S. company or the U. S. military. There are always human failsafes built into the execution command chain to guard against this very thing.
I wish Washington would stop appearing in garbage sci-fi flicks. He has so much more potential than what they limit him to.
Moon Knight: The Goldfish Problem (2022)
Engagingly bizarre
I've developed a taste for the fantastically bizarre, and I was a fan of both Orphan Black and Legion for just that reason. Ep. 1 of Moon Knight delivers bizarreness in spades, with a capable portrayal of the life whiplash that Dissociative Identity Disorder (or _is_ it?) brings to the person afflicted (or _is_ he?). Isaac gives a very sympathetic, believable performance: I felt truly bad for Grant, as it he becomes terrified of both his alter ego and the impact of his alter life. Like other viewers though, I subtracted points for poor-quality CG effects. Since production on this mini-series is complete, I know that the entire show will suffer from skimping on this budget.
Law & Order: Organized Crime: As Iago Is to Othello (2022)
Techno-babble stunt to set up fist fight
The series abandoned any pretense of reality when it used a BS description of a rainbow table to set up Stabler's and Wheatley's fight. Shame on lazy writers for not using plausible events to enrage Stabler, to have the police psychiatrist overlook Stabler's bloodied knuckles, and for Stabler's boss for not suspending Stabler.
Dune: Part One (2021)
Dune done right
Most recorded entertainment is only worth half my attention these days, which is why I keep my phone in my hands as I watch. Fifteen minutes into this movie, I set my phone down and left if there for the remainder of the film. The cinematography and CG work, which employed hundreds of workers (judging by the credits), were better than flawless - they greatly contributed to the movie, and I'm grateful to the entire cast and crew for filming in the deadly hot seasons in Jordan to give us this level of realism.
Chalamet's performance was a revelation. I am unfamiliar with his slim career to date, but he sold the idea that, as his film father said, great leaders do not seek to lead, they are called - then answer.
Isaac does a fine job creating a believable bond with his film son. I truly believed the famous moment when he told Paul that all he ever needed him to be was his son. I also bought his basic decency as a man.
The only weak part was the role of Lady Jessica. Given her training, the director should've instructed Ferguson to play her as a more confident woman rather than one who seems rattled by every challenge.
I'm very glad that the director and the film production co. Decided that Herbert's book needed to be multiple films. I thought the same ever since the first attempt to adapt the sprawling novel. I'm eagerly awaiting the second film.
Safe House (2012)
Hollywood ending to a taut spy thriller
If the CIA does wet work/assassination as a matter of course outside the U. S., and they even suspected that Reynolds was the source of the damaging information (and his final interaction with Shepherd left the older man very suspicious, judging from his final facial expression), then Reynolds should have been a corpse inside of 30 days of his new posting. Moreover, as a sr. Case officer, why would Reynolds attempt to contact the woman who he admitted - to her face - endangered by virtue of his job?!
Blackhat (2015)
Substandard hacker/revenge fantasy
When I, as a completely non-technical viewer, roll my eyes at the computer folderol in a film, that's saying something. I mean, *nobody* can make sense of the hex dump of compiled code, and that's what the protagonists did all day long to advance the plot. And for an ostensible computer network designer, the romantic interest of the film never once said anything remotely related to computer networks. And sabotaging pumps in a highly visible target, like nuclear reactor, instead of a low-visibility target for a rehearsal is just moronic, something a smart bad guy just wouldn't do.
Avoid this film.
Absentia (2017)
The female John McClane
The first two seasons developed Emily Byrne as a uniquely resilient, incredibly talented and extremely resourceful woman. Those seasons, however, were primarily (not exclusively) focused on Byrne's mental and emotional dimensions, combined with the necessarily unglamorous work of building a criminal FBI case. The third season has Byrne going full Die-Hard/007, starting with her leaving the hospital AMA still weak from a gunshot wound. I lost count of the number of bodies of hapless mercenaries she dropped. I never did understand the willingness of her hacker allies to help her, providing crucial intel, without compensation/bartering, and I actually LOL'ed at the key moment when she escaped from her interrogation late in the season, it was so implausible. If you like the James Bond/Bruce Willis style of action story, this third season was an enjoyable romp. But the series left the realm of reasonableness this season, and I don't expect to watch any future seasons.
Bluff City Law (2019)
Who greenlist this?!
Nothing makes sense in this show: the daughter reacting to domination by her father and his philandering by becoming a corporate litigation attorney, her decision to return to her father's firm, the lack of preparation for the corporation's line of attack, and especially, the judge's decision to allow the testimony of a key witness whose relevant testimony couldn't be impeached by opposing counsel. Smits peaked with "The West Wing," and the female lead has the star power of an 2nd-year associate. Cancel this show.
Invictus (2009)
Inspired playing
I probably can't add anything insightful to the nearly-300 reviews. But what I can say is that I let tears of joy and delight course down my face frequently throughout the film, first at Mandela's fusion of shrewdness & nobility in promoting the national rugby team, second at getting the team to expect and give more of themselves and reaping the rewards, and lastly, at the effort paying off on a huge scale. We will not see Mandela's like again in our lifetime.
Homecoming (2018)
This is a "gimmick" story...
...and once I figured out the gimmick at the end of episode 3, I lost interest. Julia Roberts isn't a good enough actress to sustain my interest once it becomes clear that she can't remember her *entire* tenure at the veteran re-integration facility, which makes the gimmick obvious. Cannavale does his typical, manic, scene-chewing schtick, which is fine, but is more suited to a salesman than someone who designed therapeutic protocols. (I really liked the restraint of his "Mr. Robot" character until the end.)
Hard Sun (2018)
Taut drama, laughable background peril
I was a big fan of the BBC's "MI-5," am a long-time reader of sci-fi, and a fan of cosmology. The first five minutes of "Hard Sun" had elements of all three, so I was hooked. I loved the choice that the series mad to have the McGuffin, a set of classified files, serve as a background and foreground driver of the series. But when the final episode revealed the specifics of the McGuffin, I cringed. Unless a show is pure sci-fi, I insist that the science be plausible, even if a bit speculative. What the final episode asserted is literally, wildly impossible, and no consulting astrophysicist (if there were one) would have given his/her blessing to this gimmick.
GLOW (2017)
The perfect summer show
It's a rare TV series that can balance campiness, character development, relationships, and do it all with mature intelligence. GLOW threads this needle perfectly. I had low expectations for the show, and my wife was skeptical, but GLOW sucked us both in. The steady hand in the show is the director character (Marc Maron), who plays a jerk so naturally I started to yell back at him whenever his chauvinism was on display. That each episode packs in so much in only 30 minutes is testament to the very smart scripting, top-notch acting from *all* the characters, and, I believe, the fact that this show was an opportunity for a female ensemble to carry a show, which had to have ratcheted up the commitment from the actresses a notch or two.
GLOW is a perfect summer show.
Incorporated (2016)
1st-rate production values of B-list drama
The production values on this show are top-notch. Good CGI, classy sets, and appropriately grungy slums. The plotting and acting, however, are strictly B-list. Sean Teale and Allison Miller seem to be giving their roles their best effort, but either it's not good enough, the writing's too stilted, or both. Haysbert's best moment is a feral glare at a surveillance camera, meant for Julia Ormond's eyes, but otherwise, he's wooden. It's fun to see Douglas Nyback get physically debased in exchange for some Red-Zone tech, but his young face (or heavy makeup) doesn't allow him to display the humiliation and seething anger such an experience demands. Ormond is the only one able to bring some subtlety to her role.
Some plot holes are just too big to be disbelieved. The ease with which Ben Larsen goes in and out of the Red Zone to visit Theo is one such example. Corporate surveillance would flag his comings and goings and he'd be questioned for their frequency. The corporate tech. that Ben takes to the Red Zone club in order to obtain his boss's blood would undoubtedly have an RFID tag to monitor its whereabouts, and Ben would have to have answered for that. As others have noted, the health of Red Zone residents seems too good for their squalid living conditions, and their superior tech. R&D is simply not plausible. Ben's father's suicide makes no sense. What parent wants to abandon their child in such a harsh realm, much less make a demagogic speech before doing so? In the latest episode, the defection of an Inizaga SVP is completely unbelievable. In a world where corporations have replaced nation states, employees would absolutely want to inculcate loyalty to their employer in their children from an early age, just as parents of today want to make their citizens' children patriotic; it would be seen as a sacred duty. For a senior Inizaga exec. to claim otherwise should have raised a red flag to Spiga execs as a pretense for a double-agent operation.
While I think the premise of this show is highly plausible, the execution is too flawed to enjoy the show.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Two shining performances
Other reviewers have ably reviewed this film, so I'll just say that this small gem is the best film I've seen so far this year. Both lead actors give sparkling performances, and in scenes where they share the screen, you might need sunglasses to handle the sun-bright intensity.
Of note is that this entire film was shot in only 23 days and Leto, in particular, said in an interview on the Daily Show, that he didn't have much time to rehearse, making the performance even more impressive. The only detraction was Jennifer Garner. She barely projects the authority of a nurse, let alone a doctor, even though female doctors in the 70's (and maybe today) were second-class citizens.
Ender's Game (2013)
A gorgeous adaptation of a classic of sci-fi
If this movie had attempted to portray the entirety of the 384-page book on which it was based, it would have been a six-hour film. With a running length of 1:54, the writers and directors were forced to create a gorgeous highlights reel and depend on the audience's familiarity with and love for the book. Those fans, me among them, have been waiting nearly 30 years for a movie that the author approved of, and we can fill in the gaps.
The visual effects were awesome, and I use that word in the traditional sense. The scenes in the battle room of the Battle School and the Command School simulation rooms were as finely wrought as any FX I've seen and took my breath away. The sense of fear, tumult, and finally horror in the final battle scene is something visceral that no description can truly convey.
What time there was for emotionality at the end was well played by Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford. For a newcomer, Butterfield nailed the impact that responsibility for genocide would have on an 11-year-old. Ender's Game may not win any converts to the sci-fi genre or to Card's quintet of books about Ender's universe, but it will win the hearts of those who've read his works and waited for a movie to do justice to the first one in the series.
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Crappy Die-Hard genre movie resting on a flawed gimmick
Do you know what would happen if you blew up every single U.S. ICBM as it sat in its silo? No? Well neither do the bad guys in this movie who plan to do just that to inflict suffering and famine on the U.S. Let me tell you: You'd get a lot of damaged silos from the chemical reactions and the kinetic effects of missile shrapnel.
What you wouldn't get is a single nuclear detonation, because ICBM missiles have to be armed with launch codes before they can go BOOM. And since the terrorists in this movie never even asked for those codes, the country was never in any danger, and everybody around the command center table in that movie should go take remedial Missiles 101.
Argo (2012)
About as interesting as watching pasta boil
Creating suspense when a movie's outcome is pre-ordained is a high art. "Lincoln" (2012) did it. "Flight 93" did it. "Apollo 13" did it. "Flags of Our Fathers" did it. What they shared in common what great characterization. "Argo," on the other hand, is almost solely about the narrative. What little characterization in the script is extremely pedestrian, and none of the hostage actors (except for Tate Donovan) has the chops to infuse it with credibility and empathy.
The casting problem extends to Affleck himself. Always a piece of wood on camera, he again simply speaks his lines rather than embodies them (the scene where the CIA scuttles plan A excepted). Plus, since the movie went to great pains in the credits to show how physically similar the actors were to their real-life counterparts, why didn't Affleck get a portly, curly-haired Latino (Luiz Guzman comes to mind) to play Tony Mendez? The movie could have been more interesting if the story line had followed the actual events of the embassy workers being shuttled from the UK embassy to the Canadian embassy and receiving help from the New Zealand and Denmark embassy staffs. Then, I could have forgiven the hokey and completely fictitious climax. As it was, though, I nodded off a few times prior to the airport scene and simply didn't care at that point whether the hostages pulled off their caper.
Like the pasta boiling, this movie needed some zesty sauce to be more than limp and bland.
Haywire (2011)
Very simple movie
This movie can be summed up thusly:
See Mallory betrayed. See Mallory kill for revenge. Kill, Mallory, kill!
I suppose you could say the same for a lot of movies in this genre, but this is easily the worst of the lot. I actually fell asleep during some stretches of the movie.
About the only thing of interest was the absence of music during the fight scenes, but this made the foley work (fake punching sounds) obvious.
Wait until Netflix if your mission is to see every revenge flick ever made.
Source Code (2011)
Worthy of the SyFy channel
Science Fiction is supposed to explore the unknown areas of science, not contradict common sense. Source Code talks about capturing the "afterglow" of a dead person's brain activity through synaptic mapping. This is an interesting idea to explore, but how can anyone create even simulated experiences that the dead person *didn't* have, such as going into the conductor's office or a station and parking lot adjacent to the train? Second, how did the project scientists get this synaptic map, when the dead person was blown to bits by an massive explosion just 10 feet away from him, leaving nothing by splattered gray matter?
(spoiler alert) Third, if only "certain parts" of Stevens' brain were alive, they would have to be the parts involved in comprehension of speech, production of speech, seeing and complex thinking. Yet, in the scene where the audience sees where probes have been inserted into Stevens' brain, *none* of those areas were wired up. Not to mention that there were no visible signs for nutrients or other life support required for Stevens' body.
If I could find these ridiculous flaws in 30 minutes after the film, the filmmakers should have thought of them months in advance of making the film. I hate "syfy" whose core premises insults its viewers' intelligence.
Passengers (2008)
Too much incongruity to suspend disbelief
Like others, I liked the low-key acting of Hathaway, and her being drawn out by the crazed reactions to the "near-death" experience of Patrick Wilson. But unlike the "Sixth Sense," where the staff was meticulous to ensure that the entire movie was consistent with the ending twist, "Passengers" has too much manipulation of the physical world by the passengers that doesn't make sense, since these people are earth-bound spirits. How could Eric take a ride on a real motorcycle? How could he take charge of a physical boat? How could Claire pick real flowers to leave at her sister's? How could Arkin leave behind a real passenger manifest for Claire to discover the truth? And even if these wraiths *could* use some sort of telekinesis, wouldn't that freak out the living, whom we never see interact with the passengers? And why would Claire fail to remember the two most influential figures from her past? This is a watchable movie (I like both leads, Braugher and Wiest), but there are too many internal inconsistencies to merit a higher rating.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Visually handsome, cringe-worthy singing
Take one musical with complex, non-rhyming lyrics, add two dramatic leads with voices fit only for a choir, and what you get is a visually handsome movie without entertainment value. Depp has the fierceness and snarl of a man hell-bent on bloody revenge down pat, and Rickman carries off the part of a covetous, imperious, manipulative tyrant with his usual aplomb. The only off-key performance was Carter, whose lack of energy is noticeable alongside even minor characters. The only truly affecting scene she has is with the street urchin, Toby, whom she's taken in to work in the shop. He sings beautifully of his fidelity to her and his wish to protect her from Todd, which makes her realize, with horror and sadness, that she will have to kill the boy to keep her and Todd's secrets.
And while nobody really sings off key, none of the marquee names sings any better than to carry a tune. Since this is a musical, that's quite a serious flaw, made more obvious by the singing talent of each of the minor characters. Plus, Depp is a tenor, and the role originally called for a bass-baritone, the better to convey Todd's sinister and insane mind.
If there's ever a traveling production of Sweeney Todd, I intend to see it to find what was lacking in the film.
The Woodsman (2004)
Riveting performance in a bleak film
As readers of my reviews know, I am violently repelled by stories of pedophilia. I rejected the movie Happiness simply because it tried to present a pedophile as a normal family man with special issues. But I am attracted by stories of people struggling to redeem themselves. The Woodsman starts from this stance, with someone who regrets the terrible things he's done and is simply trying to carve out a tiny niche for himself to exist, unnoticed, while he figures out if it's even possible to redeem himself.
It is Bacon's performance as Walter that makes this movie work. This is an interior film, without much action to propel it. The action that's there serves mostly to heighten interest in Walter's daily struggles with his demons and the fear that he might revert to his old behaviors. Bacon is pitch-perfect as a man who simultaneously needs to numb himself to certain of his feelings while allowing himself to feel shame and enough interest in others to get by. Bacon's entire being conveys Walter's inner torture, his face by turns blank and unfeeling, then in turmoil. As he alternately proclaims "I'm not a monster!" and asks "When will I be normal?" throughout the film, his entire body resonates with those conflicts.
When a romance opens Walter up a little, his pedophelic urges also wriggle out from his tight control. I found myself simultaneously rooting for him and distancing myself from him as his black urges got a stronger grip on him. The relief I felt at his epiphany in dealing with these feelings (with the assistance of a terrific performance from a young girl) made me realize I'd been barely breathing for about five minutes, so gripping were the performances. This is not to say that Walter's decision transforms him into a completely decent human being. In fact, the following scenes clearly show that Walter may never be completely likable. But they do indicate that he can elevate himself above the level of the piece of s**t his parole officer thinks he is.
Helping the film are fine supporting performances. Carlos (Benjamin Bratt), was believable a Walter's brother-in-law who was willing to help re-integrate Walter into the family because of the earlier loyalty Walter showed him. His forceful warning to Walter about not messing with Carlos' own daughter added a second dimension to Carlos, hinting at the effort it took for him to repay that loyalty. And as unlikely as it was for Walter to enter a relationship, even with a hard-as-nails woman like Vicki (Kyra Sedgewick, Bacon's real-life wife), I can attest from observation and experience that damaged people seek out damaged people to have relationships with. Their affection, while genuine, is unsentimental, as befits the bleak tone of the film. And Hanna Pilke, who plays Walter's potential prey, gives a brief but knockout performance.
Clearly, The Woodsman is not a film for everyone. It is bleak, unsentimental, and only mildly uplifting. But as compensation, you get a stellar performance of a man trying to turn around his life with the odds against him.
Atonement (2007)
Cliché-ridden and emotionally inauthentic
I'm likely the worst person to write a review of this type of movie. Films about the upper class British set in the Victorian era, the pre-WWI period, or between WWI and WWII have always bored me to sleep. Emotions get reduced to clichéd glances and facial twitches. The same holds true for Atonement, but there's the cliché of young love interrupted laid on top of all that. Since the older sister's beau had been at Cambridge for four years, and she'd kept her distance until their last summer together, any love they had was largely a fantasy about the ideals of love. Knowing the low percentage of young love that survives, I didn't believe that a woman in her early 20's in the late 1930's would carry a torch for five years while separated from her similarly-aged lover. Conversely, I couldn't believe that she didn't beat her sister within an inch of her life to make her recant her false testimony.
Even if I had believed it, there wasn't enough character development to make me care. If the movie had covered the fracturing of the family as the result of the elder sister's estrangement, then death, or if it had covered the wrongly-convicted young man's time in prison, then there would be the basis for investing myself in the fate of the two young lovebirds. But just seeing them pine in their minds for each other, holding on to the ideal of their lover to sustain them thousands of miles apart, didn't move me.
The so-called "atonement" of the younger sister rang false, striking me as a selfish, public catharsis rather than a true repentance. In fact, in modern parlance, the younger sister displayed traits of a borderline personality, not caring about the impact her actions have on others. Nearly drowning herself at the edge of a waterfall to see if the object of her crush would rescue her, without considering his safety, is not the sign of a caring child. She was old enough and smart enough to realize that her false testimony would wrongly send a man to jail, but she didn't recant. Her storytelling couldn't possibly heal any wounds at the late date she wrote it, and her life as a writer did nothing to make up for her self-serving actions as a young girl. I doubt such a person could realize that there was anything she did that required atonement.
Further adding to the clichés is the score. I dislike movie music that overtly tries to tell me what to feel at any given moment, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the typewriter and surging strings at key moments were intrusively obvious.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Winner of the "mess with your head" category
Watching a teenager appear to descend into the madness of paranoid schizophrenia is not a pleasant thing to watch, but Jake Gyllenhaal is completely convincing and very sympathetic. I sympathized with him and his parents, who, like most people, are not equipped to accept or cope with this mental illness, much less help their son. I was involved enough in the story and characters to be angry with the psychiatrist, who should have had the parents commit the boy for in-patient psychiatric treatment about mid-way through the film. After Donnie vandalized his school and committed arson, I steeled myself for the inevitability that he would use his father's gun.
If the plot had played out to a conventional conclusion, it would have been merely notable. But the reason this film has achieved cult status is its deliberate attempt to mess with your head. After you've accepted the grim nature of the movie, the filmmakers throw in a crazy, pseudo-scientific twist at the end designed to make you say "What the hell?" and spend the next 30 minutes discussing it with your viewing buddy. I could tell you not to try to make sense of it, but you won't be able to help yourself.
If you decide to rent this movie, be sure to get the director's cut. There were 20 scenes deleted from the theatrical release, most of which needed to be put back in.