Quarantine Movie Reviews 5: Movies I did not care for...

 Hello Readers,

I hope you are doing well despite these uncertain and often confusing times. I know I get worried and have this anxiety seemingly lingering under everything I do. I have experienced people just losing all sense of manners or common sense for instance someone I've never met before threw pebbles at me because they claimed I was slamming my closet doors. I would like to hope that in a normal non-pandemic time this would have been handled differently on their part. Either way I did not care to have pebbles thrown at me for something that I was not aware I was doing. In the end since it seems people are so free to share what they do not care for below are some movies I've seen during this pandemic that I did not care for. In alphabetical order, I hope you stay well and positive.

6 Underground (2019). Ryan's Rating ✯1/2 out of 4

This expensive Netflix movie is directed by Michael Bay and stars Ryan Reynolds as the leader of a group of "Ghosts," spy like mercenaries with special skills (sharpshooting, get away driving, gymnastics, etc.),  and they are working to prevent a military takeover in a European country. With a screenplay by the team that wrote the Deadpool movies Reynolds is pretty similar to his character there wisecracks and all, but this is a Michael Bay movie through and through so the action scenes are gargantuan and well done but the movie is long and not terribly interesting save for the action and Reynolds charism and sarcasm to carry the rest of the movie. A film scholar could also argue this is Michael Bay satirizing his own style in a way similar to Joel Silver making Fair Game back in the 90s. If you truly love Bay you'll probably like this, I found myself fast forwarding between action scenes.

The Assignment (1997) Ryan's Rating ✯✯ 

A fictionalized account of the hunt and capture of real life terrorist Carlos The Jackal. Starring Aidan Quinn as a US Naval officer who looks like Carlos and Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley as his CIA trainers/handlers. I remember when this came out it received a number of good reviews and I remember being interested because I liked Aidan Quinn. The movie did not really hold up as it plays more like a 1990s cable movie that focuses more on the day to day process of tracking Carlos rather than the action movie it seems to want to be. The three main actors give good performances but this will be one of those movies probably relegated to late night TV.

Backtrack or Catchfire (1990) Ryan's Rating ✯1/2

There are two versions of this film one a 98minute movie and the other a two hour director's cut. I saw the 98minute version. The story follows an artist (Jodie Foster) who witnesses an LA mob murder and then must flee for her life when a contract is put on her head. The mob hires a strange hitman named Milo (Dennis Hopper who also directed) to track her down but he falls in love with her and they take it on the lam. Hopper having regained some of his clout in the 1980s (after losing much of it in the 1970s) seems to be trying to make a film that takes the oddness of David Lynch's work but wrap it in a more upbeat almost comedic view. There are a number of big action sequences and also cameos from the likes of Joe Pesci, Bob Dylan, Charlie Sheen, Catherine Keener, Julie Adams, and Vincent Price among others. To be fair Hopper disowned this shorter version that had a limited release saying the studio messed up his movie. His director's cut was released on video after the success of Silence of the Lambs made Foster a box office star. So this longer version may be better but I found this short version more of a neat time capsule than anything else.

Drive (2011) Ryan's Rating ✯ 

An LA stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) moonlights as a getaway driver for anyone who is willing to pay his fee and agree to his terms. He falls for an attractive neighbor with a young son but when the woman's husband is released from prison his old criminal connections threaten the family and Gosling steps in to help which goes terribly wrong. This movie has split audiences and reviews, some love it some hate it. I didn't care for it, the cinematography is good and the big name cast brings depth to flat roles but the story or lack of story is poorly paced and the bursts of extreme violence in the second half really sunk it for me. Wants to be something along the lines of Michael Mann's Thief or Collateral but does not come close.

Killing Them Softly (2012) Ryan's Rating ✯1/2

I only watched this half way and then turned the movie off, so I can only review the first half. Set during the 2008 presidential election and economic recession a mafia protected gambling den is robbed and the mob calls in a hitman (Brad Pitt) to find who is responsible. Despite the advertising showing Pitt wielding a shotgun this is not really a gangster movie it's pace is lethargic and a number of scenes (especially those between Pitt and the late James Gandolfini) seem improvised or unedited to the point where they feel like a rehearsal for a theater production. Pitt is good in these type of character roles but he is not given very much to do in the first half, most of the time he is just listening to other people talk. Also many scenes are punctuated by a news story from 2008 featuring then Senators Obama and McCain and then President Bush and the parallel was not really clear to me in the first half anyway. Fine cast and a dark look to the film that sets the tone but left me cold.

Serenity (not related to the Joss Whedon Firefly franchise) (2019) Ryan's Rating ✯1/2 

Be warned this review contains some plot spoilers. I'm on the fence about this one it is not a good movie but I was able to watch it all the way through without losing interest. Matthew McConaughey plays Baker, a fishing boat captain on a Caribbean island, who is obsessed with catching an elusive yellowfin tuna. one day his ex-wife (a blonde Anne Hathaway in femme fatale mode) shows up on his boat and asks Baker to kill her current abusive husband. He reluctantly agrees and [SPOILER] this is where the movie pulls the rug out from under the viewer and turns into science fiction. There are a number of hints and strange happenings that suddenly make sense when this twist occurs but it is such an elaborate change I actually said, "What?" to the TV. The first half of the film is fully a film noir/neo noir picture, Hathaway's fake blonde hair is clearly a reference to the classic Double Indemnity which has similar murder plot points, then it changes to a Sci-Fi mystery like The Thirteenth Floor or Total Recall. Some of the scenes and dialogue are very awkward, even over the top, but that may be the point I don't know when it was finished I knew this was not a good movie but I was not completely sorry I watched it.

Quarantine Movie Reviews 4: Searching for Bobby Fischer, Where the Money Is, and Scorpio

 Hello dear readers, 

I hope you are doing well, three more fun reviews, two movies I enjoyed and one I did not. Check out the reviews and if they spur you check out the movie. Thank you for reading, stay safe. (movie poster images from IMDB and Wikipedia)

Searching for Bobby Fischer (released 1993) Ryan's rating ✯✯✯1/2 out of four.

Inspired by a true story, and based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Fred Waitzkin, this film tells the story of a New York City sports columnist (played by the always reliable Joe Mantegna) whose young son turns out to have a natural gift for chess. The father then finds his young son a teacher (Ben Kingsley) and begins entering the boy in competitive tournaments around the country quickly losing sight of his son and becoming fixated on winning. This is the directorial debut of master screenwriter Steven Zaillian (he wrote Awakenings and Schindler's List at this time but has gone on to write a number of other great films) he gets strong performances out of his actors and great use of NYC locations, though the beautiful look of the film is most likely thanks to legendary cinematographer Conrad Hall. The real life chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer, though name dropped in the title, really has very little to do with the movie aside from brief mentions of his career. Film critic Roger Ebert lamented that the film marketing at the time failed to make clear the movie is not a biography of Fischer. It really is an examination of how parents lose sight of being parents while living vicariously through their children and how parents can unknowingly use their children to fulfill their missed dreams. This is a must see film for any parent and a touching and very well acted story.

Where the Money Is (released 2000) Ryan's rating ✯✯ maybe two and a half...

Paul Newman plays an aging bank robber who fakes a coma to be moved from prison to a nursing home in the country in hopes of escaping custody. One of the nurses (Linda Fiorentino), who feels stuck in the dead end town, figures out his scheme and convinces him to help her rob an armored car route that runs through a number of stops in the nearby town. The film could/should have been much better, it plays more like an edgier Hallmark TV movie and no surprise that the film's director worked mainly in British television before making this film. I did enjoy the film because of Paul Newman. This was one of his last live theatrical films (he did a number of animation and narration in his final years) and he is a joy to watch. His charisma and obvious acting abilities carry the simple film, he can grin or wink and it carries more than some actors can do in an entire hour. I'm a classic movie fan so it is always nice to see one of the greats get to do what they do, I wish the overall movie was better but Newman makes it worthwhile, Fiorentino is also good as the nurse. It is interesting to note that Newman's longtime friend Robert Redford made a similar film (which was much better) in 2018, The Old Man and the Gun. If you are a Paul Newman fan this is a movie to check out especially with its short 88 minute running time.

Scorpio (released 1973) Ryan's rating ✯

This is a bad movie, it could have been good but it is not. Familiar story involves an aging spy/assassin (Burt Lancaster) who the American CIA believes is now a liability so they hire his French protege, named Scorpio (Alain Deleon), to kill him. What is set up as a thrilling chase is nothing of the sort, most of the movie focuses on office bureaucracy, the two assassins personal lives, plans of where the other may go, and faux discussions of morality. The two stars are good and it is filmed in Europe. There is a great action sequence right in the middle of the film involving a chase and fight at a construction site which is easily the highlight. Worst of all is the final showdown between the two assassins, it's a big let down especially after nearly two hours. Skip this one.

Until next time readers.

Quarantine Movie Reviews 3: Project Power, The Naked City, The Lost City of Z

Hello readers, here are a few more movie reviews for films I've seen during this pandemic. I hope you enjoy.

Project Power (released 2020) ✯✯1/2 (out of 4)

This Netflix original movie (that was on the autoplay preview right when you logged in a few months back) stars Jamie Foxx as a former soldier tracking a new street drug called POWER which gives its users super powers (the results vary by user balls of fire from their hands, super speed, healing powers, massive strength, etc) for only five minutes. He is tracking the drug to its source in order to rescue his kidnapped daughter who plays a key role in POWER's creation. Along the way Foxx teams up with a teenaged dealer (Dominique Fishback who played Darlene on HBO's excellent series The Deuce) and a New Orleans Police Officer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt in full wisecracking cop portrayal). I have to say I found the movie entertaining though if you think about any of the plot it does not make much sense and there are holes galore in the story (for instance at certain points in the film they say the drug activates something in the user and they won't know until it is taken what power they will get, then later it seems there are specific pills that have specific powers). Also the superpowers that are created are not much different than what we see in the X-Men films I've seen some reviewers bemoan that lack of newness but that didn't bother me personally. The film benefits greatly from the three stars, especially Foxx's charisma and star power (no pun intended) as well as the location of New Orleans. If it had been set in Los Angeles it would have been too similar to too many other movies. There are a number of well staged fights and a fast pace which entertained me for the two hours, just don't think too much about the story while you're watching.

The Naked City (released (released 1948) ✯✯✯

Classic documentary style film capturing basically a step by step police investigation, opening with the murder of a young woman and continuing through the capture of the suspect. Barry Fitzgerald plays the wily Irish NYPD detective on the case and he gives an excellent performance. The film is dated largely because every police television series even to this day has copied the format: show the crime, call in the detective, collect evidence, interrogate suspects, eventually find the culprit in a chase scene. This film was produced by a NYC newspaper crime columnist who wanted to create a film that captured the day to day of an investigation and what was so trend setting about the film is that it was filmed entirely on location in New York City. Though it is common place in present day movies to film on location, at the time most movies were filmed at the studios in California on elaborate sets and never setting foot on actual locations. For instance the film An American in Paris was filmed entirely on MGM studio sets where they recreated full streets and even the banks of the Seine river as opposed to flying to the actual Paris locales.  If you are interested in history this film will give you a snapshot of New York in 1948 through its black and white Oscar winning cinematography and it will also show you where all those crime shows we love so much came from.

The Lost City of Z (released 2016) ✯✯

This historical biopic tells the story of Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), a British explorer and cartographer, who made several trips to the Amazon jungle in search of a mythical city of gold. The film harkens back to 1950s adventure films like King Solomon's Mines (1950) though the historical nature of the movie makes it very episodic and ruins the grand adventure the audience is expecting. Fawcett travels to the Amazon and back to England several times over the course of the movie which makes the actual drama and difficulty of his journey far less exciting. The film is very lavish but the dark cinematography gives it a melancholy feel so when there are triumphs in Fawcett's career we do not feel them. It really should have been a grand adventure but it comes off more as a series of bland scenes. 

Quarantine Movie Reviews: Comes a Horseman, Saving Mr. Banks, 52-Pick Up

 We all have long lists of movies we've been meaning to watch, I've been catching up on films during this pandemic while staying inside. Here are three more of the films I've seen I hope you enjoy. -Ryan

Comes a Horseman (released 1978) ✯✯✯ out of four

A majestic film about the "modern" American West set in the 1940s during the waning days of WWII. Jane Fonda plays a widowed rancher struggling to keep her land and round up enough cattle to pay the bills. One day a neighboring rancher (James Caan) is found wounded and is nursed back to health by the widow. They reluctantly decide to become partners as they are the last two independent farm owners in the area, to round up a herd of cattle for sale to fend off the big land baron (Jason Robards) who wants to own the entire valley and drill for oil. The team of director Alan J. Pakula and cinematographer Gordon Willis (who previously worked on Klute and All the President's Men among others) create truly beautiful images here that are unlike anything they previously have done as a team before. They usually work in urban city environments so it makes this film all the more impressive as they capture the majesty of the mountains. plains, forests, and ominous clouds, these are truly paintings on film. The story is simple in the extreme and the film is slow paced and quiet, sometimes to the point of nothing happening except pretty images, which may lose many viewers. I was not bothered by the leisurely pace I was bothered by the heavy handed villainy of the Robards character, his performance is commanding as usual, but the script gives him very little to work with. As well the big climax seems to come from a completely different movie and almost feels tacked on, it feels out of place in the film. Overall I have been wanting to see this film for a long time and I am glad I saw if just for the beauty of the filmmaking and acting.

Saving Mr. Banks (released 2013) ✯✯1/2

This Disney historical fiction, depicts the pre-production of the studio's classic 1964 film Mary Poppins and specifically the process of convincing and securing permission from author P. L. Travers (wonderfully played by Emma Thompson) to use her characters for the film. That is the basic story but as the title implies it really is about Travers coming to terms with the long ago death of her dreamer/banker/alcoholic father (Colin Ferrell) who is the loose basis for the Poppins character Mr. Banks. There's also Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney (the person not the company) and despite his high billing he has more of a supporting role, but when he is on screen the movie really shines it's a shame he is not in more of the film. This film actually harkens back to the live action Walt Disney Pictures films of the 1980s and early 1990s, such as Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken and Never Cry Wolf, which were more adult oriented but still family entertainment though young children will probably be bored by any of these. Overall, though the whole first hour is mostly set up which makes it a little slow going since we all know where the story is headed, the period detail excellent, the actors are perfectly cast, and it is an entertaining story.

52 Pick-Up (released 1986) ✯✯

A wealthy Los Angeles inventor (Roy Scheider), whose wife (Ann-Margaret) is a candidate for public office, has an affair with a young model (Kelly Preston) and as the film begins he is blackmailed with videos of his liaisons with the young woman by three men hooded men with guns. The inventor decides to turn the tables on the blackmailers and fight back. Based on a book of the same name by Elmore Leonard (who also co-wrote the screenplay) we have the usual snappy dialogue, and the plot is good, though like some (most) of Leonard's work we spend over half the film with the sleazy villains and after a while there is no enjoyment there it just makes the viewer feel lousy, on top of that the big climax is a big let down. The blackmailers (led by John Glover at his slimy best) work in the world of low budget pornography and prostitution clubs of Sunset Strip, which features a continual abuse or degradation of women that makes the movie hard to watch (Preston's character is tortured, Ann-Margaret's character is kidnapped and then pumped full of heroin, etc). The only reason I gave it two stars is because of the strong cast and it is directed by John Frankenheimer whose excellent eye and use of LA locations bump it up a little, other than that it is a hard ride.

 

Quarantine Movie Reviews: The Organization, Fatal Beauty, and Love Letters (August 2020)

 Dear Readers,

The COVID-19 Pandemic and resultant stay at home regulations have, for better or worse, given me, like many of you the opportunity to watch a large amount of television and movies at home. Here are reviews of three of the movies I've watched, hope you enjoy!

The Organization (1971) Ryan's Rating ✯✯✯ (out of four)

Three years after the success of In the Heat of the Night Sidney Poitier reprised his role as Detective Virgil Tibbs in two back to back films, 1970s They Call Me Mister Tibbs! and this 1971 film, his third and final time playing the character. These sequels have very little to do with the original Academy Award Winning hit aside from Poitier's presence and the character being a brilliant detective. As in the previous sequel Tibbs is a San Francisco Detective with a wife and little boy (all of which is different from the original film). The convoluted story involves a robbery in which a man is murdered, a young revolutionary group contacts Tibbs says they committed the robbery but not the murder. Tibbs believes them and works to find the real culprits. I enjoy movies like this, old fashioned police investigations that are filmed on location creating a kind of time capsule. The film will probably seem dated as many police TV shows have taken these elements and used them to death but Poitier is always good to watch.

Fatal Beauty (1987) Ryan's Rating ⭐⭐ 

I first heard of this movie when I was in elementary school. During summer break I would stay with my grandparents during the day because both my parents worked. Every Thursday afternoon around 4:30pm (Hawaii time) TBS would show a movie, sometimes part of the "Dinner and a Movie" series other times just a Thursday night movie, the films were usually from the 1970s and 1980s and usually action or thriller movies. My parents would always arrive to pick me up at around 5pm, so I would inevitably only see about thirty minutes of any film. I remember being very drawn to the beginning of this movie but never saw the whole movie until now.

Whoopi Goldberg plays LAPD detective Rita Rizzoli, working to bust a drug ring. She drives a pink 1960s Mustang convertible, wears bright colored 1980s clothes, has a silver Beretta she carries in a shoulder holster. Also Sam Elliott is here as a mercenary with a lot of cool guns who is hired to kill Rizzoli but ends up falling in love with her. I can see why my childhood self was excited about this movie, my adult self is less enthralled. The movie shifts in tone from an action comedy in the Beverly Hills Cop mode, to violent starring vehicle closer to Sudden Impact or Cobra, along the way tries to put in some anti-drug drama, most of which plays like an after school special. Through all the style shifts Goldberg is very good and could have done more police action films if they had come her way.

Love Letters (1983) ✯✯1/2

A low budget drama that I first caught in high school on one of those movie channels like Flix, but again never saw the whole film until now. Jamie Lee Curtis (in her first non-horror starring theatrical film) plays a young Los Angeles public radio host who discovers a box of love letters from her recently deceased mother. The letters detail an extramarital affair between her married mother and a married older man, this then coincides with Curtis having her own affair with an older married man who is one of the sponsors the radio station (played by James Keach). The film sometimes feels like a repertory theatre company performing original work that is not quite finished, the acting is natural and strong but sometimes falls into melodrama and the script sometimes meanders. Curtis though is excellent in the lead and one can see why she became a big star. Writer/director Amy Holden Jones would go on to write such popular films as Mystic Pizza, Maid to Order, and Beethoven as well as creating the recent TV series The Resident.

That's all for now I've been watching a lot of movies so I hope to be back soon with more reviews.

Spenser Confidential, rebirth of the hero

Spenser (his first name is never revealed) first appeared on bookshelves in 1973's The Godwulf Manuscript written by Robert B. Parker and starred in forty more books before Parker's death in 2010.

The book series gave way to the TV series Spenser for Hire (1985-1988) with the perfectly cast Robert Urich and Avery Brooks as Spenser and Hawk.  That was followed by four lifetime TV movies in the mid 1990s.

Joe Mantenga starred in three A&E TV movies and also performed several series audio books in the early 2000s.  With the passing of Parker author Ace Atkins took over writing the novels in 2012.

Fans of those previous incarnations of the character (like myself) will find a very different Spenser in the new  Mark Wahlberg movie Spenser Confidential which premiered this past Friday on Netflix.  While much has changed there will be a number of familiar elements for longtime fans.

In this new film directed by frequent Wahlberg collaborator Peter Berg (Patriot's Day, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) we find Spenser as a former Boston patrol officer sentenced to a five year prison term for beating up corrupt police Captain Boylan (Michael Gaston).  Upon his release, Spenser is taken in by his old boxing coach Henry Cimoli (a perfectly cast Alan Arkin in the one character taken unaltered from the books) and becomes roommates with aspiring MMA fighter Hawk (Winston Duke).  All Spenser wants is to get his truckers license and move to Arizona to start his own shipping business, yet fate intervenes when Captain Boylan is brutally murdered and an old friend of Spenser's is framed for the crime.  It's time to put those old detective skills to use to clear a friend and stop the bad guys.

Loosely based on Ace Atkin's 2013 novel Spenser: Wonderland the adaptation is written by newcomer Sean O'Keefe and Oscar Winner Brian Helgeland (he also wrote screenplays for the adaptations of LA Confidential, Blood Work, and Mystic River).  The film is entertaining and fast paced, director Berg knows how to stage a fight scene, and is really modeled on the thriller/mystery starring-vehicles of the 1980s and 1990s like Stallone's Cobra, Arnold's Red Heat, Bruce Willis's Striking Distance, and Clint Eastwood's Tightrope to name a few.  It is the kind of movie where a character gets stabbed in the ribs with a shive, then he puts a Band-Aid over the wound and it's like it never happened.

Wahlberg's Spenser is truly a Boston everyman no longer a professional private eye (originally inspired by Chandler's Phillip Marlowe) he is closer to the characters Wahlberg has played in The Fighter and Four Brothers. Retained from the books and previous TV incarnations he is a former boxer with an Arthurian moral code for doing what he believes is right.  Here Spenser is still finding his way whereas in the books he arrived fully formed and changed very little through the years.

Winston Duke's Hawk is a completely new incarnation no longer the ultra smooth fine silk wearing mercenary, here he is a up and coming MMA fighter being trained by Spenser and Henry.  The son of murdered community activists he enjoys organic salads and oat milk and has Spenser's moral code for helping the helpless.

It would be remiss if I did not mention Iliza Shlesinger's scene steaming turn as Cissy, Spenser's former/current girlfriend. Gone is the stuffy psychologist Susan Silverman, in her place is the hard talking take no prisoners small business owner who can argue as well as Spenser can punch.

I hope they make more of these films, as a longtime fan of Spenser.  Parker's novels were what really got me into loving books and pleasure reading, I was a late bloomer in that respect as it was not till the early 2000s when I began gravitating toward traditional novels.  Spenser and Hawk are like old friends that make right what once was wrong and life is just a bit better with Spenser around.