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donallenbraymer
Reviews
Nope (2022)
Sub-standard fare
Yes there are some semi-spoilers in this review. But I will separate the review at the appropriate point.
Any sci-fi horror picture has to meet a criterion that the monster has to be scientifically credible.
The reason that "Alien" was a massive hit with successful sequels is that the alien is believable. We are all taught about caterpillars turning into butterflies, the butterflies mate and create little piles of eggs, and the eggs become caterpillars. There is no telling what and egg grouping found in deep space, where the eggs are the size of 20 pound turkeys, would turn into.
Spoilers below
Despite various interesting personalities being portrayed in interesting manners, despite a pretty good job of bringing mounting tension to the screen, the monster is laughably portrayed, and scientifically, shall we say quite implausible.
Considerable screen time is spent displaying that wherever the monster appears, electrical machinery fails. This implies some sort of electromagnetic field, being generated by massive machinery. Electromagnetic pulse weaponry comes to mind. But then the monster turns out to be eating animals and humans. There is blood all over the place. The apparent intestines of the creature would make any decent b movie producer blush. The creature then goes into some form of metamorphosis, and ends up eating a hot air balloon, and the balloon explodes. There, now I have spoiled it for you. But no, the director did that when they completed the director's cut!
To Catch a Thief (1955)
Multiple rating categories?
We just got this out so that we wouldn't have to watch reality.
I won't bother with all the typical stuff. This movie is a masterpiece of sorts. Kinda like Da Vinci sent a home made birthday card to his daughter or something.
Very high production values, cinematography, and a script to die for. Actually a very sparse amount of dialogue. Virtually every word necessary and well selected.
Yes, Hitchcock made other more riveting movies. But I think you must consider what the director was aiming at, and what he hit. Assuming that Hitchcock was attempting to provide an entertaining escape, this is 10/10. As a thriller/mystery, 8/10.
If you are a lucky youngster, who has never seen this, make it a date night! This movie is to romantic thrillers as Psycho is madman/horror.
Very interesting to look at what a master artist can create, back in an age where they let the artist work. Watch the movie, and then ask yourself, what would you have paid to go to the final cast party after the movie was a wrap?
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Surprisingly deeper into a taboo subject
On the periphery of the Bourne films was always a series of questions concerning exactly what did the government do to create these stronger, faster, feel no pain agents?
The Bourne Legacy attacks this question with a remarkably entertaining and thoughtful exposition. We have a well-acted and revealing semi romance between an agent who was marked for "deactivation", and a scientific researcher into gene modification via viral implant.
This may well be a case of life imitating art in the end, as we are all unfortunately aware that diseases can be created by gene altering laboratory procedures. Why not viruses that enhance speed and strength?
This remarkable intertwining of a thought-provoking technical subject with our two heroes on the run, proved to me to be irresistible.
I have rewatched portions of this movie several times. The idea of a beautiful but emotionally distant female scientist running headfirst into the results of her "frankensonian" project creation is well, classic.
Everything is very well done, the film editing, I thought was very dramatic. Our stars do not look like movie stars most of the time, they look like two people on the run forced to help one another.
The final line of this movie is to me one of those unique cinematic one-offs that will send you off into the wonder that movies can create.
Unforgiven (1992)
Masterpiece
First of all, hooray for the IMDB user reviews. I have come to reading these reviews in order to add to my viewing pleasure whenever a movie is notably good or bad in a good way. As a group read, these reviews regularly add some new point of view or background detail.
I am hesitant to review this movie, as I fear my wit, vocabulary or intellect might not be powerful enough to give this film a proper analysis.
Westerns are not westerns just because of the location. The scarcity of people and societal structure gives rise to disputes being settled personally. The history of the events then often being written considering the victors who have often actually been the perpetrators of murderous or gruesome acts. Good and evil itself being represented simplistically in retrospective culture.
The "western" eventually developed the good/bad character, perhaps well exemplified by the John Wayne character as the man who actually shot Liberty Valance. Wayne shot a truly bad man in the back as the truly bad man was about to shoot a truly good man.
In "unforgiven" the Western has reached a pinnacle. The story, as wonderfully directed, portrayed all characters in shades of gray. This is the way the world really is. A bad man avenges the death of a friend by shooting down not only the murderer, but everybody else in the vicinity. The murderer, and several others I assume actually having been acting in the name of the law.
I had seen this movie in a theater but missed the first few minutes. I thought the movie great at first view, but upon a second complete viewing, I now rate it a masterpiece.
The flaws of the movie are that it is tedious, depressing, and sometimes poorly lit. The counterpoint here being the realism of the situations portrayed.
The strong points of the movie are nearly everything else.
Character exposure extents to most of the roles. All roles are well acted. Two characters undergo dramatic development, while the two major protagonists head toward a near greek tragedy type collision.
My wife and I often tell younger movie goers that the older movies have "plot and character development". Well this movie has a plot that foretells the end that you can see from the first minutes. Cutting up a womans face, is, well unforgivable. Excusing this act legally with a fine of sorts, is repugnant at the very least. Becoming a mercenary assassin, regardless of the target of the assassination, can only charitably be called an act of desperation.
Revenging a friend's death (by a merciless beating) by shooting everybody involved, is as close to a good motive as exists here.
A what is the viewer left with? A portrayal of this earth and the people in it.
The Sea Chase (1955)
story and cast pretty good
This is an oddball mixture of decent story, capable acting, but difficult dialogue and awkward direction.
Forget that many people can not grasp the idea that there were good men caught up into the Nazi mess in Germany.
While this is not in the class of "Das Boot". It is still men against the sea and one another. Toss in Lana Turner on a ship full of men, and a crude SS type german intelligence officer.
A bit fanciful here and there, but you eventually begin rooting for the guy who is feeding the lifeboats into the coal burning boilers trying to make "Pom Pom Gali". I don't even know if there is such a place, but damn, heres to the crazy guys out there on the sea....
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Papillon (1973)
Gets better with the years...
I usually read and try to gain something from Roger Ebert, but here he has let me down. He says that the movie "drags" at times. What does he think prison confinement is? It was probably not much like Disneyland in French Guyana!
As a military veteran, when they say "wait here", you wait... there.. for 5 minutes, 5 hours ...
Tremendous movie with top notch acting by literally everyone. Tedious periods offset by flashes of danger, excitement and chances at freedom.
One of the better interpretations of a homosexual in prison who ALSO REALLY WANTS TO ESCAPE. Say what, no rapes no inappropriate advances, just another human who does not want to stay in prison.
You could lead your life quite well just constantly reminding yourself of various quotes. I particularly liked the dream sequence where Steve McQueen pleads guilty not to killing a guy, but to "the greatest crime that a man can commit, you have wasted your life"
I made my sons watch it, they were unimpressed. I guess that it is a grown man's movie.
It is in my collection of the best 100 movies of all times, despite mediocre critical reviews. Maybe McQueen's best portrayal, no Mustang, no Jacqelyn Bisset, just a guy trying to survive. And his oddball, somewhat meeker and more accepting of his fate, best friend, another great performance in perfect mirror image, Dustin Hoffman.
Choose Me (1984)
Count me as a like
I loved the movie when it first came out. Watched it with my new wife. She disliked it then and we watched it again this evening (25 years later). She still hates it, and I was crying again.
Now I am the brutal, insensitive, war mongering male, and she is the sweet, sensitive, decent, thoughtful, diplomatic and persuasive female.
I think it is all wrapped up in another review, when the reviewer says that the movie presents an infantile view of love.
First of all, if you can find me someone who can even describe accurately the rush of that first kiss with someone who is your mental and physical equal, who could walk with you through life as your partner, or could throw you over tomorrow or the next day, and maybe hurt you irreparably, please invite them to reflect upon the film themselves.
This movie has several intersecting stories of something that might be called love. Caradine with his long face and slicked back hair is a walking emblem of masculinity, looking for a past love, from a simpler time. The several women that he fiddles with are either childish, over thoughtfully self narrative, or "too successful" with men.
Other men in the story are self absorbed losers or brutal winners.
It is left for our hero, the apparent pathilogically lying maniac, to shoot straight from the hip, "you and me babe, all the way" (not a spoiler quote)
If you are the kind of person who thinks everything through very carefully, including when the first kiss might happen, when someone might be asked to stay overnight... this might not be the film for you.
On the other hand, if you have evr had a period in your life when you really did not know what would happen next or even with whom it might be, you will love this film.
The X Files: Improbable (2002)
History of the world written on a 3 x 5 card...
I rarely write reviews, but I signed in to review this.
If you are not delighted and amused by this light hearted feather dusting of some of the great themes of literature in this episode, then maybe you missed out on what mankind has been thinking about for more or less a million years.
1. Are our lives more or less predictable from the moment, location and circumstance of our births?
2. If there is a God, and he is benevolent, then why does he leave evil running amuck so often?
3. If God is amongst us and making delicate and nuanced modifications to our activities here and there, exactly what would this look like?
The episode takes a shot at showing interference in the activities of a serial killer by a checkers playing, game of chance purveyor who seems to know evil when he sees it, but apparently is not allowed by some unwritten rule to directly interfere. Our lighthearted, other-worldly character actually challenges the serial killer at one point (just before an act of violence) by saying "why don't you just walk out the front door into the sunshine, take a breath of fresh air, go ahead, surprise me".
All the elements of the primary themes are right here in this single line of dialogue. It gets better as our intrepid agents run directly into our checkers playing friend pursuing the serial killer. Our friend says that he "is here to play a game of checkers with a guy.". To me, this appears to be a reference to good and evil being a nearly nim like game which routinely ends up being a tie.
It is hilarious as Sculley tells Reynolds to "stay right here" and Reynolds replies "I am hard to get rid of"
The evil is well represented as a killer who seems to quickly and violently end the lives of women with no understandable motive. The only thing that the women have in common is that they are alone and beautiful.
Free will does show up, and maybe ,just maybe, the interference of the odd character (played perfectly, looped or not, by Burt Reynolds) does aid in some way, and contribute to the end of the killing spree. This is not really a spoiler, as by now the audience knows that the killer is just about to be stopped (fated?)
If you like the X-Files, especially when they drift away from monsters and conspiracies, and tackle timeless spiritual questions, you will love this episode.