Finding Big Country - 8/10 Enjoyable movie if you're a basketball/sports fan. Only 45 minutes long and it was cool seeing old footage of Big Country Reeves back in the day. I never really thought he had "good" feet but definitely soft hands. Miss the old big man NBA days (Yao, Hakeem, Shaq, etc.). It also helps that the director/host of the documentary loves the game herself.
Coach Carter. 7/10. Saw it for the first time during the AFC championship game on Netflix. I wasn't going to watch football. The first scene of the movie starts with a DMX track. A lot of rappers profiting out of Jesus lately but let me say no one has spoken to God and his son like DMX in his outros of albums, so passionate and heartfelt. DMX also has deep conversations with Lucifer, and it's just too real. Oh yeah, the movie... The players don't look like they've ever played basketball in their lives. I know Paulfstk could out hoop these dudes. And don't get me started on Cruz dropping N bombs like he is Bizzy Bone all throughout the movie. But the story has a good message and Ashanti is as hot as ever.... see my days are cold without you but I 'm hurting while I'm with you.
Dolittle- 3/10 My 7 year old who was pumped to see this didn’t even like it. We rarely walk out of movies disappointed; we did this time. RDJ was just fine, the film was just poorly edited and felt like a made for tv PBS movie or something.
HBO had a preview weekend so I watched the new Hellboy and Rampage. Nobody can do Hellboy better than Perlman, plot was good just not well executed. Rampage was not bad, I love a good monster movie and it was well shot with a plot that was not totally eye rolling. Great effects I was pleasantly surprised. I will watch the Godzilla movie this weekend.
The Irishman: 5/10 Thought it was really boring. The character aging tech was bad. Dull characters I didnt care about
Just watched Joker. It had a few moments, but I didn’t find it compelling at all. Rupert Pupkin and Travis Bickle were much more interesting. 3/5 I guess.
Marriage Story - 9 / 10 - Deserves a lot of praise, it shows the ugly side of divorce law, the lawyers playing dirty games all to "win" which brings out the worst in a couple who wanted to split up the nicest way possible. Wonderful job at slowly revealing all the problems they had with each other through the course of the negotiations. Scarlett Johansson & Noah Driver both deserve Oscars. Great casting!
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Saw Little Women recently and really liked it. Without giving anything away, I'll say that the ending is a trip. Pay attention! It gets an 8/10 and might deserve a higher score. 1917 gets 9.25/10 from me. I hadn't rated it here.
First Man: 7.5 out of 10 A first rate telling of Neil Armstrong's life in the 60's from the moment his infant daughter died to his iconic walk on the moon. I felt like the film did a good job of showing both his and NASA's struggles over the course of a decade to make Apollo 11 a success. And the climax of the film....the decent of the Eagle to the surface of the moon was pulled off so well I felt the tension of the moment even knowing the outcome of history. That's the sign of a very well orchestrated scene and film. My knits would involve the one dimensional way Armstrong is portrayed, the clownish way Buzz Aldrin is portrayed, and the weird interplay throughout with his wife and the memory of his deceased daughter. Still, a very worthwhile way to spend an evening. You really get it driven home the risks taken and the real triumph of the space program of the 1960's.
^loved First Man. Something's going on with rottentomatoes scores lately. I have a previously foolproof watch/don't watch system for me- a moving score threshold depending on genre & actors, where for instance a documentary or war movie has to be high 90's score to watch, where a sci fi/thriller with a bunch of actors I love, I lower my cutoff to 65% to 70%. Hardly ever get something I don't enjoy this way. The Irishman, had all the classic gangster movie actors, scorsese, big budget AND high 90's RT score, I could hardly make it to the end it was so boring. And These guys are just way too old to try to recreate their youth, cgi or whatever. Horrible. Then Marriage Story, I love Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, and in an Indie drama with high 90's RT score, could have never gone wrong with that before. BUt it is excruciating. I can't even watch S. Johansson, the way she acts and talks, must be more the writing/directing. Whatever it is, I hated it more than any movie rated in the 90's before... in general think something's amiss with RT scores now. Edit- okay feel a little better after, Adam drivers musical number at the end was pretty awesome
Zombieland 2. 9/10. Im an addict for zombie movies.This was much better than the first one. The kids enjoyed it just FF the bad parts
The Gentlemen- 7.9/10 At first I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. Of course “good” Ritchie always has that buildup that ties it all together. It paid off for me. I’d watch it again.
The Lighthouse - 9.75/10 Rented this one the other day and will be purchasing it when I'm ready to re-watch it. Some call it horror, but IMO it could have been ripped from the Bible--just an incredible story. And the acting... phenomenal! Willem Dafoe was very much snubbed by the Oscar people. Fools. Absolute fools. Truly. Robert Pattinson, who I've never been a fan of, also shined. The story is slow to develop and there's not a huge payoff, but if there was ever a case of a film's parts being greater than the sum this is it. I predict this is going to have a cult-like following some day. In other words, it's probably a love or hate it affair.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker -- 8/10. Best of the last three. One has to wonder how long Disney will wait before announcing the next trilogy.
Just got through watching Runaway Train again, from 1985. Jon Vought, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca De Mornay all doing some of their best work. Definitely the best acting I’ve seen from De Mornay during her career. It’s on Retroplex, which I get with Google Fiber. They show uncut movies, often good ones that haven’t been out in several years. 35 years for this one. I remember seeing it in a theater back in ‘85 and being blown away. Well worth watching again. For those who haven’t seen it, you should. I’m not going to say anything about the plot, except to say that yes, there is a runaway train, and those 3 actors are on it.
Illang. A live action re-imagining of the anime Jin Roh: Wolf Brigade. The story has been translated into a future neo-noir version of North and South Korea in the middle of reunification. We follow a psychologically damaged (but badass) member of an elite anti-terrorist government force known as Special, still dealing with a failed operation that happened years ago. He gets involved in a plot involving a terrorist organization, a girl, and a rival government group. The pacing is top notch, great action scenes followed by quiet scenes of emotional resonance. Writing, Acting, and Cinematography hit on all cylinders. 10/10.