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Los renglones torcidos de Dios (2022)
Ultimate failure
Tried to do Rashomon meets One flew over the cuckoo's nest but failed....too many loose ends...if she was faking it why the missing funds from her husbands account? They were married right? Shared the same house....and if the husband knew she was poisoning him, why not just go to the police? This would be a great rashomon for the cognitively impaired....but it was not effectively thought through...by the writer or director...and if the Director knew about the scam, why not bring it up before the vote? Save the hospital the grave mistake he said he cared about but did nothing to prevent. Sorry...just too many plot gaps.
To Leslie (2022)
Nobody knows you when you're down and out
A simply amazing acting performance drives what could have been a depressing story of the downward spiral of an alcoholic woman whose life is falling apart. Set in small town Texas, she just can't quit the bottle and the endless lack of responsibility,,,that is, until she does. The lead in this turns in a reward worthy performance..just flawless and powerful in its self destructiveness. I usually have limited tolerance for profoundly flawed characters but her performance, plus great and gritty support from the other actors, kept me hanging on. No false notes and a happy ending once all seemed lost. Worth a viewing,
Oppenheimer (2023)
Missed too much
The first 2/3 of the Oppenheimer film was way too slow and the film, in general, focused too exclusively on his unjust persecution resulting in his loss of high level security clearance. While this is a story, it is not the only story of the man and his times. Lost in this narrow focus is the compelling story of the race between Allied and German scientists to perfect the nuclear bomb, which caused once collegial physicists to restrict their open sharing of ideas with former colleges. Werner Heisenberg was in the German camp. Neils Bohr and Oppenheimer in the Allied camp. I commingling of these themes would have made for a richer more complex story and would have highted the injustice done to Oppenheimer in the face of his fealty to the Allied cause.
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Are you serious?
Good comedy but how anyone could take Tom Cruise seriously as an action hero is beyond me. I guess you have to be able to suspend disbelief much better than I can, but seriously, this is on the level 0f wrestling. He's too small, too old and too lacking in athletic ability...maybe some people get false hope from the franchise. Maybe they just want mindless nonstop action...too me it's boring and predictable. Cruise got a big break and has made hundreds of millions on limited talent. I understand he is still making them...sort of like Jagger still performing..it speaks to the lack of suitable replacements.
Justified (2010)
Boring collection of stereotypes and cliches
Let's see...she killed her husband yesterday and she is out today...right....seems to be a tissue of cliches and stereotypical characters set up to enable a series of gun fights. Maybe if you live in a gun culture and have seen little else, this could be entertaining....but it's really pretty bad..the 8.6 rating is a joke...did the writers and actors all get friends to write in? It's the fearless American hero standing up for justice, surrounded by characters with various levels of psychopathology...sort of High Noon remade for the 1000th time. Maybe they are just running out of ideas. I expected better from Elmore Leonard.
The Dresser (1983)
The best
The best ensemble acting you will ever see. Albert FINNEY and Tom Courtenay portray a Shakespearian actor and his personal assistant trying to entertain the locals during WW2 England. The actor is neurotic with a capital N and needs constant propping up...the assistant has a full time job times 2 or3. Both Finney and Courtenay bring a level of acting range, depth and nuance to the parts that constitutes nothing less than a master class. The show appears to crash and burn but it must go on and is salvaged always at the 11th hour by the masterful assistant. Some may recognize the theme of Wallace and Grommit in this fine performance.
Succession (2018)
We love bad guys
Great writing and acting is what ultimately makes a tv series great. Succession has both. Mohammed Ali credited the wrestler Gorgeous George with giving him the ultimate career tip: people will pay to see you fall if they hate you enough. Ali obliged with his "Louisville Lip" characterizations of his opponents. Succession has four main characters, none of them likeable and we definitely get hooked into this modern day Greek tragedy. While all the siblings hunger for non existent paternal affection, replacing father is the next best thing. Their machinations to do the latter is the driving theme of this prodigious show.
Cop Land (1997)
Passable bad cop flick
Cop Land is an enclave across the Hudson where the "thin blue line" calls the shots. It boasts a stellar cast, including Ray Liotta, Sly Stallone, Harvey Keitel and Robert Deniro. Stallone unfortunately is out of his acting depth with these other three. He has a deaf, unemotional sluggish sherif to play so not much range is demanded. Just as well. Deniro has a rather small part and does it well. Liotta is good as always. The Stallone character has the typical renaissance toward the end and rallies when all seems lost. Sheriff Rocky. It's watchable and reasonably directed and acted. Good not great.
True Detective (2014)
Variable as the weather
I agree that season one was amazing.a tour de force acting performance by McConaghy and..Harrelson... season two was a huge disappointment...murky and garbled...I haven't seen the other seasons yet, I was so put off by season 2. Too bad they couldn't have stuck with the original actors and just changed stories. Or maybe the writer could never produce again at the same level, who knows? I would strongly recommend season 1 as the best ensemble acting on television. They hit it out of the park. In season two, the writing was poor and Colin Farrell was miscast...not the first time...he's good in some roles but generally fares poorly playing Americans.
I have now seen season 3 and it was better than 2...good acting by the two principle actors, although Ali was sometimes hard to understand. If season 1 was a 12 on a 10 point scale, abs season 2 a 4, then 3 would be a 7. Season 4 by the way is terrible...even worse than 2...a boring soap opera. How cold the people who produced that gem in season 1, descend to this?
Glass Onion (2022)
Yuk
It never rises above cartoon level...poor writing..poor direction...over the top acting...kind of like watching a balloon deflate.....huge drop in quality from the original...Daniel Craig should get back to the real stuff..he has too much talent for this level.....the rest of the cast...hard to say....and a glass smashing scene may be a suitable climax for some..I thought it was ludicrous....no one was given enough in their role..all the characters were semi dimensional at best...Ed Norton had little to work with...all in all, it was a collection of lost opportunities..I blame the writer...and, of course, the director.
Cleopatra (1963)
Absolutely trash
They spoke English in Rome and Egypt, didn't you know?...this is an exercise in laughably bad acting, writing and film making..bloated style over substance. Long boring dialogues, poorly staged scenes....a complete waste of time....is just does not age well at all. I really don't get Elizabeth Taylor...no talent whatsoever...I guess Burton did reasonably well since he was hung over for several scenes. I understand they cut it down from 4+ hours...maybe cutting out another w hours would help. What were they thinking? This had nothing going for it. I guess Hollywood doesn't do we;l on films about Egypt..I hear a Ishtar was even worse.
The Gray Man (2022)
Ridiculous
A ridiculous series of fight scenes..at least the Bourne films has some story....this is just fights and paranoia...do you really care who gets killed next?
Vera Cruz (1954)
Typical plotless fiasco
The first AMERICAN MOVIE TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT Mexicans was the Wild Bunch. All others from Vera Cruz to THE magnificent Seven have them dressed as peasants but speaking perfect English. Apparently Hollywood saw nothing wrong with this. On top of the irritating stereotypes and ridiculous language issues, VERA Cruz has the thinnest of plots and mediocrity abounds.
The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Boring!
Boring, uninteresting slow paced...Ava Gardner mailed in her part..she is lifeless and her Spsnish is horrible. Bogie gave it his best shot but the powder was wet. I do understands why Ava Gardner dropped out of movies the following year...good looking but no talent.
The Commuter (2018)
Plot problems
A conspiracy of powerful people needs a witness killed...they have so much power that they kill others just to convince Our Hero that he has to comply with them and finger the witness. What is never explained is why they just couldn't do the job themselves...since they could even cause a train crash on which the witness and Our Hero was riding. If they had just crashed the train, they could have killed all on board and solved their witness problem. Wha's a little collateral damage? Instead, they get Our Hero involved and things go awry. We could see that coming, why couldn't they?
Papillon (2017)
Better left to the original
Why do they make new versions of films done so well in the original? The original Papillon gets an 8 rating in IMDB. Well deserved. This flaccid re make gets 6.5. Why did they bother? Has Hollywood just run completely out of imagination to do new stories?
Die Fälscher (2007)
the ultimate moral dimemma.
The ultimate moral dilemma is to survive or not survive. In this case survival means aiding the Nazis in world domination (through counterfeiting British and US currency to aid their war effort) . If you are Jew with talent and being kept alive for the latter reason, this is indeed the ultimate moral dilemma: die or survive with guilt in the extreme. I commend the Germans for a trilogy of films lately dealing with the nadir of human existence : the rise of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Sophie Schull, Der Untergang and now Die Falscher all take deep and serious looks at huge questions. The acting and directing in this film are superb, the cinematography first rate - what a relief to have serious film instead of the usual Hollywood pap.
Damage (1992)
family violence
I think most viewers missed the point of this movie: his obsession with his son's fiancé stemmed from a triangle that had brewed for years within his family, he felt his wife had thrown him over for his son and his obsession with the sons' fiancé was a revenge for this slight. it was brilliantly brought out in some of the later scenes with his wife. Along with the Gambler, this is one of the better studies of the psychology of destruction of the self and of others. It has uniformly good acting and the wonderful British capacity to capture the seething emotions underneath slight gestures. I doubt this constitutes a spoiler, this is hardly a suspense film- it has destruction written all over it from the first encounter.
Bobby (2006)
Bobby deserved better than this
The first hour of this painful miasma can best be described as failed Altman light. The lives of "everyday people" written in the worst and most clichéd way. Mexican waiters who speak English to each other, dumb Black-Latino racial banter, ho hum sexual pecadillos. You've seen it all before and better written (try Crash or Casino) Emilio Estevez should find a day job and stick to it because this is a bomb. The first hour of the film has nothing to do with Bobby and you know the stories are not going to develop because of the coming assassination. Stereotypes abound and the film relies on sixties music to try and create a sixties atmosphere that feels inauthentic, like Estevez was somewhere else when the first acid trip went down. A major disappointment given the respect I have for Bobby Kennedy and a major disservice to his memory.
Hollywoodland (2006)
Superman Crashes
Tedious pace and mediocre writing mar what was potentially an interesting idea- to replay the possible motives for the death of George Reeves. A film that aspired to be Roshomon would up feeling like Groundhog Day- oh no, were going to see George die yet again. Although Ben Afleck does a good job portraying George Reeves and Diane Lane is sexy as always, the plot just gets mired repeatedly. These are aspirations to capture the feel of past LA as in LA Confidential but its' forced here - trying to be witty with repartee that just falls flat. Anachronisms: no one said "offed " in 1962- that came later. Boring, lame writing and a plot that jumps all over the time map.
The Girl Can't Help It (1956)
1950's anthropology
Kids these days are not familiar with the problem we had in the fifties. We heard singers but to see them was rare- Little Richard didn't make it onto American Bandstand. So the big thrill of this film then was to actually see Little Richard, Fats Domino , Gene Vincent doing their gigs! the storyline was farcical and little more than a cover for the music but planting the music scenes in the movie was ingenious. Jayne Mansfield was luscious, even doing a caricature of a vamp. What else can one say? The new release DVD captures the wonderful color of the fifties- mauves and pink pastels everywhere. And Eddy Cochrane does his Elvis imitation and showing why Elvis was the King (and Little Richard the Queen) of Rock and Roll. Worth it for the history lesson- 1950's anthropology.
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005)
Leonard deserved better
Leonard Cohen, a brilliant poetic composer deserved better than this. The performances of his songs just don't make it, with the exception of Teddy Thompson and the McGarrigle sisters who are good (the McGarrigle sisters are always good). The other performances range from indifferent(Rufus Wainwright) to just plain bad (Nick Cave). The latter seems like some third rate lounge singer looking for a gig in the borscht belt.The performances show no feel for the music. Despite his raspy voice, Leonard has some pacing and timing that these guys just don't get. You would do better to watch his live tour film. Cohen himself is amusing and self deprecating but his music deserved better and poor Leonard has spent so much time in California that everything is OK with him now (maybe it's just true Buddist detachment). He needs to get back to Montreal and to his creative and critical faculties.
Showgirls (1995)
is this the worst file ever?
Apart from Ed Wood, who was in a league of his own, this may be the worst film ever made. Certainly its' IMDb ratings put in striking distance of the worst ever category. Really bad films are, of course, interesting because they lead you to ask "what were they thinking?" Not the actresses who are, after all, shameless bimbos, but Paul Verhoeven, who based on his track record prior to this file, was a decent director and Joe Esterhasy who was a top ranked writer. How could their judgments have been so bad? And then there are the producers, the money people who, I guess, just assumed that sex would sell, no matter how bad the movie. For me, all the Tits &Ass in the world could not save this mess.
Walk the Line (2005)
Over rated
Reese Withspoon is great in the film but Joachim Phoenix is just not believable as Johnny Cash - too squat, and no voice. The thing that sold Johhny to Sam Phillips was the voice. Sam would never have signed someone who sounded like Phoenix- good song or not. So he's no Jamie Foxx "inhabiting " Ray Charles; or even Val Kilmer being Jim Morrison. He's not the worst actor to play a rock star- that dubious award has to go the Garey Busy for his impersonation of Buddy Holly playing Gary Busey. A second problem; by and large we know the stories of these celebrities already, so dramatic structure takes a beating. Did any one not know that Johnny was saved by his amphetamine addiction by June Carter and that they lived happily ever after. A bit more of Mother Maybelle's character would have been welcome as well.
Crash (2004)
a brilliant look at human folly
Paul Haggis deserves tons of praise for this gritty Altmanesque masterpiece; truly great writing and insight into tragedy. The film defies the usual ho-hum Hollywood practice of using one dimensional cutouts for characters. In Crash, you may feel you have someone pegged and they they do something that blows your opinion to shreds. The tragedy is usually produced by "perfect storms': conflations of confusions and misunderstandings. The acting is first rate; Matt Dillon is outstanding, Don Cheadle is great as always. I was surprised that a Canadian wrote the story since it has such a dead- on sense of the US inner city street scene. Paul Haggis deserves serious credit for this one.