Been eyeing this one for a minute. Watched it last night and was not disappointed. Strong use of soundtrack. Elisabeth Moss gives a really strong performance.
Was on the edge of my seat for over an hour.
Wind River
Cold, taut, crime thriller. Extremely well crafted. Elizabeth Olson and Jeremy Renner are right on point. The cinematography, the superb acting, the undertones of social justice, all meld together perfectly for one of my, now, favorite crime dramas.
Invisible Man sounds great, itās penciled in for this evening.
Last night was another in my ever ongoing ācanāt believe Iāve not seen itā season, Seven Days in May, a 1964 political thriller from John Frankenheimer. His follow up to The Manchurian Candidate, in fact, so I really have no idea how it took me this long to watch it. It feels pretty relevant, certainly if judging by discussion here, as itās about an attempted coup in the US. Though in this version the President is a peacenik, signing a treaty with those damn commies, and Burt Lancasterās General Scott decides to take over. Itās very good, all tense dialogue scenes and great acting with a smattering of action to keep things moving along. As ever when I watch Burt Lancaster Iām ready to crown him the best ever, heās just superb even when heās against Kirk Douglas and several other āhey, itās that guyā character actors. The plot feels quite realistic up until the last twenty minutes or so, but then this sort of thing needs a neat conclusion from all the murky goings on. It was lovely stuff.
Rewatch. Obviously a classic and great. Rewatching it later itās amazing to see no name actions who got like 5 minutes of screen time are now name brand actors.
The Nest (1988)
4/10
A B movie horror creepy crawly film. I have a soft spot for B movie special effects and the effects here were interesting in that way. The movie itself didnāt really keep my attention. Prime Mystery Science Theater 3000 material though.
The Fifth Wave
3/10
A young adult dystopian movie. Clearly, clearly, angled at being a series of movies. Not good though. Immediately after the start I guessed the twist and the movie, I guess to its credit, letās all the characters discover the twist in the middle of the movie, instead of it being some kind of Enderās Game twist. Unfortunately, the twist being revealed doesnāt really change anything about progression of the movie, still ends up being as predictable as ever.
The score was bad but the rest of the movie was also not good. Iāll give Nolan a little credit for trying to make a movie that wasnāt soulless and emotionally sterile like all his other films but the MURPH/McConaughey relationship didnāt work at all. Iād tell Nolan to stick to what heās good at but I canāt for the life of me figure out what that is. Certainly not staging action or fight scenes, which are usually a disaster in his action movies. And when the great McConaughey canāt save your clunky dialog, welp, thatās all she wrote. The most engaging characters were those weird blocky robots.
The Invisible Man was put off in favour of us finally getting round to John Wick 3 - Parabellum. These days Iām so out of touch Iām not sure how heretical it is to be a John Wick skeptic, but Iām afraid this didnāt change my mind. The fights are really impressive, but apart from the first and the last they just merged into Keanu endlessly shooting people in the head. And then the plot, holy shit was that boring. They even managed to make Ian McShane or Bronn doing a hammy Italian accent boring. I dunno, guess Iām just old or something.
(Should say Keanu himself can still do no wrong in my book. He bears no blame.)
Finally saw Prisoners last night. 6/10. Difficult to watch if youāre a parent, but a decent watch. Timely in that it highlights how useless cops can be.
Despite all of my good ideas and this forumās suggestions, my wife insisted on showing the kids Clueless for movie night. She had been pushing it for weeks and we finally gave in.
