What movies made in the last five years are worth watching?

In other words, it is a decent if not a great movie, and a “not so great but at least they tried” representation of the book. Well, it could have been worse, and at least they get points for trying.

 

He's credited as a producer. Producer = $$$

 

Yet another really good movie, well worth seeing.

This evening I watched "Flight", starring Denzel Washington as a airline pilot who's also an alcoholic. While it's not a perfect film, it has some terrific acting, intelligent writing, a really good cast and several really great scenes. One performance in particular that stands out is by an actress that I was totally unfamiliar with, Kelly Reilly. And John Goodman practically stole every scene he was in. But he does that in a lot of movies -- he just has incredible screen presence.

I need to go off topic (sort of) now, because of something that happened this afternoon, which is sort of relevant. The film brought back memories because of the subject matter. I've known two alcoholics relatively closely in my life. The first was a close family friend -- someone who was close enough to my dad when he was in the army that my brother and I called him Uncle Kenny. We'd been on vacation with him and my 'Aunt' Mary, and even though this is about 40 years ago, I can still recall riding around in the car with my mom and dad, driving from bar to bar, trying to find him when he'd disappeared.

The other alcoholic in my life was my best friend from elementary school. When we got into Junior High, I would work at my synagogue catering various parties and I got him a job there for New Years (his family belonged to a more religious synagogue -- I was reformed, he was conservative). I remember that he had stolen some champagne near the start of the party, and was busy getting drunk while I and most everyone else was working. That pretty much was the start of what destroyed our friendship.

What brought this all back is not just the movie, but the fact that my mom (who's in a nursing home now, recovering from a cracked spine) called me on the phone this afternoon. She said "Guess what! I have a surprise for you!". And she proceeded to put my old friend on the phone. Turns out that he's a dentist now, working mostly with the elderly. And he asked me if I remembered him. I was almost speechless. When I didn't say much, he went into telling me about my mom's dental issues, and that was that.

Anyway, I can't tell you what mixed feelings I have about that. I haven't talked to him.. I haven't wanted to talk to him in so long. I wouldn't have even written about this except that I saw "Flight" suddenly available to view, and it was a movie that I'd wanted to see for a long time.

It's funny how movies and real life can get tangled up sometimes.

 

I finally saw Inception recently and it lives up to the hype.

 

I loved it as well. I've got to re-watch it one of these days.

I have to recommend an old book by an underrated author named James P. Hogan. He became a bit of a crackpot in his later years, but a really good writer. Realtime Interrupt. It's a story about someone who is not sure if his reality is real or virtual ("Inception" really reminded me of the book). Two of my favorite other books by him include The Proteus Operation, one of my favorte time travel stories, and Endgame Enigma, a cold war story set in the future (yes, he did not foresee the fall of the Soviet Union). It's really entertaining, in spite of the anachronism.

 

My nephew has a half-day of school today, so I'm supposed to take care of him this afternoon. Just found out that he wants to see Ender's Game. I'm such a good uncle, that I agreed.

Damn it.

Anyway, I did get to see "The Dallas Buyer's Club" yesterday. It's an excellent movie. This is the second Matthew McConaughey film I've seen this year, and he's really impressed me both times. I don't know if it's just that he's finally getting good roles (which he is) or if he's genuinely become a better actor. But he's become someone you definitely should keep an eye on. In case you don't recall, the first film that impressed me this year from him was "Mud"

Anyway, the "Dallas Buyer's Club" is based on the true story of Ron Woodruff, an electrician, and hard-drinking, womanizing homophobe who finds out in 1985 that he is HIV positive, and is told by his doctor that he will likely not live beyond 30 day. When he finally comes to grips with his illness, he determines that the current treatment in the U.S. for Aids, AZT, actually makes many people more ill, he sets out to Mexico to find alternate treatments. When he finds something that works, he decides to smuggle Aids medicines into the U.S. to help fellow aids sufferers. The story deals with how he (at first) manages to get around the law and FDA regulations, and about his conflict with the FDA and how they try to stop him, and how he changes as a person, from being a homophobic 'redneck' into someone who's more tolerant and in some ways, heroic.

BTW, McConnaughey lost a shocking amount of weight for this role. I could hardly believe that this was the same person. In any case, I highly recommend this movie, as I did "Mud". Both are excellent and feature excellent performances by McConnaughey.

 

This is about something which I don't own and can' t quite justify spending the $200.00 to purchase at the moment. But I remember others mentioning Zatoichi previously, so I will post this without an actual review:
http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/zatoichi-films-get-the-deluxe-box-set-treatment

I watched all of the Zatoichi movies that were available on Hulu (not sure if I've missed any that were added later). They vary in quality but I don't regret watching any of them. They are fun movies, often with a sense of humor, about a travelling, blind, roguish character/swordsman/masseur named Zatoichi. He loves playing dice (and is quite good at cheating). He's certainly a criminal, but he also has a code of honor and will defend the innocent and the weak against those who would take advantage or bully them.

You should check it out: http://www.hulu.com/watch/215803

 

I've been considering talking about a couple of movies that I saw recently but decided against it. However, today I heard some unhappy news from a friend (that somehow I had missed). Peter O'Toole died on the 14th. aged 81, following a long illness. Since he starred in two of my all-time favorite films, I thought I'd share some clips.

I found one of my favorite scenes from "Lawrence of Arabia", but unfortunately the sound quality is not very good. So go rent the movie, or see it the next time it comes on TV -- you definitely want to see it on as big a screen as possible and if possible, with good speakers, as the cinematography and sound track is incredible.


And here's the overture from the movie (back when movies actually had overtures and intermissions):


And here's a couple of scenes from one of the funniest comedies ever made, "My Favorite Year", starring Peter O'Toole as an old, washed up, alcoholic movie actor. In a way, he was playing a cross between himself and Errol Flynn:

 

Here's the trailers, btw:

 

I wanted to mention a movie I recently saw that you all might enjoy: "American Hustle". I guess I can best describe it as 'historical fiction'. Very few of you are likely old enough to remember Abscam, so in brief, in the late '70s and early '80s, the FBI set up a number of sting operations in order to catch various powerful people -- primarily senators and representatives -- paying bribes. For more detail of the true story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam

"American Hustle" stars Christian Bale and Amy Adams as a pair of con-men (Con-people?) who get caught by an FBI agent played by Bradley Cooper. The overly ambitious FBI agent blackmails them into aiding them in a sting operation that at first starts out to be kind of modest but gradually grows into something huge and expensive involving politicians and mobsters, and Bale and Adams' characters begin to fear for their lives. Jeremy Renner plays the good and honest family man and mayor of Camden NJ who they unknowingly suck into the operation because of his contacts. Jennifer Lawrence plays Bale's jealous but somewhat abandoned wife, in a fairly humorous performance.

It's not exactly a comedy, and it may not be perfect. But it is a very funny and entertaining movie, with some amazing scenes. Both Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence give amazing performances. Go see it.

 

Well I finally managed to get to the movie theater again, and saw a really entertaining movie called "The Grand Budapest Hotel", directed by Wes Anderson, and starring (primarily) Ralph Fiennes and a relatively unknown actor named Tony Revolori, with a really great supporting cast and cameos by big names like Tilda Swinton, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, etc., etc., etc., BTW, I guess because Mr. Revolori is so unknown, that I actually had to search way deep down into the list of cast members to find out his name. While he doesn't have the personality of Ralph Fiennes, nor the star quality, he is on camera for 75 to 90% of the film, so you'd think he'd get higher billing.

Anyway, I've been a fan of Wes Anderson ever since I first saw "Rushmore". If you've seen that film, or "Moonrise Kingdom", then you are familiar with the tone of this film, which is quirky comedy with flawed but basically decent and very likable characters, and a touch of the absurd and incongruous to it. If you liked "Rushmore", or "Moonrise Kingdom" then this should remind you of, at least the tone of those movies. All in all, I enjoyed i, and I was glad for the afternoon out to see it.


And in case you haven't seen "Rushmore" (a movie that I truly love)...

 

Frozen
Frozen
Frozen
ohmigosh
Frozen

 

Well, I got to see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", and I enjoyed watching it. It had a good story and decent action scenes, and, of course, Robert Redford in an important role, which is always nice to see (haven't seen much of him lately, but his body of work really speaks for itself). If you do decide to see it, stay for BOTH after-credits scenes (one after the short credits, and one after the full credits). The first introduces a couple of characters that some of you probably will recognize if you're familiar with the Marvel universe (I mean characters from the comics that haven't been seen before in any movies). And the second is actually more pertinent to the movie you just watched.

 

The Lego Movie was good

 

Anyone who loves movies should definitely watch this. In fact, you may want to watch it more than once, since it's impossible to see all of its goodness with just one viewing.


From what I've read, it's loosely based on the book of the same title, but the film maker added a few clips from movies that aren't actually on the list. But it's still incredibly fun to watch.

 

I just saw the 2007 movie Postal and I realized that Iron Man 3 ripped off part of its plot.

 

I just looked at IMDB, and no, it doesn't sound like it's a rip-off to me.
You do know that lots of movies share plot elements with lots of other movies? Just like lots of books share plot elements with lots of other books. When there's an actual 'rip-off', people generally get sued.

One of my favorite quotes, that I repeat when I see this kind of complaint "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." Romeo and Juliet was not an original story, and probably a whole lot closer in story to its source material than Iron Man 3 is from Postal. That it shares a plot element with another movie may or may not be a coincidence, but I'm sure that it did not originate with Postal.

It's not what was done, but how well it was done that matters. Iron Man 3 was no Shakespeare play, even though I enjoyed it, Concepts like Frankenstein did not originate with Mary Shelley -- because before her there was the concept of a Golem. The concept of a vampire did not originate with Bram Stoker, nor did it end with him.

You have to be very careful when you call something a rip-off because by doing so it sounds like you are calling someone a criminal. And you have to be very careful when you make accusations like that, that you are right.

 

BTW, before Postal, there was also Woody Allen's Bananas, which had a similar gimmick. And that was way before Postal.

It's a good idea. And good ideas deserve more than one story.