I must confess, I loved this.
It is unabashed glossy trash of the highest order, with Douglas at his peak of sleaze. It’s how I image Gordon Gekko would be in his private affairs. I didn’t care much for the machinations of the plot, but merely for the level of smug on display, though David Suchet’s detective seems to think it’s an actual Cannes-worthy art piece he’s in.
I’ve never seen the Hitchcock one. A new quest.
And it’s not even good, not a smidgen of “timeless classic” going on, another nostalgia viewing regret.
I don’t understand the point of any of it, or why they are even trying to find the body (the “we’ll be heroes” motivation makes no sense). The voice over is entirely unnecessary, each schematic vignette increasingly dull, and the direction heavy handed and tepid.
I simply wasn’t buying it, my annoyance at the characters’ antics only matched by the disappointment I had in myself for watching their needy antics despite being bored shitless.
Coming-of-age rubbish.
I never thought much for John Grisham with his seemingly bottomless supply of the same sledgehammer page-turners for the courtroom lay person. But this is Hackman and Hoffman in their only film together, the “least likely to succeed” still chewing up the scenery.
This is glossy and decent enough as expected but with an intriguing premise offering something quite different from the usual going-through-the-motions drama. Jury selection/packing/tampering/whatever is the focus, and it’s quite the line-up: Cliff Curtis, Luis Guzmán, and, somehow, Uncle Frank with no eyesight.
And it doesn’t skirt around an issue, guns, that is still an … issue. Because it’s never not going to be.
Worth a watch.
And I didn’t even know it until I heard ‘Strange Overtones’ on the radio and somehow connected the dots. This album just made Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) a hell of a lot better; talk about being suited to a film. And as a stand-alone album, oh yes.
It’s time to reavulate the sequel to Gekko. For the second time.
One of the many sequels I saw before the original, like my viewings of Aliens (1986) and The Godfather Part II (1974), both films alluded to in the life-imitating-art film class scene in the hugely impressive horror Scream 2 (1997).
The truly annoying-as-hell Jerry O’Connell aside, this movie is fabulous, with frighteningly tense scenes, a tight script, witty dialogue, and a rather gnarly soundtrack. There’s also a genuine romance (Dewey and Gale) and David Warner managing to be creepy merely by being there. And as self-reflexive as it is, its postmodern obsessions doesn’t stop it being up there in the vanguard of the slasher movie.
Wes Craven was the best. And poor Randy Meeks, eh. Pray for Randy.
Tell you what, this wasn’t bad at all and I usually can’t stand Depp.
He is on a short leash here, and Frank Langella gives perhaps the best creepy phone performance (mostly) ever.
It’s got this low-key, slow-burning atmosphere that is bizarrely twinned, somehow to effect, with intentional comedy deriving from awkward social and professional interactions, and I know all about those for they happen every hour. Despite the supernatural elements, they are cloaked in a story that works as a basic thriller.
And the score by Wojciech Kilar. Listen to this and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) for a double bill.
Further reading:
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the modern aviation mystery, continues to baffle.
This three-part doc has actual substantive interviews plus it explains the mechanics and technology of air travel that the lay person may not know, with an expert use of graphics twinned with a non-repetitive visual style.
My personal opinion on the whole affair? There should be some kind of remote override in which 12 wise men in a room can take control of the cockpit if a loon decides to take his … ‘looniness’ out on the passengers.
Pilots have too much power and need stripped of most of it – how can any one person have the overriding authority to depressurise a cabin?
This is all regardless of whether the MH370 lad did it or not.
Still, no one knows for certain and most likely never will.
Does it still hold up? Did it ever?
The antics of the Pythons have in recent years been wholly irritating, with their pointless TV travelogues and various silly projects, clearly living off past glories. But this has 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It must count for something.
Oh dear, a pretty daft excuse for a feature-length movie, this was just boring. So smug, and vexingly self-referential in its desperation for laughs, sketches went on and on and I couldn’t cope anymore so turned it off. The impression I got was of a bunch of very lucky big babies with a budget.
It’s not funny at all.
A surprise.
If you wish to see a labyrinth of corporate greed which the financial lay person (me being one of them) can almost understand, then this is one limited series for you.
It’s an addiction. And this is in spite of the cringe slow-motion visuals every other minute of a Madoff doppelgänger circling his office with the same rictus grin, a “financial serial killer” in his element.
As a history lesson, it’s impeccable, and none of the willing participants are let off lightly.
It’s entirely and totally unnecessary, and the only explanation I can find for it is that it’s a relatively inexperienced director without the confidence to let his characters demonstrate what he’s trying to get across; they even do this without the voice-over.
It’s the single most pointless use of a character’s narration ever, yet the film succeeds despite of it. That’s the sign of a great movie.
And what the hell happened to Tom Berenger? He should have graduated to the status of a menacing Paul Newman, or at least a top-drawer character actor. But he didn’t.
Beguiling.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 