Category Archives: Movies

No Rules:

31 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The British are losing to Hitler’s Atlantic U-Boat campaign systematically sinking Allied military and commercial shipping. Churchill is under pressure from his military to surrender but demurs and goes unconventional by creating a small cadre of misfits to destroy the U-Boat program with a no-rules program and James Bond daring.

A well told story of British humor meeting up with Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant. Lots of gratuitous violence and no sex.

Genre:  Action– Comedy–Drama–Thriller–War

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Screenplay by: Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, Guy Ritchie

Music by:  Christopher Benstead

Cast: Henry Cavill, Elza Gonzalez, Alan Richson, Alex Pettyfer

Film Locations:  Turkey and England

Els:  7.5/10

IMDb:  6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  69/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  93/100

Metacritic Metascore:  55/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.6/10

Theaters: 13 April 2024

Streaming: 10 May 2024

Runtime: 120 minutes

Budget:  $60 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $27.8 Million

Source: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie Poster by Lionsgate

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

24 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Furiosa, prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, documents the psychological development of Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) as she channels her hate and vengeance towards Dementus (Hemsworth), destroyer of her mother in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian tale of fiefdoms and control.

Furiosa finds peak vengeance against her antagonist around the 2 hour and 15-minute mark of the movie when Dementus, somewhat incidentally, asks her if she was able to ‘make it epic’. The question really is posed to you the viewer and the short answer would be no. The long answer is the movie is needlessly long but not as long as it seemed.

Genre:  Action – Adventure – Drama — Sci-Fi

Directed by: George Miller

Screenplay by: George Miller, Nico Lathouris

Music by:  Tom Holkenborg

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke

Film Locations:  Australia, USA

ElsBob:  5.5-6.0/10

IMDb:  7.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  90/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  89/100

Metacritic Metascore:  79/100

Metacritic User Score:  7.3/10

Theaters: 23-24 May 2024

Streaming: 16 September 2022

Runtime: 148 minutes

Budget: $168 million

Box Office: $172.8 million

Source: IMDb. MetaCritic. Rotten Tomatoes. Graphic Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga movie poster, 2024, Copyright Warner Brothers.

Vengeance

17 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

A New York writer’s hookup girlfriend dies, possibly murdered, and he is emotionally coerced into attending her funeral in the sticks of Texas, followed up by a less than enthusiastic investigation of her death.

A film that clicks on all cylinders, screenplay, acting, directing, and social commentary of all things—too bad it died at the box office. It really is a great movie to watch if for no other reason than to see and hear the philosophy of Ashton Kutcher.Theaters: 29 July 2022

Streaming: 16 September 2022

Runtime: 107 minutes

Genre:  Comedy — Crime – Mystery — Thriller

ElsBob:  7.0/10

IMDB:  6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  82/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  86/100

Metacritic Metascore:  65/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.4/10

Directed by: B.J. Novak

Screenplay by: B.J. Novak

Music by:  Finneas O’Connell

Cast: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron, Ashton Kutcher

Film Locations:  New Mexico

Budget: $22 million

Box Office: $4.4 million

Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Graphic: Vengeance Movie Poster 2022, Focus Features copyright.

Slash

15 July 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Slash’s 2nd solo studio album, Orgy of the Damned, a rockin’ blues compilation released in May of 2024, is his best effort since GNR’s 1987 release ‘Appetite for Destruction’.

Following closely in the concept album footsteps of Carlos Santana’s ‘Supernatural and Shaman’, the album contains 11 standards and covers written by a who’s who list of American bluesmen including Robert Johnson (‘Crossroads’), Aaron Walker (‘Stormy Monday’), and Chester Burnett (‘Killing Floor’) plus a new instrumental, ‘Metal Chestnut’ written by Slash.

Slash assembled some of rock’s great guitarists and vocalists to accompany him on the album including Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Brian Johnson (AC/DC), Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Chris Robinson (Black Crowes), and blues vocalist Beth Hart.

Slash, with little memorable musical output since GNR, may have finally found his solo groove sans Axl.

Source: ALLMUSIC.com Graphic: Slash: ‘Orgy of the Damned’ albumcover, 2024, copyright: Gibson.

LaRoy Texas

3 July 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Theaters: 8 June 2023

Streaming: 12 April 2024

Runtime: 112 Minutes

Genre:  Comedy — Crime – Thriller

Els:  7.5/10

IMDB:  6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  100/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  64/100

Metacritic Metascore:  69/100

Metacritic User Score:  5.9/10

Directed by: Shane Atkinson

Screenplay by: Shane Atkinson

Music by:  Delphine Malaussena, Rim Laurens, Clement Peiffer

Cast: John Magaro, Steve Zahn, Megan Stevenson

Film Locations:  New Mexico

A patsy husband with a cheating wife takes stock of his life and finds changes need to be made. Suicide and contract killer are possibilities.

A great story with a solid, twisted plot and competent acting provides an enjoyable Coen-like flick for Atkinson’s freshman entry into film making.

Source: IMDb. Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes. Graphic: LaRoy Texas Film Poster, Brainstorm Media.

Coens’ First

19 June 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Blood Simple.

Theaters: 12 October 1984

Streaming: 6 December 2022

Runtime: 96 minutes

Genre:  Crime – Drama — Mystery — Neo-Noir — Thriller

Els:  7.5/10

IMDB:  7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  95/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  8.3/100

Metacritic Metascore:  84/100

Metacritic User Score:  8.0/10

Directed by: Joel Coen

Screenplay by: Joel and Ethan Coen

Music by:  Carter Burwell

Cast: John Getz, Francis McDormand, Dan Hedaya

Film Locations:  Austin and Round Rock, Texas

Budget:  $1.5 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $2.7 Million

Blood Simple is a twisted Texas tale of a honky-tonk owner, a cheating wife, contract killings, misunderstandings, and violence.

This is the Coen brothers’ first movie along with the first major film for Barry Sonnenfeld and Francis McDormand. A classic neo-noir crime film setting the stage for Fargo and No Country for Old Men down the road.

The film was ranked at number 98 on AFI’s 2001 movie listing of the top 100 Thrills in American cinema. In case you are wondering Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho was first.

Source: IMDB. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie Poster, Circle Releasing.

Gas to Yuma Will be Late:

12 June 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Last Stop Yuma County.

Theaters: 10 May 2024

Streaming: 10 May 2024

Runtime: 90 minutes

Genre:  Crime – Drama — Mystery — Suspense — Thriller

Els:  7.0/10

IMDB:  6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  96/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  73/100

Metacritic Metascore:  72/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.3/10

Directed by: Francis Galluppi

Screenplay by: Francis Galluppi

Music by:  Matthew Compton

Cast: Jim Cummings, Faizon Love, Jocelin Donahue

Film Locations:  Palmdale, California.

Budget:  $1 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $0.94 Million

At a rural, gasless Arizona rest stop a hundred miles from nowhere, travelers with empty tanks and locals alike are thrown together with a pair of bank robbers, $700,000, and more guns than a Long Branch Saloon scene.

This is a bloody fast and fun movie with plenty of twists. Quenton Tarantino and the “Hateful Eight” have nothing on this bunch. Sources. IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Graphic: Movie Poster, Well Go USA Entertainment.

Devil Take You

5 June 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Devil aka The Night Chronicles: Devil.

Theaters: 17 September 2010

Streaming: ~2011

Runtime:  90 minutes

Genre:  Drama – Horror – Mystery – Suspense — Thriller

Els:  6.5/10

IMDB:  6.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  50/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  43/100

Metacritic Metascore:  44/100

Metacritic User Score:  8.3/10

Awards: — Two minor nominations for screenplay and supporting actor

Directed by: John Erick Dowdle

Screenplay by: Brian Nelson

Story by: M Night Shyamalan

Music by:  Fernando Velazquez

Cast: Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O’Hara

Film Locations:  Toronto, Philadelphia, Los Angles

Budget:  $10 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $62.6 Million

Five strangers, one of them the devil on a soul collecting task, are stuck together on a broken-down Philadelphia elevator waiting to be rescued.

Devil is a low budget movie done right. The director and acting are competent, but the real star of the show is the screenplay. The run-time has been criticized as too short, but a longer movie would have led to over-telling of the story, unnecessarily dragging out the plot.

Sources. IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Horror Film Wiki. Graphic: Movie Poster, Universal Pictures.

The Press as Journalists

29 May 2024 By in Movies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Civil War:

Theaters: 12 April 2024

Streaming: 24 May 2024

Runtime:  109 minutes

Genre:  Action – Drama – Suspense – Thriller – War

Els:  6.0/10

IMDB:  7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  81/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  71/100

Metacritic Metascore:  75/100

Metacritic User Score:  6.3/10

Directed: Alex Garland

Screenplay: Alex Garland

Music:  Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow

Cast: Kristin Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny

Film Locations:  Georgia, Philadelphia, England

Budget:  $50 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $112.8 Million

During the end game of a future U.S. civil war, four Reuters’ journalists embark on a road odyssey from New York City to Washington D.C., through war-torn countryside and active battles, all in an attempt to interview the President of the U.S.

Civil War is not the movie you were expecting to see. This is a movie about the four journalists’ reaction to the war. It’s a movie about their fears, cowardice, and courage. In the end it is all about them. It is not a movie about what, why, and how the war came about; the war is just background except at the very end were the audience learns that the President is a gutless swine.

Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Graphic: Civil War movie poster, A24, DNA Films.

Come Together, Right Now:

22 May 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Godzilla vs. Kong.

Theaters: 24 March 2021

Streaming: ~Mid-May 2021

Runtime:  113 minutes

Genre:  Action – Sci-Fi — Thriller

Els:  8.0/10

IMDB:  6.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  76/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  91/100

Metacritic Metascore:  59/100

Metacritic User Score:  7.1/10

Awards: — A few minor awards mainly for special or visual effects

Directed by: Adam Wingard

Music by:  Tom Holkenborg

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle

Film Locations:  Hawaii, Australia, Hong Kong

Budget:  $155-200 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $470.1 Million

The best Godzilla-Kong Monster Mash movie. Better by a King Kong leap than the 2014 and 2024 films.

Godzilla meets Kong on the field of battle, which just so happens to be a major city and, in this case, Hong Kong. Godzilla fights King Kong in Hong Kong. Admittedly that phrase has a certain bouncy cadence to it, akin to the Ali-Frazier 1975 fight, Thrilla in Manila.

This is an action movie with the stars duking it out and tearing down a few buildings in the process. Plot, direction, screenplay, character development, and acting take second fiddle to the teeth chomps and fisticuffs, but those are likable features, not bugs.

Sources. IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Screen Rant. Wikipedia.