And THAT'S why they're the biggest films EVER!! sol. Everybody Loves McDonalds!!
Just realised this is Part 1 you're talking about. Wait til you watch the next one. Part 2 drops the ball in a BIG way. Massive let-down for the series.
I haven't seen it yet but Ive watched many reviews on YT. There's no chance in hell I won't hate it with every fiber of my being.
I'm pretty much there with you on this one. I was thoroughly engaged and was surprised at the high level of effects and tension throughout. No, not much new here but I thought with what they were dealing with in terms of story, was quite well done. Very underrated IMHO.
Yeah, I enjoyed it quite a bit too. I mean, the marketing for the movie pretty much said: "hey, are you up for an updated take on monster movies like Alien or The Thing? We made one, check this out." Then it actually delivers the goods.
I'm pretty much there with you on this one. I was thoroughly engaged and was surprised at the high level of effects and tension throughout. No, not much new here but I thought with what they were dealing with in terms of story, was quite well done. Very underrated IMHO.
Yeah, I enjoyed it quite a bit too. I mean, the marketing for the movie pretty much said: "hey, are you up for an updated take on monster movies like Alien or The Thing? We made one, check this out." Then it actually delivers the goods.
I will add fourth ditto to this movie. I liked it. I also thought the acting was excellent in this movie.
I'm pretty much there with you on this one. I was thoroughly engaged and was surprised at the high level of effects and tension throughout. No, not much new here but I thought with what they were dealing with in terms of story, was quite well done. Very underrated IMHO.
Yeah, I enjoyed it quite a bit too. I mean, the marketing for the movie pretty much said: "hey, are you up for an updated take on monster movies like Alien or The Thing? We made one, check this out." Then it actually delivers the goods.
I will add fourth ditto to this movie. I liked it. I also thought the acting was excellent in this movie.
I think it's wonderful when someone comments upon another's posting ... so that we don't have merely a list of films watched ...
... even better, of course, is when the film's title (or something to identify it) is mentioned in the posting(s) so that dimwits like me don't have to scroll back to find out which blinking film is being discussed! Mitch
I think it's wonderful when someone comments upon another's posting ... so that we don't have merely a list of films watched ...
... even better, of course, is when the film's title (or something to identify it) is mentioned in the posting(s) so that dimwits like me don't have to scroll back to find out which blinking film is being discussed! Mitch
You are absolutely correct, and I'm afraid it's my fault. What happened was I posted something about the movie LIFE, and TominAtl replied to that, and I then replied to his post... but I removed all the stuff I already wrote (including poster and trailer) so as to not clog up the threat too much, thereby eliminating any reference to the actual movie that was talked about.
In fact, I even noticed it when I posted my post that now the film title wasn't even mentioned, but I thought "ah well"... it is my fault... I shall now insert at least the film's title in my response.
Damian - I suppose the phone booth thing was also a form of plot amplification. The King in the counting house counting out his money - but not for friends or family or friends of family or friends of friends of family, etc.
Favourite line in the film is when Getty is asked ' what will make you happy '. His reply-. ' More'.
It's hard to believe that there would be a pecking order among C-westerns, but the Eddie Dean pictures seem to be the cream of the crop at PRC studios, while those of Buster Crabbe are a notch below. This one has a whole town of conspirators attempting to steal the estate of a deceased wealthy man by passing off a dance hall girl as his niece and primary heir. Unfortunately, "Fuzzy," the pal of "Billy Carson" (Crabbe), is also an heir (a 32nd cousin), so that drags the pair into the nefarious goings-on.
The Crabbe films were generally more lighthearted than the Dean films, with this one going particularly heavy on the comedy. If I had known that going in, I probably would have enjoyed it more. But nothing in the ad below suggests that this is going to be anything other than deadly serious. Maybe I'll revisit it in a few months with a different mindset.
I'd been looking forward to seeing this ... but not so much that I bought it. Instead I waited for a TV (Netflix) broadcast and I can now say I'm pleased I didn't spend. I enjoyed the first film despite its many faults and didn't have high expectations for this sequel.
Some of action scenes were very good (if a little extreme in depicting the violence) and Denzel Washington didn't falter in carrying his role; Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman reprised their roles and were welcome. I'm not sure any of the remaining cast were up to their standards, though there were some nice bit part players.Pedro Pascal as McCall's former partner was out of his depth ... and the no-name hit-men were non-entities. Ashton Sanders was good as the young man McCall befriends but his role was very limited, despite a lot of screen time.
Scenery, mostly in and around Boston, was interesting (more coastline) and the storm sequence finale made for a different take on a standard shoot-em-up.
The main problem lay with the script which was highly derivative and largely nonsensical. A stupid opening sequence set in Turkey (actually filmed there!) sets up McCall as the good guy who does incredible things for no-reward and a finale has you reaching for the hankies when someone unexpected arrives ... no details of how either of these events are supposed to have occured, etc. are given.
The main story-line is very reminiscent of Skyfall (2012) even including the final act where Bond/McCall leads the bad guys to an isolated location. It failed miserably in the JB007 venture and fares only slightly better here.
Music score by Harry Gregson-Williams provided the ambience but, as usual with modern films, I don't recall any melody.
As a modern-day action film it's quite good ... but if they make #3, I hope they employ better story-tellers/script-writers. Mitch
Dead Ringers 8/10 Creepy as hell. Jeremy Irons is excellent as twins, wonderfully differentiating the pair. Great cinematography, and cold art design. Very effective Howard Shore score. Irons really is a great actor.
At its heart a B-picture crime drama, BOILING POINT is worth watching not so much for its heroes--two plodding L.A.-based Treasury agents, "Jimmy Mercer" and "Brady," played by Wesley Snipes and Dan Hedaya--but for its colorful villains. First among these is the red-haired "Rudolph 'Red' Diamond" (Dennis Hopper), a smooth-talking conman fresh out of stir, looking to make some fast money. His partner is the gullible "Ronnie" (Viggo Mortensen), another recent ex-con. Apparently the pair met in lockup. Through various ruses, Red is able to convince Ronnie to do all the dirty work in the partnership--the stealing and the killing. Their most recent scam was offering to sell some counterfeit money to the agents, in a ripoff that got a third agent killed. That has caused the Agency to give Jimmy one week to find the killers, before he is demoted and transferred to Newark.
But Red has problems of his own. He owes $50,000 to mob boss "Tony Dio" (Tony Lo Bianco), and has been given one week to come up with the money. So, Red must set up another ripoff, and fast. All of the prime characters also have women troubles. Jimmy has an ex-wife (Stephanie E. Williams) and a high-class call girl he's been seeing (Lolita Davidovich). Red also has an ex-wife (Valerie Perrine), and when she rebuffs him, he also seeks comfort with Davidovich. And Mortensen has a girlfriend (Christine Elise) who is also giving him the cold shoulder. Add Seymour Cassell to the cast as another lowlife, and there are plenty of pleasures to be had from watching the actors alone.
BOILING POINT didn't even crack the top 100 films of 1993 at the box office, grossing a tad over $10 million. But in about 90 minutes, this second-tier, but game cast, tells this second-tier crime story efficiently. The film was the final directing credit for James B. Harris, who is better known as a producer,. Harris started his producing career with the Stanley Kubrick crime classic THE KILLING, and went on to produce the Charles Bronson action drama TELEFON.
The Time o Their Lives 8/10. With Joan Collins, Pauline Collins and Franco Nero. A very enjoyable ' little' film about an old actress (Joan) doing a runner from an old folks home to get to an old friends funeral in France. Much fun ensues. I thought Joan was great having fun, looking frumpy, even taking her wig off. Pauline C was also good. Nice cameo from Franco ( my mum says isn't he gorgeous every time he comes on ). No guns, horse, or shooting. Only a little swearing, which was funny when it came. Nice scenery too.
Based on reviews of the film, viewers either love it or hate it. I saw the trailer over a year ago and was quite intrigued. Sadly while the film has its moments of vision and brilliants it doesn't all come together in a meaningful way.
First be warned, this is a very low budget indie film. 98% of the film are ppl talking non stop while the camera looms on them for five, ten, fifteen minutes at a time.
The film plays homage to the Twilight Zone and many say the film is like a 90 minute Twilight Zone episode. So think intellectual sci fi thriller with little in the way of special effects. It opens with the viewer watching a fictional Twilight Zone like television show on a TV screen, it then zooms into the screen and we are put into the world the story takes place.
The film is set in the early 50’s (?) in a small quite southern town. The lead characters are a radio DJ and a young switchboard operator. The town is having a basketball tournament and most folks are at the game.
The switch board operator begins to get calls of something strange in the skies, then calls are suddenly dropped. People seem to be disappearing. (off camera) The switchboard operator then hears strange (alien) sounds. She patches the sounds thru to her friend and mentor, radio DJ, who plays the sounds live on the radio. He asks anyone in the area who are listening if they are able to identify the sounds.
A mysterious caller claims he's heard the sounds before and its part of a government coverup. Another older caller says she has a story to tell but the DJ most go to her house to hear what she has to say. The DJ and switchboard operator team up to try and solve the mystery. Is it some secret military experiment? Are the Russians invading, or is it something other worldy?
As I said, many scenes are very long. Some work brilliantly others not so much. In order to get a sense of confusion and alarm characters talk over each other. (a Spielberg trait) Sometimes it hard to hear what the characters are saying. Many times long drawn out dialog scenes wanders off and really have nothing to do with the overall plot of the story.
The editing is a bit weird too. While the DJ is talking to a stranger on the radio, the film fades to black for over 40 seconds and all you hear are the two talking. I guess it was supposed to be immersive but it was distracting. There are other visual decisions that were distracting as the filmmaker kept taking us in and out of the TV. I'm not quite sure if the story was supposed to be real or If the viewer was watching an episode of a Twilight Zone knock off.
The film is a slow burn and sadly it desperately needed to have a big payoff at the end and it didn’t. It was as cliche and unambiguous as one could imagine.
That said there was a lot I liked. This is a directors debut film and he demonstrated a lot of talent and vision. The acting was quite good. I like how quirky the characters were. He tossed in a ample amount of nostalgia without making it feel like fan service.
There's one scene near the beginning where the young female switchboard operator is on camera for ten minutes straight with NO cuts or edits. She literally flawlessly performed a ten minute scene with no second takes. Working the switch board, talking to various characters (off camera) listening to the radio then back to the switch board. It was an amazing accomplishment.
However the director tries a similar idea as the DJ talks to an stranger over the radio and it just lingers on far to long, made worse by the fact a lot of the information presented in the conversation wasn’t important to the story. So your yelling at the movie to move along!
The director also cleverly intermingles old and modern film making styles. Theres an impressive scene where the camera leaves the switch board operators building travels across town to the basketball tournament as a game is being played, exits the arena and travels to the radio station all in one uncut shot. (You can see a long section of that shot in the teaser for the film) Then as I noted there are other shots that just sit on one person for long extended periods of time without any fancy camera work.
Its a mixed bag. The director shows a lot of talent. But some of his ideas just didn’t work and the story lacked a revelation or statement. Its not as captivating as the trailer makes you to believe. If there was a pay off at the end I would’ve given this a much higher score. So close yet so far.
