A Night At The Movies CXLVIII: Priest

Saw the sci-fi film Priest recently.  A nice short and stylish action film.  I cannot say the plot was deep or that everything was fleshed out, and I found the one non-warrior priest character who came along to fight annoying, but otherwise a nice feast for the eyes when you want special effects and action.  Turn the brain off and enjoy the quick ride.   Good action, good special effects, bad guys dropping by the dozen, but definite tough bad guys and good guys fighting it out, not much else to say really.  A short and violent tempest in a dark world – like a comic book on screen.

A Night At The Movies CXLVII: Le Samourai

Billed as a combination gangster/samurai film, I think the better way to describe this late 60s French film is that it’s a French crime film, with a main character that has some samurai characteristics to his behavior, especially a complete lack of fear of dying.

The film has some interesting aspects of realism to it – namely a lot of the mundane.  The film is not slow, and yet has very little action to it.  There is a lot of going back and forth through Paris as the main character tries to get from point A to point B, either by trying to escape the police, or just going to and from his apartment as he waits his next assignment.  While the mundane isn’t exactly what you would call entertaining, it’s quite realistic.  Not everything goes perfect and indeed, if you think about it, the brief moments of action in life are often spaced apart with the normal motions of life.  I did think though that the prolonged subway scenes towards the end of the film where the main character needed to try to avoid the police was about right.  If you’re being hunted and you’re trying to be inconspicuous, there will indeed be a lot of going back and forth, on and off trains, in an attempt to shake those following you.  I think what I found entertaining about the film was that it is so unusual from any other film I’ve seen.  Not a lot of talking, and most of the talking was the police chief, who was his own interesting character.  I had forgotten the French mode of policing is so very different than ours – and the police in this movie don’t worry about civil rights in this film – they are determined to get the “bad guy” and the ends justify the means with no soul-searching after all is said and done.

So back to the main character – is the hitman really a samurai?   He certainly carried himself like one.  Fearless, disciplined, dangerous when attacked, and honorable in his own way.  Certainly not afraid of death but determined to take out those who did him wrong before he died at the hands of the law.  The final scenes of the movie and the main character’s persistent stares along with his deliberate actions do indeed make him a samurai in western clothes.

A very interesting film.  It’s an art-house film in my opinion, but it’s interesting enough that I think it will speak to those interested in those who show unmovable bravery, courage, and discipline against the odds, even when the odds may be self-inflicted.

A Night At The Movies CXLVI: MST3K – Space Mutiny

Big McLarge Huge!  Lump Beefbroth!  Slag McPlank!  Chin McGristle!

Funny how the Mc names stuck with me.  This is quite the bad movie, even with the borrowed Battlestar Galactica scenes.  Lots of good laughs in this one because the movie just sets itself up for so many bad things.  The “chase” scenes, the person who dies in one scene and is then back alive in the next but gone again later.  The “love scene” commentary was pure comedy gold.

I cannot do this movie justice with any attempted level of review.  Just go and see it if you have not already.

A Night At The Movies CXLV: The Last Samurai

While I’m not a great fan of Tom Cruise as a person, I will admit he can act well.  Didn’t hurt that the movie subject matter was interesting and watching Samurai running around in combat is always something fun to see.  Set in the 1876-1877 time period in Japan as Japan westernized and the Samurai officially disbanded, I doubt that the movie is historically accurate but I found the movie enjoyable none-the-less.  The protagonist, a washed up, but still very martial and strong, US cavalry captain haunted by atrocities against native Americans, goes to Japan to train the Japanese army to fight in the western style.  His first encounter with the Samurai does not go well as the Japanese conscripts flee against the Samurai army, just going to show that discipline can win against firepower if you conduct the battle correctly.  I will say it was nice imagery to see the Samurai come out of the shadows and mists at the pinnacle of their art of war – every motion calculated to instill maximum fear in their opponents.  You could see why they ruled Japan militarily for hundreds of years. The main character is captured after fighting very well, and is allowed to live among the Samurai for the purpose of the Samurai learning about their future enemy.  This living among the Samurai is the bulk of the film and while I do not know Japanese culture that well, I will say that this part of the film really taught you what the film is all about in my mind:  How you live is just as important as how you choose to die.  Battle and glory may be important if your culture values the martial arts above all else, but it is that dedication to a way of life wholly and fully that is what is most important.

A very good film.  Quite enjoyable and it ended fairly well – not exactly on a high note but well enough given the historical matter that this movie sought to portray and the title of the film.

A Night At The Movies CXLIV: Hang ‘Em High

So I watched a classic western of Mr. Eastwood’s, and I think it’s one of his weaker offerings.  The concept of the movie – an innocent man hanged who comes back for vengeance sounds like it would be a good western, but strangely, it wasn’t.  The music was annoying and was extremely loud in all the wrong places, and the transitions from one part of the film to others in some places was just odd.  Sure, Clint’s character was rough when he needed to be, and righteous the other times, but I just couldn’t root for him as much as I have in other films.

As much as the tag line of the film was “The hanging was the best show in town, but they made two mistakes. They hang the wrong man and they didn’t finish the job.”, I found the theme of the movie was more that the actions of those in power set the tone and things in motion which have unintended consequences.  The “Hanging Judge”, in an effort to set law and order and transition Oklahoma to a real state sets up a strict law and order system which effectively ends up sending most people to the gallows, including those who in the grand scheme of things probably need some mercy.  By so doing this, he set up the rule of law that had everyone lynch-happy, which is probably why Clint’s character got into the mess he did to begin with.  The judge by the end of the movie indicated that he didn’t like what he was doing, but if he could get to statehood, then this sort of justice he set up could be done away with – but I found that argument hollow and the man reprehensible.  So the fact that Clint went along in the end and rejoined “the law” to keep propagating this justice on the grounds that someday the Hanging Judge could be removed a sort of “ends justify the means” argument that was poorly delivered.  So for a classic western, I found this just so-so and maybe even in the avoid category.  There is better work out there.

A Night At The Movies CXLIII: MST3K – Manhunt in Space

This movie hurts.  Message to Carris 7 – Bite me!

Supposedly a movie version of a TV serial of the time, all I can say is that it bored me silly, but thankfully there was some levity provided by the MST3K hosts.  Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but man, quite hokey and simplistic with the lamest of bad guys I’ve ever seen.

Meh is my opinion of this one.  Again, a few good laughs, but I kept dozing off during the last quarter of the film, so even the MST3K couldn’t hold my attention forever.

A Night At The Movies CXLII: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I have to say I see why this movie did as well as it did in theaters this past year, and I also think that once again Andy Serkis has been robbed an Oscar just because he did the acting via a lot of CGI.  A movie with a theme of “you reap what you sow” with both good and bad crops coming from those initial seeds, and a movie that came across as very plausible.  It was quite something to watch the main character, Caesar, grow and decide on his plan for true independence and express this solely through facial expressions that said more than any simple words could.  There were a few other notable moments worth commenting on as well, including the interesting imagery at the beginning of the film where the chimpanzees are hunted and ambushed by, at the time, the world’s deadliest predator (man), and yet those events set in motion the eventual end of mankind.  Well, mankind set in motion it’s own demise through the actions of one man (hence my comment about good and bad crops being harvested from what was sown early on).

A few other things I enjoyed were the homages to the original Planet of the Apes movies – just little snippets, maybe a tad cheesy, but still good ones.  Also, the one other older chimpanzee at the end of the film who had gone through lots of medical testing was brilliantly scary casting.  The intelligence and malevolence behind that chimpanzee’s face by the end of the film was truly frightening.

A film I highly recommend.  Probably one of the best SciFi films I’ve seen since District 9.

A Night At The Movies CXLI: The Village

I can’t say too much about this film since it may reveal the plot for those of you who haven’t seen it (assuming anyone even reads what I write, or cares what I write), but I will say I did figure out one of the plot twists early on, but not the other plot twist.  Instead, I’ll focus on the theme of the film, which as various truths are revealed, is that sometimes, no matter how much you try to escape from something, it will get you in the end.  In that regard I thought the film did well.  I didn’t see it right away, but after sleeping on it, it’s clear that this is the true theme of the movie, or so I think anyway.

My only other comment is that I think the plot was a little slow at times, but when it all came together it picked up at just the right pace.  Not too fast, not too slow, and the suspenseful scenes were well done.

A Night At The Movies CXL: Space Cowboys

There are movies which are star vehicles, and this one is definitely one of them, pun intended.

Let me say what I liked about the film:  The flashback sequence at the beginning, with very good casting for Clint Eastwood’s character and for Donald Sutherland’s character as well – those two really looked like who they turned into in older age in the film.  I also enjoyed the visual special effects in space, and I enjoyed the very last scene of the movie quite a bit, but I’ll come to that in a minute.

As for what I didn’t like about the film, besides the four main characters, I really didn’t like any of the other characters and I found them all pretty shallow.  The one woman NASA engineer really bugged me – her emotions seemed forced and the acting bad.  But I’m no actor so who am I to criticize?  Oh wait, this is my blog so I can.  Also, I found some of the plot very predictable to the point I honestly thought the one character who sacrificed himself to make it back at the very end in a miraculous plot-hole and then die with dignity on earth due to the cancer he was diagnosed with.  But no, he died well and probably gave me the one unexpected thing I didn’t think I would see in the film.

The character who sacrifices himself knew he didn’t have much to live for back on earth, but he went out like a real space cowboy, riding a set of rockets into oblivion…but not quite.  The final scene of the movie shows that he made it to the moon and died in one hell of a good way to go.  Perhaps lonely and cold, but I suspect he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

So in the end, some good characters to watch especially if you like all these older actors and want to see them do well, but otherwise, the film was predictable and no one else was worth watching.  An okay film.

A Night At The Movies CXXXIX: Wilde

Seems like all I have to say lately is about movies I’ve watched.  Probably because I don’t feel like griping about the political system at the moment.

Well, nothing witty from me on this movie.  So I’ll get to the point – I found the movie slow at times, but interesting in that I didn’t know that much about Oscar Wilde’s life.  I knew a few things, but not as much as this movie taught me.  I think that if the movie has a theme, it’s that bad things happen to good people, and sometimes, you fall in love with the wrong person who really is toxic for you and that indeed happened to Mr. Wilde.  One wonders what would have happened to this man of great intellect and charm had things gone another way.