I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
This is Volume 104, which means I've been reviewing movies every week for two years without missing a single week. I started on July 27, 2014. I've reviewed 388 movies since then.
I started reviewing television this year and have reviewed 41 seasons just in 2016.
I've released 150 podcast episodes since December of 2015.
It's obvious I love movies and I love reviewing them. Read, listen, subscribe, and sign up to follow my reviews! Check out the sidebar to the right and follow the links.
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| Back to the Future - Great scott! |
Watch Back to the Future on Netflix
Buy Back to the Future
Written by: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover
Rated: PG
Plot:
After traveling to the past in a Delorean, Marty McFly has to ensure his parents fall in love to protect his own existence.
Verdict:
It deftly weaves concurrent story lines so effortlessly. The writing is clever and fun. What if you could meet your parents when they were young? What if man could travel through time? What if your existence depended on helping your parents fall in love? They don't make them like they used to, with action, suspense, tension, and even romance, you have to see this movie or watch it again.
Watch it.
Review:
It's a slow start, but it's setting up a lot of points the movie revisits later. If you haven't seen it before, you don't know what objects and points will be revisited later. It does such a great job of setting up the eventual payoffs. Marty's mom lectures him about how things used to be in her day, and Marty gets to see it first hand. It's not like she described. The script is so clever that it's baffling to learn it was rejected nearly forty times, though it did go through many revisions. The inspiration for the script came when Bob Gale saw his father's high school year book and wondered if they would have been friends.
Michael J. Fox is perfect as Marty McFly, and while he was always the first choice, his starring role in Family Ties almost prevented him from being in the movie. Many scenes were shot with Eric Stoltz as McFly. Stoltz and the producers agreed he wasn't a good fit, so Michael J. Fox filmed Family Ties and Back to the Future concurrently.
Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) seems like a crack pot scientist until his time travel experiment works. The Delorean leaving flaming tire tracks is an iconic moment. As Brown says, if you're going to time travel, do it in style.
The plot is ingenious. It packages time travel as a simple way to improve the future with no ill effects. It's not true. Time is a closed loop and can't be altered, but it doesn't matter and the fallacy creates a fun movie. The movie glosses over the impacts of changing the future, even if such a thing were possible.
Marty accidentally travels thirty years into the past and has to convince a younger Doc Brown to help him get "back to the future." In the process, Marty meets his parents. He gets to see that his dad was bullied as a teen, just as he is as an adult. His mom was much prettier and more forward with boys. His parents' meet cute story was more complicated than he knew, and Marty ends up preventing them from meeting which puts his own existence into jeopardy.
Marty has to help his father overcome anxiety, fall in love with his mom, and triumph over local bully Biff. This is the same Biff that still bullies his father in 1985.
All of these stories come together to a point as Marty is trying to get back to 1985. It's an amazing moment of tension as you wonder whether he can save himself, and then whether the plan to harness the power of lighting will work. The script is so well executed, and I can't help but think Back to the Future when I hear Huey Lewis's The Power of Love.
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| The Invitation - Better with wine, or too much runway not enough execution. |
Watch The Invitation on Netflix
Written by: Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Michiel Huisman
Rated: --/R
Plot:
In this Netflix exclusive, a dinner party guest becomes paranoid that the hosts are hiding something.
Verdict:
The Invitation takes a while before it takes off. When it does, it's really good. The first two-thirds are hurt by stiff acting, and disjointed writing. That and the plot generate a lot of questions. The directing is solid, but the movie makes you work for it. It's a good idea that's only adequately extrapolated.
It depends.
Review:
This has a crazy start with Will (Logan Marshall-Green) beating a Coyote to death after he hit it with his car. He's putting it out of his misery, but it's also much easier to just leave it. I hope this would be a telling moment for Will and it is. He's not one to avoid confrontation or do what he feels is right.
The premise is a dinner party reuniting old friends, but the stiff acting and disjointed dialog didn't feel natural. It was hard to believe these people knew each other. While the movie does a great job of creating awkward moments, it's unintended as the awkward moments occur at odd junctures.
I was waiting for people to start dying or go missing, making this a Clue (1985) style murder mystery. Something needed to happen, but all I got was quick clips hinting at history between Will and one of the hosts, Eden. The movie uses this as the main driver of tension, though it just feels cliche.
The turning point seems to be that the hosts are into a pyramid scheme of how to overcome grief. I was still hoping for a murder mystery. The guests start playing a game of telling the truth. John Carroll Lynch, who plays Pruitt, a guest no one but the hosts know displays great acting talent with a monologue about how he murdered his wife and served time in jail. This certainly made the dynamic more interesting and the party awkward, but the movie didn't do a great job of capitalizing on it.
Through Will we've gotten clues that something is amiss. He tells everyone, "Something isn't right here. Something very strange is going on." Will may not be a reliable narrator. Will's breaking point is well directed, as you can telegraph his thought process perfectly without words.
The movie lacks a clear focus. It's juggling an unresolved past, emotional tension, a mysterious pyramid scheme, and a couple of strange guests, but the focus doesn't come until later. The movie is a big tease, and the breaking point is all the better because of it. This movie goes from serene to madness in a second. That second makes this movie much better. It went from 'skip it' to an 'it depends', but I wish the moment had occurred much earlier as the first two-thirds of this movie were slow.
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| Hard Candy - Unsettling and partially terrifying. |
Buy Hard Candy
Written by: Brian Nelson
Directed by: David Slade
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh
Rated: R
Plot:
A teenage girl invades a man's home to expose him as a sex offender.
Verdict:
Part mystery, part horror, and creepy on multiple levels. A teen girl tortures a man she thinks is a sex offender. Is he? The movie is full of suspense but ultimately shallow with underdeveloped characters.
Skip it.
Review:
This is weird from the start. A fourteen year old girl, Hayley (Ellen Page) is on a date with a much older guy, Jeff (Patrick Wilson). They flirt back and forth as I thought this can't be happening. Jeff even tells her, "I'm going to have to wait four years for you."
They are both leading each other on, but for very different reasons. Hayley thinks Jeff is a predator and is seeking vigilante justice. Jeff is definitely a predator, but we haven't seen him commit any crimes. Regardless, he isn't a good guy.
This is small budget but tense. Jeff is held captive in his own home by Hayley. He begs, pleads, threatens, and even recounts stories from his past to convince her to untie him. She refuses. She finds evidence in his safe that she states confirms he committed a crime. We never see it.
The question the film asks, is it okay to torture a suspected criminal even if we haven't seen them commit a crime. We have to take it on Hayley's word that Jeff is a criminal, though we do know he is a predator even if he hasn't acted on his desires. Is that enough to warrant psychological and physical torture? It's safe to assume he's guilty, but the movie makes a point to never make his guilt explicit.
Patrick Wilson does a great job as Jeff, playing a guy that seems nice, but you want to hate. His range of emotions feel authentic as his torture progresses. Hayley is a mystery. I assumed she had to have been assaulted, but we never find out. She provides Jeff with a choice. She can dispose of the incriminate evidence or turn it over to the police. What Jeff has to do to ensure the disposal is anything but easy.
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| The Crying Game - He's made a huge mistake. |
Buy The Crying Game
Written by: Neil Jordan
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Starring: Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson
Rated: R
Plot:
A British solider is kidnapped by the IRA, and the soldier and IRA agent form an unlikely friendship.
Verdict:
Can love overcome anything? Fergus kidnaps a British soldier who subsequently dies. Fergus becomes infatuated with the soldier's girlfriend, but she's hiding a big secret. I don't think the movie can conceal the twist as easily now as it did twenty some years ago. It's an intriguing question, but time has not been kind to this film.
Skip it.
Review:
What you see isn't always reality. Fergus (Stephen Rea) kidnaps a British soldier, Jody (Forest Whitaker), for the IRA and holds him hostage. Fergus isn't a bad person. He takes pity on his captive and they form an awkward friendship. It's a bit of a redemption story for Fergus. While he doesn't shun the IRA, his world view definitely shifts. Fergus promises Jody that he will check on his girlfriend if something happens to him. There are a few subtle clues about Jody's girlfriend.
Fergus becomes infatuated with Jody's girlfriend and they start a romance. If I didn't already know the twist I wonder if I would be able to guess. In retrospect, there are quite a few clues.
If it wasn't for Jody, Fergus never would have sought out the girlfriend. I wondered if Fergus's attraction to her is in some part derived from his guilt over Jody's death. Fergus can't bring himself to tell the girl about his kidnapping of Jody.
Fergus is blindsided by a secret Jody's girlfriend hid. She isn't quite who she claimed. Fergus is upset, but doesn't leaver her and apologizes.
Jody and then Fergus share a story about how people act according to their nature. Each character in this movie has a certain role to fulfill that doesn't conform to their nature. Jody and Fergus should be enemies, but become friends. Jody had a girlfriend, but succumbed to the seductions of an IRA solider which is what got him kidnapped. Fergus is much more compassionate than his IRA buddies.
Even Jody's girlfriend states she can't help who she is. Fergus stays with her because he likes her. Her secret is irrelevant. It's difficult to put yourself in Fergus's position. How do you blend perception and reality?
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| Children of Heaven -An intriguing story. |
Buy Children of Heaven
Written by: Majid Majidi
Directed by: Majid Majidi
Starring: Mohammad Amir Naji, Amir Farrokh Hashemian, Bahare Seddiqi
Rated: PG
Plot:
A young boy loses his sister's shoes and embarks on an adventure to get them back.
Verdict:
I was expecting something more fun, possibly fantastical or magical, but this movie plays it straight. This desperately needs a Spielberg touch. It's got a great premise that is never as fun or as interesting as I expected. With as much praise as this movie gets, I feel like I missed something.
Skip it.
Review:
Perhaps I expected too much. I was hoping to see the world from the boy's point of view, something imaginative and fun. I like the idea of this movie more than the execution. On a second watch, I might see this differently.
I like the premise. Ali loses his sister's shoes but vows to get them back. She agrees to not tell their parents. The interactions between Ali and his sister are great. You really feel like they share a sibling bond.
It culminates in Ali entering a foot race, hoping to win third place for the prize of new shoes. Few times can a character win a race and feel like they lost, and I do like that moment. Ali didn't win the shoes, and the main prize is then irrelevant.
It's different, but that's because I'm accustomed to the typical American movie tropes. This has a great focus, and while I wanted to like it, it just didn't resonate with me.
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