Last Vegas (2013)

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Writer: Dan Fogelman

Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh

Starring: Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Jerry Ferrara, Romany Malco, Roger Bart, Joanna Gleason, Michael Ealy, Bre Blair, April Billingsley

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's going to be legendary

Plot: Three sixty-something friends take a break from their day-to-day lives to throw a bachelor party in Las Vegas for their last remaining single pal.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I really don't have much to say about this one.  It's very predictable and I can't think of anything I didn't see coming a mile away.  You get some of the standard and easy old people jokes, Las Vegas jokes, sex jokes...but what makes them work is the cast.  The top five names in the list are great and are lots of fun. And what's more, they look like they're enjoying themselves and that goes a long way in selling the script.  Yeah, I laughed and I got choked up a little in a couple of spots.  So on one hand, it's your run of the mill comedy but on the other, the cast does a good job of performing it which makes all the difference in the world.  And the older you are will likely dictate the more you'll like it.

Dead Line (2007)

Original title: Interferencia (Interference)

Director: Sergio Esquenazi

Writer: Sergio Esquenazi

Composer: Pablo Monlezun

Starring: Andres Bagg, Virginia Lustig, Oliver Kilker, Chris Longo, Alejandra Papola, Martin capuccio, George Rodard, Julio Luparello

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The screams you will hear are real.

Plot: Alone and desolate, Martin Sanders is a recluse whose only form of entertainment comes from eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers. Slowly it becomes clear that he is not simply overhearing the passions of innocents but the trappings of a serial killer, one who lives in his building and knows Martin has been listening.  now Martin has to find the identity of the killer before he finds his next victim.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

So-so no-to-low budget psychological horror with some fine acting and some not so much.  Someone online said this costs $3,000 and was shot in 8 days.  I can believe it.  The production values could stand some improvement and it drags in the middle but it's got a solid ending and an OUTSTANDING score by Pablo Monlezun who appears to have only one more composer credit for a film and hasn't done anything since this.  That's a damn shame.  I'm really impressed.  Until it was over and I started looking for information about this picture I assumed the music might have come from a stock library with some really nice tracks that are much better than the film they serve.  Considering the budget and time constraints this isn't all that bad and the score elevates it even further. 

Cloverfield (2008)

Director: Matt Reeves

Writer: Drew Goddard

Composer:  No score but there is an end credits cue that I suspect was written by Michael Giacchino although it's not listed on IMDb.

Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Annable, Anjul Nigam, Margot Farley, Theo Rossi, Brian Klugman

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us

Plot: Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of a hand-held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over. The movie starts as a monster of unknown origin destroys a building. As they go to investigate, parts of the building and the head of the Statue of Liberty come raining down. The movie follows their adventure trying to escape and save a friend, a love interest of the main character.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

SPOILERS VERSUS MOTHRA!!!  YARRRRRR!

Well, the monster was cool looking.  I'm not buying that a skyscraper can lean like that against another and not collapse both...but the monster looked cool.  Why would these kids risk all of their lives to see if the dude's girlfriend was on the 39th floor of the leaning skyscraper even though the monster was badass cool?  Seriously?  The helicopter crashes and everyone in it dies but our three kids, shortly after the most kick ass cool shot of bombing the cool monster happened?  And after they wake up from the crash, the scary, cool monster is right on top of them (where FINALLY one of the kids snuffs it) but the military is nowhere in sight after a constant barrage of bullets and bombs?  I'm so glad that dude was killed by the neat-o monster.  OK, so I guess the military was absent because they were about to drop a nuclear bomb on the sweet monster but you still hear bombs drop after the kids conveniently escape and they take the camera from the dude's dead brother.  Whatever.  Cool monster, though.

While I can appreciate the different take on the Godzilla-like monster movie, it lost me at so many points along the way.  I know it's not real but I give my suspension of disbelief to hundreds of movies a year.  All I ask in return, for the most part, is a little respect that I'm not required to hand over every ounce of it.  The characters in this film do things that real people probably wouldn't.  The film opens with a lot of unnecessary setup so that we might try to care for them.  I wasn't buying it. It would have been more believable if the mother of the main guy was late and stuck in the apartment or something with a stronger bond.  Regardless, there are Hollywood tropes all through this thing that manipulate the characters only to get them to the next one.  I liked the baby monsters in the subway.  Hell, I rather dug all of the monster stuff; it's the people bits I had a problem with.  When you have things like the kids in the subway following the military guys and you hear nothing but footsteps until they pass through a hanging bed sheet to reveal a LARGE, BUSTLING, NOISY emergency hospital ward, that takes me out of it.  A bed sheet is not going to conceal that much noise.  I know some of you think I'm being unfair but it's when a picture is filled with dumb stuff like that that it lessens my experience.  But then again, for some reason I can continue my love/hate relationship with PROMETHEUS (2012) and still respect myself in the morning.  Go figure.

Blow-Up (1966)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Julio Cortazar, Tonino Guerra

Composer: Herbie Hancock

Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David Hemmings, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Gillian Hills, Peter Bowles, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Julian Chagrin, Claude Chagrin

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Sometimes reality is the strangest fantasy of all.

Plot: A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bound by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. Then he meets a mysterious beauty, and also notices something frightfully suspicious on one of his photographs of her taken in a park. The fact that he may have photographed a murder does not occur to him until he studies and then blows up his negatives, uncovering details, blowing up smaller and smaller elements, and finally putting the puzzle together.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  I don't know...I think so.

I had the pleasure of seeing this in a theater (and for the first time) and that's the way to see it.  It's wild.  I love the 60s London scene, the great, mod clothing, styles, pretty faces, cool music, the dialogue, character actions, etc.  Thomas (Hemmings) is a real cad.  He's one of those extremely selfish types that you love to hate kind of like Michael Caine in ALFIE (1966) but faster and more sadistic.  This is a visually stunning picture.  The rest of it I'm not sure about.  I let myself be taken on a ride as I often do but this one left me with questions that I almost wasn't sure I cared enough to know the answers to.  Did Thomas really witness a murder or was it all in his head?  Was this his way of trying to find meaning in something where his own life had none?  Was that the reason behind his obsession with discovering the truth?  Was there a truth to discover?  Did this incident change his life?  Does he become a better person or does he remain the same shallow man with 4 ounces of talent?  I'm not convinced he saw what he thinks he saw.  He's just making shit up to fill a void but he believes it.  I'm sure a second viewing might answers some of these questions.  Perhaps in a couple of decades I'll give it another spin.  

Silent Movie (1976)

Director: Mel Brooks

Writers: Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, Barry Levinson

Composer: John Morris

Starring: Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Sid Caesar, Harold Gould, Ron Carey, Bernadette Peters, Carol Arthur, Harry Ritz, Charlie Callas, Henny Youngman, Barry Levinson, Howard Hessman, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, Marcel Marceau, Paul Newman

More info: IMDb

Plot: Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them. The film contains only one word of dialogue, spoken by an unlikely source.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again?  "          " (see what I did there?  Ahahahahahaha)

Brilliant.  It's been a good 25 years since I saw this and it's even better than I remember.  The gags are often hilarious.  Brooks will do just about anything for a laugh so you're going to get some bits that are stupid and silly but the sheer amount of them often brings the laughs because they don't stop.  It's a clever story and seeing Mel, Marty and Dom courting big name celebrities is hilarious.  James Caan, Burt Reynolds and Paul Newman (his chase was particularly funny)?  Are you kidding me?  These guys were hilarious.  Most of all, I think, I really appreciate the light and tender tone the movie has, especially with the celebrities ultimately being gracious and more than happy to be in Mel's film.  And then you've got the obvious silent comedy style of the teens and twenties that Brooks is emulating.  As a fan of those films I'm probably more predisposed to like this picture than someone who isn't but I'm just speculating.  I've been slowly revisiting Mel Brooks' catalogue and I'm about to get to the point where they start going downhill fast.

Pillowfighter (2002)

Director: Jamie Greenberg

Writer: Jamie Greenberg

Composer: Traditional songs

Starring: Tom Shillue, Brian Unger, Jamie Greenberg, Stephen Lynch, Michelle Maryk, Andres du Bouchet, Joey McIntyre, Charles Ezell

More info: IMDb

Plot: There is something our nation has forgotten. Back in the 1890s, America's most popular spectator sport was... PROFESSIONAL PILLOWFIGHTING. Film chronicles the life of champion pillowfighter Big Jack Bolster-- whose fortunes rose and fell with those of the sport he loved.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? Yes, and again and again and again...

This is absolutely brilliant.  Not only is it a spot on spoof of Ken Burns documentary like THE CIVIL WAR (1990) but, and more impressively, it's funny as hell.  The gags run from silly to clever and sublime.  This is one of my favorites...

  "Jack was born into a family of 42 children."

Notice what's written in the lower right hand corner.  Fucking classic.  The cast of talking heads has some familiar names and faces.  Michelle Maryk slays me.

Ahahahahahahaha.  That's some funny shit, there.  

Sure, this is brilliantly funny (yeah, I'm really going crazy with the praise but it's really that good) but what happened behind the camera is equally impressive if not more so.  The doctored photos and film are masterfully handled to look like they are really from the early 1900s.  There are times you can tell they're fake but often you have to look REALLY hard to distinguish it.  What's more, actual vintage film was sometimes used that had a little bit of business added to it, like this image from a few second vintage clip where you see an advertisement (on the left) for Big Jack Bolster...

It's one thing to digitally enhance an existing photo but there's a whole other level of impressive when you add it to a video AND while the camera is panning with the motion on screen.  The YouTube video (above) on Greenberg's channel is 7 minutes shy of the version I have (mine runs just under 23 minutes).  I haven't watched the shorter version so I don't know what's missing or different about it.  I struggled to find the entire video online and this was the best I could find.  I've had the longer version so long I can't remember where I found it or how I learned of it.  Since then I've shown it to a couple of dozen friends.  I've seen it at least a half dozen times and it never gets old.  There are a lot of belly laughs packed into those 23 minutes and it's an impressive film no matter how you slice it. Thank you, Jamie Greenberg.

Bad Grandpa (2013)

Director: Jeff Tremaine

Writers: Spike Jonze, Johnny Knoxville, Fax Bahr, Adam Small, Jeff Tremaine

Composer: ???

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Jackson Nicoll, Greg Harris, Georgina Cates, Kamber Hejlik, Jill Kill, Madison Davis, George Faughnan, Grasie Mercedes, Marilynn Allain, Jack Polick, Spike Jonze, Catherine Keener

More info: IMDb

Plot: 86-year-old Irving Zisman takes a trip from Nebraska to North Carolina to take his 8 year-old grandson, Billy, back to his real father.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Maybe.

If you didn't laugh from anything in the trailer (especially the beauty pageant bit) then this movie isn't for you.  For everyone else, it's just as funny as the trailer and there are a lot of laughs in an hour and a half with the biggest ones in the middle at the male strip club (the smack sound of grandpa's nuts slapping between the male stripper's legs is hilarious) and at the end with the beauty pageant.  I was impressed at how consistently funny the picture was.  One thing that surprised me is that there's a plot that strings all of these mini adventures together.  As thin as it is, it works well.  The movie also has heart. Knoxville's grandpa, Irving Zissman, is a sweet guy despite what he says and you can easily see that Knoxville is having a wonderful time at it.

How about that Jackson Nicoll as the grandson, Billy?  This kid's adorable and funny as shit.  He gives a natural performance that you'll love.  In movies like this (BORAT (2006) and BRUNO (2009) come to mind) I find myself trying to figure out the logistics of duping the people as they do on screen.  You can't just show up at someone's wedding reception and destroy the champagne and cake table.  They had to have arranged it in advance but I can't help but wonder exactly how they went about it as I'm watching it unfold. It doesn't take away from my enjoyment in the least but that's how my brain works sometimes.  In the end, it was a fun ride and I was most pleased that the picture exceeded my expectations which were based solely on the trailer.