What wuz the most recent movie(s) you have seen?

[j7wild]

The Domino Principle (1977) aka The Domino Killings

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075950/





Tucker is a maximum security inmate with still 15 years left to serve on his murder conviction sentence.

While still in prison, one day he is called to the prison Warden's office where he is approached by outsiders, identifying themselves only as being members of "The Organization", to do a job in exchange for his guaranteed freedom, a new identity and promise that he will be reunited with his wife he hadn't seen in 15 years.

It's never mentioned specifically but we can all surmise "The Organization" is a shadowy agency like the CIA or some rogue Government assassination group.

The job he is asked to do is never mentioned but it's clear they want Tucker to assassinate someone.

The movie runs 1 hour and 41 minutes including opening and ending credits.

It starts out well with the interview of Tucker by "The Organization", the subsequent discussion of their offer although rather vague and sketchy, then the set up but then once he was out of prison, it starts to change the pacing and fall apart:

at 1 hour and 18 minutes into the movie, not only nothing has happened, the job they want him to do is not even talked about in detail.

This is supposed to be a paranoia filled political conspiracy thriller, one of the many movies with the same topic that were made and released by Hollywood in the 70's like Klute (1971), Executive Action (1973), The Domino Killings (1977), Winter Kills (1979), The Conversation (1974), Marathon Man (1976), The Parallax View (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and All the President's Men (1976).

Yet there is nothing thrilling, paranoid, tense, nor suspenseful about this movie.

Supposedly there were over 3 hours of footage that was filmed and when the final cut was put together, the studio balked at its length and made director Stanley Kramer excise over 1 1/4 hour of it - thus resulting in a mess that makes no sense and containing no excitement whatsoever.

This movie is also Kramer's biggest financial and commercial failure and his penultimate film. It's a shame a great director such as Kramer who gave us epic cinema classics like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Judgment At Nuremberg (1961), The Defiant Ones (1958), Ship of Fools (1965), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), On the Beach (1959) and Inherit the Wind (1960) had to end his career with such a low point movie such as this one.

It's also been reported that Gene Hackman, who had also admitted to it himself, made this movie for money.

At the time he was offered other roles in movies such as "Jaws" , " One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ", " Close Encounters of the Third Kind ", "Apocalypse Now" and " March or Die".

Hackman agreed to appear in this film instead because he was offered a bigger paycheck if he accepted the role for this film.

Finally it's a shame that this movie turned out the way it did because it had a cast taht featured some of the more notable stars of the time: Richard Widmark, Mickey Rooney, Edward Albert, Eli Wallach, Candice Bergen, Ken Swofford and even the actress who is best known for the voice of Federation Starship U.S.S. Enterprise computer.

I really wanted to like this movie and Gene Hackman is a great actor and he is also one of my favorite but unfortunately there was nothing in the movie that gave me reason to like it or enjoy it and the blame is not on Hackman or on the rest of the cast or even on the director:

they did a hell of a job and gave it their all.

The blame for this unfortunate cinematography failure falls only on the studio.

1/5

[j7wild]

Incredibles 2 (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3606756/



14 years ago, a Pixar animated movie named The Incredibles defied all expectations and odds and pre-release criticism by earning critical accolades, breaking box office records and making the other studios' animated departments stand up and take notice.

The movies watching public wanted more. The critics wanted more. The studio wanted more. They all kept asking for an Incredibles sequel.

The film's director Brad Bird said he will do a sequel when he felt the moment is right and not one minute sooner.

After 14 years of unabated anticipation, the world has finally gotten its The Incredibles sequel and what a sequel it is.

Where most sequels today have failed to capitalize on the quality and freshness and originality and success and discovery of the original films it follows, sequels such as Taken II, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Independence Day: Resurgence, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Batman v. Superman, Thor: The Dark World. The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Incredibles II has surpassed the original.

It's exciting, fun, family oriented and heart warming.

To say any more is to give the movie away which I won't.

I do want to say that the film is rated PG:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3606756/parentalguide

there are some parts that I don't think are completely suitable for children ages up to 13 but those parts may just fly over the head of the youngest of those children without them noticing or comprehending what is going on and the older of those children may just shrug it off and have a couple of chuckles about it.

5/5

p.s.

How well was this sequel received by audiences?

It was released about 5 months ago in June and it has already earned a combined domestic and worldwide box office of $1.235 billion !!

[j7wild]

Peppermint (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6850820/



One of the better "Revenge/Vigilante" movie in the same league as Kill Bill, Death Wish 1974, Taxi Driver, Taken and John Wick.

Jennifer Garner holds up her own as an action heroine out for revenge after members of the Mexican cartel murders her daughter and husband.

The movie dwells a bit on the right and on the wrong part and whether she has the right to take the law in her own hand.

Fortunately it doesn't get too preachy.

The ending makes me thing this may become a movie Franchise for Jennifer Garner - which by the way this film is from the same director who gave us Taken.

4/5

[j7wild]

Venom (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270797/



If you search online for the definition of Hot Mess

You will get many results but mainly, you will get several similar results including these two:

1. ...refers to when a "person's appearance is in a state of total disarray while still maintaining an undeniable attractiveness & allure."

Hot messes' are appealing for a variety of reasons, most notably because they're generally unexpected, capricious, & agonizingly provocative. Additionally, numerous contingent factors make duplication rare and continual repetition virtually impossible.

No one set of guidelines can perpetually determine what distinguishes a "hot mess" from an above-average train wreck. Regardless of the circumstances, you know it when you see it; because they are typically conspicuous, and obviously they are always awesome."...

2. ...A disheveled or unbalanced person, particularly one who is nevertheless — or therefore — attractive...

That is exactly what Venom, the latest film based on yet another Marvel Comic is, a:

Hot Mess

Venom is also the first film to be produced by Sony under the Sony's Marvel Universe, not part of the long running 20 films (and counting) Marvel Cinematic Universe produced by Marvel studios.

Originally Sony wanted to make this an R rated film and decided to make it a PG-13 film for the obvious reason:

it will sell more tickets at the box office.

The result is a movie that should be dark horror film but it doesn't work because it had to meet PG-13 rating guidelines.

Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams do their best with their roles but for the entire film, they are mostly just window dressing.

The ongoing plot with Carlton Drake, a multi-billionaire modeled after Elon Musk (?), who has his own spaceships that will make NASA green with envy is just absurd and unbelievable.

For a movie with a nearly $116 million dollars budget, the CGI looks like it was made in the 90's using computers before computers had Windows and Pentium and AMD and ATI and 3dfx.

This movie feels like one of those horror B-movies from the 90's.

It's not fun, it's not exciting, it's not suspenseful, it's not thrilling.

The only reason it's doing so well at the box office is

1. because it's another Marvel comics based movie so naturally everyone from age 5 to 30 will run to see it

and

2. because it's a

Hot Mess

I can't recommend this movie one bit.

1/5

[jacques1400]

823M and still counting, not bad for a hot mess IMO.

[j7wild]

Hunter Killer (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1846589/





Gerard Butler saves the same U.S. President twice in Olympus Has Fallen and then in London Has Fallen.

Next he will save the U.S. President again in Angel Has Fallen in August 2019.

But in the meantime, Butler has decided to join the U.S. Navy and save the Russian Federation President while at the same time prevent the USA and Russia from slugging it out in a full scale World War III.

This movie feels like a hybrid of between The Hunt For Red October, Crimson Tide and just about every recent actioners involving Navy Seals and Special Forces - from Act of Valor to The Expendable series.

But don't worry, this film boasts a total of 27 producers, co-producers and executive producers behind it, one of them being Butler himself, so you know with all that producing talent, it got to be good, right?

NOPE!

The acting is laughable, the story is ludicrous and the action sequences are... well, let's just say that I've seen better action sequences in those cut scenes that are shown in between levels of many X-Box and Playstation FPS games.

2/5

[j7wild]

Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6628394/





The El Royale hotel, located off the beaten path, built right on the California/Nevada border with its main lobby, lounge and restaurant spanning each side of both States and with rooms located in both Nevada and California, was during its heyday in the 1950's the go to place for the wealthy and powerful and famous.

The movie opens in 1959 with one solitary man checking into one of El Royale's rooms.

Most folks when they first walk into a hotel room, they make sure that there are plenty of towels, that the TV works, that the bed is not too hard and there are plenty of pillows on it:

this unidentified person does something completely different, opposite, very strange and unconventional which I will not give away.

Fast forward 10 years to 1969, the El Royale has lost its luster and most of its rooms have fallen into disarray. Very few people even know it exists and its rooms have not seen any guests in a long time.

4 strangers arrives at the hotel at almost the same time: a priest, a down and out back up singer dreaming of becoming the next big act in Reno's finest casinos, a traveling vacuum cleaner salesman, and a foul mouthed young woman.

4 strangers who do not know each other with nothing in common and who will give new meaning to two of the many social etiquettes our parents taught us as soon as we were old enough to understand them:

1. don't talk to strangers

and

2. don't stick your nose in business that doesn't concern you.

To say any more is to spoil the movie.

I can say that the first act of the movie where each one of the 4 strangers are introduced with a backstory and a flashback scene is the best part.

But the 2nd act where the story tries to cohesively bring them together by finding some type of common ground among them is when the story begans to unravel and fall apart.

Then by the time the 3rd and final act is shown, everything just felt forced, formulaic, convenient and way too clean and tidy.

We have seen this movie many times before, there is even a genre name for it on IMDB:

"Group of Strangers meet in a one room setting movies"

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066670465/

Director Drew Goddard, famous for his directorial debut of the very successful anti-horror comedy Cabin In The Woods and for writing critical hits such as The Martian and Cloverfield, tries to take something that's been done before and elevate it to a different and better level:

he attempts to do so by evoking narrative and exposition styles borrowed from many similar movies before it but he just can't completely pull it off.

On IMDB, this movie has received a rating of 7.3 out of 10.0 using the mean average from a total of 381 reviews:

65 of them gave it a 10 out of 10, calling it: A Must See, Brilliant, Great Movie!, Outstanding, Best I've seen in a long time, Awesome, Wow, They don't make it like this anymore, Best Tarantinosque movie ever, Best Movie of 2018, Favorite film of 2018, etc., etc.

180 of them gave it an 7 to 9 out of 10 rating with equal praises to boot.

On Rotten Tomatoes, out of 218 critics who reviewed it, 191 of them gave it a Fresh tomato rating and called it exquisite, audacious, top notch, intriguing, mesmerizing, magnificent, etc., etc.

This must be the most critically over-hyped movie by both audience and critics I've seen this year and in the past couple of years.

It's worth a look if you have almost 2 hours and 21 minutes to spare but by the time the ending credits start to roll, you won't even have one memorable scene from it to remember it by.

1/5

[j7wild]

Bumblebee (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4701182/





Another Transformers masterpiece by Michael Bay.

Unlike the Marvel and DC movies that are being forced down the throats of simple minded moronic movie audience every year with the single sole purpose to separate them from their money, each new entry the same as the previous ones: a banale cacophony of repetitious senseless action set pieces barely glued together to form a movie with no beginnings and no ends;

Bumblebee is a beautiful movie about human compassion, tolerance toward another race, making personal sacrifices for the greater good of the many and the importance of family.

Hailee Steinfeld shines as the human heroine of this film who unselfishly risks her life to do what is right and just - for humanity and mankind - and guess what?

She doesn't possess any stupid, absurd, unrealistic comic books superpowers and she doesn't need them: her powers are her humaneness, her heart and her soul.

5/5

[j7wild]

Aquaman (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477834/





Another megabudget, noisy, bloated, repetitious, protracted, gigantic CGI overload of a comic book based movie:

all visual with no substance !!

By the time the:

"You have to be King. But I don't want to be King. My home is on land. It's your destiny. Only you can unite the kingdoms. Save Atlantis"

speech and lecture were repeated for the gazillion times in the first hour of the film, I wanted to strangle someone and throw everything AND the kitchen sink at the screen.



2/5

[j7wild]

Polar (2019 Netflix)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4139588/



OMG!!

Was this a bloody and violent movie!!

Based on a Dark Horse Graphic Novel, it's sort of like a cross between 300, Sin City and Leon: The Professional.

Then there is the ending which I didn't see coming!!

I hope they will make a sequel!

4/5