Drive (2011)

Pretty solid, yet understated, action piece surrounding the personal life of a getaway driver played by Ryan Gosling. He plays one of those stoic type action heroes but is very believable in the role. Like the main character, the film's pacing is very methodical but when things periodically boil over, look out. Nice turn for Albert Brooks as a mobbed up baddie. A solid movie, but probably a little too stylistic for my pedestrian tastes. A very high 3.0 / 4.0.

The Chaser

I think I've hit the end of my Korean action movie swing for now. I'd probably put this one just behind I Saw the Devil . Not as completely engrossing, but quite a bit more believable. If anything, it is too bleak and realistic for my preference. The most enjoyable thing for me was that the main character didn't really have wild quirks or motivations that were too deeply seated. In general, he acts just like I might expect a pimp/ex-cop would act if I actually ran into one. Late in the story we find out he was pushed to become a little worse than he once might have been, but all in all, perhaps the most believable character I've ever seen in any film role. One of the best acting jobs and character creations ever IMO. Cheers to the writer, actor, director, and others, that defined him. Many of the other characters were also well portrayed. The story mainly takes place over a couple of days and so only a little verbal history of some of the players is given to define people beyond the moment. 8/10

Next up - Drive

With a bit of a gear shift from the top 100 films of all time, as I’m down to all subtitled films remaining (and I don’t care who you are, you can’t read movies week after week), I’ve been working on Top 100 Sci-Fi films:

The Fountain: Interesting film and one of the very few of JB’s sci-fi reviews I disagreed with. This movie takes place in three time periods and involves the same main characters trying to complete the same goal. The Spanish Conquistador Tomas seeks the fountain of youth and becomes consumed by the task of serving/saving his queen. The present Dr. Tom seeks a cure that will not only reverse aging, but will eliminate his wife’s deadly tumor. The T of the future travels to a far off galaxy to save an ancient tree. I found it intriguing to discover how these three Toms (all played by Hugh Jackman) and their women/missions (Rachel Weiss) were related and intertwined. I felt it was well-paced, looked good and while it’s ending left me slightly tepid, I can still say I enjoyed it. 3 of 4

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy, Shagadelic time waster. Although the early 1970’s Jane Fonda is hot, -okay, she’s really hot- I had a hard time enjoying this campy rescue mission in space movie. I’d have rather watched Forbidden Planet again. Oh well, it’s off the list now. 1 of 4

Planet of the Apes (1968): Yes, I’d seen in before, but it was long ago and it was a viewing broken over several sittings. If you’ve not been in a cave, you know the ending zinger Damn you all to hell, but it is still a decent journey to get there. Taylor is on a deep space mission which was to last 6 months “their time” but last a couple of centuries of Earth time. They splash down on a planet several hundred years overdue and find the inhabitants to be quite inhospitable. Here, the apes rule over primitive humans with a ruthless vengeance. Some within the ape ranks believe that humans can be taught basic tasks or communication, but higher ranking believe these attempt not only futile, but threatening. Taylor’s arrival only reaffirms this. He and some ape scientists will soon discover that this threat lies in the form of discovery. 4 of 4
This movie is well worth it’s place on the sci-fi top 100 and shares the common thread of Charleton Heston with this coming weeks viewings on my list:
The Omega Man (rewatch)
Soylent Green (embarrassment redemptions list)

Day of the Dead (1985)
In an underground bunker, a small detachment of soldiers and a few scientists have survived a global zombie pandemic. Both groups are at odds with each other and the ugly situation turns even uglier once the military leader finds out about how lead scientist “Dr. Frankenstein” conducts his experiments on zombies.
On the evidence of George A. Romero’s third entry into his series of “Living Dead” movies, you would have to consider him a pretty poor director. Both, the original and groundbreaking ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and the even better ‘Dawn of the Dead’ suffer from severe problems, such as the pacing, but manage to overcome their weaknesses due to their inventiveness, appropriately nihilistic atmosphere, clever social satire and fine balance between gruesome horror and slapstick comedy. ‘Day of the Dead’ lacks a comedic element and, although it contains some interesting ideas - which are better expressed in ’28 Days Later’ -, it never makes good use of them. Although ‘Day…’ has a noticeably higher budget than ‘Night …’ and ‘Dawn …’, it looks more, well, incompetent. There is no suspense whatsoever and the “Living Dead” vibe just isn’t there. Also, ‘Day of the Dead’ is quite boring, because most of the time scientists are shouting at soldiers and vice versa and that’s about it. Romero would raise his game again in the rather good ‘Land of the Dead’, but ‘Day of the Dead’ and ‘Diary of the Dead’ (haven’t seen ‘Survival of the Dead’) are best avoided. 3/10

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
Based on real events, ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ tells the story of how Texan congressman Wilson (Tom Hanks), nicknamed “Good Time Charlie” for his womanizing and drinking, managed to increase the budget for the United States’ covert war by proxy against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which led to the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan.
Mike Nichols’s movie – written by Aaron Sorkin – is a splendid political comedy and very entertaining as well as insightful. The acting by Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman as CIA agent Gust Avrakotos is very strong, which, unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) cannot be said of Julia Robert’s performance as rightwing political powerbroker Joanne Herring. I would have liked ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ even better, if its politics hadn’t been dubious. I have problems with the depiction of the Soviets as moustache-twirling villains, whose sole purpose of occupying Afghanistan appears to be crushing Afghan babies with tanks and hunting Afghan civilians with helicopters for sport. I readily admit that I am not too informed about the details of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but it could be argued that the communist era was Afghanistan’s most politically stable and socially progressive period in the past 50 years, so this depiction of events strikes me as false or at least strongly biased. Also, at the end of the movie, the protagonists of America’s covert war try to rebuild a civil society in Afghanistan and regret their failure to raise the required budget, fearing that the instability of the Central Asian country may come to haunt them. I believe that there is a lot of hindsight bias in this depiction of events and perhaps a little bit of whitewashing of Charlie Wilson himself. Was he really concerned about Afghanistan beyond the end of the Soviet occupation? I doubt it. Nevertheless, even taking into account my reservations, this is a very good movie – 8/10

Martin (1976)
Martin (John Amplas) is a shy young man who travels to a crumbling steel town neat Pittburgh in order to stay with his elderly cousin Cuda. Cuda believes Martin to be a vampire and makes it his mission to save Martin’s sole and then destroy the monster. Cuda’s daughter Christina thinks that Martin is seriously disturbed, but that this is the result of the family’s old world superstitions. Martin himself doesn’t believe in magic at all – but he sure feels the need to kill women and drink their blood …
Did I just write that George A. Romero is a bad director? I have to reconsider, because ‘Martin’ is expertly directed. Romero makes clever and effective use of tools such as jump cuts and flashbacks. There is nothing bloated or unnecessary in the film, although it is more of a drama than a straight horror movie. The atmosphere is great, not in an apocalyptic ‘Dawn of the Dead’ way, but in portraying life in a dying town, family conflicts, marital issues etc. The low budget actually works for the film, because it gives it a greater sense of realism. Above all, the ambiguity of the character of Martin is handled expertly. It is never made clear if Martin really is a vampire (the flashbacks suggest it, but they may just be Martin’s imagination, fuelled by watching horror movies) or whether he has mental issues resulting from his family’s beliefs and a repressed sexuality. Further, you sympathise with Martin most of the time and it then comes as a shock whenever he hunts for blood – there is a very good scene in which he invades a home, finds himself in a situation he didn’t expect and initiates a cat-and-mouse game, which he seems to sadistically enjoy. This is easily the best of Romero’s non-zombie movies (of which I’ve only seen the very average ‘The Crazies’ and ‘Bruiser’, which has a good premise but which is badly executed) and a very good horror movie. 8/10



I'd say that Hitchock's main strength is his handling of time in the movies, by which he creates suspense. The signature cropduster scene in NXNW is a model of time manipulation (another good example is Tippi Hedren smoking outside a school while crows gather behind her in 'The Birds'). Then, he was a genius in audience manipulation, for instance in Psycho, which makes you invest emotionally in Janet Leigh's character, who is shockingly murdered, then in Anthony Perkins character, who shockingly turns out to, well, have maternal issues. Also, there always is a dark humour in Hitchock movies. Further, he was technically inventive, particularly in the use of camera angles, and not afraid of experiments (Rope, Lifeboat, Rear Window). Have to stop here because lunchbreak is over, but I think these are the main reasons for my admiration of Hitchcock.

Well, oppressive, totalitarian regimes have a marked tendency to be quite stable. Just look at Yugoslavia. Tito kept things pretty stable as well. There are loads of other examples, but I think you get my drift.

Would we call Tito oppressive and totalitarian?

The Rosa Parks Story (2002) (TV) **1/2

It was a teacher work day on the last day of school and I had absolutely nothing to do -- The grades were submitted, the room was packaged up. So I went down to the school library to borrow a movie that would appear on the surface to be me doing work as a history teacher, but would actually be me getting sweet new movie action! I wanted to watch The Color Purple, but it was 2 and a half hours, so I went for the much shorter, paint by numbers TV movie biopic of Rosa Parks. The best thing about it was that it was a new movie!

Primeval (2007) **

What says summer vacation like man-eating crocodiles? Nothing, that's what.

I get your drift and I don't think that political stability is an end in itself (nor am I supporter of communist regimes), but note that Afghanistan suffered greatly with a near-complete loss of infrastructure in the civil war raging from 1989 (Soviet withdrawal) until 1996, ending in Taliban victory. Of course, the Taliban regime was relatively stable in itself, but I think we can agree that it wasn't in any way socially progressive. For instance, during the communist era, women were allowed to have a higher education and work as physicians. To be clear, I do or rather did not support the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, which was most certainly motivated by geopolitical reasons and not by any interest in the well-being of the Afghan people.

However, 'Charlie Wilson's War' depicts the Soviet occupation as a mission to maim and murder civilians and nothing else. If you'd watch the movie without knowing anything else about the historical situation, you would get the impression that the USSR's motivation was to commit genocide and try out military equipment on helpless victims. Take the scene, in which Soviet helicopter pilots approach a village and say "its hunting time" and open fire. There may have been instances like this, but I doubt that they are characteristic of the situation, just as much as the so-called "Kill Team" is not representative of U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

Amadeus stands up pretty well to a second viewing but really belongs on the big screen. The extended version notably turns the film from a PG to an R. Great performances not just from Abraham and Hulce, but from Elizabeth Berridge (whose character is fleshed out in the extended version in more ways than one) and Jeffrey Jones. None of them would ever be this good again, although Jones also has a notable role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Many classic scenes, including the one where Salieri gets to see some Mozart "hot off the press" originals, without corrections as if dictated by God, and better than anything Salieri will ever do. Or the big scene near the end where Mozart is dictating the Requiem to Salieri and the latter is struggling to keep up with him. One of the best depictions of the creative process ever filmed. The soundtrack's pretty good too. 9 of 10 and the best film of 1984.

Oh Man I can't believe you praised Elizabeth Berridge. I think her performance mars the film

It pains me to say this, given my love of boobs, but the extended version of Amadeus is a step back. The additions are extraneous, and the notable scene featuring Elizabeth Berridge drags the film, kicking and screaming, into territory that is more adult than any of the other material justifies.

The theatrical edition is easily one of my favorite movies.

I have nothing to say about these movies, but congrats on the end of the year. I remember how amazing it was to get out of school for the summer as a kid, and it has to be even more rewarding for a teacher.

I saw Prometheus over the weekend. It was a good, three star kind of film that doesn't successfully balance the line between Alien-like horrorfest and contemplative, deep sci-fi. The movie's biggest flaw is that it wants to be both and ends up feeling uneven. There is depth, and there are scares. Individual scenes work quite well, but the film never really comes together into a completely satisfying whole. Still, it's a good, well made movie. Those insisting otherwise are likely victims of the hype more than anything else.

I enjoyed Primeval myself, I remember those misleading ads when it came out that made it look like a serial killer thriller, one revewer on a horror forum I sed to frequent actually thought it was one going in and was caught off guard when it turned out to be a killer crocodile film, I was like "did he even read the film synopsis before he saw it"?

This movie has been on my top ten favorites since I first saw it. I felt alone in my assertion that this 'belongs on the big screen', as it is a character-driven film, rather than vista-driven. However, I do agree with the assertion that more Berridge wasn't better.

In an aside, I was listening to a classical radio station as I worked in the field a couple weeks ago when they played a work by Salieri.
All I could think was "You killed Mozart!! You bastard!!"

Poor Salieri. Everybody thinks it and it didn't, you know, actually happen

I'm not a victim of the hype and I don't think it was a good movie. You know why? Because, as you said, it never really comes together into a completely satisfying whole. They should have abandoned all Alien DNA because Prometheus always felt like two movies to me that were warring for dominance. In the end, they both died

I don't have a problem with that. My comment was more directed towards the folks who are calling it awful, terrible, giving it a one star rating, and generally being hyperbolic in their dismissal of it. It seems like they're going overboard because they expected something great and got something mediocre. Either that or that haven't seen too many bad movies.

Or maybe those people have legitimate reasons for disliking it, maybe Ridley Scott has lost his touch and people just wanted the film to be better then it really was.

Or maybe...nope, don't care. Thanks for the lesson, pal!

I will not deny that this is possible in theory, but I have yet to see anybody make a convincing argument for this movie being anything less than maybe a 2.5/4 at the lowest.

With Internet fan culture (and its long-held tradition of having zero capacity for self-examination), there tends to be a pretty steep drop-off after "great". Either it's awesome or it's a dismal failure. There is no room for any finer degrees in between.