Tag Archives: American Cinema

True Lies (1994) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – While some parts of this have aged as well as blue cheese in the sun, you can’t help but feel the pull and allure of a story swinging for the fences at every opportunity. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film

True Lies Review –

When getting ready for my 2022 best of lists, I discovered that I had revied 99 films this year. Which made me wonder, what could be the lucky number 100? Just as I pondered that, True Lies finally made its way onto streaming. I have not seen this in years, but while I loved it when I was younger, the years are rarely kind to films like this. But given the year that James Cameron has had with Avatar, it was all the better time to jump back to one of his classics.  

So to set the scene, an exclusive party is taking part on a snowy cold night at Lake Chapeau, Switzerland, at a heavily guarded chalet. But not all the guests are coming in the front door. Some are cutting through the gates to the lake under the ice. Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) works for a secret US counterterrorism unit called Omega Sector and is investigating the billionaire art dealer Jamal Khaled (Marshall Manesh) as a possible front for laundering money to Islamic Terrorists. But no one outside of the agency and his team, Albert “Gib” Gibson (Tom Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov), not even Harry’s wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), knows what he does. One tango later, Harry must make a less-than-quiet exit from the party. But while his work and home life are separate entities, they are about to come crashing together.   

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Fall – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Captures that tension of being isolated from the world with rescues just being out of reach at all times.  

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to view this film.

The tower from afar.

Fall Review –

As we get closer to the end of the year, there has been one film that I have been avoiding. I have a deep fear of heights, and seeing an epic tale of survival (maybe) half a km up in the air on the big screen was a bit of a stretch. But on the small screen, where I can pause and walk away, well, it is now time to give it a go.   

So to set the scene, on a sheer cliff face, two married climbers Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Dan (Mason Gooding), make their way up the side of the mountain with their friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner). But just when they are going to make it to the top, Dan gets spooked by a bat and falls off the mountain. He tries to swing back when his anchor gives way, and he falls to his death. Fifty-one weeks later, Becky has cut herself off from the world and is at the bottom of a deep bottle pushing everyone, including her father, James Connor (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), away. Trying to help her friend get out of their funk, Hunter gets Becky to come out and climb a decommissioned 2,000-foot (610 m) B67 TV tower in the middle of the desert. The accent went well, but coming down is always the most challenging part.      

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After Yang – Movie Review

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TL;DR – There is a beautiful sadness to After Yang as you connect with the characters on the screen while also becoming introspective of your own life.   

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Yang's memories.

After Yang Review –

At the start of the year, one of my colleagues recommended that I should check out After Yang, and well as is clearly apparent, I have been quite tardy on that request. But a promise is a promise, and also, a soft-science fiction film exploring the nature of sentience in a shifting world should be 100% my jam, so it is silly that I missed it up until now.  

So to set the scene, we open with a family in a green field trying to take a photo together. While things look fine on the surface, with father Jake (Colin Farrell), mother Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), and kids Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and Yang (Justin H. Min) coming together to join in on a family dance-off contest. But Yang is an android built by the company Brothers and Sisters bought to help connect Mika with her Chinese culture. However, something has gone wrong with Yang’s central core, and he has shut down, and now Jake and Kyra have the difficult job of finding out what to do next.

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Samaritan – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a perfect film for Stallone, but it becomes hampered by many factors, including one of the weakest villains in an age.    

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film.

Joe on his back after getting hit by a car.

Samaritan Review –

As we come crashing towards the end of the year, there is still a genre dominating the cinema landscape, superheroes. However, while the DCU flounders and is about to go through a massive rejig, and even the MCU has lost a touch of its lustre, there is space for someone else to do something grand here. With that in mind, we head to the good v bad narrative of the Samaritan.  

So to see the scene, two boys discovered they had extraordinary powers a long time ago, but while learning to control them, people got hurt, and soon the town came and lynched the boy’s parents in a fire. While one boy became Samaritan, a protector, the other became Nemesis, driven by their thirst for revenge. After duelling for years, Nemesis leads his brother into a trap to save the town. Samaritan sacrificed himself to take his own brother down. People still wonder if Samaritan died that night, but Sam Cleary (Javon’ Wanna’ Walton) knows he is alive, or at least hopes so. But when he gets caught up with Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk) and Reza (Moises Arias) and gets stuck in the middle of a beatdown, only one person can save him, his neighbour, the surprisingly strong Joe (Sylvester Stallone).

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The Contractor – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A sadly predictable story with some good performances.     

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.  

A Military Cemitry.

The Contractor Review –

If there is one group of people you can reliably know will be the bad guys, it is a private military outfit. I mean, take Angel Has Fallen, Black Adam, and Secret Headquarters, to name three of many examples. And when you look out at the world, it is not an entirely unearned reputation. When I heard that Chris Pine would be playing PMC in a film as the main lead, I had to give it a look.  

So to set the scene, James Harper (Chris Pine) is a Green Beret in the US Army who has had to take illegal steroids to treat a keen injury. When he is discovered and discharged from the army, he has few choices left, and he needs to take a private military contractor job for a fellow veteran Rusty Jennings (Kiefer Sutherland). Rusty was recommended by a former squadmate Mike Hawkins (Ben Foster), because he is not like one of those other PMCs. James and Mike must head to Berlin for a black mission because it is not officially signed off on. But things fall apart when the Berlin Police show up.

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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A work of art that hits on every emotional level from start to finish.    

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Pinocchio but just a puppet.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Review –

Some names instantly intrigue you when you hear they are attached to a project. Which is entirely what happened when I heard that Guillermo del Toro was going to make a Pinocchio film. This alone was enough to interest me. Then you discover that it will be an animated film, not just that, a stop-motion animation film, and the masters of puppets, The Jim Henson Company, will produce it. Well, that is a combination that could not be missed, and I am fundamentally glad I watched it.   

 So to set the scene, master craftsman Geppetto (David Bradley) lost his only child Calro (Gregory Mann), during the Great War when he was only ten years old. A stray bomb destroyed the church that they were working in, and it is a loss that he has never recovered from. Sometime later, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), a travelling cricket, came to live in the tree planted at Carlo’s grave and watched as a drunk Geppetto laments over his lost son. But as that is happening, some old spirits from the forest who typically ignore humanity hear the pleas of the grieving father and when he cuts down the pine tree that was planted at the grave to turn it into a puppet. So The Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) looks over the creation and then brings that puppet Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) to life.   

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Slumberland – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A film that might have some of the most out-there performances I have seen but was missing a bit of substance in places.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film

Flip and Nemo dance in the streets of a glass city.

Slumberland Review –

Grief is always a complex emotion for a film to land. Sure, you can phone it to get some emotional engagement from your audience, but if you want to tap into something more profound, that is a lot of work. Add to this the nuance needed when building a film directed towards a younger demographic, and you get the film we are looking at today.

So to set the scene, we open on a lighthouse on an island where Nemo (Marlow Barkley) lives with her father, Peter (Kyle Chandler). Nemo knows everything about the lighthouse, and every night Peter tells her stories of Flip (Jason Momoa) and the adventures they had when he was a kid. But when Peter is lost at sea during a rescue, Nemo must leave the lighthouse and live with her uncle, whom she never met and who lives in the city. No one is happy with this move. However, when Nemo goes to sleep, she is surprised when her soft toy pig comes alive, and even more so when her bed wakes up and smashes out of her window, taking her back to the lighthouse, but not quite as she remembers it, and someone from her father’s past is waiting for her.     

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A Knight’s Tale (2001) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – A delight, a joy, a battle, and a film for the ages. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this film

lying on a bed of furs.

A Knight’s Tale Review –

As I sit here at the time of writing, it is the night of Christmas Day, and I am not seeing any family today for the first time in a while. While I have never minded that isolation, it brings a certain melancholy on days like this. However, it also brings a particular reflective thought. It is in that mood that I thought I would take a moment and look back at an icon from my childhood, a film that still sits on my Top 10 films of All Time List.  

So to set the scene, and let’s just use the title card of the film itself, “In medieval times a sport arose. Embraced by noble and peasant fans alike, though only noble knights could compete. The sport was jousting.”. In this world, we meet three lowly squires of Sir Ector (Nick Brimble), who has unfortunately died before he can win the tournament. William Thatcher (Heath Ledger), Roland (Mark Addy), and Wat (Alan Tudyk) must move quickly because they have not eaten in three days, and they are about to forfeit the match. William decided to ride in his place, but you must be of noble birth to compete, so if they are discovered, it’s to the gallows they go. But if you can pull this off, maybe you don’t stop at just one tournament.    

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  It unravelled a bit at the end, but I enjoyed the ride up till then.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid and post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film

The family sit on a broken car.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review –

With our next catch-up film, we get to go back to a movie released on New Year’s Day in 2022. I had meant to watch this well before this, but there was a lot of toxicity around the film building up to release, which put me off a bit, and it never worked into the schedule until now. But what failed at Halloween is now ready at Christmas, and it is time to dive in.  

So to set the scene, on a stormy night at Shandor Mining Co., a man leads an invisible entity back to his farm. He tries to catch it, but the power fails, and the creature attacks before he can recover. With his death, his farm in Summerville, Oklahoma, reverts to his estranged daughter Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), who is in financial struggle and moves out there with her daughter Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) and son Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard). They were hoping to be able to sell the place, but nothing is straightforward, and they have to stay for a while. Things are going okay, but for the daily earthquakes with no source. That is until Phoebe finds her grandfather’s old ghost trap, and she, her friend Podcast (Logan Kim), and teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) open it up and let out a coming doom.  

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Blacklight – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An action film that wastes a lot of its runtime, forgetting it is an action film.     

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film

Flags at Washington DC

Blacklight Review –

As we continue our run to the end of the year, I thought I would continue my catch-up by continuing my look at Liam Neeson’s after yesterday’s Memory. This time around, we have an action film where Liam is an undercover expert caught up in a grand conspiracy

So to set the scene, we open with a politician Sofia Flores (Melanie Jarnson) is giving an empowering speech about bringing politics back to the people and stopping the cooperate interests that are disenfranchising people. Still, later that night, she is run down by an assassin. Meanwhile, in Rural America, Travis Block (Liam Neeson) is extricating a deep undercover operative from a mission gone wrong. He wants to step away from this life and spend more time with his family, but one last mission to extricate Dusty Crane (Taylor John Smith) goes pear-shaped, and now he is in the fight of his life.  

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