Netflix pick for 7/14/14 – ‘The American’

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In “The American,” a European-style slow burn character drama starring George Clooney, a man whose trade always results in death for others is plagued by his life decisions, weighing him down with guilt, leaving him broken inside, wondering if he can even maintain any sort of semblance of what could maybe perhaps at least be mistaken for an actual human connection and relationship. Even if it’s with a hooker.

From Dutch photographer turned music video director turned feature filmmaker Anton Corbijn, this is a small movie in terms of plot mechanics and whatnot, because it involves a lot of meditative scenes of Clooney’s gunsmith character silently pondering his experience, either while drinking coffee or driving through the countryside or making a gun or whatever. Sure there’s a few spurts of action here and there, but that’s not what this movie is about. It is about the style and mood and how both are successfully maintained throughout.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 7/7/14 – ’48 Hrs.’

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Not “48 Hours” and not “Forty-Eight Hours” but specifically “48 Hrs.” because in a movie like this we just don’t have TIME to spell it all out, whiz bam thank you, ma’am, here comes enough anti-buddy cop mismatched action comedy shenanigans to blow your face off.

Directed by the great Walter Hill and featuring a cop no one likes (Nick Nolte) with the motor mouthed criminal no one likes (Eddie Murphy), “48 Hrs.” is about what happens when a cop has to catch a killer and his best bet is to get this other criminal out of jail for a specified amount of time in order to track down this other guy. And really none of that stuff matter because this movie is really about how these two guys don’t like each other and how they don’t get along and yet they are stuck together and have to work together and they actually have some interesting chemistry together which then throws them both of whack because they don’t want to like each other but dammit if that doesn’t start happening anyway.

The action scenes are fine and the use of both Sonny Landham and James Remar as the bad guys is brilliant, but the soul of this movie is in the bickering between the two main characters and it is great, making this movie a classic for a reason.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Rover’

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“The Rover” is an Australian western set in the future, but that doesn’t mean sci-fi in any way, as actually they go in the other direction, depicting a world totally collapsed and depressed, a harsh world with no amenities or benefits of technology, but instead a barren land of little food and less hope. This is the world in which this story exists, and it is a brutal world, one in which the rule of the land is merely survival of the fittest and nothing more.

And in a scenario like this, one must be wary of people like Eric (Guy Pearce), a man whose sole possession is his car, and who has nothing else in his life, and definitely nothing to live for. The movie starts with him sitting in his car in the heat of the desert as flies buzz around his face, and he can’t even be bothered to swipe them away, he just lets them land on his face and mouth and he doesn’t care at all. So when three dumb criminals steal his car and use it as a getaway vehicle, he sets out to find the guys and get his car back because he’s got nothing else, nothing to lose, no loved ones waiting for him, no place to go, he has all the time and hate in the world, so off he goes, looking for his car.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/30/14 – ‘Kill Bill Vol. I & II’

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We all know that Quentin Tarantino is a voracious consumer of cinema, and a master of synthesizing all his favorite things about his favorite movies into his own movies, and “Kill Bill Vol. I” and “Kill Bill Vol. II” is a grand mash up of three of his preferred film genres: revenge movies, martial arts flicks and Spaghetti Westerns. And good golly do these three things go together quite well, especially thanks to Tarantino knowing exactly what he wants and how he wants it.

This is the epic story of a woman (Uma Thurman) left for dead by her former employer and co-workers (who all happen to be deadly assassins) seeking righteous vengeance against those that took her idyllic life and baby daughter away from her so violently. There are huge action set pieces and small character moments, and of course everyone talks in ways that only Tarantino can make people talk, another signature of his movies. The music is great, small roles are played by legendary actors, and it all just flat out LOOKS beautiful. The “Kill Bill” story, spread over two movies, is a joy of cinema and downright marvelous.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/23/14 – ‘The Usual Suspects’

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Winning a slew of film fest awards as well as a pair of Oscars, “The Usual Suspects” is a classic film noir mystery movie from 1995 that effectively launched the career of director Bryan Singer. Featuring a tense story about a group of criminals and the evil mastermind behind them all (even without them really knowing it), this is a cool movie with great atmosphere, awesome actors and a classic final reveal that really packs a punch.

The cast alone is almost good enough to watch this movie, with Byrne and Spacey being their usual realiably great selves, Benicio Del Toro being delightfully strange, Kevin Pollack actually being menacing and criminal-like (which is something since he is known mostly for being a stand up comic who does a mean Alan Arkin impression), and Stephen Baldwin actually being decent. Throw in some Peter Greene, Chazz Palminteri and Pete Postlethwaite and you have a bunch of dramatic heavy hitters ready to breathe life into a cracker jack of a screenplay, one that ends in a whirlwind of information and delirium that shocked audiences all over in 1995, and now here we are almost twenty years later, and “The Usual Suspects” is just sitting around, ready to be watched, waiting for someone new to come along and have their expectations subverted by a great movie.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 7/16/2014 – ‘Dutch’

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“Dutch” is one of those John Hughes produced comedies from the 1980s – 1990s (specifically here from 1991) that kind of gets skipped over and forgotten, yet there it was the whole time, this little gem of a movie, just sitting there waiting to be appreciated. Well here we are, folks. Let’s get to appreciatin’.

“Dutch” stars Ed O’Neill, at that time best known for being television’s Al Bundy on “Married… With Children,” as opposed to now in which he is known as that guy who WAS on “Married… With Children” but is now on “Modern Family,” and “Dutch” is pretty much his one starring role, the one time someone gave him the lead of a movie and said “let’s see if this works.”

It was a critical and commercial failure. Ahem.

But now here we are, over twenty years later, and we can see that people in 1991 were just a bunch of dummies who didn’t know a good thing when it was right there in their face. Because “Dutch” is a sweet, well made little movie about a guy trying to impress his girlfriend by being nice to her snobby kid, and we got ourselves a lil road movie that involves fireworks, truck stops and hookers, and who doesn’t like THAT in their movies, plus there are moral lessons and all that other stuff, PLUS this is that rare holiday movie that is centered around Thanksgiving, and all of those things combined make for a nice film, one worth watching and enjoying.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/10/2014 – ‘The Big Boss’

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“The Big Boss” is the first Bruce Lee movie from 1971 and by golly did Bruce Lee get off to a hot start with a pretty bad ass movie. Known here in America as “Fists of Fury,” this is the story of a simple Chinese farmer who moves to Thailand to work at an ice factory with a bunch of cousins, and when they accidentally uncover a drug smuggling operation within the ice factory, things get just a little hairy, ESPECIALLY when seduction and bribery proves as effective as it does.

Of course as this is a film from China circa 1971, very little money was put into making this movie, as that was just the way things were done at the time, so “The Big Boss” is a fairly cheap looking movie and really just competently made, just well enough to not screw up the main attraction, the star of the show, the reason this movie is worth watching whereas so many other hundreds of movies from the same era have slipped away from memory, the one and only Bruce Lee. Even here in his first movie we can see the magnetism and star power that made this guy so watchable, and then of course comes the kicks and quick moves and excellent athleticism and kung fu prowess displayed throughout the several fight scenes in this movie, and we get the full package of what made this guy so fascinating.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/2/14 – ‘Beavis and Butt-Head Do America’

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The record-setting, ground-breaking, ground-swelling, animated American MASTERPIECE is available for you to watch on the ole Instant Netflix thingy, and yes I am talking about “Beavis And Butt-Head Do America.”

Okay, maybe masterpiece is overdoing, but only slightly. Almost twenty years old, this movie is still quite funny and very entertaining, as Mike Judge does seem to possess the knack for making such incredibly stupidity so hilarious to watch. And it was kind of ballsy and ambitious to take a cartoon with very short segments and try to stretch that out to feature length, and gosh darn if they didn’t pull it off, creating a plot that gets crazier and crazier, while Beavis and Butt-Head themselves get dumber and dumber, and it is pretty great.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/26/14 – ‘Fawlty Towers’

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It is an historic moment for the Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, as we have our first non-movie pick, after all this time! Because while Netflix does indeed possess many cinematic titles for instant viewing, there is also a healthy amount of television shows to choose from, and this week’s pick is a personal favorite, one that I know I can go to for a quick, hearty laugh, and that is the 1970’s English situational comedy “Fawlty Towers.”

Starring Monty Python member John Cleese (and co-created by him and his wife at the time Connie Booth), “Fawlty Towers” is set in a seaside hotel owned and operated by Basil Fawlty (Cleese) and his attempts to improve the standing of his hotel gets undermined at every turn, and often by his own arrogance and rude, boorish behavior which is apparent to everyone except him.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/19/14 – ‘Narc’

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“Narc” is a tough, gritty, intense 2002 cop drama starring Jason Patric and Ray Liotta, both of them doing some of the best work of their respective careers, and helping to elevate this solid yet familiar movie to the next level. Because while there plenty of movies (and television shows) about police going undercover and doing some questionable things in order to get results, this movie gets it all right, and builds to a big reveal that comes with some big emotional weight, making for a strong pay off to great movie.

In “Narc,” Jason Patric plays a cop who got too deep undercover in the narcotics world and had to be saved from it, but who then 18 months later finds himself back in it at the request of the police department itself, as he got sucked into an investigation of a murdered cop which had reached a dead end. He teams up with the veteran cop played by Ray Liotta who is leading the investigation, and together they sink deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole looking for the truth. And of course we know this going into the movie but when the truth finally comes out, it is not what anyone thought it would be, as things get turned upside down, with the movie leaving some serious questions and getting into some heavy stuff, and also refusing to wrap up this whole movie for you with a nice little bow on top.Continue Reading …