Netflix pick for 4/27/15 – ‘Rescue Dawn’

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If you were to tell me that there is a movie in which prisoners of war are hemmed in and endangered not only by their physical prison and captors but more oppressively by their natural surroundings, miles and miles of untamed jungle and grabby vines and predators galore, I would tell you this movie would be perfect for Werner Herzog.

A dramatic telling of his own 1997 documentary “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” the 2006 film “Rescue Dawn” is about German-American fighter pilot Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) and how he became a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict. He bonds with the other prisoners and he organizes an escape plan, despite the fact that the prison is as secure as it gets because of its location deep in the jungle. Bale’s performance as Dengler is pretty fantastic, as Dengler is a very compelling guy, an eternal optimist who befuddled his fellow POWs with his amazing attitude and will to live. One of Werner Herzog’s most commercially accessible films, this a great movie because it is an incredible story about a fascinating person and it is made with the consummate skill of a director who has been in the game for decades.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 4/20/15 – ‘Pain & Gain’

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Michael Bay has long be known as the explosion guy, the film maker who cares more about making things go boom in as big a way possible, all the while bad jokes are made at the expense of the weak or the effeminate or the bureaucratic, and also while gorgeous women in barely any clothing populate the scenery like so much set dressing. But Michael Bay should be known for something else, and that is for being a guy who makes some of the most hate-filled cinema this side of a Nazi-produced propaganda film.

And “Pain & Gain” is a pretty glorious example of this style of cinema.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 4/13/15 – ‘School of Rock’

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“School of Rock” is a great 2003 movie in which Jack Black teaches a room full of grade school kids the important of ROCKING OUT. That’s it. If you need a movie to be about more than that, then you are asking for too much out of this world, because what could be more important, especially to the youth of this country, than ROCKING OUT? Nothing, that’s what.

Okay, sure, there are other things in this movie, like how Jack Black’s character of Dewey has to learn how to finally grow up and be a responsible adult, all the while his free-spirited nature rubs off on the kids in his class in the right way and he even gets the uptight school administration to lighten up a bit, but make no mistake, this movie about a fraudulent substitute teacher trying to turn his class into a band so they could win a Battle of the Bands competition is really about the immense power of rock and roll, and how cool it is to listen to Led Zeppelin while barreling down a wintery road in one’s all-white creeper van.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 4/6/15 – ‘Three Kings’

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From the director of “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook” and starring legit movie stars and box office draws George Clooney and Mark Walhberg (as well as the cottage industry unto himself known as Ice Cube), it is kind of amazing to look back and see how Warner Brothers doubted this movie and barely had the nerve to fund it and see it through. But then again, back in 1999, director David O. Russell was a nobody auteur and he was making a movie with a guy who played a doctor on television and a rapper turned underwear model. It is kind of easy to put yourself in that mindset and see how “Three Kings” could have very well been a complete disaster.

And yet, it is not. Instead “Three Kings” is the movie that really launched Clooney’s movie career, helped legitimize Wahlberg, and gave Russell the experience he needed to build upon in order to become the award winning filmmaker he is today. A heist movie set during the first Gulf War, “Three Kings” starts out as a fun romp of a war movie and then gets surprisingly deep and even more interesting as the movie progresses and it becomes less about the heist and more about what it takes for a person to “do the right thing,” so to speak. Funny, unique, well directed and with an energy all its own, this is a pretty great movie, another fine cinematic entry from the rather amazing year that was 1999, and one that is standing the test of time as we get closer and closer to the twenty year anniversary of this flick being made.Continue Reading …

Netflix Pick for 3/30/15 – ‘The Master’

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From the director of modern classics “Boogie Nights” and “There Will Be Blood” is this movie about a Scientology-like “religion” and its most charismatic leader, a man whom many people love to follow and go to for solace and succor, a man who can be referred to by the film’s title, “The Master.”

Played by Philip Seymour Hoffman brilliantly, this would be 100% his movie if it wasn’t for the fact that Joaquin Phoenix plays one of the most mesmerizing, interesting and unhinged characters ever in a movie, a fella who needs as much as help as he can get, and even then that likely won’t be enough.

From my original review of “The Master,” written only after I had a second chance to see this dense film:

Maybe it was just the second viewing being of much service, but the scenes are strange at first and seem odd and out of place at times, but there is a definitely a larger picture that is being tended to and formed and developed and when you step back and take a look at the movie as a whole, the character arcs and motivations and stories come into focus and make more sense. It really is quite brilliant, considering how non-conventional the story seems initially, but turns out to actually be pretty straightforward. Anderson takes some pretty big jumps in time, cause really we don’t know how much time passes between events, and really sometimes it seems like quite a bit of time has passed. It’s like a Rorschach, you step back, you squint your eyes, and you see what you see, and while it might seem like a bunch of disparate and disjointed images and scenes, it really makes for a complete picture if you just know how to look at it.

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Netflix pick for 3/23/15 – ‘Total Recall’

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Remember that Colin Farrell-Kate Beckinsale-Jessica Biel sci-fi action movie from 2012? Neither does anyone else. And that’s fine, because the original “Total Recall” from 1990 is still a glorious insane splattery mess of a movie and here we are in 2015 and it remains as the best Martian-set, is it a dream or is it reality, sci-action movie ever made.

Director Paul Verhoeven was coming off of the amazing “Robocop” and Arnold Schwarzenegger was fresh off of the smash hit “Twins” and they teamed up to tell the story of a man who gets a memory implant to make him think he was on a spy adventure on Mars, but then it turns out that maybe he was already a spy on a Mars and they may have awoken a sleeping agent by accident, or else he had a schizoid embolism and the rest of the movie is all a dream anyway, and it is just all insane. Mutants, an evil corporation, rebel factions, Sharon Stone and three-breasted prostitutes…this movie has it all. Schwarzenegger is great, Ronny Cox plays his second villain in a row for Verhoeven, the special effects are awesome and weird looking, “Total Recall” is fantastic.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 3/16/15 – ‘Chef’

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What do you get when you cross a road movie with a family drama with a comedy about social media with some food porn? You get a wonderful amalgamation of a movie called “Chef,” written and directed by Jon Favreau, and also starring him as well, along with a bunch of other great actors and actresses, some awesome musical choices, and a rather well told little story about a guy trying to get his mojo back, while also reconnecting with his son, while also learning what this whole Twitter thing is all about.

From my original review of “Chef:”

So this movie is not only a foodie movie, with lots of close ups of food and the cooking process, and not only about a man reigniting his passion for what he loves, but it is also a family comedy-drama, a story about a father and son reconnecting after the divorce led to some problems. And then it doesn’t end there, because halfway through this film “Chef” becomes a road movie, as we travel with the characters from Miami to New Orleans to Austin and finally back to Los Angeles, and the characteristics of each town get showcased and used quite well, especially the music and food of each region, and it is really fun to watch this journey and be a part of it. And then there is also the whole social media thing, which was integrated quite well into this movie, because they show how some folks who don’t exactly get what these services do can easily get themselves in some trouble in this new modern age of communication. Also they smartly show that the 10-year old kid knows WAY more about social media and how to use it then the older guys who may be a little behind the times. Smart stuff.

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Netflix Pick for 3/9/15 – ‘All Is Lost’

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Want to see an old man get battered by waves and storms and attempt to survive a very long stranding at sea? Does it make a difference if that old man is Robert Redford? Cause it should. And “All Is Lost” is 106 minutes of just that, Robert Redford, by himself on a broken boat, trying to survive.

And it is pretty damn great. It is a really compelling movie, thanks in part because of how Redford is just so watchable, but also because of how the story unfolds, in the way the stakes keep raising and the danger gets closer and closer, all the way with only one character and one who doesn’t even bother talking to an inanimate object at any point, he just belts out a couple of f-bombs at one point of extreme frustration and hopelessness and other than that, steely eyed, stoic Redford.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 3/2/15 – ‘The Way’

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“The Way” is a drama from 2010 written and directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his own father Martin Sheen, and it is the story of a man who finds himself taking a 500-mile pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago on behalf of his deceased son, and no one can take that trip without discovering something about themselves and the world around them.

From my original review of “The Way,” which can be read in its entirety here:

Much of The Way plays like a commercial for the Camino, as the film is loaded with shots of the beautiful countryside, and everywhere the pilgrims turn they find people and villages welcoming them with open arms and food and beds. Sure there are a few hardships here and there along the trip, but that’s all part of the experience, and overall it comes across as very fulfilling and appealing pilgrimage and one that maybe everyone should take at some point in their lives, at least for the right reasons.

The movie was written and directed by Emilio Estevez, who proves that he still has some talent and something to say, and he made this movie after his own son went on the Camino, inspiring him and his old man Martin to look into the pilgrimage for themselves, and The Way is the result. It’s a good film, maybe a little heavy handed and Hallmarkish at times, but still entertaining and well done.

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Netflix pick for 2/23/2015 – ‘The Manchurian Candidate’

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A remake of a popular 1962 film of the same name, Jonathan Demme’s “The Manchurian Candidate” is an update on the 1970’s political paranoia thriller genre, as it deals with the same sense of a world gone out of control, of evil powers in control at the very top sight unseen, of manipulation of the people and the strong possibility that the perpetrators of evil will not be held accountable for their actions.

Liev Schreiber plays the eponymous Manchurian Candidate, and Meryl Streep plays his domineering, always in control Senator-Mom, but the movie centers on Denzel Washington doing his Denzel thing. Everyone’s acting games are on point, and watching Denzel try to figure out this weird mystery while Streep sinks her teeth into one of the most delightfully evil roles she has ever played really is Acting 101, just lots of great work done by excellent performers at the top of their respective games. This is a very solid movie, with the right amount of weirdness and strangeness to get across that sense of everything being just slightly off, which is very important for a film like this. “The Manchurian Candidate” is one of those instances in which the updated remake is actually just as good, if not better, than the original.Continue Reading …