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All I Wish (2017)
All About Sharon
All I Wish is clearly a Sharon Stone production. It's Sharon all the way and that's not a bad thing at all. She produced this so you know that her heart, if not her pocketbook is into this. She plays Senna a woman of '47', is what she says in the film, and she's a bit of a bad girl still, having fun with younger men and doing doobies with her younger best friend.
In pops Tony Goldwyn and she falls for the guy, but to me it's clear that he is miscast. I was thinking that if say, Burt Reynolds were the guy there would be much more to go on. Goldwyn's character just isn't attuned to Senna.
The script is clearly not quite there in terms of drama, jump cutting here and there... and although it goes year by year, with every birthday Senna has, the thread is lost somehow. The romance a tad derivative in the end, leaving the players too much on screen time.
The film is too long. Sharon Stone is very good, and one wishes her more screen time in future.
6.1 Out Of 10
La Mante (2017)
Weepy Men and Heads Cut Off!
French produced The Mantis is a 6 season series on Netflix about a copycat serial killer from France's past, a woman known as Le Mante.
She, The Mantis is played sternly by former Bond Girl, Carole Bouquet. The Mantis is said to be in a coma, but that is a lie and when she decides to help the police with a copycat, someone killing 8 people the exact way she did over 20 years ago, her son, a French detective is enlisted to take the case over.
The son, is very acrimonious to his mother as you can imagine. I mean she cut a guys head off! Still he demands that no one know that he is her son, and refuses to discuss the matter with his wife, who thinks her husbands mother is dead!
Sounds convoluted doesn't it? The fact is I really didn't need this wet slop of a son, who is just a whinny little child, who can't even tell his wife the truth about his mother. Come on grow a pair!
I do grow a tad bored with weepy men like this in entertainment.
The show is not a bad one, but yet again I think that these 'series' do go on too long. Clearly when the writing suffers fluff is added thus sinking the entire ship. This is not the case with the mantis, but it did need some cutting from a good editor.
Too much time was wasted on 'the son' the Dick in this, instead I felt that the focus should have been on the new mantis like killer, the copycat.
You may want to watch this one and I won't dissuade you, but know that it's far from perfect!
Batman Ninja (2018)
The strangest Batman cartoon yet...
You don't know Batman like this Batman!
You've never seen Joker like this, and that's saying something.
Japan's finest artists reimagine Batman and his adversaries. Just imagine though, that Gorilla Grodd is in it. Gorilla Grodd! That talking ape that thinks he's intelligent. Due to a time displacement, Batman and his enemies are sent back to medieval Japan.
Sounds kinda cool until things start to heat up, then just sit back as a whole lot of cool art comes at you. Only that you'll have a hard time keeping up with the story! In the end it's about 'Lord Joker' vs. Batman, well they got that right!
Robin looks a bit like Pippy Long Stocking! There are monkeys, yes monkeys. Tranformers in a Batman film? Yep! A Batman Cult? Yep! Boy! I've never seen anything like this!
Very inventive and very funny. Joker is super feminine in this one. He's not only over the top he is the top.
Funny but after about an hour the whole thing kinda grows on you.
This one is way from left field. You really should see it, just to witness it, heck you might even like it.
The strangest Batman cartoon I've seen is definitely this one so far.
4.0/10
Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (2017)
The Fall of Love
Korean movie star, Young-hee played with some fire by Min-hee Kim has an affair with a married director.
She seems to be rather lost as the affair ends as she vacations in Hamburg Germany. As the film progresses she goes about with her friends back in South Korea to pick up the pieces.
The film is strictly a stream of conciousnous story with Young-hee coming off the breakup with a very sharp tongue and demeaner. There are many conversations and Young-hee and the director do finally meet in the movie, but it's bittersweet.
At times she begins to rant, she's very angry, but I didn't see the film as most reviewed it, I don't think it was about the director. I see him only as a catalyst to Young-hee who questions have outstripped her answers.
In the end I believe it was more her doing than his. He seemed to have been caught in her vortex. She feels lost but at that edge is something far more. Outside of common reason, she'll have to find her way back if that's her intention.
This isn't a movie that most would jump for, be sure you enjoy a more sedate and introspective film before jumping in.
Mostly talk and ideas.
5 out of 10
Neat to see a Korean woman in film with large questions and serious results.
Landline (2017)
2 sisters with daddy trouble
I was rather surprised by Landline. For one thing it's about two sisters and neither had an infectious disease neither was a serial killer, prostitute or wearing spandex in the Marvel Universe.
Just some real drama and although spotty here and there script wise there was some really very telling moments about the sisters here.
The big deal in the film is that dear old dad is something of a 'man whore' I suppose you'd say. Played rather carelessly by fine actor John Turturro. The guy is honestly a bit of a slump.
More interestingly is the affair of the older sister Dana, played very nicely by actress Jenny Slate, she and her younger sister Ali, Abby Quinn are sterling as sisters, really sympatico.
The ending felt right as well with dad slumping in, I mean I don't see Harvey Weinstein catching a break!
Still, sisters rarely get to be shown on the big screen and here I liked the tough but knowing interplay between them. I'd of liked to see more of them if this were a series instead of a movie.
There is some drag however, a sort of malaise to the action that draws on too long. The film could have used a more savvy Editor, I hate to get tech with you here, I mean this isn't AFI... but the Editor is very, very important! Especially one who isn't swayed by a Director who is often a tad too close to the material.
Lastly is the time 1995, wow, I'd forgotten how cool it could be back then. It was great to see this decade again. Which is surprising to say the least!
See Landline, some of you may really hate it but I think many of you might like it too.
The Disaster Artist (2017)
James Franco is James Franco
James Franco production of real life friendship between two men who meet in an acting class.
One of the men is a bit older and starts out by acting the Stella bit from Streetcar. I'd never heard of the movie the two made called, The Room, but it's a cult picture and may have cost 5 million to make!
I liked the older man, Tommy Wiseau, who seems to have an endless supply of money to keep the festivities going. James plays his lifelong and much younger friend, Greg Sestero, both of them have big dreams but Hollywood doesn't want them.
Tommy decides to produce and star in the film with Greg and on it goes, where at the premiere of The Room things get surprising.
I thought The Disaster Artist was honestly portrayed and liked it for what it was. It's nice to have these two men succeed at their dreams, even for a little while, although it's not what they expected.
James Franco is James Franco and does quite a fine job with his brother Dave as Tommy and as director of the film.
I've heard that The Disaster Artist is considered to be Franco's best film so far.
7.0 out of 10
Good film about dreams fulfilled in the toughest town on earth.
Suburbicon (2017)
The Cohen thing is getting old...
Suburbicon directed and delivered by George Clooney and the famous Cohen brothers as writers.
Matt Damon and Julianna Moore star in what can be best described as an unusual look at a 50's suburb that loses it's white only status.
The usual horrible things happen as the white people living there erupt into a frenzy... all the while a family is featured living next door to the black family. The father and aunt played by Damon and Moore, and during a break in by some roughs the mother is killed. At first it seems innocent enough but then a deeper more sinister reason takes form.
This all feels a bit like a Cohen film, which has Hi-Jinks with a sort of wink and smile at the audience. It's okay, I suppose, but like the last Cohen film, of which I believe Clooney was the star, I remember writing that the Cohen thing is getting old.
Alas, now with Clooney himself taking over the Directors seat I don't really see all that much here to recommend. Suburbicon is okay, I suppose, but we've seen this material in countless films, and the colorful violence really isn't that surprising anymore... The film is dated, and one begins to wonder if maybe it's getting a bit too incestuous in Hollywood, a new fresh 'life' view might be appropriate.
Why do we keep having to repeat the same material?
Gringo (2018)
Ephemeral to real, this time, has Equaled NILL.
Harold Soyinka has tried to be a good man, to his wife and boss, that is until he ends up in Mexico on a business trip with his two ruthless bosses, who sell drugs to a drug lord in Mexico through a dummy company.
Harold ends up holding the bag and is on the run from the Mexican drug lord not to mention his bosses brother a mercenary who has been hired to find/kill him.
There's a few other sordid plot points to Gringo but you get the jest of all this. Gringo does the whole thing poorly, the script has failed the cast which is very high class, Charlize Theron is in it for pities sake not to mention David Ovelowo two of our finest thesbians who really go wanting in this morass film.
It's sad mostly to see all this go for naught. The movie lacks a consistent and solid foundation, the filmmakers here didn't know what they were doing, pure and simple.
In the end Gringo is just a hide and seek show, missing entirely is any real truth, and even in the grit area things seem oddly weightless.
4.0 out of 10
Gringo is a production that looked good on paper but in translation didn't have the goods. Ephemeral to real, this time, has equaled Nill.
The Big Sick (2017)
Alien Cultures in a White Universe! Sick!
Pakistani comic Kumail finds himself smitten with Emily a young woman who falls in love with him. Until Kumail reveals that his religious upbringing will not allow him to marry anyone but a Pakistani woman.
The Big Sick really is that, as Emily faces a dire physical malady leaving Kumail to face his feelings and thoughts about their broken relationship, not to mention Emily's parents, here played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano.
Emily spends most of the movie in a hospital bed as Kumail and Emily's parents spend time worrying about the fate of Emily, she is actually in real trouble, and the end point of this is that her diagnosis is right on point to what triggered her sickness.
Based on a true story, Kumail the actor here is the other half of that true story. I'm mostly reminded Aziz Ansari of Master of None who doesn't seem to have this religious problem on his show. His parents are really cool about his women.
So many cultures and it is interesting, arranged marriage, to us here, in do it yourself America, that's insane. Tomatoes are ripe and for the picking!
At any rate, the movie's okay but it isn't as good as many reviewers and people seem to think. The Big Sick could have used some tension or more plot. It drags a tad too much for my taste, and the 'eye candy' the big stars from yesteryear, Holly Hunter and Ray Ramano only go so far in my estimation.
5.0 out of 10
At 2 hours the film was half an hour too long. Best to cut it and make a quick getaway. The Big Sick didn't remind of the sharpness of Master of None, a better interpretation of alien cultures in a white universe.
Grenseland (2017)
Cop with a heart of Solid Blubber!
Norwegian crime drama Borderliner on Netflix Instant should have definitely ended at six episodes. I've been saying for some time that these episodic tv time creations go on way, way too long and Borderliner is a perfect example of that fact.
Detective Nico, played by Tobias Santelmann, is on vacation he visits his hometown and family and involves himself in an apparent suicide. He soon finds that his brother, a police officer in the town is involved in the murder.
Nico decides to cover up the case amongst other things throughout the investigation. His partner, Anniken never does seem to understand that the lead detective is corrupt!
It's amazing what Nico and his brother get away with. Both have completely failed the people of their nation and law enforcement. I never realized how damn effective lies are these days until I saw this.
To top it off Nico happens to be gay, maybe this time the producers said, Hey, a straight guy would never be this stupid, let's make him gay!
After the brother finally gets caught and lies, of course, I figured Nico would get caught as well and his brother would be found out. But no, three more episodes whilst Nico goes tracking down a drug dealer, etc. Totally unimportant but telling in that Nico here is attempting to right his internal wrongs with these useless episodes.
Nico's brother is a sad example of a cop with a heart of solid blubber. He's weak and that seems to be something that means something these days. As if he carries no responsibility for his actions.
Both cops should have gone to jail for a long, long time it's far more wrong for an officer to commit crime than for a crook.
6.5 out of 10
The show is well acted and looks very good, the story was written incorrectly as pertains to actual reality. The show is fiction, one would hope and as I wrote should have stopped at the failing of law enforcement. Reflection would be needed.