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William
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ThomasFiled under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1980s, Film noir, glenn close, Jeff Bridges, Richard Marquand, robert loggia, Thriller, Watchable
Glenn Close is a lawyer who has agreed to defend Jeff Bridges, a young man who may or may not have killed his rich wife. This is classic, by the numbers film noir in every sense. Even switching the genders of the femme fatal and the hard-as-nails protagonist barely feels like a spin on the genre. Is that a bad thing? If you like film noir, definitely not. Is Jeff Bridges guilty? Well you’ll have to watch to the end to find out, but here’s a hint: like just about every other film noir plot, there are going to be a lot of twists along the way and pretty much no one is going to end up happy in the end. I didn’t watch this very long ago, and at the time I enjoyed it, but honestly I cannot remember most of the details at this point. Watchable, but probably pretty forgettable.
P.S. Robert Loggia was nominated for an Academy Award for his role.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2010s, catherine keener, christopher walken, Drama, mark ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Watchable, yaron zilberman
Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Ivanir and Catherine Keener are the members of this titular quartet. Together, they face an existential crisis as their leader, Christopher Walken, unexpectedly announces he has Parkinson’s and is retiring. There’s a line in the film which is also prominently featured in the trailer. It’s spoken by Christopher Walken and it describes how a particularly long piece of music that the quartet has chosen to play lacks any breaks, any moments for the musicians to stop and retune their instruments, and so each musician must constantly listen to the other three, perceive to what degree everyone’s instrument is going out of tune and adjust their own playing in order to keep the performance from falling apart all together. Talk about spoilers! That’s basically the entire movie in a nutshell. Enjoyable, but perhaps a little too straightforward. Watchable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: andreas öhman, Bill Skarsgård, cecilia forss, I rymden finns inga känslor, simple simon, Watchable
Bill Skarsgård is Simon, and he suffers from Aspergers syndrome which he kind of uses to get whatever he wants. But when Simon’s selfishness goes too far and he inadvertently causes the breakup of his brother and live-in girlfriend, he decides to go on a quest to find the perfect replacement girlfriend. You already know how this movie is going to end, you may think you don’t but I promise you, you do. You do, but the filmmakers definitely think you don’t, so it’s kind of annoying when the “twist” at the end is presented as this big surprise and you, the viewer, are like, “yeah, saw that coming from reel one.” The characters and their seemingly stress-free rural lives are more than enjoyable enough to warrant full viewing from beginning to end. So I’ll give it a watchable plus.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2010s, cécile de france, France, jean-Pierre dardenne, Le gamin au vélo, luc dardenne, The Kid with a Bike, thomas doret, Watchable
Thomas Doret is a 12-year-old boy in foster care and Cécile de France is the foster mother who takes him in and puts up with his shit. In brief, this is the story of how an often violent and troubled boy becomes a boy who is significantly less violent and has fewer troubles. I appreciate that the directors avoided trying to “explain” the violent behavior of their main character, I thought it was interesting how they also don’t really offer an explanation as to why he changes, and I liked the overall message that we cannot change those around us, all we can do is love them until the day when they decided to change for themselves. The message is great, it’s just that the package in which it’s delivered is too saccharine and too simplistic to leave any lasting impression. Watchable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1970s, boys from brazil, franklin j. schaffner, Gregory Peck, laurence olivier, Spy, Thriller, Watchable
Laurence Olivier stars as an aging Nazi hunter who, after getting a tip from a young man, travels to Paraguay where he hopes to find the infamous Nazi war criminal Gregory Peck, only to discover a plot more sinister than he could have ever imagined! At many points during this movie, I really found myself wishing it was more exciting and atmospheric like The Odessa File. While this film does satisfyingly dangle the details of Peck’s evil plan just out of sight, giving you only glimpses and hints of its true nature for a good chunk of the film, it lacks a sense of adventure like The Odessa File. And like the ending of director Franklin J. Schaffner’s earlier film, Planet of the Apes, the payoff at then end is too silly to accept as anything other than fiction. Gregory Peck’s shadowy scheme is just so implausible that it feels like maybe monkeys from the future were a more realistic threat to world peace than Gregory Peck ever was. Watchable.
P.S. Laurence Olivier did manage to get nominated for an Academy Award for his role in this film.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2010s, Drama, kevin costner, sports, Watchable
Kevin Costner is general manager of the Cleveland Browns, and he’s got one day to get his team the players they need to win a championship, all while dealing with personal problems and personnel problems that don’t make his job any easier. It’s a simple and fun movie, “formulaic” in that it adheres to a proven, time-tested formula for making movies. A perfect movie for watching on an airplane, which, not coincidentally, is where I watched it. Watchable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_Day
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1990s, Hilary Swank, martial arts, Watchable
This is an action-oriented Karate Kid sequel starring an up-and-coming Hillary Swank. That much I can understand. But why is she an angry, disaffected teen who also loves makeup and wants to go to the mall? And what’s with the high school paramilitary? Are they just there to distract from the shallow teen love plot, or are we mired in the dystopian future? Isn’t it *actually* hilarious when Mr. Miyagi establishes prom night curfew with Swank’s terrified boyfriend? When did Zen monks gain a reputation for madcap antics? Seriously: What is going on here? Watchable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1960s, catherine spaak, Italy, la matriarca, pasquale festa campanile, the libertine, Watchable
Catherine Spaak is a recently widowed young woman who is surprised to discover that her husband secretly owned a second apartment he used for acting out his wildest sexual fantasies. There’s definitely nothing wholesome about this movie, but it’s also not particularly in-your-face about its more sordid details. Perhaps the creators of this film wanted to incite social change by creating a character that flew in the face of gender norms, or perhaps they just wanted to make a titilating film, I don’t really know, but I wouldn’t say they succeeded in either regard. Not a whole lot of reason to watch this film unless you are really into Italian 60s cinema. Watchable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1990s, denzel washington, Drama, Jason Robards, Jonathan Demme, Tom Hanks, Watchable
Tom Hanks gets fired after the partners at his conservative law firm discover that he has AIDS. The subject matter is groundbreaking, Hanks is brilliant, and director Jonathan Demme adds some style (like the atmospheric party scenes or the characters staring right into the camera). And Jason Robards makes a great bad guy! But the movie, ostensibly a courtroom drama, doesn’t seem to focus on its fake-seeming legal procedure — it’s more about the redemption of Denzel, a gay bashing ambulance chaser who thinks he can get AIDS just from shaking TH’s hand. What? Maybe people in the 90’s behaved that way but it just feels so strange and dated now. Watchable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1970s, Action, charles bronson, crime, death wish, denzel washington, Drama, Jeff Goldblum, Watchable
Charles Bronson has a death wish, but not the “I wish someone would just kill me” kind of death wish, it’s more like the “I wish I could kill other people with impunity” kind of death wish. Anyway, watching this movie gave me of two reasons to be glad I wasn’t alive in the 70s. First, interior decorating was criminally bad. Second, unless the police caught a criminal in the act, they were apparently shit out of luck. Don’t be fooled, this is no action movie, it’s brooding, dark and surprisingly more interested with the mental state of its protagonist that with exciting chase scenes and shootouts. By no means a terrible movie, but considering the wealth of vigilante movies we have today, pretty forgettable. Watchable.
P.S. Look out for both Jeff Goldblum and Denzel Washington in both of their first on-screen performances!
Pinhole Movie Reviews 