Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Collateral  - 2004 - 7/10

Another almost great film.
Michael Mann Neo-Noir, set in late night Los Angeles.
Cruise and Foxx as tightly scheduled hitman and reluctant, but impoverished cabbie.
Both actors deliver underplayed, yet crackling performances.
Demonstration time for cinematography.  Midnight blacks, neons, splashy billboards, sweeping lights.
Wicked dialogue, as well.  The narrative is more dialogue driven, with escalating action splattering the night.
Without going too much into the plot, the ending faltered for me.
It delivered crowd-pleasing, Hollywood studio cop out, that was unrealistic and out of character.
Docked it a point for that.
Perfect for crime oriented insomniacs and somnambulists.

[Vultural]

Second Best Marigold Hotel - 2015 - 5/10

Was this film really necessary?
Since someone brought it home, and I got to watch it, I guess so.
Second helping of elderly retirees living in Jaipur hotel, picks up where original left off.
That was a surprise smash, reaching beyond the aging arthouse set.
The ensemble interaction is less this go around.
Two new characters are introduced, which likely translates as less lines for everyone.
More critical, the core of the narrative is about the upcoming wedding.
Rehearsals, dance practice, dinners, capped by the wedding which is elaborate and lengthy.
Consequently, most of the returning principals are underwritten sketches.
We see them onscreen, a minute here, a minute there, shadows of what they were in the original release.
Above photo nicely encapsulates characters lost in a crowded script.

[Vultural]

Rentaneko - 2012 - 6/10
AKA - Rent A Cat  //  レンタネ

"OK, dry food or canned food?  Vote with your paw.  Come on, cats, choose."
Sayoko starts her rent a cat business, partly to meet new people, partly because she has too many ... well, she's not a hoarder.  Cats simply are drawn to her.
Maybe because she keeps a piece of fish cake in her pockets.
One of those quiet, quirky films from Japan.
Theme of this is about lonely souls trying to fill the hole in their hearts.
Best appreciated by "cat people," you know who you are.
Expect a lot of felines.

[Vultural]

Clouds Of Sils Marie - 2014 - 7/10

Difficult, challenging film, propelled by Juliette Binoche and a surprising good Kristen Stewart.
Top tier actress is offered a role in an update / remake of edgy work that launched her career decades earlier.
There is a misunderstanding initially about whether the script is about her character, thirty years later whom she could play, or a remake and she would portray “the older woman.”
Actually the film (which gave me trouble) seems deliberately filled with uncertainty, misdirection and ambiguity.
Distractions from social media are also constant.  Ringing cellphones, individuals dropping out of conversations to check messages, numerous Google and YouTube searches (reliable barometers of info, those last two).
This is a character study of old school Binoche gradually ramping her character up to speed with more modern, less nuanced audience tastes.
Stewart is her PA and defacto sounding board.  Maybe . . .
Despite breathtaking Swiss Alps exteriors, the film is quite stagy - theatrical.
Theatre buffs will enjoy this.  Those expecting scheming cat fights will be disappointed.

[Vultural]

American Mary - 2012 - 6/10

Don't piss off the wrong females.  Especially medical students.
Mary gets invited to a party by surgeons, gets drugged. Date rape.
Then she pursues the guilty, showing supreme body modification skills.
Dark, funny, but loses prime focus to oddballs and freak seekers.
Neither as gory, nor exploitative as it ought to be.
Chick horror meets carnival sideshow, with no sense of the jugular.
Juicy role for ****harine Isabelle.

[Vultural]

Arbitrage - 2012 - 7/10

Another of those heavily nominated Academy films that ...
Wait a minute.  Arbitrage didn't get nominated for jack!
Not even Richard Gere, who gave another performance of a lifetime as a wheeler dealer, money hustler navigating a series of business negotiations, moral crises, police investigations, etc ...
This is right up there with Margin Call in the financial chicanery films.
Intelligent alternative when you need a break from all those teen slasher and TnA romps.

[Vultural]

The Humbling - 2014 - 5/10

Pretentious, self-indulgent muddle.
Al Pacino as aging actor suffering peculiar breakdown.
He talks to himself, he talks with others.  Or are they figments of his imagination?
A young girl, forty years his junior, confesses a lifelong crush and moves in.
Maybe ... Or maybe she is another phantom.
At one point, Pacino’s character confesses roles and reality are blurring.
For viewers, the experience is one fake out scene after another.
Devotees of the recent Birdman might enjoy this better.

[Vultural]

Le Couperet - 2005 - 7/10

Nifty French thriller.
Chemist loses his job to downsizing and outsourcing.
After two years, he remains unemployed.
He determines who his likely competitors are and decides to winnow the field.
Very black comedy grows grimmer and darker.
Based on Donald Westlake's The Axe.
Themes, far ahead of their time, still resonate today.

[Vultural]

Labyrinth - 2012 - 5/10

Treating this two part series as a movie.
Produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, which is what drew my interest.
Dual narratives of present day and 13th century France, where the Crusaders tackle Cathar sect.
Nice production values for the earlier era, poor casting for the modern.
Based on a best-selling novel (book received wildly mixed reviews) about the Holy Grail, intolerance, church intrigue.  Violent, bloody, sexy.
First part held my interest throughout.  Second half, I blame the author.
Stories stretched to the point of silliness, and seemed targeted for YA readers.
Possibly 13 year old female readers.  Based on female leads consistent reactions, very gullible female readers.
Scoring the parts:  Pt 1 = 6, Part 2 = 4.

[Vultural]

Date Bait - 1960 - 3/10

Had low expectations with this, yet was hopeful.
Promising trash opts for wholesome instead of sleaze.
Troubled teen returns to the soda shop after being six months away.
His supposed girlfriend now dancing with another guy.
Pushing leads to fists leads to knifeplay - which gets interrupted.
One realizes damn quick, that kid ain’t right in the head.

A Cadillac convertible driven by crooks tries to crush a roadster.
Movie has heroin pushers, a crazed hophead, kidnaping, bongo drumming, frisky teens.
Two timeless songs,  “Date Bait Baby” and “Purple Pleated Burmudas.”
Ingredients for gre****ess, but unfortunately the core plot is true love between girlfriend and boyfriend and all the pesky obstacles they must overcome.
Most of the teens look to be in their mid to late twenties.
Dull.  This could have been so much worse - and more entertaining.  Bummer.

[Vultural]

84 Charing Cross Road - 1987 - 7/10

Love letter to readers and book collectors.
Based on the correspondence between New Yorker Helene Hanff and the staff of Marks & Co (especially Frank Doel) in London.
Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins well cast.
Film has nice feel for the post war rationing and hardships in England.
The era of acquiring fine, leather bound classics (albeit secondhand) for £1 4s 6d is gone, gone, gone.  Meanwhile. the current era indicates actual, physical books are fading as well.
Quiet film, worth viewing if you have not seen it.

In the early 80s, bookshops were still plentiful along Charing Cross.

Sadly, there are so few now.

[Vultural]

True Story - 2015 - 6/10

Engrossing, if not altogether satisfying drama of lies and murder.
Jonah Hill as New York Times reporter fired for fabricating a cover story.
James Franco as man indicted for killing family, then dropping bodies into the bay.
The accused offers to tell his story to the disgraced newsman.
Each recognizes the other as a pathological liar, and there is the difficulty with the movie.
The film is packed with invention, self-deception, false assumptions.
Very little truth and no honesty.
Primarily a two man show, both actors play against type and do fine in chilly movie.
Sparse dialogue.  Many scenes, one individual talks or asks, and another declines to answer.
Dry and emotionally empty.
It will hold your interest throughout, but you might not care about anyone involved.

[Vultural]

Vanquisher - 2009 - 4/10
AKA - Suay Samurai  //  สวย...ซามูไร

Started watching this with others, finished watching alone.
Heard muttering about, " ... another one of his winners ... "
Absurd Thai actioner begins as CIA sends hottie Thai op to kidnap a Muslim insurgent for the Russians.
Within five minutes, the time frame is two years later, and hottie is sent to eliminate another radical.
From there, confusion reigns.
A pair of Japanese hitmen get involved, as do an army of sword swinging ninjas.
There are a couple of lush female Thai cops (on either side of the conflicts), three Muslim chicks with scimitars, a dozen Thai black op agents on underpowered, put-put motorscooters, a samurai master, and absolutely no plot whatsoever.
Everyone was fighting ... for ... I'm not sure what.
This got awful reviews, I still watched it.
Loser.

[Vultural]

Far From The Madding Crowd - 2015 - 7/10

Not surprisingly, beautiful looking adaptation of Hardy’s novel.
Each of the three male rivals is given a sympathetic treatment - more or less.
Story follows young (20) Bathsheba Everdene who inherits her uncle’s farm.
Like most of Hardy’s works, this is driven by cruel Fate and often poor choices.
Some reviewers have been harsh toward Miss Everdene, but she is only 20 and has led a rather sheltered life
Thoughtful decisions are usually sound, impulsive acts deliver consequences.
For “purists” this is not an overly Modern interpretation, as has been the trend for Austen productions.
Leisurely paced, but not slow.  Plenty to see with sly subtleties.
Note the farm songs when Bathsheba operated it on her own, and those after Mr Troy arrived.

[Vultural]

Searching For Sugarman - 2012 - 7/10

If you are a music fan, like a hardcore collector, you are always searching for new.
Or forgotten, or overlooked.  You don't want mainstream, that's for the herd.
Documentary about the obscure Detroit musician, Rodriguez.  
He released two albums in the early 70s.  Both sank like stones.  
One night, so the story went, angry, despondent, Rodriguez killed himself onstage in front of a bored crowd.  No one knew him, no one missed him.
Except in South Africa where he had been massively popular. And he had never known.
Film follows the trail.  Who was Rodriguez?  What happened to him?
This one really pulls you in, partly for the mystery, partly because his music was so good.

[BorisVictor]

Thank you for all the many treasures!

[Vultural]

London - Modern Babylon - 2012 - 6/10

Flashy arthouse film / documentary / 100 year history of London.
More or less chronological beginning from 1900.
Edits newsreel footage, silent films, movies, interviews, converts, dancing like a skipping stone on events of the last 100 years.
WWI, the Blitz, Swinging London, 2011 riots, are covered, as well as the changing face of the city.
London, the quintessential "English" city at the beginning, emerges as a multi cultural megapolis by the end.
Very well done, but a bit wearying, like viewing a two hour music video.
Sensory overload to be sure.

[Vultural]

Vengeance - 2006 - 5/10
AKA - Phairii Phinaat Paa Mawrana  //  ไพโรจน์ไพนาทภาวนา

How did I miss this one?
Wildly over-the-top Thai actioner.
Convicts bust out of the prison with determined police in pursuit, helped by local guides.
Until cons enter the forbidden jungle.  Then guides flee.
Police charge in anyway!
Next thing, there are jungle maidens wielding crossbows.
Killer wasps.  Menacing midget crocodiles.  Giant snakes.  The cursed village!
Terrible acting, ridiculous CGI, preposterous plot.
I gave it a 5, but it is brilliant for what it is.
Must see, if you are into this.  I laughed throughout.

[Vultural]

Black Widow - 1954 - 6/10

Glossy potboiler masquerading as Noir.
Broadway producer Van Heflin allows dewy eyed girl to use his apartment during days so she can write.
Instead, she delves into the social register.  The “male” social register.

Soon enough, she is found dangling by the noose.
Detective (George Raft) conducts a rather leisurely hunt while Heflin scrambles for clues.
Ginger Rogers steals movie as diva, Gene Tierney seems subdued.
Very w-i-d-e and lush looking CinemaScope heightens glossy interiors and New York streets.
Noticeably awful sound mix, though.  Early stereo, and it sounds like a third of the dialogue was looped.
Alert viewers will recall title when narrowing suspects.

[Vultural]

Anna Karenina - 2012 - 4/10

Opulent, gaudy, stilted, mannered adaptation of Tolstoy's novel undone by profound miscasting.
This is a very theatrical interpretation, as in much takes place on a theatre stage.
Characters often move as if in ballet.
Knightley, once again, attempts a role she is too young for.
She is incapable of gravitas, but her trademarked pursed lips, squinty grin appears over and over.
Received well deserved accolades for sets and costumes.
Taylor-Johnson, playing Vronsky as a sissified fop, foolishly resembles Gene Wilder (Doctor Frankensteen).