A League of Their Own I had started watching, at my son's urging, the Prime series a couple of weeks ago, but the second season was apparently a casualty of the writer's strike, so I bailed after one and a half episodes. Why not just return to the original? This is just about a perfect movie. It's funny, sincere, it nails it's melodramatic moments, and No Cryin' in Baseball remains one of the greatest moments in film history. I've seen this film a dozen times and I'll see it another dozen times in my life and I am always blown away by the casting job done on the older Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell. Actually, there's probably a dozen such castings. It's simply astounding.
Aren't they all needless? A Man Called Ove and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were perfect in their native language Swedish.
I have had this discussion before and I think there is a narrow band of films I would argue should be considered for remakes. Basically those with good core ideas but which lacked the money or resources to do justice to those ideas in the original version. My favorite example of this is True Lies. Which was originally a French action comedy called La Totale. Cameron then gave it the Hollywood treatment. Some are obviously meant to fail. Like Spike Lee's Oldboy. Or more absurdly the proposed Toni Erdmann remake. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6513872/ If you cannot envision a scenario in which blasting Hollywood budget level money at something will improve it, you are wasting your time.
The Gun Runners (1958) Dir. Donald Siegel Sam Martin is a sailor who takes out wealthy clients on fishing trips out of the Florida Keys. His enterprise not really proving lucrative, he is up to his ears in debt, and late on payments on his boat as well as owing money to just about everyone else in his small community, from his bunker fuel merchant to the proprietor of his local watering hole. He hopes to pay of some of his debt after taking a seemingly well-off man out for nine days, but on payment day, the man is revealed to be a swindler who has just been arrested by the police. On the verge of losing his boat, the appearance of a strange client he meets at a backroom gambling den seems like a rare stroke of luck. Until the man's real intentions are revealed... This Don Siegel flick (still credited as Donald Siegel here) is a very loose adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. With most of the plot changes aimed at making the protagonist (a good Audie Murphy) more sympathetic. I found it mostly enjoyable, if a bit predictable. Some minor early supporting turns by character actors Jack Elam and Richard Jaeckel stand out.
I'm indifferent. Sometimes they screw things up (like with Shall We Dance?), but sometimes they make something new and interesting by remixing in an American flair (like The Departed or Blind Fury).
the remake of the original Oceans Eleven was a good idea. But the original was badly done. So: as a rule of thumb, just remake badly made movies with potential. Don’t remake good ones.
Don't really care for The Departed. I think it's easily one of Scorsese's worst films. It's probably also my least favorite of his, even in the post-Goodfellas era of his career.
Infinity Chamber (2016) The first thing Frank knows about the two police behind him are the stun beams they shoot him with. He wakes up in some kind of cell, dominated by a massive device containing food dispensers, exercise equipment, and an arm containing a camera that serves as the focal point for conversing with his jailer, Howard. Only Howard doesn't seem all there. And Frank seems to be having recurring waking dreams every time he falls - or is forced - asleep. There is no way for him to state his case or even find our why he is being detained. Certainly the oppressive government isn't so vile that they would just stick a person in a hole, forgotten, and left to die...are they? I really liked it, although it had a head start being a (mostly) one-room drama. It touches on some interesting ideas about torture and totalitarianism, and had some cool sci-fi "what is real and what isn't" stuff, but mostly it's a buddy movie about Frank and Howard and Frank and his illusions. One of the first things Howard says to Frank is that his job is to keep him alive, and the question is what "life" means to Frank and Howard and what happens when the motivations behind both those positions are based on things that aren't true any more. Nice cinematography given the limitations, and I really liked the end-credit song, "Carry Me" by Olivia Millerschin.
Galaxy of Terror (1981) Dir. Bruce D. Clark After a prologue in which we see the last survivor of a crashed ship on the planet of Morganthus perish, the action shifts to Xerxes, where the mysterious planetary leader only known as The Master dispatches a crew to figure out what happened to the Morganthus and if possible rescue any survivors. The crew itself is handpicked by the Master and the spaceship taking them to Morganthus, the Quest, is captained by a legendary officer. A strange phenomon whilst approaching the planets atmosphere makes the ship crashland, leaving in the rescue crew in marginally better state than the people they are there to rescue. A search of the downed ship reveals the bodies of a few of the original crewmembers, but no real clues as to their fate. Later on, a large energy signature picked up by their scanners turns out to be a massive, ominous looking pyramid-shaped structure... Had never actually seen this Roger Corman production - which is largely an Alien rip-off - and I primarily checked it out for one famous little factoid about this film: the production designer was one James Cameron and the story goes that he created some environments and effects for this film which would later show up in a more polished, big budget form in his Aliens. And there are genuinely some shots that are definitely reminiscent of Aliens. The movie itself is otherwise a loosely connected collection of schlocky genre cliches. Which brings me to the second reason why this production is (in)famous: the giant-worm-rape scene, which is about as cheesy as I would expect in a Corman flick. Cast isn't half bad for this kind of production and besides lead Edward Albert features Ray Walston, Robert Englund and Grace Zabriskie as members of the doomed crew. As well as Erin Moran of Happy Days fame.
Sexy Beast (Season 1) It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so wasn't sure what to expect. This was rather enjoyable, except the lead character who plays Gal, who I just didn't care for. I think the person who played Don and Stephen Moyer did a much better job.
Chaos (2005) Wesley Snipes and crew have taken control of a bank full of hostages and locked the doors. When the police show up he makes one rather unusual demand - that the cop he negotiates with is Jason Statham. Statham is on suspension after an incident with a hostage ended with the hostage killed. Despite massive police presence and Statham playing things by the book, the bank robbers make a clean getaway and a very particular row of safety deposit boxes are empty. Statham is kept on the case, although given a partner slash watcher. But every step leads to something from Statham's past, and Snipes keeps calling to taunt them. There's something bigger going on than just a bank robbery. A actiony thriller that I thought for a long time was going to twist one direction but took a zag that at first disappointed me but later on put a little bit of a smile on my face. Not particularly deep, but it has one idea - taking a popularization of chaos theory and using it to inform the criminal's plan. Complicated plans tend to be based on wishful thinking and lack flexibility. No plan survives contact with the enemy, as they say. Instead, the antagonist made a complicated plan that expected at least some failures, but would survive in spite of them and still end up succeeding. I am reminded of J. Michael Straczynski's plan for Babylon 5. Recognizing his very complicated story required 5 years in a very unpredictable Hollywood, he made allowances for things like actors leaving or changing timetables and the overall plan survived events that should have killed it.
Copshop (2021) Valorous and youthful cop Valerie Young got decked by someone clearly wanting to go to jail. So they put him in jail. The cops didn't notice the figure in the shadows observing events. A short while later, mr shadow drove into a car that was being examined by state highway patrol, scaring them. He gets sent to the same jail, different cell. Valerie figures out there is something going on between the two, but they aren't talking. Soon other forces descend on the police station, and every support that Valerie can depend on for help is being stripped away. Except one. She just has to figure out which one that is. Stylish old-fashioned shoot-em-up with lots of one liners and bad-ass speeches. And that's pretty much it, but as a fan of 70's films, one liners, and bad-ass speeches I was very entertained.
Man in the Dark (1953) Dir. Lew Landers Steve Rawley is a career criminal who got a ten year prison sentence for his last crime, an armored truck heist in which he got away with 129000 dollars. The loot itself was never recovered and Rawley refuses to disclose where it might be, both to the cops and to his associates on the outside, including his girlfriend Peg Benedict. Selected for a medical program to rehabilitate violent inmates, Rawley is paroled in exchange for an experimental brain surgery that is meant to remove his criminal urges. Steve does seem to come out of the surgery a changed man, but then his former associates re-enter his life, still eager for the loot from the robbery and disbelieving of his story that his surgery also left him amnesiac and he thus has no memory of the crime nor where he might have stashed the money... A 1950s crime noir featuring some 3D effects but mostly focused on the story of a man who cannot remember his past life and is shocked to slowly discover the degree to which it involved violence and crime. So like a lot of late 1940s and 1950s noirs, this uses the memory loss trope for much of its dramatic tension. Decent leading turn by Edmond O'Brien.
The Bear (2023) What a wonderful show! I absolutely loved it. My only one dislike is I wish the show ended on Episode 9. I think the last episode of Season 2 (even if Season 3 is coming) was not needed. Overall though, fantastic script, acting, and cast. The Xmas episode had so many famous actors, I was in awe.
Project Dorothy (2024) Small time crooks Blake and James are in the getaway stage of their bank robbery. They got the laptop stored in a safe deposit box they were tasked to get, and as a bonus were gifted a free bullet in James' leg. On foot and shadowing the road out of town, the come across a sprawling industrial building in the middle of nowhere. The sound of police sirens convince them to hide inside. It's abandoned, and judging by the computer equipment everyone left quick about 40 years ago. It is a puzzle why the cops didn't follow them into the building. Oh, well, better get the power on and see what's inside. It's an unlikely setup full of plot holes and because there were only two of them they can't up the suspense by killing off crooks one by one. They have to resort to repeated "hunter cam" perspectives with suspenseful music to add pressure, but every time they did it it ended in nothing or a fake-out so it just ended up being annoying. There was no trail of clues, no slow realization of what happened, nothing interesting about the antagonists nature or its motive. If this was a marked location in a Fallout game, I would consider it poorly staged and a wasted opportunity and I wouldn't revisit it unless it had good loot. As a movie, it's saved from "waste of time" territory by the actors portraying Blake and James who had some good banter and that right tone of desperation.
Two shorts (about 50 minutes each) B4 (2012) Three young adults have just come out of a concert and are going to their car on parking level B4. Only the car isn't there. Climbing the stairs only takes them back to B4. The elevator seems to send them back in time. And they come across people they have never seen before, but who claim to have a long history with our concert goers. Kind of Primer in space instead of time, but the admittedly interesting idea just can't support this particular implementation and there are countless plotholes and it doesn't make sense. And the people are asses. Stay stuck in M-space pocket universe B4 forever, jerkwads. Spacedisco One (2007) So there's this filmmaker named Damon Packard and this is the first movie of his I have ever seen and he does this kind of work on the very fringes of what a movie is. The worst actors ever claim to be the children of characters from Logan's Run, and there are a few characters from 1984, and the director himself is the director as a character, and they seem really upset about Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck's womanizing and somehow the television show Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator is bringing about the downfall of civilization and chemtrails are... existing? Maybe? What the motherfraking frak did I just watch? I liked the super-extreme starbursts in the opening credits making fun of 70's sci fi and disco. That's the best thing I can say about Spacedisco One, the last Damon Packard movie I will ever see.
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two (2024) Dir. Jeff Wamester Following the events of the first movie, superheroes from across the multiverse are still trying to deal with the existence level threat posed by the frequent anti-matter blasts which put all of the heroes home worlds at risk and are only nullified by the cluster of protective towers set up with the help of the Monitor. Psycho Pirate is a newly recruited villain to the Monitor's scheme, though with a secret agenda of his own. Whilst Supergirl's own complicated feelings towards the Monitor also start to weigh upon the unfolding events. Like with the first chapter of this adaptation, I found the voice cast to be good and the animation style interesting but I didn't like much else about it. It's not even that the many plot threads are hard to follow, it's just that they don't make for a very interesting whole and there is no attempt made to make us care about any of these characters, apart from Supergirl.