Jefe's Movie Reviews

 "I believe in God. And the only thing that scares me... is Keyser Soze." One of the greatest lines in film history.  If you haven't seen The Usual Suspects, I do highly recommend it. It's like The Sixth Sense or The Village, where there's a huge twist and reveal at the end. But even without it, this is a great movie. It stars Kevin Pollack (whom you probably know from A Few Good Men), Stephen Baldwin, Benecio del Toro in an early role, Pete Postlethwaite (from Inception and many other great movies), Giancarlo Esposito (from Breaking Bad), and the inimitable Kevin Spacey. There is a crime, and "the usual suspects" are rounded up. One of them is spilling his guts, telling the police all about what happened. In return, he's set free. Or maybe none of that is true. It's rated R for all of the usual reasons.

 I haven't reviewed Casablanca until now because I've assumed that most of you have already seen it. But I do have to remind myself that some of you are young enough not to have gotten around to watching an old black and white movie like this one.  This is one of my all time favorites. It's beautiful. It's quotable. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." And "Here's lookin at you, kid." But, believe it or not, no one actually says, "Play it again, Sam." That, like "Luke, I am your father" and "I'll be your huckleberry" are misremembered lines that were never spoken in the movie. There's a hero fighting Nazis. There's a woman in love with the hero but also in love with the anti-hero. There are double crosses. There are traditions and they are broken, sometimes two in one evening. If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's a masterpiece.

 No movie review blog would be complete without a treatment of the amazing phenomenon that is the Star Wars universe. And each movie deserves its own blog, but I assume that all of my readers have seen them already. So I decided to do them in 3 movie chunks. Here's the first 3. Star Wars, later referred to as A New Hope and Episode IV, was groundbreaking. It introduced all of the main characters - Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Vader, R2, Threepio, and the Stormtroopers to us for the first time. It introduced us to the Force, and to lightsabers, and to all of the wonderfulness that is the Star Wars universe. When you go back and watch it now, it doesn't QUITE stand up to the test of time. The SFX, which were of course groundbreaking and amazing at the time, now seem a little hokey and dated. The acting is inconsistent in places, with Leia adopting a slight British accent during one of her lines ("SLIP through your fingers"). It's forging new territory, and that can be m...

 I had a funny experience when I watched Lost in Translation the first time. I watched it with some friends who were not the brightest lights in the harbor. And they did NOT get it. They kept complaining about little things throughout the movie that they were clearly not understanding. I thought that it was extremely apropos and hilarious that they were misunderstanding a movie called Lost in Translation. This is a wonderful movie. It's slow and warm and deep. It's about a friendship between two unlikely people, played by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. There is sexual tension between them, and I'm not going to give away the movie by telling you what happens, but I found it delightful. It's directed by Sofia Coppola, and it was the reason I fell in love with her as a director. It's rated R for language.  I highly recommend it if you like slow, warm movies about unlikely friendships - and great acting and writing.

 Black Adam could have been really good. It had some good actors. I like Dewayne Johnson a lot, and in my opinion (take it or leave it), there was no better James Bond than Pierce Brosnan. The other supporting actors weren't bad, for the most part. The origin story wasn't awesome, but it wasn't terrible. A little convoluted, and the flashbacks that told it were not super clear. The special effects were good for the most part, though there seemed to be some "cheating" where things would explode and fill up the screen seemingly to keep us from seeing clearly what was happening behind it.  So how could it have been a good movie? If it had had a good script. The writing is awful. Like, groan out loud awful. Here's an example: One of the supporting characters shares that she lost someone close to her. Her "friend" says, "Oh, I'm sorry." And she says, "No, you're good." This made me want to pull my hair out. I will bypass the fa...

 Arrival is a masterpiece. It's a beautiful work of art and I don't think most people understand it. But if you get what it's saying, it'll make you cry. Amy Adams is wonderful in the lead role. Jeremy Renner is great as her friend and coworker. Forrest Whittaker is his usual strange, smarmy self. The premise is really good - aliens have arrived on Earth. They're in those black things like in the picture above. Humans go into those black things and talk to the aliens. Now, I'm considering my words carefully to keep from giving you spoilers. Tell you what, I'm going to put a paragraph at the bottom that says SPOILERS at the top and you can read it if you want a hint as to what the movie means, though I'm not going to spoil the whole thing for you. Acting, writing, production quality, everything is perfect. This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. And what it says is so profound that it flew over the heads of many (most?) of the people who watche...

 So Cobra comes from the mid 80s, which were a little hit or miss for good film content. Cobra is FUN to watch, but I wouldn't call it a great movie. Stallone plays a ... cop? I think? Who basically just goes in and kills the bad guys no matter what the problem is. And he keeps an unlit match in his mouth just in case he needs it. If you want some mindless shooting action and you enjoy Stallone's "acting", I recommend this one, but not emphatically. It's rated R for sex, nudity, violence, and strong language. Apparently there is an X rated version of it in which the violence is so gory that the industry made the producers remove some of it to get the R rating.

 Beauty and the Beast is one of my four all time favorite Disney movies, alongside The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King. All four of them have been remade "live action", and I really liked the remakes of Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  Let's talk about the original first, and then I'll discuss the remake. The original is SO well done. Beautiful songs, wonderful story, great cinematography, funny and insightful writing. Gaston is SO FUN to hate. They did an amazing job bringing the fairy tale to life. I can watch it over and over and not get tired of it. I would probably not have liked the remake half as much if it weren't for Emma Watson. But she can do no wrong in my book. I've loved everything she's done. She's perfect as Belle. And the Beast was well done as "live action" and the CGI is amazing. I thought the scene where they dance in the ballroom was breathtaking. The main thing I liked about Lion King and Beauty and the Be...

 Grosse Pointe Blank really is a great movie, despite the fact that the movie poster looks like a failed photoshop project from a junior high student.  It's got a great cast! John Cusack before he went a little crazy and started doing terrible movies. Minnie Driver while she was still super popular. The great Alan Arkin and the hilarious Dan Aykroyd also star. And I learned something while writing this. Not only is John Cusack in it, but TWO of his sisters, Joan and Ann, are also in it. And he has two more siblings named Bill and Susie who are also in the movie business!  This is a fun movie. It's witty and funny and charming. It's about a very unlikely hitman who goes to his high school reunion. I highly recommend it. It's rated R for strong language and some graphic violence.

 Unforgiven is my second favorite western of all time (after the inimitable Tombstone). It stars Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman. It's gritty, it's dark, and it's funny. The ending is extremely satisfying. It's one of those movies that, when you get to the end of it, you think, "Wow. That was a great movie." It's rated R for strong language and brutal violence, including bull whipping a man.  I highly recommend this film.

 Here is another film that I'd never heard of but saw in Redbox last time I went to Walmart. Ralph Fiennes is one of the few actors on the list of those I trust who seldom do bad movies, and Jessica Chastain is also on that list. So having them both in this movie, along with Matt Smith from Dr Who and House of the Dragon, really makes this a great movie. This is a very nuanced film. It's a drama, and it has very adult elements. It deals with infidelity (which is a pun that you'll get if you watch it), racism, homosexuality, and the clash of cultures between the east and west. Like I said, it's nuanced, so even though there is a lot in the movie to make you hate the lavish apathy of the west and see the need and pain of the east, it doesn't come across heavy handed and clumsy. It says some things, and it even says them in a pithy way several times. There are "proverbs" that are shared here and there, and after sharing one of them a character is told "Y...

 Molly's Game is a movie that I didn't expect to like half as much as I did. While I do like Kevin Costner and Idris Elba, I don't depend on either of them to make reliable movies, as they've both been in clunkers. I do like Jessica Chastain a lot, and have yet to see a movie she was in that I didn't like, but I admittedly haven't seen her whole filmography. Molly's Game was a very satisfying story. It's about gambling, and about how the house always wins. It's about a woman (Chastain) who runs her own game and runs it by her rules. It doesn't have the heavy handed feminist vibe that so many movies today have. It's just a good story, well told and well acted, with good writing and a good ending. I recommend it. It's rated R for language, drug content, and some violence. 

 I had never heard of this movie, but I saw it in Redbox. I really like Mel Gibson, and I love Elisha Cuthbert! You might remember her as Kim Bauer, Jack Bauer's daughter on 24. I don't know Josh Duhamel by name, but he's been in some good movies, including several of the Transformer movies and he played Dorian Gray in the movie The Picture of Dorian Gray.  So I took a chance. It's not bad! It's based on a true story, which makes it more interesting. Some of the funnier "fact is stranger than fiction" moments are pointed out in the film, where a little caption will read "This really happened!"  You really care about the protagonist throughout the movie. I didn't find myself liking the law enforcement guy very much, though I did enjoy the running joke about his eye liner.  I do recommend seeing this, but I don't HIGHLY recommend it. It's fun, along the lines of Catch Me if You Can , but not of the same caliber. There is some nudity, ve...

 1998 was a busy year for Robin Williams. Two of his movies hit the big screen, Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come.  I liked Dreams but I didn't love it. In fact, these two might be my least favorite of his movies. I'll review Patch another time. I liked the premise a lot. Robin goes looking for his wife in heaven and hell. And I thought the filmmakers did an AMAZING job portraying hell. It was very hellish and very horrible and no one in their right mind would want to go there. There was no party. It's just a place with no hope and pain forever. But when they tried to depict heaven, they totally dropped the ball. Robin is able to run really fast through some pretty fields. That's heaven. When he asks if God is there somewhere, he's told, "Oh, we think He's around here somewhere." And that is NOT heaven. Heaven is being in God's presence. Without God, heaven is not heaven. I'll spare you further theologizing, but suffice it to say that they ...

 I love the movie The Game with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. The most difficult thing about writing this review, though, is that I can't tell you why the movie is so good. It's kind of like trying to tell someone why The Sixth Sense is so good. You just have to watch it and find out.  But I can tell you that the production value is great. The acting is superb (and I'm not a Sean Penn fan). The writing is good and the plot is really well done. There's a twist that I can't even begin to mention. But man, this is a really satisfying movie. It's rated R for violence, language, and some "sexuality". I saw it in 1997 so I don't remember any of those things, but that's what IMDB says. I HIGHLY recommend this movie.

 Last night I talked about actors I trust. The ones who, if they choose to be in a movie, I know it'll be a good movie. People like Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman.  Nic Cage is definitely NOT on that list. He's done some great movies. I loved Con Air and The Rock. He's done some terrible movies. Too many to name, actually. I walked out of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent because I really agreed with the second word of the title.  And I'd never heard of Kill Chain. And it has a dumb name for a movie. It sounds like a Steven Seagal movie. Or a lesser known episode of Kung Fu.  But this is a good movie! I really enjoyed it a lot. It's the best Nic Cage movie I've seen in about fifteen year. Now, be warned: it's very violent. The language is strong. There's no nudity, but there is a (somewhat tasteful) love scene.  The writing is good. The plot is good. The dialog is snappy and funny.  If you don't mind a pretty hard R rating, I recommend Kill Chai...

 There are certain actors who are so consistent in doing great movies and TV shows that I'll take a chance on something I've never heard of just based on the fact that they're in it. Some examples of these actors include Robin Wright (who played Jennay in Forrest Gump, Buttercup in The Princess Bride, and one of the two main characters in House of Cards), Morgan Freeman, and Tom Cruise. I will pretty much see anything that this caliber actor is in, not just because they're great actors, but because I trust their taste in what movies they'll do. That list USED to include Christoph Waltz. But Dead for a Dollar has all but changed my mind on the subject. First off, it's WAYY too similar to a much better movie. Christoph plays a bounty hunter with a German accent who is hunting down a bad guy who might not be all that bad, and his companion is an African American who tags along to learn things from the older and wiser Waltz. I saw this movie when it was called Djang...

 I really like Aubrey Plaza. She's delightfully edgy and has a very amusing dark sense of humor. I love her interviews where she says whatever she's thinking, no matter if it's appropriate or not. And her character on Parks and Rec is one of my all time fav characters.  So yes, I was interested in seeing Emily the Criminal. And I enjoyed it! It was alternately harrowing, hilarious, moving, and scary. You really find yourself rooting for Emily, even though she makes some... shall we say "questionable"... decisions throughout the movie. But she's got spunk and grit, and isn't going to let anyone steal her dream. So she'll steal lots of things from them instead. This movie does NOT have a good moral code. It's about people who steal things and get away with it. It's about people who TEACH other people to steal and get away with it. There isn't any nudity (I don't think, but I admit I played on my phone a little while watching it so it'...

 Thomas Harris is an amazing writer. He is almost a little TOO good at creating evil, twisted, crazy bad guys. I have loved all of his books. And the movie adaptations have been extremely well done. In fact, it is my somewhat unpopular opinion that Hannibal the movie is actually BETTER than Hannibal the book. But that's another story for another review. The Silence of the Lambs is fantastic writing. If you haven't read the book (and you like reading things that are extremely disturbing), I highly recommend it. And the movie is a work of art. Perfect performances by Scott Glenn and Ted Levine (who is over the top creepy as Buffalo Bill). Jodi Foster gives an award winning performance as the courageous but fragile Clarice Starling. And, of course, overshadowing them all, is the portrayal of Hannibal Lecter by none other than Sir Anthony Hopkins, who apparently can play anyone he wants, from CS Lewis to Hannibal the cannibal. The movie is terrifying. It's poignant. It's de...

 The original Lion King was one of my four all time favorite Disney movies, and probably in my top 20 fav movies of all kinds. The remake was really good, I thought, mostly because they didn't change much. The things they didn't change but just made "live action" were great. The things they changed were not as good as the original. But man - the original is SO GOOD! So many great songs. So many great life lessons. Remember who you are! Hakuna Matata! We've got big footprints to fill! Let things go because it doesn't matter - it's in the past! Along with The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast, it is Disney at its very best. I hope (but doubt) that Disney will one day return to making great, fun, beautiful masterpieces like these. Disney: remember who you are!

 So I really like both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. Tom is a little crazy in real life, but he's a great actor and produces some fantastic movies. Jamie Foxx is, I think, if anything underrated. He's a great actor and musician. I haven't seen anything he's done that I didn't like, and I LOVED him in Django Unchained. So put them together in a movie where Jamie is a cab driver and Tom is a hit man bad guy, and man you've got a good movie. And this one delivers. It's not just a great action movie, though it IS that. It's also a really interesting and inspiring story of a man standing up for what he believes in. And it's also about working toward your dreams. They work ALL of that into this really fun, funny, action packed movie. Yes, I do recommend it. There's a little nudity, strong language, and pretty intense violence in this. But man - the storyline is worth it if you don't mind an R rating.

 Lethal Weapon is one of the best action movies ever made. It's fun, funny, disturbing, and packs a serious punch. Mel Gibson is inimitable as Martin Riggs, who isn't ever sure throughout the whole movie that he doesn't want to die. He lost the love of his life, and the movie begins with him playing "to be or not to be" with a photo of his dead wife and a loaded gun. His new partner, Srgt Murtaugh, played perfectly by Danny Glover, doesn't believe that Riggs wants to die. He thinks he's just trying to draw crazy pay. And Murtaugh is trying to retire. Without dying.  During the course of the movie, the two become good friends. Riggs visits Murtaugh's family and Murtaugh's teen daughter falls in love with Riggs. Murtaugh asks Riggs if he really enjoyed his wife's cooking, and Riggs deadpans, "No." One of my fav lines from any movie is in this one. "What did one shepherd say to the other shepherd? Let's get the flock out of here...

 I really enjoyed Black Widow. It was an excellent origin story. It was dark and gritty, but funny and fun at the same time. ScarJo was awesome, as always, as the title character. Florence Pugh almost stole the show, though. She was tough and funny and even though she wasn't in the whole movie, you really cared about her by the end. David Harbour was excellent as Black Widow's dad. He was both lovable and funny, while still being tough and an edgy Russian.  It's rated PG-13 for violence and language. There's no nudity.  I do recommend this one, especially if you're into the Marvel Universe. But even if you're not, the movie is great and fully entertaining as a stand-alone film.

 I saw Smile tonight. It's scary! It's many different types of scary: several jump scares, going crazy scares, everyone is out to get me scares, evil creature in the dark scares, staring into a dark doorway scares, person on the phone turns out to be someone scary scares, the person I'm talking to face to face is not who I thought they were scares... it's a scary movie! The scariest part, I think, is the first 20 minutes or so, when the woman in the picture above makes that face for the first time. It happens again throughout the movie, but that first evil smile is terrifying when it first appears. I don't want to give you any spoilers so I'm not going to discuss the ending. I'll say this: the ending is scary. I prefer a "we saved the world and everything is OK now ending", but in this movie, you get a scary ending instead. There's no nudity, and the language is pretty tame for a horror movie. There is LOTS of blood though, so don't go if y...

 A good friend recently suggested that I review The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. Based on a true story, the film is poignant, sad, inspiring, strange, and beautiful. Louis, played wonderfully by the very talented Cobblepot Bandersnatch (AKA Benedict Cumberbatch), is a very eccentric man, probably on the spectrum, who is also a genius and an amazing artist.  He struggles with daily human interactions and prefers the company of animals, especially cats. He eventually meets a woman, the governess for the children in his home, who is almost as strange as he is. They hit it off and get married.  Anything more I tell you will be spoiler material. Louis embarks on a very strange adventure that involves cats. One of his sisters loses her mind. And we begin to think that madness might run in the family. But there's a fine line between madness and genius. I recommend this movie if you like Cumberbatch. He is about 95% of the movie, so if you like him at his quirkiest, you'll enjo...

  Beetlejuice is from that crazy time in 80s movies where the line between funny and terrifying was often razor thin. This is a great movie, and it's VERY late 80s. Especially the scene towards the end where most of the cast is singing Day-O and dancing around the dining room table. Perfect performances from Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, and great support from Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones.  I highly recommend this one. It's mostly clean, except for a few off color jokes by the title character. Most of the language is tame, and there is no nudity. The violence is mostly silly and stylized, though there are, as I mentioned, some terrifying moments.

 I watched this movie back in 1994 and I really enjoyed it. It's Dana Carvey at his funniest and most lovable. If you liked him on SNL, then I think you'll enjoy this. He plays a private eye in the middle of a romantic relationship - the problem is, every morning when he wakes up, he's got almost total amnesia. So he has to figure everything out again, every day. It's fun because it's Dana Carvey. The movie would have been fun with the likes of Jim Carrey or Steve Carrell, as well. A strong funny lead makes this a good movie, and it has lots of funny moments and quotable lines. I recommend this movie if you want something funny to watch and remember how great SNL was back when they had funny people.

 I finished this film today. Turns out I only had about ten more minutes to watch when I stopped last time lol. But yes, I recommend this. The ending is very good. It's a classic "oh no" ending. I can't tell you more without spoilers. But the whole movie is well done. My only complaint is that there is too much strong language. People like to say "Oh my god" every time something happens. Like, any little thing. But besides that, it's clean and it's really thought provoking. Check it out!