Movie reviews

Back to reviews of old and new movies today.



Lethal Weapon 1,2, 3, 4

The Mel Gibson season continues. BH recommended I watch these and he was right, I did enjoy them. Gibson and Glover as Riggs and Murtaugh make a great team, with action, humour and humanity very much in evidence. The stories are great, kind of less exclusive James Bond adventures. Lots of murder and mayhem. I particularly enjoyed the mayhem. Some spectacular effects, not so much clever, more explosive. Gibson looks great, and the man can act. Yes, he is funny and flip, but the back story is always there. The Aussie accent enhances Gibson's maverick stance, as does the pretence of craziness. The four movies flow beautifully, no sequel failure in evidence. Characters continue to develop, most notably Joe Pesci's Leo Getz character, stories inter-relate and the characters age and acknowledge that. Of course the cat cameos are there, one fortunate feline is rescued from a bomb blast by Murtaugh. There is also a canine presence, Rigg's dog Sam, and a Rottweiler guard dog he befriends. Women are peripheral, although Rigg's dead wife is important to the story. Love interests are Patsy Kensit (wasn't she the little one in "The Railway Children"?) and Rene Russo. Russo is tough but I still can't take to her. My favourite bits are in LW2. The South African house "renovation" and the scene where Murtaugh pretends he wants to immigrate to South Africa. This is in apartheid time remember. Funny, and not good PR for South Africans.

Good clean LA cop buddy fun.




Inception

I thought I might have trouble with this, having read some reviews and heard comments, but I wanted to see it because of the unusual concept. It's about people getting into other people's dreams and dreams within dreams, and stealing or planting ideas. The different levels of dreams provide great opportunities for lots of simultaneous but quite different action sequences. You have to see it to get the meaning. It wasn't as complex as I feared and it was a very attractive movie. Lots of closeups, lots of detail, rich colours, good lighting. Choppy action photography, appropriate music and some really nice, clever but not silly effects. I liked the folding over of Paris. Speaking of which, if some of my work colleagues see this movie, they may have a giggle thinking about me watching it when the wake-up music comes on. Edith Piaf, regretting nothing. Di Caprio gives a solid performance, although his baby-faced looks make it hard to believe he is all grown up and has two children (in the movie). Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, another actor all grown up since "Third Rock", is delightfully suave. He has some great zero-gravity challenges. I liked the bundling up of his sleeping charges. Ellen Page (Juno) was very appropriate. Michael Caine had a small role as did my favourite actor Pete Postlethwaite. I liked Tom Hardy's laconic Eames too. Worst job, but good performance - the poor van driver! Lots of time tricks in this movie but they all make sense.

I felt there was some similarity to Red Dwarf's "Better Than Life" game, and there was a Marilyn French nod (okay, very minor, but I remembered it). Also in evidence a little Lewis Carroll and Magritte in the sense of creating a nonsense world. My daughter is a Magritte fan and I think she will understand what I mean. I liked this movie and I think it may get itself a little cult following.



Watching all those Lethal Weapon movies was distraction grief therapy. I am still very sad about my poor Marley cat, but I'm coming round to realising it was the kind thing to do. I am very grateful to him for sharing his life with us. He was a special cat.

End of an era

So Marley is gone. What a special cat. He was a symbol of our moving to a new country, we met him the first day at our new house. He was a very attractive cat, big and solid with a thick shiny fluffy black and white coat and a kind of lightning bolt on his nose. He had big feet and and a massive fluffy tail. Our porch had a polycarbonate roof and we could look up and see those big feet splayed out padding across the roof, or see his fluffy cat tummy spread out above us if he was lying down. He liked to be up high. Sometimes he would frighten guests at night by climbing the tree, crossing the roof and demanding to be let in the window beside the bed upstairs. He could talk. Actual words. Once he said agua, so of course I gave him water. Another time I had just come in the door and he looked up and said "Mum" quite clearly and distinctly. What an honour for me. He slept on the corner of the bed on a special blanket folded to the right size. Sometimes I would carefully slide my foot under him to feel the reassuring weight of my lovely cat. If he objected he would attack my foot. He didn't get off the blanket to sleep on any other part of the bed, but sometimes he would walk up my body to get me to let him out, and he once terrified me by silently padding up the bed and pushing his face into mine while I was asleep. In later years he couldn't jump onto the bed so we got him a sturdy plastic box to use as a step and he was fine. He was an excellent communicator and could usually get us to do what he wanted.

I told you he loved flowers. He was buried in his favourite shoebox, with a flower tucked in beside him and flowers on his grave. He is resting in peace right where he used to lie in the sun all day, under one of his favourite cat nests.

You will always be in our hearts and memories Marley.

Saddest day

It looks like my lovely Marley cat is taking that one way trip to the vet this afternoon. His cancer is spreading and he is not eating. I know it's the right thing to do, but what a hard thing to do. He has been a part of our lives since 1994, when we met him as a tiny fluffy kitten. He grew and grew into a very big strong cat and we adopted him when his first people, our neighbours, moved away. We kept him secret for a year as we were renting a house where we weren't supposed to keep a pet. When we bought a house along the road, we walked him up there every evening so he could get used to the new place. He soon settled down there and enjoyed the challenges of a three storey house, making use of decks and roofs and windows and trees to access all areas. He was really annoyed, but not singed, when the house burnt down in 2005. We built him a new house and he liked that too. He likes to sleep in the sun behind the curtains covering the floor length windows, so we sometimes didn't know he was there. Marley likes flowers. I had to keep vases of flowers on the floor or he would climb up and get them. He was an identity in the neighbourhood. Thank you to Amalia, Ceri, and Debbie for feeding him when we went away for a few days. Thank you to Mel next door for hosting him during the housebuilding months.

I am very, very sad to say goodbye to him. He is such a lovely cat. He will be missed.
Thank you Marley for all the love.

Sad news

Went to the city yesterday, intending to see "Eat, Pray, Love" but circumstances conspired against me. Here we have two old movies.


Speed

Sandra Bullock who can act, paired with Keanu Reeves who at that time, could not act. He appeared to be reading his lines. No matter, he is pretty and it's not Shakespeare. There is a bomb on the bus and if the speed drops below 50, it will explode. Most of the movie takes place on the bus, and is quite watchable. Some clever stuff, some dumb stuff, some unlikely stuff. It's okay.


Groundhog Day

Another one of those movies that messes with the space/time continuum, like "The Lake House", demonstrating the nightmare that is deja vu. Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell (her of the hat). Bill Murray's character gets stuck repeating groundhog day over and over. Once he figures out what is going on, he takes advantage of it, becoming deceitful, conniving, manipulative and downright sleazy. Then he gets sick of it and commits suicide many times, always waking up in one piece the next day. Then he uses the time to good effect - ice sculpting, saving lives, learning piano. There is a lovely "Blues Brothers" moment at a party, sunglasses and all. Eventually it ends and everyone is happy. Not so sure about the groundhog though, he didn't look so happy. Perhaps this is a redemption movie, hard to say.



The sad news is that my lovely Marley cat has cancer. I hope that we can keep him with us and comfortable for a good long time. He is a special cat, and much loved.

A life story

Good friends are the BEST - hang on to them.



Walk the Line

A favourite movie. I became a Johnny Cash fan because of this movie. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon had to do their own singing and playing for the movie and apparently both tried to pull out when they realised that. They got singing coaches and they did a fantastic job. There is chemistry between them and the line between reality and movieland blurs. Phoenix does not closely physically resemble Cash but he becomes Cash. The build, the stance, the almost blank and often brooding expression which says so much. I guess that's why he is an actor, because he can act. His singing is powerful and totally in character. The prison scene is great, I almost said lovely, but all those tough inmates might object. You can feel the empathy between Cash and the prisoners. Side note - I went on a little Johnny Cash pilgrimage to Folsom Prison and bought the "I shot a man in Reno" t-shirt in Reno. Yep, I'm a fan.

Witherspoon as June Carter is full of "sass", a strong character and her singing is rather good. She looks so cute in those 60's clothes. The inevitability to the relationship between Cash and Carter is clearly portrayed, although it took a while to get there. Ginnifer Goodwin is strong as Viv, Cash's first wife. Waylon Jenning's son Shooter plays his father in this movie, and the other musicians are portrayed rather well, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, I think maybe even Roy Orbison.

This is a good, well-constructed biopic about a complex character. I had to fast forward through Cash's early life, it's a bit sad, not a good word to use, it's more complex than just sad. Events of his childhood pervasively underpin Johnny Cash's way of dealing with life. The music is wonderful. If I had to chose I might pick Folsom Prison Blues and Big River as my favourite Cash songs. And Ring of Fire, and of course, the title track, Walk the Line. I could list a lot more, they are all good. This movie will be at least an annual pilgrimage for me.



Had an excellent couple of days with an old friend - thanks for a great time!

Cat cameos

It's turning into a Mel Gibson season. I watched "The Man Without a Face" again as BH hadn't seen it. He asked if we could watch more movies by the director, who of course was Mel Gibson. Once again I noticed the beauty of the place, and the graceful lines of the boats. I think Mel Gibson must be a cat lover as this movie has a good cat cameo in it. I get a little frisson of enjoyment when I hear Gibson's Australian accent creep in now and again.




Tequila Sunrise


Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell in a drug dealer/cop friendship movie. Quite watchable. Pfeiffer is gorgeous as always, even with shoulder pads, young Mel Gibson is very attractive, Kurt Russell not so much, even in his Disney days - remember "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes"? Gibson and Russell are old school friends, Gibson is a retired drug dealer, Russell is a cop. Pfeiffer is a restaurateur and love interest. She and Gibson have chemistry and rather a lot of sex - in one session! Prophetic line: "Stop talking or I'll smack you" or something like that. Once again there is a cat cameo, and we have a brief glimpse of Gibson as a Baywatch boy ... honest. Skullduggery, double crossing, bent coppers, plenty of action. The Mexican police chief is Raul Julia, he was the dad in "The Addams Family" movie, so suave and sexy. Just a fun action movie.



The weekend is here again. Have a good one.

Moving to Maine

Seems like I am having a Mel Gibson season, purely coincidental.



The Man Without a Face


This is a really good movie, directed by and starring Mel Gibson. This is how movies should be made. I hope James Cameron gets to see it sometime, maybe in Film-making 101. First, the place. I am moving to Maine immediately. The desert is okay, but give me a rocky coastline any day. The whole story takes place in probably less than 2 square miles of beautiful scenery - no CGI required thanks. The islands, the water, the boats, the trees, the houses are all stunning. Great lighting, excellent music composed by James Horner and played by the London Symphony (or is it Philharmonic) Orchestra. Now the actors. Nick Stahl is amazing. A natural talent and likeable with it. His family - all good, and none of them particularly well-known, well not to me. Mel Gibson is a real actor. The disfiguring scarring (amazingly well done) with loss of facial mobility highlights the subtlety of Gibson's performance. Of course there is the theme of outsider-ness and difference, leading to small town gossip and speculation. Chuck's psychological isolation and McLeod's self-imposed physical isolation mesh to the advantage of both when Chuck asks McLeod to tutor him for military school entrance exams. Perhaps it's a little Sorceror's Apprentice, maybe some Phantom of the Opera, but it is a very satisfying story. The credits after the happy-ish ending were a little blurry ...




Here is a webcam for Beatles fans

http://www.abbeyroad.com/visit/




A wild kitten jumped on my bed this morning. They are getting less wild each day.