Real Genius 1985
This was a futuristic comedy but very outdated. Was expecting a classic but it's a 5/10
Its about students getting into Pacific Technical University to figure out things about a laser. It couldn't be done any worse because the whole movie is a party until the very ending.
"The Voices": http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_voices/
Jerry is a young man with issues from his childhood. He lands a job where he falls in love with one of the accountants. She doesn't like him, but her co-worker likes him and another coworker wouldn't mind being his girlfriend either. He also has a female psychologist who sort of likes him, but not in a romantic way.
He has a dog, who is his good angel, and a cat, who is his not-so-good angel. They talk to him when he is not taking his meds giving him advice, some good, some not-so-good.
The three accountants each end up in his--well, I don't want to spoil the story, but they start giving him advice as well as if he were married to all three of them. Finally he captures his psychologist and insists she explain to him why God made him like this. She gives a pretty good answer which I forget at the moment.
Things don't go well for Jerry since the police have him trapped, but everything works out in the end.
The whole movie is weird, but entertaining.
Score: 8/10
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
Just saw Jurassic World, like the rest of the world apparently. Liked it for what it is, a few weird moments in it but ok. I like raptors and they have a kinda of a wolf-like relationship with Owen. Very predictable and pretty easy to see beforehand who wouldn't make it through to the end, but that is often the thing with action of this kind.
Entertaining and my son loved it.
I can only rate it against the other 3 and I would say it's second or third best... 1,4,2,3, I think or 1,2,4,3, three is crap
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
Really? Weren't there at least dinosaurs running around?Originally Posted by Helga
Being a connoisseur of the 1950's, the last decade before TOTAL conformity finally triumphed under the guise of phony non-conformity, I watched the British film Venetian Bird that's set in post-war Venice and starring a range of stock English actors as Italians. In the capable hands of director Guy Green, this adventure yarn about a plot to assassinate a leading politician is well worth its You Tube presentation. 7/10
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Robert Mitchum plays the part of an assistant to a very rich man the origin of whose wealth is a closely guarded secret. When the man dies of a heart attack, Mitchum sets off on a search for the truth about the money. This takes him to various European countries where he discovers that his employer's fortune has been derived from blackmailing important people. Unutterably dull, if not entirely pointless, the film turns out to be one of Mitchum's rare duds.
Written, directed and produced by the same man, Sheldon Reynolds, this quest to uncover a secret bears a very slight resemblance to Citizen Kane but Reynolds is no Orson Welles and there all similarity ends.
2/10
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I saw 'to kill a Mocking bird' with Gregory Peck. I'd give it a 6. Some of the acting was over the top (stage acting on a movie) and focuses on the message rather than the plot.
This is a fine example of the post-war films that Britain excelled in before the great dumbing down.
John Mills, one of Britain's finest actors, plays an engineer who suffers a brain injury in a bus crash and who spends a long time in hospital before being signed-off as fully recovered.
He returns to work for a company in a town where he is living in a residential hotel and where shortly afterwards a young woman resident is murdered in a nearby park.
Circumstantial evidence and his former mental condition point to his being the killer but even when he finds out the real murderer the police refuse to believe him and he goes on the run to get proof of the man's guilt.
Reminiscent of Hitchcock's better work, this is a first class film with top notch direction, acting and atmospheric photography.
They really don't make 'em like this any more.
10/10
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Alighting on this title whilst surfing the web, I imagined that it was another piece of American rubbish along the lines of 'I Was a Teenage Werewolf' and other hyperbolic screenings. I was wrong, because it's a piece of British rubbish along the lines of 'The Trollenberg Terror': both of which found it necessary to have an American actor in the leading part.
Supposedly set in a northern English village, it was in fact set in Shere, a village in southern England that I have often walked through. The village pub, which, unsurprisingly, I am also familiar with, is a hotel in a film that concerns a supposed invasion by robots that kill the citizens and resurrects them as zombies. Why they do this isn't explained but suffice it to say that although the film was directed by Terence Fisher, a kind of ersatz Roger Corman, and lasts for only 1 hour and two minutes, it was too long by 62 minutes.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
A guitar strumming hick is visited in prison by a radio station presenter looking for the 'authentic American music' and is later taken up by television and elevated to the position of the nation's homespun philosopher and voice of the common man. From there he is championed by politicians seeking to use his manufactured popularity to ensure the people's vote but he turns on his manipulators and tries to get power for himself.
A less manic performance by the leading player (Andy Griffith) and tauter direction might have created a genuinely interesting film about the gullibility of the average Joe but it manages to be both glum and rampant at the same time and at 2 hours+ it long outstays its welcome.
5/10
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Frenzy was the penultimate film that Hitchcock directed and it's a good one.
Set in London and using an all English cast of stalwarts, the story concerns a number of women being found strangled and still wearing the killer's necktie around their necks. The prime suspect is the former husband of one of the victims who has a personality disorder that leads him to be violent when mildly provoked. Eventually the police track him down and arrest him with the help of the real killer, whom he thought was his friend, and is sentenced to life imprisonment. However, the police inspector in charge of the case decides to follow up on the convicted man's assertion who the real killer is and discovers the truth.
While not for the squeamish, the murders are convincing in their presentation, and the crude dialogue of some of the characters is realistic but not gratuitously so as is the case nowadays.
Some unlikely happenings and a pointless subplot about the police inspector being subjected to his wife's unpalatable cooking detracts from the story but it still gets 8/10.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
The title of that film might have been a warning. I'll make sure I don't watch it.
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We recently saw Train Wreck: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/trainwreck/
Parts of this movie could be funnier. Other parts probably shouldn't get funnier.
There is a delightful scene with Amy and her sister listening to their father trying to explain to them as children that monogamy was an unrealistic social construction. Another scene to look out for is Amy running her mouth in a movie theater while her boyfriend holds off another couple (actually the male half of that couple) telling them to shut up.
It is sort of a feel-good rom-com except Amy is too strange for stereotypes. She goes all out to finally get the man she loves, but her low faithfulness factor, thanks to her father, makes me wonder if we will not get a sequel to this one.
Score 8/10
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
CAKE - 2014
At first, this film certainly promises something difficult and challenging. But having struck variously angry or black-comic notes in its opening section, it morphs into a piece of indie-sentimental awards-bait for its producer-star Jennifer Aniston. She plays Claire, a Percocet addict who is in chronic pain, given to angry outbursts at her support group and left depressed and conflicted after the suicide of her counsellor, Nina (Anna Kendrick). Claire is drawn into a friendship with Nina’s widow, Roy (Sam Worthington), and remains impossibly difficult with her long-suffering maid and carer, Silvana (Adriana Barraza). Inevitably, the explanation for her condition is left for the third-act reveal, which we reach via the mandatory grieving, healing and self-forgiveness. The relationships and plot transitions feel forced, and the trope of the ironic hallucinatory ghost is glib and cliched (David Cronenberg carried it off more successfully in Maps to the Stars). As for Aniston, she gives an honest, well-intentioned performance, but it is marooned in an unsatisfying script whose emotional effects are unearned.
The title of that film might have been a warning. I'll make sure I don't watch it.
Sometimes I run across a title that's so silly that the film almost demands to be watched.
In this instance the reason for the title completely escaped me as it has nothing to do with the story which is filmed entirely in the village except for some indoor parts on set.
On those occasions when I visited the village, I don't recall seeing any robots or zombies but then I wasn't really looking for them.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
*****
Sorry, but I'm having trouble getting around a new browser.
Last edited by Emil Miller; 07-31-2015 at 07:23 PM.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
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