Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Mother of All Stuff I've Watched Entries!

Obviously since Halloween I've watched some stuff, though not as much as I thought.  I'll try to keep these really short.  I mean it's not like you really care, right?

Yes, I watched Star Wars The Force Awakens and if you want to read my review on that, you can go here.  There are spoilers in case you're that one person who hasn't watched the movie yet.

A Very Murray Christmas:  Bill Murray, George Clooney, Sophia Coppola, and company write off a vacation in New York with this holiday special on Netflix. Most of the people singing should not quit their day job--and I'm including Miley Cyrus. (1/5)
About a Boy:  Sort of meandering but OK if you like British dramadies. (2.5/5)
Alone With Her:  Colin Hanks stalks a girl.  I yawn a lot. (2/5)
Conan the Barbarian:  The original, but not as good as the "Robot Chicken" musical version. (2/5)
Chaos on the Bridge:  Shatner's look at the hectic early years of Star Trek:  TNG.  Interesting for fans and non-fans. (3/5)
Christmas With the Kranks:  Exceedingly dumb movie perfect for those who think red Starbucks cups are a War on Christmas. (0/5)
Daylight:  Boring 90s disaster movie starring Sly Stallone. (2/5)
Dutch:  Forgotten 1991 John Hughes movie sort of remaking his "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles" only with Al Bundy and a teenage boy. (2/5)
Eyes Wide Shut:  All the people who said this was terrible were right.  There's really nothing at stake in a movie that manages to make orgies boring. (1/5)
The Final Girls:  It's "Last Action Hero" for the "Friday the 13th" movies.  A fun time if you like slasher movies. (3/5)
Four Falls of Buffalo:  An ESPN/NFL production on Buffalo's four failed Super Bowl runs in the 90s.  Not hard-hitting by any stretch but interesting.  BTW, they do use the X-Files clip where the Cigarette Smoking Man vows Buffalo will never win a Super Bowl while he's alive. (3/5)
Intolerable Cruelty:  From the early 2000s when the Coen Bros. attempted comedy.  They went back to crime movies thanks to movies like this. (2/5)
Kung Fury:  Over-the-top 80s-style spoof of cop and kung-fu shows. (3/5)
The Lazarus Effect:  Lame horror movie where a dead woman is brought back to life to terrorize Mark Duplass and Donald Glover. (2/5)
Man From UNCLE:  Probably helped I knew nothing about the TV show.  A good secret agents movie that really should have been called UNCLE Begins.  Couple other notes from watching:  Henry Cavill could be a decent James Bond and Armie Hammer could play some kind of superhero and jeez, Hugh Grant is getting old.  Just saying. (3/5)
Mission Impossible Rogue Nation:  Seemed pretty much the same as the last one.  What happened to the women of that one?  There was a woman on the team, right?  And wasn't there the woman from the third one at the end working as a nurse or something and Tom Cruise was going to see her?  Neither one shows up here.  Anyway, seemed impossibly long. Boom. (2/5)
Mr. Holmes:  An interesting take on Sherlock Holmes.  If you've already watched or read "Atonement" then you already have a clue about the ending. (3/5)
Plastic:  Lame con artist movie I barely remember now. (1/5)
Prince of Pennsylvania:  ESPN documentary on John DuPont and his Foxcatcher wrestling team.  I never watched "Foxcatcher" but then this is probably more accurate. (3/5)
Rambo:  First Blood:  Part 2:  Dumb title.  Dumber movie. (1/5)
Robot Overlords: This sounds like a "mockbuster" ripping off the Transformers movies, but it's not.  It's more like "V" only the aliens are robots who decree everyone but their collaborators (led by Sir Ben Kinglsey, who it seems will do any movie offered) has to stay indoors, until some meddling kids find the key to stopping them by accidentally electrocuting themselves. And for some reason Gillian Anderson is cast as a British mom.  (2.5/5)
The Runner:  Nicholas Cage political "drama" that lacks all the sex, scheming, and violence that made "House of Cards" a hit. It's a Nic Cage movie, blow something up, for crying out loud! (1/5)
Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse:  The title pretty much says it all:  Boy Scouts (or whatever they were actually called) battle a zombie outbreak in their small California town with the help of a stripper.  It's fun if you like Zombieland more than The Walking Dead. (2.5/5)
Self/Less:  OK sci-fi thriller where Ben Kingsley is sick and transplants his memories into Ryan Reynolds.  If it had been me it would be Ben Kingsley transplanting his brain into Jennifer Lawrence (I almost literally did that in the first part of Transformed Into a Bimbo Too.  Anyway, after that it sort of turns into a combination of The Bourne Identity/Legacy with a little Robocop thrown in.   It's good and not entirely predictable. (2.5/5)
Sleuth:  Michael Caine is a mystery writer, Jude Law is the conman banging his wife.  They have two confrontations in Caine's house that take some interesting twists and turns. (4/5)  (Random fact:  Caine starred in the original "Alfie" and Jude Law in the remake.  Also, I guess Caine played the conman in the original movie version back in the 70s with Laurence Olivier as the writer.)
Some Kind of Beautiful:  Dull dramedy that really stretches the limits of Pierce Brosnan's charm. (1/5)
Straw Dogs:  "Thriller" that's not thrilling. Lois Lane and her boyfriend from "Superman Returns" battle rednecks "Home Alone"-style.  (1/5)
Suburban Gothic:  Strange low budget movie about an effeminate twentysomething who can see dead people. (2/5)
Terminator Genisys:  This soft reboot basically takes all the Terminator movies and puts them in a blender.  The result is...meh. (2/5)
Tripping the Rift:  The "Family Guy" to "Futurama's" "The Simpsons."  It's OK. (2.5/5)
Truth or Consequences, NM:  3 criminals and an undercover DEA agent steal drugs, Rob a mobster, and kidnap a couple in this meandering crime drama directed by Kiefer Sutherland. (2.5/5)
Vacation (2015):  Feeble sequel/reboot of the 80s movie with Chevy Chase.  As a backhanded compliment, I can say I got my 14 cents worth. Honestly, the theme song "Holiday Road" is really not good enough to play 4 freaking times, though props for using the subdued Matt Pond version.  (1.5/5)

3 comments:

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

I've seen very few of these, but I appreciate the one or two sentence summaries.

Cindy said...

I have mixed feelings about UNCLE. Probably because I wanted to see something of the original in it...and there really wasn't, except if you count the basic stop a bomb plot. Henry Cavill played the part of Solo as too much of a pretty boy. I liked how they added some back story to Illya and the anger problem was interesting too. I also liked how the woman had more of a role in the story.

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

I haven't even heard of most of these!

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