I watched 9 movies last week:
- Out of the Furnace is a little too slow and too long, and it doesn’t have anything wildly original to say about its characters. But they’re elevated by some very good performances, particularly from an understated Christian Bale.
- Citing a couple of different reviews, Wikipedia notes that Nobody Knows I’m Here has been “praised [for] its earnestness and simplicity.” The earnestness part is definitely on the mark, and much of that comes through Jorge Garcia’s quiet and wounded performance, with which we can’t help but empathize. I do wonder, though, if the film isn’t deceptively simple, if only because it leaves room to wonder how much of the ending is actually happening, and to question exactly how much we should empathize with Garcia’s Memo.
- MUBI describes Pandora and the Flying Dutchman as “a Technicolor fever dream of impossible love, heady folk mythology, and heartstopping color.” It’s such a strange movie, but James Mason and Ava Gardner are never less than compelling in it.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is silly and inventive and charming, and it’s maybe the funniest Ice Cube performance since the first Friday movie.
- There’s a lot going on in The Furies, which appropriately has been described as a “Freudian Western.” Stanwyck and Huston are both very good.
- The Mysterious Island probably still wouldn’t be entirely effective even if it wasn’t a strange semi-silent movie—delayed at the cusp of the sound era—and that’s arguably the most interesting thing about it. There’s definitely ambition on screen, and even some genuinely impressive special effects for 1929, but the film isn’t especially exciting.
- Mixing together a little of movies like Booksmart and Superbad, Bottoms is never quite as smart or funny as those influences, but it is very silly and winning.
- The Sure Thing is maybe more amiable than laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s hard not to judge it against later, better movies in its cast and director’s careers. But overall, it has a good heart and a good cast, and that’s good enough.
- At nearly three (unresolved) hours, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One probably is too long for its own good. (That title alone could take you half an hour to stumble around.) It mostly gets past that by jumping (sometimes quite literally) from one fantastic set-piece to another, and doing so with a fairly simple story and a very engaging cast. Despite its over-abundance of plot and characters—some maybe only vaguely remembered from previous installments, some more or less retconned in entirely—the movie never really feels long, much less padded. And while it’s maybe a little silly, I did like the novelty of of making it so the antagonist is the MacGuffin.
I also, somewhat randomly, re-watched 1971’s The Andromeda Strain. A lot of pulse-pounding tedium in that one.
