I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| This Magic Moment - Shaq, Kobe, and the Magic were supposed to be the dominant franchise. |
Watch This Magic Moment
Directed by: Gentry Kirby and Erin Leyden
Rated: --
Plot:
In 1995 the Orlando Magic, led by Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway, was a dynasty in the making that never quite made it.
Verdict:
Shaq and Penny were huge as was the Magic in the '90s. This is a great doc that expels the rumors on how the Magic rose from an expansion team to the precipice of domination but then lost Shaq and their chance at a title. If you're a fan of pop culture, basketball, or well made documentaries, you have to check this out. This is worth watching for the present day conversation between Shaq and Penny alone.
Watch it.
Review:
Why did basketball come to Orlando? Orlando was an expansion team, and it's rise to prominence starts after winning the first draft pick in '92 and drafting Shaquille O'neal. Shaq was a force of nature and a marketing boon. Shaq wanted to be in LA, but stuck with Orlando. He starts rapping and looking into movies. He's living an LA life from Orlando. Shaq did move to LA eventually, but I still think of Shaq as part of the Magic.
What really changed the course for the Magic is the '93 draft. Despite all odds, Orlando gets the number one draft pick in two consecutive years, in '92 and '93.
Penny Hardaway was fighting hard to convince the Magic to draft him. His agent got him in the movie Blue Chips (1994) before the draft and that convinced Shaq that the Magic needed Penny.
To Shaq's surprise Orlando drafts Chris Webber as number one, but immediately trade him to the Warriors for number three pick Penny Hardaway and three future first round picks.
With Shaq and Penny in place, the Magic make a run at the '95 Championship. Their devastating loss in game one snaps the confidence of the young team and changes the momentum of the series, ending in a sweep of the Magic.
Nick Anderson quit shooting free throws after missing four in a row during the championship. He was a different player the next season.
When Shaq is out with a broken thumb, Hardaway steps up and leads the team which begets the question, "Is this Penny's team or Shaq's team?" Shaq wanted it to be his team and that created a rift. I imagine that's the problem Shaq had with the Lakers and Kobe.
Shaq became a free agent in '96 and wanted to sign with the Magic and was close to an eighty million deal. When Mourning got the first hundred million dollar contract in NBA history, Shaq's eighty million Magic deal wasn't as enticing. The Lakers catered to Shaq, assuring him they would make it happen while the Magic weren't as accommodating. When the Magic finally presented a hundred million contract it was too late.
Injuries began plaguing Penny a few years later and his dominance waned.
Seeing Shaq and Penny talk about their time with the Magic in present day was simply amazing. They voice their regrets and wonder about what could have been. It's a standout scene in a very good documentary.
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| Band of Robbers - A wild twist on a classic adventure. |
Watch Band of Robbers
Written by: Aaron Nee &Adam Nee, Mark Twain (novels)
Directed by: Aaron Nee, Adam Nee
Starring: Kyle Gallner, Adam Nee, Matthew Gray Gubler
Rated: --
Plot:
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn have grown up, but Tom still seeks treasure.
Verdict:
It's a fun retelling of the Tom and Huck legend. It mixes familiar elements and characters with unexpected twists, creating an unintentionally funny adventure only fit for Twain's characters. While the clues and plot are quite contrived, it's not as egregious in a movie like this. In a movie that easily could be a disaster, this is quite competent.
Watch it.
Review:
I liked the concept but doubted whether it could do Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer justice. Tom as a cop didn't seem right.
Tom is an awkward, quirky cop, while Huck Finn is up for parole. Tom doesn't seem as capable as what I would have pictured. He seems like he could be the department joke, incompetent even. I hope that's not the case, but two characters like Huck would have robbed this movie of much levity.
Now that Huck is out of jail, Tom wants to create a band of robbers and do something meaningful. It's a comedic plan and setup, silly even.
Tom thinks Injun Joe has treasure, and he has a plan to rob a pawn shop. On the day of the plan, which is the next day, Tom is assigned a partner. Beck Thatcher, the daughter of the Judge, is Tom's new partner and brings her along to the planned robbery.
It's a comically bad plan and execution, but they succeed basically because the plot requires it. Huck and Tom's discovery of clues is quite contrived. It's less luck and more contrived for the plot. Injun Joe is after the treasure too, but opted not to stop them in the pawn shop.
It takes a few unexpected twists. I never expected a van door to save the plot. I will give the script credit for being well outlined and including a Chekhov's van door. The movie is broken into chapters, a homage to the inspiration. While it's not a great movie, the writing is impressive just because it didn't completely screw this up. It's a competent movie that manages to include these characters much as they appear in the books, albeit grown up.
This pulls a lot of inspiration from the books, managing to include some of the more famous scenes, but it also puts a nice twist on the end. Tom gets to be the hero he always wanted to be.
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| Before We go - Fun romantic adventure. |
Watch Before We Go
Written by: Ronald Bass & Jen Smolka (screenplay) and Chris Shafer & Paul Vicknair (screenplay), Ronald Bass (story) & Jen Smolka (story)
Directed by: Chris Evans
Starring: Chris Evans, Alice Eve, Emma Fitzpatrick
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
A street musician (Chris Evans) helps a woman (Alice Eve) stuck in Manhattan make it back home to Boston.
Verdict:
It's a cute romance that is a lot of wish and fantasy fulfillment, but that's not a bad thing. Two strangers meet and have an adventure. This is Chris Evans's directorial debut, and he did a nice job. The writing isn't bad either. This rises above the typical rom-coms. It falls into a few tropes, but misses the major ones.
It depends.
Review:
While I enjoyed this movie, I have an issue with the very premise of it. This situation is predicated on the fact that two super attractive strangers meet. If he was scruffier, she would have run away. If she was ugly, he never would have made the effort. I get the premise, and don't hold this against the movie, but it's worth mentioning.
Chris Evans is a nice guy and Alice Eve misses a train and acts like a complete jerk. I get that she's annoyed at missing the train, but he's trying to be nice. As I assumed, the movie is pulling the old them hating each other turns into they like each other.
The mystery that slowly unfolds is why Alice Eve has to get home in just a few hours. She has to beat her husband's flight home. Evans assume it's an affair, but she claims it isn't, despite stating her marriage is over if she doesn't make it back.
The movie is cute, though unrealistic. They have a fun adventure trying to get her back without any luck. The movie introduces me to the concept of graffiti hotel art where guests draw on the back of hotel artwork
In a sequence where the characters pretend a pay phone lets them communicate with their past selves, it provides great characterization.
They even visit a psychic who tells them he just tells them he isn't a psychic. He just tells people what he sees.
While I have an issue with directors starring in their own movies, this is competent. It could have been directed much worse.
While most of the night has been Evans trying to help her, Eve convinces Evans to talk to an old flame. Is this the trope where the best friend is really the love interest? Nick can't rekindle the old romance. He wanted her to be a good luck sign for his audition, but now he wants to skip the audition.
Eve's plot is that she discovered her husband cheated, left a letter to end their marriage and left. She realize she wants to make the marriage work and needed to get back home to destroy the letter.
The ending is melodramatic. What was on the note Evans wrote to Eve? A clue indicating the contents is when they play the telephone future game again and he tells his past self that you're going to want to tell her some things but don't do it. Don't ruin it. She already knows. Even without the clue, you can guess that the note is a thank you. A thank you for the night, the adventure, and the life help.
I'm glad they didn't consummate their romance, instead leaving it open. There was no need to go all in on that trope.
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| Inland Empire - This is a common reaction to David Lynch movies. |
Watch Inland Empire
Written by: David Lynch
Directed by: David Lynch
Starring: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton
Rated: R
Plot:
An actress prepares for a role that could rejuvenate her career, but real life begins to imitate the movie character's trajectory.
Verdict:
Very few people are going to like this, and even fewer will make sense of it. Even the actors couldn't explain this movie and they were in it. The camera placement and extreme closeups make this feel voyeuristic, which I'm sure is intended. It's necessary to have seen some of Lynch's previous movies to help understand this one.
Skip it.
Review:
It's David Lynch, so it's going to be strange, just look at Mulholland Drive (2001) or Lost Highway (1997). As of 2016 it's the last feature film he's directed. This is an evolution from the previously mentioned movies. This is more confusing and elusive. It definitely should not be your first Lynch film. If you aren't familiar with Lynch films you may think this is a random collection of scenes and images, with no meaning.
This is more confusing than his previous films, and that's an achievement. Lynch films often feel like an experiment. What you see happening on screen is rarely what's really happening. Lynch often deals with identity and escapism. This is a further evolution of those idea. It has less polish, it's more intimate, yet more confusing. The camera work and lighting is unflattering, looking more like a home movie than a commercial film
An older actress wins a role she hopes will rejuvenate her career. We're often left wondering if we're seeing the plight of this character or the plight of her character in the movie Inland Empire features.
There's a dream like sequence and plenty of metaphors. You're never really sure if it's the movie in the movie, the reality in the movie, or some kind of dream. Real is never real.
There are many fan theories that attempt to explain this movie. Read a few and pick the one you like best. You could interpret this in a multitude of ways.
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| Woman in the Dunes - You can stay as long as you like, but you can't leave. |
Watch Woman in the Dunes
Written by: Kobo Abe (novel), Kobo Abe (screenplay), Eiko Yoshida (scripting)
Directed by: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Starring: Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida, Hiroko Ito
Rated: --
Plot:
Local villagers trap a man on vacation in an inescapable sand dune with a woman already imprisoned, in an effort to force him to be her husband.
Verdict:
This is an amazing film. It will register stronger for students of film, but everyone can appreciate it. It creates a great mood and delves into a fascinating yet sparse story with fantastic imagery. It's part horror, part human triumph, exploring confinement and existence. It feels ahead of its time, but also completely you outside of a genre.
Watch it.
Review:
The music is unsettling in the first scene, the imagery is fantastic with the main character walking on the dunes.
Local villagers take him to their village and show him a woman that lives in a dune. He climbs down the ladder into the dune. He has no idea what he's gotten into. The next morning he tries to climb out but the ladder is gone. The dune is too deep, the walls too steep, and the sand crumbles beneath him. He's trapped. The woman digs the sand and sends it up a pulley. She tells him if you don't dig, the house gets buried.
The images continues to reinforce the sweaty, dirty existence. Sand infiltrates everything. When the man comes up with a way to escape, it's only short lived.
The cinematography is great. The music is amazing, often sounding like a horror movie.This movie is excellent, yet completely different from the typical movie. The story is stunning.
It explores confinement and accepting circumstances. You could argue this is an allegory for civilization and human interaction. The man has to be content where he is, and then can be content anywhere. He has been trying to escape for so long, even succeeding, but when he has the opportunity to climb the ladder, he's conflicted. He climbs out but returns to his water pump project. There's no need to rush off. He wants to perfect it and tell someone about it, maybe the villagers. He can leave after that, maybe tomorrow.
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