Friday, January 15, 2016
Basic (2003)
A DEA agent investigates the disappearance of a legendary Army ranger drill sergeant and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry.
Well-made thriller with a good cast disappoints with an unexpected twist ending turning the whole plot topsy-turvy.
Halliwell (no star): "Ludicrous military thriller, set in murky jungle and heavy rain so that it is often difficult to see what is happening; nor is it possible to understand, since sense and logic are thr first casualities of its twisting narrative."
Maltin**: "Essentially a whodunit, this film keeps adding layers of confusion so that it becomes less interesting as it goes along! The final "twist" seems to negate the entire story, like a bad shaggy-dog joke. Travolta is in great form, however."
New Stuff: Star Trek Season 1
I thought it's about time to rewatch one of my favourite childhood TV series.
Born Free (1966)
At a national park in Kenya, an English game warden George Adamson and his wife, Joy (Virginia McKenna), care for three orphaned lion cubs, and ffter the two larger lions are shipped off to a zoo in the Netherlands, the smallest of the three, Elsa, stays with the couple.
Slow-paced, but engaging nature movie with some wonderful animal and landscape photography that manages to tone down the sentimentality of a quite heart-wrenching story.
Halliwell**: "Irresistible animal shots salvage this rather flabbily put together version of a bestselling book. An enormous commercial success..."
Maltin***1/2: "Exceptional adaptation...Sincere, engrossing film, a must for family viewing."
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
First Lines: Rex Stout - The Doorbell Rang
Since it was the deciding factor, I might as well begin by describing it.
New Stuff: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
A favourite band of mine, this edition contains their first five albums.
New Stuff: Born Free
A childhood favourite of mine; as a kid I used to sing the title song all the time...
New Stuff: David Bowie
It's an awkward feeling that I received David Bowie's new (and last) album on the day of his death.
First Lines: Nicholas Meyer - The Seven Per-Cent Solution
As I stated in the preamble to "The Final Problem", my marriage and my subsequent start in private practice wrought a subtle but definite alteration in the pattern of my friendship with Sherlock Holmes.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Deep Impact (1998)
Unless a comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only those allowed into shelters will survive.
Mediocre and quite tedious doomsday movie that makes one long for the apocalypse - and disappoints in that aspect, too.
Halliwell*: "Something of a feel-bad disaster movie, in which the world is almost destroyed, while the audience is slowly drowned in the sticky syrup of sentimentality. What is truly striking is the poverty of imagination: the end of all life is a theme worth more than the trivial psychodramas on display."
Maltin***: "Exciting yarn...Freeman is the rock-solid U.S. president, Duvall a veteran astronaut on a space mission to explode the comet; their authorative presence adds weight to this saga, while Leoni seems a bit of a flyweight as the ambitious TV newswoman who breaks the story."
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Bounty Killer (2013)
Bounty killers compete for body count, fame
and a fat stack of cash, ending the plague of corporate greed and
providing the survivors
of the apocalypse with retribution.
Ultraviolent
hodgepodge of Mad Max and Tarantino elements (tagline: "The Road
Warrior meets Kill Bill") streamlined for a male adolescent audience.