Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Tuesday Mini-reviews

By request I'm now posting reviews from Redbox, which I have done before due to some titles that people did not recognize but now I'm marking them RB, Blu-ray as BR (those include dvd's) and Movies are the latest major releases. Ratings of course are 1-5, Bad to Great. Unfortunately that includes a lot of RB. LOL.
Also note: On the bad ones please see IMDB for the plot or I'll be here all day typing this crap.

47 Ronin: 3 - OK, where's the rest of the movie? Studio interference cut out a major character in the subplot who shows up at the end as a cameo. What a mess. But what is left on the screen was damn good.
They took the famous tale and put a fantasy spin on it. Some were pissed with this. With so many versions out there already I can recommend those films who want the facts. I had no problem with this spin. While it doesn't look like a $200M movie ($125M tops) it's still a great looking movie, well acted even Keanu!!!. So I a gave this movie the benefit of the doubt. I liked what I saw, I just want to see the whole thing. Note:
The editor was Stuart Baird (see IMDB) who edited Die Hard and many action flciks and directed Star Trek: TNG: Nemesis (no fault his own as that was a generic tv script overblown for theatre release). Baird who is a legend amoung editors had to be furious for his work to be butchered by studio heads. And the poor director, he did have a vision and that was chopped up too. A better reviews when released on BR.

Man of Tai Chi: 3 RB (Redbox) - Talk about Keanu who directed this in his first outing. Good job. Real fighting amoung the actors (who are trained and experts to begin with) and you can see the action even with the quick cuts! It helped he had a good cinematographer do the film. But this time hisacting betrays him when him being a villian starts laughing and says "I own you". He should stick with his new job, and give up his day job.

Jack Ryan: 2 - As generic as this movie is, it's the action that counts with Director Brannagh (Thor 1) but the script is a leftover back from the 1980's with the Russians as the bad guys. Been there, done that. Would I like to see a franchise of this? Lets just say Pike should cross his fingers for Star Trek sequels. Minor spoiler for anyone from NYC: there's a Scene where a truck goes off a pier (Queens), cut to roof of a building where truck flies off (Bkyln), lands in the water and explodes by Brooklng Bridge, lower east side by South Street Seaport (NYC) my backyard. WTF! The whole film is like that. After a while it's a joke.

Force of Execution: 3 (RB) - Pretty good flick for Steven Seagal even tho he's only in half the movie with supporting players to fill out the movie aka Dolph Lundgren but always filled with action. While not as fast as Seagal used to be with a lot of cuts it's still better than his pevious other features. Too many to mention here.

Sweetwater: 3 (RB) - For a western this is a pretty wacky revenge flick with the style of a Robert Rodriquez movie with its body count. Ed Harris is great as an over the top sheriff who's got some major issues.
Not your typical good ole western, so beware. Takes a while to get going but the third act pays off.

Voodoo Possession: 1(RB) - One is for Danny Trejo Fans who's in it for only for 2, TWO! scenes. Man, what a quick cash in that must have been. Hell he deserves it. Hell if you see this crap, boring, awful with a lousy ending. Save your Dollar which brings me to....

Ritual Horror: 0(RB) - Let me spell that out...ZERO!!! For filmmaking 101: How to make a horror filming using a hotel room, a hotel hallway, a car on a highway, a car trunk, that's it. I want my $1.20 back. Make that $2.40 for this and Voodoo P.
Scorsese wrote a letter to the industry celebrating the future where anyone with a camera can make a film.
This is an example why anyone with a camera should not make a film. I don't think Marty had this in mind. .
Note: Marty's Letter is in the previous log. Please see Mondays link.

Super Note: Tomorrow will be more reviews as I didn't cover the BR's today. Thursday will have the leftover's.

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