Here are some thoughts on some
movies I’ve seen recently and one new Perflix addition:
Captain Phillips is a lot of fun and a nail biter. The film is based on a true story of the
hijacking of the container ship MV Maersk Alabama in 2009. Tom Hanks does a good job as the vulnerable
but gutsy Captain Phillips. But the real
story is that of actor Barkhad Abdi, an ethnic Somali who plays the lead
hijacker. This guy was a chauffeur with
no prior acting experience when he was cast for this role. Dude got paid $65k to appear alongside Tom
Hanks in a feature film and this is no bit part – he has nearly as much screen
time as Hanks. He does a bang-up job and
it’s a nice American success story. I
like the military/special forces sequences in this movie and how those guys do
their jobs with such preparation and precision.
Well worth your time.
Rush is AWESOME. Don’t
miss it. I love racing movies and there
are too few. This one is directed by Ron
Howard and he does a solid job portraying the real-life Formula One racing
rivalry between Brit James Hunt and Austrian Niki Lauda. The rivals eventually become friends until
Hunt fell dead of a heart attack in his retirement when he was only 45 years
old. Lauda almost died in a fiery crash
in Germany in 1976 but was racing again within six weeks while his burns were
still healing. Ron Howard did a good job
of capturing the playful but intense rivalry.
To give you an idea of the tenor of the relationship, Hunt had this to
say about Lauda’s burns: “Niki, you're
lucky. Some people are just born ugly, but you have the excuse of an accident.” Another thing I loved about this film was how
it captured the great style of the 70’s – the cars, the clothes, the
lifestyle. Great film!
The Counselor is creepy and violent. I had to watch it because it’s directed by
Ridley Scott and I love Ridley Scott
(Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time). I would skip it unless you like to feel bad
and dirty after watching a movie. This
one is a grim, violent story about the depravity of humanity and don’t plan to
come away feeling good or with any hope in your heart because Scott won’t give
you that. Instead he gives you the stark
reality of the drug trade and the merciless brutes at the heart of it. Javier Bardem's character is pathetic and
made me squirm. Cameron Diaz is the devil times two. Brad Pitt dies an extremely terrifying death
(let’s just say you may want to look up “bolito” before you watch it…). Any movie in which Penelope Cruz’ character
has to die is not one that is easy for me to watch. To think of the waste of someone so seemingly
beautiful and innocent in both real life and her character in the film – well,
I guess that’s what Scott wanted and he delivers.
In general, I don't think a movie
should kill off the main character, or at least until the end. The Place
Beyond the Pines is very strange and non-conformist and is a movie you
should probably delete from your queue. The only reason to watch it is for the
main dude's love interest played by the lovely Eva Mendes. It is convoluted how
it ties everything together and let me just say that nobody gets onto a
motorcycle for the very first time and drives away, nobody.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is pretty dumb. I don’t know how it got a 8.1 rating on IMDb.
And lastly...Planet Earth is being promoted to Perflix. Okay now hear me out on this one. My son Colin, who will be 5 this month, is going through an obsessive animal phase - it's all he can talk about. He wakes up talking about what animal he wants to be for the day (this changes probably a dozen times a day however) and goes to the extent of referring to animal characters on the screen in the first person, saying "there I am!" and even "look at what I'm doing, I'm so silly!". Weird huh? I figure it's better to encourage it than not. I recently re-discoverd Planet Earth (2006), a 11-episode nature documentary commissioned by the BBC. Yes it's a documentary. But let me tell you it is one amazing, moving, heartening and maddening documentary. I'm adding it as a Perflix because, well because I can! But really, it deserves this great place in history and your life will not be complete until you watch the original series with David Attenborough narrating.
I wonder what 29 and 30 will be?
- Alien
- Top Gun
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
- The Road
- Warm Bodies
- The Shining
- School of Rock
- Say Anything
- High Fidelity
- Fight Club
- Risky Business
- Star Wars
- Brokeback Mountain
- Animal House
- Jerry McGuire
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- No Country for Old Men
- Tangled
- Children of Men
- War Games
- 28 Days Later
- The Graduate
- From Dusk Till Dawn
- Lost in Translation
- The King's Speech
- Planet Earth
