Garrulus Grommeler

Master and Commander , starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, I saw months and months ago, so that when I chose to put it on my list of movies to see at Netflix, I completely forgot about it. No matter. It's still a damned good movie and I enjoyed seeing it again.

Avatar , starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, is fabulous! It amazes me the criticisms that some can concoct about any movie. I don't go to a movie to look for what's wrong with it. I don't expect any movie to be perfect — nothing is. I don't go to a movie to be preached at. I don't go to a movie to hear propaganda. Movies, novels, short stories, stage plays, television shows, all have one main purpose: to entertain. If it entertains me without anything else getting in the way of that, then I like it. Period. I think critics trump up all sorts of reasons to not just praise movies, novels, short stories, stage plays, television shows, etc, but also to criticise them, because they seem to think that they'd short change their audience with a simple: I loved it. Go see it. Their frequently inflated reviews often serve only to justify their existence and purpose as reviewers. Yes, I love movies that make me think. I'm not one who generally...

Knowing is, I think, a creepy, but excellent science fiction thriller that has the all-too-rare attributes of portraying events that are — except for the more speculative aspects — very possible. Definitely one to see if you haven't already. The blurb for this movie reads: Nicolas Cage stars in this edge of your seat sci-fi thriller as John Koestler, a professor who deciphers a coded message with terrifyingly accurate predictions about every major world disaster. Looking to protect his family and prevent future calamities, he enlists the reluctant help of Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne), daughter of the now-deceased author of the prophecies. His quest to understand the messages and his own family's involvement in them becomes a heart-pounding race against time as he faces the ultimate disaster.

Based on a true story, Defiance is a powerful movie about the Bielski brothers — Tuvia, Zus, and Asael — Jews from Belorussia who started their own community, a refugee camp of freedom fighters in the forests of Belorussia, during World War II. The blurb for this movie reads: Daniel Craig ( James Bond: Quantum of Solace ) stars as Tuvia Bielski, an ordinary citizen turned hero, in this action-packed epic of family, honor, vengeance and salvation. Defiance is a riveting adventure that showcases the extraordinary true story of the Bielski brothers, simple farmers — outnumbered and outgunned — who turned a group of war refugees into powerful freedom fighters. Tuvia, along with his unyielding brother, Zus (Liev Schreiber, X-men Origins: Wolverine ), motivate hundreds of civilians to join their ranks against the Nazi regime. Their "inspirational story" is a true testament to the human spirit.

It's 1975 and Burt, a Vietnam vet (played by David Anders), and Vicki, his wife (Kandyse McClure), are driving across country. Right from the start, it's understood that their marriage is as rough as a road filled with potholes. (It's also understood that McClure, can't act worth a damn, but I'm getting ahead of myself.) They're driving through flat and boring Nebraska. Corn field upon corn field upon corn field. Burt, the husband, takes his eyes off the road. A child runs out from a corn field, and before Burt can stop the car, he hits and runs over the child. Vicki gets out of the car, and Burt follows. The tirade that Vicki launches into while they are standing in the middle of the road is not only too damned long — I would've slapped her long before Burt did — it's also an excellent showcase of McClure's lack of acting talent. As much as I like Stephen King, I hate to say it, but the dialogue in this movie had all the flavor of stale bread. It...

My, oh my, how the world has changed. John Dillinger, America's first "Public Enemy Number One," is the man whose pursuit pretty much led to the founding, or should I say "funding," of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, at the time, was known as the Division of Investigation. The Wikipedia article on Melvin Pervis notes that J. Edgar Hoover became jealous of the fame Pervis gained following the death of Dillinger, "downgrad[ing] him, [which lead to] Purvis leaving the FBI" in 1935. Pervis died in 1960 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. "The FBI investigated the shooting and labeled it a suicide, though the official coroner's report did not find sufficient evidence to label the cause of death as such. It was later determined that Purvis may have shot himself accidentally while trying to extract a tracer bullet jammed in the pistol. He was 56 years old." Excellent movie.

The final movie in Robert Rodriguez's pulp Western, Once Upon a Time in México is not only chock full of stars, it's also chock full of gun-totin' action. Starring in this movie are Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes, Danny Trejo, Enrique Iglesias, Marco Leonardi, Cheech Marin, Ruben Blades, and Willem Dafoe. With names like that on the roster, I think it's fair to say that this movie far surpassed the $50,000 budget for El Mariachi . Wouldn't you agree? It was fun. It was kooky. And, for Johnny Depp's character, it was outta sight.

I had wanted to watch El Mariachi, the first movie in this trilogy. I'd rented it, in fact, but . . . for whatever reason, the DVD would only play the director's track. Nothing personal, but I wanted to watch the movie, not listen to Robert Rodriguez. So, I had to skip El Mariachi, and moved right on to Desperado , starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, and featuring a guest appearance by none other than Quentin Tarantino. It wasn't bad, but I preferred the duology of movies Rodriguez and Tarantino did together more recently, Grindhouse , Rodriguez's contribution being Planet Terror .

How can you not like a Quentin Tarantino film? (I find it difficult, and that he and I share birthdays has very little to do with it, I assure you.) Starring Brad Pitt, Inglourious Basterds is what the DVD case for this film calls a "revenge fantasy." I'd drink to that, but I'd prefer to call it "alternative history" given that it knowingly deviates from history. Science fiction/fantasy/mystery/romance author, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, mentions Inglourious Basterds in her commentary, " The Crumbling Monolith ," at Baen's Universe . In her commentary, Rusch offers a critique of the current state of culture, high-brow vs low-brow, but more specifically of the entertainment industry, noting that it "can no longer manipulate the conversation." Says Rusch: Lest you think social media has only a negative effect, let me point out that as I type this, Inglourious Basterds is beating all the predictions. The movie got a terrible release dat...

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." "Good luck." Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a former spy who is trying build a relationship with Kim (Maggie Grace), his estranged daughter. She and Amanda (Katie Cassidy), a friend of hers, go on a trip to Paris where they get kidnapped. Using his skills as a spy, and former contacts, Mills sets out to find his daughter, no matter what the cost. Taken , starring Liam Neeson, is one incredibly intense film. I think I'd even go so far as to say that it's the best film I've seen all yea...

"It came from another galaxy. A creeping, crawling nightmare of terror!" (Complete with music reminsicent of the original Star Trek series.) It is, in fact, as the tagline for this movie says, "Terror — the whole family can enjoy." "It's 1957," says the blurb, "a spaceship has just landed in a quiet small town, and Earth is suddenly threatened by an unknown evil. But fear not, hope has also arrived." Alien Trespass — directed by The X-Files's R. W. Goodwin and starring Eric McCormack (of Will & Grace fame), Jenni Baird, Dan Lauria, and Robert Patrick — is a modern movie done in the tradition of The Blob (1958) and It Came from Outer Space (1953). It's a fun-filled, "creepy" romp into the past that wholly captures the flavour of films from that era. The San Francisco Chronicle called it, "Retro-escapist fun." Box Office said, "Loads of fun, a highly entertaining retro sci-fi blast from the past....

Acolytes is an Aussie film. It won Best Horror Film at the Austin FantasticFest in 2008 and it won the Midnight Madness award at the Toronto International Film Festival in the same year. The blurb on the DVD case reads (no spoilers in the blurb, by the way): Following the disappearance of a young female classmate, shy high-schooler Mark stumbles upon a fresh grave in the woods of his peaceful suburb, and spies a 4WD driving away from the scene. With the help of two friends — James and his girlfriend Chasely — Mark decides to return to the scene to dig up what they imagine is simply someone's dead pet. Their bit of fun turns perilous, however, when they unearth the body of a Canadian backpacker. They embark upon a hunt for the identity of eht killer (played with frightening realism by Joel Edgerton), and James soon realizes that their grim discovery could help them exact revenge upon Gary Parker (Michael Dorman), a brutal bully who robbed them of their innocence years before and wh...

Scrooged . An old movie (1988). A fun movie. Love the scenes with Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present. It's all slapstick. Bill Murray getting kicked in the nuts, punched, pulled about by his lower lip, and smacked in the face . . . with a toaster! Ah, man. Loved the toaster bit. Too funny! :D

This evening, I watched The Code , a heist movie that involves the theft of two "mystery" Fabergé Imperial Eggs made in 1917. Ripley (Morgan Freeman) is a known art thief in New York City who runs into Gabriel (Antonio Banderas) on a New York subway train while casing the same job to steal some diamonds. Ripley then ropes Gabriel into joining him on the heist. Things turn nasty when Alexandra (Radha Mitchell), Ripley's god-daughter, is kidnapped by the KGB. In a story that involves the KGB, the NYPD, and the FBI, this is a fun movie that is, as the description on the DVD case describes, "full of deceit, thievery and twists at every turn." And that ain't no lie.

It's been a long time since I've blogged about a movie in this fashion. Hopefully, this new version of my blog won't degenerate into nothing more than a movie-reaction-fest. That's not what it's meant to be. In any case, I watched this last night. It's one of six movies I recently rented (so, yeah, you are going to see a short spate of movie-related posts over the next few days). Bangkok Dangerous was not as good as I'd heard it was. Not in my opinion, anyway. For a paid assassin, Joe, played by Nicolas Cage, is too damned soft-hearted (not to mention too easily swayed from the principles he espouses at the beginning of the movie). I suppose that this is meant to be his character's fatal flaw, but it comes across as too convenient. The ending has a satisfying twist, I'll admit, but Cage has done better. I've a soft-spot for movies that take place in Thailand since I lived there during my early teens. I like it when I can see not only parts of Ba...