rate the last movie you saw

[Monterey Jack]

-Doctor Strange (2016): 8/10



1.) The tale of a cocky, egotistical -- if admittedly brilliant -- surgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has his talented hands shattered in a road accident and who travels to Nepal in hopes of a miraculous cure introduces actual "magic" into the MCU, although considering what we've seen in these films thus far, it's not that much of a leap.

2.) Why hire Cumberbatch -- who possesses one of the most mellifluous British accents since George Sanders -- and saddle him with a generic American Guy patois? After a period of adjustment, you can accept that he's delivering a typically fine performance, but it does rob him of a certain degree of his personal charisma.

3.) Rachel McAdams is given even less to do here that the usual Generic Love Interest you see in these MCU movies. She's a talented, vibrant actress, so it's weird she's even in the film, considering how little he has to contribute to it.

4.) Where the film really leaps to life is with its kaleidoscopic, dizzying visual effects, which possess the M.C. Escher, Mad Magazine fold-in disorientation of movies like Dark City and Inception and the druggy hypnotism of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just as a cinematic screensaver, the movie offers up a bevy of visual wonderment.

5.) Hey, a good score in an MCU movie! Michael Giacchino's busy music is peppered with groovy, 60's-style instrumentation (sitars, harpsichord) that play well against the surreal imagery, even if the primary theme hews too closely to the one he penned for the Star Trek movies. But hey, by the anemic musical standards set by the MCU thus far, I'll take what I can get.

6.) Shame to see such a talented actor as Mads Mikkelsen wasted as a typically forgettable MCU antagonist. I can't even remember the character's name. Dude was Hannibal Lecter, and they couldn't have given him some more juicy dialogue to bite into?

7.) A bald Tilda Swinton is less eccentric than you'd expect as Cumberbatch's Yoda/Gandalf/Mr. Miyagi mentor figure.

8.) Steven Strange's cape kicks more ass than he does in the film in one of the funniest bits of business.

9.) Surprisingly few MCU Easter Eggs in this one.

10.) A sturdy, mystical adventure film that excels in its dazzling visual design and is less compelling on a narrative or character level, Doctor Strange is still solid fun.

[Monterey Jack]

-Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): 9/10



1.) Kurt Russell is ideal casting as Peter Quill's old man, the mystical being Ego. He brings his old Jack Burton swagger to the role and has immediate comic and dramatic chemistry with Chris Pratt.

2.) Pom Klementieff as Ego's empath "pet" Mantis is so cute, she makes me want to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!

3.) Baby Groot is adorable, like a Funko Pop come to life.

4.) The sequence where Michael Rooker's Yondu casually takes out an entire ship's worth of mutinous Ravagers with his psychic arrow thingie set to the spangly beat of "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay & The Americans is my favorite scene in either of these movies.

5.) Karen Gillan -- essentially a faceless minion in the first movie as Gamora's half-sister Nebula -- is actually given a character to play here, and her arc with Zoe Saldanna bears legitimate dramatic fruit that dovetails nicely with the film's overall theme of familial bonds.

6.) The opening title sequence -- with Baby Groot getting down to ELO's infectious "Mr. Blue Sky" as the remaining Guardians do battle with a hentai tentacle monster in the background -- sums up the appeal of these films perfectly, with character beats and quirky asides given precedence over pricey F/X overkill (even as the film gives you pricey F/X overkill).

7.) Nice Cliffhanger reuinion with Rooker and Sylvester Stallone -- as former Ravager buddy Starhawk -- arguing heatedly in front of an intergalactic brothel.

8.) These films are just beautiful to look at...there are frames that evoke vintage pulp sci-fi paperback covers from the 60's and 70's.

9.) The remote control pods for the alien queen's space armada emit old Atari videogame sound effects, an amusing tweaking of the obligatory MCU "flying things getting shot down" climax.

10.) This movie gets better and better every time I watch it, and I now prefer it to the original. It's funnier, more elaborate, has more depth of character and has an ending that evokes more genuine Feels than any other film in the MCU has managed to date. And i am groot.

[Paul MacLean]

2.) Why hire Cumberbatch -- who possesses one of the most mellifluous British accents since George Sanders -- and saddle him with a generic American Guy patois? After a period of adjustment, you can accept that he's delivering a typically fine performance, but it does rob him of a certain degree of his personal charisma.

For me, Cumberbatch was the only good thing about the movie. He may be British, but he's more believable as an American than most American actors!

Otherwise, I can't remember anything about this movie, except some vague sequences -- which might be from The Dark Knight Returns. I don't remember, was it Dr. Strange or the Batman movie where the guy is trying to climb-up out of the giant pit? And Liam Neeson is in both movies, isn't he? (Or was that Batman Begins? These movies are so memorable, and unique ).

[Monterey Jack]

-Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017): 8.5/10



1.) Finally, a high-school Spidey movie where Peter Parker doesn't look old enough to be featured on an episode of To Catch A Predator. Tom Holland makes for an ideal, adolescent hero, filled to the brim with hyper enthusiasm and winning humor.

2.) Michael Keaton...from Batman to Birdman to The Vulture. He's expectedly great in the film, especially outside of costume. His faux-jovial heart-to-heart with Peter once he discovers his secret identity is one of the best-written and acted scenes in the film. It's so good it almost allows you to forgive the whopper of a plot coincidence that leads to it.

3.) I'm SO glad they didn't feel the need to re-hash the origin story AGAIN.

4.) Either intentional in-joke or weird coincidence, but Spidey's Tony Stark-designed suit "Karen" is voiced by Jennifer Connelly, who is married to Tony's former Iron Man "Jarvis" suit voice Paul Bettany (before he graduated to playing Vision). It's one of Connelly's most warm and personable performances in recent memory.

5.) The continuity with Spidey's appearance in Captain America: Civil War doesn't really jibe...did Tony accompany Peter all the way back to Queens before heading off in pursuit of fugitive Cap and Bucky Barnes? Because if waited until after the ending of Civil War, he seems awfully jovial considering the information that was dropped on him like an anvil at the end of that film.

6.) Aunt May's hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.

7.) The obligatory post-credits stinger is a great troll of nerdy Marvel fanboys who always wait...and wait...and wait.

8.) Zendaya definitely has her 80's Ally Sheedy/Winona Ryder sullen outcast thing down pat.

9.) Spidey's "Intimidation Mode" suit voice seems like a deliberate dig at Christian Bale's Batman voice, which is quite funny.

10.) Following two-and-a-half Amazing Spidey movies from Sam Raimi (and a pair of considerably less-than-Amazing Mark Webb ones), you'd think that the Wall-Crawler's webs had been stretched to the breaking point, but Peter Parker's solo entry into the comforting bosom of the MCU turns out to be an enormously likable film brimming with heartfelt emotion, funny quips and well-choreographed web-slinging action. It may come across as Not Another Spider-Man Movie at times, but it truly wins the viewer over with its earnest charm.

[AndyDursin]

Did not like Homecoming for a lot of reasons. Felt it was OK the first time.around but it was really apparent for me how deficient it was on a second viewing. That and the Social Justice Warrior jabs which are an obvious Disney plant. Also did not care for the cut off f bomb at the end...like it was straining to be edgy. I also feel Holland is so hyper ADD that I'm still unsure what to think of him.

Though I'd probably rate all of these Marvel flicks one full notch lower than you MJ this is probably the only one I'd really part company with you on. Really in the end felt it was no better than the first Garfield movie.

Great run-through just the same! I haven't had a ton of interest in revisiting them all in one big swoop so it's doing the job for me!

[AndyDursin]

A QUIET PLACE
8.5/10

I wrote this on the other thread but wanted to place my comments in the "official" thread here too.

This is unquestionably one of the best films of recent years -- a tight, well written script that gave every character a purpose and yet only a couple of things felt contrived. It's more suspense than horror, though the overwhelming mood was suffocating. The way Krasinski layered the script, it suggested things, but never felt the need to spell everything out. In today's hyper-franchise corporate filmmaking world, it seems like these "micro budgeted" films are the only place they truly give a director freedom, and you can tell everything in the movie felt authentic and from a singular point of view. It's such a smart screenplay too, using narrative devices (like the "point of view" soundfield Krasinski bounces from the family to the aliens) that are so organically worked in, that you don't feel as if it's all just a lead in to something down the road. And of course, it is, but it's done in such a way that the reality is only heightened.

It's nearly like a "War of the Worlds" from the viewpoint of a rural farm family struggling to survive, and while it may not sound profound, I really struggle to come up with a more satisfying film-going experience I've had in a long while. What A QUIET PLACE does is succeed as sheer filmmaking -- and reaffirm that what we see so often today is lackluster.

[Monterey Jack]

-Thor: Raganrok (2017): 8/10



1.) It's a lot better than The Dark World.

2.) And lame as that second film was, the re-enactment of Loki's final moments as an Asgardian stage play (replete with some amusing cameos) almost makes it worth slogging though.

3.) Thor vs. Hulk in an intergalactic version of Gladiator -- lorded over by a preening, quirky Jeff Goldblum -- is a fantastic idea. I just wish the movie spent a little more time in the arena.

4.) Lines like, "We're heading into the Devil's Anus!" delivered with deadpan seriousness are reasons why I enjoy the Marvel movies.

5.) Man, Thor's warrior buddies from the previous movies get treated shabbily here, getting offed with casual ease. Jamie Alexander's Lady Sif doesn't even appear at all.

6.) A gothed-out Cate Blanchett -- clad in an H.R. Giger antler helmet -- makes for a compellingly elegant antagonist as Thor's banished sister, Hela.

7.) Any action sequence is automatically 100% cooler if its backed by Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song".

8.) So, are there only about two hundred people living on Asgard?

9.) I like Bruce Banner wearing Tony Stark's Duran Duran "Rio" shirt.

10.) There's more than a dash of Guardians Of The Galaxy mischief in this entry into "Marvel Cosmic", not to mention gobs of Heavy Metal and a soupcon of Luc Besson sci-fi eccentricity. It lacks the Shakespearean grandeur and rich character interplay of Kenneth Branagh's original film, but is leaps and bounds above the tepid second film, offering up plenty of colorful fun.

[Eric Paddon]

Archiving my "Chapaquiddick" review here.

A definite 9 out of 10. The film doesn't imply any hanky-panky taking place between Teddy and Mary Jo Kopechne nor should it have, because what makes the story of Chappaquiddick so awful and terrible is what we know happened but which few people I don't think ever fully realized. That a woman was left to suffocate to death in an air pocket and a man cowardly thought of himself and his own future when quick action would have saved her life. And then what took place afterward was a cover-up of Watergate style dimensions that included tampering behind the scenes with the judicial process to prevent key facts from coming out (especially on the matter of how an autopsy would have revealed that it wasn't a drowning that took place).

Jason Clarke doesn't get Teddy's voice, but the gestures, mannerisms and bearing are all authentic. Bruce Dern, in his small but critically vital role as the infirmed patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy is spellbinding. The film's biggest historical license is to inflate Joe Kennedy as a still active presence when he was by this point totally near death and not as active mentally in his deteriorated state as he'd been several years before. But the film uses Joe Kennedy, Sr. to depict what may be a more powerful truth, that namely the desire to still have his father's approval was why Teddy in the end is shown abandoning the gesture of integrity that his cousin Joe Gargan has offered him with a resignation speech, and instead decides to fall back on the handlers ploy of using the name of the Kennedy family and all its magic to ride this out with the speech he gives from handler Ted Sorensen. He's decided that to finally live up to expectations, he must seize the moment to spin a self-serving narrative and embrace it for all it's worth.

Joan Kennedy, Teddy's wife, has exactly one line in the film, when she angrily accompanies him to Mary Jo Kopechne's funeral. Riding in the back of a limo, he thanks her for coming and she coldly goes, "Go Fxxx yourself." It's powerful understatement in a role and performance by Andria Blackman that says enough.

This is ultimately not a film about political ideology. Mary Jo is shown as an idealist believer shattered by the RFK assassination. Teddy is not entirely unsympathetic as you see someone being pushed by other forces down a path he clearly had no desire for, but ultimately the film gives us a picture of someone whose political career should have ended the night he gave that speech, and who IMO had no business setting himself as any kind of arbiter to judge the integrity of others (least of all Judge Robert Bork).

The only thing negative about this film? That it wasn't made 10 or 15 years ago while he was still alive. And maybe we wouldn't have gotten such grotesque comments like this one from after his death by a Huffington Post hack, who suggested "We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history.....Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it." Or this bit of nonsense from a San Francisco columnist. "it takes a basic level of character and empathy to take a look at a person’s great life’s work after a mistake and give credit to them for a job well done. Such should be done for Senator Kennedy."

Somehow I don't think Mary Jo Kopechne's ambition was to give her life to be a "catalyst" or be thought of as a "mistake." And yet, we were told to think of her as that only because the image of Teddy Kennedy mattered to more people than her life did.

Other side note. The scenes in the Edgarton Town Hall made me wonder if they'd been able to shoot in the actual location, which of course is also where "Jaws" was filmed. While there was some filming down on the Vineyard its not clear whether the interior of the town hall was also used or whether they had to go elsewhere.

[mkaroly]

I recently saw THOR: RAGNORAK...I did not like it. At best it was just slightly better than "Meh" for me. I found the entire Jeff Goldblum/garbage planet middle section to be boring as heck. Cate Blanchett is definitely hot; the rock creature thing that sounded like Peter Jackson was annoying...not funny. I did laugh out loud once (when the name "Devil's Anus" came up), and it bothered me for some reason that the movie showed the Hulk getting bit and bleeding green but then nothing else happened. He seemed to be all healed up afterward...deleted scene? Or in the comics does his body self-regenerate? I guess I have run out of steam with Marvel movies...just as my interest in seeing STAR WARS material has died, so the MCU films are not all that far behind. Maybe I will see one more GARDIANS movie, but I just don't care about Infinity Wars.

[Paul MacLean]

Heartbeeps (hard to rate)

I've always been curious about this movie, mainly as it was, until now, one of the only John Williams-scored pictures I had never seen. It's hard to say Heartbeeps is a "good" movie; it is very clunky, isn't very funny, and it doesn't completely "work" as a movie. Yet it is on a certain level likeable, owing to its consummate sincerity. It's clear the director really believed in the material and cared very much about the characters and story he was telling, and that comes through. Much of that sincerity is brought to life by John Williams' score, which adds incalculably to the film. His music for Heartbeeps is easily among the best he's written for, shall we say, a "lesser project". In fact I daresay the film would be unwatchable without the score.

The other thing that struck me about this film is how its basic premise is also that of Blade Runner (made a year later), and even Spielberg's A.I. (made twenty years later). And y'know, for all its faults, Heartbeeps is actually a better movie than A.I.

[AndyDursin]

I always got the feeling with HEARTBEEPS that huge chunks of that film were removed...isn't it 79 minutes??

I totally agree with you Paul, it's likable despite its obvious problems. And as you said, it's nearly impossible to rate it because whatever it was before Universal started re-editing it, we'll never know.

Williams' score was a "gateway" for me into film music. My mom rented it for me when I was in 2nd grade, and I think it was the same summer as E.T. so I watched a lot of HEARTBEEPS...and really became enraptured with Williams' music for that film. I taped parts of it onto a cassette and played it back for years!

The music is varied and parts of it are just beautiful, has echoes of both E.T. and CE3K (plus the Fortress of Solitude from SUPERMAN) but also this gorgeous "bridge" in the main theme that's really romantic. The "Crimebuster" theme is infectious and the use of synths and orchestra really comes off -- and is rare for Williams' body of work as well.

Had the score been in an impactful film, there's no telling how popular it might've been, because it's a wonderful Williams score that seems to interest nobody but us hardcore fans of his.

[Paul MacLean]

I always got the feeling with HEARTBEEPS that huge chunks of that film were removed...isn't it 79 minutes??

I was left hanging by the scene where they sent Phil off to the "factory" -- because we're never shown if he actually makes it there, or what happens at the factory if indeed he does.

In many ways Heartbeeps is dated (i.e. the computers with text-based operating systems) but I was struck by the prescience of certain elements -- like the small, economical cars parked along the street -- which are the spitting image of the SmartCar (which came along about two decades later). Another virtue of the film is that is nicely shot, and makes use of beautiful Northern Californian locations.

It also has genuinely touching moments -- particularly those between Phil and Catskill. And considering there is nothing really violent or lewd in the movie, it's clear it was meant more for children than adults (or teens).

Had the score been in an impactful film, there's no telling how popular it might've been, because it's a wonderful Williams score that seems to interest nobody but us hardcore fans of his.

I'll never understand how it took years for the Heartbeeps CD to sell out, when Goldsmith's Baby was gone in a single day.

Oh, one other thing -- Andy, do you know if this movie was shot in amamorphic? The print I watched on VUDU was 16:9 -- but credits appeared to be squeezed.

[AndyDursin]

It is anamorphic, the Vudu version is one of the few that's cropped The DVD was proper 2.35 and theres no Blu-Ray as of yet.

[Eric Paddon]

Conan The Barbarian (1982) 7 of 10

-Never saw the film before until tonight. It's a little too violent for my tastes but overall I was impressed. Schwarzenegger is good, but I found myself in total awe of Sandahl Bergman's Valeria. Why she never became an action heroine in her own right I'll never know.

[Paul MacLean]

Conan The Barbarian (1982) 6.8 of 10

-Never saw the film before until tonight. It's a little too violent for my tastes but overall I was impressed. Schwarzenegger is good, but I found myself in total awe of Sandahl Bergman's Valeria. Why she never became an action heroine in her own right I'll never know.

I was too young to see this film when it was first released, and had lost interest by the time I was old enough to. However, someone later recommended Basil Poledouris' score to me as one of the best they'd heard. Though I hadn't seen the movie, I took a chance on the soundtrack LP.

To say I was impressed would be an understatement! Basil's score became an instant favorite, and prompted me to rent the VHS to see what kind of a movie inspired such great music.

The film proved impressive as well. A lot of people sell this picture short, mocking Schwarzzenegger's acting, and deriding the movie's "sexism" and "male fantasy" elements. Most of these criticisms are -- of course -- from people who have never seen it. Certainly Conan The Barbarian is, first and foremost, an action flick -- but an intelligent one too, its story elements influenced by epic sagas and Wagnerian mythology, while John Milius' direction exhibits a cultured cinematic acumen (witness the copious references to Japanese cinema throughout the film).