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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)
Sorry Guy...not this one, mate.
A Guy Ritchie fan; my firm ensconcement in his fan club had been quickly aided and abetted by the likes of "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch" and both films equally impressive superb cast of characters. Still both a great and entertaining watch.
My obligatory obeisance to the above films now over, I thought this movie featured a silly, totally unlikely, almost film-long numbers of enemy deaths by way of Alan Ritchson's character's sublime nocturnal archery skills.
His accuracy seemed particularly breathtaking when he was loosing arrows in ever-deadly, long range shots in almost total darkness with almost conveyor belt speed!
Ask anyone who has tried bowhunting a deer for example, in clear bright sunlight - and far nearer his target than Ritchson's victims were in the movie.
Even if Robin Hood himself - accompanied by his excited Merry Men - had Ritchson's role in the film, shots such as those fired off into the darkness, would have seen the likes of his very pissed off men after those scenes being required to collect all of Robin's wayward arrow's by extraction from the likes of Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett and Little John's arses!
Yes, alongside him, Robin Hood wouldn't have even nearly been in the hunt either...
Amsterdam (2022)
NZ$13.99 wasted last night!
Having seen the earliest promotions of the movie, I was excited by the stellar cast and determined not to miss it. I searched Google for it last night, found it, and talked my wife into watching it with me...hmm, bad move.
Class Cast: Gets all 10 stars out of 10. Movie:Gets 0 as expectant viewers endured being waterboarded by a dragging story.
We both struggled with it for exactly 1hour and 6 mins - HALF of the movie's advertised 2hours and 12 mins running time!
Gonna forget the other half.
It was a real trial to try and follow a "winding, jump, jump" tale, although it is based on the facts of an actual coup called "The Business Plot" in the USA by businessman to overthrow President FDR - just like the deceitful and demented Trump and his anti-American MAGA terrorist cult and MORE smug billionaire businessmen's plans to hijack the 2024/5 general election presidency!.
Interestingly GOP Senators divulged that Trump privately refers to his maggots as "basement dwellers".
Red, White and Brass (2023)
A solid 8.5 stars!
A good clean movie with many locals in roles in the band and in the organisation of the same, the film is one of those heart-warmers that does not offend and has some top humour on display.
No sex, nudity or profanity spoils this film which is the opening match of the 2011 Rugby World Cup between Tonga and France.
If you or your family are rugby fans - and love a laugh - this one is for you.
Interestingly, the REAL band that pulled off the stunt off; of essentially conning the World Cup organisers to allow a "professed Tongan brass band" of absolute amateurs to entertain the rugby-mad spectators in exchange for seats at the game can be seen on Youtube after a search.
Great stuff.
Greed (2019)
The message alone is worth 10 stars...
...and the cameos from the late-film appearances of recognisable stars was excellent inasmuch as it lent heartening celebrity support to the reliable "out of sight, out of mind" response.
To the ultimate western world blind-eye catch cry of "Yes, it's terrible, but what can you do, it's not my fault, the government should do something."
Accurately depicting the hideous callousness of self-indulgent business people who are only intent on increasing their stratospheric wealth, whilst entire populations starve.
Excellently leading the film is the callous, narcissus billionaire character of the film's ultimate message is, Steve Coogan.
Western governments are what is needed to sit around the campfire and sort the enduring current disastrous messes out.
But by and large, unconcerned, self-promoting, low-IQ politicians twiddle their thumbs, whilst barbaric primitive dictators - like those inflicting naked genocide on the defenceless - carry on like the demonic cowards they really are.
Let's just hope that no more criminal dictators are created.
The world has had enough of deluded poseurs.
Next Goal Wins (2023)
"One goal, one goal"
Taika Waititi scores again!
Easily worth ten stars.
Based on real facts, a terrific local cast and solid bona-fide leads make this film a winner!
No gratuitous sex, expletives, or nudity also makes this movie enjoyable entertainment for the whole family.
The after-movie credits the past and current achievements of the lead characters and shows the actual people with their old and recent pictures.
Yes, the talented Taika Waititi has certainly just nailed another good one. Hardly wait for his next effort.
Thoroughly recommended to all families and individuals who like to watch a pleasant, entertaining, good, clean, easy-going story.
Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump (2020)
"Unfit", a film about "Dangerous Deranged Donald" - who's getting worse!.
Paradoxically, Trump is a grandchild of der Drumpfs, a German immigrant couple, and thus HE might well be accused of: "...diluting, weakening, our blood" himself!
And disturbingly, just like another well-known and unbalanced German chap..."Dangerous Donald" Trump also wants to become the lifelong dictator of the USA!
Oh wow! And Melania must also easily qualify as a blood-weakening immigrant as well as others like Ivanka Eric, Donald jr, others and Barron too!
This movie "Unfit" exposes Trump - by virtue of the unanimous findings of America's finest psychological analysts of Donald sr - as an ultra-dangerous individual whose accelerating dementia that also harbours amongst his most fervent wishes is to get the chance to see him detonate one or three nuclear bombs on HIS "chosen" enemies.
UnAmerican! Anyone following his criminal trials and the January 6th
The terrifying prospect of this psychotic, bigoted racist becoming president again after being supported by unknowing, non-thinking, "dirt po"' uneducated, white lowlifes and redneck gang members is a hideously frightening scenario both for America and the entire world. Proud Boys could become his senators?
If you know any blissfully unaware Republicans, get 'em to watch "Unfit".
Hopefully, all educated, lucid Americans, young and old, black, brown, yellow and white, will all reject Trump's palpable lies and numerous false claims of others' achievements...
How Trump must so envy the actual achievements of the popular and intelligent Barack Obama to falsely claim them!
Let's hope the SCOTUS delivers the proper decision that does the entire country and world a favour!
Bustin' Loose (1981)
Pleasant.
I just first watched this movie last night - 41-years after it was made - and found it an easy pleasant watch that caused no stress or strain or pain for your brain.
Richard Pryor was Richard Pryor whilst the lovely Cicely Tyson was the beauty for the beast.
The easy plot saw the crim-cum hero come up trumps when driving a busload of young delinquents as a parolee under duress.
Slapstick humour even included Dan Quayle's Alma Mater of the KKK getting made monkeys of themselves with Pryor's lead.
If you want a laidback movie watch this one for a some good laughs and good humour.
Recommended for a 90-min nothing-to-do break.
The Machine (2023)
The Machine 2023
Okay, "The Machine" wasn't a 10 but it was certainly an 8-plus and better than the 5.3 it has got so far!
We watched it last night and were happy with an entertaining movie.
Whilst unfamiliar with ANY of the cast except Mark Hamill, they all looked very well selected for their respective roles and did their jobs!
A fair amount of bloodshed, alcohol and killings, but happily, also pretty much free of gratuitous use of f's and c's.
Events in the story of the early life of an infamous young party animal in Mokba, Russia, the Machine returns to Russia and meets a variety of types including some VERY capable female fighters and ditto for the guys too!,
Enjoy a good story that ducks and dives a bit, but hang in there and enjoy the action!👍👀
Nomadland (2020)
I got the DVD for my wife...
...and I made the awful mistake of watching it too.
For me, it was a six stage endurance test:
Mesmerised....numb....heavy-lidded....
bored shirtless....distracted....final relief!
Very kindly, my lovely wife of 53 year's neutral comments were tactful, but I could easily tell she was "very disappointed."
It simply does just not qualify as a "spectator sport" as far as movie entertainment goes, with the prevailing theme was just endless depression.
Sorry, but I could not recommend this movie to anyone as it appears specifically made to acquaint those unfamiliar with trailer park communities and the denizens of same - in case the viewer also felt a need to become depressed.
The Foot Fist Way (2006)
One of the most very disappointing I've seen this year!
Unbelievable! IMDB would actually require 600 characters for reviews of THIS lame dog?
I watched the trailer where a strange male Taekwondo student flattened an elderly female OAP with a whistling 180-degree hip-to-ceiling uppercut and then treat her to a couple her a few boots to her guts while she lay there, apparently dead.
There you go; the laugh from "the fist foot way".
I should have stopped there and watched "The Karate Kid" again...after forty years.
With three of the cast writing the script for "The Foot Fist Way" although I am familiar with Danny McBride's ability, I can't believe either he, or his two fellow script writers, would be at all satisfied with this work.
Don't bother.
Coming 2 America (2021)
I really had to give it one star.
After looking forward to watching this follow-up to the first entertaining film, I cannot honestly write one decent word of praise for this appalling narcissistic tribute BY Eddie Murphy TO Eddie Murphy.
Although as a habit, I normally copy movies to my personal movie drive, but having watched it, I found I could not conjure up even the slightest desire to put it alongside my really good entertaining collection of films.
Actors like James Earl Jones and John Amos were as professional as usual, but oh dear, I do not believe they could have been flattered by the lame duck of a story.
I say that if you enjoyed the first movie, let this sleeping dog lie to scratch its own fleas.
The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)
Saw it in 1989.
Not QUITE as good as the first "Gods Must Be Crazy" (1980) but this 1989 follow-up maintains the same high standard of frantic slapstick and sight gags!
While the story is as far off the mainstream theme and full of hilarious madness as the first one....only the names have changed and little is lost by that fact. The little/big star in our deadpan Kalahari bushman is still doing his thing again, whilst the others in the cast pull their weight admirably to carry off another 90 minutes of humour - which again starts virtually straight away after the kick-off whistle!
Even though these two movies are respectively from 1980 and 1989, if you have already enjoyed the first version of this franchise, don't miss enjoying this one!
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
Brilliant! So well put together!
Stumbling across this movie in New Zealand in 1981 I wasn't expecting much and I told my wife it may have a couple of laughs in it for us?
A couple of laughs?????
Almost immediately the laughing was happening and continued throughout.
Well considered ingredients of sight gags and slapstick went together like strawberries and cream, and as the base in the mixing bowl of the movie lay one crazy story.
An excellent cast all played their roles to perfection and kept the humour happening; both audibly and visually!
I had bought the VHS video of the movie and soon my wife and I almost knew the events by heart, and even the knowledge of the imminent gags didn't spoil the humour. Then the video passed away, so we got a replacement - a DVD! - and watched it two night ago and discovered the movie is still a winner 43 years later!
Enjoy - you can't help it!
We thoroughly recommend ANYONE to watch this gem whenever an opportunity occurs and grab it with both hands!
Yes! An easy 10-stars....even today 17 August 2023.
Poker Face (2022)
Avoid this one!
As an actor, I like Russell Crowe, but this movie stank so-oo-o BAD and no one had horse-and-carted - or needed to! It started off slow and murky and even got worse.
I don't mind convoluted storylines - but they have got to be able to hold your rapt attention - but this story was too boring, and, quite frankly, too SILLY.
I nearly ended this somewhat rambling and annoying tale after 30-odd minutes but couldn't think of anything else that could possibly rescue me from my ennui.
No, Mr Crowe, my fond memories of your past efforts in the likes of "Cinderella Man" and many other top movies seemed many light years away, and how I missed them!
Absolutely Anything (2015)
Trash
Keep your money in your pocket and feel very good about it!
I'm English and I love the English sense of humour even more than I love a bacon sarny for my breakky!
Sorry, but this was pure unadulterated 100% CRAP!
The filmmakers must have paid John Cleese and the Monty Python crowd a King's Ransom EACH.to merely voice-over work of scripted unfunny rubbish for cheap amateurish.comments from cheap amateurish computer generated "blobby people"
Simon Pegg catches some real rubbish roles but this one was at least consistently BAD from whoa-to-go. He did try.
Hey, I'm not kidding, it's a stinker and isn't worth a plastic shekel!
Heartbeat (1992)
Another 10/10 English Winner.
Set in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales during the emergence 1963/4-onward of the soon to be worldwide early English Rhythm and Blues revolution.
The music of that time supplies a zeitgeist with the most welcome ability to enjoy the nostalgia of the music and climate of that time.
A variety of separate stories and a wonderful cast of well-drawn characters with an unforgettable comedic police nemesis in the form of Claude Greengrass (Bill Maynard), made every episode a mandatory appointment for every viewer. The cast grows over the series and the characters and the characters' idiosyncrasies grow on the viewer.
Just like other great English-setting series, this is another roaring success, and I can thoroughly recommend it as I am currently watching (Apr 2023) the lot again myself - in order on Youtube.
Please enjoy!
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Watch this one for entertainment!
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a great movie; full of twists, fun and action.
I have seen a few of his movies and I have never been a Cage fan, but this movie showed me what I have missed. Like few movies I have ever selected on the fly, this one entertained us from go-to-whoa, and I patted myself on the back for my prescient choice for picking this one from Google's offerings! This is a film for those who like to feel - as a movie's credits go by - at the end like they have spent their money wisely after being pleased what one has just seen and thoroughly enjoyed.
I recommend this one as a goody!
R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned (2022)
Absolutely Trash....Save Your Cash!
Having rented it on Google, having thought the trailer looked mildly amusing and entertaining enough; just like reviewer "Ryan 44110", we also battled bravely nearly half-way through it when watching it had already proven about as pleasant as sewing your own lips to the carpet.
The cast must have known their vessel had a leak, although their acting was valiant in a poor script with a poor story that flailed about like an asthmatic sheep in quicksand.
Even reviewers here that write the first one was marginally better could not even nearly tempt me to persevere with what would have definitely been just more needless self-flagellation!
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)
Nice enough...I suppose...
I found it a blatant feelgood, non-stroke incurring, and vaguely lacking "bits of anything" movie.
Surprisingly easy to watch without doing cartwheels at any stage because of some non-existent scripted brilliance, for me, the movie actually lacks an; adventure, any thrills, real romance, nudity, unbridled sex, gratuitous obscene language, any violence, a murder.
My wife said it was "okay" (as it was her choice) and I just grunted...in a safe, sort of non-committal agreement with her.
Honestly, without being sexist, I would say the storyline was exclusively aimed at middle-to-senior aged females.
Oh well, a generous six stars.
Klute (1971)
And 51 years later on...
...it certainly hadn't improved for me with age.
Twelve months after our marriage, my wife and I watched this movie on its release in 1971 in a cinema.
Then and still now, I think Jane Fonda is gorgeous, Donald Sutherland is a top thespian and why the late Roy Scheider was then still a growing force.
I couldn't recall whether Jane was to be seen au naturel in 1971 - and I make no apologies for my disappointment in 2022, when I felt bitterly sad and almost swindled when I saw on my new DVD that Jane hadn't shed her clothes in the interceding 50 years via a little celluloid magic. Oh well 😥...
But, like 1971, the acclaim that the film had received escaped me again, as I once more could not get why it was regarded almost as an icon, a "must see". I would have enjoyed it much more if Klute's character turned into silent-but-violent farter - which always made the innocent Bree lean over and instantly vomit on his shoes. That would have certainly got some laughs and earned the movie two more stars?
If asked for a brief, lasting impression of the movie, I would still say again: "dark, disappointing, sombre and tedious". The cast won my four stars.
American Made (2017)
Entertaining film, but here is: "The truth, the whole truth, and...
Although the film suggests Seal was recruited by the CIA while flying for TWA, he denied in court that he had ever worked for the CIA.
Monty Schafer, Seal's supposed CIA contact and runner, was an invented character.
The CIA Inspector-General admitted in 1996 that they had run a covert training exercise at the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport with another federal agency, but found no evidence that they had been involved in any illegal operations.
Seal was sacked from TWA in 1974 for falsely claiming medical leave when he was involved in smuggling.
His connections with cartel bosses were also not direct when he was running his drug operations.
He did not meet Pablo Escobar or the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, when he was "narking" for the DEA on an undercover operation, following his arrest.
His third wife Deborah, whom Lucy was loosely based on, said Seal began his drug smuggling business in 1975 not 1980 like the film suggests, and concentrated on marijuana before it involved cocaine.
Seal's DEA record also said that he progressed to smuggling cocaine in 1978 and that he was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976.
Also, Seal's ties to the Medellín Cartel did not begin after being kidnapped while refuelling his plane in Colombia, but when he met a smuggler who flew for a cartel "biggie" Jorge Ochoa during a flight home from Honduras where he served nine months in a local jail after being caught smuggling drugs in 1979.
Asked if the film was a biopic, Director Doug Liman replied "You know, we're not making a biopic. Tom Cruise doesn't look like Barry Seal, but his character is built around the tales we heard about Barry Seal."
Cruise reportedly gained weight for the role, but as he is only 5 ft 7 in tall, Seal ended-up a genuine well-padded porker who reportedly weighed the same as 300 pounds of bacon!
But in fact, Barry Seal weighed 300 pounds only later in life and his "pork poundage" was probably borrowed from a morgue record after his death as there are many photos of him weighing much less.
Director Liman also said that the film's zero-gravity love scene was his idea and that he was inspired after he and Cruise "collided" in the cockpit while filming a flight scene...
Seal was unapologetic about both his weapons and drug smuggling operations, even stating once in a television interview, "Whether you call it soldier of fortune, or what, it's a way of life for me. I enjoy it and I'm going to keep doing it."
Seal also never crash-landed into a suburban neighbourhood and Liman has described the film as "...a fun lie based on a true story."
Irresistible (2020)
A national sport?
Just as cowardly Republican senators demonstrate their own corrupt and craven cowardice by irresponsibly, deliberately refusing to accept incontestable evidence of Trump's own malevolent and corrupt activities, Jon Stewart's entertaining microcosm cleverly demonstrates "Small Town" USA's politics when monitored by Washington DC.
A very good watch of an all-round cast led by Steve Carell, Rose Byrne and Chris Connor is well worth the time.
Just as America's politics needs cleaning up, so does its totally archaic 1700-1800's Wild West "right to bear arms" appeals to loons like Trump, it also appeals to his fellow loons that slaughter innocents.
It also convinces the world that it's like a do-nothing and don't care USA's national sport!
Simply ban ALL guns and publicly identify ALL corporate (eg NRA) sponsorships over twenty thousand dollars.
Standard practice like the hackneyed, flyblown cry of "background checks" is just a pathetic "now let's leave it without having to do anything else" closing of the topic - until the next slaughter.
Game Night (2018)
Entertaining
Simply put, for me, this was an easy watch with twists and turns which worked all the way.
Okay, no masterpiece, but entertaining all the same, without having to work at it.
Cop Land (1997)
A mediocre plot just saved by the cast!
Sorry, but I thought along with the late Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel carried the movie along; whilst the naturally monosyllabic, mumbling Sylvester Stallone was of course totally convincing as a monosyllabic, mumbling sheriff.
Oh yeah, I thought the female police officer was also an asset with a creditworthy performance.
Now, here at 31 May 2022, even 25 years after release, I'd say give it a miss.
The Father (2020)
The Dramatic and Disturbing Effect and Pathos of Dementia.
A profoundly disturbing movie but a great and superbly-crafted one!
Along with his fellow brilliant co-star in Oscar winner Olivia Colman, Anthony Hopkins and Olivia superbly stage an acting workshop of a dutiful, devoted daughter and her dementia patient/father whose tenuous grasp on any reality has become almost strictly confined to spontaneous decayed flashbacks as his dementia accelerates.
His rapidly diminishing control has all but gone; bar voicing the characteristic angry outbursts and outrageous accusations and beliefs of dementia sufferers that are all too familiar to such afflicted person's relatives, carers and friends.
I easily gave it 10+ stars as I thought the discernible reveal-all ending was intriguing, and Hopkins' customary superb performance throughout was that of a man at the very brink of total mental collapse.