May the Fourth be with you, indeed.
I need to make this post longer. What is your favorite Star Wars film?
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Category Archives: Movies
Movie Trailer – The Dark Tower
Hey 3.5 movie lovers.
BQB here. Did you see that the trailer for Dark Tower is out?
I feel bad that I never read the book. It came out many years ago. I have nothing but excuses, sadly.
What say you, 3.5 readers?
BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
“It’s all in the reflexes.”
BQB here with a review of the action/comedy/martial arts fantasy, Big Trouble in Little China.
Like Escape from New York, this is another film I got through my 1980s childhood without seeing until now. Also like Escape, it features Kurt Russell being directed by John Carpenter. However, while Escape’s Snake Plissken was a gruff man of few words, Big Trouble’s Jack Burton is a boisterous big mouth, thus allowing Russell to show off his versatility.
Our story begins with Burton, an overly confident truck driver who refers to himself in the third person via a radio show of sorts that he performs on CB radio, pulling into the Chinatown section of San Francisco. After a long haul, he meets up with buddy Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) for a night of rowdy drinking and gambling.
When Burton gives Wang a ride to the airport to pick up his fiancee who’s about to arrive from China, said fiancee is kidnapped by brutish kung fu thugs and the adventure is on. As Jack and Wang follow the trail, they end up in a world of martial arts, monsters, and magic, culminating in an epic battle royal with the vile sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong aka the old Asian guy in practically every movie that requires an old Asian guy. Hell, he even voices the goose that adopted Po in Kung Fu Panda).
Along the way, Jack and Wang team up with good sorcerer Egg Shen (Victor Wong aka James’ Hong’s longtime rival for the part of old Asian guy in every film that requires one).
Jack even finds a love interest in Gracie Law, a lawyer who, I don’t know, is investigating the trouble in Little China. It’s not really explained that well. All I know is that it was nice to see a young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Kim Cattrall in this movie, long before she became jaded, unapologetically slutty Samantha on Sex in the City.
And yes, the character’s name is “Gracie Law,” because the writers really wanted you to know that she is a lawyer, but “Briefcase McCourtOrder” would have been too obvious.
I had a buddy in elementary school who gave me rave reviews about this movie. He kept those reviews up long into adulthood, often telling me I needed to check this out.
I checked it out and…hmm…how to explain.
I don’t want to call it the worst movie I’ve ever seen, because it is far from it. In fact, I can picture a 1980s audience full of big haired, big shoulder padded people being blown away by this film. It has a lot of heart and there is a definite intent to entertain. Even some of the cheesier moments of the film can be laughed off by remembering this movie isn’t just an action film, but it’s also an action comedy.
My main criticism is with the overall story, or rather, the film’s storytelling abilities. Not much of an overall explanation is given about why this magic world of martial arts magic exists.
Instead, Jack, like the viewer, is thrust into the story face first, He, and you, the viewer, learn bits and pieces of what is happening along the way. Oddly enough, every Asian person in the film knows everything there is to know about this magical martial arts world, as if it has always been around and only dumb honkies like Jack are oblivious to it. Even Wang, a restauranteur by trade, displays some off the chain, bad ass kung fu moves, yet there isn’t really any explanation as to why this guy who cooks food by day knows how to fly through the air with a sword at night.
I’m very, very far from politically correct, but I suppose the modern day social justice warriors have brainwashed me into thinking, “Huh. This film seems to suggest all Asian people are kung fu masters. That doesn’t seem very woke.”
But then I just tamp down social justice vibe down deep and eat a cookie for fear I’ll become some kind of gluten sucking, fedora wearing hipster. Boo…hipsters.
Bottomline, it’s a fun romp and there some great scenes. I just wish a little more work had been done on the story. Then again, someone wiser than me might say that throwing Jack headfirst into the action and letting him catch up is a great storytelling device all on its own.
After all, how many times in your life has anyone really sat you down and told you everything you ever needed to know about a given situation? That rarely happens, if ever. Like Jack, we rush in, put on a brave front full of false machismo, and hold onto our butts, all the while hoping we’ll figure it all out before it’s too late.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Watch it on Netflix.
BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Escape from New York (1981)
A big ass scoped revolver! A silenced Uzi! Kurt Russell in his prime!
BQB here with a review of the 1980s action thriller, Escape from New York.
I’m surprised I never got around to seeing this one, 3.5 readers. Made in 1981, it envisions a futuristic 1997, one where crime has risen so dramatically that the entire island of Manhattan has been turned into one giant prison to hold all the riff raff.
While the outskirts of the island are heavily guarded by a security team lead by Warden Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), prisoners on the island are allowed to wander about freely and do whatever they please – killing, maiming, and destroying as much as they want.
Seems like a foolproof plan for ridding America of it’s ne’er-do-wells…until the President’s plane crashes right in the middle of it.
As luck would have it, war hero turned bank robber, the ultra macho, constantly brooding, eye-patch wearing Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is about to be deposited on the island as a prisoner when the shit hits the fan.
Hauk and Snake play let’s make a deal. If Snake saves the President (Donald Pleasance), he’ll go free.
High stakes, huh? To double the stakes, the President was on the way to a conference with important information in his possession that could stop a nuclear war from breaking out. Thus, the world will be screwed if Snake fails.
Moreover, to triple the stakes, a device is implanted in Snake’s neck that will blow his head off if he doesn’t return with the president within twenty-two hours. No pressure.
It’s Snake to the rescue as he fights all sorts of weirdoes, and even makes some allies along the way. Ernest Borgnine provides comic relief as Cabbie, a molotov cocktail wielding yellow cab driver. Harry Dean Stanton stars as Snake’s frenemy (friend/enemy), “Brain” while Adrienne Barbeau is eye candy Maggie, although she has sort of an odd hair style that never really made it out of the 1980s.
What’s a movie without a villain? That role goes to Isaac Hayes, “the Duke of New York,” who holds the president hostage. He does his best to be menacing, though whenever he speaks, I have a hard time not thinking of Chef from South Park.
Meanwhile, Van Cleef’s Hauk is sort of a good villain, a man who puts the screws to Snake in order to get him to do something good.
Van Cleef, who passed away in 1989, was mostly known for playing villains, especially the roles he played opposite Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
I’ve seen these films, but it took me a minute to recognize him without a cowboy outfit on.
The 1980s is the Golden Age of action cinema. The special effects were just starting to get good. Audiences were less turned off by violence. The country was still getting over Vietnam, so moviegoers were sympathetic to an action hero trapped in a shitty situation by forces bigger than he was.
As a kid, I grew up on a steady diet of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, so I am surprised it took me so long to see this one. It’s got all the standard action tropes, but for whatever reason, I just don’t recall it being as popular as say, The Terminator, a film that everyone was talking about in those days.
One part that made me sad – the World Trade Center plays a prominent role in the film. To avoid detection, Snake flies a silent glider into the city and lands it on the roof of one of the towers, with the intention of flying it off the tower later, seeing as how it is the only building tall enough for a glider to take off from.
It made me sad, seeing as how those buildings aren’t there anymore, though I suppose technically, the movie still holds up as they were there in 1997, the year the film is set in.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. There is some cheesiness and the special effects, though not up to modern snuff, were likely the best available at the time. Also, it was directed by John Carpenter, who gave us the Halloween franchise. Watch it on Netflix.
Movie Trailer – The Kingsman: Golden Circle
Hey 3.5 readers.
The Kingsman is back. After a couple years, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is back with Colin Firth and his band of British gentlemen spies.
I’m not entirely sure of the plot. However, the trailer reveals a plethora of celebrities. This is usually the case with a film like this. When the original outperforms expectations, every actor and actress and their cousin wants to be a part of the sequel.
What say you, 3.5 readers?
Movie Review – The Promise (2017)
Romance! War! Fezes! So many fezes.
BQB here with a review of The Promise.
In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, a love triangle forms between Armenian medical student Mikael (Oscar Isaac or “Poe Dameron” as Star Wars fans know him), American journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale), and French Armenian artist Ana (Charlotte Le Bon).
Both men yearn for Ana’s heart (and cooter) but there’s much more evil doings afoot. The Ottoman Empire becomes Germany’s ally in World War I. Now stronger than ever thanks to their German benefactors, the Turkish majority army sets its sights on the country’s Armenian minority. Armenians are savagely executed, brutalized, rounded up, sent off to forced labor camps and so on.
Although the film is a love story and a war story, it’s much more than any of that. As far as I know (and perhaps historians/film buffs can prove me wrong), it’s the best, most compelling story of the Armenian Genocide, a horrific chapter in Turkey’s history that should be more well known to the world than it is.
As the film states, the French Navy was able to rescue 4,000 Armenians. However, a staggering 1.5 million Armenians were killed. To this day, the Turkish government denies that the Armenian Genocide ever happened. This sucks, especially since Turkey is a NATO ally.
It’s an Oscar-ish movie, though I doubt it will see any gold statues as it was released too early in the year. Oscar Isaac gets to shine in a non-comic book/sci-fi movie. Bale is an impressive adventurer/man of the world. Le Bon puts the filling in my Crepe Suzette and is so beautiful that you almost can’t blame Chris and Mikael for stopping periodically during the war to vie for Ana’s hand (and cooter).
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. A must see and it is a movie that does the world a service by shining a light on a tragic part of history.
Movie Review – Split (2017)
Oh my God, 3.5 readers.
After sucking for so many years, M. Night Shyamalan has returned to making good movies again.
It’s a Shyamalan renaissance! A Shyamalan-aissance!
BQB here with a review of the horror thriller Split.
The year was 1999. The Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment premiered. For most of the film’s run time, it seemed like a pretty decent film. Not below average. Not above average. Just decent enough until…OMG!!! Super mega did not see that coming at all surprise ending that fits with the whole movie, whoa!
And thus, director M. Night Shama…shamalama….whatever. His career was born.
Alas, rather than try new and different things, M. Night just put himself on a quest to recreate that amazing Sixth Sense twist:
But it never happened. While Signs was a good film, all his other post Sixth Sense films sucked the big one. The twists were ridiculous, absurd, and just crowbarred in as if to say, “Hey look! I’m M. Night and I’m the twist guy! Don’t you love my twists?”
The evidence speaks for itself:
2004 – The Village – Super dumbass twist.
2006 – Lady in the Water – Incredibly shitty twist.
2008 – The Happening – The plants were the villains all along? OK. Go home, M. Night. You’re drunk!
I’d long written M. Night off as a one (maybe two) hit wonder but low and behold, he’s back in a big way with Split and it’s about damn time, M. Night Shabadu. About damn time indeed.
The setup – Three high school girls are kidnapped and locked in a basement room by a psychopath with multiple personalities played by James McAvoy. At various intervals, McAvoy enters the room, each time pretending to be a whole other person. Some of these personalities are friendly, others more dangerous.
Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) is usually made fun of by Claire and Marcia, but now that they are all captives, Casey, who knows about pain and suffering all too well, is in her element. If anyone has a chance to save the day, it’s her, but will she be able to?
Meanwhile, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), the madman’s psychiatrist, suspects her patient might be up to something, but can’t quite put her finger on it. Will she be able to piece the mystery together before it’s all too late?
Plus, there’s an overall message to the movie – are people who have suffered pain stronger than those who haven’t?
An amazing performance by James McAvoy. He shows great Oscar potential here with his ability to convincingly turn into other people. It’s funny because he still looks the same, yet he is so good at taking on the various personalities that you almost begin to believe they’re real.
The suspense! The thrills! The chills! M. Night’s first non-shitty movie since the Clinton administration!
Are there twists in this film? Yes. Many. Will I tell you what they are? No. But the best part is they aren’t crowbarred and slammed in haphazardly in so many other films where M. Night tried to recreated his Sixth Sense glory.
The man has finally learned to let the twists flow naturally. In fact, the biggest twist of this film is that it is directed by M. Night Shamalamadingdong and it does not suck.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Rent it today! Oh, M. Night! I’m so glad you don’t suck anymore! I always knew you had it in you to stop sucking. It was unfortunate that this movie was released in January, because January movies tend to come and go without much interest from the public. I do believe this film will likely grow a following via word of mouth as people start to rent it. Crack a beer, M. Night. It’s the first one you’ve deserved since 1999.
BQB’s Classic Movie Rewind – Fight Club (1999)
The first rule of this review is don’t talk about this review.
The second rule of this review is don’t talk about this review.
Fight Club. It’s been on cable lately. I’ve caught it a couple times and I’ve become addicted to it. I saw it when it came out and I realized even then that it was awesome and revolutionary, but I feel like I have a greater appreciation of it now that I’ve gotten older.
The general plot: Edward Norton plays a corporate office drone. We never get his real name. He’s a mopey sad sack, depressed with his life. Feeling no sense of purpose, he goes to work, comes home, and spends his money buying useless crap for his home. Stuff that he doesn’t need. He hopes it will make him happy but nothing makes him happy.
One day, the highly opinionated, ultra violent, doesn’t give a shit about anything Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) walks into Norton’s life. Tyler browbeats Norton into starting “Fight Club” and the first rule of Fight Club is to never talk about Fight Club.
The club consists of grown men meeting in a basement and beating the crap out of each other. I suppose that film critics could argue about what exactly that means but the gist seems to be that the more physical pain these dudes endure, the less shits they give.
“Stop giving a shit” is essentially Tyler’s message to Norton. Tyler informs Norton that he needs to give up on the idea that he’ll live forever, that he must accept that he’ll die one day, that everything is in a sense of decay and people just waste their lives doing pointless shit and coming up with excuses as to why they can’t do what they want.
Millennials, you guys think you’re depressed? Please. You don’t hold a candle to Generation X and in many ways, this film captures the ennui my generation suffered in our younger days.
Take Tyler’s “Great Depression” Speech, for example:
“Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. Goddammit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man; no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t; and we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
Shit. I was just a youngster when I first heard Tyler say that. I didn’t think much of it. Many years later, I realize the meaning. He’s right. Generation X didn’t have World War II, or Vietnam. Things were actually pretty good in the world and you’d think that’s a good thing but the problem that arises is when the people of a generation don’t have to worry about a great cause, or a big war or what have you, then they have time to focus on doing what they actually want…and sadly, it’s just human nature to come up with excuses to explain away why we aren’t doing what we want to do. Even worse, try as we might, there just aren’t enough resources for everyone to do what they want to do.
Oddly, I’m in a weird place where I’m on the tail end of Generation X. A few years later, I could have been a millennial. Tyler may have been off a little bit. Little did he know that two years after this movie, 9/11 would happen and that would change the world, especially people like me who were just becoming adults around that time.
In a way, the movie makes a lot of points about life and how its too easy to feel hopeless. It captures the mood of Generation X well, but then again, after 9/11, it seems kind of sad that we felt bad that there wasn’t a great conflict. Hell, I’d do anything to go back to the pre-9/11 days and be like Ed Norton with nothing to worry about but what useless crap to buy from the catalog.
Anyway, enough of the philosophy. From a writing standpoint, the film is brilliant. There are many twists and turns that are unexpected yet they blow you away. The film also builds a formula and that it feeds on and uses to build itself. Fight Club grows, the number of Fight Club members grow, they all become pawns for Tyler to move around in the giant mental game of chess he’s playing.
Helena Bonham Carter stars as Marla Singer, a crazy lady loved by Norton but banged by Tyler, much to Norton’s dismay.
Meanwhile, a young Jared Leto appears in a supporting role as the platinum blonde Angel Face. Even 1970s music legend Meat Loaf joins Fight Club as the large breasted Robert Paulson.
I dunno, 3.5 readers. Check out the film. There’s a lot of different meanings. You can sort of get a sense of the purpose-less-ness (if that’s a word) that young people felt at the time, and then again, there’s the message of stop pursuing materialism, stop making excuses for why you aren’t doing what you want to do, stop living a boring life. No, you don’t (and should not) start an illegal Fight Club turned widespread criminal organization, but you could realize that life is short and it is a shame if you don’t at least try to do what you want to do.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Movie Review – The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017)
War! Intrigue! Nazis vs. Zoo animals!
BQB here with a review of The Zookeeper’s Wife.
Based on a true story, this film tells the tale of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, owners/operators of the Warsaw Zoo who used their property to save persecuted Jews during World War II.
Before the war, Jan (Johan Heldenburgh) and Atonina (Jessica Chastain), live an idyllic life. They love animals and they take care of zebras, elephants, lions, tigers, all sorts of exotic animals on their sprawling property. They even do a good business, charging admission.
Alas, all this changes because of the Nazis. Oh you dirty Nazis, you’re always the turd in history’s punch bowl, aren’t you?
The Zabinskis’ zoo is partially destroyed by Nazi bombs dropped all over the city. What’s left is confiscated. The animals are shot and turned into meat and soap for the Nazi war effort.
Sidenote: Whether it’s during World War II or more recently in Venezuela, once the government resorts to shooting zoo animals for food, shit is not good.
Back to the review. Long story short, what’s left of the zoo is turned over to Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl), a German zoologist who had once been a friend of the Zabinskis in happier times. Sadly, once Lutz puts on a Nazi uniform and becomes Hitler’s official zoologist, he gets a little too drunk on power and becomes an insufferable douchen-dorfer.
You know you want to see this movie just because the villain is a Nazi zoologist, don’t you?
Anyway, being the good people that they are, the Zabinskis begin rescuing and hiding their close Jewish friends. Pretty soon, they realize that with underground tunnels once used to house tigers, buildings and trucks, they have all the means necessary to run a Jewish rescue/hiding/smuggling to safety operation.
The danger comes from the fact that they must do all this right under the nose of their ex-friend turned Nazi.
Will the Zabinskis be successful? Will they be caught?
You’ve got to watch to find out.
Overall, it’s a touching story. So many stories came out of WWII and they continue even today.
Much credit is due to the Zabinskis. They probably could have relied on their friendship with a Nazi to ride out World War II by just keeping their heads down and going about their business. Instead, they put themselves into great danger and in doing so, saved the lives of hundreds of people.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. A good movie, sort of an Oscar-bait film designed to show off Jessica Chastain’s acting chops. Not necessary to rush out to the theater but it’s worth a rental.
Movie Review – The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Dom goes rogue? Say it ain’t so!
BQB here with a review of the eighth, count ’em, eighth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise.
Holy crap. Eight films. That’s 4.5 more films than I have readers.
You’d think these things would be getting stale by now, but honestly, they’re just getting warmed up. Fast Five brought in the Rock to resurrect the franchise. Fast Six and Seven were good times but Fast Eight? Wow. Holy crap did they up their game.
Our tale begins with Dom (Vin Diesel) on a honeymoon with new wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) in Cuba. Evil cyber terrorist Cipher, played the ever boner inducing Charlize Theron, tracks Dom down with some kind of leverage that leaves Dom with no choice but to betray his beloved Fast and Furious team members and become Cipher’s evil errand boy.
What drama! Fan favorites Ludacris (Tej) and Tyrese (Roman) return. The Rock kicks ass as always. Jason Statham blows the doors off the whole shebang. Game of Thrones fans will be happy to see Nathalie Emmanuel aka Missandei return as computer hacker Ramsey, while Kristofer Hivju aka Tormund Giantsbane gets a role as a villain.
Longtime cast member, the late Paul Walker, is truly missed and one can only imagine the awesomeness he would have brought to the screen. His character, Brian, still exists in the film but obviously, only to be talked about by the team.
Kurt Russell returns as the mysterious, super classified government agent, Mr. Nobody only this time, he has a young protege, the still wet behind the ears rookie dubbed, “Little Nobody” played by Clint’s son, Scott Eastwood. The character is funny and suffers tremendously from the non-stop B.S. thrown at him by an unruly team he’s trying to control. There was a part of me that wondered if he was thrown into the mix to replace Paul Walker as the team’s boy scoutish, clean cut law enforcement member, but Eastwood does hold his own.
The stunts! The spectacles! We don’t go to see these movies for the plot. We go for the thrill ride. The film features some of the most visually stunning, badass, and yes, even smart action sequences in the franchise.
All that being said, the plot, while peppered with the occasional hole, is one of the better ones of the franchise, filled with all sorts of twists and turns. After all, Dom and his team go up against each other, so that’s bound to create some on-screen theatrics.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Fast Five was when the franchise really hit its stride and figured out its formula. Gratuitous scantily clad women, beautiful tropical locations, rap music, big guns, fast cars – all the stuff of the wet dream of any red blooded, heterosexual American male. Whenever I watch one of these films I feel my testosterone surge and I’m left with the need to hump something, anything! Woe unto the first leg I find! OK, maybe I don’t get that out of control, but it’s still super intense. You must see it on the big screen.
Has there ever been a franchise that’s still going this strong after eight films? Leave it in the comments if you can think of one. Until then, keep ’em coming, Fast and Furious crew. Keep ’em coming.
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