The first Den of Thieves caught me by surprise. It didn’t do well at the box office but caught traction when it hit Netflix, so much so I had long assumed it was a Netflix original and was thus surprised when this sequel was released to theaters. But apparently it was the original was a flick destined to be forgotten until Netflix breathed new life into it and generated enough interest for a second go around, albeit 7 years later.
The first film was non-stop action and shootouts. This one is more of a thinker. At times, I felt like it tried to be an updated European version of Heat and by the way, it’s time for my yearly rewatch of that fine film.
As you might recall from the first film, LA Sheriff’s Department Detective Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler) investigated a crew of ex-Marines who robbed the Federal reserve, only to realize at the end that their driver Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson) was the mastermind of it all, and eluded Nick’s capture.
Here, in this sequel, Donnie has fled to Europe and begun working with the Panther mafia to plan an elaborate diamond heist. Nick, fed up with his life (his wife left him, wants alimony, and his police superiors are trashing him over events in the first film) decides to break bad and join Donnie’s crew, whether Donnie wants him or not.
Whereas in the first film, the heisters depended largely on heavy firepower, here the villains use high tech gadgets and tricks. If you’re patient through two-thirds of the movie, the end will wow you with an elaborately pulled off heist followed by the thrills and chills of a high stakes, dangerous get away.
Butler does some serious acting as a frazzled, grizzled old cop who is tired of the grind. O’Shea holds his own as a genius robber who loves the thrill of the game.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It definitely would get lost as a summer release but is above average for standard January fare.
How many readers must a blogger have before he can call himself a blogger?
The answer my friends is…3.5.
BQB here with a review of the Bob Dylan biopic.
SPOILERS ABOUND!
Then again how can there be spoilers when Bob Dylan is 83 years old. And if he really chain smoked as many cigarettes as his counterpart, Timothee Chalamet, did in this movie, he must have made some sort of deal with the devil to live this long.
In some ways, this film resembles most famous musician biopics. A young artist’s dream comes true when he finds fame and fortune. But alas, all the fame and money in the world can’t fill the hole in his soul. Various music industry suits want to exploit him for cash. He loses the only girlfriend who loved him and believed in him before the fame came because he succumbs to the temptation of all the other hotties who want him. Alas, after yearning to be famous for so long, he is now sad because he can’t have five minutes of peace without some fan shouting and pointing at him. Even worse, his fans don’t want him to grow as an artist and try anything new. They just want him to be a trained monkey who keeps spitting out his greatest hits.
In another way, this biopic is different. The title comes from a line in one of Bob’s songs, “Like a Rolling Stone.” (i.e. “how does it feel to be all on your own, a complete unknown?” But Bob is a complete unknown – to the world, to his fans, his friends, his lovers and even to himself.
When he hitches his way to New York City, he takes advantage of his new surroundings to reinvent himself. He never speaks honestly about his past. Instead, he makes up a story of a youth spent working for a circus, claiming that wandering cowboys taught him everything he knows about how to play the guitar. Everyone sees through the BS but his girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning) is exhausted by it. Bob won’t let her in and we spend the entire film wondering if Bob is just a dick who is gaslighting everyone into thinking he is a mystery man, or if he really does feel that way.
We never truly get an answer. Chalamet plays Bob as a walking contradiction. He walks and talks and presents himself as a man mired in depression – rumpled clothes and wild, unkempt hair, always mumbling (Dylan’s signature sound.) Yet he acts like a man with unbridled self-confidence, such that he has zero doubt his talent will land him at the top of the game.
Dylan provides the soundtrack of the 1960s. His song, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” couldn’t describe that time period any better. That era was a time of great change, of social justice protests and civil rights struggles, of moving away from comfort zones and challenging the status quo. Vietnam, political assassinations, clashes over civil rights marked the decade and Dylan’s songs captured it all with tones that somehow were equally depressing and uplifting.
Monica Barbaro plays folk singer Joan Baez, who rounds out the love triangle while Scoot McNairy and Ed Norton play Bob’s idols and mentors, popular folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, respectively. Personally, I wonder if this movie wasn’t made largely because Chalamet’s agent was like, “Hey Hollywood, if we slap a mop top wig and sunglasses on this little shit and make him mumble, it’ll make a great Bob Dylan flick,” but what do I know? For all I know this biopic could have been in the works a long time.
But while a lot of it follows the standard biopic formula, Ed Norton, IMO, deserves some Oscar recognition here. Ed tends to just play himself in a lot of movies (as most actors do) but he really turns into someone else when he takes on Seeger’s “Aw shucks” personality, mentoring his young protege and eventually coming at odds with him over differing views as to the direction in which folk music should go. Who is Pete Seeger, you younguns ask? Ever hear of a little song that goes, “This land is my land, this land is your land?” He made it into his 90s and Baez is still kicking at 83 so there must be something about folk music that gets all the gunk out of your soul so you can reach full longevity.
Folk music is all about acoustics and story-telling and at a crossroads where rock and roll is taking over, Dylan breathes new life into the artform by taking risks – to the delight of mainstream music listeners but to the chagrin of folk purists. You didn’t know there’s such a thing as folk purists? You do now.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. If you like Dylan’s music, you’ll love this soundtrack. If you are into 1960’s culture, it does capture the spirit of that turbulent decade. My only criticism is we never learn why Bob Dylan was such an enigma, what was he running from that he felt he had to shut down any talk of who he is and where he came from and adopt a mysterious persona? But I assume the movie doesn’t answer this question because the answer is unknown even to Bob Dylan.
What up, 3.5 hobbits? BQB here with a review of the latest LOTR joint.
This anime tells a tale set in LOTR world 183 years before Bilbo Baggins’ famous journey. While there are many fantasy races in Middle Earth, this film focuses on a war between humans – specifically, the Rohirrim or horse-lords, those residents of Rohan known for their skills in cavalry.
When a fist fight goes awry, it’s all-out war between the clans of young and vengeful Wulf and bad ass old King Helm Hammerhand. Brian Cox lends the only recognizable voice to the flick, though the other talent are top notch. While Helm and his sons and nephew fight bravely, Hera’s willingness to fight goes largely unrequited. But ultimately, through a series of events that I won’t explain as to avoid SPOILERS, Hera ends up being the Head Girlboss in Charge when her clan is trapped in a long abandoned, secluded stronghold as enemy forces lay siege.
The good? Stunning visuals. Great soundtrack. Relatively low budget of $30 million that has already seen a return of $12 million in the first weekend. Back in the day, when George Lucas made his three Star Wars prequels, he continued the fun for the franchise’s number one fans, children, with a series of Clone War cartoons. Fun animation was cheaper than live action, meant the characters could do more and weren’t limited by the bounds of live action and the plots could be simpler.
Personally, I think everyone involved in LOTR should have taken a page out of Lucas’ playbook way earlier and I wonder if they are now. Amazon has spent over a billion dollars on a live action LOTR prequel series that most fans universally agree has all the charm of a refried pile of moldy dog poop. Meanwhile, this animated film is solid, will likely earn a good return on its investment and is something everyone can enjoy.
While I’ve never been a fan of anime (this style where everyone is drawn with huge eyes and moves that open enormously wide has always been silly to me), this film does tone dawn some of anime’s worse tendencies (i.e. there’s no one with wide open pie holes as I just described) the visuals were great and look better on the big screen. Hollywood has gone all in on 3D animation, but this movie reminds us that 2D can still look great, that advancements in film make it look even better and creatives should explore it more.
The bad? The plot is pretty simple though I don’t necessarily mind that. So many films unnecessarily complicate things to the point where I feel like I have to break out a flowchart and a slide rule to figure out where it is all going. Here, you can easily guess the direction it is taking, though there are occasional surprises.
Also, though the fans who live and breathe this stuff might disagree, IMO as a casual observer, there’s not much connection to the LOTR franchise. There are occasional red meat references but by and large, this could have just been called “The Random Fantasy World War Movie” and still made sense but not as much money.
Overall, I think cartoons would be a great direction for LOTR to go in and maybe even Star Wars should consider it again. And 2D should be given more consideration. While 3D, when it is done well and a lot of money is spent on it, looks fabulous (i.e. Moana for example), many cheaply produced 3D shows look like crap so why not just go the 2D route?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Unpopular opinion: the LOTR early 2000s movies were very overrated and just a product of their time. Peter Jackson was a CGI master and brought audiences sights they had never seen before but ultimately those films have never been something I wanted to go back and watch again and again. I’ll doubt I’ll ever want to rewatch this film again, but I did enjoy seeing it the first time as I did the original LOTR films back in the day.
SIDENOTE: Yes, horror of horrors, it is a girlboss movie in a time when the largely male fan base of action and fantasy movies are male nerds. If you boil the movie down enough, its mostly about testosterone crazed brutes who won’t stop fighting over who a woman is going to marry and had they bothered to ask her, all the fighting would not have been necessary. (You know, that old fantasy world trope.)
While there are a few eye-rolling scenes where Hera bests a foe twice her size, overall she’s more believable since she walks through proverbial fire to learn her girlbossing skills as opposed to most girlboss movies where the girlboss is just born a girlboss because girls are bosses. And to the film’s credit, it takes a realistic approach to fantasy world dark age era thinking – i.e. all the dudes scoff at the idea of a girlboss whereas Netflix would just have a girl bossing all the dudes around in ancient times and no one ever questioning it.
Still, I have to remind Hollywood, if you want young men to grow up to be strong, chivalrous and protective of good values, you’ve got to give them a young male hero they can look up to and you haven’t done that in a long time.
Sigh. Let’s get the review of this stinkburger with extra turd fries over with.
“Of all the movies I’ve ever seen, this was certainly one.” I can’t take credit for that line because I read it on Twitter and the name of the quoted escapes me and I’m too lazy to look it up, just like the writers of this flick were too lazy to write a good movie.
When the trailer hit, I was looking forward to it. It looked like a fun spoof on the spy movie genre with a Christmas theme. Alas, when my butt hit the seat of my local theater, I immediately realized the problem, namely, that this movie took itself WAY, WAY, WAYYYYYYYYY to seriously. Imagine a Jason Bourne type film where spies engage in cloak and dagger espionage to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus but there’s little to no humor and the occasional jokes rarely land.
Yep. I couldn’t wait for the flick to be over. The worst part is, two weeks later its already available on streaming media and that’s where it belongs, because it’s the type of movie best enjoyed while it’s on your TV in the background while you’re cleaning your house, or on a tiny cell phone screen while you’re on the toilet taking a dump, which is what this movie is.
The plot? The Rock stars in the only movie he couldn’t save as Callum Drift, the leader of Santa’s (JK Simmons) security detail. He’s one day from retirement, because he’s lost his passion for the job. The world has become a cesspool of way too many naughty people care only about the material gain of Christmas instead of the spirit of giving. Santa understands Callum’s theory but disagrees with the execution, for he believes in a time when everyone is a self-absorbed jerkface, now is the time when people need Santa more than ever. TBH, this theme is the most redeeming part of an otherwise forgettable movie.
When infamous cyber hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) is hired anonymously to track down highly secured intel, he didn’t realize the result would be the real life Santa would be kidnapped by yuletide baddies. In fact, Jack is shocked to realize Santa even exists, which is the classic plot hole of any movie where Santa exists, because where do people who are shocked to realize Santa exists think all those presents are coming from?
Anyway, Callum is pissed and forces O’Malley into aiding him on Santa’s rescue mission. They work for Zoe (Lucy Liu) the head of a spy agency designed to protect and/or monitor the fantasy world including various holiday mascots. Personally, I wondered if this part of the flick was just useless filler or if the producers hope more holiday spy movies are underway and if it’s the latter, I wouldn’t hold my breathe for a spies rescue the Easter Bunny flick given this film’s performance.
Callum and Jack navigate a Christmasy criminal underworld as they fight various ne’er-do-wells on the path toward saving our favorite man in red velvet. Had they done this with some humor, this movie might have become a beloved classic, but they do it seriously, so it will just take up space on your favorite streaming platform’s server. Maybe you’ll stream it next year while your scrub your toilet. Then you can actually sit on the couch and take a break while you watch It’s a Wonderful Life.
Kristofer Hivju of Game of Thrones fame is in it as Krampus though by the time he showed up I was checking my watch and debating whether or not it was worth it to leave early. Ultimately, I stayed because I’d already bought a ticket, but I suppose there’s room for debate about the sunken cost fallacy.
Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men and Sabrina the Teenage Witch Reboot fame rounds out the cast as the big bad.
STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I watched it so you don’t have to. Who is this movie for? Your guess is good as mine. It’s too serious for kids to enjoy but too silly for adults so ultimately it’s for people to listen to while its on their TV in the background while they do the laundry.
SIDENOTE: The worst part? The film’s price tag. $250 million for a film that is utterly forgettable.
He’s got a particular set of skills…if only he could remember them.
BQB here with a review of the latest Liam Neeson flick.
About 15 years ago, Liam Neeson had a surprise hit with “Taken” and thus ushered in a new era where he was reinvented as an old man action movie star. It’s not like he had much competition because Hollywood would rather lose millions than put a macho man on screen but that’s another post for another time.
I’ll be honest, none of the Liam action flicks that came next ever matched up to Taken, even Taken 2 and 3 (you’d think these idiots would stop letting themselves get taken). Like M Night Shyamalan who made one great movie with a fantastic twist at the end only to make a dozen movies with stupid twists at the end, Liam could never quite capture lightening in the bottle.
That’s not to say EVERY Liam action film was bad. There were many that are worth your time. A few that come to mind – The Commuter, The Ice Road and 2019’s Cold Pursuit blends dark comedy and action together such that in my mind, it’s the only one that comes close to living up to the Taken legacy.
But since 2020, Liam has released a string of movies that were, in my opinion, total dogshit. They just seemed like a cash grab, someone slapped together a bare bones action movie flick script and stuck the old guy in there for a pay day. The last couple I literally only watched half before I said eff it and turned it off because I was so bored I couldnt get through the last half.
And worse, all his latest movies feature him as an old tough guy who is dying from something and has to make amends before he croaks, and they crowbar a romance in for him with a 40 year old woman because God fordbid a 70 year old movie star be seen on screen with a 70 year old woman.
Anyway…now that preamble is out of the way, let me tell you about this movie where Liam once again stars as an elderly tough guy who is dying from something and has a romance with a 40 year old woman crowbarred in. This time I made it through the end. You might say I had to since I bought a ticket to see it in the theater but I wouldn’t steer you wrong. If I streamed this one on Netflix I’d still watch it till the end because it is better than his usual slapped together faire.
Liam stars as a no named (credited as “The Thug”) aging gangster who has lived a total scumbag’s life. He does jobs for Boston mobster Charlie Connor (Ron Pearlman) and has been given the task of teaching Connor’s hothead young son Kyle (played by Daniel Diemar) how to make it in the criminal underworld so he can take the reigns one day from his equally elderly Pops. The Thug’s advice for the youngblood? Just don’t do it. This is the kind of life that you do because you HAVE to but when you come from money, you’ll never make it. You’ll never be able to bring yourself to do the things you have to do to make it as a criminal if you can afford not to.
A chance encounter with “The Woman” (boy this movie likes to withhold names) played by Yolanda Ross begins a romance between two people who understand each other. Both have lived lousy lives and both understand the pain the comes with having to do things that are morally wrong just to live another day.
It looks like this romance might bring one small sliver of sunshine into the life of an old man who has known nothing but pain when he starts noticing he is forgetting little things. A diagnosis of a brain disease comes with terrible news – his memory will slip more and more until he will no longer be able to take care of himself. Throughout the film we see him forget more and more and it comes with the anger and violent rage that often comes when similarly afflicted people are frustrated when they can’t remember basic things.
Thus, the clock starts ticking. With a notepad to remind him of the deets, Thug sets out to make amends to those he has wronged, in particular his estranged daughter who hates him and wants nothing to do with him and a victim of one of his recent crimes that he never intended to victimize. To level up the stakes, someone is trying to kill him and he needs to figure out who.
Overall I give it a solid B. It’s worth your time. Not sure its worth a trip to the theater but definitely stream it someday. You won’t want to watch it again and again and in 6 months, you will have forgotten it, not because you have a brain disease but because it isn’t that memorable.
I will say though the title of the movie is “absolution” and it is film about a man trying to make up for past sins. It’s a film about intergenerational trauma, as Thug’s daughter explains, Thug is bad because his father was bad as was his father before, all the way back to the first “asshole caveman who spawned them all.” We carry pain our parents pass down and we have to try to not pass that pain on to our kids even though we often can’t help but do so even when we are trying not to. And we never truly start to get better until we admit we have done wrong and try to make amends with those we have wronged. So it does have a good message about how its impossible to change yet you don’t get better until you try to change. If that makes sense.
The good? Thanks to the success of Yellowstone, the old west epic is back and Kevin Costner is striking while the iron is hot. This is the first of several planned movies that take place before, during and after the Civil War.
Style wise, it is beautiful with lots of great scenery and landscapes. At times, you feel like you’re in the Old West yourself. There’s attention to detail and authenticity. There’s no Netflixian cramming of uber woke lesbians fighting the patriarchy in the old west here.
The bad? It’s long. Heck, I went to my local theater at 6, thinking I’d be out the door by 8 and to my surprise, I didn’t get out until ten. Keep in mind there were previews and so on but at any rate, this sucker is a three hour plus commitment.
Costner is the main draw, featured prominently in all the trailers and marketing, yet he doesn’t enter the film until an hour in. This pissed me off at first until I realized how damn long the thing is and eventually, he was in it long enough that I didn’t feel bamboozled.
There are several competing plot strains and at times, it is difficult to keep them all straight. They all seem to center around Horizon, a town that a crooked real estate swindler sold shares to without telling the buyers that its smack dab in the middle of Apache territory and boy howdy, are the Apache ever pissed. The beginning features a rather gruesome Apache attack on a town full of settlers. From there, the narrative diverges into a number of points. There’s a mother (Sienna Miller) and daughter who survive the attack and are taken in by soldiers at a nearby fort overseen by Sam Worthington and Michael Rooker.
Meanwhile, there’s a difference of opinion amongst the Apache as to how to handle the settlers. The youngsters are pissed and see that their ability to hunt and trade has been destroyed. They want to push the settlers out, through violence if necessary. But the old gray hairs know the cost of violence is a pricey one and they advise suing for peace.
Double meanwhile, Costner’s wandering horse trader, Hayes Ellison, gets involuntarily mixed up in a dispute between a former prostitute who shot a john and his sons who want revenge. Hayes and the prostitute’s BFF Marigold (Abbey Lee) go on the run to protect the lady of the evening’s infant son.
Triple meanwhile, a wagon train heads for Horizon led by an ornery captain played by Luke Wilson. Snooty Brits under his care clash with the rough and tough pioneer folk.
Quadruple meanwhile, while some of the survivors of the Horizon massacre seek peace, others fan the flames of war by hiring a band of mercenaries led by Jeff Fahey (Jeff Freaking Fahey I haven’t seen him in a movie in years!) to retaliate against the Apache.
I sympathize with the question asked by many a reviewer of this film. Where the hell are all these storylines going and when or will they ever converge? I have no idea and the problem is at times, as you watch it, just when you settle in on one story line, you get pushed into another one. This could have just as easily been one movie about an Apache raid on a settler town and the ensuing fallout as Apache and settlers diverge on whether to go deeper into a bloodier, protracted war or to let cooler heads prevail and choose peace.
It could have just as easily been a movie about a horse trader who sticks up for a prostitute in danger and suddenly finds himself on the run with a baby and a hooah in tow and a bunch of villains chasing after him.
It could have just as easily been a movie about a wagon train.
My assumption is that all these people will eventually go to or away from Horizon. Horizon starts out as a real estate swindle but becomes the epitome of the American dream – pioneers seeking land and fighting for it against all odds.
In today’s political climate, I’m surprised this movie was made. It’s bold that it celebrates the pioneers and their spirit, putting on full display the deadly challenges of life in the old west. Pretty much any other movie made by a streaming service would go out of its way to make the pioneers look like villains.
To the film’s credit, it shows both sides, and while it starts out showing the Apache as violent, we later see the struggles and displacement that led to them to choose violence.
So the overall question: should you watch it? If the old west is your bag, then yes. I’m not sure I’d advise a trip the cinema. Although the scenery and vistas are pretty awesome and at times it feels like you’re riding around the desert with the cowboys (and if that’s your bag then by all means, buy a movie ticket) but otherwise, I think this would have worked better as 3-4 episodes of a series than a movie and if you wait for it to be on streaming, then you can pause it and watch it at your leisure.
Costner is promising more installments and all I can say is I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll definitely watch them but so far the reviews and box office results aren’t stellar and that might mean future sequels aren’t certain. But hey, if you like Westerns, then support this project any way you can and let’s hope there’s more.
Speaking of unfinished projects, it bums me out that Costner and the Yellowstone showrunners haven’t patched their differences up yet, leaving that show in limbo and I’m now doubting if we’ll ever see a resolution to the last season’s cliffhanger. I would have liked to see Costner focus on that before starting an ambitious project like this.
One more note. At times, I’m not sure who this movie is for. Sometimes it has overtones of a glorified Hallmark movie, the kind my parents would have loved, you know, nice people behaving well in olden times. But then just when you get used to that, boom! Blam! Arrrgh! Shooting! Stabbing! Fire! Death! Murder! Gore! Swearing! And yes, even sex! The movie definitely earns its R rating, which a bum like me is fine with, but I feel like its primary audience is Grandma and Grandpa who may not be happy with that.
SPOILERS ABOUND!!! Go watch it first if you don’t want SPOILERS.
3.5 readers, we’ve reached a crisis with movies lately. The new ones, on the whole, are so dumb, lame, and boring, completely made for the paint by numbers, cookie cutter world of streaming, that I rarely rent a film. If it got me to put my butt into a movie theater seat then usually it was worth it (though sometimes it wasn’t) but if it didn’t get me to go to the theater, then usually it is a waste of my time to rent it.
I have tried and more often than not, I usually end up checking my watch 10-20 minutes in, I pause it and check my tweets, I’m so bored I do anything else but watch it and before I know it, a day or two has gone by and I missed my rental window and who cares? I do because I’m out 20 bucks but otherwise that’s a movie I won’t bother with again.
But I’m glad I broke my no-rental rule for this one because I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and if you like horror, crime with just a very light tinge of dark comedy, I’d say it’s worth your time too.
The plot? A bunch of crooks have gotten together to kidnap the 12 year old daughter of a rich man and hold her for 50 million dollars ransom. They break into her father’s luxurious mansion right after she returns from ballerina practice, still in her costume.
At first, this seems like it will be an easy job, but soon the predators are turned into prey when they realize they have been locked into a safe house with…dun dun dun…a tiny vampire ballerina! As the lights dim and the sound track to Swan Lake plays, this tiny terror pirouettes and dances about as she sucks the blood of her tormentors.
PRO: It’s very original. Sure, there have been other movies in the past where crooks messed with the wrong guy or in this case, gal. But to my knowledge, none have done it with a vampire and done it this well so kudos.
CON: Understandably, movie trailers have to package and promote a snippet of what the flick is about. So I remember the trailers for this one going around earlier this year. I recall it being billed as group of people stuck in house with vampire ballerina and thought it was weird. Sometimes I wonder if group of people stuck in mystery house where bad unexplained things would be a good way to promote it and then let the audience enjoy the mystery and the big reveal.
For the first hour, the crew is picked off one by one and they are terrified as they try to figure out what is going on. Little bread crumbs are revealed. Possible red herrings as thrown, making the crooks think they have different, natural, human opponents until the big reveal comes when they realize their captor has pointy teeth and supernatural strength and powers. Without the trailers revealing their opponent was a vampire ballerina, it would have been quite a surprise but then again, the vampire ballerina is the movie’s big draw so of course they have to promote her.
One more complaint. I’ve ranted a lot on this blog about how, for the past 10 years or so, Hollywood has, IMO, crossed the line when it comes to kid actors, putting them into adult situations for the sake of petty entertainment. Here, young actress Alisha Weir is covered with blood and given creepy eyes and terrifying teeth, allowed to feast on victims and commit heinous acts of murder. That’s a lot for a kid but I suppose it’s been done before. We know its ridiculous and not really real. What I didn’t like was a scene earlier in the film where in the beginning, where we think Abigail is just a kid and not a vamp, one of the crooks puts a gun to her hand and she cries. I just didn’t think that was necessary and I didn’t want to see violence like that perpetrated against a kid on film even if it is make believe. get they are trying to establish these are bad people, but we already knew. They had stooped low enough to kidnap a child, after all.
The cast? A lot of newcomers I didn’t recognize as well as movie regulars like Giancarlo Esposito and Dan Stevens who it seems is in everything these days. Kevin Durand, who usually plays psychos and weirdos, doesn’t disappoint. Melissa Barrera plays the crook with a heart of gold.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. If anything else, you’ll hear the sound track to Swan Lake more times than you can possibly shake a stick at.
HEY! I have a complaint about THE ENDING and IT CONTAINS SPOILERS so LOOK AWAY if you don’t want it SPOILED. If you did watch it already, then check it out.
So, we learn that Abigail is not just any old 12 year old but was actually frozen in time due to her vampirism several hundred years ago. Though she has lived for hundreds of years, she is forever trapped in a child’s body. Vampire flicks have explored this horror of horrors before, with Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire being a prime example. We learn Abigail’s “father” did this to her though we aren’t sure if her father is her actual father or her vampire father i.e did she have another biological father and her vampire father is the one who turned her into a vamp? Are they the same? Who knows?
At any rate, Abigail’s vamp father has been running an evil crime syndicate for centuries and posing as different crime bosses along the way and Abigail has taken the guise as his top enforcer, spreading the rumor that a monstrous hitman carries out the boss’ whims while in fact, his tiny vamp daughter does the murders.
Throughout the flick, Abigail revels in the murderous mayhem yet at the end, she seems to bond with Barrera’s character, Joey. You wonder maybe, for a brief moment, if Abigail wouldn’t like to be saved from this vile life of being a vamp mobster’s vamp hitman and maybe Joey could be her…I don’t know…aunt? Mother figure? Big sister?
So should the film have ended with Joey defeating Abigail’s vamp dad and saving Abigail? Ehh, maybe but then again, I got the impression maybe Joey thought about it, maybe even Abigail thought about it, and they just realized vamp dad would be a fight they couldn’t win and they had to go back where they belong, Joey to the human world, Abigail to the vamp crime world.
Spy stuff! Action! Suspense! The inspiration for James Bond!
BQB here with a review of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
It’s very rare in today’s exceedingly woke times to see an action movie where men are macho and are allowed to blow shit up, wreak havoc, shoot guns and damn it, my ding dong just got hard thinking about it. Excuse me for a moment. Talk amongst yourselves.
Alright, I’m back. Based on former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s declassified in 2016 documents, this story tells the tale of the UK’s first special forces mission, which essentially began MI6 or Great Britain’s first foray into spycraft and/or clandestine missions. Coincidentally, it was also the inspiration for the James Bond films, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
It’s WW2 and the Nazis command the Atlantic Ocean. They’re choking off trade to England, sinking supply ships with their U-Boats. Said boats are supplied by only 4 ships based in Fernando Po, an island colony in Africa owned by then neutral Spain. To bomb the port outright would be to bring Spain into the war on the side of the Nazis, an outcome to be avoided. Thus, Winston Churchill (a heavily made up Rory Kinnear) with assistance of Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes) recruits a “dirty dozen” (not exactly a dozen) but a collection of “war criminals” – i.e. not atrocity perpetrators in the war crime sense but soldiers who have been thrown in prison because for whatever reason, they didn’t follow orders.
This is a dirty job, one requiring men who will be disavowed if caught, so Churchill needs men with less than stellar reputations, willing to get their hands dirty and the dirtiest among them is Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) who leads the squad. Cavill looks like he had fun with this one, laughing maniacally as he shoots and blows up Nazis.
March would go on to be the inspiration for James Bond, the character in a series of novels penned by Ian Fleming, who has a minor role as a character in the film played by Freddie Fox. Apparently, his time as Grubbins’ assistant in the operation inspired Fleming to put pen to paper.
Directed by Guy Ritchie who has a great track record.
Overall, it’s quite a fun film and a much needed relief from super woke fare. Go see it today.
Don’t you love it when a movie you expect to be poop turns out to be gold?
Well, ok, silver. Alright, bronze. Still worth a watch though.
BQB here with a review.
When I read the premise of Amazon’s “Ricky Stanicky,” I thought it sounded very stupid indeed. Three young friends in the late 1990s blame all of their mischief on an imaginary friend named Ricky Stanicky. Teachers. Cops. Parents. Angry neighbors. Whenever the boys are in trouble, the boys simply tell them that Ricky Stanicky did whatever rotten deed just transpired and even worse, he just ran that-away. The adults have a scapegoat to blame and the boys are off the hook, scot-free. The rouse works so well that they continue their fake friendship with “Ricky” well into their adulthood, imagining wild and crazy stories of stupid things that Ricky did to explain to their wives, families, co-workers and bosses why they can’t do something, be somewhere, or take part in some dumb thing they really don’t want to do. “Oh sorry, I’d really love to go to your boring thing but you’ll never believe what that jackass Stanicky roped me into.” Works like a charm.
Alas, the jig is up when the friends overplay their hand in adulthood. Friends Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler) claim Ricky is desperately clinging onto life due to a raging case of testicular cancer and needs his bros to fly to their side. In reality, they’re flying to Atlantic City to party hearty rather than attend JT’s wife’s baby shower.
When Mrs. JT goes into labor early, Wes cracks under pressure and almost confesses to the lie but Dean saves the day and explains that Ricky made the whole ball cancer thing up just to get the bros to come visit him to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the removal of his previous ball, also from ball cancer, and apparently the boys invent lies about Ricky’s gonads to get out of doing stuff a lot. Now non-existent Ricky is in the doghouse and Dean and JT’s wives want to give the prick a piece of their minds. Thus, they demand the friends produce Ricky in the flesh at once so they can chew his ass out and rip him a new one.
This is a tall order since Ricky is imaginary, but leave it to sleazy lounge singer Rod Rimestead (John Cena) to save the day. The bro-heims hire Rod to pose as the Rickster and take the fall.
All seems well except Rod’s personal life sucks so bad that he actually enjoys being Ricky so much that he fully embraces the imaginary life the boys have built for Ricky over the course of several years, wielding these lies to get a big time job, make lots of money and friends, completely invade their world and refuse to go away. This might sound far-fetched, but in today’s social media age, maybe it isn’t, for the lads have spent years building Ricky a robust social media presence full of tales of impressive globe trotting adventures, which Rod (as Ricky) uses to woo and impress his way to the top.
Thus the boys are left with a conundrum – how to extricate this poser from their lives without confessing to their own complicity in the fraud?
As I watched this film, I felt a certain sense of familiarity. The completely ridiculous premise that the film sticks to like glue, no matter how absurd it gets. The potty humor. The Providence, RI setting. “Boy, this sure feels a lot like one of those old Farrelly Bros comedies from the late 90s and early 2000s that I used to know and love.”
Sure enough, it was. Turns out that Prime gave on of the Bros a deal and said bro still walks the walk of old school gross out comedy, no easy task in today’s hyper woke age. Older folks like me who remember when comedy films used to be funny will enjoy this one.
True, it’s silly. It won’t go down in history. It will be forgotten in 6 months but its pretty solid with some decent gut busting laughs. Its worth your time.
Did you know Jimmy Hoffa could be hiding in this blog, 3.5 readers? That’s right. He could be somewhere in this website all along and no one would know because only 3.5 people ever read this damn thing.
BQB here with a review.
5 years. 5 long…actually not so long years it took me before I got around to watching this flick. If you told me as a young man I’d wait five years to watch a Scorcese movie starring Pacino and DeNiro, I’d say your out of your mind, but at three and a half hours, who has that kind of time?
Finally, I decided I would never have that long to devote to a movie in one sitting (I nearly wanted to write a stern complaint letter to Marty when I sat down for what I thought would be two hours of Flower Moon only to find I’d unwittingly signed up for a four hour marathon), I set out to watch this movie in 10-20 minute bites over the course of a week, with a watch of the final hour this weekend.
Does it lend as much gravitas to watch it in bits? Maybe not but that’s the only way I could ever get through this thing. Marty is a light touch with the editing scissors in his old age.
But while the more recent Flower Moon could have been easily reduced by half to two hours, this film does contain a lot of interesting snippets of history intermixed with theories (of the conspiracy variety?) vis a vis the death of the infamous union leader.
To be fair, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) did a lot of good in his life, promoting the union movement and convincing companies to put worker safety, retirement, benefits and futures ahead of bottomlines. But there was also some bad, as he did go to jail for fraud.
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
But the movie isn’t so much about Hoffa as the man this flick alleges did him in. Now, I should say up front, no one really knows who killed Hoffa. Technically, no one knows for sure that he died. Officially, we just know he went missing in 1975 and was legally declared dead in 1982 after not being seen for 7 years.
After years of going to war with the Kennedys and sparring with various mafiosos, could he have decided to just run off to the mountains and live out the remainder of his days? Sure, but probably not. He had a pesky habit of publicly challenging his enemies to bring it on and he ain’t goin’ nowhere so he doesn’t really fit the profile of a runner.
So chances are, he was probably forced to take an eternal dirtnap by one goon or another. Do we know that goon whodunnit was Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro)? No, so we have to keep that in mind as we watch this long, long absurdly long film.
The tale is an epic, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s. Sheeran is a young truck driver with a wife and family, looking to make a little extra money on the side when mobster Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci) recruits him to do odd illicit jobs. Sheeran eventually moves up the food chain, becomes a close friend of Jimmy Hoffa, graduates from hitman to union leader himself but keeps doing wetwork on the side. I want to say allegedly because WTF do I know but hey, that’s what this movie says, not me, so don’t come after me, Sheeran Estate.
Sheeran is eventually torn between his two close friends, each who had a part in making him a success (or at least rich – if you call being a mobster goon a success). In his old age, Hoffa has stepped on too many toes and many a wiseguy wants him to go, with Russell being the main advocate for his removal (on ice). But Hoffa wants to stay and has the ultimate IDGAF attitude, threats be damned.
Alas, Sheeran will have to make a decision. And I guess I already told you what decision he made (my lawyer says I have to tell you according to this movie) so you don’t have to watch it for three and a half hours, unless you want to. Hey I did say spoiler alert.
The good? I have to hand it to DeNiro and Pacino. Both are men of advanced age yet they still got it. Pesci’s not bad either. You learn a lot about history as Sheeran is presented as sort of the Forrest Gump of the mafia – his alleged hits (hey, I said alleged!) turn the course of many a historical tide while he goes largely unnoticed, which I guess, if you’re a mafioso trying to stay out of a can, is a good thing.
BONUS: Sopranos fans will be happy to see many of the old gang back at it. Forgive me for forgetting the actors names, but I’ll just refer to them by their Sopranos characters – Charmaine, Beansie, Eugene Pontecorvo, Gerry “The Hairdo” Torciano. Apparently, there were some more, so forgive me for not getting to them all and there were some who didn’t make it to the screen but were involved behind the scenes.
Plus if you like Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano has a pretty prominent role.
Also, there are a lot of big name actors who are in it just in supporting roles. For example, Anna Paquin of Sookie Stackhouse fame plays Sheeran’s perpetually shy daughter, and she barely says a word because her character is perpetually shy.
The bad? Even with all the de-aging techniques, from CGI to makeup, it’s very difficult to suspend disbelief and see a 75 year old DeNiro as a young family man early in the film. I’m not sure what could have been done differently. Younger actors could have been cast but we would have been robbed of Pacino and DeNiro starring together. And the challenge of the film is that it covers a 50, almost 60 year period, so even the younger actors are outfitted in bald caps and gray wigs by the end. There was probably no way really to avoid aging and/or de-aging the talent. To that end, the film deserves a lot of credit in the make-up department.
Also, Pacino and DeNiro are two of the most famous Italian-American actors of all time, but they are playing Irish characters. That’s fine by me. I don’t really care about the cultural appropriation hullabaloo, but there are times when Pacino is playing Hoffa, saying things like “I don’t care if those guineas come and get me” and “Don’t Italians name their kids anything but Tony?” that seems silly for one of Hollywood’s most famous Italians to be saying.
If you like history, you’ll love this movie. My only concern is that, you know, no one really knows for sure who killed Hoffa except Hoffa and whoever killed Hoffa. Hoffa obviously can’t tell us and at this late stage, whoever killed Hoffa is probably gone too, whacked by Father Time if his mafia friends and/or rivals didn’t get him (or her I hate to be sexist but it was most likely a him). So it’s an awfully big claim to say that Sheeran killed Hoffa and movies have a tendency to become fact in the minds of the masses and yet how can we ever really know for sure? If he didn’t do it, then this movie is pretty slanderous.
But I suppose we’ll never know for sure what happened and whodunnit unless an unlikely 100 year old witness steps forward with the evidence.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’ll hand it to Pesci, DeNiro and Pacino. They’re twice my age and more active than I’ll ever be.
SIDNOTE: I might have been Hoffa in my past life because it feels like everyone’s purpose in life is to constantly annoys me, I take these annoyances very personally, I tell them to eff off yet the come back anyway, I hate bad manners and also I love ice cream.
Bookshelf Battle 