What the hell, this was sooo good. Total Don Siegel vibes from the first scene to last... manages to be leisurely and tightly paced throughout. Some dumb plotting but whatever. Wanna see it again.
Oohh, can't wait
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
This is a boilerplate action procedural drenched in 90s pastiche. It's completely watchable, but Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher is almost a parody of his other leading roles; we're told immediately that he's the ultimate badass, and he enters the film the same way Batman comes and goes from rooms in The Dark Knight. There's an inspired scene or two (and they're all in the commercials), but I found the whole thing pretty mundane. I never want to see Jai Courtney ever again.
Awesome. McQuarrie's first writer/director gig since The Way of the Gun which, y'know, could be considered somewhat Siegel-esque as well (though I thought more of Peckinpah).Quoting Boner M (view post)
Recently Viewed:
Thor: The Dark World (2013) **½
The Counselor (2013) *½
Walden (1969) ***
A Hijacking (2012) ***½
Before Midnight (2013) ***
Films By Year
Interesting since I found the trailer laughably bad. I also find it depressing that Team Usual Suspects is now Team Resurrect Tom Cruise's Career.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
The way Tom Cruise's head is photoshopped onto his body in that poster is so weird.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Tom Cruise has limits. Photoshop does not.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
The trailers for this almost make me if wonder if its some kind of secret parody at this point.
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
The movie plays it a lot closer to the chest than the promotional material suggests. You've seen most of the exciting stuff in it already. It's kind of a shame that the "take my hat" gag is featured so prominently. Works really well in the film.
Yup!
Apparently this is still opening wide tomorrow. I was under the impression it was being pushed back to January (or later) cuz of the Newtown shooting.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
Pretty solid.
Best part of seeing it with the TIFF volunteers was this one girl in the back who squeaked with excitement every time Herzog appeared onscreen.
Giving up in 2020. Who cares.
maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
Night Hunter (David Raymond) *
I was at a press screening for it last week, and half the room was audibly giddy every time he appeared or spoke.
Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013)
Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson, 1997)
Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
Filth (Jon S. Baird, 2013)
Sunshine on Leith (Dexter Fletcher, 2013)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin, 1957)
Kelly + Victor (Keiran Evans, 2012)
We Are What We Are (Jim Mickle, 2013)
The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
Read Write Hand
This was solid. Not as much action as advertised. Instead there's a compelling mystery to unravel, a Werner Herzog role that made me giddy and a lot of fun banter between tough talking characters. When the action hits though, this thing really takes off. McQuarrie knows how to expertly build up to the sequences and to make them special.
Out of ****:
Chef- ** 1/2
The Interview- ** 1/2
White Bird in a Blizzard- ** 1/2
Frank- *** 1/2
A Walk Among the Tombstones- ***
Yeah, I wanted to mention that. The car chase in the middle of the film is one of the best action scenes I've seen this year. The sound mixing, McQuarrie's camera angles... quality work.
Giving up in 2020. Who cares.
maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
Night Hunter (David Raymond) *
Agreed. I loved that there was no score music used during the scene (if I remember correctly). Yeah, I felt like I was in the car with Reacher, listening to the roar of the engine, feeling each bump or crash as he went along. I want to watch the movie again mostly because of this sequence.
Out of ****:
Chef- ** 1/2
The Interview- ** 1/2
White Bird in a Blizzard- ** 1/2
Frank- *** 1/2
A Walk Among the Tombstones- ***
Given that I didn't care much for The Usual Suspects or Way of the Gun, I wasn't all that interested in this to begin with, but responses from the Slant, Reverse Shot, and Skandies crews have been very negative. And yet you have all been reasonably positive so far. I'm thinking a rental down the road...
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
It's a pretty weird movie; I can sorta see how it can be seen as a botched attempt at something utterly generic, but Herzog's casting should be the first sign to let on that McQuarrie's going a specific tone, and there're plenty of scenes that reconfirm it (particularly a fight between Cruise and a couple of henchmen in a suburban home).
And yeah, that car chase is indisputably great.
Precisely the type of old school brainy-bravado the mainstream has lacked in some time. Reacher's classical stylings go down ever so smooth, placing extra credence behind genre fundamentals done right. Cruise is as good as ever, continuing on as Hollywood's most valuable time-tested male asset.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Just what the Doctor ordered.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
I thought this looked pretty good from the trailer, but I was all but blown away. I loved the writing and how the plot unfolded. There were very few things that I nitpicked, and maybe with a repeat viewing I will let them go. Can't wait to see it again.
Herzog was a great bonus, and the 1970 Chevrolet SS was the cherry on top.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
So good. My only major nitpick was...
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“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
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