Movie/film thread: resurrected

Yup, --*spoilers*-- it is on that note that the movie ends, and it's more a factoid than a culmination of anything. Selma, for instance, by way of considerable contrast, ends with King's speech before the Alabama State Capitol. I watched it three times in a row. That cadence and the words are mesmerizing. Chris Kyle, while one horrifically lethal dude, has, imho, nearly no presence in his own movie. There's no comparison, really.

The Grey - 2011

Nice try at an arctic survival flick.  Too bad the writers probably couldn't survive an attack by a toy poodle.  In the end, I'd say this one was a complete and utter failure across the board.

SPOILER ALERT - If you don't want details, skip this.

Reality is that wolf attacks on humans are rare, especially in North America.  Minor facts like this don't seem to stop movie makers from having a hero who's job is "anti-wolf sniper" for an oil company drilling in the arctic.

After a plane crash, our unlovable hero leads a band of 6 equally unlovable idiots in an attempt to find safety.  Naturally, they end up getting hunted and picked off one by one.

The only successful wolf kill during this death march was using an improvised bang stick (shotgun shell on the end of a sharp stick).  Somehow, after that, everyone seemed to forget that they still had several more bang sticks and no one even bothers to get a walking stick or make a new spear.  The wolves take advantage of this mental lapse and use their obviously superior intelligence to keep taking out humans who can't remember any weapon much bigger than a knife.

Near the end, there were some attempts to gain empathy for the few survivors, but this failed as badly as the attempt to get away from the wolves.

Unless you think getting into a final fight with the alpha male (while the rest of the pack comes up behind you) is a good way to die, this movie sucked.  It's not a survival story.  It's an anti-survival story.  The humans all died (yes, even the "hero"), and most of them richly deserved it.

Rule 1 if there's a plane crash - stay with the plane.  Our "hero" says they'll starve before being rescued.  Maybe so, but there was a transponder with a signal device and it was working.  This would make locating the downed plane very simple.

If you are worried about wolves in an open, snowy area, heading to a distant treeline to hide is incredibly stupid.  Trees give more fuel for fires, but also make it easier for wolves to get very close before being seen.  The plane wreckage provided ample opportunities to build a wolf-resistant shelter and to insulate it sufficiently to avoid freezing.  In a worst-case scenario, there were already plenty of bodies ready for Donner Party cooking.  For those wanting to avoid nibbling on their dead companions, a simple wolf trap or two wouldn't be hard to build.  After all, there's plenty of sharp metal scraps laying around.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the film.  Maybe it's really intended as a guide for young wolves on how to catch and eat incredibly stupid humans.

The Little Death (2014)

Fantastic little multi-story comedy about couples, sex and death in the suburbs.

 


Lush Like You - Sunbird

Birdman (2014)

That was pretty cool - theatre in a movie. Once you get over the awkwardness of watching super-long takes, it starts being pretty fun as a movie. Not sure about the end.

 

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Joss Whedon comedy-horror movie, the comediest of all horror movies. It starts out straightforward enough, five college kids go to a cabin in the woods... a cabin they were guided to by a giant corporate agency. Satire comedy porn ensues.

 

American Sniper (2014)

Kind of odd as a movie. Chris Kyle joins the Navy relatively late in life, becomes a SEAL sniper, goes to Iraq four times, is hyper-alert when he's not there, then kills his enemy and gets to come home. There's kind of no story here and little in the way of tension on the screen. Things blow up, people get shot, that's kind of it. For those of us not born red, white, and blue nor overly hard for the warrior elite, the film is kind of flat.

It is getting good reports here in Oz, so I thought it was just me. To be honest, I found it a bit "flat" as well.

Supposedly it's anti-war, pro-warrior. There is of course no such thing as a warrior class these days so "pro-warrior" is a misnomer - should be "pro-professional soldier". And I suppose it could be read that way. What's interesting about the US military these days is how divorced it has become from US society. I was reading an article somewhere on the subject recently. In the past, US families would have more or less direct contact with the US military. They'd have a son or brother or father or uncle or cousin, or possibly some female family member, also be a member of the military, so they'd take an interest and have an understanding. These days some huge percentage of US families have no direct or even indirect contact with military life and while they're willing to exalt "our warriors", they don't really know what they're talking about or supporting. They'll give soldiers parades, but that's about it. The point of the article was something along the lines of how the nation and the nation's wars have become divorced from one another.

Meanwhile...

Predestination (2014)

A pretty faithful recreation of Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—All You Zombies—", which, by the way, is about time travel, not zombies. Beyond the use of the line, "all you zombies", there are no zombies in this movie, just a time traveler working for a security agency to set up his own time line and prevent crime. The movie recreates the weirdness of the story exactly as the story created it, and Ethan Hawke as an older man is great.

 

Top Five (2014)

I think Chris Rock is funny. Top Five is not. It's a mismash of various other movies. There some Spike Lee style in there, a bit of Tyler Perry (or any other big ole black family in the USA comedian style), some romance thing, a bit of the angry comedian/sad clown biography oeuvre, some hip hop, and some kind of ve-e-ery gentle satire on reality tv shows and cameos. I didn't feel it.

"WILD" This is based on a true story about a young woman's 1770km hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. Reese Witherspoon stars as Cheryl Strayed, a young woman reeling from two major life mistakes in a row. I must admit that she played her part well and I could see that she had no idea about what she would have to face. I am from the country and do understand that many city folk have no idea about surviving in the wild. I didn't mind this movie.

I didn't mind this movie.

Best endorsement I've ever seen in a movie review.

Thanks EL! My elderly neighbour is always telling me that, as far as movies go, I am too critical and don't like anything.

 "THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING"  As most of you will know, this is about the legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.  While some people believe that this movie plays it a little too safe and sanitised, Eddie Redmayne's astonishingly expressive portrayal of Hawking excuses most flaws according to the film reviews here.  For my part, I was really and truly impressed by Eddie's acting and also the fact that it was not until Hawking's body was devastated by the ravages of Motor Neurone disease, that he began decrypting the mysteries of the universe.  I wonder what ETR and Calach will think of this movie.

Tritors (2013)

A Moroccan punk rocker needs money for her band's demo so she takes a job as a driver for the hash lords. Great little movie. Wish I had the soundtrack.

 

The Little Death (2014)

Fantastic little multi-story comedy about couples, sex and death in the suburbs.

 

Yeh watched this about a week ago, great movie. Watched it again the night after with the wife, she loved it.