The Movie Preview, Review, & Recommendation Thread pt. II

Some brutal local reviews for I know what you did last summer. One critic gave it zero stars. Another said stay for the mid credit scene that is suggestive of a sequel because that scene is better than the entire movie.
 
Heads of State. I assumed it would be a serious action B movie like XYZ Has Fallen with Gerard Butler. But it’s actually pretty funny because Elba continues to ridicule Cena throughout. And given the current political climate the dressing down of the Cena’s character is fitting and well deserved. Elba frequently jabs Cena by saying he is only gym strong and not a survivor.

The premise is just as crocked as the fallen series though. Air Force One gets hijacked. Some plane shoots suicide drones at it. No American fighter escort. No NATO fighter escort when it’s flying over the continent. They escape and need to go to Trieste where the VP and the rest of NATO leaders are. Does the States even send the President and VP to the same location when abroad?!

Priyanka Chopra is the agent and ex flame of Elba who tries to help them.

—-

Elba: I knew the truth would come out. There it is.

Cena: Oh great, you did it Agatha Christie. You cracked the case. Let’s give Scooby snacks to everybody. You took my opponent for fish and chips in the middle of broad daylight in the middle of Liester square, and you knew photographers would be there.

Elba: First of all it’s pronounced Leicester Square. And no, bollocks, he’s an old friend. I took him for lunch.

Cena: You knew there were political implications. Not all of us have some posh Cambridge mafia in parliament helping us get elected.

Elba: I busted my ass to get to where I am. I was born in a housing estate and was never given anything on a silver platter. I worked three jobs to pay for Cambridge, and then to the army, and then to community organising, and then defence attaché and worked my way up through parliament. Now, not all of us got our political start because some commercial agent decided they like our GI Joe jaw line.

Cena: Watch it!

Elba: No, no, no. You went from modeling your underwear to being on the red carpet to having your finger on the nuclear button all without doing a single day of public service. So yes, mate, when I see you play the role of the President, it makes me sick to my stomach because you know your lines, oh yes you do, but you’re not believable in the part. And if I could’ve endorsed your opponent, yes, I would’ve because at least there’d be a real leader in the White House and not some embarrassing, bullshit, popcorn President!

Cracking Up Lol GIF
 
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Apparently she strokes him in another interview. Is that an untied/loosely tied cravat?
 
Black Bag. It has Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Pierce Bronsan. What can go wrong? It has people dressed nicely and Severance vibes but ultimately becomes a 90 minute movie where I wonder if the actors and actresses were second guessing how they signed up. I am sure it would have ended up like the final scene where all the principal characters sit around a table with a gun placed in the middle.
 
My Oxford Year. I must admit this was on my list because of Sofia Carson. A Hispanic American of humble origins attends Oxford with a job lined up at Goldman Sachs when she graduates. Everything is going to plan until she meets Corey Mylchreest her professor and a bit of a cad around town. Of course they fall in love. Of course there are rites of passage a yank (strangely the word is never used in the movie) must go through when across the pond: fish and chips, kebab, pint at the pub. Of course he could be cheating and she dances with some bloke to make him jealous. And then of course the couple is too perfect together for the relationship to last.

By chance I went on Prime and there is another movie of a young lady of humble origins from the States studying at Oxford: Surprise by Oxford. I have yet to finish that one.
 
Lindsay Lohan says she kept in touch with Jamie Lee Curtis and talked to her (pause) frequently.
 
Surprised by Oxford is not as good as My Oxford Life. Rose Reid is not that great as a protagonist and it went into a whole religion tangent for awhile. Happier ending though.
 
The Pickup. It is like a made for TV streaming movie starring Eddie Murphy with some cameo roles from Eva Longoria and hey why not Marshawn Lynch.

Pete Davidson and Eddie Murphy fight off two of the three robbers trying to rob their armoured vehicle's money until Keke Palmer finally boards and forces them to go along with using the vehicle to orchestrate a bigger heist. A bit confused why they needed to go along with it. Keke Palmer had nothing on Pete Davidson other than he slept with her and spilled the beans. Eddie Murphy's wife was allegedly under watch by Keke Palmer's cousin so her life was in danger. At least one of them could have left and ask for help. But anyway it's a 90 minute movie where the good guys all win in the end.
 
Started watching This is 40. So far it looks as depressing as what I think married life with kids means.
 
Coming to America 2.

I think my parents thought I was too young to see the first one. Are any of the black people in the movie actually from Africa or they are consciously embracing the stereotypes?

Eddie Murphy seems to slip into his comedic American accent from time to time.
 
Okay I finished it. This movie got an Oscar nomination?....Google Gemini says it's because of the makeup. Must have been a bad year for Oscars.
 
Night Always Comes. I must admit I only watched it for Vanessa Kirby.

The beginning of the movie was interesting. She has a mentally handicapped older brother. They are facing eviction and she is trying to get their mother to the lawyer's office. If they don't have a home the brother goes into foster care. Everyone is in one way or another trailer trash wrecks.

The mother spends all the money on a car and she has one night to cough up the money which takes her from one unsavoury character to another. Theft. Yokels. Johns. Pimps. Ex cons. Drugs. Rape. Some of the scenes are graphic. You could argue unnecessarily.

Some parts of it doesn't make sense. Kirby stashes the brother at someone's home for the first part of the evening. Why couldn't she leave him there all the time? Finally the mother says she has been dragging feet because the home reminded her of the husband and there weren't any happy memories there. In one fell swoop the entire night's sacrifice becomes moot. She even plans to move with the disabled son to the very house Kirby stashed him at earlier in the night.

Netflix says Oscar nominee Vanessa Kirby stars... She's not getting a nomination for this particular movie.
 
Remember War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise? Remember it was some dystopian war against machines and Cruise had to flex his action movie prowess.

Here's the 2025 version of it. War of the Worlds with Ice Cube and Eva Longoria. Ice Cube is an NSA analyst. With all of 2025's modern drones, cameras, and smartphones he's able to sit on his ass in an NSA office and do everything from drive his injured pregnant daughter in a Tesla to a hospital - all whilst on video call, to advising the President to strike against alien targets around the world. Microsoft must have paid money into this because the Teams calls and chimes are everywhere.
 
Anyone watched Naked Gun.

I'm a big Drebbin fan - I'll have to shell out to go and see the latest, but I'm worried it won't work.
 
Love Again.

I must admit I watched it solely for Priyanka Chopra even though she had unflattering bangs in the movie. She loses her boyfriend and as part of grieving starts sending text messages to his old number. The number turns out to be reporter Sam Heughan’s new work phone. He is intrigued by the messages and uses them to “bump” into her. The text gimmick is revealed. She dumps him for being dishonest. She overcomes her own demons. They both go sulk, eat ice cream from a tub and become catatonic heartbroken zombies. Then they get back together.

Sofia Barclay plays the little sister to Chopra who comes off like those sister or friend sidekicks you see in Disney movies. Celine Dion is worked in as plot device for matchmaker. She gets a platform to talk about her late husband and of course plug in some songs to collect royalty. She seems to enjoy herself.

Oh and Nick Jonas, aka Chopra’s husband, makes a cameo as a rebound date gone totally wrong. Does Jonas really pump iron all day? Is that what he has to resort to to stay relevant in music?

The pacing is slow and the ending entirely predictable. I wish some of the supporting characters other than Dion pontificating about love could have been developed more. Feels like a Hallmark movie. New York looks great.

Oh. Russell Tovey stars but him and Chopra barely share a scene together as Quantico alumni.
 
I finally got around to watching The Gray Man. It's in the vein of these semi realistic CG enhanced action sequences that I reckon started during Bourne. Ryan Gosling should be careful or he gets typecasted in these roles.

Obviously he never dies, is an expert in hand to hand combat, all manners of weaponry and can jump out of an airplane and catch another guy with a parachute and then steal the parachute. It's like Extraction on steroids. Except the villain here employed a bunch of mercenaries so it's like Desperado where increasingly ridiculous mercenaries try to kill him.
 
Divorce Bait.

A couple decides to pretend to be divorced only to end up almost being divorced.

The dialogue is so cringe worthy it’s difficult to imagine people didn’t hit a bottle of hard liquor to wash out the rubbish they were spewing out after every take. Although I think Raechel Wong secretly liked her role.
 
The Tomorrow War. When I chose this on Amazon, I thought I was getting Tom Cruise's movie. Later I figured out Chris Pratt from a far distance looks somewhat the same on the cover as Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow.

I was watching this whilst cooking so I was in disbelief Chris Pratt, the teacher, being conscripted and doing his medical had six pack abs. Then I realised he was ex special forces. The first battle was funny because half the conscripts were dropped off the ledge of tall buildings or into debris. I guess it was roughly the same storming the beaches on D-day.

Humanity is down to a couple hundred thousand people but yet have the ability to call in air strikes and fly fighter jets. The F-35 I saw over Labour Day has a $42,000 / hour run rate. Where did they find all the resources to keep those things going?
 
Thursday Murder Club. A bunch of seniors at a senior home encounter a series of suspicious deaths related to co-proprietors of the senior home who wish to re-develop the place.

Helen Mirren, Pierce Bronsan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Jonathan Pryce are the seniors. James Bond is a senior now. Richard Grant is one of the bad guys. Of course at the end they solve the murder(s) despite the police, and the senior home is saved.

I figured out by watching Gosford Park, Downton Abbey and The Crown I know the vast majority of the British actors. British cinema then becomes like a gigantic soap opera where I see recurring actors/actresses reprising very similar roles.
 
That and I am getting old too. Not as old as these folks. When Vanessa Kirby is a character in a senior home I will be worried for myself.
 
I finished This is 40. In the end Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are only together because they are too poor to get a divorce and/or don't know any better so let's throw a third kid into the mix.

Then for some reason Netflix took me to Wine Country which is about a bunch of women celebrating their 50th birthday. Or as they put it, a half century. It just keeps getting more and more depressing with every decade no?
 
Want to see the newest and allegedly final Downton Abbey in the cinema.

I remember the lessons from last time. 1:00pm matinee is considered the busy time. Selecting a showtime and seeing no one pick their seats in advance only means the old people can’t figure out the app or website and are just buying tickets at the till.
 
Weapons started as an interesting little mystery story with a solid cast and good pace. It went into horror and gore at the very end. 7.5/10
 
The Good House with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline. I definitely don't recognise Kevin Kline but Sigourney Weaver is looking more and more like Susan Sarandon as she ages.

It's about Weaver being an alcoholic. She gets an intervention. Still secretly drinks. Clearly has issues where 1 drink turns into 10, going on benders and having black out moments where she's in auto cruise mode. She's a realtor in a small New England village. It took a kid disappearing and her wrecking her car and accusations by Kline she might have hit someone or something to quit drinking and go into rehab in earnest.

I think if she were in a larger town or city she would have had the come to Jesus moment a lot earlier but being a small town meant she could hide it for longer.
 
Americana was a fun little Tarantino-lite film. Sidney Sweeney kept her boobs in check and Haley was in a workmanlike performance. 7/10
 
Am I the only one who doesn't really know Sydney Sweeney and upon seeing her (visually) not sure what all the hype is about? Of course I never watched Handmaid's Tale or White Lotus.
 
Fwiffo said:
Am I the only one who doesn't really know Sydney Sweeney and upon seeing her (visually) not sure what all the hype is about? Of course I never watched Handmaid's Tale or White Lotus.
Click to expand...
You mean Euphoria?

She is blonde and has big bewbs

Tonight Show GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
 
Netflix duped me into thinking Godfather Coda was something new. It’s pretty much how I remember Godfather 3 except at the end Michael Corleone is still alive instead of I remember he keeled over in a chair and tumbleweeds blew by.

I am not sure about the eternal hatred for Sofia Coppola. I mean she behaved exactly like an 18 year old would.
 
I think I might have missed my chance to watch Downton Abbey in the cinema because it's already out for purchase on streaming.
 
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