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Hard Times (1975)
Hard Times (1975)
1975 | Crime, Drama, Sport
A simple period drama that works
Street brawler Charles Bronson teams up with hustler James Coburn in this very good drama. Depression era New Orleans is the setting for this interesting drama following two men's unlikely partnership. They have opposed personalities, but makes things work for the purposes of their business relationship. When Coburn gets in some trouble, it is unknown whether Bronson will end up helping him out.

Strong acting throughout kept me very well entertained by this one.
  
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Blazing Minds (92 KP) rated Me, Myself & Di (2021) in Movies

Oct 29, 2021 (Updated Nov 2, 2021)  
Me, Myself & Di (2021)
Me, Myself & Di (2021)
2021 | Comedy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Me, Myself and Di is a quirky, comical and well-produced British comedy with a huge ensemble cast including James Lance (Northern Soul, Bronson, Marie Antoinette, Bel Ami), Lucy Pinder (The Royals, Age of Kill), Will Mellor (Two Pint of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Line of Duty), Tyger Drew-Honey (Cuckoo, Outnumbered), Larry Lamb (EastEnders, The Hatton Garden Job), Marek Oravec (Captain America: The First Avenger), Wim Snape (The Full Monty, Coronation Street) and rising star Katy Clayton (Casualty, Shameless), Me, Myself & Di is a fun, feel-good and uplifting love story about being true to yourself.
  
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
2016 | Comedy, Drama
Verdict: Delightful

Story: A Street Cat Named Bob starts as we meet homeless addict James (Treadaway) who spends his days singing for enough money that could get him a meal and a fix, when he overdoes, Val (Froggatt) gives him a chance to get emergency living to clean up with act. James is willing to make this happen and he ends up meeting a stray cat.
Reluctantly James decides to keep Bob the cat and learns to grab a new lease for life and that as a double act they could achieve things he could only dream of as a musician, as well as finding love in one of the neighbours Betty (Gedmintas).

Thoughts on A Street Cat Named Bob

Characters – James is a homeless drug addict who has an overdose. He is given a big chance to go on the path to recovery with an emergency home, where he meets a cat and suddenly he starts to see his life turn around, his busking lifestyle sees him make money, he meets a new woman and can support himself, he will need to go through the toughest test of his life, if he wants to break free of his addictions. Bob is the ginger cat that turns up in James’ life, he won’t leave his side as he helps him clean up his act. Betty is the neighbour that becomes James only human friend, she will show him about vegan life becoming a love interest, even though she has seen how being an addict has taken away somebody in her life before. Val is the person that pushes James into the program, believing he can change and will change, she supports him through the whole process.
Performances – Luke Treadaway in the leading role is brilliant to watch, he shows us just how desperate James is to turn his life around and what he must go through. Ruta Gedmintas and Joanne Froggatt are both great in the supporting roles in the film too.
Story – The story here follows a homeless drug addict that gets his life turnaround thanks to the help of one person and a mysterious ginger cat that gives him happiness. This is based on the real story of the man James and Bob the real cat, we see the recovery process, just how difficult it can be for somebody who is trying to turn their life around. We can see how the ending will come about because there is a book about the turn around, even though it does become entertaining throughout the film.
Biopic/Comedy – The biopic side of this film does show how James does turn his life around, it is shown in a way that could see the struggle he will be facing. The comedy of the film does give you a couple of laughs with how Bob interacts in life.
Settings – The film is set in London which does show how the culture of the homeless people being able to survive around town that is filled with a drug culture that could end their fight.

Scene of the Movie – First day out with Bob.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Nothing really.
Final Thoughts – This is a delightful little comedy that brings to life one man’s journey to salvation with his new friend Bob the cat.

Overall: Feel Good Movie.
  
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Nancy Whang recommended Kinda Kinks by The Kinks in Music (curated)

 
Kinda Kinks by The Kinks
Kinda Kinks by The Kinks
2001 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The Kinks were one of my favourite bands while I was growing up. I was introduced to them by MTV and the video for 'Come Dancing', which they'd play all the time. I really liked the video and the boy in that video really reminded me of one of my brothers. So I got into them through that and I also had a 'Best Of The Kinks' which I wore out because I listened to it so much. But Kinda Kinks, I didn't really listen to that record until much later. I think I was maybe in college, or after college, but it became one of those records that I would listen to all the time with James [Murphy]. We'd be at the DFA studio which, before it officially became a record label, always had the studio there, and it was a gathering place where something was about to happen. It was right around the time that James and Tim [Goldsworthy] were producing the Rapture record, I was hanging around there a lot and James was actually living in the office for a period of time too. And on Sunday mornings we'd sit around and listen to music. Kinda Kinks was one of those records. I love every song on that album but it does contain my least favourite song in the world: 'Dancing In The Street'. It's so bad that it's seeped into every other version that's ever been made, including the original version. So now all of them are ruined for me. It is the worst song. There was a brief period when MiniDisc players were kind of popular, and I loved MiniDiscs. I really wish they'd taken off because it's such a great format; it's this compact, digital format that can be edited very easily. You can make a mixtape, it was super easy to record onto, super easy to rearrange and me and James would make a lot of MiniDisc mix tapes for each other. One of the greatest things though was that I was able to make a version of Kinda Kinks without 'Dancing In The Street'."

Source
  
Oliver & Company (1988)
Oliver & Company (1988)
1988 | Animation, Family
7
7.5 (17 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Cats and Dogs
This is a intesting fact that i didnt realze until now, that James Mangold wrote the screenplay for this movie.

The plot: In this animated update of the classic "Oliver Twist" tale, Oliver (Joey Lawrence) is an orphaned kitten taken in by a gang of thieving dogs, led by cavalier canine Dodger (Billy Joel) and owned by down-and-out pickpocket Fagin (Dom DeLuise). While pulling a job in the streets of New York City, Oliver winds up being adopted by a rich girl, Jenny (Natalie Gregory), and landing on easy street. But through a series of events, a loan shark threatens the peaceful new arrangement.

This is one of the weirdest cast ever. You have Joey Lawerence, Billy Joel, Cheech Marin and Bette Midler. Such a weird cast.

Other than that, its a good movie.
  
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Jpb (34 KP) rated Malignant (2021) in Movies

Sep 12, 2021  
Malignant (2021)
Malignant (2021)
2021 | Crime, Drama, Horror
7
7.6 (8 Ratings)
Movie Rating
New, jumpy, nice fresh film (0 more)
To out there (0 more)
Not your typical Wan
Contains spoilers, click to show
So I went see this , And with it being James Wan I expected a serious supernatural horror so, I started watching it with a mind set it might be a supernatural or entity type movie like the conjuring but I couldn’t of been more wrong. Its different in a good way its on the verge of silly but by damn he made it work. The visuals, the camera angles, the music, the gore its all one fun head fu**ed up ride! The special effects are crazy cool looking and the movie even gives you a hint of nostalgia to all those original horror movies. This movie is an unexpected mind blow I enjoyed every plot twist and hidden joke because there is some comedy in the mix or perhaps its just my dark sense of humor lol. Over all a good movie to watch a refreshing plot line to be honest. James Wan is a master at what he does and once again he delivered.

I came out thinking if this was the late 80s I would of just watched elm street about a serial kill that kills u in your sleep , which was also silly fun and scary. If you want something that pushes the boundaries then this is for you.
  
 If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
2018 | Crime, Drama, Romance
Starts slow...and then slows down...
Director/Writer Barry Jenkins scored an unexpected Oscar upset a few years ago when his film MOONLIGHT won the Best Picture Oscar (besting LA LA LAND), so it was with much anticipation that his follow-up film was coming out, just in time for Oscar consideration this year - and the Oscar Buzz was loud. So, I decided to check it out...

And...I'm glad I did, so I can warn you to stay away for IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK starts slow and then...slows down even more...and, if that isn't slow enough for you, kicks it down a couple of notches before finishing up on an even slower note.

Based on the best selling book by James Baldwin and telling the tale of a wrongfully incarcerated African-American man and his family, BEALE STREET is a languidly paced meditation on the constant living in fear of the African-American community in NYC in the early 1970's, and when "the system" fails this family, they are afraid of doing more for it might just make things worse.

The film starts out winningly enough when the 2 sets of parents of our young lovers get together to discuss the unexpected coming of a grandchild into this world. The 4 parents (Regina King, Coleman Domingo, Michael Beeach and Aunjanue Ellis) start out civilly, if coldly, but things quickly escalate into a crackling scene that explodes on-screen and I was looking forward to more of this foursome combating with each other for the rest of the film.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film focuses on the two young lovers (Kiki Layne and Stephan James) and these two are not charismatic or charming enough to hold the audience's attention during low-key scene after low-key scene.

Blame for this must go to Jenkins, who is making a very personal, intimate film, but - unlike something like ROMA - the world that this personal pastiche is thrown into is not interesting enough to hold interest nor are the pictures rich enough to look at, they are mostly washed out and boring.

Regina King is being touted as a "sure-fire" Academy Award nominee (and front runner to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) and I just don't see it. She was "fine" but nothing more in an underwritten role that was just as low-key and uninteresting as the rest of the film.

Give me the 4 parents feuding and we just might have an interesting film.

If you are looking for a low-key, moody film, check out ROMA, you can skip BEALE STREET.

Letter Grade: C

5 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis)
  
Show all 4 comments.
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Lee (2222 KP) Jan 22, 2019

Thanks. It's high on my Netflix watchlist, definitely need to watch soon.

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Lee (2222 KP) Mar 14, 2019

So, I still haven't seen ROMA but I checked out this movie last night (completely forgetting about your review!) and I think you were quite generous with your score. What an absolutely awful movie. Completely agree with you about the coming together of the two sets of parents near the start literally being the best thing in the whole movie!

Equity (2016)
Equity (2016)
2016 | Drama
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Today’s movie for your consideration is from the same selection of films you’d find ‘The Boiler Room’ with only this one is far more ‘reality based’. A financial thriller depicting the cutthroat and take-no-prisoners world of investment banking and Wall Street. ‘Equity’ is directed by Meera Menon and written by Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Renier, and Amy Fox. The film centers on investment banker, Naomi Bishop who is attempting to put together one of the biggest deals in her life and Wall Street history after her first ‘failure’, while combating rivals in and outside her own company, across gender lines, and a federal investigation focusing on someone she knows intimately … Or so she thinks.

 

‘Equity’ appeared in competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and stars Anna Gunn, Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Renier, James Purefoy, Sophie Von Haselburg, Margret Colin, Lee Tergesen, and Craig Bierko.

 

Investment banker Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) was one of the most successful investment bankers on Wall Street. She was unstoppable. Until she lost her first deal. Well into her career, she is striving to keep her reputation intact as a ‘rain maker’. The one in her company that secures the deal every time and brings record profits for her company in the process. In jeopardy of missing out on a promotion, she pours all her effort into her latest deal and in the process passes over her assistant Erin Manning (Sarah Megan Thomas) for a promotion. An eager young woman with a new husband and a baby on the way, Erin also strives to break through the ‘gender lines’ that still exist and make her on mark on Wall Street. At the same time Samantha (Alysia Reiner), an investigator who has recently made the jump from investigating federal drug cases to white collar crime, is looking into the activities of investment banker Micheal Connor (James Purefoy). Who may or may not be with the same firm as Naomi Bishop and also Naomi’s significant other . Bishop soon discovers the tangled web centering on this latest deal and soon realizes that not only might she have been betrayed, but it might have been from more than one of the people she ‘almost trusts’.

 

I found this film to be very much an example of the chaos in the world of finance as well as the personal lives that people in this field may or may not have and the dangers posed when you become friends or close to others in said field. A great deal, no pun intended, hinges on this world. The ‘average person’s’ future can be decided here and they have absolutely no control over it and all the while you have these folks bickering amongst themselves and scrambling for every dollar. Sometimes breaking the law in the process and sometimes with no regard as to whether it affects those closest to them. It is indeed chaos in a purer form with no ‘happy ending’ and no ‘bad ending’. It’s a multi-billion dollar game of musical chairs with chairs and people being removed.

 

The film is ‘realistic’. As far as what we, outside that world, see it as. It’s all a numbers game with the potential for great profit or great lose to them. Your friends and those you trust will turn on you like that. They care about the money and the next big deal. People just fall by the waist side. It’s a rather refreshing take on ‘greed and ambition’. I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.
  
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Austin Garrick recommended Repo Man (1984) in Movies (curated)

 
Repo Man (1984)
Repo Man (1984)
1984 | Comedy, Sci-Fi
7.0 (6 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Sometimes my biggest reasons for connecting to a film are simple, primitive, just about a feeling. Videodrome and Repo Man are two that fit into that category. In addition to the fact that it costars Debbie Harry in my favorite roll of hers, I love Videodrome for its particular use of my hometown, Toronto. Sure, Toronto is used in films all the time, but usually disguised as New York, or Chicago or Detroit. No filmmaker has used Toronto better and more consistently over the years than our hometown hero Cronenberg, though, and Videodrome he shot and set in the downtown Toronto of my childhood, complete with a central part of the story revolving around our local cable station CityTV (as “Civic TV,” the station James Woods’s character, Max Renn, works for), which really did play soft-core porn if you stayed up late enough. To this day, my dad lives on the street Max Renn lives on, and Barry Convex’s Spectacular Optical is a bakery on the same street as the Electric Youth studio downtown, just a minute away, making the connection both past and present. Repo Man has my favorite Criterion release cover art; it’s amazing and designed by movie poster artist Jay Shaw, who also designed the artwork for singles from our album Innerworld. With Repo Man you get Harry Dean Stanton in his first big-screen lead role, Emilio Estevez as his partner, and the streets of Reagan-era Los Angeles set to a classic punk soundtrack. What more would I need to love this film? Nothing. But like with all great Criterion selections, there’s always something new to take from it with every watch."

Source
  
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Austin Garrick recommended Videodrome (1983) in Movies (curated)

 
Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome (1983)
1983 | Horror, Sci-Fi

"Sometimes my biggest reasons for connecting to a film are simple, primitive, just about a feeling. Videodrome and Repo Man are two that fit into that category. In addition to the fact that it costars Debbie Harry in my favorite roll of hers, I love Videodrome for its particular use of my hometown, Toronto. Sure, Toronto is used in films all the time, but usually disguised as New York, or Chicago or Detroit. No filmmaker has used Toronto better and more consistently over the years than our hometown hero Cronenberg, though, and Videodrome he shot and set in the downtown Toronto of my childhood, complete with a central part of the story revolving around our local cable station CityTV (as “Civic TV,” the station James Woods’s character, Max Renn, works for), which really did play soft-core porn if you stayed up late enough. To this day, my dad lives on the street Max Renn lives on, and Barry Convex’s Spectacular Optical is a bakery on the same street as the Electric Youth studio downtown, just a minute away, making the connection both past and present. Repo Man has my favorite Criterion release cover art; it’s amazing and designed by movie poster artist Jay Shaw, who also designed the artwork for singles from our album Innerworld. With Repo Man you get Harry Dean Stanton in his first big-screen lead role, Emilio Estevez as his partner, and the streets of Reagan-era Los Angeles set to a classic punk soundtrack. What more would I need to love this film? Nothing. But like with all great Criterion selections, there’s always something new to take from it with every watch."

Source