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Good Joe Bell (2020)
Good Joe Bell (2020)
2020 | Biography, Drama
3
3.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The film has a great premise. An alpha male walks from his home in La Grange, Oregon to New York to tell the story of his gay son who was bullied so badly he committed suicide. Sounds interesting until you realize that it is nearly impossible to adapt into a cinematic story. It is one man traveling on the road. He is not rich; he is stubborn; he is kind of a jerk to other people. Mark Wahlberg is good as Joe Bell, but there is not much of a character to play. So you have to give him the spirit of his son, but the son would be his version of the son and not the real son so the actor playing him would need to distinguish the two versions. This never happens. Another huge problem is the ending. It comes too quickly and is extremely shocking (and not in a way a filmmaker would want). Yes, the event is foreshadowed in the first act and it would fit with the character, but there needed to be more story in order to achieve the desired effect of the event. The whole film has a problem by staying true to life instead of adding texture to the characters and story.
  
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
1977 | Comedy, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I am convinced that Buñuel had intimate conversations with God throughout his life, wherein they would share their observations on humanity and tell lots of jokes. Buñuel’s movies are evidence of these dialogues. That Obscure Object of Desire is about a little man like you and me, self-satisfied and lustful. He is in love with a woman who refuses to give herself to him physically. This 1977 movie (Buñuel’s last) is irreverent, sexual, funny, elegant, shocking, embarrassing, political, and light as a feather. The way to enjoy it is to just let it happen to you, rather than to harbor any preconceived thoughts. To try to analyze why the director uses two actresses to play the same character and the motivation behind when he chooses to use each one is to miss the movie entirely (and to be the butt of a Buñuel practical joke—that’s him laughing at you while you are engaged in this fruitless exercise). As the story unfolds, you begin to feel that these two physically opposite actresses (the drop-dead gorgeous Carole Bouquet and the sultry, exotic Angela Molina) are the same woman and represent Buñuel’s complete male fantasy. Like many of his great films, this one includes a pig, a few nuns, a dwarf, and Fernando Rey."

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Awix (3310 KP) rated Angel Has Fallen (2019) in Movies

Aug 21, 2019 (Updated Aug 21, 2019)  
Angel Has Fallen (2019)
Angel Has Fallen (2019)
2019 | Action, Drama, Thriller
Bog-standard alpha-male action-thriller with Gerard Butler off on another bloody barrage of bombastic bodyguarding. Swivel-eyed psycho Mike Banning is struggling to come to terms with knocking on a bit (bad neck, painkiller addiction, looming desk job) when a bigger problem arises - someone tries to kill the Prez (who is Morgan Freeman this time) and frames Banning for it! Must be time for him to knife someone in the throat.

Thoroughly mechanical and frequently quite dull stuff, leavened only by the odd narrative curve-ball - we meet Poppa Banning, who is also a swivel-eyed psycho, but a comic relief one played by Nick Nolte. There is some stuff about Banning being framed for colluding with the Russians which seems mainly pitched to appeal to the red baseball cap crowd (I would say the film's depiction of the US presidency had completely departed from reality, had the presidency itself not already done that many months ago). There is something oddly tender and even perhaps romantic to the concluding tussle to the death between Butler and Danny Huston (who at least is good value). And it is less grimly objectionable than the previous one. But all in all - my advice, Gerard? Take the desk job.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Proxima (2019) in Movies

Aug 3, 2020  
Proxima (2019)
Proxima (2019)
2019 | Drama, International
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Slightly arty space drama with Eva Green. A female engineer is delighted to be selected for a mission to help prepare for the first manned landing on Mars, but does not anticipate the strain this will place on her relationship with her daughter.

Not really a science fiction film in any genuine sense of the word, but one which combines a very realistic portrayal of life as an astronaut in training with an examination of what it means to go off into space leaving your children behind. Doesn't quite ring correctly on a number of levels: we are invited to dislike the American mission commander, who is a chauvinist alpha-male in some ways, but on the other hand the film is about the extra difficulties of being a mum on the way to orbit. Mmm, I don't know - is it really that different from being a father and going off into space? A definite sense of maternity being idealised - a key sequence sees Green's character breaking mission protocols in a pretty major way just to keep a promise to her daughter. (Then again I'm neither a woman or a parent.) A bit of a shame as the film is engaging and well-played, but it's much more about Mas than Mars.
  
    Festival!

    Festival!

    7.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

    Tabletop Game

    In days of yore, the dreariness and difficulty of daily living was interrupted by celebrations...