Film Reviews - what have you seen lately, what did you think?

The Battle of Britain (1969) YouTube: With a young Michael Cain, Laurence Olivia, Christopher Plummer and an excellent performance from Robert Shaw. Special underwear performance by Susannah York. York was considered a babe back in the day though her face is a little screwy for my tastes. The great thing about WWII movies made in the 60's is that they often had lots of the original equipment available so the realism is very high. If you've ever been around vintage leather for instance you can tell the difference between stuff produced in the 40's and replicas produced now. Of course all the heavy iron is authentic. I've flown in and worked on WWII aircraft and you can definitely tell the difference between the real thing and a copy. One of the annoying things about movies produced now is how unrealistic the aircraft etc. look.
For the movie they found actual Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mess 109's, and Heinkel bombers. Most of the air battle scenes are filmed with actual aircraft. Hell everything down to the jeeps look authentic. There's lots of flying of course and it's refreshing to see the real planes.
As a film it's not that great. However it is interesting from a historical perspective and I learned a few things*. If you like WWII movies and the planes Joe Bob says check it out.
Suzanna York's best side


* I'm always amazed at how much the Allied victory had to do with luck. IN this case Hitler was planning to invade southern England by bombing the airfields and destroying the RAF on the ground. The airfields were close enough to provide fighter cover. But during a bombing run a German flight goes off course and accidental bombs London which was verboten by the Fuhrer himself. In retaliation the Brits bombed Berlin.
This in turn caused Hitler to order the bombing of London. However they couldn't provide fighter cover and the Brits had a turkey shoot. The Luftwaffe lost so many planes that they gave up those ending the battle of Britain. If not for the off course flight Germany would have destroyed the RAF and invaded Britain.

 

Incorrect... here's my proof:


I agree with everything you said about the movie... watched it a bunch of times as a kid, not sure i could watch it now. There are a ton of cool things about this movie, especially what you mentioned with all the planes (and pilots) they got from the Spanish Air Force... and Adlof Galland was a technical advisor.

 

Coming 2 America 2, watched it the other night. I was surprised how many of those actors from the first one are still alive. Good script, not much more.

 

Me and my wife finished it last night and thought it was pretty good. The first half is stronger on the funny than the second half, but it was funny with some of the throwbacks to the original. Love the callback to the Dukes and there were a few really good one liners.

 

Yeah, it gets bad reviews, but I liked it enough and Redemption was ok because, well, I'm a sucker for redemption movies.

 

Watched 'Instant Family' last night - Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne.
Didn't expect much but it turned out to be a really good flick..
Basic premise - a childless couple in their late 30s decide it's time to bring in foster kids.
Good story with some 'onion cutting' moments, but fairly funny overall.
A little wokeness, but not overbearing.
7.5/10

 

Hobbs & Shaw (2019): Ouch... the Fast and the Furious movies are pretty stupid action movies. Hobbs and Shaw have to stop a virus from getting to a super human...zzzzzzzzzzz. It was a whole lot of bad on top of bad. It's like listening to Deet rank all the homeless ass he has tasted through out the world. This movie was so Urg on story and logic that I thought injun was the head writer of the movie. It had some really bad banter, and some fun hand to hand fight scenes. It is so bad its like being surrounded by sluggo deathmetal while watching a sluggette fashion show. Byron has told us better schitting stories than the story/plot to this movie.

Threatmatrix matrix: no tits, ass, or bush... but with this plot a porn plot has more logic.

 

I think I saw that movie, but it was called Crank, or Transporter 2, or some other Statham movie!

 

Take the plots of those movies, and take it down a few urgs... Crank is bad... transporter 2/3 or way worse.... Now put those three movies together... and still you don't reach the level of stupidity.

 

The Winds of War / War and Remembrance


These were two made for TV miniseries back in the 80s. Both fairly epic productions based on the Herman Wouk novels of the same name. In my opinion, War and Remembrance was the bigger, more epic story and Winds was more like a prequel, but still good to watch them in chronological order rather than some screwed up Star Wars fashion.

In any event, both series tell the story of two families intertwined by WWII and the lead up to hostilities. Victor "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) is a career Naval officer who has the ear of FDR and gets set to various countries to get the straight scoop for the CinC. He has a lush wife and a couple of sons, one of whom also wants to be career navy and the younger son is more of a free spirit. While stationed abroad, the younger son Byron (Jan Michael Vincent) gets a job working for an American expatriate Jewish author named Aaron Jastrow, and marries his niece Natalie (Ali McGraw). The two series follow these interlinked families through the end of the war, with Winds ending at Pearl Harbor and Remembrance picking up from there. Ali McGraw is replaced by Jane Seymour in the second part, and several other actors change as well due to the fact that they were filmed 6 or 7 years apart.

While there is quite a bit of soap opera at times in this series, there is also a ton of real war footage, historical background, and scenes from all aspects of the conflict. One minute you're watching a conference with FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, the next you're in the middle of a submarine battle, then you're in Hitler's bunker, then you're watching the French resistance, then you're in Stalingrad. I found the whole thing to be fascinating. Especially poignant is how the elder Jastrow is accompanied by his niece Natalie as he at first is too stubborn to leave Europe when he has the chance, and then they are constantly on the run trying to stay out of Nazi captivity. Without spoiling anything, let me just tell you not to expect the "Hollywood Ending."

When I say its an epic production, just realize that the first series, Winds of War, is over 14 hours run time and the second series War and Remembrance is 27 hours long. Despite all that, I was sorry when it ended. I was struck by how good the production value of this series was, even by today's standards. What generally makes any series great is that there is time for far more character development and audience attachment than you can get in any 2 hour movie, which makes it that much more gut-wrenching and revolting when fate finally catches up to these people.

I was able to watch all the episodes for free on regular ol' youtube.

 

Thanks for the write up, it was great, but of the two, if you could only pick one of them, Seymour, or McGraw?

 

The Way We Were (1973). Yeah, I watched it. Surprisingly (not really) I never saw it before. So like me you've probably heard of this Redford/Streisand joint. It had a song and everything. The good - Redford/Streisand have some real screen chemistry and Redford is at the top of his form. Plot wise, Streisand is pinko commie activist (what else is new). They meet in college pre-war where Barb espouses her love for Stalin. They stare longingly at each for an inordinate amount of screen time then Redford goes off to war. Though he never ever seems to actually go to war. He's supposedly a landing boat captain but in '44/'45 when every able bodied man was fighting in the Pacific he's parading around NY in his dress uni. So go figure.

So they move to Cali because I guess the director got tired of filming in NY. Barb loves Bob cuz he's rich and good looking and she's neither. And Bob loves Barb because... he's into Jewish WAP? IDK. Can't think of any other reason. So you know how when you start dating someone and they have some little idiosyncrasy that you find cute but after six months it drives you crazy? Yeah, that happens. At first he admired her passion but then it turns out that's all she f'cin talks about and it's getting old. So he kicks her back to NY.
Then, years later, they run in to each and she sings her song. The End. Joe Bob says grab your old lady and check it out.

 

Mississippi Grind - (2015)
Ben Mendelsohn (you've seen him a thousand times... this guy:


And Ryan Reynolds - meet up to try and win Ben some big money to cover his gambling debts.
Road trip/buddy movie (horse tracks/dog tracks, casinos, home poker games).
Very well done - and a decent ending I didn't see coming.
Highly recommend...(despite the fact that Sienna Miller doesn't get nekkid)
8/10

 

As I took my daughter to see AMC fan faves Jarassic World, we saw the preview of Godzilla vs Kong... so with her having a four day weekend this past week end and HBOMAX releasing Godzilla vs Kong we watched all of the new movies (previously had only seen the first two).

Godzilla (2014): Godzilla started very strong especially with the acting department. Bryan Cranston is excellent. He is a character you easily get vested and can understand his point of view. Then you spend the rest of the movie following his boring ass son who has a boring dude playing him. In a movie about Godzilla you don't see Godzilla enough, and you see a lot of the humans who by the end of the movie wished where killed by the monsters who are fighting, but they don't show you the fight because you watching the humans watching the fighting. This is the first of the Godzilla movies that seemed to not know how to end the movie and the ending leaves a bunch to be desired.

Kong: Skull Island (2017): Move starts out during WW2 then flash forwards to the end of Vietnam. The acting in this one is the best of the group, along with the story, and everything else. Monarch who is referenced in the first movie, wants to set out an expedition for an uncharted island and needs military transport. The island surprise, surprise is Skull Island. As they are setting up their experiments, Kong feels they are a threat and attacks. The rest of the movie is the aftermath and finding a way off the island. Of the movies this one is the best, and the most rewatchable.

Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019): This movie picks up with Monarch all over the world with "holding" facilities with different monsters. The facility housing one is attacked and lead scientist kidnapped with the device she helped invent that basically talks to and pisses off this monsters. Terrorists are involved, and they go monster chasing. A couple of monster fight scenes where again they focus too much on the human's watching. Godzilla fights two of the eight monsters and then we come to another stupid and rushed ending.

Godzilla vs Kong (2021): Well with a title like Godzilla vs Kong you know the plot doesn't to do much to reach the payoff..... and the plot doesn't do much and it was still disappointing. It took very long for them to set up the first fight which was disappointing and the second fight which was middling. Then they have to fight together against another threat. It was really paint by the numbers for most of the movie. And the ending like the other two Godzilla movies just end in a rushed manner.

Threat Matrix matrix: No boobs, bush, or ass... wouldn't have minded a little in these mindless movies.

 

Godzilla vs Kong - Big monsters fight and destroy entire towns. Evil bad girl hot. Watch for explosions. It's what you expected and is fun for that one fact.

White Tiger (Netflix) - A boy growing up in India who hopes to be a rich man's servant. He is content in life until they are about to make him take the fall for the rich mans son's actions. End the end he is cleared and begins to grow to hate the master and plots a way to climb out of the lower social casts to the upper. He tells his story in a love letter to the Chinese president.

If you watch the preview this is not as advertised. What is describe as a typical revenge story is really just a bad person. It's also extremely lo-vie dovie with socialism and communism. The theme of the movie is America was yesterday, the brown and yellow man will live on. Huge false advertising. 4/10

Honest Thief (Prime) - Liam Neeson is doing his best to rival Bruce Willis in crapping out paycheck films. He's a retired bank robber that never got caught. When he falls in love he wants to turn him self in for a reduced sentence so he can move on with his life. The FBI of course double-cross him and he has to prove his innocence and save his girl. Meh. At least it was only 90 minutes. 5/10

Yes Day (Netflix) - Jennifer Garner was a free spirited person until being a parent changed her. Her and her husband decide to give the kids a yes day, allowing anything they want, with her older daughter having a bet she won't make it in exchange for attending a music festival with her friends. They have lots of fun, over react to stuff and then have a fluffy ending. It's ok for a date night movie and Garner is still smoking. I would never let my kids watch to give them any ideas. 5/10

The Last Blockbuster (Netflix) - Documentary about the rise and fall of Blockbuster and their last store that is still open. Actually pretty entertaining. 6/10

Justice League Snyder Cut (HBO Max) - Is it better than the theatrical. Yes it is. Does it move the Earth like people are acting like. No. I still don't know if this would have kept them going or not because if it was the original version enough people would have complained about it as well. Does a better job of explaining back stories and gives some better action here and there. If you gave the theatrical a 5/10 then this would be a 7/10.

American Animals (Prime) - About a group of college kids that try to steal some art to get rich on the black market. Based on a true story and cuts the real peoples interviews in to the film in between scenes. They of course get caught and begin to wonder if the ring leader was just BSing them about his connections. 4/10.

 

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020): Picked up Paramount+ due to the tournament, and we saw this was on there so we watched it as a family this weekend. It's really to set up the new SpongeBob television show (though flashbacks) which is when all the major characters are kids. Plankton is convinced that SpongeBob is the reason for him always failing to steal the Krabby Patty (?) formula, so he steals spongebob's snail and gives him to King Neptune. The rest of the movie is about Spongebob and a Patrick going to find him/her. A number of cameos happen and the plot is about what you expect by something written by Injun. For what was expected its a 6/10.

Threat Matrix matrix: No boobs, Butts, or bush.

Deet Diagram: No Homeless ass.

 

how much is Paramount+ and is there enough on there to make it worth it right now?

 

$7/month, and I haven't gotten too deep into it yet to really say. There is a lot of stuff, with the Viacom stuff in their catalog.