I don't know how many of you have seen Burt Kennedy's Comedy/Western "Support Your Local Sheriff," but if you haven't, you've denied yourself a real treat. One of my Dad's favorite movies. I couldn't count how many times we watched it, but I pretty much have it memorized.
The film turns the Western genre on its head and kicks it in the face. The result is one film that still makes me cry with laughter every time I see it.
Sheriff: "Now Joe, the cell on the right is yours. We don't have any bars yet."
Joe Danby: "You're kidding."
Sheriff: "That's what I said! But we're gonna operate just as if the bars were there. You stay on that side of the line and everything should work out fine."
"There you go, you can sew. If only we had known this earlier."
Chevy Chase as Dusty Bottoms in "¡Three Amigos!"
This film came out when I was twelve and has been in my aware consciousness. I've heard people call this film juvenile and trite. I do not give a crap.
Quotes from "¡Tree Amigos!" pop in and out of my head naturally, as if they have an answer to whatever life throws at you. It's a comfort blanket of a movie.
Do you like coming-of-age movies where a self-conscious teenage girl is surrounded by high school malevolence and simple and thick sleazebags finds her "inner-cool?" Well, you are in luck, my friend. When you take a casual look at "Lady Bird", it seems formulaic, but it feels more natural than your typical cookie-cutter film. But the film has a voice that can't be dismissed as an element of any genre.
"Lady Bird" is the story of Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan), a young wallflower who feels like at the age of seventeen, she is already stuck in a never-ending rut. And she craves adventure. More than anything, she wants to get the hell out of Sacramento. Of course, her best chance is college. She's set on New York and is willing to almost anything to get there. Standing in her way is her mother (Laurie Metcalf), who, no matter what, is determined to make her daughter go to a Catholic school. Watching the bittersweet relationship Lady Bird has with her mother is compelling. The two of them have excessively strong wills and fight constantly. And they turn on a dime, from the gentle way she holds a crying Lady Bird to punishing her by refusing to talk to her.
The unconditional love between Lady Bird and her father, Larry (Tracey Letts) makes the family dynamic so fascinating to watch. He serves as the one constant in her life.
Aside from her home life, the tension between Lady Bird and her two romantic interests make for some of the very best dry and ironic comedy I've seen in a while.
Gerwig's spirit and tone is quickly becoming an important voice to be reckoned with. She has matured since her collaboration with Noah Baumbach on his masterpiece, "Francis Ha." I'm not discounting "Frances Ha", in fact it's one of my favorite film of the decade. "Lady Bird" shows a fresh, new voice we haven't heard before. Greta Gerwig's directorial debut stands on the shoulders of the work she has done with Baumbach, but she has a striking, raw authentic voice that's rare in modern cinema.
And Saoirse Ronan is so endearing, she could easily become this
generation's Molly Ringwald.
I've seen the film twice now and it still feels crisp. On its face, "Lady Bird's" story should feel ordinary. What makes it great is the characters Gerwig has created and their quirks and dialogue that is freshly built for each one differently.
And Saoirse Ronan is so endearing, she could easily become this
generation's Molly Ringwald.
I can see Gerwig with a career as a kind of indie John Hughes. But I don't see her sticking to any kind of mold. Her writing is too fresh to fall into that trap.
Since 2012's "Frances Ha", which she co-wrote with Baumbach, I've been curious to see what we can expect from Gerwig and if "Lady Bird" is an indicator of things to come, the future of indie comedy is bright indeed.
Isn't this a special week? In the first week in October 1994, my life changed twice. On Wednesday, my firstborn son was born.
Then my mother-in-law came to town to help my wife learn about taking care of an infant. On Friday, October 7,1994 she said she would watch the baby and that my wife should get some sleep. Then she told me I should go relax for a couple of hours and just go to the movies.
My choice was obvious. Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" had been released just two years before, and had quickly became one of my favorite movies. So I went to see "Pulp Fiction."
You all know what that means because you all have seen the movie. It changed everything. Not just how films are made, but how the public consciousness receives films.
So happy birthday, "Pulp Fiction" and thank you Quentin for your gift to the world.
Along with films like "Pulp Fiction," "Trainspotting" revolutionized the way all of us watch movies today. "Trainspotting" naturally wove between true life and fantasy. Finally, we were starting to hear our heros' inner-monologue. These films, along with others, unlocked a fifth wall.
The films also created a new height for dark comedies.
When "Filth" opens, Bruce, (James McAvoy), a detective, is focused on the race in his department over who will get a much envied promotion. It may not sound like much power, but Bruce covets it. It's a jump from Detective Sergeant to Detective Inspector and Bruce's lust for power has no threshold.
Bruce goes to great lengths to undermine the others trying for the job. Bruce is so amoral, he outstrips Harvey Keitel's LT in Abel Ferrara's 1992's "Bad Lieutenant," one of the most hedonistic and vomitous roles of the '90's, and probably any other decade, I guess.
Meanwhile, Bruce's lonely wife, (Shauna McDonald), has an insatiable lust for sex exceeded only by her lust for power. Power is her aphrodisiac. She loves power above all, even more than sex. Though it's power for her husband she wants, not for herself. Her sexual fantasy is to have Bruce to come home from work and call out, "Honey, I'm home! I'm a Detective Inspector!"
It does not take long before filmmaker Jon S. Baird establishes that Bruce is a bastard. He is the worst kind of cop and he belongs in prison. He is also the nastiest kind of man and deserves to be abandoned by everybody who loves him.
As this is based on the works of Irvine Welsh, it's no surprise to find that much of the story is wrapped around Bruce's so-called medication. These drugs collude with his natural fiendish disposition. The only brights spots of what you might call hope in his life are his consultations with his brilliant but rambling psychiatrist, Dr. Rossi (Jim Broadbent.)
Bruce's manipulations are masterful. He systematically ruins each contender for this promotion, both personally or professionally, friend or not. This changes a murder investigation that just so happens to be going on, into a minor backdrop.
As "Filth" continues, it becomes clear that the real, actual Bruce is only a cool guy in his own mind. But in reality, he's not suave or in any way impressive.
Much of the visual imagery in "Filth" is not as much fun as intended. It's hard to tell if these cheap cinematic tricks are inspirations of Welsh's book or "Trainspotting."
A pathetic attempt at a shocking twist at the start of act three is not enough to save this mess.
Baird is clearly trying to revisit the style, tone and fashion of "Trainspotting" and he falls tragically short.
The first part of the film is quick, funny and hard to criticize. Unfortunately, it falls tragically short due to sloppy character structure and plot development.
Not only does the "twist" fall short, but the entire third act is a contrived wreck. The only part of the film that really works is the deconstruction of Bruce's brain by the mad Dr. Rossi.
And not for nothing, but "Filth" is overtly homophobic and trans-phobic.
"Trainspotting" was innovative in style and tone, but it didn't exist just for the sake of itself. It had so much more to give. It had life and hope and joy to offer. We intensely cared about those characters, even Begbie.
I'm afraid that we just don't give a damn for Bruce.
What the hell happened to the buddy-cop movie anyway? I'm racking my brain way back to "Lethal Weapon" and I don't remember anything. Wait, I guess there were the "Bad Boy" movies. Also, "Stop or my Mother will Shoot." So, it's not just that they went away as much as they started to straight-up suck.
I know "The Hitman's Bodyguard" isn't technically a buddy-cop movie, it's a buddy-hitman movie. But it has the same style, plot construction and tone as the best of the sub-genre like "Lethal Weapon."
Michael (Ryan Reynolds) is one of the most competent bodyguards on the planet. But when a client of his is killed, he plummets down to the bottom of the bodyguard rankings. Now, he's still great at his job, but he's also a washed-up mess.
Meanwhile, the President of a war-torn nation is
on trial for war-crimes, including genocide, and Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) is
the one witness who can bring this monster down. "The Hitman's Bodyguard" doesn't exactly hit the ground running. It's slow at first. The film should have shed about ten minutes, but you just have to be patient. When the first attempt to get Kincaid to the Hague goes tragically wrong, the only surviving Interpol agent, Amelia, (Elodie Yung) breaker of Michael's heart, contacts him because she just has no other choice.
Much to Amelia's surprise, Kincaid and Michael are mortal enemies. But she convinces the two of them to put their murderous differences aside long enough to get Kincaid to the stand.
The fact that each of these men want each other dead is really the hook in this film. And it is used beautifully. Not only are there plenty of laughs to lift from
the situation, but it makes the action sequences deeper.
These men have dozens of chances to kill each other, but they stand side by side, surviving the onslaught of bullets and bad guys together. I expected to see one of these guys just shoot the other. And that's what adds some tension to what would usually be standard action sequences.
I also expected Mike and Kincaid to start getting along, which doesn't happen until late in the film. The bonding that does happen is doled out in small, hilarious doses. The funniest damn scene in the whole movie is the backstory of Kincaid and his wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek.)
The bulk of the film is just a standard, racing the clock action film. Mike and Kincaid rush to the Hague, with lost of bodies left in their wake. And those people became corpses in many hilarious ways.
Director Patrick Hughes is certainly comfortable with killing lots of people, including innocent bystanders by the ton.
In the end, he ties it up nice and tightly with a bow.
"The Hitman's Bodyguard" is tight as an action movie and hysterical as a comedy.
No, it isn't the best action film of the year. That honor still belongs to "Atomic Blonde." But as an action film, it's tight, and as a comedy, it really is funny as hell.
So You-ou-ou will always love "The Hitman's Bodyguard."
Okay that was really forced and may not even make any sense.
"He strikes me as bein' a lonely man."
"Lonely? Danby? Why he's a mean, no-good lowdown bushwhacker!"
"Well, there you see? No wonder he's lonely."
When I was a kid, sometimes we didn't have a TV, but that was okay. My dad was a pastor and he would take home the church's film-projector and a screen. Our library rented out films on reels. We would all shut off the lights and watch "Bye-Bye Birdie," "The Sound of Music," "Fiddler on the Roof," all the Laurel and Hardy you could watch, and best of all, "Support Your Local Sheriff."
Seeing as how this movie was one of my favorites growing up and seeing as how it's full of great quotes and nonsense, expect to see the film here again.
Okay, a group of communists kidnap a movie star playing a Roman soldier... Poor Eddie. His only task is to make sure all the actors at Capitol Pictures stay out of trouble. He has to save them from themselves, from each other, from the press and, in this case, from communist kidnappers. Capitol Pictures' prestige movie of the year is to be "Hail Caesar! A Tale of the Christ," a big budget Roman Film and obvious nod to Ben Hur. One day on the set, the film's lead actor, Baird Whitlock, (George Clooney) is drugged and simply carried out of his trailer. Success to the communists, they can now demand a handsome ransom from the studio. Of course there are debates over whether or not demanding a ransom is too capitalistic. You don't realize "Caesar!" is a comedy until after you're started laughing, which when you're critiquing satire, is a compliment. And that's the question: "Do I want to go to all that bother?" But a little bit of that can be forgiven if the story is straight with the audiences and Hail Caesar! is. So yes, I will watch this film a couple more times over the next year or so, when I'll be able to deconstruct it finer. In the meantime, if I were you, I'd find a way to pick this up because in the long run, Coen Brothers' films are usually worth it.
It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it's just one of the many messes Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix, a professional Hollywood "fixer" has to clean up.
As the film goes on, Mannix ushers the studio singing cowboy into his new career as a dramatic actor, side-swipes a pregnancy scandal, sucks up to religious groups and evades two twin gossip columnists, twins, both played by Tilda Swinton.
On top of these antics, we're also treated to a handful of musical numbers as we follow Mannix around the studio. Most of the jokes in Caesar! won't be recognized as such. I myself will have to revisit it a few times if I want to appreciate all of its humor. I sat here for a while trying to think of the answer to that question and finally, I've come up with my answer: "Yes, it's going to be worth it."
This better than your typical Coen Brothers film. Many of their films can be problematic when it comes to condescending to its own characters, and you see some of that here.
"There you go, you can sew. If only we had known this earlier."
Do you like coming-of-age movies where a self-conscious teenage girl is surrounded by high school malevolence and simple and thick sleazebags finds her "inner-cool?" Well, you are in luck, my friend.
Of course, her best chance is college. She's set on New York and is willing to almost anything to get there.
Aside from her home life, the tension between Lady Bird and her two romantic interests make for some of the very best dry and ironic comedy I've seen in a while.
I've seen the film twice now and it still feels crisp.
Isn't this a special week? In the first week in October 1994, my life changed twice. On Wednesday, my firstborn son was born.
My choice was obvious. Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" had been released just two years before, and had quickly became one of my favorite movies. So I went to see "Pulp Fiction."
Along with films like "Pulp Fiction," "Trainspotting" revolutionized the way all of us watch movies today. "Trainspotting" naturally wove between true life and fantasy. Finally, we were starting to hear our heros' inner-monologue. These films, along with others, unlocked a fifth wall.
Meanwhile, Bruce's lonely wife, (Shauna McDonald), has an insatiable lust for sex exceeded only by her lust for power. Power is her aphrodisiac. She loves power above all, even more than sex. Though it's power for her husband she wants, not for herself. Her sexual fantasy is to have Bruce to come home from work and call out, "Honey, I'm home! I'm a Detective Inspector!"
As "Filth" continues, it becomes clear that the real, actual Bruce is only a cool guy in his own mind. But in reality, he's not suave or in any way impressive.
A pathetic attempt at a shocking twist at the start of act three is not enough to save this mess.
Not only does the "twist" fall short, but the entire third act is a contrived wreck. The only part of the film that really works is the deconstruction of Bruce's brain by the mad Dr. Rossi.
"Trainspotting" was innovative in style and tone, but it didn't exist just for the sake of itself. It had so much more to give. It had life and hope and joy to offer. We intensely cared about those characters, even Begbie.
What the hell happened to the buddy-cop movie anyway? I'm racking my brain way back to "Lethal Weapon" and I don't remember anything. Wait, I guess there were the "Bad Boy" movies. Also, "Stop or my Mother will Shoot." So, it's not just that they went away as much as they started to straight-up suck.
When the first attempt to get Kincaid to the Hague goes tragically wrong, the only surviving Interpol agent, Amelia, (Elodie Yung) breaker of Michael's heart, contacts him because she just has no other choice.
These men have dozens of chances to kill each other, but they stand side by side, surviving the onslaught of bullets and bad guys together. I expected to see one of these guys just shoot the other. And that's what adds some tension to what would usually be standard action sequences.
Director Patrick Hughes is certainly comfortable with killing lots of people, including innocent bystanders by the ton.
No, it isn't the best action film of the year. That honor still belongs to "Atomic Blonde." But as an action film, it's tight, and as a comedy, it really is funny as hell.
"He strikes me as bein' a lonely man."
We've lost one of the great ones. Well, one of the good ones, at any rate.
He has to save them from themselves, from each other, from the press and, in this case, from communist kidnappers.
Of course there are debates over whether or not demanding a ransom is too capitalistic. You don't realize "Caesar!" is a comedy until after you're started laughing, which when you're critiquing satire, is a compliment. 
As the film goes on, Mannix ushers the studio singing cowboy into his new career as a dramatic actor, side-swipes a pregnancy scandal, sucks up to religious groups and evades two twin gossip columnists, twins, both played by Tilda Swinton. 
This better than your typical Coen Brothers film. Many of their films can be problematic when it comes to condescending to its own characters, and you see some of that here. 
