All posts by bryanbuser

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

the adjustment bureau movie posterAs I started watching The Adjustment Bureau, I was surprised to see it was based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. I then spent the first ten minutes of the movie trying to think of all of the novels and short stories written by Dick that were made into movies. The list is massive and includes hits like (Minority Report, Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly), misses like (Imposter, Next, Screamers), highly overrated movies (Total Recall), and highly underrated movies (Paycheck). I wouldn’t put The Adjustment Bureau in any of these categories. It was a moderate hit ($62 million domestically, $128 million worldwide) based on a $50 million budget. It earned a 72% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was more a hit than a miss, but it certainly was no Minority Report or Blade Runner. Another interesting fact about Dick was that for every movie/short story, he wrote that was made into a movie, he wrote 15-20 times as many that were not made into movies. Philip K. Dick was, in his day, to the science fiction genre what Stephen King is to the horror genre today.

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Rampart (2012)

rampart movie posterRampart is one mess of a movie that guts by (barely) on the merits of Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, Transsiberian). I can’t say it’s worth the watch because of him, but it would have been an excruciating two hours had he not been the star. Its 76% approval rating on www.rottentomatoes.com is somewhat alarming, considering how incoherent and inconsistent the script was. This was a must-see movie when I saw that it was reuniting Harrelson with director Oren Moverman. The two struck gold with Moverman’s directorial debut, 2009’s The Messenger. That movie had a purpose. It had believable drama. It had a meaningful storyline. Never did it cause you to ask yourself, “Huh?” or “What just happened?” or “How are these characters getting away with all they are getting away with?” Instead, Rampart ends up being just one jumbled, incoherent disaster.
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The Debt (2011)

the debt movie posterThe Debt is the second highly acclaimed Helen Mirren (The Last Station, Gosford Park) movie I watched last month. The first was The Queen, for which she won the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Academy Award. I had high expectations for The Queen and was disappointed by it. I found it boring and just not nearly as good as all the critics made it out to be. It also starred Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, Underworld), who I’m not the biggest fan of. I also had high expectations of The Debt, but they needed to be higher to see the movie in the theater. After watching it at home, seeing it on the big screen would not have been much different. The movie was a good movie that had a reasonably interesting (though not entirely believable) story that held my interest the entire time.
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The Grey (2012)

the grey movie posterHit or miss actor Liam Neeson (Taken, Unknown) strikes gold with Joe Carnahan’s (Narc, Smokin’ AcesThe Grey. This riveting survival adventure movie follows a group of oil riggers after their plane crashes in the remote northern Alaska wilderness. Ottway (Neeson) is a marksman for the company. His job is to shoot any wolf that comes near the workstation. He’s a depressed man, and his narration at the start of the film makes it seem like everybody who works at this isolated post is there because there is nothing better for them anywhere else. The bars are lively when the men aren’t at work. The small men work side by side with each other daily at this monotonous job but do not know each other at all. At least, that’s how Ottway sees it or perceives it to be.
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A Better Life (2011)

a better life movie posterDemian Bichir (most recognized in America for his role as ruthless and corrupt Tijuana mayor Esteban Reyes in the Emmy Award Nominee Showtime series Weeds) is an undocumented Mexican immigrant named Carlos who works as a day worker, landscaping the yards of large yards in the affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods. He migrated from Mexico some 16 years ago after marrying. His 15-year-old son Luis (Jose Julian) is everything to him after his wife left him to experience a more exciting life in America that Carlos could not provide. A Better Life is exactly what its title suggests: a father trying to give himself and his son a better life.
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