If I could describe the Germany-released movie North Face in just a single word, it would be the word horrific. Based upon the true story about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face of the Swiss Alps, the subtitled movie gets better and better with each passing frame. For those moviegoers who aren’t into subtitled movies, I can sympathize. I tend to groan when I know I’m about to embark on one of those too. Subtitled movies are ones that you need to prepare for, and, unfortunately, when a subtitled movie is bad, it almost becomes twice as dreadful to trudge through. But, at the same time, I have seen some fantastic foreign-language movies, and North Face ranks right up there with them. And, as with any good subtitled movie, when you are truly engaged, you don’t even notice you are reading the words anymore. I’m not sure how I came across this movie, other than the fact that I love a good adventure movie (I am one of those people that tends to separate the adventure genre from the action genre).
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The Good Lie (2014)
“Inspired by true events” versus “this is a true story” are two very different things. The first could mean anything. It’s harder to get upset when you find out fact and fiction don’t always meet eye to eye. However, when told that what you are about to see is a true story only to find out later that facts (both minor and major) have changed along the way, you have the right to get a bit more upset. Actual events inspire The Good Lie. And while they bring light to a critical issue, the character story was primarily fictional, as far as I can tell. Now, this brings up an interesting conversation. Would you rather see a strictly factual movie that doesn’t tell the most exciting story or one based on an actual situation but has, for the most part, specific characters and specific conditions that are more fictionalized? I’m careful with what to write here, not because I’m worried that I’ll give away any spoilers, but because I don’t want to knock a movie that I thought was good. And I guess heartwarming might not even be the best choice of words here because the main characters in this movie went through horrific situations throughout their lives. But if the story was all doom and gloom, would it attract the audience a story like The Good Lie hopes to attract? You want to shed light on specific issues while also offering hope. That is what this movie does. Nonetheless, I think the topic is open for debate because I believe a tiny percentage of the stories related to the brutal 1983 Civil War between Northern and Southern Sudan ended as positively as the story told in The Good Lie.
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Southpaw (2015)
History probably will not remember this because he missed earning an Academy Award nomination for the first performance and may again miss out on this one. Still, the physical transformation from Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as sickly, twisted reporter Lou Bloom in 2014’s fantastically crafted Nightcrawler to the lean, mean, fighting machine Billy Hope in 2015’s Southpaw is remarkable. As people watch either or both of these movies in the future, I think they will fail to remember that he filmed these two movies back to back. But aside from how he changed the physical look of his body for each of these roles, his acting performance in each of these films might be the two best in a career that continues to hit all the right buttons, save for The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I’ll first see Southpaw that the less you know in, the better off I think you will be. So if you haven’t seen it, I will list my overall score of the film here, and I would suggest not reading any more until after you’ve seen the movie or if the surprise factor isn’t something you are interested in. I will alert you when I add spoilers to this review. I would give Southpaw an overall score of 87.5/100.
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Angela’s Ashes (1999)
A couple of months ago, I found an article in Entertainment Weekly that had a list of the most depressing books ever written. And near the top of this list was Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. So, along with a list of other books I wanted to read, I went to Barnes and Noble and searched for the book. I came up empty, which surprised me because I had long thought this book was a classic and one read in English classes in many high schools. And I know I could have downloaded it or my Kindle, but I’m really about a 65%/35% reader in terms of hard copies over Kindle. And I like to read my classics as hard copies. In any case, fast-forward a month, and I go to a different Barnes and Noble looking for the book and again come up empty. So I texted my friend Sarah, and she told me I needed to check out the biography section and not the fiction/classics section. Who knew? And there it was, along with about 20 other copies of it. So I read the book over two weeks and loved it. It’s my favorite book of 2015. And, yes, I do rank my books just like I do my movies. I don’t blog about it because I watch more movies than reading books.
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Terminator Genisys (2015)
I wanted to like Terminator Genisys. I did. I know it got slammed by the critics (26% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but I am a fan of the franchise. I even watched Terminator Salvation (a movie that Christian Bale should never have wasted his time with) a few days prior in anticipation of this movie. I knew all about the movie’s problems. I knew that fans of the franchise would be, at the very least disappointed. I knew that many of the die-hards were upset with this movie. I had heard that it was confusing and difficult to follow. I knew that the trailer gave away the movie’s major twist. Yet I was willing to forget all of these things and held out hope that this movie could be more. I mean, this was The Terminator franchise. It couldn’t be worse than Predators, Live Free or Die Hard, or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, could it? Those three movies were packed full of junk (especially Indiana Jones) and should have never have been made. I am happy to report that Terminator Genisys was better than the three movies I just mentioned combined, but it was disappointing. It was action-packed. It is very, very reminiscent of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (a film that, in 1991, was so far ahead of its time in terms of CGI that it was ridiculous). It told a story that would have been good had it completely disowned the previous movies in the franchise (especially the original and Terminator 2: Judgment Day). Instead, Terminator Genisys made it appear as if the first four movies in the franchise never happened. Really? That’s the story? What would have happened if what happened didn’t happen? This is a Terminator film. Most of us don’t want to turn on our minds too much for a summer action flick like this.
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