One of the early tragedies of the Netflix distribution line must be the 
J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, All Is Lost) Triple Frontier, a movie you can decide after watching or reading this review whether you like it or not. This is not a review that will talk about the merits and faults of Netflix (by one sentence, the 2019 stand is that Netflix is unique with its shows, but I wish it would stay away from movies). Still, Triple Frontier deserved its viewing on a big screen theater, where it could have flourished. I’ve seen over 1500 movies in a movie theatre at the time of this post. I’ve seen 1500 other movies for the first time on my television screen as well. For each movie I’ve seen and loved on my television, I can’t help but wonder what the movie must have been like in the atmosphere in which it was designed to be viewed. I can’t make the same claim the other way around. Sure, I’ve said, “Man, I wish I would have saved my cash and watched this at home…or not watched this at all” when I see a terrible movie in the theatre, but that is a different conversation and, hopefully, one I don’t have to have on a different day.
Category Archives: Adventure
Arctic (2018)
Joe Penna’s directorial debut, Arctic, was a movie I highly anticipated, one that I didn’t love as much as I thought I would during its viewing, but one that stuck around with me well after it was over and one that’s worth a review. I wish this movie was a true story. It would have made the movie more meaningful. But, at the same time, Penna could have easily said that this was inspired by actual events because, of course, it was. There are survival stories like the one in Arctic across this beautiful planet every single day, whether it be in the frozen terrain in the middle of the Arctic nowhere, or on a mountain, in the middle of a forest, a desert, an ocean, or any other location where it would be deemed unsurvivable for the average person in the short-term and anyone in the long-term. So while the story of Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen – The Promised Land, The Hunt) is not his own, I don’t think the move is lessened because of what we know do know about stories where a person or a group of people are stranded in the middle of nowhere and either survive or don’t survive.
Black Panther (2018)
2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expanded on a tradition that had existed since 1927. It increased the number of potential Best Picture nominations from the usual five to a potential maximum of 10. It was a move to inject more blockbusters into the Oscar mix and to give movies like Avatar, Inception, and Toy Story 3 the recognition of Best Picture that they deserved. But in essence, this was The Dark Knight rule. This 2008 film, the most incredible superhero movie ever made, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two (Best Supporting Actor – Heath Ledger, Best Achievement in Sound Editing).
Bird Box (2018)
A Quiet Place meets The Mist meets The Happening meets The Road meets I Am Legend (specifically with one of the alternating endings). That’s a quick and easy way to describe the effective Netflix release Bird Box. Many people will compare A Quiet Place to this film because of its proximity to release dates. I would have been upset if this was a cheap rip-off of, perhaps, the biggest surprise hit of 2018, replacing not making noise with being unable to see the change. But Bird Box is based on a 2014 debut novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, years before previews of A Quiet Place were even created. This makes the movie even more enjoyable. You get to wonder about Malerman’s inspirations rather than assuming that it was the novel he was trying to emulate.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
As my friend Tom would say, directing a Mission Impossible movie is like a doorknob. Everyone gets a turn. This is so true, but not really in a good way. While this franchise undoubtedly improves with each new installment, this wasn’t always the case. My biggest problem with the first four movies of the franchise was how different they were from one another. I have never watched a sequel that was so inherently different in directing, storytelling, cinematography, sound, and everything else from the original than Mission Impossible 2 was from Mission Impossible. John Woo’s Hong Kong-style martial arts action flick was so far completely different from the Brian DePalma intelligent, well-crafted, big-budget adaptation of the brilliant spy television series that ran for seven years in the late 1960s that it felt like the two movies weren’t even related. I don’t necessarily oppose changing a director (though I don’t love it), but I oppose changing styles. Plenty of franchises have had different directors that have made that work (most notably the James Bond franchise, which is similar to Mission Impossible), but many more haven’t.