I’m starting to think that Hollywood is either completely out of original ideas or knows that they are guaranteed a minimum hundred million dollars at the box office if it remakes a movie and has a starting cast of Hollywood A-listers. There is absolutely no reason why The Magnificent Seven needed to be remade. I have not seen the first one, but I imagine it was probably a pretty good movie when it was made…56 years ago. There have not been many great westerns produced in this century and, while they were good, most of them have been remakes (3:10 to Yuma, True Grit). There have been others (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Homesman). Still, there really haven’t been many in this genre of films when compared to others. While I appreciate a good western (Young Guns was my number one movie of all time from when I was 15 until I was about 25), I dislike a bad western just as much as I dislike a poor movie in other genres. And while I wouldn’t necessarily call The Magnificent Seven a poor movie, I definitely would call it an unneeded one. Unless you love westerns, there’s no need to see this movie. This absolutely is a movie that you don’t need to see on the big screen.
Continue reading The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Category Archives: 2016
Snowden (2016)
I did not see 2015’s Citzenfour documentary about Edward Snowden. Had I, I might not have appreciated Oliver Stone’s (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) biopic as much as I did. I think part of the reason I was such a big fan of Snowden was that I knew very little about it before my viewing. Sure I knew of Wikileaks and learned a lot from the news, but I didn’t pay. Snowden went from your everyday no name to one of the most controversial figures of this century. Now, if you think this movie will be completely neutral, you don’t know Oliver Stone very well. Heck, this was the same man who directed JFK. His approach has always been very anti-government, and with Snowden, it’s no different. While I haven’t loved all of his movies (Nixon, W., Alexander, Savages, even JFK wasn’t really my thing), there are certainly more than I do like. Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July are incredibly amazing, while other movies such as Natural Born Killers and Wall Street were revolutionary. Snowden might be my third favorite. Snowden was definitely softer in tone and, maybe even the scope, but was, by no means, less controversial. I don’t have a lot of complaints about the movie itself. Some people said it was too long. I did not feel that way. My only problem with it is that it didn’t make Ed Snowden as controversial as he was. Instead, it made it seem that whistleblowing on his country was the right and noble thing to do. For some, maybe most, it may have been. But what we weren’t really shown was the “other side” of the story. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable film that gave a great backstory for why he did the things he did.
Continue reading Snowden (2016)
Sully (2016)
Two days after seeing the best lead actress performance I have seen so far in 2016 (Alicia Vikander – The Light Between Oceans), I saw the best performance by a lead actor so far this year in Tom Hanks’s (Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips) portrayal of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood’s (American Sniper, Mystic River) Sully. While 2016 has been a major letdown for movies through its first eight months, Sully, at least, gives promise that you are guaranteed one fantastic film and hope that there will be many, many more as Oscar season approaches (Manchester by the Sea, La La Land, Fences, Nocturnal Animals, Loving, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk to name a few). 2016 has proven and will continue to prove that it is a year like no other since I began this blog back in 2010. Through its release date (September 9), Sully is, hands down, the best movie of 2016 and the only one that I feel 100% confident will stay in my top 10 after I’ve seen all of the big movies of 2016.
Continue reading Sully (2016)
The Light Between Oceans (2016)
The Light Between Oceans was a terribly flawed movie that is very likely to bore many, if not most, of its moviegoers. This was evidenced by the guy sitting behind me who was sawing logs for the entire second half. But I am a sucker for broken relationship movies caused by some sort of strife, and that’s exactly what I got here. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was about a couple living on a small island while he managed a lighthouse and that they found a baby in a boat they took as their own after she suffered a series of miscarriages. I actually wish I had gone in knowing nothing about this movie at all. All I needed to know was that it was a heavy drama, that it featured one of my favorite actors (Michael Fassbender – Shame, Steve Jobs), one of the next great actresses of our time who absolutely arrived on the scene with two massive performances in 2015 (Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina, The Other Danish Girl), and the director of one of my favorite movies of all-time (Derek Cianfrance – Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines). That enough would have gotten me in the theater. And that is enough for me to give this a positive review despite a story that had much promise but had some uneven turns and ultimately led to characters making decisions that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. What I loved most about this movie (which will be the focus of this review) is how two different people can face the same ethical dilemma and how the decision can eat one person up so much that they almost can’t live with themselves. In contrast, the other person can continue living their life peacefully as if the decision they had to make was whether to have sausage or pepperoni on their pizza the night before.
Me Before You (2016)
I saw Me Before You back in 1991. It was called Dying Young, and Julia Roberts was the star. It stunk. I am completely joking, but I promised myself I would use this as the first line of this review regardless. The truth is I didn’t see Dying Young until 2005. That part is actually true, but the real truth is that these movies aren’t even in the same league. Dying Young wasn’t as poor as I thought it would be, but I really don’t remember much about it. On the other hand, Me Before You was an extremely profound movie that I will remember from years on out. And I also believe it is a movie that showcased the range of Emilia Clarke (HBO’s Game of Thrones) and firmly planted her as a leading actress for the next 10-15 years. The film also introduced Sam Claflin to the rest of the world that has not seen The Hunger Games franchise, where he played the role of Finnick. Before I get firmly into the nuts and bolts of this review, I want to state that I was blown away by every aspect of this tear-jerker. While it was clearly designed to tug at our heartstrings, it felt completely authentic. It was carried by an absolutely superb performance by Clarke and backed up heavily by Claflin, who did just enough to play second fiddle. I remember seeing Brooklyn last year. Brooklyn was a movie that I adored, but I couldn’t understand it when I could hear the sniffling and see the watery eyes of all those sitting near me. In Me Before You, I understood it completely. There are a few quick and funny tidbits related to this movie that I thought I’d share:
- I thought this was another movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book.
- I kept getting this movie confused with Love & Friendship, the Jane Austin novel adapted for the big screen that came out around the same time as Me Before You. But, as I look at these two movies now, the only comparison was that I was convinced I wouldn’t see either movie at the time of their release.
- I was talking to a co-worker about Me Before You, and she basically spoiled the moving, telling me that she didn’t want to ruin it for me, but continuing to do so.