Roger's Watchlist - Movies by the day

November 13 2024

Kaley Cuoco as an assassin. Once you get used to Penny from Big Bang Theory killing people you will enjoy this True Lies inspired action comedy thriller for sure. Let’s get real, all the fans of Cuoco certainly have fantasized about a story for their favorite actress. Here she plays a married mother of two, who uses her frequent trips to expertly dispose of various targets, while trying to uphold a romantic relationship with her husband, played by David Oyelowo. When she is being exposed, her life and that of her family is suddenly in jeopardy. Role Play is maybe not as a fun ride as James Cameron’s True Lies, yet I found it very nicely flowing along with some great sequences, especially the beginning sequence featuring Bill Nighy in a fantastic appearance as a rival contract killer. He is simply outrageously good. Connie Nielsen plays a nice villain, although her persona isn’t really developed enough to explain for certain her eventual demise. The movie has been lambasted by reviews left and right but I was truly not able to find bigger faults or reasons to not like Role Play. It is fun and entertaining.

Story: 7,44
Cast: 7,21
Entertainment : 6,77

Note: 7,14

November 12 2024

Looking through Tom Hanks’ filmography between Splash and A League of Their Own, it should be quite obvious to anyone that those movies, albeit being successful box office performers, were for the most part light comedies with no real potential, except for Big, which wasa bona fide hit. The Money Pit was such an example of Tom Hanks’ choices. It is a comedy, verring wildly from romantic to slapstick and back, involving a young couple who buy a large house for a relatively modest sum of money only to discover that the just fell into the ‘Money Pit’, when everything around the house starts to fail dramatically from plumbing to electricity, from stairs to ceilings. These scenes are really outrageously funny and Hanks, as the one in the center of all these accidents, carries away these scenes masterfully. His partner, Shelley Long, whom most people knew from the TV series ‘Cheers’ however simply doesn’t fit here. She cannot hold up next to Hanks and their chemistry is unfortunately inexistant. Then, when no sequences involve the systematic destruction of the house, the movie fails to convince. Long’s ‘affair’ with her ex-husband is simply ridiculous and had director Richard Benjamin been inspired, the whole movie would have profited greatly. I noticed that Long’s ex was played by tall blond Alexander Godunov. Some may recognize him, the was Alan Rickman’s main henchman in Die Hard. Godunov died in 1995 only aged 45. If you look closely you also might meet a young Joe Montegna in an early part and young Nestor Serrano as a handyman. This is certainly one of Hanks’ less successful movies but it didn’t impede on his further career.

Story: 6,34
Cast : 6,66
Entertainment : 5,72

Note: 6,24

November 11 2024

Before 1963 not many Agatha Christie adaptations had made their way to the theaters. One can clearly mention Witness For the Prosecution with brilliant Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich but there was no production that made similar headlines before Margaret Rutherford appeared in Murder She Said, the first movie featuring Christie’s woman sleuth Miss Jane Marple.

The public success of Murder She Said incited producers to follow up with three further movies which presented some interesting facts which I will come back to in the review of those movies. On Murder She Said let me just mention the fact that the movie’s script places Marple into the midst of the action, while most novels depict her as the lady in the background picking up the gossip and stories around the crime and coming up with the culprit at the end. Here, of course the movie puts Margaret Rutherford into action and her interaction with the police inspector, played by Charles Tingwell and her sparring with James Robertson Justice is marvelous. The 1961 production opened the door to many more Christie movies and their successes made it possible that ITV adapted all her Poirot and Marple stories into TV series, while notable directors like Kenneth Branagh put a new spin on the stories just recently. All this wouldn’t have happened without Margaret Rutherford’s inimitable performance as the master sleuth.

Story: 8,56
Cast: 7,35
Entertainment : 8,51

Note: 8,14

November 10 2024

This movie is a piece of evidence how far society has gone on in the past 30 years. Memories of the 90’s pale and the things which made headline news for months and months back then have completely vanished from people’s radars. Do you remember the big lawsuits against tobacco corporations? Nobody mentions any of those anymore. Other things have taken over. Yet, Michael Mann’s 1999 movie The Insider is a vital proof that whistle blowers on big corporations or crooked policies like Jeffrey Weigand or Edward Snowden have had an influence and still will have in the future. Weigand’s decision to go public with big tobacco’s procedures to further addiction in smokers is the centerpiece of Mann’s picture which also recounts to the audience how the publication of Weigand’s testimony almost destroyed CBS News, who had decided to air Weigand’s interview, was upended by its own corporation who feared legal repercussions. Mann united a great cast to tell a gripping story. Russell Crowe, as Weigand, earned his first of three consecutive Academy Award nominations for his performance. Al Pacino appears as Lowell Bernstein, producer of the news show 60 Minutes who convinced Weigand to go public and Diane Venora, Gina Gershon, Stephen Tobolowsky, Christopher Plummer, Bruce McGill, Colm Feore, Michael Gambon and Philip Baker Hall complete an impressive cast. This is a fascinating look at society and the extreme length corporations will go to discredit anything or anyone who would not adhere to their policies and questionable procedures. The tobacco corporations still produce their addictive products, undeterred by the way.

Story : 8,49
Cast : 8,67
Entertainment: 8,91

Note: 8,69

If you have a look along Aaron Eckhart’s filmography you will notice that the eminent actor who had great parts in The Dark Knight, Erin Brockovich, The Pledge or Paycheck, has entered the B-movie phase of his career. His credits include more and more Direct to DVD or Streaming action movies. The Bricklayer is an action spy thriller, who actually got a short cinematic release but could have been as easily premiered on a streaming site. Like similar movies starring Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren, and other aging movie icons The Bricklayer is an action movie featuring lots of fights, shootouts and car chases, yet loses the plot numerous times amid a number of logical errors. Alongside Eckhart, Nina Dobrev is the female lead and only Clifton Collins jr. and Tim Blake Nelson might be known elsewhere by audiences. German star Veronica Ferres has a small part but only German movie fans might have recognized her. The movie is a nice distraction for action aficionados, it has of course offended my friends the critics, but I kind of appreciated the effort, led by director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger). It is a Better quality movie and it does not really deserve to be buried among B-movies.

Story: 6,21
Cast: 6,19
Entertainment : 6,89

Note: 6,43

November 8 2024

The Hammer film production company had taken over the Horror movie genre in the 1950’s and dominated the box offices with the Dracula films, Frankenstein remakes and many other movies. By 1970 their success had largely subsided and other features managed to pass them at the box office. The Abominable Dr.Phibes is a bizarre, yet enormously entertaining movie about a mutilated scientist who goes on a revenge spree, killing all the people who were responsible in his eyes for his wife’s death.
He starts to murder them replicating the bible’s plagues and leaves the police baffled. This funny black comedy stars Vincent Price in what was apparently his 100th feature, and Joseph Cotten as Price’s primary target. Of course of the past 50 years The Abominable Dr.Phibes has acquired cult status, a sequel was made a year later, though couldn’t replicate the original success. Great stuff.

Story: 7,71
Cast: 6,44
Entertainment: 7,42.

Note: 7,19

November 7 2024

Force of Nature was released digitally, on DVD and BluRay in 2020, it seemed that COVID prevented a theatrical exploitation of this action movie which featured quite an interesting cast. Emile Hirsch led the way as a cop transferred to Puerto Rico after a tragic shooting. Together with a female partner he is assigned to evacuate a building before a powerful hurricane hits the island but is caught inside when a heavily armed gang infiltrates the structure on the search for an invaluable art collection. The story boasts some good action, some good dialogue and has the advantage to feature Mel Gibson, David Zayas and Kate Bosworth on Hirsch’s side. Bosworth was at the time of filming married to director Michael Polish which of course facilitated her casting. Despite being blasted by my friends the critics, Force of Nature was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, mostly because of Gibson’s presence (all too short), but also through a great setting involving adverse weather conditions and some good dramatic sequences. A theatrical release would certainly have had a positive incidence on earnings but that really wasn’t to be. Incidentally, Bosworth and Polish separated in 2021, I hope that the movie’s failure was not the reason.

Story: 7,02
Cast: 6,72
Entertainment : 6,47

Note: 6,74

November 6 2024

Romantic comedies exist in all variations, and every one of them normally serves up a happy end for the audience with maybe a few exceptions. It is therefore a bit strange that (500) Days of Summer is commonly seen as a romcom, when it clearly is not. Somehow someone thought it would be a good idea to show over a period of apparently 500 days a guy who meets a girl, appropriately named Summer, dates her, falls in love with her, dreams of a future together, grows estranged to her and finally breaks up with her. Add to this that the story is told non sequentially with inserts telling us which day of their mutual relation we just witness. I have to be clear here, the more I was watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel flirting and quarreling, the more I was disappointed. Can we agree that a movie like this should clearly be advertised as a relationship drama instead of a romcom? The director Marc Webb went on to direct two Spider-Man movies. Zooey Deschanel went on to play a similar part in a TV series, Gordon Levitt went on to appear in Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises and was able to secure good parts in various movies. Supporting cast here was made up of Matthew Gray Gubler, Chloë Grace Moretz, Minka Kelly and Clark Gregg, but for me this was a clear failure.

Story : 4,16
Cast: 6,52
Entertainment : 4,07

Note: 4,92

November 5 2024

This movie is yet another Lone Star production that starred John Wayne during his ‘lean’ years in the 1930’s when he just couldn’t make a breakthrough in bigger productions after his failed attempt to head an A-movie in The Big Trail back in 1930. All these movies were quite formulaic, short on runtime (52 minutes), Westerns for most part, with Wayne playing the lead. Here he stars as a cowboy from Utah who gets deputized by a US Marshal to uncover shady dealings by a gang during rodeo attractions. You won’t really need more of a plot summary because they are all alike, this one is somewhat entertaining though. The most interesting scene here is the beginning. Duke rides into the frame strumming a guitar and singing a tune. But don’t worry John Wayne fans: Duke was dubbed by a singer here. Thankfully.

Story: 5,77
Cast: 6,21
Entertainment : 6,22

Note: 6,07

November 4 2024

Tom Cruise doesn’t really look back fondly on Cocktail. It earned a Razzie Award for Worst picture even though it was a commercial success but some include it in their list of the most entertaining worst movies of all time. So, what’s behind this retroactive appreciation of a movie that was destroyed by just about every review? Let’s put it this way. Cocktail is cheesy as hell, it is bolstered up to the rim with platitudes, it tells a typical 80’s story of earning money as fast as possible and it is dominated by an improbable love story during which Elizabeth Shue dreams about having kids with Cruise on their first evening together. But everything is just so full of things that shouldn’t work, that it is quite a challenge to acknowledge that you actually have fun watching. Yet that is what happened. The music, the 80’s everything gives away a vibe which you cannot really resist and after the movie you will ask yourself why you never tried out at bar-keeping. Shue is great as the female lead next to a young Cruise, Bryan Brown as the mentor/barkeeper is a nice sidekick even though I would have preferred a bigger name for the part. Gina Gershon has a small part, so does Kelly Lynch, in the end, while I won’t include Cocktail in my 80’ cult movie list, I still will say that I had fun watching it, which is not bad at all for a Worst Picture Razzie winner.

Story: 5,45
Cast : 6,78
Entertainment : 7,34

Note: 6,52

November 3 2024

Once you will have seen The Iron Claw, you will certainly ask yourself how much of tragedy a family can take. The incredible story of the Von Erich family who lost 5 of 6 sons prematurely through accidents, drug overdoses and suicides, has been put into this movie and it hits you hard. The fact that father and sons were part of the wrestling scene in the 70’s and 80’s and considered legends of the sport, might give the movie another background, but this is about family ties, existentialism, and any great sequence of scenes in the wrestling ring cannot achieve a bigger impact than the carnage cutting up this family. You know that it happened just this way and it is even more tragic that filmmakers omitted one son and his subsequent suicide from the movie, estimating that the public just won’t be able to take any more. Playing the only surviving son Kevin, Zac Ephron, shedding his Disney image and his musical parts, bulked up to deliver a very remarkable performance, Lily James plays his wife, Maura Tierney is the mother of the family while Holt McCallany plays the family patriarch. Immensely moving, Iron Claw is certainly not a Wrestling biopic, even though it somehow is, but an intense look at a doomed, self destructive family.

Story : 8,21
Cast : 6,72
Entertainment : 6,86

Note: 7,26

November 2 2024

Apparently Michael Mann worked for more than 20 years on a movie about Enzo Ferrari, the charismatic founder of the renowned car factory. What surprised me most though was the fact that Mann chose not to make a biopic covering Ferrari’s life but picked a defining stage in 1957 when Enzo’s professional future was in the balance while his private life was in turmoil and the pressure to win races led to a tragedy in the Mille Miglia race. Mann had the extraordinary luck to win over Adam Driver for the part of the great man. There is a cunning resemblance to Ferrari and Driver, barely 40 years old, makes a great performance as an almost 60 year old Ferrari. Penelope Cruz appears as Laura, Enzo’s wife and Shailene Woodley is Lina Lardi, the mistress and mother of Ferrari’s illegitimate son, Piero. The high point of the movie is of course the doomed Mille Miglia race, with Mann capturing extraordinary race scenes culminating in the tragic accident that cost the life of Alfonso de Portago, Ferrari’s driver and killed a number of spectators including 5 children. It is quite incomprehensible how such a race would be allowed back then, but the scenes are breathtaking nevertheless. Ferrari is a great glimpse into a life that shaped the automobile industry and the racing world, sometimes I wish this was only a part of a wider production, because it is endlessly interesting.

Story : 8,41
Cast : 8,44
Entertainment : 8,35

Note: 8,40

November 1 2024

As Stephen King adaptations go, Needful Things is a rather faithful transposition of a decidedly weak King novel. Stephen King wrote the novel in 1991, coming back from drug and alcohol rehabilitation, but horror elements were sparse and notably absent from the book. The shop who sells the things people most want is a rather weak premise and neither book nor movie elaborate if the villain, Leland Gaunt, is actually the devil who instigates friction, aggression, chaos and death. Both book and feature film are interesting without eliciting any enthusiasm. The movie can boast some good casting choices: Ed Harris as the sheriff, the only sane soul among the chaos, Max von Sydow as the villain, Bonnie Bedelia, J.T. Walsh and Amanda Plummer. Nevertheless I must categorize Needful Things as a failed movie, because it is the adaptation of a rsther bad novel. By the way, the director Fraser C. Heston is acting legend Charlton Heston’s son. His short career would limit itself to this movie and a few TV movies starring his father.

Story: 6,43
Cast : 6,41
Entertainment : 5,67

Note: 6,17

October 31 2024

Romancing the Stone was 1984’s sleeper hit making the Top Ten in the year end and of course people wanted more of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Unfortunately, when preparations to a sequel began, things started to go awry. Director Robert Zemeckis was unavailable working on a little movie called Back to the Future. Lewis Teague was hired and subsequently failed quite enormously. Only ‘Cujo’ (1983) features nore prominently in this man’s filmography and he proved to be quite inadequate. The story for the sequel went through numerous iterations with Kathleen Turner rebelling against the bad quality of the script. She wanted out but got threatened with a multi million dollar lawsuit, but of course she was right. The story indeed is abysmal. In an effort to release the movie as soon as possible, minimal effort was made to make a movie as entertaining as Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile proved to be a clear miss. For entertainment purposes, Danny De Vito reappeared as Ralph the lowlife but he couldn’t save the project either. Of course with the bad reception, the franchise was dead in the water and no sequel or remake has been considered, ever, which is a surprise in the current craze to take every TV series and movie from the 1980’s and put a new spin on it.

Story: 4,77
Cast: 6,61
Entertainment : 5,88

Note: 5,75

October 30 2024

Once you get over the shock to see perennial blonde Kim Basinger appear with brown hair, you will enjoy Blind Date nevertheless. Blind Date could easily be put into my cult 80’s category if there weren’t a few minor flaws, Basinger’s hairdo being one of them. This movie has also the distinction to be Bruce Willis’ first credited feature movie in which he got to play the male lead right away alongside Basinger who got top credit though. Blind Date is directed by Blake Edwards, director of classics like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Pink Panther and Victor/Victoria. It is labeled as a romantic comedy, yet it clearly veers more into the slapstick corner. The scene around the big house towards the end is a clear homage to the Tinseltown comedies of the 1920’s or the screwball comedies of the 1930’s yet among all the sight gags, Edwards loses the most important aspect, developing the main characters. I truly missed blonde beautiful big eyed Basinger, here she doesn’t really look her best, she seems mousy and uneasy in a genre that was not really her forte. Willis does his best but his Walter character is basically the brunt of every visual gag and he just runs through the entire movie wide eyed and confused. Comedic timing here is however perfect, you can enjoy Blind Date without reservations, I just would have loved some calmer moments giving the actors the possibility to identify with their characters. Cult 80’s? No.

Story : 7,44
Cast : 7,57
Entertainment : 6,54

Note: 7,18

October 29 2024

As much as I love caper or heist movies, Loophole really left me a bit disappointed. This 1981 British production features some really big names, most notably Martin Sheen and Albert Finney, yet I have to admit that the meticulously planned execution of a bank heist must be the most straightforward caper of all time. The story focuses on Sheen, playing an out of work, out of money architect getting hired by a suave master thief (Duvall) to assist with the planning of a daring bank heist. During the whole production there is no sense of urgency, no twist, no police chase. To elevate tension a few dramatic developments have been inserted towards the end, but in essence, there is just no element which might increase suspense thus the entertainment and fun are clearly absent. Among the cast you’ll also meet Suzannah York, Colin Blakely and a young looking Jonathan Pryce, who would become a formidable Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Story: 5,46
Cast: 6,28
Entertainment : 6,02

Note: 5,92

October 28 2024

Sometimes it just happens. Even though you think you are a movie aficionado, there are still some movies around that you have ignored for some reason, that you maybe never heard of and that give you this wow feeling, making you ask yourself why it had bypassed you. That’s what I asked myself after thoroughly enjoying Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which I discovered today 19 years after its 2005 release. Now, this is not an unknown independent low budget production, after all it is directed by Shane Black and it stars Michelle Monaghan, Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. According to Downey Jr. this movie is his favorite and his performance as New York thief Harry apparently convinced Marvel and Jon Favreau to cast him as Iron Man. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a heavily entertaining black comedy about a NY lowlife who unintentionally wins a screen test in Los Angeles and while reconnecting with a high school crush gets mixed into a mysterious crime spree while dead bodies begin to appear in numbers. The plot is a very tongue-in-cheek homage to film noir with a masterful Downey Jr. alongside Kilmer providing fantastic support as an openly gay private detective. I found this picture a joy to watch, savoring every minute of this crazy story and shaking my head over the fact that I had never seen this before.

Story: 8,79
Cast : 9,26
Entertainment : 9,58

Note: 9,21

October 27 2024

For over 50 years Sidney Lumet’s work was highly regarded throughout the world and even though he never won an Academy Award for Best Director (Honorary awards excluded) despite four nominations, his movies are classics, beginning in 1957 with 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, Network or The Verdict. His later films weren’t real successes and the last movie Lumet directed before his death in 2011 was Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. A very select cast appears in this crime melodrama about two brothers who, in dire need of money, try to rob their parents’ jewelry store. When their plan goes horribly wrong, the ensuing events trigger a spiral of violence which tears the whole family apart. Led by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a grandiose performance as the older brother, supported by Ethan Hawke as the younger sibling, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei and Michael Shannon, Lumet is at his masterful best telling a story of greed, having an intricate look into a dysfunctional family and making an in-depth examination of sheer criminal inaptitude. The movie entraps you and wouldn’t let you go until the ultimately rather surprising, yet somewhat predictable ending. It is another proof of a master at work, truly watchable and endlessly interesting.

Story: 7,44
Cast : 8,18
Entertainment : 8,07

Note: 7,90

October 26 2024

Rian Johnson is the director of the Knives Out movies with Daniel Craig, he directed the rather heavily criticized Last Jedi in the Star Wars franchise and Looper with Bruce Willis. An earlier feature carrying his signature is The Brothers Bloom, an action comedy caper movie starring Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody premiering in 2008. Ruffalo and Brody play con men brothers selecting Weisz, a multi million dollar heiress, as their last and most lucrative target. Of course as it happens, Brody falls heavily for Weisz, and things begin to fall apart very quickly. The movie starts in a very promising way, making the viewer giddy in anticipation for things to come but disappointment takes over from the middle as the plot loses steam, losing the fun and freshness and putting unnecessary drama when more action and laughs are needed. The effort to establish great characters and put in a great plot is negated by the developments later on, but this may still be a very interesting view thanks to the great chemistry between the three leads. There is Robbie Coltrane in a very underused supporting performance, Maximilan Schell appears as an enigmatic villain and Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi plays the con men’s sidekick, appropriately named Bang Bang.

Story: 6,35
Cast: 8,04
Entertainment : 6,37

Note: 6,92

October 25 2024

Daddy’s Home (2015) and its sequel in 2017 established Mark Wahlberg and Will Farrell as a first class comedic duo in buddy movies but many may have forgotten that both had featured together in The Other Guys, directed by Adam McKay. This 2010 movie established the chemistry between these two actors and introduced Mark Wahlberg to a new genre, comedy. Witty, funny, The Other Guys might be overdoing a little bit the over the top action. Yet the best bit might assuredly be the rather short appearances of Hollywood superstars Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L.Jackson. This sequence appearing just 15 minutes into the story sealed my excellent opinion of this movie, maybe the best spoof of any buddy action movie. It is just too bad that Eva Mendes got not enough screen time playing Will Ferrell’s wife. The movie is full of cameos, the regretted Anne Heche appears uncredited as a business woman, there is baseball great Derek Jeter in some scenes and the narrator you hear on several occasions is Ice-T. Excellent entertainment, I just value it higher than the Daddy’s Home movies.

Story: 7,44
Cast: 7,82
Entertainment : 7,72

Note : 7,66

October 24 2024

There was a period in the early 1930’s when Alfred Hitchcock, on the back of the success with Blackmail, was struggling to find good scripts to follow up his triumph. He had some luck with Murder!, but his other movies only got lukewarm, if not ice cold receptions. Only The Man Who Knew Too Much would stop the bad run. Rich and Strange came right in the middle of this difficult period. Unsatisfied with all the books he read in order to find a decent movie premise, Hitchcock sat down with wife Alma and wrote a screenplay about a couple embarking on a world cruise happening upon various circumstances that puts their couple at risk. In this movie, the morbid Hitchcock humor sees the light of day (the scene with the cat makes you either laugh or cry), there is some drama but some sequences on the cruise ships are clearly referring to the Hitchcock couple’s own experiences. It is an interesting part of Hitchcock’s filmography, but Rich and Strange does not provide the perfect entertainment later movies would be able to dispense. Joan Barry who plays the female lead was appearing in Blackmail earlier, she was hired to dub Anny Ondra who had too foreign an accent to play a Cockney girl.

Story: 6,04
Cast: 5,32
Entertainment: 6,37

Note: 5,91

October 23 2024

Buddy movies were the rage during the 1980’s and just about every variation was tried out throughout the decade until the year 1989 when two different productions were released almost back to back involving a cop and a dog. While Tom Hanks had to deal with the monster dog called Hooch in Turner & Hooch, Jim Belushi would be partnered with German shepard Jerry Lee (even though 3 different dogs were used) in K-9. Belushi plays the renegade, gruff detective on the prowl to foil a major drug deal, resistent to any partner until he gets acquainted to Jerry Lee, a police dog with some psychological problems. We have some very funny sequences and the whole crime story of course is completely irrelevant because the whole movie is just based on the dog/human relationship. K-9 did an okay job at the box office, two sequels went direct to video, yet I can just say that I love buddy cop movies and this one is just right up my alley. By the way, the only other bigger names here are Ed O’Neill (Al Bundy) playing the K-9 sergeant, and Daniel Davis (Niles, the butler in The Nanny) as a bad guy. The biggest star anyway here is the dog or the group of dogs.

Story: 7,34
Cast : 6,21
Entertainment : 7,88

Note: 7,14

October 22 2024

It may have been a good idea at the time. Making a romantic comedy, focusing on the mostly futile effort of a gay young man to enter into a relationship at a time when LGTBQ was still unknown to the world and AIDS was still all around, was clearly a courageous endeavor. Jeffrey got positive reviews but watching it today makes you clearly wonder how the depiction of a gay community 30 years ago might come over as quite offensive today. This movie is a rather uncomfortable look back, it really was not able to interest me except for a long list of celebrity names making appearances. Next to Steven Weber, you would of course single out Sir Patrick Stewart, there are short skits involving Sigourney Weaver, Christine Baranski, Victor Garber, Nathan Jones, Kathy Najimy and Olympia Dukakis, but all these names just couldn’t shake off the flakiness of a production which just wouldn’t be able to stay coherent whether it could be a romantic comedy or veer into some form of tragedy with the ever present AIDS shadowing over the plot.

Story : 4,11
Cast : 6,33
Enterianment : 4,09

Note: 4,84

October 21 2024

As far as French comedies go, Iris et les hommes breaches some boundaries. It is not uncommon to integrate erotic, sexual themes into a plot, here however writer/director Caroline Vignal has concentrated the whole content of her story on the unsatisfied love life of her main protagonist, a middle aged dentist, married, two daughters. Laure Calamy plays this woman, who, despite being married for 16 years, has not had intimacy with her husband for four years. Against her better judgment she turns to a sexual relation app to fulfill her desire for intercourse without realizing that her new life destroys her family life. I’d qualify this as a bittersweet comedy, there are some sequences that make you laugh out loudly, only for other sequences to make you think about dramatic consequences for her love life. There are no known actors here, maybe for the better to focus more intently on the story.

Story: 6,04
Cast : 5,11
Entertainment: 6,21

Note: 5,79

October 20 2024

You may think of Adam Sandler what you want. Between all the silly somewhat dubious comedies he did, you’ll always find one feature he did that is clearly sticking out among his filmography and can withstand critical contemplation. Judd Apatow, who was Sandler’s roommate in college, wrote Funny People with Sandler in mind for the part of George Simmons, the comedian/ movie star who stands at a crossroad in his life when he is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and has to notice that he has neither friends nor family that would support him in his fight against the disease. He decides to take an upcoming comedian, Ira, under his wing and makes him his assistant. While the synopsis sounds a bit dark, most viewers should be warned beforehand. This is an Apatow comedy, it is very raunchy, clearly deserves an R-rating, yet despite its length of almost 2 and a half hours it deals not only with silly fart jokes but touches on more serious themes like loneliness, relationships, friendships and empathy. The cast list is full of Apatow actors, led by Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) and their daughters, Jonah Hill alongside Eric Bana and a host of comedians doing cameos including Sarah Silverman and Ray Romano. The best cameo though belongs to Eminem in a remarkable scene that just is hilariously funny. Funny People was a box office flop, but I do have to say that I did appreciate this movie more than any earlier Sandler movies.

Story : 7,41
Cast : 7,42
Entertainment : 7,31

Note : 7,38