Year: 2014

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

fpaul FF=0

Not great, but not bad. I found Depp’s Wonka a real creepy critter, more menacing than Wilder’s take. Those teeth, that vacant look…

FF= 0 (My grandson watched with me and he doesn’t go for FFing – but I doubt I’d have done much anyway, except maybe in the Oompa-Loompa musical numbers.)

ONG-BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR

fpaul FF=0

Very entertaining.  Cliched storyline, sure, but who watches chop-socky films for story?  Excellent, inventive fight sequences (at least for me, since I’m unfamiliar with Thai-style fighting).  It had a few spots that seemed slow, but every time my thumb drifted FFward, something would stop it.

FF=0

CRASH

fpaul FF=1.5

This has a Robert Altman feel and was obviously influenced by “Nashville” and its successors.  It’s about racism in America but there’s no KKK or Black Panthers running around.  It’s more about shadings.  (Probably a bad choice of term, but better than saying there was no black and white.)  The acting is superb, with Ludacris the biggest surprise.  He’s a natural and nailed his part through the heart. (Of course it didn’t hurt that he had the best lines.)

The only time I hit the FF button was when the “acting” scenes ran too long.  And too many of them did.  The actors want opportunities to strut their chops. But my thumb decided that a number of what should have been straightforward scenes about relationships and such ran longer than they should – okay, we know you’re a good father and we know you love your daughter, now get off the screen.  Sort of like writers who fall in love with the sound of their own words and ramble on about wallpaper patterns and waving meadows of grass.  My thumb screamed “We know!  We know!” and jumped on the button.

I’ve said more than I intended.  Better quit now.

FF= 1.5

DECADENT EVIL

fpaul FF=3.5

I started off FF-ing through this because it looked just plain bad.  Then I realized it was good-bad, and watched.  A cheapo-cheapo that’s perfect for Bad Movie Night – some laughs are intentional, many are not.  If you have a group that doesn’t mind nudity (a fair number of bare breasts here), break out the six packs and the wisecracks and watch.

FF= 3.5

GAMERA – GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE

fpaul FF=4.5

I know, I know, I know…but Li’l F got hooked on Japanese giant-rubber-suit-monster movies when he first saw Godzilla, and every so often big F likes to revisit his youth. The parthenon of “Kaiju eiga” (what the Japanese call these films) is full of silly, improbable (but lovable) monsters, but none sillier or more improbable (or more lovable) than Gamera, the giant turtle that spins through the air like a rocket-propelled frisbee.  This is the first of a re-imagined Gamera series; it will be the last I’ll watch.  They say you can never go home again. In this case, they’re right.

FF= 4.5 (I started off FF-ing between the monster sightings, then found myself FF-ing through the monster-fu)

POINT BLANK

fpaul FF=1

At last on DVD. I’ve been looking for this 1967 Lee Marvin film for years.  Directed by John Boorman and based on Donald Westlake’s The Hunter, it’s dated but still works to some degree.  I like Mel Gibson’s Payback (based on the same novel) better.  If you haven’t seen Point Blank, rent it along with Payback and watch them back to back.  It’s a tutorial on how movie making – directing, lighting, tinting, cutting, scoring, cinematography, etc. – changed over three decades.

FF= 1.0

DRAGON INN

fpaul FF=4.5

Someone recommended this to me.  If I remember who it was I will hurt him.  Mercilessly padded with looong takes of armies of horsemen galloping here and galloping there over and over.  It didn’t seem to know if it wanted to be comedic or serious.

FF= 4.5

DANCE WITH THE DEVIL

fpaul FF=3.5

Still not sure how I feel about this one.  Some parts I loved, others I hated.  I saw it in two sittings. It ran 2 hours which, for me, was about 30 minutes too long. James Gandolfini was good though. And the lead bad guy/anti-hero – Javier Bardem – had great presence despite a very bad haircut.

FF= 3.5