Yeah, I really rented this, and yeah, I enjoyed it.  Hugh Grant plays the Andrew Ridgeley half (let’s see who gets that reference before reading on) of a slick 80s has-been duo called PoP, trying to revive his songwriting career.  I can’t say why it engaged me, it just did.  (The 80s music video that opens the film is worth the rental fee alone.)
FF=1

I know, I know.  What made me rent this (besides Uma Thurman)?  Well, even Uma couldn’t save it.  It’s a dumb, predictable, barely diverting bit of fluff.  It’s FF score is low solely because I don’t FF when Uma’s on screen.

FF=1

A strange one. Intriguing characters but an uneven story. It has a lot of things not to like: a deus-ex rescue, an idiotic group decision, and a rushed wrap-up that seems like an afterthought. But I kept watching.
FF=1

If you liked the Road Warrior films and Escape from New York and 28 Days and Timeline, you’ll love this glorious mess of an action film.  Nary a dull or quiet moment, lots of colorful characters, but check your need for coherence at the door.

FF=1

What a glorious mess this is.  All the spaghetti western clichés mixed with all the yakuza and samurai flick clichés in a surreal neverland.  Do not expect a lot of sense, but it’s visually arresting and never dull.

FF=1

I didn’t think I’d like this too much but I wound up fully engaged. The light fantasy element with the aborigines was a lagniappe. It’s a gorgeous, old-fashioned epic like Hollywood used to make (think “How the West Was Won”) with brave, noble Good Guys and boo-hiss Bad Guys. I also learned some history. What more can you ask of a film? At nearly 3 hours, it could be trimmed (I fast-forwarded through some of the cattle drives and such) but I don’t feel it dragged.

FF=1

Harris and Mortenson play peacemakers – sort of like itinerant lawmen for hire – who are interesting characters but not believable.  (I suppose if they’d been true-to-life peacemakers they wouldn’t have been half as interesting.) I didn’t know this was from a Robert B. Parker novel until I saw the credits; looking back I shouldn’t have been surprised.  These are Parker’s branded real-men-who-get-each-other characters.  I was engaged.

FF=1

A documentary about Hunter S. Thompson.  I remember reading his Hell’s Angels book when it first came out in paperback and thinking how cool it was for a writer to embed himself in the subject matter and the story itself.  But it’s disturbing to watch him lose his center as years roll by and see him become the story.  I never got a feel for the man from this film.  Maybe there was nothing there to find.  He was caricaturized in “Doonsbury” as the Duke character and he comes across just about as flat in “Gonzo.”

FF=1

Great spectacle. No kidding – a visual feast, but tainted with that sui-generic Roland Emmerich dumbness.  Leave your brain at the door but keep your eyes in your head.

FF=1

I heard terrible things about this but the masochist in me forced me to rent it.  And guess what? Maybe because my expectations were low, I wound up kinda liking it, maybe even thinking it was better than the original. (Sacrilege warning: The original, except for Gort, was pretty much a yawner.)  At least the remake explains why the alien is human, and Keanu is perfect as the emotionally distant visitor. (I think he was channeling Al Gore.)  And it has a much cooler Gort.

FF=1