Day 122 - 5/2/09 - Movie #120
BEFORE: Another crime taking place on a train - and back-to-back movies with Sean Connery! Albert Finney (one of my fav. actors) plays Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's famous sleuth, surrounded by a train-ful of stars: Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Connery, Sir John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins and Michael York - it's like a high-class version of "The Love Boat"!
THE PLOT: In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred the night before.
AFTER: You know that scene in murder mysteries where the detective gathers all the suspects together and reveals how the crime was committed? This movie has perhaps the best one ever, a yarn that takes about a half-hour of screen time for Poirot to unravel. It's just too bad that all of the threads lead back to another incident that took place years ago, which we (the audience) only see brief flashes of at the start of the film. Since we don't know all the details of THAT crime, there's zero chance that we could solve the murder on the train ourselves. It's also too bad that I read the MAD magazine parody of this film years ago, and it tipped me off to the solution. That was back in the day, when a "spoiler" was just part of a sportscar... I would have preferred to watch a murder mystery without advance knowledge of how the crime was committed. Oh well, I've got two other Agatha Christie movies on my list that I quite fortunately know nothing about.
RATING: 5 out of 10 stab-wounds
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Great Train Robbery
Day 121 - 5/1/09 - Movie #119
BEFORE: It's another heist film, similar to "The Brink's Job" - except the target is a British train loaded with gold.
THE PLOT: In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.
AFTER: A big pothole can ruin a street, but a big PLOT-hole can ruin a film. This movie has a plot-hole so huge it threatens to swallow up the whole premise, and after noticing it, the story fell apart faster than Donald Sutherland's phony British accent. If you want to play along at home, stop reading, go and watch this film, then report back...
Now there's this safe, on a train, and it's transporting gold bars to pay the soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. (I don't see how you can pay soldiers in large gold ingots on a battlefield, but that's another issue...) Now, the safe requires 4 keys to open it (this is before combination locks) and 2 keys are stored in the railway station in London, and the other keys are held by a bank manager and a government official (also in London). Do you see the problem?
If all of the keys are in London, and the train LEAVES London, to take the gold to a ship - how the heck do the train officials open the safe at the other end of the trip? I have other quibbles - like why don't and of the train's passengers hear Sean Connery's character walking on the roof of the train, and jumping from car to car? And how did the police know to arrest him in the train station? That wasn't made clear at all.
This film was written and directed by Michael Crichton, and I expected better - or at least fewer glaring mistakes. OK, so on the Wikipedia page devoted to this film, it mentions that the London officials held DUPLICATE keys to the safe - so why couldn't the movie make this distinction?
RATING: 4 out of 10 lead bars
BEFORE: It's another heist film, similar to "The Brink's Job" - except the target is a British train loaded with gold.
THE PLOT: In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.
AFTER: A big pothole can ruin a street, but a big PLOT-hole can ruin a film. This movie has a plot-hole so huge it threatens to swallow up the whole premise, and after noticing it, the story fell apart faster than Donald Sutherland's phony British accent. If you want to play along at home, stop reading, go and watch this film, then report back...
Now there's this safe, on a train, and it's transporting gold bars to pay the soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. (I don't see how you can pay soldiers in large gold ingots on a battlefield, but that's another issue...) Now, the safe requires 4 keys to open it (this is before combination locks) and 2 keys are stored in the railway station in London, and the other keys are held by a bank manager and a government official (also in London). Do you see the problem?
If all of the keys are in London, and the train LEAVES London, to take the gold to a ship - how the heck do the train officials open the safe at the other end of the trip? I have other quibbles - like why don't and of the train's passengers hear Sean Connery's character walking on the roof of the train, and jumping from car to car? And how did the police know to arrest him in the train station? That wasn't made clear at all.
This film was written and directed by Michael Crichton, and I expected better - or at least fewer glaring mistakes. OK, so on the Wikipedia page devoted to this film, it mentions that the London officials held DUPLICATE keys to the safe - so why couldn't the movie make this distinction?
RATING: 4 out of 10 lead bars
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Day 120 - 4/30/09 - Movie #118
BEFORE: The last Western on my list - this movie got the big buzz when it came out, so expectations are high.
THE PLOT: A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma.
AFTER: Russell Crowe plays the villain, Ben Wade, but like Chigurrh in "No Country for Old Men", he's portrayed as an evil man with a moral code. It may not be like yours or mine, but it is a code - the code of the West, apparently. Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, the heroic rancher, and an early run-in with Wade creates a sort of mutual respect between them. Evans volunteers to help escort Wade to the prison train - which is like volunteering to guard Hannibal Lecter, even though you know he could tear off your face and wear it like a mask to escape... But Evans needs the money to save his ranch, so he sets out on horseback with Wade, Peter Fonda and the guy who played Steve the Pirate in "Dodgeball". Getting Wade to the train is a difficult task that slowly turns into an impossible one. The climactic shootout is one of the best I've seen - and the ending seemed far-fetched at first, until I remembered the point I made about the villain having a moral code.
Since this movie ended with a train, my next few movies will be about trains....
RATING: 8 out of 10 bullet holes
BEFORE: The last Western on my list - this movie got the big buzz when it came out, so expectations are high.
THE PLOT: A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma.
AFTER: Russell Crowe plays the villain, Ben Wade, but like Chigurrh in "No Country for Old Men", he's portrayed as an evil man with a moral code. It may not be like yours or mine, but it is a code - the code of the West, apparently. Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, the heroic rancher, and an early run-in with Wade creates a sort of mutual respect between them. Evans volunteers to help escort Wade to the prison train - which is like volunteering to guard Hannibal Lecter, even though you know he could tear off your face and wear it like a mask to escape... But Evans needs the money to save his ranch, so he sets out on horseback with Wade, Peter Fonda and the guy who played Steve the Pirate in "Dodgeball". Getting Wade to the train is a difficult task that slowly turns into an impossible one. The climactic shootout is one of the best I've seen - and the ending seemed far-fetched at first, until I remembered the point I made about the villain having a moral code.
Since this movie ended with a train, my next few movies will be about trains....
RATING: 8 out of 10 bullet holes
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Day 118 + 119 - 4/28 + 4/29/09 - Movie #117
BEFORE: I suppose I could have transitioned from animated mice to films about animated cats, but I'm a little burned out on cartoons for now. Better to finish off the Westerns on my list. I was out late playing Monday night trivia, so I'll have to spread this long film (2 hours + 40 minutes!) out over two nights. Whoever edited (or failed to edit...) this film should be shot in the back...
THE PLOT: Robert Ford, who's idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the reforming gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.
AFTER: My impression, after watching the first 1/2, is that Brad Pitt chose to play Jesse James as the "quiet one", the one who can keep his head while all others around him are losing theirs... But it's the quiet ones you need to look out for, so they say. The film follows a group of young hired guns (literally...) that helped the James Brothers pull off their last big train robbery. But, there are so many of them, it's a bit hard at first to keep track of who's who. Sam Rockwell and Casey Affleck stand out, but I'll have to look up the other actors... When Jesse James starts checking in on his accomplices, is it a friendly visit, or is he eliminating the people who know too much? I'll find out in Part 2...
AFTER PART 2: The old saying is that there's "honor among thieves", but there's also greed, mistrust and paranoia. We're never sure exactly how much Jesse knows - does he trust Robert Ford, or is he keeping his enemy close by making him part of the gang? So it becomes a mind-game between Jesse James and his future killer - as Jesse starts to become unhinged, Brad Pitt's portrayal starts to resemble Tyler Durden, or Jeffrey from "12 Monkeys".
Note: I try very hard to avoid spoilers in my reviews - I'm not ruining anything by pointing out that Jesse James gets killed - it's right there in the title! It's like calling the Titanic movie "The Ship's Going to Hit an Iceberg and Sink" instead...
RATING: 7 out of 10 pistols (edited down from 8 - see how easy that is?)
BEFORE: I suppose I could have transitioned from animated mice to films about animated cats, but I'm a little burned out on cartoons for now. Better to finish off the Westerns on my list. I was out late playing Monday night trivia, so I'll have to spread this long film (2 hours + 40 minutes!) out over two nights. Whoever edited (or failed to edit...) this film should be shot in the back...
THE PLOT: Robert Ford, who's idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the reforming gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.
AFTER: My impression, after watching the first 1/2, is that Brad Pitt chose to play Jesse James as the "quiet one", the one who can keep his head while all others around him are losing theirs... But it's the quiet ones you need to look out for, so they say. The film follows a group of young hired guns (literally...) that helped the James Brothers pull off their last big train robbery. But, there are so many of them, it's a bit hard at first to keep track of who's who. Sam Rockwell and Casey Affleck stand out, but I'll have to look up the other actors... When Jesse James starts checking in on his accomplices, is it a friendly visit, or is he eliminating the people who know too much? I'll find out in Part 2...
AFTER PART 2: The old saying is that there's "honor among thieves", but there's also greed, mistrust and paranoia. We're never sure exactly how much Jesse knows - does he trust Robert Ford, or is he keeping his enemy close by making him part of the gang? So it becomes a mind-game between Jesse James and his future killer - as Jesse starts to become unhinged, Brad Pitt's portrayal starts to resemble Tyler Durden, or Jeffrey from "12 Monkeys".
Note: I try very hard to avoid spoilers in my reviews - I'm not ruining anything by pointing out that Jesse James gets killed - it's right there in the title! It's like calling the Titanic movie "The Ship's Going to Hit an Iceberg and Sink" instead...
RATING: 7 out of 10 pistols (edited down from 8 - see how easy that is?)
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Day 117 - 4/27/09 - Movie #116
BEFORE: This is the last talking mouse film, I swear...and Don Bluth's name isn't in the opening credits, so things are looking up.
THE PLOT: A family of Emigre mice decide to move out to the west, unaware that they are falling into a trap perpetrated by a smooth talking cat.
AFTER: Well, it starts with the same premise - family travels, Fievel gets separated - but I think there's a little more to the story here... John Cleese voices the slick cat that hustles the mice into moving out to the Frontier, with the promise of a land where cats and mice live in harmony. Didn't the family learn anything from the first movie, when they were told there were no cats in America, and that turned out to be wrong? Dom Deluise's character Tiger takes a more central role, as he trains under a dog sheriff, voiced by Jimmy Stewart. (Just in case you ever wondered what movie could possibly star both Dom Deluise and Jimmy Stewart...)
See, I landed back out West, just like I planned. Time to saddle up, watch the last few Westerns, and then ride off into the sunset.
RATING: 6 out of 10 stagecoaches
BEFORE: This is the last talking mouse film, I swear...and Don Bluth's name isn't in the opening credits, so things are looking up.
THE PLOT: A family of Emigre mice decide to move out to the west, unaware that they are falling into a trap perpetrated by a smooth talking cat.
AFTER: Well, it starts with the same premise - family travels, Fievel gets separated - but I think there's a little more to the story here... John Cleese voices the slick cat that hustles the mice into moving out to the Frontier, with the promise of a land where cats and mice live in harmony. Didn't the family learn anything from the first movie, when they were told there were no cats in America, and that turned out to be wrong? Dom Deluise's character Tiger takes a more central role, as he trains under a dog sheriff, voiced by Jimmy Stewart. (Just in case you ever wondered what movie could possibly star both Dom Deluise and Jimmy Stewart...)
See, I landed back out West, just like I planned. Time to saddle up, watch the last few Westerns, and then ride off into the sunset.
RATING: 6 out of 10 stagecoaches
Sunday, April 26, 2009
An American Tail
Day 116 - 4/26/09 - Movie #115
BEFORE: Almost done with animated rodent films - who knew there were so many?
THE PLOT: While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets seperated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.
AFTER: Well, this film was directed by Don Bluth, so that means that the characters spend half their time separated, and calling out each other's names - then they get reunited and say each others names over and over... This is also a little too cutesy and sappy for me - they should have spent more time in Russia, with the Jewish mice and the Russian Cossack cats, that was somewhat reminiscent of Art Spiegelman's great "Maus" comics (where the Jewish mice were held in concentration camps by Nazi cats). I'm no lawyer, but I'd say that since Spiegelman would have a valid case against Spielberg & Co. if he wanted to pursue it...
Voice standouts were Dom Deluise as Tiger and Madeline Kahn as Gussie. Possible plotholes - if a mouse fell off of a ship heading from Europe to New York, wouldn't the prevailing current take him BACK to Europe, not the rest of the way to NYC? Also, if the mice could rise up against the cats in America, why couldn't they stand up to the Cossack cats in Russia? I guess America's the home of protests and civil disobedience, but it's not an exclusive thing...
RATING: 4 out of 10 herring
BEFORE: Almost done with animated rodent films - who knew there were so many?
THE PLOT: While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets seperated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.
AFTER: Well, this film was directed by Don Bluth, so that means that the characters spend half their time separated, and calling out each other's names - then they get reunited and say each others names over and over... This is also a little too cutesy and sappy for me - they should have spent more time in Russia, with the Jewish mice and the Russian Cossack cats, that was somewhat reminiscent of Art Spiegelman's great "Maus" comics (where the Jewish mice were held in concentration camps by Nazi cats). I'm no lawyer, but I'd say that since Spiegelman would have a valid case against Spielberg & Co. if he wanted to pursue it...
Voice standouts were Dom Deluise as Tiger and Madeline Kahn as Gussie. Possible plotholes - if a mouse fell off of a ship heading from Europe to New York, wouldn't the prevailing current take him BACK to Europe, not the rest of the way to NYC? Also, if the mice could rise up against the cats in America, why couldn't they stand up to the Cossack cats in Russia? I guess America's the home of protests and civil disobedience, but it's not an exclusive thing...
RATING: 4 out of 10 herring
Ratatouille
Day 115 - 4/25/09 - Movie #114
BEFORE: Well, this movie got the big buzz, so the expectations are high...will it be the best talking rodent movie of the week?
THE PLOT: Remy is a young rat in the French countryside who arrives in Paris, only to find out that his cooking idol is dead. When he makes an unusual alliance with a restaurant's new garbage boy, the culinary and personal adventures begin.
AFTER: Yep, best so far, though the other films didn't exactly set the bar very high. Patton Oswalt was great (of course), but I had to go to the web mid-movie and look up who the other voice actors were. That didn't sound like Janeane Garofalo at all, and I would have guessed that the food critic was played by Ian McKellen, not Peter O'Toole. Brian Dennehy was well cast as Remy's father, but Ian Holm's French accent was so thick, we had to turn on the DVD's subtitles. (Not a great idea to have a major plot point spoken by the character with the thickest accent...)
As for the story, I'm sort of glad that the mice and the humans couldn't talk to each other, so in that sense it was more "realistic", but this of course was countered by other, even more wildly UNrealistic plot points. I live in NYC, so I figure that probably every restaurant kitchen has had a rat or two in it at some point, but I still squirmed while watching a rat cook a meal...
RATING: 7 out of 10 mushrooms
BEFORE: Well, this movie got the big buzz, so the expectations are high...will it be the best talking rodent movie of the week?
THE PLOT: Remy is a young rat in the French countryside who arrives in Paris, only to find out that his cooking idol is dead. When he makes an unusual alliance with a restaurant's new garbage boy, the culinary and personal adventures begin.
AFTER: Yep, best so far, though the other films didn't exactly set the bar very high. Patton Oswalt was great (of course), but I had to go to the web mid-movie and look up who the other voice actors were. That didn't sound like Janeane Garofalo at all, and I would have guessed that the food critic was played by Ian McKellen, not Peter O'Toole. Brian Dennehy was well cast as Remy's father, but Ian Holm's French accent was so thick, we had to turn on the DVD's subtitles. (Not a great idea to have a major plot point spoken by the character with the thickest accent...)
As for the story, I'm sort of glad that the mice and the humans couldn't talk to each other, so in that sense it was more "realistic", but this of course was countered by other, even more wildly UNrealistic plot points. I live in NYC, so I figure that probably every restaurant kitchen has had a rat or two in it at some point, but I still squirmed while watching a rat cook a meal...
RATING: 7 out of 10 mushrooms
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