Author: Irwin

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Bill I’s Rating: 4 out of 5

I had a ticket to a different film at the Montclair Film Festival, but went to the wrong theater and ended up seeing this which totally delighted me. Aspects of Home Alone: boy left alone (this boy actually runs away from his foster home), pursued by some mean people (meanest being the Child Welfare lady), and finding an adventure in the local wilderness (instead of Central Park this kid ends up in the New Zealand bush). With some great characters, and spectacular scenery, and what I consider an Oscar worthy performance by the kid, I loved this. Great for kids of all ages, with only a little wild boar violent episode, and some close call rifle shots.

Donald Cried

Bill I’s Rating: 3 out of 5

A low budget film at the Montclair Film Festival that has recently been picked up by a distributor, this is a great character study of two old high school friends who reconnect after many years in their hometown of Warwick Rhode Island. Peter is a Wall Street financier, successful and in no way ready to enjoy returning to Warwick to take care of his grandma’s estate and funeral. He loses his wallet on the way and ends up depending on Donald, an unforgettable character played by the director and writer, Kris Avedisian. Over the course of 24 hours the two go through a roller coaster of emotions and experiences, encountering old “friends”, crushes, and haunts along the way. I can’t do justice to the realness, (enhanced by the hand held camera) but I will say that my wife was really upset afterwards due to the Donald character, who is the super clingy friend who literally won’t leave you alone. I really liked it!

Syl Johnson: Any Way the Wind Blows

Bill I’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Straightforward documentary, played at the Montclair Film Festival, about a great soul singer, Syl Johnson, who never got much acclaim. In fact, I had never even heard of him. He was almost Al Green, and unluckily missed his big shot. He appeared on Soul Train, toured extensively, including today as an 80 something year old, and had a couple of top 100 hit songs. But some key people did find out about him and his songs: Wu Tang Clan, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg and literally hundreds of hip hop artists who sampled him in their songs. Syl is an interesting character, both proud of his accomplishments, resentful he never gained mainstream success, and loving the attention wherever he can get it. The documentary coincided with the release of a $75 boxed set of his catalog, that got a Grammy nomination (for engineering, although Syl perceived it as his). Very cool to hear how his work was sampled, and how good the original songs are. Check him out, and look for this documentary if it gets released.

http://syljohnsonmovie.com/

Barbershop: The Next Cut

Bill I’s Rating – 3.5 out of 5

I enjoyed this film greatly, better than Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, which covers the same territory – how to slow down the gang violence in Chicago. It has a perfect mix of comedy and seriousness. I remember almost nothing from the prior Barbershop films, but Ice Cube remains as the owner and spiritual leader of the crew, with Cedric the Entertainer and a great crew of character actors cutting heads among other things. The shop has a female side now, which gives great balance to the macho bullshit being slung around. Nikki Minaj is delightful and proves she’s more than just an awesome butt. The threat of violence gets personal when Cube’s 14 year old son, and his buddy, son of Common’s character, get drawn into the gangster life. The movie avoids simplistic logic of who is to blame, and they conclude that only the South Side community can save themselves and stop the escalating gun deaths. It’s ultimately an uplifting movie, while raising very topical issues. Oh, and I can’t end without mentioning one of my favorite comic actors, JB Smoove, who does his thing, as “One-Stop”, the barber who has a bunch of side businesses.

barbershop-3-nicki-minaj-thatgrapejuice

Kapoor & Sons, since 1921

Bill I’s Review – 4 out of 5

Portraying a couple of the most genuine family arguments scenes I can remember, with every character perfectly cast and believable. Summary: two 20-something brothers, Rahul (little older, successful novelist, entrepreneur, lady killer type looks) and Arjun (aspiring/unsuccessful novelist, restaurant worker, scruffy and lacking the self-assured confidence of his bro, but also super good looking), are called to their family home in India from their lives in London and New Jersey respectively to show respect to their ailing grandfather, Dadu. Dadu is the real star of this film, while in his sickbed due to an ailing heart he hasn’t lost any of his lust for life (emphasis on lust) and is the glue that tries (emphasis on tries) to hold his family together as husband and wife, brother and brother, son and father, son and mother, all have their conflicts over the course of this 2 and a half hour Bollywood film, all contained within mostly a few weeks. Rahul explains his secret to a good novel: give the people the happy ending they want. Does this movie do the same? Go see it to find out, I’m not telling. It’s a lot of fun amid the drama, and especially note the charismatic and beautiful but hyper charmer, Tia (played by Alia Bhat), who quickly captivates the interest of both of the young dudes.

Eye in the Sky

Bill I’s Rating – 3.5 out of 5

Very good thriller, which is conducted in real time, of a British coordinated drone surveillance of a couple of highly wanted British ex-pats turned terrorists arming themselves in a house in the middle of a village, preparing  for a suicide attack in Kenya. Helen Mirren is the Colonel running the operation, which turns urgent into a kill mission once they realize that they can prevent a massacre in a populated area. Her General, played by Alan Rickman in his last role, is risk averse, for both political reasons as well as humanitarian reasons to avoid collateral damage to innocent villagers. The Americans are consulted, because there’s an American citizen/terrorist also in the house, and because the actual drone is piloted remotely by US forces in Nevada. Tense throughout, with realistic portrayals of advanced surveillance technology and techniques and very topical decisions that have to be made and the protocol that has to be followed where the wrong decision could result in massive negative PR repercussions. I would rate this movie higher except when comparing it to Zero Dark Thirty it falls a little short.

Bill C’s Review – 4 out of 5

I liked this a lot as well.  There’s good tension throughout. The movie does a good job of showing the military options and perspectives as well as the political considerations from a lot of different sides and levels.  Not only does  this show the tough moral choices from the higher up military leaders but also  the lower level operatives as all want to do the right thing under tough circumstances.  This applies not just to those on the ground potentially risking their lives but also from those thousands of miles away.  The director also did a good job of getting us to know the potential collateral damage as the decision makers debated the legality/urgency/morality of trading a high probability of small collateral damage caused by their actions vs high casualties that could be attributed to the terrorists.

This is definitely worth seeing.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

 

Eye in the Sky Poster

Deadpool

Bill I’s Review – 4 out of 5

I went into this film with almost zero awareness of the character Deadpool, who is from an adult X-rated comic book. Interesting note: the first X-rated movie I ever attended (back when you actually went into a theatre to see an X-rated movie), was Fritz the Cat, based on the X-rated comic book. My mother brought me!!! So I am open to the genre, and wow, Deadpool blew me away with its comic book violence enhanced by slow-motion, freeze-action, special effects, combined with Ryan Reynolds’ sarcastic, funny, dialogue and audience asides. This is an origin story, where you see his character earning money as an intimidator for hire, who then meets his soul mate (played by Morena Baccarin, who plays the beautiful, somewhat boring wife on Homeland, and is perfect here), then gets some bad luck and turns into the mutant super hero (anti-hero?) that he ends up calling Deadpool. Fun surprises abound, including martial arts star/actor Gena Carano  as a kick-ass villain (called Angel Dust I found out, which I don’t think was verbalized during the movie). It’s a combination of spoof of typical Marvel super hero films, but also a model for how to make the genre more exciting and more fun. I recommend this to the guys, but women may not love it. Kids, wait a few years, not for you just yet!

Bill C’s Review – 4 out of 5

While the movies I tended to go to with my mother were the likes  of Mary Poppins and Elf I am in total agreement with Bill on Deadpool.  It was a unique and funny super hero movie (although Deadpool would not call himself a super hero).  As Bill said, the action was  really good with it’s use of slow motion and use of shifting angles (like NFL coverage where they start a play from one perspective and shift to a different one mid replay).  Unlike many movies you could tell what was happening.

I don’t have much to add to Bill’s review.  If you want to see Gina Carano in full kick ass mode check out Haywire.  Dead pool is definitely worth checking out (if you don’t mind violence, etc.).

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

The Revenant

Bill I’s Review – 4.5 out of 5

A true artistic film, which I enjoyed much better than the director’s previous (award winner!), Birdman. An incredible nature film combined with revenge plot and survival movie, with an unforgettable scene of a grizzly bear mauling Leo Dicaprio’s character. Very little film trickery and special effects, with a group of trappers trying to get back to their fort (circa 1850?) in the west somewhere, in the middle of winter and intense snow, wind and rain. Native Americans show no mercy in their attacks, but the true savages are the white men (no women in sight besides a raunchy bar scene in the fort) who take what they can from who they can, and true compassion is as rare as a mild day. The plot is as simple as this: Leo needs to make it back to the fort in his wretched bear-mauled state, to get revenge on the dude (great Tom Hardy) who abandoned him and (spoiler alert) killed his kin.

Bill C’s Review – 4 out of 5

A couple of day’s ago I was bitching and moaning about how cold it was when the high barely made 50.  That evening I saw the Revenant.  I don’t think I would have survived very long in the 1820’s (especially after being mauled by a bear).

This is really great film making with great scenery and a brutal story (if you don’t like violence skip this one).  The opening scene reminded me of the opening battle scene in Saving Private Ryan showing the chaos of battle.

Leo DiCaprio deserves kudos but I’m not sure if it’s for his acting or just for persevering in those conditions.  Tom Hardy was also excellent (I think between Mad Max, Legend, this is the year of Tom Hardy).

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Bill I’s Review – 4.5 out of 5

By now all of you have already seen this film so you don’t need to read how good it is, how JJ Abrams (and my old friend Maryann Brandon as outstanding editor!) has invigorated this franchise with excitement, thrilling action, cool characters (both old and new), while retaining the spirit and continuity of Star Wars, advancing the plot in interesting areas and shocking outcomes. Instead of continuing to extol the great aspects, I’ll bring up one pet peeve which is the fact that action unfolds in one area of remote space (the HQ of the Empire, aka the First Order) while the Resistance (the good guys) monitor them from I can only assume light years away. I can choose to believe that they’ve figured out how to use worm holes to travel such vast distances in space, but how would they get communications on essentially a real-time basis (e.g. “their weapon will be fully charged in 15 minutes!”)? Oh well, fun time anyway!

Creed

Bill I’s Rating – 4 out of 5

Michael B. Jordan plays (no spoiler) Apollo Creed’s son, who is intent on following in his champion dad’s boxing gloves, and in fact seeks out who else to be his trainer and mentor, but Rocky, the one and only. Sly Stallone is perfect and actually great in reprising his character gone mellow and a little fatalistic. Young Creed serves to bring life back into the old man, while of course helping his nascent career rocket from nowhere to a championship fight. Does it matter if he wins? This film is appropriate for all ages, at least from 12 years old and up I think. Some of the plot is a little contrived (is there a supportive mother, a young beautiful love interest with some drama, a life or death moment? yeah, so what!). This franchise ain’t done yet!

Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I’d like to see Jake Gyllenhaal from Southpaw and Michael B. Jordan fight in Creed 2 (I’m also curious to see if they can maintain their buff’ness for 2 movies).  Creed edges out Southpaw as best fight movie of the year.

The fight  scenes were terrific (although as in all fight movies if this were a real fight it would have been stopped by the second round).  The film was pretty predictable (except they didn’t figure out  a way for Rocky to yell ‘Yo, Adrian’) and the filmmaker was able to get you rooting for Creed the whole way.  Michael B. Jordan was excellent .  He and the director also made Fruitvale Station together (which is also worth checking out) . Stallone was also excellent.  My only complaints were the predictability and how depressing it is watching Stallone get old since I started rooting for him while he was a young contender!  If you like fight films check this out.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes