Brian's Thoughts on Movies

 Basic Instinct made a loud cultural noise when it was released in 1992, right before the term "political correctness" began to be used widely.  It is a dark story conceived by screenwriter Joe Esterhas  about the investigation into the murder of a former rock star in which the prime suspect is a manipulative,beautiful, and openly bisexual woman who wrote a novel about the same thing.  A lot of suspense films at the time earned their scares by setting up scenes of killers surprising their overpowered victims (Cape Fear, Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Misery, Sleeping with the Enemy).  The protagonist was usually trying to escape the antagonist but Basic Instinct inverts this by having the "hero" deliberately goading the "villain" to come after him. Spoilers for both Basic Instinct films: Dutch Director Paul Verhoven, a man who likes to push the envelope and whose films are often guilty pleasures, interprets this material as a tasteless but engrossing enterpri...

 In the 1980s when I was both a teenager and as a burgeoning film fan there was no comedy star I found more entertaining than Chevy Chase.  Chase was smart, knew how to play irreverence and sarcasm better than anyone, and had a writer's sense of how to build and payoff a joke.  He was also an expert with physical comedy, perhaps highlighted best by the pratfalls he took while playing Gerald Ford as a clutz on Saturday Night Live.  Chase wrote a chapter in a book called "Tools of the Trade" on it in which he explains how to fake getting slammed in the face with a door (a trick I pulled on my mother to her horror one time).  Chase could play terrific tricks with his face, switching quickly from one expression to another to great effect.  In the 80s even the films he was in that did not work well always had funny moments (a moment in the otherwise dull Spies Like Us has him using every trick he can think of to cheat on a test). Fletch, Foul Play, Seems Like Ol...

 In 2017 within six months two films were released that told different viewpoints of the same larger story.  In the late spring of 1940 several months into World War II, Europe was reacting slowly and ineffectively to Germany's unexpected blitzkrieg tactics.  The German forces had taken over most of France and driven the French troops, along with about 400,000 British troops, who were trying to help defend France, onto the beaches of Dunkirk in Northeastern France, which is 38 nautical miles across the English channel.  The British felt an urgent need to rescue their forces both for their safety and because these troops might be the only hope of keeping Germany from invading Great Britain.   Two top English directors made films exploring this crisis during the same period.  Christopher Nolan made Dunkirk, which told the story from the perspective of the soldiers, sailors, and pilots.  Joe Wright made Darkest Hour in which newly instated Prime Mini...

  In 1998 a film was released starring Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips called The Big Hit.  The Big Hit is an action comedy about a group of hitmen who kidnap a young woman and hide her in a house in the suburbs. It's the kind of film best watched with a group if you are in the mood for something offbeat.  Diamond Phillips has a ball playing a manipulative sleeze and Wahlberg plays the straight man who is a terrific killer but whose personal life is a mess (due in large part to having two girlfriends).  The stunts are so outrageous at one pointed I commented that they were breaking so many laws of physics they should be cited.  It is pretty violent and vulgar but I had a good time with it. My reason for bringing up The Big Hit is Bullet Train reminded me of it, with a touch of Guy Ritchie's British action comedies like Snatch and The Man From Uncle thrown in .  In the summer of 2022 I took my kids to see several movies including Doctor Strange and th...

Spoilers for the films below as well as for the old Spider Man and Amazing Spider Man films. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) Marvel's first Asian inspired film, directed by Destin Daniel Creston, has some incredible imagery clearly inspired by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the films surrounding it.  The film uses ancient lore and old family rivalries in its epic tale of Shang-Chi who teams with his aunt Ying Nan and his sister Xu Xialing, to battle his father Xu Wenwu who is being tricked to try to resurrect his mother, Ying Li.  The film leads Shang-Chi, who is accompanied by his best friend Katy from San Francisco to Macau to Ta Lo which is in a separate dimension.   The opening sequence in which Xu Wenwu, who has been established as greedy man in possession of the ten rings which grant supernatural powers meets Ying Li in Ta Lo and they battle is probably the highlight due to the playful nature.  Interestingly Xu Wenwu had let go of his ...

Back at Mi6, Bond protects Madeleine, looking uncomfortable, claiming he doesn't know her and then drives straight to her house in northern Norway.     Bond's approach at Madeleine's home mirrors several shots from Safin's from the opening (overhead, a  from the right showing the gun out but Bond is walking much faster than Safin who has a limp, and a shot from behind him as he comes up to the lake in front of the house but the music, different season (it looks like early fall whereas the opening was winter) tells us that this is going to be different.   The scene inside the house is one of the best in the film and is helped by my favorite cue.  Zimmer's "Home" goes from the warmer theme outside to more suspenseful inside.  Bond has his gun out, probably because he is not sure if he can trust her or what he will find there.  Madeleine appears, challenging Bond to trust her, by referencing the gun.  Bond uncomfortably puts it awa...