Brian's Thoughts on Movies

I have enjoyed the Marvel movies for the most part but have avoided writing about them until now because the task seemed daunting with over 20 films out to date even though I have seen them all.   A series this established can afford an occasional misfire but while there are some films I enjoy more than others I think each Marvel film is a strong experience.   Also the series has used a lot of directors of different sensibilities.   For example a Russo brothers film is very unique to a Shane Black or Kenneth Branagh film but they all fit into the series the way a family has different types of members. Marvel films each tell its own story while fitting into the whole.   An example would be Thor Ragnarok, which tells a comic yet cosmic tale of a battle for the throne of Asgard and has an ending that sets up the beginning of Avengers Infinity War, which is a very different story with a much darker tone.   The individual films in particular spend time developi...

I just saw the film Destroyer which stars Nicole Kidman, who plays an LA cop named Erin who as a young deputy goes undercover with a gangs and suffers an experience which affects the rest of her life.   About three quarters of the film focuses on Bell about 17 years later, which is more age appropriate for Kidman, who is 51.   At this stage Bell is weathered and very disillusioned and obsessed with catching the head of the gang who had gotten away.   There have been many films and shows about male cops who have been beaten down by life but this is the first time I have seen it from a female perspective.   Kidman is equally convincing playing Bell in both time periods without the digital de-ageing process used in the Marvel movies. As I watched the film I started thinking about Kidman’s career and how she, despite her leading lady looks and talent, often gravitates toward challenging material.   For many years she was known as Tom Cruise’s wife and the acco...

“Only the Second James Bond thriller Film can be more exciting than than the first”  So said the tagline of the release trailer for From Russia With Love.   If you have not seen the film I recommend you skip it, along with the all the trailers of the early Bond films.   They express great enthusiasm but show all of the movies’ set pieces without cutting in from other scenes so, even more than today’s spoiler filled trailers, you are watching a highlight of the film.   The trailer for From Russia With Love is especially offensive as its opening shots reveals how Bond gets out of his most precarious predicament in the film. Nonetheless, I utterly agree with the trailer’s tagline.   Dr No, the first film in the series, is a more low key (and budget) introductory adventure that establishes the Bond, M, and Moneypenny characters and has a memorable villain and, leading lady, but is dated with obvious backscreen projection during a car chase and a melodramat...

The bond between humans and their dogs is difficult to explain though I will take a stab at it here.    Dogs are incredibly loyal and humans are attracted to the unconditional love that dogs offer, which is less complicated than that of other human relationships.   Dogs give their love based, partially on their breed, on humans who both feed them and give them attention.   I think the unselfconscious nature of a dog’s affection, and they playfulness they take so long to outgrow, is what makes them so popular as companions. Dog films are a popular form of entertainment I think because so many people own dogs.   Films about dogs tend to be comic, playing on a dog’s natural messiness, (Beethoven or Hotel for Dogs) or dramatic and cut right to the vulnerable emotions of the dogs and the owners who love them (My Dog Skip, Old Yeller).   Turner & Hooch is the rare film that has some of both though the finale of that mostly comic film seemed ill-fitting ...

All The Money in the World is the story of the 1973 kidnapping of J. Paul Getty’s grandson, Paul, in Italy.   Getty, an oil tycoon, at the time was the world’s richest man.   The film explores the kidnapping, its effects on Gail, Paul’s mother, and the protracted attempts by Gail and Fletcher Chase, one of Getty’s negotiators, to secure Paul’s release.   Getty’s response to the kidnapping is reminiscent of the 1996 film Ransom, in that he refuses to pay the ransom.   At first Getty is apparently being true to his notoriously thrifty reputation but he has another reason as well.   As he has 14 grandchildren he is afraid of setting a precedent for future kidnappings.   Quietly Getty assigns Chace the task of working with the kidnappers and also with Gail.   The relationship between Gail and Getty is strained because Gail divorced Getty’s son (due to a drug addiction) and took custody of the kids in return for refusing any kind of alimony.   Ga...

The Mission Impossible movies have each used a different top director (and in the case of J.J. Abrams created one) and as a result each film has a distinct look and style.   Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed Rogue Nation, returned for this film.   McQuarrie has worked with producer/star Tom Cruise a lot over the past decade and the two deliver what I feel is one of the action films ever made. Mission: Impossible - Fallout faced two major challenges.   The film was in development in 2016 and then cancelled briefly as Cruise renegotiated his deal with Paramount, hoping to mirror a deal he had made with Universal for a planned franchise of monster movies.   Eventually they came to terms but it almost cost the production McQuarrie since he had assumed the project was off and moved his family away from London where production had been planned for.    The second challenge was that Cruise broke his ankle about halfway through production doing a j...