bartleby56 Reviews

Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)

Gloriously Stupid

[10/10 · 9 February 2024]

This is the Godfather 2 of The "Hot Shots" Duology, and like Coppola's grim and darkly pessimistic masterpiece, it may surpass the first film in it's dramatic reach and technical virtuosity. There's a tiny helicopter, Saddam Hussein making a late-night Dagwood sandwich...Lloyd Bridges doing a very plausible Joe Biden...a man being shot in the chest with a chicken...bitter-sweet memories of The Fleurvian Sea...the Crips are raiding the liquor store! This movie has it all.

Hot Shots! Part Deux is a movie that I go back to every couple of years, like Seven Samurai, Grand Illusion, The Wages of Fear, Sullivan's Travels, Gidget, The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoise, The Philadelphia Story, or Buttman At Nudes A' Poppin'. Great movie.

Billy the Kid (2022– )

I guess Joe Jonas was otherwise occupied...

[5/10 · 28 November 2022]

Entertaining claptrap. Re-imagines the life of Henry McCarty in a way that includes some factual details of the actual man's life, but portrays him in a way that is completely and patently false, a pleasant and fabulous fable-ization of Henry McCarty/William H. Bonney, a nasty little rat. Were he alive today, he'd likely be moving meth from Juarez to El Paso while formulating plans to blow up his high school. Instead, he is portrayed here as an earnest victim of circumstances and teen hottie. I would urge anyone who watches this and has sympathetic feeling for this iteration of The Kid, to check out the history of the actual scoundrel's life.

Magic Mike XXL (2015)

Just abysmal

[1/10 · 1 July 2022]

The Soderburgh movie was pretty good, but this is just awful dreck. There seems to be a subtext that relates loosely to "to thine self be true", but the writing is so bad...I felt embarrassed for the many credible people involved with this. This is a terrible amovie.

The Big Ugly (2020)

Jesus Wept...

[3/10 · 6 December 2020]

I would love to see a good Appalachian noir, but this turkey ain't it. Vinnie Jones, Ron Perleman, Malcolm McDowell, that woman who was in Justified...god bless 'em, they all try real hard, but the material is very weak and the direction is half-assed at best. Unconvincing on every conceivable level.

Welcome to Sudden Death (2020 Video)

Does Michael Jai White owe money to the mob?

[1/10 · 17 November 2020]

How can the guy who was Black Dynamite continue to involve himself in junk like this? I'm not saying he should do Hamlet or a remake of Cries and Whispers. but jeez...c'mon guy, you can do so much better than this. He clearly has a lot of presence onscreen and doesn't seem to be a complete boob. What is his problem? Just awful, what a waste.

Hell or High Water (II) (2016)

Bugs on the windshield of life...

[9/10 · 12 August 2020]

I saw somewhere that the difference between American film making and French Film making is that American films are plot driven and French films are character driven. I bring this up because of the number of really negative responses to this movie seem uniformly opposed to the plausibility of the PLOT of Hell Or High Water., which I guess is understandable, because the plots of most good-to-great films are not only plausible but can be schematically diagrammed and empirically proven to be %100 absolutely demonstrable as the GENUINE ARTICLE, narratively speaking...

That this approach is complete nonsense in determining whether a movie has credibility or not should seem pretty obvious, but there are always hard-core narrative constructivists, the Anthony Scalias of pseudo-criticism, to wit: if nobody ever done this, then it's all a bunch of horse hockey.

Plot is important; a narrative arc that is rational and symmetrically pleasing can be a beautiful thing. But, it's not the only thing. There are endless number of great films with plots that either make no sense, are hyper-inflated, are just plain silly or are just not plot-dependant. In the end, it doesn't matter, because story-telling is not about plot. Yes, the plot matters, but there is so much more that makes an engaging , interesting, and beautiful story in narrative film making.

Hell or High Water is an excellent film. If your standards require that THE PLOT of a film adhere to narrow strictures of...whatever, then your viewing pleasure may be affected. If you like to observe people under pressure, exhibiting idiosyncratic characteristics that speak to the strengths and weaknesses that all of us have, then you might find this satisfying. I like it. A lot.

The Jungle Book (2016)

what a wonderful movie!

[9/10 · 26 July 2020]

It's amazing that Rudyard Kipling hasn't yet been relegated to the dustbin of colonial revisionist theory, along with similarly un-woke writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. The Jungle Book has always been different, even when it patronizes white consumers.

Okay, enough political malarkey...Favreau's vision of The Jungle Book is pitch-perfect. I do miss the great Phil Harris as Baloo, but Bill Murray's Balloo is lovable and entirely sympathetic. All the casting choices are terrific...I would argue with the reviewer who didn't care for Neel Sethi's Mowgli; the kid is no Olivier, but Mowgli doesn't require a great thespian, he has to be likeable and winsome, and able to elicit a little pathos (frickin' kid is an orphan...). The heavy lifting in Jungle Book is done by the animals, and this production is aces across the board.

I'm pretty old, so I'm not very interested in how convincing the CGI is; I grew up with Rudolph The Rednose Reindeer and Godzilla Versus Bambi. To my aged, bloodshot eyes, this looks both seamless artful; I don't watch it and think "gosh, this is technically amazing, these guys are special effects wizards". It's about superior storytelling, not the craft of green screen editing.

The Tick (2016–2019)

Destiny is a multilingual princess, chum...

[10/10 · 26 June 2020]

I was a huge fan of the original live-action Tick series, primarily because of Patrick Warburton...he seemed born to play The Tick. When the current production came out, I resisted, gave it the cold shoulder; how could anyone dare to match or improve upon Warburton's Tick? The whole idea seemed cheap and tawdry, and I for one do not easily succumb to the siren call of the cheap. Or the tawdry.

And yet...here we are. I LOVE this show. The writing is brilliant, the actors are all great, and the look of the production is perfect. The earlier Tick was camp, snarky, and very goofy, while this show is more grounded in a kind of realism...it's all about the characters. But it's still silly and very, very funny. The storytelling is richer and more complex, as are the characters. In the end, it's all about love. I feel like a better version of me after watching "The Tick". It doesn't last very long, but still...I don't get that feeling from "Bonanza".

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

When men were men...and gas was 29 cents a gallon.

[9/10 · 5 May 2020]

To say that "Magnificent Seven" was a touchstone of my youth would be like saying...I dunno, "maybe we shouldnta invaded Iraq" or "the internet has set the development of humanity back about 7 centuries". True statements all, but none of these statements really captures the essence and poetry of the matters described.

I first saw "Magnificent Seven" in1963 at the Tower Drive-I in Lorain, Ohio with my mom and my two older brothers, Michael and Patrick. The other movie on the bill was "4 For Texas", a western romp starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, and Ursula Andress. "4 For Texas " had the star-power, but "Magnificent Seven" had the goods. Thankfully, it was shown second. A tough act to follow, even though both films featured a young-ish Charles Bronson. No-one in Northern Ohio had heard of "Seven Samurai".

We were a no-nonsense bunch back in those days, my mom and my brothers and to some extent, me. We more-or-less patiently sat through "4 For Texas", which had little going for it other than cleavage and the ultimate spectacle of Bronson's villainous character breathing his last while stuck on the spinning paddlewheel of a riverboat. Frequent visits to the crowded snack-bar punctuated the dullness of this dog of a picture, and set us up well for the Technicolor feast to come.

Westerns were still an integral part of American culture, mythology, and psyche in the early 1960's. "Bonanza" was one of the most popular TV shows, as were Maverick, Cheyenne, The Rifleman, and a host of others. Roy Rogers was still a pretty big star , and John Wayne was like a colossal deity who loomed over the landscape of the USA like Zeus over Olympia. Most of us knew nothing about the actual history of The West, nor were we even remotely interested in learning about it. Which, as it turned out, worked fine for everybody. The less you know, the less you have to complain about. No-one had heard of The Beatles yet.

Anyhow..."The Magnificent Seven" was at the time The Greatest Thing I'd Ever Seen. Elmer Bernstein's score so much do with that; the opening theme music a stirring and heroic siren call to romantic young male sensibilities. The early sequences where we meet the central characters are fantastically great (much Like "Seven Samurai").

Once the grew of seven really cool guys is assembled, the narrative tails off a bit, but I sure as hell didn't mind when i was a kid. If This movie is on TV while I'm flipping around the channels, I'm in...I can't not watch it. And I made sure that my kid watched it several times before he was old enough to get sucked into the internet (I also made him watch a bunch of Loony Tunes, Popeye, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton ) and subsequently turn into a Man of the 21st Century. Which is inescapable, cause that's what he is...but at least he's had a glimpse into the dishonest and corrupt heart of of the last century, as well as it's chivalrous and heroic soul.

T.H.E. Cat (1966–1967)

1966...Friday nights...an embarrassment of pre-teen boy riches

[9/10 · 1 May 2020]

1966 was golden, and Friday night TV was a bonanza: Man From Uncle, The Green Hornet, The Time Tunnel, freakin' LAREDO (what a great show), Hogan's Heroes, The Wild, Wild West...and if you were allowed to stay up late, Twelve O'Clock High (A Quinn Martin Production). And smack dab in the middle of it all was T.H.E. Cat, starring Robert Loggia.

My mom worked on Friday nights, so I stayed with a couple near us in Northeastern Ohio, just outside Cleveland. Often it would just be me and the husband, Bob, because his wife Carol was a nurse and often worked late shifts. Bob was a "puer aeternis", a man who would always be a boy, an eternal adolescent. We would eat Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Manner's Big Boys while watching TV, taking occasional breaks to shoot BB guns or light M80s. I treasure those Friday nights.

Anyhow, T.H.E. Cat was awesome. It lacked the gratuitous violence of "Man From U.N.C.L.E, but featured lots of cool acrobatic shenanigans: rappelling down buildings, vaulting over fences and walls, , and young Robert Loggia being cool and sexy and bad-ass in a manner that made Napoleon Solo look like Tim Conway. and, he drove a wicked-looking corvette...super-cool.

I can't remember if Lalo Schifrin did the soundtrack, but I recall the music was pretty hip. Regrettably, the only people watching were me & Bob and the other people leaving reviews here...great time to be a kid, but it sucked if you were draft age.

Hunter Killer (2018)

Look out Sergei Eisenstein...

[7/10 · 25 March 2020]

It's not Battleship Potemkin, but it's not "Operation Petticoat" either...it's a Gerard Butler movie for gosh sakes. It's chock full of submarine war movie conventions, square-jawed-hairy-forearm manliness, and cartoon characters masquerading as actors but here's the thing: it's a freakin' GERARD BUTLER movie, not "Woman In The Dunes". Stuff blows up real good, it's reasonably suspenseful from beginning to end, and the jokes just keep on coming....wait, check that; there is little in the way of discernible humor at ANY point in Hunter Killer. If they snuck a joke in, I was unaware of it. But stuff does blow up pretty good.

Butler is completely convincing as the ships' captain who has risen from below-decks where he presumably started his career peeling potatoes and swabbing the decks, to his new job as commander of a nuclear submarine. In typical fashion with these things, his first day on the job is a doozy: before he's had his first cup of coffee in the big chair, he has to go toe-to-toe with a Russian sub under a frozen Barents Sea (submarino-a-submarino!) and then sneak into a Russian base and rescue the President of Russia from the clutches of his own Secretary of Defense. Crazy, right?

While plausability does not really factor into all of this in any significant way, it's fun and it's a very handsome looking production, full of sweeping nautical vistas above, and bathospheric detail below the surface of the sea. Very enjoyable to look at. Did I mention that stuff blows up? Goodness prevails; the bad guy gets his comeuppance, but not before he has one of those "uh-oh" moments just before he's about to become one with the universe, which is always deeply satisfying. The good Captain finally gets the kind of street cred that he deserves, as his colleagues had been kind of iffy about him up til that point. I liked it!

Blackbear (I) (2019)

I feel significantly dumber than I did two hours ago...

[1/10 · 1 January 2020]

This...thing...is to movies what an etch-a-sketch represents to the drawings of a capable-not-great draughtsman. This is just awful dreck. Complete nonsense, and a waste of time. Comparing it to claptrap would be an insult to claptrap.

Geostorm (2017)

Geo-doo-doo

[3/10 · 20 July 2019]

Yeesh...how does stuff like this get made? Somebody spent MILLIONS of dollars on this turkey, and for what? This is just awful. Derivative, cliches stacked on top of each other like bales of excreta...do yourself a favor and watch a sunset or go grocery shopping. Take a nap. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Become homeless yourself. Do anything but watch this bad, bad, movie.

Day of the Falcon (II) (2011)

Oy vey...

[3/10 · 13 May 2019]

Big $$$ production values and a pretty strong cast cannot save this turkey stuffed with ham. I won't summarize the plot, there are innumerable synopses here to provide a vivid picture of what goes on with the story. If you have an unquenchable thirst for cliche, you will find Black Gold/Day Of The Falcon to be a gushing fountain of sap. This movie makes "Ishtar" seem like "Lawrence Of Arabia" by comparison. I have seen episodes of "Deputy Dawg" that did a better job of capturing the complex origins of internecine conflict in Arab oil producing countries (see: "Fatwa My Foot" episode #12,aired December 8, 1963) than this nonsense.

in fairness, it is visually very pretty, and the costuming is really good. But, some potentially excellent cinematography is wasted with a lot of choppy editing, which just adds to the general clunkiness of the story-telling.

Fans of Antonio Banderas would be better-served sticking with "Puss-in-Boots".

Taboo (2017)

Effing Great

[9/10 · 6 May 2019]

I stumbled upon this on Hulu, with no expectation but fearing it migh be kind of awful...well, it's several hours later and I'm hooked...HOOKED! Beautiful production, terrific acting, a spellbinding story, and Tom Hardy as a man badly done bent on filial and personal revenge. It's great. I love it.

Baskets (2016–2019)

Not everyone's cup of Bunny Juice...I picture gypsy's, gyppin'around...

[10/10 · 13 September 2018]

Do you lack empathy? Got a tin-ear for the music of existential despair? Do you have a pathological disdain for conventional wisdom, or any kind of wisdom at all? Do you feel a desperate need to validate your existence through the willful and dogged pursuit of some unattainable something that will never EVER give you a passing glance? Do you embrace your delusions the way that a fat kid makes love to a Hostess Cupcake? If you answered "yes" or even "Gee, I dunno; I guess" to any of these questions, then you probably won't find much to laugh at in "Baskets". I feel so sad for you. Baskets is a runaway freight-train packed to the rafters with a payload of blazing toothpaste flavored jujubes, bitter cheese balls, and rubber porcupines. And Louie Anderson? Louie Anderson is totally my new hero. Who knew? I mean, he was the host of "Family Feud" for chrissakes; now he's like the second-coming of Lorne Greene as Auntie Mame. Jesus, this is great television...

Hostiles (2017)

Redemption is not easily won, nor is it everyone's cup of tea

[8/10 · 21 August 2018]

Christian Bales gets to really let loose in this oater, displaying the gamut of human expression from glum to downright ornery to really pissed off. And, as in most films whose protagonists are men of action and few words (i.e.: complete blockheads) you won't like him much when he's angry, which happens to be just about all the time...and yet, there is that small glimmer of something like hope that this taciturn and sorrowful man will come to grips with the fact that although he has a lengthy history of...highly dubious behavior...he is a human being, with actual feelings and stuff.

I thought bales was great in this. He glares and glowers, and speaks occasionally...most convincingly when conversing in Apache (who knew? The guy is a genius) to his dying captive, Yellow Hawk, played by the always reliable Wes Studi.

This film is chock-full of some really awful behavior, which is meant to be offset by the nagging regrets of some of the white perpetrators, and by the humanity, dignity, and compassion of the Yellow Hawk's extended family, who are uniformly splendid folk, just a sweet bunch. In keeping with the grim tenor of the story, (SPOILER ALERT HERE) they all die, in order that Bales' character might come to a better understanding of the fleeting nature of existence, and futility an senselessness of being a perennial badass to everyone on the planet.

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, cliches and all. Bales really is terrific as a menacing sociopath with a heart of gold.

I Called Him Morgan (2016)

Jesus H. Christ...

[9/10 · 5 January 2018]

The two negative reviews here are based on the individual reviewers' ignorance of jazz music in general, and the life and music of Lee Morgan in particular. I found this film arresting and completely engaging, even if the pace is incremental. In my view, this is an excellent documentary of the life and TIMES of this great musician. For someone who is not really interested in jazz music of the fifties and sixties, this might seem interminably slow and pointless, but for people who love this period of music history it is told with reverence, love and care.

Godless (2017)

Yup!

[8/10 · 2 December 2017]

The Yelpification of America continues...This is perty good stuff, and vastly superior to most of the garbage that gets foisted on fans of Our Oldest Genre. I watched the first installment and thought "eh...I dunno". It was visually stylish, dark tone and subject matter, and heavily portent-laden; on the whole, it seemed like a lot of current content. Upon viewing the later episodes, the narrative gradually reveals nuance and wit that were not immediately apparent in the first installment, and the story unfolds somewhat gracefully as the characters reveal themselves as human creatures and not Western icons. This is perty good stuff, and a worthy addition to the tradition of Western storytelling.

Goliath (2016–2021)

don't let perfect be the enemy of good...

[9/10 · 16 October 2016]

I'm not into courtroom dramas, & I don't have a particular interest in procedurals of any stripe. I did find "Goliath" to be very involving and entertaining. There are some clichéd tropes, as there are to some extent in ALL narrative fiction: the wastrel who has squandered his position of privilege and is handed the means to his own retribution, the big bad corporation pitted against the little guy, the 11th hour testimony to save the day for the plucky litigants...these contrivances in no way detract from what is at heart a good story with vivid, lifelike characters who suffer real consequences. There are a few "types", characters who fulfill a narrative function, but if you're THAT hung up on purity, screw it; you shouldn't be watching television, you should be writing stories and making your own truthful narratives. This is quality entertainment, and easily the best thing I've watched recently. Billy Bob Thornton is perfect, the supporting cast is top- notch, and while it does follow some genre formulae...it's artfully rendered GENRE, people. I suspect that the person complaining that it wasn't up to the standards of Chandler or Connelly (WTF?) suffers from ODC and likes having the last word in any discussion, whether it's regarding crime fiction or upholstery. I found it very entertaining.

Warriors of Virtue (1997)

Embarrassing

[7 August 2011]

I watched "Warriors Of Virtue" with my 9 year old son a few nights ago, and I can only say that this is easily one of the worst films of any kind I have seen in my 50 plus years of avid film consumption. I enjoy kids movies, martial arts movies, action/adventure movies, fish-out-of-water movies, and just about any genre of film that "Warriors Of Virtue" could possibly belong to. Hell, I like a lot of just plain bad movies, but this was just dreadful. It may have been Shakespeare or perhaps Benny Hill who observed that comparisons are odious, but I couldn't help noticing the similarities between "Warriors Of Virtue" and your average episode of "Power Rangers"(my kid, god bless him, was a big fan in the first grade).

Half-baked and tone-deaf in conception, amateurish in execution, I can imagine simpletons the world over drew figurative lines in the sand in solidarity over their collective objection to the use of the word simplistic to describe this film. Half-wits would look at "Warriors Of Virtue" and wonder just where in hell the money went. It certainly wasn't spent on developing a narrative that makes any sense, three-dimensional characters, professional acting, staging, or direction. "Warriors" was pre-CGI, so I can accept that the special effects work was corny, but...kangaroos? Seriously? This movie is resolutely and resoundingly grind-your-teeth-into-nubbins stupid.