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Hidden Figures (2016)
Hidden figures meets hidden substance
While Hidden Figures is entertaining it's also a fairly atypical Hollywood political statement film which by definition lacks any real weight.
Hidden Figures explores segregation with much the same depth as Forrest Gump explored the 60's anti-war movement, the material is safe for white suburbanites who want to be entertained rather than confronted by actual reality so no doubt will clean up at the box office.
Watchable but more of a rose colored glass version of a story that goes out of it's way to not upset the audience than a factual biopic of any substance.
Personally, this movie made me think of Public Enemy's Burn Hollywood Burn but then I remembered Ice Cube's latest buddy cop travesty and the pitiful state today's revolutionary ideologies have been reduced to.
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
Funny and engaging
I keep reading odd reviews for this film where people believe the film is about someone with a mental illness which seems quite a strange take after seeing it myself.
The film follows the later life of Florence Foster Jenkins who has a love of music and Opera but as the summery suggests possesses an awful singing voice herself, pandered to as a wealthy patron of the arts by leading music figures or the day and performing before hand picked sympathetic and encouraging audiences courtesy of her 2nd husbands careful handling Florence is kept blissfully unaware of her operatic awfulness.
As the film progresses we are given insights to Florence's earlier life which in part explain her eccentricities and enthusiasm for music and well as a clue that the cause of her off key singing voice might well have been a side effect of a medical problem courtesy of her first husband.
Both Streep and Grant deliver fantastic performances which complement each other so much so that you don't realize the movie is close to two hours long yet remains funny and engaging for it's entire length. For me this was one of the standout movies of the year and would be surprised if it didn't earn a best picture Oscar nomination.
A Hologram for the King (2016)
Enjoyable
A slow moving but interesting movie, they seem to have simplified the plot somewhat in the finished product as the main character isn't quite in the dire straights outlined above.
Hanks plays a sales executive for a video conference company with a revolutionary product sent to Saudi Arabia to clinch a deal which apparently his employers company's future survival depends on, he himself is under pressure to fund his daughters collage tuition while simultaneously dealing with non-stop sledging from his ex-wife.
We follow Hanks as he comes to grips with the reality of doing business with the Saudi Kingdom and interacts with a range of local and jaded expat personalities while also dealing with a mysterious growth on his back and learn Hanks was a former board member of Schwinn Bicycles before they were screwed over by the Chinese and has been reduced to a lowly sales job to make ends meet.
While pretty straight forward film does explore some interesting areas including the downside effects of globalization, Hanks back growth and it's removal and aftermath has a positively Freudian element to it and might have come straight from the pages of Interpretation of Dreams.
A subtle but well made movie and quite enjoyable, not Hanks normal project but he delivers a good result.
Snowden (2016)
Great
Caught this yesterday and was actually surprised at how good it was.
For me one of the main issues with Citizenfour was it was grindingly slow moving and chock full of Infosec jargon witch made it hard for even the most interested non-tech viewers to understand what was going on and to connect with the story fully.
The film succeeds due to two essential elements, Stone has removed the IT gibberish and focused on the product of the programs rather than the technical method involved in obtaining it and as been shown in a number of documentaries on the subject the human element and the mental price paid by those involved in intelligence programs of questionable moral and legal status.
A good movie and well worth catching.
Sully (2016)
Wafer thin material but well handled
Finally had a chance to catch this and it wasn't quite as bad as i expected but found it quite interesting watching how they had padded out the story to fill the time.
Sully goes for a jog, Sully calls his wife, Sully drinks some watered down vodka, Sully lands his F-4, Sully goes for another jog then calls his wife again.
While the flight reenactments were well done the NTSB hearings particularly the "showdown" toward the end was rather comical. As anyone who's read a NTSB report would tell you one of their big things is analyzing the human performance of the crew as a team during the event which made the Airbus reenactments especially laughable as would the need for the crew to have to point out the human factor to investigators in the first place.
One thing i would give them though was the examination of the likely results if he had gone for one of the airports rather than ditching. OK given the skinny material on offer but the invented conflict was just silly.
Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)
Buy a newspaper your time will be better spent
To me any film with Jason Statham in it is going to be a chore to watch but this installment took that to a whole new depth of woefulness.
This film is SO SO SO SO BAD it's barely watchable, Statham plays the same paycheck role he does in every other movie, Jessica Alba's bikini & Tommy Lee Jones battle it out for the worst supporting actor title which Alba wins hands down, the whole thing feels like it was written and directed by some teenage boys as a school project.
The plot is nonsensical and the dialogue is essentially gibberish giving the film the feel of a 80's Hong Kong kung fu movie or something based on a video game.
When you think of Charles Bronson great acting isn't the first thing that springs to mind but his performance in the original mechanic was positivity Shakespearean compared to this trash.
Ben-Hur (2016)
Better than expected
Finally caught this last night and despite the plentiful negative reviews it's received I actually thought it was quite good.
While the screenplay could be considered a lite version of the story and is clearly intended to stay away from delving deeply intro any topic which might cause overt offense to the audience, it is well done and despite being two hours long the movie chugs along at a decent pace which helps add depth to the story without getting bogged down in any one element.
One element which I think really worked was the use of a relativity fresh faced cast, the only "big name" star among the cast is Freeman. While having a more mainstream cast might have helped in at the box office personally I think this element of the production really worked well. The only real issue I could complain about is the main cast all sporting British accents.
The use of CGI is another criticism which appears in most of the reviews. However, I thought it was largely well done, the roman galley & circus are where it's most apparent but the circus chariot race showdown was genuinely exciting to watch and worked particularly well.
In summery, taking on a Hollywood classic was never going to be an easy task but i really enjoyed watching this remake and would give it a solid 8/10.
Hands of Stone (2016)
Great
While this is essentially a boxing film it's also a decent biopic covering Roberto Durán's life from his childhood growing up in poverty in Panama through his boxing career and rise to wealth and fame. It, while superficially, also touches on the Panama–United States relations from the 1960's onward and their effects on Durán's attitude to life and the United states.
The films focus on American imperialism towards Panama is quite an interesting sub plot as US military is shown interacting with the Panamanian population in full Battle of Algiers mode and creating a level of anti-US hostility which having been there a couple of times can still be found today.
The story is told at a good pace and doesn't get bogged down on any one area, both De Niro & Ramirez deliver good performances as does Ellen Barkin as Arcel's wife, probably the only downside is Sugar Ray Leonard who comes off looking like a fool for most of the movie but overall it's a great movie and offers plenty of human interest elements to those who aren't boxing fans.
After watching the terrible Back in the Day the other week I'd happily give this a 8/10
Imperium (2016)
Weird
Radcliffe's character goes undercover among a white supremacists group of odd-ball characters including an Alex Jones style radio host, skinheads a uniformed Nazi paramilitary outfit and a family who look like they have stepped straight out of an Amway commercial each seemingly plotting their own domestic terror caper with varying degrees of commitment.
It's not a bad movie and reminded me a little of Arlington Road, but I'm not sure Daniel Radcliffe was the right casting choice, his performance is fine but he looks like he's 15 years old, it's worth catching but just not very convincing.
Seduced and Abandoned (2013)
What I did on holiday Hollywood style.
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
While watching this I couldn't help but wonder if it was all just a bit of an elaborate expense claim scam being perpetrated on the viewer.
Alec & James go on holidays to the Cannes film festival stay in nice hotels and have a bunch of lunches and smoke cigars with industry luminaries, interspersed with a few strange segments where they pitch a vague artistic movie premise to some rather confused looking film distribution and finance types only (despite both having been in the industry for decades) to be strangely disappointed when they discover nobody wants to put up a few million to fund their rather loose artistic movie endeavor.
However, not all was lost they had a great vacation while getting you to pay it. Although, this documentary itself is a laughable contradiction of the very premise it tries to argue.