Saturday, August 2, 2014

Random Movie Realizations

I haven't been blogging much about movies here as of late.  I guess twitter and facebook have sucked up that urge, but it has been a movie dense time.  So, some reactions/realizations.
  • About Time is a delightful time travel movie that has the former Bill Weasley and future Star Wars star Domhnall Gleeson using his powers to gain the love of Rachel McAdams.  It is the time travel movie with the least significant consequences beyond his own life.  Which was pretty cool, even if not so dramatic.  Big contrast to
  • Edge of Tomorrow:  Saw it a few weeks back, and it was really quite good.  It was the Tom Cruise movie with the most humor in it in quite some time. Emily Blunt always rocks.  And the time travel was pretty well done.  Of course, it suffered from the typical problem of many big action movies with aliens--the bad guys are incredibly difficult to beat, but once you hit one thing right (a death star, perhaps?), the whole opposition folds up. 
  • Don Jon: Go for the Joseph Gordon-Levitt acting/directing/writing effort, stay for ScarJo's gum-chewing, and really enjoy the game of how many lines Brie Larson says in the entire movie.  Seriously, she works her cell phone and gives the occasional look without speaking like no one else.  Was great to see Tony Danza and Glenne Headly as well.
  • Robocop: Flying to South America meant a long plane ride, so I maxxed out on mediocre movies I would never want to waste money on.  This reboot was entirely unnecessary.  Not a really bad effort, but not very good.  Sam Jackson was fun as a Fox-esque blowhard on TV.  Always nice to see Michael Keaton.
  • Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit: The central plot was just silly on stilts.  The bank failure in Mary Poppins was far more realistic than the currency exchange manipulation in this movie.  
  • Three Days to Kill: Kevin Costner as a dying assassin.  Despite Amber Heard, I stopped watching about twenty minutes into it.  Just too stupid to watch.
  • That Awkward Moment: Was another plane movie, but didn't suck. Not brilliant but not bad.
  • The Lego Movie: Long flights are not just for lousy movies (Robocop, Jack Ryan) but for seeing really good movies over again.  And Lego Movie was awesome again.  
  • Captain America-Winter Soldier: Watched the first part during the last part of the flight.  Really quite good again.  There was some stuff edited out of Cap's flight from the silly SHIELD HQ--the bridge scene.  
I have not seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet as Frosh-2-B Spew is out of town this weekend and we are committed to seeing it with her.  Haven't seen How to Train Your Dragon 2 yet either or Grand Budapest.

Not counting GotG, the summer movie season for me ranks thusly: 
Days of Future Past > Edge of Tomorrow > Amazing Spider-man 2 > Godzilla

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