remembering the films that the audience forgot
“I didn’t read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I’m older. I read them all.”
— Steven Spielberg
The film takes place in Buenos Aires in 1999 as retired Argentinian federal justice agent Benjamín Espósito is writing a novel, using an old closed case as the source material. The case happened 25 years ago and it’s one that he has never been able to forget. The film cuts back and forth between present day (1999) and the mid-70s as events unfolded.
Read MoreBob Hoskins plays, Harold Shand, the big boss man of the London underworld, who is about to close a very lucrative deal with an American crime family that will be worth billions in years to come. However, that is when things start to blow up around him and some of those close to him are killed. Why? Who? How? Are all questions that Harold asks and is determined to find out before it leads to the end of his deal.
Read MoreWhat really struck we about the film was how simple it was. The opening scene has Tommy Lee Jones getting a phone call asking if he knows where his son is. And from there his search begins. There’s no big preamble or anything like that. The movie starts and there we go. And this isn't some grand melodrama as one might expect from such a premise.
Read MoreKiller's Kiss wasn't Stanley Kubrick's first feature length film, but it was the first he wanted anyone to see.
In 1953 Kubrick made Fear And Desire, but he wasn’t happy with how it turned out. He later denounced the film as amateurish and compared it to children’s drawings on a fridge. There are even rumours that he destroyed the negatives following the death of the films distributor. Needless to say he was happier with his next film, Killer's Kiss.
Read MoreThere have been some great rivalries in the history of sports and some epic battles among champions. There was the Ali v. Foreman Rumble in the Jungle, there was Aarons quest to pass Babe Ruth's career home run number, the epic 2008 Wimbledon finals between Federrer and Nadal and then there was Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell.
Read Moreif I was putting together a list of directors who have wasted their potential, D.J. Caruso would definitely be on that list. However, if the only films of his you have seen are Taking Lives, Two For The Money, Disturbia, I Am Number 4 and Eagle Eye you would probably be asking yourself, “where is the ‘potential’ in the first place?” “What is he wasting?”
Read MoreThis film brings together 5 different stories that all revolve around each other and culminate with a couple car accidents that take place at 11:14pm one evening. The film is one story told from 5 different perspectives. Kind of like the filmVantage Point. But unlike Vantage Point, 11:14 is really good.
Read MoreMarc Forster is not a director stuck to one genre. After Monsters Ball (which I didn't think was as great as the praise it received) put him on the map back in 2001, he followed that up with the wonderful Finding Neverland. Then a couple years later he gave us Stranger Than Fiction - and has since gone on to direct a James Bond film: Quantum of Solace and World War Z. He was also the man at the helm of The Kite Runner. And then there’s Stay, which he did back in 2005.
Stay is an interesting film for me to write about here, because, while I did like it, I can see where people have problems with it. However, for me, the problems seemed to bother me much less than as much as the film completely intrigued me.
Read MoreBack about a decade ago I was browsing Netflix looking for a movie to watch and Exam came up as a suggestion based on the hundreds of movies I had rated and liked/disliked, etc… Now, generally I was not impressed with these suggestion services, but in the case of Exam, Netflix did good.
The film begins with eight strangers competing for a job, entering a windowless room and sitting at their assigned desks. Then an invigilator enters the room, tells them the rules of the exam, puts 80 minutes on the clock and walks out, leaving behind the eight applicants and an armed guard.
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