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Reviews
A Quiet Place (2018)
Good performances, not so good plot
I remember watching Starship Troopers and being struck by how silly the plot was. What military would send human soldiers into a near- suicidal battle with physically superior alien beings? As Ripley says in Aliens, nuke them from outer space. It's the only way to be sure. Watching this movie gave me similar thoughts. We don't have much backstory on these aliens, buy they don't seem as terrifying as the aliens Ripley and company had to face. Where is the military that could dispatch these creatures with modern armaments? The human family facing these creatures seems ill-equipped and poorly armed.
Skyfall (2012)
Good film; sketchy premise
The premise of Skyfall I
s implausible. Why would such an important list of agents be on the "hard drive" of a random agent's laptop? Besides what laptop has a hard drive? That being said, the movie has many rewards, such as the fine performances of the major actors and a praiseworthy effort by Albert Finney as the crusty Kincade. The introduction of Moneypenny and a new "Q" meshes nicely with the film's subtheme of replacing the old with the new and the subsequent danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The movie's color palette is grimly gray. Compare, for example, the vibrant tones of Casino Royale. Still, worth a look.
Disquiet (2023)
Dante's Inferno Lives
In Dante's Inferno, the Dante character is led by the poet Virgil down into and back out of Hell. Sam's fate in this movie is not so clear. When he is finally led to the light by his own aptly-named guide Virgil, is he returning to the real world and his pregnant wife or is he passing over into Eternity?
In the real world, Sam is in a coma in the hospital, and his waking up and subsequent struggle to leave the hospital seem to be something going on in his head. The final shots of Sam's wife holding her husband's hand while the monitor is flatlined suggest Sam dies. Yet, he is able to send a text message from his coma-induced hallucination saying "I love you too," indicated by the closing close-up of the grieving wife's cell phone. Then it is The End.
So the film is a bit of a mess. Is the director playing around with The End and implying that Sam dies? Or, if the cameras kept rolling would the wife see the text and would Sam emerge, Dante-like, from his coma and private Hell and return to the real world?
We do not know. Sam's struggles deserve a better reward. The characters state more than once that Sam's ultimate fate is his choice. But it's pretty clear that Sam wants to return to his wife, not pass over to Eternity.
Interstellar (2014)
Future of Mankind
Nicely shot film with great visuals. Arresting, actually. Rooted in scientific ideas and accuracy. When what's left of the crew revives Dr. Mann from his hibernation, we have the scene where the secretly devious Dr. Mann feeds the others his false data about his planet and offers them hope for life to exist on this new planet. He then states that they (these humans standing in front of him) are the future of Mankind. That's the one thing that seemed far-fetched. Dr. Brand is the only woman in their company. How do they hope to repopulate the human race with only one woman? She's going to be very busy, no?
Spectre (2015)
Continuity Goof
When Dr. Swann falls asleep in L'Americain, she is wearing her dress. Later, when she wakes to enter the secret room, she is wearing only her slip. Someone so drunk as to be seeing two Bonds would not have woken up to remove her dress.
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Good but a little sad...
Josh Waitzkin has stated that this movie contributed to his decision to stop playing chess. It made him famous, and the fan attention pulled his focus away from the inner world of chess, in which he thrived, and made him self-conscious about the way he looked and was perceived.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Schizoid Man (1989)
If I Only Had a Brain
When the doctor whistles a tune (the one Data whistles later), he explains that it's called "If I Only Had a Heart." But it's the Scarecrow's song from The Wizard of Oz, "If I Only had a Brain."
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
Not bad, but those accents
As WWII films go, this one has a good premise and a top cast. But the accents seem to come and go. Do Michael Caine and Donald Pleasence even attempt German accents? This on top of Donal Sutherland's over-the-top Irish accent. I read that the director phoned this one in, so maybe a more attentive director would have produced a more consistent film.
School Ties (1992)
Subtle reminder for Christians that Jesus was Jewish
The school David transfers into is called "St. Matthew," after the apostle whose gospel is the most Jewish of the three synoptic gospels. Written for an audience of Jewish Christians, this gospel firmly situates Jesus within the Jewish tradition of the Messiah foretold of old. The infancy narrative traces his lineage back to Abraham (not Adam), and presents him as the new Moses, who also escapes death in infancy. The movie makes its subtle point about the absurdity of anti-Semitism among Christians, for Jesus was Jewish and so was the early church. Not so coincidentally, David (who is a kind of football Messiah who suffers a symbolic crucifixion at the hands of his former disciple via the Honor Code) plays against St. Luke's in the big football game. St. Luke is the evangelist who wrote the most gentile of the three synoptic gospels.
Nobody (2021)
A Rip-Off of The Equalizer
The fighting sequences are well done, but this movie is a pale imitation of The Equalizer, right down to the vicious Russian gangster and the way the club owner enters the club and goes straight to the bar and downs a shot.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Revisiting Solaris
Clooney's The Midnight Sky is moody and introspective and filled with enigmas, not unlike Solaris where he played another dysfunctional relator looking for redemption. Though, in Solaris he didn't mumble his lines so much. Maybe it was the beard.