Change Your Image
minnich
Reviews
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Thought it was a well-done wrap-up for the series
Yes, I've read many of the crap reviews by "professional" critics, plus some of the negative stuff here. My take: this is a fun, diverting adventure flick that's generally just as good as the previous four.
Sure, Harrison Ford's actual age was going to have to be acknowledged in the nature of the script, but I (and my wife, who REALLY liked the film) felt that it was handled well.
The basic story line is no more or less ridiculous (relative to the real world) than all the others were. Bringing Nazis back (keep in mind this is set mainly in summer 1969) as the villains was perfectly feasible. And, although it was, of course, massively CGI, the jump back in time to the Roman Era and the siege of Syracuse was a neat and unexpected treat.
Bottom line: ignore the "haters"..the "Dial of Destiny" wrapped-up this franchise in an enjoyable and appropriate manner!
Kiborgy. Heroyi ne vmyrayut (2017)
Gritty and realistic war drama
This Ukrainian production is very professionally done, and is a worthwhile watch. A handful of reinforcements (mostly in Ukraine's "volunteer battalions", as opposed to Regular Army toops) arrives at the shot-to-hell buildings of the Doneskt municipal airport in fall 2014, which is partially encircled by better-armed Donbas sepraratist militias and (unacknowledged by Moscow, of course) Russian Army soldiers.
Compared to many war movies I've seen, this one gets a lot of the little things right...how troops must contend with weariness, poor food, the recurring sense of not really knowing what the hell is going on, how casualties are handled, the fact that you DON'T fire your weapon full-auto unless it's absolutely last-ditch necessary, etc.
A couple minor gripes: while it's great that this film is dubbed in English (so no distracting subtitles), some of the accents and vocabularies are quite "American"...but that's not a show-stopper. Also, while there's one "commander" in charge of this immediate unit (which seems to be no more than a 12-14 men), there's no way such a small outfit would be holding the whole airport terminal, and there's no real sense of any "larger picture", organizationally.
The film has generally very good acting, and some surprisingly philosopical elements, as where the commander asks his troops why they volunteered to fight there...and another scene where he interrogates a captured enemy soldier and they exchange arguments about which side is more proper or reasonable in the political environment of the Ukrainian central govenrment versus the unhappy Russian-speaking Donbas Ukrainians.
All in all, a thoughful product that doesn't just fall back on Hollywood-style shoot-outs and pyrotechnics to keep your interest (although there's some significant violence depicted, too).
Charlie Bravo (1980)
Shame on the "military advisor" for this flick!
Maybe halfway through, I stopped counting the idiotic, unrealistic mistakes this squad of French (Foreign :Legion, maybe?) paratroopers made as far as infantry tactics. Early in the flick, they magically have a flamethrower available (which never reappears thereafter)...yes, I believe paratroopers on a behind-the-lines special ops mission would ALWAYS carry something like that, right? Then there's the refusal to hit the ground, time after time, when engaging the Viet Minh (who are always in identical, neat black pajamas and red-starred "coolie hats"), many of the troops choosing to scream loudly and routinely fire full-auto (because you, of course, have LOADS of ammo with you on a multi-day mission like this...) during the engagements.
As they proceed through jungle and rice paddies, their bunched-up marching technique -- and no point man far out front -- was ludicrous.
At least the blonde playing the captured nurse they rescue was pretty, and had a couple topless scenes (she'd been in even more "exposed" scenes in other French T&A movies back in the 1970s/80s).
Interesting elements: there's a punji-stick impalement that was a nice touch and fairly realistic, and another "spiked weight on a rope" impalement that was harder to believe, but interesting. Likewise, they had a radio that required a hand-cranked generator to power, which you rarely see. However, the most mind-blowing event -- which I've NEVER seen in a war movie -- occurred towards the end, when one trooper is dying and asks a "special last favor" of the nurse...who refuses, but which the LIEUTENANT then provides (!). Incredible, but high points to the director for breaking new film-making boundaries, I guess!
Watch this one for laughs.
Jack Ryan (2018)
VERY well-done counter-terror action series!
The late best-selling author Tom Clancy's CIA character "Jack Ryan" returns yet again to the screen (after appearing in several earlier feature motion pictures, some of them starring Harrison Ford) in this very well-done 8-part series (that was just Season One, and I sure hope there are many more seasons to come!).
Others have summarized the basic plot, so all I'll say is that the story line is very credible, the shoot-outs and explosions are very realistic, and there are even a few female nude scenes (three, in fact, although they're brief and not gratuitous in my opinion). The fanatical, sub-human monsters who constitute ISIS-type terror groups seem to me to be accurately rendered. All the actors do great jobs, whatever their roles might be. I could even follow portions of the spoken Arabic (dredging-up a long-ago military course).
I have heard that various Muslim-American lobby groups are crying about this series making Muslims look bad...but I would observe that it's the REALITY we have seen reported in newspapers, cable TV, media Web sites, non-fiction books, etc., ever since 9/11 (and, for that matter, even before) that has accomplished that more than any fictional series could.
The Promise (2016)
Gorgeous cinematography, engaging story that kind of pulled its punches
There have been a number of other films in recent decades that covered -- or touched on -- the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Turks during the early part of World War One. "The Promise" is beautifully set and photographed, and pretty well-acted, but definitely pulls its punches as far as depictions of gore and nudity amid the outrages that really happened back in 1914-1916 in Turkey. The combat is pretty sanitized, and the rape and mutilations of Armenian girls and women (and men, too, for that matter) basically don't exist. (I'm not a "gore-hound", but some events really DO deserve to be shockingly and explicitly depicted). This is a PG rendering of an X-rated horror in real history. Nevertheless, I rated it a 10 because this story deserves to be widely told, and its Muslims-slaughtering-Christians element is all too relevant to much more recent times (as if we needed to even point that out). The despicable and blatant effort of the Turkish government to down-vote this film on IMDb is another reason why I feel that people who value history should vote this film as high as possible.
White House Down (2013)
Pretty lame 'progressive' Hollywood propaganda
I thought "Olympus Has Fallen" was a pretty good action flick, and, although currently IMDb has virtually equivalent scores for that film (6.4) versus "White House Down (6.3), the bucks at the box office tell a different story: $99 million for "Olympus" compared to just $73 million for "White House". And I can sure see why. The "White House Down" scriptwriter must be a card-carrying member of the Barack Obama Fan Club, since this is a VERY politicized flick: cue the telegenic black president who takes a very "liberal" leap-of-faith initiative to try to bring peace to the Middle East (good luck with that), while the villains who hate him for this are (big surprise) all white male conservatives who want to nuke the baddies over there. Oh, and the hero-cop's young daughter (trapped in the White House) is, of course, heroic as well, talking the time to video the bad guys at one point and then upload it so the media can broadcast it (yep, just like any terrorized 12-year-old would likely do). I could go on...but why bother? Both flicks have the requisite massive full-auto shoot-outs, but "Olympus Has Fallen" was at least somewhat less ridiculous in that regard than "White House Down". If you're just going to watch ONE of these fantasies, I'd strongly suggest "Olympus".
Lilja 4-ever (2002)
VERY well-done film on all-too-current topic
Lilya 4-ever in one sense is another run-through of a theme that we've seen in many other films of the last 20 years or so: the enticement by scumbags of naive young girls into involuntary prostitution (what once upon a time was called "white slavery"). Lilya is a classic victim: young, abandoned by her family, barely scraping by in a VERY run-down Soviet-era apartment block in a nameless city in post-USSR Russia. A "nice guy" dates her, treats her with seeming respect, and the next thing she knows, she's on her way to Sweden (where her "boyfriend" will join her "shortly", of course...) for the "good job" he's found for her. I'm sure you know what happens next. The acting by both the young Russian actress who plays Lilya and the even-younger boy who plays Volodnya (her only real friend) is absolutely outstanding. (NOTE: If you're expecting nudity by this actress, you'll be sorely disappointed. There are NO nude scenes at all by her, although earlier, in a Russian night club, you see a couple topless go-go dancers with pasties over their nipples. This film packs its wallop WITHOUT any explicit sex scenes.)
Maison close (2010)
Grim, seemingly authentic...but kind of SLOW
The French TV series "Maison Close" is set in a Paris brothel ("Le Paradis") just after the end of the Franco-Prussian War (i.e., apparently in the last half of 1871). The two key themes are the quest of a new (and mostly unwilling) young arrival there to learn the fate of her mother -- who'd once also worked as a prostitute at the Paradis -- and the simultaneous efforts of the brothel's madam to purchase the operation from her scheming brother, who's the behind-the-scenes owner.
The acting is good, and the sets and camera-work effectively display the grim living conditions of the girls (that is, their cramped common sleeping quarters, as compared to the opulent rooms where they "entertain" the guests), but the pace of many episodes can, frankly, drag and get very "talky" and soap-opera-like.
One final observation: there's NOT a lot of nudity in the series (first season, anyway): did hookers in 1870s Paris REALLY mainly have sex clothed (not even topless, mostly), just accommodating the client doggie-style on the bed (dress still on) or "cowgirl" on top, again with very little flesh showing? That's sure not how it's traditionally depicted in other modern films!
Q (2011)
Explicit scenes do NOT detract from an engaging story
Yes, this avante-garde 2011 production certainly has multiple UNsimulated sex scenes (boy-girl and girl-girl), but this nicely-shot film offers MUCH more than that, and its story could NOT have been rendered properly without those scenes. Set in a small port on the English Channel coast -- probably around Normandy -- the story revolves around the misadventures of a half-dozen or so young middle-class early-twentysomethings who all seemingly lack motivation to do anything more with their lives than work in menial jobs (or steal cars, in a couple cases)...and have sex (the poor current economic situation in France is implicitly blamed for this, it seems). Brassy-slut-who's-really-just-looking-for-love-and-the-perfect-guy Cecile is the pivotal figure. It's quite interesting to see how she interacts with all the other key characters, and how her actions end-up actually helping a variety of people with their relationships. Turns out there's actually a HEART above that vagina...
Lady Chatterley (2006)
Interesting "French twist" in the film-making
This version of the often-shot story of Lady Chatterley is in French with English subtitles, and I found the "look" of many of the actors to be decidedly French (big surprise) rather than English. The plot development was decidedly leisurely in the first half of the film, but this was not a game-breaker as far as my enjoyment of the movie. However, compared to all the other versions on this story that I've seen, I found this French effort to bring an element of earthy realism (best way I can describe it) to the story that the others lacked. The scene where the gamekeeper and Lady Chatterley "decorate" each other with flowers and subsequently disport themselves outside in the field and woods is a particularly interesting and memorable sequence. One minor quibble: the film seemed to both begin and end rather abruptly...you'll know what I mean when you watch it.
The Third Jihad (2008)
Well-done and scary!
Told through the eyes of an American Muslim physician (and former officer in the Navy Medical Corps), this production does a VERY good job of laying-out the threat posed to the West by Islamic fundamentalists (Islamofascists, jihadists, Muslim radicals...call them what you will). The various chapters explore everything from the fund-raising support to terrorists (that largely emanates from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, and other recipients of petrodollars), to the threat of surging numbers of totally unassimilated Muslims in Western Europe, to the threat of al-Qaeda getting their bloody hands on a nuclear device, or developing their own radiological "dirty bomb" or biological or chemical weapons.
In my opinion, this film does NOT slander Muslims in general, nor does it over-state the threat. Since it's been 8 years since 9/11 with no successful further attack on US soil, I fear many North Americans have succumbed to the wishful-thinking indulgence of assuming that 9/11 was a one-off fluke that can never be repeated.
This film respectfully suggests that such thinking is dangerously deluded.
Virgin Territory (2007)
Lightweight, but well-acted and well-photographed
This isn't exactly "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Citizen Kane"...but so what? I found it a very adequate period-piece comedy that even occasionally had a hint of Monty Python humor. The musical soundtrack was decidedly 21st Century...but it "worked" for me.
The cinematography was surprisingly well-crafted, in my opinion, and the acting was perfectly adequate, albeit nothing exceptional. All the actresses were decidedly attractive -- why do I think that 14th-Century nuns in an Italian convent during the Black Death were maybe not quite so hot as depicted here?? -- and Mischa Barton proves once again that she is a truly gorgeous young woman (although she was NOT one of the several females who had any nude scenes).
Bottom line: worth a rental, and also an OK "date movie".