One of the things I hate about new superhero movies is that they spend the first twenty minutes of the film on an Origin Story. Dammit, doesn’t everyone already know that Batman’s parents were gunned down in an alley and Superman was raised by a couple of hicks in Kansas? Well, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00XOXDXV8″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Fury Road[/easyazon_link] wastes no time telling us how Max ends up in a desert snacking on a two headed mutant lizard. We have a handful of flashbacks of a little girl begging Max for help and then off we go on our two hour chase scene. Fury…
Category: movie review
Jurassic World-Not As Bad As I Feared
spoilers. I’m not a fan of the scene where they feed a mosasur a great white shark. I guess it could have been worse, they could have fed it a killer whale. Jurassic World had a lot of fun nods to the original film and a lot of Really? moments as well, such as when we see a handful of T-Rex headed pterodactyls or when we see guests in a theme park free wheeling it on their own while surrounded by run of the mill dinos that could crush their little hamster ball by stepping on it or when a…
Age of Adaline
A few spoilers and such. Adaline was in a car wreck and then struck by lightening. It’s the kind of thing that gives people in comic books their powers and it’s how Adaline gets to stay young. Age of Adaline has a lot of quirks. The story makes it necessary to hop around in time, but then, there is not nearly enough time spent in the past. The bulk of the story takes place now and deals with her meeting a rich young man who can make her happy. More Cinderella, anyone? Easily the most annoying thing in Age of…
Ex Machina
A company that bears a striking resemblance to Google is run by a man who bears a striking resemblance to Steve Jobs who creates a woman that bears a striking resemblance to Rachel from Blade Runner. The bulk of the film is two men talking about esoteric subjects and occasionally getting drunk. They are at a house somewhere near a glacier where the uber rich man whiles away the hours by making robotic women in the basement. He brings in one of his employees to give his latest robotic invention The Turing Test. Because, well, why not? The effects for…
Avengers Age of Ultron
I haven’t read comic books in a long time, but one of my all time favorite character in the Marvel Universe is Adam Warlock. I mention Adam, because his claim to fame was that he held the six Infinity Stones and became a god once or twice. He defeated that goofy looking purple guy that showed up in Guardians of the Galaxy and at the end of Age of Ultron. I didn’t see Adam though. Ok, so what about Age of Ultron? Eh. Another CGI Fest that’s on its way to making a couple of billion dollars. Ultron was an…
50 Shades of Grey-Yawn
Sheldon: This is the temperature you agreed to in the roommate agreement. Leonard: Aw, screw the roommate agreement! Sheldon: No, you don’t screw the roommate agreement. The roommate agreement screws you. If you want to see some hot bondage action, try Sex and Submission or The Upper Floor. If you want to watch a man who claims to be a Dominant whine and beg for three hours, you might like 50 Shades of Grey. 50 Shades of Grey is another book that I couldn’t quite finish. I did like the scene near the beginning where Christian is buying tape and…
The Water Diviner
Connor: Are there any more records about my son? Jemal: We are Ottomans, not Germans. An Australian man loses all three of his sons and his wife due to World War I. Russell Crowe stars in and directs this tale of love and loss in Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli. Like most products of an American Education, I couldn’t find Gallipoli on a map and I had no idea there was a big battle there in WWI. Of course, the Turks feel about the British much as the Arabs feel about Americans today-why the hell are you here if…
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
When I was in High School I started a self-help phase in my reading that lasted a couple of decades. I started off with a lot of the Classics. How To Make Friends, The Power of Positive Thinking, Acres of Diamonds, and so on. Along the way I ran across a sub branch of self help books that proclaimed they were more than just ideas, they were real. The Teachings of Don Juan, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, The Silva Method of Mind Control, and yes, Dianetics. Books about Rolfing, the Feldenkrais Method, and assorted people who channeled minor gods…
Finding Vivian Maier
Finding Vivian Maier opens with a number of older people staring off into space. One by one they give a one word description of Vivian. Words like Private and Enigmatic finally came to most of them. Then we see this rather nerdy fellow with an unfortunate haircut and horn rim glasses. He says he was at an auction and he bought a bunch of negatives. He found that he liked what he saw in the images. He bought more negatives and then found even more in a storage unit. He found around a hundred thousand images in undeveloped film and…
The Graduate —A Comedy???
A defining scene in The Graduate is where Mrs Robinson is putting on her hose as Benjamin watches. She has very thin legs and the hose glide over them quickly and easily. She fastens them to a garter belt. It’s a lovely shot. Benjamin looks entranced and he loses track of what he was saying. It’s a great little scene. I’m reading this fun book about famous film personalities and the films they love called Watching Movies. Ron Howard’s pick was The Graduate. He prattles on about cuts and transitions and how this tool or that was used in the…