Movies you saw in January 2016

Bringing Out the Dead (1998) reviewed last month and watched again last night. really good "dark comedy" about a a burned-out NYC paramedic trying to keep his sanity with all the crazy crap that happens every day on the job. stars Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore with Marc Anthony really good as the crazy kid Noel. box office flop BUT critics raved. has a 71% "fresh" from Rotten Tomatoes and the late Roger Ebert gave it a perfect four-star rating. I thought it was really well acted and was even better second time around because I caught some things I missed the first viewing. probably could have been a hit IF the producers had advertised it. plays again on Showtime HD Wednesday January 6th @ 10:45pm pacific time. I rate it    of four

Creed (2015) Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone.

two American remakes of foreign classic on Turner Classic Movies last night

M (1951) "film-noir" remake of the Fritz Lang directed 1931 German film classic that made Peter Lorre a star as the serial child killer. the basic plot is the hunt for the killer by members of the local underworld because his crimes are bringing heat from the police on them. American actor David Wayne is good in the Lorre part as the compulsive murderer as is Luther Adler as the drunken mob attorney who ends up defending the killer. started off kind of slow BUT worth watching just for the "summations" during the "kangaroo court" at the end which I thought were as good as in the original. because of legal wranglings the movie hasn't been shown for decades and hopefully it will repeat on TCM soon. I rate it    of four

The Outrage (1964) a remake of the 1950 Akira Kurosawa Japanese classic Rashomon in a wild west setting. stars Paul Newman as the bandit, Laurence Harvey as the husband and Claire Bloom as the wife with Edward G. Robinson as the con man, William "Captian Kirk" Shatner as the preacher and Howard Da Silva as the prospector (the woodcutter in Rashomon). like the original it is a bit "slow" in spots but is very well acted esp by Robinson, Shatner and Da Silva. another one worth watching to compare to the original and hopefully TCM will repeat soon. I rate it    of four

Deacons for Defense (2003) made for TV movie about the black self-defense group that had enough of MLK style "nonviolence" and took up arms against the group and local police of which most were klan members themselves. it is a little known part of civil rights history and worth watching at least once. very well acted by Forest Whitaker, Ossie Davis, Jonathan Silverman and the rest of the cast. I was a Naval Aviation Cadet in Pensacola, Florida back in the mid 60's and with the racism I saw in "Baja Alabama" back then I am surprised the whole deep south didn't go up in flames. this movie an excellent depiction of those bad times in American history. played on Starz-Black channel the other night and hopefully will repeat again on Starz soon. I rate it    of four

Ho Boy. NOW Covers is censoring the letters "Kay Kay Kay"? just getting more and more goofy 

The Visit-   M. Night Shyamalan....    Mock documentary about a teen brother and sister visiting their estranged grandparents in rural PA for the first time.   It is shown in the view of the kids recording a documentary of the trip.   Somewhat creepy yet some laugh out loud scenes at the same time with a few jumpy moments.   Not bad at 94 minutes long, of course there is the vintage M. Night twist which I was trying to figure out the whole time and got JUST before the reveal.   

Tron (1982) noteable as the first mostly CGI SciFi action-adventure. stars Jeff Bridges,  Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, and Barnard Hughes. interesting electronic sound track by Wendy Carlos who also did A Clockwark Orange. worth watching at least once to compare to modern CGI films. I thought is was pretty well acted by all involved esp David Warner who was one of the great "menacing villains" of that era and Cindy Morgan who is absolutely lovely. I am surprised she didn't really get that much work in her career.. plays on HBO-Z channel again Wednesday january 13th @ 4:159m and Friday Jaunuary 15th @ 1:05pm & 9:30pm all times pacific. I rate it    of four
 
Flight of the Intruder (1991) from the former Navy A-6 Intruder pilot Stephen Coonts's novel about Navy flight ops during Vietnam it stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson with Tom Sizemore, Rosanna Arquette and Ving Rhames. the book was The Bridges at Toko-Ri of my generation and the movie could have been as good a that 1954 film version of that book BUT the soundtrack was pretty lame (should have gone with rock/pop music fron that era) and being an active duty aviator myself back then, I just couldn't buy into a black Naval Aviator Commander (Glover) as CO of a Navy Attack Squadron during the war. good story though with excellent action and flying scenes it is worth a look for war movie fans. plays again on Starz-Black channel Saturday January 16th @ 2:15 am pacific. I rate it   of four

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) a continuation of  the Mad Max franchise staring Tom Hardy as Max and Charlize Theron. pretty much non-stop action with lots of "stuff that goes boom". scalabrine raved about this movie when it first came out. personally I'm glad I didn't spring for a PPV. I didn't think it was nearly as good as the 1981 Mad Max: The Road Warrior staring Mel Gibson as Max with Bruce Spence as the Gyro Captain, young Emil Minty as the Feral Kid and Vernon Wells as Wez the evil mohawked, leather-clad Humungus gangs #1 lieutenant OR the 1985 Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome also with Gibson and Spence along with Tina Turner as Aunty Entity. both had better plots and character development than this current offering. I actually started "paging thru" Fury Road fairly early in the movie because it was getting repetitive. plays again on HBO channels Tuesday January 12th, Thursday January 14th and Friday January 15th. I rate it only   of four.

Dreamcatcher (2003) Sci-Fi horror movie from the Stephen King novel of the same name about four telepathic friends trying to fight off  parasitic aliens trying to invade Earth. good suspense and decent action with a lot of "startle" scenes. the four friends are played by Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee and Timothy Olyphant with supporting roles by Morgan Freeman as a crazy Army Colonel and Tom Sizemore as his #1 Captain. I found it to be fast paced and had a crazy "plot twist" ending. plays again on HBO channels Tuesday January 12th and Wednesday January 13th. I rate it    of four

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) the late, great Robin Williams break through "tour de force" as true life Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam DJ  Adrian Cronauer. has oddles of LOL lines from Williams BUT has a serious side too as Cronauer "fights the system" trying to get the REAL news of what is happening in the war to the troops. excellent supporting rolls by Forest Whitaker, the late Bruno Kirby, Robert Wuhl and J. T. Walsh. Golden Globe Best Actor win and Best Actor Oscar nomination for Williams. this movie made him a "bankable star" in Hollywood. plays again on Showtime channels Tuesday January 12th, Saturday the16th, Sunday the 17th and Monday the 18th. I rate it    of four

The Rainmaker aka John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997) I know I keep repeat posting this BUT as one of the BEST courtroom dramas EVER it is worth mentioning when ever it is on TV. stars Matt Damon, Danny DeVito and Jon Voight with Danny Glover, Claire Danes, Mickey Rourke and Virginia Madsen in supporting rolls. relatively unknown actors Johnny Whitworth as the dying Donny Ray Black, Mary Kay Place as his mother as Dot Black and Teresa Wright as Rudy Baylor's ( Damon's) landlady "Miss Birdie" Birdsong all outstanding in their rolls. plays again on HBO channels Tuesday January 12the and again the 13th. I obviously rate it   of four

The Martian (2015) just watched in Dish-TV PPV and was worth the certificate I used. compelling story directed by Ridley Scott about an astronaut stranded on Mars. "tour de force" for Matt Damon as the astronaut with an excellent supporting cast. great CGI and it has good suspence with a heart stopping ending. did get a bit tedious in spots and it looked like Scott kind of "stretched" the story to get it to it's 2 hours and 20 minutes. probably would have been even better "trimmed" by 30 minutes. had a lot of the same elements as the 2013 space themed movie Gravity. just won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (to which Ridley Scott replied at the awards ceremony "Musical? Comedy?) although it does have some humor in spots. did have kind of a lame soundtrack, though. had a LOT of "science" in it much like Gravity and the 2014 Interstellar although it is WAY better than that weird "time warp" shitefest. maybe the most compelling character other than Damon's is the astrodynamicist "geek" played by Donald Glover. I rate it    of four and definitely worth springing for a PPV

What's Up, Doc? (1972) definitely one of the GREATEST "screwball" comedy EVER it just happened to play on the 5-MAX channel late last night. stars  Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal and Madeline Kahn with Kenneth Mars (also played the crazy N-azi playwrite Franz Liebkind in original 1968 Mel Brooks comedy The Producers) in a supporting roll. it is just one laugh line or sight gag after another and is just totally hilarious. runs a VERY fast paced 95 minutes. hopefully the Cinemax channels will show it again soon. it is a must see for comedy fans and I rate it one of the top 5 "screwball" of all time along with Bringing Up Baby (1938), Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) and Let It Ride (1989). I obviously rate it     of four

Category 6: Day of Destruction (2004) four-hour TV miniseries. I am not usually into "disaster" movies but this one was pretty good. the primary plot the convergence of a hurricane strength storm front for Canada with a tornado producing system from the western US over Chicago with the secondary problem with the midwest power grid caused by an electric utility trying to produce power "on they cheap" with a resultant breakdown of their system. I thought is was pretty well acted by those involved including Brian Dennehy as the NOAA Severe Weather Center boss, Randy Quaid as storm chaser "Tornado Tommy" Dixon and Dianne Wiest as the "take NO bullshite from Electric Corporations" Secretary of Energy.

starts out with tornadoes leveling Las Vegas which is actually pretty funny at the end when a crap table, wheel of fortune and $100 dollar bills start raining down on an elderly couples cabin 60 miles away and goes on from there. has quite a bit of "personal lives" garbage that probably could have been NOT used BUT If you can sit (or "page thru") that it's a pretty thrilling story. uses good old fashioned "FX" for the disaster scenes along with some actual weather disaster news footage. both parts #1 & #2 play again back to back on the Movieplex channel again Tuesday January 19th @ 5:50am pacific time. I found most of it "edge of your seat" "what the hell will happen next" thrilling and rate it  esp for disaster movie fans

Child 44 (2015) set in the mid 1950's Stalinist Soviet Union the plot is a MGB (State Security) Agent who suspects there may be a serial murderer of childern operating in and around Moscow and other cities BUT because the there could be NO admission of that in Stalin's Russia because "murder is a Capitalist disease" his efforts are thwarted and he is demoted and sent to Volsk where he discovers even more murders of children with the same signatures. stars Tom Hardy as the agent, Gary Oldman as his Militia boss in Volsk and Noomi Rapace as Hardy's characters wife.

based on the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo, who with at least 52 murders is believed to be the most horrible serial murderer of all time, I thought in might be as good as the made for TV movie Citizen X (1995) which was an excellent mystery BUT it failed. was very slow and plodding and more an indictment of the Soviet system under Stalin than a real mystery. had some decent action at the beginning and end BUT overall was pretty boring. also they got "arty-smarty" with the effected Russian accents in the dialog that was hard to understand. gets a sorry 26% "fresh" from Rotten Tomatoes and was an absolute box office "bomb". plays again on Cinemax channels again Tuesday January 19th, Wednesday the 20th, Thursday the 21st and Saturday the 24th IF you want to bother. I would recommend the afore mentioned Citizen X as a much better telling of the story. was strictly  for me

The Lost Squadron (1932) excellent early flying movie about former WWI fighter pilots now working for a movie company doing stunt flying. stars Richard Dix who was the John Wayne of his day, Joel McCrea who was the Jimmy Stewart/Henery Fonda of his time and Erich von Stroheim who was one of the great "menacing villains" back then. worth watching iF you are into early aviation themed movie it has excellent flying scenes and pretty good action. played on Turner Classic Movies and hopefully will repeat soon. runs a short 80 minutes and I rate it   of four

The Revenant

The Revenant "leader in the club house" for Oscars this season

The Imitation Game (2014) historical drama about the British Bletchley Park crew that solved the German Enigma code in WWII. stars Benedict Cumberbatch as math wiz Alan Turing leader of the team, Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke a crossword expert with the knack for "thinking outside the box" and Matthew Goode as math wiz Hugh Alexander who is Turing's "number one". has a strong 90% "fresh" from Rotten Tomatoes and had Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Cumberbatch), and Best Supporting Actress (Knightley). It won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. for a "non-action" movie it is pretty fast paced with a lot of "unknown history". did not know that the "Turing Machine" used to solve the Enigma daily settings was the first true mechanical "computer". plays again on Showtime channels Wednesday January 20th, Thursday the 21st, Friday the 22nd, Saturday the 23rd and Monday the 25th. I really enjoyed it and rate it    of four

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation aka Mission Impossible 5 or "MI-5" (2015) fifth installment of Mission Impossible film series it stars Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson with supporting rolls by Ving Rhames and Alec Baldwin. Sean Harris excellent as the "trying to overthrow world order" villain. like the previous offerings has pretty much non-stop action, chase scenes and "stuff that goes boom". the plot had some interesting "twists" to it and it kept me interested the whole 2 hours and 10 minutes. watched on Dish-TV PPV and I thought it was worth using a certificate. I rate it    of four and a definite "must see" for action fans

The Green Mile (1999) from the Stephen King novel of the same name. it stars Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clarke Duncan with supporting roles by David Morse, Barry Pepper, Bonnie Hunt and James Cromwell. the late Michael Jeter outstanding as death row inmate Eduard "Del" Delacroix as was Doug Hutchison as nasty baztard guard Percy Wetmore and Sam Rockwell as death row inmate "Wild Bill" Wharton. BUT, in my opinion, Del's performing mouse "Mr. Jingles" steals really the show. had Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Duncan), Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay. has a strong 80% "fresh" from Rotten Tomatoes. it is a long movie at over 3 hours BUT needs to be to tell the tale. NO "filler" in this one. played on AMC channel the other night and hopefully will play again soon on a channel that is NOT over-run with commercials. as one of my all time favorite serious drama's I rate it of four

Mimic (1997) interesting sci-fi horror movie staring Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam and Josh Brolin with Charles S. Dutton and F. Murray Abraham in supporting rolls. think the original Alien (1979) only instead of a "Xenomorph" running amoke on a space freighter it is genetic engineered "Judas Bugs" designed to destroy cockroaches that had caused a plague and then die out instead reproducing in the subway and underground of Manhattan Island and killing people. I thought it had the same level of suspense and "startle" scenes as any of the Alien franchise movies and had some crazy "twists" in the plot. worth a watch for sci-fi horror fans it plays again on Cinemax channels Friday January 22nd, Saturday the 23rd, Monday the 25th and Wednesday the 27th. runs one hour 45 minutes and was pretty much non-stop suspense with good action in spots esp at the end. I rate it    of four and it is definitely worth a look for those that like Alien style horror movies

They have been playing the Green Mile on AMC for the past several months now.

BackCountry

13 hours in theaters now> I was prompted to see this film and at the end of the day and glad I took it in. Not for everyone and a bit long in spots but in the end it holds itself together. Based on the Benghazi attack of September 11,2012.

I wanted to check that out Z.  I might go see it later this week.  Thanks

Before The Lights (Netflix)

ref: The Imitation Game (2014). IF you get Smithsonian Channel they had an excellent one hour documentary about William Welchman who was the other British "cryptoanalyst" mathematician at  Bletchley Park at the time. his ground breaking use of "traffic analysis" of German signals gave the Alan Turing group the "key word" system for breaking the daily Enigma code machine settings. VERY surprised there was NO mention of him in the movie as his work was at least as important as the Turing groups at breaking German codes in WWII. he went on to become a key player in American cryptography during The Cold War

fukk!! I wish Covers had an EDIT feature. that is actually William Gordon Welchman as he went by Gordin not William

yet ANOTHER reason Covers need an EDIT feature. forgot to state the Gordon Welchman story on Smithsonian goes by the title "The Codebreaker Who Hacked Hitler"