Dr. Strangelove (1964)

  I've never really cared for any of Stanley Kubrick's films.  I know they're iconic but not a single one has been something that I would watch twice.  Dr. Strangelove did nothing to change this opinion.

A zealous Army general (Sterling Hayden) enacts a set of orders enabling a nuclear strike on Russia.  It was meant as a failsafe should Washington, D.C. be destroyed in a surprise attack, but the general believes that it is his solemn duty to protect the precious bodily fluids of Americans by destroying the Red Menace.  President Muffley (Peter Sellers) assembles his advisors, as well as the Russian ambassador (Peter Bull), in the War Room to try and stave off full-fledged nuclear war.  Unfortunately, the deluded general has the only passcode that will stand down the assorted bomber units and time is running out.

There is a lot of humor to be mined from the absurdity of mutually assured destruction and the nuclear arms race in a post-Cuban Missile Crisis world.  Unfortunately, this movie confines itself to bad puns and stupid names for characters like 'Jack D. Ripper' and 'Merkin Muffley'.  Peter Sellers plays three roles in the production, with his most recognizable being the titular Dr. Strangelove.  The inclusion of the character makes no sense and seems to exist only to make Nazi references.  I'm sure it's an allusion to the fact that we actively recruited top German scientists after WWII, absolving them of whatever crimes of affiliation they might have had, but it's still a one-line joke.  I honestly don't understand why people wax poetic about this movie.

Flashdance (1983)

  Did I mention that I love movies featuring dancers?  Cuz I do.  Even though I have all the rhythm of a spastic tortoise, nothing stops me from enjoying the way these people can command their muscles to do their bidding.  That's a kind of magic I do not possess.

By day, Alex (Jennifer Beals) is a welder in a Pittsburgh factory.  But at night, she indulges her passion for dancing at the local bar.  She wants to be a repertory dancer, a legitimate ballerina, but lacks the formal training.  Her mentor, Hannah (Lilia Skala), urges her to apply for an audition anyway.  Alex must balance her love of dance against the fear of failure, especially as she and her friends are targeted by local flesh peddler, Johnny C. (Lee Ving), always looking for fresh meat to work in his disreputable nude bar.

Jennifer Beals is iconic in this and for good reason.  She nails that fresh faced yet street wise dancer persona.  What she cannot do is actually dance.  All of the major dancing is done by a professional.  When I first watched this as a kid, I never noticed but in the age of digitally superimposing an actress's face on top of a dancer's body, the tricks used back in the 80's stick out like two left feet.  I'm sure they did their absolute best and I hope that doesn't ruin the movie for anyone but it's something I couldn't ignore once it was pointed out to me.

The Lorax (2012)

  This was way cuter than I thought it was going to be.  I had heard that it was a little too heavy-handed with the environmental message so I hadn't made any sort of effort to see it, but I was really missing out.  It is adorable!

Ted (Zac Efron) wants to impress Audrey (Taylor Swift), but the only thing she wants is a tree.  See, Ted and Audrey live in the town of Thneedville, where everything is made of plastic and fresh air has to be bought in bottles from Mr. O'Hare (Rob Riggle).  Real trees are nowhere to be found.  But Ted's Grandma (Betty White) tells him that way outside of town lives a man called Once-ler (Ed Helms) and if anybody knows what happened to the trees, it would be him.  Because he killed them.

This is the same studio that did Despicable Me and a lot of the non-main character voices sound like they could have been Minions.  Otherwise, this is definitely a unique film that stands on its own merits.  It is very upfront with its agenda but I never felt like I was being force-fed something to which I didn't already ascribe belief.  I don't think there is an age too early for people to start teaching their kids responsibility and that includes social and environmental concerns.  Your beliefs may be different.  Regardless, The Lorax is a super-cute film from start to finish.

High Tension (2003)

This French horror film ruffled the waters a few years back.  I found it on a list of the 100 Goriest Horror Movies and added it to my queue.  I didn't put the whole hundred on because I had seen some of them and others just didn't sound good.  Martyrs also came off that list, as well as a couple of Japanese horrors that haven't come up yet.

Marie (Cecile de France) goes with her friend Alexia (Maiwenn) to Alexia's parents' house out in the country so they can study for their college exams without distraction.  Of course, that means that the very first night they arrive, a psychopath (Philippe Nahon) breaks in and slaughters Alexia's mom, dad, and little brother before kidnapping her.  Marie manages to hide from the killer during the initial rampage but must find a way to follow him in order to save her friend.

I think the filmmakers did a great job hiding the third-act twist for most of the movie.  I had already had it spoiled for me by the internet but knowing actually made me curious enough to see the movie.  If you don't know, I'm not going to spoil it for you.  I don't remember what ranking this got on the 100 Goriest, but it definitely deserved to be on the list.  There are buckets of fake blood, severed limbs, severed heads, and enough blunt force trauma to keep an entire ER busy.  It's not one that I would buy, most likely, but I did find it very entertaining to watch.  I would recommend it for fans of the slasher sub-genre.

The First Wives Club (1996)

  God, this movie is soooooo 90's.  Don't get me wrong, I still love it to pieces, but it isn't exactly immortal.  Although, it does function as a decent time capsule, like a fly preserved in amber.

Three best friends from college get together after twenty years at the funeral of their fourth friend, Cynthia (Stockard Channing).  Cynthia committed suicide after a very public revelation that her husband had left her for another, younger woman.  Annie (Diane Keaton), Elise (Goldie Hawn), and Brenda (Bette Midler) find themselves in the exact same situation, but they resolve to get revenge on their exes instead.  Along the way, they discover that you really can do anything as long as you've got the right friends.  And a ton of money.  And accomplices.  And mob ties.  But mostly money.

This came out when I was still in high school and I must have seen it a dozen times before I graduated.  At some point, I believe everyone has fantasized about sticking it to an ex and movies like this are beautifully cathartic.  I try and keep that in mind when I cringe over some of the less relevant sections, like the lesbian bar and the impromptu musical number.  It's worth it for the supporting cast alone, featuring Maggie Smith, Bronson Pinchot and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit part by Timothy Olyphant.

Lions for Lambs (2007)

  This was a horribly pretentious movie masquerading as film.  I generally have a lot of respect and admiration for Robert Redford and I don't even disagree with the points he makes in the movie, but his method of delivery was just awful.  It might have worked as a stage play but that kind of earnest hand-wringing doesn't translate well to the screen.

A professor (Robert Redford) urges his recalcitrant student (Andrew Garfield) to not tune out the world around him.  Meanwhile, a veteran journalist (Meryl Streep) interviews a slick politician (Tom Cruise) on his new plan for winning the war in Afghanistan.

That's all it is.  People talking to each other the entire running time.  I can deal with talking movies when they have something worthwhile to say, but "war is bad" isn't only tepid as a statement, it's juvenile.  I would rather have watched 90 minutes of Robert Redford ranting about damn kids and their iPods and iPads and iPatches who won't get off his lawn and get jobs like decent folk.  At least that would have felt personal.

Limitless (2011)

  This was way more entertaining that I thought it would be.  I don't know why, but I thought it was going to be much more of a downer.

Edward (Bradley Cooper) is falling apart.  He has a contract for a book he hasn't started writing, his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) dumped him, and he is going precisely nowhere.  Then he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vern (Johnny Whitworth), who gives him a small clear pill called NZT.  The drug allows Edward to access all of his stored memories, giving him the ability to make connections he couldn't see before.  Almost overnight, he solves every major problem in his life, then moves on to become a financial wizard.  But every drug has side effects, and the clandestine nature of the substance means that there is only a limited supply.  All of a sudden, Edward has enemies within and without.

If this had been even slightly less self-aware it probably would have tanked.  Fortunately, it maintains a very lighthearted spirit.  I especially enjoyed the uses of filters to show his perception on (yellow filter) and off (blue) the drug.  It added to the experience without being over the top.  I did not enjoy the opening credits, however, as they employed a vertigo-inducing zoom through that made me feel like I was going to puke.  Watch those at your peril.  The rest of the movie is good, light fun.

Firewalker (1986)

  This definitely falls under the "B-movie" category but I didn't know that as a kid.  I just knew it had Chuck Norris, mysterious temples, and treasure.  As an adult, I can see that it had very low production value, a weak script, and basically no character development.  I don't care.  It's still fun and has Chuck Norris and treasure.

Max (Chuck Norris) and Leo (Louis Gossett, Jr.) are treasure hunters.  They're not particularly good at it but they get by.  Along comes pretty blonde Patricia (Melody Anderson) with a map and a dream.  No, really, she has visions that the map will lead to a huge treasure but it is protected by dark magic and she can't get to it by herself.  Leo and Max head down with her into the jungles of Central America to the intersection of Mayan and Aztec kingdoms, but they are not the only ones with an eye on the prize.  El Coyote (Sonny Landham) believes it is his destiny to gain the powers of the mythical Firewalker and he's not about to let some ditzy blonde and her two bonehead bodyguards get in his way.

This movie is stupid fun.  I wish there had been a whole series of them but the production company went out of business a couple of years later.  The story of Golan-Globus Productions is actually pretty interesting, and spawned a documentary, I think.  I was half-watching TV one day and someone mentioned it.  Anyway, if you have zero expectations, this is a really fun movie.

The Red Shoes (1948)

  I've never taken dance classes but I sure love movies about dancers.

Vicky (Moira Shearer) dreams of being a prima ballerina.  She is eventually asked to join the chorus of renown ballet master Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook).  When Lermontov's prima ballerina (Ludmilla Tcherina) leaves the company to get married, he turns his eye to Vicky, deciding that she should star in his new ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Red Shoes.  But when she falls in love with the new conductor (Marius Goring), Lermontov issues his ultimatum:  she can dance or she can get married but she can't have both.

Movies like this must have felt so prescient for women at the time.  You could go to school and get a job but it was with the understanding that you were just doing it until you found a husband.  After that, you had to be a housewife and mother like God and Eisenhower intended.  I wish I could say that kind of mentality was as dead as the Edsel but that assumption was the main reason for my divorce in 2005.  Maybe there are women out there who would love nothing more than to sit at home all day and clean but I am not one of them.

That, more than anything, dated this movie for me.  The dancing is lovely, the costumes are fabulous but the story is too old school for me to enjoy it as much as I would have liked.  Still, the version I saw was a Criterion Collection so the transfer was superb.  I didn't take a look at the special features but I would encourage anyone everyone else to do so.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

I've never played any of the Final Fantasy video games.  I don't know anything about the characters, background, mythology or worlds therein.  I don't even know if the video game shares anything in common with this movie other than the name.  Thanks to Wikipedia, I know that this was the first photorealistic computer animated movie and it took 200 people four years to make.  Their work is evident, since the animation still holds up pretty well today, living as we do in a post-Avatar world.

Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na Wen) is a scientist on a post-apocalyptic Earth, trying to discover a way to combat a race of soul-stealing aliens called Phantoms that have invaded.  She and her mentor, Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland), are working off a heretical idea of using spirits to create a weapon to neutralize the Phantoms.  General Hein (James Woods) distrusts their hippy-dippy theories and favors blasting the alien headquarters to pieces.

I think the biggest problem I had with the movie is that all the voices are by really famous people but none of the characters resembled them at all.  If they had used traditional animation, I don't think it would have been as jarring; likewise, if they had cast more obscure voice actors.  It kept throwing me off hearing Steve Buscemi's voice coming out of a guy who doesn't look anything like Steve Buscemi.  That might also be because I'm used to motion capture at this point so it just seems weird to me that this isn't mo-cap, just computer animation.

I remember that this was an absolute flop in theaters and I can't say that I recommend it to anyone not interested in the early days of computer animation.  The plot isn't well laid out, the characters are stock, and the resolution is boring.  Maybe it means something more to people who enjoyed the games, I don't know, but for me, this is destined for the donation box.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole (2010)

  For a movie that only came out five years ago, this got relegated to obscurity insanely fast.  It was hard to even find a copy of the poster.  (In that it took me over a minute on Google as opposed to a few seconds.)  It's beautifully animated but that's no longer enough to carry a film.

Young barn owl Soren (Jim Sturgess) and his brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) are abducted after falling from their nest.  They are taken to the stronghold of evil Metal Beak (Joel Edgerton), who believes barn owls are the only "pure" species and that all other owls should be enslaved in their service.  His mate, Nyra (Helen Mirren), singles out Soren and Kludd and offers them a place in the army instead of the mines.  Soren refuses, Kludd agrees.  Soren and a young elf owl named Gylfie (Emily Barclay) escape in order to bring the alarm to the Guardians, an owl council of warriors who had stopped Metal Beak the last time.  But the Guardians have a traitor in their midst and it might be too late.

This is based on a popular set of children's books, from what I understand.  I've never read them, obviously because I don't have kids and don't spend any time around children.  Based on the movie, I imagine there's a lot more depth to the books.  I'd recommend picking them up instead.

Freaks (1932)

  First off, it is astonishing how our language styles and usage have changed since the 30's.  You absolutely could not have a poster with that kind of tagline today.  I am not bemoaning that fact at all.  I cringed a little when I pasted that picture here since I hope I would never be the kind of blogger that would deliberately slight any group of people.  But that is the official poster for the film.  Refusing to look at it won't make it retroactively disappear.

Hans (Harry Earles) is a little person with a traveling circus.  He and his fiancee, Frieda (Daisy Earles), are the leaders of the circus' sideshow performers.  But Hans also has an eye for trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) and begins to woo her.  She responds to his flirtations but secretly has a plan with strongman Hercules (Henry Victor) to poison Hans and steal his inheritance.  It's up to the rest of the sideshow to stop the evil duo.

Despite the poster, this is an extremely sympathetic movie.  Tod Browning based most of it around his own experiences working in a circus and employed actual sideshow performers in the film.  These are some of the most famous acts of the time, including conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton, Johnny Eck the "half man", and Prince Randian "the living torso".  The film is also very clear about portraying the performers as regular people just trying to earn a living while the "normal" ones are the villains, out to exploit them.

On a personal note, when I was in high school my mother gave me a book called Very Special People, which was a series of biographies of human oddities and sideshow performers.  I must have read that thing a hundred times, to the point where I could have recited biographies from memory.  I never fit in with the majority of my classmates and I was bullied quite a bit.  Reading about these individuals helped me so much and not in a "well, it could be worse, at least I don't have a third leg" kind of way.  These people were born in a time where they were barely considered human beings, they were exploited for profit, and kept barely better than animals in some cases.  The Hilton twins had to sue their own mother for control of their money in order to have any sense of autonomy.  None of them ever lost hope.  They dealt with horrible shit day after day and they persevered.  They worked as hard as they could for their slice of happiness while people pointed and prodded and used them as punchlines.

So if any of you out there feel hopeless or dejected, I encourage you to find that book.  May it help you realize that the people who belittle others are the true freaks and that there is so much joy waiting for you that no one can take away.

The Fighter (2010)

It's been a while since I saw this last.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't buy a character drama because you know how I feel about them but this was so good.  Christian Bale rips my heart out and feeds it to me in this movie.  I know I said that Bale acted circles around Mark Wahlberg in this, but on a second viewing, especially seeing the footage of the real Mickey Ward and Dicky Ecklund, I'd like to amend my previous thoughts.  Wahlberg absolutely delivered on a guy who was genuinely humble and didn't want the limelight.  He just wanted to prove to himself, to his family, to the world that he was good enough to deserve the title.  If you haven't seen this, you really are doing yourself a disservice.  It is a phenomenal film.  Originally posted: 18 Jan 11

The Golden Globes were Sunday night.  I was watching Atonement, but I recorded them.  Haven't gotten a chance to sit down and watch them yet but I heard Christian Bale won Best Supporting Actor.  Based on what I saw last night at the theater, he totally deserved it.  Holy crap.

So, I wasn't going to see this one until it was nominated for an Oscar and, based on my experience from last year, I figured that it would fall into the gray area where it's out of theaters but not on DVD yet and I wouldn't have to watch it at all.  Worked for Precious.  I know it's kind of devious but I really hate drama.

Then, one of my former co-workers, Clay, started bugging me about seeing it.  We'll get to that in a second.  I want to make a side note here about how none of my co-workers ever seem to like me until I'm not working in their section any more.  Hmm.

Anyway, this is what Clay said about the movie:  Honestly, not nearly as much violence as you'd expect out of a movie called The Fighter.  But know this, I hate drama.  I like shit to explode in my movies.  I like watching Megan Fox run in slow motion.  That's dramatic in all the right ways.  But this movie was so good, I didn't give a damn.  Mark Wahlberg did such a good job of character development that you felt like you were watching an old best friend finally mature.  Bale looks and acts like he was genuinely addicted to crack through the whole filming of the movie (and knowing how dedicated that guy is to acting, he may just have been).  Amy Adams blows the screen up with her fiery little red head attitude.  Melissa Leo could not have have acted more like a self centered bitch if they had just replaced her with cut scenes from Paris Hilton's real life.  The whole fucking cast was amazing!

That's some high praise right there.  And I don't disagree with it much.  It was a good film with a great cast.  I thought Mark Wahlberg could have been more dynamic but I can see how that would be a little difficult with Christian Bale right next to you, acting circles around you.

Now, because I'm a girl, I'm going to completely gay it up.  Honestly, the movie felt more like Gypsy than Rocky.  Melissa Leo could have stepped in for Mama Rose without a hitch in her increasingly desperate attempts to make one of her sons a champion boxer.  The only major difference is that Baby June ran off and eloped and Dicky Eklund smoked crack.  Also, Gypsy Rose Lee didn't have 7 sisters with ratted out bottle-blonde hair and an unfortunate predilection for acid washed denim.  God, 1993 was a terrible year for fashion.

The movie chronicles the rise of Micky Ward from a stepping stone in the shadow of his brother to Welterweight Champion.  It's about the ties that bind and sometimes strangle, about believing in your family and believing in yourself. 

I was reading this article the other day and even though it focuses on TV, you could make the same case for movie characters as well.  We've gotten used to seeing people who are extraordinarily gifted in some way or another.  They may have trials and problems but at the end of the day, they come through because they are simply better than the rest of us. 

Micky Ward isn't superhuman.  He's just a guy who worked really hard.  It's nice to think that there are people for whom the world is a puzzle that's just waiting to be solved (because there are people like that and they make huge leaps in our understanding of what's possible) but sometimes it's nice to remember that there are a lot more people who start out from the middle and still achieve great things.

The Ledge (2011)

  This movie sucked.

First of all, you all know how I feel about character dramas.  They are not my favorites.  And then to add in a subtext bashing religion under the guise of promoting tolerance and you have lost any possible interest garnered by an impressive cast.

Hollis (Terrance Howard) is struggling to come to terms with a personal crisis when he is called to try and talk down a possible jumper from a high-rise.  Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) tells Hollis that he is being forced to stand there because he had engaged in an affair with a woman (Liv Tyler) and her psychotic religious freak husband (Patrick Wilson) will kill her if Gavin doesn't jump.  Through flashbacks, Gavin reveals that he was so put off by the husband's close-mindedness he decided to "liberate" the wife...with his penis.  For the record, this is how not to win an argument over theology.

I tried to stick it out and made it about half an hour into this movie before I said "fuck it" and started skimming.  I watched enough of it to get the gist and to make sure there was nothing more to it than what I had already seen.  No one should ever watch this.

Our Hospitality (1923)/Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

  I've been trying to see this Buster Keaton double feature for ages.  It's been in my queue for at least three years, just making its way up the ranks.  It finally got to the top while I was in Puerto Rico.  I got an email saying that it had shipped, then a day later, another email saying that it had been returned.  I obviously wasn't home to receive it and no one would have put it back in the mail so I don't know what happened there.  As soon as I got home, I pushed it back to the top of the queue and Netflix shipped it out again.  I've had their service for about six years now and this is the first time I've ever had this happen.  It's fixed now and everything's fine but it was very odd.

Willie McKay (Buster Keaton) was only a baby when he was sent away from his family home by his mother (Jean Dumas) in the hopes that he would never fall victim to the decades-long feud between the McKay's and their neighbors, the Canfield's.  When he becomes an adult, Willie receives a letter from a lawyer to come and claim his father's estate, so he travels back to his original town.  He meets a young lady (Natalie Talmadge) on the train and falls in love.  Unfortunately, she turns out to be the only daughter of the Canfield's and her father (Joe Roberts) and brothers (Ralph Bushman and Craig Ward) have vowed to murder Willie and put an end to the McKay line.  Willie is invited to dinner by the Girl, which stymies her relatives who cannot offer a guest violence while he is under their roof.  Willie overhears this and must come up with increasingly ridiculous reasons not to leave their property.

Buster Keaton was an early master of physical comedy and this movie holds up just as well today as it did in the 20's.  The parody aspect is well done, all the jokes land, and the scenes in the river are just as tense.  I also found it an added amusement to see Keaton, who was 5'5", standing next to his beloved's brothers, who were 6'2" and probably 6'0"  (I say probably because Craig Ward's IMDb page is incomplete and he doesn't exist in Wikipedia, but based on him standing next to Bushman, I'd guess he was two inches shorter.)  You don't see that kind of height disparity much in movies anymore.  

  A poor film projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective but can barely make enough to woo his girl (Kathryn McGuire), especially once he is framed for theft by a disreputable ladies' man called the Sheik (Ward Crane).  Disheartened, the projectionist falls asleep during one of his shifts and dreams that he is world-famous detective Sherlock, Jr. and on the case of a missing string of pearls, which necessitates a car chase, disguises, and a showdown with the villain to rescue the girl.

This is also a very entertaining film, but I don't think it survives at quite the same level as Our Hospitality.  The "movie within a movie" bit has been done so much since 1924 that seeing it here feels a little old hat.  The physical comedy is still top-notch but the plot is pretty weak.  As a double feature, though, these are a great pair of movies.

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

  It's been a while since I sat down and watched this movie.  The last time I remember seeing it was back in 2007, I think.  I put it on for background noise while I did laundry.  This time I actually gave it my full attention.

Tevye (Topol) is a poor but happy milkman in a small Russian town.  Anatevka is home to a thriving Jewish community as well as a small contingent of soldiers.  The two groups get along without a great deal of interaction and things remain as they have traditionally.  Tevye likes tradition because it lets him know exactly where he stands and what to do in almost any situation.  That is, until his oldest daughter (Rosalind Harris) wants to marry a man of her choice rather than the man the matchmaker has chosen.  Tevye is forced to think outside of his comfortable roads if he wants his children to be happy.  Meanwhile, trouble in the capital manages to trickle out to the furthest reaches of the steppes, bringing danger to the entire town.

This is a great movie, one of the classic musicals, and I feel like it's an important movie.  The history of the Jewish diaspora is often very bleak and depressing.  There are not a lot of light-hearted moments over the course of hundreds of years of ostracization and calumnies.  As someone who is not a member of the diaspora, it's probably not my place to say but I'm grateful for the chance to see some of the happier customs and traditions as well as the reminder of the effect on people when their rights are not respected because of religious intolerance.  It's important to see people as people, with hopes and problems and dreams, not just a label.

Lawless (2012)

  This was the last movie I saw up until this Thursday because I've been trying to watch an entire season of The Voice on my DVR.  It took me damn near three weeks to clear through all 28 episodes and put me seriously behind on my movie watching.  But I have persevered for your sakes, readers.

In Prohibition-era Virginia, the Bondurant brothers have carved out a niche in the moonshine-running business.  Forrest (Tom Hardy), the eldest brother, runs the show, Howard (Jason Clarke) is the loose cannon, and baby brother Jack (Shia LaBeouf) is the dreamer.  Jack desperately wants to have more to do with the family business than just driving the deliveries but his brothers (rightly) feel that Jack doesn't have the stones for it.  When an outfit from Chicago sends an emissary (Guy Pearce) down to organize their crime, the Bondurants are the only ones who refuse to fall in line.   Jack takes the opportunity to implement a few of his own ideas, tying the brothers closer to a different Chicago mobster (Gary Oldman).

You guys may not know this, but Shia LaBeouf ranks right above James Franco on my list of favorite actors.  I fucking loathe that dude.  In fact, I avoided this movie until now because of how big a role he had in it.  Why did I watch it now?  It was on the server so it was free.  Turns out, it's a really good movie.  The ending is kind of a downer, but everyone in it is fantastic.  Guy Pearce is always a great bad guy and Tom Hardy is magnetic on screen.  I am not one of those people who thinks he's drop-dead gorgeous but there is something compelling about him.  I'm not going to buy it because there's still too much Shia in it, but many of you may not share my distaste.  I recommend you give it a watch.

The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

  This movie is also insane.  I can't remember now where I heard of it, but I saw the words "Sean Connery" and "Michael Caine" next to each other and thought 'yes, I will, thank you'.  The fact that Christopher Plummer is also in it is just gravy.

Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer) is a journalist for a small Indian newspaper when he happens across two very colorful characters in Danny (Sean Connery) and Peachy (Michael Caine).  The two men have recently been discharged from the British army and are rather at odds with the new, more orderly Empire so they decide to head into the uncharted regions north of Afghanistan in the hopes of becoming kings.  A local tribe mistakenly believes Danny to be the reincarnation of Alexander the Great and it's not too long before he starts to believe it as well.

There are so many moments of gleeful insanity that it's easy to forget this is a drama at its core.  It is epic in scope but still feels very personal.  I have no idea why this isn't talked about more.  I encourage you to pick it up if you'd like a bit more vintage flavor to your Road Warrior.

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

  It took six tries but they have finally made a great Fast and Furious movie. I seriously think that the problem was that they never had a great villain before. The first one had a Romeo/Juliet kind of bromance vibe where Dom really wanted to hate Brian but just couldn't quit him. The second one was totally forgettable, the third was a hot mess, and the fourth got back to the bromance. Fast Five took some steps in the right direction with the Brazilian crime lord but he was barely in the movie at all. Not until this sixth one have they had a guy who represents an actual threat.

Dom (Vin Diesel) and Elena (Elsa Pataky) are living the good life in a non-extradition country when Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) comes calling.  He needs Dom's team to take down a group of international thieves led by former SAS soldier Shaw (Luke Evans) and has the perfect bait to ensure their compliance:  Shaw's team includes Dom's suddenly not dead girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).  Obviously, Dom can't just let that go and calls the whole car family for an emergency meeting.  However, Shaw proves to be more ruthless and quite a bit smarter than their usual foes.

Luke Evans isn't exactly nuanced here but he's credible enough in his screentime, particularly in his heart-to-heart with Letty.  The only real anchor weighing down the performances is Gina Carano.  Thank God she barely has any dialogue because her delivery is horribly wooden.  Even something as simple as a smile looks like she was reading her script in her head --"Ok, Luke has a line, camera will pan, and then cue smile."  Michelle Rodriguez doesn't exactly emote but she looks like fucking Ingrid Bergman by comparison.

I can't believe I'm saying this, given how the franchise started out, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing the 7th one.

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)

I actually saw this last weekend.  I just had a lot of backlog.  I'm going to take a minute to describe some of the crap going on in my life.  If you're not interested, keep scrolling down to where the movie review starts.

Y'all, it has been nuts.  I went on vacation to Puerto Rico two weeks ago (the weekend I didn't post anything), then I was sick for a week.  Memorial Day weekend I did a lot of visiting with people and also started looking for a new apartment.  See, Christy is moving to Alabama and I am downsizing to a one-bedroom as soon as our lease is up at the beginning of August.  Of course, that means that I have to locate a new place, notify my current place, get a move out date, set up a move in date at the new place, identify all the shit I don't want to take, box up everything that's left, hire a moving service and a cleaning service and somehow also pass an eight-week Biology course.  I've done all of this before (except for the college part) and I'm sure this won't be the last time, but it does cause me a certain anxiety trying to get all the pieces to fall into place.  You guys have been great to stick with me this far and I hope you will continue to do so.  I'm going to keep posting movies as often as I can, whether they be from Netflix, personally owned, cloned from a server, or brand new to theaters.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I had intended to see this on opening weekend.  The original Pitch Perfect was one of those phenomenal surprises and, while I didn't think the sequel could do it justice, I was willing to throw more money towards the continuing adventures of Beca, Chole, Fat Amy and the crew.

The Barden Bellas are on a roll.  Under the guidance of Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Chloe (Brittany Snow), the acapella group has reached new heights, performing at Lincoln Center for the President.  Then, a wardrobe malfunction plunges the girls into international embarrassment, resulting in their censure by the college.  They will be unable to audition new members, defend their title, or go on tour.  Beca makes a deal with the administrators that if the Bellas can win the World Championships, they will be reinstated, but the competition from German powerhouse group Das Sound Machine is fierce.  Beca is also feeling the strain of trying to help her team and also move forward with her life, accepting an internship at a record label under a famous producer (Keegan-Michael Key).  Chloe reaches out to an old friend to help the Bellas be a team again.

This was so much better than I thought it was going to be.  There was a joke practically every other line, so many that I'll have to watch the movie at least once more just to make sure I got them all.  They upped the mash-up game this time around, and added at least one original song, provided by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who plays a legacy pledge from a Bella family, circumventing the "no newbies" rule.  Everything that made the first movie great is back and turned up to 11.