Month: July 2017

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King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword

Well, since it bombed, I went in to this with pretty low expectations, but ended up liking it. I’m definitely biased in that I generally like Guy Ritchie movies and the style he gives to them (I even really liked The Man From UNCLE). This, well, it felt like a Ritchie movie — with that sense of humor and stylish edits — and I thought it was entertaining to see the King Arthur legend told with a Lord of the Rings-style fantasy setting. I wouldn’t have minded seeing this continue, but I guess it’s pretty certain now that we won’t be getting any sequels.

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The Incredible Jessica James

I don’t tend to watch romantic comedies much, but I’d heard good things about this (a Netflix original movie that just got added), and about its star Jessica Williams — I know she’s a regular on the Daily Show, but I’ve never seen her on that (I stopped watching the Daily Show when Jon Stewart left). I really liked this. The cast is great — especially Jessica Williams, who I now want to see more of — and it was filled with good lines and interesting situations. I think this is the first Netflix movie I watch (yeah, I know they just bought it at Sundance, but still) and based on this I’m now eager to watch more (for some reason, I haven’t been really interested in watching Netflix-produced content other than TV shows and comedy specials).

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Debaser

Railroad Tigers

It’s been years since I’ve watched a Jackie Chan movie (I think the last one was his Karate Kid movie), and I hadn’t heard anything about Railroad Tigers (that came out last year), but it popped up on Netflix and I decided to give it a try. I ended up enjoying this. I liked the setting — Japan occupied China (although it always feels a bit weird seeing Japan as villains) with the same actor who played the villain in the first Ip Man movie playing a similar role here — and it was kinda fun seeing Jackie’s son in this. Nothing amazing or groundbreaking, just a good old fashioned HK movie ride. Oh, and the best part of the movie is still the bloopers reel at the end.

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Black Moon Rising

I definitely remembered the poster/VHS box cover for this movie, but nothing else. After watching it, parts sorta came back to me (like the design of the futuristic car) so I’m guessing I probably did watch it, but that it wasn’t particularly memorable to me. Watching it now, it’s fun to see young Tommy Lee Jones starring in something like this, and Linda Hamilton post-Terminator. It’s silly, but a pretty decent 80s action/heist film.

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The Mission

I remember this being one of the epic Oscar-worthy films of the time, and it still comes off that way. This is a really good movie, even if it is brutal and sad. I will say that Robert De Niro does seem a bit out of place in this — I don’t think it’s because he’s the only one here with an American accent, but his delivery reminds me too much of how we see him in Scorsese movies. But yeah, I did quite enjoy this. I was curious to see what director Roland Joffé had been up to since, and was pretty surprised to see that in 2011 he directed a movie called You and I in which “two teenage girls, Janie who is American and Lana who is Russian, fall in love after meeting at a t.A.T.u concert.”

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The Big Easy

The memories I had of this movie were that it was a pretty decent drama, with some very sexy scenes with Ellen Barkin. Re-watching it now, the over-acting kinda ruins it — everyone is trying to put on a super New Orleans accent (especially Dennis Quaid) and it comes off bad. The story isn’t particularly captivating either, and the steamy sex scenes don’t come as very steamy anymore (yeah, gotta admit that seeing this as a kid was probably quite a different experience). Age has not been kind to this one, but it was neat to see young John Goodman, in that setting pre-Treme.

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The Karate Kid Part II

Movies don’t get much more 80s than this: a silly and simple story, a Peter Cetera power ballad, and it’s a sequel. It’s fun to watch though. The setting for this one was Okinawa, and to me it does look like they actually shot it there — and all the extras do seem to be Japanese. What can I say, I did get a kick out of watching this, and I do believe in the “Glory of Love.”

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The Delta Force

This is such a weird movie. You go in expecting a typical Cannon actioner, but then not only is it quite long, you can tell that director Menahem Golan was actually trying to say something here, and although I wouldn’t go so far as saying it goes into drama territory, it does take quite a while before the “Chuck Norris action” starts. But when that does start, it’s over-the-top 80s action from start to finish, battling the terrorists on a motorcycle equipped with mini-missiles. The weirdest thing though is seeing Robert Forster play an arab terrorist.

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Crocodile Dundee

Just like The Golden Child, this is a comedy from back then that I’m sure I watched quite a few times. Sure, it’s a silly film, but I found it to have aged decently (except for the homophobic humor, which you do see pop up uncomfortably in a lot of 80s movies) and had a pretty good time re-watching it now.

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The Golden Child

This movie was never considered an Eddie Murphy classic, but I’m pretty sure I loved it a lot when I was a kid — re-watching it, I was surprised by how many of the lines sounded so familiar, which probably means I watched it quite a few times back then. But it’s not really a good movie. Sure, it’s fun at times, but I didn’t find myself laughing much. It neat seeing a young Tywin as the villain though.