Tag: Robert Redford

Here we are, months after the release of Avengers: Endgame, and I am now ready to post a review. Why the delay? Several reasons!

One, my review when it came out would not mean a damn thing. Who cares? Everyone who wants to see it will go see it, and I wouldn’t convince any one on any side to change their mind. No one was on the fence.

Two, I wanted to wait for it to beat Avatar‘s record. I don’t think it has yet, but I’m tired of waiting. It will break it will silly re-releases, so pretty disappointing.

And three, if I waited a long time, I could do a review with spoilers! Something I have never really done before. A spoiler review can be more specific, and hey, people can agree or disagree. So let’s get on it.

Together Each Achieves More.

Endgame takes place almost immediately after the events of Infinity War. Half the population is gone, many heroes. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is trapped in space. People are sad. But once Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) shows up, and they get their coordinates on, they all rush over to fuck over Thanos (Josh Brolin) and kill him. Hopefully also undo what he did. And it turns out they can’t. Infinity Stones are broken and gone, nothing can be done except sadness.

Five years later? Life is weird. Heroes are now fat (Chris Hemsworth). Hulks are now Professor Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Captain America (Chris Evans) is just trying to help people. But once Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is able to escape finally from the Quantum Realm, he is disgusted by what has occurred, and has ideas on how to fix what was undone. You know. With Time Travel.

Also starring…everybody. Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Evangeline Lilly, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Letitia Wright, John Slattery, Tilda Swinton, Jon Favreau, Hayley Atwell, Natalie Portman, Marisa Tomei, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, William Hurt, Cobie Smulders, Sean Gunn, Winston Duke, Linda Cardellini, Frank Grillo, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, James D’Arcy, Jacob Batalon, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ty Simpkins, Robert Redford, Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Lexi Rabe, Ross Marquand, Kerry Condon, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ken Jeong, and Stan Lee. 

“Is that all you got?” Thanos, about the last paragraph, probably.

So sure, I gave Avengers: Endgame a 4 out of 4, despite being a non-perfect movie. Because it is an emotionally satisfying film. I cried, I cheered, I seized up with anticipation, I was serviced so much as a fan. It was a blast and the three hours flew by. The final battle had so many nice moments that were cool and can still be talked about today.

When Captain America was about to say Avengers Assemble, I remember bouncing in my seat for over 10 seconds, grabbing my wife’s arm and just ready to explode. That moment was necessary. It was beautiful.

And of course we lost characters, finally. Steve, despite feeling plot holey, got to live his regular life for once and die once his life was finally over. Tony sacrificed himself for the greater good, to finally fix all of his wrongs. Natasha had a fun suicide battle with Clint that we all knew were coming, and yet, the result was surprising given future movie’s coming out.

Most characters felt like they were given their proper moments to shine and showcase their power, especially the first big three of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. The throwbacks to previous films and their first fight in Avengers were nostalgic wet dreams.

And sure, a lot of might not be desired. Some newer, strong characters barely got screen time. Captain Marvel was mostly wasted (and despite the fun of the ladies of Marvel moment, it felt awkward because we know she needed zero help). Dr. Strange was left to be a defensive wizard. Of course a lot of this was done because these characters will have more time to shine in the future and are not mid swan song, but it technically also didn’t feel natural/necessary.

Honestly, a lot of the time stuff was silly. It probably could have been shortened a good amount, but again, it featured a ton of fun moments and also gave us the entrance for Loki’s future television show.

Torches were passed, heads were rolled, and franchises collided and will be changed in the future. I just hope this five year advance is handled with care and has a real significance to it. Spider-Man: Far From Home touched on it, but it didn’t go really in depth with it still. I am afraid they will mostly ignore these ramifications later in just a few movies.

Also I should note the forced disconnect of the TV shows and the movies is frustrating. All of the Netflix drama and Agents of Shield ruined us from having even more fun moments. I blame Ike.

4 out of 4.

Netflix has decided to go hardcore with 2017. They are releasing movies every week. New shows. A fucking comedy special every week. New content all the time, and new fodder for me to review with relative ease.

Had I ever seen a poster or trailer or anything for The Discovery? Fuck no. But it is new, has people I like in it, and was available for me to watch while laying down in my bed. Thank you technology.

As long as they keep churning out original content that will interest me, I will keep on reviewing them. Most recently I checked out I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, and I am sure I missed at least 2-3 other films since then.

Netflix is not paying me for this introduction.

But they did threaten to steal my brain energies if I don’t visit them daily.

Set in the not so distant future, in this world, science has made a major discovery. Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) has discovered with near certainty with science and shit that there IS an afterlife. He didn’t figure out what kind of afterlife, but that some part of the conscious moves on to another plane. It could be terrible, it could be amazing, it could be boring as fuck. No one knows, but we do now know that SOMETHING is out there.

And unfortunately that news has hit the world hard, and suicide rates over the last year have skyrocketed. Now that people know they will go somewhere, they are more likely to end it all and take the quick release. The world is a sadder place, more funerals and so much shit.

Will (Jason Segel) is on a ferry to his home, where he meets Isla (Rooney Mara). They have their different opinions on what the research means, but it is really all that anyone talks about now. Turns out Will is the son of the scientist, and he doesn’t like what it has done and does’t trust it. Isla is just a woman about to commit suicide, who he saves.

The doctor is about to announce a new discovery though. One that adds on to his previous discovery, hopefully able to answer specifically where the subconscious goes.

Also starring Jesse Plemons and Riley Keough.

The beach almost has enough screen time to be a cast member as well.

The Discovery was a slower film, but one with a great concept. Add in some high tier actors, and you got a low budget film with quite a story to tell. An exciting story, but still one that doesn’t push the afterlife or religion certainty in your face.

Segel and Mara are strong in this film. Segel continues to give very strong dramatic performances when you never expect it, like The End of the Tour and Jeff, Who Lives At Home. Mara is rarely ever off of her dramatic game, so that comes to no surprise here either. Redford doesn’t have as much to work with, but does okay in his role.

The middle is long and drawn out, and it takes awhile to figure out just where the story is going. And because of that, the ending feels a bit rushed. Which is a shame, because the ending reveals are quite wonderful. The ideas presented are definitely science fiction in nature, but an exciting idea and one that doesn’t get explored enough in a serious tone.

I personally really enjoyed the film, despite its faults. I hope it leads to more serious sci-fi films on Netflix. And no, it is nowhere close to being as good as Arrival.

3 out of 4.

Oh no, a remake!

Wait, this is a Disney movie being remade by Disney? Oh, those are fine. Carry on.

One might wonder why Pete’s Dragon needed a remake. Well, nothing needs a remake, the director just really wanted to do it, so Disney said yeah, sure, why not. Do I care about the original film? No, not at all, no one really does anymore. It makes since to reimagine it.

It should be noted that I have lapses in pop culture knowledge occasionally. Like when I recently realized that Pete’s Dragon and Puff the Magic Dragon were completely different entities and forms of media. Shit, I felt stupid.

Not as stupid as this family when they realize that a dragon will kill you, regardless of its Puff or Pete status.

Pete (Oakes Fegley) is a chipper five year old kid, going on an adventure with his parents in the middle of nowhere Pacific Northwest woods! And yeah, a car accident occurs, leaving Pete with some dead parents and himself completely alone, possibly for hundreds of miles! Well, not completely alone, there are some friendly hungry wolves nearby. Uh oh! Thankfully something big, green, furry and with wings shows up to help him out.

Now, six years later, Pete is still successfully living in the woods with this magical creature that can turn invisible, that he has named Elliot. But it has been long enough. Time to accidentally have Pete meet some other strangers.

Namely, a bunch of loggers have been in the area and are about to hit their turf. It is run by Jack (Wes Bentley) and his brother Gavin (Karl Urban). Jack is also married to or dating Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), a park ranger. Grace’s dad (Robert Redford) claims to have seen a dragon in his youth and the only one to have seen it in the area, despite the many stories. Together, Jack and Grace also have a child, Natalie (Oona Laurence). I can’t tell if it is from both of them though. I will conclude that it is Jack’s child and Grace is the step-mom or soon to be step-mom.

And that is all the important characters! Once Pete gets discovered, it is only a matter of time before they find Elliot as well. Greed and more put his life on danger. Oh hamburgers, why couldn’t they just leave the poor kid in the alone, without a family? Also starring Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the sheriff of the small town.

Part dog, part dragon, part cuddly heaven dream.

The movie began like a lot of films, with some sweet parental death. Always good to get sad really early on into a movie. Grace’s mom is also dead before this film, and if she isn’t actually the mother of Natalie, then shit, that might be four dead parents in a single movie. Disney films have always loved killing moms or dads in films, but rarely for so many individuals. (Except for The Lion King. Because you know when Mufasa died, he was the dad of every cub in that pack).

Overall, huge swaths of the film are pretty void of dialogue. Letting music and atmosphere fill the screen instead to really turn this film into an adventure. In one way, that raises the film up into an adventure for the audience as well. On the other hand, the beginning third of the film will begin to drag for the younger viewers. The older film had cutting edge animation for the dragon and songs to keep everyone happy. This one has a much more serious tone and anyone under 8 might find themselves getting distracted and bored.

When examining the plot, it is actually incredibly basic and nothing we haven’t seen before. It hits a lot of cliches that happen in wild child meets stable family films. And throughout the film, a few humans feel a bit too cartoony as well. Urban’s character is straight up 2-dimensional until his very last scene, but it comes off as too little too late. Howard’s character is trying to hard to give off this earnest caring individual that she almost feels so passive of a person throughout. I almost feel like she could have been missing completely and the movie would still make sense. Like her character exists purely as a link between the children and Redford’s character.

Laurence did a great job, continuing her successful streak from Southpaw, and I was equally impressed with Fegley. Both the young stars had so much imagination and wonder in their eyes, it is contagious.

Finally, the animation for the dragon was spectacular. He looked and felt believable. A little dog like, but that was intentional. He is a wonderful design made by a lot of spectacular people. Completely, fantastic, dragon.

Overall, Pete’s Dragon is only an okay movie because there isn’t really a lot going on plot wise. A basic story, with an obvious conclusion. But it is full of whimsy at points and a wonderful dragon design. It is worth a watch, but maybe not a day one buy.

2 out of 4.

Ah, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I will be honest. I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie when it was first announced.

I like the Captain, sure. But the next two movies are Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. This one was just giving me more of an already established character. Still, I was excited enough about it to make a fake review for April Fools Day.

Being a comic book fan is sort of a double edged sword with these type of movies. On one side, it is great experiencing the comics come to life with large enough budgets to make every fanboy cry out in glee. But on the other side, we know the stories they are inspired by, so most likely the bigger plot twists and turns won’t be surprises to us.

Unless of course they create new unexpected ones like Iron Man 3, but that is a different story.

“Hey, stop moving so the camera can focus on your backside.”

The Winter Soldier begins by showing us what life is like for the one and only Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a national hero and now high up in S.H.I.E.L.D. He is doing missions around the world! But S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) have their secrets and Steve doesn’t really like secrets.

So when things start to get a little bit feisty at the headquarters in DC, Steve isn’t sure who he can trust. Can he trust the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who is known for half-truths and deception? Can he trust Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) head of the World Security Council? How bout Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)?

Yeah, he is kind of in a sticky situation. The spy game sure has ramped up its deception since the 1940’s, so if he is going to protect the world from a hidden threat, he will need all the help he can get. This movie introduces a few future characters as well, like the titular villain The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Sam “The Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp).

Holy shit the Vult-err.. Falcon. Sorry. Good Guy Falcon, Bad Guy Vulture. Got it.

Being the fanboy that I am, I have been trying to be more critical of Marvel movies lately. Just because I squeal in delight over almost every one doesn’t mean they are perfect. They don’t all deserve perfect marks.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier deserves perfect marks.

Everything about this movie is so spot on spectacular that I have a hard time believing it is even real. Captain America: The First Avenger was a good movie on its own right, but one I have never really been in the mood to watch again. I can see myself watching The Winter Soldier many times once it releases, maybe more than I saw the first Iron Man. It literally might be my new favorite Marvel movie.

It is hard to find something that is negative about the movie. It is over two hours, but never drags. There is maybe only one scene I thought was a bit pointless, but it doesn’t affect the overall movie. There is a lot of action and all of it is so well put together, from the choreography to sound editing. The movie itself is a lot more serious than other Marvel films, but it still has the nice jokes and references throughout it to keep you happy.

Did I know the big reveal? Yeah. But knowing it didn’t take away from my experience at all in the movie. This excites me because it means I will likely enjoy future viewings.

My last point I guess would be about acting. Evans gave a strong performance as the lead, but the side characters as well were all quite good. Mackie didn’t have too big of a role, but he kicked its butt and I actually enjoyed the Falcon. Redford was great, Jackson was great. Everyone was great.

To me, this movie is like an Avengers 1.5. I don’t expect Guardians of the Galaxy to have too much impact on the current Marvel universe, so this is the perfect lead up to next May. This movie has made me beyond excited for the Marvel future, and definitely for the third Captain America in 2016. Although, knowing the comic plots, I kind of already know what is likely to happen.

4 out of 4.

Yep, I am awesome. I got to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a special promotion over a whole week before it came out. They just told me I couldn’t release a review on it til April.

Fine by me, early movies are early. The first Captain America I really enjoyed, but didn’t feel patriotic enough. There was a severe lack of American flags throughout the movie and I just couldn’t accept it. There was a lot of Nazi stuff too, which is silly. I want America stuff, not Nazi German stuff.

Uniform looks diluted. Patriotism failed.

This movie takes place dozens of months after The Avengers. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is living a sad life. Sure, he lives in Washington D.C., a patriotic city if any, but is bored. He is still working for S.H.I.E.L.D., but he isn’t killing Hitler, so what’s the point of it all?

Which is when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) comes back. What a shifty character. Fury has some information regarding Rogers and his family. Turns out Rogers’ brother had a son a few years after World War II. That’s right, the Captain has a nephew. But the weird way time travel works, the nephew, Alexander (Robert Redford) is of course now much older than him. Hah, how silly.

But Alex also helps run the council that oversees the world in the Marvel Universe. Pretty baller. He is the one that lets him know about The Winter Soldier (Jeremy Renner). He apparently just came out of Russia, another classic enemy, has some robot parts and really wants to fuck some shit up.

Good. Steve doesn’t understand technology much anyways, so he is happy to do battle. Of course, when he realizes his true identity, he might have some moral convictions.

Or they might just stand there chatting about the good times a couple years ago.

Man, if people were upset by the changes to the lore in Iron Man 3, they would probably be even more furious at these changes. To change the identity of The Winter Soldier like that to Hawkeye? Man. Why do they keep making him the badguy? No one even really likes Mr. Renner.

There were far too many plot twists involving who was related to who. First Steve Rogers and his nephew, then Nick Fury and his son (Anthony Mackie) it kind of got ridiculous.

This movie was supposed to be a pseudo Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) movie as well, but if I had to guess, she probably had like 3 minutes of screen time, everything you saw in the trailer, all at the end too. Must have been too busy voicing sexy robots again.

I am pretty sure this is second longest Marvel movie too, after The Avengers, and a lot of it drags on. They kept introducing other side villains who got barely any screen time that it kind of took away from the overall plot, reminding me of Spider-Man 3. Hell, it even had a strange emo dance scene in it as well.

Overall, this movie feels like a big lie. Both to the Marvel continuity, through its advertising, through so much. I am glad I guess that they killed off Steve Rogers at the end, bringing in a different Captain America story. Can’t wait to see how they spin this for The Avengers: Age of Ultron. But that was about the only cool aspect.

1 out of 4.

All Is Lost.

I don’t know a lot about this movie, but I am pretty sure it is about feeling hopeless and giving up. This would make it the polar opposite of the film, Never Back Down. I do know it was getting some Oscar hype but only appeared in the indie theaters an hour away, so I never went to see it. I also found out it was directed by J.C. Chandor, who has only ever done one other film, Margin Call, which I loved.

So, I guess that is a positive. Woo!

Shit son, that looks calm as fuck. Why are you so hopeless?

In this survival drama, we have one character, and very very little dialogue. You are going to be mostly left with scenery, special effects, and one man, (Robert Redford). His name isn’t given, so instead of just calling him man, I will just keep calling him Robert Redford.

The dialogue that exists mostly comes from the first scene of the boat, where Robert Redford is writing in a journal and we get some narration. Then we find out why he is drifting hopelessly in sea, by switching to 8 days earlier.

His boat crashes into a shipping container, floating in the ocean. We have a leak! This Robert Redford fellow is like MacGyver, very knowledgeable, and he quickly tries to fix the situation. Unfortunately, a lot of his communication and navigation equipment gets damaged. A boat is nice, but not knowing where you are in the ocean is scary.

What then follows is 90 more minutes of more and more shit progressively hitting the fan, as problem after problem occurs. Storms, capsizing, fires, damaged supplies, all of that.

You will feel hopeless if you pay attention to the movie. How long could you survive if you weren’t as smart as Robert Redford?

This is only like, two layers of shit hitting the fan at that point. I don’t want to spoil too much after all.

If anything All Is Lost is an intense film and certainly not for everyone. If you only have a short attention span, it might not be able to catch your grasp. If you really need dialogue to keep you interested in a movie, it might not be your cup of tea. If you want more than one character, then you are shit out of luck.

All Is Lost is definitely a beautiful film, and a nice film to see Robert Redford too. He has been on an upswing lately, not acting a lot in the first ten years of the 2000s, but in a lot more films recently, and it is good that he is willing to still try different and new things at his age.

I think the film was nicely made and decent, but I also know I never really want to see it again. I do like dialogue and hate it when I get nothing. All Is Lost makes me feel feels, but not feel feels that I will probably be able to recreate. After I know how it ends and learn what happens, I don’t think there is enough to entertain me as much a second time.

Sorry All Is Lost. Good luck on winning uh…Best Sound Editing.

2 out of 4.

Robert Redford is starring in a movie!

That should be the first thing out of your mouth, seeing The Company You Keep. The other thing you will notice is it has quite a hefty list of famous actors thrown into the mix. Robert Redford doesn’t act much anymore, but when he does, he calls out all the stops.

See? This is him literally calling out all the stops.From watching movies, I have learned that the 1960’s were a terrible time. But hey, terrible times lead to great movies about how terrible it all was. War, protests, the whole shabang. Some protesters couldn’t stand being peaceful though, like the Weather Underground movement. These group of youngsters thought they saw their government committing terrible crimes, so they wanted to get their attention back at home by blowing stuff up, and maybe even murder.

They also were never caught in the act and prosticuted. Until now.

Sharon (Susan Sarandon) has just been picked up by the cops, wanted in the murder of a cop from the ’60s. They have everything on her and all of her phone logs. Thanks to some reporter with gusto, (Shia LaBeouf), an article was published linking lawyer Jim Grant (Robert Redford) to the crimes and a nationwide manhunt for his arrest. Hooray! Take that violent political activist from the ’60s!

But did he really do the crimes he is being accused of? If he is innocent, why would he run? After all, the FBI (Terrence Howard) and newspaper editors (Stanley Tucci) all seem to think he’s guilty. Yet for some reason, he is being erratic, and looking really hard for one Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie). Hmm, I wonder what she has to do with all of this mess.

There are far too many famous (and famous-ish) actors to just throw their name casually in the plot, so I will just list them all here: Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, Nick Nolte and Chris Cooper.

Stephen Root is standing next to lettuce. Yep, nothing to see here.The first thing I noticed is that Robert Redford no longer looks identical to Brad Pitt. But hey, now we know what Brad Pitt will look like in about 20 years.

Looking at Redford’s work schedule, he hasn’t been in a movie since 2007, but he has at least two more on the pipeline. The more notable one is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Even better, the reason he is in the Marvel Sequel is just because he hasn’t ever played a role like it and thought it would be fun. I love it when actors tell the truth.

As for The Company You Keep, it has an interesting story behind it, but in the end it is just okay. It takes a little bit to get going, and kind of fuddled up in the middle, but it all makes a lot of sense by the end. Not that I actually liked the ending, as I thought there were multiple cop outs from various characters in the film. Acting was fine, just like Lawless, I didn’t hate Shia by the end of it, but he wasn’t exceptional in it either. Seeing him with facial hair (well, the small amount he could pull off) was an interesting change at least!

In other news, watch it only if you are missing Robert Redford in your normal life and like slow moving political-ish thrillers.

2 out of 4.