The Rare Review

Movies, books, music and TV

Author: EarlD Page 272 of 319

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” Is No B.S.

By

On April 13, 2014

In General, Movies

Standing Proud |Captain America: The Winter So...

Standing Proud |Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review (Photo credit: BagoGames)

The noise made over drones and the NSA may well be fatuous,* but Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) projects these things into the future to do its scrutinizing, if that’s what it is, of What Could Come About (beware).  In light of this and the powerful action, the pic is a no-b.s. concoction (though not without humor).  Highlights include a slick, smashingly fine auto chase and a tense bait-and-switch followed by gunfire within a government building.

Robert Redford is in the film, playing an intelligence director, a glorifier of security over freedom.  Subtly commanding, he is still a remarkable actor—unlike Chris Evans, who is just okay as Capt. America.  Scarlett Johansson, on the other hand, is inspired enough to make Natasha/Black Widow (who?) more or less interesting.  Winter Soldier has two film editors and two directors, which was perhaps requisite for its technical perfection.

*Or maybe it isn’t.

Related articles

I Won’t Take A Bullet For Stallone: “Bullet to the Head”

By

On April 6, 2014

In General, Movies

Presumably the makers of the 2013 crime thriller Bullet to the Head hoped to fashion something as entertaining as 24—a TV series which is flawed, exciting, good.  Unfortunately, the movie they cranked out is flawed, exciting, bad, without any of the elements that immediately save 24.

Sylvester Stallone is an arrogant actor here and is miscast as a hired killer.  He and his fellow hit man do their snuffing out, but are set up by the villains who hired them; and the reason for the set up is as dumb as everything else in the film.  Why does the double crosser try to kill Stallone and his partner with a knife instead of a gun?  Later on, Stallone grudgingly teams up with an Asian-American cop (Sung Kang) to root out Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaje’s international thug (Stallone’s betrayer).  But the film has the chutzpah to make Akinnoye-Agbaje a complete idiot—not much of a match for the hit man and the cop.  Why, for example, does the thug allow a muscular baddie played by Jason Momoa to become a loose cannon?

Bullet is based on a graphic novel, which is often asking for trouble.  Yes, it is exciting . . . and raw . . . but it ain’t TV.  NOT EVEN THAT!

The Old Masterpiece, “Mutiny On The Bounty” (1935)

By

On April 4, 2014

In General, Movies

Cropped screenshot of Charles Laughton from th...

Cropped screenshot of Charles Laughton from the trailer for the film Mutiny on the Bounty. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve never read Mutiny on the Bounty, but the ’35 film version, for all the sappy-silly Tahiti material, seems a well-made and even felt adaptation.

Captain Bligh is an expert seaman but also a mean fool, wanting only to impose his ruthless will.  Charles Laughton plays him with astonishing aplomb, frighteningly. . . Second in command Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) simply refuses to have men at Bligh’s mercy any longer, uncondonable though some of the Bounty’s sailors find the mutiny.  Incontestable here is an urgent need for the liberalization of the English navy, with the navy itself seen as utterly honorable and necessary by the filmmakers.  It becomes almost palpable that the film is liberal—though certifiably separate from today’s liberalism—because it is conservative.  It wants what is best for a timeless institution.

A great deal goes on in Mutiny on the Bounty, which is two hours and ten minutes long.  Frank Lloyd directed with a fine sense of seafaring adventure and of grandeur.  It is, I think, a masterpiece.

 

Related articles

We’re Game For “Game Of Thrones”

By

On March 25, 2014

In General

Fire and Blood (Game of Thrones)

Fire and Blood (Game of Thrones) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Man—such an ill-fated creature.

His ill-fatedness is very much a theme in the HBO series, Game of Thrones, wherein one would expect quite a few of the major characters (not just Ned Stark and the primitive Big Boy married to Daenerys) to tragically die.  It’s a terrible world they live in, a very arduous environment, sinful and pagan, natural and magical.  There is a lot of surviving, though, and it must be said that the slender young queen, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), really knows how to triumph as a warrior, as at the recherche end of the show’s first season.

Probably Season 3 is one of the finest “movies” of 2013.  (Season 2, on the other hand, was often a lot of noise and meandering.)  The drama has engrossing and colorful incidents, such as the dwarf Tyrion’s marriage to young Sansa and the mad battle with the bear, and heart and momentum.  The acting is mostly solid: consider Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance (Daddy Lannister), Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark).  The very pretty Natalie Dormer is also on hand, flavorful and capable of coyness.

I hope it’s not an ill-fated series.

(The photo is of Emilia Clarke.)

 

Is The 1941 Film, “The Blood Of Jesus,” Worth Watching?

By

On March 17, 2014

In Money

The Blood of Jesus

The Blood of Jesus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Technically The Blood of Jesus (1941) is quite bad, and this includes the acting.  An American indie film, it was directed by a black director-writer, Spencer Williams, and features an all-black cast in what is a sincerely, thoroughly Christian piece of work.  Beyond the technical shortcomings, though, it offers not much more than theological fantasy, by which I mean its theology is usually dubious or even nonsensical.  But not always.

A new convert, Martha Jackson (Cathryn Caviness), is accidentally shot by her feckless husband and undergoes what I take to be a near-death experience.  Her spirit leaves her body and, in a transcendent world, she is persuaded by a henchman of the Devil to enjoy the pleasures of the juke-joint life she undoubtedly never knew when she was on earth.  But the Devil has prostitution in mind for Martha, and of course she flees.  She resists the temptation.  Running to what is called the Crossroads in this supernatural sphere, she beholds an image of the crucifixion and is treated to the salvific blood of Jesus.

Okay, but why Martha would encounter such goings-on in the next world I have no idea.  Being a Christian, she dies—or “dies”—in a state of grace, and yet the Devil is there to tempt her.  Possibly we can see an implication here that the blood of Jesus Christ is to be applied to human beings for the whole of eternity, for the moral perfection of man can never, or will never, be dissociated from it.  The movie’s appreciation for the salvific blood, in any case, is real and deep, and the scene where the blood starts dripping on the prostrate woman’s face has an impact.  I sense that it’s one thing that does make the film worth watching.

There is also some enjoyable music and dancing in The Blood of Jesus.  It’s a low-budget curio more interesting than good, and, yes, it is worth watching.

Page 272 of 319

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén