Change Your Image
Mayorbob-278-770302
Reviews
Final Portrait (2017)
Pretension and Conceit Done Well
I loved this movie. First of all, it deals with a topic I had no knowledge about, this intersection of the lives of Alberto Giacometti and journalist James Lord. Second of all, the movies sets an absolutely perfect platter of character, artistic impulse, creativity, torment, and self doubt. I have no doubt that Tucci achieved brilliance when essaying the inner and outer lives of Giacometti and Lord.
But, when setting forth my reflections on the film, I came away with the feeling that Tucci could have done better. But, isn't that really the point of the film itself? Bravo to Tucci, Hammer and Shaloub!
Everfall (2017)
Slow and unremarkable
Okay, so we get the idea that the protagonists are living some sort of hallucinatory fantasy about true love can get you through the final barrier between truth and falsehood and how we are all haunted about decision made or not made in life. I think the writer has some talent, certainly more than the actors do. I mark this as 80+ minutes of my life I can't get back. And that is the true haunting horror of this flick.
By the way, I noticed during the credits crawl that one the people whose pictures are displayed on the "Wall of Champions" included a Kristen Welker. One question I would like to have answered is was this Kristen Welker from NBC News; the reporter who's a regular contributor to the various MSNBC cable shows?
Cobra (1986)
Great Big Gobs Of Greasy, Grimy Cheese
This movie is at the top of my guilty pleasures. It has all the elements of a good Stallone action flick. A lone wolf hero. A statuesque blonde heroine. A goofy sidekick. A spineless, petty law and order organization. A relentlessly cruel and mindless evil. Then when you factor in all the pluses: "you're da disease and I'm da cure"; outright mayhem at a shopping center with the hero walking away doing a riff on being the thin blue line separating evil from good; the Pier Six brawl at police HQ between our hero and the epitome of bureaucratic evil. All of this and the patented Stallone style of emotionless mumbling with a 1000 yard stare while sucking on a toothpick. They just don't make them like this anymore.
Follow the Prophet (2009)
Good Movie
I just finished watching it on the Netflix stream. I wasn't really expecting much but what caught my attention was Diane Venora in the cast. She's been a favorite of mine for a long, long time as she's an actress who inhabits, rather than plays, a role. She didn't disappoint in this movie. But she wasn't the best thing in the movie. The male lead, Robert Chimento, was extremely effective as an Army veteran mourning the loss of his daughter who only enlisted in the Army to follow in her father's footsteps. But the true revelation was Annie Burgstede, who played a 15 year old forced to become the unwilling bride of a Warren Jeffs-like head of a fundamentalist offshoot of the Mormon Church. He was played with uber-sleaziness by Tom Noonan. The movie billed itself as "the dark underbelly of Big Love" and it wasn't hyperbolizing in the least. Strongly recommend this for everyone who thinks those Mormon offshoots are just a bunch of harmless, loving religious types.