Terrible Plan! Movie Reviews

  What I liked: I liked the crystal trees and the creepy people plants. The multi colored lichen and flowers were cool too. I liked how disorienting the loss of time and flashbacks were, they did a good job of maintaining the disquiet and suspense. I liked that they remembered that mutation and evolution has no goal, it's just a thing that happens with all kinds of side effects. I liked their little boat trip in giant crocodile infested swamp. I'm not sure if I loved the silver skin suit but I can't deny that it was interesting.  What I didn't: The heroes are all scientists who go on a mission to find out what is going on inside the "shimmer". For being all scientists they don't draw very well on their test one variable at a time training. If nothing has ever come out of the shimmer, try sticking a stick in and see if you can pull it out. Step inside with a harness on so if you don't come back they can try and pull you back. Walk in a little ways and t...

What I liked: In the words of Glad-OS "This was a triumph, I'm making a note here, huge success... for the people who are still alive." This is essentially the justification the bad guys have for their actions. It turns out it doesn't make much of a difference if it is a homicidal robot or some homicidal people singing the song to you, it still doesn't seem like a good excuse. But it does get stuck in your head, it's a very catchy tune. I like that if you invent a fantasy world you get to make up completely non-internally consistent rules for your world. What is affected by accelerated time? Living things-yes unless you're bacteria in which case no unless you are tetanus then yes again. Dead things-yes. Unless it's food or paper or clothes. Never alive things- no but also maybe yes. A single bolus dose of Magnetic waves, which are notoriously afraid of calcium carbonate.  What I didn't: So, on a completely different topic, that has nothing to do wi...

What I liked: Remember how one of the best parts of Black Panther was the Dora Milaje? And definitely the best thing about Wonder Woman 1984 was the Amazons? This movie focuses on equally awesome women warriors with the added bonus that they actually existed. They are fierce. They are highly skilled. They are strategic and clever. I also liked the emphasis that they earned the respect they enjoyed. At least in the film they led as much with their sound judgement as their bravery and determination. There were many different political groups, ok like 4, and multiple characters with conflicting motivations. they did a good job of presenting the complexity and making it easy to follow. Viola Davis was great of course but I also really liked the actress who played Izogie, her expressions were excellent. I really liked the joy that came through in the dances and the sisterhood the women enjoyed with each other.  What I didn't: I didn't really understand why some of the subplots were ...

What I liked: I liked the friendship that developed between the main characters. I like to believe that they had the same resolving interactions as were in the movie. I liked the trade craft when we got to see it, much less flashy than in fiction films but apparently effective. I like that the probability of me ever ending up in a Russian prison is very very low. Kind of like the probability of me ever being on a nuclear submarine. These are both things that I very much want to avoid. I also liked that, probably in keeping with history, there were more than two spies in the movie. Admittedly, it did look a bit unbalanced East vs West but I did appreciate that there were spies, plural, and some degree of counter intelligence.  What I didn't: Is that really how you get recruited to the CIA? It seems awfully...mundane and risky. Like maybe they contact you first with someone who isn't in charge of the Europe office. I also think it is quite risky to have very high ranking intellig...

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What I liked: This is the moment we have all been waiting for. After mistakenly watching the Christopher Reeves version and a  2000's remake , I have finally watched Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. In some ways it really delivered. Others I felt like I had seen before. I really liked the girl friend's outfits. Granted she is a model, but I thought they looked like things I would like to wear when the vintage mood strikes. The crotchety nurse was funny and delivered some pretty sarcastic lines for the 1950's.The film is based on a book "It had to be murder" but the catchier title comes up when the nurse declares that she is not an expert in rear window ethics (I figured this out myself, take that internet).  I appreciated the creative use of flash photography and, true to form, Hitchcock really shone in the exceptional development of side characters we see only briefly. I liked the makeshift dog elevator and the flowerbed misdirection. I must also credit Hitc...

What I liked: Oceans 8 actually had all the stages of a heist , no corner cutting for them, take that Solo. The crew was fun, they had funny lines, and the plan was elaborate so they really hit all the bases. The step 4 sneaky twist was less sneaky than you might hope but fairly satisfying. I liked the top off of the team to make 8. Both of them. The first chunk of the movie seemed like she would have been right at home in Catch Me if You Can.   I liked the little old ladies and the jar of Nutella. I did not have equal faith in all members of the team. Some of them were really good at their jobs but some of them, especially the designer definitely had issues. And while likely completely unnecessary and very dangerous, I liked the dramatic exit. It was fun to see everyone all done up. What I didn’t: For being a jewelry heist there was a disappointingly low amount of repelling and backflips. Pretty much all of the sneaking involved disguises and not you know jumping fences or p...

What I liked: This is an inspiring story. Not, as one might imagine from the title and cover art, in an early 20th century "We bought a zoo" kind of way or even a look at all these cute zoo animals kind of way. It is inspiring in a Schindler's List kind of way, the story of a Polish family who used their destroyed zoo as a cover to smuggle more than 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto. This is similar in scale to the efforts of the ten Boom family and about 1/4 the scale of Schindler's operation. But it this endeavor, in addition to hiding the Jews and passing them on to other safe houses, included a massive smuggling operation to extract them from the ghetto. The characters make courageous decisions in terrible terrible circumstances. Clearly the main characters are brave and mastermind an elaborate rescue operation, but all of the side characters ring true too. I don't know if the characters represent individuals or are composites but the film did an excellent j...

What I liked: This is a solid monster movie. So if you have been looking for the next Creature from the Black Lagoon, where it takes the super fast, super perceptive, super strong monster an hour and a half to eat three people and a raccoon, look no further. This film does an excellent job of playing on stress. The best comparison I can make is to a syllabus. You know exactly what is coming and exactly how it will happen, but you have no choice but wait the entire semester for it to happen. This makes normal things, like going up and down stairs, stressful. It also makes you wish the monsters would just hurry up already. Because the monsters have highly acute hearing the main characters communicate predominantly in sign language. The actress who plays the deaf daughter is actually deaf which is pretty cool. Several parents I know will feel vindicated to learn that noisy toys are the ultimate downfall in the movie. You have been right all along. Similarly, I have spent enough time on ...

What I liked: The lemonade stand. The tie ins to Water Gate (though I'm not totally convinced that the two events were that closely related). I didn't really know anything about this event, so it was interesting to learn about what was at least characterized as the rise of the Washington Post to a respected national newspaper and the rise in animosity between the press and the presidency. I liked the linograph machine. I've seen those in museums. What I didn't: Paisley. The formal MuMu. Mustaches. Excessive side burns. Polyester. So essentially 70's fashion. Also rotary phones and pay phones. Some one should really invent an automatic page feeder for xerox machines, not that I don't enjoy dramatic photocopying, it just seems like it could be a whole lot more efficient. Who ever decided to stage a loud heartfelt conversation in a room with sleeping children clearly did not consider the fact that those children's parents would probably prefer that they sta...

What I liked: A while ago I was on a Hitchcock kick. I accidentally ended up watching the Christopher Reeves Rear Window instead of the Hitchcock one. I decided to try to watch the Hitchcock one again, but again had trouble finding it but I did find the 2007 remake, Disturbia.  It was more exciting than the Christopher Reeves version because the chase scenes were slightly more mobile. That said the Christopher Reeves version was more suspenseful because you knew if he ever got caught he didn't have a fighting chance. I liked that this one used more updated tech and I liked the main police officer. What I didn't: This was not the Hitchcock film, strike 2 for me. Having seen two versions of this story, I am convinced that there is no way to make the premise of constantly spying on your neighbors and recording their movements not creepy. The film starts out as a teeny bopper flick. All of the characters act with all the expected exaggerated stupidity you usually find in this g...

What I liked: I liked the suspense, I liked the acting, I liked that I got to watch it. I liked that the captain was really good and took care of his crew. The pirates were terrifying but I also liked that the movie made them more than just scary, it worked for me more than the little bit of scene of the captain getting dropped off to go to the boat in the beginning. I thought they did a good job of conveying the Captain's shock at the end. I was glad when I looked up the main pirate actor and found that he was not actually as malnourished and terrifying as he looked in the movie. What I didn't: I am concerned about the boats fighting pirates with water cannons. I also am not sure what the crew's plan was if they caught up with the pirates' boat. The pirates weren't that clever, at the latest when the navy seals got on the radio the pirates should have known something was up. I didn't really care for the part where the Captain jumps in the water, it seemed very...

What I liked: Rogue one was good. Like Episode VII it fit right in with the world of the original series. The effects were great and the aliens creative. I was very impressed with all the alien landscapes. They were beautiful and detailed and much more interesting than the obligatory sandy planets we see every time. But mostly I liked realizing that we have landscapes that otherworldly here that we could go find. I also loved seeing planets with rings. Because this movie is outside the trilogy of trilogies, it doesn't feature Skywalker relatives, which is really quite refreshing. I always thought that there might be other people in the galaxy. Despite, or really in my opinion because of, being disconnected from central arc Rogue One connected to the other movies with more grace than any of the other films. Our favorite minor characters were back in ways that made sense: Ackbar, bejeweled MuMu woman, bearded rebel guy. Other random cameos were not included. The portions of the plot ...

What I liked: Let's get this out of the way first. If for some reason I cannot obtain the batmobile I want to drive Jason Bourne's car. Or maybe I want his car for daytime driving and save the batmobile for evenings and special occasions. If the car is too expensive I will settle for just the tires which seem to be pretty much everything proof. No, he didn't drive backwards off a building this time but he did have enough serious collisions to more than compensate. The sedan fared quite well considering it was going up against a tank. I really appreciated that all the hacker commands were readily intelligible and consisted of a single line "decrypt files, remove firewall, authorize my fake passport." If you thought Jack Ryan's hacking was good in shadow recruit (he hacked a very secure computer using an electrical outlet), you will be terrified to know the secure computer could be hacked using a cell phone in the same building. Wires are for wimps. Take that Et...

What I liked: The Matrix was the movie during middle school. It’s pervasive influence has persisted ever since: you know we all took matrix pictures on the ironing boards in the MTC. Now that I’ve seen it I suddenly recognize many many more references to this film than I ever realized and I get them all. Not only that but this was the landmark film with the what is reality premise; Inception, Source Code, Minority Report, and Tron, all children of the Matrix. Matrix was also revolutionary in special effects and the dystopia which had been roughly the same since Planet of the Apes (given the current glut of dystopian films and fiction I don’t know if I actually appreciate this). I mention all of this because I have seen so many movies influenced by the Matrix that seeing their inspiration was pretty cool. For being almost 20 years old, the Matrix is a really good movie. The premise is cool, it would probably have been cooler if I didn’t already know from 20 years of spoilers what h...

     What I liked: I liked the lady on the code cracking team. She was fun and spunky. I think Cumberbatch did a good job portraying Turing with all his really odd personality traits. Actually, I think the whole core cast did a very good job being believable little dweebs completely convinced of their own brilliance and dedicated to proving it. I laughed several times at the exchanges that he had with other people in the film. I liked the behemoth of the thinking machine. I liked the clips from famous speeches inserted into the film. Maybe it is because I visited the Churchill museum this year but I thought it was cool to hear from the good old prime minister. I liked the director of MI6; he wasn’t M but still fairly acceptable. “You are suggesting conspiracy at the highest levels of government!... sounds like exactly my kind of thing.” I liked the bonfire. I did some fact checking on the movie and actually most of it was exceptionally sound. I actually discovered...

What I liked: This was a good movie. I thought that they did a good job capturing the feeling of the beginning of the Cold War. I wasn’t actually around during the Cold War so I might not be qualified to comment on that but there was the sense of intense patriotism on both sides and the start of East Germany trying to become a real power. They also had the construction of the Berlin Wall. I thought that they did a good job of portraying the confusion that instilled. I liked the main character. He was a stubborn persistent lawyer. The whole first part of the movie reminded me about John Adams defending the British soldiers from the Boston Massacre. The overwhelmingly positive message from the film was the positive effect that one principled person can have on history. I also liked that for the most part they movie focused on the history. Yes, I’m sure that there was fabrication and Hollywoodization but it didn’t feel as fictionalized as some of the films that are “inspired by real ...

What I liked: I like science and I like outerspace, clearly I liked a movie about science in outerspace. I liked the timelapse sequences of solving problems and growing stuff. I thought they did a remarkably good job conveying a plot consisting of technical questions and keeping people engaged. I liked that Matt Damon was trapped on Mars with no entertainment but disco music, which made a surprisingly good soundtrack. I liked that NASA got to be the heroes in two big movies this year. I loved that Boromir got to be in on the council of Elrond again, that was phenomenal. I wonder if they cast him specifically for that reason. I gained a new appreciation for Anderson; I never knew he had a knack for astrophysics. I guess after being driven to distraction by Sherlock he decided for a change of career and started working for NASA. Speaking of careers working for NASA I want to be whoever it was who got to drill holes in the rover, that looked like fun. I loved the mars rover, both ...

What I liked: Scotty is by far the best part of MI 4 and MI 5. Ethan Hunt has finally lost it; yes he is still the star and yes he still saves the day but there is nowhere left for his character to go besides a retirement home or an insane asylum. The girl is as replaceable as everyother girl in these movies: good trade craft, good looking, good side switching, goodbye. Hawkeye is very concerned, he is concerned about his job, his friends, his country. He is a very responsible suity type, would probably make a great PA. No, Scotty is the one who we connect with, who we cheer for, who we laugh at; Scotty saves the day. As always with MI movies I liked the gadgets (sadly I only remember one mask) and the absurd situations (notably the car chase of death and, as dad calls it, the computer washing machine). At two points I did feel like they were channelling National Treasure and may have quoted the lines that no doubt everyone else was thinking. I liked the moment when hawkeye and sco...

What I liked: I think this is an excellent example of old movies. It isn’t too long (Gone with the Wind/Lawrence of Arabia). It isn’t boring (Thing from the Black Lagoon). It isn’t sappy (Little Women/Citizen Kane). It isn’t just weird (Dr Strangelove). It has a good story to tell and does so quite well. It is the story of the misinformation campaign prior to the allied invasion of the continent. The pace is much slower than if it were made today, there is plenty of British tea drinking, but I think this actually works quite well to capture the amount of time that went into planning. It was also impressive to see the level of detail that the orchestrators included about the fictional man. I was also impressed by the execution of the token love story. Normally, I find romantic side stories boring, unbelievable, and completely superfluous. This one was actually believable and played an important role in the plot without upstaging the real action. I liked the morse code action, though ...