I get the impression that this TV show is pretty big in the US, so this review may be superfluous. I only started watching it because it was listed really high on Netflix, and I’d heard some comments about it in Slate. Nevertheless, I thought I’d review it anyhow, since the premise of Cinematic Attic is to simply comment on the idea of “Have you seen anything good lately?”

Briefly put, the series is about two KGB spies who are undercover in the US in the early 1980s. It’s got a little bit of action but a lot of plot, and the acting is generally very well done. The main couple, played by Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys, do look and act like a married couple with children in the early 80s, but I’m not sure if they really seem like convincing KGB spies. Then again, that’s the whole point, I suppose, since they were supposed to blend in with the Americans.

We’ve been watching the first season and have made it through about 7 episodes so far, but I have a fairly good idea of the tone. The series has a few episodes that can work by themselves, but one also gets the feeling that it’s working towards a bigger payoff, which keeps your attention–and is probably about 10 times better than anything that was actually on TV in the early 80s! The plot lines and twists can get a bit intricate and confusing at times, but at the same time it’s nice that they don’t assume the viewer is stupid. A few subplots, like the ones that follow their children, aren’t very compelling, but I suppose they could be in future episodes.

Aw yeah…

The Pilot episode held a lot of promise in terms of music, since it had both Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” coming and going and growing through the episode, as well as “In The Air Tonight,” “Harden My Heart,” and a few other 80s favorites. However, I was a bit disappointed to see that they didn’t continue with this 80s Night feeling in future episodes, at least in terms of soundtrack. The cars, clothing, and decorations are still pretty cool (and very brown), though. All in all, it’s been entertaining, and I’m excited to see how the season will finish.

RATINGS:

That Good-Ol-80s Feeling: 13/17
Cold War Nostalgia: 13/17
Wigs, Glasses, and Fake Mustaches: 16/17
Overall Rating: 14/17

Thanks for reading!

Hello! I think we’re officially done with our Atomic Film Fest, but I liked the idea of watching and reviewing a series of movies with a similar theme. So if you have ideas of themes for a future series, please feel free to tell me. I actually did see a few more movies, but they were documentaries, and not terribly interesting or post-worthy.

Not like this BBC special, “The Secret Life of Babies.” Angela found it on Netflix and saw the start of it, so we decided to watch the whole thing together. It’s really good. Sorry, it’s British, so I mean “It’s rather quite good.” As can be expected from a BBC documentary, it’s interesting and very well produced, at least in terms of camera work, effects, etc. It basically works like a “Did you know?” type of trivia show at times, but the facts are all interesting, especially for new parents like us. You can also find a more detailed description of the show here (it’s actually got basically all the information in the show, so if you can’t see it for some reason, you can just read that… it’s also where I got the picture above).

I was very surprised that I didn’t know a lot of the information in the movie, and that’s even after I thought I’d done a fair amount of research for our baby. The fact that babies don’t have kneecaps, for example, should have been obvious but it blew my mind. I had to actually feel my baby’s knee, since he was napping on my lap as we watched. Sure enough, no kneecap (They said it forms later as they’re growing).

In any case, if you have Netflix and this special is available where you live, check it out!

RATINGS:

Quality of Baby Factoids: 15/17
Production Values: 16/17
Cuteness: 17/17
Adorableness: 17/17
Preciousness: 17/17
Overall Rating: 16/17 

Good evening! I’m taking a break from the Atomic Film Fest to talk about a movie I watched last night called Once Upon A Time In The West. It’s pretty great, if you’ve not seen it.

Actually, I’m not sure why or how I’d not seen of it until just recently, and I don’t even think I’d heard of it. I know I’ve seen How The West Was Won, so maybe I got the titles mixed up or something. I see now it’s even at #26 on the IMDB all time list. That’s a little bit amazing. So who knows. I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed it, though.

It’s a movie by Sergio Leone, the guy who did the famous Clint Eastwood westerns. It’s also got a score by Ennio Morricone, some gun battles, a bunch of cowboys, a millionaire on a personal train, a prostitute, a land grab, and those half-doors in a saloon. Basically, it’s got everything you’d need from a western.

Since I came into the movie without knowing anything about it (I just added it on my Netflix list based on their recommendation algorithm), I won’t really tell anything about the plot, since I think that enhanced my experience. I can say that while I expected it to be a “normal,” by-the-numbers western, it was actually completely unlike what I might have expected. For some reason–and that reason may just be that I’m dense–I was surprised by most every twist in the story. I also like how they don’t over-explain or linger on some things that have happened, and let the audience figure it out (or not) on their own. Even now, I can recall at least five points that made me think, “Wait, what the hell happened there?” That may sound terribly annoying, but it wasn’t, for some reason.

It is a very slow, deliberately-paced movie, but again, not in a negative way. It just revels in longer takes, stare-downs, and scenic views. The acting is also good, with big names such as Charles Bronson, Peter Fonda, and Jason Robards. Actually, I didn’t even know Robards’ name, but I recognized his face. I just couldn’t remember where I recognized it from until I saw on IMDB that he was one of the main characters on The Day After, the nuclear holocaust movie I reviewed the other day. Just compare:

As I was watching it, it sort of achieved Tarantino consciousness, actually. It’s even proto-Tarantinoan, although I should probably say that Tarantino is neo-Leonean. Now that he’s made Django Unchained, which is basically a western, it’s even more obvious, but one can notice many of the stylistic elements that Tarantino also used in his other films, even including thoroughly modern ones like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Vol. 1. And I guess he did also have Morricone write some scores, so I should have known.

Anyhow, if you’ve not seen this one, you should definitely check it out. I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has, especially if you have any explanation about how I could have missed this movie up until now.

RATINGS:
Unexpected Plot: 16/17 (It’s not Memento or anything, but it continually took me by surprise, for some reason)
Intensity of Charles Bronson’s Grimace: 17/17
Intensity of Jason Robards’ Lamb Chop Sideburns: 16/17
Un-ironic Use of Stupid Hats: 14/17
Overall Rating: 16/17

Hello again! Our Atomic Film Fest continues this evening with 1959’s movie On The Beach. There was also a remake in 2000 (which I’ll discuss soon), but I think this must be one of the earliest movies made that contains a nuclear scare, although the “scare” is fairly mild.

Quick Aside: When I was looking for pictures for “The Day After” in my last review, I kept getting pictures of “The Day After Tomorrow.” For this review, I kept getting pictures of these idiots, on something called “Ex On The Beach.” Is that the Jersey Shore that everyone was angry about a few years ago? Oh well, maybe having pictures of “attractive” (but is that what passes as attractive these days??) dummies in swimsuits may drive up Cinematic Attic’s page views.

The idea is that The US and The USSR have bombed each other to hell, and there’s not much left of the northern hemisphere except a cloud of radiation that’s slowly making its way south. The bulk of the story takes place in Melbourne, Australia, where a US submarine crew has surfaced. There’s a bit of romance, as well as the question if there’s absolutely no hope up north, or if there might be survivors in Alaska or some other place.

The movie was based on the novel by Nevil Shute, which I read in elementary or junior high school. I may be taking part in some revisionist personal history, but I think it was actually my mom who recommended this book to me. If so, that’s a bit dark, but it did work out well as blog fodder twenty years later. From what I remember of the book, it’s quite similar to both of the adaptations, although all three take place at different times. And all three are mostly bleak, no matter how much romance they try to add in.

This one has some pretty decent acting, at least by old movie standards. I must admit that I’m generally not a fan of older movies, since they’re usually unbearably cheesy, but this one is pretty good. The ever-gravitas-filled Atticus Finch plays the submarine captain whose family has been killed out in the US, and the guy from Psycho plays an Australian military guy who doesn’t have an Australian accent. He’s married and has a baby daughter, so they’re especially concerned about the family’s impending doom. Fred Astaire, who I don’t think I’ve seen in any other movies but whose name I recognize, plays a kinda drunk-ish guy who drives a sports car. And finally there’s Ava Gardner; it’s probably best to just say she’s a bit crappy in this movie. That’s perhaps another issue I have with old movies: both the men and women seem to have motivations that are completely foreign to me, for whatever reason. I just get uncomfortable when watching them, like they way I felt when I saw Pierce Brosnan sing in Mama Mia! It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s certainly not good.

The Guy From Psycho and this woman were both pretty good actors, especially taking into account it was 1950s acting. In the movie, they must come to terms with the idea that they may need to take a suicide pill, as well as give one to their daughter, to avoid the longer, slower radiation poisoning death. That’s legitimately heavy. Also, if you click on this picture, it’ll take you to a better review than this one. 

All that aside, it’s actually a pretty good movie. This one especially drives the point home that the war was avoidable and, for the people who watched it when it came out, that they were playing with fire if they thought a full-on nuclear war would be winnable. I would maybe even watch it again. Has anyone else out there seen it?

RATINGS:
Nostalgia Factor: 13/17 I was actually reminded a lot of the book when I saw this movie. But if I still remember plot points of a book I read 20 years ago, either it had a big effect on me, or I’m forgetting something else because of it, like how to perform canine CPR. Actually, that’s probably it. I took a canine CPR course in Germany in 2002, but I can’t remember how to do it. Dammit.
Scariness of the Nuclear Scare: 16/17 Unlike the 2000 remake, this doesn’t show any nuclear bombs at all, so technically the “scare” is in the invisible radiation that will kill all the survivors in the world. Which, now that I think about it, deserves a 17/17.
Guttenbergometer Reading: 0/17 (Not even trace levels of Steve Guttenberg detected)
Avagardnometer Reading: 17/17 (Annoyingly dangerous levels of Ava Gardner, including Ava Gardner trying to act drunk)
Overall Rating: 14/17

One more for the road: Women wearing what I assume are supposed to be bikinis, although I can only recognize one as a garment bearing that name.

Thanks for reading!

As I mentioned in my last post, a couple months ago I got on a kick of watching movies related to nuclear scares and post-nuclear-apocalypse tales. WarGames was a bit goofy but entertaining overall, but that movie stands in contrast to another movie from the same year which kicked off my film fest, The Day After.

The Day After is a 1983 made for TV movie that apparently made a huge impact when it was released, although I was only three when it came out, so I guess I wouldn’t know. What I do know now, with thirty years of hindsight, is that it’s definitely disturbing, even if it is a product of its time.

The idea is that there’s a nuclear war between the US and the USSR, basically annihilating the populations of each country. We don’t get many glimpses of what happens in the broader scheme of things, though, since the story is set in Kansas and stays there nearly the whole time. We follow various characters as they try–and ultimately fail–to deal with the fallout of…well, the fallout.

Oh come on! You’re even gonna let radiation sickness kill off The Gutte??

The effects and production are probably really good, at least for 1983, but the acting is a bit cheesy at times. There are some pretty well-known actors like Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow, but the soap opera acting isn’t really the reason this movie has an impact. Its impact is entirely based on the scenes of nuclear destruction and the absolute hopelessness of it all. It’s a bit of a trope in movies, but when they say something like “The ones that were killed were the lucky ones,” we still root for the survivors and know that they’ll find some way to make it through. This movie has the courage, if that’s the best word, to show us that the survivors won’t make it through, no matter how hard they try. It really does drive home the point that a nuclear war is un-winnable and indeed un-survivable.

And that’s just the scene when the bombs go off. It just goes downhill from there.

So, I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I can say I’m glad I’ve seen this movie.

RATINGS:
Nostalgia Factor: 0/17 I can’t really say this made me miss anything about the past, but that’s a good thing.
Scariness of the Movie’s Nuclear Scare: 16/17 Even though you can tell the special effects are from 1983, they’re still effective and disturbing.
Guttenbergometer: 14/17 (High to Severe levels of Steve Guttenberg)
Overall Rating: 9/17 I don’t think it was bad at all, but I don’t think I’ll be watching this one again.

That’s All, Folks! Yech.

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since I did a post, so I’ll remedy this with a quick review of Seven Years in Tibet, the 1997 movie starring Brad Pitt. I’d read the book, a non-fiction account by Heinrich Harrer, a few years ago (Here’s what I said about that).

The movie is good, but it’s easy to forget that Brad Pitt used to invoke so much anger in people because of his pretty-boy looks. Just look at the movie poster:

Yep, that’s a beautifully punchable face if I’ve ever seen one. The movie is pretty close to the book, and it kept our attention well for over two hours. It certainly doesn’t depict the Chinese authorities in a positive light, though, so I can also understand why I seem to recall there being a controversy around the movie when it was released.

The movie is also visually very beautiful, and the acting is generally good. When I read the book, I got the impression that Harrer was a bit of a D.B., and Pitt absolutely conveys that with his performance. The kid who played the young Dalai Lama does good work, too.

But then there’s the bad part: Pitt’s accent. Yes, Heinrich Harrer is/was Austrian, so he would have had an accent…if he were speaking English. But he wouldn’t be speaking English with his German friends! So you see where this gets tricky and fake pretty quickly. It’s “foreign” accents like this one and many others–such as Meryl Streep’s “Danish” one in Out of Africa, for example–that just seem dumb. Unless you’re going to invest millions of dollars to teach Hollywood actors to speak actual foreign languages, any accent that isn’t a variation of an English accent will just ring false. Not that I was hired on as an accent consultant on this film, but still. Just drop it and have them speak like they normally speak, since otherwise the accent becomes a distraction.

Anyhow, I’d give it about a 14/17 for the acting, story, and images, but a 2/17 for accents.

That’s a good quote. Anyhow, have you seen this movie? What did you think? Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

The other night I convinced Angela to watch Rock of Ages with me. I should maybe rephrase that. The other night I tricked Angela into watching Rock of Ages with me. There, that sounds more accurate.

See, Angela used to claim that she didn’t like musicals, but with Jesus Christ Superstar, Mamma Mia!, and now this one, I think she may finally have put that claim to bed. We both surprisingly liked this movie.

Yes, it’s cheesy, but it’s supposed to be. It’s also embarrassing in the same way that many musicals are, since no one would ever find themselves singing in any of the situations the characters sing in. But who cares, it’s supposed to be a chance to have some fun mixing together some good songs, and it does that very well. Whereas as movie like Mamma Mia! is totally dependent on its audience liking ABBA, there’s a bit more of a musical variety to Rock of Ages. Of course, there’s a lot of 80s hair metal and power ballads, but there is also some softer stuff like Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” or REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling.”

I liked every single song on the soundtrack, I think, which is pretty amazing. In fact, I think I’m smack-dab in the exact sweet spot for the movie’s target audience; I really love 80s rock and hair metal, but I also dig other acts like Pat Benetar and Foreigner, and to top it off I like watching movies based on musicals. The cherry on the top is that I don’t hate movies with Tom Cruise, which apparently a lot of people do these days. That may also illustrate the problem with this movie, at least in terms of its generally poor reception: I don’t seem to be part of a very big target demographic.

Still, we were both surprised that the songs were sung so well, especially by the likes of Tom Cruise, who just didn’t seem like he’d be good. But he was. His character, Stacee Jaxx, was especially interesting. It’s not that Cruise was particularly amazing, but I liked to watch the things his character did and try to guess what rockers his pastiche character was based on. It seems to have a healthy helping of Nikki Sixx (for the name and spelling), Axl Rose (for the tardiness and unreliability), and Brett Michaels (for the hat), along with quite a few others. His singing was also OK, as mentioned, but the lead guy, Diego Boneta, was a bit better. But Tom Cruise can probably be content that he’s a better actor.

The only singer we didn’t like was Julianne Hough, who played Sherrie Christian, the main female lead. Her voice was too breathy for me and Angela described her singing as sounding like she had “a clothespin on her nose.” Which is a good description for it. But so many of the songs are duets and mash-ups, you don’t really have time to get annoyed by it before they change singers or songs. As an aside, the mash-ups were pretty average. A few worked well, but others, like “Jukebox Hero” getting mashed up with “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” sounded a bit forced. But it was written in the age of Glee, so I guess you just have to shove in some mash-ups. Here’s one that works, and also illustrates Julianne Hough’s breathiness as compared to Mary J. Blige’s awesomeness:

The biggest problem/complaint/outrage I have with this movie is that it completely blew the chance the have someone belt out Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie.” They even named the main character Sherrie, for crying out loud, and there were so many times where I kept expecting it to be the next song to pop up. But it never happened. I was so perplexed by this that I looked it up, and it appears that in the stage version they did sing “Oh Sherrie,” but apparently it was left out of the film version for some reason. How can you do that?? “Oh Schmucks” is more like it! So, to make up for the lack of the song in the movie, here’s the video:

Anyhow, I know that I’m probably in the minority for really liking this movie, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has seen it or has comments about it.

Have a good one!

This is me and my friends in 1984… in my mind.

My mom pointed out this video to me, since she knows I love Footloose:

I know that seems weird, but I really do like this movie. It’s even in my top 20, I believe. It just captures a big snapshot of my youth, despite the fact that nothing in the movie actually happened during my own particular youth. Playing chicken on a tractor? Fighting a local law prohibiting dancing? Crossing the state line to go to a bar and dance with some rednecks? Angry warehouse dancing? I can’t say I enjoyed any of those activities, but for some reason, the movie always makes me nostalgic. And with great music and dancing, how can you say no:

Anyone else out there like Footloose as much as I do? I know I’m not alone. I can’t be.

You must respect the “Balloon View Cam.” You simply must!

Did these reviewers see the same movie I did?

My wife and I recently had a baby (although admittedly she did most of the work in that department), but nevertheless I’ve not had much time to watch movies lately, let alone blog. I do like writing, though, so I’m going to try to write shorter posts to this site and my others in the coming weeks. I wanted to talk about the movie I was watching on the night when our son was born: Frances Ha.

I titled this review “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” based on a Dr. Evil quote from Austin Powers.

I just don’t get this movie. I saw it was on Netflix and it had high ratings, and it seemed like something I’d like. But I didn’t. It’s about a girl named Frances who moves apartments a few times in New York, and then she doesn’t really get a dancing job that she was trying out for. That’s about it. The characters seemed like they’d be OK people, and I might want to chat with them for a few minutes in real life, but I demand more from my movies.

What I Didn’t Get: Why this movie was made. It doesn’t really seem to have any lessons, and even though I guess you could call it a coming of age story, it doesn’t even really seem like that happened, either.
Who Might Get It: Maybe people who live in New York?
Why I Probably Should Have Known Better: I see now that writer Noah Baumbach was also involved with The Squid and the Whale, another movie I didn’t like (I got it confused with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, so that’s my own dumb fault). However, he was also involved with some Wes Anderson films that I love, so I’m not sure why his movies are so hard for me to pin down.

Anyhow, has anyone else seen this? If so, did you get it? Why didn’t I?

Tonight are the Academy Awards. At least I think so. I’m enough of a movie fan to have started a movie website, so of course I’m interested in them, but I probably won’t be able to watch them (last year a TV channel here in Costa Rica was playing a dubbed version, but it was pretty bad; that’s irrelevant, though, since we moved our TV in the meantime and the antenna isn’t connected, so we went from two channels to zero). It’s also debatable how much the Oscars matter. Nevertheless, I sometimes use them as a way to see what movies people were talking about in the previous year, since living here can skew perspectives a bit.

So I thought I’d just do a quick run-through of the movies I saw and liked in 2013. I know most people and sites do this kind of list at the end of December or the beginning of January, but at that time, I’d maybe seen 5 or 6 of these. Plus, dividing movies into years is pretty arbitrary, anyhow. According to my Flickchart list, I’ve seen 23 movies from 2013 so far. Here are my top 5:

5. The World’s End

I’ve really enjoyed the three movies that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright have done together. Shaun of the Dead is in my Top 20, I think, and Hot Fuzz was a brilliant cop movie spoof full of fun references. I’ve only seen this movie one time, but it certainly has the potential to fit in with the others, even though the mood and genre are completely different. The only thing that may make this movie a bit lower on my list as compared to the other two is that this one seems to have more things that are quintessentially British, and I maybe just don’t appreciate the significance of them. My only visit to Britain was a night spent in London 15 years ago, and of course that was hardly enough time to get a feel for the culture. But nevertheless, I thought this was a great movie with some very good characters. I especially liked how Pegg and Frost seemed to defy my expectations of what kinds of characters they’d be playing in this film.
Rating: 15/17

4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Some people (Paul) will probably criticize me for this choice, but so be it. I’m just going with what my Flickchart says. I think I enjoyed this movie mainly because I just wanted to see if what I saw in my mind as I read the book matched what they put on the screen. It was pretty similar, in fact.
Rating: 13/17 (I know that this is lower than #5, but as I said, I’m just going with what my list says.)

3. Gravity

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney… Love is in the vacuum! Actually, I don’t think this shot was actually in the movie. But oh well. I really liked this movie, and it made me think for a while afterwards. I especially liked that it was short and didn’t try to over-explain everything. The action starts just a few minutes into the 94-minute film, which in my opinion was much better than a 65-minute exposition just to set the scene, which seems to be the norm for so many action and sci-fi movies these days.
Rating: 15/17

2. Pacific Rim

I’m a bit surprised that this landed so high on my list, although I did enjoy it a lot. I’m glad I didn’t see any previews beforehand because if I had, I probably would have not seen this one. I probably would have written it off as cheesy action fare. There is that element, of course, but it’s done in a way that’s pretty different from its predecessors. Maybe it’s the fact that a lot of it takes place in Japan and Hong Kong, but it just seemed more tolerable and worthy of an eventual second viewing than other comparable movies that come to mind, like Avatar or Independence Day.
Rating: 15/17

1. This Is The End

This is a good, weird movie. I’ve heard people say it’s unlike any other movie they’ve seen, and I’d have to agree with them on that, try as I might to think of any examples to debunk that statement. I thought it was great how all the actors played themselves, or at least caricatures of themselves, making fun of their personas (and each other, of course). At first glance this may seem similar to The World’s End, and indeed both are comedies full of dudes bravely facing the end of the world by making jokes and consuming intoxicating substances. But whereas The World’s End is very British, this one is very Hollywood, and that makes a big difference. Oh, and Hermione’s small part is pretty great, too!
Rating: 16/17

So, that’s it for my 2013 list, at least so far. And it should be noted that I’ve still NOT seen many movies that are getting a lot of praise such as The Dallas Buyers Club, Her, American Hustle, Nebraska, Blue is the Warmest Color, and 12 Years a Slave. I know that those have a ton of nominations, but that’s just how it is: it’s harder to see new movies when you live on a mountain in Central America, I guess.

What do you think? Have you seen any of these? Would you put them higher, lower, or not even on the list? What does your Top 5 look like?