This was a bit of a milestone. My first viewed Blu Ray disc on my brandy new Blu Ray player (thanks John)! Watched this formerly grainy flick in wonderful high def. It looks awesome, with the night time stuff particularly crisp and clear. I’m going to become a high-def snob, I can tell already. But, enough of that, on to the movie, SPOILERS BELOW…
So our honeymoon cruise brought one day of seasickness which brought one afternoon in bed watching the in-room movie. I was going to take a nap, but the movie sucked me in (unexpectedly) after listening for the first five or so minutes. On a side note, the word ‘definitely’ is my nemesis. I will never remember how to spell it correctly. Ever. I have tried everything. And it would not suck nearly as much if I didn’t use it so prominently in writing. Anyway…
Finally got around to seeing STAR TREK, which was easily one of my most anticipated titles of the summer. I’m not a huge Trekkie, but I did enjoy the Next Generation stuff quite a bit. I’m less familiar with the original series, having seen maybe a half dozen episodes. But still, the characters (as well as their trademark lines) are iconic enough to make these people familiar. I was curious, though not worried, about how this origin story would work.
Nothing like a wedding to keep you from seeing a single movie for almost a full month. But my rankings return with a vengeance (at least until my honeymoon next week… so nevermind). Anyway, we saw ANGELS & DEMONS a week ago (pre-wedding) and I’m just getting a chance to post it now. So on with it…
I know that, as a male between the ages of 13 and 39, I am contractually obligated to be in love with Luc Besson. He nailed a few early ones with LA FEMME NIKITA and THE PROFESSIONAL, and so I am supposed to give him a pass for life and think that everything he does is uber-cool. Unfortunately, I don’t. I’m not the FIFTH ELEMENT supporter that my fiancee wife is, and I never really sought out his other action enterprises. But I remember finding THE TRANSPORTER to be entertaining. I was in the mood for something like that, so I threw it on.
This was the DIE HARD of my generation. Not to say it was the best, because it certainly was not. But for those discovering R Rated films in the early to mid 90s, this was one of the first to be seen. It is the one I know best. As a teenager, I loved Scar as a villain, and loved Jules as a sidekick. But, the question now of course is, does it hold up?
Continue reading ‘johnlink ranks DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)’
Wow. What a year for film we had. Exceptional titles like SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, FROS
T/NIXON, THE WRESTLER, MILK, THE DARK KNIGHT, GRAN TORINO… and more I’m forgetting off the top of my head. It was an awesome series of solid dramatic pictures on a huge range of topics. One which I had not seen was DOUBT. With its Catholic school setting, I’d be lying if I said it was on the top of my list of must-sees. But it has Hoffman (which fifteen years ago would have meant Dustin, but now we all know exactly who I mean) and Streep. It’s as good or better than any of the other listed above. I’d probably throw it in above SLUMDOG, below THE WRESTLER, and right on par with MILK.
I love Ricky Gervais unabashedly. So if you don’t like him (I’m looking at you John) then you can pretty much ignore this review. If you don’t know who he is, and its getting harder to NOT know him these days, check out the British OFFICE or a great HBO show, EXTRAS. Anyway, onto the movie. The discussion below has a couple spoilers in it, so I apologize if you haven’t seen it.
MALICE is a movie I’d always meant to see. I’ll see anything in which Alec Baldwin acts a little crazy, and I’ve always heard that it is a pretty good thriller. So movie night this week gave us MALICE!
I see that IMDB’s User Rating has PHONE BOOTH up over 7 out of 10. I seem to remember hearing that a lot of people didn’t like the movie, so I was surprised to see it so high. Personally, I have it in my top 100 (though its bounced around, and I still don’t know where to stick it). I hadn’t seen it in awhile, and it was late so I was looking for a short movie, so I popped it in.
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