Change Your Image
johndeckbose
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Miami Vice: Out Where the Buses Don't Run (1985)
Favorite Vice episode of all time
It's hard to remember a lot of the Miami Vice episodes, all of which I've seen at least twice, but "Out Where the Buses Don't Run" -- a phrase that Crockett uses to describe Hank Weldon's mental acuity -- is an episode I have never forgotten. The moody noirish quality of this script and its cinematography is beyond effective, it is downright exceptional. As is the guest performance by Bruce McGill (who many people will remember as D-Day from Animal House, though he has distinguished himself with dozens of great character roles over the years). Without getting into the area of spoilers, McGill's performance covers the entire gamut of crazy up through crazy like a fox. And, as other reviewers have mentioned, the episode's denouement is as powerful as any in television history. Whenever I hear Mark Knopfler's pensive guitar solo from "Brothers in Arms," I can't help but picture that rain-swept conclusion to "Out Where the Buses Don't Run" with its wild reveal.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
One of the greatest science-fiction movies ever made
Everything about this film is visionary, groundbreaking and darkly imaginative. There is poetry in its brutal phantasm, and it gets better and better with every viewing. I have watched it over 20 times now, and I'm in complete awe of its otherworldly context. And yet, as bizarre as the Necromonger Empire appears to be, it exists in an orderly and consistent universe that pits human consciousness against both artificial and animal intelligence in a terrifying -- albeit highly entertaining -- lexicon. The cast is as top-notch as David Twohy's screenplay and direction, with Vin Diesel delivering a Riddick one could hardly anticipate from Pitch Black. Thandie Newton, Karl Urban, Linus Roache, Judi Dench, Keith David, Nick Chinlund, and especially Alexa Davalos, all contribute in ways that you couldn't possibly expect because there is nothing conventional about this movie.
J. Edgar (2011)
Hoover the Priss
Okay, what's up with this movie? Is it meant to make Hoover look like such a prissy self-promoting wuss? I thought Eastwood dug him. The arrest sequences are devastating: Hoover responds to criticism of his legitimacy to run a federal agency by making a flurry of arrests but all when accompanied by a dozen agents, and he's always the last one through the door, but then stepping forward to take credit.
This thing is hard to watch. And the make-up is comically bad. But Leo's in there pitching, looking like EG Marshall and acting like an inept femme.
This movie actually manages to make Judi Dench look bad! Judi Dench!
I didn't even recognize Naomi Watts. She is so subsumed by the Helen Gandy character that Watts is unrecognizable. Unfortunately Helen Gandy is a vacuous toady and I'd rather hear from Naomi Watts.
The Winklevi dude is great. Such homo gleam. Hoover's barely repressed homo urges are given front stage -- I get it, Arnie Hammer has a smile that twinkles.
Such an ugly portrait of Hoover, this movie. I mean, it may well be accurate, it might not, but I'm surprised Eastwood painted him as such a worm.
Really, this movie makes J. Edgar Hoover into the emotional equivalent of an insecure 12-year old girl.
Hesher (2010)
Truly Unique
I've seen probably 15,000 movies in my life, and I've never seen anything quite as fully realized as Hesher.
That's not necessarily to say it's great (though it is). It just succeeds completely at its intent.
Think Donnie Darko meets Jackass meets Kramer vs. Kramer, and I know how weird that sounds. It's reckless and antisocial and esoteric and yet somehow it distills into a completely honest and unpretentious social satire that feels more documentary than parody.
It would be hard to watch if it weren't so real.
Huge props to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rainn Wilson, Piper Laurie and Natalie Portman, but most of all to Devin Brochu, the 11-year-old moral center of this wasteland that we undeniably recognize as truthful while politely pretending it's a surreal dark comedy.
I love this movie. I've never seen writer-director Spencer Susser's work before but I'm eager to see more of it.
Face Down (1997)
Unusually Good
I'm stunned by how good this so-called TV flick is.
The cast is top-notch: Joe Mantegna, always a favorite, mostly -- though not exclusively -- because of his Mamet work, as a disgraced NYPD detective working as a private dick; Kelli Maroney, one of the two sisters from the wacky zombie classic Night of the Comet, grown up and sexy as hell as the schizoid blonde bombshell, but still with the same crazy energy; Peter Riegert as the NYPD detective with a longstanding grudge for the Mantegna character, a former partner; rocker Adam Ant as the smarmy behind-the-scenes puppet master -- they all come together in a beautifully paced, complex noir that never takes a predictable turn.
Thom Eberhardt's direction is solid throughout: the camera work is shockingly good for a TV film (considering the profanity and nudity, that description seems odd) and the actors deliver admirably. There are no false notes, no ridiculous plot holes -- just confused, conniving, ambitious people trying to either stay afloat or get ahead.
The locations is where this movie scrimps. They're mostly backlot sets pretending to be NYC, and they look cheap and fake, but that's no one's fault. It's a low budget film. This same script, even with this fairly no-name cast, could easily be in the same league as Body Heat or Basic Instinct -- the only difference is the budget.
A Man Apart (2003)
The Vin Diesel movie that makes all other Vin Diesel movies possible
There are a lot of people reviewing this film that have no clue about the Vin Diesel oeuvre. This movie rocks. F. Gary Gray's best film, by far. It is straightforward, it is hard, it is cruel, there are no caricatures here.
The supporting cast of Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant, Emilio Rivera, Jeff Kober, and a bunch of people you would never want to run into in a dark alley, is key to the gritty realism of this film. People comparing it to XXX or the Fast and Furious chain must have fallen asleep during this film because they are miles apart. This is where you find out how hard Vin Diesel can be. Where you get to see him without pity or remorse. If not for A Man Apart, the glimpses of power you see in Pitch Black and XXX and Knockaround Guys never blossom into their full Vin-ness.
This is a powerful character portrait of a broken and bitter cop, intermingled with a stud action film. If you've never seen it, shame on you.
Clockers (1995)
Such an overwhelming disappointment
I'm glad that Spike Lee has apparently outgrown his need for polemics. Inside Man was a wonderful mature film that focused on character and motivation far beyond the Afro-centric purview of earlier Spike films. And while Clockers is perfectly serviceable for anyone coming to the story without having read the novel, I submit that Spike's attempt to refocus Richard Price's 1992 masterpiece as a singular black story, with a bone-throwing portrayal of white Detective Rocco Klein within an indictment of white police tactics, short-changes the audience of the profound respect, balance and humanity that made Price's novel so unforgettable.
It is truly one of the five best novels I have ever read, while Spike managed to produce one of 1000 best movies I have ever seen.
Read the book. It will stun, shock, amaze and delight you.
The movie, on the other hand, might just keep you from falling asleep.
Windtalkers (2002)
Not nearly as bad as the reviews here
Windtalkers actually has some terrific moments, and I know it's against IMDb rules to reference other reviews, but the vitriol for this film is entirely out of bounds. It's not great, it's not horrible, it has some spectacular battle sequences, but the need for these apparent film neophytes to call this the "worst film ever made" just makes me chuckle.
It has a wonderful cast -- Nic Cage, Adam Beach, Mark Ruffalo, Christian Slater, Brian Van Holt, Noah Emmerich, Peter Stormare, Jason Isaacs, etc. -- and the themes of the film are genuine and occasionally thought-provoking. I have to wonder about how many war films these reviewers who put this film into some kind of exaggerated context have ever seen. Wait, make that how many films, period.
This is a movie that ultimately fails at its mission to detail the story of Navajo radiomen in WWII, but it is still easy to watch, with many fine moments. If you're not paying for it, and you enjoy graphic war films, give it a shot.
Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)
holy cow this is awful
I watched this stunningly empty piece of vanity celluloid from Josh Radnor, one of the How I Met Your Mother guys. I guess he had so much money on his hands that he thought he might as well follow his ambition to be a filmmaker. I can only hope he got it out of his system.
I keep imagining Radnor watching Garden State, thinking, "I can do that!"
No, apparently you can't.
Y'know, I chuckle when people on IMDb use superlatives to describe every pedestrian film that comes down the pike, but this is one time it may indeed be appropriate. Happythankyoumoreplease is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is scary bad. It is offensively bad. It is a lot of young beautiful people trying to act as though their lives have meaning and import, but not one of them has experienced a genuine challenge yet in life. Neither as characters, nor, judging from the insufferable pettiness of the performances, as actual human beings. I don't wish evil or hardship to befall them, except to say, it would make them far more believable and substantive as artists.
I'm just sorry Pablo Schreiber and Kate Mara got mixed up in this mess.
Yonkers Joe (2008)
Terrific film
I watch about 30 movies a week. And this is the one movie in the last year that I have felt compelled to rave about.
Yonkers Joe is expert in every way. From the procedural con-man story to the heartfelt family tale. There is not a wrong note in the entire script.
I generally hate films that use developmentally impaired characters -- they are usually a storytelling shortcut to the pulling of heartstrings. In this film, I expected only that the need to pay for an expensive group home for his son would be the incentive for Chazz Palminteri to take an extraordinary risk. But writer-director Robert Celestino proved me wrong. Way wrong.
A very satisfying film on all levels, with great performances, smart economical dialog, clever plot maneuvers, and not a saccharin moment in the entire flick.
Assassination of a High School President (2008)
not as pretentious as Brick but more self-assured
I see lots of recommendations for Brick here as an alternative but I disagree completely. The ambitions of the makers of Assassination of a High School President are so much smaller -- and thus more easily reached -- than those behind Brick that I find the comparison hollow.
Brick takes itself so seriously, and even though I liked it, I couldn't bear watching it the second time, and I will never subject myself to that pleasure again. I wonder how I will feel about watching this film again but I know I'm open to the idea right now and I imagine I will find many more inside jokes than I noticed the first time around.
When erstwhile hero and obvious patsy Bobby Funke tears the Freddy Bismarck page out of the yearbook with a cough, I thought about the same moment in Chinatown. Obviously so did the filmmakers, judging from the closing line of this film. Not to mention the scene of Paul Moore being dragged in a towel through the hallway yelling "I'm a patsy" -- just like Oswald! That's one problem with the narration -- it's clearly from the perspective of someone older than Funke. But once you give in to that conceit, you can enjoy the ride. And even though the denouement is telegraphed way before Funke reveals it I still enjoyed the position Funke finds himself in, as a catalyst for the plot and a lightning rod for bringing together the various cliques endemic to every high school, and every high school film.
Good performances, too, where no one is trying to be Marlon Brando on a high school stage. I find that refreshing.
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
Ho Hum
Monsters vs. Aliens is a diverting 94 minutes, with lots of celebrity voice talent -- Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Rainn Wilson, Kiefer Sutherland, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, etc. -- but ultimately it's no more involving than a three-minute Bullwinkle cartoon.
And, actually, only about half as funny.
This film is great for kids. Unfortunately, unlike Bullwinkle -- and Bugs Bunny, for that matter - - it doesn't really offer the double-edged adult commentary that makes some cartoons so memorably subversive.
I hear the 3D makes the experience more involving. Well, something better, because on the home screen, Monsters vs. Aliens is only a winner for the kids.
Rigged (2008)
Much much better than I expected
Though the film is currently known as Fight Night, I definitely prefer the original title, Rigged. And while Rigged has many problems -- mostly in the storyline and a lot of the secondary acting -- it is well worth watching just to see Rebecca Neuenswander. She is a find. Not only is she gorgeous, and not only is she a terrific actress, with expressive eyes that light up the screen, but she can fight. I have always been a stickler about sports being portrayed authentically on the screen, and I was happily surprised by Rebecca's fighting skills.
Rigged won't blow you away, and it may not last in your memory too long, but I don't think I'll forget about Rebecca Neuenswander for quite for some time. I am sad that Rigged is apparently her only film, but maybe she'll do more in the future. A director would be lucky to get her.
The Family Man (2000)
Imagine someone else as Jack
I think this is a wonderful script and would be an entirely different and much better movie with another male lead. Nic Cage just doesn't cut it. Sure, sometimes he's likable, especially with the little girl. But he doesn't connect with any of the other strong adult leads
I do submit this would be an extraordinary film with a different male lead. In fact, Don Cheadle would rock this film as Jack, but then, who do you get to do Cheadle's "Do you wanna die?" moment?
Cheadle is amazing. Tea Leoni is fantastic, as usual. The surrounding players, like Jeremy Piven, Josef Somer, Saul Rubinek, et al., are great, and Annie, the little girl, is a hoot.
If only it wasn't Nic Cage. And I like Nic Cage. Just not here. Not the right movie for him.
Cadillac Records (2008)
It don't get no better
When Etta James asks Lenny Chess if this is the last song she'll get to sing for him (because he's selling the company), he says, "You better make it good."
She says, "It don't get no better."
Which describes this terrific film.
I have rarely seen this kind of ensemble acting. It is such a pleasure to watch Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Adrien Brody as Len Chess and Eamonn Walker, spellbinding as Howlin' Wolf. Beyonce Knowles as Etta James, like she has never been seen. Gabrielle Union as Muddy Water's devoted wife Geneva, taking the good with the bad. And Mos Def practically stealing the movie as Chuck Berry.
This movie doesn't have a wrong note in it.
Do not miss it.