dibot Blog

Heaven Can Push 48 Hrs Taken Place in the Sun

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Under discussion:

48 Hrs. (1982)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

A Place in the Sun (1951)

Taken (2009)

Push (2009)

Taken is the most fun I've had in the theater in awhile. Liam Neeson ("The Other Man") plays a retired FBI agent who goes on a rampage when his daughter is kidnapped. The film has alot of flaws if you focus on logistics too much. Just let go and enjoy the ride.

A Place in the Sun stars Montgomery Clift ("The Defector") as a poor boy trying to make a place for himself. He gets a chance at the upper crust with a young Elizabeth Taylor ("The Flintstones"), but, sadly, he's already knocked up his common girlfriend, Shelly Winters ("La Bomba"). It's enough to drive a man to murder. An interesting story, but I didn't love any of the characters. Supposedly based on actual events, it won six Oscars including Screenplay.

In Heaven Can Wait, Warren Beatty ("Town & Country") plays a football player who's taken before his time. So the powers that be put him into the body of a self-centered millionaire and hijinks ensue. The story is consistently amusing, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Enjoyable.

48 Hours pairs Nick Nolte ("Tropic Thunder")'s hot-headed cop with Eddie Murphy ("Meet Dave")'s wisecracking criminal. The story is okay. Nolte gets Murphy out of jail for two days to help catch an escaped convict who's gone on a killing spree. But Nolte's character is such an outrageous jerk that I had trouble watching the movie.

Push is like a gritty version of X-Men. People with special powers like telekinesis or prophecy are categorized by the government and sometimes forced into service. But a big thing is going down, so a gangly Dakota Fanning ("The Secret Life of Bees") has to collect Chris Evans ("Street Kings") so they can save the world. Fun.

Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 3:48 PM by dibot | with 0 comments

The Spiral Wolf Liar puts Milk in Clear and Present Danger

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Under discussion:

Billy Liar (1963)

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Wolf (1994)

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Milk (2008)

Over 30 reviews behind! This time, I'm blaming Facebook and all it's addictive applications. So the reviews will be short and sometimes sweet, but I'm going to try to catch up a bit today.

Billy Liar was the last of the flimspotting Angry Young Men marathon. A young man with dreams of becoming a screenwriter fantasizes his way through a day of his humdrum existence. Again, though I can respect the quality of the filmmaking, I just did not understand the character motivations. I'm starting to think it's because we don't really have a class system in America and so I can't really grasp the pain of the working class in Britain.

Sean Penn ("All the King's Men") totally deserved the Oscar for his turn in Milk. He transforms into Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to hold elected office. The film doesn't show Milk's entire life, but begins when he moves to San Francisco. And though it focuses on the politics, it's also a bit of a love story, showing how Milk's relationships were affected by his running for office. Very well done film. Moving with lots of food for thought.

The Spiral Staircase is a tense little thriller that relies more on shadows and suspense than jump-out scares. The plot involves a series of murders in which all of the victims have been handicapped in some way. The heroine has lost her voice and we watch her navigate a dark, scary house unable to call for help as the murderer stalks her.

Harrison Ford ("Crossing Over") really is the epitome of action star. In Clear and Present Danger, he plays CIA agent Jack Ryan who must uncover a plot that goes all the way to the presidency. And though much of the time Ford is embroiled in office politics, he makes it look tense. And then it's time to kick butt and he's good at that too. Some of the computer stuff is dated and seems silly now, but for the most part, the film holds up.

I remember really liking Wolf when I saw it upon it's initial release. It's still entertaining, but now dated. Jack Nicholson ("The Bucket List"), who looks the part and I think is the inspiration for Wolverine's make-up in X-Men, stars as an aging editor who's bitten by a wolf and then begins to change. Along the way, he bites a very smarmy James Spader ("Shadow of Fear") and they both inappropriately sniff Michelle Pfeiffer ("Stardust").