Rescue Dawn (2006)

Rescue Dawn is director Werner Herzog's scripted dramatic rendering of events he had previously covered in his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It is the story of Dieter Dengler, the German born U.S. pilot who was the first American to escape from a POW camp during the Vietnam War. His plane was shot down over Laos in February of 1966, he was captured, tortured, and placed in a POW camp along with two fellow Americans, three Thai's and one Chinese. The group staged a mass escape in the summer of 1966 but ultimately it was only Dieter who was able to make it out alive. Dengler had endured harsh conditions before growing up in Germany during and in the aftermath of the second World War, and his determination to survive served him well. After Vietnam Dieter worked as a test pilot and survived multiple other crashes before succumbing to Lou Gehrig's disease in 2001. Dieter is played affectively by Christian Bale in the film, though I wish he had at least tried for a German accent. Steve Zahn gives a better then expected performance as fellow POW Duane W. Martin. This is quite the story. ***1/2

The Living Daylights (1987)

Bond #15 is Timothy Dalton's first appearance in the role. Thought there is not a hard break here per say, The Living Daylights is where I would reset the chronology and divide the Connery/Lazenby/Moore Bond's from the Dalton (and presumably Brosnan) one's. Timothy Dalton is 16 years younger then Connery and 19 younger then Moore, so he's of a different generation and not buyable as a continuation of the previous continuity. Even age difference aside Dalton's Bond is of a different character then his predecessors, and of a more serious disposition, as is the tone of the film. A late cold war story of yet another rouge Soviet (played by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé'), this one colluding with an American arms dealer played by Joe Don Baker, who is this films biggest throw back to the camp quality of Roger Moore's Bond films. The rest of the film is fairly serious though, for a Bond film, and refreshing for being so. Exotic locations include Gibraltar, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Tangier and Afghanistan, this is a very late 80's topical Bond. Maryam d'Abo is a Bond girl, and the theme song is by A-ha, so now I know two A-ha songs. I really liked the sequence at the end with Dalton and Andreas Wisniewski fighting on rope net dangling from the back of a moving plane. John Rhys-Davies plays a Russian general. ***1/2 for reinventing itself.

Lucky (2017)

While Frank and Ava, a fourth coming film about the tempestuous relationship between Frank Sinatra and the actress Ava Gardner will be Harry Dean Stanton's final film credit, his penultimate film Lucky is the perfect spiritual benediction to the long career of this great character actor, who passed away in September at age 91. A pleasant amble of a film, not much plot wise happens in Lucky, which simply depicts around five days in the life of its titular nonagenarian protagonist. Wearing a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt (he has a wardrobe containing a number of such identical garments) Lucky shuffles along the streets of the small Arizona desert town where he lives, and interacts with various locals.

Lucky seems to be a generally beloved resident of his little community, though we don't get much in the way of direct backstory, such as how he ended up in this town. Most of the biographical information we get about this character are things he shares with the actor portraying him, Lucky is a never married atheist originally from Kentucky who was a cook in the navy during World War II. While occasionally cranky there is something just very endearing and likable about him, and while he may seem to posses little in life we learn that his name is a perfect summation of what he feels himself to be.

From an original screenplay by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja, Lucky is capably helmed by the actor John Carroll Lynch in his directorial debut, his style is for the most part simple and straight forward, save for one late night bar sequence I have not been able to fully figure out. The film is packed with likable supporting roles and nicely cast, including Ed Begley Jr., Tom Skerritt, Beth Grant, James Darren in his first film appearance in 16 years, and Stanton's friend and semi-frequent director David Lynch as a widower in search of his lost tortoise. I found it all rather enjoyable, and very low key. ***1/2.

A View to a Kill (1985)

The "real" Bond # 14 is Roger Moore's last. The plot starts out being about race horses and ends up about computer chips.  Christopher Walken plays an industrialist and Soviet sleeper agent gone rouge, super model Grace Jones is his chief henchwoman. Former TV spy Partrick Macness from The Avengers assists Bond for a bit, and Tanya Roberts, now best known as Midge Pinciotti on That 70's Show is a Bond girl. Exotic locations include Siberia, France, and the San Francisco Bay area. There is a scene where the bad guys start a fire at San Francisco City Hall, to be able to film this scene the production had to coordinate with the then mayor Dianne Feinstein and she and Sir Roger Moore became friends, true story. Duran Duran did the theme song. This is a better movie then Octopussy. ***

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Sean Connery returns to the role of James Bond for the second and final time in the appropriately titled Never Say Never Again. A continuity orphan Never Say Never Again was not produced by the Eon group like the rest of the films in the James Bond franchise, and accordingly is not generally "numbered" among them. So while this is technically Bond #14 so is A View To A Kill which came out 2 years later. The reason this movie even got to be made is do to a legal dispute involving Kevin McClory, a writer and producer on the 1965 Bond film Thunderball, which resulted in his retaining remake rights to that story, which is essentially what Never Say Never Again is, a remake a Thunderball. In fact the first 40% or so of the film is such a near beat by beat repetition of the earlier movie that I found it kind of grating, though it starts to vary more significantly from the original in the second half which is the better part of the film, even with its interestingly odd 'video game' competition between Bond and villain Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Exotic locations include an English heath resort, the Bahamas, the south of France, and north Africa. A 29 year old Kim Basinger is a Bond girl, and Mr. Bean himself Rowan Atkinson is in this for some reason. Max von Sydow is wasted in a brief cameo as Blofield. While it was nice to see Connery back I wish he had been given new material. **1/2

Octopussy (1983)

Octopussy, the 13th James Bond movie is easily the worst so far. The first two thirds were surpassingly dull, the last third however was pretty good. The plot is a little confusing, its actually two plots, one involving the forging of Faberge eggs and the other the smuggling of a nuclear weapon. Exotic locations include wherever that pre-title sequence is supposed to be set (I'm at a loss, maybe Mexico?) both sides of Berlin, Russia, India, and more then the usual amount of time in Britain. Two Swedish born Bond girls here, Kristina Wayborn and Maud Adams, the latter a repeat from The Man with the Golden Gun, but here playing a different character. The very white French star Louis Jourdan plays an exiled Afghani prince. "All Time High" sung by Rita Coolidge may be the best of the lesser known Bond theme songs. **

The Big Sick (2017)

Inspired by events early in the relationship between Pakistani born comic Kumail Nanjiani and his North Carolina born wife Emily, who co-wrote the screenplay together, The Big Sick is an unusually smart, even effecting comedy, and doubtless one of the best films of the year. Directed by the actor Michael Showalter and produced by Judd Apatow, this film has all the heart and wit of the latters best work, but is far below its median in terms of crudity. After having a fight and breaking up over Kumail's unwillingness to tell his very traditional Pakistani parents that he is dating a white girl, Emily (Zoe Kazan, adorable) falls into a coma, leaving Kumail to help guide her parents (perfectly cast Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) through this very trying situation. While there is obviously an air of While You Were Sleeping about the proceedings, The Big Sick is far from shy on its own merits. Nanjiani is a revelation, funny, a really sweet seeming guy, I only hope he can find or create more film properties worthy of him. A real treat of a film. ****

Columbus (2017)

The city of Columbus, Indiana, in addition to being the home town of current vice president Mike Pence, is also home to an unusually large concentration of modernist architecture, to the point that its a bit of a tourist mecca to a niche crowd of architecture nerds. The plot of the new film Columbus,  like the town in which it is set, revolves around architecture, and there is something architectural about the way it is filmed by video artist Kogonada. The framing and composition of the shots is modernist, removed, maybe slightly off center, but the emotional core of the film is quite strong, with subtlety effecting performances throughout, particularly by the young Haley Lu Richardson, who is making a strong early impression with her work here and in The Edge of Seventeen, one of last years better films.

Richardson plays Casey, a smart young woman just a year out of high school who is working at the local library and helping her single mother Maria (Michelle Forbes) for whom she seems nervously concerned. Casey has a love of the architectural treasures in her community, and it is this interest that first breakers the ice with Jin (John Cho) the son of a prominent architectural scholar, who has traveled to the small town from his native Korea after his father feel into coma while in Columbus conducting research. This unlikely couple, both lonely and dealing with complicated parental relationships, comes into each others lives at pivotal moments of self discovery, and help one another navigate their complicated feelings towards their parents.

The small supporting cast, chiefly Rory Culkin and Parker Posey do fine work here as well, but the movie belongs Cho and Richardson, both doing the best work they have ever done. A beautiful, profound little film that caught me by surprise and may be the best new movie I've seen all year. I just loved this. ****

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Bond number 12 means that I am half way through and finally inside my own lifetime. In a more serious and realistic (to the extent that James Bond movies can be called realistic) vain then the previous couple of outings in the series, the plot here concerns the sinking of a British spy vessel in the Mediterranean, and the cold war motivated race to retrieve sunken military technology there on. Exotic locations include Greece, northern Italy, Albania, and Cypress, or was it Crete? French model Carole Bouquet is the principle Bond girl, Israeli actor Topol (Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof) plays a prominent blackmarketer. For the first (and possibly only?) time M does not appear in this movie, as actor Bernard Lee died early in the filming process. This films pre-credit sequence feature the first appearance of Blofeld, though never seen head on and never identified by name, since we last saw him being slammed against the side of an oil rig in a helicopter attached to a giant magnet in Diamonds are Forever 10 years previously. Blofeld is apparently killed off in this little cameo, and frankly its a disappointing ending for him. Still *** Also good theme song.


Ranking the Bonds so far:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Dr. No
Thunderball
Diamonds are Forever
You Only Live Twice
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
Live and Let Die
For Your Eyes Only
The Man with the Golden Gun

Pinaple Express (2008)

Seth Rogen and James Franco's "pot action movie" has a few good scenes (like Rogen's undercover process serving at the beginning, or him and Franco stoned in the woods playing leapfrog) but isn't really my thing. Somewhat notable for early appearances by Danny McBride and Amber Heard. **

Spielberg (2017)

HBO made documentary overview of the life and work of director Steven Spielberg. Even at nearly two and a half hours in length the film is not exhaustive, but all the high points are covered, and I got a pretty good sense of the family divorce drama that so effected Steven as a young man, and is especially felt in his early work. One common criticism of Steven Spielberg, and it is addressed in the film, is that his inauguration of "the summer blockbuster" "ruined" movies. I don't think that is a fair criticism, Spielberg is gifted, a master of smart, big tent entertainment, he can't be blamed for his lesser imitators or the profit driven nature of the film industry. He truly is one of the most remarkable directors in cinema history, and while there have been some misses in his career the overall quality of the bulk of his work is truly impressive. ***

Coriolanus (2011)

Adaptation of the lesser known Shakespeare play about the rise, fall, and quest for revenge of the 5th century BC Roman leader Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. This movie is done in the style of such other Shakespeare film adaptions as Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Julie Taymor's Titus, where the setting is amorphously contemporized (Coriolanus is evocative of 1990's Bosnia) but the original Shakespearian language is kept, with Brian Cox and Vanessa Redgrave particularly good with the dialogue. The film stars Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus, this is also his directorial debut and he acquits himself quite well at it. Jessica Chastain and Gerard Butler also appear in this, and the latters presence begs the question of just how much the venn diagrams for Shakespeare fans and Gerard Butler fans overlaps. This is a good movie, I thought the adaption worked well, you can follow events pretty easily which is sometimes a little difficult to do with Shakespeare, especially when they use the original dialogue. I also thought that it helped my viewing that I wasn't familiar with this story, and its a pretty good story, I'd be curious to see another adaption. ***1/2

Career Opportunites (1991)

John Hughes wrote, but did not direct (and in fact expressed some disappointment with the finished product) what feels like a lesser cousin to Ferris Bueller. Frank Whaley plays Jim Dodge, a 21 year old big talker from the Illinois suburbs who is still living at home and going nowhere in life. Fired from a string of jobs Jim eventually takes a position as the "night cleanup boy" at local Target store. On his first day Jim ends up locked in the store overnight with his high school crush Josie McClellan (Jennifer Connelly) a typically Hughesian story of adolescent wish fulfillment. Also rather Hughesian are the two bumbling robbers who end up breaking into the store. A "good enough" movie Career Opportunities is understandably not numbered among Hughes better films. Much of the movie was filmed at night inside a Georgia Target store which is fun to look at, remember cassette tape racks? There were only around 400 Target stores when this movie was shot in 1990, today there are over 1,800. While that chain has faired far better then similar ones like Shopko and Kmart, which were more successful then Target at the time this film was made, Career Opportunities is not one of the reasons for this. In fact the store this movie was filmed in actually shut down a few years ago and is now owned by a protestant mega church. **1/2

Moonraker (1979)

The 11th James Bond movie Moonraker is essentially a remake of 10th James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. The villain is Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) an aerospace billionaire who has enhanced the toxic power of a rare Amazonian orchard and intends to use it to wipe out all human life on Earth (the toxin is human specific and has no effect on plant and animal life). Drax plans to keep a specially selected sample of the best of humanity alive in space until the pollen clears, and I'll be honest his plan is much better thought out and plotted then Karl Stromberg's similar efforts from two years earlier. Further paralleling Bond 10 Bond 11 sees the return of Richard Kiel's Jaws, and again teams the British Bond with a sexy foreign agent, this time Lois Chiles as a CIA operative named Holly Goodhead. Exotic locations include California (and kind of France), Venice, Brazil and outer space. A more refined version of its immediate predecessor, its maybe not quite as much fun but is better put together. ***

Ranking the Bonds so far:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Dr. No
Thunderball
Diamonds are Forever
You Only Live Twice
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
Live and Let Die
The Man with the Golden Gun

The Dark Tower (2017)

There is a scene in The Dark Tower where Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) is looking for a back exit from an Manhattan gun shop where he is being menaced by evil forces, he finds his escape behind a pin up of actress Rita Hayworth, an obvious homage to The Shawshank Redemption. This little moment, which pays tribute to a truly great Stephen King film adaption, only further serves to remind the audience what a piss poor one this is. Now I've not read any of the (currently eight) books in Stephen Kings Dark Tower Series, but I know they are generally well regarded, and even from this film one gets a sense that there is an interesting mythology here to explore. Unfortunately director Nikolaj Arcel and the screen writers blow through it all for a 95 minute mediocrity which is perhaps the worst movie I've seen theatrically all year. Were that this was at least interestingly bad, instead its lifelessly generic. Elba does the best he can in this situation, while the films technical lead character Jake Chambers (Tom Tyler) is just kind of there. Matthew McConaughey's villain 'The Man in Black' is hammy and never really given a chance to develop or seem truly menacing, even while he employs his mind control powers in ways that could have had quite the creepy effect if better handled. This should have been the start of a series of films with a slow burn approach to the material, instead its disposable and the length of a TV pilot. Sad. *

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

After touching on such 70's topical themes as heroin smuggling (Live and Let Die) and 'the energy crisis' (The Man With The Golden Gun) its back to maniacal Blofeldian schemes in the 10th Bond picture The Spy Who Loved Me. Curd Jürgens plays an oil baron and Germanic variant on Aristotle Onassis named Karl Stromberg, whose new advanced submarine tracking technology is a prelude to a plot to trigger World War III and start humanity over under the sea. I could go on at length at how ill-conceived and poorly thought out Stromberg's scheme is here, even if he really wanted to do this thing he is nowhere near ready logistically to keep a viable human genetic base alive, yet he goes ahead anyway. Exotic locations include Austria, Egypt, Sardinia, and the deep blue sea. This film is more overtly Cold War then a lot of Bond movies, with James partnered with his female and Soviet equivalent Anya Amasova, played by future Mrs. Ringo Starr Barbara Bach. This is also the movie that introduces who I think is the only recurring henchman in the Bond franchise, Richard Kiel's metal mouthed giant "Jaws". This is ridicules but fun. Also one of the better Bond theme songs.***