meairton-39463 Reviews

Ishtar (1987)

Far better than its reputation

[8/10 · 16 December 2021]

In the late 80s, a friend who had repeatedly recommended movies to me that I didn't like made me a promise: if I watched Ishtar with him and didn't like it, he'd never recommend another movie to me.

I watched it with him, and have seen it many times since. And, as per the promise, that friend went on to recommend numerous other movies to me in the subsequent years.

It's funny, silly, and highly entertaining. And it's weird when a critical dog-piling gains so much steam that it completely flattens a movie. Should it have won major awards? No, probably not. But there are far, far worse ways to spend two hours than watching two legendary Hollywood actors clearly having a blast making a movie together.

Leave your preconceived notions at the door, sit back and watch. You'll probably enjoy yourself.

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

Really wanted to love this

[5/10 · 8 November 2021]

I really did. Big fan of The Sopranos so I had high hopes. The performances of the leads (Alessandro Nivola, Leslie Odom, Michael Gandolfini, Vera Farmiga, Jon Bernthal, Ray Liotta) were all good and the movie's visual style, costumes and music helped set it in the late Sixties / early Seventies.

But the plot felt rushed, there was too much setup for the show crammed into two hours, a lot more could have been done with Dickie's character, some of the homages to the show seemed contrived, and the younger versions of Paulie, Pussy and Silvio seemed like caricatures. Characters like Jackie Aprile, Carmella and Artie showed up once and were given nothing to do. I wish they'd instead made it into a series, or at least a limited series, to give the actors more to work with.

(One more thing - I may have missed something, but did Junior really have Dickie killed just for laughing at him? That was weak.)

Overall, what could have been a fascinating backstory just seemed forgettable and unnecessary. It could have been a great addition to The Sopranos story but, unfortunately, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.

Deadly Illusions (2021)

Easy to laugh at its badness

[2/10 · 21 March 2021]

Kristen Davis is a mediocre actress, but Dermot Mulroney deserved better. Contrived and silly plot in which the African-American best friend predictably gets murdered (I indicated that this review has spoilers, but this is so predictable as to be seen a mile away), the main character violates every rule of employer-employee relationships, and the characters do a lot of things that just plain don't make sense.

Guest House (2020)

Awful

[2/10 · 24 December 2020]

To paraphrase the famous writer who put it more eloquently than me, this is one of those movies where you hate the good guys, are indifferent to the bad guys, and wish they'd all drown together.

In fairness, the fact that it stars Pauly Shore and some guy from Jackass was warning enough.

Spartacus (2010–2013)

Wasn't expecting much, but.... WOW.

[9/10 · 14 August 2019]

I started watching this very belatedly in early 2019 while waiting for the final season of Game of Thrones. I figured some swords-and-sandals would fit the bill in the meantime.

For the first two episodes, that's exactly what I got. Nothing special; a lot of gory violence, graphic sex and nudity, and colourful baroque mock-Shakespearean dialogue so over-the-top that I couldn't tell whether the acting was good or not. However, I had seen John Hannah (Batiatus) and Lucy Lawless (Lucretia) in other things before, so I stuck with it.

And damn, did the show hook me quickly after that. Yes, the dialogue is absurd and nobody ever spoke like that, but the actors deliver it with such unrestrained gusto and are clearly having such a blast making the show that you can't help but get swept up in it. Also, the dialogue has the added virtue of being clever and well-written: for example, there's a scene in the final season (don't worry, no spoilers) in which Marcus Crassus is having a discussion with his son Tiberius and a young Julius Caesar. Crassus is speaking to both of them, and they are answering him -- but Crassus is completely oblivious to the fact that Tiberius and Caesar are simultaneously having their own verbal sparring match against each other, while still advancing their three-way discussion. I rewound that scene a few times just to watch it play out.

Gory violence and graphic sex can only sustain a show for so long; fortunately, the characters are beautifully written and developed, and their relationships with each other (romantic or otherwise) are allowed to evolve and progress. By the end of the show I had come to care greatly about the central characters -- and what else could possibly be the mark of well-written characters effectively portrayed?

It's the stuff of TV legend by this point that Andy Whitfield, who gave a virtuoso performance as Spartacus in season one, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after filming wrapped, and that it took his life. The switch to his successor Liam McIntyre took a little bit to get used to, but McIntyre stepped into the unenviable position of taking over from a well-liked and tragically departed predecessor in a central role, and made it his own. No small feat, that.

In closing, if you're not a fan of gory violence, graphic sex and nudity, and casual profanity, this show won't be for you. If you're a "fan" of those things, watch the show, and you'll be surprised by how quickly they take a back seat to the story and the characters. Enjoy!

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

Extremely well done

[9/10 · 22 October 2018]

My wife and I weren't expecting anything terribly special when we started watching this, but it's blown us away. Horror movies and shows are typically fairly linear: things seem fine at the start and get worse and worse before reaching the climax. HHH disorients the viewer (intentionally) as it gradually introduces the back story, the characters and their motivations via flashbacks. In that respect it reminded us of Westworld (which leads to our only, trifling, criticism: the title sequence feels like a horror ripoff of Westworld).

We're only in episode seven and it's an unpredictable, scary, unnerving show. The performances are uniformly excellent (Violet McGraw as young Nell is a standout among the young versions of the five children), and it's great to see Henry Thomas (Elliot from E.T.) in a detailed, complex role that lets him work his acting chops to their fullest.

Particularly noteworthy is "the episode in the funeral parlour", which features several lengthy single-shot scenes featuring handheld cameras and complex movements and interactions by multiple characters without cuts. A great piece of filmmaking.

7 Days in Entebbe (2018)

How can a fascinating topic be made so dull?

[3/10 · 19 August 2018]

The Entebbe hostage taking, and especially the subsequent rescue mission, constituted a fascinating historical event. Thus the leaden pacing of this movie is a bitter disappointment. For comparison, one need look no further than the 1977 film Raid On Entebbe, which does the story far more justice. It's mind boggling why any filmmaker thought the maddening slow motion scene of Israeli troops storming the Entebbe terminal, intercut with shots of a soldier's girlfriend dancing, was a good idea.

The film's saving graces were the performances of Rosamund Pike and Daniel Bruhl, and the additional time given to exploring their characters' motivations and reasons for joining the PFLP. Then again, the material is nothing that wouldn't have been more valuable in the hands of Mariclare Costello and Horst Buchholz in the 1977 version.

Watch the 1977 movie first, and then put on this one and skip to the Pike/Bruhl scenes.