Phat Mack Eyeballs The Flicks

Elevator to the Gallows I like Noir flicks, and I like French flicks, but I usually hate French noir flicks: they never seem to get it right--they always insist on trying to insert a moral into the ending. Last night I saw a possible exception, Elevator to the Gallows. I think it may have been Louis Malle's first movie. It had the typical French ending problems, but it also had a fantastic sound track composed by Miles Davis that more than made up for it. It was sort of a minimalist scoring comprised of sweet jazz--perfect in every way from the minute the film begins to roll. The movie was worth going to just to listen to music interact with the action. After Miles Davis scored this flick, I don't see how anybody made a noir flick without asking him to do the sound track. Compare it to the wailing gangs of saxes used in a Japanese noir film, let's say Tokyo Drifter (a film I dearly love), and it becomes apparent how difficult it is to nail it. This film was recently remaste

The Post Smoking everywhere: Ah, the good old days! NYT: The firstest with the mostest. Daniel Ellsberg: walked the walk. Lies: hypothetically speaking. Wars: lost causes. Lemonade: 1971's BitCoin! Abuse of Power: Never again! Press: the beginning of their love affair with themselves. I wished it had Rosalind Russell, but nevertheless, I, too, love press movies. Check it out. Addendum: The kid who plays the Post's lawyer is the same guy who always called Walter "Mr. White" on Breaking Bad. It came to me as I was folding laundry. Called Jesse Plemons. The Judith Martin who gets thrown out of the White House for crashing wedding receptions is the same Judith Martin who went on to write Miss Manners. Sometimes life is too good to be true. Somebody should do a movie about her.

I, Tonya ++ ++ Totally Real! check. Wholesome American family: check. Beautiful girl, lovely dress Where she is now, I can only guess 'Cause it's gone daddy, gone The love is gone You **** dumb: You don't marry dumb. I won't back down: check. Best in the world: check. Don't you know that you are A shooting star... The Incident: check. Two of my top operatives: Every skater's recurring nightmare. Not: My fault. I was loved: for a minute. ...And all the world will love you Just as long, as long as you are? Fun movie. Great acting. Fantastic use of soundtrack. Check it out.

Last Jedi Warning: This is only the second Star Wars flick I've seen. I may have had some trouble figuring out who the characters were, but eventually got it all straight. Opening title crawl: check. Rebels: check, but alas, no monuments. Phone pranks: check (the kids love phone pranks). "Dreadnaughts" & "Bombs Away!": check. Darth Vader: now played by Adam Driver. Pescatarian Jedi: Played by Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill: now played by Orson Welles in his greatest role. Washed-up has-been Jedi: played superbly by Mark Hamil. Young Luke: now a girl named Rey. Intergender violence: Carrie Fisher. Rey and Luke: get in a light saber fight in the rain (but not sexy). Then: Rey goes to the Death Star (I never figured out why). Then: Rey and Adam Driver and Smeagol get in a light saber fight. I think maybe Rey won. Then: some other stuff happens. Then: Rey is on the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca (I missed the part that explained how). Filmies: some beautiful matc

The Greatest Showman Killer opening: check. Real dancers: check. P.T Barnum: Wolverine, dancing and singing. Freaks: wanted. Jenny Lind: Pop star. Young love: Nothing like junior high rope drills. Freak Flags: Flying. Pompadours: Poised for a big resurgence. Model trains: And CGI elephants. Maybe the best thing I've seen in a long time. Check it out. Quote: Originally Posted by  Howard Beale   I just saw The Greatest Showman and I'd give it half of the Oscars right now. One of the best movies I've seen in years and I don't normally care for musicals. Yeah, pretty much this. 

The Disaster Artist James Franco: Played by Dennis Hopper in his greatest role. Dennis Hopper's Brother: Play by Tom Cruise impersonator, David Franco. Tom Cruise's friend Tommy: Played, of course, by James Franco, the Star of both movies. Melanie Griffith and Sharon Stone: Hollywood eye candy. Coneheads, from France? Nah, Nah Oluns... Be the best: On Tommy's planet. I did not: Hit her. Do it like Shakespeare: but sexy. Malcolm in the Middle: check. This is a fun flick. Check it out. Seeing this flick in no way obligates you to see The Room. 

Shape of Water Sally Hawkins: the best Mute since Chungking Express. Elisa Esposito: Lily Tomlins as envisioned by Harpo. Starring: Beautiful 1950s furniture. Who knew? How people **** in Baltimore. Washing your hands before: Apparently not just poker players. A troupe of Russians: Played by Boris Badenov and assorted Cossack violinists. Cat food: check. Fish porn: check. The General: Wears his ribbons upside down. Seriously people, wtf? Fred and Ginger: All the way, baby. Well made; cogent story; Michael Shannon: what's not to like? Check it out!

Blade of the Immortal (2017 Live version) Kill count in first 2 minutes of flick by pre-immortal samurai Manji: +/- 100. Blood worms: Not just for catching stripers in the surf. In the Edo Period, Japanese women: Wore clubwear, thigh highs, 21st Century hair colors. Extra bonus: Slutty shoes! Jfc, was this thing written by Neal Stephanson? Nothing that horrid -- in fact it's OK to take the whole thing tongue-in-cheek. Samurai: Why are they always standing on roofs? The comic books, the cartoons and now the live-action: Pretty much impossible to follow, plot-wise. But? Manji has stopped wearing a swastika on his back. Kawaii Swordsman (Swordsgirl?): Doesn't get any kills, but is still pretty damn cute! Unforgiven, Billboards, and now Blade of the Immortals: when revenge porn goes wrong. You're lucky, you can die! Check it out!

Coco Dia de los Muertos: ¡Hay Fantasmas! Spirited Away: goes to Club Med. Spirit Dog: May have dropped acid. Odysseus, Dorothy & Miguel: can't seem to get home. The Dead: require justice. (Rashomon? Not quite.) The lady sitting next to me with her kids: smuggled in and chugged 3 tallboys. "I wrote it for:" Coco. Cartoons! Ghosts! Mariachis! What's not to like? Check it out.

  Three Billboards Unforgiven: Played by Ebbing, Missouri. Gene Hackman: Played by pancreatic cancer. Clint Eastwood: Played by Deputy Sam Rockwell. Woody Harrelson: Played by Frances McDormand. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov: as himself. Nobody cares about: Dentists. Driving off to: My own private Idaho. Evil, and its consort, banality, run amok in a most entertaining manner. Check it out.

Tokyo Ghoul Special Preview Alert! Bruce Willis has remade Death Wish! Perfect for our times! Guns! Vigilantes! Live action: somehow I thought anime. Cute girl cannibal: stone cold killer. Otaku: not just for breakfast anymore. Human/Ghoul transplants: whoops! Pink eye: contagious. Cops: fashion icons. Cops: pick on little girls. Tentacle porn: check. Tentacle fu: check. Nerd fu: check. Ghoul on Ghoul violence: check. (At least I think it was violence -- it may just have been rough sex.) Karate Kid: check. Mr. Miyagi: played by ghoul alpha female. Shimizu Fumika: in her greatest role (so far... (...or at least since Hentai Kamen)). There's a moral at the end of the flick, but I lost it in translation. I don't know what possessed me to see this movie, but it was the most fun I've had since the 1st Night of the Living Dead. By all means check it out.

Blade 2049 Ryan Gosling: won't eat his cereal. 3 years after 2046: a lot has changed. Imaginary girlfriends are: the best kind. Who keeps? a dead tree. Daryl Hannah: she's baaaack. Peugeot: the future's hot ride. Garbage dump: incoming. Garbage dump: Fagin mentors voc ed students. Bees: Vegas, Baby! Crash land in a jacuzzi: wtf? Candygram: Land Shark saves the day!!! Ryan Gosling: still won't eat his cereal. Dom's right, it's a great flick. Check it out!

 Lucky Harry Dean Stanton: Dazed & Confused but still lives by a code. Good story? Not really any story, more of a portrait. Plays the harmonica, sings ranchera, and lives on coffee and cigarettes: Chick magnet. Trigger warning: theater packed with old people. Eye candy: Bloody Marys and the desert. Check it out: But might be best to wait until your 70s. It'll keep.

Gook Hahaha, the title of the movie has been censored. Click the link. Or don't. My God! it even killed the link! This is too good! We'll try it this way... Spoiler: Kemilla: steals your heart. L.A. Noire: check. Car wash karaoke: check. Disco shoe store: check. Chicks dig: R & B. It's raining: shoes. Cinematography: beautiful. Length: 94 minutes. I liked: 88 minutes. JFC people, listen up. If you want to make a movie, DO NOT come up with a premise. Come up with an ENDING, and then work backwards so you can lead up to it. Nobody cares about the premise. You have to tell a story. I sat in the movie, and I was getting interested in what was going on, and I was interested in the characters and who they were, and then somebody on the set said, "Hey, we're at 90 minutes! Time to go! We'll tack some weird **** on the end that'll tug at the heartstrings and we're outta here!" GMAFB! Go listen to some Flip Wilson records and note how he tells a story.

Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983) Quintessential Hong Kong Shaw Brothers. Bushy Eyebrow Fu; Sex Fu (haha, not really); Bath Fu; Trampoline Fu. He's handsome!: Shhh, he's still fighting. Cartoon Fu; Buzzsaw Fu; Snake Fu; Finger Fu; Patty Cake Fu; Health Insurance Fu. If you can see it subtitled on the big screen, check it out. If you're interested in the history of Kung Fu flicks, check it out. Pre CGI, but plenty of visible wires and invisible trampolines. Almost too good to be true.

Don Jon When David Gordon-Levitt was on 3rd Rock, I liked him but didn't give him much thought. I saw him play the lead in Brick and started paying a lot more attention to him. He's become an actor whose work I seek out. (Others, for example, are Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gary Oldman, Michael Shannon -- to name a few.) This flick is ostensibly about DGL's character, Don Jon, and his addiction to porn, but in reality it's about the war for his attention. He's got multiple rote routines, and they all serve to keep him from considering his own life and what it might become. It also features Scarlett Johansson with a New Yawk accent worthy of any love-hate relationship. Tony Danza, Julianne Moore -- what's not to love? Do ya'self a faavaa and check it out. 

  Restrepo Maybe NSFW (language) Guys stuck at some godforsaken FB with no clear idea of what the **** they are supposed to be doing? At least we saw the last of that **** in the 60s. Nobody is stupid enough to make the same ****ing mistakes over and over. Hearts and Minds:  check . Flack jacket, skivvies, hot brass in the shoe:  check . There's a sequel called Kornigal that's also worth seeing. If you watch Restrepo, you can say you saw a war movie.  Check  it out.

Have a Nice Day Plastic surgery: Botched. Shangri-La: Youngstown on the Yangtze. Steal the money: **7 Goodfellas: Three Stooges. Q: Maxwell Smart. Startup: Dropout from Harvard. Zucker & Gates: Brother Skinny. Shaggy Dog Story: Written by Rube Goldberg. Cell phone ringtones: Just as annoying in China. Spoiler Alert: No. Sorry, I don't have the heart. You'll just have to see it. King-of-the-Hill-style animation. Very enjoyable movie. Check it out. P.S. I tried google, but couldn't find out about the soundtrack. If anyone knows the songs, please post youtube or weibo links.* Have a nice day.  * David Liang of the Shanghai Restoration Project