gregoryrice06 Reviews

The Lost City (2022)

What I wanted

[6/10 · 1 September 2022]

I liked this movie. It had the elements of an adventure-comedy like the newer Jumanji movies which is what I was looking for, though it lacked the dynamics of a great cast like Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson in those movies so wasn't quite as strong. Daniel Radcliffe was weak as the villain and didn't seem entirely believable. Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock were great but I think they lack a certain element to really bring this movie to greatness, though their on screen chemistry was perfect. The plot was pretty mediocre but about what I expected, a fun adventure through the jungle to find treasure. Overall a fun chill adventure. I'm glad I didn't see it in theaters but it's perfect to watch while chilling at home.

Miracle Mile (1988)

90 minute mile

[7/10 · 4 July 2022]

The movie starts out with a Twin Peaks vibe with romantic synths provided by Tangerine Dream. The main character is a doofus but I'm endeared to him. The mullet of his love interest belongs in a museum. Things are off to a great start.

After a mishap involving the main characters alarm clock and a wrong number call to a phone booth, the protagonist finds out nuclear war is imminent and the missiles have already been launched. As he attempts to make sense of this knowledge with others, they come up with a plan to evacuate the area and our protagonist goes to find his love interest and get the hell out of dodge. The movie starts to remind me of Scorsese's After Hours and I'm enjoying the ride.

It gets darker though and becomes unsettling. What if he was wrong and all the madness and death is his fault? Maybe it's best if he's right and the bomb really does happen.

After a while though, after every mistake our protagonists make due to lack of communication or lack of focus on their objective, it starts to get a little annoying. They finally make it to their destination and seem like they're going to make it, but the bombs were real and they end up in the tar pits. At least that mullet may one day end up in a museum after all!

The film is interesting in examining the questions of what to do with your limited time left. Some are able to reconcile their relationships. Others will get drunk and high or turn to violence. Maybe it's best to go in your sleep rather than see the worst of human nature taking hold before bomb drops.

Overall I enjoyed the vibe but the plot was a little weak/repetitive and felt padded out to 90 minutes. I'm surprised to see this director barely did any more directing since the directors of movies I would compare this movie to are legends and other movies I would compare this to are all cult classics.

Seems Like Old Times (1980)

Seems like a Chevy Chase movie

[5/10 · 2 May 2021]

This movie is entertaining enough but not really funny or memorable. I can say that for sure because I watched it twice by accident.

The Lobster (2015)

Missed the mark

[5/10 · 2 May 2021]

The idea was intriguing and this was something I had been wanting to watch since it came out, I just didn't enjoy it. It seemed so contrived and it felt like the actors were just going over their lines without emotion, so I didn't really connect with anyone or really care about the plot. There wasn't really a sensible reason for people to turn in to animals or for the loners to be just as brutal about relationships. I get the point it was making, but it didn't really resonate with me.

Mr. Nobody (2009)

Wow, so deep

[7/10 · 4 April 2021]

What a cool concept. Everyone can relate to looking back on their life and wondering about the one who got away or if they made a different choice in life and how things might be different. In this movie, the perspective isn't from someone looking back, but from someone looking forward to someone looking back who hasn't determined what the life they've lived has been like. Many of the scenes are dreamlike in quality and there is a lot of unique imagery. All of these things usually make for a great postmodern movie I'll enjoy, but actually I didn't find it resonated with me too strongly. Still a good movie for people that like to think, but it wasn't mind blowing.

Mrs. Winterbourne (1996)

Typical romantic movie

[5/10 · 4 April 2021]

Overall I enjoyed it, but it's nothing special. I like Shirley MacLaine and have some nostalgia for Brendan Fraser. The plot wasn't bad but not terribly original. If you don't want to think too hard about things and just put on something to relax, this is an okay movie for doing that. It wasn't super funny but kind of fun.

Heavy Metal (1981)

Concept better than execution

[4/10 · 4 April 2021]

It started out okay with an animated car entering the atmosphere of Earth, and I was feeling good about my choice to watch this. Unfortunately it fizzled out pretty quickly. The animation style wasn't very appealing to me and the stories were kind of lame. For being called Heavy Metal and so many bands being advertised, the actual music was sparse. It had some okay scenes but they were few and far between.

Donnie Darko (2001)

The Killing Moon

[7/10 · 18 October 2020]

At some point I rated this a 9 but I don't think I ever saw the ending. Maybe that was the Directors Cut and I forgot, but watching the original version again, I say it's more like a 7. The movie has a wonderful soundtrack and really got me into Echo and The Bunnymen when i first saw it at 15 or 16. Donnie was an interesting character, a rebel, and someone I strongly related to. I loved the 80s at the time, watching VH1's I Love The 80s and playing GTA: Vice City, so the atmosphere and music were a large part of why I liked the movie. Watching again at 31, the atmosphere still holds up. I don't relate to Donnie so much anymore. And I guess I've seen so many time travel or parallel universe movies that judging it based on that plot alone it's a little weak. Apparently this is something explained in the directors cut better, so maybe check that version out if it's your first time watching. After reading an online explanation the plot actually sounds really cool, I just don't think any of that was explained in the version of the movie I watched or I'd give a better rating.

The Boys (2019– )

You don't need to see this.

[1/10 · 16 October 2020]

Yeah, yeah, the plot is interesting, cool idea, but it's a gross out fest all the way through. Unless you really want to know how dead inside you are, save your mental health and watch something else. I wish I could erase my memory.

Magnolia (1999)

The Infinite Jest

[6/10 · 24 May 2020]

First of all, this movie is too damn long. PTA has said this. I tried to watch this movie probably 6 times before finally sticking it out last night.

The movie starts out discussing coincidence, it appears that the tale about to be woven will end up with coincidence and form a rich tapestry, but ends up as a loosely connected ball of yarn. Frank reunited with his dad. Frank's dad owns the quiz show. The former quiz kid runs into the cop. The kid the cop talked to early on sees the 2nd wife OD-ing, the cop dates the daughter of the quiz show host, the current quiz kid has no connection to anything. They all experience the same weather weird or otherwise. I don't really see how it relates to the stories told at the beginning and half the time just tried to figure out where it was going or why I care about these characters. Certain storylines seemed to be tacked on to match the barely existent theme of coincidence. Bible verses are thrown in obviously but aren't a key to an underlying theme, just some verse about frogs. Maybe I missed something?

Other than that though, the actors are excellent, direction is excellent, even the stories have many excellent gripping moments, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Glass (2019)

The end

[4/10 · 27 May 2019]

Basic plot is Unbreakable guy and Split guy come together to fight.

Split guy is apparently a supervillain while Unbreakable guy is a superhero. Unbreakable guy finds out who Split guy is but they then end up in a psychiatric hospital. Mr. Glass is there. The hospital tries to convince them they are not superheroes/villains. Mr. Glass outsmarts everyone and they all break out. They fight, everybody dies, the end.

The performance by James McAvoy was great, but we've already seen Split so I didn't need more of that. Unbreakable guy and Split guy are pretty evenly matched so the fights aren't really interesting. They kill some time in the psychiatric hospital but there's not many twists except that Mr. Glass outsmarts everyone. The overall theme was that some people don't want you to know how special you are. Okay, I agree with that. But really, kind of a disappointment. Not much happens and what does happen is not interesting.

If you're dying to know what happens in Unbreakable and Split, go ahead and watch it, but you probably won't love it.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

A lot of hits for QUEEN

[7/10 · 27 May 2019]

Any movie with this much QUEEN music for the soundtrack is going to be entertaining. I didn't know much about Freddie's personal life going into this. I didn't know he was Indian Parsi was or that he had four extra incisors or why he carried a broken microphone stand. I didn't know much about his relationships. It was interesting to watch and learn a little more about Freddie and the band. At the same time a lot of his life felt glossed over and I feel this movie might have been better as a miniseries. I had to spend some time on Wikipedia after watching to get the facts of what really happened.

The basic formula was Freddie goes through some personal event, band gets together and makes up a new song, performance of new song, band gets more popular, Freddie goes through some personal stuff, band gets together to make a new song, more popular... A few twists and turns here and there but it's not much variety. What can you expect from a band since that is their life? The imitation is almost good as good as reality, just watch live Queen performances. The bassist and guitarist are spot on lookalikes. Freddie definitely has the most unique features of them all but Rami Malek captured his personality and flair during performances excellently. I've watched Mr. Robot a few times and Malek's voice doesn't seem to be dynamic enough to capture Freddie's speech as I was catching a lot of Elliott in his performance of Freddie. It would have been interesting to see how Sacha Baron Cohen would have played Freddie as he definitely looks more like Freddie to me. The live performances are entertaining and very well done. Yeah, it's lip-syncing live performances that are already out there, but still entertaining. I do wish they could have incorporated real footage of the live performances in with the acted version, because Freddie is such a larger than life performer that you just have to see him in real life.

Overall, being a casual fan of QUEEN, this was an entertaining way to learn more about the band and re-experience some of their greatest hits. I'll definitely be listening to them again the next few days.

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

I'm mad

[5/10 · 30 September 2009]

Last night I went to see this. I saw corporations taking advantage of people, and capitalists exposed as the force of evil in this country. I was mad. I wanted to yell at the screen how I felt. "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" I saw families being evicted, because banks force them to take out loans that they can't pay off with ridiculous interest rates. I saw greedy "vultures" buying these homes so they could turn a profit, with no regard for whoever got thrown out on the streets. I saw corporations were taking life insurance policies on their employees, and when they died, the families were deep in debt, but the corporations collected on these "dead peasant" policies. How could a country as great as ours be so evil? Michael Moore's answer: Capitalism. I agreed with him, for a while. Large corporations should not have the ability to do this, and they should be regulated so they cannot. Of course, Capitalism has allowed these people to get to the position where they can influence the law so that they are no longer regulated. Michael Moore, the hero of the film, exposes this "plutocracy". So far, this film was going somewhere. I was struck in a place documentaries often don't hit me, but eventually Moore loses his flame. He starts pushing socialism on us, trying to explain why it would be better than capitalism. People deserve a right to health care, and free education. What he uses as an example of this is horrid. He says that we should be more like Germany, where the government can take over a corporation to create more jobs, and the large corporations/state takes care of those workers. But, we're in America, the land of opportunity. Everyone here has a right to an education, can take out loans if they choose to, and can climb as far up the ladder as they want. He uses the example of pilots, that make only ~$20k a year, and have to work second jobs to do what they love. He tries to make us think, "No wonder they crash planes, they're so underpaid!" but, these are at regional airlines, and ~$20k is the starting salary. If they were ex-military pilots flying on major airlines, then they would probably be making about twice that. Some airline pilots make up to $300k a year!! No, Michael Moore doesn't show us the land of opportunity, he shows us the bottom of the barrel. Those pilots are making very little money, but they are doing what they love. I am sure that they will receive raises at some point, and eventually they'll make it to a commercial airline and make some real cash. In Germany, or other socialist countries, people take tests to see how far in education they can go to maximize production. Somebody who may like piloting may not necessarily be as good at it as someone else, so they might not even get the chance to fly for a living. That's how they save money. Here in America, we have opportunity, and that counts for a lot. On the other hand, there are a lot of terrible, disgusting deals happening with huge corporations. They're robbing us blind, and something needs to be done about it. This is when I saw Michael Moore's agenda. He says that large corporations, the secretary of the treasury, and all of the top politicians are in on this. They try to bail themselves out, by saying that the great depression will come. He shows image after image of Bush trying to get a $700 billion plus bailout passed, but due to the action of the American people, it never does. Then he says that the American people start acting, and got Obama elected. Thank god. But wait: Who passed a $780 billion bailout for large corporations? Obama Yes, that's right it was all Bush's fault(Moore could never stop pointing that out), and now Obama is here to save us, by doing EXACTLY the same thing. I couldn't even tell what he was going for at this point. He wants us to start a revolution, and start asking for our money back. His idea of a revolution was him performing for a camera, pretending to try and go into a bank to make a citizen's arrest, which was exactly what I saw in the advertisements. The only other option he gives us is to vote for Obama, who is supposed to be SO much different than Bush. Who passed the bailout? Obama. Who's expanding troop presence in Afghanistan? Obama. Who appointed Tim Geithner to Secretary of Treasury? Obama. Obama is just as much of a pawn as Bush, but Moore insinuates this is purely because of corporations. I was glad he chose to mention Bernie Sanders. He's someone who really does support Socialism, and could bring it into fruition successfully. However, the problem is much graver than it seems. We are already powerless against these corporations. They will destroy Democracy, and they will use anything to do it. Moore's movie was not life-changing. It was painful at times due to real footage of victims of corporatism, but I think more likely than not, he was just using these people to make another buck, just like a corporation. I doubt his sincerity, and doubt the kind of action he asks for will do anything. He does have some really good points/footage in the first 3/4, so I'll give it a 7/10 for that, but the last quarter was a boner, 0/10. With that I say 5/10 total. So, maybe people will react to this strongly, but Moore pushes their faith in the wrong direction. I WISH people would take action, but they likely won't, and this movie will be the one that keeps pointing people further and further down the spiral. To see a better movie about what is going on in America, Google(video) "Freedom to Fascism".

Adventureland (2009)

Meh

[4/10 · 19 March 2009]

This movie was okay. It had some funny parts, and an alright storyline/plot, but overall it wasn't that great. Unlike Superbad, it did not make me feel good inside. It more made me feel bad about the people in the movie. The entire movie also seems like a lot of stitched together plot pieces and sometimes became random. One of the things I noticed was is that after watching the movie at this sneak preview I went to, I saw the funniest parts in the advertisements on TV. I'd never seen the advertisements before this movie, but just watch them and you'll be alright. It's one of those movies. Acting isn't great, but the kid from Freaks and Geeks is in it, and that was cool. The main character acts a lot like Michael Cera, but he isn't. Don't take your girlfriend to it, the love story plot is depressing the entire movie. Don't take your guy friends the love story is depressing the entire movie. Do get high before this movie, really high, and make sure you go for free or else you're getting ripped. I don't recommend this movie whatsoever.