September 2008. Feels like it’s been about ten years since then yet it’s only been a little over three years. Margin Call does its best to capture a 24-hour period at a fictitious investment bank during that dark economic reality. From the start the tone is ominous. The soundtrack is dark and menacing. An army …
Category Archives: Entertainment
Way late review: Buck
The way we treat animals can often speak volumes about us. The types of pets we have (or don’t have) can also say a lot about us. The behavior of the pet can often reflect a lot on its owner. If Buck Brannaman’s horses reflect on him then the man is one of the greatest …
Way late review: Rocky Balboa
It only took about 16 years for Hollywood execs to burn Rocky V from their memories in order to allow Sylvester Stallone one last Rocky film – Rocky Balboa. Unfortunately for Stallone this meant he was just about 60 years old. As if making one last Rocky film wasn’t hard enough. The boxing world has …
Way late review: Quigley Down Under
Some actors are easy for me to believe in a historical setting while others are not. Tom Selleck falls in the hard to believe category. It’s no fault of his own. He’s not a bad actor but put him in a period piece where he’s a sharp shooting American cowboy, Matt Quigley, and I find …
Way late review: Moneyball
Baseball, America’s past time. That is not what the movie Moneyball (based on the best selling book of the same name by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis) is about. Nor is it about sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball metrics that overcomes the subjective with the objective. True, baseball and sabermetrics are key to …
Way late review: Certified Copy
I’m still processing what Certified Copy is about exactly. The film centers on a man and a woman who meet in Tuscany. From the start we’re unsure whether there is or was a romantic relationship between them or not. At times it feels as though they are antagonizing strangers. Other times they seem the closest …
Way late review: Rocky V
If Rocky IV needed to be made to save the world, as I so eloquently argued in my review, then Rocky V needs to be unmade, if not to save the world then to save some dignity for the Rocky franchise. There is so much wrong with Rocky V. I learned recently that Sylvester Stallone …
Way late review: Rocky IV
Some might say there was no need for Rocky IV to be made. Maybe. But remember, America needed Rocky IV to be made. The WORLD needed Rocky IV to be made. The US was in the midst of a cold war with the Soviet Union. Without Rocky there to remind us that good triumphs evil, …
Way late review: Midnight in Paris
When we look back on the year in movies of 2011 we might see it as a pinnacle year for nostalgia. There were numerous super hero movies that have a long history in comic books. Super 8 was nothing if not a call back to the “good old days” of the 1980’s. We even saw …
Way late review: Rocky III
Rocky is the champ. He’s defending his belt since beating Apollo Creed. He lives in a giant house, owns numerous sports cars, looks better than ever. Top of the world for Balboa in Rocky III. Yet lingering in the background is an angry fellow with long feather earrings. Mr T? No (well, kind of). B. …