The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Maybe because I had low expectations going into it, and/or maybe because I just like Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, I thought The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was brilliant. There are so many hilarious scenes, and the timing and delivery of the lines is (frequently, although not always) dead on. The plot is less than inspired, but it looks slick, and the soundtrack really stands out.

I didn't have high hopes for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It got pretty mixed reviews. People like to pick on Guy Ritchie for some reason. I liked Snatch, and I wasn't impressed with Lock, Stock, although I can't remember either movie anymore at this point. But Sherlock Holmes was great. I need to see RocknRolla. I wanted to see The Man in the theater, but circumstances prevented me from doing it, the first time it came in from the library I flat out didn't have time to watch it, so I've been wanting to see it for forever.

I *thought* I hadn't ever seen Henry Cavill in anything until I just checked and found out he was the super hot guy from The Tudors. He's still super hot, and I love his voice. Solo reminded me a lot of Neal from White Collar. They're basically the same guy - a thief who got caught and is now working for the government. Although Neal wasn't in the Army. Henry's acting wasn't exactly perfect. There was something a little *too* mannered/deliberate/campy about it. But it did work most of the time. 

The only thing I'd ever seen Armie Hammer in was The Lone Ranger, but he was great in that. So I was basically just interested in The Man because of the two lead guys. And the trailer had some great lines. I liked the idea of these two guys who hate each other having to work together. I'm sure it's not the first time it's ever been done, but it looked interesting anyway. It was really tough at first to buy Armie as a Russian guy, though. I don't know how authentic his accent was, but I just kept thinking, "this guy isn't Russian and I know it." He and Henry did absolutely kill it a lot of the time in terms of comedic timing/delivery/tone, though.

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters is a classic. It's probably worth watching just as a point of reference, and it does have its funny moments, but it's pretty simple.

Somehow I've never seen Ghostbusters. I feel like I must have seen it at some point, I just didn't remember it. I'm surprised nobody ever made me watch it. Bill Murray's performance was interesting. I haven't really ever appreciated him in anything, but I heard right before I watched this that he ad libbed a lot of the stuff. He was pretty charismatic. Really the center of the movie.

The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight has some interesting characters and scenes, but it's not exactly iconic.

I wasn't interested in The Hateful Eight from the trailer,  and the reviews didn't make it sound like something worth watching. I've never been a fan of Tarantino's dialogue, but it actually wasn't so bad this time. The characters were pretty interesting. I sort of missed about 10 minutes when they first got to the Haberdashery, but it probably wasn't important.

Not just for that reason, but it's one of the few movies I think I'd like to watch again, knowing all the secrets now. Bob's accent was weird. I didn't really buy him as Mexican. The British guy brought a lot of life to things. Domergue was intriguing, too. And you can't go wrong with Walter Goggins.

The World of Kanako

The World of Kanako is basically about drugs, rape, violence, mental illness...all kinds of gritty stuff. But the cinematography and soundtrack are beautiful, and I was captivated watching it play out.

The World of Kanako is a pretty crazy movie, but I'm generally into that kind of thing. I love how it hits you right out of the gate with violence; it's all stylized, and really well done. The movie as a whole looks great.

The music stood out, too, especially the parts when it was punctuating something happening on screen, like when it stopped in the middle of the scene with Matsunaga. The animated scene was great, especially the way it ended with the doorbell ringing. I liked the blood-splattered cuts anytime someone attacked Akikazu. Speaking of which, that guy was a superhero - he could really take a beating.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy is apparently about how pointless the Cold War was, or what a drag it is to be a spy, which doesn't exactly make for an enjoyable movie. It was interesting about half the time, though, and Gary Oldman's performance was great.

I wasn't interested in this when it came out; or before I watched it, frankly. I heard it was supposed to be good, but it just seemed boring. It did turn out to be about 50% boring. There were some parts where the suspense or storyline kicked in and it got interesting, mostly because of Tom Hardy or Gary Oldman.

Misery Loves Comedy

Misery Loves Comedy starts getting interesting about 3/4 of the way through. It's not as insightful as the trailer leads you to believe; it's mostly just common sense observations.

Misery Loves Comedy wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be. There were a lot of "duh" observations like "comedians like to hang out with each other at parties." I'm pretty sure people of any profession probably have things in common and talk to each other at parties. I watched it in bits and pieces over a couple days, as I usually do with documentaries, and I'm definitely glad I didn't spend an uninterrupted chunk of time on it.

It's interesting to see the comedians, but there's not much that's really insightful. It actually started to get interesting in about the last quarter, so they should've done more stuff like that.

I guess they save the fundamental question for the end, which is "do you have to be miserable to be funny." And I think the answer is, not necessarily miserable, but you've got to at least have something to complain about. You never hear anyone making jokes about how everything's awesome and nothing's wrong or uncomfortable.

Silent Running

Silent Running is interesting to watch from a "look at this crazy movie from the '70s" standpoint, and the drones are cool, but it doesn't have much value beyond that.

Apparently this was the second time I've seen Silent Running, but I don't remember it at all. It was kind of a weird movie. Lowell wasn't very likeable, and Bruce's acting was uneven. Lowell came off seeming Shining-level crazy. It didn't help that his one scene where he was supposed to show some humanity was completely out of focus (what happened there?).