American Made

American Made is about a selfish guy who doesn't have the sense to quit when he's ahead. The camerawork is atrocious, and as with so many other movies, the point of making or watching it escapes me.

American Made is so forgettable that by the next day, I had completely forgotten that I had even seen it, if that tells you anything. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise. I can't even think of a movie I've seen him in other than Rain Man, and I had to watch that for a class in college. American Made didn't interest me based on the trailer, or, it turns out, the movie, either.

It's understandable how Seal got roped into everything, but he should have gotten out of it a lot sooner. He was just being greedy. He didn't even have a use for all of that money. He should have taken it and moved his family to another country where the government and the Contras wouldn't find them.

My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro is super simple. It's pleasant enough to watch, but I wouldn't exactly call it a must-see.

I've been wanting to see My Neighbor Totoro for a long time, and I finally did it. Out of the five or so Miyazaki movies I've seen, it's definitely the simplest. Totoro himself is kind of creepy. He roars a lot, and his teeth are disturbing. The scene with him standing in the rain with the leaf on his head, holding an umbrella, is pretty iconic, though. The cat bus was creepy, too. And Mei was really weird-looking. That was hard to get past. I liked how there was a musical cue for everything that happened, though, like even a butterfly flying around.

Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde is probably the best movie I'll see all year, which is unfortunate since it's only February. It's directed by the same guy who did John Wick, and it has a similar feel. It's really a love letter to Charlize, Berlin, and a slick modern/future version of the '80s. The action is solid, there are some inspired song choices, and the cinematography is striking. I recommend seeing it on the big screen if you can.

I'm not a huge fan of Charlize Theron, but I don't think I've ever seen James McAvoy in a movie that I didn't like. And the action for Atomic Blonde looked like it would be cool. It turns out that it was directed by the same guy who did John Wick. I can see that.

The first 20 minutes of the movie are definitely the best. The first three songs that they play are great, the action is nice, it looks good overall, and the characters are interesting.

Blade Runner 2049

The entire atmosphere of Blade Runner 2049 isn't my thing, a lot of the musical cues are totally off, and there are some really annoying scenes where you know exactly what's going to happen.

I didn't like the original Blade Runner, but it's been about a decade since I've seen it, so I don't remember why. I did give it a 3/5, so I guess I didn't hate it.

Blade Runner 2049 was okay. It was kind of long and boring. I wasn't really interested in it. I had a problem with the first half, because with most AI movies, there's a moral dilemma. But with this one it was so cut and dry. The replicants are humans, so we don't have the right to kill them, end of story.

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Dawson City is about the history of the town, and how the last remaining copies of hundreds of film reels wound up being preserved. It sounds cool, but the way they presented it is actually pretty boring.

Dawson City is a documentary about old film reels. In the early 1900s, silent movies were recorded on explosive film. And this town in Canada was the end of the distribution line, so most of the reels stayed there and never went anywhere else. In the '70s, they wound up having about 300 reels that were the only surviving copies of those movies. So that's pretty cool.

The movie lays out the history of the town, ever since it was started, and the gold rush, all the way up to the '70s. There's also some footage of the films they found, and newsreel footage. The weird thing is there's no narration. Maybe they did that in homage to the fact that all of the movies they found were silent movies. There was some music in the documentary, but it was really terrible, and I was dying to hear someone say something.

I didn't like having to read all the information, and it was super boring. The most interesting part of the whole thing was after it was over and one of the special features talked about the people who found and restored the films, and showed where they're stored now.

They had to have the military transport them through part of Canada, because no one else would touch them. And when they brought the American ones to the United States, they took them to a building that had just burned down because of all the film that was in it. I was surprised they took them there. They obviously didn't have very good storage practices.

The actual old film footage turned out to not be very interesting. It was kind of cool learning things about the town, like the fact that the business district burnt down every year for the first nine years after they built it.

11 Minutes

11 Minutes isn't exactly fun to watch. It does succeed in creating a feeling of tension, but I'm not sure that really pays off.

11 minutes is a Polish movie. The concept is that you see the same 11 minutes from the perspective of several different people. It opens with sort of "found footage" of cell phone and security cameras. I was kind of concerned that it was going to stay that way, but luckily it switches to regular camerawork fairly quickly.

It's a weird movie. It's super confusing trying to figure out what's going on all the time. The score is frequently abrasive and unnerving. There's some kind of black spot in the sky that's never explained. And there's always just a general feeling of tension.

I wonder what the movie is trying to say, exactly. I wish there were a commentary for it. It would probably be interesting to go back and watch it again, being able to understand more about it. It does get some "interesting" points just for being set in Warsaw. I always like to see things in different countries.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood takes its place in a long line of movies where I'm not really sure what the point of making or watching it was.

I hadn't ever heard of this version of Robin Hood. I'm kind of ambivalent about Russell Crowe, but he is good at playing this sort of character. The characters were the strongest part of the movie. They were all pretty likeable and interesting. The movie did seem to go on forever. But I was watching the director's cut. Although I think most of the scenes that were added actually were beneficial to the movie.