FinFan

"Nice stopwatch." "You want one, they're italian."

I am a car nut. I follow motorsports since the early 1980s up to today and I love the history of it. So this one was highly anticipated. And I was not dissapointed.

The movie is great. I'm sure they added or altered some things like they allways do but the basic story is right. This was one of the greatest moments in motorsports. The dawn of a new era. The racing footage is great and I was surprised to find out that it was all done practical because I expected a lot of it to be CG. However I don't think it depicts the excitement of racing like Le Mans or even Grand Prix did. I was much more immersed in those. Matt Damon was allright but I was awestruck by Christian Bale's performance. Bernthal seemed like an odd choice to play Iacocca because it is so far away from The Punisher, which is imprinted on my mind, but it works.

What can I say ? You like motorsports watch it. But this is also about friends & friendship. About facing impossible odds to accomplish your goals. And it tells the story not too clichéd. After all, this is how it went down. If there are clichès then they were probably born here.

So I decided to start the Saga once more, this time in chronological order. For sure it isn't the best of them all but at the same time it's not completely awful and/or unwatchable. When I saw it initially at the movies I wasn't negativ about it at all. I was more thrilled about getting a new trilogy going. Yes, Jar Jar is annoying and little Anni is a smartass brat. I remember back in 1999 I had trouble believing that from this would come Darth Vader. To which I also attribute the fact that Jake Lloyd just couldn't pull it off. Most of the acting was rather pale and only Liam Neeson did stand out a bit. Would have liked to see more Qui-Gon.
Back to the movie. The story as a whole is not bad but the story telling is. There are important parts here that will impact the story moving forward but you don't feel they are important. In fact if you don't know what to look for you might miss it. There seems to be no urgency in all of this. In hindsight I'd say you could start with Ep.II and still get the meaning of it all. It get's a little better once they reach Coruscant and later go back to Naboo. And of course we get the epic battle between Maul, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan which is the reason it still get's a "7" from me.
A few words about the production side. In 1999 this was state of the art. It was actually ahead of it's time which is why some scenes still look great. When it comes to the Gungans f.e. you see the steps that have been made since then. And some of the green-screen work looks just like that. And it becomes more apparent in 4k. Overall the movie looks great in UHD, I saw many details I had missed before, and I am sure they smoothed some things out. And you would be surprised how many things aren't CG but actually model building.
It's not the best introduction to Star Wars if you've never have seen it. That would still be A New Hope. And it will always be. But as I said earlier, it's not unwatchable.

This movie is great on many levels. First it works as a really good sci-fi/action movie. But there is also a message, intentional or not, and it raises questions. But it's not being put on the foreground. Yet you clearly see the references. And it still works today.
The mix of documentary and cinematic style adds a certain level of realism, as much as this is possible with an alien story, but you are much more drawn into it because of that. The story itself is interesting. You don't have aliens coming to conquer or destroy mankind. They are pretty much a sorry bunch with little hope of existence. I like that angle.
Putting this not into the hollywood realm and not placing it in America also just adds to the positive attributes this whole movie has.
I am on the fence if I would want a sequel to be honest. If that would mean it gets the hollywood treatment I'd refuse. I mean - look at the Terminator franchise for a reference.
In any case, after re-watching this movie I raise my rating from "8" to "9" because I really think it is that good. Unfortunately, from where I stand, Blomkamp hasn't even come close to repeating with any of his other movies following District 9.

Let's not talk Ewoks or Special Editions. There's nothing that can be said or written that hasn't been done so before.
I loved Star Wars from the second I first watched it and that will never change. I made my peace with the prequels and can see what they brought to the whole despite the flaws they have.
This marked the first time I saw everything chronologically so far (incl. Clone Wars and Rebels) and some things just don't ad up.
F.e. how can Leia know anything about her mother ? Both children were taken away the minute they were born and Padme died right after giving birth. Bail Organa immediatly took Leia in. She should not be able to remember her birth mother.
And Obi-Wan was very reluctant to take on Anakin, let alone train him. He only did so because of a promise he made to the dying Qui-Gon.
You can find many more little discrepancies and this is not meant to be criticism of any kind. In any case in 1983 all this didn't apply. It just shows that it isn't easy to put a prequel story to an existing story without cutting some corners.
But like I said - I love Star Wars. I can easily live with all those things mentioned above.
Now, reluctantly I have to admit, I move on to the sequells.

I've been an Eastwood fan for basically my entire movie watching life. Ever since I've saw him in one of the Dollar western. If he's playing or directing - it's a reason for me to watch it. However his last directing credits were literally hit and miss the last youple of years.
Amerian Sniper (miss), Sully (hit), 15:17 to Paris (miss), The Mule (hit). And now Richard Jewell is somewhere in between but leaning more towards missing, again, for different reasons.

I knew nothing about the person or how he's been treated at the time. So I had really no idea what was going to happen in this movie. While I'm not surprised at how the story unfolds I have to say that Eastwood did not manage to invoke real sympathy for the man in me. The whole thing pretty much plays like you would expect it to. Jewell is the hero.

After I watched the movie I read about the controversy surrounding the portrayal of Kathy Scruggs. I know movies are taking artistic freedoms when it comes to the portrayal of characters but I think they went below the line here. Especially considering that she is dead. That made me read up a little more. I don't want to excuse what has been done to Jewell by the FBI and the media, and how terrible it must have been for him. But I found it interesting that the movie neglected to mention that the Attorney General formally apologized and that Jewell got a 500.000 $ settlement from NBC. Others settled, too, but I don't know for what.

I think it is really important to tell stories like this. But adding or leaving stuff out are intentional decisions on part of the writer and/or director and I really ask myself: why ? If you make a movie based on a real event, stick to the fact. Don't add or leave things out. Because if you do I really question your motive and your agenda.

If you made a movie that is making $ 544k domestic and a little over $ 1m worldwide it tells you something. There wasn´t much interest in the first place (no, honestly how many movie goers are that? 100-110k maybe?) Anyway, if you haven´t seen it I don´t think you´d missed out.
Yes, the story is - or rather could have been - interesting. I think it is to superfical. You have the innocent little girl that one day sees the monk burning himself and suddenly she went haywire and becomes anti-everything. From there on the story jumps through the years with little explanations or deeper investigation. It´s the father not wanting to give up on his daughter and the mother trying to move on. You could have easily jumped from Merry´s disapearance to the day her father found her because all what happened in between isn´t really meaningful. I don´t blame McGregors directing, I think he did a good job and since he didn´t wrote the script you can´t lay blame on him for that. I haven´t read the book, maybe it isn´t even a bad adaptation. Maybe the origin is as sketchy.
All the actors did a very good job and it is what keeps this movie above water so that you get through it. But that is just it, you get through it and after the end you just forget. If this was supposed to be a critical lock into that time in history it failed.

Interesting how there seem to be more negative reviews here than in the ones before whereas I think this was the best one of the series. Or maybe I´m just getting used to it.

Anyway, I´ve critizised the Abramsverse a lot but this one was a small step in the right direction. I would attribute this largely to the fact that Abrams isn´t involved directly in this movie. Yes, it is still more like blockbuster cinema but there is improvement. We finally get rid of that annoying lensflare and this is something new not just a twisted old story (althought the crash of the saucer on the planet.....nah, it´s allright.) .
Gone is the sometimes silly behavior and unnessessary stupid humor. There is one part of the movie I didn´t like and that was the part where to music kills the bees that is the kind of > let us do something cool < factor I didn´t like in the first two movies but the rest was really solid. Still not comparable with the old, and it never will be, but for now enough to convince me to give the next one a try.
As I mentioned before - even if those new trek franchise would do nothing for me it generated interest and, more important, revenue that led to another tv show. Here´s hoping that it will do well.