Cinema Basement

A review by Brooks Rich Congratulations Netflix. After making me watch two of the worst movies in history, they hit it out of the park with one of the best science fiction films in a long time. Newcomer Grant Sputore directs a powerful somewhat post-apocalyptic film about humans relationship with machines and the struggle between nature and nurture. A robot known as Mother, brilliantly voiced by Rose Byrne, raises a young woman named daughter, played by Clara Rugaard, who is fantastic as the lead, in a futuristic facility on Earth after an unknown doomsday event. Mother raises Daughter with love and generally cares about her young charge. But their seemingly simple life is upset when a woman played by Hilary Swank arrives seeking medical attention. That's all I'm going to say. That's basically the plot in the trailer. I Am Mother is an incredibly smart and well thought story. It's smart science fiction, which is something we don't get much of anymore. It takes...

A review by Brooks Rich Consider this also as a bonus forgotten film Friday. John Badham's 1991 action comedy would make a good double feature with Bird on a Wire although to be honest I think this film is a little better. Badham is able to stretch this comedy and action muscles again in this film about a mismatched pair trying to track down a serial killer. It's a buddy cop movie with one of the cops only pretending to be a cop. Michael J. Fox is Hollywood superstar Nick Lang, who wants to shadow a cop to audition for a role in a serious cop film. James Woods is hot headed NYPD sergeant John Moss, on the trail of a serial killer known as the Party Crasher, played by a ripped bleach blonde Stephen Lang who leaves no amount of scenery unchewed. Nick pulls some strings and gets himself assigned to Moss, who is told by his captain, played by the always awesome Delroy Lindo, to drop the Party Crasher case while he has Nick as a partner. Of course Moss is not a by the book cop ...

A review by Brooks Rich I am shocked that this movie isn't more well remembered than it is. This is one of the smartest thrillers from the '90s and has a smart tight script. It's directed by Sam Raimi, of Spider-Man but more importantly of the Evil Dead trilogy fame, and it's kind of a departure for him. It feels more like a Coen Brothers film than a Sam Raimi film, the situation is kind of a comedy of errors like Fargo but without the comedy, but there's nothing wrong with that. The immortal Bill Paxton plays Hank Mitchell, a well educated man who is a favorite son in a small rural Minnesota town. He lives with his pregnant wife Sarah and the two are trying to cultivate a life for themselves. One day Hank is out screwing around with his brother Jacob, played by an Oscar nominated Billy Bob Thornton, and Jacob's friend Lou, played by Brent Briscoe, discover a crashed air plane in the woods with 4.4 million dollars in cash inside. After some debate and needi...

A review by Brooks Rich One of my favorite romantic action films. I miss fun action films like this one. I could be forgetting one but any romantic action film I think of from the 00s is garbage. This film is just charming and the leads have great chemistry. John Badham brings some great direction for some very fun action scene, especially the last showdown at the zoo. Mel Gibson and Goldie Hahn star as a formerly engaged couple who reunite by accident.  Gibson is being set up by a corrupt FBI agent after turning state witness on the mob and now must go on the run with Hahn to avoid the bad guys. Meanwhile old sparks are reunited and the two fall for each other again. We've seen this before but it's not the content, it's how you interpret that content. Badham makes sure the action scenes feel like action scenes. Sometimes in these romantic action films the action takes a backseat and is pretty poorly constructed. Not so in Bird on a Wire. Like I mentioned before, the ...

A review by Brooks Rich Welcome to Shakespeare Sunday. Once a week we will be covering at least one film or television adaptation of Shakespeare's works. We will try to have a variety of the plays but let's be honest, most of the really good ones are the big plays. There will be plenty of Hamlet , Othello, Macbeth , Much Ado About Nothing , but I'll try to mix it up. One day we'll get a proper  adaptation of Timon of Athens, there's an independent film from 2016 called I, Timon that looks decent for being the first adaptation I know about of the play, or Pericles. But for now let's begin with the BBC adaptation of Hamlet from 1980 with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, Patrick Stewart as Claudius, and Clair Bloom as Gertrude. Everyone should know the story of Hamlet . The king is dead and his brother has married the queen. The son, Hamlet, is approached by the ghost of his father and told that his uncle has usurped the throne and Hamlet must avenge his father's ...

A review by Brooks Rich This is a film I cannot believe hasn't gotten more popular over time. This is one of the best science fiction films to come out in the past ten years and is one of the smartest scripts in who knows how long. Alex Garland is one of the best screenwriters working right now and all of the films he has written are worth watching. Sunshine is one that will be covered on this blog sooner rather than later. But this is his best script in my opinion and was hands down my favorite movie in 2014. This is also a film I can't believe I didn't cover in the first 100 posts of the blog. We have another film where I don't really want to give away the plot. So I'm going to be vague and give the most basic rundown I can. Progammer Caleb, played by Domhnall Gleesson, wins a contest at his company where he is flown out to the CEO's massive estate to spend a weekend there. The CEO Nathan, a totally fun and crazy Oscar Isaac, tells Caleb he can either hang...

A review by Brooks Rich Netflix really needs to have better quality control. Yes they have some of the best series going right now but sometimes their movies leave much to be desired. Rim of the World is one of the worst films I've ever seen. It is an ugly film made by people who find alien penises funny. A group of misfit kids at a summer camp must band together when aliens invade the Earth. An astronaut lands in a capsule and hands a key of vital importance to the lead kid Alex and tells them they must get to a scientist in Pasadena in order to save the world. On their journey the kids are pursued by a monstrous alien, which to be fair is a decent looking creature. There might be a good movie in here somewhere, or at least a watchable one, but it's bogged down with awful writing, cliche characters, and an immature borderline offensive sense of humor. Rim of the World is supposed to be a comedy but the humor not only falls flat but is downright offensive at times. I do...

A review by Brooks Rich Sometimes I wonder if I can't enjoy certain movies anymore. Has my ability to just sit back, turn my brain off, and let something entertain me left me and is never coming back? It's possible because I hated this film with a passion. What a waste of time. This is a franchise that needed to die years ago. I love the first Men in Black . I remember seeing that in theaters when it first came out. It was a monster hit and still holds up as a fun entertaining science fiction comedy. This newest installment has Hollywood cash grab all over it and if not for Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson would be panned universally and relegated to a ninety nine cent rental in two months. The bright spots of the film are those two but if you really want to see them together, Thor Ragnarok is a thing and a million times better than this. Chris Hemsworth is Agent H and is the best agent at Men in Black London. Tessa Thompson is new recruit Agent M, who found the MIB hers...

A review by Brooks Rich Sometimes films are forgotten because people didn't bother to watch them when they came out. Some films don't make an impact when first  released  maybe it's not a film meant for mass appeal or maybe the studio dropped the ball when it comes to marketing. In Jeff Nichols case, it always seems to be a mix of both. He had some degree of success with the film Mud in 2012 – probably due in part to it being at the start of Matthew McConaughey's resurgence. Mud is a great film, but in 2016 Jeff Nichols released not only his best film so far, but one of the best films of the past five years, Midnight Special. I usually write a plot summary in the second paragraph of a movie review – but I don't want to this time. All I'll say is Michael Shannon plays a man on the run with his son who are both being pursued by the FBI and a religious cult. Shannon is aided by the boy's mother, played by Kirsten Dunst, and a friend of Shannon's, pl...

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman There are a lot of different nicknames for films. You have your blank checks where you make something with a seemingly endless budget. You have your star vehicles where the director and writer do matter. Your low-budget flicks. So on and So on but J.J. Abrams take on Star Trek is the first and only consolation prize film. Now don’t get me wrong as a 100 million dollar action film it is fun, exciting and well made but as a Star Trek film it is all wrong. Abrams a lifelong Star Wars fan was offered a franchise diametrically different and he decided “Naw, I am gonna make this a Star Wars flick!” And that is why I am talking about these films compared to Brooks because guess what… I don’t hate them. Abrams did something that no one else had done so far. He made Star Trek big with this film. Big to a point when this released people were clamoring for the next installment but the film isn’t without its flaws because at the end of the day it’s a consolation pri...

A review by Brooks Rich We reach the end of Star Trek Sunday and we go out with a whimper because we have arrived at Star Trek: Nemesis . This film should be much better than it is. I'm going to keep this relatively short because the film series kind of got lame and not that interesting at the end. We come full circle back to the Motionless Picture to a film that has a good concept but is just kind of a nothing film. The Romulans have a new leader, Shinzon, and he insists on meeting Picard. The Enterprise is sent to meet the new leader of the Romulan empire and see if maybe there's a chance for peace. Shinzon is actually a clone of Picard, he needs him to keep himself alive, he wants to invade the Federation, so much is going on but I am bored. Nemesis is boring. There's no way around it. It's just a boring film. I don't get how some people like this film over Insurrection . Nemesis just gets so pedantic and long winded at some times. Yes it has a great early...

A review by Brooks Rich 100 posts. I can't believe the blog has 100 posts. Thank you to all of the readers who have been here since the first post and also to Azzam and Chris for contributing their wisdom and views. Around the sixtieth post I began to brainstorm ideas for this milestone. I knew if the stars aligned and the hundredth post happened on a Friday, I'd do something special for forgotten film Friday. But the 100th post falling on Saturday works out because I get to feature my favorite director for the first time on the blog. Alfred Hitchcock is in my opinion the greatest filmmaker of all time. The landscape of cinema would not be the same without him. From the late ’30s to about 1962, the man just dominated the film world. Yes, he had his personal demons, and his treatment of some of his actresses was downright despicable, but his contributions to film were staggering. Hitchcock is going to be all over this blog from October to December ...

A review by Brooks Rich I won't spend much time on this one. I remember thinking this was pretty mediocre when I saw it years ago but it's on Amazon Prime and the director is being featured this month.So I rewatched this and yeah it's just not that great of a movie. It's probably fine for someone looking for something mindless to watch on a lazy afternoon but there will be far better films covered for John Badham month. Johnny Depp is Gene Watson, a recently widowed single father who arrives in LA with his younger daughter. He and his daughter are soon apprehended by two people pretending to be police and Gene is told he has ninety minutes to murder someone at a hotel nearby or his daughter will be killed. There are two things that help me get through this film. One is John Badham's direction. He keeps the plot moving at a steady pace and it's never boring. That's good. One of the worst sins a film can commit is to be boring.  The second is the awesome...

A review by Brooks Rich We're back in the water with our summer coverage of shark movies and we have one of the best ones today. In my opinion this is the second best shark movie of all time. It's a simple premise but it's totally unnerving because there's a realness to it. Blake Lively gives a stunning performance and carries the movie along with her finned co-star. Seriously her performance in this is so good and makes the case that the Academy Awards are irrelevant because someone acting their ass off and doing the tough work in a film like this is ignored. Lively plays Nancy, a med student who has come to a special beach in Mexico after the death of her mother. After a day of surfing and growing friendly with two locals, Nancy decides to catch one more wave before calling it a day. Unfortunately a great white shark, attracted to a dead whale, attacks Nancy and strands her on a rock 200 yards from shore. Nancy must now find a way to beat the incoming tide and fin...

A review by Brooks Rich Comedy is subjective. What some people find funny, others might find extremely painful. This sometimes leads to comedy films just tanking at the box office. But that's why there are DVD sales and now a resurrection on Netflix to bring a film back from obscurity. Office Space was a box office disaster when it came out and now is considered a comedy classic. Today's film did poorly at the box office but experienced a resurgence thanks to home media. Seann William Scott is Doug Glatt, a humble Massachusetts bouncer who becomes an enforcer for the minor league hockey team the Halifax Highlanders after he beats up a player who climbs into the stands at a game. Doug is put in charge of keeping an eye on the team's best player, Xavier Laflamme, who never got over a brutal hit he took three years ago in the majors. As the season winds down, everyone is anticipating a fight between Doug and the league's toughest enforcer, Ross "the Boss" Rh...

Godzilla: King of the Monsters It’s weird being 27 and having things from your childhood consistently come up short. This year I finally got the Kingdom Hearts 3, a game series I had played since I was a kid, which had lofty expectations to live up too. It is what I would say was set up for failure. That game by in large was just ok. Not great but not awful either but nonetheless it disappointed me because I had expectations that couldn’t be met. So that leads me to Godzilla: King of The Monsters. After Godzilla (2014) arrived in theaters everyone complained. They complained about how long the film took to show Godzilla. How it killed of Bryan Cranston. How it just didn’t live up to the hype. I remember being one of the few people who watched that film and thought this is a masterpiece. You see that film knew things that the average audience loves to forget, you can get bored of a big monster breaking stuff quickly. It can be hard to perceive something size if your perspective alway...

A review by Brooks Rich Oh yeah. One of my favorite action films of the nineties and one of my favorite Wesley Snipes films. This movie is just a great time. It's not art house cinema but it's not trying to be. This is one of those films I could finish and then immediately start back up and watch again.  It's Wesley Snipes tracking down a group of skydiving criminals led by Gary Busey. It doesn't get more nineties than that. Snipes is US Marshal Pete Nessip. While escorting a federal witness with his partner, who also happens to be his brother Terry, played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner, Theo Huxtable himself, hijackers take over the plane, make off with the witness, and kill his brother. Snipes tracks the hijackers into the world of skydiving and teams up with a ragtag group of skydivers to help take down the hijackers and prevent them from stealing the identities of undercover federal agents. Badham is at his best in this film. The aerial stunts are impressive and the...

A review by Chris Lee I’m going to keep this one pretty short because there isn’t much to say about a gorgeously shot film where 300 foot monsters knock each other around commercial districts with claws and fire breath. 2019’s follow up to 2014’s Godzilla, and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island serves as the de facto footprint in the ancient earth for Hollywood’s attempt at a shared monster universe. The special effects this time are serviceable, though notably less crisp than 2014’s outing. The inclusion of a dozen more creatures (and set-pieces) this time around may explain the downgrade, but great angles, immersive pov shots, and an almost religious fascination with grandiose lighting makes up for it. The fights themselves are epic on a scale rarely seen. Godzilla himself has never been in better form, and pitting him against his storied nemesis, King Ghidora, was a smart move. Ghidora is evil and knows it and is happy about it. The 3-headed monstrosity seems to revel in destruction...

A review by Brooks Rich We begin with one of John Badham's most well known films. The year is 1983 and the Cold War is very much going on. So what better way to capture the fear and paranoia of the Cold War then with a movie about a teenage hacker who nearly causes nuclear annihilation by hacking into a super military computer. High school slacker David Lightman is a brilliant computer hacker with no ambition. While attempting to hack into a system to play computer games, he accidentally begins a nuclear showdown with a military computer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response.) With the threat of nuclear annihilation looming, David and his friend Jennifer must find a way to beat the computer and prevent the apocalypse. WarGames is one of my favorite eighties films. It's exciting and has a hint of realism to it. The world was always just a few seconds away from global annihilation during the Cold War. The film shows that one nuke fired will lead them to all being fired and we...

A review by Brooks Rich This is a film often considered one of the worst in the Stark Trek series. No one has ever said it's worse than Final Frontier but I've seen it listed just above Final Frontier . I don't know if I agree with that. It's not awful but it's not great either. I refer to it as the most meh film of the series. You might like it. You might not. But it's definitely a let down after the awesomeness of First Contact . The Enterprise arrives on a planet populated by the Ba'ku, a species that has shunned technology and lives a simple life, after Commander Date malfunctions during an observation mission. After spending time on the planet, the crew notices changes in their bodies, where it seems they are getting healthier and even younger. Picard discovers that a radiation from the planets rings has regenerative properties, essentially making the Ba'ku immortal. The Federation is working with a mysterious race known as the Son'a, they...

This is going to be an interesting month. John Badham is a very interesting director with a wide ranging filmography. The movie that put him on the map was Saturday Night Fever in 1977. From there he would direct films like Wargames , Short Circuit , Drop Zone , and Nick of Time . This is a cool director and he's still working today in TV. We've got a fun month ahead of us. So drop in and follow along as we explore the film career of John Badham.