Cinema Basement

A review by Brooks Rich Sometimes I don't know what to say about a film or how to even review it. On a technical level there is nothing wrong with the movie The Farewell. The script is well written and the characters all feel real. The comedy works and the heartfelt moments ring true. This is a beautiful film and an interesting look at a family.  Awkwafina  plays Billi, a young woman of Chinese descent struggling to make ends meet in New York. She is a writer who has just been denied a Guggenheim Fellowship. She finds out that her grandmother is terminally ill and the extended family are going back to China to spend some time with her. They do not plan on telling the grandmother about the diagnosis. Despite her family's wishes, Billy goes to China to see her grandmother.  Let me just say the grandmother is one of the best characters in any film this year. She is played by Shuzhen Zhao, a woman who has never acted before. She does an incredible job and I would n...

A review by Brooks Rich There's a general rule in Hollywood. Most remakes are garbage. There's sometimes no need to remake a property when the original exists and is a perfectly fine movie. But there are some exceptions and today we're looking at one, the remake McTiernan made that worked as opposed to the disaster that is Rollerball . (Azzam will explore that one for us.) Now what's interesting is Rollerball should be a remake that works as the original is more of a forgotten cult film as opposed to remaking a beloved film starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. I like the original but in my opinion this film is far superior. Pierce Brosnan, the only times he's ever cooler than he is in this is when he's playing the world's most famous spy, is Thomas Crown, an eccentric billionaire bored with the day to day routine of his life. He steals a painting by Monet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art just for the thrill of it. Insurance agent Catherine Banning...

A review by Brooks Rich Today we have one of the best films of not only 2016, but also the entire decade, that I feel gets sadly neglected. Even thought it did decently at the box office, this Neo-western heist film does not get the credit it deserves as being a film with an original screenplay and an original story. It received a best picture nomination but honestly people usually only know two films that are nominated in a year. In a modern cinema landscape saturated with remakes, sequels, and big budget comic book movies it's sometimes refreshing to watch a movie that's not based on an established property. Chris Pine and Ben Foster play Toby and Tanner Howard, brothers who begin a string of bank robberies in West Texas. They are not overly malicious to customers and are only after the bank's money. On their trail are a pair of Texas Rangers, the senior most one played by Jeff Bridges, in a Academy Award nominated role, who is staring down the barrel of mandatory ret...

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman College is an odd time when portrayed in media. It very rarely focuses on the personal growth, the concepts of higher education or anything else of that note. It is almost always about partying or getting laid or something else of that note. Short of strange films like 21 (which is a racist trash movie) or The Social Network (which deserves a sequel called The Social Deconstruction about how Facebook has destroyed the social constructions of many nations including our own) but beyond those it is a hellscape of stories that never talk about how awful college is. I say this as someone with a Bachelor's degree who feels like a wage slave no matter where he goes. That’s why Accepted is a movie that I hope great reverence for. It's a movie that has partying and excitement but it is also about how people when given the chance will do everything in their power to be better people. Accepted is an odd movie from a production standpoint as it is a direct...

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman Romantic Comedies were dead before this came out. It’s hard to imagine but before the time of heroes we got so many fairly benail rom-coms starring two pretty people making eyes at each other and quipping pop culture laden jokes. Where they all bad? No, but for some reason Hollywood through the baby out with the bathwater and the careers of so many amazing actresses never had the jump of point that their contemporaries had before. Now, it may seem strange to highlight To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before over Crazy Rich Asians in a year that audiences fought back and said “We want rom-coms back!” but that should speak to have moving To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was.  Very few films can sell teenage love and it seem real. Very few films of this type even have an eye for detail. For every Easy A and The Duff, we get something like The No Kiss List. Films that lack care and are made because that audience will eat anything… or so they think. Th...

A review by Brooks Rich I am going to admit a fault in myself to start this review. Recently Robert Pattinson was announced as the new Batman. My immediate reaction was, of course, disgust and disinterest. The sparkly vampire from the Twilight series is Batman? Give me a break. But that's very judgmental of me. Pattinson accepted a job and did the best he could. Look at films like The Lost City of Z, Good Time and High Life, or even the trailer for Robert Eggers new film The Lighthouse, to see how good Pattinson is. He actually might work as Batman. We should not judge an actor based on one character they portray. The same could be said for Pattinson's Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart. She's gotten a reputation as a wooden actress who shows no interest on screen and acts like a robot when delivering her lines. Well…… today we have a film that shows how strong of an actress she can be…2016's hauntingly beautiful ghost film, Personal Shopper.  Stewart plays Maureen, a y...

A review by Brooks Rich We're kicking off our monthly celebration of John McTiernan with one of the greatest action movies of all time, if not  the  greatest. You’ve heard me wax on and on about my love for Die Hard. I think it is a perfect film.  When it was released, it was so impactful and important a film that it started a whole sub-genre of Die Hard clones. See my review of Sudden Death and Final Score in the following link.( https://cinemabasement. blogspot.com/2019/04/sudden- death-final-score-and.html ) But let's explore the original…the one that started it all and, really, the daddy of modern action. Why is this film so enduring? Why does it work so well? First, and most importantly, the action is outstanding. But I have some other theories too… Die Hard. I imagine most of you have seen this film. If you have not discovered Die Hard, oh my God, go see that film immediately. Do not pass go, do not wander into th...

Godzilla Month: Mothra vs Godzilla  A review by Forrest Humphrey         As the follow up to Gojira in my 4-film long dive into the Godzilla franchise comes 1964's Mothra vs Godzilla, a beloved entry in the franchise as well as my personal favorite entry. After the huge success of 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla (a film that I find a great deal of fun, but I wish the Japanese version was available on the global market both to avoid the terrible dubbing work and to restore Akira Ifukube's score which was removed for the English cut), Toho felt emboldened to continue the franchise, following up with this film to pit Gozilla against another monster once more. This time Tis opponent was Mothra, who had already recieved her own solo film and would go on to be one of the most seminal kaiju both in the franchise, and the world of cinema in general.          Once again directed by Ishiro Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsurubaya and...

We bring the summer to an end with a director most famous for making two of the greatest action films back to back. McTiernan made Predator in 1987 and immediately followed that up with Die Hard in 1988. Those two films alone give McTiernan a pedigree as one of the greatest action directors of all time but he wasn't done there as he has also directed classics like The Hunt for Red October and  the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Then McTiernan got involved with a man named Anthony Pellicano and was eventually indicted on wiretapping charges. He's an interesting story and his fall from grace is tragic as he was one of the best directors in the late '80s and through the '90s.  So let's say goodbye to the summer with the man who gave us Arnold versus an alien hunter in the jungle and then gave us Nakatomi Plaza's wild Christmas party.

A review by Brooks Rich Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, still amazing to me that one of the greatest American directors of all time has only made nine films, is his love letter to Hollywood of the late ‘60s. Tarantino always wears his influences on his sleeve, and also puts them on screen for all of us to see, and  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood i s the film where his influences are the most apparent. The entire film is a reference to the movies, music, and television that Tarantino grew up loving as a child. It is also a love letter to the city he grew up in, immersing us in Los Angeles of 1969. Leonardo DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, a former television star of the ‘50s who is now relegated to guest star spots as the villain on various television shows. Rick’s best friend is Cliff Booth, an amazing Brad Pitt, his former stuntman and now driver and gopher. Rick is having a crisis of faith as he is convinced his star is fading and is hesitant to accept an offer to star in westerns ...

A review by Brooks Rich    I was so excited to see The Hateful Eight. It should be obvious by now but I am a huge fan of Tarantino and I think every time he releases a film is an event. The fact that he might be only making one more film after Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is a tragedy I can’t begin to think about. So instead…we’re going to focus on his follow up to Django Unchained. The epic length western The Hateful Eight, shot in 70mm was released in two forms, a standard theatrical release and a traveling roadshow version released before the wide release of December 25th, 2015. The film had some controversy surrounding it already as the script was released online and Tarantino had decided to move on from it. But after overwhelming praise from a live reading he and the cast did, he decided to continue with production. I admire the man for sticking with the film and, of course, for shooting in 70mm. The film is gorgeous at times, the opening scenes are epic, especially ac...

A review by Brooks Rich Hell yeah  Django Unchained . This film rocks. Tarantino follows up  Inglorious Basterds  with a blood soaked western revenge film called  Django Unchained . This film is violent, buckets of blood gory, and upsetting. But there’s a certain power in this film, and some unforgettable scenes. One can’t help but cheer as a runaway slave turned bounty hunter kills a bunch of racist slave owners and slave drivers one at a time.  Jamie Foxx  is Django Freeman, a slave who is freed from bondage by bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz, Christoph Waltz in his second Oscar-winning performance. I hope he’s in Tarantino’s last film and makes it a hat trick for Oscar wins directed by Tarantino. Django and Dr. King go undercover as a pair that organize fights between slaves, called Mandingo fighting, in order to save Django’s wife from the clutches of Calvin Candie, a sinister slave owner played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Violence and bloodshed unfolds. ...