Cinema Basement

A review by Brooks Rich I don't really watch animated films anymore. I find ninety percent of them to be made by committee and not particularly funny, relying on pop culture references for their comedy. But I will always watch a new original Pixar film and I will watch a film that has creative animation, which brings us to the Netflix original film Klaus, which is an origin story of Santa Claus. This film is incredible and easily one of the best films of the year. Postman Jesper is sent to the island of Smeerensberg, where two families are locked in an endless feud, with orders to deliver six thousand letters or be cut off from his wealthy family's fortune. There he meets a reclusive toymaker named Klaus and through some misunderstandings and coincidences, they end up delivering a toy to the island's children in exchange for one letter to Klaus. This film is gorgeous. This is one of the best looking animated films in a long time. T...

A review by Forrest Humphrey  I'll admit it freely, as soon as I heard J.J. Abrams was back on as the director, I had a bad feeling about this film. I expected a plot driven by coincidence and macguffin hunting with plenty of “jingling keys in your face” nostalgia and well, that's exactly what we got, with plenty of retconning thrown in as well. But before I really dig in, I should at least mention there are some things about the film of note. Its visually stunning, but then its Disney, they can throw as much money as needed for that to be a win. But still, I would feel remiss to not admire the cinematography, gorgeous scenery and excellent CGI work. The cast have solid chemistry, especially John Boyega and Oscar Isaac as we've seen in the past films and Adam Driver continues to be a fantastic find.  So we've got great visuals and a solid cast who have grown into their roles, sounds good so far right? Unfortunately that's where my praise ends, because th...

A review by Brooks Rich Ad Astra was a film that did not meet my expectations, but not in a bad way. James Gray is a filmmaker who paces his films very specifically.  The Lost City of Z   was a masterpiece, but it was not for the casual movie fan. That film moved at a snail's pace at times. I was expecting the same from Ad Astra . I like James Gray as a filmmaker a lot, and I didn't think this would be a rock 'em sock’em science fiction adventure epic. Even without that sci-fi adventure feel, it still surprised with some of its set pieces and shocking moments of violence. This is a fantastic film and one of the best of the year.  Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, a major in the US Space Command in the near future. McBride is the son of a legendary commander named Clifford McBride, played by  Tommy Lee  Jones, who had disappeared years before during something called the Lima Project, which was searching for intelligent life at the edge of our Solar System. Wit...

A review by Brooks Rich In Hitchcock's filmography there are certain levels of popularity and legacy for his films. There are a few films that are less than revered. Films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith , Frenzy , and Topaz . These aren't necessarily bad films, but they aren't the films people immediately go to when selecting a Hitchcock film to watch. There are the underrated gems, which are almost as good if not as good as the films considered to be Hitchcock's masterpieces… films like T o Catch a Thief , Foreign Correspondent , Dial M for Murder , and The Trouble with Harry . Than there are the films considered to not only be Hitchcock's masterpieces, but also to be some of the greatest films of all time… films like Psycho , Rear Window , Notorious , Vertigo … and the film we're discussing now, the 1959 mistaken identity masterpiece, North by Northwest .  Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive who is mistaken for a man named George Kaplan, who ...

A review by Brooks Rich I don't have much to say about this film. I loved the original Jumanji growing up and I thought the sequel from few years ago was fine. It was ok. I will always watching anything that has The Rock in it. He is charming. I like Jack Black and Kevin Hart too. It was fine. Jumanji: The Next Level is the third in the trilogy and is pretty much the same film as the first ones. Human characters are sucked into the video game world of Jumanji and must complete the game in order to be returned to the real world. Rinse, repeat. This is one of the most unnecessary sequels I've ever seen. This is practically the first sequel all over again. They try to mix it up by having Danny DeVito and Danny Glover get sucked into the game as well so The Rock and Kevin Hart have to imitate them, but besides leading to a genuinely hilarious line delivery by Kevin Hart, it doesn't add up to much. Hart actually does a great impression of Danny Glover in this. Some people ...

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman To talk about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is to talk about a time in my life where I discovered what a good movie was. Before this film, to me a good movie was 2 Fast 2 Furious or Swordfish. I know, I know what was wrong with me, I was a child I did not know better! But Kiss Kiss Bang Bang found me at a time when I needed it most. It showed me what great actors with wry witty dialog can do to a story that has been told a million ways. It showed me that the writer can be as important as the director and it was the first time I ever noticed the name Shane Black. KIss Kiss Bang Bang is the best RDJ film that not enough people have seen. It’s perfect come back Downey blending the things that have made him a massive superstar late in life. Downey is great at playing a likable scumbag. It’s the reason he works as Iron Man and it’s the reason audiences love him. He can make a rude comment come off as poetry! The man is an artist at making things that shouldn’t work...

A review by Brooks Rich I want to talk about two guys today, Renny Harlin and Shane Black. I have covered Renny Harlin before when I praised the awesomeness that is Deep Blue Sea. See the review here: https://cinemabasement.blogspot.com/2019/05/fin-ema-basement-deep-blue-sea.html. I think Renny Harlin gets a bad rap. People tend to focus on his films that flop and ignore the awesomeness that is in his filmography. Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger are great action movies as is the film we are looking at today. Shane Black is a screenwriter of legend who sadly faded for a time after this film performed poorly at the box office. Black is responsible for the dreadful film The Predator from last year but I won't hold that against him. He wrote one of the best action films of all time with Lethal Weapon, which made him the hottest screenwriter at the time. That legacy carried on until the sell of this script, which Black sold for upwards of four million dollars, an insane amount of money a...

A review by Brooks Rich One of these days I am going to do a list of the ten most beautiful black and white films of all time. I can't even begin to imagine the research that will go into that but I guarantee one of the films that will be on that list will be Andrei Tarkovsky's 1962 masterpiece Ivan's Childhood . I have wanted to cover this film since the blog first started but hesitated. Back in my film school days one of the longer papers I wrote was on Ivan's Childhood and as proud of it as I am, no one wants to sit here and read my academic breakdown of the film and it's relation to Russian cinema at the time (the war sucked and their films reflected that). College essays are not the most exciting read. So I will make this brief and instead let you see some of the shots from this beautiful but tragic film about the loss of innocence during World War 2. The films follows twelve-year-old orphan Ivan and his experience during World War II as the Soviets fou...

A review by Brooks Rich This is a film that I imagine some might know the plot of but maybe have never seen it. It's a familiar situation that has been used in other films and television shows. It is a classic noir plot and turns into one of Hitchcock's best films. Hitchcock owned the '50s, try to find a director with a better track record in any decade, and Strangers on a Train was his first big hit of the '50s. Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a tennis pro whose wife is dragging out a divorce, so Farley is unable to marry the lovely Anne Morton. On a train Guy has a chance encounter with Bruno Anthony, a chilling Robert Walker. The two get to talking and begin discussing how to get away with the perfect murder, basically swapping murders, where Bruno would kill Guy's wife and Guy would kill Bruno's father. Guy doesn't take this conversation but Bruno very much does. When he kills Guy's wife, he expects Guy to hold up his end of the bargain. This ...

A review by Brooks Rich I usually don't like music biopics about the rise and fall of a singer. I find them very formulaic and cheesy or downright identical to each other. (looking at you Ray and Walk the Line.) Also some of the worst films ever made have been musical biopics, like the appalling Great Balls of Fire. But there are some excellent ones out there, like Coal Miner's Daughter, but today we are focusing on The Buddy Holly Story from 1978. The plot is simple. Buddy Holly and his band have a small amount of fame in their town of Lubbock, Texas. The town elders, especially the minister, do not like the kind of music they are playing. When a record producer releases a single of theirs without their knowledge, they sign a record deal and the rest as they say is history. Buddy Holly would go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is considered a pioneer of music. So what makes this film work and standout from all the other music biopics? Well it com...

A countdown by Brooks Rich A hero is only as good as the villain they are going against. Think of some of your favorite action movies. Chances are they have a memorable villain, a sadistic cunning psychopathy who the hero must match wits with. Sometimes the villain is smarter than the hero and the hero must use their brute strength to win the day. Other times it is a battle of wills. I love the action genre and my favorite films all have fantastically evil villains. Here is a countdown of the top ten villains in action movies. I have excluded superhero films as that is a list for another day. I have also excluded the Bond franchise because Bond villains would take up half this list. Again a list for another day. Also only one film per franchise but I will mention some great sequel villains in the honorable mentions. 10. Cyrus the Virus from Con Air Con Air is the most over the top film on this list. It's an insane adrenaline filled thrill ride with Nicholas Cage rocking some ...

A review by Brooks Rich I love a good movie about journalism. Back in 2015, Spotlight – the film about the Boston Globe reporters who broke the story about rampant child abuse in the Catholic Church – was one of my favorite films of the year. All the President’s Men is a classic. The Report is not a movie about journalism in the usual sense, but it has some of the same touchstones – the story goes deeper than what is initially expected, and those who are hurt by it try hard to block it. Adam Driver plays Daniel J. Jones, an investigator for US Senator Dianne Feinstein, played by Annette Benning, who is tasked with leading an investigation into the CIA's use of torture after the attacks on September 11th. The films chronicles not only the creation of the report by Jones’ team, but also the CIA's response after 9/11 and their attempts to block the publication of the report. I don't have much to say about this film, but that's not a bad thing. There's a lot to unp...