Tag: Scoot McNairy

video review : Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

video review : Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino says he wants to retire after ten movies. This is number nine. If he were to ask me what I think he should do to end his career on a high note, I’d sum it up with one word; suspense. That’s what makes his best movies; Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown; the classics they are. They’re filled almost to the brim with moments of suspense.

There’s a scene in Hollywood in which one of its two leading men; Brad Pitt as stuntman Cliff Booth; drives a sexy hitchhiker girl to Spahn Movie Ranch, where she says she lives. She invites him on the premises to meet her hippie friends. The tension that follows could be cut with a knife, but it leads nowhere. The suspense doesn’t return until the movie is about to end.

That ending, in which members of Charles Manson’s killer cult target Cliff and his famous actor buddy Rick Dalton; Leonardo DiCaprio as the other leading man; is violent and enthralling. Most of what comes before it is relatively uneventful. A lot of the movie is spent watching Dalton act in movies that are more entertaining than the one you’re watching.

my rating : 3 of 5

2019

video review : Gone Girl

video review : Gone Girl

Girl Gone would’ve been a better title, but that fault goes to the Gillian Flynn book this movie is based on. It’s a novel not based on a true story because true stories aren’t (usually) this melodramatic. It starts off decently; a man’s wife goes missing and he’s suspected of murdering her; but the plot loses its way to what, in a crime flick that’s supposed to be realistic, equates to utter absurdity during the final third.

my rating : 2 of 5

2014

video review : Non-Stop

video review : Non-Stop

It’s not Speed on a plane despite the clunky title. It’s not that entertaining. The suspense level of the plot, which puts a US Air Marshal on a plane full of passengers that include a terrorist whose get-rich-quick plan threatens the life of everyone on board, is brought down by its own ridiculous implausibilities. This is a by-the-numbers action flick you’ll have to suspend your belief thousands of feet to fully enjoy.

my rating : 3 of 5

2014

video review : 12 Years A Slave

video review : 12 Years A Slave

There’s a poignant whipping scene involving soap, but the best part of this Slave story come at the end. It’s a beautiful Hans Zimmer song based on the main character. That it sounds like Time from Inception is a blunder, but listening to it is better than watching the movie.

That’s not a moral criticism. Watching a dramatization of an essentially innocent man, or woman, endure the hardships of slavery generally doesn’t bother me. It’s just that, plotwise, Solomon’s story, based on his 1853 memoir, doesn’t necessarily make for an interesting movie.

my rating : 3 of 5

2013