Brad Pitt

Meet Joe Black

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  • Title: Meet Joe Black
  • IMDb: link

Director Martin Brest‘s 1998 remake of Death Takes a Holiday stars Brad Pitt as Death who grants the ridiculously rich Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) a few extra days of life in exchange for letting him stick around in a stolen body and discover what’s so great about life for himself. The body chosen by Death just so happens to be the same man Parrish’s daughter Susan (Claire Forlani) falls for in an earlier scene. Rechristened as Joe Black, who refuses to provide any more information about himself, Joe inserts himself into Parrish’s world causing havoc for Bill and romantic confusion for Susan.

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F1: The Movie

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: F1: The Movie
  • IMDb: link

A good racing movie can be an awfully fun time at the movies. While not a great film, F1 sticks to the basic formula giving us a gritty old veteran with something to prove, a hotshot rookie who hasn’t broken through, and a racing team outgunned and outmatched that desperately needs a miracle win. F1 may put the formulaic in Formula One, but there’s a reason the formula works as director Joseph Kosinski fits these pieces (and some darn good looking racing sequences – particularly in IMAX) into just the kind of fun summer movie I was hoping for and would make a fun pairing with something like Ford v Ferrari for a racing double-feature which ultimately has something similar to say about racing and the crazy fools who do it for a living.

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Babylon

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  • Title: Babylon
  • IMDb: link

Babylon is a hot mess. Writer/director Damien Chazelle‘s look at the excess and self-indulgence of 1920s Hollywood at the end of the silent film era is itself a bloated, self-indulgent, clusterfuck of a film that weaves through the lives of troubled star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), newly discovered Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), and behind-the-scenes up-and-comer Manny Torres (Diego Calva).

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Glorious “Basterds”

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Inglourious Basterds
  • IMDb: link

inglourious-basterds-posterQuentin Tarantino is a filmmaker. Love him or hate him, the man has a passion and reverence for cinema as well as a definite style in crafting his own projects. Inglourious Basterds, the writer/director’s latest, took more than a decade to come to the screen. The film is many things, but boring isn’t one of them. Insane and glorious, Tarantino has finally succeeded in crafting a film I can’t help but love.

Although I’ve always respected Tarantino as a director (less so as a producer), and will easily admit to the quality of Pulp Fiction, at times his career has taken him down paths I wasn’t keen on following.

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A Coward and an Outlaw

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  • IMDb: link

“He was born Jesse Woodson James on September 5th, 1847, and was named after his mother’s brother, a man who committed suicide.  He stood five feet eight inches tall, weighed one hundred fifty-five pounds, and was vain about his physique…he was missing the nub of his left middle finger and was cautious lest that mutilation be seen…he had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids and it caused him to blink more than usual, as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept…he could be reckless or serene, rational or lunatic, from one minute to the next.  If he made an entrance, heads turned into his direction; if he strode down an aisle store clerks backed away; if he neared animals they retreated.  Rooms seemed hotter when he was in them, rains fell straighter, clocks slowed, sounds were amplified.”

 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Based on the novel by Ron Hansen the film tells the story of the famous outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his friend who shot him in the back, Bob Ford (Casey Affleck).  The film is filled with supporting characters and events too numerous to mention here.  Plot divergences, threads, and events that work both with and against the main tale.  But at its core this is a film about two men and how their destinies became intertwined during their lives and long after their deaths.

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