Drama

Official Secrets

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  • Title: Official Secrets
  • IMDb: link

Official Secrets movie review

The world could use a few more people like Katherine Gun. Based on the true story of a British Intelligence officer discovering her government’s willingness to assist the United States in moving forward with an invasion of Iraq regardless of actual facts, director Gavin Hood‘s film stays focused on the personal cost to whistleblower Katherine Gun (Keira Knightley) as the film takes us through her discovery of a memo from the NSA asking for help blackmailing nations on the United Nations Security Council in order to rubber stamp the 2003 Iraq invasion through to her day in court a year later.

Knightley is terrific in the role of the defiant but terrified woman whose actions cause ramifications not just for herself but for her husband (Adam Bakri) who is nearly deported by a spiteful government that leaves her twisting in the wind for the better part of a year. Her supporting cast isn’t too shabby either including Matt Smith as the reporter who broke the story (but who only shares a single scene with Knightley on-screen), Rhys Ifans as another reporter on the scent, and Ralph Fiennes and Matthew Goode who emerge when the case moves to trial.

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Hustlers

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  • Title: Hustlers
  • IMDb: link

Hustlers movie review“Stripper movie” isn’t a term that often imbues a viewer with confidence. That said, the true story adapted for film by writer/director Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) exceeded my expectations. While not great, Hustlers is solidly entertaining and far from the fiasco of Showgirls.

Set in the early 2000s, the film focuses on a struggling stripper’s (Constance Wu) friendship with the club’s main attraction, Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). Taking the newbie under her wing, Ramona helps Destiny (Wu) earn enough money to keep her grandmother’s house and pay for several high-end shopping trips. The script offers some insight into a stripper’s mentality towards her clients (as Destiny learns to bilk them of as much money as possible).

Stradding the 2008 Wall Street crash, the film shows us the glory days of high-price clients for Ramona and Destiny and the slim pickings just a few years later where the pair, and a couple of new girls (Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart) step-up their game from maximimizing a drunk client’s spend to actually drugging them and maxing out their credit cards.

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Guilty Pleasure – Coyote Ugly

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Coyote Ugly
  • IMDb: link

Coyote Ugly DVD review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to… wait, has it really been 19 years? Piper Perabo stars in 2000’s Coyote Ugly as aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford who leaves the comfort of her sleepy New Jersey suburb to move to New York City and become a singing barmaid at a trendy bar known for its attractive waitresses dancing on the bar.

While not what one would call objectively good (sappy and predictable are both apt descriptions), the movie does work as a guilty pleasure mostly for Perabo’s lead performance, the high energy from her often scantily-clad co-stars (Izabella Miko, Bridget Moynahan, Tyra Banks), and the film’s soundtrack sporting four songs written by Diane Warren (which proved more successful than the film itself).

The larger supporting cast includes Maria Bello as the bar’s gruff owner with a heart of gold, Adam Garcia as Violet’s love interest (who is thrown together with Violet in a sickeningly-sweet meet-cute), and John Goodman as Violet’s disapproving father, both of her move to New York and how she spends her nights.

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Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

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  • Title: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
  • IMDb: link

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood movie reviewThe latest from writer/director Quentin Tarantino includes all the trappings that fans have come to expect over the past two decades. Overly talky, in need of a little editing, with a few too many shots of his characters’ feet, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is still quite entertaining and easily the best film Tarantino has made since 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. Most comparable with Death Proof, Once Upon a Time offers a slow build-up focused on character and snappy dialogue before jumping headfirst into an explosive finale.

Set in 1969 Hollywood, the plot follows the exploits of western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the downside of his career, his friend and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his new neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and the Manson Family. The separate threads will eventually intertwine late in the film’s final act on one fateful night in the Hollywood Hills, but for most of the film Tarantino takes his time with each, featuring the Dalton/Booth friendship most prominently with plenty of inserts of the the actor’s glory days as the star of Bounty Law which came to an abrupt end after he started chasing a movie career.

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The Beast in Heat

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Beast in Heat
  • IMDb: link

The Beast in Heat Blu-ray reviewWhen you are looking at a film where the director and 90% of the cast refused to put their real names on the project, you know you found something pretty awful. An Naziploitation film co-written and directed by Luigi Batzella, under the pseudonym Ivan Kathansky, the film centers around the comings and goings around a Nazi POW camp during WWII where a mad scientist (Macha Magall) has created a human beast (Salvatore Baccaro). Apparently the Nazis have decided the best way to win over the locals is for the Beast to rape them into submission.

There’s nothing of merit and little of interest here. The film is a bizarre mix of unintentional camp mixed with gore, torture, shootings, and rape sequences. There’s also a subplot involving locals looking to derail the Nazi war effort who become prisoners the Dr. Kratsch (Magall) as well. Had the film thoroughly embraced its ridiculous nature and gone full camp it may have been semi-passable as a guilty pleasure. As is, it’s hardly watchable.

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