The last thread expired at just the right time! I took a break from removing sheetrock (not nearly as much fun as it looks like on "Property Brothers" - especially when you find four baby rats in the corner of your garage) and went to see a movie last night. But first, the backstory.

I do not believe I've ever spoken to you about Mitchell Freaking Rapp, or Mitch Rapp for short. But I will now!

If memory serves, I started reading Mitch Rapp books right around the time the first one came out. Obviously, I didn't read the first one BEFORE it came out, so you can forget thinking that I have some incredible "in" with publishers and can get you an advance copy of the super-secret new Harry Potter novel. Besides, I just copied that scenario from "The Devil Wears Prada". What? You don't believe I've ever seen "The Devil Wears Prada"? Heck, we have the DVD. When my daughter was younger and got mad at me, she made me watch that movie under the guise of "daddy/daughter bonding!" So I've seen both "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Mean Girls" a thousand times each, because girls spend their entire teenage years mad at their fathers.

Where was I?

Oh yeah- Mitch Rapp! He's awesome! He's the Jack Reacher of the CIA. Kill first, ask for permission later. In the early books weak-livered Congressmen and other various government workers tried to reign in Mitch Rapp but now they just let him kill whoever he thinks needs killing in order to keep the USA safe. Like I said, awesome!

The author who created Mitch Rapp was Vince Flynn. He may or may not have been in the CIA. He definitely was a bartender and a real estate agent. But man, did he create a great character! Sadly, a few things happened. First, Flynn decided that he was going to be an "author" and so many of the later Rapp books dealt with all kinds of interpersonal issues. I remember posting on his message board that I did not care about how Rapp felt about Congress, or why his associate Mike Nash had taken up smoking again. I just wanted stories about Rapp killing bad guys and doing it about every 20 pages or so. I was excoriated on the message board, though. It seems that unbelievably, Rapp's audience consists mainly of sensitive males who probably watch"Oprah" when not pretending to be a dungeon master or something. So after 10 or so books, I drifted away from Mitch Rapp. And then even more sadly, Vince Flynn got sick and died. I kind of forgot about Mitch Rapp.

Until they made a movie about him.

So here I am, covered in sheetrock dust, and getting tired of finding baby rats in my wall...well, that only happened once. But I also found a rat mummy in another wall. Both these walls were in the garage, thank goodness. I've found no evidence of rats in the house. And best news of all is that Momma Rat never came back to check on the four baby rats she left in my garage wall. If she had, she'd have found out the baby rats were gone. I paid some yard guys $40 to handle them. Best $40 I ever spent.

So I needed some good old American blood and guts. And guess what! "American Assassin" was released Friday. Game on!

I rounded up my wife and a couple friends and we went to the local Booze and Chow Movie Theater. Which I've now decided to swear off, as it cost me $170 to take four people to the Booze and Chow - and that was to see a real crapfest of a movie.

"American Assassin" sucked! It sucked for me, a guy completely familiar with all things Mitch Rapp. It sucked for my wife and our two friends, who had no idea who Mitch Rapp was (other than me telling them about 15 times, "We're going to the movies and watch Mitch Rapp kill everyone!").

I could review this movie on just its general sucking premises. But since I am a Mitch Rapp Expert, that's how I'm going to review it. First of all, here is the guy they chose to play Mitch Rapp:





I am not kidding, I thought the guy playing Mitch Rapp was actually Harry Styles. Turns out it's some guy named Dylan O'Brien, who was miscast as Mitch Rapp but would be a perfect Harry Styles if for some reason they made a movie about Harry Styles.

So right off the bat we have a problem. Can you imagine Harry Styles as a cold-blooded assassin, who plays by his own rules, and is a master of every combat technique there is? If you need to, look at that gif above before you give the correct answer of "Aw HELL no!"

I'm sure Dylan O'Brien is a nice guy. Probably even a good actor. But he is NOT an action hero, and he is DEFINITELY NOT Mitch Rapp. Well, if your lead actor is horribly miscast, what chance do you have for a good movie?

Answer: none.

"American Assassin" starts off with fatal inaccuracies. First of all, Mitch Rapp's girlfriend was NOT killed on a beach by some random terrorists who show up for absolutely no fathomable reason and kill people on a whim with no retribution. Man, did THAT scene suck. In book reality, Mitch Rapp's girlfriend was on Pan Am flight 103 which was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. They should have left it that way, and just changed it to another flight. Instead, we have to see the clumsiest proposal in history, made by a skinny nerd who doesn't even know how to order a drink (he actually tells the bartender, "Give me two drinks. I just got engaged! What did you say? What kind drinks do I want? Uh...strong ones!") Blech, that was just stupid.

And then, the real book Mitch Rapp didn't infiltrate a terrorist group in order to kill the guy who killed his girlfriend, only to have the Army show up and kill everyone but him. No! The real book Mitch Rapp was an All-American lacrosse player, so all he did was pump iron until the CIA came calling to recruit him.

See, the key to Mitch Rapp is that he is MITCHELL FREAKING RAPP. No one gets the drop on him. No one beats him up. No one ever makes him confused. But that's what happens to Harry Styles...errrr, Dylan O'Brien time and time again. Man, was that frustrating. I was tempted to yell at the screen and if I'd known at the time that all this fun was going to cost me $170, I would have yelled at it. A lot.

The plot, such as it is. involves way too much backstory and training montages, most of which were pointless. Michael Keaton plays mentor Stan Hurley, and he's pretty cliched. They could have done without his first 45 minutes.

Since Arab terrorists killed Mitch Rapp's girlfriend, naturally the bad guys are some Iranians, Russians, and an American. For reasons that are simplistic and stupid at best, Rapp's team is tasked with finding a stolen nuclear bomb. A renegade American/guy that Keaton had trained a few years back has stolen it and plans to sell it to the Iranians so they can nuke Israel. Except, the crazy American kills everyone because in reality, he wants to drive a boat with this bomb right into the middle of the Seventh Fleet and kill them all, plus himself. Why would he want to do that? you ask. Hard to say. I think he had some unresolved boundary issues with Michael Keaton.

Of course, Mitch Rapp saves the day by disobeying everyone's orders, killing some bad guys. and ending the life of the crazy American. We're supposed to be excited about this but by the time it happens all you will be thinking is, "I paid $170 to watch this?!? I'm an idiot!"

I knew this was going to be a bad movie when I started writing this review in my mind about one hour into the movie. My darkest fears were confirmed when I saw this movie was written by four guys, who were listed in two groups. What that means is that two guys wrote the first script but it was so bad they had to bring in two other guys. When that happens, a movie never ever has a chance.

It pains me to say this but the first Mitch Rapp movie "American Assassin" gets only one throat-stabbing out of what should always be at least ten throat-stabbings. Avoid this one at all costs. And the next one, and every one in which Harry Styles Lite is playing Mitch Rapp.

.

[Edited 9/19/17 7:57am]

raw - 4.5/5 vegetarian veterinary student discovers her inner carnivore. not the first movie to equate sexual awakening & yearning for conformity with violence & blood-lust, but it absolutely hit all the right notes for me every step of the way. fantastically atmospheric, viciously brutal at times & containing one of the toughest, most squirm-inducing scenes i've seen in i don't know how long, but also very funny & satirical. reminiscent of body-horror era cronenberg & dario argento, & potentially my movie of the year.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) A great but depressing film about an unlikely friendship, with fine performances by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight as the naive male hustler Joe Buck. Plus the score by John Barry and the song "Everybody's Talkin" by Harry Nilsson is really memorable. I give it a 4 out of 5

Baby Driver 7.5 / 10

wonder woman

3/5

not bad for yet another super hero flick

gal gadot though ... stunning... there were some instances in the movie where her beauty was breathtaking... i think i might be a little bit in love with her

mother! i liked it quite a bit. i can certainly go along with criticisms of its metaphorical pretensions - if you say it's an inch deep, i wouldn't hotly disagree. i think adolescent might be a perfectly apt description for it, but i don't always think being adolescent or immature is a cardinal sin. the greatest sin a movie, or anything really, can make for me is being boring, and i was never bored for a moment.

in that sense, it reminds me of the adage that great and horrible art have more in common than great and average art, in that to achieve greatness you have to be willing to potentially make a fool out of yourself. i don't think this is awful by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think it was silly and bombastic and ridiculous, amps turned to 11, almost like a ken russell romp at the end (i couldn't help but think of the more frantic moments of 'the devils' during the final 1/2 hr or so), all expertly presented, and in particular i thought it had some great sound moments. borderline camp, maybe, but overall i thought it was a hoot and i'm probably going to catch it at least one more before it leaves theatres.

damosuzuki said:

mother! i liked it quite a bit. i can certainly go along with criticisms of its metaphorical pretensions - if you say it's an inch deep, i wouldn't hotly disagree. i think adolescent might be a perfectly apt description for it, but i don't always think being adolescent or immature is a cardinal sin. the greatest sin a movie, or anything really, can make for me is being boring, and i was never bored for a moment.

in that sense, it reminds me of the adage that great and horrible art have more in common than great and average art, in that to achieve greatness you have to be willing to potentially make a fool out of yourself. i don't think this is awful by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think it was silly and bombastic and ridiculous, amps turned to 11, almost like a ken russell romp at the end (i couldn't help but think of the more frantic moments of 'the devils' during the final 1/2 hr or so), all expertly presented, and in particular i thought it had some great sound moments. borderline camp, maybe, but overall i thought it was a hoot and i'm probably going to catch it at least one more before it leaves theatres.

I just read the wikipedia plot synopsis and all I can say is.......WTF?!?

RodeoSchro said:

damosuzuki said:

mother! i liked it quite a bit. i can certainly go along with criticisms of its metaphorical pretensions - if you say it's an inch deep, i wouldn't hotly disagree. i think adolescent might be a perfectly apt description for it, but i don't always think being adolescent or immature is a cardinal sin. the greatest sin a movie, or anything really, can make for me is being boring, and i was never bored for a moment.

in that sense, it reminds me of the adage that great and horrible art have more in common than great and average art, in that to achieve greatness you have to be willing to potentially make a fool out of yourself. i don't think this is awful by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think it was silly and bombastic and ridiculous, amps turned to 11, almost like a ken russell romp at the end (i couldn't help but think of the more frantic moments of 'the devils' during the final 1/2 hr or so), all expertly presented, and in particular i thought it had some great sound moments. borderline camp, maybe, but overall i thought it was a hoot and i'm probably going to catch it at least one more before it leaves theatres.

I just read the wikipedia plot synopsis and all I can say is.......WTF?!?

ha, that's been the reaction of the majority of the folks who've actually seen it.

[Edited 9/21/17 19:23pm]

As Good As It Gets (1997)

Always an enjoyable watch. Well written, good cast, and of course, vintage Jack. Hard to believe it's been 20 years.

namepeace said:

As Good As It Gets (1997)

Always an enjoyable watch. Well written, good cast, and of course, vintage Jack. Hard to believe it's been 20 years.

Absolutely one of my favourite movies. Jack is incredible and Helen and ? damn, I can't remember his name, are just wonderful. I've seen it several times and always enjoy it.

Empress said:

namepeace said:

As Good As It Gets (1997)

Always an enjoyable watch. Well written, good cast, and of course, vintage Jack. Hard to believe it's been 20 years.

Absolutely one of my favourite movies. Jack is incredible and Helen and ? damn, I can't remember his name, are just wonderful. I've seen it several times and always enjoy it.

Greg Kinnear. He was enjoying quite a streak back then after transitioning from E!'s Talk Soup.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. was great in a supporting role as well.

namepeace said:

Empress said:

Absolutely one of my favourite movies. Jack is incredible and Helen and ? damn, I can't remember his name, are just wonderful. I've seen it several times and always enjoy it.

Greg Kinnear. He was enjoying quite a streak back then after transitioning from E!'s Talk Soup.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. was great in a supporting role as well.

Greg Kinnear - thanks

American Graffiti (1973) - A couple of high school grads spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Great cast. I prefer the more serious tone to the similarly-themed Happy Days comedy. 4/5

nocturama 4.5/5 a disparate group of young people commit multiple, coordinated terrorist attacks in paris, then hide in a department store and wait out the aftermath. the two sections are quite different; the terrorist attack plays like a tight, methodological caper, & the section in the department store is almost a remake of dawn of the dead. i thought both were 100% riveting & bizarre & confusing (in the best sense). something truly different, & a film that worked its way into my head & refuses to leave.

[Edited 9/23/17 7:54am]

Went and saw "It" yesterday... wasn't that good in my eyes... not scary at all, but there was this kid sitting next to me, must've been about 14 or 15 and every time they showed the clown, he kept jumping in his seat going, "OH, SHIT!!"

Actually, it was very annoying.

Dunno what I'd rate it... maybe 5/10?

Doctor Thorne is an excellent three-part 'movie'. i found it to be quite wonderful. a jolly romp of a romance and absolutely beautifully watchable film. a wickedly funny plot and an appearance by Lovejoy's Ian McShane spices up a remarkable cast. i throughly enjoyed this. if you liked Downton Abbey you might like this as well.

anc282 said:

Went and saw "It" yesterday... wasn't that good in my eyes... not scary at all, but there was this kid sitting next to me, must've been about 14 or 15 and every time they showed the clown, he kept jumping in his seat going, "OH, SHIT!!"

Actually, it was very annoying.

Dunno what I'd rate it... maybe 5/10?

i'm a little more positive on 'it' than you or the other people who commented on the previous rtlmyw thread, though i basically agree with everything that was said. i don't think it really excelled at anythign it did. it's not really a particularly frightening movie (certainly no more so than some of the popular horror films of the past few years like the conjuring series, insidious, sinister), and it's not really great as a coming of age story either (maybe it could have gained from shaving off a few of the kids to give the remaining ones more focus). but at the same time, i think it was good enough - there were some fairly effective scenes, the kids were all good, some great imo, & i was never bored or thinking 'get on with it already.'

shorter version: no classic, but a passable way of spending a few hours if you wanna get out of the house for a bit. 3/5

stalker (1979) - it is long, and it's filled with long shots, many lingering for several minutes. at the beginning, i could almost feel my brain pushing back against the static nature of this movie, but at some point i gave myself over and went along with its calm, meditative tone. it is one of those movies that, if you don't resist, can induce something like a hypnotic state with it's droning soundtrack & great images.


i watched this at home some time ago, and i definitely feel like it plays much better as a theatre experience. that's true of almost any movie of course, but i think it's particularly true here, so if the chance presents itself, i think it's worth taking the time to see the newly restored version that's making its way around right now.

many of tarkovsky's films are streaming on youtube or elsewhere - legitimate streams put there by the movie studio, not pirated versions. http://www.openculture.co...nline.html

[Edited 9/29/17 20:45pm]

Suki, you love violent films?

2freaky4church1 said:

Suki, you love violent films?

am i suki? if so, that's a fairly creative misspelling!

sure, i like violent movies. more so in the creepy cronenberg-body-horror style, but i enjoy straight-ahead trashy horror or action movies too at times.

though i'm off to see solaris right now, so that's 3 more hours of subtitles & russians mumbling & staring off into the distance.

I watched a "movie" called "Badasses on the Bayou". Allegedly it was about Danny Glover and Danny Trejo being old badasses who beat up bad guys. Sadly, there were no more Dannys to add to the cast but it DID have one of my all-time favorite actors, John Amos. In my mind, John Amos was always about as cool as you could get. He still is, even in a turkey like this.

But let's be honest - I wasn't expecting much. As a matter of fact, I was expecting "Sign O' The Times"; at least, that's what I was looking for when I was perusing the Showtime schedule last week. As you may recall, I missed "Sign O' The Times" Sunday night, instead making a rare mistake and going to watch "American Assassin". When I got home, I really needed to see "Sign O' The Times" to get the bile of "American Assassin" out of my brain and I figured it was like the old days, where Showtime and HBO would basically re-broadcast all their stuff late at night. Well, in the 25 years that went by where I didn't have Showtime, HBO, or any other premium cable channel, I guess they got more content. Long story short, Showtime was not re-broadcasting "Sign O' The Times". But scrolling through their schedule, I did see "Badasses on the Bayou" showing at 3 AM. I was intrigued, so I hit "Record".

I'm conflicted. I could spend many humorous paragraphs dissecting all the plot holes, bad acting, and general incompetence found herein. In fact, I generally like doing that! But I have a little more insulation to pull out of some wet walls, so I must compact this diatribe. Even though this crapfest is super-low-hanging fruit, I must trade easy laughs for no mold spores in my walls. But there are a few things I can say!

To start with, this "movie" is just more proof that you, yes YOU, can write movie screenplays if you want. I don't care if you are a monkey who is in a room with a bunch of other monkeys, and you are all sitting at typewriters. You might write the complete works of Shakespeare in 1,000,000 years give or take, but you will definitely crank out a movie script better than this one in probably less that two weeks.

Who wrote this? A guy named Craig Moss and unbelievably I just found out that "Badasses on the Bayou" is the third movie in this series. Wait - there was a "Badass" series starring Danny Trejo? Thank you God for not letting me know this because we both know I would have watched the first two movies too, and might now be a zombie or some other creature whose brain has been destroyed by the film version of pneumonia.

There are a million rabbit holes I could go down with this stinker but here is the only thing you need to know:

Not once does Danny Glover say, "I'm getting too old for this shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt!!!!!"




Honestly, hearing him say that was the only reason I watched this poop pile until the end. Imagine how empty I feel as I trundle off to drill out cabinetry and remove moldy insulation.

There are honestly no badasses in "Badasses on the Bayou" so this one just gets a big fat zero.

the exterminating angel 4.5/5 i walked into this classic luis bunuel movie completely blind, expecting something dark and dour, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's a sharp, nicely paced & pretty witty social satire with some funny & fairly trippy elements. the only major flaw in my eyes was a slightly abrupt ending.

[Edited 9/25/17 18:10pm]

uncle boonmee who can recall his past lives - 4/5 i have the feeling that some of this was lost on me, that there was cultural & religion-specific stuff that probably went right over my head, but it had this sweetly innocent, even naive feel & an odd, languid tone that i thoroughly enjoyed.

Peanuts. 3/5 very cute, very nostalgic.

damosuzuki said:

uncle boonmee who can recall his past lives - 4/5 i have the feeling that some of this was lost on me, that there was cultural & religion-specific stuff that probably went right over my head, but it had this sweetly innocent, even naive feel & an odd, languid tone that i thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm jealous you are watching all these movies I want to see, but haven't had the time. Stalker and Uncle Boonmee in particular are two of my unchecked boxes on the last Sight & Sound top 250 poll. And Nocturama had drawn my interest when it was part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival here earlier this year. Maybe when baseball season is over ...

Wind River (2017) - A veteran tracker with the Fish and Wildlife Service helps to investigate the murder of a young Native American woman, and uses the case as a means of seeking redemption for an earlier act of irresponsibility which ended in tragedy.

I expected quality from the writer of Hell or High Water and Sicario and I was not disappointed. 4/5

the double life of veronique - 3/5 perhaps i've watched a few too many moody, slowly paced & subtitled films recently but, while i really enjoyed the first third or so, when this movie took a turn around the 40 minute mark or so all the life seemed to drain out of it. it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that didn't work, as there's no real obvious switch in style or tone, but it landed with a bit of a thud overall for me, which i find frustrating as i thought the opening section was truly great.

[Edited 9/28/17 18:28pm]

sexton said:

damosuzuki said:

uncle boonmee who can recall his past lives - 4/5 i have the feeling that some of this was lost on me, that there was cultural & religion-specific stuff that probably went right over my head, but it had this sweetly innocent, even naive feel & an odd, languid tone that i thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm jealous you are watching all these movies I want to see, but haven't had the time. Stalker and Uncle Boonmee in particular are two of my unchecked boxes on the last Sight & Sound top 250 poll. And Nocturama had drawn my interest when it was part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival here earlier this year. Maybe when baseball season is over ...

i'm lucky enough to have the luxury of time these days, so i'm trying to use it as productively as i can - lots of biking, reading, & movies. i've actually finally decided to take a serious bite out of that sight and sound list while i'm on my hiatus from the real world. luckily, the library is my friend and has a good amount of the top 250. battleship potemkin is up tonight...

i absolutely, unreservedly recommened nocturama & uncle boonmee whenever you can get to them. nocturama was a really wonderful surprise (i knew nothing about it, & just rather randomly streamed it one night after seeing a few interesting comments on twitter). stalker's a tougher nut to crack. i still definitely think it ought to be seen, but i'd say keep it in reserve for an evening when you're open to it, in the right mindset to have patience with it.

& i hope you get to focus back on movies. these threads aren't the same without you, & i'm actually really curious to know what you'll have to say about mother.

[Edited 9/28/17 19:58pm]

Fast Five, I think it's the best after the first one. Really entertaining. 4/5

battleship potemkin (1925) 5/5 i was pleased & a bit surprised to find that watching this movie was not just a good academic exercise in adding an overdue film to my cinematic vocabulary. it was no dreary grind but instead tightly paced & exciting, and filled with amazing images.

[Edited 9/29/17 20:09pm]