Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib reviews of recent-ish DVD and/or Blurays Bone Tomahawk This is one weird movie, or really maybe it’s two weird movies or three. Weird western definitely, of the more bookish Jonah Hex kind of tales. Not the movie, the 70’s version of the Comics is my touchstone. Ol’ Jonah was grizzled as heck and dealt occasionally with some spookier creepier western elements, in a very pulp western type of way. The first few minutes of the film were all about Sid Haig’s ode to Slim Pickens in his portrayal of a deeply cynical murderer and brigand who stumbles across into a burial ground and horrors unseen but seared in your brain in a very verite styled opening. Maybe there are a few short films in this movie that I like more, the more I write about it, defomitely more than when I sat down, to give it a middlin’ review, but thinking about it in review as opposed to the more visceral vibe of right after the movie ends, literally with a thud. If you are a fan of slow moving wester...

Glib Reviews of recent DVDs and Blu Rays. Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens - Directed by JJ Abrams I might be the only person I know who didn’t see this in the theatre, at least of those I know interested in it. Not everyone is a Star wars fan. Anyway, for vague lazy reasons, I never bothered seeing this in the theatre. And I probably still could, despite it being on disc/streaming already, it’s still playing in theatres here and there I think. While I enjoyed it quite a bit, I found my expectation that most of my enjoyment would come mostly from nostalgia, (something you can’t underestimate in terms of cinematic pleasure;) to not quite be the case. A film that reminds (in a good way) of other films that energized and inspired you goes a long way to a positive review. I was more interested in the new characters, and the fact they fit the vibe of Star Wars whilst being actors of a far greater calibre actors than the old fogeys in this episode who in my opinion, really ...

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Matinee Double Feature Edition, kind of. I recently watched a couple of DVDs based on the recommendation of one of my former co-workers from my video store days, which ended in 2014, but seem like ages ago somehow. Both films were pretty disturbing, and despite the very big differences in style and sensibility, had the same kind of message, that ‘regular’ people do very bad things sometimes, and sometimes they pay a karmic price, but sometimes not at all. Nasty Baby - Directed by Sebastian Silva An interesting double bill, which in my case means I watched one of these each over two afternoons. It’s been ages since I did an afternoon movie watch, let alone two days in a row. Nasty Baby came first, directed and starring Sebastian Silva as a queer artist named Freddy living with his boyfriend Mo in what seems to be Brooklyn. He has some pretentious video art installation ideas using adult babies. All the characters are intriguing...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD/Blu Ray releases Mississippi Grind Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck Decent buddy flick/road picture from directorial tandem of Fleck and Boden. Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds have some real bro-chemistry, as an older/younger gambling team. Mendelsohn’s Gerry really personifies someone who rarely knows when to quit while he’s ahead. His desperation and addiction to one more hand, one more dice roll, is palpable in pretty much every decision the character makes. Why Reynolds’ obnoxiously charismatic Curtis gloms onto Gerry as much as Gerry gloms on to him, is a bit more of a mystery, that is perhaps simply, their chemistry. He seems to like hanging out with Gerry, as much as anything, but both characters are self destructive and complete committment-phobes. There is a dynamite Blues soundtrack, and the montages of neon and nightlife from cities along the road from Iowa to New Orleans are well done, if a bit touristy. I really dug the ...

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Tangerine - Directed By Sean Baker Tangerine is one of those films that ‘feels like’ it was shot chronologically. The first few scenes are a bit rough, the acting is a bit iffy, but as the characters of Sin-Dee and Alexandra walk endlessly through their drama filled Christmas Eve Day in L.A. The picture gets more gripping, the cinematography, the acting and the script all get better, more polished in a low budget way. The locations give a nice grimy seventies feel to the whole thing. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is especially unlikeable at the beginning of the film, her single mindedness in finding her pimp/boyfriend and the girl he ‘cheated on her’ with while she was doing a month in jail, is not terribly nuanced. The buffer of the her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) trying to keep her from all the drama she is creating, while trying to hustle tickets for a show she is doing that night keeps the whole thing from being one note. ...

Glib Reviews of Recent Movies. The Revenant  - Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu Like Iñárritu’s last film, “Birdman,” I was sucked in early, then spit out just before the ending. I feel like going back and seeing if his early films fail me in the third act as much as his last few. The film as a whole was quite good, cinematically, the actors were amazing if occasionally too mannered. I mean maybe Tom Hardy’s incoherent mumbling was supposed to be incoherent? Even if that is so; it still took away from an interesting character’s arc.  The cinematography, as usual in Iñárritu’s pictures is astounding. Though, I found the Argentinian shot scenes a bit jarring with the much more haunted looking forests than the stuff done in the Rockies, that was supposed to match up. Quibbles though, that. Some stuff was done in a studio in Burnaby also. For me the simple story gave way to non-story, with the prolonged chase at the end, which was much more paint by number...

Glib Review of Ant-Man - Directed By Peyton Reed I liked a great many things about Ant-Man. The action scenes were good, the sfx I thought were quite good, the story was an interesting spin on a Marvel character I know very well, having been a comics nerd since the early 70’s. The changes in character from the comics to film universe are pretty reasonable. I thought Paul Rudd was great, as was Michael Douglas, and Evangeline Lily. I liked the family dynamic, and Bobby Cannavale is always great. The scene, not to spoil anything, with The Falcon is one of the best 'getting to know you' superhero fights on film. but.... but something about this movie bugged me. Groan.... True story though. I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. But the things I thought gummed up the works, were Lang’s sidekick ethnic stereotype buddies in crime. Michael Pena gave it his all, but a lot of the humour these guys were supposed to add fell flat for me, which messed up the pa...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD & Blu Ray Releases. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  - Directed by Guy Ritchie. A pretty entertaining movie rehash of one of my very first ‘Favourite TV shows.” Like my other early rerun Favourite ‘Star Trek,’ ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ was in reruns for the first time, after 5 years off the air, so 1973-ish for me.  My first crushes on men, were probably on these two, ‘not as suave as either thinks,’ and awesomely named super spies, ‘Napoleon Solo, and Ilya Kuryakin. I have rose coloured memories of watching that particular spy show. I was very much as a kid into spy tv shows, like this or, ‘the Avengers,’ ‘I Spy,’ ‘Get Smart,’ and the zillion others that came and went in the 70’s. I tried my best not to bring too much nostalgia to this movie remake. I enjoy the Star Trek movies, best as really good two part episodes of which ever show the characters are from. Most old tv shows rebooted into movies suffer from trying too hard to re-invent...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD/Blu-Ray Releases The Avengers: Age Of Ultron Directed by Joss Whedon Well, it definitely was not as bad as a lot of folks made it out to be this little film. I am a big reader of comic books, and superhero fan, but even I think there are too many superhero movies. While this movie doesn’t quite capture the fun of the first Avengers movie, it scores a lot of points for me, simply by not being called Avengers 2. Oh, there are tons of spoilers in this review, fyi. The initial scene where everything is cgi seemingly except a few cutaways is weirdly out of place in terms of the cinematography, but it is a comic book movie, so I say embrace the cgi. It is supposed to be a bit ‘cartoony’. The lack of actual Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes the whole thing less fun. The second most jarring thing for me was James Spader’s laconic glib take on Ultron. This really threw me for about half the movie, Ultron sounds like a preppy overprivileged lawyer?  ...

Glib Reviews of Recent DVD Releases Kingsman: The Secret Service - Directed By Matthew Vaughn Loosely based on a comic book that somehow I never read, despite it being up my alley with all the spying and gadgets and gratuitous violence. One of those Mark Millar comics, called “The Secret Service.” I will be searching it out now, as I found the movie reasonably entertaining. It was no From Russia With love or Goldfinger, mind you, or even Layer Cake, Vaughn’s first and for my money, best film, but I have enjoyed all of his five of his Directorial efforts. Kingsman is a lot of fun, with a ludicrous plot line that the characters constantly joke about. Like Millar’s comics there isn’t a ton of depth or story, just clever usage of tropes from the genre. I like the setting the story with an outside independent Secret Service, as opposed to the done to death MI-6/CIA kind of spy movie. Colin firth is great as classy agent Harry Hart, code named Galahad. It’s nice to see h...

Glib Reviews of Fairly Recent DVD  Releases Inherent Vice - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Finally got around to seeing the latest PTA flick, which I had heard a lot of conflicting opinions on. Inherent Vice is also based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, so there are of course some heavy wight ideas going on. Personally the only Pynchon I have ever been able to finish reading is The Crying Of Lot 49.  I had my own sort of mix of skepticism and hope going into this. Tried and tried to get through V. and Gravity’s Rainbow three or four times each, but also, something makes me give up on these books, I usually am so into the books, the first half or so, then something that just happens is that I have put the books down, and moved on to something else. Maybe it’s just timing; and I say this because this is what I see in this film, something that PTA groks about pace and timing, that generally, (with the exception of “The Master, which I can’t seem to stay awake through.)...

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Welcome To Me - Directed by Shira Piven A very sharp, very much with a feminine gaze satire on how the world deals with mental illness, fame, and wealth. Sounds like reality TV? Bingo. Kristen Wiig brings us Alice Kleig, a women filled with anxiety, rage, love and medication. In a familiar plot this very typical modern Oprah obsessed heavily medicated woman wearing her neuroses on her sleeve, wins the lotto.  She decides to fund her own infomercial style ‘talk show “Welcome To Me.” I really don’t want to give much away of the story, but I will say that it all unfolds with impeccable timing, and is alternately making you laugh, cringe, and cry, maybe all three at the same time. Alice is one of those very hard to love characters, her social awkwardness both charms and wears thin as she goes from catharsis to catharsis, kind of forgetting/taking for granted the people who helped her before she won the lotto, as she wins over most o...

Glib Reviews  Recent DVD/Blu-Ray Releases John Wick - Directed by Chad Stahelski, David Leitch (uncredited) There two kinds of Keanu Reeves that the people want. Sad Keanu, and Mad Keanu, ‘John Wick’ gives you both and lots of both. The set-up involves already sad former assassin John Wick being made even sadder by GOT’s Alfie Allen, aka Theon/Reek. I can’t look at the actor with wincing. He nails the snivelling entitled gangster’s son who does stupid thing after stupid thing (not to spoil it) to turn Sad Keanu’s sad frown in to Mad Keanu’s angry grimace.  I had heard how great this movie is, and well, I definitely enjoyed it, it really is pretty hackneyed and silly. Lots of great cameos, and a hotel that is exclusively for assassins.  The gunfights and streetfight/MMA throwdowns are well choreographed, and happen with a regularity that keeps you from caring about nuance or character development. It’s okay, though, the movie really plays out like tha...