Then I saw them once more without him (2018). It sucked.
Though Dan was so frail, his throat singing was so great. Hair of the Dog if it bit 1000 times...He was 76, Retired (or?) from Nazareth in 2013. Too much Razmatazzz :()
they played Sala Sporturilor in Brasov in the early nineties (the first ofem all coming). a buddy of mine tried to give them palinca upfront....wild...
This is the pic I took in February 2012 at Hard Rock Cafe in Bucharest.. I think he was on coke but hey. he did a great gig.
Amsterdam is a really bad movie. One that does no mov(i)e, its overlong (2h14min), bloated and unfunny. Like a comedy made by people with no sense of humor. Oh but it's not a comedy. It's a conspiracy crime thriller as well. And an expensive period piece. And a true story apparently. (that should've been told differently for us to care). And so a flop. A sign about all that was that it didn't make it first in any festival as a film like this should've do and build up from there.
Margot Robbie looks superb asa brunette but she is not part of a Jules and Jim, or Bande a part triangle. And Amsterdam should have stayed in... Amsterdam. Also it could've been called Timbuktu or any other city for that matter. Cos it's like a Proust Madelaine that Amsterdam here, cos' Paris was probably too much of a cliche (`we'll always have Paris` ya know).
I am just sorry I didn't write about it earlier (saw it two weeks ago already) so I could save some friends money as they went into the cinema and were flabbergasted. Sorry, my bad...
A wasted De Niro (he looks really old), over-the-top Christian Bale and not funny (again with a glass eye!) grotesque Rami Malek, John David Washington leaves me totally cold... a potential great cast totally wasted... Chris Rock has nothing to do but some poor comic relief, Mike Myers shows up right from his Inglorious Basterds cameo and Michael Shannon is wasted, oh did I wrote that three times already?
David O Russell is not Wes Anderson, nor the Coen bros, neither Woody Allen which he tries to emulate in this loud pastiche, with ambitious and gorgeous cinematography by Emanuel Lubezki. Best asset of the film except Robbie's smile..
I am now fully convinced the director (also writer and producer) is totally overrated and not on my cup of Joe list. The only film of his i liked was Three Kings (1999), which is not really his film, as it was tinkerd by the stars (cllooney absolutely hated him and vice versa) in it and the studio (WB). And screnwriter John Ridley who was betrayed and sued for his credit. Oh, and it seems also The Fighter (2010), cos' I just saw I wrote a very possitive review back then (in Romanian here), and I expressed then my opinion about him on Silver Linings Playbook in 2012 (also in Romanian :) Both these movies get lower grades now from me, I always tend to be more generous then and back in time (or maybe was just younger;). For ex. American Hustle I tried to rewatch recently on prime streaming and gave up after 10 minutes. Oh, and there is Joy...did I really went and see that? In a cinema theatre no less...I'll be Amster-damned...
4 stars out of ten, 2 out of five.
it'll show up on disney+ soon, so save the effort...
TEHL/ The Eagle Has Landed (1976) is the last film directed by the Magificent Seven's John Sturges, as a fare to get more fishing money. That's what I've read now and I am sad about this-he didn't care about the post production at all, but the film still stands up, and it's a joyride!
The plot to kidnap Winston Churchill by a band of condamned German paratroopers in England in 1943...wow! Solid script by Tom Mankiewicz, based on a novel by Brtish writer Jack Higgins.
It is one of my guilty pleasures: faved ww tales of what if (Where Eagles Dare, Eye of the Needle, Kelly's Heroes) and the multi million studio bound all star cast A Bridge too Far was made at the same time)
Rober Duvall pulls a lookalike heavy Stauftenberg, how the F*** the got him?, grand accent), reddish Donald Sutherland as Devlin, an Irish IRA member seems to have much fuun,
It stars also Donlad Pleasence as Himmler, and Anthony Quayle has a cameo as adimral Canaris, we dont get the fuhrer but we get his signature :)
and Jenny Agutter, yes:)
Michael Caine as colonel Karl Steiner, the same Steiner that shows up in The Iron Cross and Steiner Iron Cross Part 2, played by James Coburn (great in Peckinph's only war movie), and Richard Burton in a gimme gin gig, how the heck the only German name is Steiner for all these?
and Larry Hagman, well J.r. as a commaning American officer with a moustache...
I bet Tarantino loves this...
Sir Micharel Caine said it and I was shattered..BS
In his autobiography, Sir Michael Caine confessed to being somewhat disappointed with the end product: "The picture was being directed by the Hollywood old-timer John Sturges, and we were all very pleased that this illustrious veteran had agreed to direct our film. That is, until one day when I was talking to him between set-ups and he informed me that, now that he was older, he only ever worked to get the money to go fishing, which was his passion. Deep-sea fishing off Baja, California, he added, which was very expensive. The moment the picture finished, he took the money and went. Producer Jack S. Wiener later told me that he never came back for the editing nor for any of the other post-production sessions that are where a director does some of his most important work. The picture wasn't bad, but I still get angry when I think of what it could have been with the right director. We had committed the old European sin of being impressed by someone, just because he came from Hollywood."
I was too, to find out this in 2022 :(
so Anne Coates (the editor) did the movie...
I also love the Lalo Schifrin score and
this gets better every time i revisit it.
It's now on you tube , you can watch it here -until it vanishes :)
Why the plot failed?
¬I thought my plot failed cos' one of my man died saving the little girl over there¬
Steiner
I still think it's a great fun film and they don't do them like that anymore :( Caine, Duvall,Sutherland, Lalo, Sturges all in one, you gotta treasure that, it was 44 years ago...The Eagle had landed all right (remember the Saxon live album cover as well).
7 out ot 10, 3 1/2 out of five (would be a six but, hey :)
that is if you haven't been trampled in (South ) Korea or you don't party with Elon Musk and the probably reptilian clique at Bran (Dracula's) Castle...
an anthology of 8 stories, 8 different directors. Nice premieres, streaming two episodes per day in three days from Oct 25 to Oct 28. The best for me were The Viewing- directed by Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow, Mandy), featuring a great Paul Weller (a clin d'oeil to his father 1983 cult film Of Unknown Origin that starred Peter Weller!) , Autopsy-d:David Prior (The Empty Man, Voir) with a fantastic F.Murray Abraham and Lot 36-d: Guillermo Navarro (great DOP and tv director), with a downbeat dark Tim Blake Nelson, based on a short story by GdT himself.
Del Toro didn”t direct any of the eight, he presents every story in person in a Hitchcock or Rod Sterling manner, .also a la Tales from the Crypt. He did write 2 short stories of wich two episodes are based, the second one being The Murmuring (directed y Jennifer Kent-The Babadock). 2 episodes are based on stories by Del Toro and all horror lover's favorite, H.P. Lovecraft - Pickman's Model (d by Keith Thomas-The Vigil) and Dreams in the Witch House (director Catherine Hardwicke-Twilight).
Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home at Night, The Bad Batch) The Outside episode is a body horror satire with a brave acting performance by Kate Micucci that loses but all wind in an hour when it could've been half . In opossition with Lot 36 which is the shortest of the whole bunch (45 min) except the Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) episode, Graveyard Rats. The shortest film at 37 mins, it is a classic and morbid take on Edgar Allan Poe's tropes and can be seen also in Glorious Black and White version (for this version scroll down on Episodes on the screen to the Trailer and More section). All stories are set in the past to capture the spirit and style of the genre.
Uneven as all anthologies are but tones better than the recent netflix fare The Midnight Club for ex. Season two is okțd for next year.
in cinemas and PPW:
Halloween Ends -actually not so bad, Halloween mixed with Stephen King's Christine and other King themes. Music by John Caprenter, his son Cody and Daniel Davies.
It will not be the last if you're worried, in a few years they'll reboot it again. But it will be definetly the last with Jamie Lee Curtis. Anyhu, John Carpenter says he doesn't care...
written and directed by Zach Cregger, an effective thriller with creepy undertones works in three different acts and surprises you best if you know less about the plot (i had no clues whatsoever when bro cuz' kinosseur recommended it to me ;)
shades of Wes Craven (People under the Stairs) and some similarities with Don't Breathe (derelict Detroit neighbourhood)
it's the real Blonde film. Talk about bravura acting (even more so than in X where she did both roles of Maxine and Pearl, can't wait for the sequel now-Maxxxine).
