Thursday, March 26, 2020

Spenser Confidential (2020) R - 3½ Stars

While this is not your typical comedy, it does offer up enough sarcasm and wit to keep you entertained. Action packed with a touch of violence, Mark Wahlberg plays an ex-cop that's been in prison for attempting to take a dirty cop down. Once released hell take on the Boston Police dept to confirm his hunch regarding corrupt cops. He vows to make things right and bring down the bad guys.

The day Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) gets out of prison, he's already been warned about what's waiting on the outside for him. He's just done time for assault on a Boston police officer. As it turns out Spenser, also an ex-officer himself, is not liked by a small handful of Boston's finest. His only friend is his ex trainer, Henry (Alan Arkin), who gives him a ride and offers him a place to stay. Along with a another boxer in the house, Hawk (Winston Duke), Spenser vows to not let the cops get away with it again.




NETFLIX
Director: Peter Berg
Producers: Bill Bannerman,Eric Heffron,John Logan Pierson
Writers: Sean O'Keefe, Brian Helgeland

Sunday, March 22, 2020

The Platform (2019) TVMA - 3½ Stars


This movie originally titled "El Hoyo", starts out like a train wreck, so very weird and wrong but you just can't look away. I instantly felt a familiarity to a similar style of filming like with the first Saw movie. Your first glimpse into this prison is watching a man wake in a poorly lit room where you can almost smelling the stench. There is no rhythm or reason as to why you are which sets up a psychological journey into your own mind of understanding the visual. "There are three kind of people in here. The ones above, the ones below, and the ones who fall." With not a large budget for special effects, the movie sends a huge message. You're instantly drawn in to feeling screwed as you watch human greed and selfishness at it's primeval finest.

Goreng, (Ivan Massagué) wakes up in a tiny small cement room known as "the pit." A vertical prison with two inmates per floor, and a slab of food is lowered per floor giving inmates a two minute window to grab food to eat. As the platform gets lower, less and less food is available for the starving people below. What will this do to Goreng's mind.




Director: Warner Bros Pictures
Writers: David Desola, Pedro Rivero
Producers: Raquel Perea, Carlos Juárez, David Matamoros, Elena Gozalo, Ángeles Hernández

Monday, March 9, 2020

Hot Fuzz (2007) R - 3½ Stars

If you are in need a of British comedy, try this one by the makers of Shaun of the Dead. It's an action packed cute comedy drama that stimulates a few of your senses. While it ridicules plots found in big budget action films, Hot Fuzz is a delight.

A London cop, Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), is too good at what he does and he's making the other cops on the force look bad. He gets transferred to the small town of Sandford, Gloucestershire in hopes he can teach proper law technique here. His new partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), has fantasized about what it would be like to see action in his town. Danny has watched way too many action packed movies and would like to get in on that action. Be careful for what you wish for Danny as this quiet town starts to see way too much action that even Danny are ready.



StudioCanal Rogue Pictures Working Title Films
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Natascha Wharton, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Producers: Tim Bevan, Nira Park, Eric Fellner