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While this is a movie blog, I have on occasion posted on concert events that are related to movies in some way. Today's post is just such an occasion. On Sunday I attended a performance by the L.A. Philharmonic of music featured in the films of Stanley Kubrick. The use of music in Kubrick films is a fascinating subject because unlike most film makers, after the midway point in his career, Kubrick largely abandoned the use of original orchestral music and integrated existing classical works into his films. Notoriously, for 2001 A Space Odyssey, the score composed by Alex North, a 15 time Academy Award nominee and a collaborator with Kubrick on the film "Spartacus" was not used. North had been shown about forty minutes of the movie on which to base his score. It was not until he watched the film in it's premier that he realized not a note of his composition was in the film. Before the concert we attended a Upbeat Live talk by Bernardo Rondeau, one of the music curators ...

A slow burn with a heist that does not carry much weight in the end. "Widows" is a quality film about a criminal enterprise, unfortunately, it is the political system in Chicago as opposed to the robbery that is at the heart of the film. The cast for the film is impressive and the story is full of unpleasant twists but there is something about it that holds me back from a strong endorsement. Those who want a slick crime film will be disappointed because this movie travels down some byzantine alleys and the thing that is around the next corner is usually a downer. The grime and decay of the neighborhood featured in this movie should be enough to tell you this is not "Ocean's 4". There is nothing cute or charming or fun happening here. This is a story focusing on rich criminals robbing each other in the midst of urban decay and neglect. That the criminals are all politically connected should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with how things work in these big ...

I need a safe house in Paris, because things have gone terribly wrong. J.K. Rowling has finally exhausted her creativity and has delivered the first vapid filler of the Wizarding World. "The Crimes of Grinelwald" could easily be called the "Exposition of Grindelwald". Almost nothing that happens in this film makes a difference in the narrative that is supposed to be coming. After the opening escape sequence, we get two hours of visual imagination signifying nothing. Last week on the Lambcast, we covered all eight of the Harry Potter films. I was only on the second show covering the last four films, but if you listen, you will hear everyone at some point praising these movies for making the books come alive and entertaining us. I doubt that on tomorrow's Lambcast, anyone will be saying the same things about this movie. I fell asleep several times because nothing seemed to be going anywhere. Every time a new scene came up, it involved giving us backstory on a char...

So, a couple of weeks ago we had a MOTM episode on "The Hunt for Red October". Most of the participants would put it at or near the top of the list of submarine movies. I can't say that "Hunter Killer" is going to displace "Red October" but I can say it belongs on the list of entertaining sub movies. The plot here is a little too full of melodramatic twists to be very realistic, but it keeps you engaged and there is a nice amount of tension as you go along. If you don't mind a few shots of models standing in for real submarines, rather than more extensive CGI, you will also like the look of the movie. It feels like a 1960s film, shot in the 1980s, with some contemporary actors standing in for folks like Charlton Heston or Rock Hudson. The political scenario has the U.S. and Russia at odds over international policies, but there is no particular tipping point that the conflict rests on. A Russian sub, as it is leaving it's base, is attacked and t...

Mani Haghighi is an Iranian director that I was unfamiliar with until this film. I hope to see more of his other movies after experiencing this vastly entertaining piece of sick humor about social climbing and status in the country of Iran. The set up is pretty simple and intriguing. Hasan Kasmai is a director of films in Iran, but he has run a fowl of the government censorship  rules and is basically barred from working in film for an unspecified period of time. While he is making due with commercial shoots and keeping up with the film community in the culture world, other Iranian film directors are being murdered by a serial killer, who has the unmitigated Gaul to ignore Hasan. It might seem that serial murder and laughter are not complimentary companions, Haghighi as screenwriter, director and early victim, manages to argue persuasively that they do. Hasan is a close friend of the first victim we see and is asked to identify the body, correction, not the body, just the head. A m...

So I had an opportunity to meet up with a Fellow member of the Lamb at the AFI Fest yesterday. Howard Casner and I are the two senior sheep in the flock so to speak. Most of the other lambs are half our ages. We were talking on a podcast a few weeks ago and he mentioned he would be attending the AFI Fest in Hollywood. Since Monday was a school holiday, I was able to accept his offer of a couple of tickets to screenings at the festival. We greeted each other and had a nice conversation at McDonalds before getting in line for the first of the two films. "Lemonade" is a Romanian production filmed in the U.S. and featuring actress Mãlina Manovici. She plays Mara, an immigrant who has married an American that she took care of at a convalescent hospital. She is seeking a green card and has arranged for her son to join her in the States. This is a stark tale of immigrant struggles against bureaucracy,  culture clash and toxic male  hegemony. It is a well told story but bleak for...

Frankly, this was the most entertaining movie I have seen in a while. It's not artistic, or deep. It lacks the elegance of some fine movies that I have seen in the last few months. But if you were to ask me to go with you to see this movie, I'd do it in a heartbeat because I had so much fun the first time. This is the Nazi Zombie movie about D-Day. If that thumbnail does not turn you on immediately, you are reading the wrong blog. This premise could have been done 40 years ago. That it is a current film is just coincidence. This is well made pulp horror, that scares you and takes it's time building tension and does so with energy. "Overlord" starts as a typical WWII film, with the exception that black American soldiers are integrated into the combat units fighting the war, that just was not the case.  Otherwise, this is just a few men on a mission to destroy a radio tower that is crucial to the success of D-Day. Most of the Platoon is obliterated by anti-aircraft ...

There are a lot of things I see in this idea that might make sense for a Holiday movie. The opening is set at Christmas time, the motif uses the Nutcracker Ballet and music, and it is family friendly. Having seen the film however, I can't really say who it is for. The music is incidental to the story, as is most of the Nutcracker story itself. This is a stand alone movie that is too weird for it's own good. It lacks the charm to overcome it's weaknesses and frankly, it is not very well acted. Set in Victorian Times, this new telling of the Nutcracker focuses on a young girl named Clara, who is mourning her Mother but also trying to be a bit independent. The family dynamic suggests a close bond with her younger brother and older sister, but neither of them become a part of the fantasy here. Her widowed Father also mourns but in the style of keeping a stiff upper lip and conforming to expectations and appearances. This drives a wedge between the two of them which is more appr...

I was introduced to the music of Queen while I was in college. A senior on the Trojan Debate Squad, Mark Dickerson, was selling me some of his old sample cases since his debate career was finished. I went to his apartment and he played some Tom Scott jazz records while we were talking. As I was looking through his album collection, I came across the Queen Album "A Night at the Opera". I asked about it and he played Bohemian Rhapsody for me, I was hooked. That summer when my family took a trip across country in the Chrysler Station wagon, I contributed two 8 track tapes to the trip. One was the Blue Oyster Cult album, "Don't Fear the Reaper", the other was the aforementioned classic. We must have listened to the whole thing a dozen times between California and New York. What made Freddie Mercury so great as an artist was both his vocal range and his theatricality. The film about the band, but mostly about Freddie, gets those two things right. The music tracks are...

This Post was Originally Published on the Defunct Site "Fogs' Movie Reviews" in the Fall of 2013. I just bought tickets for three different Concerts in February for the Kiss End of the Road Tour, so this seemed like an easy pick to return to this month. This is an easy one this week. There is no historical value, cinema language, or back story intrigue to make this a movie you should see. It is just funny as all get out with wiseacre talk, inappropriate life lessons and a cast of funny people who are just trying to entertain you for a couple of hours. If you are a fan of films like "I Love You Man" or "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" then you don't want to miss this treat starring the slacker gods Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd. This is dumb comedy done in a smart way and it has so many quotable lines that it could easily displace Caddyshack on the list of guy movies that guys will quote incessantly. The premise is basic. Two guys who work t...