RAYON FILM

film reviews and rants by RAY BIXON

[alternacomics]

6.1.16

Discovering time travel was easy. Surviving the night? Not so much…

@chargecomic

[rayonfilm]

Spectre

I’ll say straight out that this is a good Bond flick.   That said, I miss the old Bond films where they existed on their own with no mention of other film characters or plot points.  It seems these last few movies can’t help but try and tie each one in to each other and this one goes way overboard with the references and coincidences.  I really hope the next one is just Bond being Bond and we don’t need to worry about who did what in a previous movie.  

All said and done I liked it although I would have preferred to love it.  Almost as good as Skyfall.

Side note, if I’m not mistaken, I think Bond might have banged Moneypenny. Am I right?  #SmashCutToBathrobe

[rayonfilm]

Sicario

Denis Villeneuve knocks it out of the park again.  He is the modern king of making the audience uneasy.  So tense, so thrilling, so awesome.  

I could go on forever about this but i don’t want to spoil it.  Lets talk after.

[rayonfilm]

Black Mass

More like Black MESS, ha ha.  Oh wait, there are no black people in this movie. 

How about White Mess?   Nope.  That sounds like a porn flick.

I need to think of something to describe this aimless assortment of murder scenes contrasted with forced tender family moments.  Because everyone knows that mobsters are way scarier when they love their mothers.   Am I right? 

[rayonfilm]

Mississippi Grind

From the people that brought you the crack addiction movie, Half Nelson, comes another addiction, gambling.  Sad people and shitty decisions.  

Good times.  Good fucking times.  

Gambling movies are tough to watch sometimes.  This one is too but the final payoff is nice.  Ben Mendelsohn is always a pleasure.  Ryan Reynolds is experiencing a comeback.  I’m pretty sure he knows about it but just in case he doesn’t i thought i’d say it out loud.  

In short, i liked it.  I wasn’t sure at times but in the end i liked it.

[rayonfilm]

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Completely absent of danger or darkness but its still a fun ride!

I’m always sceptical of anyone’s intentions when another reboot of a long forgotten TV show or movie comes out of hollywood.  I barely remember the original but luckily as far as I could tell, it didn’t really matter.  This was just a straight up ultra-stylized-60s-cold-war-heist film with a bit of buddy-cop-from-the-other-side-of-the-iron-curtain action flick thrown in for spice.  Easy peasy and a little bit sleazy.  I laughed out loud a bunch of times.  A. Whole. Bunch.

The ending sets up a franchise but lets just see how the box office goes before we count those communist chickens.  

[rayonfilm]

Cop Car

What started out as a funny little indie movie about 2 kids who run away from home, turned into a messed up bloodbath. Well done. Kevin Bacon is bumbling and brilliant and Shea Whigham's warning to children might just be the most frightening thing any adult has ever said to a kid.

[rayonfilm]

Terminator Genisys

This movie sucked so bad.  I tried keeping count of all the things wrong with it but i lost track.  I even had one of those clickers and an abacus and everything.

The biggest issue I had though was not with the logic of the movie (and the logic was pretty fucking bad), it was the characters.  At least in the first 2 Terminator movies there was some development.  Terminator 1, Sarah goes from a helpless damsel to a badass.  Terminator 2, John goes from resentful brat to accepting of who he is minus a father figure.  This movie?  Nothing.  Wooden actors go from wooden to pointless and wooden.  No change in their character whatsoever.  No growth.  No learning.  

And the story, my lord.  The first 20 min had more than enough story to last a whole film but no, lets keep adding robots and time jumping and quantum nexusing and driving buses and helicopters and whaaaaat thaaaaa faaaaack are you doing?  Its like a goddamn Spiderman movie.  

Why so many robots?  Everywhere we turn theres a robot.  Who sent all of these robots back? Is everyone a robot?  That’s it!  Everyone is a robot.  All of us, including you and me.  I feel so much better now.  

0101010101010101010.  That’s robot for Jesus Christ this movie was bad.

[rayonfilm]

Slow West

If John Ford and Wes Anderson had a baby, it would be Slow West.

You hear this a lot,  "a love letter to…"   Kingsman is a love letter to 60s spy films.  Godzilla is a love letter to monster movies.  

I’m about to use it here.  Slow West is a love letter to the western genre.  

What exactly does that mean though?  Well, I suppose it means that the director took a genre and a period in filmmaking and captured everything that made it great in one work of art, without it feeling derogatory or being a ripoff other films entirely.  It takes the best and makes it better.  That’s Slow West.  

We have gunfights, we have standoffs.

We have outlaws, we have settlers.

We have desperation, we have isolation.

We have dusty dunes and we have wide open plains.  

But most of all we have comedy within the brutality.  Life emerging from Death.  Morality from Lawlessness.  

No Boobs though.  But then again, John Ford or Sergio Leone never had boobs so what are we expecting.  Get your head out of the gutter you sick bastard.

[rayonfilm]

The Cell (2000)

Beautiful.   I saw this when it originally came out but years later it actually improves.  

Also, this film did the Inception thing before Inception.  Jennifer Lopez can fuck off but the swat team scene when they invade the house is pretty darn good.  Vince Vaughn too.  Who knew.  

IMDB this director and you’ll see he’s got the visual skills of Zack Snyder but he also knows how to tell a story.  Appreciation success.

[rayonfilm]

Big Game

So so very bad. It’s so bad that it must be for retarded people. Figuratively and not literally…retarded.

That said I watched it high on ketamine.

[rayonfilm]

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

As far as teenage angst films go I suppose this is way better than most but I still think this genre is pretty fucked out.   I get that teenagers struggle with identity sometimes but I mostly don't give a shit.  

Cancer sucks though.  Fucking big time.  

[rayonfilm]

The Gunman

Allow me to save you 2 hours of your life.

Mining companies are evil. 

You’re welcome. 

[rayonfilm]

Jurassic World

Guy at Liquor Store: Hey man, you forgot to review Jurassic World.

Me: No I didn’t.

[rayonfilm]

Cop Land

Underrated and still fantastic all these years later. Might be Stallone's best performance since the first Rocky...not counting Tango and Cash of course. Duh.

[rayonfilm]

I'll Follow You Down

I’m a time travel whore.  I like it fast, i like it slow, i like it on a train, or at a school.  Show me some time travel and I’ll get on that shit like nobody’s business.   

The time travel in this movie is a cock tease.  I was like “come on already” and it was like “nope, i’m gonna be a family drama for a while”.  I almost had to do my own goddamn time travelling for a bit.  Eventually it got there but it took SO long.  

Was it worth the wait?  Totally.  But then again, I’m a time travel whore.

[rayonfilm]

Spy

My only complaint is that I had to see a man’s erect penis.  Alright, its not a complaint, its a confession.

Also, its rare for an "action star" to make fun of himself and be hilarious in the process, so i was surprised when Jason Statham really. fucking. pulled it off.  That said, i think I found this movie to be more exciting than funny...and it was pretty funny so that’s saying a lot. 

Between Spy, Mad Max and Avengers 2, this past month of gems has almost made up for all of the pieces of shit that came out in Jan and Feb.