Clyde E Collins: film reviewer

Review properties streamed on Netflix, Hulu+, appleTV, including action-adventure, anime, bollywood, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, mystery-thriller, SciFi & Fantasy.

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Not your typical werewolf elimination derby.

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/10/20161004-action-review-skinwalkers.html

The initial tableaux: Young Tim starts a walk through town with his tall, alert Nana.  In parallel, some biker thugs ride toward town.  Two or so minutes later, everyone in the town and all the invaders are in full-on deadly combat. The invading murderers claim loudly, "We just want the boy."  Everyone in town would like to live, but each of them is willing to die to protect Tim, especially if they can kill the damned bikers first. Delineation of conflicts: The bullet-ridden dialectic reaches an impasse which enables a bit of narration.  The local werewolf (skinwalker) population has been present for quite some time, but it has become divided and polarized. There is a prophecy that a hybrid (Tim) will be born.  There will be three nights in which the blood moon will shine near the thirteenth birthday of the boy.  On the midnight of the third such night, the power of the hybrid will be manifest. That power is the ability to end the curse that werewolves suffer. Some of the werewolves embrace the power and bloodlust that the curse brings.  They want the boy dead.  The other faction cherishes their humanity, and wishes the hybrid to survive, to flourish, and to completely fulfill his destiny. Resolution: Much of the prophecy is fulfilled while each of the two factions quite effectively reduce the numbers of the opposite side.  As the witching hour draws nigh, secrets are revealed and the plot moves forward from one last minute fight to the next.

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http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/09/adsbygoogle-window_25.html

Hope and Crosby in the last Road picture.

The initial tableaux: Babcock and Turner are two minor con men who have fallen on bad times.  By chance, Babcock finds the only copy (hm) of a secret Russian formula for an advanced rocket fuel.  He manages to read the formula (without understanding), but destroys the written copy soon after.  The pair discover that the formula is sought after, and could bring them money.  They start the search for a way for Babcock to recall the specifications for the fuel. Delineation of conflicts: The pair search for, and find, the High Lama.  The Lama's people have the lore to let Babcock remember the rocket fuel recipe.  However, the Lama and all his society agree that the special concoction needed to do this should never leave their home.  That is a fine mess for Hope and Crosby to bumble their way out of. No sooner than they have ditched the High Lama's agents, the 3rd Echelon wishes to get the formula which will enable flight to the Moon.  From the Moon, the 3rd Echelon hopes to bomb modern civilization (1962 style) into submission.  Diane is the 3rd Echelon's agent who manipulates the con men easily.  She gets them to headquarters without too much trouble. The last conflict is for Diane's loyalty.  She is loyal to her employer, but she grows to like both Babcock and Turner.  Her boss is willing to do anything to get the rocket formula, including killing either or both of the con men. Resolution: This was a vaudeville style comedy, so one does not expect a rousing ending which is a triumph of coherence.  Instead, we get a couple more laughs from the film industry making fun of itself after the heroes (?) save the world but not themselves.

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http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/09/20160920-scifi-review-total-recall.html

The initial tableaux: In a dark future dystopia, Douglas works in the UK side of Europe, but lives in Australia.  His job is hardly fulfilling, and he is haunted by recurring disturbing dreams.  In this stressful situation, he considers using the service Total Rekall, which provides the customer with an extra set of memories that are satisfying in some sense. Douglas signs up with Total Rekall to be a secret agent against Chancellor Cohaagen, the leader of the UFB, the strongest state.  His rewards would be excitement and a growing sense of self-worth, at least while experiencing the extra memories. Delineation of conflicts: The imaginary scenario of Total Rekall never gets imprinted.  Armed agents crash into Total Rekall to arrest or kill Douglas.  He avoids dying, but unfortunately goes home to his 'wife' Lori, who is not his ally.  Douglas is on a quest to stay alive, to regain his memories, to find old or new allies, and to figure out what he wants to do with what time he has left.  There seem to be factions within Cohaagen's administration, but all of them seem to be after Douglas.  Opposing the administration is the Resistance, one of whose leaders is Matthias.  Douglas tries to find Matthias.  Will this free Douglas, or will it just accomplish Cohaagen's goals of putting down the Resistance? Resolution:  Murky, right up to the end.

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Love and Friendship 2016 #Comedy Comedy based on Jane Austen novella. 9/10 tinyurl.com/h7qty6l 🎬 👍 ❤️ 🃏

In this costume comedy, Lady Susan Vernon loses her husband at Langford.  She imposes herself on Churchill. Not everyone is delighted by Susan's presence.  Susan is a notably charming flirt, a spendthrift, as well as devious and changeable.  Sir James Martin, quite a dolt but with income, is interested in Frederica, Susan's daughter, but Frederica is not interested in him.  Susan wants Sir James to succeed with Frederica for the income, but what will Sir James get in return?

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It Follows 2014 #Fantasy Slow boiling fantasy thriller. 6/10 tinyurl.com/jobpwgc 🎬 🆗 🎭 ⏰

There is an opening, very short sequence about Annie, who is running from something.  She drives to a beach, then waits.  Next morning, she's dead.  Do we reconnect with this?

The film is about Jay Height, not Annie.  Jay grows closer to a boyfriend, Hugh.  They have sex at a remote place in the back of his four door sedan.  Then he drugs her, takes her to an abandoned car park, then ties her to a chair on rollers.  The boyfriend says that he's passed something on to her.  As they speak, a woman approaches.  The boyfriend gets agitated.  Unless Jay passes it on to someone else via sex, the whatever-it-is will come back for him.

The police interview Jay.  They find the parking lot that Hugh took her to, chair she was tied to, her lost purse, and the apartment that Hugh said was his.

Jay seems to be followed by various characters.  Are they figments of her imagination, or is something real after her?  She has a difficult time showing anybody direct evidence of the followers, who seem to be reanimated dead.  Does that change?  Does she pass 'it' on to someone else?  Can she escape with the help of friends?  These are Jay's attempts to deal with the unknown.

image courtesy of The Movie Database

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

Silver Streak (1976)

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George Caldwell (publishing) and Hilly Burns (secretary to an art historian) meet on a train trip from Los Angeles to Chicago aboard the train called the Silver Streak.  They get along swimmingly. Unfortunately, through their cabin window, George sees a dead body dropped off the train.

Acting: 9/10 Gene Wilder carries the show for the first 60% or so, and did a good job as the lead.  Jill Clayburgh was good in a limited role as the secretary who knew just a bit too much.  Ned Beatty's short stint was good.  Patrick McGoohan delivered urbane menace quite well, and Ray Walston was a good grumpy henchman.  When Richard Pryor entered the fray, the afterburners kicked in.

Final Rating: 9/10 Excellent.  Nice script, good execution by the cast.

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/09/20160904-comedy-review-see-no-evil-hear.html

Dave owns a news stand.  Wally is looking for a job.  Dave is deaf, Wally is blind.  Wally likes gambling, and owes his bookie Scotto 2800 USD.  Scotto, in turn, owes money to far nastier people. The bookie leaves a valuable gold coin in Dave's pay box before Eve kills him.  Dave and Wally are arrested for the crime.

Will this unlikely pair sort things out?

Final Rating: 8/10 If you like either Pryor or Wilder, you've got to see this one.

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

The Last Witch Hunter (2015)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/09/20160902-fantasy-review-last-witch.html

The initial tableaux: Initial, part I: We're in the black plague era in Europe, say 13th century.  The spread of the plague is attributed to the spellcasting of evil witches.  Vin Diesel's character, Kaulder, is one of the witch hunters who finds the Witch Queen.  Kaulder and company put an end to the plague, but at the cost of Kaulder's wife, his only child, and most of his hunter friends.  While dying, the Witch Queen curses Kaulder. Initial, part II:  In current New York City, Kaulder is still hunting witches.  Yes, the same Kaulder. He's allied with an old group within the church, the Axe and Cross, which tries and imprisons witches.  They also keep secrets.  Kaulder's main contact with Axe and Cross is Dolan the 36th, played by Michael Caine, in one of those short roles that he does so well.  Dolan is quite old, and Dolan the 37th seems ready to take over being contact with the immortal Kaulder.

Delineation of conflicts: In the present, witch activity seems to be picking up.  Something large is brewing.  Kaulder suffers a number of reverses, and his list of allies shrinks.

Can Kaulder sort this out before the next apocalypse?

Final Rating: 6/10 I liked it better than most people did, but I would be hard pressed to say, 'you must see this one.'

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

The Gunman (2015)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160831-action-review-gunman.html

Terrier worked in the Congo in 2006 during their civil war as a mercenary.   His speciality is assassination, and he kills the minister of mines.  Minister of mines is a key position, due to the Congo's mineral wealth.  Terrier's being tasked with this shows his level of trust with whomever is paying him.  Jim is having an affair with Annie, who is a doctor who does humanitarian work.  Felix is in love with Annie, which she does not reciprocate at the time.

Eight years later, Jim is back in the Congo, again working in parallel with a humanitarian agency, but not as an assassin.  However, someone holds a grudge, and makes an attempt on his life.  Their agents are charged with providing proof of death.  Terrier intends to keep living.  In order to do that, he needs to know the motivations of whoever wants to kill him. His adversary has no intention of that happening, so the mystery/thriller action ensues.

7/10 I liked it better than most people did, but I would be hard pressed to say, 'you must see this one.'

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160812-scifi-review-sharknado-4.html

Aston Reynolds has made a fortune building installations that prevent the formation of sharknados. Five years have gone by since Sharknado 3, and a new series of variations on sharknado form.  Fin's father, the Colonel, has been rescued from the Moon, and Fin's wife, April, has been revived and rebuilt as a cyborg.

0/10 The Asylum at its worst, perhaps redefining the limits of bad.  Of course, if you are looking for a wall-to-wall collection of WTH moments, this might just do it.

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

Atomic Shark (2016)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160812-action-review-atomic-shark.html

At a Southern California beach, Rottger rents out his speed boat for water skiers.  While doing this, the skier is eaten by a red glowing shark.  Rottger reports this to the beach patrol, but is ignored. On the beach, there are lifeguards (led by a total jackass), the environmentalists, the voyeurs, plus the normal folk.   Gina is Rottger's daughter, one of the lifeguards, and a so-so student of the environment.  She draws her boss' disapproval by insisting that there is a shark problem.

Things go downhill from there.  3/10

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

Ice Sharks (2016)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160812-action-review-ice-sharks.html

A group of young (25-35-ish) scientists study warming patterns in the Arctic icepack.  A nearby Norwegian camp has been losing hunters in the last month or so.  Some of the underwater warming patterns seem alarming, so Sammy is sent out to check the sensors.

7/10 Yes, I must be in a generous mood, but this is the best Asylum film I've seen so far.

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

Gambit (2012)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160810-comedy-review-gambit.html

Harry Deane hates his blowhard multimillionaire boss, Shabandar, who collects art.  Harry is moderately well paid as Shabandar's art curator.  Harry's long time friend, The Major, has a fine hand at forging known works of master oil painters. Some years back, Shabandar bested the Japanese art collector Takagawa at the auction of Monet's Haystacks in the Morning.  Shabandar would dearly love to acquire the companion piece, Haystacks in the Evening.  Evening was lost in World War II, but Harry sees an opportunity.

9/10 Good performances and a funny script.

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Image courtesy of The Movie Database

IP Man (2008)

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160808-action-review-ip-man.html

The town of Foshan, China in 1935 hosts many martial arts schools.  IP Man is a master of Wing Chun style.  He has a wide reputation which attracts challengers.  He is a man of significant wealth and reputation with a wife and young son. In 1937, however, the Japanese invasion extended to the region where IP Man lives, including in particular Foshan.  The Japanese military commandeered IP Man's house and ejected him.  Now he is broke.  The Japanese destroyed much of the local manufacturing base, rendering the whole area poor.

Can IP Man help out this sad situation?  8/10

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/08/20160721-drama-review-decent-arrangement.html

Indian American Ashok Khosla travels from the USA (where he grew up, where he lives, where he works) to India in search of an arranged marriage.  In particular, he travels to Chandigarh, as city north of New Delhi.  He stays with his older female cousin Preeti, who will be his matchmaker.

Ashok has to decide what his innermost values are while a wife is being picked for him. A number of American things have rubbed off on Ashok: he likes coffee, not tea.  He does not like cookies (biscuits) with either.  The American supermarket, the American shower, the American versions of tolerance are all things that he appears to miss.  Perhaps the biggest miss is honesty.  Ashok is honest about his aspirations during his interview with the first set of parents; Preeti is correct in that he just destroyed all hopes in that direction.

Preeti does find a match for Ashok, but will he go through with the wedding?

6/10

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image courtesy of The Movie Database

The Good, the Bad, the Weird

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2016/07/20160720-action-review-good-bad-weird.html

This motion picture is set in 1930s Manchuria, traditionally part of China, but occupied by Japanese armed forces at the time.  The three protagonists are Koreans who have some connection to Korean independence, however weak this connection might be.  The Good is a bounty hunter of considerable skill and experience.  The Bad is a gang leader capable of endless (and often fortuitous) violence.  The Weird appears to be a bumbling bandit who succeeds only by serendipity. Like a typical James Bond film, the opening is a manic short in its own right, followed by a calmer, longer, deeper depiction of the issues hinted at in the short.  In this case, the film opens at the home of a rich Chinese man, who has an obligation to a man in the Japanese power structure.  The map is sent to even things up.  However, the Chinese fellow hires The Bad to steal the map back.  We jump forward in time to a speeding train. The Weird decides to rob the train, and starts his robbery slightly ahead of The Bad.  By accident, he finds the train car with the Japanese delegation who have the map, plus various other valuables.  While rifling through luggage, the Weird barely gets to the map when The Bad's gang engages the train with its full attack. Just about every train robbery cliche follows, as does the arrival of The Good.  The Weird gets away from The Good and The Bad, which sets up the rest of the film.

The film is about the map.  It begins with the map, and ends with the map.  Everything in between is about the pursuit and acquisition of the map, plus finding the map's destination.  There is some value attached to the map, since the Japanese army wants it, as do monied interests in China and Japan, as well as bandit gangs and freelance thieves.

8/10

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Jurassic World 2015 #Fantasy Same plot as Jurassic Park with newer SFX 6/10 tinyurl.com/hefk2fx 🎬 ⚗🐊 👎

In modern day Costa Rica, the theme park Jurassic World has completely replaced the theme park Jurassic Park, which closed twenty years earlier due to a disaster involving multiple human deaths.  The new park has bigger dinosaurs with more teeth and greater ability to do damage.  Will this rehash of Jurassic Park have a better ending?