Captain America: Civil War Also known as Captain America 3: Iron Man is whiny bitch again It was alright. Ant-Man makes a somewhat boring movie a little better. 7/10
The setup for Ironman vs Captain America sounds really contrived and preposterous. Movie looks dumb as hell.
The problem I have with Cap is he just totally emotionless and boring. He's always been that way. Iron Man started out kind of cool but the whole tormented soul thing is a bit much. Hawkeye is actually a cool character and it's amazing they can pull that off. He's like Jason Bourne. I love SJ but the Blackwidow isn't that interesting. Vision is pretty boring as well. Scarlet Witch has potential. Falcon is alright. Ant-Man was awesome. The guy in the Red Pajamas was awesome as well but the tie-in made no sense. Black Panther and War Machine are okay.
10 Cloverfield Lane A really well made thriller. Very suspenseful. John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are really good in this. Probably works best if you don't read any spoilers. 8/10 Deadpool Unfunny. Trying too hard. Ryan Reynolds is as gay as ever. Don't believe the positive reviews. This movie is shit. I have no idea how this scored above a 20% on Rottentomatoes. 2/10
Opposite for me. I was pleasantly surprised by Deadpool, the R-rating saves it. It's not that 10CL was bad, I just wished it had taken a different direction halfway through. I got bored of the route it went.
I'm surprised he liked Cloverfield Lane. Not surprised he didn't like Deadpool. Deadpool was not near funny enough. 10 Cloverfield Lane was pretty good.
Hello My Name is Doris This was a cute movie. Sally Field gives a great performance. I was amused by the hipsters thinking a crazy old cat lady who hordes junk was "authentic" and a "true original." 7/10
Hardcore Henry It had some incredibly well done action scenes with lots of over the top gore and violence, especially the rooftop fight at the end. Sharlto Copley is hilarious. I think this movie makes a strong case for the first person perspective being a good way to film certain action scenes. But the entire movie being first person got a bit overwhelming at times. Still this was a really entertaining and enjoyable action movie. It had a low budget of only $2M, but I felt like they made the most of it, and it was more entertaining than many movies I've seen that cost 100 times that. 8/10
The Big short The content was a little weak but the actors were great. 8/10 Ex Machina Something about this movie bothered me and I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was that the Google CEO guy didn't make sense. I liked the androids though and I could even see a second movie happening. 6/10. San Andreas Thought it was stupid and then I wondered if it was supposed to be stupid. Like an 80s action movie. 5/10
I went back and watched the Big Short again this last weekend while not half asleep. I thought it had an interesting cast of real life characters. The acting was good and it was funny in parts. I especially like when they go to Florida and Vegas and see just how bad the mortgage fraud has gotten with strippers buying five houses with subprime adjustable rate mortgages, sleazy mortgage brokers bragging about screwing people over, and the SEC investigator sipping cocktails beside the pool because she doesn't actually investigate anything. Ryan Gosling was pretty funny whenever he was on screen. The celebrity cameos explaining things were funny. But like you said, it feels a bit shallow because it never spends enough time with any one character or group of characters for us to get to really know them. And it's very focused on finance guys betting against the banks through credit default swaps on mortgage bonds that had fraudulently high ratings despite being full of subprime junk mortgages. If you're looking for a broader examination of the impact of the 2008 financial collapse on society, it's not this movie. You get a little bit of that in some montages with quotes and a few comments Steve Carell and Brad Pitt make, but that's it. This is really more like a high stakes gambling movie set in the world of finance. And that's part of the problem. These banks and finance people treat this shit on Wall Street like it's a casino instead of real life. I would give it an 8/10. Great movie.
The movies starts off with the premise that these guys might be some kind of Robin Hood heroes out to fight the banks but as Steve Carell's character points out at the end they really didn't fix any kind of injustice and they were only taking advantage of a bad situation. And despite being smarter than everyone else they still underestimated the extent of the collapse and corruption and almost lost everything. Bale's character was super interesting but we never really know if he was as bad as the banking system he'd tried to screw. I'm betting the real story is boring as hell but these guys managed to turn it into some good entertainment. I used to have a boss that was just like Steve Carell's character. He'd walk into meeting late, interrupt everyone and everything, stir up a hornets nest, and then leave before anyone could say WTF just happened.
Exactly, these people weren't heroes, just opportunists who saw the greed and corruption of the banks and took advantage of a terrible situation. There was a great scene where those two garage hedge fund guys are celebrating that they were able to get swaps on AA mortgage bonds that are actually total crap, and the payoff will be huge. Brad Pitt snaps them back to reality by reminding them that they just bet against the US economy, and while they will get a huge payout, ordinary people are about to lose homes, jobs, and even their lives. That being said, who would they have reported this to even if they had wanted to stop it? The press didn't seem interested in the story until it turned into a disaster, and the SEC didn't care either.
I never figured out what Pitt's character got out of it. They garage guys even asked him directly and I don't think he said. I assumed he made a boatload of money on the side.
I don't think they ever said. They needed his ISDA status, and I would guess he probably got a big commission for helping them. He said something like "you wanted to be rich, so I made you rich" but that doesn't really explain anything. It was very weird because he already had a lot of money and had abandoned capitalism as a corrupt system to go live off the land and I'm not sure why he would come back for these two kids he barely knows.