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Archive for February, 2016

In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious characters. This movie is typical Tarantino. If you liked Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction and Django you will fall in love with this one. It didn’t take much set as it all takes place in this big log cabin/cantina of a sort. What will follow is a quite lengthy synopsis  with spoilers, so either read on at your own risk or just go see the movie. I recommend the latter. I will give you my rating now and then you can decide. Note I am a big Tarantino fan so ….

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Note: The movie is divided into six narrative sequences, all of which take place chronologically, with the exception of Chapter Five, which takes place before the others.

Chapter Five: “The Four Passengers

Earlier that morning, a stagecoach arrives at Minnie’s Haberdashery containing the four passengers: Bob, Mobray, Gage, and Jody (Channing Tatum). They are driven by Six Horse Judy (Zoe Bell), who hails from New Zealand. They are met by Charlie (Keith Jefferson) outside Minnie’s. Charlie, a black man, stays outside and helps the carriage driver with his horses before he travels on. Judy leads the passengers inside and introduces them to Minnie Mink. Minnie is shown to be a light skinned black woman perhaps in her thirties, and is there with a younger black woman cooking. Two older white men, Sweet Dave (Gene Jones) and the previously seen Sanford, are playing chess by the hearth.

The crew makes small talk for a few minutes before violently massacring everybody in the lodge except Sanford. Charlie comes in from outside just in time to see the massacre, and is shot by Bob in the doorway (one of the shots destroys the door’s latch) before fleeing outside. Mobray asks in Spanish if they should perhaps keep Sanford alive to create the illusion of a more lively setting. They agree to try it, and Jody talks to the old man while the crew starts cleaning up the mess the massacre left. Gage goes to kill Charlie, whom he finds hiding and shoots in the throat with a shotgun as he begs for his life.

Jody explains to Sanford that they are preparing to ambush Ruth to rescue Jody’s sister, Daisy, and that they will not kill him if he agrees to keep quiet about their plan. Sanford agrees, and the bandits all prepare for Ruth to arrive: throwing the bodies down the well, hiding guns around the lodge, cleaning up the jelly beans that had spilled. Jody hides in the basement (implying that he was the one who later shot Warren in the crotch from under the floorboards).

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Dear Readers,

I do apologize for not seeing many movies in the last several months. They have now become so long, that getting to the theater becomes a monumental task. I will try to do better as Spring moves in.

Dr D

A much anticipated movie, rekindling the Star Wars saga. This 7th episode is in traditional Star Wars fashion and takes you to a galaxy you are familiar with. We see some of our old friends and lose one in particular. Three decades after the defeat of the Galactic Empire, a new threat arises. The First Order attempts to rule the galaxy and only a ragtag group of heroes can stop them, along with the help of the Resistance. I won’t put any spoilers in here because if you are a Star Wars fan, you want to see it large on the big screen, preferably 3D Imax. Although, I do think it would be just a good in 2D. If you are not a Star Wars/Science Fiction fan, you might not like it; if you are, then this erases that long period of time between episode 6 and this one. Nostalgic yet contemporary. The special effects are not over done, so that makes it better, to me, than some of the previous episodes. My only wish is that we see a reprise of Yoda in episode 8. I missed him here.

Rating:  4.8 out of 5

Well, this movie has all the Oscar buzz and has been picking up some of the other awards hoping to be Best Picture. First, it ain’t like the book. They added the kid for more sympathy-revenge factor. For almost three hours I sat through a movie whose basic premise was about an American frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s who fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In the first place DiCaprio shouldn’t get an award except for anything except stupidity for putting himself to task in a harsh climate and doing what a stunt double would do. An actors penchant for suffering doesn’t count. That isn’t art, it is just plain dumb in this day of CGI. All for the sake of natural light and scenery that the director felt was necessary. I want entertainment at the theater, not photographic art. The cinematography was good, but you can get too much of a good thing. Inarritu does not deserve another Oscar for this loathsome movie. The only real acting was done by Tom Hardy, who normally plays the guy you are sympathetic too; however, in this movie he is the character you truly hate. Considering how bad Birdman sucked last year, I should have saved my matinee money on this crap. Forty three minutes into the movie, I looked at my watch thinking it should soon be over but to my chagrin there was another two hours left. And for those two hours there was little dialog only the congested gurgling and wheezing of DiCaprio. By the time the movie was over, you are wishing that the bear had killed him rather than mauling him. If the bear had killed him off and spared me from the remaining 2+ hours of this slog fest, I would say he deserves the Oscar. I will have to say, the bear mauling scene was quite realistic and gruesome, much like the flogging of Jesus in  Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It was truly hard to take but you just couldn’t divert your eyes. This movie should be up there with the top worst ones in the world such as Orwell’s 1984 that was released in 1984, the Austin Powers movies, and Gravity. At least in Gravity, the incessant babbling of George Clooney ended when he floated out into space; however, you were left with the whining of Linda Bullock. She should have gone after him and then we could have left early again. I had rather be forced to watch a Dangerous Liaisons marathon that sit through the Revenant again.

Rating: -10 out of 5