Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

Blow-up (1966) – A Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews , ,

I usually include a spoiler warning with my reviews.  But this movie is so awful that if I can stop you from seeing it by giving away the plot, I would consider that an act of mercy.

The only claim to fame I will grant this movie is as a source for the homage that Mike Meyers did of it whenever he did his photographer bit in the Austin Powers movies.  The absurd behavior that he displayed as he photographed the groovy models in those movies is almost an accurate portrayal of the Thomas character in this movie.  And that is the only good thing I can say for Blow-up.

The movie represents about a day in the life of London photographer “Thomas.”  He’s played by someone named David Hemmings whom I don’t recognize.  There are two actresses in the movie that I have heard of Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles but the only notable part of their performances is they take off their shirts.  In fact, most of the main female characters end up topless at some point.  But I’ll tell you right up front it didn’t help much.  Now I’m not one to disparage the female form in cinema but these attempts at partial nudity were painful.  This was during a time (the 1960s) when fashion models were expected to have the physique of famine victims.  You can literally count their vertebrae when they turn away from the camera.  This is not erotic.  It’s mostly silly and at times annoying because of how clumsy these scenes are.  I never thought I’d fast forward through a female nude scene but so help me, I did.

Anyway, the plot.  Thomas moves around photographing in a working-class area of London then to his home studio then to an antique store where he is attempting to buy an old wooden propeller then to a park where he photographs a man and woman kissing.  This last scene is the center of the plot.  The woman sees him taking her picture and demands that he give her the film.  He refuses and heads back home.  Eventually she finds him and demands the film again.  When he refuses, she, of course, takes off her shirt.  Now for the next twenty minutes we mostly see Vanesa Redgrave’s back.  Eventually he takes his shirt off and then he gives her what she thinks is the film of her in the park and she leaves.

Now we find out that he kept the roll of film from the park.  He prints it and after a very, very long sequence of him blowing up portions of the photos we can tell that there was a man hiding in the trees with a gun and eventually we see that the man who was kissing the girl was shot by the gunman.  Now why Thomas didn’t hear a shot isn’t explained but then again who cares.

Then Thomas goes to visit a friend whose wife is in love with him.  Then he goes to see the body that’s still in the field.  Then he comes home and finds that his house has been ransacked and his film and prints of the park have been stolen.  Then he goes to a party where the Yardbirds are playing and then he goes to another party where his agent is smoking pot.  When he wakes up the next morning in the party house he heads over to the park and the body is gone.

After that he watches some mimes pretending to play tennis on an actual tennis court.  Thomas even throws their pretend tennis ball back to them when it goes over the fence.

The End.

This movie is purported to be an iconic cinematic masterpiece.

It ain’t.

If I can convince you to never watch this movie, I will feel that I have struck a blow for humanity.  You will have saved two hours of your life.  If in the course of this website’s existence a hundred people decide not to watch Blow-up two hundred precious hours of human life will have been saved.  I will count that as my great gift to mankind.  Instead watch the first Austin Powers movie and enjoy his parody of Thomas.

Sicario (2015) – A Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , ,

Sicario is about a United States law enforcement team’s efforts to capture the head of a Mexican drug cartel.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Kate Macer (played by Emily Blunt) and Reggie Wayne are FBI agents who discover a cartel safe house in Arizona filled with corpses.  They become drawn into a task force headed by CIA Operative Matt Graver (played by Josh Brolin).  But also involved is a Mexican national, Alejandro Gillick (played by Benicio del Toro) whose precise role is unexplained.

The task force heads into Juarez, Mexico to bring into US custody Guillermo Diaz whose brother Manuel is a lieutenant in the Sonora cartel.  During the return drive a contingent of cartel foot soldiers attempts an ambush but is overwhelmed by the special forces soldiers assigned to the task force.  But Macer is troubled by the unorthodox and secretive aspects of the operation.  She surmises that Gillick is not a legitimate law enforcement agent and she suspects that the operation is really a CIA hit squad that will be violating US laws by operating in the United States.

Macer and Wayne meet a local policeman they know named Ted in a bar.  She invites Ted into her room but she discovers he’s on the cartel payroll and attempts to arrest him.  He overpowers and begins to strangle her.  But Gillick appears in the nick of time and after some “persuasion” Ted provides the task force with the names of the other American policemen on the cartel payroll.

The “interrogation” of Guillermo reveals that a tunnel is used by the Sonora Cartel and a mission is planned to capture Manuel Diaz there.  During the operation Macer witnesses Gillick executing Mexican nationals and taking a cartel-owned Mexican federale as prisoner.  When she attempts to stop him, he shoots her twice on her body armor and warns her to never point a gun at him again.

Macer is outraged by Gillick’s actions but when she complains to Graver, he warns her that the war against the drug cartels had become a real war and the CIA uses extreme tactics.  He also tells her that Gillick’s wife and daughter were executed in a horrible manner by Manuel Diaz’s boss, Fausto Alarcón.  Gillick is intent on revenging himself on Alarcón and Graver intends to use this revenge to accomplish the destruction of the Sonora Cartel.

And that’s exactly what Gillick does.  He uses the captured Mexican policeman to pull over Manuel Diaz’s car and then he uses Diaz to get himself into Alarcón’s guarded compound.  Finally he finds Alarcón eating dinner with his wife and young children.  Gillick talks about the murder of his family and then murders Alarcón’s family.  After a decent interval for his victim to suffer the loss, he shoots him too.

Sometime after this mission Gillick sneaks into Macer’s apartment and at gunpoint he orders her to sign a document confirming that Gillick’s team had followed all US laws during its mission.  At first, she refuses but when he puts the gun to her head, he tells her that to refuse would be to commit suicide.  She signs the paper.  He tells her to find a small town to live in where the law still exists.  He says, “This is a land of wolves and the wolves will kill you.”  Or something like that.

Gillick leaves and when he is across the street she comes out on her balcony with a gun.  Gillick turns to her to give her the shot but she lowers her gun and he walks away.

This movie has several problems.  The biggest one is the actress playing Macer.  She probably weighs seventy pounds sopping wet but she’s part of an assault team taking down narcotrafficantes left and right.  It’s patently absurd.  Next, the episode with Ted, the rogue cop is too contrived.  Also, Macer seems at the same time drawn to this highly unorthodox mission but also shocked to see commando operations used against foreign nationals attacking the United States.  But putting all those things aside, this is a very exciting action film.  The acting and action are highly entertaining and the plot resolution is satisfying.  I highly recommend this movie to fans of action films.