Category: movies

Dallas Buyers Club

On By Rick McIn movies, product endorsementsLeave a comment

About the only thing I like on long international flights is getting caught up on recent films.

I saw these on one series of flights.

American Hustle
Ender’s Game
Gravity
Catching Fire
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club

Mandela was not convincing. The actor Idris Elba does not have the look or gravitas of Mandiba. I preferred Morgan Freeman.

The rest were well worth watching.

Dallas Buyers Club made the other films look lightweight, however.

The film received acclaim from critics and won numerous accolades – most recognizing the performances of McConaughey and Jared Leto, including the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making it the first film since Mystic River (2003) to win both awards.

… a nomination for Best Picture. As of March 2014 it grossed over $32 million in box office revenue against a budget of $5 million. …

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 93% based on reviews from 177 critics, with an average score of 7.7 out of 10, with the site’s consensus stating, “Dallas Buyers Club rests squarely on Matthew McConaughey’s scrawny shoulders, … might be a career-best performance …

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

I always suspected Matthew McConaughey could act. That he was more than a pretty boy. This film proves it.

Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom

On By Rick McIn books, government, movies, philosophy, travel1 Comment

Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 …

Long_Walk_to_FreedomThe book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed ANC. He has since achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country’s once segregated society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension, and his belief that the struggle continues …

His childhood name was Rolihlahla, which is loosely translated as “pulling the branch of a tree”, or a euphemism for “troublemaker“.

Indeed, many of the most winning anecdotes are stories of how the now sainted man bungled, cheated or lied.

Mandela oversaw the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its chair. To prevent the creation of martyrs, the Commission granted individual amnesties in exchange for testimony of crimes committed during the apartheid era. Dedicated in February 1996, it held two years of hearings detailing rapes, torture, bombings, and assassinations, before issuing its final report in October 1998. …

Though Mandela was influenced by his older contemporary, Gandhi, he did not subscribe to Gandhi’s non-violence. Nelson felt that non-violence worked in India because the British government was reasonable. But that it would not work in South Africa government.

I’d previously read the interesting and controversial book by his warder/censor James Gregory, Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.

Mandela said that he actually didn’t know Gregory very well. But did state:

“He was one of the most refined warders. Well-informed and courteous with everybody. Soft spoken. Very good observations. I developed a lot of respect for him.”

They made a film I’ve not seen of Gregory’s book.

I’ve also not yet seen the 2013 British/South African biographical film – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

Inferno – ridiculous & entertaining

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Repetitive. Pedantic.

Yet another “book-length scavenger hunt” featuring Robert Langdon, professor of symbology at Harvard University.

Yet another beautiful, talented young woman — Sienna Brooks — somehow pushed into Tom Hank’s life.

Inferno received mixed reviews from critics. But the important and thoughtful plot did keep me going.

Scenes in Florence and Istanbul kept me going, as well.

Dan Brown Inferno book cover

If you liked the other Dan Brown books (as I did), you’ll like this clone.

Sony Pictures has dated a film adaptation to be released on December 18, 2015 with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon.

Zero Dark Thirty

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, government, moviesLeave a comment

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American war thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Billed as “the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man”, the film dramatizes the decade-long manhunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Zero Dark Thirty has received some criticism for significant historical inaccuracy. Former assistant secretary of Defense Graham T. Allison has opined that the film is inaccurate in three important regards: the overstatement of the positive role of enhanced interrogation methods, the understatement of the role of the Obama administration, and the portrayal of the efforts as being driven by one agent battling against the CIA “system”. …

For a Hollywood movie, that’s not bad.

I did not find it at all pro-torture. The message I took away was that to defend the USA American troops should be brought home. To ensure homeland security troops should be in the homeland.

Taking action in Islamic nations inspires more terrorists than it defeats.

If they’d shut down the embassies in Yemen, Egypt and Libya, for example, those big targets would not have been attacked.

In the age of the internet, why do diplomats need to live in those expensive fortresses?

Jobs – the film

On By Rick McIn Apple, moviesLeave a comment

Jobs is a 2013 American biographical drama film based on the life of Steve Jobs, from 1974 while a student at Reed College to the introduction of the iPod in 2001. …

Steve Jobs is portrayed by Ashton Kutcher, with Josh Gad as Apple Computer’s (now Apple Inc.) co-founder Steve Wozniak. …

… Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 25% based upon 117 reviews with a weighted average of 5/10 and the site’s consensus being

“An ambitious but skin-deep portrait of an influential, complex figure, Jobs often has the feel of an over-sentimentalized made-for-TV biopic.” …

I’d heard nothing but scathing mockery. So was surprised how much I enjoyed reliving those well known stories.

Ashton Kutcher is a good actor and a gutsy guy. He was the highlight of the film for me. Charismatic enough to play Steve Jobs. Likeable enough to balance the many negative incidents portrayed.

… Robert X. Cringely, author of Accidental Empires and creator of the documentaries Triumph of the Nerds and Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, argues that “the film is beautifully shot and Kutcher’s portrayal of Jobs, while not spot-on, is pretty darned good. …

Woz did not like the script. Had nothing to do with the film. He was under contract for another Steve Jobs biopic.

Daniel Kottke was involved. And is much more positive about the film.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

Zia & Dean Kalyan videos

On By Rick McIn friends, movies, photosLeave a comment

My old buddy Dean Kalyan from Victoria BC is an Artist, always working on one interesting project or another.

Highlight Reel of some of the video projects Zia Kalyan & Dean Kalyan have been working on this past year.

If interested in working with us, please contact us here: dean@deankalyan.com

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/80582827

Music by JB Eckl ( jbeckl.com )

related – Dean Kalyan Photography

My Prairie Home – Rae Spoon

On By Rick McIn movies, musicLeave a comment

Dubbed as a “documentary-musical,” filmmaker Chelsea McMullan profiles Canadian indie singer-songwriter Rae Spoon through an intimate series of interviews, where she opens up candidly about growing up with strict evangelical Christian parents, feeling like a socially-awkward outcast, and her recent life-affirming process of living as a transgender person.

Cameras also roll as Spoon creates her most personal and introspective album to date — a project that takes her back to her sleepy hometown of Calgary.

movie box

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

Samsara (2011 film)

On By Rick McIn movies, philosophyLeave a comment

Samsara is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson, who also collaborated on Baraka (1992), a film of a similar vein. Samsara was filmed over four years in 25 countries around the world. It was shot in 70 mm format …

Samsara explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Here’s how you can watch it.

World War Z – the book (2006)

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

After seeing the movie, I downloaded WW Z as an audio book.

World_War_Z_book_cover The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of 30 million souls, to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet.

He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. …

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the 12-year-old Patient Zero … this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War….

Amazon

Pretty good. Any zombie fan would enjoy this story.

I’m glad I got it as an audio book.

Martin Scorsese, F. Murray Abraham, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins, Mark Hamill and many, many more voices were used.

In her review of the audiobook for Strange Horizons, Siobhan Carroll called the story “gripping” and found the listening experience evocative of Orson Welles’s famous narration of The War of the Worlds. Carroll had mixed opinions on the voice acting, commending it as “solid and understated, mercifully free of “special effects” and “scenery chewing” overall, but lamenting what she perceived as undue cheeriness on the part of Max Brooks and inauthenticity in the Chinese accent of Steve Park.

Publishers Weekly also criticized Brooks’ narration, but found that the rest of the “all-star cast; deliver their parts with such fervor and intensity that listeners cannot help but empathize with these characters”. In an article in Slate concerning the mistakes producers make on publishing audiobooks, Nate DiMeo used World War Z as an example of dramatizations whose full casts contributed to making them “great listens” …

wikipedia

The author has stated that the Brad Pitt film has nothing in common with the story other than the title. He’s mostly correct. Yet the movie is inspired by the books.

I enjoyed both.