The 2008 Movie Genre of the Month Club

[Heineken Skywalker]

THE GLENN MILLER STORY (1953)

Jimmy Stewart stars as the bandleader in this biopic of his life, which shows his meager beginnings, his struggles to come up with a "new" sound, his fame, and his eventual untimely death in a plane crash in 1944.
Probably more than a little romanticized, but it's a solid performance by Stewart and features a lot of Miller's hits.

7/10

[Heineken Skywalker]

KARATE BEARFIGHTER (1977)

5/10

KARATE FOR LIFE (1977)

7.5/10

Second and third chapters in the trilogy about martial arts master, Masutatsu Oyama, the founder of Kyokushin Karate in Japan. I watched the first chapter, KARATE BULLFIGHTER, late last year. Oyama is played by Sonny Chiba, who was actually a student of Oyama's.
BEARFIGHTER gets a little too bogged down in melodrama and the fight with a bear is fairly cheesy, but the final chapter, KARATE FOR LIFE is a great action-packed conclusion to the series, with Chiba kicking all kinds of ass. Especially great is a sequence in the final chapter, where he takes on an entire karate school, including the sensei.
I get the feeling that these movies take a lot of creative license with the real man's story, or this guy actually lead the life of a character in a martial arts film. His life story was first told as a series of Manga (Japanese comic books) that were later adapted into anime, which are the basis for the trilogy of movies.

[LivingDeadGirl]

Rescue Dawn(2006) 5/10- Based on the story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale) who, after his plane was shot down, became the only American soldier to escape from a prison torture camp (in Laos) during the Vietnam war. Also stars Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies...good acting, nice cinematography, a bit slow at first but picks up. Overall not a bad movie, but I've seen much better Vietnam-era films.

[Heineken Skywalker]

BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989)

Tom Cruise gives one of his best performances in Oliver Stone's biopic of Ron Kovic, an idealistic young man who, after being paralyzed in Vietnam, becomes an anti-war political activist.

8.5/10

[Heineken Skywalker]

THE SHOGUN'S SAMURAI (1978)

Historical samurai epic where after the second Tokugawa shogun (samurai leader) is poisoned, his two sons become rivals for the title of shogunate. The people of the land become divided, eventually leading to war.
Sonny Chiba appears in a supporting role as an eye-patch wearing samurai.
Decent story and some really good action that, for the most part, stays fairly grounded in reality.

7/10

BREACH (2007)

Tells the story of the two months that lead up to the arrest of FBI agent, Robert Hanssen, for spying and selling secrets.
Even though the outcome is already known, it stilll has some pretty suspenseful moments and Chris Cooper as Hanssen and Ryan Phillippe as Eric O'Neill, the computer specialist who helped bring him down, are both very good.

7/10

[Heineken Skywalker]

An update. The scores for this month so far.

February: BASED ON A TRUE STORY

Heineken Skywalker = 7
LivingDeadGirl = 4
Slayrrr666 = 2

[Sybillness]

I'm out! (Slaps $100 on counter) I fall asleep through half the movies I try to watch and then I don't have time to post them here. Sorry folks!

[slayrrr666]

Hoffa-1992
Somewhat decent tale, as I've always thought he was one of the most intriguing figures during the time. Big cast, with a lot of time spent on getting them a lot of dialogue, which made a lot of parts feel a little dull, but I have to say that there wasn't a lot of problems with the pace. I only clicked away a couple of times, which for a two-hour film is a pretty big deal. Probably not one I would've watched, and could've easily gone my whole life without seeing it, and I've seen far worse.
6/10

The Girl with the Pearl Earrings-2003
A complete opposite, as I had a hard time staying awake at all during the much shorter film. A lot of talk, nothing much happening and not even Scarlett Johanson could keep me awake. The sets look nice, and the quick peek at side cleavage was the only thing I really liked about this one. Just too dull and lifeless for me.
1/10

[ZapRowsdower]

Cinderella Man (2005, Ron Howard)

Sure, it's sappy. But Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger and Paul Giamatti gave outstanding performances, and I gotta admit I was almost on my feet rooting for James Braddock. Ron Howard did an amazing job with this film, and I actually prefer it over his Oscar-winning Beautiful Mind. 9/10

[Heineken Skywalker]

slayrrr666 said:

Hoffa-1992

Ironically enough, I watched yesterday:

HOFFA (1992)

Jack Nicholson as Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, is the main reason to see this one. The pacing is a tad slow but never to the point of complete boredom. It's a decent film, but not an excellent one.
On a personal note, the warehouse scenes shown early in the movie, were filmed at a real warehouse within walking distance of my old neighborhood in Detroit. I can remember all the hoopla on the news and everywhere that Nicholson and DeVito were in town filming this movie.

6/10

Watched today:

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005)

Ridley Scott's underrated medieval epic about war in Jerusalem between Christians and Muslims. Features some of the best battle scenes and a first rate cast including Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, David Thewlis, Eva Green, and in the lead, Orlando Bloom, whom I've considered kind of a lightweight actor in the past, handles himself really well here.

8/10

iamthesmitty said:

Cinderella Man (2005, Ron Howard)
Ron Howard did an amazing job with this film, and I actually prefer it over his Oscar-winning Beautiful Mind. 9/10

I'd agree with that. I've never been tempted to watch A BEAUTIFUL MIND a second time, but I'd watch CINDERELLA MAN again in a heartbeat. Highly underrated.

[slayrrr666]

You saw that on Fox Movie Channel, right? That's where I caught it. Ironic that we both saw the film at the same time through the same medium and felt the same way towards it.

Pretty cool about that story as well. Must've been fun to walk over and see them standing around talking on the middle of the street you walk down every day, or something like that.

[Heineken Skywalker]

Yep, saw it on FMC, but I actually DVR'd it off of there about a month ago and didn't watch it until yesterday. They rerun movies all the time, so ironically I chose to watch it on my DVR on the same day that they were showing it again, and that you were watching.

I only went over to the warehouse location once just too get a closer look. They repainted everything to make it look more like it would've back then, which was pretty neat, because the warehouse was pretty rundown before the movie crew got there and fixed it all up. The film crew actually left the place looking a lot better than it did before they got there. Never saw DeVito or Nicholson. There was a gate at the entrance to the location, part of the actual structure, that they kept locked to keep fans from wandering onto the set. Still, it was neat to know that "Hollywood" was in town.

[Heineken Skywalker]

KUNDUN (1997)

So here's a Martin Scorsese film I'd never seen before.
The story of the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Buddha of Compassion, from 1937, when at the age of two he was first identified, to 1959, when he fled Tibet and escaped to India.
The cast of non-professional actors are great across the board, and the cinematography and art direction are stunning. Storywise it's unlike anything Scorsese had done before, or since, but the man can make any type of fiilm, in any genre, and you know it's going to be at least "pretty good".

7.5/10

[LivingDeadGirl]

Lonely Hearts 4/10

The story of Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) and Ray Fernandez (Jared Leto), the "Lonely Hearts Killers" who in the 1940's fleeced widows and spinsters out of all their money and ended up killing most of them. Also starring John Travolta, James Gandolfini & Scott Caan. The movie moved very slow and most of the performances were uninspired and seemed like they were just sleep-walking through them. The only performance that had some spark to it was actually Salma Hayek as crazy, scary Martha.

[ZapRowsdower]

Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005, Stephen Frears)

A very engaging comedy-drama with Judi Dench giving one of 2005's strongest performances. She played off co-star Bob Hoskins very well. Because of this, the comedy works very well. And of course, Judi Dench with her tremendous talent can also bring an audience to tears when she has to. To me, it's comparable to Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, in its flawless transition from comedy to war-time drama. 8/10