Transformers, Age of Extinction

Actors:  Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor

Rating:  8 out of 10   I guess there were so many unanswered questions in the Transfomer saga they just had to make another.  The one thing that stood out for me, outside of the amazing CGI effects, was how damned long this thing was.  Michael Bay has made so much money on this series that he’s been given carte blanche which isn’t necessarily a good thing.  You get well over two hours of non-stop pitched battles between huge robots and evil humans.  Chicago gets worked over again and in what has become routine in large action flicks, the battles move to China (can’t short change that lucrative demographic) where Hong Kong gets pasted.  You know things are completely out of hand when ancient robotic dinosaurs join the fight.  There is no over the top for Mr. Bay.  Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci along with the obligatory hottie in short shorts were nice additions to the cast which was completely overhauled.  There were however a tidal wave of cringe worthy lines the actors are forced to utter which sent the unintentional comedy level through the roof.  With all the money Bay gets to make these things you think he’d invest a little bit in the writing. It was however a transformers movie where you don’t go in expecting Shakespeare and you certainly get your money’s worth of death and destruction.

MVP:  Wahlberg as Cade Yeager further cements his action credentials

History of the World, Part 1

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Shecky Greene, Gregory Hines, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman

Rating:  7 out of 10, Not one of Brooks’ greatest efforts but it has some very funny moments and at least one enduring line for the ages – “It’s good to be king!” as well as the “15 no 10 commandments”.  Mel and his merry band of regulars take hysterical license with history from the stone age to the French Revolution.  Many of the jokes haven’t aged well and the semi-maniacal pace can be a little off putting but it remains a great example of Brook’s cache at the time.  He could get away with a lot more than other directors at the time.

MVP:  Delouise as the Roman Emperor who keeps finding things in his butt

Godzilla

Actors:  Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn

Rating:  8 out of 10, This current movie is sneakily very, very good.  I’ve always taken the stance that the name “Godzilla” should always be uttered with a deep guttural Japanese accent.  It was therefore with intense pleasure that the first time it was said in the movie was in just that fashion by the excellent Japanese actor, Ken Watanabe. This flick is successful because it stays with the human story and uses the huge monsters as a plot device instead of the focus.  Godzilla emerges as nature’s response (much to San Francisco’s detriment) to two large nuclear feeding monsters called MUTOs.  The monsters are forces of nature and the movie is about the way humans would react to this immense challenge.  There are no sinister corporation rabbit holes to explore.  There were some pretty dumb tactical decisions made but this was obviously done to keep the story moving forward.  The young actors were especially good, the Olsen twins’ younger sister and Kick Ass himself, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, were effective as the young couple the story centers around.  You wouldn’t want to stand around his character in a thunder storm though as wherever he happens to be standing is ground zero for something extremely bad to happen.  This is definitely the best Godzilla movie ever made which says a lot, nostalgia wise.

MVP:  Taylor-Johnson in his best performance since the first Kick-Ass

High Anxiety

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn

Rating:  8 out of 10, Brooks' heartfelt and extremely funny parody of all things Hitchcockian where every single scene is tied to one of Alfred’s classics.  He’s brought along some of his funniest collaborators who pick up the slack for what Brooks lacks as the lead actor.  Brooks as an actor is a great writer.  The movie became a great trivia test as I tried to spot which movie was being parodied in each scene.  The scenes between Leachman and Korman are comedic genius.

MVP:  Cloris Leachman as the scary Nurse Diesel.

Silent Movie

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar, Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau, Paul Newman

Rating:  7 out of 10, This hasn’t aged well because all of the big stars that were one of the movie’s gimmicks are either dead or not that big a deal any more.  It still remains a loving tribute to the silent movie era and resurrects a lot of the typical scenarios prevalent in that genre.  Brooks is better behind the camera and/or writing than as a lead actor.  It could have been a better movie if the maniacal Marty Feldman was allowed more free rein as well.  The plot involves a has-been movie director trying to convince a studio head and A List actors to make – a silent movie.  If nothing else this was a nice trip down slapstick memory lane.

MVP:  Feldman as the slightly perverted Marty Eggs

Captain America, The Winter Soldier

Actors:  Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo

Rating:  9 out of 10, Each Marvel film seems to get bigger and yet they’re still immensely entertaining.  This film was every bit as much Johansson’s movie as the redoubtable Captain.  The action is virtually non-stop as the Captain and his crew confronts an infiltration of Shield by an old nemesis from World War 2 days.  This film is heavy on CGI but still amazes.  They somehow superimposed the massive Shield headquarters right across the Potomac from the Kennedy Center and made it look real.  I used to run through the area daily so it was especially jarring.   I liked the message (yes Marvel movies can have a message) that security shouldn’t be purchased at the cost of freedom and a few million assassinations.   There’s a lot more of Samuel L. Jackson (without a single M.F. that I can recall) and a coolly evil Robert Redford.  You had to know any organization that has Garry Shandling as one of its leaders is in trouble but I digress.  A great thrill ride. 

MVP:  Johannsen as the Natasha, the Black Widow is the perfect foil for the 1940’s mentality of Cap

The Twelve Chairs

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Frank Langella, Ron Moody, Dom DeLuise

Rating:  7 out of 10.  This was the only Mel Brooks movie I had never seen and while it’s a bit dated (especially with all the USSR jokes) it still has Brooks’ manic humor underlying all the dialogue.  A couple of dispossessed Russian noblemen are competing with a corrupt priest to find a chair where a fortune in jewels was hidden.   This doesn’t have the hilarious one liners most of his later work but has a more subtle comment on the human condition and greed.  Frank Langella looks impossibly young here, it’s almost as if he voicing over a young actor.  It was interesting seeing this early Brooks’ effort before he was freed up to be himself in the later, funnier ones.  

MVP:  Dom Delouise as the Russian priest trying to steal the jewels – best line in the entire movie – “God, you’re so strict!”