Mad Max : Fury Road

Mad Max : Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)

A woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in post apocalyptic Australia in search for her homeland with the help of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshiper, and a drifter named Max.

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Note : this review is a contribution to the Swashathon : a blogathon of swashbuckling Adventure hosted by Movies Silently.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1938)

When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.

Die Hard : With a Vengeance

Note : this review is my contribution to the Beach Party blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings.

Die Hard : With a Vengeance (John McTiernan, 1995)

John McClane and a Harlem store owner are targeted by German terrorist Simon Gruber in New York City, where he plans to rob the Federal Reserve Building.

This is the third instalment in the Die Hard franchise and my favorite one. Based on Hercules’ twelve labors and helped by Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), John McClane (Bruce Willis) has to stop a terrorist in the biggest city of America; New York City. After the criminal bombs a commerce he plays a game of Simon says asking for McClane who is alcoholic and suspended to achieve every tasks he is asking him.

With director John McTiernan back on board, Die Hard : With a Vengeance is a fun ride of action film sequences and mind games. Set during summer, the opening with The Lovin’ Spoonfull track Summer in the City gets us into the mood. Then Michael Kamen embarks us on a great soundtrack with a use of When Johnny Comes Marching Home that fills some of the best scenes of the film. Some bits of his score from the first two film are reused but they all blend together to get us on the edge of our seats.

I remember going to the theater on May 19 1995 with two of my friends, I was eleven years old at the time and I was only one who haven’t seen the other films from the franchise. However, I was becoming a Die Hard fan. Even if the first film of the now five entries is by far the best and one of the best films of all time, Die Hard : With a Vengeance is my favorite one. The setting, my favorite city and almost my second home; New York City does do something in the whole. The fact that they did not visit tourist locations and included inside local places does it for a lot. It makes us feel as we know the city from the inside. It is a nice rally race that reminds us of the first NYC action films of the 1970’s like The Taking of Pelham 123.

All in all, he third instalment in the Die Hard franchise might not be as well praised as the first one but I wanted to highlight it as a summer blockbuster entertainment. And it is everything I’m looking for when I want to catch this kind of film. It has a dear place into my film lover memory and I tend to revisit it almost every year.

The Terminator

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)

In 2029, artificially intelligent machines are attempting to exterminate what is left of the human race. Two beings from this era travel back in time to 1984 Los Angeles: One is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a cyborg assassin programmed to kill a woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton); the other is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a human resistance fighter sent to protect her. After the Terminator kills two other Sarah Connors listed in the telephone directory, it eventually tracks down its target to a nightclub. Kyle shows up and saves Sarah from the Terminator's attack and the two make an escape.

River of No Return (1954)

River of No Return (Otto Preminger, 1954)

After doing time in jail for murdering a man in defence of another one, Matt Carkner (Robert Mitchum) takes his son Mark (Tommy Rettig) and wants to live with him in the country of hunting, fishing , and cultivating. The woman, Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe), who was taking care of Mark is a singer/dancer that just married with Harry (Rory Calhoun), a one of a kind man embarks her on a trip that will unfortunately involve Matt and Mark.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

A group of criminals are taking hostage for ransom the passengers of a busy New York City subway car.

Starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Hector Elizondo The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is an iconic film of the 1970’s. A good suspense and an influential movie for Quentin Tarantino with the naming of the criminals by colors (see Reservoir Dogs) and a huge influence on action films to come along with John Carpenter’s The Assault of Precinct 13. Not the actual film canon that is praised a lot habitually by this critic, but it is deserves its mention here.

A Good Day to Die Hard

A Good Day to Die Hard (John Moore, 2013)

The first instalment of this franchise, Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis as New York policeman John McClane visiting his family for Christmas and getting struck in the Takami building in an hostage takeover by terrorists was original, fresh, a brilliant homage to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, and a new twist on the Action genre. As the writer of those lines, I loved the first three movies of the Die Hard series, and even if this blog is more about classics, art house, and high brow cinema I can actually enjoy a good movie and appreciate many aspects even if it only involves explosions and gun fires. The action genre is not the kind of movies that bores most of people. Well, some people who elevates themselves over pedestrians and think they are better than the majority might contempt this kind of entertainment. It is their problem. For me if it’s entertaining in some way I’ll be entertained and I think that it success its main goal when we speak about movies. But I would have had a different speech if we were talking about films although.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)

This low budget (100 000$) precursor to the action film genre is one of the most interesting movie made by director John Carpenter. Openly influenced by Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Assault on Precinct 13 is the story of survival of a group trapped together just like in the aforementioned masterpieces. They must defend themselves in front of a gang of street killers that swore to revenge the death of six of them.  While holding a cult status, it is also a very solid cinephile pick when it comes to references to previous films like Sergio Leone’s or stories by Alfred Hitchcock.

Die Hard

Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)

John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save wife Holly Gennaro and several others, taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

Being born in the 1980’s makes me a kid of the John Wayne of my time, Arnold, Stalone, Van Dam, Jackie Chan, and Bruce Willis were the actors I wouldn’t miss a film. The later who played the character of Officer John McClane was my favorite; I remember very well that the first time I got to a Theatre by myself was for the opening night of Die Hard: With a Vengeance in Sorel. The first film of the franchise, Die Hard, is a game changer movie that even ranks third in the Top 10 of Christmas movies I cumulated for this December. Without much further ramblings about myself here’s my a little enthusiastic review of this Action Film classic.

Aliens

Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)

I may as well, be one of James Cameron's furiest detractors, I must admit that I had some fun way back watching True Lies and the first two Terminators. I should also say that I've never imposed to myself the torture of Titanic and Avatar, yet. I know, as a cinephile I should have seen those mainstream extravaganzas. For both, I don't really have the interest of watching them and having heard so much from them that this is sure I will get bored and predict every moment of them. But, one day, after I'll have seen all the Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Jean-Luc Godard, and all the other filmmaker's films I have deep interest in I will have to see Cameron's movies.