Tombstone – A summer popcorn flick with a bit more heart to it and stakes. Several memorable lines and scenes. Really neat cast. Thought Val Kilmer was particularly strong.
At times it’s a strange mix of happy go lucky “we are suave gentlemen who know exactly what we are doing and everything goes our way as if it was fate”, until that luck does eventually run out. Blatant good vs. evil. It’s part of what gives off that popcorn summer flick vibe for an action movie. It’s heavy on bravado. In a good way. It’s like what you imagined as a kid about the wild west when it came to good guys vs bad guys. It’s slightly goofy and over the top like a theater play rather than fully played straight.
The revenge tour is pretty great. Shootout at the OK Corral was great. There were two odd scenes that I don’t know if Kurt Russel played them weird or it was just off directing. One when he is in the rain covered in blood. Just how he plays it seems almost out of character. And then in the river during the revenge tour where he just goes all Rambo and keeps saying “no, no” like some idiot. I started to laugh at that scene. Pretty sure I was meant to think “damn, Wyatt is a bad ass”. The action scenes are usually rather entertaining, but sometimes during the montages they almost seem a little too abrupt and not letting enough action flow. But it gets the point across. Shout out to some of the nighttime scenes in terms of composition. Really nice. And then the view when our revenge boys are at some other stable somewhere talking to another group of do gooders. That look into the distance was superb.
I watched the Blu Ray version which is the theatrical cut. I learned about a director’s cut that is only about 5 minutes longer and I wish they included that in the Blu Ray release. 2 of the 3 scenes I think add some more context for things that left me going “so what happened to her?” and “why was that dude someplace and now dead?” The other deleted scene is just more Wyatt and his girlfriend fussing over her drug abuse which is shown 2 or three times in the theatrical cut. So that I don’t really mind missing.
It’s a nice blockbuster with a little bit of that grand wild west American mythos wrapped in one. I’m your Huckleberry
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The Goonies – My childhood was in the burbs. Surrounded by forest. Kids all over the place. The idea of going a on a grand adventure and investigating your surroundings in hope for something interesting to happen is very nostalgic.
This movie is playing into that and then turns into a Universal Studios ride about halfway through. And I enjoyed it. Oozing that 80s kids movie vibe, but also being a little messed up and having some adult language or themes peppered in. In a way sort of more believable that these kids and teens would speak like that. Some questionable things that likely wouldn’t fly today, but not something I would hold against a movie from that time. Doesn’t ruin the experience, but just being aware that sensibilities have changed in decades since. The biggest flaw to me was the running time. Cut 20 minutes and you wouldn’t lose anything in terms of character development (which goes out the window once we hop on the Universal Studios ride part of the movie. Not literally. I just mean the feeling of it.) I mean it’s a simple and shallow movie. That’s fine too as I think the strength is just the kids being who they are. You feel like you could see your own friends and acquaintances in these characters to some degree.
You know what though. Corey Feldman. Kinda sucks. I thought that maybe it’s just him now being this kooky musician way over his head, but even as a child actor I shrug at his performance here. And why does the main dad who is going to lose his house look like a Who from Whoville? I’ll have to look. Maybe he was in The Grinch for all I know.
The main baddies I liked as our antagonists. Particularly the evil mom and the one son who likes to sing a lot. The deformed son… yeah I think that would be a character that would need to be revised if it was made today haha, but on the inside he’s stellar and I like his tag team with Chunk in the movie. Chunk kicks ass.
Fun movie, hella nostalgic in terms of remembering my own childhood in a roundabout way. Just needed to be edited down to a shorter running time as it loses steam during the loooooong chase that is the second half of the movie.
edit: minor spelling edit
