Ed's Review Dot Com

1821 Pictures, Boies / Schiller Film Group, Handsomecharlie Films,

Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Noah Emmerich, Ewan McGregor, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook

Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) is a frontier woman trying her best to make a home for her husband, Billy (Noah Emmerich) and child. But Jane has a past. A gang of outlaws is chasing after them, and when her husband returns home badly injured by being shot, he tells her the gang is on the way to get them and to get away. But Jane does not back down, so she heads into town to find a former lover Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) who is not very happy to see her, and she asks him for help to stand up to the gang.

Westerns are rare these days, and there’s nothing better than a good western. I was delighted to see this one come out. There have been a few lately (I’m thinking of The Hateful 8, for example) and I anxiously dug into this one. It is quite raw. The violence is real, and the story is the king in this film, as Natalie Portman pulls out an awesome performance. I was not expecting her to pull off a role like this that would appear out of her wheelhouse, but she played the wild west housewife who ain’t going to take crap from anybody very, very well. Joel Edgerton as Dan Frost is also a very good performance and brings all the different emotions and feelings out very well to. But this is also a very nice script. Just a simple story of danger and revenge and self defense, but it all comes together very chillingly. The violence is harsh, and we witness the cruelty of this battle, and like the great westerns of old, the suspense and the waiting keeps us on the edge of our seats. An excellent performance by all, and kudos for a tremendous screenplay that the director and the actors pulled off in a good show. If you love Westerns and don’t mind the R rating, this is a shocking thriller of a western that ought to be well worth seeing.

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Depth of Field, 1821 Pictures,

Lily Tomlin, Judy Greer, Julia Garner, Carlos Miranda, John Cho, Nat Wolff, Laverne Cox, Aaron Bilyeu, Elizabeth Peña, Colleen Camp, Sam Elliott, Mo Aboul-Zelof, Marcia Gay Harden, Missy Doty,
Don McManus

Elle (Lily Tomlin) has just broken up with her new girlfriend Olivia (Judy Greer) when her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) shows up unexpectedly at her door asking for $600.00 cash. Grandma Elle is busted, but she agrees to help raise the funds. Neither grandmother or granddaughter has a relationship with Sage’s over ambitious and very critical mother, so Elle calls on all kinds of old friends who could fund her granddaughter’s problems. But the more they dig into the past, the more uncomfortable old skeletons, hard feelings, and disappointments get awakened on this amazing journey.

I was genuinely surprised by this film. Ms. Garner does a really good job as the granddaughter who thinks she’s hip, but finds she’s a lot more naive than she thought, but this is really Lily Tomlin’s movie. From Geraldine the phone company operator from her stand up days and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In way back in the 60’s, we have seen her from time to time in films, mostly comedies, but this is really an awesome showcase for her. She was very, very good, and I think played the role stunningly. Now I can understand how young folks might not connect to the grandmother character, but Julia Garner is good enough to allow them to identify things from her point of view, so a 20 year old and a 60 year old may see different films, I believe both would like it. This is not the kind of movie that pulls in a huge box office, but like “On Golden Pond” for example, this is a touching and warm film about the relationships between different generations of the family, and was very enjoyable. This has a LOT of humor and is classified as a comedy, but it’s also a very touching and poignant film that is rather touching. I really enjoyed this movie and can recommend it highly.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

AR Films, Aldamisa Entertainment, 1821 Pictures,

Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Mel Gibson, Amber Heard, Sofía Vergara, Demián Bichir, Jessica Alba, Charlie Sheen, Antonio Banderas, Zoe Saldana, Vanessa Hudgens, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alexa PenaVega, Lady Gaga, William Sadler

Machete (Danny Trejo) and Sartana try to bring down a Mexican cartel but are interrupted when a group of bad guys show up, kill Sartana, and Machete is arrested for the murder. But the U.S. government breaks him out on the promise that he will take down a crazy billionaire revolutionary. This guy is trying to launch a weapon into space to gain control of the power and take down the U.S.

When the original Machete was made, they knew they had a fun movie on their hands, but they needed a bit more to the length, so they filmed a trailer and did a “Machete returns in:” and previewed the upcoming sequel “Machete Kills”. They didn’t really expect to make a sequel, but they really had to when they saw what happened to the first film. Machete is the baddest of bad guys, and a real hero. Much the the Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill “Trinity” films of the 70’s this is a nod to the Spaghetti Westerns of the 70’s which launched Clint Eastwood into superstardom. Machete is certainly a throwback to those days, but it’s got all the technique and special effects of the day and are really modern looking. Much like other parody movies, this one is a parody of many other films, but unlike most, it’s not only humor. Yes, everything is much larger than life, and there are some really funny moments, but it’s a good adventure story certainly comparable to the first. Machete is just plain fun. There’s a gaggle of stars here, and that is mostly because everybody wanted to be in it. It wasn’t hard to get stars to do cameos in this movie, as it had to be a lot of fun.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog