Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre - Guy Ritchie - 2023

★★★★-Went in expecting a fun, humorous action movie featuring beautiful people in beautiful clothes having a great time. That was exactly what I got. Loved it.

Gist is Jason Statham plays a mercenary named Orson Fortune who is hired to stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology. The broker of the deal is billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds played by Hugh Grant. To help, Fortune assembles a reluctant team of the world’s greatest and most beautiful operatives including Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), Bugzy Malone (the rapper), and Aubrey Plaza. They end up recruiting Hollywood's biggest movie star, one Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to go undercover and save the world.

Gets a little convoluted, but I honestly didn't really care. All of Guy Ritchie garbage crime movies are fun as fuck and this is no exception. Also, love how he plugs the wood-burning grill/table he invented in all of his movies now. 

Grant and Hartnett are so fun. Both of them yuck it up and steal every scene they are in. Plaza was a little much at first with her weak sarcasm, but comes around and is pretty great. 

Overall, nothing new and isn't going to win any awards. One review said “It’s like someone doing Guy Ritchie doing Guy Ritchie.” Fair, but still loved it. Sort of reminds me of a movie like Beat the Devil when John Huston made a movie starring Humphrey Bogart that gently spoofed the other movies they made together just so they could go and do cool shit in cool places and get paid for it. Having a great time shows on camera in projects like this. 

So, yeah, humor, action, movie stars being movie stars, Guy Ritchie, Aubrey Plaza looking fine. I'm buying. 

Amsterdam - David O. Russell - 2022

★★★ - Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Robert De Niro, and an amazing supporting cast. David O. Russell directing a period movie about Nazi supporters trying to overthrow democracy in America in 1933.  What’s not to love? 

Turns out a decent amount. Totally a hot mess with a hard-to-follow plotline that jumps around through time and makes little sense. However, I still really liked it. This is definitely a minority opinion.

The cast is just too good. In addition to those listed you've got Ed Begley Jr., Rami Malek, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Rock, Zoe Saldana, Michael Shannon, Anya Taylor-Joy (the young woman from The Witch and Split), Taylor Swift (forchristssake) who isn't bad, and more. Plus, I am a total sucker for a period piece from the first half of the 20th Century.

Foreign Correspondent - Alfred Hitchcock - 1940

★★★★ - Love a journalist thrust in into a spy-thriller or noir flick. Main guy, Joel McCrea, has a Tom Brady look. Plays a great dumb guy who finds himself unwittingly in an international assassination plot. Shares some DNA with North by Northwest in that way.

The paper he works for in New York sends him to Europe in 1939 just before the war broke out. The publisher tells him he doesn’t want him to cover the impending conflict, but really wants him to, I guess. This is the backdrop of the story. Everybody waiting for war, but thinking it’s not going to happen but knowing it will.

The publisher is sending the protagonist because he punched a cop. This is his “punishment” instead of being fired. He’s out of control and loves his job. If this were what being a newsman was like in 2023, I’d for damn sure still be on the job.

Bunch of people I recognize but no one really by name. This guy George Sanders looks just like Jason Segal. Recognize him as the raging asshole convinced Laurence Olivier was up to something in Rebecca. He was also Mister Freeze in the Batman show from the 60s.

Female lead, Laraine Day, was not much else. This was her biggest role. Didn’t really make it. Was a Mormon, too, similar to Scientology. I can’t enjoy someone’s work if I know they are a Mormon. Other groups that ruin it are Jehovah’s Witnesses, fundamentalist, Christians, conservative, rapist, wife, beaters, and racist. If you turn out to be a Trump supporter, I cannot even look at you. There is active rage there.

Pretty great film but has some flaws. Overshadowed by Rebecca, which also came out in 1940 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. These are his first movies after arriving in Hollywood. This film is mostly forgotten, but shouldn’t be. Plus a heck of a plane smash at the end.

Get Smart - Peter Segal - 2008

★★- Not a tight movie. Basically, every time I check to see how much time was left, I was shocked. How is there an hour left? How can there be 45 minutes to go? There are 25 minutes left in this movie, are you kidding me?

Weird to see a Rock movie where he is the fourth banana. Also, him and Terry Crews teaming up together is cray.

Lot of suspension of disbelief. Steve Carrell goes from paper-pusher to superhero as soon as he is promoted to field agent. Anne Hathaway, my queen, was looking fine though.