Filed under: Drama, Movies, Posted by TA, Review | Tags: Action, Anthony Mackie, Atlanta, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cops, Gal Gadot, Gone Baby Gone, Kate Winslet, Police, Russian Mafia, Street Kings, Thriller, Training Day, Triple 9, Woody Harrelson
Triple 9 is the best cop/action thriller of the decade so far. I took it for granted after watching the trailer at a theatre earlier this year. Yesterday, while looking for a movie to watch, I saw this poster with 4 dudes carrying big guns, wearing red balaclavas and thick goggles, involved by red smoke. Before doing a quick search on the story, I immediately thought of a Power Ranger reunion at Color Me Rad. Boy, was I wrong.
This is an all-in-one thriller. It has a complex but solid storyline that connects like a perfect game of Tetris. It’s dark and gruesome. The pace is incredibly fast and nail-biting. Blockbuster action scenes are intertwined with daunting short conversations.
I can see Street Kings and the always-in-mind Training Day being inspirations for Triple 9, but it’s also fair to say that the latter carved its own place in the history of great cop thrillers. By the way, Triple 9 was able to show the ever-existing tension between ghettos and the police really well. In my humble opinion even better than the acclaimed Training Day.
The cast has some of the biggest underrated actors in the last 20 years, led by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Casey Affleck in a role similar to his excellent Gone Baby Gone. There’s also the one-and-only Woody Harrelson and Anthony Mackie at their best. Let us now forget a brilliant Kate Winslet and Gal Gadot, who seemed very comfortable in the few scenes that were given to her.
Affleck reminded me a lot of his role in Gone Baby Gone, which was also a fantastic thriller. Ejiofor is truly the man. He’s the new Denzel. Think of him as in 12 Years a Slave meets Inside Man. He’s truly amazing.
Filed under: Behavior, Behaviour, Cinema, Comedy, Communication, Culture, Europe, Imagination, Media, Movies, Posted by TA, Review, Society, Wars | Tags: Adaptation, Adolf Hitler, Book, Broadcasting, Documentary, Er Ist Wieder Da, fiction, Fifth State, Fourth State, Mockumentary, Oliver Masucci, World War 2
Superb, superb, superb adaptation of the 2012 book.
This movie made me miss Europe. “The Union” is far from perfect, but I still haven’t found people with a smart, more provocative and darkly humorous way of dealing with sensitive issues like they do it there. The best definition I could find for Look Who’s Back is “slapstick”. That’s what the movie is.
The plot is simple: Adolf Hitler magically wakes up in the middle of 2014 Berlin, at the exact same spot of the infamous Führebunker. Yes, the original Adolf. Not a comedian, not a street artist, not a conman; the third post-Middle Ages anti-Christ himself. Obviously it takes him a while to understand what’s going on in the world. Germany is different. People, technology, mentality and the general context are very different from 1945.
Hitler’s journey starts comically. He’s a stranger to his own people. Add to that the fact that he is helped by a clumsy freelancer who has just lost his job and tries to seize Hitler’s convincing persona as an opportunity to go back into the media world. Media, by the way, is one of the key elements in the plot. The Fourth and Fifth State become huge platforms for someone who’s known to have mastered the art of influencing people and the power of public speech. References to Goebbels are abundant. Information and how society reacts to it becomes the core of the movie. That theme reminded me a lot of another German movie, The Wave.
The transition to a more serious, darker take on media and society in general is eye-opening to say the least. For instance, Hitler quickly (re)discovers the power of television and the manipulation of masses. He just didn’t expect how mediocre broadcasting can be these days (in this case, cooking, gossip and Judge Judy-like shows). Hitler’s role becomes more complex as he makes his own sweet way back into popularity in the middle of a fight for power between senior-ranking TV executives. That’s when society starts to revisit old wounds that have never been fully healed… Going further on sharing more snippets of the movie will end up in spoilers, but hopefully by this point you have understood where the whole discussion is going. Some views from ordinary Germans across the country interviewed during the movie are quite shocking to what some of us would have expected.
Look Who’s Back brilliantly switches back and forth from mockumentary to nonfiction. It is oftentimes hard to separate them. Oliver Masucci is a genius. I had never heard of him but have to give him praise for a monumental performance as the Führer himself. He’s well beyond a simple or funny impersonation. Masucci gives full life to 21st century Hitler with a creepily and memorable performance.
I highly recommend Look Who’s Back.
Filed under: Cinema, Life, Movies, Posted by TA, Review | Tags: Argentina, Best Foreign Film, Movie Review, Oscar-nominated, Relatos Selvajes, Ricardo Darin, Wild Tales
#brilliant
Watching an Argentinian movie after a long hiatus was the best I’ve done this week. Wild Tales (Relatos Selvajes) is a series of 6 short stories, all focused on revenge. My favourite one: the “Bombita” engineer.
I do like the concept of multiple, unrelated stories glued together by one general theme. In the case of Wild Tales, humour was super intelligent and all characters were deeply immersed into their roles.
Imagine a scale of 1 through 6, where 1 is the first tale and 6 the last. Every next story becomes more convoluted and full of elements. It becomes a sort of tutorial. The more you learn, the more the plot requires your attention. Every single tale is so entertaining and creative that staying completely tuned to each is easy.
Filed under: Cinema, Drama, Movies, Posted by TA, Review | Tags: Best Actress, Boyhood, Ethan Hawk, Hollywood, Leading Role, Patricia Arquette, Richard LInklater
When will Hollywood stop overrating its own children?
Boyhood is bland, and that is a compliment. Go through its 2 hours and 45 minutes of uninteresting tales and you’ll understand my point. The experiment of taking 12 years to film a movie is remarkable and must be highlighted as much as how unnecessary it was. Boyhood doesn’t lack wrongs.
The story is average to below average, although Richard Linklater tells it really well. That’s his forte and way of life. Characters are awfully dull, Patricia Arquette included, except for Ethan Hawk. Yet, she won an Oscar two years ago. If acting was in any shape or form criterion to judge screen performances, Arquette should have the Oscar for Stigmata way back in the 90’s. She’s a talented actress, and so is Hawk, but neither of them deserved big accolades for Boyhood (or any at all). In my books, Arquette has joined Helen Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Melanie Griffith, Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock on my “If she can, so can I” list of illogical picks.
Boyhood looked like a made-for-TV movie several times. Its camera work was simple and soundtrack almost nonexistent. Nothing wrong with those, just facts.
If the movie turned into an audiobook, I may consider “watching” it again.
Filed under: Go-to-Market, Market, People, Posted by TA, Technology | Tags: Auto Industry, Cars, Elon Musk, Launch, Model 3, Presentation, Silicon Valley, Tesla
Tesla had an Apple-style launch of its Model 3 last Friday. They’re sexy, amazing and quite affordable. Yes, I want one too.
The really intriguing part about the event was Elon Musk’s presentation skills. It’s the third time I watch him present. The guy is a visionary, doer, and works hard for his ideas. Now I’ll tell you something he IS NOT: a good presenter.
There should be no comparisons to another famous product-chief (i.e. Steve Jobs), but Musk can definitely be a better salesman. About a year ago, CNBC’s Jim Cramer suggested Tesla’s founder should be on SN. Mr. Cramer, I will join your campaign.
#muskonsnl
Filed under: Culture, Musings, People, Posted by TA, Women | Tags: Celebration, Diversity, Gender gap, Hallmark, International Women's Day, March 8th
I wanted to give a nice lady a card to celebrate International Women’s Day, so I went to the Hallmark store. They had zillions of different cards. Birthday, graduation, St. Patrick’s, Easter and Passover, friendship, funny, dark, wise, you name it.
I asked an attendant if they had anything for March 8th, International Women’s Day. She replied “Good question. Let me check”. Her manager confirmed what I already knew. No, they didn’t have anything in that category. Thanking the attendant for her kindness to check was easy. Understanding or accepting the fact was not. There are many biased perceptions towards women and minorities, right? Yes, that’s why people have been talking a lot about diversity these days. Gender and ethnicity gaps are huge. Seriously, I would love to know why certain things are picked to be more popular and cherished than others. Can you think of anything more universal than a woman? Birthdays and women are universal.
Where there’s a man, there’s a woman and vice-versa. They exist in every single country, environment, and condition, despite of language, type of government, religion, or social structure. Is Christmas universal? As far as I know, less than 2 billion people actually celebrate it. The world’s population is about 7 billion. Does everybody in the world graduate? What about Saint Patrick’s? I guess even less people know about it than graduates exist. Celebrating women should be easier, whether it’s on their day or any day.
Here’s my paraphrase of a little wall frame I found at the Hallmark store, the only printed substitute message I could find to celebrate women:
Each morning, every woman in the world should hit her feet on the floor and make the devil say: “Oh, crap. She’s up!”
Enjoy this day.
Filed under: Cinema, Media, Movies, Oscars, Posted by TA, Review, Society | Tags: Best Movie, Boston, Boston Globe, Brian D'Arcy, Catholic Church, Investigative Work, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo, Micheal Keaton, Oscars, Priest Scandal, Rachael McAdams, Spotlight, Stanley Tucci
Spotlight is about an extraordinary story told in an ordinary manner. Its brilliance comes not from the fact that one of the oldest and most respected institutions in the world badly screwed up on the background check of its “staff”. Instead, Spotlight focuses on the hard work by a small group of journalists driven by a visionary new editor-in-chief. To me, that’s what made the movie so good.
The Spotlight team at the Boston Globe won a Pulitzer prize for its investigative work. The movie crew and writers tried to add as little noise as possible to keep the film reasonably pure and unbiased. You won’t see phenomenal acting, but a very solid ensemble being as hardworking and committed as the real-life Spotlight team itself. More than solid, in fact. It’s one of the most stellar casts I’ve seen in a non-fiction movie in a while, all consistently solid: Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Rachael McAdams (more and more distant from The Notebook, thank goodness), Michael Keaton, John Slattery, and Brian D’Arcy.
Among worthy mentions, there is Mark Ruffalo. The guy has been consistent for more than a decade. He’s a chameleon, my favourite type of actor. He’s a true artist, more of a Da Vinci, less of a Di Caprio. Spotlight also consolidates Michael Keaton’s incredible comeback. He had an Oscar stolen last year. Although his performance was not as strong as Birdman’s, the former Bruce Wayne delivered again.
Giving the Best Movie Oscar to Spotlight was a fair thing to do. May those who abused innocent children rot in hell.
Filed under: Cinema, Comedy, Movies, Posted by TA | Tags: Deadpool, Marvel, Regina, Rotten Tomatoes, Ryan Reynolds, Saskatchewan, Stan Lee, Super Hero, Vancouver, Wolverine, X-Men
I insist this must be Ryan Reynolds and Marvel’s best movie to date. Last Monday I read somewhere that Deadpool had a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, something unheard of, at least for me.
The movie is consistently great, from the most creative opening to closing credits. I honestly felt like it was a stand-up comedy gig, like the best you’ve watched. Maybe Seth Rogen could learn from the writers?
The 4th wall worked beautifully, and so did many updated references to pop culture, movies in particular, other comics like X-Men and whatnot. The flow is quite unpredictable, a lot more fun to watch and be surprised. Stay tuned to every scene. Humour is great but also fast and witty. If you snooze, you will lose some of the best lines in the business. Also prepare yourself for a lot of blood. It’s a gory show at times.
These are many scenes filmed in Vancouver. It was nice seeing places so familiar and so close to me. The theatre almost went down when Stan Lee made his usual cameo. It was brilliant.
I didn’t know much about Deadpool but became a big fan after watching it. I’ve known many funny Saskatchewans, but Regina’s Wade Wilson (a.k.a Deadpool) has just been inducted into my honour roll.
Filed under: Behavior, Behaviour, Corporate Affairs, Culture, Management, Posted by TA | Tags: Actionable, Corporate, Efficiency, Meetings, Please, Productivity, Project Management, Scrum, Updates
It’s a necessity more than a personal request. They’re just not actionable. It doesn’t matter how companies call them, update meetings are time-wasting and fruitless corporate waste. I’ve been going through them since 2000. The net result of benefits minus cons has been negative 9 out of 10 times. Think about it. Let’s say the room is filled with 8-10 people and these meetings are scheduled for an hour every two weeks. I know sometimes they happen every week, which is even more overkill. I’m trying to keep our spirits uplifted for a few minutes.
Ask yourself:
- What do you get by listening to your peers talk about things they did in the past week or two?
- How many of their projects are you really involved with? This makes a difference on your level of interest engagement.
- Do you talk about specific next steps? Do you track if those next steps have been accomplished?
- What is desired outcome of the meeting?
- Do people take notes?
- If yes, what happens after the meeting is over?
- How many people actually use the notes for further follow-up?
- Does everybody participate, or just a few “leaders” chime in?
- Do people respect the time assigned to them? One hour for 10 people means an average of 6 minutes a person, assuming everybody
Suggestions to eliminate group meetings:
- Project Management approach: Create or use a project management tool. There are hundreds (literally) of cloud/web-based tools that can enter project information, details, measure progress, allow collaboration and whatnot.
- Assign one manager to track down each project’s process and make sure peers are accountable for entering their project information on a regular basis. After a while, people will get the gist of it and function without reminders.
- Most importantly: if you need to follow up on anything, pick up the phone or walk to your colleague’s desk. If you two can’t figure things out in 10 minutes, then think about booking more time.
- Scrum: do 15-20-minute group scrums, once a week. Every person has 90-120 seconds to summarize answers to three questions: What did I work on since our last update? What’s next? Do I need help from anybody? Take everything offline to an informal chat if requested, followed up by a 30-minute meeting with the people relevant to that project, only if strictly necessary.
Whoever is running the show, please spare me at least one hour every 2 weeks. It may sound like little time to do things, but for my own mental health and extreme productivity desire, I’d like to more efficiently use that hour.
I said “Please” this time.
Filed under: Drama, History, Military, Movies, Politics, Posted by TA, Wars | Tags: 2012, Ambassador, Arab Spring, Benghazi Attack, CIA, diplomacy, John Krasinski, Libya, Michael Bay, US State Department
I was positively impressed for many reasons.
- It was the first movie in a very long time that proudly announced “This is a true story”, unlike “Based on a True Story” or even “Inspired by True Events”. Trust me, the real deal makes a huge difference.
- Herr director Michael Bay has changed. He did his best to tell what actually happened in Libya 3.5 years ago. Before watching 13 Hours I saw one featurette and one making off. At least 3 of the guys who went through the battle survived to tell the story and served as consultants to the movie. If you look at Bay’s filmography, it will be almost impossible to find something close to the truth.
- Yes, there is the usual Hollywood embellishment and excessive patriotism in some scenes but overall acting and the story are pretty convincing. Background and personal stories are not an excuse for the plot. If you watched Pearl Harbor (also directed by Bay), you’ll get my point.
13 Hours’ weakness lies on the lack of the in-depth coverage around the causes of the attack. The movie leads you to believe that angry Libyans randomly decided to attack Americans on 11-September. The work was in fact orchestrated by a local militia. Days later, more than 100,000 “true” Libyans went on to the streets to claim for justice and strongly condemn the acts of violence.
If you forget about the military bragging typical of American movies, the story is quite compelling. There are several interesting lessons to learn from the situation:
It’s remarkable to know that some people will put their own lives on the line.
If you’re part of a militia trying to attack highly trained military operators, don’t charge frontally. Read the books and every single commander will tell you that it is suicide except for very specific scenarios.
If you’re the American government dealing with a highly stressful and life-threatening event, there must be better and more efficient ways to make decisions. The lack of action to support the besieged Americans was appalling. If details are true (and I’m assuming they are because everything is logged), the US had massive forces all over the place but decided against deploying the options. Why?
Unfortunately 13 Hours is yet another good reminder of how American foreign policy fails on “post-game” handling (to quote a term from the movie Charlie’s War referring to the American support to Afghan mujahedeen against the USSR).
Filed under: Drama, Law, Movies, Posted by TA, Review, Wars | Tags: Belvedere Gallery, Daniel Bruhl, Gustav Klimt, Helen Mirren, Holocaust, international law, Ryan Reynolds, Vienna
There’s only one thing that really matters: the story is incredible and the context for watching this movie couldn’t have been better. It is to true that I actually cried in the end. Everything else was average.
Filed under: Comedy, Movies, Posted by TA, Relationships, Review | Tags: Film Review, Humor, Jason Sudeikis, RomCom, Sex
I had the impression that Jason Sudeikis is starting to grow up. Compared to his previous movies (Horrible Bosses 1 and 2 and We’re the Millers for example), his cynical humour has stepped up a notch towards maturity and sophisticated sarcasm. The goofy days are starting to be in the mirror. I usually split Sudeiki’s movies into three parts. Sleeping with Other People is an improved “classic”.
- The porn beginnings – meaning each story starts with several awkward and funny situations that will eventually develop into a scrambled plot.
- Jason in the (random) middle – all sorts of things happen there. If you manage to get through this sometimes confusing and mixed-message part of the plot, you’ll be ok. It’s normally a funny but somewhat disconnected set of events.
We knew it – the ending part is quite obvious.
It occurred to me that Jason Sudeikis must play his real-life character in the movies. The guy is a natural and has a knack for portraying embarrassingly raunchy situations. He always starts as a highly attractive jerk, sex-addict man-whore, always fished by the exact opposite type of personality, so he can turn into a more conservative and attached man as the story goes by.
This time he went deeper though. Unlike other silly roles, the movie deals with very modern and adult relationship topics. Those go from the benefits of a bachelor life (vs. marriage with kids), dating at work and even, believe it or not, reflections on abusive relationships. I also liked the way the story flowed. It was more complex and realistic, truly above average.
Filed under: Behaviour, Culture, Internet, Posted by TA | Tags: Attitude, Banking, Customer Satisfaction, Feedback, Internet Banking, online, RBC
The world needs more simplicity and making things easier to share positive thinking.
Two weeks ago I noticed my internet banking had been completely revamped. I was honestly impressed by RBC. The site was more functional, simpler in content and design, faster in showing me the information I needed and wanted. Today I decided to write a note giving them the kudos for such a great move. If it’s beautiful, say it right? I decided to send them feedback online. They have a Customer Service section that would likely have a contact email, form or whatnot. Here is where the “fun” starts.
First I typed “compliments”, followed by “kudos”, “satisfaction”, and “positive feedback”. Predictive topics for the latter term actually resulted in something closer to what I had in mind but not quite. Besides, why do I only have the option to make a complaint or suggestion? Well, because most of the feedback provided fits within those two categories. Every time I hit “Enter”, the next page always took me to the same message. Not quite the answer I was looking for. Below that, a quick satisfaction survey measured in stars. How many should I give them?
After 4 attempts, I turned to a much easier alternative: my blog.
Dear RBC:
I just wanted to say your new internet banking interface looks really good and functional. There was a 99% improve on everything I use. I’m happy about the tool but not entirely satisfied about options for providing you positive feedback. Please look into those. I understand they’re rare and random, but they do exist.
Filed under: Movies, Oscars, Posted by TA, Review | Tags: Alejandro Iñarritu, Leonardo di Caprio, The Revenant, Tom Hardy
Overall, I didn’t quite like it despite its many pluses. They are: Iñarritu’s vision was quite original and his amazing camera work followed along from Birdman. Cinematography and production are some of the best I’ve seen in a while. Tom Hardy’s back to shape. That was by far his best work ever (remember when I gave him a timeout after 3 terrible back to back flicks?). If it costs you only $5.38 to watch (that’s how much I paid), watch it in the theatre. Otherwise, wait.
My peeve with the Revenant was is about the flow and intention. 2 hours and 37 minutes of cold and gory film was too much. The story got broken several times when unnecessary takes were added. There’s too much symbolism and crazy philosophical chit chat. I find it hard to believe that was the way Midwest pioneers used to behave. And let’s be honest, Indians are also stereotypically depicted. Historical inaccuracies also stand out in this movie, and I have a big problem with that. The Revenant is “Inspired by True Events”. That’s one of the lowest in the historical movie accuracy categories.
The intention of The Revenant is also not clear. Did Iñarritu try to make a western, a thriller, a morally pleasing testament to First Nations / Pioneer relations in the 19th century? The beginning suggests a story of rage and revenge that turns into an emotional tale of survival. Those two themes don’t usually sync well together. It gets confusing.
One has to recognize Leonardo di Caprio’s acting improvements. He’s good in the movie. Grunting for an entire hour in the snow requires skills. In my acting ratings, he now sits along with Dakota Fanning.
Angel and Tiggs 