The Counselor

My View:  The Counselor  (2013) R  Michael Fassbender plays a greedy lawyer, only known as The Counselor, who becomes involved with the seedy world of drug trafficking.  With a cast to-die-for - Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt, this should have been an amazing movie- going experience.  Instead, after watching this film, you feel as though you just sat through a college philosophy class.  The dialogue is so dense and abstract that it would have been better suited for a book, not a film.  There is a reason for this - novelist Cormac McCarthy wrote the script, and it feels like it.  The film is also hard to follow with a plot that is never fully explained.  To make maters worse, some of the hair and makeup on the cast is so extreme, I found myself fixating on Javier Bardem's hair (which I think was a tribute to those 80's films that Robert Downey, Jr. did) or Cameron Diaz's eye makeup, that it took away from my paying attention to what those characters where saying.  The film is painfully slow, though it does pick up somewhat in the second half of the film, but, at that point, I just wanted it to end as I didn't care what happened to any of the characters.   My Rating:  Cable  The Counselor Website       

The 50 (A Movie from My Best/Worst Film of All Time)
#4 Worst Film:
Mac and Me  (1988)  PG  A blatant rip-off of E.T. in which a young, wheelchair-bound boy befriends a “Mysterious Alien Creature” (MAC, get it?).  This film is one long marketing tool for products as Coca Cola and McDonalds.  At one point, there is a dancing scene involving Mac dressed as a teddy bear, a football team and Ronald McDonald (listed in the credits as Himself).  To quote an old McDonalds ad, “You deserve a break today," so don’t ever see this film.  Mac and Me Info

Forgotten Film:    Wish You Were Here  (1987)  R  Lynda (Emily Lloyd) is a spunky sixteen year old girl who lives in a small coastline town in England in the 1950s   Lynda loves shocking people with her saucy language and feisty attitude.  She is easily bored, goes from job to job and boyfriend to boyfriend and has problems with her widower father.  Her world changes when she has an affair with an older man and must cope with getting pregnant and having a baby.  Emily Lloyd gives a brilliant performance and wins us over from the first time she appears on camera.  Full of life, Lloyd just dazzles on-screen.  The film is very often funny but also has a bittersweet side to it.  My Rating:  Full Price  Wish You Were Here Info

In Memory of Ed Wood (A Movie I’ve Only Seen in Trailers But Just Looks Like a Bad Idea): The Amityville Horror: The Awakening (2014)  When is Hollywood going to wise up and realize that we want intelligent, creative, scary films like this year's The Conjuring, and not a retread or rip-off of past films like this one?  The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes Info

In Case You Missed It (A Film Just Released on DVD / Blu-ray):  The Internship (2013) PG-13   This rarely funny comedy is about two out-of-work salesmen (Vince Vaughn / Owen Wilson)  who are hired as interns at Google.  The film is one long infomercial with one-dimensional characters and very predictable scenes.  My Rating:  Cable  The Internshiip Website  

Weird Credits: From the credits of The Counselor:  Cheetah handler

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You:  Dallas Buyers Club (2013) R   The year of Matthew McConaughey continues as he portrays a Texas electrician / part-time cowboy named, Ron, who is diagnosed in 1986 as HIV-positive.  When told he has only 30 days to live, he does research and discovers that there are experimental drugs for treating AIDS in Mexico and overseas but are not allowed in this country.  He figures out a way to get the drugs and help other HIV-Positive patients live longer.   Dallas Buyers Club Website

Until Next Time!