Magnificent Seven remake.. Not as good as the original but I liked it. Denzel Washington was pretty good as the lead replacement for Yul Brynner and Chris Pratt for Steve McQueen. I found it interesting that the survivors of the 7 were the minorities almost as if they intentionally went out of their way to show the black man, the native American and the Mexican survive lol. Still pretty good movie overall. 7.5/10

Silence of the Lambs.. Very good movie. I enjoyed Jodie Foster's acting but the star was of course Anthony Hopkins. Very well done movie with decent storyline. Dark movie that is worth checking out. 8.5/10

Rebecca - 9/10
Jack Reacher - 7/10
The Last of the Mohicans - 8/10
Three Days of the Condor - 7.5/10

Dunkirk
8.5/10

Solid movie. I enjoyed it from start to finish.

I took a point off because I felt we didn't see enough pieces of the puzzle. Too much focus was put on reshowing multiple perspectives of the same events - such as the ship that was sunk by the Luftwaffe bomber and the solo British pilot who defended them from the 2nd pass even with very little fuel remaining. We saw 3 different perspectives of that single event. Much more took place within that 10 day window of battle than what we saw on the screen. 

I took off another half a point because I felt they could have done more to further build up the scenario in the beginning to show how Allies ended up backed into a corner. You can show the Allied side as they were being pushed back towards Dunkirk just days before they ended up on the shores of Dunkirk. You can further build up the plot if you were to focus even more on the historical aspect on the Nazi side - it was a huge blunder on their side to not push in the armored units in and capitalize on it. , movie would have been 30 mins longer, but I don't mind tbh.

Review I posted a while back on BTE thread:

And 'The Post':


And 'Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri':

Watched 'Big' yesterday with Tom Hanks. It was an decent movie. Nothing special tbh. Acting was pretty good, plot was surprisingly good, directing pretty good. Essentially, a 13yr old kid wishes to be an adult so his mind is still 13 but his body becomes a man when he wakes up. Then he falls in love with a woman (remember he is still 13 lol).

Overall, my takeaway value.. Every kid wants to be an adult, but when you become an adult, you realize how much you miss your childhood. No responsibilities, no work, no worries, nothing but fun & games. You realize that childhood is the best time of your life. You can play games, watch cartoons all day long, movies every day.

8/10.

P.S. I wonder what tsk would think of a PG rated movie of a 13yr child banging a woman in her 30s. Lol!! Just giving you a hard time, brotha

bladefd
Did he have the right intentions? I don't think Simmons' character was supposed to be portrayed in any positive light

Hmmm.. , I think the issue was that he felt the ends always justified the means. He employed extreme measures to find and build greatness. He became an obsessed scumbag to the point where he lost his own humanity to inspire another. You constantly see anger, passion, jealousy, rage, powerful emotions from a flawed human being. It was almost madness how far he went to fulfill that goal.

Was his intention right? I think so but his path and style were wrong. As we noticed, a former student of his killed himself because he felt he would never amount to much. As a teacher, you can't pressure your students to the point where it's either reach greatness or give up. You have to inspire greatness rather than forcefully manufacture greatness if there is no desire to be had from the pupil. His approach was clearly flawed.

What was his approach? Well, his world view, whether we liked it or not, was that greatness can only be built if you put your heart, soul, and mind into some talent & push yourself to the absolute limit. Only by surpassing that limit can you reach the pinnacle of greatness. You should never stop 'there' but continue to push yourself beyond 'there'.

He used a few examples - he mentioned Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, couple elite musicians I don't remember, etc. What if they had just stopped 'there' and not pushed themselves even further? They would still be good musicians, sure, but not all-time legends. It's all about not selling yourself short. Everything else in life, to him anyways, was superficial and simply something that must be tossed aside. I disagree with that but not entirely. He has a valid point - if you enjoy doing something and want to pursue that craft, don't just pursue it to be good. Pursue it to be GREAT! Don't ever accept mediocrity from yourself, and push yourself constantly to be even greater.