Grace and Rocky, Big Science

What a fun movie. One long adrenaline ride. And Colin Farrell was at his absolute best in this, kicking butt and taking no names. Loved it.

I loved how punchy and brawly the fights were. No slapstick comedy but really hands-on, both the men and the women. And since Carl was meant to be pretty much a Special Ops Superman, his memory erasure and his injuries explained well why he was "just" human level awesome. I mean, otherwise there would be no need for anyone else, right? He could've taken them all out by himself. So they had to give him some handicap.

And I loved Jessica Biel's character. Melina was so kick-ass and yet so soft for Carl, it was wonderful. I loved how much Melina loved Carl. The scene in the hover car, when she realized that he didn't remember her, the way she blinked so rapidly, almost on the verge of tears, was so great! I think this was one of Jessica's best roles.

And then there were the special effects. Wow. The whole world felt so real. I was totally immersed in it. Also, The Fall was such a fantastic idea! The gravity change was fun.

What a great action flick! It really had my blood pumping. And as odd as it may sound, I loved the brutality of it, the fact that the terrorists were portrayed as truly bad people - and there's only one way how to fight with bastards like that, with the same level of violence and determination.

I really liked Gerard Butler's Banning. He was actually likable without being overtly this or that. He was just a normal guy doing his job and being good at it. And this role fit Butler like a glove. Honestly? There's something about him that tickles my fancy like whoa. I don't know.

Another stand-out for me was Rick Yune as Kang Yeonsak, the leader of the terrorists. He was awesome. What a presence. If you have to play a bad guy, do it with gusto and he did. He so did.

I have so much love for this movie. I don't even know why. Sure, it's a great action thriller but there's just... something about it that makes me love it with abundance 😍

Maybe it's because of Hathaway's friendship with Chen Dawai. Maybe because of Hathaway's integrity. Maybe because of the way Hathaway fights, all stab-stab-stab-stab-stab with a shiv, very prison-like, no showy moves, quick and dirty.

Or maybe because of Chen Lien. Because she is so awesome! So smart and brave yet vulnerable, just wonderful.

My favorite part of the movie is the last bit, when Hathaway and Lien decide to take revenge. You can see how angry, no, how furious they both are. There are no big heart-to-hearts, they're simply set to kill the bad guys and they go quiet about it. They barely talk but they work so well together, hacking and stealing and foraging and planning, completely focused on their goal. It's... wow.

I tried reading the manga but it simply wasn't my cuppa. But the movie! The movie! I've loved it ever since I saw it in the 90s. Mark Dacascos at his best. And the fact that he and Julie Condra who played Emu actually married - and are still married, AFAIK - is just about the cherry on top.

There's just something very atmospheric about the movie. The way it's filmed, almost... artfully, the music, the setting. Emu's voice-over. Her desire to die to finally rid herself of her guilt. Wow.

And the female characters in general! I simply loved both Emu and the Yakuza wife, Kimie. Emu was no wilting flower. She didn't weep, she did not fly into hysterics, she was all, "Here's your sword, darling. Go and kill the bastards!" And Kimie! A woman of her word, even if it meant killing her own lover to keep it. Wow. Just... wow.

"You fucked up when you shot my bodyguard!"

Hilarious! For two super dangerous guys, Kincaid and Bryce sure were real clowns. And they got on each other's nerves for good reasons, yet in the end, they learned to accept each other's integrity: Kincaid killed "only" bad people and Bryce simply protected his clients without judging them.

Another thing I loved about the movie was Kincaid's love for his wife, Sonia. The scene where he bought her the tulips and left them on the clock tower to make her happy was *chef's kiss*

This wasn't a bad movie per se, it just wasn't... great. Mainly because I wasn't very fond of Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan, I guess. He simply didn't seem charismatic enough to me to carry the movie - actually, he never has, in pretty much anything, to be perfectly honest. And it didn't help that he looked like he had a dirty mop plastered to his head throughout this movie.

This is such a great movie about courage and honor and self-sacrifice. And a little bit of romance and humor, too. I love it. I've loved it ever since I saw it in the cinema. Such a cool stuff!

I loved the character progress that Tom Cruise's Cage went through. It reminded me a little of Project Hail Mary's Grace. Cage also started as a coward at first. The last thing he wanted was to go and risk and sacrifice his own life, even if it could help save Earth. But it turned out that he simply needed to find a reason to fight and, yeah, to die. And no, it wasn't Rita. I mean, he fell for her - who wouldn't, right? - but he did it for humanity itself. And it was something that Rita taught him. That some things were bigger than one person. And it's not something you can be told about, you have to live it to truly grasp and internalize it. And it made Cage so much better as a person.

And Rita! The Full Metal Bitch or Angel of Verdun. What a fantastic character. Emily Blunt owned the part! After everything that Rita went through, she basically lived only to kill the aliens' Omega. She was so brave and selfless and ruthless and strong. And she was so grateful that Cage got her to the beast's lair which allowed her to die helping to kill it.

I think that the scene that stayed with me the most was at the end, when only Rita and Cage managed to get into the Omega's lair and one of them had to distract the Alpha and the other one kill the Omega. And Cage wanted to be the one to do the distraction because it meant letting himself be killed, he rather than Rita, but he was hurt and he wouldn't get far running so she took it upon herself. The moment when she told him, "Cage, neither of us is getting out of here alive!" That was... yeah. It didn't matter who would do what because they would both die either way, it was about choosing the most likely path to victory. And that was her being the bait and him blowing himself up with the Omega. Well... sheesh.

This is the perfect pick-me-up movie. It's hilarious, it's romantic, it's adventurous... It's ridiculous and it doesn't take itself seriously and you go with it because it's just so awesome! The story hits every trope but in such a perfect way that it's truly an example of how to do it right. Give fans what they actually want!

Rick and Evie - and *sigh* Jonathan - are just so awesome. Rick is so dashing and Evie is so beautiful and so very... librarian! Simply legendary. And there's so much wonderful chemistry between Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. You actually believe that by the end of the movie, they're madly in love.

And they complete each other perfectly. They don't try to one-up each other. They are competent in their own fields and they trust each other to do the job right. Well, between all the running and... mummies, that is. Ha! A true love story.

I saw this movie in the cinema when it first came out and I was smitten. Like so smitten. I loved the whole movie, as was, but first and foremost I fell hard for Jerry Wooters, played by Ryan Gosling - I did say I've had it bad for him ever since Young Hercules ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I loved all the members of the Gangster Squad but I was fascinated by Jerry. The way he refused to get involved at first, thinking it moot. But after Cohen killed the shoeshine that Jerry liked so much, Jerry simply snapped.

It honestly felt like he had no fear. He broke into Cohen's house with Keeler. He just shot the windshield of their car and grabbed the live grenade that landed on their hood and threw it away... It felt like, after everything he'd gone through in WWII, this was peanuts and nothing could scare him anymore. In a way, he was even scarier than O'Mara. Because O'Mara was all about justice. Jerry was all about revenge.

And I loved his friendship with Jack Whalen, a gangster - and Jerry's childhood friend. I loved their dinner scene in the restaurant, when Jerry was all, "Would you please stop telling me about the illegal things that you're doing? You do remember that I'm a cop, right? And that I actually have a warrant for your arrest in my pocket at this very moment? 🤦🏻‍♂️" And Jack was so loyal to him, too! When he told Grace to let Jerry go, that Jerry was "a sheep in wolf's clothing, dumb where it matters", meaning that Jerry had too soft a heart for all the gangster stuff.

This wasn't a bad movie, just too much of a slapstick comedy for me to really get into it. Don't get me wrong, I love comedies but, well, this was honestly downright ridiculous in places.

Still, it had some really good parts, too.

Like Jody and Colt's relationship. At no point did I feel like she didn't love him anymore (or that he didn't love her). She was mad as heck at him, certainly, and she had a very good reason for it - which Colt himself admitted - but it was the kind of mad you get when you're furious with someone you love deeply and you want to shake some gosh darn sense into him the "This is how in 'sickness and in health' works, you idiot!" kind of way. And that was really lovely.

Another lovely thing was that at no point did she doubt his innocence. There was no "maybe" or "I don't know" in her mind, even after she saw the vid of him killing the guy. Her mentioning the "cockroach incident" was hilarious. And also, that she knew him so well that when she saw the explosion in the harbor, she was sure that he wasn't dead. Because she remembered the exact same stunt he had done in the past.

Besides Jody, I loved Colt's friendship with Dan, the stunt coordinator. Colt needed him and so Dan was there. And with Dan the whole stunt crew. That was great.

My favorite moment? The scene in the harbor, when Colt faked his death. The "Honestly? It all hurts..." conversation they had on the phone. The music fit the whole thing so perfectly, I just... yeah. That was the best, hands down.

Goodness, this was good! The atmosphere of this movie was top notch. And the sound mixing, the music! I watched it with my headphones on and... wow.

I loved how mysterious Ryan Gosling's Driver was. I think that Gosling's decision to cut most of his dialog and let his character's actions speak for themselves was a fantastic decision. The Driver almost never spoke, all he did was drive and work on cars - but he also always did what he considered necessary and to hell with consequences. He had very few people he was closed to and those he tried to keep out of harm's way. But his enemies? Free game.

It was quite a brutal film. But I was glad to see a character who didn't balk at revenge. The Driver didn't want any trouble. And several times he tried to stop the cycle of violence. But his adversaries refused to listen. Ergo.

This comedy definitely didn't go in the direction that I expected it to go. Steve Carell's Cal Weaver started as someone I felt really sorry for and I genuinely rooted for him - and he turned out to be the biggest douche. Because they all made mistakes - literally everyone made some stupid mistake - but it took him the longest to learn from them. And it almost cost him his family.

On the other hand Ryan Gosling's Jacob started as a complete douche - and he turned out to be the most level-headed and kind character, an actual sweetheart. I loved that Emma Stone's Hannah knew the real him from the get-go, that he was a womanizer who used women to fill a void inside him, caused by his family life. There was no a-ha moment of betrayal or whatever. She went into their relationship with her eyes wide open. She knew everything about Jacob and she still loved him. That was honestly so refreshing.

The best part of the movie was definitely Jacob and Hannah - and not just because I'm pretty much gone for Ryan Gosling (sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but because they were genuinely awesome together. From the moment she grabbed and smooched him in the bar, I felt all a-giddy about them. So wonderful. And that Jacob kept trying to reconcile her with her dad, and that he was trying to get through to Cal even though Cal treated him like dirt... Yeah. The whole thing just hit the right spot for me.

This was a great movie. And it made me want to read the whole book series, written by Mark Greaney. Yes, it was full of crazy action but what I fell in love with were the emotional beats: Court's relationship with his handlers, Fitzroy and Margaret Cahill, and with Claire.

Fitzroy and Cahill honestly loved Court - or Sierra Six - like their son. And they were so very proud of him, of what he'd achieved - and that he always, always did the right thing, even when it was inconvenient or it cost him everything. And they both laid down their lives for him. Yes, it was horribly sad but it was also tragically beautiful.

And then there was Claire. And she was awesome, such a tough little cookie. And the amount of trust that she had in Six! I loved that they ended up as a little found family of two. It was just *chef's kiss* Yes, I know that it wasn't like that in the books but I'm glad that they added that.

Chris Evans as Lloyd was hilarious. Such a sociopath devil. His "Ballsy!" line when Six dropped the grenade had me LOL'ing hard. It was obvious he had a lot of fun with the part.

My first theater outing since Covid. Go me. And I adored it!

I loved the book by Andy Weir - especially its audio version, read by Ray Porter! - and I loved the movie, both of them for different reasons.

The book is chock full of science - even more so than The Martian - which simply couldn't have been translated to screen well. It also had many interesting moments that were left out simply for time reasons - like the nuking of Antarctica.

The movie had Ryan Gosling (who was absolutely rockin' fantastic as Grace!), Rocky whom I could actually see (and wanted to cuddle!) - and much more humanized Eva Stratt, played by Sandra Hüller. And I truly adored that!

In the book, Eva Stratt was almost robot-like of her own volition which is understandable considering her job. She didn't get close to anyone and she didn't actually like Grace all that much.

But in the movie, Stratt was much more human. The karaoke scene - which wasn't in the book OR in the script and it was added on-set on Ryan Gosling's insistence after he heard Sandra Hüller sing - brought me to tears. And you could also see that she really liked Grace and it was breaking her heart that she had to put him on that ship, especially against his will. That's why her scene at the end of the movie (which wasn't in the book!) was so fulfilling!

And Grace and Rocky were so... I mean... wow. When the movie ended, I left the theater feeling warm and fuzzy and content and filled with this... quiet happiness because of these two characters, that I had to sit for a while in complete silence after coming back home just to absorb the beauty of the movie.