A few reviews

**Vultural**

It's A Free World - 2007 - 7/10

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Unpleasant, Ken Loach "message" film about the exploitation of undocumented workers.
Angela is fired from her recruiting job after repulsing a groping male coworker.
Soon enough, she and a friend set up their own black market agency.
Companies want temp workers, day workers, casual workers.
Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants without papers, are less likely to complain when cheated.
The females soon realize there is a lot of profit in flop houses, as well.
So they lease sh!tholes, jam them with illegals, double book the rooms so sleeping is only by shifts.

Others I viewed this with were horrified. I shrugged and said it was fairly accurate, if over dramatized.
I worked with illegals for several years and most were treated OK, though we had one SOB boss who contacted Immigration every time payroll ran tight.

**Vultural** · 02-03-2016, 04:26 PM

While Weâre Young - 2014 - 7/10

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Middle aged couple meet younger versions of themselves.
They start to hang out together, bounce ideas, share.
Both men are documentary filmmakers.
Middle aged Stiller has been toiling on his film for 10 years,
the younger man is hungry, and driven, and perhaps not all he seems.

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There is a palpable undercurrent of the middle age glance in the mirror.
The older couple want to stay relevant, but they donât quite grasp the âsharingâ mentality of the coming generation.
Marked as a comedy, it is droll and subversive.

**Vultural** · 02-03-2016, 04:28 PM

Coffy - 1973 - 7/10

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Not necessarily Oscar quality film, but a highly enjoyable one.
Coffy cemented Pam Grierâs rep was one badass broad.
This is a full bore, revenge ride, as nurse by day, vigilante by night, takes on drug pushers and the mob.
Funky soundtrack - not great, not bad.
Most of the story is set in the milieu of pimps and whores.
The king pimps flash exuberant 70s over the top style, the hookers flash breasts. Lots of them.
Overdoses, beatings, stabbings, shootings, car chases.
All the while, Nurse Coffin kills and kills.
This put Pam Grier on the map and remains hugely entertaining.
Kick-ass introduction to Blaxploitation.

**bionicbob** · 02-03-2016, 06:48 PM

I LOVE COFFY!!!!

Reminds me of a flick I watched last week on Netflix, EVERLY starring the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world, Salma Hayek.

Dark, brutal, sadistic, exploitive, grind house-ish, over the top Tarantino-isms....
Hayek is a skimpy clad sex slave trying to escape her one room Die Hard situation. Though Everly makes John McClane look like a complete wimp. Guilty bad fun. Smile

**Vultural** · 02-04-2016, 04:04 PM

Danny Collins - 2015 - 6/10

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Al Pacino as aging / elder pop music icon.
Think Neil Diamond.
For a birthday gift, his manager (a very dry, Christopher Plummer) finds a vintage fan letter that somehow never made it into Dannyâs hands.
From one John Lennon. What do you think of that, Danny Collins?
This has a profound impact, as the singer wonders how much of the artist he sacrificed in pursuit of popularity and wealth.
He sets about getting his life in order. Writing his own songs - reaching out to his estranged son.
Feel good territory, but not too over the top.
I am not a Pacino fan, but he is better here than in most of his films.
His usual shouting and yelling mannerisms to get his points across are absent in this one.

Based on a slim, real life incident.

**Vultural**

Ricki And The Flash - 2015 - 5/10

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Feel-good smoothie about mom who abandoned kids and husband decades earlier to pursue rock n roll fame.
Now she returns to straighten everyones’ lives and remind them how special they are and how much mommy still loves them.
Story is predictable and contrived. Characters are pencil lite sketches.
The bar where she and her band perform decades old cover songs looks like a cliché, and the lower echelon clientele would never drink enough to keep the rent paid in Tarzana (ain’t no cheap rent in that Valley burg).
Streep likely had fun playing a rocker (even a failure), but the character was as shallow as a birdbath.

Note - The females loaded this and when I asked what it was, they said, "Oh it's mumble mumble."
My radar flared that they knew I wasn't going to enjoy this, and they were spot on.
I thought the whole movie phony, though to be even handed, everyone else in the room thought it very good.

**Vultural** · 02-05-2016, 07:05 PM

Weather Girl - 2009 - 5/10

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Noooo!
Whiney story masquerading as romantic comedy or date night film.
35 year old "sassy" weather girl quits her job after male coworker plays hide the sausage with blonde anchor.
Then - miracle! - she meets a supposed 29 year old male (the age he gives). Sparks kindle.
The lead female character is actually 40 and looks it.
Unfunny chick flick
Do not confuse this with the 1996 classic with Kei Mizutani. That is a must for cult fans.

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This 2009 version with blonde doof is acceptable date flick diversion.

**Vultural** · 02-05-2016, 07:09 PM

Last Of Robin Hood - 2013 - 6/10

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Kevin Kline terrific as world weary Errol Flynn in his last years.
Movie spotlights relationship with 15 year old Beverly Aadland and her eagle eyed mother.
From what I have read on and by Flynn, events seemed accurate.
Flynn was still a name star, but the glamour roles had dried up a decade earlier. (Warners dropped him in â53)
There were mentions of Oscar nods for The Sun Also Rises and Too Much, Too Soon but nothing came of those.
Fine acting all around in a warts n all portrayal. No one escapes.
Bad reviews seem more from fans who prefer the rollicking swashbuckler, not the worn out wreck.
Kline captures the charm and grace that never failed the man.

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Last hurrah - Flynn & Aadland on the Red Skelton Hour (episode aired posthumously).

**bionicbob** · 02-05-2016, 07:17 PM

TURBO-KID!!!! Welcome to the future.... 1996!!!

This was glorious! It you are of a certain age and grew up watching 1980s futuristic schlock, then you will love this movie! It brought back so many wonderful memories of browsing the VHS aisles and renting low budget sic-fi flicks... lol. Great mindless fun!!!

**Vultural**

Shooting For Socrates - 2014 - 6/10

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Sheesh, how many football shows are there? I don't review half the ones I sit though.
This isn't even Premiere League, which is what the girls follow. This is World Cup. 1986.
Anyway, Northern Ireland somehow made it into the World Cup tournament back in 1986.
Up against the mighty Brazil.
The film contrasts the situation back in Northern Ireland during the time of the "troubles" and the Thatcher Government with the sport hopes. Troubles are alluded to, rather than the confrontational display.
The film is about underdog Northern Ireland getting division play against Brazil, captained by their philosophical leader, the title named, Socrates.
Little training shown, and round play is more from the TV onlooker perspective.
Passable - though I've seen better - this is sorta feel-good, but more souvenir for aging fans.