The intern - 2015

 Seen once, that’s enough. But… well, it was better than I expected, it seemed a silly thing from the trailer, something that pretended to be funny but wasn’t really convincing; I watched it only out of curiosity because I saw it on Netflix and I was pleasantly surprised that it was nothing like I expected - although it had that kitsch scene with the not-really-appropriate massage that was not funny, it was embarrassing because of how stupid and out of place it was.

I didn’t like that it ended so abruptly, no, it felt like something was missing. Not much, but something, maybe a scene of the company running smoothly, just something, I don’t know. It just left me with a sense that something was not finished, and the ending is important, it’s how you remember it afterwards, so no, I am not interested in seeing it again after all.

It should be about Ben Whittaker, the intern, a widower of 70, so retired, who has tried many things to feel like life is going on: he has travelled a lot, gone out, tried hobbies, but still feels alone and without purpose so when he sees that a young internet company is trying a senior internship program, he applies. He makes a video, asks advice from his young grandson on what some stuff is, but he makes it to the interview and is hired. He is a very positive, likeable character, who makes friends with many people there and even starts a relationship with the in-house masseuse Fiona. 

 Given the title of the movie, he should be the protagonist, but he’s actually little more than what we are, the audience, he watches Jules’ life and work. This is what the movie is about. Jules Ostin who created an internet clothes-selling company by herself. She now has 220 people working for her, a stay-at-home husband and a lovely daughter, and barely any time to breathe. They tell her she should hire a CEO to run the company, she might have more time to herself but it would all be different, and maybe it wouldn’t be the same thing it is now. She speaks to her mom only on the phone, and sleeps very little. She loves her family, both her daughter and her husband who had a job too before but left it to give her the chance to build her dream, he believed in her and chose the family. Which made it all the more painful when she finds out that he is cheating on her. We just learned it when Ben sees him with another woman, while he was trying to drive Paige back home. Jules is hurt but doesn’t want to give up on them. She’s seriously thinking of hiring the last CEO she interviewed. Matt asked her about every one she met, and now it seems it will really happen. She tells him this will be good for the two of them. Ben tells her she should think hard on it, if she really want her company to change, because nobody could give it the care she puts into it. But at the end Matt hurries to tell her that she must not do it for him, that she must do what she thinks it’s best for her because he loves her and wants to be happy, and is about to confess when she tells him she knows, and he explains that he got lost along the way but he loves her and they can make it, he can do better and just wants her to be happy. So she will not hire any CEOs, she’ll  keep her company as she loves it. And she goes to tell Ben the news, but he’s not at work that day so she goes to him, at his old park where he is. 

And it ends there. Just like that. We don’t see them talking about it or anything that happens afterwards, just that she went to him. And maybe that now she’s breathing life again, a little more freely than she did before.

Ben Wittaker - Robert De Niro

Jules Ostin - Anne Hathaway

Fiona - Rene Russo

Matt - Anders Holm

Paige - Jojo Kushner

Jason - Adam Devine

Becky - Christina Scherer

Lewis - Jason Orley

ITA lo stagista inaspettato

Legally Blonde - 2001

 Elle is part of a sorority called Delta Nu and her friends think she’ll soon be engaged, but Warner dumps her instead because he has to focus on Harvard and because “if I’m gonna be a Senator, I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn”.

She cries really loudly at the restaurant. She realises that to be considered “serious” enough for Warner and his family, she needs something like law school. Her parents are not exactly supportive, and at school she has to do a lot to hope to be accepted, but she’s confident she can do anything. She works to pass the LSAT exam with enough points, whatever that is, and she got 179, she only needed 175.

She sends Harvard a video, instead of writing an essay, dressed in a bikini and telling them she’ll be a great lawyer…

At Harvard, there are many who seem to want to accept her, so they do. She arrives with a truck full of her stuff and her chihuahua of course. First impressions are not great, obviously; she looks and sounds like from another planet.

Warner is shocked when he first sees her. 

First class, she’s the only one without a computer, and the only one who hasn’t read ahead the first 50 pages. She’s asked to leave the room and is furious. It turns out, Vivian, the girl who said it was not acceptable for Elle to not know the answers, is now Warner’s new girl, Vivian Kensington, his fiancée.

Elle is distraught. She goes for advice to a hair&nails salon and decides to get him back.

The others in her class all seem to dislike her. Vivian tells her the posh party they’re going to is a costume-party, so she goes as a playmate but doesn’t run away, she walks among them head high. She goes to talk to Warner and he says he’s always busy studying, but then she lightly tells him: “I know what you mean. I can’t imagine doing all this and Callahan’s internship next year. That’s gonna be so much”. I’m not sure if she really thinks, at this point, that she might win the internship her professor talked about, or if she’s simply thinking at how much work it would be, whatever the case, he is such a jerk to reply: “Oh Elle, come on, you’re never gonna get the grades to qualify for one of those spots. You’re not smart enough sweetie.” I mean, what a jerk.

She understands he’ll never think she’s good enough for him. She decides she’ll show him her worth! She buys a computer, takes lots of books and she studies a lot and gets a lot better. She helps Paulette, the nail lady, get her dog back.

Now Callahan’s firm has a murder case, so he’s taking the help of four first years (he has no other students? more advanced in their studies?… oh well.)

Elle got in, with both Warner and Vivian.

Emmett, the only one who was nice to her, is a firm associate. They’re defending Brooke, who supposedly shot her husband; Elle knows her for her fitness empire, and is convinced of her innocence. Elle convinces Brooke to share her alibi with her. Brooke tells her because they like each other, but wants nobody to know she was having liposuction, which means she didn’t get her body thru her gym course. Elle will keep her secret, but Callahan’s not happy about that.

Warner is all “who cares what Brooke wants or about your word, think of yourself” to convince Elle to spill it. Vivian doesn’t seem to like that.

Elle is sent to interview the ex-wife with Emmett. Vivian wasn’t happy to be the one always sent to fetch drinks, but now she is actually nice to Elle for one evening.

Brooke and Elle understand each other, both being Delta Nu, and so Elle knows they’re lying to frame her.

Vivian was nice until she saw Callahan hitting on Elle and got the idea that Elle slept with him, not seeing her storming out. Elle now wants to quit, but her other professor, the stern woman who threw her out her first lesson, encourages her to fight back. So Brooke fires Callahan and hires Elle instead. Elle wins the case thanks to her expertise on hair perms.

Now Warner is all over her but she ignores him.

Two years later, she graduates, and makes the graduation speech. There’s writing on the screen saying that Vivian dumped Warner and she’s now best friends with Elle; Paulette married the delivery guy she liked and will name their first daughter Elle.

Emmett opened his own law firm and dates Elle. They’ve been dating for two years and tonight he will propose.

Elle - Reese Witherspoon

Emmett - Luke Wilson

Vivian - Selma Blair

Warner - Matthew Davis

Callahan - Victor Garber

Paulette - Jennifer Coolidge

Stromwell - Holland Taylor

Brooke - Ali Larter

Back to the future 2 - 1989

 

Another great one. My least favourite of the three, but still good and fun. 

It starts exactly where we left off, replaying the last scene when Doc comes back. “Where we’re going we don’t need roads” and they fly off, but this time we also see Biff seeing them go.

There’s a whole new world there, this future has flying cars and flying taxies, and it’s only October 21st, 2015. :lol:

Jennifer asks too many questions so Doc simply puts her to sleep. There’s even a flying sign of Hill Valley so they know where’s their exit.

Marty is the spitting image of his son so Doc’s plan is for Marty to take his son’s place and tell a guy named Griff that he’s out otherwise his son will go to jail for 15 years and it’ll go down from there for his whole family.

Marty tells Griff no then escapes on a pink overboard and causes Griff to be arrested. Good, now they could go, but no. 1 thing: two cops find a sleeping Jennifer and take her home, so now they need to get her back. In that house we learn that Marty sr’s future went to hell when he caused an accident, crashed his car into someone’s. The man in the Rolls Royce pressed charges, he broke his hand and abandoned his music… it was all a big chain reaction.  Another thing is that Marty bought a sports Almanac to take back with him, to make money with bets, but Doc sees it and throws it away. Biff saw there were two Marty McFly junior, so he spied on them and learned that Doc invented a time machine, so he steals it with the almanac he took from the bin.

Marty sr does it again, Needles calls him a chicken so he does whatever he’s asked, and he’s the one who gets fired. Jennifer is going out when old Jennifer comes home, they see each other and faint (no universe destroyed, luckily).

Now they go back to 1985, they put Jennifer on her porch still sleeping, in the swing. Then Doc takes Marty home, but things are weirdly different, another family lives in Marty’s house, there are wrecked cars everywhere, and police chalk signs… Marty sees a newspaper, it’s October 26th, 1985, the right year. The school burned down six years ago. Gangs shoot in the street, normal people are armed… and Biff is super rich, he has a museum dedicated to him, where we learn that at 21 he became a millionaire betting on horses. He kept winning, got called the luckiest man alive, built an empire: Biffco. In 1979 he made gambling legal and turned Hill Valley’s courthouse into a casino-hotel. He married Lorraine, although she didn’t look happy at all. 

Marty looks still shocked. Three man knock him down and once again he wakes up to Lorraine by his bedside, bust this time she is his mother, but even if they live with Biff his biodad is still George and she still loves George. She wants to leave, but Biff would cut off money and support for all three of her kids. George died twelve years ago: Apr 1 1938——Mar 15 1973

Doc was smart enough to check the public library, looked in the news: George was shot dead.

Doc explains that at some point in the past someone created an alternate 1985: for everyone but Doc Marty and Einstein it is their reality. Doc found the bag that contained the book from the future, along with the head of old Biff’s cane, in the time machine. That’s how Biff made his fortune.

Alternate-reality Doc was declared legally insane and committed to an asylum. Biff was watching “a handful of dollars”, the scene with the bulletproof vest, Bill calls it. This is to keep in mind for the third movie :p

Marty names the almanac to him to get his attention, and asks him when he got it: Nov 12th, 1955, it was. Biff tells him the story, but then tries to shoot him so Marty runs, but to the roof. Biff confesses he killed George. Marty and Doc go back to Nov 12 1955: “Don’t worry Marty, assuming we succeed in our mission, this alternate 1985will be changed into the real 1985, instantaneously transforming around Jennifer and Einie”

I always love Doc’s speeches. Once again they hide the car where Marty hid it the first time. The plan is: “you go into town. Track down young Biff and tail him. Sometime today, old Biff will show up to give young Biff the almanac. Above all, you must not interfere with that event. We must let old Biff believe he’s succeeded, so that he’ll leave 1955 and bring the Delorean back to the future”

“right”

“once old Biff is gone, grab the almanac any way that you can. Remember, both of our futures depend on this”

Right now, until tonight at 10.04, there are 2 Doc and 2 Marty in 1955. 

Not even old Biff can stand young Biff, that should tell him something. The almanac is 50 years, from 1950 to 2000. Marty gets locked into Biff’s garage, but before Doc arrives in a bicycle he’s already going to the dance, in the back of Biff’s car. Doc talks to young Doc, then goes away without young Doc knowing who he was talking to.

Marty tries to get the book, but finds he followed the wrong book Biff put the almanac cover into another magazine: oh la la.

Right then, Biff gets knocked out by George, so Marty takes the book and runs. Biff’s guys see him and want to get him, they follow him into the gym where young Marty is playing Johnny B. Goode. They’re waiting to jump on him, big problem.

“Great Scott. Your other self will miss the lightning bolt at the clock tower, you won’t get back to the future, and we’ll have a major paradox!”

“Wait wait wait. A paradox? You mean one of those things that can destroy the universe?”

“Precisely” :lol:

So Marty has to stop those guys and he does, but Biff then finds him and calls him a chicken so Marty stays there and gets knocked out, and Biff gets his book back and drives away. Doc and he approach Biff’s car with the Delorean, and Marty uses his pink hoverboard to get close and finally takes it. Biff chases him but Doc gives Marty a lift in the air and Biff crashes and his car is filled with manure again. 

Doc tells Marty to burn the book (as always, books burn like nothing in movies, a simple matchstick and you have a fire…) anyway, that alternate hellish reality has been changed, as their newspaper from 1985 can prove, so now that “the future is back” they could both go home, but before Doc can land his car, he is struck by lightning and disappears. Marty is still in shock when a car approaches: a man looking for him to give him something: a letter. A man from Western Union. They’ve had that envelope for the past 70 years. They had a bet if he’d be there to get it. 

Marty reads it right there under the rain…

Doc’s been eight months already in 1885 and lets Marty know that he is alright.

Marty has no other choice bust to go to young Doc again, right after he sent the other Marty back to 1985, Marty appears again and tells him: “you did send me back to the future, but I’m back. I’m back from the future”

Doc faints. 

To be concluded… and there’s a preview of the next movie, coming summer 1990. Love that one!

Marty - Michael J. Fox

Doc - Christopher Lloyd

Jennifer - Lea Thompson - but I don’t think this is right…

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

The Meg - 2018

 It starts with Jonas and his team on a rescue mission, to save the people from a submarine, but while they’re down there, they’re attacked by something and must flee with the only members of the crew they found. Jonas makes the decision to leave, knowing that two of his team men are down there, because it’s too dangerous and they might all die. Dr Heller does not agree with his decision, says he lost it under pressure and was too coward to risk going back for them.

Five years later.  There’s a research facility underwater, thanks to rich Mr Morris who now comes to see the place. They’re about to do an important experiment, because Mr Zhang has a theory that the bottom of the ocean underneath is not where everyone thinks it is. He thinks there’s a layer of gas or whatever fog-like thing it is that hides something below and he’s right.

Lori, Wally and Toshi go down with a small submarine and find a new world, full of life, but they also see a big something that attacks them so they can’t leave.

Mac goes to Thailand to convince Jonas to accept the rescue mission, and he does it only because Lori is his ex-wife. Zhang’s daughter Suyin attempts the rescue herself, but is attacked by a giant squid, and survives only because a huge shark arrives to frighten the squid away. I think it fled, or maybe it was eaten, not sure.

Jonas insists she goes back up, and he continues his mission, and he saves Lori and Wally, but the creature is quickly coming back so Toshi puts his goodbye letter to his wife in Wally’s pocket then locks himself in and switches all the lights on to attract the creature to him and not them, and in doing so he dies to save them.

At first Suyin yells at Jonas for leaving him behind, but then she comes to her senses and apologises to him, and they become sort of friends.

Jonas is already friendly with her eight-year-old daughter :)

Lori is brought to the infirmary right away and it appears she’ll make it. 

They all talk about what they should do now about the creature, that they now know is a megalodont: they were thought to be extinct, but no.

Jonas is of course all against approaching ‘the meg’ in any way, but the matter is settled when the meg comes up from where they met it, frightens the little girl and then starts eating whales and boats of people.

They decide to go after it and to kill it with some poison, so they reach the area where a bot of people were illegally ‘shark finning’, meaning they took their fins and threw them back into the ocean to die. I don’t know how many people there was, but only one arm remains of them.

So, the plan: Jonas swims towards it to shoot a tracker at its fin, so they’ll know where it is at all times. Then Suyin enters a shark-proof cage and manages to shoot it in a tender zone, but it doesn’t go down easily. Jonas swims to her to save her. Again.

The meg tries again to eat them, but the poison finally kills it. Its body is brought up on their boat, but nobody seemed to realise that it didn’t appear to be as huge as it was before, and sure enough while they’re all laughing, a bigger meg shows up, eats the dead meg and also Wally, and destroys their boat.

Heller sacrifices himself, like Toshi did, dying so that Jaxx could make it. Mr Zhang is badly hurt and dies before they can reach a doctor (since Heller is dead, Zhang could not be looked at right away, and died on the lifeboat 9.

Now Morris tells everyone that he alerted the authorities of all the nearby countries, so the meg is not their problem anymore, those countries will send ships to deal with it.

Life on Mana One seems to be returning to normal, talking and stuff, and Jonas is teased about his ‘relationship’ with Suyin, even her daughter seems to want it.

Morris didn’t alert anyone, he is actually going out there to kill it himself, to avoid repercussions and blame on him. He has a helicopter drop bombs into the ocean, and when they say it’s dead he approaches the beast, only to find out it’s not a shark, they killed a whale - now, they didn’t know how big the meg was, but Morris should have known…

Drawn by the blood, the meg arrives to eat the whale, and eats Morris too.

Jonas and the others learn the truth, they see the meg is heading to a heavy populated beach and plan to draw it away with a whale-sound. 

It’s not clear how many people it eats, when it leaves people seem rather quiet, is it possible it didn’t eat anyone? It seems to me that’s what they’re implying, but it makes no sense at all.

Called by the sound, the meg approaches their ship; Jonas and Suyin try to kill it with rockets from their small submarines or whatever they’re called, they’re not real submarines, but they can’t kill it.

Helicopters who recorded their fight get so distracted they hit each other and destroy our guys’ ship too. Jonas fights the meg alone, cutting it open with his ship and then pushing a harpoon deep inside its eye. I don’t know if it would have been enough, but all the normal sharks come to eat it and this will kill it for sure.

Everyone’s okay, even the wedding party on that boat. The bride was sad because she thought her dog Pippin had died, but as Suyin bring back Jonas, we see that Pippin is swimming back to her.

So: creature dead, hero and a few others alive, everything’s ok. The end.

Jonas - Jason Stathan

Suyin - Li BingBing

Morris - Rainn Wilson

Lori - Jessica McNamee

Mack - Cliff Curtis

Jaxx - Ruby Rose

Meiying - Shuya Sophia Cai

Toshi - Masi Oka

Zhang - Winston Zhao

ITA shark il primo squalo

A walk among the tombstones - 2014

 Not bad, but not too good either. 

In 1991, in New York, Matt Scudder was a cop who used to drink a lot, and he once shot two criminals and wounded a third who harassed and then killed a man. During that fight, a girl got caught in the crossfire. Matt stopped drinking that very day, 8 years ago.

In 1999 he’s sort of a private investigator - sort of as in, he does that but he has no license for it - and Peter, who he met at an AA meeting, takes him to Kenny who has a job for him.

Someone took Kenny’s wife, he paid the same day but they killed her anyway, and he wants Matt to find them. He refuses because Kenny is a drug dealer.

Kenny waits for him outside his door, and tells him how it went, how Carrie came to die. He tells him everything and Matt starts investigating. He enlists the help of TJ, who sleeps in the library, likes to draw and helps him find stuff on the computer. 

The same thing happened to other women. He quickly finds the man who drove the van where they took the women. This Jonas tells him he met two men and told them of how he wanted to save Leila from Reuben, her drug-dealing boyfriend. They took her, but when Jonas saw them becoming violent with her, he ran.

Now Jonas tells everything he knows before jumping off the roof to his death.

Matt warns Kenny that those two men did it before and will do it again, and tells him to warn his friends. 

If I got this right, they killed Marie, a cop, and stole her dossiers with names of drug dealers, and since Peter easily betrayed his brother and told her about him after she busted him, the two men found his name too. Peter keeps using drugs, so Matt tells him he’s done with this case.

TJ is beaten up by two bullies after he took their gun. Matt already gave him a speech on how carrying a gun will get him killed.

Left in the rain, TJ is now in a hospital, in bed sick because he’s anemic too.

Matt tells him his true story of how that day one of his bullets killed a little girl.

Now the two men take a 14 year-old girl and Kenny and Peter tell Matt so he leads all talks and they get the girl back alive.

Matt shoots one, only wounding him, but they manage to escape on their van. TJ hid himself in there, so he can tell Matt where they are.

The wounded man is killed by his accomplice. Matt and Kenny go to the house and see dead Ray.

Matt and TJ leave the decision on what to do to Kenny and go out together.

Matt though goes back in, in time to see that the guy freed himself and killed Kenny, and now tries to kill Matt. When he can, Matt shoots him dead. He goes home to find TJ there, asleep.

Matt - Liam Neeson

Peter - Boyd Holbrook

Kenny - Dan Stevens

TJ - Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley

Everywhere on the internet says 2014, but I think the credits said 2013… boh.

ITA la preda perfetta

The Godfather part II - 1974

 This movie shows us two stories: now Michael is trying to put the family on a legal level, but it’s hard. Then we see the past, Vito’s life since he was a child, how he grew up to become the Don.

Robert De Niro did a good job, I always liked him much more than Brando.

Life of Vito Corleone:

when Vito was 9 his father was murdered for an insult to the local Mafia boss, in the town of Corleone, Sicilia. His older brother was killed too because he wanted revenge.

 - There were moments that people were speaking in Sicilian and the subtitles said: speaking Italian… :lol, definitely not Italian, no. 

Vito Andolini was the woman’s only son now, so she went to beg Don Ciccio for his life, but the man insisted that he’d grow up and seek revenge. At this point the woman put a knife at the Don’s throat. She was killed, of course, the don was not alone, but she succeeded in what she wanted to do. Vito escaped. Someone helped him exit the town, and he sailed to America.

Once there, he was registered as Vito Corleone. He was sick so he stayed three months in quarantine.

He grew up, got married and had a son, Santino. At the theatre, a friend points Don Fanucci out to him. He’s Italian but he harasses other Italians because he knows nobody can protect them. Now Fanucci wants Vito’s boss to hire his nephew, but the man can’t afford to pay two men, so he lets Vito go. Vito understands. 

He has a second son, Fredo, who is not well, little thing.

He makes a living by stealing with two friends, and is not happy about having to pay Fanucci. His friends are scared, Fanucci owns the neighbourhood, but Vito insists he’ll talk to Fanucci himself, to make him accept a lesser payment, he tells them that he’ll make the don an offer he can’t refuse…  Vito only speaks to him and they leave in peace, but then Vito enters his house and shoots him dead. 

He has a third son now, Michael.

Some time later, he’s known to everyone in the neighbourhood, business is good, now he has money and people know him. A widow, friend of his wife, asks for help to keep her home, she’s been evicted, so Vito talks to her landlord. When he asks around and learns who Vito is, he gives Vito back his money and even lowers the woman’s rent.

Vito went back to Sicily to meet some relatives with his four children, and of course he personally kills old Don Ciccio.

Michael:

It’s his son’s First Communion. “Connie” Costanza has a new man and is very richly dressed, and spoiled. 

A senator speaks at the party. Tom is his lawyer. They’re in Nevada, and already have four hotels. 

The senator is not nice to Michael, when they speak in private. He tells him he doesn’t like his kind, doesn’t like his kind of people to come to his town, trying to pass as decent Americans… and he goes on, very disrespectfully. He wants 250.000$ for a license that should cost 20.000 tops, so Michael answers that he’ll give him nothing but will have it anyway, and the senator himself will pay for it.

Connie has her audience with Michael. She’s getting married again (she’s recently divorced). She barely sees her children. She’s here now because she needs money. Michael is not pleased.

Kay reminds him of what he said about making the family’s business totally legitimate, legal, and that was seven years ago. That night, someone tries to shoot him in his own house, through his bedroom windows. He decides to leave, alone, and he leaves all his trust on Tom.

Michael goes to meet Mr Roth, a man he’s sort of doing business with. He tells him the man who tried to kill him is Frank Pentangeli, because Frank asked Michael’s permission to kill the Rosato brothers, but Michael said no because it interfered with his business plans. Now he speaks to Roth because he wants nothing to ruin their business plans for the future. Roth has no objections. Michael then talks to Frank and tells him that Roth is behind it, and gets Frank’s help in finding out who in his family betrayed him.

When Frank goes to his meeting with the Rosato brothers, they try to kill him for Michael. Or so they say, but it’s not true.

Michael and Roth have business in Cuba too.

Michael tells Fredo the same thing, that it was Roth. Fredo lies to him about knowing Johnny Ola, but later betrays himself talking about him. Ola is Roth’s man.

The senator woke up with a dead prostitute in his bed, but Tom/Michael “helped him out”.

Michael tells Fredo he knows that he’s the traitor, and it broke his heart. Michael has Johnny killed, but his man is killed before he can finish Roth off as well.

He goes back home. Roth is getting better in Miami. Tom tells him that Kay lost the baby she was carrying.

Michael is under investigation. Frank is still alive and scared out of his mind that Michael will kill him because he thinks he tried once before.

Michael hears Fredo’s lame explanation for what he did, then says he’s nothing to him now, but doesn’t want anything to happen to him as long as his mother is alive.

At the trial, Frank’s big moment is here, but he sees his brother present, so he goes back on his previous statement. Vincenzo can now go back to Sicily knowing that their honor is whole.

Kay tells Michael she wants to leave and take the children with her, their son and daughter. Michael says he’ll never allow her to take the children away, then Kay tells him that it was not a miscarriage but an abortion, she did it because she didn’t want another child to grow up as a murderer. Enraged, Michael slaps her but tells her she’ll never take his children.

When his mother dies, Connie asks to come back to the family, and she smuggles Kay in to meet the children when Michael is out. When he sees her, he closes the door in her face without a word.

He has Roth killed. Frank though commits suicide knowing that this way his whole family will be safe. Next is Fredo, killed while fishing.

Michael has won, but he is alone.

We’re now close to where the first film started. Vito’s kids are grown up, and at his birthday party they’re all home for him. Sonny introduces Carlo to Connie. Michael then makes Sonny angry by saying that he joined the Marines, annoyed that his father and brothers try to plan his future. He wanted to choose it himself.

Next scene shows us Michael now, alone.

Michael - Al Pacino

Tom - Robert Duvall

Vito - Robert De Niro

Fredo - John Cazale

Kay - Diane Keaton

Connie - Talia Shire

The Godfather - 1972

 Restoration done in 2007.

A good gangster movie, quite famous and rightly so. And the reason why American thinks that Sicilian accent is Italian accent, I guess.

The plot in details. 

On the day of his daughter’s wedding, Don Vito Corleone receives the visit of a man called Bonasera. Two guys tried to rape his daughter without success, then beat her up instead, and the law let them free, sentence suspended, so he asks for Corleone to kill them, for money. Corleone finds that disrespectful, and promises only to hurt them like they hurt her, in exchange for a favour owed. 

Many others with troubles ask for the Godfather’s help. Singer Johnny Fontane sings for the bride.  The Godfather helped his career because Johnny is his godson.

Michael tells his girl Kay about his father’s methods, that he doesn’t share. 

Johnny asks again for help, because he wants to act in a movie that would launch his career better than before, and Vito sends his adoptive son Tom to handle it. On one thing Johnny was right, because this producer Woltz (or whatever he was) thinks so too, he thinks this movie part is perfect for Johnny and it’ll make him a star, but since he hates Johnny he stubbornly refuses, even after knowing that Tom comes at Corleone’s request. Next thing he knows, Woltz wakes up next to the severed head of his prized horse worth thousands of dollars.

Up until now, the Corleone family had unions and gambling, never had anything to do with drugs.

Narcotics is a big business that will make the other families powerful, but Vito wants nothing to do with it because it’s too serious and dangerous. So he tells no to this Mr Sollozzo, already working with the Tattaglia family. 

Vito sends his man Luca to find out more about them, but they kill him. Vito is shot on the street in fronf of his second son Fredo.

Michael finds out from a newspaper and goes home.

Sollozzo abducts Tom but lets him go after explaining that Sonny and the other Corleone kids need to see reason, that it is in their best interest to agree to his terms.

In a time like this, Michael goes home to be with his family. Everyone tries to leave him out of all the dirty business, since he’s the youngest, a decorated soldier and totally clean.

After a dinner with his girlfriend, he finds the hospital empty, absolutely nobody to protect his father, everyone was sent away so he has a nurse help him change his father’s room.

Michael is then almost arrested by the police captain, clearly bought by the rivals, but Tom arrives to free him, and with men as support. After that, “Sonny got mad” and they “hit” Bruno Tattaglia (I guess it means they shot him). Michael wants to be involved now, because he knows this Sollozzo will try again until Vito is dead. Michael wants to agree to a requested meeting, but planning it with the idea to shoot both Sollozzo and the captain. They plant a gun where they think the meeting will be held (some spy told them). 

Sollozzo speaks Italian but Michael doesn’t, not easily, so they go back to Englilsh.

Michael takes the gun hidden in the bathroom, goes back to the table and indeed shoots them both dead. He goes away, disappears.

The papers write about it, about a feud and the death of a corrupted cop. Violent acts continue here and there for three months, I think. Vito goes back home but is stuck to a bed still.

Sonny learns that his sister Connie was hit by her husband so he beats him up. After a fight, the guy Carlo once again beats her up, even though she’s pregnant. 

Michael is hiding in Sicily, and when he sees Apollonia Vitelli, he forgets all about his girlfriend Kay. He courts her with respect to the family and then marries her.

Sonny gets ambushed and killed while he was driving to see Connie, because she had called him to tell him about the beating.

Vito wants no vengeance, but a meeting with the five families to stop the war.

Michael is told of Santino’s death, and he wants to go away but he’s betrayed and his car blows up with just Apollonia at the wheel (why was the wheel on the right side???).

Vito makes a deal of peace with the family. Michael comes back and now it’s him the new head of the family. He wants to take the casino business in Las Vegas, and wants Johnny to be there a few times a year to attract gamblers. He wants to buy the hotel and casino from a guy, Moe Green, who has no intention of selling. Mike’s older brother Fredo worked for him, just a puppet.

Michael went back to Kay, they’re now married with a son, Anthony. Vito dies while playing with the child.

Michael is godfather to Connie and Carlo’s baby. While Michael is at the baptism, lots of people are killed. The other heads of the families that wanted to get rid of him. He also deals with Sal, who betrayed him for money, and also Carlo, because years ago he set the trap for Sonny. 

He says he won’t kill his brother-in-law, he just wants to send him to Vegas, out of the family business, to get his confession. Then he has him killed. Connie yells at Michael and spits in his face. Michael denies the accusation to his wife Kay.

Last scene, Clemenza and another man kiss his hand and call him Don Corleone.

ITA il padrino

Vito - Marlon Brando

Michael - Al Pacino

Sonny - James Caan

Tom - Robert Duvall

Clemenza - Richard Castellano

Kay - Diane Keaton

Connie - Talia Shire

Ghost in the shell - 2017

 Well, the movie was not great, but not because of Johansson. She actually did a good job here. As did the others, nothing against the cast, it’s just that it starts slowly and it goes on slowly as if it was a detective-mystery or something, a cop-movie, while it’s not.

Sometimes I think they rely too much on special effects. What I mean is, they’re great and really entertaining when done well, but sometimes people give them to much time all to themselves, like some scenes are done only for that, to marvel the audience with special effects… but it takes from the story. They should incorporate the effects into the story, is what they should do.

So, they spend half the movie to tell us that Major Mira Killian has survived, is mostly synthetic and doesn’t feel well, she feels out of it all and doesn’t know who she is other than the job she does.

Not just half the movie, but at least two third of it are for that. When we finally get to something interesting, it ends in no time. 

I also think that sometimes movies concentrate too much on the protagonist. Yes, I understand the story is about her, but she’s not in a glass ball by herself.

I don’t know how to explain what was missing, but there was something missing.

Or maybe I know. It should have shown the major’s understanding step by step, starting earlier in the movie. Like, she’s robot-like at first, then starts doubting, then knowing, then feeling… maybe something like that.

I liked Kitano’s character but he had too little a role, you should get the best of characters/actors like that. I liked how Johansson played her character, moving like a videogame because after all the body was not real, not human. 

To the plot:

Human can “enhance themselves with cybernetic parts”. Hanka company goes further: “by transplanting a human brain into a fully synthetic body, they will combine the strongest attributes of human and robot”.

They do that to Major Mira Killian. 

When she died, they made her a synthetic shell, but with her brain. 

She can make her body disappear like a ghost. A hacker has used bots to kill many senior figures of Hanka company. Mira connects her mind to the geisha-bot she stopped and sees where she can find him, but it’s a trap and there’s an explosion.

They repair her body and Batou’s eyes, he has them enhanced. 

She feeds his stray dogs.

All the dead people were involved in the same project, 2571. Dr Dahlin protected this information when the hacker Kuze went to kill her. Major Mira finds it and can save Ouelet.

Through that action, she can find Kuze. He tells her she was not the first attempt they made. They tried many times, killed many people: Kuze, they left him to die.

She asks Ouelet and learns that there were 98 failed experiments before her, the success.

All the things she remembers (not much, really) are false memories given to her as an incentive to fight terrorists.

Mira stops taking her ‘medicine’ like Kuze told her.

Hanka security brings her in. Ouelet is ordered to terminate her and build a new one. Ouelet deleted her mind many times before, now she should kill her. Mira thinks she’s wiping out her memories and refuses to give her consent, and Ouelet tells her they never really needed her consent.

Now, since Ouelet grew fond of Mira like a daughter, instead of killing her she gives her something to get her memories back and helps her escape.

The guy Cutter kills Ouelet for this, then he tells Mira’s team that she killed her.

Mira goes to the place that is her only clue and finds a woman and her story. Her daughter Motoko wrote manifestos against technology, until she was arrested with her friends. They told Motoko’s mother that she ran away and killed herself.

Mira speaks telepathically to her unit’s boss Aramaki, tells him she never was in a terrorist attack, that there were others like her, runaways considered disposable.

Mira wants help in finding Kuze again, but Cutter was listening and he sends people to kill Aramaki but the old fox survives. He sends a telepathic “we are burned” so the rest of the unit is ready and fights back.

Kuze was Hideo once, Motoko’s friend in their group of runaways. While they talk, Cutter blows up the place with a “spider tank” in remote control.

She breaks herself to destroy it, but Cutter has snipers ready. They shoot Kuze (was he dead already? or did he transfer his mind into his network or something? what happened to him? His eyes went blank before he was shot)

Saito of her unit stops the sniper before he can shoot her, then Batou finds her. 

Aramaki goes to Cutter after talking to the Prime Minister - he says - and charges Cutter with “murder and crimes against the state”. Cutter tries to shoot him so Aramaki kills him.

Mira/Motoko is whole again - don’t know who repaired her with Ouelet dead). She keeps working for Aramaki, after visiting here grave and hugging her mother.

Major - Scarlett Johansson

Aramaki - Takeshi Kitano

Ouelet - Juliette Binoche

Kuze - Michael Carmen Pitt