MOVIE - Hostiles

R (2:15)

Wide release 1/26/18

Viewed 1/25/18

RT Critic: 71   Audience:  73
Critic's Consensus:  Hostiles benefits from stunning visuals and a solid central performance from Christian Bale, both of which help elevate its uneven story.

Cag:  5.5  One helluva movie

Directed by Scott Cooper

Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures

Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike

My comments:  I'm pretty sure this is one of those movies that you don't forget.  A tragic story, but one that mesmerized me.  Super performances, Christian Bale just can't be beat.  He lives and breathes his part.  Indigenous people versus those who took them over.  This movie is  about relationships between people, friendships past and present, the ties that bind and those that are fleeting or even meaningless.  I think this was a brilliant movie, a huge piece of US history, and a story that will stay with me for a long, long time.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Set in 1892, Hostiles tells the story of a legendary Army Captain (Christian Bale), who after stern resistance, reluctantly agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family back to tribal lands. Making the harrowing and perilous journey from Fort Berringer, an isolated Army outpost in New Mexico, to the grasslands of Montana, the former rivals encounter a young widow (Rosamund Pike), whose family was murdered on the plains. Together, they must join forces to overcome the punishing landscape, hostile Comanche and vicious outliers that they encounter along the way.

MOVIE - American Hustle

R (2:09)

NY/LA Release 12/13/13; Wide Release 12/20/2013

Viewed 1/2/2014 with Laura in Carlisle

RT Critic: 92  Audience:  81

Cag:  5.5 Really loved it

Directed by David O. Russell

Film Studio

Actors: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence

My comments: No blood & guts, lots (and lots) of tongue-in-cheek humor, and brilliant acting all worked together to completely entertain me.  The story is brilliant, the characters are fun, and the 70s feel is almost always believable.  I wasn't sure throughout the movie that I should be chuckling to myself or if I was supposed to be completely caught up in the "seriousness" of what was going on - I guess I felt guilty being so entertained.  I'm glad I didn't really know about the plot other than what I'd seen in previews, because I was surprised and kept on my toes.  I was never "worried" about the outcome, and I think this made the movie all the more enjoyable.  I really loved it.

Fandango:  A fictional film set in the alluring world of one of the most stunning scandals to rock our nation, American Hustle tells the story of brilliant con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who along with his equally cunning and seductive British partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) is forced to work for a wild FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia that’s as dangerous as it is enchanting. Jeremy Renner is Carmine Polito, the passionate, volatile, New Jersey political operator caught between the con-artists and Feds. Irving’s unpredictable wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) could be the one to pull the thread that brings the entire world crashing down. Like David O. Russell’s previous films, American Hustle defies genre, hinging on raw emotion, and life and death stakes.

MOVIE - The Fighter

Wow - Great accents - Great acting - Lowell, Mass!
Released 12-17-10
R (1:54)
3-6-11 (a gorgeous Sunday evening) at El con with Sheila & Terri
RT: 90 cag: 95
Director: David O. Russell
Amy Adams, Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale

Both Christian Bale and Melissa Leo won Academy Awards for supporting actor & actress in this riveting true story about two brothers from Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1980's. They were wonderful, but so was Amy Adams. Wow.

Micky Ward (Wahlberg) has always adored his older brother Dicky Eklund (Bale) who, for a short time, was "the pride of Lowell" after he beat Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight. Now, years later, Dicky is a crack addict and Micky is trying to work his way up the ladder as a fighter. However, he's not getting very far. Then he meets Charlene (Adams), a brassy bartender who helps him see that it's time he stop bailing his brother out and lying for him one more time. His world is centered around his outrageous mother, his seven grown sisters, and the young daughter whose mother is doing everything she can to poison their relationship.

Then Dicky goes to prison and cleans up while Micky is guided by a new trainer and manager....and begins to go places. And, oh how the family hates Charlene!

As the credits begin, the real-life Micky and Dicky are seen chatting about the film. I'd love to see more of them....

Totally entertaining. It's much more a story of family than a story about boxing. There are only a few fighting scenes, and those were quite acceptable to me - a person who seriously dislikes boxing.