MOVIE - Tag

R (1:40)

Wide release 6/15/18

Viewed 6/16/18
IMBd:  7/10

RT Critic:  56  Audience:  64
Critic's Consensus:  For audiences seeking a dose of high-concept yet undemanding action comedy, Tag might be close enough to it.

Cag:  3.5  Easy and fun entertainment

Directed by  Jeff Tomsic

Warner Brothers

Based on a true story

Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jon Hamm

My comments:  This summer doesn't seem to have any good movies.  This one had fun actors and was actually based on a true story, but it was sort of slow moving and boring, believe it or not.  I was looking forward to the end.  Funny in places.  I'm glad I didn't have to pay to see it.  Loved seeing and hearing Jeremy Renner singing during the credits, that was the highlight of the movie!

RT/ IMDb Summary:  For one month every year, five highly competitive friends hit the ground running in a no-holds-barred game of tag they've been playing since the first grade--risking their necks, their jobs and their relationships to take each other down with the battle cry "You're It!" This year, the game coincides with the wedding of their only undefeated player, which should finally make him an easy target. But he knows they're coming... and he's ready. Based on a true story, "Tag" shows how far some guys will go to be the last man standing.

MOVIE - Wind River

R (1:51)

Limited release 8/4/17

Viewed 9/2/17
IMBd:  7.8

RT Critic:  87  Audience:  91
Critic's Consensus:  Wind Riverlures viewers into a character-driven mystery with smart writing, a strong cast, and a skillfully rendered setting that delivers the bitter chill promised by its title.

Cag:  6/Awesome

Directed by Taylor Sheridan

Acacia Filmed Entertainment

Written by the director

Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen

My comments:  This was definitely one of the best movies I've seen in a while.  Captivating story - horrific as it was.  It included some of the best acting I've seen in a long while, complex characters.  A frigid cold winter, with scenery shots just right so that they accentuated the plot.  The devastation of the Wind River Reservation and the lives of the people trying to eak out an existence there was the centerpiece for this devastating story.  And then there was Jeremy Renner.  He was incredible, backed superbly by a cast of Native American actors that I've seen often enough to recognize, including Graham Greene.  The story will be hard to forget, and so will Jeremy Renner's performance.

RT Summary:   WIND RIVER is a chilling thriller that follows a rookie FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) who teams up with a local game tracker with deep community ties and a haunted past (Jeremy Renner) to investigate the murder of a local girl on a remote Native American Reservation in the hopes of solving her mysterious death. Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, WIND RIVER also stars Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal, Julia Jones, Kelsey Asbille, and James Jordan.
IMDb Summary:  A veteran tracker with the Fish and Wildlife Service helps to investigate the murder of a young Native American woman, and uses the case as a means of seeking redemption for an earlier act of irresponsibility which ended in tragedy.

MOVIE - Arrival

PG-13 (1:51)

Wide release 11/11/16

Viewed date at Park Place Mall on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 after getting my hair cut.

RT Critic:  93  Audience:  83
Critic's Consensus:  Arrival delivers a must-see experience for fans of thinking person's sci-fi that anchors its heady themes with genuinely affecting emotion and a terrific performance from Amy Adams.

Cag:  5.5  I really loved it, superior movie, may change to a 6...

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

21 Laps Entertainment

Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forrest Whitacker

My comments:  Now that's a MOVIE!  Clever, believable science fiction where you slowly figure out what's going on, and the reality is much ... deeper ... than superficial.  I'll be thinking about this one for a long while yet.  It left me with a couple of small questions, that I'm sure I'm supposed to figure out on my own (sort of like the end of reading The Giver for the first time).

RT/ IMDb Summary:  When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team - lead by expert linguist Louise Banks - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers - and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.

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 Bourne Legacy

PG-13 (2:15)

Wide release Aug. 12, 2012
on DVD Dec. 11, 2011

saw it at Crossroads cheapie theater

RT Critic: 56    Audience:  56

cag: 4.5 Liked it a whole lot

Directed by Tony Gilroy

Universal Pictures

Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Albert Finney

IMDb Summary:
The events in this movie takes place around the same time that the events in The Bourne Ultimatum. When a British reporter was writing an expose about Black Ops operations Treadstone and Black Briar, and the ones responsible for them are concerned. And when Jason Bourne, former Treadstone operative got the file on Treadstone and Black Briar and gave it to Pamela Landy who them passed it to the media. When the men behind Treadstone and Black Briar learn of this, they're concerned how this will affects other ops they have. They decide it's best to shut down all ops and make sure make everyone involved disappears. They try to take out Aaron Cross who is part of another op called Outcome, but he manages to survive. He then seeks out Dr. Marta Shearing who worked on him when he began. It seems part of the program is for all subjects to take medications but he has run out, which is why he seeks her. But someone tries to kill her. He saves her and she tells him, he should have stopped taking the meds long ago. They go to Manila so that she can help him. Later the men behind Outcome learn that Cross and Shearing are still alive.

Thoughts:  Action-packed, included great, thoughtful acting by Renner.