The Magnificent Seven, 2016

Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard

Rose Creek is a town with a problem. A Robber Baron, Bogue, is running a mine outside of town and is pressuring the townspeople to sell him their land for pennies on the dollar or just leave. Or die. Bogue and his men come into town and burn the church and kill many people. Among them, Matthew Cullen. Matthew’s widow, Emma, and Teddy Q leave town to find someone to help their town.

We are introduced to Chisolm, a warrant office, taking out a wanted man in a bar full of people. Nice introduction to the character and his abilities. This scene also introduces us to Faraday, the gambler.

Emma convinces Chisolm to help. He in turn convinces Faraday. The next bit is a getting the band together section. We add Goodnight Robicheaux (former Confederate soldier), Billy Rocks (master of blades), Vasquez (a sharpshooter with a warrant on his head), Jack Horne (the definition of a mountain man) & Red Harvest (Comanche Warrior).

The Seven have a week to get the townspeople in some type of shape before Bogue and an army come to deal with them all.

I must admit that I have not seen the original 1960 movie. But after watching this one will need to correct this oversight.

I normally do not watch many westerns. Especially modern ones. But this was an excellent movie. It looked and sounded amazing. You end up wanting to see the villain brought to justice. You want the Seven to make it out of this in one piece. You want Emma to get justice or at least revenge for her husband’s death.

Vía Letterboxd – AngryTownsman

Blair Witch, 2016

Official Site: BlairWitch.com

Starring: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry

blair-witch-poster-2-600x447For this movie, we have Heather’s brother, James, and friends going into the woods in search of any information on his sister. Based on a youtube video uploaded by a Burkettesville local.

They go with all types of nifty modern gear like in ear cameras with GPS, a drone, all the bells and whistles. We do not see if they left word with anyone on their destination.

The purpose of the filming in this installment (yes it is a found footage movie) is that one of James’ friends is shooting the search for her school documentary project.

Up front, this was not that good of a movie to me. 2 1/2 stars out of 5. I think we are too far removed from the original for another sequel. Plus found footage. We all know how these things end: everybody dead and no clear idea how the footage was recovered.

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Fright Night, 2011

While I did not think Fright Night needed a remake, I was pleasantly surprised by this modernization of a classic vampire film.

With the newer version, we get a believable scenario of a vampire’s hunting ground, an update on the horror movie host, a more ferocious vampire, I just really liked the update.

Anton Yelchin played Charlie Brewster very well. From this “loser” kid who got in with the popular crowd who diched his quirky friends to manning up to fight Jerry Dandridge, Yelchin gave a wonderful performance.

Vía Letterboxd – AngryTownsman

Mechanic: Resurrection

Official Site: Mechanic.movie

Starring: Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Sam Hazeldine

The Mechanic, Arthur Bishop, gets tracked down in Brazil by the henchmen of a former acquaintance, the arms dealer Crain. He gets away and heads to Thailand and runs into Gina. He builds a relathionship with her, but Crain kidnaps her to force him into killing the 3 other top arms dealers in the world. From there we follow Bishop as he works through the targets as he attempts to rescue Gina.

TL;DR Fun Action Romp. The Mechanic is a bit of a Gary Stu character, but stuff blowed up real good

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