CONSPIRACY FLICKS

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #1 . Last nights movie was The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

We are not off to a great start to this Conspiracy Flicks series. This movie was a total let down and I wanted it to end about 2 hours before it did.

The 1st thing that bothered me was the music by Hans Zimmer. I recognize that he’s great at what he does, but I don’t like his music. It’s just kind of serviceable and his score in this flick is my least favorite of what I’ve heard of his. And the real problem is that it never EVER ends in this movie. It’s constantly present and it annoyed the living shit out of me. And I hate the name Hans.

Another downfall of this movie was the acting. Tom Hanks was the wrong choice to play the lead character as his performance was way too safe and friendly with no sense of suspense or danger. Perhaps the script hindered him from being more dynamic. His co-star, Audrey Tautou as Sophie was even worse. Her and Hanks had perhaps the worst chemistry of any duo I’ve ever seen in a movie. I’m pretty certain they would agree with me.

The only real highlight in this was Ian Mckellen as Sir Teabing. He brought a charismatic comic relief that kept me from turning this pile of shit off midway. He’s so good that even the terrible script couldn’t keep him down.

I’m sure everyone knows the story of this film as it seems that everyone on earth read it. (Except for me). The story was actually pretty cool and I appreciated the risks it took with taking on the Catholic Church and some of it’s troubling history. It’s too bad this movie didn’t do it more justice.

I considered seeing the sequel, Angels & Demons, but there is no way in hell I’m going to after suffering through this. 1 Detective for The Da Vinci Code 🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be The Parallax View. ♥️You Billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #thedavinvicode

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #2. Last nights movie was The Parallax View starring Warren Beatty and Hume Cronyn.

After spending the last month watching Marvel Flicks that were created mostly by computers, (and the god awful Da Vinci Code CFWBD#1) it was refreshing to see a movie from 1974. Actual, real live filmmaking.

There were quite a few highlights in this.

#1…It was so rad that the opening scene was in Seattle where a presidential candidate is assassinated atop the Space Needle and the suspected assassin falls to his death from it. Super cool.

#2…The script and the acting. The dialogue is such a perfect mix of real conversation with a few cool one-liners that never stray to cliche. (I rhyme all the time!). The actors deliver this script like virtuosos, particularly Beatty and the perfectly cast Cronyn as the newspaper editor.

#3…The story of The Parallax Corporation and their operation of recruiting and qualifying would be assassins isn’t entirely original, but was told in an entertaining and thoughtful way.

There are a couple of small hiccups in this flick. Primarily the editing from scene to scene. I counted 3 different times when the film cut to another scene and I was like “wait, what the hell is happening here?”, but it just takes a few moments each time to figure it out. I had to pay a little closer attention than normal. I did love the trippy scene where Beatty is subjected to the Parallax’s human engineering training and the Smokey and the Bandit/Dukes of Hazzard style car chase.

This flick kicked the shit out of The Da Vinci Code. 4 Detectives for The Parallax View 🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be The Bourne Identity. ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #3. Last nights movie was The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon and Franka Potente.

Matt Damon’s vulnerable charm in pretty much every movie he’s in is what I love about him. As an action star, he never comes across as a meat headed, macho dickhead and I really appreciate that. This flick is a great example of this. Damon’s greatness is in his subtlety.

And so is this movie. It’s filmed and paced like an indie film to where it takes it’s time establishing a mood and a groove like a great western. It’s such an important element because the patience allows us to feel and identify with the characters. I was truly heartbroken when Damon and Potente had to say goodbye to each other toward the end.

I also appreciated the decision to use the dirty side of Paris as its main location. In fact, all of the locations were beautifully grungy and contributed to the flow of the story really well.

The story itself was simple and inventive and told so well that it’s probably better than the book (if there is one). 4 Detectives for The Bourne Identity 🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be The Bourne Supremacy. ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #thebourneidentity

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #4. Last nights movie was The Bourne Supremacy

starring Matt Damon and Brian Cox.

Well shit. I was really stoked about this one but had some difficulty with it. I do love the characters and the actors (particularly Brian Cox). And my heart broke when Marie was killed. However I found myself annoyed and bored with the majority of it.

Let me say this…I have come to really hate shaky hand held photography in movies and tv shows (I’m looking at you 24). It seems that it was the “cool thing to do” for awhile. But it’s a cheap and unimaginative trick to try to convey action and tension, but what it does is make me disoriented and confused. The action scenes in this were an awful mess and I’m continuing my campaign to beg Hollywood to shitcan this tactic of fast action editing. It’s SO 2000 late!

Oh! And speaking of 24, I felt like I was watching a long episode of it with Matt Damon playing Jack Baur. It just felt the same.

I’m surprised that this got 82% on Rotten Tomatoes cuz I’m only giving 2 Detectives to The Bourne Supremacy 🕵️🕵️. I’m not thrilled about it, but tonight’s movie will be The Bourne Ultimatum. ♥️You Billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #briancox #24

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #5. Last nights movie was The Bourne Ultimatum starring Matt Damon.

So, you guys, I tried. But I failed to get through this.

Before I tried to get into it, a friend of mine told me that all of the Bourne flicks were basically the same story…Matt Damon trying to stop the agency that created him to quit fucking with him. That was certainly true with Identity and Supremacy. I could deal with that if the first 2 had any action scenes worth appreciating…but if you follow these reviews, then you know how much I can’t stand the tactics theses Bourne flicks use for action sequences. It’s so lame.

Anyway…so I did try to finish this but I had to steam it on SYFY 🤢 network which is, by far, the worst streaming experience. If you stop midway, they make you go back to the beginning of the movie. With ads! Fuck them! Wake up SYFY.

So I’m assuming that Jason Bourne is still trying to stop the government from killing him and gets into a bit of a romantic situation with that hot ass Julia Stiles and goes from county to country getting chased by people in cars with guns and shit. And I also assume that he survives it all since there are more sequels that I’ll never see. Am I off base?

I’m soooo done with the Jason Bourne flicks. 1 Detective for The Bourne Ultimatum 🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be The Third Man (1949). ♥️You. Billydisaster.com

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #6 . Last nights movie was The Third Man (1949) starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten.

It would be stupid and naive of me to say “Oh man, I really loved this flick” or “You guys! This movie is sooo cool!”…Because the fact is, this is one of the greatest films ever made. And to think that I’d never even heard of it until last week. (Thanks Jan Branner!).

A few things that make this flick so amazing and important. 1st…The acting by a fucking incredible cast delivering lines from a killer screenplay by Graham Green as well as an iconic quote by Orson Welles…”In Italy under the Borgies they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of Democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock”

Almost every character in this whodunnit is suspicious and every actor plays this up perfectly. Particularly Ernst Deutsch 🤘as Kurtz. That dude is as creepy and sinister as anyone I’ve ever seen.

2nd…The cinematography of which won the Oscar. This flick is, by far, the most visually stunning film I’ve ever seen. Every single photograph is one masterpiece after another. It was filmed on location in the rubble of Vienna just after WWII. Most of the scenes are at night and the lighting and shadow play make it look like a film noir bad dream.

3rd…The music composed and performed by Anton Karas. Every note of the soundtrack was played on a zither and I’ve learned that the main theme became a huge international hit. It’s beautiful and unique and sets the mood with style and suspense.

Man it was great to watch this after being bored to death by those Bourne flicks for 3 nights. 5 Detectives for The Third Man 🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️. Tonights movie will be The Manchurian Candidate (1962) ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #orsonwelles

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #7 . Last Nights movie was The Manchurian Candidate (1962) starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Rented from Xfinity.

Now THIS is a mother fucking Conspiracy Flick! Rarely have I been shocked this much by the twists and tragedy in a movie. It was breath taking.

Set in New York during the Cold War, Raymond Shaw (Harvey) and Major Marco (Sinatra) just got home from the Korean War where they had been captured by Chinese Commies and brainwashed. Shaw has been kind of programmed to become an assassin for the commies to murder an American presidential candidate.

Back home in New York, Shaw is reunited with his asshole parents, the drunk asshole step dad Sen. Iselin (James Gregory) and his total asshole, racist mother (and incestuous), Mrs. Iselin (the amazing Angela Lansbury) who is her husband’s puppet master. He also falls in love with SMOKIN HOT Leslie Parrish♥️. Good God I was so smitten with her that Mrs. Disaster threw a shoe at me.

Well, Sinatra starts unraveling what’s happened to them in Korea and sets out to prevent Shaw from doing what he’s been brainwashed to do and shit gets WAY out of hand. The culmination of this is one of the most tragic scenes I’ve ever seen. Absolutely heartbreaking.

There are maybe 4 or 5 crazy good monologues in this and the acting overall is killer. Although it is a little weird that most of the American characters speak with British accents. Pretty much everyone but Sinatra and that hot ass Parrish🔥.

There is also an interesting history with this film invoving the Kennedy assassination that disrupted the release of it. Sinatra actually barred it’s release in ‘64 and it wasn’t re-released until ‘88.

You really have to pay attention while wathing this flick or you’ll quickly be confused. But if you do, you’ll appreciate the awesome details and the great storytelling. 5 Detectives for The Manchurian Candidate 🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be The Conversation. ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #themanchuriancandidate

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #8 . Last nights movie was The Conversation starring Gene Hackman and Shirley from Lavern and Shirley.

Poor Gene Hackman. In this flick, he’s a lonely, paranoid and emotionally damaged guy who is SUPER awkward with the ladies. His character (Harry Caul) is a surveillance expert who designs his own gear and sells his services to clients that need to spy on someone. In this case his client is Robert Duvall who wants to spy on his cheating wife (Shirley).

Through his surveillance, Hackman discovers that there may be a murder plot and, because of his religion and his tortured past, feels as if he’ll be partly responsible for any murder that may happen. It’s really stressful.

My favorite thing about this flick is the attention that is given to Hackman’s surveillance gear. The tape machines withe the big heavy buttons, the giant knobs on the outboard equipment. It’s all so cool. The music is also great. A cool piano theme throughout, the jazz, and the Psycho like tension music we hear when shit goes down. Oh! And the sound design is a real co-star as well.

Francis Ford Coppola made this right after The Godfather and it must have shocked his fans at how different this film was. It does have a couple of the same actors, Duvall and Fredo (John Cazale), but this is a far more intimate film that centers more on the human condition. Much like a Jim Jarmusch flick.

While it’s not a masterpiece, this movie was unique and super well made. 4 Detectives for The Conversation 🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️. Tonight’s movie will be JFK. ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #theconversation

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Billy Disaster #9 . Last nights movie was JFK starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

This flick was…problematic. It wasn’t the apparent liberties that Oliver Stone took with the “facts” (who really knows) that make this movie so difficult. The problem was the overall craft of this film.

This one stressed me out big time. FOR 3 HOURS! The story is really compelling but the telling of it was a disastrous mess. Perhaps Stone figured his audience already knew everything there was to know about the Kennedy assassination because, if you weren’t at least a teenager in 1963, this movie is confusing. The “factual” information comes at you like machine gun fire and there is a shit ton of it. It’s like you just met an auctioneer who is telling you his life story. For 3 hours. There was a lot of pointless “artistic” edits that quickly flash by to further confuse you and it was just..stressful. To think that this flick won the Oscar for best film editing is troubling. The editors were obviously world class but it seemed like they were trying to show off their skills without concerning themselves with the story.

OK, I’ll quit bitching for a sec…There are some good things about this. 1st of all, the cast. Gary OldMan, Kevin Costner, Ed Asner, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy. (What a waste of incredible cast!). The acting by Tommy Lee Jones was…well, cmon, it’s Tommy Lee Jones. It was also cool to see John Candy in such a different kind of role..But Stone’s direction of this incredible cast was aggravating (here I go bitching again). Costner spent half of this flick interrupting everyone and being a condescending dick. But Gary OldMan (the greatest actor of my generation) was great as Lee Harvey Oswald.

Too bad this wasn’t simply a Matthau/Lemmon flick. 2 Detectives for JFK 🕵️🕵️. Tonight’s movie, Blow Out, will be the final movie in the Conspiracy Flick series. The next series is a surprise!! ♥️You billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #jfk

Conspiracy Flicks With Billy Disaster #10 . Last nights movie was Blow Out starring Vinnie Barbarino and John Lithgow.

I have a few issues with Brian De Palma. My 1st issue is the music he uses for his soundtracks. Scarface is one of those flicks that I’ll always watch when it’s on, however I am reminded each time about how shitty the music is in it. The lame (modern at the time) synth rock that seems to just try to update the action scene car chase music of the 70s. I hate De Palma’s taste in music.

In this flick, the streak continues with the soundtrack, but that’s not all that I didn’t like about. Another issue I have with BDP is his direction of the actors. Just when one of the characters becomes compelling, they turn into a over acted asshole that is almost unbearable to watch. Although John Lithgow was awesome as the villain in this. He’s awesome in everything. Travolta’s character as a sound designer for B-movies was also pretty cool. But everyone else was an unlikeable douche.

BDP is often credited with paying homage to other great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, but it’s like he’s borrowing the wrong things from them and doesn’t really do a very good job of it. In fact, this flick is downright U.L.G.Y (you ain’t got no alibi). The locations of most scenes are shitty places to be and…well lets just say BDP didn’t borrow Edith Head from Hitchcock for the costume design.

The story of this flick could have been pretty great had the pacing and the editing hadn’t been so unorganized. Or maybe I just kept losing interest because of all of the other things I just spent the last 10 minutes bitching about.

I will never do a Brian De Palma series. 2 Detectives for Blow Out 🕵️🕵️. Well, that concludes our Conspiracy Flick Series. What will the next series be? That’s for you to decide! By playing the Flicks Trivia game we have going to celebrate our 200th flick!! Winner gets to pick the next genre. you have until Sunday night. Here’s the link https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSexuFIWadBiiM.../viewform . Good Luck! ♥️You Billydisaster.com #moviereview #moviereviews #moviereviewer #blowout