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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
From 1 years ago.
Information or opinions might not be up to date.
7 Minute Read
What is it with Jerry Bruckheimer of the late 90s and early 2000s and with Nicolas Cage? First in 96 we get Michael Bay's The Rock. A year later in 97 Jerry puts Cage in Simon West's Con Air. And then in 2000 Dominic Sena under the supervision of Bruckheimer puts Nicolas out of his Cage and into a driver's seat of 1967 Ford Shelby GT500, in the subject of this review, the loose remake of H. B. Halicki 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds.
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26% Rotten Tomatoes rating doesn't seem like a good indicator. The film must have been stupidly terrible. Right? Well if you read my other reviews you sometimes may see that ratings are not necessarily the best predictor of enjoyment. A lot of the "best movies" are dull as fuck. And a lot of the "worst" ones are entertaining as hell. And Gone in 60 Seconds is not an exception. Yes it is a bit rough. But so is Con Air and so is The Rock and so are most Jerry Bruckheimer produced films. But Jerry Bruckheimer is Jerry Bruckheimer and Jerry Bruckheimer has a very fucking good sense for entertainment value.
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Like in Con Air this film has an ensemble cast. We obviously get Nick Cage showing us the unbearable weight of his massive talent. We get Robert Duvall who helped Cage's uncle Francis Ford Coppola win some Oscars on The Godfather films. We get Angelina Jolie who you may know from other Angelina Jolie movies. We get Giovanni Ribisi who worked with Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and will work with James Cameron on Avatar. We get Will Patton who had the most emotional arc in another Bruckheimer movie, Michael Bay's Armageddon.
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We get an evil British character in the form of Christopher Eccleston who played an evil British character in a Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. We get a nice British character ( that sometimes can be a little intimidating ) in a form of Vinnie Jones who you may know from early Guy Ritchie films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Which is by the way an interesting Bruckheimer moment here. I discussed on my review of Bad Boys how Michael Bay apparently got inspired by Tarantino to change the dialogue in the movie. And that prompted Bruckheimer to actually hire Tarantino for dialogue touch-ups for Tony Scott's Crimson Tide and Bay's The Rock ( giving us a film where Michael Bay directs Tarantino dialogue spoken by Nicolas fucking Cage ). But then Tarantino apparently had enough of this job and quit working on other people's movies. So poor Jerry has a problem now.
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In that same time, on the other side of the globe, young Guy Ritchie was imitating not just the dialogue of Tarantino, but his entire writing style altogether with his first few films. Which coincidentally are also starring... you guessed it, Vinnie Jones, who gets then hired by Bruckheimer, probably chasing some remains of the Tarantino sauce. Even if it's Pepsi.
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But the cast doesn't stop there. We get Scott Caan who appears throughout the Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven franchise. We get Timothy Olyphant who actually ended up working with Tarantino on Once Upon The Time In Hollywood. We get Chi McBride who worked with the legendary Alex Proyas alongside Bad Boy's Will Smith on I, Robot. We get Frances Fisher who worked with Cameron on Titanic and we even get Arye Gross who played the husband character Howard Marks in 2002 Steven Spielberg epic ( which ended up being the cause for Michael Bay to quit Bruckheimer and join Spielberg ) called Minority Report.
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The plot of the movie is simple: our protagonist needs to GTA 50 rare cars in one night, for a mafia boss, unless he wants his brother to die. It feels a little bit like Ocean's Eleven heist, but not because of some big game money ambitions. The reason is personal, in an attempt to paint the characters as morally right. Maybe that was what the critics thought was kind of weak. The entire cast of thieves are either inexperienced teenagers who didn't start doing anything illegal yet. Therefor they are innocent. Or old car thieves who decided long time ago that this sort of thing isn't for them. And now are forced to do it, to save a live of somebody near and dear to them. Perhaps the movie could work emotionally a lot better if the protagonists just wanted to steal those cars, because they just wanted to steal those cars.
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The director Dominic Sena is actually quite good. The opening sequence moves with pretty compositions. And the action in this film is a bit less rough than the stuff Bay and West were putting out in those days. I do think, though, there is one major flaw to Dominic Sena. He tries to take the characters seriously and then goes for a Bruckheimer action scene with them, with a cool techno track playing as the characters chase each other or something. This doesn't quite work. Bay uses a more traditional score which works a lot better. At least at that time. If you look at something like 6 Underground ( a fairly recent Michael Bay film with a very mature action direction from Bay ), you can hear him use a mixture of no-music, a score or a known pop-song, for the most interesting moments. Dominic Sena in Gone in 60 Seconds just uses a bad techno-beat bullshit which is just cringe to listen to.
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There are good music action scenes in the film. The ending with the Ford Mustang is scored properly. And the main moment of that sequence ( the jump ) has some proper tension building score which explodes into a crescendo of orchestral magic. Good stuff. But sometimes you just roll your eyes from the tonal whiplash the music gives you in this movie.
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The movie is far from being a bad film. It doesn't have this bad movie vibe, that something like Ultraviolet, or The Room might have. It looks and feels like a proper summer blockbuster ( from that time ). And yet there is this feeling of slight weirdness to it. I cannot put it into words. Some shots and sometimes entire sequences feel a bit strange. I have this gut feeling that something about it doesn't quite work. But I can't see what exactly.
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Perhaps it is the lack of tension building, for most of the action scenes. We just go-go-go, but why be excited about it? Good film-makers will always build toward something like this, even a little bit. Here oftentimes we have nothing at all. The action just starts out of nowhere. It doesn't mean that the movie isn't ever building to anything. It surely does. But not as well as other Bruckheimer films. Not as well as Simon West did in Con Air. And surely not as well as Michael Bay does.
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Happy Hacking!!!
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Caught Stealing 2025 is a bit dark for a comedy, but way too bright for Aronofsky
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e6/Caught_Stealing_poster.jpg/250px-Caught_Stealing_poster.jpg)
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Vincent D'Onofrio pops up on my radar lately. I somehow get attracted to the same movies as the actor, which probably means that I need to review Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick, where D'Onofrio had his, probably, most iconic role. In any case D'Onofrio played an Ashkenazi Jewish gangster motherfucker in a Darren Aronofsky 2025 film Caught Stealing. Something that I had to see, just based on the absurdity of it.
#CaughtStealing #DarrenAronofsky #ZoeKravitz #AustinButler #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Gone in 60 Seconds ( 2000 ) is better than it's rating suggests
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2a/Gone_in_sixty_seconds.jpg/250px-Gone_in_sixty_seconds.jpg)
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What is it with Jerry Bruckheimer of the late 90s and early 2000s and with Nicolas Cage? First in 96 we get Michael Bay's The Rock. A year later in 97 Jerry puts Cage in Simon West's Con Air. And then in 2000 Dominic Sena under the supervision of Bruckheimer puts Nicolas out of his Cage and into a driver's seat of 1967 Ford Shelby GT500, in the subject of this review, the loose remake of H. B. Halicki 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds.
#goneinsixtyseconds #nicolascage #angelinajolie #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Predator: Killer of Killers knows how to do a lot with very little
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9c/Predator%2C_Killer_of_Killers.jpeg/250px-Predator%2C_Killer_of_Killers.jpeg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 60 💬 4
It seems like the movie Trachtenberg was going for here was way too risky and way too ambitious for a studio to green-light it normally. But if he can do that on a fraction of budget. As animation. And not a budget, something like Pixar uses for their ultra-realistic stuff and fluent motion. But on a fraction of that. He can use the trend of animating on-twos and making everything painterly, to cut all of the corners necessary to make this insane movie with the small amount of money that he is given.
#predator #killerOfKillers #PredatorKillerOfKillers #animation #film #movies #cinemastodon #review #DanTrachtenberg
Gone in 60 Seconds ( 1974 ) is an enjoyable mess
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0c/Gone_in_sixty_seconds_1974_movie_poster.jpg/250px-Gone_in_sixty_seconds_1974_movie_poster.jpg)
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Watching the Nicolas Cage and Jerry Bruckheimer remake made me extremely curious to see the original Gone in 60 Seconds. And let me tell you that, the film is impressive when it comes to the shier production value H. B. Halicki ( writer, producer, director and star ) put into this film. But on the other hand the film is very hard to follow.
#goneinsixtyseconds #hbhalicki #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Project Hail Mary is weirdly Von Tririan?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3b/Project_Hail_Mary_poster.jpg/250px-Project_Hail_Mary_poster.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail)
Blender Dumbass
👁 16 ❤ 4 🔄 1 💬 4
Project Hail Mary is one of those few movies, which I read in the book form before watching. The book by Andy Weir in an absolute banger of a read. The plotting is awesome. The detail the book goes into is insane. Basically Andy Weir is one of the best contemporary writers living today. And Hollywood wanting to adopt Weir is and always will be bound to happen.
#projecthailmary #andyweir #ryangosling #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Together 2025 is yet another Romantic Comedy disguised as a Horror film
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e0/Together_film_poster.jpg/250px-Together_film_poster.jpg)
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I see a trend lately with films like Spontaneous where it seems like the writer / director is trying to do a romantic comedy, but knows it is not going to sell, so the movie is sold as a horror film instead. Michael Shanks's 2025 film Together starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie is another such film.
#together #horror #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #davefranco #alisonbrie
Iron Lung undersells itself
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Iron_Lung_%28film%29_poster.jpg)
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👁 22 ❤ 4 🔄 2 💬 4
Watching the trailer of Markiplier's Iron Lung movie made a certain type of impression on me. The movie is obviously low budget. The set looks hilarious ( outside of the context or the source material ). And shot choices look rather amateurish. Watching Iron Lung itself, on the other hand, makes me believe that Mark Fischbach ( Markiplier ), the writer and director of this movie, had a cinematic Ace up his sleeve. And he was just playing the long game.
#markiplier #ironlung #film #review #movies #horror #cinemastodon #games #youtube
Blue Steel 1990 is the seed that grew into the reason Avatar didn't win best picture
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/37/Blue_Steel_%281990_film%29.jpg/250px-Blue_Steel_%281990_film%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 12 ❤ 3 🔄 1 💬 3
So it's 1990 and Kathryn Bigelow writes and directs an action thriller about a police officer. The police officer is female and the movie almost refuses to sexualize her. Bigelow casts a nice half-Jewish girl Jamie Lee Curtis. And pretty much the whole movie, not a single shot of her emphasizes or admires her body ( apart from one sex scene where we see a very erotic closeup of her stomach ). Making that movie technically feminist. Few years later, in 1994, as James Cameron ( who was married to Bigelow between 1989 and 1991 ) is trying to find the actor to play the wife in his film True Lies. He is reminded of Blue Steel by Bigelow. And decides to cast Jamie Lee Curtis in his film. Giving us that very strange, almost pornographic scene where she does a very erotic strip-tease scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger. More than a decade later, in 2009, both Bigelow and Cameron make a movie. And both of those movies are nominated for the best picture. Yet Bigelow takes home the price. Did Cameron lose due to his pussy curse?
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Snake Eyes 1998 is De Palma's attempt at restoring his Hitch spirit
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8b/SnakeEyesPoster.jpg/250px-SnakeEyesPoster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
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Watching the opening scene of Brian De Palma's 1998 film Snake Eyes makes you realize that this motherfucker is trying very hard. We have 13 minutes of Nicolas Cage running around a very crowded set. The scene is clever with its camera, giving us multiple layers of exposition in the same time. Like there could be a TV on the foreground and Cage on the background. And they seem unrelated at first, but the scene establishes most of it's plot details right in this very shot. And then the shot ends ( 13 minutes later ) at the exact moment, the script drops the "inciting incident". De Palma is really trying hard to direct the shit out this movie.
#SnakeEyes #BrianDePalma #NicolasCage #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Death Wish 1974 is a Superhero movie
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Death_wish_movie_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 11 💬 1
Who is this character, who's family suffered from the hands of lawless criminals, and who wanders the nights in search for some of those criminals, to have his revenge? Who is this character, who is a wealthy gentleman during the day, while the "vengeance" itself during the night? Batman? No... it is Paul Kersey played by Charles Bronson in a Michael Winner 1974 film Death Wish.
#deathwish #charlesbronson #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Lunatics! Episode 1 has dropped. And I have thoughts!!!
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Blender Dumbass
👁 13 ❤ 3 🔄 1 💬 5
Lunatics! is a Open-Movie project by Rosalyn Hunter and Terry Hancock. I was following their socials ( mainly their Peertube account ) for quite some time now. And today, about an hour ago they released an unfinished version of episode one. Why does it matter? Well, they are working on it, if I understand correctly, since 2003, ( based on this video ). This unfinished episode is, therefor, 23 years in the making. My Moria's Race short-film with its 3.5 years is nothing in comparison.
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Parallax at Max: Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/Troler/WPA11XXZK2DCU22T.jpg)
Troler
👁 9 ❤ 1 🔄 1 💬 11
Am I bad guy for being so positive about a movie of a person I do not care much about? Well, there is nothing to fret, as the 3D film directed by Billie Eilish is palatable for everyone looking for entertainment. Certainly no masterpiece, the film still hold water in its flow. 3D doesn't work if there is no parallax. And parallax just out there doesn't work if there is no reason for it to exist. The documentary provides ten times that.
#BillieEilishHitMeHardandSoftTheTour #BillieEilish #JamesCameron #horror #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
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