Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)
Ali Abassi's The Apprentice (2024)

4/29/2018

Frost/Nixon (2008) - Howard's political drama is gripping, superiorly acted

♥♥♥♥♥


+ Most Undeserved Flop of the Year



An eclectic, well-composed poster for Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon that highlights its two leads' faces


3 years after the Watergate scandal let to his resignation in 1974, ex-President Richard Nixon decides to break his silence and elects British talk show host David Frost to conduct the tell-all interview, hoping for an easy, face-saving win. But Frost has his own plan.

Frost/Nixon is written by Peter Morgan (Rush (2013)), based on his own same-titled 2006 play, and directed by great Oklahoman filmmaker Ron Howard (Gung Ho (1986)). It is a suspenseful political period drama with great acting, particularly from the two title leads, who were both in the play in West End and Broadway, and especially from an award-worthy Frank Langella (Breaking the Fifth (2004)) as Nixon; and terrific staging. The film works as a kind of verbal boxing match and is a really fine watch.

Related posts:

Ron HowardCorman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
The Da Vinci Code (2006) - Howard's first Brown adaptation is a popcorn thriller hoot  
Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
A Beautiful Mind (2001) - John Nash given the Epic Treatment  

EDtv (1999) - Phenomenal cast shine in Howard's witty mega-flop
Backdraft (1991) - Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie 
American Graffiti (1973) or, Cruisin' Modesto '62 (actor)  




Watch a clip from the early part of the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 27.4 mil. $
= Huge flop (1.09 times the cost)
[Frost/Nixon premiered 15 October (London Film Festival) and runs 122 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, from August 2007 - ?. The film opened #22 to a 180k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #16 and in 1,105 cinemas (different weeks) and grossed 18.6 mil. $ (67.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.7 mil. $ (9.9 %) and Australia with 1.3 mil. $ (4.7 %). Frost/Nixon takes dramatic license to add, leave out and change some points in the actual history of the interview. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars: It lost Best Picture to Slumdog Millionaire, Actor (Langella) to Sean Penn in Milk, Director to Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire, Adapted Screenplay and Editing also to Slumdog Millionaire. It was also nominated for 5 Golden Globes, 6 BAFTAs, won an AFI award, a National Board of Review award and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. Howard returned with Angels & Demons (2008). Langella returned with a voice performance in The Tale of Despereaux (2008) and with a physical part in The Box (2009). Michael Sheen (Nocturnal Animals (2016)) returned in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009). Frost/Nixon is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Frost/Nixon?

4/27/2018

Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

[Categorization introduction:
What is a crime movie?
A crime movie is any film in which crime plays a central role, - and crime taken as a broad term includes everything from war crimes to corporate crime. This broad categorization thus includes many types of films, but for this top 10, I have chosen ten outstanding films that are unquestionably and more or less primarily crime movies, whereas some of the titles below the Top 10 list, - of which a good number are also rated higher than films on the list, - are primarily something else, before their crime genre categorization: Art film, thriller, heist film, gangster film, sci-fi, adventure, romance, comedy, drama, music film, car movie, cop movie etc.]



1. The Butcher/Le Boucher (1970) - Claude Chabrol



2. The Sting (1973) - George Roy Hill 



3. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005, documentary) - Alex Gibney 



4. Fargo (1996) - Ethan Coen, Joel Coen



5. American History X (1998) - Tony Kaye



6. The Departed (2006) - Martin Scorsese 




7. Erin Brockovich (2000) -Steven Soderbergh



8. Killer Joe (2011) - William Friedkin



9. Charley Varrick (1973) - Don Siegel



10. 25th Hour (2002) - Spike Lee

Other masterpiece crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order):

Bad Lieutenant (1992) - Abel Ferrara
The Big Sleep (1946) - Howard Hawks
Blue Velvet (1986) - David Lynch
Casino (1995) - Martin Scorsese
Dead Man (1995) - Jim Jarmusch
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - Wes Anderson
Virginia/What's Wrong With Virginia (2010) - Dustin Lance Black 

Other great crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order):

The Act of Killing/Jagal (2012) - Anonymous, Christine Cynn, Joshua Oppenheimer
Amos & Andrew (1993) - E. Max Frye
Bandits (2001) - Barry Levinson
Bernie (2011) - Richard Linklater
The Bird With the Crystal Plumage/L'uccello Dalle Piume di Cristallo (1970) - Dario Argento
Bloody Sunday (2002) - Paul Greengrass
The Desperate Hours (1955) - William Wyler
Dirty Harry (1971) - Don Siegel
Drive (2011) - Nicolas Winding Refn
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009) - Niels Arden Oplev
I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) - Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
In the Electric Mist (2009) - Bertrand Tavernier
The Informant! (2009) - Steven Soderbergh
Nightcrawler (2014) - Dan Gilroy
Nocturnal Animals (2016) - Tom Ford
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) - Derek Cianfrance
R/R: Hit First, Hit Hardest (2010) - Tobias Lindholm, Michael Noer
Straight Outta Compton (2015) - F. Gary Gray
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) - Martin McDonagh
Tightrope (1984) - Richard Tuggle, Clint Eastwood
Zootopia (2016) - Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Rich Moore

Other good crime movies, TV movies, a documentary and a TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Stanley Kubrick
A Friend to Die For/Death of a Cheerleader (1994, TV movie) - William A. Graham 
Animal Kingdom (2010) - David Michôd 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) - Werner Herzog 
Battle for Haditha (2007) - Nick Broomfield 
Bleeder (1999) - Nicolas Winding Refn
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Arthur Penn 
The Brave One (2007) - Neil Jordan
The Bride Wore Black/La Mariée Était en Noir (1968) - François Truffaut
Bronson (2008) - Nicolas Winding Refn 
Bullhead/Rundskop (2011) - Michaël R. Roskam
Capote (2005) - Bennett Miller
Cop Land (1997) - James Mangold
Cul-de-Sac (1966) - Roman Polanski
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) - Woody Allen
Deer Woman (2005, TV movie) - John Landis
Demolition Man (1993) - Marco Brambilla
Doomed to Die (1940) - William Nigh
Double Indemnity (1944) - Billy Wilder
The Edukators/Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei (2004) - Hans Weingartner
The Eel/うなぎ [Unagi] (1997) - Shohei Imamura
Fruitvale Station (2013) - Ryan Coogler 
Get the Gringo/How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2012) - Adrian Grünberg
The Guard (2011) - John Michael McDonagh
The Imposter (2012, documentary) - Bart Layton
Irrational Man (2015) - Woody Allen
Mesrine: Killer Instinct + Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1/Mesrine: L'Instinct de Mort + Mesrine: L'ennemi public n°1 (2008) - Jean-François Richet 
The Name of the Rose (1986) - Jean-Jacques Annaud
Northwest/Nordvest (2013) - Michael Noer
The Paperboy (2012) - Lee Daniels
The Red Circle/Le Cercle Rouge (1970) - Jean-Pierre Melville
Sorrow and Joy/Sorg og Glæde (2013) - Nils Malmros
Spring Breakers (2012) - Harmony Korine
Strangerland (2015) - Kim Farrant
True Detective - season 1 (2014) - Cary Fukunaga, Nic Pizzolato (creators)
Winter's Bone (2010) - Debra Granik

Mediocre, poor and/or failed crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

15 Minutes (2001) - John Herzfeld
30 Minutes or Less (2011) - Ruben Fleischer
All for One/Alle for Én (2011) - Rasmus Heide
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) - Edgar G. Ulmer
Angel Heart (1987) - Alan Parker
The Ape (1940) - William Nigh
Baby Driver (2017) - Edgar Wright
The Bling Ring (2013) - Sofia Coppola
Blow (2001) - Ted Demme
Blue Ruin (2013) - Jeremy Saulnier
Blue Sunshine (1978) - Jeff Lieberman
Cassandra's Dream (2007) - Woody Allen
The Changeling (2008) - Clint Eastwood
Coogan's Bluff (1968) - Don Siegel
Crime Busters/I Due Superpiedi Quasi Piatti/Trinity: In Trouble Again/Two Supercops (1977) - E.B. Clucher
The Crow (1994) - Alex Proyas
Dear Wendy (2005) - Thomas Vinterberg
Dial M for Murder (1954) - Alfred Hitchcock
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Lars Von Trier
The Enforcer (1976) - James Fargo
The Fatal Hour (1940) - William Nigh
Harry Brown (2009) - Daniel Barber
The Iceman (2012) - Ariel Vromen
The Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret (2013) - Mikkel Nørgaard
The Killer Inside Me (2010) - Michael Winterbottom
Logan Lucky (2017) - Steven Soderbergh
My Brother the Devil (2012) - Sally El Hosaini 
Odd Thomas (2013) - Stephen Sommers
Shutter Island (2010) - Martin Scorsese
The Son of No One (2011) - Dito Montiel
Tower Heist (2011) - Brett Ratner
The Town (2010) - Ben Affleck
The Worthless/Arvottomat (1982) - Mika Kaurismäki

[107 titles in total]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

What do you think of the list?
What crime movies would be on yours?
What worthwhile crime films are missing here?

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (13-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (13-24)
Jason Reitman's Saturday Night (2024)