Spielberg Month: Always

April 28, 2017 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

always-54e4fc676a047

Always is a movie that I cant believe I had never heard of until recently, it was released in 1989 and is a remake of a much older black and white film called “A Guy Named Joe” which was directed by famed movie maker Victor Flemming, I cant compare the two movies as I haven’t yet seen the original so please keep that in mind.

always-spielber-holly-hunter-richard-dreyfuss

The movie is a romantic war drama which follows the brief life of an aerial firefighter called Pete Sandich “Richard Dreyfuss”, Pete is in a very comfortable relationship with his girlfriend Dorinda “Holly Hunter” but unfortunately he is killed in action when his plane catches on fire and explodes which leaves his now ex girlfriend Holly heartbroken.

Audrey Hepburn, Always (1989, Steven Spielberg) starring Holly Hunter, Richard Dreyfuss and John Goodman Audrey Hepburn is in this movie, she plays an angel called Hap who guides Pete’s spirit while he try’s to set up Holly with a new love interest so that she can move on with her life and be happy, unfortunately this was the last movie Audrey Hepburn ever starred in before her death in 1993.

always-1989-06-g

There really isn’t much to say about this movie, It’s very cheesy and corny but it has a fantastic cast who all do a great job so its hard for me too dislike the film, Richard Dreyfuss as usual was outstanding in his performance and Holly Hunter also did an awesome job of portraying her character, the only cast member I wasn’t a fan of was John Goodman, I don’t think hes a bad actor but his acting style works so much better in comedies and action films that I felt that he didn’t really suit this type of movie.

Unfortunately there was no John Williams composing the music this time, however the soundtrack is still very good and it fits the film perfectly, there is nothing epic in there you wont be finding something as iconic as the Jaws theme but its still very well done either way.

I really liked this movie, it was a lot better than I thought it would be and I now really want to see the original, however I do have one massive complaint, as you may recall the lack of directors commentaries have really let me down this month but this Blu-ray has to take the crown as the biggest waste of money since it has no special features apart from the original trailer, I just want to pre warn people who are buying blurays for more than just an enhanced version of the film because if that is the case I would skip out on this one.

And so we end Spielberg Month, Steven Spielberg is one of the most influential film makers in Hollywood and all four of the movies this month have proven that, I have really enjoyed this experience it was fun looking at some of my old favourites as well as some new ones and I cant wait to eventually do something similar to this again, perhaps with a different director.

Want to buy this weeks movie? click the link below to get in from Amazon, I recommend subscribing to Amazon Prime to get fast next day delivery as well a lot of other benefits.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Blu-ray-Region-Richard-Dreyfuss/dp/B00TYFM25I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491601965&sr=8-1&keywords=always+bluray

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (2002) Review

December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

It’s Christmas Eve and an evil business woman is going to legally own the Muppet Theater if Kermit and his friends cant raise enough money to pay off the Theater’s loan.

This movie is brilliant and not in the sense that its a perfect movie but more to do with the films premise, for those who are unaware this film is a Muppet’s version of It’s a Wonderful life.

Of course its not as dark and depressing but it does have a lot of charm and originality for what is essentially a remake of an already existing property, the Muppet’s are great as usual and they provide a lot of very funny jokes including some that are purely for the adults.

Whoopi Goldberg plays an amazing God, its so funny to see such a chilled out lord of the universe and who wouldn’t love a God who is a massive fan of Spongebob? (from the movie haha not sure if Whoopi really loves Spongebob)

There are so many references in this film from Steve Irwin to Star Wars, the only reference I didn’t like was the Grinch and that was because instead of choosing to reference the original they chose that terrible Jim Carrey Movie.

I don’t know how they do it,but somehow almost every Muppet movie has a sad song that makes me cry in this case its about Kermit wanting his life back, trust me guys this rivals the goodbye song from Muppet’s Take Manhatten.

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas is a surprisingly very good film, its not perfect but its nice and that all you really need for a decent family flick, all of the actors, actresses and Muppet’s do a fantastic job and the film is genuinely quite charming.

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up this year.

Thanks for reading my Review of It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas

The next Christmas movie I will review is

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July (1979) Review

December 6, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Before I sat down and watched this movie i’m not gonna lie I was quite worried that my experience would be a complete repeat of the last review, before watching the film I decided to do a bit of research and this is when I found out that it was a Rankin/Bass production which quickly turned my worries into excitement and nostalgia.

For those who are not familiar with Rankin/Bass they are a small production company that made their fortune in the early 1960’s until the late 1980’s making many different types of animated films and movies based on well known stories and fairy tales, they made a lot of Christmas related movies during their most successful years some of the most popular ones to my knowledge are Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer , Santa Claus is Comin to Town and Jack Frost all of these films were made using traditional Stop-Motion animation but they made many other films using standard animation and live action recordings.

I don’t know how I managed to skip Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July as a kid because it’s definitely a very special movie, I was very surprised when I was watching this because I started to notice that almost every character from the other Rankin/Bass Christmas movies made before this one had some sort of appearance in this movie and from doing some extensive research I found out that for the most part they even used to original voice cast for each character which was a really cool nod to the other movies and more importantly their fans.

This is Lady Boreal who is a very important character in this Christmas Special as she is the person who gave Rudolph his red nose, the fog Rudolph’s nose was used to clear on that one foggy Christmas Eve was not a just a fog but was instead a fog of evil snow dragons sent by the Wizard Winterbolt.

Rudolph’s Magic Nose has been protecting Santa from Winterbolt for years and now Winterbolt has finally had enough, he’s sick of Santa ruling the north pole and so he try’s to find a way to put out Rudolph’s nose for good.

The rest of the movie is just Frosty and Rudolph trying to defeat Winterbolt, they meet their friend who is an ice-cream man, Rudolph and Frosty join the circus and a lack luster battle against Winterbolt pursues.

Frosty and Rudolph Christmas in July is not that great which is real shame because a lot of the other Rankin/Bass movies are fantastic and don’t get me wrong it has the charm and the perfect animation to make a wonderful and innocent family Christmas movie, the big problem is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense and too often it feels like it only existed so that Rankin/Bass could put all of these characters in one movie, the plot wasn’t that interesting compared the other Rankin/Bass films but in the movies defense I have had to sit through a lot worse movies during the holidays.

Thanks for reading my Review of Rudolph and Frosty Christmas in July.

The next Christmas movie I will review is

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Review

December 2, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

There will be spoilers, so keep that in mind

“Every time a bell rings an Angel gets it’s wings”

It’s a wonderful life follows the life of George Bailey, as a young lad George enjoyed a regular childhood of playing in the snow, climbing trees and trying to find adventure in his every step, unfortunately for George after he saved his brother from a near death experience he went death in his left ear.

As an adult George is married with three kids and has taken over his fathers job as a bank manager and everything is going absolutely fine until eight thousand dollars goes missing just when the Bank inspector arrives, this causes a warrant to go out for George’s arrest and at this point he’s lost it.

George runs to nearest bridge and hes about to jump when he sees another man fall into the river, George jumps in and saves the screaming man, the man tells him that his name is Clarence and that he is George’s Guardian angel.

George tells Clarence that he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant George’s wish and he shows George what life would be like if he had never existed.

Every time I watch this movie I cant believe that there is a Christmas movie about a man wanting to kill himself and yet it is so good, It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the most iconic Christmas classics out there and and with good reason, it manages to send a serious message about suicide while also having enough charm and character to keep it’s audience thoroughly entertained.

The film surprisingly has quite a bit of well written humor on offer and lets not forget it’s brilliant cast, James Stewart (George) and Henry Travers (Clarence) have a really good connection not only as their respected characters but also as actors, throughout the film both of their personalities bounce of each each other perfectly and it’s this connection that really helps the film maintain such a wonderful atmosphere for such a dark subject matter.

The film is runs for over two hours and unfortunately Clarence doesn’t make an appearance until near the end which is a real shame because as much as the rest of the film is still brilliant at maintaining an interested audience I always felt that he should have been in the film more often than he is.

It’s a Wonderful life is and always will be my Favorite Christmas movie of time and I most defiantly recommend to any fan of classic Christmas films.

Thanks for reading this review of I’ts a Wonderful Life

Next film I will review is