Browse Tag: desert

RECAP: Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever (1971): Guy Hamilton

George Lazenby had one go at James Bond and said sayonara, welching on a seven-picture deal, which seems insane, but you have to consider he went on to appear in [three bad movies].

Sean Connery decided that maybe Bond wasn’t such a bad character to play, so he came back. Helping sway him was a then-record salary of £1.25 million.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: James Bond battles his arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, for we swear is the final time, who is at the apex of a diamond smuggling outfit and determined to make the great powers cower with them.   Continue Reading

RECAP: Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace (2008): Marc Forster

Picking up moments after the end of Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s James Bond follow-up is the first true sequel in the Bond canon. That fact alone makes this movie stand out.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: James Bond, fresh off the death of a lovely lady he fancied, tracks the organization responsible for her death.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Jarhead

Jarhead (2005): Sam Mendes

I’m trying something new here at The Exploder: reviewing an inaction action movie. Jarhead tells the story of Anthony Swofford, eventual private, in the US Marin Corps during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

It’s a long story for a short war, as it kicks off at Camp Pendleton in 1989, two years before the fight against Saddam “Insane,” as one character refers to him.

Strange thing is, Jarhead is perhaps the only war movie in which the main character doesn’t fire a shot.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A young Marine sniper survives the Gulf War without sniping anyone.  desi dating apps

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Independence Day (1996): Roland Emmerich

Today, we celebrate, Independence Day, not because it is a good movie, but because it is an AWESOME movie. Director Roland Emmerich has given us hits and misses, but the 1996 popcorn flick about an alien invasion starred Will Smith at the height of his powers and Jeff Goldblum at the apex of his, er, Goldblumness. Every eight-year-old boy’s fantasies of alien invasions were brought to the screen in theaters that July.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Belligerent space aliens are “welcomed” to Earth.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): George Miller

Imagine spending thirty years thinking about one creative project. You were ready to make this thing three decades ago, but forces of nature (and Hollywood, and Mel Gibson) conspired against you, always pushing back back back the thing you were trying to create. Imagine now that someone with some power somewhere gave you the green light, allowing you to unleash decades of pent-up ideas and energy, despite your seven decades of life. What would your creative work express? Imagine now that your long-dormant idea was a movie, a movie about the destructive nature of men, and a whole ton of things to blow up. Congratulations, you are George Miller, and you just made Mad Max: Fury Road.

ONE-SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A renegade general steals an armored truck to ferry fertile females to freedom as her boss pursues her with his glut of gonzo gas guzzlers.  Continue Reading