Captain America : The Winter Soldier (2014) Film Review

Captain America, aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) has been through a couple of adventures, first in his origin story in Captain America: The Original Avenger, and The Avengers. Now, he is called on again to work with S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) as evil organization Hydra again attempts to rise up and take over the world. He’s helped by the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a soldier dude, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) who gets to fly around with some fancy new military technology that gives him wings.

This film was timed to be released partway through the television series of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , and I think that was an interesting concept. The film was mostly stand alone, but the television series suffered a bit. Still, this film had a whole heap of explosions, and added to the cast already mentioned were Robert Redford, Chin Han, Jenny Agutter, Gary Shandling and Australia’s own Alan Dale. The one thing I was left asking was, if the world is really about to end, why hasn’t someone given Iron Man and the rest of the crew the heads up? They’d be pretty useful, I reckon.

 

The Sting (1973) Film Review

It’s the 1930s. It’s Chicago. Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a small time con artist who wants to step up to the big league. He ends up working with Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), though things don’t go quite to plan.

Ah, these films that set up elaborate plots, don’t give the audience all the information, then let the scene play out, leaving the audience on the edge of their seat, hoping against hope that all will go well. Love it. Cannot get enough of it. It is a long film with a lot of set up, but watch it, and watch it closely, and love it like I do.

The Sting won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (George Roy Hill), Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced (David S Ward), Best Art Direction – Set Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert Redford) Best Cinematography and Best Sound.