OUT OF AFRICA (1985)

East Africa, 1913. A wealthy female moves to Africa to marry a serial philanderer. They happily live together on a coffee farm and he even stops screwing other females long enough to give her syphilis. What a guy. Throughout all of this, the woman has secretly been wettin’ her panties over a local chap who is a professional elephant murderer. She hooks up with him and eventually their relationship advances to the point were they can go out and murder animals together.

OUT OF AFRICA was a big deal when it came out back in the 1980’s. As evident by the fact it won multiple Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and was #5 at the box office for 1986. Beating out everything from THE GOONIES to FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. Revisiting it nowadays, it is entertaining and watchable, but that story is garbage. Very "unslay" as modern day kids would say.

Solid acting by the entire cast, gorgeous scenery, medium pace, rich people problems, some weird crap going on in the background at the beginning of the movie that looked super fake, unrelatable main character that I had zero sympathy for, dumb decisions left and right, onscreen bird murder, disappointing ending, average direction, cool-looking dog, zero sexual tension between the two leads, zero sex scenes, zero tits, zero dicks. Looking at the Winners and Nominees list for 58th Academy Awards, it’s difficult to see even one award that OUT OF AFRICA actually deserved. Then again, I think the overall winner for the year should have been BACK TO THE FUTURE.

As always, my uneducated opinion is totally formulated in my stressed out, little simpleton brain and holds zero weight at all.  I'm just a big dummy who likes yapping about movies.  That said, OUT OF AFRICA is an interesting time-capsule back to what was considered highbrow Cinema back in the mid-1980's.

A WALK IN THE WOODS (2015)

Mildly entertaining lightweight comedy about a aging travel writer (Robert Redford) who's beginning to face the fact that he's getting old.  Spurred on by this reality, he teams up with his old buddy Nick Nolte and they beginning walking the 2,200 miles long Appalachian Trail...without any preparation (other than buying a few supplies).  I don't even think they looked at a map because two months in they're completely shocked to learn that they're not even halfway to their destination despite the fact that Redford said at the beginning of their journey it would take 5 months or so.

I wanted to enjoy A WALK IN THE WOODS, but the whole thing just felt very disjointed.  There's little introduction to either of Redford or Nolte's characters and the entire walking along the Appalachian Trail doesn't have any feeling of progress or hardship.  Both characters look the same the entire film (even their hair stays the same).  Also they ride in a car at one point, stay in a hotel, eat at multiple restaurants.  I've never walked the Appalachian Trail, so all of these things were very confusing to me.  I thought it was all about being in nature and camping, not hitchhiking and sleeping in motels.  Another thing, besides the weak script, was weird stuff going on in the background.  There's multiple scenes that looked really really fake, like they were acting in front of a screen or in a studio.  That took me out of the movie.

Overall, I liked the film and I'm glad I watched it (I always enjoy seeing Redford and Nolte), but I just wish the script and direction had been better.  Oh yeah, Emma Thompson and Mary Steenburgen are both in this film as well, but their roles are so small that they're only on screen for a few minutes each.

Vermont and New Hampshire switched.

Somebody in the background controlling traffic.