KWIF: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (+2)

KWIF = Kent's Week(end) in Film.

This Week:
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, d. Steven Spielberg - Crave)
Blink Twice (2024, d. Zoe Kravitz - AmazonPrime)
Miracle Mile (1988, d. Steve De Jarnatt - HollywoodSuite)

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E.T. was a big deal when I was a kid - both the character and the film. The movie was a crowd-pleasing sensation but for the kids and preteens it burrowed deep into us. At the end of the film, when the stunted, wrinkly, rubber-skinned alien has to say goodbye to the human family who took him when he was unfortunately abandoned, his finger glows and touches Elliott, whom he was most connected with, and says "I'll be right here."  And yeah, for those of us who watched and were affected by the film, he has in some form remained pretty ingrained in our brains. I'm guessing anyone who was a child of the '80's on this continent can cast a pretty clear picture in their mind of what E.T. looks like. 

Yes, E.T. is iconic, but unlike so many other pop culture icons he's not remained ubiquitous like he was in the 80's, he's not remained a pitch-thing for Reese's Pieces or been seen regularly schlepping for Honda or KFC or used in Space Jam or Wreck-It Ralph-style movies where "remember that thing" properties go for nostalgia tugs. No, E.T. remains (*taps forehead*) right here.

Did I love E.T. The Extra-Terrstrial as a kid? It's hard to say. I know I watched it enough times to be intimately familiar with its story, its repeated mantras, and have specific scenes live loudly in my mind. But, I was a Star Wars kid. To me the most exciting part of E.T. was when Elliott was introducing the spaceman to his Star Wars action figure collection. As an adult I now see how brilliantly director Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison allowed the kids to exist as kids in this space, and a scene like that would absolutely resonate with the kids in the audience at that time, most of whom would probably have at least a couple Star Wars action figures in their room, and perhaps were important enough to them to be one of the first things they introduce to a friendly space goblin they've brought home.

Like most of us from the time, we grew up into angsty teenagers who tried to dismiss or erase their childhood. I would get pretty destructive with some of my childhood toys, and the films and television I enjoyed as a kid would be "baby stuff" and I would get pretty dismissive towards it [and yet, I never really stopped loving Star Wars, or the Muppets, or He-Man or most of my childhood things, so maybe it was just E.T.?]. I'm sure many of us in our teenage years looked at E.T. as emotionally manipulative claptrap for children, and for some of us that perception never went away. 

There's nothing cool about E.T. It's not a wild adventure movie, nor is it an action-packed space opera. It's a rousing drama about those brief, but intense moments from childhood that stick with us forever. Henry Thomas' Elliott is our guide through this spirited time of adolescence, the middle child who is too old and boyish to connect with his younger sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore), and too young and annoying for his older brother, Michael (Robert MacNaughton), to want to spend time with him.  His dad has just run off with his mistress to Mexico, leaving his mom (Dee Wallace) to stoically do her best for her children, but it's clear she's barely holding it together.

When E.T. enters Elliott's life, after initially freaking each other out, there is a bond that is forged. Elliott is a lonely child, and he's unconsciously reeling from the absence of his father, and E.T. is a gentle stranded creature being hunted by men with flashlights in need of refuge. They fill an immediate need in each other's life, but quickly they come to care for each other, and they are literally psychically connected. They sense what each other is feeling. (I don't think I ever truly understood this aspect of their relationship as a kid.)

E.T. becomes a bonding point for Elliott and his siblings. The sister that he was distanced from is pulled into his circle of confidence, and his older brother suddenly is not only hanging out with him, but deferring to Elliott regarding what is in E.T.'s best interests. I would not have picked up on these sibling and family dynamics, nor how a third-party was a necessary thing in their life to bring them together in the wake of their father's abandonment of them.

Late in the second act of the film, E.T. has fallen ill, and so has Elliott as a sympathetic response. The visual of the pasty white E.T. and ailing Elliott in his waffle knit longjohns laying together on the bathroom floor was viscerally upsetting to me as a child. I never wanted to wear white waffle-knitted longjohns again, in case I would fall sick too. Michael is doing his best to try and care for the two of them, but he has no clue what to do. Their mom walks in only to panic, grab her children and try to flee they dying space goblin just as space-suited men start busting into every entrance of the home. It's a zombie attack-like sequence, and it was terrifying as a child. (As an adult, I think the NASA space suits, complete with sun-visor, is way overkill). 

The quarantining of the home, Elliott's gasping dialogue, E.T. conceding to his illness so that Elliott may live. The whole sequence was traumatic, which probably explains why I haven't watched this film in almost 40 years, even more than holding onto my teenage "manipulative bullshit for babies" opinion. It traumatized me (over and over again) and I didn't want to relive it.

E.T.'s sudden resurrection is a result of his psychic connection with his people being restored. Elliott knows his friend's revival is because his people are on their way back to retrieve him. It was E.T.'s disconnect from his people, not Earthly conditions or downing a six-pack of beer that caused him to fall ill. It's not something the film spells out for the audience (which could have been done easily through Elliott), but it is the answer to something I never understood as a child watching it.

The film is now over 40 years old, and it still packs a pretty good emotional whollop. The weight of the film falls heavily on Henry Thomas' young shoulders, with a pretty even distribution landing squarely on the extra-terrestrial of the title. Thomas is absolutely stellar, making clear choices and reacting with an exaggerated honesty that is incredible for a performer his age. The E.T. creature design is so alien as to be immediately off-putting but there's a gentleness in both the form and its expressiveness that softens the innate reaction. There's a couple of "bits" with E.T. getting drunk or getting dressed up in drag that require comedic timing and the puppeteers deliver.  The micromovements in E.T.s face and the expressiveness of the extending neck, along with the glowing bits and the adorable waddle, they all contribute to making a beloved character out of an aggressively unappealing exterior.

Returning to this as an adult, it's hard not to be swept up in such a deceptively simple story, especially when it features a sweeping John Williams score that punctuates every emotional beat.  It's Williams' score even more than the beats of the story that lead me to the "emotionally manipulative" critique. But that is the conductor's job is to accentuate the story and does it ever!  I couldn't help but let some tears loose (but oddly not at the moments you would think). The film connected to deep-seated emotions no matter how much I wanted to fold my arms and harumph my way through it.

Even the "bad guys" of the film aren't really the bad guys. Peter Coyote's man-with-the-keys-on-his-belt, unseen in full until the third act, is a most menacing figure that even at a young age we know from storytelling tropes that he's bad news. Except he's not. He's not effectively there to help E.T. get home, but he is there semi-altruistically to meet an alien, something he's dreamed of since childhood. He recognizes Elliot's connection to E.T., and being an adult, is aware of the nature of man, and is grateful to Elliott that he got to him first. All the scientists and whatnot try to help save both the alien and the child, unaware of their psychic connection nor the creature's need to return to his people. Their sin as the film's villains is that of adults throughout the film, of being emotionally oblivious to the needs of the world and its people and creatures. 

Do I love E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial? Nah. Not so much. I still kind of find it to be emotionally manipulative bullshit. But I can see things in it as an adult that I couldn't see as a child that tip me off to the immeasurable craft and care that went into the production, and the exceptionalism is evident all throughout the film. 

E.T. is incredibly well-constructed, and plays like magic, but there are still things that keep me at arms length from truly embracing the film (outside of the traumatic childhood response). While I'm quite fond of E.T.'s empathic connection to Elliott, I hate his telekinetic ability. I hate that he floats things around and especially hate the flying bikes. Even as a kid I didn't care for these sequences that tried to recall Superman (with another Williams score). It never made sense to me invoking superpowers into this otherwise grounded tale, and it winds a pretty convenient deus ex machina.  I also don't like that E.T., despite coming to a certain comprehension of our language, never presents his (its) name to his Earthly friends...assuming his people have names. I'm fine with "E.T." as a film title, but kind of hate it as a character name. Can't he be called, like, Grogu or something?

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Blink Twice, at least as it plays on AmazonPrime, opens with a trigger warning from the studio and Amazon, noting that the film deals with sexual assault. It's also a spoiler warning that dramatically changes the tenor of the opening act.

Roommates Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) are also best friends and coworkers. Their current gig is as caterers at the Met Gala, where Frida spies billionaire tech mogul Slater (Channing Tatum). She had just seen him earlier on social media making apology statements about some misconduct or other, but it's clear Frida was fixating on him, not what he did or what he was saying. At the gala, she fixates on him, and can't seem to pull her attention away. 

Frida and Jess ditch their waiting garb for eye-catching red and blue dresses (respectively) and Frida once again spies Slater and starts to stride towards him, but breaking her heel and careening hard to the ground. It's Slater who picks her up and seems utterly fascinated by her. He takes Frida and Jess into his inner circle, introducing them to all the names and faces within (including Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment and Kyle MacLachlan). The conversation is freewheeling among them all, but Slater and Frida seem most locked in on each other. Slater says the party is going to his private island retreat, and asks if Jess and Frida would like to join.

At the island homestead all phones are requested, so as not to interrupt the festivities. Frida and Jess are each given private quarters and bleached-white bikinis with vibrant white linen skirts and shawls.  All the women are. They settle in by the olympic-sized pool for cocktails and big fat blunts and other drugs, with exquisite catered dinners and relaxed conversation, though with strangely pointed personal questions, a few directed right at Frida, feeling both an outsider and yet, somehow, comfortable in this space with Slater fawning attention on her. The frivolity extends into the evening women running in the massive grass courtyard, their white linens flowing behind them as they giggle and squeal. 

And the days seem to repeat themselves. Drugs, drinks, food, pool, dancing, frolicking. The days blur into a sameness of dejavu, but one that seems too blissful to want to escape from.

All is not perfect however as the staff, who don't seem to speak fluent English, tend to avoid Frida. One woman on staff, an elderly maid, spies Frida and points at her repeating "red rabbit" over and over again. And there's also a snake problem that the staff spend a lot of time tending to. But Jess gets bitten by a snake, and hours later starts freaking out, the bliss of this retreat completely gone. Frida tries to soothe her, but wakes up the next morning to find Jess not only gone but her existence completely unacknowledged by anyone else.

It's from there that Frida starts to unravel herself, and the island seems more like a prison than a vacation. 

Even without the trigger warning at the head of the film, I'm pretty certain Kravitz's fairly exceptional direction leads us to understand that Slater is "stranger danger" and his uncontrollable allure to Frida is a bit of a puzzle. Frida and Jess agreeing to go with feels like an "oh no" moment, doubled when cel phones are requested be handed over, and once more when all the wome are graced with the same exact wardrobe. It's a definite "Get Out" vibe. 

I don't know if the film hadn't had the trigger warning if I would have felt the opening time on the island was more casual...a more "where is this going" sensibility? I would have maybe wondered if they were all in danger. Given the stacked cast, there was a Glass Onion sensibility mixed in with the Get Out vibe. It could have went anywhere, but the trigger warning spelled out where it was going from the start. Not completely, but we know.  And I was on edge, nerves frayed, the entire time.

There is a process of discovery, and my stomach started to churn as things unravelled. It's what we thought it was, but also somehow so much worse. But it's not just trauma porn, it's also a revenge flick.  We so desperately want the tables to turn, and when they do it's only somewhat satisfying. Almost too beholden to the power dynamics, Kravitz concedes that this can't just be an easy win, and it gets pretty ugly.

The power dynamics are the baseline to the entire plot, and the conclusion subverts those dynamics in the most...capitalistic way possible, such that I wasn't satisfied by it, but I got it. It's a control thing.

In the moment, I was too frazzled (and quite invested) in Frida's increasingly horrifying predicament and not necessarily examining the scenario she was in. There are questions and holes to be poked into the way memories are masqued and restored, but it's best not to look too deeply as it could all unravel, and as much as I was upset by it, I liked the film enough not to want to pull it apart.

Kravitz's debut feature looks amazing. It's a sun-baked film with vibrant colours and Adam Newport-Berr's cinematography captures picture-perfect frames in a movie where photos are constantly being taken but never seen.  It all reminds me a tid of Don't Worry Darling, another exceptional-looking feature from an actress-turned-director that tells a fundamentally flawed story of abuse and assault set in a heightened reality very very well. I would say Blink Twice hangs together much better than Don't Worry Darling (which is more of a puzzle box) but it's not a competition and we don't need to pit the two films against one another.  Ultimately it is important that stories about assault and abuse and/or the fear and anxiety and/or trauma thereof come from women storytellers and are presented on the main stage rather than as niche or arthouse features.

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The Miracle Mile is a Los Angeles neighbourhood that includes extensive residential and commercial buildings, and is higlighted by its shopping and museums, as well as the La Brea tar pits.  It is, like many "downtown" commercial cores, very active during the day and quite sparse at night.  It could be a really charming setting for a romantic comedy, or a haunting environment for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. 

The film Miracle Mile opens with Harry (Anthony Edwards) providing a monologue over a montage of images, talking about love and connections and missed opportunities, as he spies Julie (Mare Winningham), and can't help but be captivated by her, following her around the La Brea Tarpit museum. They eventually connect, their dialogue is cute and flirty, and they have a couple of dates that dip in and out of montage. Visually it's all gauzy, hammering home the dreamy falling-in-love moments. Julie promises a more intimate encounter for their third date, and she advises Harry to head back to his hotel to rest up while she heads to her waitressing gig, ending at midnight.

A power surge interrupts Harry's alarm clock and he wakes up three hours late. At the all-hours diner where she works Harry tries to draw out Julie's contact info from the waitress. After making a futile call in the phone booth outside the diner, the phone rings back. Harry picks it up. On the other end is someone frantic, mistaking Harry for their father, and telling them about how the missiles have been launched. It's an hour and counting to doomsday. 

Edwards is fantastic in wrestling with the info he's received from this phone call. He doesn't know how to parse it out, and the patrons of the diner, most he's never met, are his only lifeline to his sanity. It just so happens there's someone in the diner with enough connections that they can at least corroborate that Harry heard something he wasn't supposed to, and it sparks off panic among the diners. It's time to get the eff outta dodge. But Harry, having just met the love of his life, isn't going to leave Julie behind.

Just getting to her is an epic feat on its own, nevermind getting to the rooftop helipad that will take them to the airport and to safety. Events continue to escalate into increasingly upsetting acts of violence as zero hour looms. It's all happening real-time as well, which adds to the tension. We rarely leave Harry's side, though the camera may glance away at some aspect of chaos or another or linger behind in a situation before jump cutting back to Harry.

By the time dawn breaks, the streets have erupted, and it's straight-up madness. Some familiar faces come back around, but in more dire straights. Harry starts to question, given the timing, whether he "Chicken Littled" the whole scenario and has all this rioting, death and chaos on his shoulders.

Miracle Mile works exceptionally well because of its real-time gimmick. It lets us feel the intensity as those minutes counting down without relying on any countdown clock motif (but occasional check-ins with the time via community clocks do give us bearings). It also works so incredibly well because it does cast that doubt that Harry just might have misconstrued something, or that it was an elaborate prank call. It's easy to forget amongst all this that Harry is just a tourist, that this isn't his home and that he doesn't know his way around very well. He relies upon others, but learns quickly that most others aren't easy to rely upon.  His desperation isn't self-survival but to hold onto the love he's only briefly found, and it's his greatest desire to service that love, protect it, even over self-preservation. It drives him to extremes, but even some things are still an extreme too far for him.

It's a pulse-pounding, exciting and somewhat upsetting film, as pre-apocalyptic stories tend to be. It's only through Winningham's winning affability that there's some oasis from all the weight of the night's events.

I had seen Miracle Mile a couple decades ago and I have a vague recollection of liking it, I didn't remember much outside of images of the diner, the mall, 80's clothing, and the very memorable ending. It was great to revisit it with almost fresh eyes and I can't see forgetting it any time soon.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Killer's Game

2024, JJ Perry (Day Shift) -- Amazon/download

If I can say anything positive about Back in Action it is that it was exactly what it meant itself to be --- it just did not mean anything good. But it is true to itself, in tone and execution. I wish this movie had been so, because all in all, I really enjoyed this movie, it just ... was a bit uneven.

The elevator pitch -- a hitman finds out he is dying of an incurable disease, and goes to his competition to take a hit out on himself. Then he finds out they got the diagnosis mixed up with someone else and has to fight off everyone trying to kill him.

Dave Bautista is that hitman, desperate to shed his Drax suit, taking (thankfully) leading roles that place him as the well-rounded Cool Tough Guy Who Gets the Girl. The opening of this movie is about getting that girl, as Joe Flood (Dave Bautista, Riddick), a Europe-based hitman (another Hollywood movie banking on the incentives shooting in Europe provides) has a meet-cute during one of his jobs. The girl is Maize (Sofia Boutella, Rebel Moon: - Pt One: The Child of Fire), a dancer, and Joe kills an oligarch in her audience, but also helps rescue her from the ensuing chaos. They hit it off, and the movie does its best to avoid the Beauty & Beast scenario despite Bautista's looming over her. The most beastly thing about him is his haircut.

The opening sequence, the setup, is sobre, serious, even gentle. Uncharacteristic of these movies (assassin movies) Flood's handler Zvi (Ben Kingsley, Iron Man 3) is a friend and even helps Joe set himself up to get out of the business. That is, until Joe's headaches turn out to be Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and his world comes collapsing down around him. Joe goes to Antoinette, a handler for a rival organization that hates him cuz Joe killed her father ("My name is Marianna Antoinette, you killed my father, prepare to die," in a French accent). She joyfully accepts the job, as well as Joe's conditions. Until Joe finds out the doctor switched the results, and Joe is not the guy who ate contaminated brains. He finds this out just as the first international assassin attacks him at his home.

It was at this point that the movie's tone shifted drastically, becoming almost comical in its depictions of Joe's rival assassins, the colourful killers who took on Antoinette's job, almost cartoon exaggerated characters, including a Korean gang, a pair of Scottish brothers, a pair of Ritchie-an London hit women, a dancing Mexican, etc. Antoinette refuses to cancel the contract and even goes further, increasing the bounty. Silly acting killers come out of the woodwork. It all comes down to a splodey fight in a castle, cuz "Europe-based".

Don't get me wrong; it's fun, but the shift in tone was disappointing. And it leads the movie down an irreverent path towards quips and snarkiness, which I generally enjoy, but I so much more liked the sombre introduction to the character. But assassin movies these days have to be flashy and full of dark comedy. Bautista was alright, though I am not sure he is able to act his way out of his bulk. Despite a vast amount of slimming down since his more bulkier roles, the man is still a giant, especially when standing next to Boutella. Sure, that is the point, but it wasn't the point of his character, who is supposed to be sly and maneuverable, a sniper rifle, not a sledge hammer.

What? You don't mention Terry Crews as sexi-fied assassin Creighton Lovedahl (best name EVER!) who flips on Pom, and helps a Bautista out? Or Alex Kingston as Zvi's ex-prostitute wife and how they're absolutely adorable together?!?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Self Reliance

2023, Jake Johnson (feature debut) -- Netflix

Watch a movie on our list? Or watch something that just appeared on Netflix, because it caught our attention....

Sigh.

Not that heavy of a sigh, as this was alright. And the premise is ... interesting? This is where my lack of commitment to an opinion comes into play. Was the movie worth the effort put into watching it? I guess I will have say "yes" for I did mildly enjoy it. But just mildly shouldn't be enough these days; I should want for at least Good if not Great. That is the reason for the sigh.

Dude, you're spinning out.

Premise. Andy Samburg (actor but also character) pulls up in a limo to proposition Tommy (Jake Johnson, The Mummy), a loser -- the people he represents will give Tommy $1,000,000.00 (Doctor Evil cackle) if he survives 30 days. During those 30 days if he is alone, other players (staff?) of "the game" are permitted to murder him. They cannot attack him if he is in the presence of others. This is all some sort of European (usually these things are Japanese but the really nice Danish guys was a fun twist) dark-web reality show and he is also informed that there will be cameras and observers everywhere so it can all be televised. Its sort of like Jackpot! but more dark comedy than directly comedic. 

This is Jake Johnson's directorial debut, movie wise. He also stars.

Its fun, its quirky and on-brand for Johnson, in that the character is entirely spinning out from almost the beginning. Its not as easy for him as he thought it would be, to find someone to always be around. His family doesn't believe him and labels this just another episode in his usual behaviour when he doesn't want to face something -- in this instance, he hasn't gotten over his breakup two (two!!) years ago. Literally the best thing about the movie is his older sister Mary sniggering in the background and goading Tommy every chance she gets.

Most of the movie is vignettes of Tommy being stalked by the other players (again, maybe staff?) and the few people who indulge him, until they cannot handle him any longer. Even the homeless guy (Biff Wiff, Trade Show Show) he pays to follow him around seems somewhat annoyed. Even the girl (Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air) who answers his Craigslist ad, claiming she is also playing the game, eventually tires of him spinning out. And yeah, so did I.

What more would I have wanted? More lunacy, more violence, more zaniness. I mean, if I was watching the game I would have been bored almost immediately. There are hints that the killers sent after Tommy are quirky individuals -- cowboy (Jeff Kober, Sons of Anarchy), giant in a Michael Jackson jacket (Boban Marjanovic, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) -- but there aren't enough of them. I means, its LA; there should have been more just regular LA weirdoes. 

In the end, it was alright but as hinted above, I am not sure I am satisfied with alright right now, and yet, that is what I keep on shoveling into my mouth.

Captain America: Brave New World

 2025, d. Julius Onah - in theatre

I have been fairly defensive about the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe movies even when most critics, and, it seems, much of the populace, has become pretty exhausted by them.

I have invested a lot of viewing time and contemplative energy into the MCU, so I want to see it succeed, but a lot of the recent Marvel entries I feel like I have to be quite forgiving and charitable towards despite seeing a lot of the same flaws that their harsher critics identify.  

It's hard, though, with films like Thor: Love and Thunder, The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World to really invest in them when they seem so aggressively (and noticeably) chopped up and restructured, riddled with scenes that seem truncated on odd beats, weird additional dialogue recordings that don't sound like they are part of the scene, pace-halting exposition-heavy cut-in sequences, or truly, brain-meltingly ugly reshoot scenes (in an otherwise nice-looking film) that feel so out of place within the film's sequence like they were inserted from another reality.

Brave New World is riddled with these distractions, but, at its core it results in a decently engaging superhero, but largely forgettable, political thriller in a superheroic world.  

The film opens with Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford, replacing William Hurt in the MCU after his passing) having just won the Presidency. In his victory speech he hammers home the point of bringing the country, and the world, "Together." His key initiative is a global accord around mining right of the giant Celestial being turned to stone in The Eternals, which, it turns out, contains an unrefined metal that can be refined into Adamantium, a metal on par or superior to Wakanda's vibranium. 

Sam Wilson, now Captain America (Anthony Mackie), has decided to support the "Together." initiative and work with Ross, whom he was on opposite sides of during the superhero Civil War. Sam, now with an upgraded flight suit of Wakandan technology, is also reluctantly coaching his man-in-the-chair pal Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) in becoming the new Falcon, with the forgotten Captain America, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) acting as trainer.

But at a White House event, something triggers Bradley and a number of other Secret Service agents into attacking President Ross and his diplomatic guests, setting off a conspiratorial puzzle Sam, Joaquin and special attache (and ex-Black Widow) Ruth Bat-Seraph must unravel.

The film is trying so hard to follow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier's footsteps, but it misses the key element of that film, which is having the story be of personal consequence to Sam Wilson. Sure, Sam's investment is about freeing Bradley who is clearly a pawn in all of this, but it's still a tale that's actually centered around Ford's President Ross, with the mastermind behind it all having been reported two years ago in casting leaks, so there's no surprise to scale up to.  Even the big reveal that the villain of the piece has been playing Ross for years and has set the foundation for Ross to turn into the Red Hulk, something which should have been a cheer-worthy surprise (as it's teased throughout the first two acts before erupting in the third) but was heavily part of the marketing campaign for the movie.

Throughout it all is rising political stakes as America and Japan seem to be heading towards war as they view for control of the Celestial.  It all seems a bit much for a man in a high-tech bird suit to take on, but that's what is supposed to elevate Sam Wilson, that he is the man capable of solving nations going to war and a Hulk rampaging on Washington.

There is a scene or two with Sam having to face his own limitations, having to face the pressure of being a Black man taking over the moniker of a legend and knowing there are people depending on him to succeed, just as there is a contingent of people eagerly looking for him to fail. He speaks to his imposter syndrome, the pressure that's on him, and how one slip-up is all it will take for it to be all over.  I wish this was more at the heart of the film.  Sam did spend a lot of energy in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier denying the burden of carrying the shield before stepping into it. This touches upon what he now faces, but not enough, and it seems somewhat watered down.

Captain America, whether it's Steve or Sam, is meant to lead and inspire. Steve had a super-soldier serum coursing through is veins that gave him strength, speed and agility to physically stand up in a fight. Sam may have technology, but has to rely upon his wits, his compassion, and his trauma counsellor training as much as any physical skills. There are a few examples of that here, some better than others (as those in the reshoots seem...a bit rushed and unrefined as far as speeches go).

Most of the aerial sequences are really good, but none are great. The film doesn't give us the sense of wonder of flying like Sam so much as it show Sam flying. It looks pretty cool, but it's not a visceral experience. It's a problem Marvel's been having increasingly is their sense of superpowers has devolved into a very matter-of-fact, into a given as opposed to something unique and worthy of continued awe.  Sam's new suit, containing Vibranium technology much like Black Panther's suit, allows him to absorb kinetic energy and erupt it back, as well the wings contain razor-sharp blades that can slice a car in half if necessary. In an effort to have bigger fight sequences, we find the suit doing things that test even its super-science credulity. It would be far more interesting if Sam had to puzzle his way through these encounters rather than just be CGI figures fighting CGI planes and missiles and other CGI characters.

Of course it all leads up to what the trailers promise, Captain America versus Red Hulk, and it's here where I was finally really impressed. The likeness of Ford they captured in Red Hulk is so good that I would believe that Ford actually gave a performance as the beast (can you imagine Harrison Ford in a mo-cap suit?). And the rampage through Washington, the wanton damage to the White House, all looked pretty spectacular. There was a density to it all, a sense of the heft and strength of the Red Hulk and the lack of resistance that the buildings around him could provide. 

Brave New World spent a lot of time with President Ross trying to prove to the world, but mostly his daughter, Betty (a returning Liv Tyler) that he was a changed man, no longer the might-makes-right General, but a more forward thinking, diplomatic individual. Were this solely a film about Ross, it seems right that in the end it would be his daughter who would talk him off the rage-ledge that turned him into a Hulk.  It's so clear that this is what the film was leaning towards, but in the end they understood that this resolution takes away Sam's agency as the hero of the piece and it ends with a reshoot sequence of Sam appealing to Ross in a pretty unconvincing manner.  

The shadowy adversary is the grand manipulator of the events of the film, and it's only through Sam's intervention that his plans go completely awry. So it winds up thoroughly unsatisfying in conclusion that the villain of the piece just surrenders himself in a parking lot in the ugliest reshoot of the film. I can't even speculate what the original sequence was going to be but this was a horrendous resolution to that thread and made absolutely no sense for the character. Plus, this character's story was specifically tied to Ross and not Sam, which, again, undercuts the title figure.

Mackie is really, really good here. He's the leading man of the picture, and he seems to get what it means to "level up" a character. It's a film that does level Sam up in many ways, but it doesn't do him complete justice. It robs him of focus time and again in making the events all about Ross, and having Sam doggedly stick his nose into them.  Ross should have been much more on the backburner, and the film should have had the courage of its convictions to make Ross more outright the enemy. But it seemed determined to disprove that idea "a man can never change", and it had lofty goals of striving for a healing bridge in a divided nation.

But Sam Wilson will not be the healing bridge. He's a character in a movie. Points for ambition, but double points deducted for middling execution.

These Marvel films, being confined by their predetermined release dates, are suffering as a result. If the films need to be so heavily restructured in their editing then it's clear they need more time in the scripting and planning stages. They need to be less beholden to pre-visualized fight sequences and work harder at character-centric stories and letting their storyteller take the lead over "universe expanding", or in this case, circling back on ideas and characters from the past.  

The shared universe was once a feature of the MCU, but it's now becoming a bug, a storytelling crutch that's not helping something that seems to have two broken legs.

It's a movie. It's not offensive, but it's also not great.

KWIF: Purple Rain (+2)

KWIF = Kent's Week in Film... or rather it's "Kent's Week in Film but from two weeks ago because one of the films he stopped halfway through watching and put off finishing the column until he finished watching that film rather than just posting about the two films he had seen"... but KWIFBFTWABOOTFHSHTWAPOFTCUHFWTFRTJPATTFHHS is kind of an unruly acronym.

This Week:
Purple Rain (1984, d. Albert Magnoli - dvd)
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024, d. Jeff Fowler - in theatre)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992, d. Francis Ford Coppola - crave)

---

I can't say how many times I
have seen this poster but in
adding it to this post, it's the first
time I've ever noticed the woman
(Appolonia) in the background. That's
just how much Prince draws all the 
attention.

Prince was, without a doubt, a most distinct musician, a singular performer, and a one-of-a-kind persona on and off stage. He was an incredibly prolific songwriter, such that in the years since his passing there's still apparently thousands of recorded songs in his "vault" yet to be released (a lot of the delay in releasing said recordings is due to the legal turmoil over his estate). With such an astounding volume of output, even when just judging what was released when he was alive, it's no surprise that I love some of his songs, like some others, and the vast remainder I classify as "not for me". 

Prince was never my guy. He didn't have to be. Ever since I've been aware of pop music, Prince was there, to the point that I've never had to think much about him... he's just been a part of my audio diet my entire life. I never had to put a Prince album on, I would just get Prince in my life by being out in the world. But when I did put a Prince album on, to be honest, they didn't connect.  I guess I just didn't understand.

In finally watching Purple Rain, over 40 years after its release, I think I understand now. Music is Prince's art (duh), and like many artists, it seems like so much of it is specific to who he is.  His art is not created with others in mind, he is not motivated by being crowd pleasing, his art is just what came crawling (or spewing) out of him.

Purple Rain is a rarity in music biopics in that the artist was still in his ascendancy when the biopic was released, the artist plays himself in the film, and the artist managed to make the biopic about the success of new music created for the film, rather than any established hits. 

Prince and his band The Revolution came up in the Minneapolis music scene in the 1970's along with Morris Day and the Time, but the movie transposes the story to the early 1980's.  It's so '80's it hurts.  Having recently watched Streets of Fire, which came out the same year, both movies start out the same way, with vibrant neons screaming out of the shadows and pulsating pop hits blissfully inundating the audience's ears (on screen and off), but where Streets of Fire gets lost in its pseudo-reality that mashes up the 80's with the 50's, Purple Rain seems to be archiving the look and feel of the era. It's 80's and it hurts, but hurts so good.

Prince plays "The Kid" while Morris Day plays himself. They are rivals, competing for time and attention on the local music circuit. The Time's combination of boisterous rhythm-heavy soul mixed with Motown-style stagework is an obvious crowd-pleaser. The Revolution, playing The Kid's songs, are about challenging the audience, experimenting with sound, toying with expectations, and the audience runs hot and cold on them (I can relate).

Enter Appolonia, a beautiful wannabe pop singer from New Orleans who heard about the Minneapolis scene, and presumably a stand-in for Sheila E in Prince's true life story. She becomes the object of desire for both The Kid and Day, but we all know who's going to get her in the end. Day promises her the attention she craves from an audience, but she can't resist the wounded artistic soul of The Kid.

It should be noted that Prince, in playing The Kid, is...well...Prince circa 1984 all the way. The dramatically high hair, the one-of-a-kind exquisitely tailored outfits that bridge the gap between runway and superhero, and that bad-ass purple motorcycle that looks like it belongs on the streets of Gotham. The film's most absurd moment is seeing the kid run off stage while his band is still playing, stroll through the backstage corridors, burst out the back door, hop on his bitchin' ride, ride through the streets of Minneapolis (or L.A. posing as) to wind up parking in the driveway of in the most generic post-war bungalow. When you look like The Kid, you should have a freaking Batcave, or at the very least an all-brick-interior loft, not a room in your parent's basement.  

But this is the shattering of the pastiche of Prince that makes this fictionalized biopic so essential to understanding the man. The Kid enters his home to find his father, once again, beating on his mother. His father is a hulk of a man, at least compared to The Kid who barely scratches 5 feet tall and whose body weight doubles with all the gel in his hair. There's not much he can do to stop his dad, and that powerlessness is foundational.

Not only that but we learn that The Kid's father used to be a musician as well, bordering on big-time. His mother too, a singer on the scene...but it was their union that - instead of creating a force to be reckoned with - sunk them both into a toxic relationship of abuse and substance abuse, bearing a child who would grow up looking to escape them. But The Kid, with Appolonia, finds himself echoing his parent's dynamic, and catches himself, but not before it's too late.

Prince's best performances in the movie are when he's on stage (and seemingly half the movie is comprised of full-song stage performances, fully to the film's benefit) but he's still undeniably watchable and charismatic off that stage. Prince exposes his ugly side unabashedly, and he tells you exactly where that ugly side came from. It's not a point of pride, but also not something he wants to hide. The Kid, like Prince, is quiet and unassuming, but struts with confidence...except when he doesn't. The Kid never breaks outside of who we've ever seen Prince as, which is astonishing for a story that goes the places that it does. It's as if the image of Prince isn't an image at all, or else the Prince persona is so ingrained in him he can perform it with complete ease. Either way, it doesn't seem like acting.

Morris Day doesn't come off in the greatest light, here. He's like a high school bully, picking on the sensitive artist kid, and he's a nasty womanizer with a distasteful sense of humour. But, in playing himself, Day softens this with playing his whole schtick as camp. Like, he's not a punchline, but he and his entourage dial up their presence to the max, and then go over the top with a wink. At one point early in the film Day encounters a clingy ...ex-girlfriend? one-night-stand?... on the street and has her literally disposed of into a dumpster. It's disgustingly misogynist in context and riotously absurd in execution.

A sub-plot in the film finds The Kid's Revoloution bandmates Wendy and Lisa looking to have the band play a song they've written, and The Kid, certain only his genius matters, keeps denying them. But, in the film's climax, their song is the film's title track that not only bowls over the crowd but cements The Kid's status as the supreme performer in town (and wins back Appolonia)... except that Prince clearly wrote "Purple Rain" and the only track written by Wendy and Lisa on the soundtrack is "Computer Blue". I have to wonder if there was some other truth behind that fiction from Prince's backstory (especially considering Wendy and Lisa were rather new to The Revolution prior to the film's production).

I won't mince words, I loved Purple Rain. It's so shockingly unlike most musical biopics, the ones that try to span entire careers or focus on how the hits were generated. This is a slice of life movie, with a killer soundtrack, immensely energetic stage performances, and wholly understated drama. Never once is the intent of a scene spelled out, never once does the film give us the sense of pat resolutions, and never once does it stretch outside the immediate story its telling. It's not projecting in any way the future celebrity The Kid-aka-Prince is about to experience, it doesn't have record label executives in the audience of the climactic performance ready to sign him up to a million dollar record deal, it never even intones there's a world outside that Minneapolis music scene worth giving a damn about.

This is a very, very personal film to Prince and I came out of it impressed with the restraint, the honesty and the lack of ego it took to play someone who is both very egotistical but also very wounded inside, and to show the origins of that pain. And it makes so much sense that the songs within the film are sometimes there to express emotions The Kid cannot express except on stage, but it also makes sense that some of the songs are just outright crowd-pleasing hits. The soundtrack is ludicrously good.

I came out of viewing the film with a new sense of appreciation for Prince, for his artistry. His songs, even when they're not the refined pop hits, are still expressions of himself, his creativity, his sense of exploration and curiosity, his appreciation for music, both in where it's been and where he can take it. I don't necessarily like it all, but I do appreciate much better the man behind the art.

---

There are a LOT of posters
for Sonic 3, but 10 of them, like
this one, are fun parodies of
famous Xmas movie posters

I have never been a hardcore gamer, and I haven't played a video game that isn't a simple mobile time waster or digital board game adaptation in a very, very long time. I lost the drive to while away the hours on such things.  As such most video game-turned-movies hold zero interest for me, whether it's Assassin's Creed, Hitman, Prince of Persia, Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog.

I watched maybe half an hour of the first Sonic movie before getting distracted and never returning. It was fine but didn't captivate me in any way. A couple  of years later and I found myself at a screening of Sonic 3 because my teen asked me to go with them, and I've always said "I'll go see any movie" (although I still groaned and asked if we could go see Companion or Presence instead...alas).

In Sonic 3, Sonic has to learn how to be a team player with his new pals Knuckles and Tails, especially now that Shadow is on the loose.

Shadow was captured by a shadowy inter-governmental agency and run through experiments nearly 50 years earlier. The only thing that made it passable for Shadow was the friendship and companionship of the granddaughter of the lead scientist, Prof. Robotnik (double-senior to the usual Dr. Robotnik). When she is killed in an accident, Shadow is put on ice. Now that he is free, it's up to Sonic and team, partnering up with a depressed (and still alive) Dr. Robotnik to find Robotnik's grampa and save the day.  Except grampa  Robotnik is a nefarious guy with his own plans and things are bound to go haywire.

Sonic 3 is passably entertaining.  The effects are decent and there's some pop to some of the action sequences, though they're not pushing any boundaries here. I didn't really care about any of the characters coming into the movie nor did I develop any strong feelings for them coming out of the film. Ben Schwartz is kind of the perfect vocal tone for Sonic, playful and hyper and able to dip into pathos without getting too heavy...it's a really kid-friendly vocal performance for a kid-friendly movie. Jim Carrey does double duty as both Robotniks and, I have to say, is really going for it. Carrey always was a sort of human cartoon so being able to lean into that side of his schtick in dual roles seems so completely in his wheelhouse. The script (and I'm sure Carrey's plentiful ad-libs) don't totally abstain from pop-culture references but they're not the foundation of the humour here. Despite never being a big Carrey guy, I did find his performances here were *the* thing to glom onto. Keanu Reeves plays Shadow and...I never would have known if I weren't told. It's an effective performance for a brooding, sad character, but it doesn't stand out in any way.

This is straight-up middle-of-the-road family-friendly entertainment. It's not setting out to do much other than entertain some kids, their parents, and fans of the franchise for two hours, and it seems to do just that.

---

A few weeks back I crammed viewings of the three iterations of Nosferatu into two days. Nosferatu, in its original F.W. Murnow iteration, was a thinly concealed spin on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. For copyright reasons, it was intended for a German audience only, intent on skirting the attention of Stoker's estate. But it was too good, circulated too widely in Europe and the film did receive a lawsuit and most copies of the film were destroyed.

I've seen various iterations of Dracula in the past... I watched the Tod Browning version and its superior Mexican counterpart filmed in the same sitting in 2023, I watched many of the Hammer Horror versions in my early 20s and I saw Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (got a real "Ruth's Chris' Steakhouse" vibe to that name) when it came out. I'd be lying if I said any of them left a lasting impression.

Coppola's version, if it stoood out to me at all, was in part because of the Topps Comics adaptation, featuring four issues of glorious Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy) illustrations. I was curious to watch a proper "Dracula" adaptation to see how it stood against Nosferatu. 

My mistake was thinking Coppola would do anything "proper" (see also the Toastypost on Megalopolis). His film opens with a prologue in the late 1400s with Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) going off to war, during which his beloved Elisabeta (Winona Ryder) hears of his demise and she drowns herself. Vlad returns home to find her dead and, in his rage, renounces God and all things holy, in the process becoming something demonically other.

A woefully miscast Keanu Reeves, sporting one of the all-time worst British accents committed to celluloid, plays Jonathan Harker, the young newlywed solicitor tasked with helping the noble count Dracula close his land deal as he plans his move from Transylvania to London.  Harker's arrival at the castle finds the young man is kept captive, unable to resist the demands of dramatically garbed and coiffeed Count. Dracula has spied a photograph of Harker's bride Mina (also Winona Ryder, somewhat miscast), who bears a striking resemblance to his Elizabeta, and he is stricken.  In his captivity, Harker seems to enter a semi-fugue state and, roaming the grounds, he encounters the Count's brides and things get...real horny, but blood horny, you know?

Dracula makes his preparations and the move to London, where he stalks and seduces Mina in the guise of an emo band frontman. Mina herself senses a connection to Dracula and despite her love for Jonathan can't seem to resist the Count. Her horny friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) has three suitors in Billy Campbell, Richard E. Grant and Carey Elwes, but runs into the night to fuck Dracula in his wolf form. She is bitten and falls ill, which spurs one of her suitors to bring in Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) who diagnoses her as victim of a vampire attack.

The first 45 minutes of Coppola's film is pretty enthralling. The use of super-imposition, at the time, was a trite, olde-timey cinematic technique, and hasn't much been used since, but when characters are telling stories and the images sort of fade in and hover beside them providing the visuals, it is striking, particularly because he uses it often, but purposefully. Likewise, in an era where CGI is in its nacent form, Coppola turned instead to in-camera techniques for effects, often involving lighting and shadows. Especially early on, when Dracula is on screen, his shadow moves independent of him, and it's a wonderful effect.  

Coppola with this film was definitely using red as centrepiece, whether it's blood or clothing, everything else is kept in cool tones so that the reds pop. And boy do they pop, whether it's the guyser of blood that erupts from the cross when Dracula stabs it with his sword in the prologue, or the freaky blood-play the brides have with Jonathan, or Lucy's red nightgown as she goes fleeing lustfully into the night.

I want to say the wardrobes are anachronistic, but the costuming is really not of any discernible time. It's all bespoke to the film, from Dracula's ribbed armor (assuming it's meant to reflect musculature) in the prologue, to the draping robes that are both loose and clingy on the women of the film, to Dracula's London appearance with a finely tailored crushvelvet suit and stovepipe hat and armless glasses with blue lenses that is pretty sexy in its own right. Everything looks great.

Dracula works best when its central figure is a threatening commodity. The opening scenes, despite Reeves' godawful accent, are scintellating, as is the voyage of the Demeter transporting the Count to London. The film lulls briefly when it first falls into its romance sub-plot, as Dracula woos Mina, but it picks up as Van Helsing, Harker and Lucy's three suitors go vampire hunting while Mina tries to resist her past-life connection to the Count. Dracula here is a man long devoid of humanity finding desire and connection again with a woman who reminds him of what he lost. Unlike Count Orlok of Nosferatu, who cannot hide his ugliness, Dracula is a monster borne of romantic tragedy. Is there redemption for him? Of course not, but the film strangely captures him not as the ultimate villain but a somewhat sympathetic demon of desire.

It's pretty wild.  

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Elevation

2024, George Nolfi (The Banker) -- download

This is a monster movie, a post-apocalypse movie, and thus a survival movie (probably the only non-survival post-apocalypse is "The Road", as long as we exempt pure actioners). The pitch, the trailer, the premise is that something came out of the ground and started killing people, and somehow survivors found out the monsters could not go above 8000 feet. So, our main characters have been living for a number of years in a remote community above Boulder. Colorado. Until they are inspired to go back below the elevation line.

These are familiar monsters. The movies have been dealing with them for a number of years: A Quiet Place, Bird Box and The Tomorrow War, etc. Each of their monsters are different in look & feel, though I did say that the last one had "...lizard-y bug-y tentacl-y things..."  (it also reminds me of the Moorwen from Jim Caviezel's 2008 Outlander, with its feline stalking and tentacles) but they are all singularly focused on ending human life, with a little help from vast numbers and nigh invulnerability. I wonder at the psychology behind this particular genre -- not a human monster, not a virus, not a war among ourselves that ends the world, but a very outside force, one that wipes us out and we can barely understand, let alone fight back.

Will (Anthony Mackie, Twisted Metal) lives in the mountain top community with his son Hunter (Danny Boyd Jr, Watchmen). Hunter's mom was lost during an expedition below the safe line with scientist Nina (Morena Baccarin, The Mentalist), and Will has never forgiven her. To be fair, she has never forgiven herself, and spends her days drunk but performing various tests which involve shooting at a scale, a piece of armour, which we assume came from a creature, which they call Reapers. But Hunter's time is running out. He sleeps every night with some sort of CPAP machine that depend on filters, of which they are running out of. Will knows he has to head to Boulder to get more. He convinces Nina to join him cuz she "owes him" and his late wife's best friend Katie (Maddie Hasson, Impulse) demands to come along -- she is secretly-not-so-secretly in love with Will.

In these movies, the point is to get from A to B, with this movie also needing a B back to A, but really its just the first journey that matters. The formula demands we start by taking it slow, keeping the monsters hidden, get to know the characters a bit, some conflict, some exposition about the monsters, how they work, and a bit of recollection about The Time Before. And then we switch to tension and chase scenes, combat in closed quarters, almost always futile, until the corner gets turned.

A Quiet Place excelled at the ... ahem... quiet bits, the "getting to know them" bits, and unfortunately all coming after will be compared. The exposition in this movie is a bit too pedestrian, and sure it scratches an itch, but despite me wanting to say some positive things about it, as I did enjoy the experience, I cannot say it excelled at anything.  Will is Anthony Mackie, Katie is a brave, pretty blonde (code for "red shirt" in these movies) and Nina was the only one an inch above cardboard -- I did enjoy Morena Baccarin's traumatized scientist, I cannot she was great. I want to be an apologist for the movie, I want to feel about the movie as we did Battle: Los Angeles, a solid B man-vs-alien movie, but in the end, even the monster reveal and fight scenes are barely above passable.

I wonder if its my mood of late, that very little is going above meh-driven distraction into the "enjoyable" phase. I did enjoy myself watching the movie, but primarily because this kind of movie is my genre. Nothing about it is as bad as straight-to or mockbuster, as the effects are decent and the monster is creative enough, but... I want more?

Going back to my second paragraph, the meta of these movies, this is where I find my most enjoyment. This is where my own head-canon pondering, the filling in of details, win out over what the movie gives me. And yes, I am spoiling for anyone who might care -- this is another example of the "alien sends monster ahead to clear the planet for them". None of these movies have explicitly said this sort of thing, but this one goes the furthest in acknowledging it -- the monsters are bio-mechanical in nature, just killing machines instead of actual apex predators, and the movie does end with a "3 new stars in the sky" scene, foretelling the coming of the creators. Will this movie get a sequel where we actually fight the master aliens? Doubt it, but it was interesting that the movie led us there.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Get Away

2024, Steffen Haars (Krazy House) -- download

Is there an actual Swedish horror movie tradition about weird cultish people in the wilderness? I mean we know there is Midsommar but... can you name another? A rabbit hole for another day, and either way, that is the setting the movie wants us to assume, that if you wander off the well-trodden path in Sweden, seeking a nice out of the way place away from cell phones and chaos, you can find a creepy bunch of people in the woods. Or on an island. Definitely islands.

Daddy and Mummy and their two kids have a AirBnB booked on said island of Svalta. Sorry, Richard (Nick Frost, Black Cab) and Susan (Aisling Bea, Alice & Jack), and Jessie (Maisie Ayres, Criminal Record) and Sam (Sebastian Croft, Heartstopper). They have had a tough year and just need somewhere off the grid for some non-stressful family time. As expected, the teen kids hate the idea. 

First up, the ferry to the island states it will pick them up but its the last ferry for quite some time -- the island will be isolated while it celebrates its traditional festival of Karantan (you must pronounce it with a Swedish accent and an ominous pause) that was... well, that time everyone became cannibals. In olden days that islanders were starving, while the plague knocked at their doors, and ended  up eating some English representatives instead. Now, every year they remember what they were driven to with a festival and a play. That is what brought the family here. 

Secondly, the diner at the dock is your classic "creepy, rude people" common enough in diners and truck stops and gas bars from horror movies. People in rural areas never trust people from The City, or in this case, tourists from England. The ride over on the ferry is not much better as a number of islanders heading back for ...  Karantan are not exactly happy to see outsiders. And the arrival at the island is worse. The island is mostly home for a "kommune", a bunch of anachronistic looking weirdoes who do not want tourists, and the only one not part of the commune is the creepy guy renting out his later mother's house as an AirBnB.

All is Not As It Seems is the tag line for all these kinds of movies. And yet, as they are horror movies meant for horror movie fans (referential, tongue in cheek), everything is as it seems. The islanders do have a creepy festival and creepy rituals, even if they have a lot of pride in what they do and very high production values -- the creepy costume is award winning. And the creepy (yes, creepy is the word of the day) guy running the AirBnB does have his own off-putting agenda.

But that's not all. And from now on Spoilers Abound.

You see, despite everyone in the movie acting villainous, the real villains of the movie are the family. They are not a family. They are part of some sort of organization of psychopaths that organizes "get aways" for killers. This isolated island full of people with a murderous, cannibalistic background is the family's holiday, where they get to kill with abandon! And the movie jumps into the gorey killing with gleeful blood soaked abandon! Not long after the Karandan play starts, which is quite impressive -- again with the great production values (!!) -- the real killing begins, and never stops and small, vicious family attacks everyone with blades and whatever is at hand.

Is this where I just admit it was cute? Is cute accurate for these kind of movies? Sure, the fountains of blood are often the point, but once the killing started, any plot deflated for me.  You mostly knew how things were going to go and they just had to play out. They comedy only somewhat worked and whole I love watching Aisling Bea and Nick Frost be their unfettered selves, I was only mildly amused. Would have been a more fun horror movie festival watch where you could feed off the more enthusiastic audience energy.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Back in Action

2025, Seth Gordon (Baywatch) -- Netflix

OMG I think "Baywatch" is from The Dark Year, a movie we probably watched in 2018 but I never wrote about. I know we did watch it, were not impressed, and I am not going to rewatch it, in order to actually write about it. Nope, not gonna.

I am not surprised this is by the guy who did Baywatch. It is that bad, going past the "digestible" label and deep into the over-boiled, over-salted pablum stage. And probably not going to get the response it wants for Cameron Diaz's return to acting after a 10 year absence. I am not quite sure I even noticed her absence, which is no slight on her, just that other than the Shrek movies, she wasn't doing anything I was paying attention to. To make that choice, to just step away from it all, must have been difficult, as long as you ignore the golden parachute she would have. And to be fair, nothing about this movie is on her, or even on Foxx -- they are giving exactly what the movie expected of them.

And also to be fair, this is probably exactly what the movie intended on being, its just that that intent is not very ... admirable? Maybe it's Netflix. I have already commented on the Netflix-style of action-thriller, usually starring Ryan Reynolds, but maybe it's more than a Netflix way of making movies, but maybe it's understanding its viewers? These movies seem built for not-paying-attention; there are no level of details in the movie that you can lose when you are looking at your phone, grabbing a snack or using the washroom. There are movies that you pause when you get up from the sofa, and movies you don't bother, cuz you aren't going to miss anything important. And maybe if it still hits all the notes you want when you look up from your phone, its doing alright by itself?

The movie starts with a hot-opener, an intro to our super spies, Matt (Jamie Foxx, White House Down) and Emily (Cameron Diaz, Knight and Day), wading into a villain's lair to steal a MacGuffin. They are supposed to be all subtle sly secretive, but they fail at that, and punch shoot and kick their way out, to rendezvous with British agent Baron (Andrew Scott, Ripley), who has a thing for Emily. He puts them on a plane to bring the MacGuffin to London, but in-flight they are attacked -- the British agents on the plane were killed and replaced. We assume Baron betrayed them. They punch and shoot and kick and blow the plane up, parachute out, apparently losing the MacGuffin. Also, Emily has confessed she is pregnant, and Matt is willing to whatever she wants. On the ground they decide their current life cannot do well to raising a kid so they let everyone assume they are dead (plane blowed up, remember) and go into hiding.

Fifteen years later, they are suburban soccer moms, uncool to their kids (they now have a second) and their spy life is in the past. Unnnntil they follow their teen daughter to a night club she has bluffed her way into, and have to punch and kick and shoot the night club thugs. Insert some excuses about taking self-defense courses. Of course, this outs them, and the Bad Guys come a-gunnin' shooting up the nice suburbia place they live as they escape with the kids, who don't get any explanation beyond "surprise vacation to London, England!"

Matt has admitted that he actually kept the MacGuffin and that is what everyone still wants. And he hid it in Emily's mom's place, a mansion in the English countryside, where she is a retired MI6 legend who is estranged from Emily, for being a Bad Mom. Parallel BS between Emily and her daughter, blah blah, everyone has to work together to get the MacGuffin while also making sure Baron, now head of MI6, doesn't catch up with them. Fight fight, shoot shoot, chase chase, quip quip quip. Kabooms.

I watched this over a few days of WFH lunches and only completed it because it didn't matter. I could watch in bursts of 25 mins or so, and lose very little in the gaps. And, of course, I didn't really care if I did. Why watch it then? Yes, the excuse that I want a movie that is that level so I can watch during WFH days, but also I do admittedly like the spy-action-thriller genre, even in the Lite form. Its just that nothing is invested in this movie beyond the bare minimum. I mean a lot of money is invested in it, but nobody cares enough to make it Good. And while this has been a problem in Hollywood for as long as they have been punching out movies, I still come along hoping they will do just enough to tip it over.

They didn't.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Triple 9

2016, John Hillcoat (The Road) -- download

Another from That List. Another one I Got To.

I can admit that for the entire time I knew of this movie's existence, I thought that the poster depicted a bank robbing squad that wore red, for a plot reason to be explained in the movie. But no, during the opening bank robbing sequence, one of their more greedy number grabs a bunch of money from a cart and stuffs it into a bag. And while they are fleeing, the dust/paint thing hidden inside the money goes off in the bag, billowing out into the vehicle, creating the look we see to your right. If only the greedy bastard had left the money where it was, and only stolen the safety deposit box they were sent in for, they would have escaped clean.

Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Serenity) leads this band of bank robbers, made up of  Russell (Norman Reedus, The Bikeriders) and his brother Gabe (Aaron Paul, Westworld), detective Franco (Clifton Collins Jr, Pacific Rim) and new recruit, detective Belmont (Anthony Mackie, Synchronic). Mike and Gabe are ex-military, Gabe is an addict ex-cop (he takes the money, to add to him being a bit of a screwup) and the other two are obviously very dirty cops. They are stealing the safety deposit box for the Atlanta Russian-Jewish mafia run by Irina (Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs). Instead of paying the crew, Irina has Russell tortured and murdered, as inspiration for Mike and his crew to take an even more dangerous job for her -- retrieving something from the Dept of Homeland Security holding facility. Rather than the movie being about Mike and his team taking revenge on Irina, its about them doing the second job despite them being down one man, and it being so much more dangerous and difficult. What they come up with is to initiate a 999 alert, called out when a cop is shot, drawing all available police to the shooting location. They are fine with killing a cop, even those who know they will probably know the man they will shoot.

Enter Detective Chris Allen (Casey Affleck, Ocean's Eleven), transferred into Belmont's unit and assigned as his partner -- the perfect victim. Also introduced is Allen's uncle Detective Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson, Kate), who has been assigned to investigate the bank robbery. 

Let me just say, there are a LOT of faces in this movie! Michael J Williams, Gal Gadot and Theresa Palmer even join as incidental characters. But for all the talent in this movie, it was ... just OK ? Its primarily about terrible things happening to bad people, which already diminishes my interest, and despite the billing, the heist elements play second fiddle to all the interactions. There is one incredibly well done scene, where the police raid "the projects", which adds an element of doubt and redemption to the "kill a cop" plan, and I cannot fault any of the performances, but... it was still lacking something. Sure, nihilism is Hillcoat's interest, but the moral quandries are not really ever fully explored, leaving us just watching all these terrible things happen with little resolve.

KsMIRT: Rewatch - Lost Seasons 1-3

It's a heavy time people. An in heavy times, one needs a little comfort away from the 24 hour news cycles and the crushing burden of awareness and action. In heavy times, you need to get a little Lost.

Do I need to explain Lost? Do we not all know what it is?  Fine...

Oceanic Flight 815 from Syndey to Los Angeles flies off course and ruptures mid-flight, breaking apart, crash landing on a beach on a seemingly deserted, tropical island. The island though, is rife with mysteries and threats and surprises which will pose problems for the continued survival of the survivors. Each episode spotlights a character intercutting between "present day" on the island, rife with adventure or conflict, and flashbacks to that character's life before the crash. 

Lost wrapped up its sixth and final season in 2010, maybe half a year before Toasty and I started this blog. I've probably mentioned Lost in dozens of reviews but I've never written directly about it here. (I would have to search my offline personal blog archives to see what I said about it while it was actually on).  I can't say for certain whether I've rewatched the series since its finale but my faded recollection is of doing a complete rewatch prior to debut of season 6.

Lost was a massive cultural phenomenon in its time, rapidly becoming the ultimate water-cooler TV show and the perfect series to foster episode-by-episode TV reviewing online, even spurring on the nascent form of podcasting at the time.  It was Lost's "puzzle box" storytelling that encouraged such attention and devotion. Producer JJ Abrams is often given the credit for the format, mostly because he would employ the technique of asking more questions than providing answers to in his cinematic career (especially in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens).  But much of the credit to the show's structure and success is the result of the paring of showrunners Damon Lindleof and Carlton Cuse (just as much of the behind-the-scenes issues and criticisms raised in the intervening years fall heavily upon their shoulders).

It was a show that thrived on piquing curiosity and constantly posing questions to its audience. Its genius was that every time they would answer a question, they seemingly raised two more so that the audience was never truly satisfied and there was a continual appetite to know more.  In rewatching Lost, it's this structure that makes it just as consumable as it was in its original airing.  

Likewise the show features a very large cast of main characters, and it would continually introduce secondary and tertiary characters, (some who would go on to become main characters) whose stories -past, present and future- would connect, sometimes directly, sometimes tangentially -- with each other. It's one of the great pleasures of binge-watching, picking up on the more tangential connections, like with the Sayed flashback set late during the Iraq war where he is coerced into torturing his Iraqi superior officer by Kate's dad (who himself works under Clancey Brown, who we next meet in Desmond's flashback as a member of the Dharma initiative).

A delightful result of its constant barrage of question posing and character intertwining is it's really damn hard to remember everything that happens and all the connective threads within the narrative, so the rewatch is so rife with surprises, many of the "ohhhh yeaaaah" variety but some that feel brand new. I'd imagine one would have to rewatch regularly or be intimately devoted to decoding the puzzle box to remember all the twists, turns and ties within the show.

The pilot episode remains one of the all-time best pilot episodes ever. Directed by Abrams, it opens with the plane crash, but mostly shot from the interior POV, giving a really gnarly, sick-to-one's-stomach visceral experience that is just relentless as the arrival upon the beach is just a chaotic display of death and destruction that nods to the opening salvo of storming Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. From there Abrams, Lindleof and Cuse introduce our main cast through the eyes of Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox). It's all intercut with flashback details on Jack that are there just as much to establish the show's storytelling format as it is to provide us with insight into Jack's character.

I would say it's impossible to watch the first episode of Lost without wanting to continue watching... it's like Pringles, once you pop, you can't stop. Lady Kent and I have been on a steady binge diet of Lost for four weeks now and there's been almost nothing else that we would rather put our attention towards in the evening than gorging three or four more episodes.

We're not watching with rose-coloured glasses though. Collectively we remember enough that we notice where the show falters, operating without a concrete plan in mind (the oft-cited lack of planning in having a pre-teen character who will grow up much faster than the pace of the show...by the end of season 3, it's only been about 3 months since the crash in the show). 

The first three seasons are each 24 to 26 episodes in length which butts up against how we consume modern television, especially highly serialized modern television. It's felt the most direly in the flashbacks, where it hammers home quite regularly how flawed its main cast are, primarily Jack and Kate (Evangeline Lily).  The flashbacks, at least in the first season, also play the puzzle box game, withholding information from the audience and teasing out questions about its characters, but in a fashion that quickly becomes unsustainable. Kate and Jack have at least double, sometimes triple the amount of flashbacks compared to the other characters, and their stories -- even by the end of the first -- season become somewhat repetitive. The later-series flashbacks regularly wind up impeding the propulsiveness of the events on the island, rather than enhancing them as it does early on.  That said, during our rewatch the only scenes of the show we fast forwarded through were some of the Kate and Jack-centric flashbacks. By season 3, the flashbacks as a device wore out their welcome so whenever the show would toy with the device, sometimes flashing back to sequences that happened between scenes to fill in the blanks from, say, another character's perspective, or to fill us in on what a character that we haven't seen in a while has been up to, it's fairly refreshing. 

A much-derided season 3 episode at the time of airing found the show focusing two characters, Nikki and Paolo, who were seeded in as tertiary Oceanic 815 survivors earlier in season 3. Their flashback sequences inserts them into many of the major events of the preceding two seasons while also giving them their own tumultuous arc together. At the time it was seen as a unnecessary distraction from the ongoing story, but the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead of it all, seeing events from a different perspective, makes it an absolute delight in the rewatch, especially when you know it's coming. (It also didn't help that it followed shortly behind the worst flashback of the show's entire run, a story whose sole purpose was to explain the origin of Jack's stupid shoulder tattoo. It's the worst episode of the show by far and remains only watchable in fast forwarding through to the island-set parts).

It's hard not to note that Lost had a real issue with their BIPOC characters. Spoilers for those that haven't seen, or didn't remember, but Michael (Harold Perrineau) and his son Walt (Malcolm David Kelly), the two main Black characters of the show were basically missing for most of season 2 and then only sporadically used throughout the remainder of the show. Tailies Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) and Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) are also short-lived cast members, mainly present in Season 2. When "the Others" are introduced, one of the most prominent, played by April Grace is unceremoniously killed without ever really developing her as a character in any way.  Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Sayed (Naveen Andrews) do fare much better (Jin and Sun's story is largely presented in subtitles, a landmark for network TV), but each faces their fair share of discrimination in the show. Hurley (Jorge Garcia) comes out relatively unscathed as a Latinx character, but the amount of body shaming and fat-phobic rhetoric in the show is pretty inexcusable.  There's also a plethora of behind the scenes criticisms that have been levied against its showrunners and their enablers, which are worth paying attention to. It is crucial context to why certain characters are underserved, and highlights that for as good as the show was, it definitely could have been even better.  And I'm not talking about Sawyer (Josh Holloway) whose dishing out of offensive nicknames is his primary character trait for the first season.

The behind-the-scenes issues don't affect my enjoyment of what's on screen too much although I get bummed when I notice plot threads that I know are left unresolved or underexplored (we never got a Libby flashback, and both Walt and Eko seemed like they were supposed to have a much more integral role in exploring the show's mythology).  It's hard not to get caught up in Lost's unparalled sense of discovery. Smoke monsters, polar bears, numbers stations, mysterious islanders, ghosts, hatches, other planes, and on and on. The more the layers are peeled back the bigger it all gets. 

The mysteries wouldn't be so potent if not for the production values behind them. Sure, some of the effects (smoke monster and polar bears) may not hold up to today's standards, but the mostly practical effects, the sets, the set designs, the wardrobes and makeup (credit to the show for seemingly casting women and men who seem to look more attractive the more unkempt they get), the iconography...it's not a cheap show, and it's Hawaiian locale is an absolutely gorgeous place to spend time looking at.  Everything to do with the Dharma Initiative and it's chonky 80's futurism is my favourite thing. Every time they find a new station on the island and a new video tape or film strip to watch, I get little shivers of delight. As much as there should never be a revisiting of the Lost mythos (just let it exist as is)...I would still take a series exploring the early days of the Dharma Initiative. 

While the "present day" story on the island is the show's driving force and the unfurling of its mysteries the show's raison d'etre, the flashbacks have their own connective tissue, each of the main cast's relationship with their parents, and in particular, daddy issues. The relationship these characters have with their parents is formative to who they are, and informative to why they behave as they do. Jack's dad was unable to express his emotions healthily (same with Jack). Kate killed her abusive stepfather and her mom turned her in which furthered her inability to trust. Hurley's dad left him when he was little, while Shannon's doting father died leaving her at the whims of a hostile stepmother. Sun's father was an automotive magnate with very shady black market dealings which Jin winds up being a part of, and Jin is ashamed of his background as a fisherman's son that he tells everyone his father is dead. And then there's Locke's father, probably the most vile character on the show.  He's absent from Locke's entire life (having been raised in the foster system) only to return to provide Locke the father figure he's always wanted, all as a ploy to steal Locke's kidney. He then returns, in the guise of making amends, but it's another scam, and in a third go-around he tosses Locke out a window when Locke gets in the way of one of his grifts. He's just a vile human being but Locke can't seem to let go of the desire to have him in his life.  These urgings of connection with our parents, especting ones that withhold their affection or abuse their children emotionally...they're exceptionally damaging and hard to let go of. The threads start to come loose from these themes in the second season and get pretty deatched in the third... I'm sure it's partly creative turnover in the writer's room, but also as the characters change on the island, their past lives don't necessarily directly reflect upon them. Except Jack, who seems incapable of changing.

If Locke's dad is the worst, Jack is kind of the second worst. Jack always needs to be in charge, he always needs to know everything no matter how irrelevant, and he is direly unapologetic for his actions. He's much like his father in that way, and kind of refuses to see it. The more the show explores Jack, in present and past tense, the more frustrating a character he becomes. He's "Jack of all trades", always wanting to fix everything himself even when that's not his particular skill-set. As a doctor, he's perhaps the most valuable person to the survivors yet constantly puts himself in life-threatening situations because he can't stand letting anyone else be the hero. Quite quickly, his oath as a doctor to "do no harm" goes out the window as he repeatedly threatens to kill people and has next to no compunction about handing people over to Sayed to torture them. Jack never grows, and by then end of season 3, where it ends in flash forward and Jack is an opiate-addicted arrogant asshole, it kind of forgets to parallel his story with his father, and he just becomes insufferable. I used to dislike Kate more, but I've softened a bit on this rewatch...a bit. She's still utterly self-centered to a maddening degree (a little like her mom), but it is her character, and we see how that self-centric nature bites her on the ass time and time again.  The difference between Kate and Jack is Kate seems to realize she's getting bit in the ass and that maybe she's doing harm, but Jack seems oblivious to the fact that he could ever be wrong.

In my memory, season 3 was a slog and season 2 was near-perfect. Truth is all three seasons have their highs and lows, it's just that season 3 had the lowest of the lows. Season 3 is mostly great, delving into the Dharma Initiative, the Others, and the strange phenomena of the island even further (plus so much more Desmond). And despite Jack's maddening descent into substance abuse and ego tripping, season 3's finale, with a doped-up Jack screaming "we gotta go back" is one of the most incredible season finales in TV history.  It shakes up the show, it upsets the flashback format, and it reinvigorates the formulae that started to outlive its welcome.  Season 2 had an epic finale of its own, but one that felt like appropriate closure from where it started and didn't quite hint at where things could go from there.

I love the first three seasons of Lost. Could they have been shorter and tighter? Of course, but every episode delivers something fresh for the show, something worth watching, something that advances the plot and entertains. I am fully invested, and it's providing such a necessary distraction from thinking about our hypernormalized world.  The island of Lost is, both in-world and in a meta sense, an escape from reality. The conversation at the time was the island was purgatory, that the survivors of Oceanic 815 didn't survive afterall, but we know that's false now. A much as the original desire was to get off the island, at a certain point, one has to think "why would they want to leave? What's worth going back for?"  It's part of what makes the fantasy of Lost work. For all the dangers it presents, the island still seems like an ideal place to leave all one's demons behind.

 ---

Lost Lists:

Favourite characters (seasons 1-3):
1) Desmond (what a journey)
2) Hurley (the only character you would actually want to be friends with)
3) Mr. Eko (just a great character)
4) Sawyer (the glowering and those dimples)
5) Sayed (badass)

Least favourite characters (seasons 1-3)
1) Shannon (mostly insufferable)
2) Boone (for his constant negging of Shannon)
3) Jack (for not growing as a character)
4) Kate (for her selfishness)
5) Michael (for all his single-mindedness, and what he does at the end of season 2)

Favourite arcs/stories (S1-3):

1) The Hatch
2) Inside the hatch
3) Sun and Jin's flashbacks  - romantic, heartbreaking, and they keep recontextualizing with each flashback.
4) Ben's illness
5) the many deaths of Charlie

Favourite running jokes:
1) Randomly yelling at the TV "Where'd you get your tattoo Jack?"
2) Always asking "What do you mean 'you people'?" whenever anyone says "you people".
3) Overreacting to the awfulness of Drive Shaft's "hit" single, "You All Everybody" (*shudder*)
4) Overreacting to Charlie being "the guy who brings his guitar"
5) Trying to keep count of the Oceanic survivors.