10 for 10: all coughed up

[10 for 10... that's 10 consumables which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?   ]




In this edition:

1. Creed II - 2018, d. Steven Caple Jr. - Crave
2. Under the Silver Lake - 2019, d. David Robert Mitchell - Amazon Prime
3. The Perfect Date - 2019, d. Chris Nelson - netflix
4. Christopher Robin - 2018, d. Marc Forster  - Crave
5. Tell Me Who I Am - 2019, d. Ed Perkins - netflix
6. Hellboy - 2019, d. Neil Marshall - Amazon Prime
7. Jojo Rabbit - 2019, d. Taika Waititi - In Theatre
8. Frozen II - 2019, d. Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck - In Theatre
9. Happy Death Day 2 U - 2019, d. Christopher Landon - Crave
10. Let It Snow - 2019, d. Luke Snellin - netflix

Maybe if I didn't spend 2 1/2 hours writing about the Mandalorian I would have had more time to go into deeper thoughts about some of these...alas here I am...and here we go....
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I just expressed (finally) how much I love Creed, and while Creed II is definitely missing some of what Ryan Coogler brought to it, namely the intense and incredibly accomplished tracking shots of the fight in the ring it's still a radically fun and engaging time.  Knowing that Stallone had his hand in the script, and that it was dealing with the villain from Rocky IV (that being Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago), I was a little worried this would be overly-Rocky focussed but, turns out those mild fears were unfounded, mainly because I forgot that Drago killed Adonis Creed's dad.  The history doesn't end there, Drago's loss wound up being detrimental to his status in Russia, and he's been in low, impoverished status since.  Meanwhile Donny is the top boxer in his class without any real challenge, so taking on the oversized, junior Drago is an exercise in humility.  Plus Donny has his first kid on the way and he and Bianca are worried her hereditary hearing loss will affect their child.  Mainly it's super fun to catch up with everyone.  Donny, like in the last movie, lets his ego get the best of him, but he learns from it.  There's a bullshit moment of tension between Rocky and Donny, but other than that it's a solid sequel.  It feels like the Creed series is going the same trajectory as the Rocky run, however, getting a little bigger, and a little more absurd with each outing.  I'm hoping the next film lets Donny's story be his own, and not so tied to Apollo or Rocky's past.

[10:19]

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I also recently expressed my love for It Follows, David Robert Mitchell's expertly crafted modern horror.  I was curious about what his follow-up was, as it had been a few years, and was pleased to find Under the Silver Lake on Amazon Prime.  I had heard a few mixed reviews of this, sleepy, weird neo-noir, but still thought Mitchell had earned my interest with his previous effort.  Andrew Garfield stars as a bit of a shiftless layabout living in LA, his writing career having gone nowhere, and eviction always looming overhead.  He sparks up a mutual attraction with a neighbor, only for her to disappear soon after.  His understimulated thought processes go into overdrive and he goes on the hunt for the truth behind her disappearance.  Curious mysteries, hidden messages, coded songs, all these buried meanings lead him to an even bigger, weirder mystery at the heart of LA.  Mitchell is channeling David Lynch and the Coen Brothers with whimsey, weirdness, and absurd noir melodrama, peppering in heavy violence among curious slapstick.  It's certainly not an uninteresting movie, but it is a challenge if you're one who needs to know where exactly something is going, especially if that something needs to be grounded in anything approximating reality.  If I were 20 years younger, I would absolutely love this movie.  As it is, it's not derivative, but it's not cogent enough for my current tastes. There'd be a cult film here if we weren't so bombarded with content these days.  I fear it's likely to be more forgotten than found.

[21:32]

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I've missed out on a few of Noah Centineo's Netflix teen rom coms to date, but having watched The Perfect Date, I'm kind of seeing what the fuss is about.  Centineo seems unassuming at first, but he quickly reveals himself to be a Ruffalo-esque charm machine in this film.  He sports the appearance of an insufferable douchecanoe, but he has soft eyes, a kind smile and a gentle spirit in his performance here of a guy trying to make money for college (since his writer dad has been relatively unemployed since his mom walked out on them).  His method for making money?  Hiring himself out as a stand-in (the film was originally titled "The Stand-In", and much more appropriate title) for other teens who need a fake boyfriend or +1 for whatever reason.  It's kind of a modernization of the 80's teen classic Can't Buy Me Love in a way, but mostly in premise.  Centineo's first date is with the stand-offish, sarcastic Laura Marano (playing a character that can only be called a Lizzie Caplan-type), and they spark up a no-nonsense friendship.  We can see where this is going already, and it follows the sort of rhythms you would expect, and yet it's no less sweet or enjoyable a journey.  There's not a lot of meat on these bones but a charming cast pretty much makes it worth the time.  Centineo should actually make a fine Prince Adam/He-Man should that film actually get made (I hear it's a netflix project now... turn it into an Eternia romcom and maybe they have something).

[29:42]

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Who is Christopher Robin for?  I mean, I'm all for any film starring Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell, but this is supposed to be a kids film, and it's really, really maudlin.  I think we're supposed to understand that McGregor has PTSD from his time in WWII, but it's never explicit, and the funk he's in is cured by revisiting his childhood friends, which are actualized beings and not just a part of his imagination.  This movie is weird.  It's desperately trying to be Paddington but in doing so it does that thing that 80's superhero, animation, and toy movies did when they went live action, which was not believing enough in the power of the fantasy world, and having to ground things in the boring old real world.  This film did get a few laughs and more than a few tears out of me, but I'm soft like a Pooh-bear like that.  It just takes a swelling score and the eyes start watering up.  It's hard to dislike Christopher Robin, it's a sweet movie, truly, but it offers little to rave about.  Where the Paddington films are a fun roller-coaster ride, this one's more like a country drive on a gravel road.  It's just nice. It's not quite a nostalgia trip meant for parents, and it's not exuberant kiddie fare.  It falls closer to Where The Wild Things Are  than Despicable Me, that's for sure.  I suppose it's a film for the kids in SNL's "Wells For Boys" commercial.



[39:18]

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It seems like half the documentary films out there are of the "true crime" persuasion, and even films that aren't necessarily conventional "true crime" (ie. murder/kidnapping mysteries) seem to play out in the same sort of narrative fashion and with the same kind of editing and production.  Tell Me Who I Am does fall into this same documentary narrative trap, but its story is so compelling and its resolution so emotional one can't really find fault with the style of storytelling it chose.  This is a tale told by the main players in its story, Marcus and Alex Lewis, identical twin brothers, leading parallel lives until around the age of 18 when Alex has a bad accident and loses his memory.  The only thing he knows for sure is Marcus is his brother (he doesn't even know his own name).  Alex depends on Marcus for everything, rapidly guiding him through infancy, childhood, and his teenage years as Alex has to relearn pretty much everything.  It's 15 years before Alex learns that Marcus has been editing his history lesson of their lives, things he only discovers following the death of their mother and cleaning up their parents estate.  What Marcus learns drives a wedge between the brothers, and in spite of working together and maintaining their family, there's been a wedge between them for some time.  The first act of the film presents us with Alex's view of the events, the second Marcus' view also furthers the narrative, while the third act is a very potent confrontation on screen, in front of the cameras, wherein Marcus finally reveals the extent of the abuse they suffered as children.  It's through this resolution that they both finally understand eachother's sides of the story.  Alex's life feels incomplete, dishonest, knowing that he doesn't have the memories that his brother does, and what his brother gave him is a redacted version of their past he feels keeps them distant.  Marcus, meanwhile, carries the burden of trying to give his brother a better life than they actually had by keeping the knowledge of what they went through to himself.  It was, he thought, the most precious gift he could give him, but living with that wedge between them and burying the truth was causing them both to suffer.  Marcus' on camera confession is painful, powerful and beyond brave.  In addressing the camera, he's addressing not only his brother but the audience he knows is looking on, and to reveal something so painful, not to just one person, but millions upon millions is a dramatic leap on his part.  It's a tale that's both fascinating and upsetting but it's also inspiring, with Marcus and Alex showing that trauma doesn't need to define someone, and that speaking out against abuse is meaningful and powerful.

[54:37]

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This poster is far better than anything
in the film

I don't remember the last time I turned off a film and didn't return to it.  I was warned about Hellboy, warned that it wasn't worth my time, and it turns out all those people who warned me were absolutely right.  I liked Guillermo Del Toro's first Hellboy entry, the second one left me wanting.  This one feels like a direct-to-youtube cosplay abomination.  I can't think of a better replacement for Ron Perlman as Hellboy than David Harbor, and yet the make-up and wardrobe they give Harbor is ghastly.  It looks ill-fitting, with a disgusting-looking weave of hair on his head and arms and back.  He's wickedly unappealing to look at, something you want to see only in flashes and quickly dead, not the lead of a 2 hour movie.  The tone of the film feels off entirely.  It's meant to be pithy and light, but it moves far too quickly from moment one to ever settle into it.  The first 20 minutes bombard the audience with back story for both the villain and Hellboy, and neither are given time to breathe or rest to gain any weight within the film.  It's a constant sprint to the next thing, then the next thing, then the next thing.  It's exhausting.  It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't shot so poorly, or if the effect didn't look like video game cut scenes.  It's not a film of bad ideas, just bad execution.  One misstep after another after another.  It shouldn't be unwatchable, but it kind of is.  I really didn't like the 45 minutes I spent in Neil Marshall's vision of Hellboy, not one bit.  And I tried, I tried to look for something I liked, and I couldn't.  There was a sliver of salvation in Harbor, but under all that grotesque latex and paint it was too much to wade through to stay with it.  I'm not going back.

[1:03:31]

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Jojo Rabbit is the kind of movie I should have more thoughts on, but I don't really.  I've listened to quite a few podcasts and read quite a few reviews and, for the most part, I don't really have any contention with anything anyone is saying about this film.  Sweet and charming? Sure?  Ill-advised and manipulative? Maybe.  Sloppy and redundant? Fine.  Heartwarming and heartbreaking?  Yeah.  It's those things.  Any film that deigns to make comedy out of Nazis has its work cut out for them, but Waititi seemingly laughs in the face of challenges such as these.  Waititi doesn't generally delve into wistfulness and whimsy like he does here, it's pretty cute by a mile, and it's very cheeky at times.  It's not trying to be clever about anything, it seems like he's mostly having a good time with a youthful story of love, loss and making Nazis look foolish.  Those foolish Nazis include Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen, Rebel Wilson and Stephen Merchant.  Rockwell is in some of his best form here, playing a mid-ranking apathetic Nazi clearly in a romantic relationship with Allen.  His barely-there belief in the cause doesn't make him sympathetic or any less complicit, it does make him funny.  Of course, Waititi also plays Adolph Hitler in this film... or, rather what a 10-year-old boy drenched in propaganda thinks he is.  And in that portrayal he's a total buffoon.  If there's a point to the film, beyond just it's touching drama, it's that Nazis suck, and they're pretty dumb too.  It's not the most profound message, but it does bear repeating.

[1:13:22]

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What did I think of the original Frozen?  Enh, it's fine.  I think I cooled on it after being repeatedly subjected to the film and its soundtrack by my daughter who thankfully moved on from it into Star Wars and superheroes long before other girls her age did.  I count myself lucky that I've not really had to watch the film in about 5 years.  So going to Frozen 2, I kind of knew how I would feel about it, which was a kind of apathy mixed with mild curiosity.  The earliest trailer kind of poised Elsa as a superhero in this Nordic land that's fantastical in very restrained ways.  I was into it.  But subsequent trailers put the focus back on goofy hi-jinks of Olaf and songs that sound like typical songs from these things, and I was left only with fleeting optimism that something awesome would be happening.  Hot Take: nothing all that awesome really happens.  Frozen 2 has its moments of beautiful animation, but compared to the tranquility and beauty of How To Train Your Dragon 3 this is the dog's breakfast regurgitated.  The songs are forgettable, but there's one that sounds suspiciously like it's trying to be a Peter Cetera song, and I was into it.  They even animated it like an early 80's music video with odd split screens and cheesy effects.  But it didn't fit the movie very well, and even at this point I'm wondering who that's for?  It's an aged out reference for most parents of today.  Beyond that, the story really features no antagonist, other than the unknown.  If there is a villain, its the sins of ancestry.  There's elemental forces at play that Elsa has unlocked and she needs to discover the mystery behind it, in order to save their home, the forest and stuff.  But it's a weird adventure that keeps splitting people apart.  There's a lot of sort-of funny missed opportunities as Kristoff keeps missing his opportunity to propose, that leads to an absolutely novice screenwriting misunderstanding.  The film threatens to permanently eliminate Elsa, Olaf and their town of Arendell, but it chickens out of any of them for a feel-good ending.  It introduces a whole new cast of supporting characters but does next to nothing with them.  Its grand adventure is wildly anticlimactic.  This just isn't great.  It's not terrible...a film doesn't *have* to have an antagonist, but it generally helps. Here they're fighting against unknown future and make right their ancestral past, and while maybe they're important steps in Ana and Elsa's history and character growth, it does not make for a very exciting movie.  This should have been a direct to Disney+ thing.

[1:28:21]

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Oh man, I loved Happy Death Day, and I was sooooper excited for Happy Death Day 2U to finally make it to whatever streaming or subscription service it would first wind up on (I only got to HDD this summer so the sequel was already out of theatres by that point).  With anticipation high, and excitement a bit feverish, I tore into it the first opportunity I could, and ... it's ok.  Jessica Rothe is still amazing as Tree in the film, but it lost a lot of its internal logic in this second outing.  Here, we find out the source of what caused Tree to reboot her day over and over again, when side character Ryan (Phi Vu) from the first film starts living a time loop at the beginning of this one, because he and some friends are working on a comic-book-science experiment attempting to slow time (but causing time to loop instead).  A malfunction of this machine kicks Tree into an alternate dimension where she's time looping again and things are just a little bit different.  The good: the film takes its time to invest in Tree's emotional state, further developing her character.  The bad: so many gaps in logic, like how Tree wastes so much time killing herself over an over again to accelerate the reboot and hopefully get closer to a solution, even though the kills, and method of kills, seems to be doing her some real harm.  I get it's supposed to be slapstick, but slapstick doesn't play well when backed by real consequences.  I think the film missed an opportunity to stick with Ryan rebooting his day over and over and needing Tree as mentor to take him through it.  Where the first film was a winking dark comedy with slasher elements, this one is almost a straight up comedy with doses of sci-fi, and only the minutest aspect of the slasher horror film Blumhouse keeps trying to sell them as.  It's enjoyable but messy, and not up to the quality of its predecessor.
[Toast's take: we almost agree!]
[1:37:30]

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Over the past couple years, other networks and streamers have noticed the popularity of the Hallmark Channel's "Countdown to Christmas" festivities where they dole out dozens of brand new, cheaply and quickly made romance/romantic comedy movies centered around Christmas, and in response there are new alternative Hallmark-style movies in the offing.  Netflix entered the game timidly last year with a couple entries, but this year they seemed to have stepped it up even more.  Let It Snow was released in between a couple of these Netflix-ified holiday rom coms, but it's not at all like that.  This is a legit high-school rom com starring a high-calibre cast of young, good looking actors in an ensemble film that is more a younger, updated Love Actually than your average cheesy, corny Hallmark fare.  The other thing about it is, it's a damn good movie.  It's not a good movie stacked up against other Hallmark types, it's a straight up damn good movie, sitting easily on the best of genre list other landmark high school romantic comedies like Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, Easy A and even the non romcom fun high school flicks like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mean Girls, or Superbad (and recent entrants Ladybird and Booksmart).  I enjoyed this immensely.  Every storyline was fantastic, I was fully invested, in each of them.  I think maybe Jacob Batalon (Ned from the recent Spider-Man franchise) had the lowest stakes (throwing a good party, getting noticed as a DJ) but in the end even he gets something valuable out of it all.  This is a good-spirited film, with real, honest-to-God comedy, and charming leads with actual chemistry like Shameik Moore (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse), Kiernan Shipka (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) and Isabela Moner (Dora The Explorer).  Joan Cusak is sort of the spirit guide of the film and, having just seen her relegated to a tedious side character in Hallmark's not-great-but-not-the-worst 2015 The Christmas Train, a performance both reigned in and phoned in, it's nice to see her giving a crap and in a good movie, one with real snow and production values.  I'll be watching this one over and over again.

(Confessional time... I love watching Hallmark movies, and only in a semi-ironic way.  They're insipidly terrible by-and-large, and yet they're captivating in their chaste formulae.  The fun is in seeing the little differences between them, and finding ones which are almost legitimately entertaining.  They're like most Saturday Night Live sketches, if they had time to refine them some of them would be a lot but most of them are just disposable dross you can forget about immediately afterward.  I don't review Hallmark movies here (or anywhere), but maybe I should start?)

[1:54:46]
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