2024, Guy Ritchie (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) -- download
I am getting a lot of headcanon these days, and in this one, the Cary Elwes character Nathan, from Operation Fortune, is the descendent of Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes, BlackBerry), dubbed 'M' by his friends. Gubbins was responsible for Operation Postmaster, a top secret, off-the-books operation by the British government to disrupt U-boat activity in the Atlantic, which would allow America to safely enter WWII. That much is history whether or not he was the ancestor or Nathan.
In the movie, Gubbins collects a bunch of nere-do-wells to perform this operation, under the watchful eye of one Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox, Slow Horses); yes that Ian Fleming. They are led by currently incarcerated Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), and include Swede Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson, Titans), guy-who-likes-to-blow-stuff-up Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding, The Gentlemen), and a handful of others. They are to proceed to Spanish island Fernando Po, off the coast of Africa, to sink an Italian freighter full of munitions and supplies for the German U-boat fleet. Along the way they have to pick up a saboteur (Alex Pettyfer, Chief of Station) on the Canary Islands, where he is held and being tortured by the Gestapo. Already on Fernando Po are spies Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González, Baby Driver) and Richard Heron (Babs Olusanmokun, Dune), who are established and manipulating things there.
I started this post soon after I watched the movie, but already it is creeping into the I Saw This (!!) realm cuz.... while I remember scenes, nothing stands out.... emotionally?
The plan should be quiet straight forward. This murderous bunch takes care of the island of Gestapo quite easily, gleefully and with gusto and lots of tongue-sticking-out. Except when they arrive on Fernando Po, they learn the ship has been further reinforced and has become quite unsinkable. So, they decide to steal it instead.
This movie wanted to be one of those British WWII cheerful mission movies full of tomfoolery and comradery, you know, like The Guns of Navarone or something with David Niven. And in a lot of ways it was that movie, except it doesn't stick. Nothing is quite memorable, the relationships are serviceable, but ... just. I enjoyed the movie but ... just.
It is at this point in writing this post where I wonder if its the "i just woke up from a nap" brain that has nothing really to say, or that I really should see most movies (at least) TWICE these days to formulate an actual opinion and be able to articulate it. Let's leave it at that and maybe I will do something crazy and do a soon-after rewatch post where I say more? Maybe. Unlikely.
KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (or so) I have a spotlight movie which I write a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else I watched that week I do a quick little summary of my thoughts. KWIF is not a fart from the front butt.
This Week: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023, d. James Gunn - in theatre) Sisu (2022, d. Jalmari Helander - in theatre) Bros (2022, d. Nicholas Stoller - rental)
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I tend to ramble a lot when talking about the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am, as they say, invested, and I find that the past half dozen years of scapegoating of all of cinema's ills put upon the MCU has been lazy, to put it kindly.
But if one were to say there has been a knock off in quality in the post-Endgame MCU, I can't wholly disagree. I could say the introduction of the "Volume" and other "rendered backdrop" technologies has made visuals spectacles somehow less than spectacular, failing to wow viewers in the same way matte paintings did decades ago. I could say that the pandemic productions feel more hemmed in, more limited in scale, and even maybe a little sloppy and rushed. I could say that Marvel and Kevin Feige have over-extended themselves with a mass of additional content on Disney+ that maybe dilutes the brand as much as it expands the universe contributing to "superhero fatigue".
I could say all this, but really, I think the reality is the MCU built itself up so well in reaching Infinity War and Endgame, that it provided itself a natural stopping point, and that the idea of rebuilding to a new universe/multiverse-spanning epic seems as exhausting to the more average filmgoer than it is exciting. Plus the constant politicized flame wars within nerd circles that seeps into public discourse just kinda wants to make you leave it all behind.
But Guardians of the Galaxy has something no other Phase 4 or Phase 5 movie has had: a singular creative vision. James Gunn, somehow over and above Kevin Feige, has sole ownership of this franchise-within-the-franchise. Even when the Guardians came to play in Infinity War and Endgame, Gunn was consulted. The Guardians are his children. And with Volume 3, Gunn gets to see his children off his way.
Gunn really had carte blanche to do what he wanted on the cosmic side of the MCU, the vastness of space allowing him to intersect or avoid events elsewhere as much or as little as he liked. In bringing Volume 3 to life, he's given an epic two and a half hours to tell whatever story he wants, and he's earned the right to avoid MCU mandates. There's a larger, multiversal story that the MCU is currently building towards, and Gunn, instead, has a very specific story of family, friendship, happiness and letting go that has nothing to do with Kang the Conqueror.
Volume 3 is a very sober movie, not lacking the humour the series has had to this point, but there's an emotional weight and urgency underpinning it that signals most of the core team's traumas. When Rocket is gravely injured in an attack from a young Adam Warlock, it hits the team hard. Peter Quill is still mourning the loss of Gamora, and Yondu, and his mom, despite having found a sister and a new family, and Rocket's impending doom is not something he can cope with. Nebula has only ever known pain, so she's utterly guarded all the time, except that during the Blip, her and Rocket (the sole Guardians survivors) had bonded over their shared traumas. Mantis has been treated as something inferior her whole life, and she had maybe hoped that her new family would lift her up, but, as an empathic being, finds she has to do most of the heavy lifting. Drax is just lost, the death of his family at Thanos' hands has led him on a decade-long, miserable quest for vengeance that was left thoroughly unsatisfied, and now he labels himself "the destroyer" because he only feels like tearing things down, not building things up. Groot, now a swole and on the precipice of adulthood, has lost his angst, embraced his family, but doesn't seem to understand their traumas. Kraglin, left his identity as a Reaver behind, but is failing to live up to Yondu's legacy. And Gamora is all too aware that she is a deviant in the galaxy, that a version of her died, but lived years of a life that she never did, and cannot seem to reconcile the person that people knew her as, and how she knows herself.
All of this shows us the ties that bind the Guardians together, but it's a loose fragile weave that threatens to come apart at any moment.
Gunn sets the Guardians off on a quest through Rocket's tortured backstory, searching for a code to remove a kill switch hardwired to his heart. We learn of the High Evolutionary, a powerful, intelligent, cruel, vile being who experiments on animals in an effort to rapidly evolve them into "perfect beings". He is a believer in eugenics and is easily the most abhorrent villain the MCU has seen yet. In flashbacks, we witness, sometimes directly, sometimes the aftereffects of the torture he puts poor Rocket, and other creatures, through in the egocentric quest for "perfection".
Gunn is an animal lover, and the harsh, gut-wrenching scenes of animals in distress is very pointed. But it's not proselytizing, he's not hitting you over the head with a specific spelled out message, but what he is trying to say is not difficult to infer. There's a level of distance humanity likes to maintain from the animal kingdom, an heir of superiority, as well as a veil of ignorance. Is our own advancement worth the suffering of these innocent creatures?
This is as James Gunn a movie as you can get at a PG-13 rating. The themes are very mature, the images are wild, and the language would make Captain America blush. Gunn has a fascination with the beauty in the grotesque, and there's a lot of horror-derived imagery here but presented as something other than horrific. For example, there's a kind of inhabited satellite grown out of living tissue serves as headquarters for a research institute that the Guardians need to infiltrate. It's a pink spiral of flesh, with giant hairs protruding from the "skin" of it. The Guardians need to cut into its hull, unleashing its gooey yellow "blood". It's all so delightfully gross, and you can practically hear Gunn's cackling behind the scenes just knowing what he's getting away with.
Rocket's flashbacks are kind of the reverse, as the sweet and innocent young Rocket shares his pen with Floor (a sweet little bunny with robotic spider legs and a giant metal mouth), Teefs (a gentle walrus grafted onto motorized wheels) and Lylla, an otter with robotic arms. Amidst the pain and torture that these creatures are suffering through at the hands of the High Evolutionary and his minions, they find friendship. Here Gunn's using the same tactics of knowing what he's getting away with, but doing so to really get at our hearts. Rocket's story, one which Gunn has been teeing up from the beginning, is of both tragedy and triumph.
This is a long movie, and with few exceptions, every scene is earned, especially given where it needs to end, which is in saying goodbye. Our main crew each come to an appropriate-for-them endpoint, that also serves as a starting point. It's a long held tradition in comics that after a good run on a series, when the creative team departs, they both provide an ending for the character or team, but also the hope of further adventures down the road. The objective is to leave the characters in a place that is different from where they started, but not close them off with any finality. Gunn nails it here in brilliant ways that I won't spoil, except to say that a lot of the expected notes (like romances or deaths) don't quite happen like you'd think.
Everyone is fabulous in this film. Any reservation that Dave Bautista would be phoning it in can be quashed. As much as he wants to get away from playing roles like Drax, he's still a damn hard working actor and he continues to find depth in this role that many other performers would not. Chris Pratt's Quill has matured a lot since we first met him, and this film he's become very self-aware. He knows his faults but he also knows his strengths. This may be Pratt's best performance ever. It's great seeing Karen Gillen over her past few appearances, really crushing her role as Nebula. There are some real awkward moments for the character in the first film, but she came to life in the second, and now is ably leading and holding the team together. Pom Klementieff's Mantis has not had much in the way of character development in her various appearances but she really comes to life here, showing not only what she can bring to battle, but bring to the team, and forging her own independence. Chukwudi Iwuji's High Evolutionary is drunk with power and riddled with insecurity, and how he weaves through those two sensibilities is balletic. Will Poulter's Adam Warlock is probably going to upset fans of Adam Warlock, but here' the character is basically a child in an adult body, bestowed with the knowledge that he's meant to be something important and magnificent, and not understanding that. There's really no spotlight put on the character, yet, there are layers (and we get Elizabeth Debicki back as Ayesha, Adam's "mother", which is great, even if the film doesn't really have too much time for her).
The visuals here are as vibrant and colourful as ever. If anything helps temper the heavier themes it is the eye-popping colour palette. Gunn pays homage to legends throughout the film, not just giving his old boss Roger Corman a cameo, but a not to John Carpenter here, David Lynch there, and Stanley Kubrick in between. Rather than playing easter egg hockey with Marvel Comics lore, he instead gives his cinematic sci-fi forebears loving thank-yous.
The warning is to keep younger kids away, and I would agree with that, although there were three very young kids behind us in the theatre and I didn't hear much of a peep out of them (not a lot of talking, the usual indicator of boredom, and surprisingly no crying, though I did a lot of that myself). I don't think people should be so concerned about exposing their kids to the darker themes of this movie. They're smarter than we think, and if it upsets them, then maybe that's okay to be upset. Because animal cruelty is upsetting. And saying goodbye is sad. These are emotions we should be fostering and allowing to exist in compassionate human beings, not try and shelter away.
Volume 3 is a great finale to a truly special, unexpected blockbuster. I can't wait to see it again. Marvel's loss is definitely DC's gain (can't wait to see what Gunn does with Superman). I think the success of Gunn's trilogy proves that Marvel sometimes should to step back and instead of trying to guide a universe into a singular linear narrative, instead let a creator, or creative team come in with a distinct goal and an investment in the characters just run with it.
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Despite having Finns in my life since childhood, I know very little about Finland itself. It's not a populous country (around 5.5 million), and its global cultural impact is quietly reserved. I hadn't ever considered what sharing a border with Russia is like, but the film Rare Exports - a Christmas-set alt-horror about murderous Santas (plural) - surprisingly slapped this reality in my face. With Sisu, the director of Rare Exports once again slapped me in the face not just with Finland's constant need for vigilance about its Eastern neighbour, but also the previously unconsidered impact of World War II upon the country.
Sisu doesn't get too deep into the history, except to say that the Germans were forced to withdraw from Lapland, and in doing so they adopted a "scorched Earth" policy, razing cities to the ground, burning the flora, stealing what they could and burying mines. This is the setting for an over-the-top, hyperviolent, legend-building spectacle that marries Tarantino's neo-westerns with the one-man-army subgenre, and is simultaneously as glorious as it is ridiculous.
Sisu, we're told, is an untranslatable term that defines the national character of Finland, one of stoic determination, resiliance, grittiness, bravery and the like. Which is to say that Finns are tough, survivors, able to stick it out where others would crumble. Here we follow an old war hero, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) a grizzled war veteran with the nickname "The Immortal"... it's not that you can't kill him, it's just that he refuses to die.
Korpi has been set free from the military since the armistice with the Russians, and he's ventured off into the northern reaches of Lapland with his horse and dog in search of gold. Which after an exhaustive search he finds a small vein, which is more than enough for him. Heading back to civilization, he comes past the retreating Germans, and uneasy crossing that eventually leads to an altercation and the revelation that he's discovered gold. Korpi must then use incredible cunning and fortitude to survive in the open tundra of Lapland. It's certainly not easy.
Within the first 15 minutes Korpi has survived the impossible, and will continue to do so time after time after time, but we're more than ready to go along with it, because, man, we really can't help but crave for him to take them Nazis out. As the film goes on, the legend of Korpi is built, and the Finns have their own Rambo. I don't know where they can take the character from here, or if they even need to. We're perhaps overconcerned with the concept of franchising, of wanting more of a good thing, rather than just appreciating the good thing we've got. Fun!
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Hallmark and their ilk have, in recent years, discovered that much of their viewership for their utterly cheese-filled, holiday-fuelled tripe is not the midwestern housefraus that they thought they were catering to, and that there's actually an honest-to-gosh market for non-heterosexual romances.
Unfortunately, much of the cheese-filled, holiday-fuelled, non-heterosexual romances play by the same heteronormative storybook just with genders swapped, and title shifts like gay uncles instead of single dads.
Bros is a romcom co-written (with director Nicholas Stoller) and starring Billy Eichner (Billy on the Street, Parks and Recreation) that follows the well-trod romcom formulae of meet-cute - romance - complication - resolution but approached with an honesty about gay relationships that the mainstream production houses generally fear, certain that it will alienate one or more of the "quandrants", whatever that means.
Eichner plays Bobby, a successful New York-based podcaster who is on the board of the first national LGBTQ+ museum, still in pre-launch mode. He's never been in a serious relationship but say he's never desired one either. He views his lifestyle as kind of perfect for him, though admits the random hookups become increasingly awkward or more challenging as he hits forty. At a club, he's approached by Aaron ("the meet-cute"), a seriously buff, seriously handsome Luke Macfarlane (a legendary Hallmark stud) and they hit it off, but things are both great and weird as their like-minded sensibility on gay romances sits in the way of them even contemplating a relationship.
But it's kind of inevitable and they find a groove that lasts for months ("the romance"), until a Christmas visit from Aaron's upstate, reserved parents brings out the insecurities in both of them ("the complication"). It's months before they see each other again, each having time to contemplate what was so triggering and how they can possibly get past it, which they resolve to do in a big LGBTQ+ Museum grand opening gala.
Now, there are obvious things that differentiate Bros from typical romcoms (and the cheese-filled, holiday-fuelled, non-heterosexual Hallmarkies), being a lot of sexual acts being performed just off camera (or cleverly disguised on camera), a lot of sex talk and swearing, and of course a lot of gay and LBTQ+ content (including earnest, educational, and comedic sorts). But what I appreciated the most about Eichner and Stoller's script is the maturity of the characters to have real conversations with each other. There are no stupid misunderstandings in this film. What keeps them apart, and what breaks them up are real genuine emotions based on issues that a real person would have (and that are very well conveyed in building the characters in the film), and not plot contrivances.
It's sweet and romantic and even a little sexy. But mostly (and most importantly), it's pretty damn funny.
After Yang - 2022, d. Kogonada - Crave Athena - 2022, d. Romain Gavras - Netflix Marry Me - 2022, d. - Crave Man Hunt - 1941, d. Fritz Lang - Criterion Channel Scarlet Street - 1945, d. Fritz Lang - Criterion Channel
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There have been many films (and TV shows and books and comics and video games) in the past 10 (20/30/40+) years that have delved into artificial intelligence, androids and sentient mechanical beings and their various states of existence and influence. It goes back as far (if not further) than the novel and film Metropolis (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, the novel and film were simultaneous products) where an android is given the visage of woman who leads an uprising of the working class into destroying the city's machines which both keep the city functioning but are also a tool of division.
One of the common questions about androids is "do they want to be human?" This question is asked about the android ("Techno", as they are called here) Yang by his adoptive father to the clone girlfriend he didn't know Yang had (or was capable of having). She laughs in disbelief, "it's such a human thing to ask... we always assume that other beings want to be human. What's so great about being human?" Instead she comments that Yang struggled with his identity in a different way. Yang (Justin H. Min) was brought (bought) into Jake (Colin Ferrell) and Kira's (Jodie Turner-Smith) family after they adopted Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) as they wanted to make sure she grew up with knowledge of her Chinese culture. Yang was created for the purpose of being a sibling (the company making the technos is called "Brothers and Sisters Incorporated") to adopted Chinese children, but Yang questioned whether or not he was actually Chinese, not wondering about his humanity. It's just one of many resonant elements in this remarkably deep film with a threadbare plot to service them all.
After his years of service with Mika and family, Yang experiences a critical malfunction and cannot be restored. Mika is understandably distraught, even in knowing Yang is a techno she still knows him as her brother, her friend, her teacher, her caregiver. He's always there when Mom and Dad are not. Jake seems dispassionately committed to figuring out how to revive Yang, it's only as we explore the depths of Jake's efforts that we understand his dispassion, his drive is concealing deep grief over the loss of a member of his family. Yang was not an appliance, he was a son. Kira seems to busy with work to even think about her grief (or anyone else's) most of the time, but it's also a mask to conceal her sadness.
In the extensive lengths Jake goes to try and repair Yang (which seems to be much further than what most people do with their Technos) he authorizes a dubious technician to crack open Yang's core, and retrieve his memory bank (the technician believes it to be spyware). In meeting a studier of Technos at the museum, he's given an apparatus to view Yang's memory bank, brief 3-second snippets of time that start to reveal that there was far more about Yang that he didn't know than did.
After Yang sad, beautiful, mesmerising rumination on what constitutes family, what defines identity, coping with loss, and how memories are formed and triggered. It's also about our perception of others, how we see them, but not necessarily know them. It's also examines parenting and relationships, all set in the backdrop of a future society of androids and clones and self-driving cars. It's an aesthetically beautiful film, which seems to be hopeful for a better future (one changed by androids and clones and other unseen advancements, I'm sure), but one that doesn't forget there's a very human aspect that follows our society wherever we wind up, still dealing with paranoia, intolerance, money and death.
I had become aware of After Yang mid-year in 2022, intentionally steering clear of learning too much. I'm not sure sometimes what inspires me to keep in the dark about a film, when most of the time I have no problems reading review after review and watching trailers multiple times. But After Yang seemed like something I should keep a surprise, but there was nothing imploring that I do. Having now seen the film, it's not like there's any great story surprises or spoilers to be had, it's just a beautiful, deeply felt film that's one of the best films of the year.
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Unlike After Yang, I hadn't even heard of Athena at all in 2022. It was only upon listening to a best-movies-of-2022 podcast (one of many) that Athena was even mentioned. The short version was it was about civic unrest in Paris, but featured a stunning introductory single-take sequence. Although the critic was citing that "single take sequences" have been overhyped and seemed to imply there's been a critical blowback to the artisticness of the long single-take, I've always been a sucker for one, and impressed by them.
Athena, it turns out, is an absolute stunner of a socio-political action-tragedy that grabs ahold of you from moment one and doesn't really ever let go. After video is released of the death of 13-year-old Idir as a result of an apparent police beating, his brother, Abdel, a decorated soldier, pleads for peace and letting the police sort it out. Revolutionary brother Karim has no time for the inevitable lies and cover ups and has coordinated an attack on the police station (armed primarily with fireworks) that retreats to the largely Muslim populated neighbourhood of apartment complexes called Athena, a concrete jungle that serves them well as a fortified stronghold. While there, Abdel implores the young men to stop the violence (falling on deaf ears) while helping the families leave before being arrested himself with others trying to provide safe passage for the retreat. Their other brother, the drug dealer Moktar, is trying to get his supply out of the complex before any federal raids happen, and seems to find the dissension as a result of his brother's death more annoying than anything. Karim is a rather cunning strategist of the violent protest (but not yet deadly), a general navigating and commanding the different arenas of conflict. As the night shakes on and the stakes rise (and the protests spread throughout the country) word starts to leak that Idir's death may have been at the hands of far-right agents looking to light a match on the powderkeg, so Karim's demands for peace involving the immediate arrest of the officers involved may not even be a possible solution.
The film's power comes largely from its orchestration, shot as a series of long single takes (the first, an epic 12-minute sequence spanning multiple locations and a highway chase in a stolen police van is worth the price of admission alone), typically following a single character, that offers constant movement, and building tension as we see the conflict and strategising from multiple sides (so technically accomplished is it that Netflix released a sort of "how'd they do that" companion documentary with the film.)It's not operating with a conventional narrative, and as such there are a lot of gaps in understanding the character dynamics or, in some cases, motivations (at least on first viewing). But it's a relentlessly taut and constantly engaging movie, a literal edge-of-your-seat thriller, one playing with complicated themes that it handles too thinly perhaps, but never deigns to tell you that its protagonists are right or wrong (though revealing Idir's killer as a pre-credits sequence does seem a bit of a *ahem* cop-out).
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Marry Me is not without its charms but, frankly it starts with a pretty stupid conceit and never seems all that interesting in exploring the conceit with any sense of reality. It's a film not without its charms (I feel like Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson are charming in their sleep) but the charm of them together still doesn't make up for the real lack of exploration of the effect their very different worlds have on each other.
I mean, megastar Jennifer Lopez (or whatever her analog is called in this film) is marrying some young, hot, South American superstar in a big public concert extravaganzaa, except just before the actual wedding part of the performance, it's leaked that buddy is having an affair with JLo's assistant. So she calls off the wedding, but the show must go on. Owen Wilson is an average divorced part-time dad and middle school math teacher who is scoring points by taking his daughter to the concert thanks to his best friend, Sarah Silverman (love SS, but not understanding their friendship at all in this one). He's holding SS's "Marry Me"sign when JLo, in a very vulnerable state, pulls him on stage and they get married. Her agents convince OW to stick with the marriage in public for 3 months, but in that time they get to know each other and the usual romance things happen.
Except that JLo's character here is one of the world's biggest stars, and her crazy marriage stunt would put a blinding spotlight on OW that's so huge he'll be seeing spots for a lifetime. He wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything normally...well, ever. TMZ would be following him where ever he went, just waiting for him to do anything they could dis or dish on. His very average, comfortable way of life that JLo seems so endeared by, would be ruined within 6 months and this film only sort-of acknowledges that. But, whatever, it's a romantic fantasy right? But then....who is this fantasy for? The audience for these types of movies are typically women, and yet the fantasy is a Super Successful, Super Rich, Super Attractive spontaneously marries a very average guy with perhaps a bit of above average charm? How many women is this fantasy catering to? Or is this meant to be bait for women to take their boyfriends/husbands to a romantic movie and engage them with the fantasy?
There's one pretty good song, one or two decent songs, and a couple real stinkers in this, so it's a mixed bag on that front. The big stage performances are...okay, but you can tell they were filmed during COVID times with the audience camera trickery. And there's just some of the worst camera work I've seen in a mainstream movie in a long time...for as amazing as the wardrobes are in this, it's a really ugly-looking movie.
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Man Hunt was released mid-World War II, and is the first of legendary director Fritz Lang's anti-Nazi films shot in America. The story finds a notable British big game hunter scoping out Hitler with a long-range rifle only to be assaulted by security before he can shoot. He's interrogated over and over, where he assures he never intended to actually shoot Hitler, that it was just an exercise in scope-hunting, the thrill to see if he could. Of course the Nazis want a confession that the British government had tasked him with assassinating the fuhrer to incite war, but Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon, the Jon Hamm of the 1940's) will never sign a lie, no matter how much they torture him. So instead of beating him to death, they plan to stage an accident, that he fell off a cliff. They push him off at night, only when they go to retrieve him the next morning they discover the ground below is boggy and that the soft surface allowed him to survive. The man hunt begins.
The film has a fairly tense opening act (though a little tame by today's intensity standards) as Thorndike struggles to escape Germany, survive the hunt, and evade capture. Even upon reaching English shores he's not safe. They know enough about him to make his life complicated. But in fleeing his pursuers he happens into the home of Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett), a lower class British woman who is completely charmed by this invader in her home. The second act of the film kind of side steps the tension of Thorndike's pursuit for, instead, a soft-touch meet-cute wront-side-of-the-tracks romantic sub-plot that is far too congenial to fit with the remainder of the film. Bennett's awful cockney accent threatens to ruin every scene she appears in (and often does). Pidgeon doesn't even attempt an accent, just stiff posture and a few utterances of "old boy" here and there to do the trick.
I did a quick scan through British writer Geoffrey Household's "Rogue Male", a novella serialized in The Atlantic in 1939, which tells the tale rather grippingly from the first person perspective and not a hint of a romantic subplot (the second act is more fraught pursuit across the English countryside). Likely the romance was an injection of the American studio system's requirements on the story, but, if not for the tonal shift, it could have still worked pretty well. The third act is rushed but makes its point well...Nazis fucking suck, which needed to be reiterated a lot in America in 1941, and, well, still does.
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Lang would work with Joan Bennett again, twice, actually, with 1944's The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street, both also with Edward G. Robinson. While I have not watched the former, Bennett's performance in Scarlett Street is phenomenal. As much as she was running around like a lovesick puppy with Walter Pidgeon in Man Hunt she's a different kind of love sick as her Kitty March here basically is just a complete dame for Dan Duryea's callously charming, and slap-happy Johnny. But Edward G. Robinson's Christopher Cross (not of "Sailing" fame), a lowly bank teller, unhappily married to a widowed policeman's wife, one day comes across Johnny slapping Kitty senseless and he gets a little moon-eyed for the dame. A little late night drink, and the two make assumptions about one another (he believes her to be an up-and-coming actress, she believes him to be a very successful painter).
Johnny coaxes Kitty into getting money out of Chris by feigning interest in him, and the turns of events get pretty wild from there. It's not often that old films can surprise me, because usually if they're of any quality they've been aped, redone, or ripped off so thoroughly that there's no surprises left to be had. But this one kept turning and I loved every minute of it, up to the point where Chris does something that seems way out of character for him. Where it goes from there deals with the repercussions of it nicely, but I'm not sure it was in his nature in the first place.
The story is good, but the characters here, Kitty, Johnny, and Chris (and even Chris' wife Adele, Kitty's best friend Millie and other supporting cast) are all very well drawn characters, who have a much more complex view of the world than we usually see in classic cinema. Kitty is the tough talking dame, but she's the epitome of all-talk, no action. Johnny calls her "lazy legs" because she just can't be bothered to get up (she spits grape seeds on the floor and flicks cigarette butts willy nilly among other uncouth behaviours), she even quit modelling because it was just too strenuous. Chris, meanwhile, is the consummate sensitive artist, a dabbler in painting but portrayed as cow-toeing to his wife, being emasculated doing dishes and cleaning up, as she harps on about the life he doesn't give her and the kind of man her dead husband was (his picture still hanging over the couch) in comparison. Even Johnny has more going on that just being an utter shit...he has dreams, but clearly no faculty for achieving them. He gets lost in his vices, and uses Kitty's obsession with bad boys to treat her poorly when he feels like it, but drop her a lump of sugar also when he feels like it. He's not a smooth operator, but smooth enough for Kitty.
"Horror, Not Horror" movies are those that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold. I'm not a big horror fan (Toast is the horror buff here), but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.
In the past few months I've been wading more and more into the underexplored depths of genre cinema. Some of this has been on my own, at random, and some of it's been prompted by the films discussed by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery on the very fun Video Archives podcast (noted by an asterisk below). These are, to a one, not good films, but the hope is always that, for as maybe limited in budget, or as tossed off as they may have been, they still have something going for them. Oh, but surprise, one of these is a prestige picture that was nominated for Oscars!
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Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961) dir. Vittorio Cottafavi - Tubi
(AKA Hercules and the Captive Women)
What is it? One of the many, many iterations of Hercules in the "sword'n'sandals" genre of action/adventure movies, largely made in Italy throughout the 1950's through 1980's. In this one Hercules, played by the handsome and beefy Reg Park, is ostensibly kidnapped by his friend and taken on an adventure where he discovers Atlantis, but the place is a nefarious one, and only the might of Hercules can stop their evil plot (whatever it was).
Why watch? I had, on a whim, picked up a copy of the Mario Bava directed "sequel" film to this, Hercules in the Haunted World, so I thought I should just give this one a shot first.
The good? Bava served as a director of photography so there are some pretty nice shots in this. Reg Park, former Mr. Universe, is really nice to look at. Bava does this tilt-down/pan-up shot in the cave which is really sweet, and there's a high-up crane shot of. The shot of Hercules bounding through a courtyard of dead bodies is kinda nuts as is the reveal of the Atlantian elite guard which is a little provovative. It's impressive seeing Hercules driving a chariot of 10 horses, if only there were a Hercules movie that could sustain that sort of scale. Hercules being a petty dick was pretty fun, as were all Reg Park's muscles. Fay Spain's eyes are the best special effect in the movie.
The bad? The audio - dubbing, sound effects, music - is pretty awful most of the time, and seemingly mixed all at the same volume. The action sequences are incredibly clumsy. The story is flimsy nonsense with little internal consistency. The wardrobe and sets waver between spectacular and silly. The envisioning of both ancient Greece and Atlantis is pretty uninspired. The cinematography wavers between impressive and pedestrian.
The trash? Reg Park does this one-armed swimming technique which just blows my mind thinking about it.
Is it horror? No, but there's definitely some little twinges of horror that the film never thinks to exploit.
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Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) dir. Mario Bava - BluRay
What is it? Reg Park's second - and final - foray as the demigod hero. But this one's directed by Mario Bava, and Christopher Lee co-stars. Maintaining no continuity from the prior film (in which Hercules had a wife and son), here he must go on a quest to retrieve a specific stone in order to cure the madness of his lover. The stone's destination? Hell!
Why watch? Bava, of course.
The good? This is a visual feast of nonsense. I watched it twice. Bava's innovative craftsmanship and colour sense is so damn impressive. The visual effects, in many instances, seem so surreal, as if they shouldn't exist. The big finale features the raising of the dead which is a sequence that would have for sure scared the crap out of me as a kid (but is both fun and silly as an adult watching on a hi definition TV)
The bad? The story is utterly nonsensical. The Kino blu-ray features an audio commentary from a Bava scholar who identifies that there was obviously a completely different shooting script at one time and that few pains were taken to marry the original story with what they wound up with.
The trash? Very little trash in this one. It's a really stunning watch. I guess, the biggest trash is that they dubbed over Christopher Lee's performance. Blasphemy!
Is it horror? No, but it does swerve that way for the climax for a bit, providing a sense of Bava's chops in the genre.
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*Demonoid: Messenger of Death (1981) dir. Alfredo Zacarias - Tubi
What is it? A Mexican (but English) horror film about a demonic hand which possesses people to kill. Samantha Eggar stars as the wife of the mining honcho who releases the hand. It seems to be fixated on trying to get her specifically as it goes from possessing person to person and murdering along the way.
Why watch? It was a Tarantino/Avery recommendation.
The good? Honestly, it has a pretty solid sense of its own history and the evil forces at play. It does better than many horror films in that aspect. The acting is surprisingly decent for such a off the beaten path production.
The bad? But make no mistake, this is some cheesy-crust crazy-bread stuff. The special effects are that special blend of late-70's/early-80's waxy gore with stark red corn syrup blood. I have to wonder if the makers of this took any of it seriously or if they knew it would eventually be considered campy fun.
The trash? They really liked to work their gross visual effects, and we've come so far in making that shit so gross that it's really quaint what they used to be able to get away with. Oh and gratuitous nudity tied to violence in the first five minutes (seen in one of the trailers even)
Is it horror? Yeah. It's that special type of 80's low-budg horror.
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*Blind Rage (1976) dir. Efren C Pinon - YouTube
What is it? The war in Viet Nam has decimated the markets in the Asian Pacific, so the world bank (I guess?) has decided to invest 15 million dollars into the region, to be held at a bank in Manila before dispersing. A man on the inside is recruited by a Black L.A. mobster to pull off a heist of said 15mil, but he's going to do it with ... 5 blind guys! Because who would ever suspect blind guys of robbing a bank.
Why watch? Another Tarantino/Avery recommendation.
The good? Umm, this movie real bad, but so bad that I enjoy telling people about how bad it is. It ends with a cameo by Fred Williamson in a bright blue butterfly collared deep-V-neck jumpsuit chomping on a cigar, looking great and being a total badass. And the line: "It's all going down right now at the International House of Pancakes".
The bad? There's no protagonist to this film. There's nobody we follow all throughout the movie. Is there anyone to really care about if they succeed or fail? No, there is not.
The trash? This movie is part Blaxploitation, part kung-fu, and part crime thriller, none of which is done particularly well. Is "Blindsploitation" a genre?
Is it horror? No, nor is it trying to be, though people do be getting shot, tho. And the script is a nightmare, lol.
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*Welcome to Blood City (1977) dir. Peter Sasdy - YouTube
What is it? A group of strangers find themselves in the desert with no memory of who they are, and a note each found on their person telling them that they were a killer. Kier Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey) doesn't believe a thing. They're escorted to Blood City by the sheriff (Jack Palance) who doesn't really want to tell them much about how the town operates, but it's basically a place where anything goes, including slavery and murder. In fact, the more you murder, the greater your status. But who are the people in a control booth watching all this, and why?
Why watch? Though Avery and Tarantino didn't necessarily love this, they were generally intrigued by the premise, and cited it as one of the Westworld knock-offs of the era, which intrigued me.
The good? The premise was really, really intriguing. A group of people with a secret past, possibly filled with murder, but without their memories, are they still the same murderers? Just one of many questions the film poses, but never answers. It's rather rife with ideas that don't get explored well enough, and has a mysterious backdrop that gets slowly revealed in a pleasant way (possibly cribbed by Cabin in the Woods) but ultimately doesn't pay off. And hey, more Samantha Eggar
The bad? The film is either shot terribly, with the active actor partially or fully out of frame most of the time, or else its transfer to video/digital went horribly wrong. It's actually pretty funny how awful it looks.
The trash? The one female "murderer" is the helpless object of affection and treated like a non-entity by everyone (content warning: off screen rape).
Is it horror? No, but it's certainly playing with dystopian themes which can be scary to some.
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*The Keep (1983) dir. Michael Mann - Criterion
What is it? The infamous/forgotten Michael Mann disaster that finds Nazi soldiers in 1941 taking over an old Romanian Citadel only to unleash a terrible, murderous being from its cage. The being uses Jewish scholar Ian McKellen to try and get set free upon the Earth, by tempting him with revenge upon all Nazis. Scott Glenn plays an otherworldly savior type who's arrived on earth to stop it, but not before sexing up Alberta Watson, McKellen's daughter.
Why watch? I caught this film years and years ago on a late night TV airing, and have long been wanting to revisit it. It's a moody piece with haunting Tangerine Dream synths, that probably was even moodier in Mann's lost original 210minute cut. This 98 minute hack job by the studios leaves the film feeling disjointed and frequently confusing.
The good? I love all the strange lighting, the sets, the evil creature, Mann's style is all over this, even in it's chopped up form.
The bad? I have to think that a 210minute version of this would be better as a cohesive story, but still potentially direly boring. But then again, there are some intriguing character reveals and dynamics that I think may have played out so much better in a longer form.
The trash? Scott Glenn meets Alberta Watson for less then a minute before they start boning. Does he have Starfox's powers?
Is it horror? I think it's trying to be.
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Leviathan (1989) dir. George P. Cosmatos - AmazonPrime
What is it? The other, lower-budget undersea movie of 1989 (next to the Abyss), it's basically Alien (with a dash of Carpenter's The Thing) in a sealab. Starring Robocop, a Ghostbuster, Flash's girlfriend, and Evil-Lyn, so it's 80's to the core.
Why watch? It's been on my "to watch" list since I first spied its tape cover at a video store. It always looked like something that would be in my wheelhouse.
The good? There's some really great sets and some nice underwater sequences. It does manage to build a decent amount of attention, but...
The bad? ...you can basically watch as the film's budget starts shrinking the longer it goes on. They try to edit around the budget limitations, but they become painfully obvious. The budget limitations can't capitalize upon the film's buildup and it's a real wet fart of an ending.
The trash? The creature, and not in an "oh, it's so gross" kind of way but more in a "really? That's what you're going with?" kind of way. It's a pretty corny looking beast, and the film does an incredibly poor job with devising any sort of mythology or backstory behind it. It's basically a perfunctory creature with little to no intrigue behind it. It's a terrible let down to an otherwise acceptably entertaining picture.
Is it horror? It probably was at some point during production.
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Nightmare Alley (2020) dir. Guillermo del Toro - Crave
What is it? The saga of down-on-his-luck crumbum Bradley Cooper who winds up helping out at 1920's-era carnival/freakshow, learning the tricks of the trade. He effectively steals one man's mentallist act then starts performing for New York High society, pushing the boundaries of good taste and kayfabe. Psychologist Cate Blanchette starts working with him, if only to ultimately use him for her own purposes, then destroy him for fun.
Why watch? Generally intrigued by del Toro's films, and I share his fascination with carnivals of old. Oh yeah, and Sid worked on it!
The good? It looks great. It's a phenomenal looking film in every aspect. The attention to detail in every scene -- the sets, lighting, costuming, makeup, props - all just eye catching and really attractive. I also liked how it exposed the sham of mentallists (if only it had more fun with it)
The bad? The film is tedious. It's a long 150 minutes of watching a not great person do not great things. You never really connect with Bradley Cooper, nor with any of his relationships. There's nothing there. You know he's bad news from the beginning, and that sense of distrust never abates. It makes it very, very hard to invest in him. Were he, maybe, more charming, or perhaps if we had some insight into what his goals were, what he's actually working towards, or, mayhaps if he were even a semblance of a good person we could follow him, hoping for his success even as he makes the wrong choices and finds himself unable to stop from going deeper into the darkness. But we know he's shit from the beginning, Del Toro wants us to know that being easy on the eyes will get him far, but for this story, it's not enough. We're rooting for him to fail (and hoping, at least, that he doesn't take others undeservedly down with him)..
The trash? The last 30 minutes finally pick up the pace but they're kind of the worst moments of the film. Just waiting for Cooper to get his comeuppance, little of which is satisfying, moreover, it all seemed kinda overblown and carny...I mean corny.
Is it horror? Meh, its toes creep over the edge of the deck, but it never really tests the waters, nevermind jumps right in.
The film opens with a retro-styled WWII-era animated film meant to remind soldiers that there's no such thing as "gremlins" that will destroy their aircraft, that it's only human negligence that causes such errors. It's a pretty great start, and seems to take more than a bit of inspiration from Roald Dahl's The Gremlins which was intended to be a Disney animated feature.
Following the animated intro, the first note of score features Carpenter-style 80's synth cue, a cue which pops up later in the film, but only stands out in its sporadic use. This very well could be an homage to Carpenter-style action-horror(-camp) storytelling, but it's apparent they only wanted to hint at it, not commit to it. It's a very Cameron-esque movie, complete with a modest budget, contained setting, the genre bits and pieces, and some semblance of a message underpinning it.
It's a tight 88 minutes full of creatures, aerial action, and so. much. peril. An ensemble piece where 90% of the ensemble is off screen and only heard over the radio 90% of the time. It asks a lot of Chloe Grace Moretz who has to carry all the weight of the film's ridiculous twists, as well as add some (no pun intended) grace to a character facing an agressively flagrant (and, unfortunately, not unrealistic) amount of mysogeny as she interlopes on the military boy's club aboard a war plane, seemingly with a clandestine mission which turns out to be something very personal. Meanwhile, there's a gremlin tearing the plane apart, and Japanese fighters on attack.
In a film that posits plane-destroying gremlins are real, Moretz (no pun intended) grounds this to such a degree that it's only when she she has to extremely crawl out on the underside of the plane's wing like a seasoned freeclimber, using the bulletholes as finger and toe holds, (a simultaneously ridiculous and awesome sequence, especially given her character is operating with a broken pointer finger) that the film seems to be stretching its limits of credibility (relatively speaking).
Taking a script from (guh) Max Landis, director Roseanne Liang rewrote it into something that speaks truth to sexism women have constantly faced as they enter male dominated fields, and how they have to navigate insult and patronization with gritted teeth, courtesy and inner strength. Moretz's officer and pilot is confident, competent and more than capable, and certainly knows how to (no pun intended) navigate the patriarchy, but is still laid subject to it. Her character has to got to a lot of unusual places emotionally but she does so in a way that feel like a consistent character, that is until the finale. There she decides to go toe-to-toe against a wounded gremlin in what seems like it's revenge motivated, but it's such a typical movie machismo thing where the hero beats the villain creature with their own bare hands...something that a male writer would write to make a female character seem like a badass. It doesn't really feel like an in-character moment. But I liked Moretz ripping off her sleeve to reveal the muscles that just confirmed she was capable of hanging upside down from the underside of a plane wing while in flight.
It is a brisk romp that has no shame about the wild twists and turns it goes through. It doesn't try to explain gremlins, they just are. The parable here is that a woman faces many enemies, the monster that makes itself known, the shadows that lurk with potential to strike at any time, and the enemies she must walk amongst, the ones that say they're friendly but are perhaps the most dangerous of them all. This, I believe, Liang shaped into a film about the lengths women have to go to to escape these threats, and the strength they possess is kind of beyond belief.
It's not perfect. There are definite questions left unanswered, and certainly inquiries about how certain things truly operate, but like Carpenter in the 80's, Liang doesn't slow down long enough for these questions to matter. Not perfect, but also not boring and quite a bit of fun.
2020, Roseanne Liang (My Wedding and Other Secrets) -- download
I saw the trailer for this and thought, "OMG I have to see this!" with its Twilight Zone-ish premise of a secret agent type making her way onto a WW II plane full of men who don't want her there, bat-faced gremlins (vampires in the skies?) and gonzo survival action sequences (hanging off the bottom of a plane during combat) where an extremely capable girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) saves the day. Oh, it looked crazy, but my kind of crazy. I also saw that Max Landis had written the movie, and I knew I would like it, as he wrote one of my top ten TV series of all time - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
Maude (Moretz, The Equalizer) sneaks onboard a WWII B17 in Auckland, New Zealand (it bears stating that this is a NZ movie) with a peculiar case. Immediately after getting caught she presents orders from a base commander telling of her top secret mission, and despite all of their misogynist arguments against it, Captain Reeves lets her stay, but has her locked in the belly turret, where she gets to overhear some of the nastiest conversation between the men, and what they want to do with her. They are not happy a woman is onboard. Not long after takeoff, she sees a gremlin on the wing (shadows of Willam Shatner?) and shoots down a Japanese spotter plane, sealing the fact of her skills and capability. Alas, once they decide to let her out, the gremlin has done its work, and she is trapped down under when the shit (Japanese Zeroes) hits the fan (propellers?).
*spoilers*
I have serious reservations about liking this movie. Max Landis revealed himself to be a nasty misogynist piece of work in recent years, which probably made that eavesdropping dialogue rather easy for him. But here he was making a fun, gonzo action flick with a VERY capable female lead. But then the premise was turned on its head -- Maude is revealed NOT as a super-spy on a secret mission, but just as a single mother desperate to get her newborn baby away from a place she was not wanted. While you could argue that Landis was just saying that even "average" women will perform great feats of heroism to save their children, I more thought it of it as him not seeing a woman capable of being a super-spy, and the only motivation he could see for a woman being so heroic was to save her baby. At first, I thought, "producer meddling", and then I remembered what the Internet has been saying about Landis. I don't like to condemn on the words of the Internet, but the evidence seems... evident - the guy's scum.
Still, its a great fun romp of a movie, shot during COVID restrictions, and very apparent. A lot of the movie takes place while the characters are separated, with Moretz only ever being in the forefront. And she is very very good as Maude Super-Spy crawling under the belly of the plane, making me squirm and twitch on the sofa, as my fear of heights got to me. The movie never really tries to be anything other than a Small Action Flick with an outrageous plot, but excels at it.
CS Forester was a novelist known for his Horatio Hornblower Napoleonic era nautical novels. He also did a number of novels set during WW II, including one that was made into Sink the Bismark! where the British navy strives to sink the most powerful German battleship to date. Greyhound is based on The Good Shepherd, about a US Navy commander tasked with escorting a large multi-national convoy across the Atlantic, and the long long few days it takes to cross, while being dogged by numerous U-boats.
Tom Hanks plays Commander Krause, an aging Navy Commander provided his first real wartime command. He's a devout man, stoic and reserved, and determined to prove himself worthy of all the souls under his protection. Soon after the convoy enters the "Black Pit", an area where aerial reconnaissance is not available, they are attacked by a wolf pack. Krause stays awake, never having any opportunity to sleep nor even eat, as he goes from watch to watch, the Germans not relenting. He ignores exhaustion and the doubts of the men under his command, even his own personal doubts, and just soldiers on.
The movie moves methodically through each watch, letting the actions speak for themselves, rarely playing into melodrama or clichés of war movies. I felt the strain along with Krause, as he watches ships sink, as he issues commands that send crewmen to their deaths, as fate often overtakes all. The movie is grim, caught in the cold mid-Atlantic, and Hanks plays it well, as I knew he would. He surprised us all when he took on the role in Saving Private Ryan and while there is little comparison between these two men, I knew he could handle this small, focused role. The movie not grand, nor does it strive to be, but it is taught story telling.
The Story (in 2 paragraphs or less) World War II... Americans are mounting en masse to rescue France from German occupation (this is set just prior to D-day). The film opens with a harrowing incursion into enemy territory. By the time the smoke clears, only four of our POV squad remains. Their goal is to take out a radio jamming tower in a nearby church. They meet up with a local woman who provides them shelter and insight into what's been happening in the area.
Turns out the Nazi's are performing experiments in the church on the locals, and any soldiers, living or dead, they find. "The thousand year reich needs thousand year soldiers" as they say. So our troops need to not only blow up the tower so troops can land on the beach, but also destroy the zombie supersoldier program.
Why This? Been meaning to watch this since it came out.
What's Good? That opening sequence is incredible. The rest of the movie is pretty cracking entertainment as well.
Not so good... The film doesn't have any room for a dialogue on race in the military. With Da 5 Bloods exploring the Black experience in Viet Nam and Lovecraft Country starring a Korean war vet this year, it's glaring that the lead character here (played by Jovan Adepo), in 1944, doesn't have anything specific to say about his experience. Even what he does say, about being conscripted, doesn't really have anything unique or personal behind it. 2018 seems so archaic.
The bad thing Nazis fucking suck, you guys. I was expecting zombie nazi soldiers and was pleasantly surprised to find more of a super-soldier serum-gone-wrong.
Franchise Potential Thankfully this feels complete in and of itself. So refreshing.
Did I like watching this? I did, actually. Quite a bit. And it was refreshing to get a big, harrowing opening action sequence which most horror films never have the budget for. It's not really horror, in the end...as it was sold originally as a horror movie. It's a biggish-budget action movie, set in WWII, with a light dusting of horror elements. It's quite the genre mash and I liked it.
[Toasty's take-Toasty and I agree that this is a really fun movie, and I appreciate that at the time of Toasty's writing that he felt it did subtly intone race and gender inequality. (I also like Toasty's statement of "...movies, which I have always chosen to be my explorative vehicle for race, gender and equality conversations..."... heh, we agree) I just wish in light of the modern conversation that it had done a little more]
[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 Stallonehad 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 likethe 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 TheChristmas 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?)
