Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2016.13

These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of almost 1200 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.

Dana Carvey: Straight White Male, 60 (2016) — 5/10

Carvey still leans heavily on voices, which are decent, but his material is too easy and middle-of-the-road. And some of it is quite bad and goes on for far too long (e.g. the Chinese documentary bit). Not recommended. You’ll have more fun with any one of the dozens of other comics on Netflix instead (Rogan, Burr, etc.)

The Other Guys (2010) — 8/10

This is the movie I used to prove to my wife that Will Ferrell can actually make her laugh. It kind of worked, but mostly because Mark Wahlberg is also in it. They are cops, partners know as “the other guys”. The top cops are Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, but they’re quickly taken off-duty. Ferrell’s cop is hot on the trail of financial malfeasance, which he considers to be more worthy of investigation than high-profile cases. Wahlberg disagrees. Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton and Rob Riggle are also pretty good. The movie hits Wall Street and big finance pretty hard and is a more-than-solid, very funny movie. Highly recommended.

The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (2016) — 9/10

This is a fantastic documentary about an ultra-low–frills ultra-marathon held annually in the mountains of Tennessee. The heart and soul of the race is organizer Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell. He’s the originator of the eccentric rules. The race is ostensibly a 20-mile loop but everyone involved acknowledges that the loop is closer to a marathon—about 26 miles. Each loop also climbs and descends 3300m (about 3 times up and down the front side of Säntis). Racers have 12 hours to complete the loop, so it’s a hiking pace to complete it.

Only 40 runners per year can compete. It costs $1.60 to enter, plus a license plate or something Gary needs, like plaid shirts. He lights a cigarette to kick off the race. One hour before start, he blows a conch. The race can start at any time of the day or night. Each runner gets a new number each loop; to prove they ran the course, they have to find a book at between 9 to 11 stations, tearing out the page corresponding to their number.

Three loops is called the “fun run”. Only 14 people have every finished all 5 loops in 60 hours in the race’s 30-year history. Some years no-one finishes at all. The best time is just over 52 hours. Highly recommended.

David Cross: Making America Great Again (2016) — 7/10

David Cross has quite a storied career, with Mr. Show and Arrested Development to his credit. I had no idea he was a also a standup comedian. His delivery is pretty good, but I thought his material was a little weak. He pandered to the crowd and didn’t take enough risks. Some of his longer stories were decent, but some of the material was a little too easy. There are better standup comics out there.

Colin Quinn: A New York Story (2016) — 8/10

I know Colin Quinn best as the news guy from Saturday Night Live from 1995–2000. I was a bit skeptical at first, but quickly warmed to him—his fast-paced delivery paired with an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City made for what I thought was a great show. Of course, as an 8-year resident of New York during the time Quinn was mostly talking about, I was able to relate to a lot of his material in a way that people not familiar with New York City will miss. Hell, he even talked about Kew Gardens and the L-Train, mainstays of my residence there. Kath and I thought it was hilarious and spot-on. Produced and directed by Jerry Seinfeld, some of the material was clearly aimed at the oversensitive modern crowds. He didn’t pull any punches on talking about ethnicities and juxtaposed that with a Polish “joke” cleaned up for modern consumption—a joke that went nowhere at all, as intended. Recommended.

Creed (2015) — 9/10

This movie picks up the story of the life of Rocky Balboa with the story of Apollo Creed’s son Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), who lives in California with Apollo’s widow (Phylicia Rashad). She rescued him at a young age from a life of bouncing around the juvenile foster-care system. When we join him, he’s a successful young exec who boxes in Tijuana on the side. He gives in to the world of boxing, quits his job and moves to Philadelphia to seek out Rocky, played to perfection by Sylvester Stallone.

There he meets Bianca, a musical neighbor played by Tessa Thompson. But most importantly he convinces Rocky to train him. After an initial fight against a local hero, which he wins decisively, Adonis gets a shot at the title from the current holder of the belt, who want to get in one last fight before going up the river for seven years. Rocky helps him train for this fight while fighting one of his own (cancer). The fight is well-shot and the movie is really good overall. Great performances from almost everyone. Recommended.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) — 6/10

This isn’t my first time seeing this Thanksgiving classic. It still holds up pretty well, even though the overacting can be pretty extreme (e.g. Ray Bolger’s “They tore off my legs and threw them ovah theah!”).

Dorothy’s dog Toto pisses off the local martinet, who demands that he be destroyed. Dorothy flips out and runs away from home with Toto, meets Mr. Marvel on the road, who advises she return home. She agrees, the wind whips up, the twister is on its way. Her whole family hides in the cellar and locks the door behind them. Dorothy gets a knock on the head, but segues smoothly into a dream about the house flying in the tornado with the mean old lady riding her bike through it. The house lands in Munchkin Land, on top of the Wicked Witch of the East. Glinda, The Good Witch of the North shows up to congratulate Dorothy on her murder, then tells her to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City. She sets off on her way but has such poor judgment that she takes up with a brainless scarecrow as well as a heartless robot and a cowardly lion before succumbing to the sweet embrace of opium. Waking up from the nod, they arrive disheveled at the City, where they are welcomed by the citizens but upbraided by the Wizard, who sends them on a suicide mission just for fun. They survive the mission by sheer dumb luck and return with the Ruby Slippers, which are essential to Getting Home. But the Wizard is a fraud of the highest caliber and cannot reward them as promised. They believe his hand-waving, flim-flam argument that what they sought “was in them all along” and then we see him escape in his balloon, breaking his final promise to Dorothy to take her home while pleading ineptitude, which is quite plausible. Glinda shows up to tell Dorothy that she could have gone home at any time and shows her how. Click, click, click and she wakes up in bed with several men hovering over her like vultures. It was a dream all along. The end.

The Americans S02&03 (2014/2015) — 8/10

This is a show about a deep-cover family of Soviet agents living and working in Washington D.C. in the early 80s. The history is quite authentic. The script and acting are all top-notch—a lot of the show is in Russian, although the deep-cover agents never break cover. The start of season 2 was dragging a bit, but picked up significantly. Season 3 is also quite a ride. I will leave it to Wikipedia to provide details. Recommended.

Gangs of New York (2013) — 6/10

You can watch it online at Gangs of New York | Gangland Crime Documentary (YouTube). It’s not as even-handed as I’d like: it doesn’t really address any reason for poverty/crime except for lack of discipline and skin color. It’s a bit too generous to vigilantes like the Guardian Angels and Bernie Goetz and even the police. But it’s pretty entertaining, especially with introductions to characters like the guy to the right, who’s presumably named “Black”, but which looks more like a racial label in the video. Or there’s the coolest rap name ever: Thirstin Howl III.[1] The names of the gangs are also familiar for those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, like The Decepticons.

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) — 4/10

It’s the dialogue. It’s really the dialogue that sinks this awful movie. It’s so relentlessly bad. And delivered in such relentlessly bad ways. By pretty much everyone.

• The otherwise decent Ben Affleck brings constipation to Bruce Wayne’s demeanor (and what looks like even more steroids than even Christian Bale was able to muster).
• The otherwise normally good Jesse Eisenberg is given literally nothing to work with as Lex Luthor. In fact, I think he thinks he’s playing the Joker. He starts off manic and stays there, for no clear reason. He’s there to make milennials feel like they’re part of this movie: he looks about 24 years old, but he talks like he’s had 25 years of life experience.
• His assistant Mercy is a walking Bratz Doll who looks like she last ate in 2004.
• Henry Cavill is very convincing as an alien who just doesn’t quite get humanity (Superman), but he’s not nearly as otherworldly as Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen. At least Affleck was nice and shared the steroids with him, though.
• Amy Adams as Lois? Utterly miscast as a defiant reporter who gets interviews with African warlords but also corrects them sternly when they fail to immediately recognize that women are equal to men. Totally plausible.
• The otherwise amazing Jeremy Irons is sure to be wasted as Alfred (but everyone could use a check, I guess).
• Holly Hunter easily outdoes Eisenberg at being utterly terrible at delivering utterly terrible, jingoistic and hoo-rah America lines about terrorists and national security … and I stopped listening. Just her exaggerated speech defect is too over-the-top for me.
• Oh my God, they dragged poor Laurence Fishburne in it.

So far, everything they said about this movie is true.

OK. The nightmare was all right. Nice, little post-apocalyptic nightmare world where no-one shoots Batman, even though he’s standing right there in the open. It’s Wayne’s dream; he can’t be shot. I get it. Now he wakes up to a TIME TRAVELER? OMG it was all a dream again. So, after the dream-within-the-dream convinces Wayne that he’s ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, he now quotes the Cheney 1% doctrine.

A little later, he’s looking through a pile of checks returned to him. On each is written a phrase, the last of which is “Bruce Wayne = Blind”. Wayne turns to his assistant and asks “Why haven’t I seen this?” Can’t tell if kidding.

Soon after, Holly Hunter, in all seriousness and apropos of nothing, lisps “I grew up in Kentucky. I know how to wrestle a pig.” She’s not done. She joins the long line of people who like to declare that “this is how a democracy works” before mentioning something that has nothing to do with democracy (e.g. “we talk to each other” or “we hold hearings”). Whoever wrote this movie should never work again.

The capitol building has just blown up. But Lois Lane figures that the capitol police have nothing better to do than listen to her imperious demands to be let onto the scene as a member of the press. The attitude and tone is so incongruous to what just happened. The whole fucking capital is gone, along with most of the U.S. government.

The Kryptonian ship looks like a leftover from Prometheus but it’s much more accommodating: it speaks to Lex Luthor in English and apparently uses no encryption or authorization mechanism, capitulating to him immediately.

Bruce Wayne meanwhile, puts on a completely unnecessary Cross-fit show. He is cheesy. “Men are brave.” Oh my God, so arrogant. We’re about ten minutes, two buildings and two green-gas grenades into the main event and I just realized I’m only two hours into a 3-hour superhero movie. Oh, that’s why.

Now we’re on to the part where Luthor channels the Riddler and then introduces us to the monstrosity that was Zod, but now looks like the Incredible Hulk. Zod has a right to be mad. He’s got no dick.

How on Earth is there any of the city left? It was one pyrotechnic thermonuclear explosion after another and now everything’s fine?

Ugh. I’m out. Not recommended.

Enemies − Welcome to the Punch (2013) — 5/10

James McAvoy and Mark Strong star as a young cop and a very experienced criminal, respectively. The movie starts with a ludicrous bank-heist action scene that is all action and no cleverness. It ends with Strong shooting McAvoy in the knee, which leads into a long and only partial recovery for him. This would be a theme throughout the movie: guns are dangerous in a way that Hollywood fails to note. Bullets hurt. People bleed. You often don’t fully recover from such wounds. The movie centers around a debate over whether English cops should be armed. Strong comes back to England, does a lot of bad-ass stuff, the cops are all crooked, McAvoy is resolute. It’s OK, but nothing to recommend.

The Way Way Back (2013) — 8/10

Steve Carell and Toni Collette go to the beach for the summer, with her awkward son in tow. They stay with his sister, played wonderfully by Allison Janney, who delivers her hilarious lines with aplomb, all the while waving a cocktail.

Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet add a lot of color. Sam Rockwell plays a “cool” guy who works at a local water park. Maya Rudolph is his boss. Rockwell’s character reminds me of Val Kilmer’s character in Real Genius. He’s a constant stream of bullshit but he sells it well. The movie is quirky and sweet, but not cloying. It feels like it’s set in the 80s e.g. when they hand out the work checks, but he mentions the Footloose remake, which came out in 2011, so it’s hard to tell when it is. Plus, there’s the complete absence of cell phones, which makes me think this movie actually is set in the 80s but the reference to the remake was an anachronism.

The awkward son is super-mopey. His awkwardness and inability to talk to girls actually ends up being an advantage with a pretty girl who is also awkward. He doesn’t even notice that she’s hitting on him.

Metallica Through the Never (2013) — 6/10

The movie itself is a silly plot about a roadie who’s sent on a mission to get gasoline during a Metallica show. The movie is mostly Metallica playing its classics in concert. The concert footage is pretty good. The “plot” is not very good. It’s kind of disjointed. But I knew almost every song, which means Metallica stopped making memorable music in the 90s. One extra point for Metallica music. And an extra point for playing all of “Orion” throughout the credits.