Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.4

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 around 1600 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 and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) — 6/10

Tim Miller (I’ve never heard of him) directed this latest entry in the Terminator saga. It sees the return of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). There are two new Terminators, a good one, Grace (Mackenzie Davis) and a bad one (various actors). They’re after Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), who’s apparently the new person who’s going to birth the next generation (or whatever, it honestly doesn’t matter). The new terminator is just as unstoppable as all of the others, until he’s stopped. Schwarzenegger’s T-800 sacrifices himself in the end, as does Grace, who blows up her power supply to kill the other Terminator. It survives pretty much everything else., including getting completely shredded and melted. I gave it an extra star because I like Arnie and I liked his denouement, with the fuzzy old screen showing his readouts, fading for the last time with a “neural net misfire”. The “ladies getting it done” part was a bit tough sometimes. Reyes is unconvincing. I’m always fascinated by how Hollywood thinks EMPs work: two robots next to each other and only one is affected.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) — 10/10

The wedding massacre; the meeting between Budd/Sidewinder (Michael Madsen) and Beatrix Kiddo aka The Bride aka Black Mamba (Uma Thurman); The Bride’s burial; Beatrix’s training with Pei Mei (Gordon Liu); The Bride’s escape; Elle Driver aka California Mountain Snake (Darryl Hannah) kills Budd with a snake; Elle reads the word “gargantuan”; Black Mamba plucks out Elle’s eye; Beatrix visits Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks) to find out where Bill (David Carradine) is; she visits Bill at home to meet her daughter, who’s alive; Bill shoots Beatrix with a drug; they talk forever; she kills him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique (Wikpedia) (aka Five Finger Death Punch). Is this movie a ten? I don’t know. There’s a lot of expository dialogue. But I love it. It’s even pretty good in German. The music is great.

Overboard (2018) — 7/10

This is a remake of the 1984 classic starring socialite Goldie Hawn and carpenter Kurt Russell. In this version, all of the genders are reversed, with Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez) who comes from (a lot of) money and Kate Sullivan (Anna Faris) who’s got three daughters and is struggling to make ends meet. Instead of building a mini-golf course, Kate dreams of passing her nursing exam.

She meets Leonardo on his boat, when she’s brought onboard to clean the carpet after one of his parties. He throws her off the boat, laughing. When he falls off the boat later that night, he wakes up on the beach with amnesia. Kate shows up at the hospital with her friend Theresa (Eva Longoria) and puts their plan into action: convince Leonardo he’s Kate’s husband, make him do all of the housework, get a job with a local pool-building crew (with a bunch of Spanish-speaking guys, like Josh Segarra), and give Kate space to study for her nursing exam.

As in the original, Leonardo falls in love with Kate, despite how awful she treats him. They are making their life together, everything’s going great, and then his real family shows up, triggering the return of his memories. He goes back with his family, but quickly realizes that his experiences have changed him (obvs). The final scene is pretty much a shot-for-shot remake of the original, right down to the laughable life-vests they’re all wearing. And, Anna Faris looks just like Goldie Hawn in so many shots.

In typical fashion for a 21-century movie, Leonardo choose love over money, but then gets money anyway, when his Scottish servant Colin (Josh Hannah) shows up with the deed to a 60M yacht that was a birthday present, so cannot be “disowned” from him. They are in love and rich and can hire Colin. The end. It’s fine, of course, but this obsession with making everything work out just perfect all of the time is definitely something that has increased over my lifetime. It’s like people are physically pained when everything doesn’t work out perfectly for the characters they’ve grown to love. It’s the same with the obsession of never ending a series or constantly making sequels.

I was not positively disposed to this version at first, but was won over by the added flair of making Leonardo Mexican. A good third, if not half, of the movie is in Spanish (there’s even some French!) It’s literally a standard plot of a standard Hollywood movie, but I enjoyed it more because I was able to practice my Spanish listening comprehension. Also, the actors were better than expected.

Fantastic Four (2005) — 6/10

This is the original movie, depicting the origin story of The Fantastic Four. Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), and Benjamin Grimm (Michael Chiklis) gain their powers on a space mission gone wrong, where they are overwhelmed by cosmic rays and barely make it back to the planet.

The difference to the comics is that Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) turns to metal, which he most certainly did not. He did not have superpowers granted him by cosmic rays, unlike the others. I’m almost certain that he wasn’t even on the spaceship with them. In the movie he is, and he’s the prime investor in the enterprise. In the comics, he trains tremendously and learns martial arts, but he has no superpowers. Instead, he masters the arcane as well as technological arts. His powers in the movie are similar to those that he has in the comics, but are made to seem to stem from cosmic-ray induced genetic changes rather than witchcraft.

The first half of the film is about them getting their powers and learning to control them. Reed designs and builds them clothes that will accommodate their powers. Then it segues into a struggle with Doom, who seeks to extend the power he’s gotten by drawing off the energy of the others. There’s a showdown, of course.

Watched it in German.

David Spade: Nothing Personal (2022) — 8/10

I am so pleased that this special was good. He didn’t stay committed to any sort of overarching concept. He did bits, kind of linked them together. It didn’t matter. You watch Spade for Spade. His jokes are funny. He’s funny. I also just like him, his whole vibe. He’s appropriately self-deprecating. He talked about COVID a bit, he talked about shopping for clothes, about being in Hollywood, about dating, about texting, it doesn’t matter. His final joke was excellent—about a daredevil private flight to Jackson Hole. They land in hurricane winds and a blizzard, on an empty tarmac, with the ground crew golf-clapping. It’s empty for miles around because all other flights had been diverted. Why? “Because they’re pussies”, says the pilot.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) — 7/10

The Fantastic Four take on the Silver Surfer, who is, of course, Galactus’s herald. Reed (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue (Jessica Alba) are getting married, but their wedding is interrupted by the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones; voiced in English by Laurence Fishburne). Reed and Sue consider getting away from it all and breaking up the band. Johnny (Chris Evans) and Ben (Michael Chiklis) are not happy about it. Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) is back in the mix again, trying to see if he can steal the Surfer’s powers. He temporarily allies with the FF and the U.S. military, headed by General Hager (Andre Braugher).

Watched it in German.

Ronnie Chieng: Speakeasy (2022) — 8/10

He made many references to economics, models, mathematics—y = mx + c—but he also messed up a few COVID-related facts, like saying that genome was sequenced 3 months after the lockdown. The Chinese had finished sequencing by the beginning of the year, before the pandemic was even declared. At another point, he said that Americans invented the mRNA vaccine, but it was a collaboration among many people over a decade, but the last dash is credited to a couple of Turkish researchers from Germany, I believe.

“I like these guys who didn’t finish school who just assume that they’re street smart. It’s not one or the other. You can be school-dumb and street-dumb.”

“Women are not like a vending machine, where you put in some kindness at the top and sex just falls out. Women are not like a customer-rewards card where you get ten stamps and then you fuck. Women don’t owe you anything.”

He talked about the pill and how it would never work if men had to take it, because there’s too much organization and focus required. No-one would ever believe a man if he said he was on a pill.

He talked about America and its backwardness. He talked about hating the United Kingdom and his first two-week shows there. That was a long joke, but it was pretty well-crafted.

Thelma & Louise (1991) — 9/10

Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) head out on a road trip for a long weekend. Louise is married to control-freak and boor Darryl (Christopher McDonald), so she’s looking to kick loose. When they stop as a bar, Louise is happy to let anyone chat her up, whereas Thelma is more suspicious of everyone. Louise is lining up shots and hitting the cance floor, while Thelma is smoking and stewing at the table. The gentlemen of the bar don’t allow it, though, and get her out there too.

Harlan (Timothy Carhart), the man with whom Thelma was dancing all night, expects something in return. Thelma heads out to the parking lot to get some fresh air. Harlan follows. He forces the issue, slaps Thelma around, prepares to take what won’t be given. Louise’s gun appears at Harlan’s neck. He is convinced to leave off his rape. Thelma’s face is starting to swell, but she’s able to get behind Louise, who’s about to let Harlan go, when he starts to mouth off. She shoots him in the heart.

Detective Hal (Harvey Keitel) interviews Lena, the Waitress (Lucinda Jenney) to find out who might have done it. He’s already on their trail, even though Lena says that it was either a woman or a husband who’d done it. The ladies go to ground in a motel. Louise calls Jimmy (Michael Madsen) to ask for help. She wants him to get her all of her money in the world—$6,700—and help her. She figures some things out while Thelma is napping in a bikini, out by the pool, sleeping of the stress and shock from having almost been raped and then having watched her friend shoot a man to death.

Thelma and Louise head toward Mexico. Thelma calls Darryl and he can’t stop threatening her. Right after the call, she trips over J.D. (Brad Pitt), but keeps on moving. he reappears in her rear-view mirror, obviously looking for a ride. Louise is not impressed and says no, of course. Thelma calls her “Spiessig” (narrow-minded, whitebread).

Jimmy shows up with Louise’s money and gets them motel rooms. Louise—against all logic—leaves the money with Thelma and tells her to behave herself. Jimmy flips out when she won’t tell him what’s going on, then proposes to her. Thelma, on the other hand, finds J.D. on her doorstep, lets him, and learns what all the hubbub about the sex is all about. She leaves him in the room, wanders to the diner in a post-coital haze, and then reveals to Louise that she’s left J.D. in the room with all of her money. The money is, of course, gone, when they return.

At this point, Louise gives up, having done everything she could to save their duo. Now it’s Thelma’s turn to play grown-up. Sort of. She robs a convenience store. They’re doubling down.

Hal is on their trail, picking up Jimmy and J.D. Hal is the only one who’s trying to save them, knowing that the circumstances are pulling them along. They’re in the shit because Louise had to let loose after having been suppressed by Darryl for so long, then almost gets raped for the crime of being hot and having fun, then they’re robbed by J.D. for the crime of wanting to just get a taste of the good life. At every step of the way, they can’t just get a good weekend away from … bad men.

They call Darryl. Thelma hangs up right away because Darryl answers all friendly-like, so she knows he’s working with the cops. Louise calls back and asks to talk to Hal. He reveals that he knows they’re on the way to Mexico. They drive all night and are pulled over the next day by a State Trooper (Jason Beghe), for driving 105MPH. He appears as an imposing rock and takes Louise back to his car. Thelma follows and takes the officer out of the car at gunpoint. At this point, he completely changes his demeanor and the ladies pack him into his own trunk. They’re getting in deeper.

The meet the same trucker again and again, who made lewd gestures again and again, and finally confront him. They ask him to apologize, which he very politely declines. They blow up his gas tanker and leave him with the wreckage.

In a bizarre scene, a black cyclist shows up in lycra kit, with dreads, with a walkman playing Jimmy Cliff’s “I can see clearly now”, and smoking a joint. He’s cycling in the desert, dozens of miles from anything. He stops and finds the trapped State Trooper, blowing pot smoke through one of the bullet holes in the trunk. This scene is so bizarre and random, it’s amazing it stayed in the movie.

The cops are finally hot on their tail, chasing them through dead, desert town, as Louise leaves the road, with a dozen cop cars in tow. They get away the first time, but the noose is tightening. The ladies are transformed, looking more and more like outlaws. The long-range shots of the car trailing a long plume of desert dust, as it tears through the mesas, are lovely. Thelma says, “mir gefällt unserem Urlaub bis jetzt.” They both laugh.

We all know what happens next. They get away from all of the damned men chasing them.

Saw it in German.

Starship Troopers (1997) — 9/10

This classic movie about the “bugs” from the Klandathu system is Paul Verhoeven’s metaphor for the stupidity of war. We meet students in some sort of military academy: grunt Johnny Rico (Caspar Van Dien), his girlfriend—and pilot hopeful—Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), other grunt Ace Levy (Jake Busey), girl who’s in love with Rico, Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris), and their one-armed teacher Jean Rasczak (Michael Ironside).

In biology class, they dissect the anatomically superior bugs, led by their teacher (Rue McClanahan). Later Clancy Brown and Dean Norris show up as stalwarts as commanding officers in the field. Brenda Strong (braless heiress from Seinfeld) is a captain of one of the spaceships.

This is so obviously a parodic film that’s a wonderful litmus test—use it to detect the irony-free. There’s ridiculous violence and gratuitous nudity—with co-ed, mixed-race showers (in the 90s!) with no sexual tension whatsoever. it’s actually quite enlightened. The military scenes and media-handling hasn’t changed at all. It’s almost predictive of TikTok. They even split the heroics evenly between men and women, but not even obviously so. It feels relatively natural, not like some of the forced identitarian catastrophes of today.

The spaceship visuals are not bad at all, to be honest. Even the troops obviously marching through a California desert with live-action models all around are better than the CGI today, to be honest. The graphics today are so massively overdone that these look more realistic and more endearing—despite the kind of hilarious green paint/blood that spatters everywhere. The battle set pieces are pretty well-done.

They fight bugs, they get destroyed, they come back, they fight more bugs. Everyone’s very high-testosterone—men and women alike—and super-confrontational. Michael Richter is a treat, as always. It’s kind of humorous how the main type of injury sustained is losing an arm. .Toward the end of the film, a giant bug shoots a stream of fire from its snout. The stream intersects with one soldier’s upraised arm, presumably showing how this injury happens so often.

The final battle brings all of the former friends back together, in the final showdown against the bugs. Many of them die or are horribly injured. The scenes of slaughter clearly inspired the developers of Serious Sam.

And Verhoeven knows how to find attractive, young actors. Caspar Van Diem is chiseled, even when being whipped by a black guy. Dina Meyer is gorgeous. The actors are enthusiastic and seem to be having fun. It’s honestly easily way better than 95% of the Marvel movies.

Watched it in German.

Skyscraper (2018) — 5/10

This is a highly formulaic thriller about a high-tech building in China (I didn’t even catch which city it was supposed to be in). It’s kind of like Die Hard, but with the Rock in the leading role. Nothing to write home about. Watched it in German.