Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2023.10

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.

Pete Holmes: I AM Not for Everyone (2023) — 8/10

I remember liking this one-hour standup show because Pete Holmes has his own unique style. He doesn’t sound like other comedians. His material is pretty unique, kind of like Nate Bargatze—although I like Nate better. But we’re here to talk about Pete. Pete’s good. He’s fun. He’s a little dirty, but not too dirty. He’s not as dirty as he is in The dark Knight rises 2 : Batman’s dirty mind (YouTube), but it’s just as funny.

Chris Rock: Selective Outrage (2023) — 7/10

This is a 70-minute standup set. He has some funny things to say, but his highly repetitive style doesn’t hold up throughout the whole show. It could have been shorter if he didn’t repeat stuff three or four times for emphasis. I know, that’s his style. It always has been. What I’m saying is, that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it works, you don’t notice it. When you notice it, … it’s not working. It’s alternately on-point and annoying. He’s still doing fine, but his older stuff hit harder.

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) — 9/10

This was a lot of fun.

This is a parable of the Sackler family via the Ushers, in the context of episodes named after Edgar Allen Poe.

It start out with a brother and sister Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell). Their mother is very ill. She’s worked to death by her evil boss. She rises from the dead to avenge herself on the boss. All of his goes unexplained. If I recall correctly, he was the father of her children

Years later, Madeline and Roderick are scheming to get their claws into their actual father’s company. Look, it doesn’t really matter. What happens in short form is that they do eventually get control of the company, and have a nationwide opiate empire—à la Sackler. Lots of people die.

We slowly learn that they accomplished this because they’d met a bad lady Verna (Carla Gugino), who promised and delivered everything they wanted. As is slowly revealed, her price was small and easy to pay—when one is young. Verna’s face always looks so gray and withered when seen in shadow, but completely normal when lit. Nice touch.

The whole story is told completely out of order with flashbacks, so it’s hard to keep things straight in the order they were told. The Cask of Amontillado homage was near the end, but chronologically near the beginning, so I will note its awesomeness here.

In the modern day, Roderick has had six kids, Frederick (Henry Thomas—Eliott from E.T.)—his siblings call him Froderick because he’s such a suck-up to Dad—Napolen “Leo” (Rahul Kohli), Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), Victorine (T’Nia Miller), Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel), and the youngest Prospero “Perry” (Sauriyan Sapkota).

Frederick has a child Lenore (Kyliegh Curran) with his wife Morella (Crystal Balint). He’s pretty much angling to take over from Dad. Victorine has a business with her life-partner Alessandra (Paola Nuñez ) inventing artificial hearts. They cut some corners.

Leo is a bisexual social butterfly with a video-game company that does reasonably well. His boyfriend is sweet and very well-played. Prospero is too young to have gotten his real money yet, but he’s basically a party machine, too.

Tamerlane is married to her business partner William “Bill-T” Wilson (Matt Biedel), who runs some sort of fitness scam. She has her eye on bigger things and is ready to launch a very high-end, luxury something-or-other. They also have a very unique sex life. She hires prostitutes for him and just watches. Camille has some sort of social-media empire.

Arthur Gordon Pym (Mark Hamill) is a revelation as the family’s lawyer. Just top-notch writing for him—and a great performance from Hamill, who I didn’t even recognize at first. He’s the only one who meets Verna without dying. She offers him a deal to avoid arrest. He turns it down, knowing that he has to pay for what he’s done. They part ways.

What happens after all of this setup is that one of them dies in every episode. These are interspersed with scenes of Roderick telling the tale of what happened to C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), the federal attorney who’d been pursuing him for decades. He tells him the story because it no longer matters. The piper has been mostly paid—and will call for the final bill soon.

Roderick and Madeline had made a deal with Verna to get whatever they wanted, but that their fortune would not outlast them. That means that, well, everyone who could inherit that fortune would die.

What Roderick only belatedly realizes is that that includes his granddaughter Lenore, so he’s in denial about that, but it’s inevitable. Verna is an unstoppable force, as is the magic she wields. She grants Lenore a peaceful death, letting her know that her mother will eventually recover to create a fund with some of the inherited money, to help the victims of the Ushers. Roderick’s recovering drug-addict second wife Juno does the same with her share.

Roderick had killed Madeline himself and buried her in the basement. But she’s not dead! No! She has the same disease/power that her mother had and she comes back up the stairs—blind because Roderick had replaced her eyes with jewels (just watch it already)—to strangle Roderick and finish Verna’s work. The house falls on them all. Dupin escapes.

Crocodile Dundee (1986) — 7/10

Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (Paul Hogan) guides New York reporter Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) on a walkabout to show her where he’d encountered the crocodile that had badly bitten his leg.

The movie starts in the Australian Outback, where there are, apparently, no bugs. Not a one. It’s also not hot. They’re just chilling at a campsite and she’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt. There are so few bugs that they don’t need a tent. They just sleep out in the open.

When he says “this is man’s country,” she takes offense and sets off on her own in—I shit you not—a dress and a tank top. She’s wearing a backpack on bare shoulders. Just incredible amounts of dipshittery here. He makes her take the gun, which she shoots near his foot to show how good she is at handling a gun. That’s what people who know about guns do: they shoot at each other, for fun.

He trails her as she walks around, getting lost. She finally stops for water, which she’s going to fill up from a random pond—from standing water. She drops her dress, exposing a bathing suit that is cut extremely high—it’s basically a thong. She fills her canteen, but a giant crocodile grabs it and nearly drags her underwater. Mick shows up to save her, burying his giant knife into what passes for the croc’s brainstem.

Neville (David Gulpilil) shows up and he and Mick head off to a males-only Aboriginal ceremony. She trails along to take pictures surreptitiously. Mick catches her at it, but doesn’t snitch on her.

Over the next day or two, they grow close. He’s the real deal, though. He catches snakes, fishes, crocs. She invites him back to New York to “make a nice finish to the story.” Smooch.

He flies back with her. Then, it begins. He’s scared of the escalator. She takes him to his hotel room, which is swank. “It’s a bit rough, but I’ll manage.” He goes walkabout in New York, returning on the back of a police-officer’s horse. They meet up for dinner that same night. It’s a good thing that there’s no such thing as jetlag when flying from Austrialia to New York City—which they did in what looks like one leg.

At dinner, her fiancé/boss is being a complete jackass, so Dundee knocks his lights out when Sue’s not looking, ending the evening. Later, he gets a taxi and goes to a bar with the driver, where he meets a bunch of locals. The cabbie sticks with him, driving him around to all sorts of adventures. He doesn’t need sleep, apparently. Or he’s jetlagged.

It goes on like this with little adventures. Finally, Sue must choose between her obnovious fiancé or Mick. She chooses Mick. The world end in shock.

Thunderball (1965) — 7/10

I have only impressions of this movie. When James (Sean Connery) grabs that nurse in a rough, clearly unwanted embrace, it’s pretty shocking. The footage of the high-tech jet must have been incredibly revolutionary at the time. All of the underwater scenes are amazing, too. Just long minutes of scuba divers doing stuff, accompanied by movie music. The stuff must have looked positively futuristic in 1965, It still looks pretty good.

Then he’s skin-diving on his own when he encounters another woman swimming.. He compliments her swimming by saying, “you swim like a man.” Incredible. Just incredible. This is only 60 years ago. That was just fine to say to a woman. Who are we kidding? 90% would probably still say something like that.

Now he’s in a casino, playing Bacarat against Largo (Adolfo Celi), just kicking his ass at a game of pure luck. After taking most of Largo’s money while constantly dropping the word “specter” into the conversation, he gets up to buy Largo’s woman a drink, for which Largo thanks him—because he wants to stay at the table to win back the money he’d lost to Bond. Incredible.

He insinuates his way into Largo’s world, sets up simultaneous dates with several women, then takes Largo’s niece to a Mardi Gras parade. He checks out Largo’s sharks, which are awesome. Seriously, this must have been out of this world in 1965.

Now, he’s in bed with yet another woman, a randy, feisty redhead Fiona (Luciana Paluzzi). “You should be locked up in a cage.” She writhes and strongly implies that she’d like to be “locked up”, i.e., tied to the bed. She was totally faking, though, as she works for S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

Next thing we know she and her henchmen are trying to kidnap Bond, but he escapes into the Mardi Gras. They walk around there for quite a while. Like, for a while. There are more nearly naked people dancing and performing. This is like a 13-year-old’s dream movie come true.

The music was so spot-on parodied and emulated by No One Lives Forever that I feel like playing those games again.

Now he’s dancing with the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. redhead again, turning her body just in time to stop an assassination attempt on him, and dropping her off in a chair. Cold.

Holy crap, they’re underwater again. Bond is spear-fishing with some crumpet named Domino (Claudine Auger). Other nefarious types are doing stuff with fancy machines underwater.

Seriously most of this movie is underwater. I’d completely forgotten that. James Bond spends 90% of the movie in a bathing suit. Something for the ladies, I guess. And the gentlemen who are so inclined. And for … ah, what the hell, for anyone who wants to see Sean Connery in his prime in a tight bathing suit.

And then, cut to Domino’s cleavage and short shorts. Something for the fellas…never mind.

Cut to a helicopter rescue from the ocean. Awesome!

OMG 🤯 they’re underwater again. Spear guns everywhere. Largo’s army vs. the CIA and Her Majesty’s Secret Service. James enters the fray with a super jetpack, just Leroy-Jenkinsing his way in there, cutting air-hoses right and left, and shooting other people with a back-mounted spear-gun. Good stuff. Pretty much the end. Smooching and stuff. Roll credits.

Mindhunter S01–S02 (2017–2019) — 9/10

This is a great show with great writing, directing, and acting. It’s slow-paced and delicious. It’s about the beginnings of the behavioral science unit at the FBI. Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) is the gifted, young, and cocky, but boring new addition to Bill Tench’s (Holt McCallany) department. Bill Tench is written and played absolutely beautifully. He’s an introspective, slightly world-weary, incredibly intelligent guy who knows when someone’s better than he is and can work with him in a team. Holden still has to learn that.

Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) joins them, leaving a tenure-track teaching post at Boston University. She’s very cool and standoffish. As a woman and a lesbian in the late 70s, she’s got her guard up all the time, and is always on the lookout for being cut out of things.

There are other great characters—the interviewees (described below) for starters. There’s the whole late 70s feel, which is done quite well. I even saw a car very much like the one we had—a 1984 VW Rabbit—when we lived in Queens.

The main part of the show, though, is their interviews with serial killers. These are actors playing real serial killers from the time. The interviews are some of the most amazing television I’ve ever seen. You sometimes catch yourself holding your breath during them. It’s worth the price of entry just for the interviews. In particular, Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton) is riveting.

At the same time, they help police departments catch criminals, doing good and building up real-life data for their research. They’re also on-again, off-again allowed to try to help find the BTK killer—Bind, Torture, Kill—but their boss AD Gunn (Michael Cerveris), although incredibly supportive, is also interested in striking a balance that satisfies federal- and state-level politics.

In the second season, they’re in Atlanta, involved in what is looking more and more like a string of cases committed by the same person—a serial killer. Holden rubs everyone there the wrong way, whereas Bill tries to keep things on an even keel.

Lupin S03 (2023) — 9/10

There is no reason that the third season of this show should still be so fun, but it absolutely is. Pulling from excellent source material has its benefits, for sure. The characters and actors are also top-notch.

We rejoin Assane Diop (Omar Sy), also known as the eponymous Lupin, his ex-wife Claire Laurent (Ludivine Sagnier), his son Raoul (Etan Simon), his best friend and partner (in crime) Benjamin Férel (Antoine Gouy), and Youssef Guédira (Soufiane Guerrab), the cop who’s on his tail, but never quite able to catch him. Spoiler: he finally does!

In this season, Assane announces the time and place of his first heist and then almost gets away, instead plummeting to his death. He’d planned it, though. Guédira alone doesn’t believe it. Claire and Raoul slowly also start to believe that he’s faked his death. He escapes his coffin with a clever ruse. He prepares so much! So much fun!

His mother appears out of his past, but she’s been kidnapped by a nefarious group that makes Assane steal several things for them. He discovers that the leader of the gang who’s kidnapped his mother is also the leader of the group with whom he’d fallen in with as a youth, when he started on his life of crime. The guy was bad then, and he’s worse now.

Assane eventually makes a deal with Guédira that, if he lets him go and helps him free his mother, he will turn himself in. He holds to the deal, in the end.

This is, of course, right in line with one or two of the stories, where Assane is in prison a few times—sometimes crimes happen while he’s there, sitting with a perfect alibi. I read several of the main stories in French when we saw the first season.

Lupin has freed his mother, gotten her kidnappers arrested, kept his family safe, and he’s now in prison. Next door is … Hubert Pellegrini, his arch-nemesis from season 1. Pellegrini was the man who tried to frame Assane’s father. See my review from 2021 for more details.

We watched it in French with English subtitles.

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) — 9/10

Movie holds up, as far as I’m concerned. See my review from 2021.

The Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — 8/10

This movie very much has the feeling of moving toward a foregone conclusion. I noticed the same things that annoyed me in my review from 2018. Thanos has one stone and can throw the Hulk around like a rag doll. Thanos’s lieutenant traps Thor with a hand motion. Thanos snaps Loki’s neck with hardly any effort. Vision has one stone and he gets his ass handed to him by two of Thanos’s children. The same two children are handily defeated by Falcon, Captain America, and Black Widow, none of whom have any powers.

The Guardians of the Galaxy parts are cute, but too cutesy, especially when contrasted with the unusual number of hero deaths that are happening.

At another point, on Titan, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy manage to fight Thanos to a standstill when he’d already gotten four stones. How? Does the power ebb and flow? Does Thanos lose against opponents who want to win real bad? How is Starlord able to go toe-to-toe with Thanos when one-stone Thanos beat up the Hulk? Gimme a break. Be consistent. I mean, soon after that, Thanos pulled an entire planet apart and dropped it on them. Minutes before, he was powerless before a magic spell, some spider-webbing, and a telempath.

The Avengers: Endgame (2019) — 9/10

I stand by everything I wrote in my review from 2019. I have nothing to add.