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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2025.16

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<n>Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.<fn></n> <ol> <a href="#Resident">Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432021/">6/10</a> <a href="#Letterkenny">Letterkenny S04--S11 (2017--2023)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4647692/">7/10</a> <a href="#Plains">High Plains Drifter (1973)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068699/">6/10</a> <a href="#Hercules">Hercules (2014)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267297/">5/10</a> <a href="#Principe">The Lost Prince (Il Principe Dimenticato / Le Prince oublié) (2020)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267297/">7/10</a> <a href="#Zombieland">Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560220/">7/10</a> <a href="#Mystic">Mystic River (2003)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327056/">8/10</a> <a href="#RedShoes">The Red Shoes (1948)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040725/">8/10</a> <a href="#WintersTale">A Winter's Tale (2014)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837709/">6/10</a> <a href="#SpaceBetweenStars">Space Between Stars (2018)</a> --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt8108154/">8/10</a> </ol> <dl dt_class="field"> Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432021/">6/10</a> <div>I <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3071#Resident">watched and reviewed this movie in 2014.</a> The review stands. I would like to note that any movie that starts with a naked Milla Jovovich, waking up in a luxury shower with a very strategically draped cloth over her has got my attention. It was on in German this time, as well.</div> Letterkenny S04--S11 (2017--2023) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4647692/">7/10</a> <div>I had originally stopped watching <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=4648#Letterkenny">this show at season 3</a> at the beginning of 2023. Two years later, the rest of the seasons have shown up on Netflix. While I didn't consider it worth my while spending either time or money to "obtain" the other seasons, I'm not above giving it another shot when it's part of a streaming service to which I already subscribe. As I noted in the other review, this is the story of a rural community in Ontario called Letterkenny. The town is populated by hicks, skids, and hockey players. On the res are the indigenous peoples; to the north are the degens. <ul> There’s Wayne (Jared Keeso), his sister Katy (Michelle Mylett), his best friend Daryl (Nathan Dales), and Dan (K. Trevor Wilson), who work on a farm together. We never see where Daryl or Dan live---not once. There’s a local hockey team, where Reilly (Dylan Playfair) and Jonesy (Andrew Herr) play. There’s a group of on-again/off-again meth-heads (skids), led by Stewart (Tyler Johnston) and Roald (Evan Stern). There are a handful of other bit players, like<ul> bartender and local hottie Bonnie McMurray (Kamilla Kowal), her moronic and mumble-mouthed father McMurray (Dan Petronijevic), and his wife Mrs. McMurray (Melanie Scrofano), reservation hottie Tanis (Kaniehtiio Horn) scrapper Joint Boy (Joel Gagne), other scrapper Tyson (Jay Bertin), the hockey coach Coach (Mark Forward), and local preacher Glen (Jacob Tierney). At some point, two gay guys showed up as counterpoints to Jonesy and Reilly, named Dax (Gregory Waters) and Ron (James Daly), who are pretty great, actually. And then there's lascivious and unutterably horny Gail (Lisa Codrington) and her on-again, off-again auctioneer boyfriend Jim Dickens (Alex McCooeye). Very occasionally, the Mennonites show up: Noah Dyck (Jonathan Torrens) and his wife Anita Dyck (Sarah Wayne Callies) and their daughters Charity (Cora Eckert), Chastity (Olivia Colilli), and Lovina Dyck (Brooke Bruce).</ul></ul> The shows have an interesting structure, which I think explains how this series survived eleven seasons. There are long introductions with a lot of call-and-response, a lot of rote playing of roles. I'm reminded of highly structured plays like Japan's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noh" source="Wikipedia">Noh</a>, which is also <iq>highly codified and regulated</iq>. There are things that are fixed in the firmament, like smokin' darts, drinkin' brews, chorin', and being an upstanding member of the community rather than a "degen". Wayne is the toughest guy in Letterkenny and has to occasionally prove it. The regular rumbles and fights are shot in slow-motion, accompanied by great music, and also have an unalterable structure. They are often quite long, which is not just fine, but great, being delivered with no unnecessary dialogue, playing out like music videos. The one at the end of S06E02 was sublime, to be honest. The one at the end of S06E05---100 shots of beer in 100 minutes---was great, too. That was the show where they said "cunt" about 50 times. It was unsettling but not unwarranted, given the plot. S07E06 was a highlight of that season, with some great montages and a great song in there. S07E7 was pretty great, too. So much tension and a ludicrous amount of innuendo at the Valentine's Day speed-dating event in the church. From S08E02: <bq>If you bend, you'll break. If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.</bq> From <a href="https://subslikescript.com/series/Letterkenny-4647692/season-8/episode-3-The_Rippers" author="" source="Subs Likes Scripts">Season 8, Episode 3 - The Rippers</a>, a long introductory discussion about an unusual yule tradition. it's very long but it's also perhaps a perfect microcosm of this show. Somewhere in the middle I've highlighted the actual punchline, which is <iq>real men finish what they started, Dary,</iq> which is, like, the thesis of the whole series, but also very funny considering that they're talking about masturbating an inordinate and unhealthy amount. <bq>Dary: I was reading about this thing called beat your dick December. Wayne: Beat your dick December? Dan: What's the rumpus grumpus? Dary: Well, you look at the calendar, and if it's like the first, second or the third, that's how many times per day you need to mix a batch. Dan: So, on the 20th of December, you got to mix 20 separate batches? Dary: You got'er pontiac. Wayne: There's 30 days hath September, June and November. All rest, 31, so... Dan: So, on the 31st, you'd have to batch 31 times? Dary: You heard it here first. Dan: How's he gonna fuck that pig? Dary: Well... From the 1st to the 5th, you're having a good time. And even up until the 10th. The 12th, you're starting to fade.And by the 15th, you're definitely not full bars. Dan: Oh, I don't think I could continue past the 15th. Dary: Yeah, me neither. Wayne? Wayne: ... ... Yeah. Dary: You're saying you could batch 15 times on the 15th despite the fact that you batched 14 times the day before, 13 times the day before that and so on and so forth back to one? Wayne: ... ... Yeah. Dary: Could, could you do 20? Wayne: ... ... Yeah. ... Stay hydrated. ... What say we pick up the conversation on the 25th? Dan: Oh, yeah, the 25th. Christmas Day. Dary: Please explain, Wayne. Wayne: Well this, like everything, starts with diet. Dan: What's on the menu? Dary: Oh, you'd want foods that boost your testosterone, likely. Dan: Judging by biceps over there, I think that's already on the menu, likely. Wayne: Oatmeal, tuna, red meat, and poultry. Remember when I said stay hydrated? Dan: A person should always stay hydrated, Dary. Dary: How would you maneuver around your family? Dan: Yeah. Nieces and nephews. Wayne: You wouldn't. Dary: I really think you should, Wayne. Wayne: You're goin' away for Christmas. Dary: No, uh, Dan: Destination Christmas? There has to be an alternative. Wayne: There's no alternative. Dary: What about presents? Wayne: Real men finish what they started, Dary. Dan: He's right. Wayne: So, now, the critical component in all this, I think, is sleep. Dary: I hadn't even thought of that. Wayne: Well, you've hammered on it 25 times in 24 calendar hours. Dary: And, the day before, you've hammered on it 24 times in 24 calendar hours. And so on and so forth. Back to one. Dan: Yeah, you'd need a good night's sleep. Wayne: Oh, some nappin' in there for sure. Dary: Yeah, you'd be pretty worn out from all that Christmas Eve hustle and bustle. Wayne: So, I would suggest getting us all 12 hours of sleep to rest and replenish, then wake up, hammer on it twice an hour for the next 12 hours to meet your quota. Dan: Twenty-four times in 12 hours is still 1 shy of your Christmas Day quota? Wayne: I know. Dan: So, when'r you gonna squeeze out your 25th squeezers? Dary: Dealer's choice really. Wayne: No. Dary: No? Wayne: Not a single 12 hour effort. It's too many variables in a window that small. Too much uncertainty. Dary: You're saying you'd use the full 24 hours? Wayne: Yeah. Yeah, we're on military time now. Dary: When do you start? Wayne: Zero dark. Dary: But that's when Santa comes. Dan: And then? Wayne: Zero dark thirty. Dan: So, you'd hammer out the first two in the first hour you're awakes? Wayne: Can confirm. Dan: And then what? Dary: Once an hour for the remaining 23 hours? Wayne: You bet. Dan: Holds water. Wayne: Stay hydrated. All that you wanna do is you wanna set your alarm to wake you up every hour on the hour. And the program is, you wake up, hammer on it, sleep, wake up, then you'd hammer on it, then you'd sleep. Dary: And so on and so forth? Dan: Well, some snackin' in there for sure. Wayne: Yeah, handful of trail mix. Wayne: You've hammered out your first two at zero dark and zero dark thirty. Could even back to back those fellas if you're feeling good out of the gate. And stay hydrated, of course. Dan: That's some snackin' in there for sure. Need some snacks. Dary: You'd think you'd wanna do it standing up so your muscles don't atrophy. Dan: I think if anything, they'd hypertrophy. Wayne: I think so too. Dary: Would you alternate hands? Dan: Oh, you'd have to. Wayne: 25 one-arm squeezers sounds like a lot of unnecessary strain on the heart. Dan: Yeah, you'd definitely need a helping hand from the other guy. Dary: And you'd stick with that program till the 31st? Wayne: Yup. Wake up. Hammer on it. Snack. Nap. Wake up. I'd need to hammer on it. Snack and nap. Dary: And so on and so forth? Wayne: Rinse and repeat. Dary: Have you considered performance enhancers? Wayne: The fact you'd even present that says a lot about ya, good buddy. Dan: You could just as easily call it antisocial December. Dary: Wayne? Wayne: Dary. Dary: Could you make it to 31? Wayne: Oh, if I've executed Christmas, for a total of... Ballpark 325 squeezers in 1 fiscal month... Dan: You're a man on fire. Wayne: It's like I'm indestructible by both scientific and pop-culture standards. Tank-like momentum. Dary: So? Wayne: ...Yeah.</bq> S09E02 taught me the anatomy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholin's_gland" author="" source="Wikipedia">Bartholin's Gland</a>, which I'd never heard of before. They <iq>are homologous to bulbourethral glands in males</iq>. Well, well, well. Other than that, season nine is utterly forgettable. They're mostly just phoning it in, and it's pretty thin. Like all of the ladies. 😳 I persevered and found a gem in S10E02, where they're doing a sort of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozens_(game)">dozens</a> (which they do a lot) about features of the "biggest hicks house", <bq>There was a toddler drinking from a two-liter bottle of cream soda, wearing a onesie that said 'Sex instructor; first lesson's free.'</bq> <bq>Your second cousin's garage has four ski-doos in it, none of which is operational, yet they park the cars on the front lawn.</bq> S10E04 is called "Prostate". Darry, Wayne, Coach, and Tyson are at the new town doctor's office, where they have to get a top-to-bottom physical in order to open a file. This includes, naturally, a quick prostate exam. They spend endless time discussing in roundabout ways and hypothesizing about the potential side-effects, then run away Katie corrals Darry and Wayne and sends them back, with their proverbial tails between their legs. At the office, they are steeling themselves for their exams when Tannis and a friend walk in. <iq>Why are you all here?</iq> They eventually admit it, but Tannis and co. don't know what a prostate is. When they find out that the exam entails a single finger partway up the bum for a few seconds, they are forced to explain to the gentlemen what a pap smear is. The boys see the light and suck it up. Season 11 was chock-full of Glen and that was pretty good. The other parts ranged from pretty uneven to barely watchable. In the final episode E7, Glen appears as a fireworks expert, there to celebrate Victoria Day weekend. The skids had shown up with illegal fireworks, which totally trumped Reilly and Jonesy's commercially bought fireworks. Glen shows up in a fireproof beekeeper's outfit, pulling a giant cart full of professional battery fireworks, and oozing a confidence he'd not heretofore had. That was pretty great. Season 12 was pretty much phoned-in, with Katie going so hard against the degens that she sounded quite racist. The dog whistles were hard to ignore. The cast was winding things down, though, so there were going to be a few misses. The final episode E6 started off great with a classic discussion on Wayne's back porch about a stork's ability to carry a baby. it was really nicely written, wonderfully acted, and evocative of the style of the show, neatly wrapping things up in the finale. Kudos. <bq>Dary: Firstly, no Stork has carried a baby anywhere. And secondly, Storks aren’t even native to this area. Dan: What if they calls it the Blue Heron's Reports? Dary: Neither of those birds have carried babies anywhere. Stop being cute, just gimme the news. Dary: What? Wayne: Hmm? Dary: Why are you lookin’ at me so long for? Wayne: ‘Cause I think… what you’ve just said… is absurd. Dary: So a baby is about 10 pound. Wayne: If it’s a big fuckin’ fat one! Dary: I was just ballparkin’ it. Wayne: Pretty big fat fuckin’ ballpark! Dary: Okay so what if it’s an 8-pound baby? Who’s gonna teach that stork to carry the baby, Wayne? You? Wayne: I think it’s pretty obvious. Dary: You think? Dan: I do toos. Dary: Alright. Have at ‘er. Wayne: A falconer. Dary: A falconer? Wayne: Yeah. One who practices falconing. Dary: Practices what? Wayne: Falconry. Dan: Falconing is the acts of calling over a birds, Darys. Dary: So if you call over any bird it’s called falconing? Dan: Mm-hmm. Dary: What about if it’s a penguin? Wayne: You could still falcon it. Dan: Waynes, is maybes yous confusing storks’s with pelicans? Dary: What if it’s a turkey? Wayne: Well, turkeys get falconed all the time. Dary: Really? Wayne: There’s probably someone out there falconing one right now. Dan: Did yous knows there’s a birds called the Blue-Footed Boobys? Dary: You’d need two dozen storks to get the baby airborne. Plus, you’d need some crazy contraption so you could harness the thrust of 24 storks. Dan: You need science on your side. Dary: You’d have to have a good relationship with science. Dan: And getting 24 birds to cooperate towards a common goal? In today’s social-political climate? Huh. Dary: Forget it. Wayne: Peregrine falcon. Or Pere-grin. Fastest traveler of any bird of prey. Top speed of about 240 mile ‘n hour. Dan: Works out to about 390s kilometers per hours, gives or takes. Dary: Wow. That’s fast. Dan: Fastest hunters on planet earths. Wayne: So okay, Dary, Dary, okay… Falconers falconing a Pere-grin. Dan: Only elite falconers fucks with Peregrines. Wayne: The falconer puts his arm out, okay? Goes… (whistles) Means it’s time for the bird to come over. Now that cock sucker’s dartin’ around thousands of feet in the air currentleh. Dan: I’m thinking about 3500 feets. Wayne: That’s exactly what I was thinking, about 3500. Now he’s got all sort of gopher, ground hog and mouses below he could bomb down on at any time, 240 mile ‘n hour. Dan: Eats whats he wants whens he wants. Wayne: But despite all that choice below, Dary. Dan: World’s his oysters. Wayne: Unlimited options. For snacks. Dan: Shootin’ fish in a barrels. Wayne: The Peregrine sees the falconers arm out. Hears… (whistles) And rather than pillaging the land, his land, the world’s fastest hunter says, “Mm-mm… I’m going to land on that nut sack's arm instead.” For what? A peanit. Dan: Have to at least bes a cashews. Wayne: He’d have all sorta nuts. Dary: Wow. Falconers are powerful. Wayne: A falconer could get the Peregrine to pull its dick out of his sweetie mid-slide. But you don’t think it could get a Stork to carry a baby? Dan: He’s got you there, Darys.</bq> </div> High Plains Drifter (1973) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068699/">6/10</a> <div>Clint Eastwood directed and starred as The Stranger who rides into the town of Lago---situation, unsurprisingly, by a lake---where three hired thugs try to kill him. He dispatches them with so little effort that doesn't even seem to have noticed he did it. He continues to investigate the town. Young Callie Travers (Mariana Hill) accosts him, somewhat insultingly, somewhat flirtatiously. He drags her to a barn and rapes her. As one would expect of an Eastwood movie from the 70s, she resists for a few seconds and then leans into it. She does try to kill him in a bathtub the next day but misses. Everyone kind of laughs about it. This is an auspicious start. So the town of Lago has a gold mine, from which the people were profiting well, until their marshal discovered that their gold mine is actually on government land, to which they don't have a title. Rather than let him derail this gravy train, the people of the town hired three guys to kill him with bullwhips, while they all stood by and watched. Kind of like they all just stood by while Callie was raped. Both scenes are tough to watch. The townspeople then betrayed the three thugs, having them sent to prison for trying to steal gold, which they'd not done. They had killed a federal law-enforcement officer, but they're not in prison for that. The three are understandably looking for revenge once they get out. They are terrible people but its totally understandable that they'd want revenge against the nearly equally terrible townspeople. The three idiots that the stranger killed had been hired to protect the town should those guys come back. Those guys are now gone, in a few puffs of gunsmoke, as it were, so the townspeople hire the stranger to protect them. He takes full advantage, charging them incredibly high prices and constantly taking more. He generously gifts stuff from one person to another, like ordering a round for the house. They can do nothing, of course. He trains some of them to defend themselves but they're nearly hopeless. At the same time, some of the townspeople keep planning to kill him as well? I guess they want to get rid of his cadging ass but then who would defend them from the trio of ex-cons? Anyway, Callie gets into bed with him---willingly this time---to lull him while others show up to kill him. It doesn't work at all and he kills a whole bunch of them. He then rapes Sarah (Verna Bloom), even though the movie tries to make it look like she acquiesced. They'd done the same for Callie in the first rape scene. It's a thing, I suppose. You know how women are. Always pretending that they don't want it when they secretly do. There's a weird side-plot where they build a fake town painted all red and rename the town to "Hell" but it's not very cohesive. It's kind of absurd. Like, literally absurdist. Meanwhile, the ex-cons have been released and are headed to <s>Lago</s>Hell. They tear a swath through the poorly defended town (the stranger had since temporarily departed), burning several buildings, killing a lot of people, and collecting the remainder. At this point, the stranger returns and kills the ex-cons. The film intimates that the stranger was the avenging ghost of the marshal who'd been killed by the town, which is why he took his revenge not merely on those who'd done it, but also on those who'd paid to have it done. This is a classic but that's all it is. There is no reason to rate this movie any higher based on reputation.</div> Hercules (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267297/">5/10</a> <div>The most amazing thing about this vehicle for Dwayne Johnson in the epnymous role is the quality of the supporting cast: Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), Lord Cotys (John Hurt), and Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson). The movie starts with a quick recap of the legend of Hercules, starting with his father Zeus's seeding his human mother, to his twelve labors, then to his having surrounded himself with a small cadre of other mercenaries who use his apparent support of the Gods to hire themselves out to various kings. One of the first battles is with a whole field of green-skinned dudes who are, at least, not CGI, and that's the only redeeming factor of this relatively long battle scene. Some of the stuff is so cheesy, with so many Marvel-style quasi-comic moments that just smirk their whole way through an otherwise bloody scene that could have been treated with some seriousness for the horrors of war. The next chapter is about Hercules's legend, how some people don't believe it---in particular Sitacles (Peter Mullan)---but he gets put in his place for a bit, while the rest of the remaining troops spend a long montage getting trained to be actual troops by the mercenary band. Once that's all wrapped up, they're on the march again, this time to meet an army led by centaurs. There's another protracted battle scene, in which the CGI backgrounds are more obvious but the stunts are still almost certainly real. Hercules and his crew help the king to victory but the conquered general Arius (Isaac Andrews) reveals that Hercules has been fooled into fighting to help a king conquer new lands, and to enslave an entire neighboring population. The king had lied to them about the other tribe being terrorists. OMG where have I heard this before? Anyway, they get paid and are told to GTFO when they complain that they've been hoodwinked. They don't GTFO and the king and his men take them all prisoner. The king and his side are revealed as even more evil---just one mask-off statement after another---and somehow in possession of a huge underground prison with Cerbebus as a guard dog run by King Eurystheus (Joseph Fiennes). More and more details emerge about Hercules's dead family, which people keep accusing him of having killed. This is really the scene where The Rock can show off his oily muscles and work his hammy acting chops. Also, the King is totally harshing on his daughter Ergenia, who Hercules is kind of a little in love with. Amphiaraus exhorts Hercules to remember who he is so that he can save Ergenia from execution. Hercules pops his chains and saves her. He has remembered who he is. They all get free. Some kings fall. Some mercs fall. Lots of soldiers die, many in fire. A big statue falls. Hercules does a Godly thing and convinces the opposing army that he's something special. It's a lot. I watched it in German. </div> The Lost Prince (Il Principe Dimenticato / Le Prince oublié) (2020) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267297/">7/10</a> <div>This is the story of widower Djibi (Omar Sy) who tells his daughter elaborate good-night stories. At least half of the film takes place in this fantasy land, initially with him in the leading role but, increasingly, with his role being shunted to the side in favor of a new prince charming, who mirrors the young man who's taken his young daughter's fancy in the real world. It's a kid's movie. It was good practice. The original is in French, but we watched it in Italian with Italian subtitles, so Kath could join in.</div> Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560220/">7/10</a> <div>The crew from the first film is back: Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). They are joined by Madison (Zoey Deutsch) for their road trip. Madison is shockingly dumb and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, in which it is revealed that she's been shamming and has a secret, evil, and wickedly intelligent plan to rob them and take their weapons. Alas, no. She's just dumb. There is no irony or subterfuge. Meanwhile Little Rock road-trips with Berkeley (Avan Jogia), who's nearly just as dumb, although he is totally scamming---but to get into Little Rock's pants, not to steal anything. Near Graceland, the crew also meets Nevada (Rosario Dawson)---though only briefly---Albuquerque (Luke Wilson) and Flagstaff (Thomas Middleditch). The new, quicker, and far more deadly zombies---dubbed the T-800s---quickly dispatch the latter two. Nevada would show up again later. They continue to Babylon, the peace-loving and weapons-free compound where Little Rock and Berkeley have fetched up. Madison is back, after having briefly been suspected of being a zombie ... look, whatever, she's back, and being her usual clever self. It being super-boring in Babylon, and everyone else seeming happy, Tallahassee strikes off on his own. He doesn't get far before he sees a giant horde of T-800s heading toward Babylon, drawn to their stupid fireworks. He turns right around to rescue the commune. They try to burn the zombies with biodiesel but they only get a few of them. It doesn't work as planned. They're nearly overwhelmed when Nevada returns in her monster truck and rescues everyone, heading into the compound. They're safe for now but ... the zombies are knocking. So they let them in, they let all the way up the tower, and then funnel their dumb asses off the roof. All they needed was bait---and Tallahassee volunteered. He jumps and holds onto a crane hook to avoid the torrent of plummeting zombies. All's well that ends well: Wichita accepts the proposal that Columbus had made weeks ago, Madison and Berkeley combine as a couple of create a veritable black hole of stupidity, and Nevada cures Tallahassee of his loner syndrome. This is a fun cast filled with enough good actors that they can easily carry the reasonably coherent script to its coherent conclusion.</div> Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304141/">8/10</a> <div>Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is back in school and all the news is that Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped from Azkaban. Azkaban is a prison guarded by dementors, which are horrific, literally soul-sucking creatures. It is absolutely unclear how such creatures could be used in any prison system purporting to be moral, but the morality of the Harry Potter universe was always so black and white that there is plenty of room for "prisoners who are in prison deserve to suffer," as a leitmotif. So what else happens in this one? We are introduced early to the dementors when they attack Harry in a park in muggle world. That should be a no-no, but apparently no-one can control the damned things. Then they attack Harry in the train on the way to Hogwarts. It's kind of weird how the wizarding world doesn't really have any way of dealing with these kinds of blatant transgressions of societal rules. They just kind of shrug and accept that the world is Hobbsian AF. Harry gets the Marauder's Map, which is pretty neat. He meets Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), who is, unsurprisingly, a werewolf. I mean, it's right in his name. With Sirius Black having broken out of Azkaban, everyone is terrified because everyone knows that he's a terrible terrorist who, though he was never associated with Voldemort, is really just as bad, if you don't think about it very much and just do what you're told by the Ministry of Magic, Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy), and a more-than-willing wizarding press. The dementors attack Harry again at the Quidditch match---this is three times already!---and he barely survives. I'm just kidding. He's in the hospital and quickly fit as a fiddle. His broomstick has been destroyed, though. Hermione (Emma Watson) gets the time-travel thingamajig that would allow them to save the hippogriff Buckbeak and also to thwart the dementors one last time as they nearly sucked both Harry's and Sirius's souls out of them. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Oh, yeah, Sirius turns out to be a good guy, one of Harry's father James's (Adrian Rawlins) old chums, along with Lupin and then Ron's (Rupert Grint) rat Scabbers, who turns out to have been Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall) all along. Snape is also in the mix, being revealed as the boy who was never allowed into that in-group. They taunted, mocked, and tortured him mercilessly. Phew, that was a lot. It's easier to grasp in the books. Harry uses a Patronus charm along with Hermione's time-traveling to save himself from the dementors the fourth time that they attack him, which is kind of cool. Sirius Black escapes on the hippogriff, seemingly none the worse for wear psychologically for having been tortured for a decade by dementors. He is rich AF so he sends Harry a replacement broomstick. It's the best one that money can buy, seriously chipping away at even the most ardent fan's ability to consider Harry Potter a poor-boy underdog. I watched it in German.</div> Mystic River (2003) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327056/">8/10</a> <div>We meet three young boys playing in the street somewhere near or in Boston. They are poor. A car pulls up, with a man emerging to yell at them and then browbeat one of them (Dave) into getting into the car, so that they can take him to his mom and tell her what a horrible kid he is. It's odd and your whole self is screaming to not get into the car. It ends up being exactly what you think it is: the other passenger is a priest and the two guys rape the shit out of Dave until he manages to escape after four days. Cut to the modern day, decades later, when Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins), Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), and Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) are still living in and around the same neighborhood. We meet everyone, including Dave's wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), Jimmy's wife (Laura Linney) and his daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum). Katie is soon kidnapped and murdered, with Sean investigating the case with his partner Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne)<fn>. Dave behaves erratically, mostly because he still has wicked PTSD from his kidnapping 40 years earlier, but Dave's wife Celeste starts to suspect that he killed Katie. He is increasingly alienating, frightening, and mentally ill, talking in riddles, so she ends up confiding to Jimmy that she thinks that her husband Dave had killed Katie. This is a really, really bad idea, as Jimmy is about to go judge, jury, and executioner on him. Jimmy and his evil crew round up Dave, trying to get him drunk---they get him a little drunk, but not as drunk as they'd wanted him to be---and then take him out by the Mystic River. Dave and Jimmy go back and forth, with Dave pleading that he'd not killed Katie that night but had instead caught a child-molester in the act in a car, and had ended up killing him accidentally-on-purpose. Jimmy ain't buying it and squeezes a confession out of Dave. Anyone sober and sane could see that Dave is not mentally well. Jimmy pops him and they throw his body into the river. It turns out that Katie's boyfriend Brendan's (Tom Guiry) mute, younger brother Silent Ray (Spencer Treat Clark) and his friend John (Andrew Mackin) had stolen the gun and killed Katie because she was going to go to Las Vegas with their brother. And the younger brother didn't want his brother to move away. So they killed Katie. The younger brother was not well. John's about to cap Brendan to protect Ray, who Brendan had been beating the ever-loving shit out of, when Sean and Whitey (the cops) show up to defuse the situation. The next morning, and we find Jimmy after a whole night of drinking, having seemingly emptied a whole quart of Jack Daniels by himself. He had, after all, just killed a man, a lifelong friend. His daughter didn't come back because of it. He's sitting on the curb in front of his house when Sean rolls up. Sean's also gotten no sleep, having spent the night processing the young perps. Sean tells Jimmy that they caught the guys who had killed Katie. It was a prank gone wrong. Sean asks him if he's seen Dave, because he's wanted for questioning in connection with the death of a child molester, whose body had just been found. Jimmy stares at Sean. Jimmy thanks Sean for having found Katie's killer. Sean knows. But he's never going to be able to prove it. Jimmy sways his drunken ass down the street, his opened, half-length leather coat flapping, heading home to his wife Annabeth (Laura Linney), to whom he confesses everything. She supports him 100%, telling him what a strong man, what a strong provider he is. This is way beyond enabling. She is arguably more evil than he is. At a local parade soon after, Jimmy, wearing dark sunglasses, stands in the sun with Annabeth at his side. Sean spies him from the other side of the street. He points a finger-gun at him. Jimmy ignores it.</div> The Red Shoes (1948) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040725/">8/10</a> <div>This movie tells the story of Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who runs an international ballet company, which the talented Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) joins. At the same time, Julian Craster (Marius Goring) joins the troupe as well, to take over the composing of original pieces, as well as conducting the orchestra. There are a lot of raging egos, including the ballet director Grischa Ljubov (Léonide Massine) as well as the lead male dancer Ivan Boleslawsky (Robert Helpmann). The film is of its time. It is lushly filmed, with a wonderful nearly completely diagetic score. The colors are lovely; the sets are intricate. The plot is vaguely---and occasionally overtly---misogynistic, but that probably describes what it was like to be in a ballet troupe, and probably still is, nearly eighty years later. There are some interesting camera angles and it doesn't feel nearly as dated as you'd expect for a film this old. <bq>Boris Lermontov:: Why do you want to dance? [Vicky thinks for a short while] Victoria Page:: Why do you want to live? [Lermontov is suprised at the answer] Boris Lermontov:: Well I don't know exactly why, er, but I must. Victoria Page:: That's my answer too.</bq> <bq>Boris Lermontov: Come with me. Victoria Page: Where to? Boris Lermontov: We are going to have a little talk. Victoria Page: But I don't think I want to talk. Boris Lermontov: Don't you worry. I'll do the talking.</bq> The titular ballet takes up most of the middle half of the movie and has an incredible number of painted backdrops, fronted by complicated sets. <div style="display: grid; gap: 1rem; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr"><img attachment="red_shoes_-_victoria_dances_alone.webp" align="none" caption="Victoria dances alone"><img attachment="red_shoes_-_street_scene.webp" align="none" caption="Street Scene"><img attachment="red_shoes_-_reaching_shadowy_hands.webp" align="none" caption="Reaching Shadowy Hands"><img attachment="red_shoes_-_festival.webp" align="none" caption="Festival"><img attachment="red_shoes_-_circus.webp" align="none" caption="Circus"></div> After Victoria and Craster's success, they fall in love, traveling together. Lermontov is jealous and drives Craster out of the company. This causes an uproar in the company because they believe that Craster is a genius and can't figure out why he would be let go. Victoria confronts Lermontov, who obstinately fails to profess his love for her, choosing instead to threaten her career, then cajoing her with fame, if only she would leave Craster. She instead marries Craster and leaves the company as well. Lermontov eventually relents and releases her from her contract, so that she can dance elsewhere. She can dance in anything but The Red Shoes, which belongs to him (even though Craster wrote it all by himself). Lermontov is not covering himself in glory here. Watching an old movie like this really reminds you that film-making is an art form that was good before we invented all of this bloody technology. There's one point where we see Lermontov's company dancing, with Irina Boronskaja (Ludmilla Tchérina) now in the lead role. The scene fades into a long shot of Venice, with playbills from around Europe fading in, in a circle around the scene, before fading out. What more do you need? It took two seconds to convey that the company played to success all across Europe before going to the next scene. <img src="{att_link}red_shoes_-_posters.webp" href="{att_link}red_shoes_-_posters.webp" align="none" caption="Red Shoes - Posters" scale="20%"> The movie does this a lot, showing various props as significant, like a script, or the red shoes. Moira Shearer is utterly believable as a lithe ballerina. She's exquisite, the way she carries herself at all times. The other two dancers---Massine and Helpmann---are also incredible, coiled sprints with only cursorily bound by gravity. Lermontov finally comes around and catches a train to beg Victoria Page to dance the Red Shoes ballet for his company again. She agrees. Craster doesn't know this. He learns of it on the opening night of his own ballet. He leaves, begging off that he's taken ill, but he crosses town to confront Vicky at Lermontov's theater, where they fight over her like a dog in court, with Lermontov finally winning out, and Craster leaving her because he needs her to love only him, and not dancing. Lermontov is triumphant, with Vicky in a despondent daze, though seemingly willing to dance for him that night. She does not. Instead, she runs from the building in her red shoes, heading for a stone balcony overlooking the train tracks, where she throws herself to her death. Craster sees her do this. Lermontov learns of it later, appearing before his theater to announce her inability to dance that night, nor any other night, ever. They proceed with the ballet, but without Vicky or, indeed anyone else in the role. The spotlight highlights an empty stage, with the other dancers twirling around her absence. It's haunting and effective. Back in the street, a doctor steps back from Vicky's nearly lifeless body to say <iq>pas d'espoir [no hope]</iq>. With her last breath, she asks Craster to take off the red shoes. I had my doubts at the beginning but this was a really good movie. The original story was by <a href="https://www.andersenstories.com/en/andersen_fairy-tales/the_red_shoes">Hans Christian Andersen</a>. The ballet seemed to roughly follow the brutal plot, as shown in a few citations below. <bq>And Karen could not help dancing a step or two, and when she began her feet continued to dance; it was just as though the shoes had power over them. She danced round the church corner, she could not leave off; the coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her, and he lifted her in the carriage, but her feet continued to dance so that she trod on the old lady dreadfully. At length she took the shoes off, and then her legs had peace.</bq> <bq>"Don't strike my head off!" said Karen. "Then I can't repent of my sins! But strike off my feet in the red shoes!" And then she confessed her entire sin, and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep wood. And he carved out little wooden feet for her, and crutches, taught her the psalm criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand which had wielded the axe, and went over the heath.</bq></div> A Winter's Tale (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837709/">6/10</a> <div>I had to ding this movie for a more-than-occasionally cloying soundtrack, lazy editing with a ton of mid-range-focus shots in front of obviously CGI scenery---even where there was no reason not to use real scenery---but it's also got a few good performances by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) and Peter Lake (Colin Farrell). There were a few other noteworthy actors like Kevin Corrigan as Pearly's right-hand man Romeo Tan, who I like but who didn't do much and William Hurt as Isaac Penn, father to Peter's great love Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay), who was fine but a bit over-the-top for my tastes. Graham Greene had too short a role as Peter's adoptive father Humpstone John. Jennifer Connelly shows up in the last third as Virginia Gamely. So this is a love story that takes place in a world of angels and demons. Pearly is an actual demon rather than a demonic person, who has regular meetings with Lucifer (Will Smith). Peter is not a magical being but he does team up with a magical white horse in what seems to be a world of magic, of which most people are aware but in which most don't partake, if that makes sense. Dealing with magic is something that rich people do. The poor just suffer and don't have access to it. Anyway, the forces of good---or whatever---have decided that Peter's mission needs supporting, so he gets a white horse, which is the incarnation of some angel but, I mean, c'mon, like, who cares? He breaks in to the home of Issac Penn and ends up meeting his daughter Beverly, who has tuberculosis that no-one seems to be afraid of contracting but OK, I'm not an expert. There is an end-of-the-second-act showdown between Pearly and Peter, where Peter sacrifices himself to save everyone else. He falls off of a bridge after five massive head-butts, disappearing beneath the swirling currents far below. He survives and wanders the city for a century with amnesia, searching always for the only thing that he "remembers", a woman with red hair. When he meets Virginia, he realizes that his fate all along had been to save her little daughter, who has cancer, is undergoing chemo, and wears a red scarf on her head. Pearly is none too pleased to hear that Peter has survived, challenging him to a mortal battle mano a mano. He loses, disappearing forever. Peter kisses the little girl right on the mouth to save her from cancer. Mission accomplished, he gets on the white horse and shoots to the stars. I am absolutely not kidding that this is the plot of the last third of the movie. I was hoping for more of a period piece with the charming Colin Farrell and ended up watching a ten-minute slugfest on ice. 🤷 </div> Space Between Stars (2018) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt8108154/">8/10</a> <div>This is an absolutely wonderfully animated short. There is no dialogue. It's only ten minutes long. It is about several adorable, soft, rounded, little aliens that try to enter an abandoned-looking space station that is defended by a hard-edged red droid. The adjectives are there to convey the mood, to indicate how the film wants the viewer to feel about the characters, and whom to nominate as protagonist. When the droid kills two of them, the others don't react at all, though. Which is ... odd. The droid continues to chase them through the partially ruined old ship, as they race toward what seems to be the core, where the ship's source of power seems to be. As they get close, they're in trouble. They're cornered. They're not going to make it. The larger one straight-up sacrifices the remaining two to "power up" and get the ball over the finish line, so to speak. It is only at the very end that we realize that we'd been rooting for the wrong side all along, that the ship was in ruins because these weren't the first cute little aliens to visit it. It is the droid that is defending its ship from a scourge of insatiable monsters bent on destroying the last remnants of the race of creatures that had created it. You can watch it here, <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMrtfAykFDs" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/hMrtfAykFDs" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="DUST | Sam Bradley" caption="Strange Visitors Discover the Secrets of a Long-Dead Space Station"></div> </dl> <hr> <ft>These are notes for me to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. The amount of text is not proportional to my enjoyment. I might write less because I didn't get around to it when it was fresh in my mind. I rate the film based on how well it suited me personally for the genre, my mood and. let's be honest, level of intoxication. I make no attempt to avoid spoilers. Links are to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/user/ur1323291/ratings">my IMDb ratings</a></ft> <ft>I wonder whether naming a character played by Laurence Fishburne "Whitey" is some sort of shout-out to the deeply racist nature of the city of Boston.</ft>